Yesterday (which has just ended) marked the one-year anniversary of my suicide attempt. That doesn't really mean anything, besides the obvious.

Happy mother's day!

I brought my mother a bunch of blue hortensia, and made her dinner. Luxury meatloaf and a vegetable terrine (root beets, apples, carrots, potatoes,onions, parsnips and bulgur) with a paprika cream sauce. It was a success.

A fool and his money are soon parted. That's probably why I keep buying rpgs. That, and I like 'em.

I've bought a game called Dead of Night. The game's basically meant to emulate the various kinds of horror movie, so it's best for one-shots. The GM has a resource called Tension which increases according to pre-set parameters (depending on whether you're playing The Omen, Scream or Saw fx). Tension is the GM's resource for monkeying with the players. It's a bit like Static in Lacuna, except it can go down as well as up (when the GM uses it).

The PCs have some stats, some specialties (not exactly skills, but more like stuff that defines them and their expertise, like Mythos Scholar or Vampire Hunter), and a resource called Survival Points. They're not exactly hit points, more like a general 'stay in the game' resource.

Some examples:

In a CoC-style game, Survival Points may be sanity. So when Rupert Blake finally come face to face with the crustacean-like horrors he has been tracking, he may lose his final Survival Point and we may next see him in a straight jacket at Juniper Hill Asylum. Or in a brain cylinder.

In a zombie game it might be the time you have left before the infection reaches the brain and turn you into another flesh-eating corpse.

Survival Points can go up as well. Suppose your character's hiding from killer robots in some New Mexico ghost town, and finds an old shotgun hanging over the fireplace. The GM could then award you Survival Points. Now you can fight back at the automated menace!

Rupert Blake, occult scholar

Identify: 7 Obscure: 1 Specialization: Eldritch Lore: 10

Persuade: 6 Dissuade: 4

Escape: 6 Pursue: 4

Assault: 3 Protect: 7

Survival Points: 5

Bad Habit: Strung Out: Ruprt lives on caffeine, sugar, cigarettes and unspeakable secrets. He's not good at keeping quiet, or running instead of scribbling notes in his journal.

To do stuff you roll 2d10 and add the most relevant stat. As you can see, each pair of stats add up to 10. The exception being the first pair which Rupert's player has lowered by two points in order to buy a specialization.

You may be awarded Survival Points for acting according to your bad habit. The nature of the bad habit depends on the sub-genre. What works for a teen slasher game won't do for a giallo.

Today has been rainy. Work was work in name only (so a bit boring). In the evening I went over to my mother's to make her dinner, as she had a long day. Basically a good day.

Originally posted by winneganfake at Obama

If you can't create meaning for yourself or hitch yourself to someone else's, aren't you, in the parlance of our time, fucked?

I did absolutely nothing today. The café was closed due to the auspicious day, so I went for a walk in the sun, listening to Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets on audiobook. Then I went home and ate leftovers (latkes and stir-fry chicken with spring onions). . Tomorrow I'll be cooking for my family. Roast lamb and a bulgur pilaf.

Coal Not Dole

by Kay Sutcliffe

It stands so proud, the wheel so still
A ghostlike figure on the hill
It seems so strange there is no sound
Now there are no men underground
What will become of this pit-yard
Where men once trampled, faces hard
Tired and weary, their shift done
Never having seen the sun

Will it become a sacred ground
Foreign tourists gazing round?
Asking if there once worked here
Way beneath the pit-head gear
Empty trucks once filled with coal
Lined up like men on the dole
Will they ever he used again
Or left for scrap just like the men?

There'll always be a happy hour
For those with money, jobs and power
They'll never realise the hurt
They cause to men they treat like dirt.

"And the woman with the Lovecraftian vagina, is she anyone in real life?"

I've been watching a boatload of horror films lately.