Friday, June 29, 2001

So I hang around in this chatroom on IRC with a bunch of really nice female friends (and the occasional male hanger-on). And we got into a very strange mood just now, and after comparing our lives, we came to this conclusion:
All guys named Nathan are evil.

No, seriously. Two of us had ex-boyfriends named Nathan (in relationships that came to very bad ends). One of us has a cousin named Nathan who's a total evil brat. One of us has a STALKER named Nathan. Then there's the friend-of-a-friend Nathan who is being raised by a scary racist mother... and when I mentioned this strange coincidence to another friend on ICQ, he came right back with 'I've only ever known one Nathan in my life, and he was a monster'.
None of us could think of a single decent Nathan in our lives. Just the bad ones. I grow afraid.
Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be Nathan.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 05:03 AM EST
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Monday, June 25, 2001

STANDARD FANTASY PLOT No. 1,
or LORD OF THE WHAT?
A great Evil has come upon the magical land of Whatever, led by a single mysterious figure of great evil indeed. At the head of his evil, gruesome armies, he overtakes the land, destroying all that is Good and basically making life hell.
However, in a little out-of-the-way hamlet somewhere lives a child/a gawky teenager/an otherwise ineffectual and/or silly-looking creature of some sort. No one would ever take this person seriously, except... the Prophecy.
You see, hundreds/thousands/millions of years ago, the Prophecy decided that this specific nonentity would be the only person capable of wielding/using the Great Artifact against the Great Evil. Perhaps the nonentity is actually the descendant of kings, hidden away years ago; perhaps he's just lucky.
So, anyway, marshaling a small but plucky band of various odd people, usually including some sort of thief, some really powerful and annoyingly vague magician, and at least one demihuman, the nonentity must embark upon a great Journey to retrieve the Artifact, whatever it is. And of course the nonentity must make several mistakes along the way, being only a kid/a teenager/a cute munchkin-thing. But despite his companions' pity for him, he somehow gains inner strength or maturity. And of course, the Prophecy keeps popping up everywhere, as the nonentity steadily trips one omen after the other, slowly convincing the others that he IS the Hero of the Prophecy.
Eventually, a Love Interest pops up. She's usually not terribly interesting.
Then, sword/gem/artifact/doodad in hand, the nonentity (now a Hero) raises a great army, and the Great Battle begins. The forces of Evil and the forces of Good collide on a great battlefield. Much carnage ensues.
And somehow in the midst of all this (actual method may vary) the Hero destroys the Great Evil. Many things change. The Artifact may vanish, or lose all its power. Many of the Hero's followers fall in love with each other. The Hero takes his rightful place, whether that place is on some throne somewhere or just back in the little hamlet where he started, but generally with the Love Interest in tow.

STANDARD FANTASY PLOT No. 2
or I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS ANY MORE, TOTO
One or several completely normal people from our world (you know, standard Earth) are somehow transported to a strange fantasy world. Once there, they find themselves playing a large part in some vast world-spanning conflict, whether by accident or by Prophecy.
No one trusts these people at first. They're strange, they're different, they're ignorant, they're heretics. They make a bunch of mistakes, not being familiar with the world's manners. They take a bunch of things the wrong way, also not being familiar with the world's manners. Bad and/or embarrassing stuff happens. There's a lot of yelling. Eventually, the denizens learn to trust these weirdos (except for one or two denizens, who are either evil or gravely misled by evil).
If there are several Earth people, one of them now dies. If there's just one, s/he is locked up/tortured/captured. People begin to fall in love with each other, sometimes in terribly wrong ways.
Eventually, all the remaining Earth people are found and brought back to safety, all the little problems and misunderstandings are ironed out (usually involving one of the misled people publicly recanting and embarrassing himself), and the side of Good stands united and strong, complete with however many Earth people are left. The Earth people turn out to be vitally important to the cause of Good, whether through Earth knowledge, through some completely normal talent of theirs that's unknown in this world, or hell, just through sheer luck. They've also learned a lot about the world they're currently in, and can usually use magic/swords/whatever with a great amount of skill, thanks to the Prophecy or just through their own personal intelligence. The few people who didn't like them either like them fine now, or are dead.
Finally, the Earth people manage to help right the wrongs and vanquish the enemy. Then, depending on their reactions to everything earlier in the book, they either stay in the fantasy world and are happy there, or go back to Earth and are happy there.

