| House of Leaves

Finally finished House of Leaves yesterday (well, I skipped some of the appendices). This was a solid read and I'm very glad I read it, however, I would not recommend it without reservations. (Aeryk, I would definitely say it is worth plowing through, from where I remember you stopped, you definitely have some more ups, also unfortunately a couple more downs.)

I think that ultimately it is one step too "meta" (it is a book, about a book, about a film, about some scary shit happening to a family that has just moved into a new house) and although all of this presumably suits the author's intent just fine, I found that for me there were sometimes too many layers between me and what I wanted out of the experience, which was the scary shit. That said there are some very interesting experiments with the form of the text where what is happening to the characters really is communicated by the text.

I think if I were to try and read this book again or if I were to recommend it to someone else I would recommend just skipping all of the footnotes the first time through, reading the Navidson Record, then going back and reading the Appendices and footnotes to get the side story with Johnny (which was a major part of the "meta" story, but I felt that it intruded on, rather than added to, the Navidson Record).

My next book I'm tackling is one Thomas Pynchon put out a few years back, Against the Day. It's another burly book and given Pynchon is a literary heavyweight is bound to take me forever as well.

You're the guy who sent us the video of (not hot) porn stars playing D&D! You already know it's a babe magnet!

So can you guys (someone, anyone) please run at least 1 RPG this con? I haven't played one in ages and would love to give it a go. I know that shit is a bore with all the prep time, but comeonnnnnn, it'll be fun :)

| well played sir

Enron and I went back to the game store, sight of last weekend's humiliating defeats, and actually did a lot better this time. Enron went 2 for 2 against some tough opposition, thus showing why he's the champ when it comes to Warmachine! I won my first game and lost my second, but not in a humiliating way like last time, so that was good.

A weird thing was that over the course of the day there were a TON of cute girls in the store, interested in talking to us about the games we were playing. One even tried to recruit us to play D&D with her. What the fuck, normal women in the game store? I felt like I was in bizarro world.

Herr Blaqueheart and I are fine with two rooms. We will need the extra one to hide the bodies while we make our escape.

| Compromises II

Rudy should sleep in the van, but he should definitely wear the sleep mask, I mean Aeryk does need his quiet after all:




- 'Quit hoggin' the blanket!'

Fine, 2 rooms is it. FUCK!?

| Compromise

How about Darth Rude sans mask and drunk jr0n both sleep in eLzar's van of debauchery with Mr. Gozarian. That way we only need one room for the other four AND eLzar can sleep to the sweet, sweet purr of two man's throats. Perhaps more. Problem solved.

Yay me for the best solution.

D>M>

| The Ultimate Price

Sure, $1.36 per person in monetary cost, but the toll I would take on all your souls, innocence, and persons would be immeasurable. I do some pretty crazy half-cocked shenanigans in that van behind the snap down curtains.

My advice? Save that $1.36....

On 2nd thought, I think we should all stay in the van with Eric. I remember a bunch of us went for food in that van, I think it's feasible. I estimate cost would be about $1.36 per person.

| Crap

It would appear that Pump and jr0n saw through my clever ploy to make you jarks foot the bill for me by "accidentally" leaving myself out of the calc. Crap. So revised, the bill will likely be $175/head, not $210. What say you all?

jA-eL are you willing to throw in for the shit, shower and Park tax like eLzar? It would at least buy you in and out privileges at the parking garage and maybe a "Dude were all guys here" experience with Darth Rude.

D>M>

Yeah Pumpkin is right -- that's six people not counting Rape Van Aeryk and Sir "Not Appearing At This Hotel" Ja-El. Given that would pull it to sub-$200 levels I vote two rooms. I want to be in Rudy's room, if only for the inevitable moment when I walk into the room to find him openly masturbating while wearing his Vader mask.

So Enron and I started going to a Warmachine league at the SFLGS (somewhat friendly local game store) last weekend. Hoo boy, did we get our asses spanked black and blue. Well Enron won one game. Against me. It just goes to show, you can play a game for years, then suddenly learn you've been fucking it up the whole time. I had a lot of fun, though. For gamer weirdos these guys weren't too bad.

The coolest part of the league you get a little book in it with a sort of map-like, branching track in it. Playing games and getting certain achievements in those games gets you stamps on the track, and and when you get to certain spaces you unlock a "stratagem" which gives you some crazy power you can use once per game. The achievements are pretty easy to get so as long as you play a bunch of games you'll eventually unlock a whole bunch of shit, just not as fast as if you go smite everyone weirdo gamer-style.

I guess that's not really "cool" but you know what I mean.

I'll ask Blackheart what he wants. Are we going to have 5 or 6 people in the room? I'm counting 6 (not counting Aeryck).

Is it literally double the cost to have 2 rooms? (makes sense.) I'm not crazy about the idea, we're still too old to double up beds so there's gonna be lots of floor sleeping anyways.

| Doom Room

Well, I can setup two rooms, but be forewarned, based on the 4 day scenario and say a $86 (out of my (ass)hat eLzar surcharge, that means the remaining 5 jarks will each be shelling out $210.00 for the room. Is that what everyone wants?

D>M>

I recently talked to Blackheart. He votes for two rooms.

Rude - Completely forgot about Long Beach. Usually I use Southwest, so it's only out of LAX. Tickets came out to around 175 bucks.