• Navel Gazing.

    Last time I checked out iCandy, I was in a strange mood. I sat in a dark corner entertaining people with the neon wand and typed up an article on my phone, something that was technically against the rules of the club. This time, I’m in the same corner, but I’ve brought along a laptop and so my ability to type has greatly increased. I’m sure on some level, this is probably against the spirit of the rules, though I doubt anyone has been strange enough to bring a laptop with them to necessitate such rules. But, as always, I am the exception that prompts the rules, or at least the discussion regarding the rules.

    Much of this intro can probably be discarded as irrelevant and pointless, but part of the process is to just develop the content, let the fingers flow across the keys and see what flows out. Sometimes, it’ll be something interesting, and sometimes it’ll be random noise. But there’s something to be said for the RNG. And at least I didn’t pull out the laptop and start playing KoL.

    As a venue, I’m fond of Club 8×6. I still think the sound can be overwhelming at times, especially right now, while the pounding base is making it hard to type. Still, the people on the dance floor seem to be enjoying it. Briefly, I’m remind of the rave from Blade, and raves in general. This place has something of that in it, in it’s own way. The dance floor is less packed than one would expect from a rave, but there’s still a decent crowd enjoying it.

    This particular piece won’t be making it into EV, since I’m currently focused too much on my own navel gazing. More than half the EV staff are here tonight though. Reive is around somewhere, I think. I am pretty sure I saw him earlier, though I haven’t spoken to him. I know our mysterious Editor and her man are around here, I checked in with them earlier. I was reminded that if I’m going to get people to embrace Slack I need to make better use of it myself. Mikey and Dave Toxic are around, I’ve spent a bit of time chatting with both of them. They seem in high spirits, which is good. Mikey is thinking he wants to work on his New Years piece. I suspect the battery on my hotspot will die before then, unless I stop at 7-11 for a cheap USB cord to recharge it.

    Here I am at a party, near the supplies that one could use to write up a name tag, and yet I haven’t bothered to make one for myself. I could put myself out there, with the green card. I could make an effort to signal and communicate non-verbally, my interest in play of various forms. Except that to do that, I’d have to actually be able to put into written word what my interest is. And despite the various fantasies that still exist in my brain, I’m not sure what I’m actually interested in at this point. I’ve interest in things, but I’m not sure I know how to handle the fancy wiring bits to turn the facade into something functional.

    Interestingly enough, so far only two people have commented on the laptop and the fact that I’m sitting here typing away. I’m not sure what that says about our culture, if anything at all.

    Earlier, I was playing a board game, Splendour, with one of the cupids, the on site matchmakers. Nice guy, and he picked up the game fairly quickly. I think it fits in as one of the appropriate games for this sort of venue. It’s simple enough to teach in a few minutes, requires no complicated communication, and the cards and tokens are nicely resilient. The fact that we were playing a board game seemed to draw a considerable amount of attention, with a couple of people watching the majority of the game. Then again, it might have just been the time of night it was, early enough that things were still getting started. Hard to say.

    Nearly 700 words at this point, and only a handful that could be recycled into an article that is actually about this event. I suppose I could consider various approaches and focuses that would actually lead to a real article, but currently I’m not sure I have the fortitude for that. I think my navel gazing will continue for a bit longer.

    Given the article I wrote the other day on consent culture over on EV, I should be making an effort to connect with people and to play. But for whatever reason, I’m uninspired to do that. I think it’s the loud music and the lighting. It doesn’t strike me as a place to develop the rapport that I currently feel that I need. Though that might just be an excuse, a lie I’m telling myself to justify my lack of motivation, and my lack of motivation is probably rooted in my expectation of rejection. Polite rejection, I’m sure, but also inevitable rejection. I’m sure when she reads this, Recklie will roll her eyes, since she’s convinced that I’m the one rejecting connections. Or at least that was what she saw when she was looking through my chat logs the other day.

    Ah, fun. The fellow who triggered that unpleasantness the other night is standing over there. Also, standing across the way is the source of the original unpleasantness, though I’ve no concern about a conversation with him. His ego will protect me from that. The other fellow though, he might try to make conversation, though I suspect he also has other fish on his hot plate.

    Despite the negativity in my current view, I seem to be writing with a certain wit, one that I can’t recall having access too recently. Perhaps I should continue with the Drunken Wormhole project. Though I really need to rename that. It needs a proper title, something that hints at the end game, rather than throwing it out there without the appropriate ceremony.