STANDARD FANTASY PLOT No. 3
or THE THRONE IS MINE NOW, EUGENE!
There are actually two variations on this one, detailed below.
A position of power (king, usually) is being held only precariously. The book follows the power struggles that erupt in the name of claiming this position of power. Intrigues run rampant, conflicting armies are gathered. People with claims both legitimate and not come swarming out of the woodwork, gathering support.
Large amounts of the country are decimated. Thousands of people die horribly. There is at least one long gruesome siege of a city. People invent strange new siege weaponry or magic or poisons.
On the other hand, quiet intrigues develop. People are poisoned, quietly stabbed, made to disappear. People sleep with each other for selfish gain and make horrible, horrible deals involving their offspring/their lands/their power/their bodies. There is an awful lot of kidnapping/forced marriage/torture/ransom demands/revelation of bastard sons.

FIRST VARIATION: Point of View, Prince.
This variation follows the actual competitors around, watching them scheme, murder, lie, and siege. There are lots of incredibly fancy dinners/dress balls/parties/celebrations.
Everyone seems to be either evil or the brainless dupe of evil. Everyone is greedy, selfish, short-sighted, angry, and twisted. Except one person, who really does mean well, and is therefore usually horribly dead about two-thirds of the way through.
Eventually, all the competitors are dead, save one, who actually claims the throne/position of power. Generally, you can tell who will be left; it will be the person least suited to the position, or else the person who was the quietest about trying to get it. Things subside to an uneasy peace. The country mourns its dead.

SECOND VARIATION: Point of View, Peasant.
In this variation, the book centers around some completely normal person/minor functionary, who would never be of any importance otherwise. By some fluke of luck, this person gets dragged into the intrigues (overhearing a conversation, being asked to deliver a message, stopping an assassination attempt, just being in the wrong damn place at the wrong time), and must fight with all his/her wits just to stay alive. Various royalty pop in and out of the woodwork, trying to help, trying to kill, trying to recruit, trying to interrogate. The poor person must run for his/her life, losing everything s/he has (family, home, fortune, livelihood, possibly an eye or a limb).
Eventually, after many harrowing adventures, the person reaches a place of safety and rests. Then, refreshed and determined, they set out again, to set things right. Eventually, through sheer guts, intelligence, and/or luck, the normal person manages not only to survive the intrigues, but to contribute greatly to the winning side.
Things go back to normal, the good guys win, the bad guys are all imprisoned and/or dead, and the person is suitably rewarded and left to his/her own devices once more. Generally, s/he goes back to his/her old life, or finds a nice minor place in the palace.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:30 PM EST
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Sunday, June 24, 2001

Have I ever mentioned that I love superballs? You know, the cheap rubber balls that you get out of gumball machines? They're small hard wads of really really bouncy rubber, and they come in all these cool colors and styles. Kind of like marbles used to, but marbles don't bounce.
I have handfuls of the small ones. Clear ones with glitter in them, swirly marbly ones, solid colors... and just today, I found a vending machine that sold... the BIG ones. Superballs the size of my fist!
I got a neat one: transparent blue filled with multicolored glitter. And I played with it all the way home.

Superballs are, pretty much, my equivalent of Happy Meal toys. Get a cheap one, play with it for ten minutes, then add it to the stack of toys and forget about it...

