Damn, I'm nifty.

It is wisely written that you cannot judge a book by its cover. This is written because... well, it's been written down... and it is wise because it embraces a truth which has been handed down through the generations. It's wrong, of course; the saying dates back many centuries ago, when all books basically had the same cover, and most of those just said "holy bible" on them. In those days of hand-copied pages and velvet bindings, you really couldn't judge a book by its cover -- they *all* looked boring.

Nowadays, of course, creating art for book covers is its own career, and there are people who do nothing but this full time. It's actually a very respectable field, in which some true works of art have been produced. The implication is, though, that most books today, at least most non-fictive books, tend to have cover art which is highly indicative of the story within and of the tone and theme of the story, which means that a trained cover-reader really can judge a book by its cover, and with considerable accuracy.

The truly enlightened reader, of course, relies not only upon cover art. A good book.,.. a truly great book.,.. makes a very satisfying thump when it hits the floor. Yes, shocking but true, the quality of a book is often directly proportional to the quality of the thump it makes, and in the few minutes I have in which to write this morning, I will be conducting a brief experiment using some books I just happen to have near me.

Campbell's Biology
Arguably the most sucessful biology textbok ever produced, Campbell's Biology is the standard textbook for nearly every biology class I've ever taken (and there have been a fair number). Written by a botanist who knows a respectable amount about everything in the universe, Biology is an immense tome which weighs close to 7 pounds, hardcover. Dropped from a height of 1 meter onto a carpet over a concrete floor, Biology make s a loud, heavy, but largely atonal thud, indicative of a book with lots of content but little entertainment value.

The APA Style Guide
Bane of psychologists everywhere, the APA Style Guide details the endless minutiae required to properly format a paper according to the APA's guidelines for publication. Written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, this book ensures that proper scientific writing and consistent presentation rules are brought into otherwise interesting reading. Dropped from the standard 1 meter onto the same floor, this book makes an unsatsfying splat sound accompanied by rustling as the pages flutter under their own power, indicative of a book without any real merit in and of itself and which spreads its boredom to the things around it.

The Bible
Some people might get upset at the thought of me dropping a bible, but don't worry, it's only the King James version and has no Hebrew in it at all. Dropped from standard height, the bible makes an almost wet plop sound which, though not inspiring, is entertaining, indicative of a book which has artistic merit but whose content no longer truly applies. Interestingly, the bible makes a much more satisying thud if dropped on packed earth or wooden slats.

The Princess Bride
William Goldman's masterpiece and arguably the finest book ever written. If I have to tell you what the Princess Bride is, you have no business reading this Journal. This is the 25th anniversary edition, which is about 300 pages and includes the first chapter of Buttercup's Baby. It is softcover and bound using normal modern glues. Dropped from standard height using our proper experimental conditions, this books makes a deep, resonant thump on impact, with a quiet but audible echo that persists for several heartbeats. It is the sound of one's enemies falling to the ground before you. It is a sound of beauty. It is, using the proper definition, perfect.

There you have it. A brief which has proven that you can, in fact, judge a book by its cover, and more specifically, by its mass and the material the cover is made of. Naturally, scientific method requires that this experiment be replicated and expanded upon, so watch this space for future experimentation with other books.

Burning Souls: An Analysis of the Physical and Magical Properties of "Ectoplasma"
Dr. Leolus Beldon
Department of Magical Research,
Planar University at Corelus Secundus
This article was first printed in the prestigious Journal of Magical Theory and Research. Following the destruction of PUCS (along with much of Corelus Primus and Secundus) by as yet undetermined forces, research by some of that university's more prominent researchers was reprinted in a memorial collection. Dr. Beldon's research remains controversial, however, since his laboratory (and his specimen collection) were utterly destroyed when the university was attacked and, thus, his research has yet to be replicated or, indeed, verified.

For many years, researchers have attempted to find evidence either proving or disproving the semi-mythical "demon carrots of the Abyss" said to attack and consume outlying planes. While persuasive arguments have been published both in favour of the existence of the carrots and against their existence, the current study is an attempt to support the existence of these elusive demons by an analysis of a small cache of magical items recently brought to the attention of this researcher and colleagues. While evidence is inconclusive, these analyses suggest strongly that these items may be the "ectoplasma cannons" attributed to the carrots in stories.

Physical description:
The magical items are pike-like in nature. The body consists of a five-foot shaft of wood-like metal which, though old and recovered from a buried tomb, shows no sign of wear. Atop this shaft is a spear-blade, leaf-like in shape and forged of a black metal which has retained its edge despite the conditions in which is was found. Both metals resisted attempts to take samples from them and thus few physical properties can be listed here; density and hardness of the metals are unknown, but they are non-magnetic and have very low ductility and conductance of heat and electricity. The materials are, in fact, classified as metals only as a best guess.

Ectoplasma Projection:
The term ectoplasma refers to the unique energy emitted by these cannons. When held and triggered, the cannons draw astral matter... "soul stuff" in relevant mythology... and convert it instantaneously into a superheated gas, which is accelerated through magnetic fields and projected forward at high velocity. The result is a highly volatile projection capable of damaging nearly any substance. Destructive power is maximized at the expense of reliability, and the process of superheating the gas into plasma will sometimes malfunction, resulting in a premature explosive discharge destroying pike and, most probably, wielder; this researcher estimates that such a misfire may occur as often as five percent of the time. The result is the metaphysical material which makes up the soul -- the ectoplasm - being superheated into a deadly plasma, the energy referred to in the ancient texts as ectoplasma.

