Quick Post Before I Pass Out

Hey folks, sorry about last week. I kind of screwed up my ankle pretty bad Saturday and was too busy being in pain to think about posting.

Also this week I'm too exhausted to give you anything good, so how about a brief recap of the previous night?

Good, because that's all I'm giving you.

Last night, I attended a game for our college hockey team. It was fun, I drank a beer, ate some nachos, and didn't really care about what was going on in the game. We were losing 2-1 when we left at 11:15. It's okay, that was just to kill time until midnight.

At midnight, we headed over to one of the closest game shops, Above Board Games, for the midnight prerelease of the new Magic: The Gathering set - Mirrodin Besieged. In it, each player chose between the two factions of Mirran and Phyrexian and received 3 Scars of Mirrodin booster packs, and 3 special packs consisting of cards strictly from their chosen faction. I chose Phyrexia, because if you haven't played any Magic recently, poison is RIDICULOUS these days. Phyrexia is loaded with cards that poison your opponent to death, and in this format, that meant it was the proper competitive choice to make.

Anyway, the tournament consisted of, if I had to guess, approximately 60 players and 6 rounds, then cutting to a single round for the top 8 players to decide final rankings. I had gotten a little lucky with my card pool, and managed to go undefeated until round 5. Unfortunately, my luck and ability to play were both dwindling as the tournament reached its end. We started at midnight and finished around 7:30 a.m., so lack of sleep became a very challenging issue to deal with. Sadly, my lack of sleep was my downfall, and cost me my last two rounds. I made it to top 8, in 8th place, but I still made it in. However I had to get paired against the guy who was in first as the time, and he royally flattened me (having a better card pool than me and apparently having the ability to play through sleep deprivation will do that). However, I'm still content with the results - I made it into the top 8 out of about 60 other players and had some fun doing it. That's a nice accomplishment in itself.

And that's about it. I'm going to go pass out now.

-Arlon The Enigma

Blog Post #3 and a New Segment of Silver/Gold

Well'p, here you go!


A Lantern in the Dark

There was a stream flowing on the far side of town. The hard pack thoroughfare running past the Stag bisected it, running north. The road faded in the woods. No one had had reason to travel north of Fulkton Gardens in a long time. The bridge which had crossed the river where the road traveled was collapsed, a ruin, and the river had worn it into rounded stones. Some of the stones still stuck out from the water. They were gray in the night while the river was black to Taim. He could not see its bottom. It was the first thing like that he'd found.

Lili was a caster, a mage, and she had discovered herself to him and now he had to kill her. He had loved her perfumes and never guessed that she was hiding her scent from his wolf nostrils. He had not known why she'd scorned his ardor for so long. Now he understood.

He could feel himself sobering. He had stuck his boots in the stream. The spring had been warm so far, but the water of the stream was still only a few weeks clear of ice and snow.

Tell me, Lilika, did you want me to go against fate? Desert my duty?

He wanted to. He had already revealed her secret to someone higher than himself. He could not abandon the things he owed.

"I should go, now," he said to himself.

Still, he sat there. His feet had gone cold through his drunken haze. They felt clearer than any part of him had felt today. Time passed. Now, he could barely feel his feet at all. He tried to sense his pulse in them. He could not. That bothered him.

He could turn into a wolf and his feet would be back to themselves again. He would sober up quickly, as well. Doing that would terrify him. He pulled his feet out from the stream and crossed them under his legs and they began throbbing after a minute of waiting. That was good enough.

They could run, he thought: go against it. Try to break. They'd take Reah as well. But the young Lord Jasper Fulke would kill Taim's family. He wouldn't want to. Fulke was a good man. He'd have them slaughtered, anyway: Regid, Taim's father, and Joyce, his mother, and Tordric, Joyce, Kit, his older brother and young sisters. Tordric's surviving children would die as well. Taim's blood would die, and for what? No one had run from The King before. Not with a caster: not and lived.

He looked at his boots. They were muddy and the mud was on the back of his pressed black pants.

Someone was coming up behind him.

"I don't want to worry you, Taim..."

"You couldn't."

Taim turned around to look at Hellory. She had slipped on shoes and come out to look for him.

"Lord Fulke sent me to get you."

Taim got on his throbbing feet and started to walk back to The Stag. There was a brightness over the horizon, flickering, like the wick of a lamp. He was walking with his most even strides but his heart was beating in different tempos with every step. There was a smell of smoke. He thought that he was walking. He could hear Hellory running to keep up with him. She was falling behind.

