A proposal

Now that you folks are all properly D&D'd, who would be interested in playing online, in a play-by-post setting? (Reh, I am looking at you in particular, given our brief bout of pbp after Austria, but I know Vala has done it in the past too. I have no idea if Widge or Daph would be interested)

The point is, I am trying to recruit more GOOD writers to come play online D&D with NE (Butter) and me on http://www.myth-weavers.com - a pbp community that has a lot of wonderful devices to make D&D (and several other tabletop-style games) easy to be played online. You've heard about NE's long-running game that he's turning into a book, no doubt. He's starting two new games with premises I think you'll find VERY interesting, so if you're even mildly interested give one of us a holler and we'll give you a grand tour and answer any questions you might have.

Here's a brief summary of what we're recruiting for, complete with links:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=56434

This is the recruiting thread for "Ascent into Darkness," a dark, twisted story which will basically chronicle the origins of the Drow - starting from a slave race with shining ideals and ending with the evil underground race we D&D-ers love to hate. Anyone who doesn't mind telling a dark story with a slightly less happy ending than most (I'm looking at YOU, Reh) should find this game VERY interesting.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=56496

This is the recruitment thread for the game I'll be playing in, "The Greatest Sin." The setting is a continent physically cut off from their Creator-god by a deadly barrier for sinning. They are desperately trying to win their way back to the god's good graces by repenting, only they have no documentation in their history of what this "Greatest Sin" is. Very interesting setting, should be a lot of fun. I myself am playing a pipe-smoking psion potter. Probably.

Hardcore

Almdorf doesn't know anything about Northern Germany where their namesake comes from. Neither do they know German, but that hasn't stopped them from making a critically aclaimed record with nearly half the lyrics in German. Smile if it Sounds Dope sounds like a train wreck that happened to be in the middle of an airport while three planes simultaneously landed on the spot; the singer having to sing over all the noise, but not holding back the primal fear, rage, and pain of it all. Have a leopard sing "Aus hat man einen / my whore / my bed / Dorf wurde / cold core / rage / dread / WELPEN!" layer this under the noise of described destruction above, and throw in a few recognizable notes. You have Almdorf.

It's not easy being a coffee conglomerate that makes billions of dollars a year, especially when you made your fortune convincing people that you were the cool and hip local coffee shop. Starbucks has balanced their fame by not only selling coffee, but cds, books, and other things that make them seem trendy. To make things worse, they have found that issues sell. That's where the band Wealth Condensation comes in. Not only are their lyrics highly emotional with a social upswing, but their sound is so cultural that it hurts. Unfortunately, they often don't check which countries their instruments are from, so it's not unknown to be singing about Africa using only Indian instruments. This is balanced by their price, a mere $24.95 with a grande latte to go.

What my life isn't...

Scratch came out in the late 90's, riding the Seattle music scene. Their previous albums - "Buy Me" and "Don't Touch That Rabid Squirrel" tried to capture their inner lives. Unsurprisingly, both albums flopped because none of the band members were deep enough to make compelling lyrics about their inner lives, and because they tried to make their music all natural. Trash cans have already been done and they were done much better than them. They finally scratched that idea and, after 2001, came out with "exciting times" which was a modern country album with patriotic songs such as "You can't do that to me," and "Crash and Burn". It was met with fangirls aplenty, only proving that fame is only one sell-out away.

One More...Then I'm Done

This unfortunately named one off band is comprised of artists who have all lost their fathers in tragic ways and have decided to remember them through music...thus their albums title. It is a collection of slow classic guitar and piano pieces with a 70s folk and country feel. (This is honestly what first came to mind when the pieces came together.)

This is not good, Vala.

I have no idea what sort of music I play anymore...

Oh man I've got tons.

Ok here's my favorite so far. It's totally a 60's style rock band. They're from Boston but have travelled around Europe a lot. This is their third album, taking things in a little more angry direction with a bit more feedback on the guitars and politically driven lyrics, while still in keeping with their existential and trippy earlier sound. Ned Filagree leads with raspy vocals and a wailing Les Paul, John Cremming picks a brilliant note on rythm, Greg Pours plays bass, and Ryan Broke smashes the drums. Comparisons have rightly been made to some of the darker sounding Beatles and The Doors but with a more modern approach, similar to The Vines. The hit single "Make Money" on this album is only 2:24 minutes but packs a wallop with a quiet first half, the band on clean amps, switching to the loud distortion this album is making an impression with at the onset of the chorus, "Cram it in your fist / Strike it off your list / Make Money / Make Money / Do whatever it takes." Other notable tracks include "Pickpocket Loans" and "Gregarious City".

I've got a whole lots more too so I'll post some later or something.

Here I am:

Ah, but what am I playing?

Band Cover Boredom

So I know I already told the Contextualists about this little time passer but I felt the need to share it with the whole group. Its kinda fun and wacky and with a large enough group of people doing this it can get pretty fun...for a little while. Here's how you do it.

