Top Ten Reasons Why Moving In After Frat Boyz Sucks

VIKINGS DO NOT CLEAN

Just today (at the time of this writing, which is May 1st/2nd) we moved out of our old house, my friends and I. Our house, A.K.A the Castle, was a great place: but due to whatever reasons we decided to, we moved out into this new place.

This place was nearby, and was well known as an establishment for rockin’ keggers, the kind people actually paid money to get into. It was that house in the neighbourhood, and still we moved in.

Every experience is a learning experience. I learned that moving into a house like that was a $&$#ing terrible ordeal, and that, in short, sucked.

1. Moving sucks. Period. It could be for any number of reasons, like the fact you’re leaving your home behind, good memories, you’re being forced to by the mob, it’s being done at gunpoint, but basically because MOVING REALLY SUCKS.

If you’re moving at all, I hope you have a damn good reason.

2. They don’t know what a mouse is. Or how to find and get rid of one, for that matter. I’d like to say that the cupboards were spotless when we found them, but what really happened was the horrible smell of bleached mouse crap. It was inspiring… it really motivated me to kill it with fire.

3. There was a ceiling? Really? Cause I had no idea before I decided the music was so awesome I’d punch the ceiling. Now I’ve left my mark on something! I can die happy.

And he might.

4. And that reminds me there’s a wall… Cause I had forgotten that the walls aren’t made of Unobtanium and as a result might chip and break if I punch it with my fist.

Oh well, I think it adds character, don’t you?

5. Tape is for &$##*(@, You don’t use tape in a manly house to put up posters and such, no. Also, you can’t just use the built in closet, ’cause that’s for sissies. You want posters? NAILS IN THE PLASTER. You want a shelving unit? UP ON THE WALL, USE A BOLT GUN.

Oh, thanks frat guy. It looks awesome. My room could be a ^$#*ing CHAPEL because it’s so HOLY. I was thinking of installing some holes anyway. I’m glad you made up my mind. It spells class. In moderately sized holes.

6. I’m too lazy to take off my shoes. So, instead of taking them off and keeping the hardwood floor safe to walk on in socks, you’re going to stamp the dirt so hard into the floor that the wood goes from cedar to ebony eh? It matches the curtains you left me. Thanks. Oh, and now the tiles in the kitchen don’t slip? That’s good, I’ll be sure to walk around bare foot on the dust encrusted tiles so I don’t slip and break my neck.

Besides, I’d rather have foot fungus anyway.

7. Loving the long showers. And it’s kinda obvious. The grout at the base of the shower is gone. Arrividerci, great grout, sayonara. Au revoir. You’re now gonzo, bereft of existence you now litter my bathroom floor. If you didn’t provide an entrance hazard for rodents you’d be useless to everybody. The grout has now joined the garbage disposal, a malignant memory on a forgotten parquet. The grout is no more.

However, your hair is quite spiky. I approve.

8. Everything is a sticker surface, and double sided tape is a statement. I gotta admit, even I was impressed when I found a picture of Jesus made out of errand strands of double sided tape littering the inside of my new closet space, interspersed with irremovable tears of stickers. I called up the Pope to check it was a miracle!

I got an answer. Turns out it’s just an idiot who decided to sticker up the house with YOUNG AND RECKLESS. It’s a badass older version of YOLO right? Right?

What’s that smell? Oh, it’s angst stickers.

9. We decided we wanted a petting zoo. So we bred dust bunnies in such large quantities that it required not one, but two professional cleaning crews to actually round them up once we left. It was like hunting for diabolic and disgusting easter eggs.

They were big enough to kill a grown man. I named one Caernabog. It had sharp, pointy teeth, and required that we use our last remaining holy hand grenade.

10. I heard you like booze. So we boozed up your floor, we boozed up your wall, hell! We boozed up your ceiling. We knew that, upon entering the house, you would love to mop the floor AND the walls too! Also, I hope you don’t mind that we used the wine to make it look someone had been brutally murdered on the spot.

5 Minute Analysis: Dawn of War is NOT League of Legends

As a small forward, a pal of mine was watching me play Dawn of War: Black Crusade. Oh, the fun I’ve been having playing that game again! It’s loads of good fun. In any case, he looked over my shoulder and proclaimed that “This reminds me of league of legends.”
Well, that simply wouldn’t do.

