denial is a valid lifestyle choice

Well, that weekend was a total black hole... See, this willpower thing. Technically speaking, I have something resembling willpower - I mean, there are things like PhDs littering the place which suggest that at some stages of my life I am actually capable of sustained, productive effort. But my willpower is a small, pale, spindley creature with skinny limbs and a shifty expression, and it's currently spending all its time sitting on a rock somewhere in the antediluvian soup of my psyche, gazing resolutely out into the mists. When I grope around with a boat-hook and shout "Let's have some action here, dammit!" it pretends not to hear me.

(Oh, great. I've just realised that my willpower is Gollum. Which makes sense. Small, spindly and furtive, but when not actually sulking on a rock somewhere, it has a stranglehold like a snake).

So, on Friday morning I sit incautiously down at the Evil Landlord's computer to see if I can persuade it to play all my shiny Battlestar Galactica CDs. Which, in the event, I can't (bugger, more codex-hunting), but hanging out innocently on his desktop is the icon for Neverwinter Nights, which is a slightly elderly (i.e. at least 3 years old) D&D-style adventure game in the Baldur's Gate mode. Fade out to me perking up my drooping and disappointed ears...

Fade in at midnight on Sunday night. I have played Neverwinter Nights for three days straight, breaking only to sleep, drink tea and attend the occasional party* (Nikki's, birthday, Mexican fiesta, margarita-sozzled, for the use of, good; Jo ty's, birthday, potjiekos, food-heavy, for the use of, good). My slightly distracted air at said gatherings is mostly because I'm really still being a 9th-level paladin with a bloody great sword, on whose ash-blonde head rest the cares of the city of Neverwinter. I have a collection of shiny magical equipment, a choice selection of henchmen, and only a slight case of guilt at the fact that the homes and places of business of the city's rich and poor alike are apparently perfectly acceptable and appropriate spaces in which to ransack barrels, crates and chests for random money and items. Recking not the plaintive demands of marking, book revision and other academic frou-frou, the guilt about which (a small, furry, fanged entity) has apparently joined my Gollum-self-discipline on that rock, I am a happy bunny. Academic commitments? what academic commitments? This is not my life. These are not my academic commitments. *makes Jedi hand-gesture*

What's with this D&D thing? The horrible irony is that, although in absolute terms it's a crappy system, with a juvenile and simplistic world-view, no elegance of structure, and fantasy environments which re-invent the term "cliché", we are never going to quite escape it, because it's plugged straight into our past. D&D is a nostalgia trip, a happily regressive discovery of the times when quests were finite, achievement was absolute, moral issues were divisible into artificial categories, and there was no problem so serious that it couldn't be solved by suitable application of a bloody big sword. bumpycat's D&D game, cruelly terminated when he buggered off overseas, is probably the most fun I've ever had role-playing. The secret, I discover, is to play characters that go against your natural inclinations in real life, which explains why I drift more and more towards straightforward, fighter-class Kick-Ass Women With Swords. I used to play Nice Druids with ranged weapons and a penchant for negotiation. These days I just wade in and hit it. With a greatsword, by preference. Real life, who needs it?

* OK, there were also 4 episodes of ritual Firefly-watching on Friday night, in a spirit of worm-eating.

tickled

Random fun quotes for the day!

Off James & the Blue Cat, an amusingly self-deprecating British scriptwriter's blog, a glancing reference to the Terrifying Carnivorous Seagulls of St. Ives:
In D&D terms, a monster with a Challenge Rating of 4, Attacks: beak +6, flappy feet +3 and a ranged area effect weapon you really don't want to be on the wrong end of, even if it is supposed to be lucky. Also has skills: Sense Pasty and, Mob Tourist. Varient 5 hit dice Dire Seagull with Carry Off Small Child rumoured to exist, as yet only a rumour.

Time magazine interviewed Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman together, causing mass outbreaks of helpless fan squeeing and fainting. My favourite Gaiman quote, on the general all-round coolness of fandom at a con signing:
...we're ready to leave the stage. I look up and they have a bodyguard line of 30 Klingons. They're six-foot six and four-feet wide and they have the foreheads and they had linked arms. We were being lead off behind a human wall —a Klingon wall—of Klingon warriors. And I thought, how good does it get?.

And Joss on the Big Damn Movie: "This will be the greatest film since whatever film comes out right before it. And I'm not backing down from that."

Prophetic, given that it hasn't done as well at the box office as everyone hoped, although the reviews are generally good. Sigh. Cinema audiences. Like herding brain-dulled media zombies.

Excuse me, I have to go and discuss Terry Pratchett with a lively third-year class now. Academic life, such hell.