Warren Ellis Made Me Do It!

So, this arrived in the post the other day.

It looks so utterly mental that I must read it immediately.

The Eagle Is In The Nest!

Good grief, it has been an awfully long time since I posted something here. I blame the move, which was just one fucking thing after another.

I had to move out of my place by the 31st of August, and we hadn't had word that Himself had the new place, officially. This meant sneakily moving my stuff into the new place's storage and staying at Himself's place. We then tried to get him packed, though not wanting to pack completely until we knew he had gotten the place, so the living out of boxes period would be as short as possible. This led to some frantic packing in the last few days before the move. That man has SO MANY BOOKS!

Seriously, about 15 boxes of them. His collection is intimidating. The local Waterstones has less than a quarter of the Sci-Fi books he has, it's madness!

We got in on a wednesday, sleeping on our nice new memory foam mattress, but with no bed frame. Like dirty hippies. The place was in total disarray for the rest of that week, as we had very little useful furniture, and lots of tat that even today can't find a home.

Then uni started back on the monday. Joy...

This meant that I have had little time since then to spend on unpacking and dealing with house stuff. We have a working kitchen that is mostly organised, and once we got our magnificent wall of bookcases put in, we now have a reasonably comfy living room (although it is full of empty boxes now). We got a fucking massive bed frame that looks lovely (Himself doesn't poke out the end of it like the last one!).

So, early rises have been hard to adjust to, and most of the time I have to force myself outside because our home has a magnetic pull to me, like it wants me to stay in and look after it. Perhaps it's just my nesting instinct kicking in.

Unfortunately, the stress of moving has contributed to problems. Himself and I were very down last week, things were pretty grim. We're both getting various forms of help though, and hopefully things will be ok again soon. However, in the vein of one fucking thing after another, we both have lurgy at the moment, so we're both a bit narky and feeling sorry for ourselves (along with consuming lots of medicine).

I am making the most of this by getting on with knitting our winter scarves, and he's been getting addicted to playing Dead Rising 2 on my Xbox. So we're at least keeping busy!

I Did It To Myself

So, either my GM'ing prowess has rewarded or cursed me.

What began as a 2-session scenario for 3 players, has now become a proper campaign with 5 players. Eep!

Not wanting to abandon the growing plot that I and my players have crafted/made up, we have placed our Kerberos Club game (run by Himself) on hiatus so I can run my Reign game to it's conclusion. We are hoping for minimum overlap with my term-time Reign campaign that I have planned (I made flowcharts and everything). Not that I believe it would matter much, since it's going to be different players with different characters (unless Himself decides to join & reconstruct his current pre-gen character). What I am more worried about is that total newcomers might join, and I'll have the pressure of giving them a positive first experience of both roleplaying and Reign itself.

In the actual game, things have taken an interesting turn. My intrepid heroes have happened upon a mountain city with values and culture that are, to the PC's minds, utterly heretical, and once Noa can ensure that it's magnificent library is safe, will no doubt bring about it's downfall. I am naturally horrified by this, as that was not my intention at all. I learn my first important lesson the hard way: the players will always do what you don't expect.

Next game is this wednesday, and I will get to bring my 2 new players into the story, hurrah!

So, I now have an axe-wielding warrior, a nosey scholar, a mage who is obsessed with nubile women, a shifty assassin and a kung-fu monk with iron bones. What could possibly go wrong?

Plugging Cake & Moving House

Ok, I haven't baked in aaaaaages, but I will be making my Absurdly Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake in a day or so for a special event. It'll have an added twist on the first one I made because I'll be conducting SCIENCE! By this I mean that a friend of mine will be using melted vegan chocolate to show me how to make objects for cake toppers. I can't say too much right now, but will try to get a picture of the results when it's done.

On the subject of cake, here's a dedicated lady who makes a different cake every week, and they look gorgeous!

http://whatbridiebaked.blogspot.com/

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It's happened.

Finally.

Himself & I are (fingers & tootsies crossed) about to move in together. Buying a house, being all grown-up and shit. Fuck! Yay!

