Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

So since my phone is out of contract I can finally dump vodaphone. Been wanting rid of them since the carry on trying to get my contract suspended while I was out of area for six months.

Mind you, if I'd known it was going to take over an hour to get a new phone I'd have said stuff the lot of ya and went back to a pay as you go jobber.

Went into Elgin to have lunch with my possibly transexual niece/nephew Cameron and his boyfriend, also called Cameron. I have no idea if this is a gay relationship or what and I figure asking would a) be enquiring into a very personal thing and b) possibly not something I'd want to know the answer to. I've known him since he was 2 or 3 and I don't need to know his sex life. Besides as long as he is a decent person and not hurting anyone else I don't see what difference it makes.

We had lunch in Ca'Dora. Ash (as per usual), started flirting with the women sitting at nearby tables. He makes eye contact with them, then smiles and giggles. At that point women start coming over and asking us if they can take him home.

So far I've resisted the urge to say "You know what, I didn't get any sleep last night and need a rest. Take him."

Besides, I have a vague suspicion that Kristi would disapprove. She can be funny that way.

Been invited to a meal at Kristi's church tonight. She'd like me to go, but to be honest I feel physically as well as emotionally uncomfortable in churches (not to mention very unwelcome no matter how friendly the folks inside try to be). Always have. It was quite late by the time we got home from Elgin though, so I am not sure that we'll make it back out tonight. She used to invite me to a lot of these things, but I explained how I feel inside them and she has cut down on the invites. At one point I was starting to feel like a member of the church by proxy, and it was then I decided I had to tell her how I felt about it.

Plus there is the whole everything bursting into flames around me when I set foot inside one.

Kristi told me she had started rereading an old present I got her (Cary Elwes on the making of The Princess Bride and she said she'd to put it back down and couldn't read it because of all the nice things Cary was saying about Rob Reiner after all the stuff that had come out about what he'd been doing.

I looked at her somewhat confused and then she said "Oh wait, no. Thats Harvey Weinstein I am thinking of."

[Allhallowsday]

Andrew.

Oh... I don't care for the prince consort... 

Did you hear about his car crash and then being caught the next day driving without a seatbelt? Shards of glass from the crash are allegedly up on ebay.

Yes.  And that old fnck should not have been driving (he wants to preserve his independence)! 

[justme2013]

I just can't respect any sort of hereditary monarchy.It's a concept that should have been dumped a long time ago. The very idea that someone is somehow higher just because of what pair of thighs s/he got squeezed out between is just.....moronic.

I do respect some members of the monarchy as individuals for what they did as individuals.

The current queen stayed in London during the blitz even while many people were being evacuated to the countryside.

I respected diana for her efforts to help ordinary people.

The rest of them should have been making money doing reality shows.

You should read up on Princess Anne, she's done more for ordinary people than Diana, she just doesn't turn everything into a photo opp. She's one who will get in and get her hands dirty. I once heard the head of an international children's charity say he'd take 1 Princess Anne over 10 Diana's any day. Not to slag off Diana or the work she did but I find it amazing how hard that Princess Anne works and how much she stays out of the spotlight. When her children were born she passed on having royal titles for them which I agree with, I feel that anyone who isn't in the direct line, or a child of the current monarch, for the throne should not have a title.

[ER]

There was no excuse for Diana to whine so much. She had fame, riches, beauty, and an ugly husband who didn't want to have sex with her. What more could a woman ask for?

[Alex]

So it is Ash's birthday in a few short weeks. Wow, this past year has just sped past so quickly and yet it is hard to remember a time before him.

Funny how kids do that.

He is still in love with life and giggles at almost everything. I hope it is an attitude he is able to keep throughout life. I've found that those people who wallow in their own misery only seem to attract more unhappiness to themselves. If we can bring him upright and with a bit of luck he will love life just as much as me and his mother do.

Still lifes losers are handy. I always like to keep one around and occasionally listen to their problems just to remind myself how good life is right now. Yeah, everyone gets peaks and troughs in existence, just the people who chose to lie in the troughs rather than make the hard effort to get to the peaks. More than one tends to get a bit tiresome though. Once I used to put a lot of effort into trying to help those people, but some are just so determined to be unhappy I ended up walking away and leaving them to it.