No, I don't really have a point. I just like superballs, and I got a new one today. That's all.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 07:06 AM EST
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Thursday, June 21, 2001

TWENTY COMPLETELY RANDOM THINGS THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF
1. People running the vacuum cleaner/lawnmower while I'm trying to sleep.
2. People who believe that all anime is Pokemon/DBZ/Sailor Moon.
3. People who, alternately, believe that all anime is porn.
4. Bugs in the basement.
5. Bugs anywhere in my house, actually.
6. People who believe that 'online humor' consists of adding 'lol' or 'j/k' to the end of insults.
7. Shrieking children in restaurants.
8. Shrieking children anywhere.
9. Heck, children in general.
10. And parents, too, while I'm at it.
11. Parents who refuse to pay attention to ratings, and believe all animated films/video games are automatically okay for their children; then scream and rant and complain when they're not.
12. The ENTIRE concept that all things must be rendered safe for children by purging all possibly offensive content, including the entire Internet and all of TV. This is not a G-rated world, and that won't change, no matter how many things we ban.
13. Humidity.
14. Windy days, when I have to be outside and don't have a hairclip.
15. People who watch hours and hours of completely non-interactive television shows, yet believe that video games rot your brain.
16. People who desperately look for simple answers to complex questions, and furthermore, simple answers that absolve them of all blame.
17. l33t-speak.
18. The so-called "women's magazines" which are really devoted to the care and upkeep of the male of the species.
19. Militant anything.
20. Those sections of the media who only focus on the radical fringe elements of any movement, and the people who come to believe that those fringe elements are the whole of the movement because of it.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:43 PM EST
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And, just to prove that I'm not a totally cranky bitch:
TWENTY TOTALLY RANDOM THINGS THAT MAKE ME REALLY HAPPY
1. Fireworks displays.
2. Fireflies at dusk.
3. Amazing orange and pink sunsets and sunrises.
4. Lying in bed in the afternoon, taking a nap. Especially when it's thunderstorming.
5. Being able to make other people laugh.
6. Running out at six am to grab a greasy bad-for-me drive-through breakfast before I go to bed.
7. Looking at the art of really talented people.
8. Getting to meet those people online, or in real life, or at least getting to trade emails with them.
9. The acquisition of new esoteric art supplies, and getting to play with them.
10. Driving around in December and looking at Christmas lights.
11. Lounging around on the couch on Saturday afternoons, reading a pile of brand-new comic books.
12. The way clouds look, late at night, lit by a full moon.
13. Ironing flat things. No, really. I like ironing napkins and pattern pieces and stuff, getting them to lay absolutely flat, and hearing the hiss of the iron every time I pick it up, and feeling the wet heat of the steam iron.
14. Playing 80s music all night, down in the basement, and singing along whenever I feel like it.
15. Buying silly cheap trinkets to play with. Yo-yos, little tiny stone animals, polished rocks, plushies.
16. Driving around town by myself, playing music on the radio and singing along.
17. The neat silver stripe that's recently appeared in my hair, over my right ear. Yes, it's natural.
18. Showing people things that I suspect they'll like, and finding out that they do, indeed, like it.
19. Sitting out on the front stoop, or the back porch, on a nice day, eating a Tootsie Roll Pop and thinking deep thoughts. Or just watching the traffic go by.
20. Seeing groundhogs, raccoons, rabbits, and possums as I drive around down by the river.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 10:42 PM EST
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Tuesday, June 19, 2001

Recently, when hanging around with other crazy artist types online, the topic of 'muses' has been coming up with startling frequency. Often in combination with the term 'soulbond'. As far as I can tell by browsing soulbond pages, a 'soulbond' is a character, whether your own or someone else's, that moves into your head bag and baggage, and then exercises his/her occupancy by interacting with you and your other soulbonds.
In other words, it's like having extra people living in your mind (and presumably, in your soul).

Now, I'm not here to debate the validity of soulbondage. (Although I couldn't resist the double entendre.) I, personally, don't have soulbonds; while I can make RPG characters talk in my head without too much trouble, it's always clear to me that it's ME making them do the talking. Like puppets. (Soulpuppetry? Maybe! I AM the Jim Henson of my mind! Where do you think all those parodies come from?)
However, I'm more than willing to accept that soulbondage CAN exist, and if you believe in/ experience soulbonds, more power to you. As long as you don't write me impassioned email to try and convince me that they exist.
But ANYWAY.

