Suspend your disbelief

Hmmm... I've been playing some RPGs lately that put no effort into their realism. I mean, sure I'm prepared to suspend my disbelief on some issues like ninjas jumping thirty feet into the air, or the existence of magic or telekinesis. However, there are some problems that don't stem from a suspension of disbelief. They are the little problems that no one really brings up. When they are, the developers sweep them under the rug with a simple statement: "It's magic." Which is bullshit. I mean, seriously magic is a nice enough addition to a game or plotline, but when you start throwing it around like they do you mess up the very basics of it. It ceases to be special, and the books cease to be thought out. So I'm just going to take apart some of these myths of belief suspension and magic.

Lava Men - Seen in Ragnarok Online
Alright, a few facts. Lava flows really slowly, however it only conserves heat because it is in bunches and is rock. Even then, the lava on the top usually solidifies. This happens so much so that you get underground lava tunnels covered in thin, thin ledges made of hardened lava.

Standing with such a barrier between you and the lava, you'd be okay, though it's between 45-60 degrees Celsius.

However, because the ground is so fragile, there have been cases where people have actually fallen through and either gotten trapped in the lava, or a meter or so above it, since lava flow has died down. Regardless, if you are within 1 meter of lava, the intense heat is somewhere between 200-500 degrees Celsius. You get third degree burns in about a second, second degree burns in about a minute, and first degree burns in about two minutes, depending on the heat of the lava. Your clothes burn to ashes either way.

Lava men should thus have the ability to burn anything that comes within 1 meter of them. A problem for those using wooden arrows, or for melee fighters who will get burned attacking them. Also, because the lava men are out in the open, a quick Freeze spell should solidify them, and they will eventually grow lethargic and turn to statues anyways. But it isn't that easy!

Infact these guys are a piece of cake if you're able to survive the rest of the dungeon. Not only that, but they can shoot fireballs, which do not at all make them smaller.

Now the residual heat of striking such a body would kill an average person and melt their weapons. Rock thankfully has a higher melting temperature than metals, so steel swords will not fare well in lavamen. Arrows seem kinda pointless. Infact the only way you could possibly defeat such a monster is with a Frost spell, a fuckload of icecubes, or a nice, cool breeze. Because knocking its head off won't help, it can reconstruct itself.

Windships/Airships - Seen in numerous RPGs and fantasy
For the most part, some fantasy authors (Dart-Thornton for one) have dealt with airships easily. Others (Final Fantasy series for another) seem to skirt around and bring out their 'Magicpunk' (alike to Steampunk, but magic is the excuse for everything) excuses and move on. Yes I am being petty, but if no one points out these they're likely to get more and more insane. Consider the size and bulk of these ships for a second. These are a size from that of a medium sailing ship to a massive Titanic-sized transport that Lord Xenu would be proud of. Sailing on the winds, although Dart-Thornton has some kind of rock that repels the ground. Unlikely I think, but easier to imagine than magic.

Hmmm, I got sidetracked there for a second looking up Scientology stuff, and managed to injure my finger, so I might lay off the typing for tonight.

Dating Attempt #1

I've been tracking the data, and it appears that a rift is going to open up in three days. I'll still be able to access the internet, after all, wireless laptops seem to work over on the other side. I'm not too sure what it's called over there, but needless to say I have been there once or twice.

So what have I learned from my week? I've learned that women go for the guys who don't treat them right. I've learned that buses are a great place for picking up women, especially hot uni girls. I've learned that forgetting a gals name is never a good start for asking them out, and I've also learned that I'm no good under pressure, and should have given her my phone to put her number and name in.

So much for the 'charming' me. It was like I could hear running commentary going on in my mind.

"And I think he's going to get her number... and he's going for it and... oooooooh ouch he's forgotten her name! Abort! Abort! I repeat, do not ask for number."

So another unsuccesful day in the life of dating.

Hmmm... looking back to the beginning of this entry, it seems no surprise to me suddenly that this is so difficult for me.

Reality Revolution

Massive influx of reality tv these days. It seems to have thrown Sitcoms from the top of the hill of dominant genres. And they come in every style and every brand nowadays. I guess the tempest began with game shows, and our voyeuristic tendencies just got more and more powerful as they went along. And now we're stuck in the Reality Trap.

