Antagonist

So far, the primary, and sometimes subtle, antagonizer of the House of Cards is a douche wizard named Lydian. but his character has been written so well that he's the sort of guy you love to hate.
there's a bio here if you want, but i'm just gonna do a recap of the encounters i remember:
(Alex, you're gonna help me flesh this out i hope; Ethuli'en didn't meet Lydian until the party had more than a couple of dealings i think.)

First saw him when he was in his tower (actually now that i think of it, when E. was crowbarred into the story, we were in Lydian's tower chamber right in the middle of something). He asked the party to go find his apprentice who was investigating a Kobold cult (the party had just fought a bunch of Kobolds so we figured it was related) and bring back any information they could find about the Kobold's reasons for attempting to summon the demon prince C'thai'ran. Also what happened to his apprentice, but that was secondary.

After some Kobolds and some Shad'ar Kai Witches who used Crispin's shadow to gain entry to the Kobold cave, we learned that Lydian might know a lot more about C'thai'ran than we thought...

So there was some betrayal involved, some artifact acquired, and a few other things that i can't recall, mainly because the ritual is most important.
Lydian was basically in tune with a bunch of devils from a Shadow Dimension and he was bringing a big 'un to our Plane. Sadly (awesomely) he succeeded.

So Lydian summoned C'thai'ran who set about laying waste to our dimension but was eventually defeated by Ethuli'en. (the DM had planned on a big fight with a reanimated stone statue of a king but he didn't plan on Ethuli'en rolling a natural 20)
So C'thai'ran was defeated and sucked us all into the Shadowfell along with Lydian.
this was the end of Part I of the campaign.

In Part II, we met Lydian again (after a bunch of other stuff that isn't related to him).
turns out he was a Vampire Wizard and is soul came back to the Shadowfell when he was plotting his return to our Plane. Lydian was murdered by Fenrak and Ethuli'en broke a piece off Lydian's own coffin and leaped through a wall of fire to drive it through his heart.
Lydian's Flesh turned to ash and his bones dissolved and all that was left was a crystal heart.
After escaping his crumbing tower, we heard a voice from the crystal.

To our delight, Lydian's soul is now trapped in a crystal heart that Ethuli'en keeps in his pants pocket. Currently he is suffering eternal torment.

We're looking forward to how he's involved with the rest of Part II.

Wozhunter: A History

So i totally forgot i wrote this and for what purpose, but i laughed a little when i read it so i figured i'd share it with the blogosphere. it's also fitting since my account runs out on saturday and i don't know when i'll be back.
and now, a brief history of Wozhunter:

Wozhunter grew up in southern Mulgore. by level 10, he had learned to live and love with the animals that inhabited the Golden Plains. He learned how to hunt and use a rifle, the whole while his pet Wolf by his side. While hunting Plainstriders in the Barrens, Wolf was killed in a horrible Dismiss Pet accident, and Wozhunter was crushed.

Grieving his loss near the Forgotten Pools, an unexpected thing happened: a turtle crawled out of the water and sat down next to Woz. Crunchbite, as he was named, became Wozhunter's lifelong friend, crunching and biting everything he saw.

Wozhunter and Crunchbite shared a lust for adventure and exploring which was further fuelled by the Kodo Woz learned to ride at level 40, and more importantly, by their friend Daymare. the three of them travelled Azeroth until they found the Dark Portal. Daymare had refused to travel to Outland with out Woz, and had even reached 61 before stepping through the Dark Portal. Their journey to 70 was interrupted many times to venture back to Azeroth; dicking around was their favourite past-time.

At 70, Woz and Day, along with Crunchbite, fought the Alliance on a regular basis; the defence of Alterac Valley was of utmost importance to the Horde. During one of their encounters, Woz and Day were trapped in one of the towers with the Alliance closing in. With no hope of escape, they fought until the end, racing down the stairs to meet the wave of attackers head on, their battlecry "EWAH" ringing in the air. And then a funny thing happened: they died.

Years passed.

And then...

Wozhunter opened his eyes. Standing before him was the Lich King himself, beconing him to do his bidding. Revenge fresh on his mind, Wozhunter stood up, and walked into the world again.

Resurrected as Death Knight, Wozhunter sought to redeem his actions and seek dickish revenge on the Alliance. Reunited with Daymare (you can't die if you're undead), the two mourned the passing of Crunchbite.

