Khan

Around 1200 AD, this guy called Temujin came out of nowhere, united a bunch of Mongolian Tribes to the north of China, and adopted the name Ghengis Khan, or "Supreme Emperor."

And he was pretty Supreme, man, what with his incredibly fast travelling army of dudes who basically lived on horseback, with metal stirrups that held their feet in place and allowed them to drive spears into people with the combined weight of the horse and the rider behind it, insteada just shooting arrows and throwing spears at people, like all the other mounted folks (like Attila the Hun heh) did before that.

They never lost a fight, y'know, it wasn't until long after Ghengis Khan was dead that some folks in Egypt discovered that the Mongols weren't completely invincible.

And Ghengis Khan, with the help of Sabutai, his trusty general, pretty much ruled over three fourths of the Earth, and they're the reason that the Tigris and Euphrates River Valley is a desert, among a lot of other things.

Actually, the only reason that we aren't all Mongolians right now is that the Mongol army had to ride all the way back home in order to elect a new leader when Ogodai (son of Ghengis) croaked.

That's the only reason they stopped taking over the world at 75%, closing in on Vienna and Venice (and talking about the speed of his army, it took two days for his army to travel a hundred miles and kick somebody's ass in previous battles).

Speaking of Venice, it was founded by a bunch of folks running from Attila the Hun, hiding in the "swamps" heh.

So Ghengis had an extensive spy network, and all sorts of interesting military tricks, like breaking his army into separate groups with runners going between 'em to keep it all coordinated, so that he could bring 'em all together and surround his enemies from weird angles at a certain time and cut off their ability to retreat.

And he'd divert rivers and turn your country into a desert, too.

Anyways, at the time, China was the most technologically advanced country in the world, their elected "officials" and stuff had to take proficiency test to prove they weren't idiots (imagine that going on nowadays! ahaha).

So these guys, who had conquered China first thing, weren't just a bunch of barbarians who killed everybody in their path (although they did do that too, to such a degree, early on, that they got famous for it, and a lot of places basically just surrendered to them, without a fight, later on).

You've heard of Marco Polo, and probably don't know that he was a Venetian Trader guy that spent twenty years (along with his dad and uncle) as a guest in the court of Kublai Khan (a third generation great grandson of Ghengis), and he wrote a book about it, and nobody believed it was real, 'cause it described a civilization that was basically more advanced than everything in Europe, sorta like science fiction or something.

As a matter of fact, the Mongol Rule sorta dissolved into the generic chain of Chinese Emperors and stuff, and Kublai is generally credited with uniting China, y'know, 'cause Chinese Culture over there is a lot like Greek and Roman culture over here, it tended to convert everybody that came into contact with it.

Speaking of which, the first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (you know, that's where those Ming Vases come from), really was a peasant who got famous for his efforts in driving the Mongol remnants out of China, talk about rags to riches heh.

Oh, and the term Kamikaze, which is a bastardized version of whatever its supposed to be, like most things, translates to "Divine Wind" in Japanese.

And that Divine Wind thing comes from a couple military episodes where the Mongols tried to invade Japan by boat, and they got turned back by Japanese weather (typhoons, which were seen as the Divine Winds that proved to the Japanese that supernatural powers protected Japan).

Anyways, just thought I'd mention some of the cooler stuff about all that ancient junk over there that I don't hear much about, usually the European slant on things is that Ghengis was a barbarian who just sorta harassed civilization, when actually, the dudes he was invading were a lot more primitive than he was, and he didn't harass jack shit, there wasn't anything in the world at the time that could even slow the guy down a little, I mean, when they were riding back home to elect a new Khan, they beat the living shit out of a couple countries on the way.

The Knights in Shining Armor and all that good stuff were still a ways off in time and space, and I think they were pretty lucky that they never had to stand in his way heh.

Man, the error checking on writing shit like this sucks ahaha.

Well, mebbe its all bullshit, but it sounds good, y'know.

Saturday Afternoons

So I just woke up from this short afternoon nap.

And I had two dreams.

In the first one, I was some kinda nerdy little Doctor Smith-lookin' food critic guy.

Yah, y'know, I know its kinda unusual, but I'm not always me in my own dreams.