    It’s funny, I’m feeling like my bubble is being invaded by the people flirting near me. It’s gotten to the point where it’s actively disrupting my ability to write. Damn.

    More later, perhaps.

  • shower thoughts

    While I showered this morning, I thought about who I am and how I communicate. In some ways, I’m a fairly private person, and in others I’m rather open about things. I try to be transparent about things, and that means it’s mostly things that I feel have no ability to harm me. Areas where I feel vulnerable, become fairly obfuscated. They are still there, but I tend to adjust the lighting around them so they’re harder to notice.

    For the most part, these tend to be things that I feel would be “whining” to talk about. I find I’m more about to write about them, because then I’m not actively taking up someone’s time, unless they choose to take the time to read it.

    I don’t recall how much I’ve actually expressed about various things. I know I’ve ranted about them from time to time, but it’s generally been to a fairly limited audience.

    I think I need to work on that. But in the mean time, I suspect I’ll just spend more time writing about it here.

  • Review – Xia: Legends of a Drift System

    Background : (Why I got the game, skip if you don’t care about context)

    A while back, I heard great things about Xia from a couple of different people. A guy at the local Trumpeteer Gaming club was drooling over the copy he’d gotten from the Kickstarter campaign, and it was mentioned by a couple of podcasts I’d listen to. I’ve gotten a bit burnt out on Kickstarter, after the Zombicide and Miskatonic School for Girls failed to live up to the hype. I’ve still got the bonus minis for Zombicide, which are apparently selling for a ton each, though not locally, and I’m trying to decide how best to sell them off.  With that in mind, I wasn’t sure how much of the game’s hype was the post-Kickstarter rationalization process and how much was legitimate appreciation. Anyways, the other night, I accidentally sold off some Warhammer stuff that I’d had kicking around the basement and managed to get a copy of Xia : Legends of a Drift System in trade for the balance.

    The game is 3-5 players, and we happened to have 3 players over at my house last night. That gave us a choice between Xia and Dead of Winter, which I still haven’t played. Given that we’d spent a bit of time talking about Star Citizen that day, Xia was the obvious choice.

    Components and Setup :

    We opened the box and were impressed with the quality of the components. The materials feel great. Solid cardstock and a nice variety of pre-painted ships. And plenty of plastic storage bags for sorting out the components. It took us a bit of time to understand all the pieces and where they should go.

    We watched the Tutorial video on FarOffGames site, it helped quite a bit, though it didn’t go into the mechanics much. We read the rules, played the into game, the one with the 5 point goal. It went quickly, with Dimestore almost wining the game in his first turn, through a nice bit of luck in the draws. The other player, Kilo, managed to blind jump into a star, killing himself instantly. With that under our belt, we reset the game and started up again.

    First Real Game:

    This time, we set the point counter at 10 and put together our ships. I made an attempt to travel into the the nebula to harvest plasma to sell on a nearby planet. I managed to get one cube worth of energy from the nebula before my ship’s power supply had been drained to the point where I was worried I wouldn’t make it back to the dock to recharge. Dimestore decided to try scanning for new systems, wary of blind jumping into danger. Kilo decided to pick up a couple of missions and managed to perform “Science!” on a local planet. Basically, the game was living up to the promise of being a sandbox. Dimestore blind jumped through the shields of one of the planets, getting himself a bounty in the process. We attempted to find the rules for getting rid of a bounty, but apparently you can’t buy them off, not that he really had the credits for it anyways. One of the discovered planets was willing to sell plasma so I was able to set up a nice trade route, running plasma from one planet to another. Kilo continued to perform missions while Dimestore explored, looking for a planet to deliver his mission to. He managed to find an amazingly powerful trade route, one that could be achieved twice during a single turn. These two trade routes turned into a race to see who could upgrade their ship the fastest, and we hit the 10 point marker before getting to play with the tier 3 ships. I think next time we’ll play a longer game.

    We sorted out the components and cleaned up the game, and it’s definitely on our list to play again in the future. After that, I updated my game list over on Boardgamegeek, putting in ratings for a bunch of things we hadn’t bothered to rate.

