A Pox Upon Me

To my great joy, I have been afflicted with some sort of hideous disease, the likes of which has not been seen in the world since the Black Plague escaped the dark continent and devoured the villages and homes of our forefathers. You know what I think had something to do with this was that Coloubos monkey from Africa that bit me, I knew that would come back to haunt me. Suffice it to say, I have been suffering general "cold" symptoms for a week and a half now, but at least my four days of feverish delirium are over. After solitary confinement to my bed and computer for so long, with limited food, water, and social contact, I literally stumbled out of my Residence Hall seeking morbid companionship late friday night. However, all of my friends ABANDONED me for "real life" such as going downtown or somesuch. Fortunately, by the end of the evening, I managed to find Adnan and Brendon, who I can always count on to be invariably be there, playing video games or watching movies. Now I merely roam the campus reminding the young, happy, carefree students of the cruelty of fate as my body has been transformed into a grim spectre of death.

But enough about my fun times. Life goes on in the wide world, much as it always has. Since school started almost a month ago, I have been off-campus but once, and that was a brief visitation to that cold, unfeeling world brought on by Nastassja basically dragging me around Portland like some flimsy marionette (ie typical woman to man relationship). I hope to change that fact by making more excursions to the local theatre where I can enjoy upcoming "motion pictures" which are now in color, I am told. However, I still require money to exchange for goods and services, I'm working on that part of the equation, we'll see what happens. Other than that, I'm still a bore, a layabout with no job, no girlfriend, and I more or less attend class and do homework in some haphazard fashion; life couldn't really get any better, really.

Catch you all on the flipside.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious by this Sun of York.

As usual, I have nothing to say about what I have been doing at school, even though I am doing a great many things. Some things Jedi would consider unnatural. About a week ago, I acquired through VERY LEGITIMATE means a copy of Final Fantasy: Advent Children for my computer's over-taxed harddrive and it is worth every megabyte. The movie was clearly made for nerdy boys as the CG is incredible, 70% of the camera time is action, action, action, and there is no romance to speak of to slow down the all-important animated violence. If you anime, you'll like this movie, and if you don't like anime, you'll still probably like it to a certain extent. While the film was made to capitalize on the enormous fanbase of Final Fantasy VII, it's still quite appealing to the Squaresoft "layman."

Additionally, this week marks the kickoff of my Vampire: The Masquerade game that has had much anticipation here at school, and it seems to be shaping up nicely. I have spent countless hours writing complex characters, what I feel is a layered plot, and made preparations to have two experienced Storytellers aid me in running the game, I think it's going to be great. I have to practice my improvisational speaking and acting skills, as well as prepare some nifty costume switches, as nerdy as all that sounds, everyone seems to have a really good time.

This semester I've been taking a course concisely titled "An Introduction to Shakespeare" which has been going wonderfully; some of you may have noticed the tagline title from Gloucester's opening speech in Richard III. I have long been a critic of lionizing the man, but upon in depth study of some of his early works I am beginning to appreciate the brilliance that many an English scholar has discovered buried in the texts.

Exit pursued by bear.

Responsibility, what's that?

Well the summer came to a spectacular finale (sarcasm) and I am finally back in school (sorrow). So far, I've been showing a surprising amount of enthusiasm for my classes, particularly my English literature courses (dim hope) both of which I was somewhat dreading for my previous lack of interest in stodgy English writings (reminiscence). With Erik overseas and Stephan graduated many of the responsibilities of the Lewis and Clark Gaming Society have fallen upon myself and Brian (dread). We've already had two very successful nights of 'Ninja' and we had over 30 new signups for the gaming society this year, putting at us still being the largest and longest running group on campus.

This year I have papers due almost every week starting this week, and while that isn't the most terrific news (truth) on some level I enjoy flaunting my natural talent and interest in non-fiction prose (total bullshit). Finally, I close by mentioning the annual cross-dressing dancing is coming up, and in pervious years I have shunned it, this year I may just give it a whirl (confused excitement).