The Hoary Stag was on fire. The inkeep and his beautiful son and his ugly wife and their four surviving servants were standing outside of it as it burned. Jasper Fulke was watching it, as well, his face pink. He turned and looked at Taim, steady.

You would not do it. I had to do it myself. To protect us from them.

That is what Lord Fulke would say, if he wanted to. He said nothing as Taim passed him and went into the burning inn.

"Wait!"

A woman's voice, somewhere behind him in the night. Taim ignored it.

There was no fire in the bar room yet, but it was hot and Taim could barely breathe the air. It was being sucked through the rafters to feed the conflagration on the floorboards above and there was a breeze running through the door, whistling.

He ran. The stairs to the rooms above were in the far corner of the barroom, by the counter. The stairs ran four ways up to get to the second floor and the fire had not yet traveled down them, but he could see the light it was casting on their farthest visible wall. His boots steamed as they flicked on and off the stairs and then Taim burst into the hallway and all the walls were orange and red and moving like a swarm of living things. The bright organisms had just started to creep across the floor.

Taim was a soldier in The King's army. His senses were not human. The sight of fire was nearly blinding when it was so close. And there was so much of it as well. The ceiling was being devoured by an oily cloud of smoke and his eyes were driven to pick out the patterns in the drifting ash.

The heat was unbearable but it did not bother him. He was frozen, looking, and the hair on his arms and his face and his close-shaved scalp was shriveling away. He could feel the grease in his skin prickling a moment later. The fire was trying to bake him alive. It did not bother him. To him this was not something he could not bear. His body was an object and he had treated it as such most of his life, trading it away in beatings and the things that followed. To him there was one thing unbearable in the heat of the burning hallway.

His ears were not human anymore and they tortured him with a sound, a murmur, dashing through the roar of flames. It was a babble, like a brook. It was a toddler's whisper.

Each jerk Taim forced from his legs was painful. He was baking alive. He did not care. He kept moving. The whispers were in his lover's chambers.

"Ma-ma?; Ma-ma?; Ma-ma!--Mama!--Mama!"

The fire was licking at his boot heels and the smoke was now at the level of his eyes. He had to stoop. The murmur was a whisper, now, and the roar of the fire made it feel as if it was trying to dive into his ears. Reah was screaming in child talk past the edge of reason. It might have been in pain. How could she possibly still be living? There was a thing in Taim that was breaking.

The door had warped. It was on fire, but thick and still intact. He was almost to it. He could see it. How could he open it? If he grabbed the handle it might melt through the flesh of his hands. He was running, now. When had he started doing that? His right shoulder felt stabbed. It shattered itself against the door to the room of his lover and the door fell to pieces.

All of the room was on fire. The floor was an inferno and all of the walls were an inferno. There was no smoke rising to the ceiling. Impossible. The ceiling was an inferno as well. Nothing remained of Lili's life but the bed in one corner where she and her daughter had slept. Everything was devoured but that.

Taim stopped. The heat split hairs on the back of his neck shivered: a response to mage-craft. It must have been hers. Lili. Alive? The thing inside of Taim broke completely: Lili was dead.

The edges of her bedsheets were on fire. The rest of them were slick and red. There she was. Lili's body stole the focus of his senses. He could smell her perfume and her inert blood and the cold sweat of a struggle. Her neck must have been snapped to kill her. Hung? Her head perched loose on her neck. Her neck was swollen and black. Her daughter must have positioned her mother's head on the pillow after Jasper Fulke had departed. Had she hidden? Lili's head did not look like it wanted to stay where it was. There was a drastic protrusion in the swelling on one side of her neck and he could see a gaping O in her skin there, breached by the column of her spine. He felt numb. How close was he to--when he had loved her each of her movements had been a music he could pick up with his ears, but there was no music now, just the murmur...

Of a child.

Reah had stopped screaming. She must have exhausted herself with it. Small. She was wearing a white dress. Her night dress. Oversized. She had her mother's skin and dark brown hair and what must have been her father's odd brown eyes. Taim had teased the girl that her mother had fashioned her from an otter's pelt and that that was what made her all one color. She had asked him what an otter was.

Lili's room was a fire sinking forward to devour her daughter. The girl had her head pressed to her mother's chest.