    Summary :

    I like it, and I’ll play it again. It has a nice mix of space theme, cool mechanics and options for gaining Victory points. It is very much a sandbox game, which is something I’ve always been fond of in video games, but hadn’t really seen much of in the way of board games.

    The models are all really neat and fairly distinctive. The ships each have their own special powers and the outfit system, which is basically an inventory-tetris mini-game for the various components and the cargo, works really well. I can imagine an expansion that includes missions with specific cargo requirements that would be really interesting.

    It does require a decent amount of table space, and we probably need to come up with some better solutions for storing the outfits. While piling them up in stacks on the table sort of works, they tend to get messy once you start upgrading ships and moving them to make more space on the table.

    I think one video game comparison would be FTL, though I’ve seen others compare it to Freelancer. Television wise, it’s clearly Firefly or maybe Red Dwarf. Or I suppose Cowboy Bebop.

    I’m not sure how common the game is at this point, but it’s certainly not impossible to get currently, unlike a few other games I could mention. If someone in your local gaming circle has it, give it a try. If not, it might be worth getting, as the component are a good value for the cost and the game is quite a bit of fun.

  • Drunken wormhole 0.25

    “Let me get this straight, you’re pounding on his door to tell him his fiancée’s parents are going to murder him if he doesn’t get her home immediately” she paused, grinning “and he tells you that he just came out of the closet. And neither of you find that funny.” She quirked her eyebrow, “at all?”

    “I would, if I knew where she was. Maybe.” He sighed and rubbed his head. The coffee was helping a bit. “I’m worried about her.”

    “You two broke up, didn’t you? Why is it your problem where their spoiled brat ended up?” She frowned at James and then turned to the other man. “And what the hell Duggan, why are you playing their messenger boy?”

    The grizzled man rolled his eyes. “Campus security, kinda my job. Faculty upset about missing student daughter, that’ll be paperwork.” His tone was light, but his muscles were tensed. “I’d really like to avoid another incident.” He quoted with his fingers. “The last one, do you know how many hours I spent staring at the footage?”

    “John, look, I don’t remember much. I don’t even really remember the fight that Anna here has clearly heard about.”

    “You don’t remember the fight? You don’t remember how she slapped you in front of a handful of your friends, and shoved you into the bushes. How can you not remember that!?”

    “Oh, well, that does explain these.” James slides back his shirt sleeves and rubs his finger along a series of scratch marks on his forearms.

    “Damn it man.” Duggan reaches down into his knapsack and pulls out a red kit. He unzips it and pulls James’ arms across the cafe counter towards him. His manner is mechanical as he inspects the wounds. He taps his earpiece once and resumes his examination. “Record. Medical supply log. James Gorman. Minor scratches on both arms. Application of disinfectant and the goo. Both containers still fairly full. End and mark for transcription.”

  • Drunken Wormhole 0

    “Alcohol is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.” – Homer Simpson –

    For James Arthur Gorman, it certainly started his problems. Gorman was invited out to a party to celebrate his recently published paper; not normally a drinker, the good news and lack of stress encouraged some indulgence. A whirling dance of images and sounds later, he wakes up to a pounding in his skull and on his door. Disoriented, he attempts to make sense of where he is. He’s on the ground, in a small space; reaching out his arms find the walls with ease. He can easily touch the four walls. Reaching up, he finds cloth above him. His hands continue to explore the room, eventually finding the something cold. It shifts and the wall behind him falls backwards, spilling him out into the light, burning into his brain. The image that floats above his tightly shut eyes is familiar to him, but somehow wrong. Then he realizes it’s wrong because while it’s his living room, it’s upside down. Except it can’t be, so he must be. The pounding continues, louder now.

    His mouth opens and he tries to speak. The sound that comes out is incoherent, but the pounding stops. At least the pounding outside his head.

    “James, are you in there? Open the damn door!”

    James; that was him. He should answer. He should get up, and find water and pull himself together.

    “James, we need to talk. What the hell happened last night?”

    Last night – that was a blur. He tried to remember, but the images wouldn’t hold still. “I, we, celebrated…” his voice sounded hoarse but he was able to form words. “… I woke up in the closet. I’m about half way out so far.”

     

  • Post Mortem. New Years.