1. League of Legends (Hereby referred to as LoL) is a MOBA. You control just 1 unit most of the time, and it’s called a hero/champion/macguffit. Dawn of War (Hereby referred to as DoW), you control armies. Many people. HANDLE THEM.

2. LoL is pretty cartoony, charmingly so. You won’t see many torn bodies or genereal mishandling of corpses in a desacratory way. DoW, you are expected, nay, gleefully appreciative of the fact that your many units (HANDLE THEM) are tearing up many others. Grrrrrrrrrrrross! and great, but G(L)ORY.

3. LoL, you cant move the camera save to zoom in. DoW? Oh, that’s an impressive looking army. Let’s take a look at them from ground level.

… Why, yes! It is an impressive looking- *eviscerated*

4. LoL is full of armies, but of only 3-4 kinds of units tops. DoW, you have access to an entire plethora of… okay, there’s a giant spider, many guns, chainswords, and mutant horrors. and that’s a 3rd of the units I can have.

5. MOBA. RTS. Although MOBA comes right out of an RTS, that’s still the big one.

6. Did I mention LoL is a MOBA and not an RTS?

7. LoL takes 30-45 minutes to play on average. DoW takes 10-15. Booya time savings!

8. In one, I play as yordles (dafuq folks) and in the other, I get to play as 8 foot tall warmonsters with a penchant for TEARING YOUR HEART OUT WITH A SPOON. GG yordles.

Next time, I’m going to rip off a famous show and steal their shtick with BACON STRIPS.

5 Minute Short Story: The Man Obsessed With His Housecoat

There it was: a housecoat. He had wanted one for such a long time now!

The elegance of the plaid pattern blew his eyes away. The red crisscrossed pattern clashed with his green smiley faced pajamas, but it mattered not. It was a housecoat, and it was his. He was now king of his house. His  castle now had a ruler with ROBES. How badass was that?

The man reflected for a moment. Very, was his answer. Very badass.

Look at me, he said as he relfected uppon his viasage in the mirror, look at the handsome and devilishly good looking man in the housecoat. It flowed on the non-existent breeze, flapping away in his imagination. His grin grew a mile wide, and he knew what must be done.

He left his boudoir and alerted his subjects to his precence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, nobles and peasants, look at me! Upon my back I wear a MIGHTY ROBE OF AWESOME. It is mine, and mine alone! Now, do my bidding!”

The group of three grown men looked at him, bewildered and exhausted.

“It’s a housecoat. Seriously. you’ve been wearing it for like, a month. It’s time you took it off.”

The man refuised. He cried mutiny! at the top of his lungs, ran forward, and jumped through the window, glass shards badassedly flying all around. He then landed headfirst into the pavement.

Ow, he thought. What am I doing outisde? Why am I coverd in glass?

He look down. Oh right, he remembered, I’m a badass with a badass housecoat. Look at me &$^#, I’m fabulous.

Fluidity in Life

Relationships are fluid.

Tonight, I went and celebrated the proper opening night of Todd’s show. Tonight was the advertised opening night, free for a fee to the public. Since I went last night to the private free show, I made sure to spend tonight relaxing and getting ready for his big cast party.

The cast parties are something we’ve always shared. It’s a party held on opening night of a play, used to show the accolades of the cast and crew of the show, and then drink copious amounts of booze and dance drunkenly with everyone. Back in first year, when Todd was just scratching the surface of these shows, he’d come to show his support for the upper years. Not only that, but it was a good excuse for me to go out once in awhile when I wasn’t shackled to my computer talking to Lorelai on screen. The tradition continued, with Todd and a number of other friends going out to enjoy a few beers, and dance the night away to awful music.

The past couple of times have seemed different, however. See, it’s been 4 years already. 4 years that were far too long, and way too short too. Time slogged past me it seemed, but in reality it was flying. And here was Todd, once a first year dramatic arts student, now a trained actor. He climbed to the top of his class, where so many had failed. Tonight was his night, the opening night of the most virtuosic work he had done to date. He was the lead in a 2 hour long show, where he was present in every scene and decided the fate of the play. He did excellently, and tonight was his &%$#ing night to SHINE.

I got to the cast party right on time; just as I entered, the whole stream of cast and crew rampage forth from the side door, whooping and calling, blowing bubbles and blowing kisses. The speeches were loud, emphatic. Full of energy. Nothing could go wrong tonight, no sir.

