anyway.

Oh and I've been meaning to say, you know that thing? Well every fall and every spring we get a new batch of residents spending all their time down here in the library, and danged if one of them doesn't look like Tim Kleinart and one of them doesn't look like Clinton. I do double takes all the time.

Ha! The Clinton one thought I was flirting with him the first time we passed. I gave him this enormous grin; he was like, "me?" Then my brain caught up and figured out that Clinton hadn't, in fact, come to visit me at work and put on scrubs so he'd blend in. It was just some Clinton-looking but non-Clinton guy. This, naturally, filled me with rage: how DARE he look like Clinton, a mere non-Clinton guy?

So I punched him in the throat.

I'm lying about punching him in the throat. But I do know that my grin went away and I gave him a look that made him flinch and hurry past. I'm sure the whole rest of the day he was like, "that dude - what was UP with him?"

This would be a difference between you and me. Where you derive ironic optimism, I derive suffering.

Which is why I kind of stay out of the online gaming community more than I used to. I withdrew not because I wanted to, but because I felt I had to for quality-of-life concerns.

But hey, good for you. And I say that without sarcasm. Everybody-love is a happy kind of feeling.

It doesn't hurt that I've been sick for a few days and I'm finally starting to feel better.

V mentioned podcasts.  Can we review the state of podcasts relevant to Anyway's subject matter?

I'm aware of a scarce two offerings:

I've been listening to Sons of Kryos, and have nothing but lavish priase for Jeff and Judd. What's more, their recorded game sessions (especially Judd's PTA game "Life on Mars"!) are revelatory.

From time to time, Paul Tevis's Have Games, Will Travel interviews people like Ron Edwards and Matt Snyder, and he occasionally reviews Forge-style games.  And he posted the complete sessions of his group's Polaris game, which was awesome.

Is anything else out there, or is that about it right now?

You are a more enlightened man than I am, Vincent. Ignorance and reactionary nonsense just makes me go all "HULK SMAAASH!!!!" and want to start pecking out eyes.

Enlightened or on some really good meds. Hrm, screw the path to enlightenment, give me what Vincent was taking! Huzzah!

But seriously, good post. Thank you. Must listen more to Vincent and Chris (damn Vincent and Chris!).

I am definitely the hero of my blog.

At least I'm a gracious enough liar to admit it if someone calls me on it.

At least, I aspire to be that sort of liar.

yrs—
—Ben

Here's one of the issues with blogs and the internets: it's hard to hear a person's tone of voice.

Frex, Vincent, your first two paragraphs of the original post sound postitive to me. The second two sound sniping-cynical-meanish. And judging from other people's reactions, that's not how it comes across to everybody. And that's how arguments get heated in this medium, when people don't get the meaning and tone of a post right.

For my part, I'm still often surprised at how seriously people take all this shit. Lighten up, dudes! We're talking gaming here. If you want to get all up in arms, let's talk about abortion or fascist pseudo-Christian assholes or your momma or something.

- Christian

Nope, totally sincere and positive, all four paragraphs.

Also, gaming is more worthy of taking seriously than many things; it's something we spend a lot of time doing, and get a lot of frustration vs satisfaction out of. It doesn't surprise me a bit that people's feelings get genuinely hurt by how other people talk about gaming.

I got to post this question somewhere so it might as well be here.

and this might just be me being a freewheeling debauched immoral eurpoean, but when did sensual equate sexual?

slap me vincent if this is out of place, just make sure it is gender neutral and without overtones when you do so.

k

Dammit, Vincent went and achieved Enlightenment and I missed it.

We can sell sexuality.  We can't sell sensuality.

Welcome to America:  it only exists if it can be mass-marketed.

And we'd love you more if you'd move lumpley feed RSS to this site, it's still stuck with the old version. I wondered why it never generated news.

I love us too.  Group hug!

Oh and I am totally the hero on my blog too.  But then it's all about knitting and well... it's easy to be a hero with two pointy needles in your hand.