Anyways I was visiting this tiny restaurant, or mebbe it was a diner, 'cause you could see the cooking area, past the cash register, I'm not sure, but it was kinda late at night, and there weren't any other customers, there was just me and the chef, and most of the lights in the place were turned off, so its kinda spooky.

And the chef is this crazy Harpo-looking older guy in an apron, with curly white hair poking out from under his chef hat, and he says "I'm going to make you my special dish!"

And I'm all filled with dread but I try to pretend everything is cool and I'm all polite and awkward and I just sit there and wait with this big nervous smile on my face.

And the guy comes out with a plate, and on the plate is this lump of purple goo.

And the chef is all like, "Enjoy!"

And I can't tell if this guy is serious or if he's angry with me or something, but he's standing there at the table, all electric and sweaty with some kinda excitement, either way, waiting to see what I do.

So I take a fork and I stab at the purple stuff, to make sure its dead, and I take a bite.

And its Grape Jello.

Grape Jello that somebody chewed on for a bit and spit back out.

Or mebbe its Grape Jell-y, y'know, like ya might put on a Peanut Butter and Jelly sammich.

Its hard to tell, mashed-up Grape Jell-o and Grape Jell-y are both subtle variations on the Purple Slime Theme, basically, with just slightly different densitites and textures, y'know?

Anyways, the guy is looking at me with those crazy bulging eyes of his, and I still can't tell if he's waiting with his heart dangling from his sleeve to hear my verdict on his "Special Dish," or if he's waiting for the sedatives he put in it to take affect or something heh.

So I smile, and I let the Purple Slime wiggle around in my mouth for a while, and I swallow it, and I say something like "hmm," y'know, as if to indicate that I'll need to eat s'more of the Purple Stuff to make up my mind about it, when I'm actually just stalling for time and trying to make up my mind on how to get the hell out of this situation heh.

And so I stab at the Purple Pile on my plate a second time, and I try to take another bite, but my hand is all shaky, so the shit falls off the fork, and lands on my dressy lookin' blue shirt, right near the collar, and a big blob of it starts to tumble down the front of my chest, leaving a dark and sinister looking slime trail.

And so I jump up from the table, and I say something about how clumsy I am with a nervous laugh, and I run to the bathroom and I shut the door and turn on the water to give myself some time to think.

And that's when I woke myself up the first time, and realized that I'd only been sleeping for like five minutes.

Whenever I have a stupid dream like that, I always wake up in the middle of an internal argument I wasn't supposed to hear, where one part of my brain is yelling at another part of my brain for fucking with me when I was supposed to be resting heh.

So whatever, I drift back off to sleep.

And suddenly I'm driving down the tollway during rush hour, on my way home from work, but the traffic is moving along at a pretty good place, y'know, I'm sorta flying along in the left lane, doing at least ten miles over the speed limit, just like everybody else in the left lane.

And we get to the first tollbooth, and I end up accidentally going through the I-Pass lane, because I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing.

I-Pass is this electronic thing that pays your tolls for you so you don't have to, over here in Illinois, I know they got it in other places, and they call it something else, but its kinda nice 'cause you don't gotta wait in line to pay your tolls in cash and shit.

Anyways, I don't have I-Pass, and when I get to the gate, I just drive through like some kinda maniac and the fake little orange gate that's not really supposed to stop you just sorta bounces off my windshield heh.

Now, on my way home from work, in this dream, there's three toll booths I gotta go through, and that was just the first one, so during the whole ride between that toll plaza and the next one, I'm all worried that some cop is gonna pull me over, but nothing happens.

So then I get to the second tollbooth area, and this time I get into the right lane, as if I'm gonna throw change in the bucket, insteada talking to a person, but then, at the last second, I don't actually give it any change, and I just drive through and let the orange gate bounce off my windshield again heh.

Anyways, so there I am, again, trying to get home in this dream, worrying all the way to the next tollbooth that I'm gonna get pulled over again.

But nothing happens.

So then I get to the third tollbooth, and this time, I get in the far right lane, where there's actually a tollbooth attendent that you can talk to.

And I get all this money together to pay for all three of the tolls that I shoulda paid for.