In mythology, the pikes of the carrots are said to be usable only by the most despicable and black-hearted individuals, and that any who are not truly deeply evil who attempt to use the pikes find part of their souls siphoned off to charge the weapon. The legends suggest that only an evil outsider would have the depth of evil necessary to fire the weapon at no cost to themselves. An evil mortal would be drained of their strength and vitality, while a non-evil mortal would not only be drained but would also become more evil for using the weapon as the pike's negative energies fill up the spaces in the spirit left empty. While the legends are clearly romanticizations of the weapons, experimental findings are consistent with these legends. Testing revealed that firing the ectoplsma blasts required nothing more than physical contact with the pike and an act of will, and that anyone firing the weapon was left feeling weak and "empty." Alignment testing (using a Hobbart's Device) demonstrated that approximately 1 in every ten individuals who activated the ectoplsma were shifted between one and three steps along the alignment axis towards chaos and evil. Subjects who were initially chaotic and evil additionaly reported less "emptiness" after using the weapons. We hypothesize therefore that the pikes do indeed draw upon the wielder to fire, although there is no evidence to support that they actual drain soul or any other sort of astral energy.

Conclusions:
The strange materials used to construct these pikes and the unusual nature of their energy discharge do support the hypothesis that these weapons may be the source of the legends of demon carrots. Whether or not these weapons are, in fact, relics of such a demonic race is open to interpretation. Future research will include an expedition to the region where these pikes were located in hopes of locating more "carrot" artifacts. Additionally, we hope to use new information obtained in this study to attempt to summon whatever entities may be tied to these pikes by sympathetic resonance. It is hoped that this expedition and these experiments will bring the pikes' builders, carrots or otherwise, to our university for study. We are confident that they have much to teach us.

I think sometimes that I don't get into enough fights.

Of course, there are a lot of good reasons why I don't get into more fights, like my strength of 6, my size which puts me firmly below the featherweight category, my very low pain threshold, and so forth. I can outthink three times my weight in football players, but I'm not built for melee. That said, I've always been interested in the school of thought that teaches that a person's fighting style is like a fingerprint and says quite a lot about how the person thinks and acts. I don't have the training to judge how true that is (but then again, what did Bruce Lee know about psychoanalysis?), but I think it's a neat theory, and I've watched people fight in ways which seemed consistent with what I know about them. After having the chance this past week to observe the weapon-styles of two people I've been making an effort to get to know, I was interested in how similar their styles were to my own, at least to my fairly untrained eye. That, of course, got me thinking... which is always a bad sign... and since I was already primed to think about my Avatars recently, the anthropomorphic characters into which I split up my personality, the final result is obvious... and below!

The Way of the Striking Mind
The favoured fighting style of the Grey Order telepaths and a style mastered by Virrar Crysthalus himself, the Striking Mind is a vicious style which teaches simply to know where an opponent will be and hit there, doing as much damage as rapidly as possible. The style relies heavily upon a skill which is not available to the average warrior: the ability to glean from the opponent's mind what he is about to do. Great fighters are said to predict the battle several moves in advance... the telepath reads this information and allows his enemy to do the thinking. When an opening appears, the telepath steps forward and exploits it to maximum and frequently crippling ability.

Combined with telekinesis, this style can be truly devastating... and horrific to behold. A master of the Striking Mind will stand perfectly still until his enemies close, calmly step out of the way of their blows, and finally riposte with a strike that will powder bone and send the body of the attacker flying back several dozen feet.

The Toxic Vapour
While the being known as Ragon is essentially incapable of physical combat himself, some of his servants over the centuries have taken it upon themselves to develop this complicated and demanding fighting style in emulation of their ephemeral master. The style teaches that one should move like the mists, parting effortlessly around the attacks of an enemy and then slipping through the enemy's defenses to poison from within. The style replies heavily upon small, concealed, and poisoned weapons... and particularly, using them against opponents who believe they are engaging in unarmed combat. The adherents of this style train extensivly in the art of dodging and allow their poisoned needles and daggers to do their offensive work for them. The style is deadly in combat but has a very low rate of students graduating to become proficient.

Claw of Balance
The Killer Penguin Death Squads of Forsteri are renowned far and wide for their combat prowress, and rightly so, for they are equally deadly with bare fist or with powered armour and plasma cannon. Claw of Balance is a fighting style which replies upon a variety of skills, teaching a combination heckling the opponent, staying out of reach, and striking to embarass as well as to wound. The classical move of Claw of Balance is to duck below a punch and sever the opponent's belt-buckle, making the opponent look foolish as well as tripping up his legs. While Claw of Balamce is an effective style on its own, it is not designed for unarmed combat -- it is typically assumed that an adherent will be clever enough not to be caught unarmed or outgunned in the first place, and ideally has a battlemech between themselves and their opponents. Forsteri teaches, after all, that there is no such thing as overkill. In a pinch, when a fair fight is unavoidable, Claw of Balance focuses primarily on striking areas of the anatomy generally considered impolite to target, and then giggling when the opponent falls down screaming and preferably missing an eye.

