anyway.

I'm a little under half-way through WWZ. This is one awesome book.

I really liked this Solstice party, too. I'm glad Nokiko came at 3 AM with her 3 yo daughter - I like the 'second wave' when people come in the middle of the night.

In my defense, I was really horrifically sick with some nasty stomach bug that wiped out half my dorm. In Vincent's defense, he really was totally unfazed, and it meant a ton that he would help a sick friend to that degree of helping clean up and bring toast and so on.

Yeah, churches. Hm.

World War Z is indeed awesome. Like a sin and redemption story for government. It's a huge influence on my must finish it now international setting design entry.

-K

I just read http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=110 and really enjoyed it, I need to read WWZ next.

Thanks for the pointer.

Linked!

Yeah, that thread's one of my favorites, as you might expect.

hmmm...i typed something, but i think i forgot the crucial step of "typing human".
yeah, i read Z, and the "americanized" zombie survival guide.  cool that Brooks somewhat discredited his earlier book.
i was thinking of using Affraid for a Great Panic era series of role playing stories, but Z doesn't really have a heirachy of evil, just the living impaired, the living, and the freakish former housecats...oh, and the want-a-bee zombies.
i read DitV over my little Christmas break, it was really good Vincent.  i think the hardest part of it would be knowing when something's a conflict or not.
did you know they're making a 28 Months Later?

Y'know, we saw the author giving a little talk at a Borders near us a month or two ago.  And we were like, "A book about zombies?  SCOFF!" but apparently it is some kind of thing worth reading.  How foolish we evidently were!

Nathan: i read DitV over my little Christmas break, it was really good Vincent. i think the hardest part of it would be knowing when something's a conflict or not.

Thanks!

Knowing when something's a conflict is a skill you pick up quickly. The first pointer to it is "roll dice or say yes": check in with your NPC. Does your NPC hope you roll dice over it instead of just saying yes? Does your NPC want even just a chance for it to work out her way? Then it's a conflict.

Is getting rid of your minister just because you don't like him or her a common UU thing? I get it when it happens in churches where the preacher has more alleged spiritual authority, gets caught doing stuff they shouldn't, or is found to have predilictions for things or people that they shouldn't. That's usually why they are done away with. Church of Christ folks also like to get rid of members (and preachers) who don't do what they should (like not attending bible study every Wednesday, publicly questioning whether CoC is really the One True Church, etc.)

I hope your Meg's mom is able to ride the storm while her church gets over itself and stay.

WWZ is good!  It's nice on a meta level, too, since Brooks riffs off his own "guide" in a fun way.  Plus - zombies!

I'll have to pick up his guide. Also, "zombie" works for human now.

So my habit has been to foist churchgoing off on Meg, denying that I care very much, aside from the plain discomfort I feel at service iteself. But then we were driving home from her mom's Christmas Eve service and, y'know, I didn't need our congregation's instability this fall. Maybe Meg didn't too, and maybe Meg was more involved in it and thus more directly affected by it than I was, but still I was involved and I was affected and I didn't need it. Church can be part of my life on my terms, and those terms include, baseline, it not compounding my grief with its hassles.

Julia - I don't know. I'm feeling unkind today, so my assessment of what UUs do and why they do it is harsh - maybe I'll keep it to myself.

Oh, oh, I have a barfing story!

As some of you know, Lisa and I met via chat-based roleplaying. The first time I came to visit, the airplane food (and maybe the nervousness) played bad tricks on my stomach. So after dinner and some sight seeing we hurried home because I was more than ready to throw up. I could barely keep it down, and I impressed Lisa by stopping my dash into the house to introduce myself to the babysitter before continuing on to the bathroom.

And as you can see, the barfing didn't get between us, either :)

sorry if i tipped Meg off too soon to some maybe cool details concerning WWZ.  i'd like to write a bit more about it, but realize i may be saying a bit too much.
-Nate