Recently people have gotten obsessed with celebrity television and competitions. Dancing with the Stars, It Takes Two, so many other things which are basically just people laughing at their favorite celebrity's mistakes. We've also gotten more lewd, more dangerous and heading more in the direction of the Japanese game shows so satirised by The Simpsons. "Next up, 'Why I hate scorpions!'"

We can do better than that though! There are so many unexplored television show ideas, especially reality. So I thought it might be a good idea to list some.

Celebrity Gladiators
Remember Gladiators? That show where people came along to watch some busty babes and muscled men beat each other with foam weapons, wearing football armour. For years we were entertained as people were knocked from their high platforms into a pit of foam blocks from a well-timed pole blow. Swatted off like flies. But who wants to see some random people take the foam up for a bang? We want to see celebrities up there! I think it would go down very well with viewers if Fox tv put up a grudge match between our favorite celebs. Keifer Sutherland takes on the might of Dick Cheney in an all out deathmatch.

How I Became a Rocket Scientist
From the minds who brought you Jamie's Kitchen comes this all out struggle. Ten random people are taken off the dole for a second chance. They have been put under the wing of a top rocket scientist with NASA. These ten people have six months to learn the basics of rocket science and aerodynamics, then build their own plane. After the six months, five of them will be hired by NASA for the junior division of their rocket building division.

LARPing with the Stars
That's right! Your favorite stars (fifteen) get their gear into shape as they dress like fantasy characters, pull out their beanbag lightning bolts, grab their foam swords and go out learning from the best. Each is partnered with a well trained LARPer to learn how to swing a sword, fight using a bow and cast their spells. Every night they play DnD. The entire show is a 'highlights of the week' type thing. Each week, a set of judges from a range of RPG and LARPing tournaments judge the celebrities on their performance and believability. The home viewers vote on their favorites and each celebrity is kicked off each week. At the final episode, every celebrity is brought back for a camping and LARPing trip.

Boxing with the Stars
Flying with the Stars
Racing with the Stars
Making Movies with the Stars

Acting with the Stars
Here's an interesting one, because some actors really need believability here and there are numberless actors who never made it big and are just looking for a job. So you get ten of the worst actors ever, or the ones who think they're good, but really suck. Then you get some acting teachers and it goes on the same working system as Dancing with the Stars.

Candid Hospital
Shoot someone with a tranquiliser gun, bring them into a fake hospital, and tell them they're dying. I'm pretty sure this is illegal, but it's bound to show up eventually.

Open Day Madness

Right, so I was working over a weekend volunteering at the Australian Museum for International Museum Day and the museum's Open Day. What it means basically is that the floodgates of cost are removed and people pour in. Each person is like a tiny grain of sand, grinding away on the eternal milestone on one's soul. And each of us once the day was out were dead tired of smiling to people's dumb questions.

So there are a few extraordinarily amazing events which even astounded me, and I've seen Big Brother. And the people on that are like the most standard people from the most standard cave man dwelling in the Stone Age.

Pearls you say? - Here's the situation: it's Open Day, and the museum is concurrently holding a Pearls exhibition. So the really big dinosaur out front (a Giganotosaurus to be exact) has jokingly gotten up in the morning to a headache from last night's partying and accidentally donned his wife's pearls. Yes, the dinosaur is wearing his family jewels. Though really the museum has decided it would be 'themey' to dress the dinosaur in pearls. These pearls are actually little styrofoam balls, sprayed silver.

So I was standing out front in the lobby, looking around, helping people out with finding things (where's the bathroom? where's the lobby? where's the floor? help me, I can't find my nose.) And a certain Ms. Stupid comes up. Now she doesn't look like any Ms. Stupid. Her hair is brushed, she's wearing glasses, a fairly short skirt, blonde. She actually looks smart, like someone I could actually have a conversation with. She begins to pass me by like so many other beautiful women that day. Then stops, asks her question. My heart soars high with hope. "Excuse me," she says, deadly serious, "did they dig those dinosaur bones from the ground?" I reply in the affirmative, to which she smiles. "Yes! So they found those pearls with the bones?" Oh gods no...

