Ghost Riding The Whip

Monday 4th January

There is a cure for stupidity, and I have found it.

Once upon a time a wise man once said "Let's just rip the warning labels off everything and let the universe sort itself out" and I think there's a lot of sense in that.

See there are dangers that you should be told about like the electrified third rail on the electric train lines, and then there are dangers that you should just know like standing on the train tracks at all while a five billion tonne train is barrelling down on you at over a hundred miles an hour.

But this just still isn't enough. Forget the woman that scalded herself on hot coffee in McDonalds and then sued McDonalds for selling her HOT coffee without telling her it might be hot (Stella Liebeck in case you're wondering). No, there are those people out there who need to challenge themselves into suicide by stupidity.

I used to love watching Jackass on MTV. Mostly. Dave England was never funny. But the suicidal stunts they used to do did keep me amused for hours for some very good reasons.

Firstly, it's amusing to watch idiots hurt themselves. Simple as that. Watching a person you wouldn't want to see have children getting whacked in the balls by a golfball at nearly the speed of sound is like watching Darwin in action.

Secondly, they're doing it far away from other people, most notably me. So long as they're only doing it to themselves then who really gives a rat's lovespud? Even better, they're doing it on the other side of the TV screen and don't even know who I am or that I exist. Much less danger to me.

I know that they say they are all trained professionals with paramedics and safety people just off screen, but we all know that's bull and frankly we don't care. Frankly if one of them were to die in a hideous and brutal way during the show it would be tragic, but it would also serve as an important lesson to the world, 'Being an idiot can kill you'.

It certainly can in the vicinity of me.

But I'm getting off track. See, I like to keep on top of trends. Not regular people trends, that would be far too easy and dull. I still have no real idea of who or what Jedwood is or was.

I keep on top of internet trends.

Not so far as to be a member of 4chan or anything silly like that, I like not being compared to a Judaic Homosexual Lizard Cigarette every twenty seconds, but I like to know what's going on and what people mean when they refer to different things that I've never heard of.

I followed LiveJournal and MyFace and SpaceBook for a while, I saw the hamsters dance, I can tell my Roflcopter from my Failboat, I know of the 'Two Goatse's one TubGirl' video and I've even watched Kermit the Frog's reaction to it. I've read the True Stella Awards (see above), The Darwin Awards and can even quote Godwin's Law, but there's a special place in my heart for the internet sensation of trying to commit suicide by stupidity.

I am (of course) talking on this occasion of Ghost Riding the Whip.

To fill you in fully you need to know a tiny bit of mechanical knowledge. In England we mainly drive manual clutch cars which have three pedals, in the USA they drive automatics which only have two, a bit like go-karts that imbeciles are allowed to drive. One of the biggest differences in this is that there is always a bit of motive power in the engine while in gear, which the non-existant clutch does not control what with it not being there.

Simply put, once the car is put into gear, the car will move forwards whether or not you are pressing the accelerator. In fact, the car will move forwards whether or not you're even sitting in the driver's seat. In fact, the car will move forwards if you were to start the engine, put it into gear, climb out of the window and up onto the roof in a semi teen-wolf surfing manoeuvre.

This is technically what is known as Ghost Riding the Whip.

Standing on top of a moving vehicle while nobody is controlling it.

I want to make this the national sport of every country in the world. I want to power up the base revs of the engines to increase the speed at which the controller-less cars can achieve. I want everybody to go out and give this a go right now and encourage others to do so, across the world.

That should sort out our overpopulation problem and the stupidity one at the same time.

Snow Sucks

Friday 8th January

I'm not a fan of the cold.

Oh snow might be lovely and so on, but come on, does it have to last for weeks on end?

May car is now still buried under a foot of snow and even if I could have got into it, there's no point since the battery is dead.

Not a problem under normal circumstances since I have jump leads in the boot for this very circumstance, but since there's a huge quantity of snow all over the place then I can't convince anybody to bring their car up close enough over the huge snowdrifts to jump it from theirs.

Snow sucks.

Whoever invented it should end up being made to eat polystyrene for a month. I don't know why, but it feels fitting.

I understand that there are people worse off than me, those who live on mountains or at the end of ridiculous country tracks. But they chose to live there, what do you expect from me, sympathy?

Seriously?

Check the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

The worst part about this I suppose was that I went to the hospital for treatment yesterday. With having no car I had to use public transport which meant a fair amount of waiting for the train and tram and busses and walking through snowdrifts everywhere. Only to be told that I couldn't have the treatment because I was too sick.

Did I feel as if I had a cold coming on?

Snow sucks.

Me Am Manly Man

Monday 18th January

Something is very very wrong.

I feel good.

Na-nana-nana-nane.

You knew that I would, now.

I'm serious, I've not felt this good in ages and the really weird thing is that I should be feeling absolutely rotten right now. I should be laid up on the bed hoping for some strings hanging from the ceiling to raise my legs up.

My lungs should be burning and my limbs aching, back spasms and a pronounced limp.

I went to the gym today.

Again, I'm absolutely serious, I'll give you a minute to pick yourself up off the floor.

Ready?

Well, the point was that I've been sitting on my bottom for the better part of the time since I was made redundant, occasionally staring at my monitor hoping for inspiration to strike before I can even write a word, and though I've not gained weight it's more to do with a lack of eating than anything physical I've been upto.

If you know me then you'll probably know that I love to swim. I can't help it. Since I learned to swim as a wee child I've taken every opportunity that I can to be in the water, god help the holiday resort I go to that doesn't have a pool.