The Shifting Step
Originating in the far northern fields of Lycan, where shapeshifters have created their own society, the Shifting Step is a martial art designed to synthesize the advantages of werebeast's human, animal, and hybrid form. There is extensive variation between phenotypes (a wereshark will not rely on the same tricks as a wererat, obviously) but it is mutelidaestyle, the form pioneered by the wereweasels, which has been most popular throught the school's history and which is synonomous with the style itself to a great degree. The Shifting Step is named for the signature move of the style: the warrior begins in powerful hybrid form, launches forward with powerful pouncing muscles, changes to smallest form in mid-air such that momentum translates into maximum velocity, passes through an opponent's defense, latches on, and then returns to massive hybrid size and tears the opponent apart with tooth and claw.

The Shifting Step depends a great deal on sudden and frequent form changes -- it is said that a master of the style never completes a movement in the same shape they were in when they began. Faced with an opponent prepared for sudden size and mass shifts, the style shifts its emphasis to animal-fury, and the fighter becomes a mass or whirling tooth and claw. Pioneered by predators in the truest sense of the term, this style is not designed to incapacitate an opponent; while it is often used non-lethally in friendly bouts between shapeshifters, when it is employed in actual combat, the intent is to reduce the opponent to convenient, bite-sized pieces, leaving prisoner-taking to other group members.

Johan's Response
The Hunters of Johan, a league of clerics who combine divine and sorcerous spells to aid them in their hunt for the undead and other enemies of the church on the world of Wyvern, are trained in the use of iron-studded quarterstaffs which can rend flesh and crunch bone. Training in the use of these tesubos requires extensive time and discipline -- students who simply swing around until they hit something never advance beyond their basic training, for the Hunters consider the staff to be an art-form unto itself. Johan's Response is the name of the combat style which the Hunters rely upon almost exclusively, and legends tell that the school was originated by Johan himself thousands of years ago. The style's primary tenet is that the fighter must never start a battle but must always finish it, and so the fighter relies upon heavy armour and magical protection to withstand the enemy's opening strike and relies upon twenty pounds of oak and cold iron to ensure no further strikes come.

As a clerical combat school, the style focuses heavily upon it being used only upon those worthy of smiting, and that combat should be used only as a last resort -- after the ability to fling fireballs has been exhausted, for instance. The practitioner is taught that unless one's life is in direct danger, one must attempt to comunicate with the enemy before striking and, preferably, should even learn the enemy's religious and philosophical leanings before smiting him. Thus, instead of the shouts or curses which other fighting styles teach, Johan's Responders are known to often punctuate their attacks by shouting "you're wrong!" at their foes. The enemy is rarely left in the position to debate the issue.

It did not escape my notice that I managed to mispell the word "kitchen" every time I wrote it last Entry, in the exact same way. Some might suggest that this implies interesting things about my subconcious... others might rightly conclude I'm lazy, but at least I'm consistently so!

So anyway...

Tuesdays are the days on which I most frequently have to either 1) write the Entry early or 2) put up filler. I'm very busy every day, of course, but on Tuesdays, my day feels very much like an unending rush between classes, meetings, the laboratory, piles of homework, more classes, and my game in the evening. On most Tuesday, I just manage to squeeze in lunch between panic and crisis. Suffice it to say that, when it comes time to either write an Entry or go to class/run my D&D game, well... people on their home computers are less likely to strangle me than people who are sitting at the same table or at their office desks. I'd prefer to be doing Journal Entries, but such are the choices which life brings us.

Yes, I do sometimes write Entries before the posting day. Anyone who gets upset that this means that the Journal may not truly reflect my thoughts and feelings on a given day needs to take a lesson from the opening theme of Mystery Science Theater.

What exactly is filler, then? "Filler" is the catch-all term for Entries which are purely placeholders and are obviously so. If an Entry says, for example, that I've gone to play Warhammer instead of sitting down to write, that's filler... I've taken the trouble of posting, so you know I haven't forgotten you, but it's an Entry utterly lacking in content. Stop snickering, there usually is content when I post these things. The point is, filler is any post which exists as a placeholder... rather than making a point or elaborating upon some creative whim, filler is a post which tells the reader: I know you're out there and I'm glad you checked, but I'm off doing something more important. Sometimes I've planned ahead and the filler is some creative work from my past to entertain and enlighten the reader... and sometimes it's just a post telling you all to go watch The Pirate Movie.

The question, then, is whether or not filler qualifies as an Entry. Granted, filler is usually only about a sentence and isn't a funny sentence at that; it expresses no ideas, it evokes no emotions, and it doesn't even laugh at humans. I feel, however, that filler is still a valid way of filling a Journal, because it is true to the most basic premise of Journal writing. Filler is not insightful. It is not entertaining. It is not thought-provoking, or wise, or witty, or interesting. But filler possesses the one trait essential to Journal writing above all others.

Filler is posted on time.

So the next time you sit at your computer and load this page... the next time you sit, breathless with antipathy anticipation for the incredible revelations which I have prepared to gift unto those few who truly appreciate my work... and instead, you get a message like "I didn't have time to write anything this week because I've gotten attacked by giant ants wielding miniature weed-whackers"... you'll remember that, in its own way, filler is as beautfil and as insightful, as artistic and as poetic as anything else that appears in this Journal, and you'll pause a moment to reflect that, even while trying to simultaneously exist in three space/time localities at a given moment just to keep my "to do" pile from getting bigger, I'm still working to keep from dispointing you, my dear readers, my constant readers, my suckers for punishment.