Butterflies in my stomache - So some smart person had decided, oh, I know what would be cool: We'll put butterflies on the brochures, even though we have no butterfly exibit. Good one, Einstein. You work where now? Museum of Natural History you say? So in total (and I actually began to tally this) six people asked me where the butterflies were. Now these bugs are labelled nowhere on the form, nowhere at all. They simply do not exist aside from being fancy decorations. So the first time I pointed people in the direction of the bugs exhibit. The second time I pointed them towards the bathrooms. Third, fourth and fifth times I just explained they didn't exist. Number four actually got angry at me, as if it was my fault the museum chose not to stock up on 'rare sapphire Brazilian butterflies' or something of the like. So I pointed him in the direction of the Aboriginal Exhibit. Number six (I was getting annoyed and it was the end of my shift in the lobby) I pointed to the entrance and said "the butterflies are that way." In my defence, there was a garden outside and undoubtedly there would be butterflies.

You look like a scientist - Do I look like a scientist? Well I suppose in my snazzy Aus Mus t-shirt I must have. (Said t-shirt has since shrunken smaller than a doll could fit into, leaving me with a nice souvenier, but a pretty tight looking shirt.) So I got quite a few people asking me questions I honestly have no idea about. But we were told to keep a straight face and either answer to the best of our knowledge, ask for help from security, or refer them to a specialist. 'To the best of my knowledge' was good enough. So in the end, it turns out that Giganotosaurus ate grapefruits, and is actually commonly referred to as "Gigantoroarus" affectionately by geologists. It also turns out that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (praise be to Him) causes volcanism. Gold is just crushed paper, deep fried. Diamonds are crushed bones of the dominant species before dinosaurs. (Could be... you never know.) Did I feel bad about this? Noooo. If a tourist thinks that I look official enough to believe me, then they can be happy going home with false information. It makes sense in a twisted way.

Look at me, I'm riding a skeleton - Some kids just don't learn, and we had a few who were a bit too... 'adventurous'. One can go home claiming that the sucessfully straddled a skeleton horse behind a skeleton man, and only just got off (or were pulled off) when the horse began to sway and almost tumbled. One other kid can now claim rights as having gotten closer to the bones of a Giganotosaurus than any other kid in his class after failing to climb the leg of said dinosaur. Lucky for the museum the bones are fakes. Giant turtles, mummies, mommies, security, guides... they are all fair game for childish exploits. The ironic part is, there's a childrens' playland area which was almost completely deserted when I walked past.

Tourists - Who give me money to take pictures of them in front of my good old pal, Giganotosaurus. Seriously, these guys just hope for the best that a guy in an Aus Mus t-shirt was legit, and not only give me possession of their camera (must've cost them like...$4000) for a time, but also tipped me! Hell yes. This is what volunteer work is all about.

But it's nice to know I made such a difference to people's lives. And if you ever get the chance to work volunteer or otherwise at a museum, jump at the chance. They're always looking for people to help out, and they'll love you eternally for it. Plus you get to see the museum for free!

Concept Story

I guess I'll run something by you guys now. It's a bit of a story idea, based on originality. In fact, going by the awesome Zombie Pirate Ninja Dragon (ZPND) Principle, since mashing cliche on cliche results in originality, it can only make sense that it works in reverse. So perhaps by making a story original, and building originality on originality, it will result in something so cliche no publisher would touch it with a ten foot ninja pole. Make that a Zombie Ninja pole. Either way, here it is.

A kitsune, and here starts the originality. Because I know of no story that isn't myth that features a fox-person as a character, much less a main protagonist. He's practically addicted to coffee, chocolate, caffeine.

The world is the present, and thus will include pop culture references, historical references, and other things. If anyone's seen Angel you'd know the situation: a modern world with gothic myths throughout. Demons and Vampires. Normal people have no idea, even though they live in a world surrounded by these things they call legends. The main hero of the series is Angel, a vampire with a soul who runs a detective agency (Angel Investigations) that solves paranormal mysteries. So this world will be similar yet different. I'll go beyond simple vampires and demons and throw in some celtic myths, norse valkyries, mexican chupacabra, werewolves, japanese kami; though of course there'll be the old favorites of some vampyres or demons. So this character runs a small used book dealership. It's really a front for an even smaller supernatural outpost, started as a joke.

The story begins with the smallest of things, increased sightings of a certain myth in an area. It grows in size, and people still don't notice. I'm tossing up between the Antichrist and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But of course, the Antichrist is apparently one of those horsemen, so there may be no issue. It turns out there's an end to an era coming up and the myths are becoming more and more obvious.