Can't wait to get away from annoying strangers, Himself's crazy landlady & having no privacy to carry out our sordid lives!

Reign, Edinburgh, Knitting

Well, as a previous comment suggested, I done ran a thing!

My first GMing session was a success, all 3 of my players and myself had a great time (although I spent half an hour prior to the game flapping about wildly in a panic. I only had a few slip-ups, and they were mainly from not being used to One-Roll-Engine mook battles.

The erudite High Scholar Noa (played excitedly and with a heavy dose of eccentricity by Jakob), the burly combat wombat Hruska (played loudly by Brad), and the dashing mage Dayne (played by Johnny, who bagsied the spellcasting character in a flash) were sent by Archpriest Valen to the Northern Forest in the Ironbone region (Heluso's head basically) to investigate some disappearances in a village called Mygreve, which may have been to do with demons coming from deep in the forest of Heluso's beard.

They investigated the village thoroughly, taking me in a totally unexpected direction (though I really should have seen it coming, since I know from my own experience that PCs are nosey bastards). However, I managed to give them lots of extra improvised plot that has slotted in surprisingly nicely with the bit I had planned. They are now deep in the forest, and have just taken out a crowd of demon mooks. 

The session took us up to late o'clock, so we shall continue on wednesday. I had planned a 2-part scenario, but it's looking like that was ambitious. It's more like a 4-parter, I estimate. Still, nobody is complaining. All 3 of my players are experienced as both GMs and players, and they all loved the game and the characters. They said it wasn't just good for a first game, it was solidly good in it's own right. Go me!!!

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I have been a busy girl this weekend. Himself and I spent a 'romantic' weekend in Edinburgh, mainly for the Torture Garden Summer Ball on saturday night. We had a great time, with Himself feeding me gin and tonic, good music, some dungeon play, and a bizarre half-hour spent sitting on a couch having my feet caressed by a man in a white lycra gimp suit. My enjoyment of this foot worship is leading me closer to a new conclusion about which category of kinkster I fall into, one that I have been tentatively creeping toward as I learn more about myself.

I made the mistake of wearing brand new high heels, which although looking great, made it excruciatingly painful to walk more than a few yards in them. It's amusing that our most cruel pieces of torture equipment are my new shoes!

We did 'normal folks' stuff too, meeting friends & their kids for lunch on sunday, and seeing part of the museum (only the bottom floor, the place is massive, an all-day job in hindsight). Also tried a lovely Japanese restaurant near Greyfriars Cemetery, called Tang's (I think). Anyone in that area should totally go get their teriyaki tofu!

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I am also collapsing under the weight of my self-inflicted knitting projects. Lots of people saw and loved my knitted kitty, so I now have 5 of the wretched buggers to do asap.

First Game Jitters

Running my first game on wednesday, using Reign in the default setting (with a teensy bit of license taken due to vagueness in the setting). It's just a short, 2-session scenario, with only 3 players, but I'm still cacking it. My 3 players are all seasoned GM's and players themselves, so although they are good friends of mine and will no doubt be helpful and gentle with me, I have not had performance anxiety like this for a long time!

I've done some solid prep. Got my basic plot sorted, my 3 pre-gens done, NPCs and generic splods written up, time set aside for running in circles of terror beforehand etc.

Will try to update after tomorrow's game, wish me luck!

Lack-of-Posts Guilt

I need to start writing again, I'm mentally stagnating. I know that I'm a creative person inside, but so damned lazy I rarely get ideas off the ground, or if I do, I don't finish them. This has to change!

I've taken up knitting, I had to start somewhere. Oddly, I've found that I love it! I have made a cool Cthulhu iPhone cosy, and I'm working on a kitty-eared hat. Here's a picture of the iPhone cosy in all it's glory (you can click to enlarge the picture, and I'm going to need a San check from you):

It's amusing to have Cthulhu swallow and spew out my phone at my command =D.

I also intend to start creative writing again. My former area was poetry, and I fell away from it for a long time, but I am getting the itch for it again. Himself has also been getting writer's block, perhaps if I start writing, it might rub off on him.