A muse, on the other hand, is who/whatever inspires you to draw, write, paint, compose, lyricize, or be creative. Sometimes it's a real person, sometimes a part of yourself, and sometimes, a metaphorical construct.
Which is where the soulbonds come in. Some people, apparently, just have characters living in their mind which suggest possible projects, or generate ideas just by interacting with each other. To which I would have to respond, "Whatever works for you!"
Hey, if extra personalities means you create beautiful things for me to look at, I'm all for it. I might even try and shove new soulbonds into your head so that you draw characters that I like. I'm just greedy that way. (Yes, I know it doesn't work that way. But I rather like the mental image of me trying to tape a miniature Citan to some poor artist's head.)

To (finally) get to the point of my post, after listening to these conversations and browsing these websites, I started wondering: do I have a muse?
My first response was 'oh hell no'. After all, I find it very hard to take my artistic efforts seriously, and the idea of having a muse seemed far too serious for someone like me, who spends most of her time making fun of things and the rest of her time making fun of herself.

But after a while, I figured out that, yes, I have two muses, although they're not soulbonds, and they're not really personalities, just parts of me. I am inspired, every day, by my libido and my sense of humor. Hell, if you're feeling sufficiently Freudian, call them my id and my superego. Whatever works for you.
But seriously. When I look over the stuff on my site, it's easy to see that a good seventy or eighty percent of my artistic endeavors are clearly fueled by one or the other. Close to ninety-five percent, in the case of my writing. So I have to conclude that, while they're not separate entities, they ARE my muses. How VERY poetic.

But if my libido ever develops its own personality and starts talking to me, I'm in DEEP trouble. Soulbonded to my own libido... yikes.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 11:04 PM EST
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I'm really terrible at picking favorites. If you ask me what my favorite anime is, or my favorite song, like as not what you'll get is about five minutes of incoherent blither as I list about forty that I like. And then I'll get bogged down trying to actually decide among them all.
As you can probably tell, I was hopeless at the junior high practice of picking a 'best friend'.
I don't even have a favorite color.
I do, however, have a favorite author. Which amazes me, really.

But I love Tom Robbins beyond all sense or comprehension.
My favorite book of his is Jitterbug Perfume, followed closely by Skinny Legs And All and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. There's also Half-Asleep In Frog Pajamas, and Still Life With Woodpecker... and Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, which I -just- got a copy of. And would be reading right now, except that Boyfriend stole it to read first, damn him all to pieces.

I think you can begin to see, from the titles, why I like his work.

I can't possibly describe his writing. It's... smirky verbal pyrotechnics. I can't begin to express my admiration for his imagination and his range. If only I could make the English language stand up and dance the funky chicken like he does!
Either he does drugs, or he's just naturally psychedelic... and everything he writes, no matter how serious the events happening in the book, you can just sense him hanging over your shoulder and smirking and saying 'Get it? Get it?'
And he deals with the mysteries of the universe, too. Nothing is too weird or too sacred, and everything gets tossed in the Tom Robbins blender and comes out... much, much cooler than before. He has the unique power to make you laugh AND believe at the same time.

I desperately want to believe in his upended worldview, and for a few hours after finishing one of his books, I do. How's that for a recommendation?

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 02:01 AM EST
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Friday, June 15, 2001

WARNING: This blog is pointless, and gross in a vague sort of way.

I was flipping through the channels today, and I stumbled across some random lame stand-up comedian. Believe it or not, he was actually making a joke about... why women take so long in the bathroom. (I seem to recall his theory was that they were in there plotting to overthrow the government and bind all men into sexual slavery, or something.)
Is this not the oldest, most overdone joke in the world? Has this joke not been in the repertoire of male comedians since the early 70s?
So, anyway, I rolled my eyes and settled in to watch Looney Tunes, which have always been more to my taste. When Bugs Bunny dresses as a woman, Elmer Fudd falls in love, he doesn't crack jokes about how long Bugs was in the bathroom. Works for me.

