I think there should be a rule for Live Journal writers: don’t write about how much everything sucks unless you WANT it to keep sucking.

I’m not saying that depression, angst, sadness, or grief are all in your head, mind you. I’m just saying that sometimes the decision to write about what a rotten day it is results in the rotten day getting WORSE.

I’ve been feeling lethargic all week. I’ve had a really, REALLY hard time getting any cartooning done. It’s been like pulling teeth. I considered writing a journal entry analyzing this, and just two sentences in I was feeling so depressed and lethargic I couldn’t go on. Everything seemed pointless. Oh the crushing despair… blah, blah, blah.

I decided instead to write about what I did when I got tired of doing what little actual work I did — a couple of hours of RPGing. After writing about that I felt rejuvenated, happy, and optimistic about tomorrow’s prospects.

There are some things, like accounting, where if nobody writes it down it’s as if it never happened. I postulate that journals (be they Live, or Dead-Tree) are similar — what you focus on when you write about your life determines, at least in part, how you will respond to what happens next.

Goth-teen-online-angst-poets everywhere are clawing at their faces as they read this. Relax, kids. You aren’t completely undone. All I’ve done is given you power to be even angstier.

In this evening’s GURPS session we beat the GM.

1) We confronted one of his regional baddies, and proceeded to slice said baddy’s werewolf minions to chutney.
2) the big “reveal” for this baddy was supposed to be that he’s actually a vampire. But instead of delivering it as a big reveal, poor Robby (our GM) accidentally announced the next set of actions by saying “the Vampire draws his… ooops.”
3) Timothy and I slew said vampire handily. Sure, this required a few critical successes and a few critical failures, but in the end we walked off with a vampire skull, all the vampire’s personal effects (evidence to be returned to our Fell Masters), and our trussed-but-still-alive compatriot who had been captured earlier.
4) three hours before the usual wind-down of the session Robby said “And… um… that’s going to have to be it for tonight.” We’d run clear to the edge of his contingency plans, and then past them. I guess we were supposed to follow the vampire to his lair rather than slaughtering him and his pets and then hiking off with a portion of his remains.

My character knows exactly jack-be-diddled about vampires, and the player (me) knows even less about how Robby is treating vampires in this game. Still, taking the skull seemed prudent.

–Howard

We played Frag at the Keep yesterday afternoon. (I got a strip pencilled during the game — I needed to be thinking outside the box, and it worked. The game was outside of its box).

Jason’s friend from Back East had sent him a box chock full of Heroclix, most of which were cheesy, ne’er-do-well heroes, and some of which were generic bad guys, like “Henchman” or “Thug.” I sifted through the box for figs that looked like they’d make good Frag figurines, and wouldn’t you know it? I found more than a dozen, and they were all figs that Jason was willing to part with for nothing.

So we played with figurines instead of the factory-shipped standups. The only problem is that the Clix bases are a little big and unwieldy.

Last night I brought them home and with the help of my Exacto knife and a heavy glove, I separated all the figs from their bases. Next up on the plan is to take Patches with me to the Keep, buy some small square bases, and superglue the figs to their new homes. Why involve Patches? Because he has seen said figs, and loved them so much he took them to bed with him. He is VERY interested in What Becomes Of Them.

I still need to paint the PvP figs, but that’s a project for a MUCH more ambitious week. I’ve still got cartooning to do, you know.

You can pre-order the book now.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/preorder has everything you need to know. Including a 1.5mb PDF sample of pages 38 through 41.

I have held it, and it is glorious. It’s everything I wanted it to be, and then some. Seriously, you folks are going to dig this book.

–Howard