I picked the guitar back up again last week too. I'll never get any better if I keep avoiding practicing. I still haven't worked past the pain in my fingers if I play for too long (and too long is not long atall). However, I have 4 new songs to be cracking on with, hopefully I'll actually start getting better.

I haven't forgotten my musical compilation project, and the next one is being worked on. I'm thinking of setting up a mediafire account or something, so that I don't need to distribute flash drives and can just let people listen themselves. It'll be my 90's idea, as it's currently slightly too early to do my big summer mix.

I also have a few more recipes to share, but those will also come later (hopefully not too much later).

Is It Safe?

Final bit of dentistry work finished, after 6 years of terrified avoidance and 6 weeks of agonising prodding, grinding, sawing and yanking. It is my conclusion that although dentists may often be friendly and understanding, at heart, they're all sadists. Every bastard one of them.

Nationals 2010 & Roleplay Thoughts

So, my second trip to the Nationals, this time at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Due to the ludicrous cost of student halls accommodation, Himself and I elected to stay with an old friend of his in Broxburn. We lost out on the late night drinking and faffing by being off-campus (also exacerbated by not being allowed to have booze outside the union on campus), but it meant not having to share a single bed (Himself may not have minded, but I'm afraid I need to move in my sleep).

Although I spent this Nationals considerably more sober (though that wouldn't be hard given the state I was in last year), but this Nationals saw me a lot more freaked out. For someone with Asperger's Syndrome, I usually get by alright. I wouldn't say I cope as such with the environments and situations that freak me out, but I can usually feign normality long enough to get to a quiet space and flip out in private. This year, the noise and bright lights and strangers was too much, I was on the brink of meltdown all weekend. Unfortunately Himself had to take the brunt of it, but he mostly kept me safe and helped stop me from tipping over into proper freakout territory. It was just unfortunate that I was having a few bad aspie days that weekend, but I can't really know if I'd have been different any other weekend.

Besides my constant wibbliness, it was quite a fun Nationals. As is customary of my Nationals trips, I spent a sizeable percentage of my wages on wacky, unusual dice. I also got myself a pretty new dice bag, opting for a 2 for slightly cheaper deal and getting one for one of my friends too. In addition to those delights, I acquired a crocheted Cthulhu finger puppet and a shoggoth in the same style. The shoggoth now belongs to my friend with the dice bag and has been named Mr Chuffy.

There were lots of other lovely shiny things there, but I could not afford to partake of them. I had a notion to buy system books, but it occurred to me that I can borrow, from Himself or my friends, pretty much any roleplaying book I could think of.

Now, to the gaming itself. I was in the Paranoia category (of which there were 2 groups). Last year, an attempt had been made at DURPS to run Paranoia, but due to the group being full of new people who didn't understand it, it turned into a bit of a disaster. After over a year of desperately trying to get a proper game of Paranoia, I pretty much got it for the Nationals. There were 2 intensely annoying people in the group that made it hard to get things done, but their bumbling incompetence and outright wankishness allowed me to shine, since I managed to be the hub of several instances of hilarity throughout my 2 games, and also came away from the weekend with a 3rd place prize for my category. Nobody else in my group placed, so in my book, that makes me the best in my group. I didn't get to see the other group, which contained the winners of 1st and 2nd place, they must have been pretty damned good.

So, that is my first ever Nationals win. A few of my fellow DURPS members also came away with awards in their categories, I was so proud of them all. I emphatically believe that we have an awesome society of talented roleplayers, so it was great to see us being acknowledged, and even better to see everyone having tremendous fun.

Next year, when we go to Sheffield (hosting next year's Nationals), I'm tempted to do either Call of Cthulhu or Systemless, for something new and fresh.

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I'm also contemplating my gaming plan for September onwards. September marks the start of the academic year, and therefore the roleplaying year in a sense. It's when we draw in newbies and start our new campaigns. During one-offs week (where we let the new blood in gently to try out roleplaying), I'll be running some Star Wars silliness based on Die Hard. A friend of mine is running the Star Wars campaign next year, so the one-off I'm running will be a good exercise in teaching newcomers to Star Wars roleplay that Stormtroopers aren't bumbling idiots and actually pose a legitimate threat. It'll also be lots of fun if I get it right.

