2008.07.17

Mileage and the new office

Posted in House and Home at 8:39 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel

My company moved offices this spring, and now my commute is a little bit longer.  A direct route (if I drive / carpool) is just over 7km each way.  Pretty short and sweet still.

On the bike, I take a more roundabout route (to avoid as many crazy Calgary drivers as I can), which runs about 8.5km each way, with a few fun hills for good measure.  If all I do is ride to and from work Monday – Friday, that’s 85km / week on the bike.  Depending on the week, I’ll sometimes add another 20 – 30km on top of that (a single round trip to Bowness Park is 30km).

And in other news, my gas bill is down, but my grocery bill is up…

2008.07.15

Cthulhu Loathes You

Posted in House and Home at 6:13 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel

While I was cycling home from work today, I saw a car that had a “Cthulhu Loathes You” bumper sticker.  That made my day.  Well, that and the fact that I wasn’t stuck in traffic, which was very nasty today for some reason.

2008.07.11

Let’s Play a Game

Posted in Board Games, Short Stories at 7:25 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel

A year and a half ago, I received The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (2006) as a gift.  It’s an annually-published review and anthology of the best fantasy and horror fiction of the year.  I’ve read each story in it at least twice, but there is one I keep coming back to: “My Father’s Mask” by Joe Hill.

What fascinates me about the story is the way it juxtaposes fantasy, imagination, roleplay, gaming, and life.  As a very simple example, the main character’s mother uses the phrase “Let’s play a game” in the story to mean “Let’s play make-believe”.  The story also features anthropomorphic playing cards, and in the end, the protagonist ends up wearing his father’s mask (literally and figuratively).

This story has significantly altered the way I view story-oriented roleplaying games (like World of Darkness and Grimm) and to a lesser extent all games with a roleplaying aspect – even games like Descent and Arkham Horror.  They move beyond the mechanical into the realm of the real, so long as we allow our imagination to take them there.  We’re free to live out our fantasies (or our nightmares) as we see fit, and we can wear whatever masks we want.