The two are currently exploring Northrend; the lust for adventure never quenched. Although, Eastern Kingdoms still hears "EWAH" echoing across the mountains from time to time...

Wozhunter "decends" a mountain in the Howling Fjord

Ding!

The party hit level 12 last week, so this week was the first time we got to use the lvl12 abilities. nothing special, i didn't even use mine.

Summary:
The House of Cards is on a sympathetic side quest to save slaves from ...being slaves, since they are, themselves, slaves to the owner of a magic shoppe in the dimension they got sucked into after part 1 of the campaign (i really should get a summary of part 1 up sometime).
slaves were freed at the end of the night after like 3 weeks of trying. 'bout time.

Highlights:

• Ethuli'en managed to successfully hit an invisible wizard while rolling with a -5. we were all very impressed.
• Actually, Ethuli'en was the primary source of aggravation for that little wizard, which was funny cos apparently there was some backstory between Jack and this guy. There was some pretty funny RP going back and forth to say the least.
• The visual image of Fenrak slam-dunking a halfling AirJordan style. many roffles.
• A Giant Deuregur charged Crispin but burned to death at his feet before he could get there. good ol' Crispin.
• There was actually a lot of drinking on mine and Alex's end. Good old booze.
  

Four Year Achievement

This is a post about Warcraft.
If you hate that shit or don't give one (a shit) just wait until my next update.

About four years ago when i started playing Warcraft, there were no expansions, no patched raids, nothing special. The level cap was 60 and the game was brand new to me. The one goal I had in that game was to get my guy (Onions, the warrior) to a high enough level to fight Ragnaros the Fire Lord. Big dude. Lives in a cave. And back then, it took 40 well organized people to kill him.

A brief history of Onions:
On my first server, Shattered Hand, Onions was a warrior. I had no idea how to play the game and I just tried to hit things really hard. He has been long since deleted, only reaching level 41. He had a buddy, Chives, played by Alex. Chives was left on Kil'Jaeden, mourning the loss of his friend.
Onions made a brief appearance on the Kil'Jaeden server as a level 14 hunter.
Currently, Onions is a level 66 Hunter on the Vashj server. Chives transfered.

After four long years... well, take a look:


Chives is the big guy next to Rag. We were both ecstatic.
It seems silly, but it actually meant a lot to us.

I'm looking forward to many more adventures.

Dungeons and Dragons and Drinking

Every Tuesday that we can, a few of us gather 'round a nice, cozy internets and play Dungeons and Dragons.
And drink heavily.
Iain is our DM (Dungeon Master as opposed to District Manager), and he has come up with a magnificent campaign for our characters to explore and destroy.
(Side note: Explore and Destroy is the best Warcraft guild name ever)
I want to sum up the story of the campaign so far, but it's been months since act 1 finished and my character was crowbarred into the story half way through. I shall email my good friend Alex and see if he can't blog it.
But at any rate, here's a summary of characters:

Fenrak Fjörgynn (Alex)
Dwarf Fighter.
Son of an accountant, equipped with his reading glasses and massive shield, Fenrak is a proven unstoppable force. Fenrak is the most level headed one of the group. Many wild and crazy ideas come from our collective madness, but Fen always knows what's really the best course of action. and it usually has something to do with his hammer and faces.

Ethuli'en Smith (Thom)
Half-Elf Paladin.
I'm gonna do a separate post about Ethuli'en since he's my character. Also, he's way too awesome for a summary. Although that's really true for all of the characters. Except Jack.

Crispin Grant (Michael)
Human Wizard
Alcoholism and magic are seldom a good idea to practice together, but Crispin deftly pulls it off every time most of the time. Recently exchanged his Magic Missile spell for something else due to the fact it hit party members instead of the intended target without fail. With a murdered wife and a plethora of emotional baggage, Crispin is definitely the most complex character.

Orbrinus (Derek)
Drow (Dark Elf) Rogue
Blade monster. We've seen him do 76 damage in a single (sort of) attack. Which is ridiculous because a hefty hit from Fenrak the Tank or Ethuli'en the Glass Cannon does an impressive 30-40 damage. Mostly quiet except for his punchlines. No one knows timing like Orb.

Larien (Courtney)
Elf Priest
The only female member of the party. Also our healer. Pulled our sorry wounded asses out of more than a few scrapes. Sarcasm is her primary offensive method.

