Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween Is Today But Tomorrow Scares Me




The hurricane that eat the Big Apple has finally past and life is starting to get back to normal, albeit slowly. The clouds are parting, the Sun is out and I am back to work, although on a considerably abbreviated schedule. The subway and train systems are not yet back online and that means most people are not back to work yet. Kids are home since the schools are still closed.

Many places are without power (including my Sister's neighborhood in New Jersey) and probably will be for a few more days. Property damage is considerable throughout New York City, Brooklyn, New Jersey and the surrounding areas.

I have been very lucky as I and the majority of my family, friends and acquaintances seem to have all been spared any major upheaval. Well...from the storm anyway.

My girlfriend and I maybe breaking up. There is no need to discuss it here in this forum but suffice to say, it has really taken the wind out of my sails and made the last two to three days very painful. In the end, life goes on (even if you sometimes question why it keeps doing that).

The future is looking a little scary for me right now. I have some plans, some goals and no where near the enthusiasm to see them through that I had just a week ago. I need to rise above that however. How? Not easy. Getting things started helps.

Finally, tomorrow begins the National Game Design Month Challenge I
mentioned. I am viewing it as a practice run for the development of the game I eventually intend to publish which I posted about at the beginning of the month. The problem is...I have completely lost interest in my idea. A lot of my creative energy has dissipated. I have no new idea to replace it. Did I mention I am supposed to start tomorrow?

In any case, Happy Halloween to everyone! Enjoy it and it's ghastly, ghoulish fun. Hopefully I will find some inspiration in it and tomorrow will seem a little less frightening.

AD
Barking Alien

The Jack O' Lantern I put up (the illustration at the top) is by my incredibly talented friend Aristides Iliopoulos, who in addition to being an amazing artist, celebrates his 42nd Birthday today. Happy Birthday Aris!

I colored the above image from Aris' black and white drawing.

An odd bit: This month's views have skyrocketed. I am serious. A lot more than last month and yet I've only done 13 posts. At the same time, comments are waaay down, with only four comments on the last four posts (actually they are all on the post about Lucas selling his company to Disney). I thought there would be more interest and questions in regards to my Ars Magica campaign. Oh well. One of these days I'll just have to talk about D&D and get with the program.

Not. ;)







6 comments:

  1. Hi there.

    I enjoy reading your blog, but as of now never commented on your posts. The Ars Magica postings are fun to read but I find it hard to comment on campaign recaps - but keep them coming, they're appreciated. :-)

    BTW: I have a few problems with reading your posts in my Feed-Reader: they appear as green font on white background (not that comfortable to read bot ok) and white font on white background... Is there any way to fix this?

    Best regards,

    Kai

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    1. Hi Kai,

      Thanks for the feedback. I understand that it can be hard to comment on recaps. At the same time, to know you and other still enjoy them is nice to read as it lets me know it's worth while doing them.

      As to the Feed-Reader issue, I am not internet savy enough to know if there is any way to fix the problem but I will look into it. It may have something to do with translating my normal blog design (mostly white or white and green on a black background) into another format, such as that used by feeds.

      I will check around and if I can find a way to fix it I let my readers know.

      Thanks for your interest, come back anytime.

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  2. Ars Magica is something I'm completely unfamiliar with, except through the lens of Mage: the Ascension and its derivatives, and my "real world" alternative fantasy tastes tend towards the Renaissance and later rather than the Dark Ages, so I'm not really in a position to comment, I'm afraid. I'm definitely here for the lunatic fringe, although I applaud your decision to go against the general current on the fantasy front! Please keep it up :)

    I've noticed the problem with the RSS feed as well, so I make a point of coming straight to the site to read this blog (which has got to be better for your views!). I'm pretty sure the problem lies with your template: it specifies the text colour as white for each individual paragraph, which is very unusual and a little old-fashioned. It's probably possible to fix this by using a different Blogger template or customising this one to use CSS (which feed readers would then ignore) - if you want to fix it and need any help, I should be able to advise (I'm the techy type...) although I'm on the other side of the Atlantic!

    On other fronts, I'm glad you weathered the storm ok - and also send much sympathy. There's not much I can say that would help right now but, be strong!

    Jon

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    1. Thanks Jon. Just your coming by and saying something here means a lot. I don't mean to be all sappy but getting two responses to this post, one from a new person and one from veteran like yourself is a really big boost for me.

      I will probably hit you up on that tech info as it's all some arcane rune speech to me. ;)

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    2. Sometimes life comes at you all at once. When that happens I fall back to day to day living. Keep your chin up. Your base level enthusuasm is higher than most people on a good day. That's your strength, so use it! (-:

      I visit here all the time but mostly only comment on your Trek takes.

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    3. Thanks Unknown.

      I endeavour to get back to a bit of Star Trek discussion some time in December or Janurary.

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