    Well, I went out for New Years eve. And not long ago, I made it home. The last leg of my trip home was a 3 km walk, from Renfrew up to my place. During the walk, I had a decent amount of time to reflect. Right now, my gut says that it was likely my last night out at Noir or other kink events for the foreseeable future. It was not a bad night, but a few minor things have left me feeling like I need to take some time away from things for a bit. The difficult part of that is that I’ve recently committed to helping grow Erotic Vancouver, including a highlight article on the upcoming Taboo show. I’d also started to spearhead a charity project, but either someone else can pick that idea up or it can sit on the back burner for a while. I’m sure very little of this makes sense, and part of it is probably the result of the minimal amount of sleep I managed last night, but I need to pay more attention to my boundaries, rather than ignoring them as I’ve tended to do. If something makes me feel wrong or upset, I should get some space from it. So that’s what I’m doing.

  • between xmas and new years.

    Well, it’s the 29th of December. On Wednesday, I’ve got a shift, and then in theory, I could go out to Noir. I’ll have friends there, and I’ll have the excuse of having the neon wand set up for demos. Though if I’m doing that, I’ll be sober. And right now, I have an odd inclination to get drunk again. The problem with that is that I lack someone to make sure I get home safe.

    Odds are, I’d be fine. I have a tendency to stay functional, no matter how drunk I get. But at the same time, I’ve got a certain paranoia about that.

    It seems like it would be easier to stay home and play Dragon Age Inquisition for 18 hours straight, while drinking caffeine and perhaps something alcoholic. Or not. I bought the game for myself for my birthday, still haven’t opened it yet. Would have saved money by buying it on boxing day.

    Money hasn’t been a big motivator for me, because when I start to think about it, I tend to become a jerk. If I ignore it, I’m not greedy, but if I start to focus on it, I become much more mercenary. It’s an aspect of myself that I don’t like. It’s also something that gets me in trouble, when I don’t bother to budget properly. But, I’m getting better at that.

    This post, and probably the last few posts have lacked punch. They’ve lacked something worth reading. But, it’s better that I write and get things out of my head. It’s good to practice, playing with my words. One area I really need to work on is dialogue, since that’s an area I think I’m weakest in. I have a hard time with the nuances of natural conversation.

    I’ve got two posts, maybe three, that are in my drafts folder. One of them has actual thought behind it. I think I need to take some time to work on them. But it’s hard to get into the right headspace lately.

    I think I need to adjust my days off in the new year, preferably so I’m getting a pair of days off in a row, rather than the On-On-On-Off-On-Off-On schedule that I’ve been doing. I think that’ll help me in clearing my head and getting out of the bit of a rut that I feel like I’ve gotten into creatively.

    With Christmas and New Years over, the next thing on the Horizon will be Taboo, which will be interesting this year. I’ll be working for Erotic Vancouver and we’ve got some awesome Taboo plans. After that, Valentine’s day, and with luck, my Saint Valentine’s day charity massacre. And then Gotta Con. I’ve got a few plans for that, though I suspect it’ll be a little weird.

  • Signal to Noise Ratios

    I’ve long been known to rant about my frustration with the modern world in regards to the signal to noise ratios, specifically the frustration I have with the difficulty of recognising craft from dross.

    We are in an era where everyone can have a voice, but most haven’t developed the skills required to recognise when it is wisest to be quiet.

    In various circumstances, that ignorance benefits those who are either playing the odds or who are oblivious to negatives of the reactions they generate. Some individuals are happy to spray forth a stream of generalised inquires, happy with their 1% (or less) response rate, because they are at least getting responses.

    I tend to prefer to craft something personal, taking the time to consider what I can learn about them from what they’ve written and what I think the possible connections could be.

    The problem is, both of those messages appear in the inbox in the same way. While I can do a little to distinguish myself from the horde, the messages will only convey that to someone who is actually looking for it, and most are simply scanning, as it is but one of fifty plus messages that they’ve received since their last log on.

    It is a case of signal to noise. Like using an old analog radio in a crowded space. As you twist the dial, you’ll pick up snatches of content. Sometimes, you’ll find something that interests you, but most of the time you’ll settle on something clear, rather than finding what you really want.

  • ships sunk.

    This is the fourth or fifth time I’ve opened a window and stared at the page, trying to clean up my thoughts into words. The last few times I’ve decided to install Linux or browse Facebook instead of actually writing.

    I’m having a hard time expressing myself because I don’t consider my current concerns to have high stakes. They are meaningless in the bigger picture. Petty and small, yet somehow they are still managing to cripple me.