Jack Nickles (Jacob)
Ex-Human, Shadar Hunter
Likes coffee and douchbaggery. Constantly undermines the group for the sole sake of attention. "Chaotic Neutral" apparently means he can do whatever the fuck he wants and it's considered funny. It's not.

I'm going to try and do a summary blog every Tuesday after the game. we'll see how long that lasts. Although i suppose i have to post the story summaries first to get the readers (yeah right) up to speed.

Zombie Apocalypse

I think it was the annual Zombie Walk in Calgary today.
this picture i took on the bus confirmed my suspicions.
also scared the shit outta me.

the patrick incident pt.IV

his email said roughly this:

"hey Thom, the site's going up on friday. we need a logo before that. thanks."

i looked at the clock: it was wednesday. and yes, my clock said wednesday.

so i made one. i made 15 of them for him actually. he mailed back with his pick and a couple of tweaks for it which i made and sent back to him.

he never said anything after that. never sent me the address of the site either. it's too bad cos i would've liked to see what the hell he was up to.

i did however try. i sent him another email about two weeks ago (~ a month and a half after i did the logo) that asked what he was up to and how the site was.

if he ever replies, i'm gonna send him a bill for my work.

but i think he's probably in jail.

the patrick incident pt.III

i needed to get home.

i worked at the liquor store in less than an hour.

things were winding down in the bathrooms, so i approached Patrick about a lift.

"yeah no prob. you sure you don't wnt to come smoke a volcano with me though?"

he explained it as an elaborate beer bong that you get drunk and high from at the same time. i politely declined. so out in the parking lot he gets a call, so i just follow him quietly to the car. but it wasn't his car. he picked my up in a fancy Audi, but here we were standing next to a crappy Dodge Neon. he turns to me, still on the phone, and says:

"i need you to drive."

"uh, where are going"

"just the train station. i need to pick up the car."

but, ah, um, okay, said my brain. so i squeeze my lanky ass into the driver's seat and drive Patrick to the train station so he can drive me home in the car at the train station which i presumed to be the Audi. so i pull up next to the Volkwagon Rabbit he's pointing at and he gets out of the car, i turn off the Neon and get out when he turned to me.

"no, no, no. i need you to drive that car and follow me in this car."

but, ah, um, WHAT, said my brain.

so we'd been driving the cars for five minutes when i lose him. he goes through a yellow and i hit the red. fuck. i call the number he gave me: it's his office, not his mobile. FUCK.

so there i was: driving his not-his car i can barely fit in to somewhere i don't know where with ANYTHING in the trunk and not my name on the registration, and Patrick was gone. FUCK.

over the crest of the hill, there he was, pulled over so i could continue our journey. 25 to 30 minutes later, we pull up in front of a house (which he explained to be his girlfriend's) and we get out of our cars. we head on in and he asks if i mind waiting while he takes a shower. so i waited. i sat in Patrick's girlfriend's living room while Patrick was in the shower. he then drove me home (not without asking again if i wanted to smoke that volcano) and i went to work AMAZED that i was not dead or in jail. thank god that was over i thought.

about a month later, i get an email in my inbox.

the patrick incident pt.II

the entire time he was explaing all this my brain was screaming.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW THE INTERNET WORKS!?

"wow, Patrick, that's pretty awesome."

so we got to the Joey Tomatoes just before 11:00 and we met two other people there. Patrick sprung for some appetizers and everybody (except me) got to talking about how everybody else was cos everybody fucking knew everybody else. over the next hour, roughly a dozen more people came in and sat with us. i found out that many of them were unemployed or contract workers or bankers or going to school or or or who the fuck were these people? everyone was confused by my portfolio, but were very impressed when they looked at it. so that was something. Patrick passed out markers and post-it notes and took down everyone's contact info. i think at this point i knew there was no job for me since this was just a huge networking circle-jerk for Patrick (he even took the waiter's number) so i decided just to roll with it.

after collecting all of the sticky notes, Patrick stands on a chair in the restaurant and explains to everyone what he told me in the car on the way over. he then asks the waiter to bring over not one, but TWO bottles of Dom Perignon (retail $231 per bottle according to my store); however, the waiter let's us know that there's a huge party coming in and we're in the only place in the restaurant big enough to seat them. Patrick offers that since our party is nearly finished, we could just move to somewhere else.

so there i was: downstairs in the lobby-outside-the-bathrooms drinking $231 champagne with 15 people i didn't know and a waiter, getting my picture taken because i was going to change the god damn world.

but that isn't the end of the story.

