Monotony!

Boredom!

Interstate!

Fortunately, I don’t have to drive the interstate very often anymore. When I find myself stuck between white lines for a long drive, my mind melts into mush and I fantasize about escaping the madness in a flying car. There are two things I’ve always wanted to do while driving on the interstate. First, I’d like to drive through a rest area at full speed and just wave at all the shocked people getting out for a stretch. Second, I’d like to go through a truck weigh station.

Even a dolt like me realizes the first dream is too dangerous and I would never do it. But the second… hmmm.

I found myself so bored on a recent business trip through South Carolina that I thought it might be a good time to check out a weigh station. According to my calculations, I had plenty of time to get to my appointment and I always find South Carolinians to be extraordinarily kind. So when the exit sign appeared for All Trucks to be weighed, I followed a dingy yellow 18-wheeler off the road. I drive a pick-up – which is a truck, after all.

The truck behind me started honking immediately – impatient, I guess. Nearly deafened by his horn, I waited my turn in the line. They go relatively quickly and I was on the scale in no time. When I got there, an angry looking lady in brown was waiting for me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she called angrily. “Just keep moving.”

“But it said, ‘all trucks’,” I countered with a smile, using my stupid-card, which I keep readily available in my wallet (and an extra copy in the glove box).

“It means big rigs, tractor-trailers…” she yelled in exasperation. “That’s the only thing we weigh here. Just keep moving please.”

I pushed my luck. I was here already, might as well get my money’s worth. “But I’ve been thinking I might have put on a few pounds lately – not exercising and all. Can you weigh me anyway?”

Her sense of humor as drab as her uniform, she was done with me. “Sir, I am a Highway Patrol Officer. If you don’t move along I will deal with you as such.”

“Goodbye, ma’am,” I said as I quickly obeyed.

And there I thought my experiment was over. I thought…

The officer must have been the forgiving type – I didn’t get pulled over for being stupid. However, the trucker behind me with the air horn took exception to my little prank. About two miles down the road, he was close enough to my truck bed to be considered cargo. I started to get nervous, but figured he wouldn’t keep at it too long if I slowed down to obey the posted fifty-five MPH speed limit. I was wrong. In fact, I think they still actually might have one of those CB networks they used in the 70’s to call a convoy.

I say that because within a mile, I looked ahead of me and another truck was going even slower than me. No worries. I started to pass only to find a blue rig to my left going the same speed as the impediment in front. Talked about hemmed in. I was stuck… and going fifty miles per hour all the way through South Carolina. My ‘plenty of time’ evaporated and I nearly missed my meeting entirely. My little prank must have broken some kind of trucker code.

Some stupid ideas should stay just that… as ideas.

The next time I get bored, I’ll stop at Cracker Barrel for a book on tape… and I won’t park anywhere near the big rigs.

I’m finally done with Peter the Brazen, and I feel I can say definitively now that it is the worst. The worst. I hardly know what else to say about it, or how to catalog its various failings.

I thought I was going to enjoy this book. Peter Moore is a wireless operator, and he’s the best wireless operator. He can hear things no one else can hear, and other wireless operator recognize…I don’t know, the inflections of his Morse code, or something. And he doesn’t have a lean, sardonic countenance, but he does have a tendency to smile inappropriately, which practically amounts to the same thing. So, all of that boded well. And I was prepared for some racism, because this is the kind of book where the existence of actual Asian people is completely irrelevant to the glamour of Asia. But in general I thought that this book wouldn’t be very good, but that I would enjoy it.

I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.

We can start with the racism, which is of the “protagonist who supposedly knows China like the back of his hand can’t tell the difference between people from Asian countries” variety. There was a Eurasian girl who wasn’t evil, and maybe one or two Chinese people who were well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful, but as a whole, George F. Worts paints the entire population of a continent as pretty much worthless. Not that he has a very high opinion of humanity in general — I saw here the same kind of cynicism that made me uncomfortable in Girl Alone. He also gets in some jabs at Dutch people – no discernible traits besides being boring and liking to eat — and Mexicans — the “fiery gladness” of knocking a “greaser” into the ocean. There’s not anything in particular I can pick out to take issue with, just grindingly awful racial determinism throughout.

As bad as the racism and xenophobia were, the misogyny was worse. Peter Moore is apparently irresistible to women, but I’m not sure why. I mean, if two women have similar coloring he can’t tell the difference between them (even if he’s in love with one of them), and if they’re “exotic” he makes up stories about them for his own amusement, and if a woman tells him her husband beats her, he doesn’t believe it until he sees the bruises and then asks her why, as if she must have done something to deserve it. Which I guess makes sense, since he mostly views women as men’s possessions anyway.

Worts credits him with  “quaint, mid-Victorian views regarding woman,” and if mid-Victorian views regarding women consist of distrusting them and treating them as objects then, yeah, he does, but I don’t know why we’re supposed to like him for it.  I kept thinking of a quote from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: “I’m told the women literally bow down before him, if that’s what women do.” Women do literally bow down before Peter Moore in this book, but no, that’s not what women do.

Then there’s the writing, which is terrible on two levels. At the sentence level, it’s hideously flowery. People who refer to guns as “blue steel” already have a mark against them in my book, but that’s just the beginning of Worts’ excessive reliance on colors for description. I think my favorite bit was the number of synonyms for “red” he used in describing a cinnabar mining city. Here is a bit of it: “And instantly he was obsessed with the flaming color of that man’s unappeased passion. Red—red! The hovels were spattered with the red clay. The man, the skinny, wretched creature who begged for a moment of his gracious mercy at the gate, dripped in ruby filth. The mule sank and wallowed in vermilion mire.”