But when I'm one car away from the booth, the booth attendent turns out the little light in his booth, and he puts up a Closed sign in the window, and he steps out.

And me and the car ahead of me and a bunch of honking cars behind are all stuck there, waiting, because we're too close to each other to leave the line without scraping bumpers.

And then this old toll booth guy comes over, with a tip of his little Toll Booth Captain's Hat, and he starts trying to entertain us with Toll Booth Stories while we wait for the real Toll Booth Operator that supposed to replace the guy that went off duty.

And its horrible Toll Booth Operator Comedy, this old guy's stories are the tortures of the damned.

And the whole time I'm waiting there, I'm worried that this is all a set-up, that this is just some clever subterfuge for them to get me trapped while they wait for the cops to show up and arrest me for what I was doing earlier, y'know?

Well, in the Waking World, the physics of a trap like that seems kinda weak, for a couple of reasons, but it made sense in the dream heh.

And even if it isn't a set-up, I'm still wondering if it was better to admit that I blew through the first two tollbooths, so that I could pay for 'em, or if it was better to just pay for this one and not say anything about the other two.

I'm not sure what all the Tollbooths Rules and shit are, y'know?

So then I woke up, again, like a little kid caught between two parents arguing, where one half of my brain was yelling at the other half of my brain for fucking with me, again.

And I figure neither of these stories are really worth the trouble of turning into something serious so I wrote 'em down here in case I need 'em for later heh.

Roll On the Morality Table

Morality (d12)

1. Aesthetic
2. Virtuous
3. Normal
4. Normal
5. Lusty
6. Lusty
7. Lustful
8. Immoral
9. Amoral
10. Perverted *
11. Sadistic *
12. Depraved *

*Roll again, if perverted, sadistic, or depraved is again indicated, the character is that; otherwise, the second roll tells the true morals, and the first roll is ignored in favor of the second.

That's an excerpt from the Ultra Arcane AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Masters Guide, its one of a bunch of tables that can be used to randomly assign personality traits and shit to an NPC.

I don't see Morally Apathetic on the List, so I guess I'm Aesthetic, which is nice and everything, but that's kinda wierd, 'cause according to the List, it seems like its better than being Morally Virtuous, which I'm absolutely not heh.

I mean, I could roll on this table every day and just pretend to be that way for the rest of the day and it wouldn't make any difference to me.

So what is that, in terms of Morality?

Amoral, mebbe?

Why is amoral better than perverted, then?

Seems like Amoral should be in the number 12 spot on the Chart of Morality.

Well, number 12 definitely shouldn't be depraved, depraved is like the retarded kid that was raised by Wolves humping yer leg and shit, its unconscious immorality, I don't see how that would follow sadistic and perverted and amoral and immoral in any kinda way you could sort these things.

And what's up with Lustful.

I guess its like Extra Lusty, or something.

Hmm, now that I think about it, mebbe I am depraved and not an aesthetic, then heh.

I think there needs to be a 13th choice in the Table that ties Aesthetic to Depraved somehow and turns the whole thing into a Wheel of Morality.

Yah, that's what I am, baby, Morally Bipolar or some shit ahaha.

Levels

A long time ago, Dundee said he didn't think you needed levels in a game.

'Cause levels are kinda stupid.

And I argued with him, a little, even though I don't really care either way, and I can totally see why he would say that, after hearing a bunch of other shit that game dev guys say.

Well, like the reasoning behind not having an Afterlife in a UO emulator.

'Cause if yer gonna make an Afterlife, and a Regular Life, they say yer making two separate games.

Which is a stupid thing to say, that's the same thing as saying that you should only have one map in a game or something, but whatever.

The thing is, "levels" aren't just a number that says how powerful yer character is and all that stupid virtual cult ego stroking shit.

Quake has levels.

Everything has levels, even UO had levels, if you count each of the 100 levels to Grandmaster of Anything, or if you count the Titles like Journeyman of This And That, and Master, and Grandmaster, y'know, 'cause those Ranks are levels, too, ya smug Kosterian Bastard.

A new level is just a place where the gameplay changes a little.

In Quake, its a new map.

In UO, yer a little better with a Halberd (although mebbe you don't really reach the New Level with Halberds until yer a One-Hitter like Grampa ahaha) .