Taim stepped forward. He could not think, now. His boots were not steaming, now. They were burning. His feet were burning inside them. He did not notice them. His eyes were on the bed with the fire and the blood and the baking corpse of the love of his life and the living body of her daughter. There was an updraft from the heat and the girl's long hair was blowing upwards in it in coils.

The floor was sinking beneath the weight of Taim's feet. Was he really walking through fire? Was this what it felt like when you could feel no pain? There was finally smoke rising from the floor and the bed to the ceiling and Taim could see that the girl's hair was about to ignite. The bed was sinking into the floor. Just like Taim was sinking into the floor. Taim could not smell anymore.

But he heard as the floorboards stopped groaning beneath the weight of the bed. Reah looked up and Taim could not see if there was anything in the little girl's eyes as the floor collapsed beneath her. He was in the air now, leaping. In the air he exploded and he was terrified because he knew that his organs were about to come out of his mouth as he reached for the girl who was falling into fire.

You can't break fate. You can't break fate. You can't...

His hands were in front of his eyes:

They were turning to claws.

Fuck

Found out yesterday that we were supposed to get snow starting last night and continuing in til this morning. Awesome, I love snow. And maybe I won't have to go to class. But nope, turns out the weathermen's prediction was complete bullshit.

Instead of waking up to snow this morning, I wake up to a rain/sleet mixture. Well this blows, I thought, but whatever it says it'll turn to snow soon. So I walk to class and the rain starts to turn more and more into ice, which hurt like hell, but I figured it meant it was on its way to snow. I'm soaked and I've about fallen and broken my leg three times by the time I get to work, but it's all good cause it's going to turn to snow, right?

10am: Yep, at noon they're predicting 100% chance of snow. Sweet, there's the map showing the storm heading towards us.

12pm: Ok, I don't see any snow... weather report's now saying 2pm 100% chance of snow... guess I can wait that long.

2pm: What the fuck? 4pm now?

4pm: Go fuck yourselves weather.com

6pm: Screw it, I'll just drink til I imagine there's snow on the ground.

And that's basically what I've been doing the past 3 hours. No snow yet. I'll keep you posted.

Play league of legends now. Seriously. It’s pretty damn good.

League of legends is a really really REALLY good free game to play online.

What. You want proof? Fine. I’ll give you proof I guess…

Alright, so have you ever played DOTA (defense of the ancients) on warcraft 3? Yeah? Cool. For those who haven’t, DotA is a Player vs Player tower defense game. 2 groups are fighting in an attempt to keep the enemy group from destroying their main building (their ancient), while destroying the enemies ancient. First team to destroy the enemy team’s ancient wins.

Seems simple, right? Yeah.. I guess it kinda is, of course, when heroes are thrown into the mix, each with different powers and abilities, it gets rather complex with how each hero’s abilities, strength, and weaknesses interact with each other, and in it’s finest form becomes a matter of which team can work the best together.

Alright, now take that basic concept, and turn it into a free online game. With no ads. And with a rather large selection of heroes, with new ones being added constantly.

That’s basically league of legends. The game itself is extremely robust, and the best part about it is that it’s a free game, with no spending required to twink yourself up. Money CAN be used to purchase in game items, but only to unlock new heroes and skins which make your character look significantly different. If you work hard, you can unlock heroes using the in game currency, called IP (influence points).

Every few weeks a new hero is created, usually added to the game rather quickly, and the game Is almost constantly updated. Another nice feature is, if you’re not sure who to spend your IP on, don’t fret, every week there are about 10 heroes made free to play. You can play them as much as you want while they’re free, but need to pay to have them permanently.

It’s honestly an incredible game, considering it’s free, and it’s obviously a massive labor of love by the creators, considering the constant support that goes into it, and the attempts to help the experience. I would highly suggest checking it out. You likely won’t regret it.

Week 2

Another week and another post. Splendid! I won't spend much time on this one other than to post my piece of writing for the week. I hope you guys enjoy it. It's a poem I wrote in which a man who has sacrificed a great friendship in the pursuit of a great love comes to realize that he has tainted that love in doing so.

So without further ado,
*drumroll* (Ok, I guess that, particularly, was further ado. Oh well.)

Phoenix' Bloom

J.S. Harlow

"It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."

--W. Somerset Maugham

Tent. Night falls. Smoke rises.