I think the government may try to cover it up to stop mass hysteria, though it will be harder and harder to cover it up. A dragon flyover above a major city (London or NYC or Sydney) will be covered up, but people will start to be quakey. The leaders will call a world conference on it, and will all be killed in some manner at this conference. A false prophet will appear in America and be endorsed by the Roman Catholic church as the second coming. But now we're at the middle of the book. How do we save the day?

Well the Book of Revelations has God save the day, and perhaps He/She will. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't want deus ex machina to win the day. I want the hero to do it. And that's the part of the story I have to work on. All this stuff goes in way above the average person's head. Maybe the hero will try to warn the governments, maybe they'll listen to him. Anyways, I'm tired and I have more of doing nothing tomorrow.

The ZPND Principle

Two posts in one day?! O_o Woah. The world is collapsing around my ears right now. So in the roleplay I am currently involved in we just encountered something so cliche it was original. It's a fantasy RP, so you might expect there to be cat women or fairies, elves, and of course the most cliche enemy of them all, dragons. But alas for there are many cliches. Legions of ninjas seem to be able to hide in shadows and then spring out of nowhere, until the room clogged with ninjas is invisible to you from all the Sight checks you're failing. Pirates rank pretty close behind the ninjas, raiding into the towns and of course attacking our heroes on their ships. These aren't just any pirates, these are... sky pirates! The new breed of cliche enemy.

With earth, wind, fire and water, our powers combined summon forth captain Elemental. Whether elemental blobs, slimes, atronachs or just plain old elementals, these guys are the moderately more difficult enemies. From small to moderate, undead enemies, most especially zombies rank next on the list. Zombies make every horror movie complete and no horror movie is complete without some form of them. Maybe that's why The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was such a crappy movie. But then again, I doubt even the presence of our flesh flapping friends could have saved that movie. Then you have your slightly more unique forms of undead, from skeletons to wraiths. And finally for the smaller cliche enemies you have the orc/goblin/hobgoblin which really, once you look at the etymology, hobgoblins are actually nice guys prone to playing tricks. They aren't really evil. Orcs on the other hand... Tolkein was the first to use the word "orc", probably from the name for Pluto: Orcus.

And the dragons, demons and gods come in the large section. Dragons exist in almost every fantasy game, story or world. They're the natural boss that people have no feelings for killing. Even in Warcraft where the dragons are sentient and peaceful they're the ones you kill for treasure. Makes you wonder how hard it must be to be a leprechaun or dragon. Everyone's after your gold.

So we went for a more cliche and therefore more original enemy. A zombie dragon. Of course if we'd wanted to go all the way we could have had an Undead Ninja Pirate Dragon. But that'll be for another day. Tolkein would be turning in his grave. He's probably wishing he invested in some net connection down there too.

A bit of history

I planned to do one of these per day, but it seems it's already 12:40am on the next day, so I guess that fell through. So how are these holidays going now? I have to find some kind of work. It will probably be either one of the many retail places I whored my resume out to, or I'll advertise for tutoring.

I guess if I want to be a writer I'll have to start actually writing into newspapers, competitions, magazines, and things like that. I mean, I'm an alright editor. I have passable grammar. And my writing is good bordering on melodramatic. Starting a blog should help. I find that practicing writing really helps improve it. For example, within three months of joining Galadoria I'd almost doubled my writing skills. And my editing skills. Hell, now I'm a mod on that forum and one of the best RPers. I even won a Tournament on it.

So why haven't I spread my stories around? Problem is, I can't seem to come up with anything original. Back when I used to program games in Multimedia Fusion they'd be excellent platformers, but all based on Commander Keen (bless you, Keen). My art is best when it is an adaptation of something existing already. My stories, likewise, incorporate elements from a range of sources.

Yet I do have some plans for a story. I was thinking... a mix of sci fi and fantasy, perhaps with a bit of crime fiction mixed in there. Although, now that I think of it, adding in the sci fi wouldn't do much. So probably I'd best stick with the fantasy/crime fiction. I've never seen it done before. And the way people lap up crime fiction. Who knows. A literary agent might just love it.