Maybe in their own way they are happy when then life is crushing them underfoot and who am I to try and take that away from them? I have actually been asked (more than once) to be less happy around Kristi as it makes some people jealous seeing two people so much in love. Mind you, also got told off after our first valentines day when everyone was chatting about what they'd gotten their partner (bear in mind here that Kristi was still over the other side of the Atlantic from me at this time). Most people had gotten chocolates, roses and went to the cinema to see whatever rom-com had been released to cash in on exactly this time of year. I'd arranged for me and Kristi to have a picnic via Skype and bought her a title (so she can officially call herself Lady Corbett of... well some place). Since we got married on the 12th of Feb, we tend to celebrate that more than the 14th nowadays and this year we are going to see Tragedy play in Glasgow. I did look into getting a star or some other celestial body named after her, but it turned out that stuff is a con.

Anyway, back to Ash's birthday. Going over to Inverness next weekend to see what we are going to get him in the way of birthday presents. Unlike some of our friends I am not planning on throwing a big party for him. Pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate it, or even realise what is happening. I'll save that sort of thing for when he is a bit older.

[Alex]

Oooh, you are a mere 2017 posts ahead ER. I am slowly catching you up. 

[ER]

Then

[ER]

game

[ER]

on.

[ER]

It's so cute, Alex, Sven actually thinks you're serious.

[Alex]

What makes you think I am not? 

[Alex]

Sorry...	Small | Large

[Svengoolie 3]

Sorry...

I love that song, even if it would be called "stalking" if written by a man about a woman...

BTW, like that? Try this!:

http://youtu.be/3y5-j1DI1jM?list=RD3y5-j1DI1jM
	Small | Large

[Alex]

Decided after last weeks debacle with the giant wasps that I really need to find a serious front rank fighter for the group.

There are countless variations, but fighters come down to three main types in D&D.

Big Hitters. You load up on high strength and the biggest gods-damned weapon you can find and pile on heavy armour. You cause huge amounts of damage with each hit allowing you to take on individual powerful creatures and back it up with feats like Cleave and Great Cleave (and believe me, if you can make a joke about Great Cleavage I have already heard it lol). Had a Half-Orc Barbarian called Gurt who went down this route. He was a Barbarian / Frenzied Berzerker and was almost as dangerous to the party as he was to the enemy. He rode into battle on an Ox because no horse was strong enough to carry him. Oh, the reason for his generally always being in a bad mood is because his full name was Gurtrude. Anyway, fighters, paladins and barbarians are generally good in this role.

Missile. Never tried playing an archer type. Mostly because my friend Garry always takes one. Garry is legendary for rolling critical fumbles which seriously limits his usefulness. Anyway, think Legolas in the battle scenes in Lord of the Rings for how it is supposed to go with these guys. At a high enough level, they can even fire while they are in melee combat, but it takes a while to get there, so these guys tend not to be as useful as speed bumps for the more vulnerable members of the party as other fighters. Fighters, rogues, and rangers are good here.

Dexterity Based. Normally with these guys, you'll take light armour for maximum mobility, fight with a weapon in each hand and then go rock and roll. Each of your hits doesn't do a huge amount of damage, but because you are getting more attacks in, you can still do a lot of damage. Can struggle against creatures with damage reduction, but generally you are a good all-round fighter here, plus the fact that Dex is your fighting stat means you are going to be passible in the missile role too giving you another string to your bow (geddit, archer, string, bow... seriously, I am wasted with you lot!  ). Normally I either play one of these or a cleric depending if the party has a healer or not. Fun fact, once I turned up to a game with one of these who had a 16-page backstory written out on both sides of A4. Strangely, my GM did not thank me for the incredibly detailed life history of my knife fighter, Cerillo. Not even the part where he was hired by a bunch of Drow (evil elfs), to help... create a race of half Drows that could infiltrate human society. The paladin just about had a fit when he mentioned this story one day, especially the part where he mentioned that "Those Drow women, they put drugs on their fingernails and when they dig them into your back during sex, you get the best hallucinations!"

Damn, but I miss playing rather than GMing.

[Alex]

Oh, and as a side note, I am almost finished designing the bad guy for the next chapter (after the players fix up their castle and lands). Two and a half pages it took me to fully design him.

Now I just have to sort out his right-hand men, including someone I am very sure the party is going to be incredibly surprised to see again. In fact, free karma to anyone who has been following the story of their adventures and can guess who this returning person is.