I have followed a dead road. The brush

That brightened me has desiccated;

The sand that rubbed me is in the cracked

Soles of my feet. All out is flat--it's

Nothing. The phosphorescent

Eyes that were my brother's eyes

Have misted over and gone colder

Than dead meat. I

Have left him

Alone

Finding an earned

Lover.

In the tent the candle

Lights, and--

She is mine. The world

Burns in a blush. The wick

Blackens the candle's

Wax. I feel her

Beneath me. I feel. Radiance: A phoenix'

Radiance--A Phoenix

Beauty. A

Diamond

In African jungles

Hawked

With sweaty palms

On the bones

Of forgotten blacks,

Sold sterile by Death

In a tweed coat

In a bright lit mall.

Stop. Stop! What? My consummation's

Turning dark.

My thoughts of her are growing

Dim. Her form

Changes. She is so similar,

Yet, as she blazes now, she's brighter

Than before.

Epiphany: I see

Our shadows

On canvas.

Her heart beats rhythm against my

Chest. I cup it with my hand with

Greed.

Nas ilhas de outros homens

Her beauty is gold. In the islands

Of other men it severs native

Palms; it sets a red tide to lap at

Crusty trunks. I see their faces,

Cherry red, mouths gasping. And their

Wives raw rubbed toes are scrabbling desperately

In the grit. They are flinging themselves to

Death on the rocks and in the dregs of the ocean.

They are finding that they are dying in

Numbers to match all of them that are living. They're done for.

It's done. We've done it. Nós o temos

Feito. Acabou.

She is changing.

Her hair is: no. Her

Feathers are soft and red like the

Skin on an Indian girl's wrist.

They are soft like that

Wrist on that

Hand on

Those fingers: fingers that are

Calloused, thick and mauled.

If you saw them you would

Compare them to

Sausages that are bursting from their casings,

And they are bleeding on the cobblestones as she

Picks dropped foreign coins from between them

So carefully after work each evening.

But those wrists are graceful.

The girl's face is

Dark.

My Beauty. How?

Her eyes are black.

They are oceans of Russian oil

Boiling out of her. There is a

Youth now who cannot feed

His brothers and sisters while the fat

Are purchasing imported mustard

Jars and pickled wieners, trying to be content,

At least. One world

Away they're smiling. Here

The snow is falling and

The man in the black suit is smiling and

No one else is as

He leads the boy away

Between the silver trunks of the trees for no

Reason that the boy can understand and

His brothers

And his sisters

Will never see his slender face

Again.

I don't know if I can carry on with this:

Every part of her is gleaming like this

Fire, yes, and, in the dark night the way she looks

Directly at me has my heart

Beating perhaps

A pace

Apart.

Her talons are long and

Chrome and

Grasping hard, and, Lord,

What could they stand for but for

Themselves? Cruelty, perhaps:

As symbols of their purpose.

Now that I love

Her she has the aspect of a hawk.

What was my heart,

To kill another heart?

My heart rushes.

She is mine. My heart,

It is a people in the desert

Covered in black to

Ward themselves from

Storms and

From their fellow men

And women.

There is a glimpse between

Two lovers

Who consummate their sins for sin.

That is what my heart is right now,

Dragging at the corners of my eyes

As the sun rises and

She rises

To meet it.

She is too warm. She

Shivers as we

Pull apart--her

Bloom's a black

Corona--I shiver

As she uncoils

From the tent.

fitness update

So it’s been 2 weeks now since I started my new diet, and I gotta say, I’m adjusting rather well. Originally I felt like eating constantly because of a little itch in my stomach telling me I’m not completely full, but that itch has turned into a pleasant pinch. You wont see me overeating again!

As far as exercise is concerned, I’m trying to get out at least half an hour a day to jog, however, it isn’t always so easy, between sleet, snow, and rain, it’s difficult to find a place to run that isn’t full of ice lately, which brings me to a rather interesting subject concerning fitness.

Video games. The wii revolutionized motion based gaming a few years back, and now the kinect is came out for the xbox, removing all controllers. And I gotta say, Microsoft did a rather good job with the kinect.

Only problem is that it’s honestly not that good as a gaming device.

Sure, kinectimals looks alright, at least as far as kids games go, it’s a cute little thing to put on an xbox, however, there aren’t really any kinect games worth playing that aren’t fitness related. Out of all the xbox games I’ve bought recently in an attempt to give the kinect a fair whack (kinect joy ride, kinect adventures, kinect sports, deca sports kindom, and your shape: fitness evolved) I didn’t really find any of them that enjoyable except for the last game.