I mean, friends. Yeah.

And now that that's out of the way, a Special Bonus Feature. Some of you have already heard that I am committing to run yet another one-shot this year, this one set for late April. It's already been booked full and is, in any case, going to be a newbies-only game (because I'm a sucker for punishment too). However, those of you who won't be in the game will not be deprived of the storyline and, more importantly, the teaser.

It began slowly and quietly. The mightiest clerics of the land, the leaders of churches and the rulers of cities, felt their most powerful magic begin to fail. Here, the magic sustaining a two hundred year old psychopomp failed, leaving naught but a dried corpse… there, the magics animating the statue of a god failed, leaving only immobile and innanimate stone. Without warning, without reason, the most powerful magics of the clerics simply stopped, and even in the depths of their sacred groves, the druids felt the power of nature recoil from their touch.

Few noticed at first. Those who had ascended to power had done so by secrets more often than honesty, and they hid their diminished talents. For a few weeks, the popes and god-emperors made excuses and used weaker magic for their duties… for what fool would admit that to a room full of ambitious subordinates that their magic had dimmed?

But the weakness spread. Few had noticed the absence of miracles, but more began to notice as the cardinals and heirophants felt their power slip away. They retained most of their power, true, but the mightiest of their spells became nothing more than comical gestures in the air. They too hid their weakness, for who would admit to weakness before one’s superiors and rivals?

But more weeks passed and the weakness spread farther. Spells of moderate power began to fail, and their absence was noticed by the priests who served the people… healings failed, divinations went unanswered, magical items ceased to respond to commands, and forests reclaimed land where before will had shaped growth. The rulers of the faiths were forced to admit to their people that, from the heights of power and moving down, the Faithful were losing their magic, and the process was accelerating.

Cities fell to panic. Healers lost the power to heal, and the numbers of sick and dying climbed. Mighty temples, held aloft by magic, crumbled and fell. Adventurers who journeyed out to smite evil or cause it found their defenses fail and their foes overwhelm them. Legendary beasts, once servants of the nature-worshippers, broke their bindings and laid waste to the lands around them. The leaders of the faiths fought to maintain order, and in a rare display of unity, long-time enmities… ideals of good and evil, law and chaos, cities and forests… all were set aside in the face of the Godfall.

The Council of Faiths assembled and debated plans. They had months, perhaps only weeks before the magic still left to the faithful failed entirely. The few divination spells still functioning gave vague clues that the Godfall was unnatural, and the plan was formed to assemble a force of clerics who had yet to lose their magics and send them forth to find and destroy the cause. Those who had lost magic had lost physical and often mental ability as a result, and so the great heroes of the churches would be forced to stand by as lesser clerics, who had not yet begun to weaken, went forth. It was a plan considered doomed by many, but in absence of any other solution, it was a plan adopted.

You are among those chosen to seek out the cause of the Godfall. You have been selected because you have skills, in combat or in learning, that will benefit this quest. You have been selected because someone in your church or organization believes you have the ability to avert and undo the Godfall. And you have been chosen because you are too weak, puny, and expendable to have started to weaken yet.

Yes, it is a shameless rip-off of the Time of Troubles, although there's a good-sized chunk of Vampire: the Masquerade: Gehenna mixed in there too (as players will discover to their chagrin), and the title itself is stolen from some Superman comics I've been reading recently. Remember, like all my games, it may be shamelessly plagiarized, but if you consider how high quality the stuff I'm stealing from is, the game has *got* to be good.

And now, another in our series of "Eric starts typing and ends up with a Journal Entry." Today's Entry is brought to you by Music To Scheme By Volume 15 and too much Muppet Show.

Today is a special day in the Imperial calendar. March 19th is What the Heck is That Day, which commemorates the first ever recorded solar eclipse in 721 BC. The eclipse was recorded by Egyptian scholars at the dawn of the 25th dynasty while, just down the road, the Isrealites were getting conquered by the Assyrians (the capital of which was Ninveh, by the way) and the Babylonians were reaching new heights of their civilization just prior to their last big drop. No previous eclipses had ever been set down by scholars, and understandably the average person who watched the event, though most had lived through at least one eclipse before, had the frooble scared out of them.

Some say the Egyptians were victims of their place at the dawn of history and that their great faith in their gods doomed them to fear such events. Others suggest the ancient Egyptians were merely gullible.

In the modern age, where truly cosmic events such as a full solar eclipse are considered commonplace and even dull, it behooves us to look back into the dawn of time, before Jesus, before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, before history itself as it is reckoned today (though not before Jews, of course... we're everywhere and we're damn good at it...), and consider what beholding an eclipse must have been like for the common Egyptian.

"Hey," says Fred the Egyptian, toiling in the marketplace. "Is it me, or is it getting dark?"

"It isn't just you," replies his companion, Bob the Egyptian. "Is it a plague of locusts blocking the sky?"

"No," says Fred, shading his eyes and looking skyward at the fading sun. "It looks as though a great shadow is blocking out the face of Ra."

"Well," says Bob with a shrug. "I guess Apophis just ate the king of the gods. Good for him."

Bob and Fred stand silently for a moment. Much of the rest of the day is spent hiding under the kitchen table.