There was a big difference in how it all worked out. Todd was the life of the party now: he was the lead. He was a King for a day, a dream for so many people, or a distant truth from a long time ago for most. He was lording in it, loving it, and making sure that tonight was the best damn cast party he ever had, as it was truly his last within that setting. He had every reason to “max it up” as it were.

Here I was, however, sitting in the corner, nursing my pint of Keith’s (which was watery, funny enough. Maybe it’s because I’ve been drinking Okanagan beer so much lately) and feeling… resentful?

No, that wasn’t it. Todd obviously is my friend. I’m not going to be resentful of his shining moment. I was sad though, and it took me a while of sitting and drinking to figure it out.

Every good friendship has a core. That core is unshakable, and once founded is really hard to break. That’s why people can be friend over massive distances for huge spans of time. It’s essential to every good friendship; however, there is more. Around that core is a fluffy layer of contemporary thought, A.K.A shit that’s going on right now. Friends who hang out a lot have a lot of that fluffy part, whereas friends who are far apart have only the core holding themselves tethered to one another. It’s not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does happen.

I could feel it happening. The fluff? It was going or already gone in a sense. Things were already different. Todd was celebrating his time alright, but it wasn’t with me anymore, or the rest of the guys. Not the same way. Can I blame him? Of course not, but it still taught me a valuable lesson.

Relationships are fluid, and depend entirely on context.

That might not be how things OUGHT to be; my claim is meant to be descriptive, not normative. Relationships can change quickly based on what context they’re being put into. Right now, Todd’s relationship with me was a core. Nothing more, nothing less. Honestly, it makes me sad, though it shouldn’t, and not in ways most would expect.

Since I know that I can’t be mad at Todd for what he’s doing, I am sad because I know it signifies the end of something we had. We had a tight knit relationship; but after 4 years of university, he’s graduating. Meanwhile I will still be in school, and that status change alone will cause our friendship to be something different, whether I like it or not.

All of this thinking relates to time. A common theme for me these past couple of weeks has been time; the passing, the coming, the going. My time with Todd’s friendship as it stands is coming to an end, and I can feel it. It’s almost palpable. Time seems to keep… flowing, going, dragging with it a lot of things that I will never have again. Nothing (Save for Nothingness, I suppose), with time, is solid and stable; unless you believe in a God of some sort, but since I can’t do that, the only thing that will be guaranteed to be stable is me and whatever/whoever else I can place my trust in not to. Even then, I will change too, and already have I’m sure.

This change is nonstop. You can’t rest, even if for a moment, and you won’t as you’ll see change all around you can there will be nothing you can do to slow it down. I can handle it. I know I can; but sometime, it just feels like it’s too much.

People told me that time was gonna fly, that change was going to happen, and that people would go in and out of my life. This shouldn’t be a surprise to me at all.

I just wish it all a bit slower, that’s all.

Where am I? Why am I here?

I had another “lesson” moment, though just a thoughtful one this time.

I was just at my very good friend’s place to celebrate his excellent debut in his show, and there was an unexpected (to me, anyway) visitor: a really cute girl that seemed to have an affinity with my buddy. I would be a terrible friend if I didn’t give him the look.

Down to the muscle twitch.

In any case, we watched REPO! the genetic opera. A movie so full of angst that I could mould it into small, adorable, angst filled mini demons. It was adorable. And full of blood, gore, black, and VERY pale people.

Paleness aside, the experience was funny: it had been awhile where I made myself feel like a third wheel. I felt very…analytic. Outside of everything, observing. It’s an interesting mindset, as it leaves me feeling apart from the world, and yet incredibly attached.

I said my goodbyes to everyone, and made my way into the alleyway between our houses. The chill air blew through my hair as the ground underneath my feet crunched as only a dirt gravel path can. It’s at this point that I put in my earphones, and being to listen to this song, which is an excellent remake of this one.

Seriously, that remix is fantastic.

In any case, it’s at this point that I’m compelled to look up at the sky.

The black, inky sky holds an imaginable depth, impossible for me to fathom; yet still, in the darkness of the sky, there are shinning stars, twinkling. Not many, but a few, and occasionally they would get covered up as passing clouds drifted by on a gust of cool wind.

It’s precisely at this moment that I hear the cool voice of Leonardo DiCaprio say the following:

“Think about it Ariadne. How did you get here? Where are you right now?”