In EQ (and D&D type games), ya get new spells that change the gameplay, like the Power of Invisibility, ya get s'more hitpints, and you can now go to a new map or something, 'cause yer finally the right size for it.

And in MMOs, levels can sorta artificially set the power vacuum stage for Oldbies being able to help Newbs and shit, even in a simple, non-buggy game where just having the Arcane Knowledge of the Game that an Oldbie has doesn't really have any benefits that he can pass on to anybody else.

So it really isn't just a bunch of treadmill cognitive dissonance crap, like folks always seem to wanna pretend it is.

But that said, when I play Mount and Blade, I use the character editor and cheat my ass off, I give my character 5o in every stat, and 10 (the max) in every skill, and 300 in every weapon skill.

'Cause I don't enjoy all that control-smothering junk games do that make my character artificially crappy by making him run slow and shit heh.

I still hate the way DAoC made my dude half as fast backwards, because of the goddam roleplayers, I'm a mother fucking rocket jumping whacky wall walkin' ice-skater from Quake, baby.

Shit man, those Battlefield 90210 games piss me off just 'cause I gotta hold the fucking shift key to run, wtf is that all about ahaha.

So I cheat on the level thing big time in Mount and Blade, 'cause I don't see a good reason to start out all weak and shit, and it lets me play the game without needing the assistance of Doctor NPCs and shit (I'm not into that Virtual Buddy Gather All The NPC Heroes and Dress Them Up stuff, there's only room for one Super Hero on my team heh).

And I still get the points in the archery as I go along shooting stuff, and junk like that, so there's still a little of that feeling like I'm getting better at shit or whatever, although it means about as much to me as my score in a pinball game.

And my troops level up, so I still got that levelling up fun stuff, through them.

But I ain't playing D&D in some Complex Universe of Ranks where Each Level was its own interesting little mini-games with its own sort of gameplay, where being a Squire for a Knight and hanging out with the other squires might be its own fun little set of games, until you finally became a Knight and started playing Knight Games, just like being a Farmer's Son Villager, and trying to get the attention of a Knight in order to become a Squire might be its own little set of fun stuff to do (if I was gonna make a MMO like that, it'd have to have multiple characters, so I could keep at least one in each interesting State and switch between 'em whenever I got bored of the Knight game or whatever).

And I ain't a DM or a game company so I don't need to make anybody jones to play the game 'cause they're getting close to level 9 and a new spell or something either heh.

Well, whatever man, I ain't getting paid for this so I don't have to do it really good, I just gotta make sure I give you shmucks at least a few of the clues you need to solve the goddam mystery ahaha.

Bushi Doh

Lately I've been playing this Onin no Ran Samurai Mod for Mount & Blade.

Its even more kick ass than the Lord of the Rings one.

And it makes me wonder why there ain't more semi-historically acccurate Samurai shit to play, y'know, like, Lone Wolf and Cub slash Seven Samurai style.

'Cause that setting has a lot of awesome shit to it, y'know, what with the exotic peach blossum scenery and the mountains and the Zen comedy and all that, and that bushido stuff was super popular with us crackwhore white trash kids from the 80s.

Still ain't no super powered chinese peasant shit either, fer all my Bruce Lee Worshipping black buddies.

That junk was the basis of every kick ass spaghetti western story and a helluvalotta tattoos.

Anyways, so what do we get from our buddies over there instead of that kick ass junk?

This fucked up plastic blonde haired unicorn-riding anime tentacle rape big titty western philosophy worshipping shit.

I'm all for appreciating the irony of the situation of the cultural and philosphical flip flop, but jeeze looeeze man heh.

Anyways, this Onin no Ran thingie is some damn good fun, at least.

Edit: Oh, and if you are playing along at home, I found a good trick to try if your game gets graphically laggy every once in a while (usually when I go into the first battle scene or a town or something after starting the game), ya just hit C to bring up the character menu (and pause the game), and tab out of the game for a sec, count to ten (to let it dump some shit to disk), and then tab back in to fix it, it seems like it clears up video memory somehow when ya do that.

Colonel Mustard

Every time I played that boardgame Clue with my little brother, due to some fluke of chance, Colonel Mustard always murdered somebody in the Library with the Candlestick.