20 Steps

it works like this:

imagine Google Street View, but taken by artist. but for like every city ever. and there's a new photograph every 20 steps.

he explained it as an outsourced website that he can run soley from his macbook that is an interactive earth. each photograph would be like walking through the streets with integrated online interactivity. if there's a bus stop in the picture, you could hover over it and it'd count down to the next bus. shops who pay to be included on the site would have people be able to click on their shop and "go inside" where they can online shop for selected items. now, he'd charge people a fee for being on the site, but it'd be less that what it is to advertise in the phonebook, so everyone is going to do it! he said 17th ave alone (one street in one city) would generate over $150K per year. do you know what that means, dear reader? Patrick has an unlimited supply of money he can run off his macbook.

now, you'd need a head office in every major city centre. if each head office needed to be re-carpeted, they go to a company in Taiwan. instead of buying the cheap polyester carpet for cheap, they opt for the more expensive wool carpet (due to the endless supply of money). now, this carpet is less damaging to the environment to produce, but the little Taiwanese company doesn't have a big enough factory to meet the demands of 20 Steps. so 20 Steps pays for their factory upgrade and now the company can make this more expensive but more enviro-friendly carpet for cheap.

20 steps down the street, 20 steps in the right direction for saving the planet.

the global reccession and unenvironmental business have got nothing on Patrick.

the patrick incident

okay, so i've been meaning to blog about this for quite some time now, but it's always felt too long to type out. so i'm doing it at work where there's fuck all to do right now and emailing it to myself to blog later.

the Patrick incident took place... about 3 months ago i think. it must have been just before my birthday; beginning of june.

it went like this:

i was working at the liquor store one night when this over excited guy comes in. he's too stoked about something to really concentrate. he's dressed in nice jeans and a blazer; looked like a young business type. he asked me what the best/most expensive tequila was and if it tasted as good as it cost. as i rung him through my til, i noticed his debit card was a company card. it said "Patrick ****; Mitchell and Company." i asked him what sort of company he worked for and all he said was that he was going to change the world. that week. i asked in jest if he was looking for a graphic designer and for a second he seemed to get very serious.

"yeah. you know one?"

"yeah, actually: me."

"no shit. here's my number, we're meeting tomorrow. call me"

so he writes down an email and a phone number on a bit of paper and rushes out the store in a quite eccentric manner.

the next morning i called him. i figured what the hell, the worst that could happen is this turns into a funny story...

so i gave him a call at around 10:00 and he said the meeting was in an hour. he followed with a "i'm in a car, where do you live? i'm on my way." so 15 minutes later i've got a nice shirt on, my portfolio, and i'm standing in the street not knowing what to expect. he pulled up in a shiny Audi and we were off to the Joey Tomatoes in Chinook centre. i thought that was kind of strange, but people have lunch meetings all the time. also, i knew that this was gonna be too bizarre to say "no" to at this point. Patrick thought it was strange i had my portfolio with me. that should have been my first clue.

along the way, Patrick gave me the rundown of how he was going to change the world.

he called it "20 Steps"

classic funny

i was at the store again last night and this gentleman bought a case of beers for $13.34. he handed me a $20 bill and the register popped up with the ominous $6.66.
we joked about it and he ended up taking $6.65. before he did however, he muttered something to his mate that i do not believe he fully appreciated the humour of.
he said:

665
the neighbour of The Beast

classic.

Telephone Poles

what a wonderfully sad place this would be if everything we had accomplished simply disappeared except for the telephone poles. miles and miles of these strange things and when you get to the end, nothing but the end of the wire swaying in the wind.

R.I.P. Stromboli

Feb 01 2007 - July 03 2009
may the greatest cat that ever lived rest in peace; he will be forever missed and not soon forgotten.

Life Sandwich

so on my walk to school today i saw a half a sandwich. it was just lying there with all the insides exposed in the sunlight, and i thought: does this mean something?
i figure that i'm the bread that holds the sandwich of my life together.
if i keep going down the path i am, will my life sandwich simply fall apart?
or is it a sign that i need to change things?
maybe eat more fibre?