I think I'm too close to the creepiest man on Earth is what.

Obviously, I’m not as hot as Ellen Page, but the idea struck home. As the words, sounds and the world slipped away around me, all I could see or think of was the sky, space, the universe, the places I’ll never see and never go to.

And yet, here I was. Here. Not anywhere else, but here. Where exactly is “here”? And how did I get “here”?

I pondered those questions for well over 10 minutes I stood in a dirt gravel alleyway. I was on Earth, of that I was certain; but where was that in the grand scheme of things? Where was this place I called home? Even if I could answer that question, the first one was even more perplexing despite its simplicity. How did I get here?

So I ask you those questions: where are you? How did you get here?

Relationships: Things Happen vs For the Best

Like this post hitting your stupid face, for instance.

I am not of the opinion that “things happen for a reason” such that there is a master plan for everything, another way of saying “____ works in mysterious ways”. Whether it’s a bird shitting on you or a car accident, it still implies that cancer “happens” for a reason other than “because if cancer was a person, it’d be a %$^&ing asshole, and a serial killer”. It’s a frustrating thing to hear people say, and every time someone says it I punt a puppy.

Why? “Things happen!”

However, things happening for the best? That’s different. The implication being that the social outcome of a problem sticky in nature can work out for the overall good of people involved. This is something that happens frequently, but especially in relationships.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard of or seen a relationship explode and it has been for the better afterwards. Every single broken relationship I can think of has benefitted from this thought, and overall makes for happier people at the end of an unhappy chapter. That mode of thought allows for catharsis, rather than a need for retribution or revenge.

For instance, two of my friends just got out of a relationship with one another. Although the specifics are hugely juicy and super interesting, I won’t go into them in detail; suffice to say, it had been almost a year before they broke up that the relationship started suffering from lethal lack of communication.

Sometimes, there's nothing you can do. And then sometimes, there's a pair of scissors...

In the end, neither party was fully happy in the relationship: one person scared the other one anytime an issue showed itself, which cause both parties to hide things from one another and essentially not communicate (arguably the blood of a relationship).

Right now, things are ugly. Some friends are taking sides, others are condemning and complaining (and we all know that any fool can condemn and complain… and most do), and everyone’s acting like the break up was a bad thing. HORRIBLE. NOTHING COULD BE WORSE, X TREATED Y LIKE CRAP, Y WAS A MONGER ‘, BLAH BLAH ASS-TAINTING CHAFE FUCKS WE’RE GONNA DIE IF WE DON’T RAISE HELL.

Very, very stupid.

Why? Why on Earth are we getting worked up about a good thing?

The end of a relationship like this is much like a forest fire to a dying grove. The trees are gnarled, old, and rotting. Immediately after being burned, the area smells like ash and ass. Give it time, and the place grows back better than ever before!

My point is this: you have to look at a bigger picture, and look at all the consequences. Right now it’s ugly, true. Living situations are messed, feelings are bruised, and friendships are kind being torn; but that’s all people look at these days! Short term shit. Long term? Both people will be in happier relationships, and people will have completely forgotten about this situation. Life goes on.

Also, this avoids a lot of the drama, which is something that makes this puppy punter politely pat a puppy instead.

And this makes for happier puppies. Healthier ones too!

Now to bed. I’m so tired. Of everything. Shit included.

Scary Lessons

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the topic of theology. Specifically on Naturalism, the idea that the core fundamentals of the universe and the world are discovered and that there are natural laws that govern us, as dictated by a God of some kind; and the antithesis, with positivism, where we are free beings, not governed by a God but by ourselves, as humans. A lot of this enquiry has only strengthened my resolve in my atheism.

However, I also believe that, if you take the time to look around you life, and smell the roses from time to time, a lesson shows itself to you, hidden but still there to the eagle eye of someone who takes simple things waaaaay too seriously.

There's no WAY that EVERY WORD meant that much! - Most grade 9 students

Arguably, the biggest question that people have is “Why are we here, and how did we get here?” You know, the question to life, the universe, and everything. My friend believes he found the answer in Christianity. He believes in God now, and has his idea on how everything works. In complete contrast, I ended up as an atheist. Whereas he felt a connection to the world and called it God, I saw a lack of connection on any such level, and called it life. We’ve been debating over the specifics of his ideals now for a week, going to all sorts of different paths of reason, belief, and crazy ideas for me to come to the conclusion that I still feel absolutely no connection to an all encompassing being. As for him, I don’t have the right to say, as Ted is his own guy and is kind of impossible to read on these matters.