For my campaign following that, I'll be running a game of intrigue, power struggle and fallen empire, using the Reign system in it's classic setting (an awesomely cool fictional continent with wacky gravity and interesting metaphysics). I've been watching the tv series Rome recently, and I'm very much inspired to base my story on the fall of Rome, starting with the defeated insurgents against Ceasar, despondently burning the body of their leader after losing their last stand. Obviously, this will merely be the foundation of the story, it will be in the Reign setting, so it won't bear any strict resemblance to Rome, but I'm thinking it's a period in history that is rich in drama & intrigue, so it'll be fun to place it in the Reign setting. I already have a few friends asking me to reserve places for them in my game, I feel honoured! I have officially announced that I'll be running it on the DURPS forum, so I feel a sense of duty to run it now. I'm scared, as I've never run a game before, but I'm also excited because I think once I find my feet, I'll be a good GM. I'm hoping to run a few one-offs over the summer to help me train up.

I just looked at what I have written so far, and I'm grinning widely at how into rolplaying I am now. This is from someone who until September 2008 had never actually played a roleplaying game proper. Now I can't imagine my life without it.

Absurdly Easy Chocolate Cake

I made this for Himself's birthday last week, and it was scrumptious! Licked the bowls and everything, heavenly!

No picture for this, unfortunately we ate it all between ourselves and our friends before I got a chance to get a good shot of it.

Absurdly Easy Chocolate Cake (by Boutell.com)

This recipe is suitable for a: vegetarian/vegan diet.

Ingredients:
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3 cups flour (680 grams)
2 cups sugar (450 grams)
6 tablespoons cocoa (100 grams)
2 teaspoons baking soda (10 cc's = 10 ml)
1 teaspoon salt (5 cc's = 5 ml)
3/4 cup vegetable oil (200 cc's)
2 tablespoon vinegar (30 cc's)
2 teaspoon vanilla (10 cc's)
2 cup cold water (480 cc's)

I also added 1 cup of roughly chopped walnuts.

The 2 cups of cold water can be substituted with 2 cups of cold coffee to make mocha cake.


Instructions:
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Mix the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Stir until smooth. Transfer mixture to baking tin and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30 minutes. Makes two layers of a two-layer 9-inch or 8-inch round cake, or one small sheet cake. When cool, frost it.

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And now for the frosting recipe:


Vegan Chocolate Frosting Recipe

Frosts one cake, up to two layers.

Suitable for a vegetarian/vegan diet.

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Ingredients:

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1/2 cup vegan margarine
2 cups vegan powdered sugar (though caster sugar will do in a pinch)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons soy milk
1/2 cup cocoa powder
a dash of salt

Instructions:
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1. Soften the vegan margarine. (This would be a good step to do while baking the cake). Once the cake has cooled, start making your frosting.

2. Cream the sugar into the softened margarine. Then add the vanilla extract, soy milk, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix well. If it is too thick, add a very small amount of soy milk, and if it is too thin, add more powdered/caster sugar. Continue to mix until the frosting is gooey and spreadable.

3. Frost your cake. 

4. Refrigerate for at least an hour to let the frosting set. Enjoy licking the bowl.

5. To store, seal the cake in an airtight container and keep refrigerated.

NOM!

The Dark Side

The reason behind my lack of posting is no excuse, but fellow technophiles may understand. I have succumbed to my long-standing lust and gotten an iPhone. The poxy thing has been all but glued to my grubby hand for several days.

I have also discovered the show 'Burnistoun' on BBC iPlayer. Best sketch show I have seen in a very long time.

I do, however, intend to have a new post up in the next week, including my next music mix. My theme this time will be what I consider to be the best of the 90's (it's better than you think, seriously).

