Ride with the moon in the dead of night

Halloween this year just ROCKED.

Halloween has always been one of my favorites, if not my favorite, holidays but for the last several years it’s been blah. No one seemed care about it. No one seemed to want to get a scare. No one seemed to want to dress up and be someone or something else. No one seemed to want to smile wickedly in the dark of night. This year however….

It all started about a week or two before the big day. Cathy, Zoe’s Mom, and I started making ghosts to hang around the house and they came out great. We, also, made a Scarecrow to hang up in the front of the house. Gourds of all shapes and sizes started appearing out of her garden. Pumpkins invaded our home and little monsters came out of their boxes to stand around the house and wander a tiny pumpkin patch made special for them. Later, Skeletal and Bat streamers slashed across the living room and spiders took over the front deck.

Saturday night at the Smoke and Mirrors a truly mystifying sight was to be held. A fabulous 6’4” Witch with a fabulous hat, fabulous boa, fabulous gloves, fabulous make-up (Done by Ms.Zoe) and a Fabulous accomplice was to be seen and all were stunned. Some by beauty, some by mystification. And never grab a Fabulous Witch’s tits unless you can take the same back. ; ]

Then last Sunday, a witch appeared in one of our kitchen windows and on our front door it read “Best Witches”. Spooky fiends from all over the bay area converged to slaughter and gut pumpkins, a sacrifice to spooky illuminations. Be careful of those who hold power tools and apply them to pumpkins…

The day itself. The conductor on the train and been replaced with cackling creepy voiced specter. The HQ of Logitech was over run with Umpaloompas, Witches, Priests, Football players, Cheerleaders, Mad Hatters, Car crash victims, Cruella DeVille, Surgens, and Fred Flintstone.

And that evening, on Husted Anevue in San Jose, while watching little Pokimon, Power Rangers, Ghosts, Witches, Dalmatians, Ballerinas, and Vampires stalk their treats, a little boy from 25 years ago ran along as Superman.

This Halloween was Great.

Take a chance and roll the dice

===========Volume 2========================
And I am finding a lot of good material form my Slavic Immortal. That's one thing people who play Immortals never think about, how much background and history the character would have. For example, I am going to be playing Denishka Taltos. Just coming up with the name was a challenge. Fortunately I found a website that has lots of ethnic names so the name is authentic. But I had the fellow born in 1784. You can't just stop there. With an Immortal you can't just say, "He's 6', has black hair, is mostly happy and works as a 7/11 store clerk." That's bad enough for a "normal" character, but to do that to an Immortal is just pathetic. So this means my picky self gets to read the history of the past 200 or so years. But it is worth it. A person is more than an occupation or an emotional state or hair color or height, hell they are even more than the events of their life. But all these things are part of a person and ignoring one pales the others.

Now is this a tirade about poor character development for RPGs or for Writing?

I must say that Denishka has taken on a life of his own as well. He started as this friendly Slav in the back of my head and is now a friendly Slav who is a priest and not only saved Anastasha but hid her and protected in the US after the Communist take over in Russia. And this is just the start.

Say it once say it twice

Its been a looong time since I have written anything, as I am sure is apparent for anyone who reads this. But, hey, I have been a busy little commuter. So what's been going on...

Work is great. I do have to get up way to early, 6am to get to work by 9am. It typically takes about 2.5 hours to and from, which is exhausting at times, but does mean I get good reading time. Logitech looks to be a fun company to work for. Everyone seems very friendly and happy and stuff. I have been working on line cards for their products to go to their distributors. Doesn't leave much room for creativity, but it does satisfy my orderly Capricorn goat. Lots of type and layout formatting and FAR too many corrections and revisions. ; } It seems every time I get a line cards done its back in my lap with new changes. But 6 of them are done and off to the printer so its too late for any changes!

So, as I mentioned, I have been getting lots of time to read. What have I been reading? Well a few things...I'll start with a series I have picked up by Terry Goodkind called the 'Sword of Truth'. VERY good. I highly recommend it. It's a beautifully written epic fantasy and like Raymond Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series it is in it's own world. Unlike Raymond Jordan, however, Terry Goodkind does not become tedious. At last I recall, there are 8 books in the 'Wheel of Time' series. I gave up at book 4 or 5. The guy is just taking too long to get where he's going. Its like he's wandering in circles and expects you to follow him.

Terry Goodkind, however, knows exactly where he(her?) is going and you are happy to be going with him(her?). I have three of the books, I am just about through with the second, and, as I discovered the other day, there are two more. All of them are at least 800 pages and worth every page of it. Of course this is just me and your results may vary.

I have also been digging around in History. Been reading 'The History of the Modern World" and "Russian History". I think I have only made it to about 1850 in both books and its weird to see how events of this century are so firmly rooted in the events of the last century and onward back I am sure. Okay I started reading the history books as research for Changeling, I admit it, but the stories themselves are keeping me reading.