But ever since I discovered this lack of connection, there’s been a lurking feeling in the back of my mind. Indiscernible, hard to correlate… but it was there. Since I am an atheist, and since there is (for me) no God, then there is no set road for me, no fate, no destiny. I am truly and completely free to do anything I please.

Interestingly enough though, that was not the idea in its entirety: it was satisfactory, but there was still another lesson to be learned. Was it that I now had more responsibility? That’s a given. Redemption and forgiveness were now dictated by other people and myself, and not an omniscient thing? Well, duh. The fact that without a God, I now had more personal power? That’s cool. I like that.

And then tonight happened.

I went to go visit Kitteh for awhile tonight. It’s a ridiculously hot March evening, and I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I’ve just eaten dinner with my Mom, and I was really content. Kitteh and I talked about Mad Men (she loves it), skirts, mail, work, involuntary voluntary work (or “training” as it’s called) and all kinds of things. But eventually, it was time for me to go. I helped her with her laundry, kissed her goodnight, and started to head home when all of a sudden, I stopped.

In front of me was a back-alley dirt-way. The path stretched out in front of me, long and dark in areas while light in others. The pebbles and gravel of the path lent a rough, callous quality to the path, its bumpy texture evident in the strips of light from the parallel residence building. Overhanging branches from nearby trees cast long, spindly shadows over the path while the poles and pillars and supported wires cast their suitably thicker, dark umbrae over the path. Tire tracks from muddier days drew gouges in the pathway, crisscrossing and intersecting with footprints to show a road travelled by many, remembered by few.

And I thought to myself, my, what a simple way to represent my life; simple at its outset, yet a closer look reveals a bumpy road that winds a little. Light represented the good times, only bright because the shadows could provide the contrast needed to make the good times great. Gouges and sticks showed that things can change my life irrevocably, and will leave me scarred. As easy as it was to imagine that this path was my life, I realized something a little terrifying.

At the end of the path, there were no more lights. The adjacent building blocked the lights from any nearby rooms. Meanwhile, trees clawed across the gap, blocking my vision of the end of the path.

It’s at this point I figured out what a terrifying choice I’ve made, for I knew that, unlike what Ted thought, there was nothing at the end of this path.

At the end of the path, I was going to be alone in the dark.

I have to remember my earlier lessons though: it might be dark, but that’s if I leave it like that. I have the responsibility and power to change that. I have Kitteh. I have goals, and I have dreams.

I’ll light my own way, and people will be there to help me.

I refuse to be alone in the dark.

The Slaying Stone, Castle Party Style: Part 1

Hey everyone! I started DMing a D&D campaign, and I thought that it’d make for good blog material. For those who are D&D versed, we started with a Wizards published campaign, The Slaying Stone. So far, it’s pretty fun looking, and everyone’s enjoying it. Here’s hoping you enjoy it too.

—————-

The cold wind blew sleet hard into the faces of our four adventurers, the dark evening sky barely visible through the horrible weather. A tall dragonborn lead the way, his head bowed down to avoid the sleet from hitting his eyes. A human followed him, his arms folded into his sleeves, his face hidden under the loose hood he wore on his cloak. Immediately to the human’s right was an elf, who was talking excitedly to the human. The weather seemed to make him only more obnoxious. And behind them all was a young half elf, her gigantic lute hanging off her back. Though it must have weighed a tonne, she didn’t seem to really care much.

The dragonborn raised his head, and grunted. “There’s a light in the distance.” He then proceeded to drink a whole skin of booze like it was water, find a new skin from his pack, and then started drinking it too.

The elf sighed. “Any idiot can see that. Or are you blind?”

The dragonborn shrugged. “So long as you pay me, I’m good either way.” Another skin bit the dust. The human laughed a little before he said “That’s what your mom said.” Both he and the elf started laughing.

The dragonborn chuckled, and continued to lead the way to the dim light. In the distance, one could make out a wide river with a stone bridge to cross it. On the other side, the dim light form before illuminated a short tower, and the entire clearing there was surrounded by forest on all sides. It wasn’t any further than 100 feet away, which warmed the bones of the soggy adventurers.