It will involve many myths and mythical creatures. The main character will be a kitsune, because again, I have never seen this done before. Ever. I've been looking through Celia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde series (sorry if I didn't get the name right) for some old Celtic myths, looking through Greek myths (Ovid's Metamorphoses), some Egyptian ones. But I have yet to settle on a crime. I'll tell you guys when I find one though.

That's all for now. Please excuse any grammatical mistakes and the overuse of commas and full stops. I wanted to finish this tonight/this morning so I could go to bed.

The Mystery Revolution

English exam today. It was funny, I was scared it would bite me, or like... they'd gas us when we went into the exam room. And on the other hand, I was excited, because it would be the final exam I would have to do for months, until the next cursed exam period showed its dirty face on my side of town again. I was also excited because I had no idea what they'd test us on, and there was that small chance that they'd test me on exactly what I'd been frantically reviewing in my last few seconds of free air.

Then I got into the exam and was completely disappointed. The exam was mundane and my mind had built up some kind of magical super-exam that I was to be taken. It's like when you watch a murder mystery and in the end the butler did it. Like... totally not expected.

And there's a thought. Why is everything a mystery or crime fiction these days? What was it before? Of course, I'd rather see a week of CSI: Miami than watch a minute of reality tv like Punk'd or Dancing with the Stars. But it seems people have found a winning set of conventions and have stuck with them forever. There's a little bit of change, but for the most part it comes down to some very specific generic conventions. So here are the conventions of the Mystery Revolution:

Firstly, the victim is presented being taken down. This is one of the major themes in the new Law & Order style crime tv. Check it out, we've got your traditional shows like CSI or Law & Order (which by the way I will never forgive them for replacing Goren with Logan in Criminal Intent), but then you have the more abstract ones like House or even Supernatural. The criminal, demon, disease, virus, crim, pickle or alien comes down and kills the victim, or seriously injures them. FLASH!

And we're in the next part of the Crime Fiction. Lately they've been trying to humanise our heroes. We end up getting snapshots, like Denozo in NCIS trying without much luck to hit on his female comrades. No surprise it comes from the director of JAG (the most awesome Crime Fiction/Courtroom Drama until Boston Legal). We used to get the extended story arcs of Harm and Mackenzie, and all our favorites. But this is the section where we get a snapshot of their lives, before they are rudely interrupted by the crime/disease/pickle. They remain above the action, and figure out how to solve the crime/disease/pickle without descending into the madness of the situation.

This next part is optional. Another victim(s) is struck down. This time we don't see it from their perspective, they just arrive at the hospital/morgue/picklejar and the detectives must link the cases together. Then comes the solving of the mystery. This is where it gets interesting. Each show does their investigating differently.

In a show like CSI or NCIS, they go straight to the lab, taking out all the forensics that could be given to them. In shows like Supernatural or House they go to the books, checking out previous cases. I believe this is how it used to work on Angel, Buffy, and a range of that type of drama/mystery. And then you get the really obvious and extreme examples such as Smallville, where you can almost undoubtedly blame either: Kryptonite or Luthercorp. Chloe almost always finds the criminal in this case (bless her heart).

Then you get the real action as they bust some ass. Clark does his thing, Sam and Dean go shoot or exorcise those demons, Gibbs goes and shoots someone, anyone. The theme is pretty solid here. You don't get anyone beating the other at chess. "What about our old friend, House?" you might ask. Well he kicks the most ass, because he basically shoots up random things in their body before the disease dissipates from a last minute risky business.

And then comes the resolution, where the heroes go back to their daily life and the victim's family, friends and fellow pickles are ignored.

And that's Crime Fiction for you.

The Golden Essay

Linguistics test on today, and I think I killed it. But of course, one can never tell until the results come back. For instance, certain presidential votes, prime ministerial debates... most political debates. Heck, we didn't think the Big Bang theory was real until we found the Cosmic Background Radiation. And if we never found that we'd still have a Heliocentric diskworld on the back of a turtle!

Five questions, each of equal weighting, each given half an hour to finish, and I finished the first two in twenty minutes. Sometimes that's dangerous, the moment you think you've won that's when you lose. It's a trick in some martial art styles, weaker animals play dead to escape from the jaws of death at the last minute, students who you think are the dumbest in the class suddenly get grade A's (and that's not with cheating). But I'm pretty sure I did well enough here, passed the test and that's what counts.

