Iranon's Ramblings

A-Questing We Will Go...

2006-02-11T01:45:18Z

I left off the Quest for the Amulet several months ago, but I've recently decided that Rodney has had the thing for quite long enough. It's time for me and the little dog to kick some ass.

If you're lost, I'm talking about NetHack. (There are a few NetHack communities, like nethack and nethackers.) For the unitiated, NetHack is a game starring the intrepid @, who must find his/her way through the Dungeons of Doom to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor from the nefarious Wizard of Yendor (a.k.a. Rodney). Having retrieved the Amulet, and thus saved it from the clucthes of the unaligned (dark) god Moloch, @ must return through the dungeons, fighting hordes of monsters, and travel to the Outer Planes, where he will find the altar where he can successfully sacrifice the Amulet to his/her own god, and in return be granted Ascension to demigodhood.

The game is very hard. I have never ascended, but hope to eventually. SLASH'EM (Super-Lotsa-Added-Stuff Hack: Extended Magic) is a slightly more difficult variant with more character options and more enemies/magic/toilets/etc. I have never Ascended in SLASH'EM either, and at the moment I'm not trying. I have heard that Crawl, another Roguelike game (the first game in this genre was Rogue), is even harder, and that where NetHacks' Random Number Generator (or Random NetHack God, if you prefer) is merely cruel and inhuman in its insatiable bloodlust, Crawl's is in fact the essence of pure and utter evil transmogrified into code, and it wants you dead - sometimes it wants you dead on level one. I have never attempted to play Crawl, and have never seen someone claim to have beaten it. I'm sure that's only because I haven't looked very far (I don't tend to frequent forums for games I don't play), but it is mildly disturbing.

I'm sure one of these days one of the chaotic female elven wizards I like to use will make the Ascension.

If anyone cares, I got second in the Shakespeare recitation comp. ^^

Gotta go, study hall is getting crowded...

Shakespeare Recitation

2006-02-09T02:06:08Z

Our school has a mandatory, school-wide Shakespeare recitation contest in progress. I've just made it to the finals with almost no rehearsal by improvising my intonation and gesture at the last minute. I can't tell if everyone else just sucks, or if I'm just talented.

Being in drama for two years and having a teacher who owned my soul until six at night five to six days a week for weeks on end probably had something to do with it.

If you haven't tried Gatorade Rain, you have to get some now. It's awesome.

I am journaling during my mandatory study period... I seriously hope nobody notices I'm not working; they might confiscate my laptop, and that would suck.

My streak of good days seems to be holding; I haven't felt really angry or upset for something like three days now.

Writing is not going well. Ideas come and go; most seem idiotic. When I write about them anyway, they continue to seem so. I wish the people who encouraged me at this weren't so freaking far away.

All my close friends (all two or three of them) live overseas. I hated it there because of the weather, but when I had to leave it hurt to leave them behind. I hope they're doing okay, I've kind of fallen out of touch recently. I'll have to send them e-mails tonight.

Good Days

2006-02-07T22:59:56Z

I've had one and a half good days in a row, following a slight point-of-view readjustment I kicked myself into yesterday. That's the best I've done since before Christmas. ^^

The readjustment was this: Yes, I'm dissatisfied, lonely, and the person I present myself to be isn't who I actually am, BUT (this is the readjustment part) I can be okay with that BECAUSE I can quit, whenever the hell I want. I'm doing society a favor, going along, being non-confrontational, because it's occasionally to our mutual benefit. But I don't have to. I'm not owned. I can keep up appearances as long as I need to if it'll save me grief, as long as I know that I hate their guts, can't stand their authority, and am irritated by their views.

It's a good feeling to be reminded that one can do whatever the hell one wants, if one dares.

I also did something last night I haven't done in a while, which is pray. You see, I was raised Methodist, and for a long time (until last year or so) I had a fairly close relationship with God. Last year we had a falling-out, over His alleged views on homosexuality (several of my friends are bisexual or homosexual, and I felt that homosexual relationships were just as good as heterosexual ones, though I happen to be straight myself and, on a slight tangent, am wondering why so many more women than men are bi/les, and how us straight guys are supposed to compete?). Getting back on topic... the argument blew over, but the damage had been done, and I was fairly bitter for longer than I liked to admit. Even when I was Christian I felt the monotheism was slightly silly (anyone could tell that with so many other gods being worshiped, they couldn't ALL be nonexistent) and, finding myself lacking a religion, started drifting towards paganism, which I probably acquired my taste for in my wide reading of high fantasy. Not the greatest reasoning, but hey, it happens.

The problem was, Holy Communion is probably one of the most important and powerful Christian rites: the eating of God, to become One with Him. So, having taken Communion a great many times, it would be ignoring the facts of the matter to just keep ignoring Yahweh - He has a pretty heavy claim on my soul. So last night I prayed for permission to seek my own spirtitual path, with His blessing. I sat there in the cold for a while (for reasons I don't fully comprehend I was kneeling in front of my open window, naked; no, nobody could see me, there was nobody out and no windows face mine) but eventually I got it - I felt I'd been given His blessing and permission to resume my life's journey on other paths than His. It was good.

In other news, I plan on cleaning my dorm room.

If anyone cares, this journal was created to lower the amount of crap I post on my blog, which was conceived as being a place for me to post actual writing. It has, I think, one short story on it, and a bunch of rant posts. Rant posts are now housed here; everything good will be cross-posted.

Not that anyone is reading this, but y'know, maybe someone is. Good for them!

Postage

2006-01-26T23:17:23Z

Rahh, I have Created A Journal, and Posted Within It! Bow, mortals!

Or don't. That's good too.