As they began to make their way over to the building, the elf pricked an ear. Howls, in the distance, no further than 40 feet away and on either side. “Hey guys, there are wolves.”

“Wolves?” Asked  the human quizzically. “Oh noes, looks like we’re going to have to fight them or something.”

The dragonborn shrugged. “Okay, so I’ll go in front.”

A half elf skipped out from behind the human. “Okay! I’ll just sing them to death about how miserably I am.”

The human sighed. “Sure, whatever. It’s not like these things are particularly dangerous anyways.”

“Ha, like, not even. Have you SEEN these daggers? I can sneak attack the SHIT outta those things.” Just as the elf finished speaking, the wolves ran towards the group, fangs bared.

“ohshit-“The elf didn’t finish as the first wolf bit into the elf’s leg, dragging him away from the group.

The half -elf sprang into action. “Hold on, I’ll save yOOOOOW!” A second wolf bit into her thigh, dragging her towards a much bigger wolf, probably with the intent of making a meal of her.

“Well shit, this is going well.” The human noticed some wolves to the north of them, opposite the wolves dragging his friends away. “They’re screwed, let’s kill THESE guys instead!!” He reached out to the wolf’s mind, trying to crush it with his own. He settled on making the wolf do a jig.

I feel so PRETTY!

The dragonborn saw a wolf run around to the other side of a rock close to where the human was. He calculated that, because of the muddy ground, unless he froze it, there would be no way to close the gap with the wolf before it began to flank the group. Taking a running start, he used his ice breath to freeze the mud in front of him, and then did a powerslide. Which would have been awesome, had he not slipped on his scaly hide and crashed into a nearby tree instead.

“Well screw you two too then! I can get myself out of this mess JUST FINE!” Screamed the elf. He unsheathed his daggers and swiped at a wolf’s face, gouging the wolf’s left eye. It yelped in pain, letting go of his captive and backed off 10 feet to get ready for another attack.

Not too far away, the half elf was beating the wolf biting her over the head with… a lute? It wasn’t very effective at first, but a lucky swing to the side of the wolf’s head crushed its cranium, and sent the wolf’s body flying to the side. The large wolf, the alpha, recalculated his plan and went after the dagger wielding danger to its right.

The human realized he couldn’t keep control of his target’s mind for much longer. Just as the wolf broke the mind control, the human focused all of his mystical might into one, all out mental assault, meant to liquify the brain of any foolish enough to be on his bad side. All the feelings of crushing despair, malice, greed, hate, suffering, and of his mother-in-law came out in one all encompassing attack, lighting the battlefield with psychic energy.

The wolf stood still for a moment, shook its head, then looked at the human as if wondering what he was.

“… meow.” And the wolf slunk off into the night as if nothing was the matter. With that threat effectively dealt with, the human patted himself on the back. What could possibly go wrooOOOOOOOOW!

The dragonborn got up, and turned around to see his prey had bitten down hard into the human’s rear, exposing his undergarments. The dragonborn swore that this time… THIS TIME… that wolf was going down. The dragonborn took a run, jumped onto the ice. His perfect form, his grace, and his skill slid him across the ice like a professional skater at the Olympics. He hopped off, readied his mace, and made a running charge…

Which cause him to trip on a root, go flying through the air, and land squarely on top of the wolf, causing it to yelp, and begin to run away. The dragonborn slowly got up, looked towards the wolf, and immediately began to curse and swear, eventually throwing his mace at the darkness where the wolf once was.

Which, largely due to a coincidence, sheer luck, or the fact that it was a million-in-one chance, hit the wolf square in the head so hard that, even in the darkness, the explosion of gore was impossible to miss. Go figure.

While the dragonborn contemplated why his dice gods hated him and loved him at the same time, the dagger wielding elf had problems of his own. His leg was bleeding profusely, and was completely unusable. To top it all off, those wolves dragged his perfect hair through the MUD. Someone was going to have to pay.

To be fair, it was a really expensive haircut.

He found the target of his wrath to be the large wolf right in front of him. Readying his crossbow, he took aim and fired a single, amazing shot; coincidentally, the shot was so perfect that, thanks to the rules of fiction, the wolf was somehow able to dodge the shot at the last possible second, causing the bolt to hit a nearby squirrel.

