lukeryu

Mental Screamings
2006-01-17 15:26:07 (UTC)

Cigars and Porn Cards

I have a sense of impending doom about the upcoming
semester. Not just about classes, but about everything.
It’s not good to be feeling bad about the semester before it
has started. I have a feeling that choir is going to suck
this semester. Not our performances, but the class. I just
see Ken squeezing and squeezing and before we know it, if we
sneeze the wrong way we are out of choir. Now I know that’s
not going to happen, but he’s just cracking down and I have
the feeling that it’s not going to be nearly as fun this
semester. Then Software D. I hope to find some good way to
deal with this class as so it doesn’t cut too deeply into my
nerd time. Then there’s hopefully tutoring this semester,
D&D this semester, hopefully WoW this semester, preparing
for my research this summer, Speech Team, and maybe sleep,
if I can find the time, and then the, you know, being social
so I don’t become too much more crazy than I already am.
We’ll see how it all shapes out.

I played in Dan’s session for his new tabletop gaming system
(Dan, you should come up with a name for it). It’s an
interesting system, one where you are not restricted by
pre-defined classes. It also has no experience points or
levels, but instead has you learn things by doing them.
Truth be told, it was still pretty rough, but the ideas were
solid, and this being the first time anybody played a game
using the system, there was a lot of useful feedback that
could be given by our playing it. What magic system that is
in place needs to be improved for divine spell casters.
Turning undead needs to be implemented (if it is going to be
put in…). The system for leveling up skills/base attack for
weapons needs to be improved to be more forgiving to new
characters (and it will probably need to be improved to be
harder for built up characters). I had an idea of how to
solve this last problem. If you implement a system similar
to the one you have for leveling up your ability scores,
where as you make successful checks, a skill would get
points and when you get enough points, you make a roll to
see if you learn the rank in the skill. But the more ranks
you have in that skill, the more points you require before
you can make the roll. I know you wanted to avoid keeping
track of numbers like that, but it is an idea. After the
session, I drank a little with Dan and Andy and Tim and
Katie and I learned to play the card game 500 (with Kama
Sutra cards no less) and had a pretty good time.

I think establishments should be able to get a license to
allow their patrons to smoke. Make the whole establishment
a smoking building. Screw these city bans on smoking. If
non-smokers don’t want to come in, they don’t have to.
There will be fair warning about the smoking status of the
bar on the door. But I think smokers should have some place
to go. Like a tobacco shop. You can buy tobacco products
in them but can’t smoke them. It just seems somewhat
nonsensical to me. I think it a few of smoking bars or
coffee shops in the Twin Cities area would suffice. That’s
all that the market could hold I think, but there probably
is a market for them.

I think I determined over break that antismoking campaigns
are doing too good of a job when we were sitting around the
dinner table and somehow the subject came up and my dad said
that he used to smoke, and then my 11 year old sister
reacted as if he had just committed the 8th deadly sin. Her
eyes were huge, mouth hung open, and just had this angry
look to her as if my father had just admitted to rape and
murder. I mean, holy fucking crap. It is public knowledge
that if you smoke long enough, it will kill you. But I
think those people who are 18 and above are perfectly
capable of making the decision whether to smoke or not. We
know the risks, the consequences, etc. I just think the
antismoking ads like Truth and other such ads are going
overboard. Are the smoking corporations corrupt? Probably,
but so are a lot of other corporations. The fact is that
the tobacco companies are trying to sell a product and they
are getting their asses kicked for it. How many times have
you seen Budweiser get attacked for drunk drivers, or liver
disease, or alcoholism? Frankly, I’m sick and tired of the
overzealousness against the smoking companies to the point
where every time I see a Truth ad on TV, it makes me want to
go outside and light up.

G’night




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