Recon

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Batman & Gunwalker - Arkham City Spoilers

So if you are wondering about my general lack of productivity, blame Arkham City. But that isn't the point here.

You can't be even kind of a gamer and not have heard of Arkham City. It is a masterpiece of a game, but that isn't the point here either.

Anyway, one of the things that Batman does in the game is try to track down where the Joker's men are getting their weapons. Apparently they are armed to the teeth with G36's and Grenades and have been wreaking havoc in the city-this despite the fact that Arkham City is technically a large open air prison. An open air prison with strict controls on importation and exportation, particularly of weapons.

Anyway, Batman being Batman, he goes down into the fucking sewer and punches people in the dick until he finds out where the weapons are coming from-none other than Dr Hugo Strange, the 'warden' of the city's grand experiment in civil rights abuses. Turns out he's been running this whole show for his own profit, naturally, and is providing the Joker with weapons because the predictable chaos that ensues in Arkham City will enable him to begin 'Protocol 10' which is a violent crackdown by the armed mercenaries serving as security forces. They tear ass up and down the city in helicopters firing rockets and chainguns and shit to purge the filth, and naturally Batman has to punch things until it stops.

Sounding familiar? A heavily but inneffectively defended border, guns paid for by taxpayer dollars being provided to dangerous criminals, a crackdown by overly militarized mercenary police on people that had nothing to do with the initial violence?

Game over, folks. The inmates are running the fucking asylum. And we ain't got no Batman to save us.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Grandpapa Voice

So I know you, Internet.

You see some crazy heavily armed nerd on the internet talking about his large group of like minded riffraff and you think "Oh, sure, he has some buddies in his D&D group that love talking about zombies and the guy thinks he's some kind of high level Post Apocalypse aristocrat. How is he even going to control all these panicking fucks when the shit goes down?" (Internally, we almost never say SHTF-we say "When the shit goes down" as in the Cypress Hill song.)

Well I have probably given you nothing but reason to doubt my credentials, but fuck you anyway, Internet. I got the motherfuckin' Grandpapa voice.

My grandfather was well known as a word class bellower and snarler, a man who believed in that quaint concept called "The Fear of God." It was bad enough that I have had Tios beg a bail bondsman not to let them out so they could face a nice, quiet judge rather than The Old Man. Once, when we were gaming in the dining room and making too much noise, Grandpapa snuck up behind me in the DM's chair and for a few moments I could not figure out why everyone's eyes were the size of dinner plates and no one else was talking. The man could instill fear in someone with one sharp whistle. If you ever want to get a shudder out of Jared, ask him how fast he peeled out when Grandpapa was coming out to get him unstuck from the culvert at the end of our driveway; it came loose just as the old man came out and Jared's tires smoked all the way to the stop sign at the highway.

What does this have to do with me?

So lately, as Gracie gets over her tewwible twos and thwees in fits and spurts, I've started to discover The Grandpapa Voice inside myself. Mostly it's "GRACIE GOD DAMNIT GET THE FORK OUT OF THE LIGHT SOCKET" or "GRACIE PUT THAT DOWN BEFORE I BURN YOU WITH THIS CIGARETTE" etc etc etc. I'm a quiet guy. I don't like to raise my voice. But when I do have to yell at her, man, it is motherfuckin' Grandpapa the second. It is bad enough that my friends who grew up with him all look up for a moment with that deer in the headlights look. Hell, its bad enough that my own echo in the hallway sometimes freaks me out, and I always know it's coming.

I am the living reincarnation of that crotchety old bastard, and when the time comes to seize control of the group, like when the dead are rising or the Chicoms are dropping paratroopers downtown on 3rd & Rogers or, god help me, if the Heffalumps and Woozles are fighting it out in the streets, I am gonna bust out that voice at full volume and watch my homies jump. My homies will jump, my aunts and uncles will jump, my mom and cousins will jump-I'll go from "stoner with delusions of grandeur" to "stoner with a small army" in one bellow.

You better mother fuckin' believe it.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Poly Pickle

God knows you all know too much about my sex life, but here goes anyway. Mom, again, this is one you might want to skip.

You wanna know something interesting about poly? Maybe something you hadn't considered?

You are still putting your heart out there, man. You're still risking getting it stomped on.

For some people a relationship is like a safe refuge; once they are "out of play" then they can sit contentedly on the side with their self esteem intact. In fact, some of these people cherish this sensation so much that they careen from one relationship to the other, eternally seeking not love but safety.

You don't have this luxury when you are poly, particularly as a Unicorn Hunter. You still have to go out there and face the possibility of rejection. Let me tell you, America-it still hurts. Even when you have the most wonderful, supporting wife in the world, going out there and being told no is still a hit on your self esteem. I've kind of been learning this lately, and it has hit me harder than I expected. Poor Amanda, who takes on duties that no good man's wife would ever have to, has been nothing but comforting to me during this period, and oddly it seems to make it worse. She is a good woman, and doesn't deserve to have to do something like that.

Long, rambling story short, I tossed my heart at the feet of someone I'm incompatible with and it hurts, and I think people forget that about the poly lifestyle, that there is no sense of spectator safety-that you are still taking risks.

I'm not planning on changing my lifestyle, repenting and joining the Westboro Baptist Church anytime soon...I can't change, I'm just wired wrong...but it has given me a lot to think about. And I thought it might be something you should think about too.