I went to Cyprus last year, or was it the year before? Anyway, on the first day I literally swam in three pools and the sea, just on the first day.

So when I decided to do something to get me out of the house, I looked for a local pool. There are some around and each and every single one of them is filled to capacity with either school lessons, pregnant water-yoga classes or octogenarian water-polo. It's ridiculous, you just can't find a time to get in and have a swim.

Until someone told me there was a place just a couple of miles up the road. Which actually turned out to be a gym with a pool attached.

Having nothing better to do with my day I had a tour, and discovered that the entirety of the budget of the startrek research project was spent entirely on torture devices with smooth edges. They also have a sauna, a steam room and a hot tub as well as the pool.

I took some doing, but I convinced them after many hours of negotiations to let me try it for a month. Well, a month and a half to be brutally honest. Yes, I am that good.

Then I spent a day looking for exercise gear. After 3 hours I found one pair of old track pants and one trainer. Not one pair, just one trainer. Let's not forget I've not worn trainers in over 10 years. Clumpy boots or nothing for me.

Did you know Tesco sell trainers for a fiver? How awesome is that? They might be crap, but you can't argue the price, and if it all goes horribly wrong it's not like I've spent a ton on it. Though they don't sell track pants. Apparently there's a rush on, every bloke in the north has suddenly decided to go for the sweat-pants look. Mmmmmm, lovely.

I did have a point when I started this post.

Oh yes, at the gym.

I went today for the first time in my life.

Right away I knew I was in over my head. I'm standing on the treadmill looking at this dashboard with flashing lights and words that I don't recognise and a million buttons, not one of which was marked with the word 'ON'.

Some imbecile came forward and started it going, waved at the buttons describing what they did and then ran away. So, there I am walking at a slow 2.2kph. Well this isn't good enough, so instantly I started pushing buttons. I would say that there was a plan in my button pushing but that would just be a blatant lie. I just wanted to see what they would do. Apparently what most of them did was set the speed to warp factor four on a forty five degree uphill angle.

The second lesson I learned today was that if you're going to push buttons randomly it's best not to chain yourself to the machine to test your heart rate. In case you were there earlier today, you'll remember me as the idiot screaming with legs blurring and occasionally being dragged on the floor with rubber matting scraping my body at 150kph. That was fun.

Anyway, they have bouncing machines, cycling machines, stepping machines, machines that simulate the dance moves of MC Hammer on the moon. I tried them all. I even had a go at the weight machines to improve my upper body strength. I discovered that I have the upper body strength of a small athsmatic gnat. You would be embarrassed at the amount I bench pressed. I was.

So realising that hanging my head in shame would have attracted attention, I strode in a manly fashion in the direction of the pool.

Which was wonderful.

Warm water is a wonderful thing to dip into. I lost myself in the water for a good half hour before sampling the treats available in this section.

The hot-tub was hot and bubbly and relaxing, the power hose was wonderful to massage the back of the shoulders and the sauna was ridiculously hot and sweaty.

Then I walked into the steam room, which was a mistake. It was like walking into a Stephen King short story, it was too hot, cloying and tasted of chemicals. I was blinded within seconds of walking in and it took me about ten minutes to find the door again. I'm not sure how the other punters accepted my crawling out on my belly and begging for water.

But getting home again afterwards I did realise that I felt good. I'd jogged and cycled and strode and bounced over ten kilometres and spent come fun times in the water and at the end of it my body wasn't screaming in agony. Maybe that means I wasn't trying hard enough, but who cares, I had fun.

I'll be going back soon enough, I just really hope I never again see an eighty year old man in a thong.

I must have hypnotic body parts or something

Tuesday 26th January

Sometimes I wonder how I manage to get away with such things.

Two days ago I held a seminar.

It doesn't matter what the subject was about though I'll admit this time it was on "Competetive Roleplaying and the do's and don'ts of being a player" which is a much better title than I had planned out originally which was closer to "How to win at roleplaying".

Thing is, it's not exactly as if I was every taught any of this. I've not read any books on the subject other than the joke one I wrote myself, it's not like there's any classes or review texts, no programmes on it from the open university.

And yet, it's just clues, hints and observations from a decade and a half of playing the games.

I don't know whether to be proud that people actually think I have something interesting to say or frustrated that what I'm saying isn't already in their heads since it should mostly be just common knowledge.

I suppose that's the thing about it. I've given a few of these lecture / seminars about various different aspects of playing and GMing games over time and it's really the obvious stuff that people don't know more than anything.

It's simply a case of the stuff that nobody tells you because everybody knows it? Well if that carries on long enough then you end up with nobody knowing it because everybody that does know it assumes you already know, so you have to work it out for yourself.

So, like I say, I sometimes wonder how I get away with these things.

It went down really well, in case you're wondering. Lots of talking by me, a few stories here and there and a few logical puzzles for everyone to finish with. I'm thinking of going on the road with it, do you know anyone that would like a talk on roleplay presented by me? Rates can be negotiated..

Thing is, I was asked by a load of people, before and afterwards if I had notes or some sort of synopsis that I could give them, some because they couldn't make it and some because they did make it but didn't take any notes themselves.

Now I'm not one for huge sets of notes, I make lists and then freeform my way around what I'm saying to suit the audience. It means I can be flexible about how I'm phrasing things and can move on or back depending on how well people are getting what I'm saying.

But I'm starting a new trend. I'm going to be writing this Sunday's lecture up and I'll be pasting onto one website or another for you to get your hands on. I might even make a series out of it.

Watch this space.