I'm kidding, of course. The eclipse was recorded in the annals of history as an eclipse, and not as an episode of Stargate. Be that as it may, they didn't have much in the way of newspapers back then, and so while the Egyptian astronomers (and no doubt their Chinese and Greek equivalents) must have known what they were observing (and cleared out space under the kitchen table the day before), the average peasant couldn't possibly have understood what they were seeing as anything less than an act of god(s). Today, we can hardly conceive of what it would feel like to go through such an experience... and the feeling would only have been magnified for them, since at this time in Egypt's history, the gods were felt to be a very real and present force in society. When the sun goes out at noon, and the priest says it's god's canoe getting momentarily obscured by the yacht of Zeus, who's going to say differently?

The astute reader may be wondering where I'm going with this line of thought. To paraphrase Indiana Jones (who *also* appears in The Pirate Movie, by the way; you all really need to see that movie), "I'm making this up as I go along."

So anyway...

I consider myself to be a religious creature. I believe myself to possess True Faith and, if I took a ride on some magical dwarf's roller coaster, I fully expect I'd be a cleric as opposed to a cavalier. I honestly believe that I have seen miracles... small miracles, from a small god, but miracles none-the-less... but I can still barely conceive of what it would be like to see something like what the Egyptians must have seen. Did they look up and fall to their knees, praying to Ra? A few hundred miles away, did the Greeks drop to the streets and beg Zeus (or Hermes, if they were in Athens) to reignite the sun? Did Socrates look up at the sky and laugh at his fellows? No, he didn't, because he didn't live until the 300's, but I imagine that everyone else did exactly what we'd expect: panic, pray, confess their sins, sacrifice a goat, and go hide under the kitchen table. Because when the sun goes out, what else are you gonna do about it?

We're very cavalier about gods nowadays, and sometimes I wonder about that. We don't take the gods very seriously anymore... out of my social circle, to my knowledge, I'm the only one with a strong faith in something... and it's faith in a god *I* made up. I watch people play D&D and I wonder at how they can play characters with so little concern for the gods when there is the very clear and present danger that at any moment Ftthlarggnthnugn, the Kobold God of Vengeance, might leap out from behind a bush and rip out your intestines. By all rights, even epic level characters who know the gods exist... who might have met and killed a few... and still don't worship any gods still ought to live with a healthy respect, if not terror, for the Big Guys Upstairs and/or Downstairs, but they don't. Our minds no longer really think of gods as something we fear, even when we're playing a game where the gods not only exist, they are active and petty.

I'd be very curious how Bob and Fred the Egyptians would play characters in D&D. Probably they'd be afraid of the mechanical pencils and go hide under the kitchen table. Bob and Fred weren't very bright.

I've decided they were potters, by the way. It has nothing to do with any of this, but it's nice to know they had good jobs. Bad enough a giant snake eats your god one day without you having to worry about where your next obol and shekel is coming from.

So, to conclude: The Age of Miracles ended a long time ago, and the gods in general appear to no longer walk the earth. What few gods are still among us seem to barely have the power to ensure a smooth flow of traffic, so smiting and curing is probably a bit beyond them. Nowadays, maybe we've moved beyond the need to fear the gods, and the scientist in me says that's probably for the best. Still, I often close my eyes and wonder what it would feel like to see cosmic action on a grand scale, and imagine what the world would be like if *everyone* had that feeling. I wish I could imagine what people would do if they had the respect for the divine that the gods want them to have.

Hide under the kitchen table, probably.

Yesterday, I actually hit someone for refering to this Journal as a "blog." I didn't hit them hard, but suffice it to say, it was their misfortune to be standing next to me when I just happened to have a cardboard tube within arm's reach.

So anyway...

Reading some reviews for The Pirate Movie (see Entry 93), I came across someone who said that the film was interesting because it alternated from adult innuendo to child-oriented fantasy with skill and grace. Initially, I thought this was an excellent comment to make, but as I pondered the issue, I began to think that the review was absurd on one important point... why was the swashbuckling and musical comedy child-oriented?

Let me put the issue another way. I grew up on all the standard cartoons that a gamer in my age group ought to have watched: G.I. Joe, He-Man, Captain Power (yes, it was a cartoon, admit it), and, of course, Transformers. I loved all of these shows, and to my recollection, Transformers was my favourite. This is for good reason, I think... looking back as Eric 4.1, who has had the opportunity to watch these shows again as an adult, Transformers is the only one which I still find just as wonderful as I did then. The important thing is this: as Eric 1.0, I enjoyed Transformers because it was giant robots, but as Eric 4.1, I love Transformers because it is a epic space-opera with an incredibly rich history, back-story, system of spin-offs, and memorable characters. The series was well-written (for a cartoon), well animated, and contained themes and messages which, unlike shows like G.I. Joe where trying not to learn was half the battle, actually appealed to, interested, and educated viewers without talking down to them. I did not appreciate this show as a five-year old. I could not have. I was only able to appreciate Transformers when I became old enough to understand it. Which brings me to something I've been known to observe from time to time:

Kids' shows are wasted on children.

As most readers know, I grew up on Star Wars where other children were watching fairy tales and Disney movies. Perhaps this gives me a different perspective than others have. But it seems to me that while most kids' shows are utter crap (especially nowadays), some of them are real gems which most adults will never encounter simply because the adults think it's a kids show. This is why few adults have ever taken the time to try to appreciate Transformers. This is why few adults have taken the time to appreciate The Pirate Movie.