I’ve been logging about 1 hour – 2 hours daily, and the biggest contribution to my new lifestyle honestly has to be the fact that it’s taught me about 30 new exercises for aerobic and toning purposes. I honestly feel ubisoft did a bang up job on this game, and I would like to see more from ubisoft Canada. Unfortunately, I don’t have much in terms of screenshots or examples at the moment, but next time, I’ll go much further in length. If you want to get fit, I’d definitely suggest buying this game up. It’s biggest strength is easily the variety in exercise.

The kinect is worth a look if you're fitness minded, otherwise, i'd suggest passing until better games come out honestly.

Creepy Fetish = Literary Gold

This is going to be a short one today, folks.

As for the subject of this post, well, think about it. How many times have you been reading or watching something, and there was something that the main character dealt with with a smile on his or her face, and you were like wtf? Obviously I'm talking about Masochism for the most part: gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others. (Thank you Mr. Dictionary)
Surprisingly enough, whereas it's a disturbing thing to see someone have in the real world, in the world of fiction, a masochistic character can add many levels of interesting development. As a protagonist, a masochist can be odd, humorous, and even heroic (enduring the pain of one of their trials to save the world because they like it). As an antagonist, however, this is usually portrayed as Sadomasochism: gratification, esp. sexual, gained through inflicting or receiving pain; sadism and masochism combined. This combination provides readers with an interestingly terrifying antagonist: A disturbed monster who enjoys causing pain to others and has no problem taking it him or herself.My point is, that in music, literature, film, etc., Masochism, Sadism, and Sadomasochism sells. Which is odd, because you don't see any other fetishes out there making the big bucks and being socially acceptable to make characters deep. I just think it's funny, is all. Furries can't get away with that (except among themselves), but to be fair no one cares about furries except for other furries. Tarantino tries to put his foot fetish in almost every movie he makes, it doesn't add any psychological levels to the movies, it just makes Tarantino look like a pervert.
But in all fairness he probably is just a pervert... A pervert who can make some damn good films.
I wonder how much he had to pay Salma Hayak to do that scene...

All in all, if you want to make your shit sell, add a crazy sadist or masochist and you'll get a few extra bucks.

-Arlon The Enigma

Arlon Has Conscripted Me, It Seems

and so here I am. My name is JS Harlow. Hello. I was selected to replace... Oats... as your regularly scheduled Thursday whenevs blog updater on your local "That's Your Problem" receptacle devicer thingy or whatever it is you crazy kids use to access blogs nowadays why when I was your age... oh dear, sorry. Got out of control, there.

Anyways, I am a writer. I generally like to write in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, with an occasional stopover in Transgressive and Horror, and some poetry, too.

Every other week I will be posting a short segment of a novel I have been writing currently (and terribly) titled "Silver and Gold." I hope you enjoy it. In the weeks in between I will be posting whatever it is that catches my fancy, probably stories or poems.

Anyways, nice to meet you. Pull up a chair/just keep sitting where you are fatty, and enjoy this wonderful yarn:

PS: Please feel free to leave comments on what you liked and didn't like. I don't mind those didn't likes so don't feel like you have to hold your punches.

PPS: Seriously! I really don't mind! If you want to tell me you're going to track me down and devour my first born child in front of my eyes as revenge for my terrible desecration of the English language's already iffy virtue, I'll be overjoyed to hear from you!

Silver and Gold

JS Harlow

Prologue: A Soldier of the Army of the Dark

And the nights were too blank in the Gardens. One by one the lamps on the streets of the village had been covered. With no stars and no moon through the clouds and no flames on the street corners it was as if the world, like the lamps, had been shuttered. To all the drunkards in the Hoary Stag Fulkton Gardens was black like ink. To all the world the town was black. To all the world the world was black, but not to Taim. To Taim the world was muted colors. He wished that what he saw was black, as well. His eyes were gold and they shone with all the bar room's candlelight.

He'd been so proud to come home. He'd spit in his father's face. The sagging dregs of the wide, razor wire man had done nothing. His son was a soldier, now, of The King's army. Not even Regid Corwin would raise a hand against a werewolf of the Army of the Dark. You did not bite the hand of The King, god vampire, ruler of Gehenna.