But you know, I got to wondering. Are there actually guys out there who don't KNOW why it takes women longer to use the bathroom? Well, don't fret, Mooncalf's going to explain it all to you, so now you'll know.

Let's assume that there are two people, a man and a woman. Heck, let's call them Steven and Isabel. I like the name Isabel.
Now, let's assume that they are dressed more or less identically. And let's assume that it's fall, so they're wearing:
a red sweater
a white t-shirt, tucked in
a pair of jeans with a black leather belt
black motorcycle boots and white socks
appropriate underwear (y-front Jockey shorts for Steven, bra and panties for Isabel)
Furthermore, let's assume that they only have to pee, and that Isabel is NOT carrying a purse.

Right.
Our intrepid couple splits up and heads into adjacent public restrooms.
First, Steven:
Enters the restroom and wanders over to the urinals.
Unzips his fly.
Reaches in, pulls out what needs to be pulled out.
Pees.
Shakes off.
Tucks it away.
Zips fly.
Flushes urinal.
Washes his hands (if we're lucky).
Elapsed time: about one minute.

Then, Isabel:
Enters the restroom, finds a stall that has sufficient toilet paper and a working lock, and locks herself in the stall. (If she had been carrying a purse, here she would hang it on a hook on the door.)
Undoes belt, fly, button, and shoves her jeans and underwear down.
Sits on the toilet (or crouches over it, depending on how fastidious she is).
Pees.
Fights with the toilet-paper dispenser to get a handful of toilet paper, and uses it.
Gets another handful of toilet paper and repeats the process (continue until she feels clean).
Stands up.
Pulls up her underwear and settles them into place.
Pulls up her jeans. Tucks in her t-shirt. Buttons and zips jeans, buckles belt. Arranges sweater.
Flushes toilet.
Unlocks stall door.
Washes hands.
Elapsed time: about two to three minutes.

See, it's still going to take Isabel twice or three times as long. Because not only does she have to use toilet paper every time, she has to undress halfway to use the toilet, and then get dressed again. (If unlucky Isabel happens to be on the rag, add another minute to her time.) While Steven only has to make minor adjustments, and doesn't have to get undressed at all, and only needs to shake himself off briefly.

(And, granted, women also use the bathroom mirrors to primp, touch up their makeup, brush their hair, and so on. And women friends DO talk to each other in the restrooms. Which is why it sometimes takes them ten or fifteen minutes. But even without these feminine behaviors, it's still going to take them a while.)

The situation is even worse in business wear, or formal wear. You'd think it would be easier if the woman is in a skirt, and to a certain extent it is; but most formal situations also require the dreaded pantyhose. Pantyhose require very gentle handling, because they are approximately twice as delicate as spiderweb. Add to that the fact that a large number of women wear some form of girdle over their pantyhose (both to slim the stomach and to keep the damned hose from rolling down), and it's going to take Isabel FIVE minutes to get out of the toilet, not three. Meanwhile, even in a tuxedo, Steven still has a fly, and he can still be wearing those same damned y-fronts. Let's hope that this is the same day.

So, there you have it, a cogent explanation of why women REALLY stay in the bathroom so long.
And I find that I'm getting just a tad peeved at lucky Steven now. Damn him all to hell.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 06:31 AM EST
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Wednesday, June 13, 2001

My fifth year in college (what? shut up, I was a double major, okay?), I lived in an apartment off campus, because I had scientifically determined that one more day of campus food services would, in fact, kill me. So I moved into this very nice apartment with Boyfriend (the very same Boyfriend) and reclaimed my two cats from my mother (the very same cats) and finished up my college career.
The apartment was pretty, and located conveniently just over the mailboxes for the complex. Also convenient in theory was the fact that the apartment was located just over the complex pool. However, that pool quickly became the bane of my existence.
You see, San Antonio, Texas, is a very very hot city in the summer, with temperatures often over a hundred degrees F. And little children naturally have an immense amount of energy, naturally have no concept of keeping their voices down, and naturally wake up at six am on Saturdays.