Swashbucklers laughing-and-then-jumping-off-something are not kids-only images... these images and images like them are an art and a wisdom in and of themselves which we must all take the time to appreciate. God help those who grow up and outgrow the things they used to watch... because they might just be trading Earthworm Jim and Transformers for Survivor and Eris only knows what else.

It goes without saying that the *real* Three Wise Men were Optimus Prime, Yoda, and G'Kar.

No Entry tonight on the grounds that I hate my honours thesis. I recommend you all go see "The Pirate Movie" (1982) instead. It has pirates, and lightsabers, and pirates using lightsabers. And ninjas. Really. I'm not making this up.

Having looked back over the previous entries and feedback I've received, it appears to me that the Entries in this Journal tend to fall into a few categories: my lies, my philosophy, my gaming stuff, and filler. Somewhat surprisingly, it appears to be records of my deceptions which have met with the most popularity... or at least, the most vocal popularity... from readers, and so this Entry will more true stories of my shamelessly lying to people. This one should be especially fun for readers because these are lies which you, too, with just a little bit of planning, can use against the humans around you, and I encourage anyone who pulls off one of these (or a variation -- there's no end of modifications which could be made) to let me know so that I can see what techniques seem to work well.

Disclaimer 1: My belief system has always been a bit dynamic when it comes to whether or not I believe in multiple gods. I am an earnest and true believer in Forsteri (the fact that I created Forsteri is of minimal importance in the face of something as irrational as faith) and I find that I believe more and more in Eris with each passing year. That said, I believe that the Jewish god probably exists, or at least that some analagous universal force does, even though I do not, strictly speaking, venerate that god in and of itself. I do not, per se, believe in the existence of any other specific gods, but none-the-less there are certain forces which I choose not to mess with, just in case. One of the primary tenets of the Path of Forsteri is to believe that anything is *possible* (with one notable exception, already known to most of you), but that the fact that a thing is possible... i.e., that there *might* be other gods out there... does not mean it is accurate (which is why I don't, for example, take communion or sacrifice goats). The belief that a thing might possibly be true is enough to put the fear of... well, god... into me, and as such, I will personally never pretend to be a worshipper of any of the following gods. Whether my readers who are not bound by these beliefs feels able to do so is up to them, but for my own part, these are cosmic forces which I do not want to risk screwing with. The "Just-In-Case" List: Baron Samedi; Set; Odin; Zeus. Especially the Baron... I feel no shame in admitting he freaks the heck out of me.

On a related note, I have been thinking recently about how strange it is that I have befriended Odin, Thor, and Freya worshippers, and I've met people who at least believed they worshipped Set and Anubis, and I've known more druids and wiccans than I really wanted to, but I've never actually had a religious conversation with, for example, a Hindu, Buddist, or any of the other more common religions outside of the big three. If there are any devout Jah worshippers out there, I'd love to speak with you briefly. Lies and Fools:
1) Jesus Thinks You're Gullible
Pity the poor proseletyzer who sits down next to me figuring an easy mark.

From time to time, various Christian youth groups send their members through various cities... including Montreal... where their tasks, as I understand it, are basically to go around the city, taking busses and the metro, visiting schools and such, and just strike up conversations with people they meet about whether or not they've accepted Jesus as their saviour, whether they've accepted the book of Mormon, and so forth. I have very mixed feelings about these people... I admire their dedication but I think that what they do in the cause of their dedication is stupid... so generally I just ignore them and don't play with them. This particular individual caught me on the bus between Vendome and Loyola on a painfully hot day (and when I hadn't been having a nice afternoon, to be fair). We chatted for a few moments and then she asked, as these children are wont to do, if I'd accepted Jesus as my saviour.

"Yes," I replied, "and I've rejected His disciples as He bids us."

I remember my reponse with crystal clarity. I also remember the slack-jawed incomprehension, a curious mixture of horror and disgust playing across her features. It was a moment of sublime beauty... but maybe you had to be there.

Had she been clever, she would have dropped the issue there, but the nice girl asked what I meant, and thus, on the spur of the moment, did I invent "single-truth" Christianity, a little-known branch of Protestantism that grew out of nineteenth century San-Fransisco. The old testament, if one chooses to see such things as being true, is nice and simple, giving a reasonably plausable account of religious history. The new testament isn't so simple, since it opens with multiple versions of the story of Jesus, as remembered by different apostles, and each is slightly different. Basically the versions agree, but "basically" is one of those funny words. The Single-Truths believe that the bible is absolutely true, word for word, and should be believed absolutely... but that, since it is utterly true, and since it disagrees with itself in details across the books, something must be wrong. The conclusion reached by... oh, let's call him Fred, and I've got some playing cards next to me... reached by Reverend Frederick Carten was that Jesus' story is wholly accurate but that the disciples were jerks who got stuff mixed up. He began to teach that the bible is fact word for word but that the individual disciples were morons, and that we must respect the *words* of the disciples which are, after all, part of the ineffable bible but that we must mock and ridicule the apostles themselves, because if they couldn't agree on the life-story of their saviour, they certainly couldn't be trusted to getanything else right. The single-truths hold weekend-long debate forums trying to decide which version of the stories are true, or most true, and systematically shred the backgrounds of all the apostles looking for every little detail of their history which would make them appear less reliable than their fellow.

