(no subject)

I suspect there are folks on my friends list who identify with pretty much every part of this comic.

So, I rarely desire things

It's true. When I want something, it is usually an intellectual want, or a mild, vague urge, but I rarely truly passionately desire something.

I'd like to claim that this is because of a careful Buddhist detachment, or training in Stoic philosophy, but, in reality, it's probably just a side effect of the type of depression I've had for years.

So it's kind of neat that I now really, really want something -- something I desire so much that my teeth hurt.

That's not a figure of speech, by the way -- I literally noticed that my back molars were somehow aching with desire for this. Dunno why that happens, but it did.

Bruce Galloway's Fantasy Wargaming generally considered to be a truly awful roleplaying system, and I don't disagree with this assessment. I attempted to play it once, in seventh grade, and couldn't make heads or tails of it -- and I later discovered that this was due to no fault in myself, but simply because it is just that poorly written and thought-out.

So I don't know why I desire the thing so much -- but I found a copy on AbeBooks, for $3.98 including shipping, and bought it. Other copies started at $1, but generally had shipping start at $3 -- there was one that was listed for $1 with $2.50 shipping, but it was listed as "Fair" condition, while the $3.98 with free shipping was listed as "Very Good" condition, so I decided to spend the extra 48 cents.

I don't suppose that the seller is going to make a great profit on this thing, but it gets it out of his or her stock anyway.

Yeah. I just spent nearly four bucks on a used copy of a game that everyone, including me, thinks sucks. And I can't wait for it to get here!!!

A phone call from my nephew

Forgot to blog this earlier.

So, yesterday afternoon, the phone rings; I answer it.

"Hello, Uncle Ian."

"Hello, Drew. How are you doing?"

"Uncle Ian, can you do me a favor?"

"Depends what it is. Go ahead and ask."

"Can you answer a question?"

"Sure -- what is it?"

"Why do dragons have gold?"

"I give up -- why do dragons have gold?"

"I don't know. That's why I called."

"OH! I'm sorry. I thought you were asking a riddle. Dragons have gold to sleep on. It's very comfortable for dragons."

"Thank you, Uncle Ian. I love you."

"I love you too, Drew."

His mother, my foster-sister got on the phone then, and explained that Drew and she had been talking, and he'd said that, if HE were a knight, he'd go around and kill dragons and take their gold, and then he started wondering why dragons had gold in the FIRST place. She didn't know; it's not like they ever BUY anything, and so they decided to think of who they knew who WOULD know the answer. After all, they have THIS friend for gardening questions, and they call Leila for marine biology related questions, so they figured that I was the go-to guy for dragon-related stuff.

I'm very grateful to papersky for writing the book that explained this fact about dragons, so I could enlighten my nephew, who was entirely satisfied by this answer and felt it made perfect sense and explained much.

Drew is now reading on a second or third grade level, and has started reading some of his father's manga. The age-appropriate ones -- the other ones aren't anywhere the kids can get to them.