On Stumbled Prose

Accidentally happened upon a series of literary quotes from Nancy Mitford, whose works i have never read, but something in her words has a deep resonance with me:

"Twice in her life she had mistaken something else for it; it was like seeing somebody in the street who you think is a friend, you whistle and wave and run after him, and it is not only not the friend, but not even very like him. A few minutes later the real friend appears in view, and then you can't imagine how you ever mistook that other person for him. Linda was now looking upon the authentic face of love, and she knew it, but it frightened her. That it should come so casually, so much by a series of accidents, was frightening."

"always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives"

"The trouble is that people seem to expect happiness in life. I can't imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they are married. When it isn't they blame the other person, which is clearly absurd. I believe that is what generally starts the trouble." 

"Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered."

"To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease."

"The people welcome a new day as if they were certain of liking it, the shopkeepers pull up their blinds serene in the expectation of good trade, the workers go happily to their work, the people who have sat up all night in night clubs go happily to their rest, the orchestra of motor-car horns, of clanking trams, of whistling policemen tunes up for the daily symphony, and everywhere is joy."

Vegan Cookie Saga - Part 1

I bought cookie-making equipment earlier in the month, and after making my first batch (vegan oatmeal & raisin), i figured I should make them regularly and record results.

I want to do at least one different kind a month, and they will (along with my other documented vegan food projects to come) form the 'noms' section of the blog as it takes shape.

So, here are my vegan double chocolate & cinnamon cookies:

I didn't have any chocolate chips to hand so I just grated a big bar of vegan dark chocolate (it took aaaaages and hurt my poor little paws). It did make the dark chocolate flavour nice and subtle though.

As promised, the recipe:

Makes about 16 cookies.

1 cup vegan margarine,

1 cup soya milk,
3/4 cup white sugar,
3/4 cup soft brown sugar,
1 and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla,
2 cups plain unbleached flour,
1 teaspoon baking soda,
1/2 teaspoon salt,
1-2 teaspoon cinnamon,
1/2 cup oatmeal,
1 1/2 cup vegan dark chocolate chips (or grate a large bar of vegan dark chocolate).

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180°C / 365°F.

Beat vegan butter, sugars, and vanilla until nice and creamy. Mix in soya milk gently. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and oatmeal in a separate bowl. Slowly add to butter mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips/shavings. Spoon onto lightly oiled cookie sheet (either onto 2 or do it in a couple of batches), keeping each cookie about 5cm apart. Bake for 7-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack or counter top. Enjoy!

Carnism

I have been thinking for quite some time about what to write in my next post, it took longer than I thought it would. However, I stumbled across this article on Veganity about Carnism. Rather than try to summarize it, I decided it would be better if I posted the whole thing. It really gets at the whole subconscious mindset that most omnivorous people have about eating meat. Enjoy:


(originally found at: http://www.vegfamily.com/articles/carnism.htm)

Food for Thought: Carnism and the Psychology of Eating Meat
Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M.

“…I mean, there are so many mortifying things in our culture and society. But that [killing animals for food] certainly is one of the worst and people ignore it the most because they think that animals don’t matter…I feel a lot for these animals. Just the thought is really upsetting…I’m crying.”

While many VegFamily readers likely identify with the above quote, what may come as a surprise is that this statement was made not by a vegetarian, but by a meat eater. Perhaps even more surprising is that the sentiment expressed in the statement appears to be more the rule than the exception. Research suggests that eating other animals brings about an inner discomfort, or inconsistency, that people are generally unaware of. The question, then, is how can the average American, who very likely considers her- or himself nonviolent toward other animals, eat their bodies and experience no apparent discomfort?

The answer to this question may be explained, at least in part, through an understanding of carnism. Carnism is the word I began using several years ago to denote the ideology of meat consumption. Ideologies are social belief systems that have enormous power to shape people’s attitudes and behaviors. Ideologies are often so embedded in society that their influence is mostly unconscious-and therefore unquestioned. Typically, ideologies are only recognized when are an exception to the “normal” way of thinking (what we call the “dominant ideology”). This is why there is a name, vegetarianism, for the ideology that considers the consumption of other animals inappropriate or unethical. The dominant ideology in our society maintains that eating other animals is normal and even necessary. However, there is no name for this ideology. We therefore tend to view eating animals not as a choice, but as a given. This way of thinking makes society view the consumption of animals as normal, natural, and legitimate.