Step 1: go to wikipedia and select "random article"- this is your band name.
Step 2: go to wikiquote and select "random page" then find last 3-5 words of the last quote - this is your album name.
Step 3: go to Flickr and go to "from the last 7 days" (on bottom) select one of any of the nine pictures displayed - this is your album cover's picture.
Step 4: create album cover.
Step 5: Share it.
Step 6: Argue with people about what kind of music your band plays based on the name and cover. Come up with silly histories or backgrounds for your band to add flavor.


This is my favorite creation so far. The band, as you can see, is called Great Conspiracy and their latest album is, kind of fittingly, "Honesty, Economy, and Justice". They're probably a poor quality punk rock band out of Hawaii.(those are the lava fields outside of the Kona airport on the Big Island.)

The Circle is Now Complete

I tried to come up with something witty to say here...something along the lines of Six there are now yet four set out from Newbold or some other modified movie quote like that but it's just not happening today(when is it ever?). The most appropriate, I think, is the title but then that's been used to death.

Ah well...All the people formerly known as Smkrs have been married off and the numbers are all nice and even now. The Contextualists have left the wastes of LA and settled in fair and funky Stumptown, which they seem to have been made for, to join the Random Factors. Now all that needs to be done is to get the Butter Lovers down to Stumptown or its vicinity and we'll truly be able to say, in our best dark lord voices, the circle is now complete.

dead-listed

I just wanted to let Avi and Ande know that I have officially dead-listed their blogs.
They ought to join Butter in his blatant declarations of never writing.

It would be less embarrassing, perhaps.
At the very least, less annoying.

But either way, it has been dropped to the dead list on my blog.
I think that earns you each a rusty star.

There you go. Enjoy (and don't prick yourself on it).

Clean up.

I have been cleaning up my old blogs - inactivating, mostly. However, this inspired a clean-up of copyright dates as well. Which led to this conclusion:

There are far too many drafts wafting about this place.
What's the deal?

Obviously, Vala thinks he has a lot to say, but in fact (as I just spent the last minute finding out), he has nothing to say at all.
That's right. The first few drafts left there by dear Vala are completely and utterly blank. They aren't even titled, so one who might catch them can't even guess at what he thought he might be thinking to say at the time.
How very inspiring, Vala. I'm not going to post those.

Or perhaps I should, to your shame.
But that would take up alot of space. So I won't be posting them.

Most of the other drafts are bits and pieces here and there that someone at one time or another thought might be somewhat inspiring to read, or simply to post. They might be well-meant, but most of them aren't even very sensical. They fail only a little less than Vala's.

And so, I won't be posting them either. I will simply clean house and clear out these bits of dust from things we all think we might say, but find a few words in that there is nothing at all in it.

No, on second thought, I will post them all to shame everyone. Yes, even myself (Please do note all of the unfinished sentences and even words, as I find them severely convincing.)

And there we are. A clean house.
Back to posting, everyone (but no more drafting, you nitwits!).
-PageMaster

Choose "No" if you are having post [layout] problems.

[Fateduel 12.28.08]
Four of us already know this but, it is rather white outside right now.

[Valakun 11.16.08]
(nothing at all)

[Ralikat 9.06.08]
Title: Incoming
As of Monday, the Contextualists will be packing all of their belongings into a four-foot-too-long Penske truck and heading your way. We aren't certain where we are putting this

[Valakun 6.04.08]
(more nothing)

[Fateduel 11.25.07] (please note the year)
"You are insignificant."
Which means it's ok for me to hurt, Rali, I know.
(to everyone else) I hear that one a lot; it must just be new to you.

Anyway, I just thought I should let everyone know, including Daphne (and mostly directed at Daphne, as well) we now have a whopping 7 teapots.
An Italian handmade white teapot with little hens crafted into a ring around the top.
A tall white teapot with blue floral patterns around the top and bottom.
A smallish teapot with cartoon pictures of well known Scotti

[Anduneanna 11.24.07]
Title: New Post

You are insignificant.

As it is such a rare circumstance I thought I should announce here that there is a new post on my blog for any smkrs still interested.

[Anduneanna 11.24.07]
Title: New Post

You are insignificant. *this is still highly entertaining, did you do it Rali?*

As it is an extremely rare circumstance I thought I should announce that there is actually a new post on my blog for any smkrs still interested.

[Valakun 11.16.07]

"You are insignificant."

Apparently i'm insignificant.

At least according to blogger or some random internet godling that is.

My response?

Meh...

[Andunneana 11.15.07]
Title: You are stupid.

I came to post this morning due to the lack of intelligent posting of late and a fun thing that happened this morning and found the above line sitting in the body of my new post. Now you must understand the full context and absurdity of it all. I signed in to blogger, clicked on the new post link under the smoke zone and the posting page came up with "You are stupid." sitting in the body section. I had looked away and when I saw it it rather stunned me and caused a silly little giggle to escape. So now my question, is this something that our great god of blogging stuck in for fun *wink at rali* or if it was a hiccup in the cosmic psyche of blogger? Any thoughts? Or could it be that simply am stupid? Well on to my original post material.

Apparently, everyone had a hard time commenting to the wild (occasionally rude) comments left by blogger in our text box. I can't imagine why.

As all of you know:

The contextualists were marked on Friday.

This is just for posterity's sake.

I hope we always remember like we remember right now.