Anyway, this conversation lasted twenty minutes, constrained as it was by the length of the bus ride. The girl (I later found out she was a Mormon who couldn't possibly have been ready for a creature like me) kept that horrified/disgusted expression the whole trip and, though she tried to regain control of the conversation several times, she seemed to have developed trouble composing sentences of more than two words. She wasn't actually in tears when she got off the bus, but it's probably for the best it wasn't a longer bus ride.

I should perhaps say that I don't intend this story to offend any Christians who read this... not that I think any actual worshipping Christians do... I simply relate the story as it happened. And, to be honest, I haven't liked the Mormons I've met, although I never really have trouble with Catholics, Presbyterians, or 7th Day Adventists...

2) The Frying-Pantheist Creed
This story comes to us, of all places, from sitting at the Concordia Pagan Society booth at club day. I was an executive of this society in one capacity or another for three semesters and I served the society well, in my own opinion. However, it would come to pass, from time to time, that people would come to the office, or to one of our information booths, and assuming I was a wiccan or something, ask me what I worship. While I often told people of the glories of Discordianism and the Silinist Untruths, just to watch their eyes glaze over, I did, once or twice, indulge myself with some fun at their expense... And as you might imagine, I had to make up some pretty weird stuff to make it sound any stranger than my real beliefs.

A nice individual came up to the Pagan table at club day where I and the then-president were seated. When she explained to the visitor that the word "pagan" describes a large group of people, he asked what each of us were. The president, a nicer person than I, patiently explained all of her beliefs in a persuasive and non-threatening manner. He then turned to me, and, without a moment's pause, I replied than I was a frying-pantheist. To be fair, this is one I didn't make up, exactly... it's based on a bastardized fusion of a Woody Allen bit and a one-line gag from Red Dwarf, with a little bit of Robert Heinlein mixed in for colour. Pantheism (as everyone knows... you have to always say things like "as everyone knows" when you pull off these gags) is the belief that god exists in all things and that all in the world is holy in its own. Frying-pantheists believe that if god is in all things, then by being close to all things, we bring ourselves closer to god. The frying-pantheists praise, not merely purchasing, but actually collecting, because the bigger your collection, the more god you have. Furthermore, when you own something, you have a piece of god, but if you *eat* something, you make god a part of you, and thus, to eat is to become closer to god. The frying-pantheists argue that to eat is the holiest action we can perform, and so they praise eating.

This next part is the good bit, by the way. I actually kept a straight face the whole time I was talking about the following.

However, one cannot merely be a glutton. To eat too much is to deprive others of god, and furthmore, to eat unhealthily is an abuse of the body which you have built out of bits of god. Therefore, it is imperative, not merely for health but also for the soul, that we get a balanced diet of god, and eat the right amount of god each day. We must eat some vegetable-based god and some grain-based god. Adolescents need more protein-based god because they are growing rapidly and it is important that, if your body is being built out of digested god, it be built out of healthy bits of god and not unhealthy bits of god. Cooking has also become highly ritualized for the frying-pantheists, because just as most religions have elaborate rituals to prepare themselves to speak to god, so too do the frying-pantheists have elaborate rituals to prepare god for becoming a part of them.

I was starting to run out of stuff at this point, but that worked out fine because at this point the nice visitor decided he'd rather talk to my associate and not to me.

3) Walking into Trees for Loki
As most of you know, I like the cold, and rarely bother to put my jacket on when walking from building to building at Concordia even in the darkest depths of winter. In my more satirical moments, I have suggested that my resistance to cold is a gift from Forsteri who, quite naturally, has an affinity for arctic weather, but generally, I believe that my unwillingness to put on warm clothes just stems from sheer bloody-mindedness.

While I was walking in the cold one day with a disliked classmate who had spent the last hour in the games club talking me to death (and oblivious to how annoying he was), he asked why I wasn't wearing more. Without stopping to think about it, I replied "I'm a worshipper of Loki, the Norse god. We believe that Thor, Loki's enemy, sends the cold to punish us for turning away from the Norse gods, and Loki teaches us that we show our love for him by showing our spite for Thor and his cold." The astute reader will immediatly deduce that this little speech was based on Marvel Comics' Thor and not, in fact, on Norse myth, but the human I was mocking didn't need to know that. He naturally expressed disbelief, so I stopped walking (the better for him to freeze to death in the -5 celsius weather) and began to regale him with the glories of Loki. I regret that I no longer recall everything I said to him, but I went on and on about how Loki went to live in the Underworld where it's warm (yes, I know that isn't what the Norse Hel is like...) and how from the safety of the underground Loki sends forth his tricks to confuse and confound the mortals who don't worship him. Loki isn't evil, he's just mischevous, and he tries to use confusion to open the eyes of mortals to the ridiculousness of the world around them. Angry with his half-brother, Thor sends cold and storms to punish mortals wherever Loki's grip gets too strong, but if mortals can learn to overcome the cold and the rain and learn not to fear Thor's power, Loki will one-day rule all of Midgard/Earth. And Loki worshippers have many powerful rituals which help them brave the cold.

"Like what?" the gullible human asked, not yet realizing I was making this up as I went along. Like the ritual of the Tree, I said. Long ago, Loki was imprisoned by Thor inside a mighty oak, bound to never be free unless a mortal shed a tear over his plight. One day a child was walking in the forst and, not paying attention, walked into the street and hurt his nose. This made the child cry, and Loki was freed! Since that day, loki worshippers have known that if you want to resist the cold, all you have to do is walk headfirst into a tree and Loki, remembering his freedom, will send warmth to you.