Ideologies can hide contradictions between people’s behaviors and their values. They allow people to make exceptions to what they would normally consider ethical, without even realizing it. This is how we can understand carnism. If we consider carnism to be an ideology, then we can explain why it is possible to love some animals and eat others. We have been so socialized to believe in the legitimacy and necessity of carnism that most people do not even think of their meat as having once been an animal. Indeed, most people begin eating meat before they can even talk, and the process of maintaining the invisibility of the animals who become food continues for the rest of our lives.

In my own research, I found that certain ways of thinking support carnism. Interviewing carnists (meat eaters) and meat cutters, I learned that, in order to eat or process the bodies of other animals, individuals needed to use a degree of “psychic numbing”-the separation of thoughts from feelings and of beliefs from practices. This psychic numbing was expressed through a variety of defense mechanisms. Among the most notable are:
denial (“animals don’t really suffer when being raised and killed for meat”)
justification (“it’s acceptable to eat certain animals because they’re bred for that purpose”)
avoidance (“don’t tell me that; you’ll ruin my meal”)
dichotomization (“I think of some animals as companions and some as food”)
dissociation (“when I look at meat, I don’t connect it with an animal-if I did, I would be disgusted and unable to eat it”).

One might ask, then, if such defenses are necessary for the consumption of meat, why continue to eat meat? Why not just go vegetarian? The answer to this is complex. In a nutshell, though, carnists often continue as carnists due to a number of factors, perhaps the most prominent of them being fear. A comprehensive list can be found in Carol Adam’s wonderful book, Living Among Meat Eaters (2003). Since ideologies tend to perpetuate themselves, it should be no wonder that the carnistic system works quite hard to ensure that its members remain loyal, using fear as an effective tool toward this end. For instance, many of us have been led to believe that if we stop eating meat, we will become unhealthy, seen as antisocial, weak or less “manly,” flaky, and a host of other stereotypes. These notions are communicated through the mass media, in which vegetarians are often portrayed as strange or radical. They are also conveyed through carnistic “education” campaigns and marketing, where meat is associated with health, strength, community, and normalcy.

While an understanding of psychic numbing may help us better relate to carnists, it can also help us better appreciate and value our own choice to be vegetarians. Psychic numbing, when used to enable violent practices such as carnism, is, arguably, psychologically unhealthy. Unfortunately, though, the field of psychology has typically supported, rather than challenged, the status quo, and so the use of massive psychological defenses to enable participation in violent practices that are contrary to one’s deeper value system is generally not considered psychologically questionable. Instead, those who resist the dominant ideology (i.e., vegetarians) tend to be either ignored or pathologized-for instance, a psychologist might assume that one’s vegetarianism is simply a mask for an eating disorder.

Thus, what may be one of the most important points to remember as vegetarians is that mental health comes not from unquestioningly participating in what we have learned is normal, but from practicing we believe is right. It comes from living in accordance with our deepest values, values such as personal authenticity, integrity, empathy, and compassion for all beings. What better model for a peaceful planet? What better lesson to teach our children?

References

Adams, C. J. (2003). Living among meat eaters: The vegetarian’s survival handbook. New York: Continuum.

Joy, M. (2001). From carnivore to carnist: Liberating the language of meat. Satya, 8(2), 26-27. Joy, M. (2003). Psychic numbing and meat consumption: The psychology of carnism. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, CA.

Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi doctors: Medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books.

Rostler, S. (2001). Vegetarian diet may mask eating disorder in teens. Journal of Adolescent Health, 29, 406-416.

Melanie Joy, Ph.D, Ed.M, is a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has studied the psychology of speciesism for a number of years and wrote her doctoral dissertation on the psychology of carnism

Music for Broseph

I made a flash drive mixtape for a friend, here's the tracklist (open the picture in a new tab to see the full picture):

I think I'll make more playlists like this, I really enjoyed sifting through my music (some 400+ albums).

Apart from going to my Mage roleplaying game, this was the extent of my productiveness today.