I think that's why that game never got more popular, we tried playing it like four times, and every time we did, it was always good ole Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick.

Sorta takes all the fun out of solving the mystery when its always the same guy killing people in the same place with the same murder weapon.

I dunno, I guess our game was broken or something.

But as far as motivations go, it probably had something to do with him being a military guy represented by the color Yellow.

The Book of Lies

The first thing the God of Liars does, when you become a Priest of the God of Liars, is make you beautiful.

'Cause the God of Liars hates how ugly everybody is.

And He definitely don't wanna be associated with no ugly people, let alone be represented by 'em.

So He makes you all young, 'cause old folks are ugly, and He gives you a sweet head of hair, and a charismatic aire, and He puts a twinkle in yer eye, and makes yer breath smell like perfume, and all that kinda shit.

Yah, He fixes you all up and changes you around, 'cause He didn't like you the way you were.

And that used to be a pretty good sales pitch for the religion to the masses, if you were a Handsome Priest of the God of Liars, and they were a bunch of old bald folks who were afraid to die and stuff.

Not that you needed a good sales pitch, y'know, 'cause the second thing the God of Liars does is make you a real honey-tongued sweet-talker, so you sound good to folks no matter what kind of stupid crap you say.

Which is pretty important to the religion, since the Book of Lies is so stupid and backwards, and you end up wondering if anything is true at all.

I mean, why would a God of Liars be tellin' ya the truth when He tells you His True Name is Mike?

He's the God of Liars, y'know?

His name is probably Steve or something.

And He probably ain't even a He!

And Steve probably didn't even write the Book of Lies, 'cause She says She did write it!

And then there's the Book of Lies itself, I mean, is it actually full of Lies?

Or no?

Wouldn't it be a better lie for the Book of Lies to be fulla stuff that was true?

See, its stuff like that that got me booted out of the Liar's Priesthood.

And the God of Liars was so pissed at me, He made me even uglier and older and even worsed at talkin' than I was before I met Him!

And so I wandered around all bummed out and confused and ugly and shit, for a bit, until I bumped into a Priest of the God of Truth, and they let me join up with their team.

Yah, that's why I ain't allowed to shave anymore and take a bath and all that, 'cause the God of Truth wants you to be the way you are, all stinky as fuck and without any frilly shit and ribbons, 'cause that's the way he made you.

That's honest, see?

And its pretty fucking hard to do the sales pitch for this religion, lemme tell ya, 'cause besides being all disgusting and dirty and ugly and bad at talking, as one of His Priests, the God of Truth don't help nobody, 'cause helping you would be robbing you of an honest experience or some fucked up shit like that.

He don't even want us to wear shoes, the Book of Truth says we're supposed to feel all the rocks He put in the roads and shit.

Yah, fuck that, man, I'm wearing shoes.

What?

Naw.

Naw, I ain't worried, I can do whatever I want, as long as I'm honest about it.

And the God of Truth don't punish you for being a liar anyways.

Naw, see, the Book of Truth says that creating punishments for shit would make folks act different than they were supposed to, and that they'd therefore be untrue to themselves and the way they were made if they acted different and stuff to avoid some kinda punishment.

Yah, well, that's all and good, and everything, but what if you were a born liar?

Then it'd be untrue of yourself to go around tellin' the truth all the time and behaving honestly and shit.

See, its the shit I'm always thinking like that that makes me worried that I'm gonna get the boot out of this religion too.

But that's okay, y'know, 'cause I never really quit working for the Liar God.

Yah, see, I was just pulling yer leg about all that Truth God shit.

There's no such thing as a God of Truth, man, c'mon, I just made all that crazy smelly Truth God shit up.

Yah, naw, see, I really did used to be beautiful and stuff, that was the truth, I'm just all fucked up and bad at talkin' and stuff now because that ain't the way I really am.

Yep, this ugly smelly old Priest of the Truth God guy costume is actually a disguise, see?

Underneath all this get-up, I'm totally smoking hot and shit.

I could talk all good if I wanted to, too, you know, but I'd lose points fer being too honest, then, y'know?

Yah, see, you should sign up with us Priests of the Liars, we're smooth as fuck, and we get all the chicks, man.