So I'm moving on from Philosophy and onto something more concrete like World Histories. I did well enough on the old ones, handed in the final essay on Tuesday, worked so hard on it I'm surprised it didn't glow with the pure inner power of it. Perhaps the marker will be so temporarily blinded by the pure awesomness of it that it will get full marks without even needing to be read. Yes, this is the essay which we can just post in the mail to North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, and the entire Middle East, and perhaps America as a last go off. They'd be so amazed by it that they'll declare peace on the spot just to promote even more essays like it in the world.

The world will sing the praises of the bountious essay, it will go on show in The Louvre, with a ten-block line up, just to see it. Hah! But then someone will claim they wrote it, I'd dispute it, but only to get the money to live my life in a secret Bat Cave or Fox Den or whatever. They'll get a team of such high class lawyers that I won't stand a chance to win, until I hire James Spader as Alan Shore to fight on my behalf and eventually win because William Shatner as Deni Crane slept with every member of the jury.

And there's the theme again, because they'll think they've won when "Deni Crane!" rings out through the courtroom before they declare it in my favour and with damages paid to every charity in the world.

Then I'll threaten to destroy the essay unless Africa destroys all its guns and drugs, and they'll do it, just to save the essay.

And then I'll wake up.

Grammar Ghosts

Linguistics tomorrow. The subject I seem to be able to do very well in just by doing nothing. But it's a trap you see, because just as I think I'm flying through the valley of death, avoiding and not seeing all evil, I find my fuel tank will probably cut short, drop me down, and I'll be stuck in the midst of a clan of hobgoblins, all after my grammar-blood.

Grammar-blood I figure is that thing which makes people type properly on the internet. There are a lot of people who seem to have their grammar-blood drawn out, or they'll injure themselves and some incompetant doctor will let it flow out into the void. See... without this blood you tend to overuse ellipses...commas,...sometimesmiss, spaces...,oryoumiss... capitalsorperiodsi am, demonstrating... somethinglike it, right now. dontforget loss of apostraphes, ,doublepunctuation..., orspelingmisteaks,,...soiand u fin'tard,,2readit.

And when people have their grammar-blood bled out, they are grammatically dead. No one can talk to them on the internet and they go off to their own little grammar hell. Occasionally little, scared boys will call on one of them, "I see grammar-dead people, they're everywhere, and they don't know they're dead."

I figure there must be a few ways people become grammar-dead. It's a dangerous affair, being on the internet and using text messages. Hundreds of grammar-ghosts haunt the digital netstreams, trying as hard as they can to assault other's senses with their horrible writing! And sometimes they manage to kill someone with it. Constant stab wounds from their words bleed us all dry.

The dead haunt us still, but some of them have always been that way. Some writers are stillborn, never having known better. Some of them succumb to the constant lolmgxxx!!1one's. And some of them fall victim to the grammar-vampyres. These undead grammarians come out at night and flood the forums, blogs and chatboxes, sucking dry the hopes of us grammar literate. They are characterised by their sneaky ways of beginning with moderately competant grammar, then slowly getting worse and worse. Pretty soon they'll need a victim, so they find someone, chat with them, slowly suck them dry. Then when the victim is completely grammar illiterate, they disappear to another forum, using the temporary burst of grammar-blood to entrap another. You can spot them by looking for misplaced commas, or by trying to make one attachment on a single forum and only hanging onto them. If you become that victim, get your grammar stakes and shovels and get them through the heart, then bury them. Avoid at all costs.

The worst thing that can happen is that they will feed you some of their grammar-blood and you will turn into them.

But there is a small group of elites, holding off against the hoardes of grammar-ghosts. There are a few strongholds left, but each is under assault. The few who go out on forays for supplies never return, but we hold onto a hope: a hope that once all food and grammar has disappeared from this world, we will re-emerge and reclaim the world.

Law Wars Episode I

I woke in the early morning. It was dark out. My alarm failed me.

It has been dealt with.

I don't tolerate failure from a mechanical robot whose only purpose is to assist me in my waking. So I woke up in darkness half an hour early, listening for the predicted beeping of my alarm, drifting in and out of a comatose sleep. An hour passed before I drifted groggily to look over at the glowing clock on the desk. It shouted out that I was half an hour late.