I think you begin to see the problem.

I was a college student. My life revolved around sleep and the lack of it. And after a long week of classes, all I wanted to do was peacefully sleep until noon on the weekends, reclaiming a few lost precious hours.
But no. Every weekend, starting BRIGHT and early at seven am when the pool opened, my poor exhausted ears were abused by a horde of shrieking children swarming over the complex pool like some sort of brightly-colored mobile fungus. Except that no fungus to my knowledge has EVER entertained itself by screaming "MARCO!" "POLO!" at the top of its little lungs for three hours at a time.
And I do mean EVERY weekend. The pool never closed. I got a bit of extra sleep in the winter, but 'winter' in San Antonio was six weeks long, when the temperatures got down into the fifties. The pool was swarmed about ten months out of the year.

Now, let me be perfectly honest: I sincerely dislike children. Well, no, I despise them. It's not because of their personalities, although I don't like those either. It's not because of their likes and dislikes. It's because they have no concept of volume or pitch, which means that their piercingly high voices are continually broadcast at extreme volume. After five minutes in the company of the most well-behaved seven-year-old, I have a blinding headache.
After an eight-hour day of listening to thirty seven-year-olds play Marco Polo, I was homicidal.

I entertained fantasies of buying a high-powered assault rifle. Then, standing at the pool gate like an avenging angel, I would scream "MARCO!".
And when any little head popped up and screamed "POLO!", I would shoot it.
Actually, I also entertained fantasies of doing the same thing with a suction-dart gun. I wasn't a homicidal maniac, after all, just an exhausted college student. But, no, I never shot anyone with anything. The fantasies were just that, fantasies to help me cope.
I just hunkered down in bed, put a pillow over my head, and groaned imprecations. And eventually I graduated and moved away.

I've lived as far away from the pool as I can, since.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 07:55 PM EST
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Saturday, June 9, 2001

Boyfriend and I are suckers for books.

No, that's not a strong enough term.

Boyfriend and I are IDIOTS for books.

We can't go into any bookstore, anywhere, without dropping at least fifty bucks. (Well, okay, we could probably get out of a Christian bookstore without spending anything. But we wouldn't go into those in the first place.) It doesn't matter. Used books, new books, comic books, art books, foreign books, technical books; one or the other of us (and sometimes both) will come out with an armload of totally random crap.
It doesn't help that Boyfriend reads scary-ass expensive computer and math books for fun, or that I have a jones for pulp-mystery anthologies that's akin to crack dependency. Moreover, our fields of interest overlap to a HUGE extent, so even if one of us manages to successfully resist buying an interesting book, the other will buy it. Or we'll experience a simultaneous wearing-down of willpower:

'I want this book, but it's expensive.'
'Ooooh, I want that book too. But yeah, it is expensive.'
'But I really want it. And it's hard to find.'
'Yeah, it IS kind of hard to find... and I'm dying to read it...'
'Wah.'
'Wah. Oh, what the hell.' Expensive-but-cool book goes in basket.

The reason we buy a lot of books is... well, we READ a lot of books. Whenever we go out to dinner (fairly often, since we both hate doing dishes), we both bring books to read (waitstaff always thinks this is just adorable, for some reason). And we sit around the house and read in the evenings sometimes, and I read in front of the computer late at night, and Boyfriend reads for a couple of hours before going to bed... I finish about four or five novel-length books a week, and Boyfriend reads slightly fewer longer books.

Plus we read about five-ten comic books a week, and we have an ENORMOUS collection of graphics novels and trade paperbacks. When it comes to reading material, we have no willpower. I even subscribe to lots of weird catalogs... free reading material delivered to my door every day! We don't subscribe to magazines, though, for some reason. I've never really found a magazine that I liked enough to subscribe to. (Deletes rant about how truly stupid most women's magazines are.)