Taim had polished his brass the day he had spit in his father's face but the sun had not been shining. It rarely did in Fulkton Gardens. He had hated the town then and worn his black and shine to spite them all. And now? To all the world Fulkton Gardens was black like ink, but to Taim. To Taim the shadows were not dark enough. He drank and blurred the focus of his eyes.

"Taim, I wish you'd tell me what's got you in such a mood."

Hellory Vance. She was plump and cheerful in a linen dress. Pale, blue eyes, black hair: of local stock. His brother might love her but Taim could not stomach her tonight.

"An ale, Hellory."

The girl rocked forward onto the wide counter surrounding the bar and took hold of his empty glass. She turned and went to one of the two kegs of sweet spring ale by the inn's entrance and filled it, and then returned the glass to him.

Taim turned his gaze to stare into the head of his drink and watch it die. Hellory moved down the bar counter to talk to some of the other customers. She was coaxing them to leave. Was it that late already? She did not talk to him, though. She wanted to, after the customers were gone.

She returned to him. It had been twenty minutes and the rest of the drunks had gone. All of the candles but one had been guttered. Taim did not care. He was well equipped to drink in the dark.

"Are you going to be here for the wedding, Taim?"

His ale was half empty. He had come in late tonight, after the final staff shift had turned over. He had gone through glasses of ale without stopping until he could not care about his thoughts. Now, though, he was drunk. He only wanted to stare into his glass.

Hellory was sitting barefoot beside him. He could see her naked calves. When had she slipped her shoes off?

"Tord would be happy. Are you listening?"

"Yes. Ale, Hellory."

"But you've not finished the one you've got."

She got another ale for him.

Once he had the second ale he moved it close to his first to consider. He was doing a very good job of not thinking. He wished his ale was a darker color. He did not want to see even a little of the counter through the glass. If he could not see the counter then perhaps he would start moving and he would not be sitting here and getting ready to kill his lover. He would not have a knot of silk in his back pocket prepared to strangle the life out of her near-infant daughter.

It's a soldier's duty, isn't it?

"You're not listening. Is this about Lili again?"

Taim did not look away from his ale. He wanted it darker. He wanted it to be black, tonight.

"You two always get into fights, Taim. Cheer up!"

There's fate, as well.

Hellory gave him a shove on the shoulder. It was a playful shove. She knew Taim and she knew his moods. He was a dark one. He was a wild one. Taim knew that was how she and the rest in Fulkton Gardens saw him. Even as a soldier. Especially. You did not bother a man like Taim Corwin.

Hellory Vance was his brother's fiance. She looked past his darkness.

She was a vile woman tonight. He did not bother to look at her. Still, she must have sensed something in the cast of his shoulders. She went stiff. He could smell her sweat, now, with his animal nose. It smelled uneasy. She needed to bathe more.

It was amazing how sensitive humans were to danger.

Taim closed his eyes.

"Hell. I don't know talking."

"This isn't about Lili."

Her voice was tighter. His eyes turned from his glass to regard her. He did not bother to lift his head.

"It is about Lili. Taim?"

Taim stood up. His black uniform pulled tight across his chest as his shoulders fell into alignment. He had been hunched over the bar for too long. He had forgotten that feeling of tightness. He was too broad for standard dress. Like his father.

He had shined his brass again tonight. The nights in Fulkton Gardens were too blank for that sort of thing. He had shined it anyways

"I'm going."

"Taim?"

I am a soldier. I cannot run from duty. I traded myself for it, after all.

That was the only way he could think now. Now that he was risen it was too late to think of different things. Lili was sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs. The brown foreign gentle giant woman with the lavender eyes had given him a reason to love Fulkton Gardens. And now he had to kill her. But not yet.

"I'm going for a walk, Hellory. Leave the Stag open for me."

Hellory should have been up in the servant's quarters an hour ago and he was telling her to stay up, now, to let him back in even later. Taim was in a black mood. He couldn't bring himself to care.

"Could you give this to Reah when you see her tonight, Taim?"

He had turned to go to the door, but he turned back now. Hellory had a black fall lily in her hand. They were delicate things, growing in only the deepest parts of Gehenna's northern forests. This one had survived in Hellory's pocket while she worked. Seeing it he wished it hadn't.

When Taim did not reply, she pressed onwards.

"For her to give to her mother. I didn't get to see the girl this evening."

Lili loved flowers. They were something she loved and so Taim had tried to love them, too.

Two nights ago...

Now he felt sick. He caught a scab as he moved his right hand's fingers through his brown hair. He was too dead drunk and tired to wince over it.

