denial is a valid lifestyle choice

[freckles_and_doubt]

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.

Comments

[herne-kzn.livejournal.com]

Ahyes, good old randomly burgling citizens. But it's OK, they're just NPCCCCs.
As the the whole willpower thig. well the current research seems to indicate that it does not in fact exist (my supervisor being a powerful cognitive scientist medidine man) I heartily reccomend "Breakdown of the Will" by Ainslie for when you're feeling guilty.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

hey! that doesn't help. I have difficulty enough summoning up the necessary will to do anything without adding a whole new layer of existential angst. Damned philosophers... ;>

And NPCs are people too. I have taken to refusing all rewards for my paladin-style rescue quests, as a sop to my conscience.

Neverwinter Nights

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

It satisfies my programmed-in-at-age-14 DnD cravings. I really can't get enough of it. pinkthulhu and bighair very kindly gave me Neverwinter Nights Deluxe Edition for my birthday, and now it's sitting eevilly on my desk, saying "Instaaaall meeeee ...."

Once I do that, of course, I may as well write off the next month :)

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Erm, if you want I could play some Galactica again, and attempt to see which codecs is it using, and in which codices they can be located*


* extemporanea in a rare error: a codex is an old book. A codec can COmpress and DECompress. I'm told there's an eclipse today. Rarer than blue moons, I say.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Awwww, I rather liked the idea of prowling the Net for old books... Yes, I admit it, I'm just confused. Mostly because I've been futzing with DivX, causing mental conflation of codices with Xes.

I would appreciate any guidance as to random bits and bobs likely to allow me to play all these nifty CDs. Must... fill... Serenity... void!

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Serenity wasn't on general release this weekend, so we saw "The Aristocrats" instead, which reminds me of a joke I must tell you in person some time....

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Um... apprehension...? There's this sense of lowering doom about a joke that has to be told in person. Particularly by you, strawberry...

Many thanks for codecs pointers in subsequent post, I appreciate it. Will go on a hunt forthwith.

[herne-kzn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, is this the joke that everyone who's seen the Aristocrats talks about but no-one has been willing to put in print?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

There can be two reasons why a joke is "unprintable": the content is unsuitable for many readers, or that the telling of it varies so much that a fixed printed version cannot do it justice.

Both are true in this case.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

According to g-spot (http://www.headbands.com/gspot/) the Galactica mini series has audio codec "Ogg Vorbis" and video codec "DivX 5.0"

The episodes have audio codec "MPEG-1 Layer 3"(i.e. good old MP3) and video codec "XviD"

http://www.free-codecs.com/ should have these for you. Install them and your player (I use WinAmp but MS media player will also work) should have more luck thereafter.