Wearily I rolled myself out of bed and hit the ground with a thunk. But if I expected sympathy for my pains, all I got was an overenthusiastic dog who spotted a chance to get a few licks in on my face. After I'd managed to fight off the Cerberus, I crawled back to the computer. An assignment I'd left to the last minute and it was due that day. Lucky for me, it wasn't due till 5 and it was only 1000 words.

Now came the race against time as I struggled to: read, comprehend, take notes, and write. All this in six hours. The good news is, I now know the Public/Private divide better than I ever could possibly have known. Bad news is, I'm tired, worn out, and have been going straight out for almost a week.

Yes, the law monster almost got me but I managed to escape. The clamping jaws of the essay tried to bite down on my brain, but with a combination of skill, willpower and caffeine I broke from its clamping vicegrip. It's kinda like that evil enemy that comes in the beginning of the movie and kills the hero's family then comes back at the end of the movie for the final showdown. But it really is more like a serial television show, where the enemy comes back every few episodes for a fight, and one of the two only just manage to escape.

This time I only just got away, but I'll be back, better than ever and for the second showdown.

But I'm sure you guys don't want to read about that.

So anyways, allow me to explain what it means in my About Me section. I claim to be able to shapeshift, transverse dimensions, collect elements, fight evil demons, etc. And you have the right to disbelieve that, or perhaps suspend that disbelief and have a bit of fun reading the stories. Of course, they will be close to real events.

So the first real 'dimension jump' will be sometime this week or next. I'm excited, you're excited, we're all excited. So read on.

The Bill of Bosses

First post huh? It doesn't feel too special I suppose. So here's basically my life in words, probably greatly novelised. If you find some similarities with daily life: yours or someone else's that you know, let me assure you that any resemblance to actual people or events are purely fictionalised and lies. No one featured in this blog will be a real person and they will all be constructions/fabrications what will you of my mind. That being said, I'd like to point out that the sentence last was actually complete lies. All blogs feature daily lives. That's why the voyeuristic people read them, to get into the mind of someone else, to feel what they feel, read how they write, think, etc, or even (and these are the weird people) because they are bored.

Procrastination is one of the reasons why I made this blog, but also to improve my writing a bit more. So I'm in the midst of this final essay on the normative legal system in Australia. Now you who live in the USA have it easy. You have a Bill of Rights, which is basically like a gigantic wall. Think the final boss in an RPG, or perhaps Colossus from X-Men. He's the guy you try to make some legislation or law, or interpret it to make a judgement. Then BANG! You hit this wall of absoluteness. You can't go past or around it, so the only thing you do is fight it.

This Bill of Rights is kinda like the final boss in Morrowind when you don't have the final items. (To readers not aquainted with this it goes like this: Big enemy guy, looks evil. Only way to kill him is to find two cursed items hidden around the world, hit him a few times with them, then hit his gigantic robot, then finally kill him. Difficult to do. Especially since without the cursed weapons you do nothing at all to him. 0 Damage.)

Abortion for instance, your Supreme Court (kinda like the mini-boss just before the Final Boss Chamber) ruled that "Abortion is legal." Now this is massively different to other countries which had to go through years of painful dungeon-crawling and level-grinding to get to that point. You'd think, "Wooo! Go women's rights!" (Well, some of you would. Others would be shouting, "Murderers!" at the tops of their lungs.) But in ways this is not good. Presidents have based their campaigns on not accepting to the post of Supreme Judge any candidate who does not vote either for or against overturning the law.

This is how it works: Your president and senators (who're like the game designers) have made this awesome game, including a Final Boss (The Bill of Rights). The only way you can defeat this boss is by finding magical items to slay him with (the Supreme Court Judges). Unfortunately due to a miscalculation on their part, the game has gone out of control and the magic items have vanished. So you try to get your customers (voters) to let you bring in some new items to kill off the Final Boss. But of course, you have to be careful. Changing data in the game this late in development risks creating software glitches and bugs. And worst of all, killing the Final Boss ends the game.

And no one wants this game to end.

So what can you as people do? Go for that Bill of Rights, stand up for the Final Boss and join his ranks of evil minions. Fight the hero, because all the hero is interested in doing is slaying the ultimate force in the game and ruining the fun for everyone else.