Hellory stepped forward, quiet, and put the flower in his hand. Taim placed it on a nearby table, on one of the chairs that had been stacked on top of it.

"Taim!"

He walked out the door.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Oi! Oi! Oh Fuck!

Yeah if you haven't heard, God got bored this week and decided to completely screw over South-East Queensland, Australia. Tons of rain fell and the rivers overflowed, taking over towns. Pretty shitty if your house or car happened to be in the wrong place (anywhere in Queensland). Luckily only 12 people were killed, which really isn't that many in the grand scheme of things.

On top of the river levels, and destroyed property, guess what else the Aussies have to deal with?

"7.20pm: A rescue team inspecting flooded houses in Queensland came face-to-face with a 2m crocodile in a yard, Rockhampton's The Morning Bulletin reports. Warnings have been issued to beware of crocodiles in floodwaters, with crocodile farmer John Lever telling ABC the reptiles will be on the move because their traditional feeding grounds are wiped out by floods. Snakes also pose a danger for rescue crews."

Yeah, motherfucking crocodiles. And snakes. And apparently bull sharks have also decided to make an appearance. Jesus Christ. But with all of this facing them, what do the Aussies do?

Wade/paddle down to the store, get some booze and keep on drinking. Awesome. It's just like a big "fuck you" to mother nature. Yeah, you can destroy my house. Yeah you can send my car floating down a river. Yeah you can send wild animals that will threaten me. But goddamnit, you cannot stop me from getting drunk.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Conventional Conventions

So I was at Ichibancon all day today here in Charlotte, NC... and, well, I'm going to be brutally honest: it wasn't all that great.

So I'm going to talk about that for a bit, no pictures today. Sorry.

We paid $25 per person to get in for today only because no one really wanted to go for more than today, and to be honest I was just going to take a look at the merchant's hall. I'm going to go down the list of how decent things were.

The viewing rooms: There was really only one viewing room and it was small. To save time and effort, I'm going to let you know that the location was a poor choice, as it was a small portion of a hotel with narrow hallways, and in turn everything was smaller than it needed to be. Next, they aired nothing of real interest unless you like boring slice of life anime such as K-on.

The Dealer's Room: One of the only rooms that was an okay size considering this was a new up-and-coming anime convention. However, the lack of legit dealers was a little unnerving; instead of seeing nothing but DVDs, Manga, japanese snacks and so on from various internet stores, we got to see a handful of real dealers and the other booths were taken up by people who seemed like they were people from off-the-street and sold various things that had nothing in common, also a handful of things that weren't even related to japan. It'd be alright if it were like some webcomic trying to sell their merch; that's acceptable for a convention, but no.

The Game Room: Honestly? I can't say anything bad about the game room. It was small, but it had plenty of content despite its small size. They even opened another smaller room specifically for Rock Band 3. They made up tournaments of various games, and hosted the biggest one (The Super Smash Bros. Brawl tourney) in the larger lounge area. I have no complaints about the game room, I give them props for that.

...And really, that's about all I really dealt with. The panel rooms (except for the two main events rooms which housed maybe one or two things worth seeing; as with any convention) were too small for us to fit in without getting there super early, and there was always a line. Which also made things terribly difficult for people who wanted to walk around. Normally I'd bash on the fact that they could only get two real guests - a webcomic artist/author and a voice actor, but for a convention that is still in the early stages, I can obviously let them slide.

Now, before you take me for a 'negative nancy', I can still say I enjoyed myself. I've been spoiled by the larger convention, Katsucon, in my experience of conventions, so I know that a newer convention can't even try to compare at first. I gave it a little slack, but there were still things that even a newer convention could have done better. But I digress. I still enjoyed myself due to the one thing that makes a convention.

No, it's not the games, or the merchandise, or the guests.

No, it's not the girls in skimpy outfits... Although that helps, and you're close.

It's the people in general. People like you (or maybe not you, it depends on how much of a nerd you are I suppose) make a convention enjoyable. As long as you can make the experience enjoyable for yourself, unless you're just a douchebag, you can make the experience enjoyable for everyone else around you - even the people you don't know. So if you're reading this post and you went to Ichibancon, or if you've ever been to a convention before, thank you for helping to make the experience enjoyable for everyone else. Even if the con sucks, find a way to enjoy it.

And that's all I've got for this week.

-Arlon The Enigma