And so, my human companion turned about face and walked into a tree with sufficient force that I heard the thunk. It gets better.. he turned back to me and, holding his nose, said "I feel warmer!" And walked into the tree again.

And so, we have three true stories of gods I've pretended to worship, and the people who fell for it. It is memories like these, my friends, which give our lives meaning. The next time you find yourself bored and the opportunity comes up, don't just tell someone truthfully what you worship... lie, and in lying, improve your life and those of everyone around you! Or maybe just yours.

Writer's Note: After I posted this Entry, it was suggested to me that it reads better if you put on some kind of heroic music when you get to the part where the text is centered (or while you read the whole thing, whatever...). I tried it with "Blood Ravens Approach" from the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War soundtrack and I have to admit the effect was pretty cool.

As we at last admit that the Concordia Games Convention will not be happening, it is time that we make a difficult admission: It's been a bad year to be in one of my games. My main game has been running very well, of course, but my heart swells with pity for the poor suckers who time and time again over this past year have tried to get into one of the many one-shots I wrote, only to see each one fall through. It's now almost exactly one year since I attempted to run Vampire: the Balustrade, which kept getting pushed back and was eventually cancelled. After that came World of Darkness: HALF, which I tried to organize last May and which, despite *huge* interest among my player pool, never happened. It's a sad story that continues through to the winter holidays (when my Ghostbusters game was cancelled due to my having to sit shiva that week) and now to this coming weekend, with the untimely demise of my superhero One-Shot, Where Walks the Shadowripper. Though Shadowripper is going to be stillborn (and I doubt I'll be trying to reschedule this one, since I have other scripts lying around that people want to play more), my dutiful player pool will not be deprived of this chance to see what the story of Shadowripper would have been. While not all the details got fleshed out (I often don't finish writing a story until a day or two before the game), the basic story had been set out, and tonight readers of this Journal get to see what story they might have gotten to take part in.

For those who have been keeping score extra-dutifully and who were hanging on eagerly to the possibility that my game for the convention was going to be using the Paranoia system, that game would have been called "The Devil Came Down to Alpha Complex" and would have featured rogue technodemons assaulting Friend Computer's main database. The climactic battle-scene was planned as a kaiju-style slugfest between a fifty foot tall cyberpenguin and an immense silicon golem with laser-firing cokebottle glasses. The players would have needed extra clones.

Where Walks the Shadowripper: Our Story So Far

The City is home to one of the largest populations of superhumans in the world. Most of them just want to live normal lives out of the public eye, but as inevitably happens when enough superhumans get into close proximity, some genius decides to form a legion of archvillains, and when that happens, one justice society or another is bound to spring up to stop it. Well, that happened a good twenty years ago, and today, The City is kept safe by the organization which that group grew into: The Justice Force. Today well into its second generation of members, the Justice Force (and the other supergroups which have sprung up as well) have defended The City against such malefactors as The Skytearers, the Evil Twelve, the Tyranny Society and the Injustice Lords. The city has stood tall and proud and justice has prevailed.

Be that as it may, when superhumans fight, buildings topple, cars are thrown, trucks are lasered in half, lamp-posts are uprooted, and everybody generally makes a mess of things. Insurance in a city full of heroes can cost you an arm and a leg (or at least, a cost equivalent to having cybernetic replacements installed), and there's always a skyscraper to bring safely back down to earth, a street to re-flatten, and a clothes-shop which someone has to transform back into stone after it was changed into solid gold. The wages of sin are death and action is the only reward of the hero who has forsaken wealth and fame, but for every other industry that ties into the superhuman world, there's a healthy profit to be made.

This is why Osiris Construction exists. This is why they hired you.

Osiris Construction is a high profile company in The City. OC is the city's official reconstruction firm, specializing in quickly and efficiently rebuilding city property that gets destroyed when superheroes fight. The company employs some of the world's... the worlds'... most brilliant engineers, provides them with some of the most well-trained building crews on the planet, and supplements them with actual hired superheroes. Speedsters process insurance claims at lightning speed. Bricks take part of rebuiling and save the cost of bulldozers and cranes. Ectotherms and blasters weld metal and melt scrap (and, in a pinch, even create their own glass). Transmuters and mages turn rock into marble for discriminating clients for whom granite and concrete just isn't good enough. OC does brisk business... there is, after all, always something to rebuild.

But, outside The City limits, something is stirring. A disenfranchised scientist and a dabbler in the black arts are about to raise something dark, ancient, and hungry. It feeds on shadows, tearing them away from living creatures and leaving the shadowless creatures weak and drained. It's about to wake up. It's about to turn upon those foolish enough to awaken it. It's about to defeat every hand raised against it. And when the heroes of The City have been rent asunder and the Shadowripper stalks placcably towards The City, someone is going to have to step into the void left empty by the heroes.

It is time to knock down the things that are troubling the city. It is time to implode some unwanted obstacles. It is time wipe away the detritus and the waste. And it is time to go out and make sure that fifty-tons of shadow-eating organic waste doesn't reach the city. It is time, in a word, to start rebuilding something.

Where Walks the Shadowripper: Silver-Age heroism in the face of ageless evil and Silicon-Age comedy. Because that bank vault isn't going to repair itself.