The squirrel’s last thoughts went as such, as far as we know: why me?

The wolf, happy that his freakishly good luck had paid off, decided that it was a good time to make a meal of this elf. And he might have succeeded had it not been for the half-elf coming out of nowhere and clobbering him over the back of his neck with a lute far more suited for clubbing small mammals than any actual music.

The last wolf looked out over the battlefield. These morons had somehow overcome his pack of highly trained, highly organized brothers who had hunted many people before. Then he remembered: oh, right. Player characters. Overpowered. Why didn’t I think of that?

At this point, he ran off, and became a major character that would haunt the adventurers for the rest of this adventure, and vowed revenge, which increased his chances of an epic show down, but probably means he was going to die anyway.

With the battle over, the group bandaged their wounds and made their way to the building they saw in the distance earlier. Whoever lived in there better have had a damn good reason for not coming to help them kill those wolves.

As they opened the door to the tower, an older woman greated them. Runes in various languages covered her wrinkled face, creating the weird impression that light just didn’t interact with her face properly. Behind her stood an older man, his white hair and short beard in perfect condition and maintenance. Rich.

When the adventurer’s asked why they didn’t help, the old lady answered. “Well, we’re old and infirm. We were shouting for you to come to us, but it seems like you handled the whole thing well enough. Come in! We have food and shelter and-”

Before she could finish, the dragonborn had not only finished at least 5 bottles of expensive wine from his sack, but he barged into the room.

“Oh yeah?!” he began. “Well, how’s about I show YOU what… like… *hic* what YOU like… FUCK IT.”

Whether through sheer force or sheer stupidity, the dragonborn tore off his chainmail pants, revealing his naked underside. He then shook his hips too and fro, scarring the entire group and rendering them all potentially mad.

He learned from the best.

The old lady, suitably unimpressed with anything the dragonborn was showing, cast a quick spell. As quickly as the chainmail pants had come off, they were on the dragonborn once more, but this time with a belt.

“And those,” she said with a hint of smug satisfaction, “are NEVER coming off.”

“Not even to poop?” He asked.

She thought for a minute. “Nope.”

“Crap.”

WTF Saturday Night

A Quiet Start
A Saturday night, a long time ago in a city that is, at the moment, a few hours away, I was alone. Which, really, wasn’t so bad. I was kinda prepared for a slow night of gaming, reading, maybe some food and then bed. As I begin to meander to my room, I get a text. Expertly twirling my phone from my pocket, the text read “Hey can I come over? Is there anything going on?”

It’s from Kitteh! Well, I’m totally cool with her coming over, so I wrote back “Yeah, sure. Nothing’s going on though.” Didn’t matter to her, she came over anyway, and brought some drinks with her. And who am I to refuse drinking with a pretty woman?

So we’re having some drinks when the idea of watching a movie comes up. Considering that the rest of my housemates are gone, it means we can watch anything without bugging anyone. Not that anything would bug anyone, but it does mean we had free reign of my buddy’s X-Box to watch movies.

So far, seems like a quiet, fun night for just me and m’lady. That’s something I’m cool with.

Escalation
While we’re in the middle of watching Kill Bill, the rest of my housemates come back home with a couple of other friends. Not that I was expecting them, but I wasn’t sure when. So the atmosphere of the room went from laughing at the copious amounts of hyper high pressure blood to barely being able to hear the T.V at all. Noise everywhere! When everyone got settled though, we all started laughing at the ridiculousness that is Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2.

Pretty much this.

After 4 hours of watching movies though, people get hungry. And what a better way to be less hungry with a group of people than to go the nearest McDonalds? Just as soon as we have some home made Jalapeno Poppers.

McD’s, or that run in with Brigit
As we hop into the van to get to McD’s, we realize there’s not quite enough seating for everyone. So I volunteer to stand where there isn’t a seat. I felt pretty badass.

The McD’s is only about 3 minutes away by car, so it didn’t take long to get there. Much like Russian clowns exiting a clown car, we piled out of the van and got inside the McD’s.  It’s one of those newly renovated ones, with the McCafe and the many attempts to make the fast food joint look like a fancy upscale restaurant. Which is hilarious considering that I go there to eat the complete opposite kind of food.