So we have eight, count 'em, EIGHT six-foot-tall bookshelves, all stuffed to overflowing with books, stacked three deep, piled on top of other books, or just crammed wherever there is room. The comic books are piled up in longboxes in the utility room, the catalogs are piled on the entertainment center in the main room (until they get too old and get thrown out), and little piles of books sprout on both bedside tables. And on the floor beside the bed, too, when the tables get crowded.
Every three months or so, we get fed up and tote huge bags full of books to the local Half-Price books, staving off the inevitable by a matter of days. And of course, we always come back with a bag full of NEW books to replace them. No willpower whatsoever.

Recently I gave in and started buying manga. We're doomed.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:59 AM EST
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Wednesday, June 6, 2001

Hm. An essay on the brains of crows. Yeah.
A few years ago, my mother and I were eating lunch at La Madeleine in Houston, out on the patio. (Mmmmm, French bistro food.) The patio was almost empty, since it was about 2pm. We were sitting at one end, and at the other end, on an otherwise empty table, there were these two crows.

The crows were picking through the little box of sugar packets on the table. And without fail, every time they picked up a pink packet (saccharin) or a blue packet (aspartame), they would toss it over their shoulders onto the ground without a second thought. It was like watching a tiny pastel blizzard, these little packets flying everywhere, as fast as a pair of hungry crows could throw them over their shoulders. If crows have shoulders. Anyway.
But if they picked up a white packet (sugar) or a tan packet (raw sugar), they'd keep it and fly off to the roof, stash it somewhere, and come back for more. And the blizzard would begin again, as they quietly worked their way from table to table.
Of course we didn't chase them off, or go tell the employees. We were too busy eating and laughing our fool heads off.

They'd learned, somewhere along the way, that white and tan packets taste GOOD, and pink and blue packets taste BAD. I don't know whether crows can see in color, but I'm almost positive it had something to do with either the color or the shade of gray that color translates to.
Only humans are dumb enough to ingest potentially harmful chemicals instead of more-or-less-natural benign sugar. But that's another rant entirely.

A couple of months ago, when I was in Houston, my mother and I were having lunch in the outdoor cafe at the Museum of Fine Arts: Houston. And when I picked up the sugar to add some to my coffee, we noticed that, while the saccharin and the aspartame were in little packets in a little china box, the sugar was loose in one of those big canister dispensers.
Why the canister instead of matching sugar packets, which are easier to take care of and replace? Why, crows, of course. Smart crows!
The moment we realized this, Mom and I started laughing our fool heads off again, startling the oh-so-fabulous overdressed hip Houston art crowd with their oh-so-fabulous art-museum lunches.
Screw 'em. Let 'em eat crow.
...
Ouch.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:17 AM EST
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Saturday, June 2, 2001

Well, since you brought it up, Lex...

Despite the contents of my website, my most passionate game obsession isn't a console RPG.

I really haven't ever done much console gaming, in the grand scheme of things. I had an Atari 2600, and then I had no other consoles until I bought my beloved PlayStation two years ago. Well, okay, I had a series of GameBoys, but I don't really count those as 'consoles'. More like 'oddly twittering boxes to entertain myself with on car trips'.
Anyway. My point is that it's not a console RPG that stole my heart and brain.

When I was in college (in my fifth year, actually, 1995), a well-meaning friend of mine gave me a copy of this little party-RPG called... Might and Magic 3. I was immediately entranced. I made myself a nice little party of six butch, strapping women and together, we set out to conquer this primitive-graphics world.
Those six women, created and named by me, were closer to my heart than anything Square could create. They had no personalities pressed on them by game designers. No backstories, no dialogue, only a nifty little picture of what they looked like. In other words, they were MINE. I named them, I outfitted them, I decided what race they were. I loved them all dearly, even though my archer looked kind of like a sulky mallrat.