They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To

i miss the 80s.
sure i wasn't around for most of them; heck, what i'm about to talk about was done four years before my birth. but i digress...
you know what i like best about the 80s? movies. and do you know why? because movies were good. no over the top special effects that are completely redundant (you know who you are), no leeching off popular trends and other pinnacles of cinematographic achievement (again, you know who you are), no requirement for racial or sexual diversity for the sole purpose of not wanting to offend anyone, and most of all, movies in the 80s understood movies in the 80s.
what i mean is that those movies took themselves seriously and understood how a movie was supposed to make a person feel. the best example is pacing; nobody uses pacing anymore: everything is flashy, obvious or in-your-face.
i want to look at John Carpenter's The Thing.
this movie is about a bunch of dudes (yep, no women!) living in a research base in Antarctica who encounter a hostile alien entity.
Side note: if The Thing was made today, it'd have the creature killing people off one by one in the darkened corridors and kennels playing with shadow in such a way that the horrors of a dog's face splitting open would still achieve a 14A rating. in this movie, the overtly masculine and well built, clean shaven hero would defeat the horrible foe and totally bone the non-existent female character. this would be a terrible movie.
thank god (internet) that The Thing was filmed in 1982. the first time the creature is revealed to the audience, every single person in the research base is witness. they then discover after killing the creature, that it has the ability to imitate life forms. the movie then turns the characters against their fellow man for fear of infection and murder, and peoples true natures are revealved.
mutations make more appearences, but not in such a way that says "hey, look what we can do!"
holy shit i just figured it out!
lately, movies are suffering from David Blane syndrome. they distract you until they can pull the twist and amaze you, only to have the majority of people pull back and realize that it's actually not a very good trick. uver-used computer graphics snap their fingers at you off to the side to distract you from the lack of plot and when they take your watch off after you pulled the queen of hearts out of the rabbit, the climax dissapoints at best.
good lord that was not very well thought out.
i'm going to stop blogging now.

Please Do Not Hold My Hand

This is the drawing that caused all the ruckus in the back row and resulting instructor-fit; rant to follow:

I go to college, give them my money so I can learn more things. But what do I really get?
Babied, apparently.
I understand that a first year geology class is aimed for students that are more or less out of high school, but a post secondary institution is a place where people choose to be in order to further their education. I expect to actually be lectured. I suppose that's why they call it one.
I do not fucking expect the "professor" to have a fit because a few students neglected to print off the half notes from the site and fill the rest in.
Yeah, my GEOL prof makes fill in the blank notes for students to print off, bring to class and gleefully fill them in.
The last time I saw this sort of teaching was when I was in grade six.
She wants a class discussion? Fine - if it was fucking philosophy. This is geology. Earth Sciences. You're a fucking teacher; god damn teach something rather than try to be our friend.
It seems that failing to fill in her blanks (I'll have to save that innuendo for another occasion) left her feeling unappreciated 'cause it takes so much time to do and oooohhh she only does it for the students.
Jesus get-over-it Christ, GET OVER IT. This is the real world. Please do not hold my hand.
Apparently I ruined the class.
I can't say I'm not a little pleased with myself.

Oh yeah! The doot is 'cause we watched a video called "Landslides: Gravity Kills" and one American school's landslide evacuation plan was to get all the kids in buses and drive faster than the landslide. Yeah.

Blogs are the new Bibles

You know what's crap? i tried to blog, i really did. but i'm too damn lazy for my own good. i posted four times in about a month and they weren't even that interesting. i felt obligated to make really good blogs that fit a certain blog-type. what i was really doing was puking into the infinite gaping hole that it the internet and no one cared.
and no one will care about this either. except you, god.
oh.
i have deduced that since "god" is an all knowing all seeing omnipotent being, he must of course be the internet.
so, if need to rant, rave, gloat, mourn, or facepalm, i'm going to pray (blog) to god (internet) and hope that i feel better about myself, because like "god," the internet does't care; it is a creation spawned from man's desire to control everything he/it sees for fear of ...well, fear. no, really. why do we have the internet? to keep tabs on china. we don't wanna fly over there and ask, we wanna log on and see what the fuck they're doing on our lunch-break.
now i'll try to attempt to redeem myself from such a statement by saying something along the lines of "oh i'm not deep, i tells it like it is" or "i'm better [period];" however in doing so i'll simply recreate myself as an arrogant prick. and you know what, internet? i don't care. if i need to puke at you, i'll fucking do so.
besides, no one except alex or zack is going to read this shit anyway. maybe i'll turn this into a portfolio...