    Not to long ago, I looked at a thread on reddit asking people why they were really single. While I thought about what my answer would be, I scanned through the list, plenty of people with answers along the same lines as mine would have been. Obviously I’m not alone in being alone.

    A friend was trying to help me with my OK cupid profile the other day. She’d found a great guy on there, and figures I should be able to have the same luck.

    I appreciate her support, but a big part of the problem is that while I’m lonely, I’m not sure how ready I am to actually be involved with anyone.

    A few months back I met someone from the site and we got along well. It seemed like it was something, but suddenly it was gone. Before that I think I’d made various attempts at dating, but my recollections aren’t overly clear.

    I know at one point I’d thought I had chemistry with someone at a kink event and then been told that the person didn’t have time for any other relationships in their life. Not long after, that same person started complaining in her FetLife status posts about a lack of sadists in her life. At that point, I could have approached her, I could have commented on it, or a few other tactics. Instead, I removed her from my friends list, as it was my discomfort that was the issue.

    Perhaps that is a cowardly way of dealing with the issue, I likely would have considered it that a few years back. On the other hand, it was my problem. I was the one bothered by what was communicated and I had no real investment in the “friendship”, so best to move on.

    Is this a pattern of avoidance on my part? There is one girl that I’ve been talking to for a year or more, who I originally tried to help get out of an abusive relationship. We’ve hung out a few times, talked about it going somewhere, but it hasn’t gone past teasing. She also has an fwb who she is loyal to, but who doesn’t seem to deserve that loyalty. From what she has said, their relationship has violated her boundaries a few times, and she’s accepted it. It bothers me. She showed me what he got her for Christmas. That was a wake-up call for me. I’ve told her that I’m going to be distant for a while, that I’m probably going to be getting more distant. It bothers me that someone I am fond of is taking part of something that makes her sad.

    I’m sure I could talk longer about this, but I’ve run out of time for now.

    Back from dinner with the family, attempting to recover my train of thought.

    I have a handful of people that I’ve managed to open up to, but the amount I’ve opened up has probably been reshaped over the last few years. It’s probably deceptively shallow, in that the stuff I’ve gotten comfortable with has gotten broader, but the specific details have faded away.

    Apparently my psyche is best compared to a bog at this point. Random patches of solid ground surrounded by a mess of unstable soil, punctuated with random sink holes.

    The girl I’d mentioned earlier got upset with me for posting about her, rather than talking to her about the issue. I posted about it because I’m trying to understand the pattern that I’m going through. It was about her, but only in as much as she was someone who was there for it. The bigger issue, the thing I was writing about, was how I was handling things. Rather than making an attempt to compete, I’m backing down and wandering off.

    I’ve been doing that lately, but it’s also something I picked up a while ago. I don’t see the point in competing for people. Part of it is that people aren’t prizes, so competing for them isn’t something I’m comfortable with anymore. Part of it is that I’ve gotten a negative view of my own self worth.

  • Good news, but bad feelings

    I should be in a good place. I’ve got a job that I like and that I’m good at. I’ve got friends that I enjoy spending time with. I’ve got interesting projects that I’m working on. I have been getting a good night’s sleep most nights. My back isn’t bothering me, nor is my bad knee.

    And yet I’m not. I’m aware that I’m in this weird downward spiral of negativity. I don’t know how to get out of it. I’m fully aware of it, but nothing seems to help.

    I should get out and exercise more, maybe that will help. I took a walk today, maybe I’ll have time for one before work tomorrow.

    I attempted to make connections with people, attempted to find someone on a dating site, but that just leads to me doubting myself and my value. Not to mention the random blows to my ego that come from just being on a dating site.

    The whole dating site concept bothers me. I was having a conversation with someone on one of the sites, she asked for some info. I provided her with the information and a few days later asked if she’d had time to read it. Her response was that she that she had over 100 messages in her inbox, so she’d get back to me eventually. That’s great. I’m sure part of it is the whole shiny newbie fresh meat thing, but it’s also the fact that there are always plenty of men on dating sites, and from what I’ve seen, the majority of them are eager to find something. Hell, some would argue even desperate.

    When it comes down to it, it’s a signal to noise ratio issue. And I don’t have a clue how to build an amp, and I certainly can’t help anyone install a filter. I suppose the best I can do is look for alternative channels.