I played for hours every day, side by side with my boyfriend, who was also playing. The game was extremely non-linear, and gave you absolutely no clues about where to go next after about ten hours of gameplay. I spent hours investigating every single square of land and sea, slowly but surely finding clues as to where my ultimate destination lay, conquering cleverly hidden dungeons, getting my collective six asses kicked by new and different creatures, learning the joy that is Lloyd's Beacon. Since the game was so non-linear, Boyfriend and I were always in different places, and each night we'd gleefully trade hints about where new things could be found.

And yes, I won the game. It took me about ninety hours, and none of that was mindless leveling-up crap. You couldn't run around in little circles and get into random battles anyway. There weren't random encounters; instead, monsters were generated by these little 'monster huts'. Once you fought your way to the monster hut, you could destroy it, and earn nifty rewards, and then those monsters were GONE. I committed genocide from one end of the world to the other, in the name of equipment.
Having won, I moved on. I deleted the game from my hard drive (small hard drive), and went about the business of graduating from college.

Three years later, I was living in Columbus, Indiana, a dull little town if ever there was one. My only window to the world was the very same computer, now hopelessly out of date, but with enough power to let me connect to the Internet. I MUDded a lot.
One night, Boyfriend and I started to reminisce about M&M3. After about three hours of trading 'remember when' stories, we were so worked up that Boyfriend went out on a newsgroup dedicated to the resale of ancient games, and bought an oooold copy of Might and Magic 3 off some nice guy. When the peeling cardboard box arrived in the mail, we grabbed those sheaves of blue diskettes, installed the game, and once again began simultaneously playing our way through.
I once again had a party of six strapping, butch women. In fact, they looked much the same as they always had. I still loved them dearly, even the mallrat. It was like a reunion with old friends. As I walked out of the gates of the first city and saw the well-remembered hordes of orcs closing in, it was as if I'd never left, and I was actually laughing out loud, I was so happy to see those orcs.
Then I shot them full of arrows. I'm not THAT sentimental.

I actually have yet ANOTHER game of Might and Magic 3, about half-finished, waiting to be played some more. And I still have the old cardboard box full of diskettes, in case I feel like playing again. After writing this, I find that I do.

Two more stories about Might and Magic 3, before your eyes glaze over.

First: as I said, I always played with a party of six women. It's a pride thing. We could kick ass better than any stupid guys anyway.
Unfortunately, one of the side quests required that you have male characters in your party to complete. (They had to fall in love with some siren.) After cursing the game roundly, I went back to the first city and hired a couple of henchmen.
You could have two hirelings at a time. You paid them by the day; the amount depended on how high level they were. So the hirelings in the first city were very low-level, and therefore cheap; an archer, named Alan Bow, and a druid, named Fineous. I paid their fees and dragged them out to show them the siren. They seemed to like her. I finished the quest.

Second: the most egregious rules loophole I have ever found, and quite possibly the reason I still love Might and Magic 3 after all these years.
You see, in Might and Magic 3, every character had her own, small inventory. There was no party inventory, and you only had so many spaces in which to carry things; furthermore, there was no way to store items. You had what you could carry, and that was that.
About halfway through my first game, I discovered that, if one of your hirelings is dead, then he's unable to work, and you therefore didn't have to pay him. But he stayed in your party.
I think you can see where this is going. I hired the cheapest hirelings I could find (Alan Bow and Fineous), coldly and specifically got them killed, and then filled their dead bodies with my extra stuff. Whenever they accidentally got brought back to life by beneficial fountains or other magics, I would have them killed again. They were my 'body bags', my 'lifeless luggage', and they went all over the world with me, dead.

I can just imagine the residents of these little pseudo-medieval towns staring at us; these six brawny, tough adventuring-women who just happen to be dragging a couple of well-dressed male corpses around. And those impeccably dressed handsome corpses went everywhere with us, too: into bars, into shops, into the inn at night...
Can you imagine the rumors? Why were we never run out of town as evil crazy necrophiliac bitches?

Probably because we were, after all, REALLY damn butch.

Posted by Mie Tsukikoushi @ 12:01 AM EST
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