Beware Three Days After the Ides of March

Since we haven’t been able to play D&D recently due to people’s schedules, Marv, Dogger, Chris, and I took it upon ourselves to continue our adventure via email. You may recall in our last cliffhanger that our intrepid adventurers were in media res of a dungeon crawl. Mystina had wandered ahead of the rest of us only to have a 5’ thick stone wall drop down and separate her from the rest of the party. Here’s what happened next:

Cave Troll from around the next corner: Me smells elf down here somewhere...

*Severus casts Calvin Klein's Obsession on himself.*

Mystina: Oh, wow, seeing you really takes me back to when I was a volunteer at the cave troll orphanage. Boy, how I loved those little guys. I hope they all turned out well. I sure did do my best to raise them like they were my own.

Cave Troll: Hmmrmph?? Oooahh! I bemember do little elf girly! Herm usem me like puncher dummy. Practices, she says! No fun like she say. ME pratice now!

Banshee materializing from wall to Severus' right: Mmmmm... Obsessive.

severus: D'oh!

Speaking of D&D, methinks that Marv needs to get us one of these.

I got home last night and heated me up some Gaston Beef Stew which prompted Stevie to give me the old “There’s only a little bit left – you don’t want it, right?” spiel so I let him polish it off. I then proceeded to hash out a couple music reviews to appease Kim, my editor. First was The Roots of Robert Johnson which is a killer album. Good liner notes about Johnson’s influence and the author argues that he was the first blues musician of note to learn most of his tricks from records as opposed to a mentor. It’s really cool to hear songs that Johnson appropriated as his own. For instance, “Old Original Kokomo Blues” by Kokomo Arnold became “Sweet Home Chicago”. The second album I reviewed was by Kroke. They’re from Krakow, Poland (“Kroke” is Yiddish for Krakow) and play a weird hybrid of klezmer, jazz, and minimalism. Quartet is a really good album with its ethereal viola and moody songs that build over the course of several minutes. The only dud was a 16+ minutes epic that went nowhere. All in all, a good night spent listening to some great music. Next up is going to be Clannad best of album and it’s going to be a downer because I really don’t like them. Too little Celtic and too much newage. (prnounced like “sewage”)

When I get home tonight, I should find that a couple more Genesis shows have downloaded. I think the one from ’75 finished last night and the gig from ’98 has to be done by now as there was only about 10 megs left on the last song. But I won’t be home til late as I’ve got tutoring right after work and then I’m off to meetup with some godless heathens such as myself. When I got home last night, I found that the latest episode of Clayborne, “Bad Call”, had been posted. Now that the characters’ backgrounds have been explored a bit and their relationships to one another have been delineated, a lot of the excitement I felt listening to the first several episodes is gone. But I have to admit that I like the more recent confrontational bits and that I got a quite a shock last night when Frank got a phone call from his dead lover, Helen. Her ghostly voice was spooky but, when she shrieked, I almost jumped out of my seat! You may have noticed that I’ve started a new Doctor Who audio drama - Winter for the Adept. It’s the second or third in a row that takes place either during the winter or in a very cold setting. It really sucks lying there in bed trying to snuggle up with myself only to hear howling winds and envision The Doctor and Nyssa struggling through the snow. You’d think I’d be listening to an adventure that takes place in the desert under the baking heat of the sun instead. But no. I choose the stories set in the coldest places.



Winter for the Adept is quite good so far. In involves Nyssa being stranded in a Swiss all-girls school in the dead of winter. And the school just happens to be inhabited by a poltergeist. (But aren’t all girl schools?) It’s creepy and snowy and it gives me chills in addition to scaring me.

I spent some time yesterday at Ancora reading Why I am Not a Muslim, Ibn Warraq’s polemic against Islam. It’s quite a good book but is a bit slow-going as there’s a quite a bit of history with which I’m unfamiliar. The first chapter was inspired by the fatwa against Salmon Rushdie and it briefly describes the general intolerance of Islam before delving into an attack on its Western apologists. Chapter 2 continues the screed’s assault on Islam by exposing its earthly origins and the unoriginal elements of Mohammed’s creed. It’s been a very interesting read so far. I’m learning some history and adding to my knowledge of the Qur’an which, before I started the book, was close to nil. A reader directed me to a complementary website, Apostates of Islam. I knew it would be interesting immediately as the front page boasts video footage of a guy having his hands and feet cut off. Presumably he was caught thieving but you never know.

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know anyone who is a Muslim. I used to work with an African fellow who was one, though. He had a hard time finding a secluded spot in which to pray, lemme tell ya. I walked in on him while he was praying in the tiny changing room we had which doubled as the super soda syrup repository. We ran out of Coke and I couldn’t let the spoiled brats from Long Island go without so I accidentally barged in on his prayer session. It’s not so much that I can reasonably have anything against any particular Muslims that I’m likely to meet but I find myself weary of anyone who subscribes to such a barbaric religion. Granted, Christianity is probably equally barbaric by its nature but it has been tempered by hundreds of years of secularism here in the West.

Oh, Happy St. Urho’s Day!