As we get inside, we line up. It’s not a super long line, but it takes awhile to get through the people in front of us. As we get closer and closer to getting to order, a brand new group of people gets in line behind us. What kind of people? Well, it’s 2-3am on a Saturday night: drunk, loud, and dressed to… impress other students. In any case, there were at least 3 girls and 2 guys or so.

I was standing next to my housemate Steve. He quickly gets initiated, against his will, into a conversation with one of the girls. We quickly found out her name was Brigit, that she was “Soooooooooo drunk, lol!” and that she wasn’t kidding. At this point, Kitteh was finished ordering and she was waiting on the other side of a throng of people waiting to get food. I looked at her, smiled, and then froze as something began tickling my ear.

I’m a lot like a dog. If someone I’m comfortable with (Read: Kitteh) scratches my chin, or my ears, I really enjoy it. In this particular case, I was not comfortable with this. I couldn’t really turn around, and being not comfortable turned very quickly into being really, really awkward. From what I could hear behind me, and from Steve laughing next to me, it was Brigit who was scratching my ear with a $20 bill.

If I thought this was awkward, I hadn’t seen Kitteh’s face yet. I looked to my left, and I’ve never seen her so angry in my life. I mean, it wasn’t the kind of angry girls usually do when they just ignore the shit out of you either. It was the kind that definitely meant she wanted to kick some ass.

And so joyously!

It’s at this point that Brigit saw her face too. She immediately went from laughing her ass off to realizing “oh shit.” Now I know how scary Kitteh can look when she’s angry, but Brigit just booked to the other side of the line, and didn’t come back to bug people for a good 2-3 minutes. When she did though, she proceeded to poke the guy in front of me with the same $20 bill. When he turned around, Steve immediately looked at me.

“Phiiiiiil. Why would you do that?”

Well shit. It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! Seriously! See the outrageously drunk woman behind me? She did it! And then he framed me for it!

Yeah, he didn’t believe me.

After ordering some McMini’s, I reunited with Kitteh. We started talking about Brigit and what the living ^%$# happened when all of a sudden Brigit started shouting.

“Like, oh my gaaaaawd! How did you know my naaame?! You’re psychic! You can read my mind! Ohhhhh miiiiiii gaaaaaawd! Why would you doooo thaaaat?!”

Steve is laughing his ass off, as is most of the rest of the line. Brigit is freakin’ out. Kitteh and I are just standing there, food in hand. What the heck just happened?

It’s at this point that Kitteh makes he way to the Ketchup for her fries, and that Steve makes his way over. Turns out that Brigit bet him he couldn’t guess her name.  Which she told us not 5 minutes ago. The rest from there was history.

We grouped back up and made our way back to the van, which took about 5 minutes to get everyone else’s orders. Once we got rolling, we saw Brigit and her friends trying to jay walk the street. What a perfect opportunity.

We screamed past them, honking the horn as much as possible. I’ve never seen women run in heels so fast in my life.

That was the last we saw of Brigit.

Headed Home
At this point, we headed back home (A.K.A, the Castle. That’s a short story for another time) and piled out of the van. At this point, Kitteh remembers she forgot her drink at the McDonalds, curses and swears, and then proceeds to describe exactly how mad she was at Brigit and it was being that angry that caused her to forget her drink. At this point, we were inside the house, and Ryan, my other housemate, decided to start trolling.

“How mad would you get if I started scratching Phil’s ear?”

“I’d hit you.” Simple enough answer. It’s at this point that Ryan started scratching my ear.

So as I was just standing there, Ryan scratched my ear. As he scratched my ear, Kitteh then proceeded to smack him silly, which evolved into a pillow war.

After about 45 minutes of provoking Kitteh’s wrath, I needed to walk her home. We ate our food, put on our coats, and left for her place. We talked about Brigit, the lost drink, the car drifting closer to our sidewalk, the dodgeball that had been launched from the passenger side window.

Wait, what?

As the ball flew uselessly beside us, we saw a campus police car start following the drive-by-dodgeballers. Kitteh and I btoh just looked at each other, shrugged, and contemplated how that car looked a lot like Ryan’s car, and that we’d keep the dodgeball as a trophy of our passive ninja-dodge skills.

Conclusion
Once I had walked Kitteh to her room, I got back home only to find the rest of my housemates laughing their asses off. Why? because Kitteh was right: they were the ones who threw the dodgeball at us.

Exhausted and exasperated, I went to bed. Quiet nights at the Castle just don’t exist.