There are a lot of bits like that.

My favorite sentence, though, was one of the less flowery ones: “And Peter was all alone, although his aloneness was modified to a certain extent by the corpse at his feet. “

The language is hilariously terrible, but everything else is just terrible. I don’t know what to call the other level on which the writing is terrible. Plot? Character development? Basic logic? It’s probably all of the above. The way people act just doesn’t make sense. The omniscient third person narration says things that exist in an alternate reality where it does make sense. Peter spends a lot of the climactic action scenes unconscious, although I guess that’s for the best.

And nothing is ever resolved or explained. Like, Peter spends the entire book trying to figure out why the guy who rules the city of Len Yang keeps kidnapping beautiful young women to work in his mines. And I would still kind of like to know why, but I suspect that there isn’t actually a reason. If there is one, Worts certainly doesn’t let us in on it.

There were moments, even halfway through the book, when I though the whole thing might genuinely be a joke, it made so little sense. It’s not just the usual thing where an author ascribes to a protagonist all sorts of qualities that they don’t actually seem to have. It’s a more far-reaching version of that, where you can tell the author is ascribing to the narrative all sorts of things that aren’t there. I mean, it’s also got the thing where the protagonist is supposed to be super competent but in practice is terrible at everything, but that’s sort of commonplace compared to the whole story’s weird, disjointed, “does George F. Worts understand how events are supposed to follow each other” quality.

So, uh, yeah. This book is objectively terrible. It’s also subjectively terrible. Don’t read it. The bits that are terrible in a funny way aren’t worth it.

Cinderella Jane, by Marjorie Benton Cooke, has a lot of things in it that I love. The quiet girl who cleans all the artists’ studios turns out to be awesome! And beautiful! The hero is kind of a dork! The heroine and this girl who was in love with the hero become best friends! He/she fell in love with his/her wife/husband! A wife in a mental institution!

All these are awesome things, and they’re not the only ones, but Cinderella Jane mostly didn’t work for me for two reasons: first, there was a lot of philosophizing of the kind that can be uncomfortable for a modern reader. And second, no one has ever, in the history of the world, spoken like this:

“Jane, heart of me, I feel as if all the problems in the world were settled for us!”

She looked up at him, and shook her head, smiling.

“Dear big, little boy-husband, our problems are just beginning. We’re looking at them squarely for the first time!”

“But we’re looking at them together, Jane.”

“Yes, thanks be to love! Jerry, my husband, what a world! I want to cry out, with a loud voice, I want to praise the Lord, with trumpets and with shawms!”

I tried to write a real review of this book, I promise. But honestly, do you need to know anything else? If the lines I quote above make you wince/cringe/cry, you will probably not enjoy this book. If they don’t, you’ll probably enjoy it a lot, because pretty much everything else in Cinderella Jane is really, really fun.

Sylvia is nineteen, the daughter of a woman from California and an Italian Count (both dead), and the most beautiful woman in Europe. But while her aunt wants her to marry a Duke — unless maybe a prince is available — Sylvia says that, if she ever marries at all, she’ll choose an American man. Philip Monroe would be happy to be that man. Eric Fielding has to deny to himself that he’d be happy to be that man, since he’s engaged to a girl in New York. Dick Ames knows there’s no likelihood of his being that man, so he becomes her good friend instead.

Really, though, Sylvia’s not interested in marrying anybody. But her aunt is really pushing the Duke, so Sylvia runs away to her other aunt in California and changes her name to Barbara Gordon. She — obviously — will henceforth be known as Batgirl, to avoid confusion.

Meanwhile, we learn more about Eric and his fiancée: Her name is Edith, she’s very beautiful and very much in love with Eric, and he doesn’t care about her at all. He asked her to marry him because he overheard her confess to another girl that she was in love with him. She knows he doesn’t love her, but she’s holding out hope that she can win him over. Any chance of that happening is gone, though, when he travels to California on an errand for his sister and meets Batgirl in her Barbara Gordon guise. They fall in love, but he can’t say anything because he’s engaged to Edith, and she won’t say anything because she thinks he’s in love with someone who died, and eventually he goes back to New York.

This would all be perfectly satisfactory, if  only it weren’t terrible. I still have no idea why Eric and Batgirl fell in love, and the writing is ridiculously clumsy: “He had to stand very near in order to help her dismount, and as she jumped a lock of her hair brushed against him and caught in a college society pin fastened to his waistcoat, that it was de riguer for him to wear at all times and on all occasions.”

On the way home, Eric decides that he needs to do something to be worthy of Batgirl, so he decides to make literature his profession — in the most obnoxious way possible. He’s like, “Well, I like books a lot, so if I have a talent, it must be for writing.” And because the author of this book is so extremely misguided, we know his assumption that he does have a talent isn’t going to be proved wrong. Although, if this is Evalyn Emerson’s attitude towards writing, I suppose we now have a very good explanation for the existence of this book.

Anyway, it gets worse. Eric, having decided that liking to read qualifies him to be a professional writer, says to himself, “Hey, you know what else I like? Ancient Egypt! I think I will write a novel about an Egyptian princess. It will be fictional, but she will have a ‘true oriental character.’” His heroine is to be the daughter of a Pharaoh, of course, but he decides to make her mother a white slave so that the girl can be blonde. Eric feels  that blonde hair is necessary to beauty because Batgirl is blonde. Also, this is how you’re going to prove yourself worthy? By writing a trashy (if Eric writes it, you know it’s going to be trashy) historical novel?

He returns to New York and sets to work. Eventually Edith returns from her trip abroad and they have a series of pretty frank discussions about their situation — she loves him, he has no interest in her and is in love with someone else — during which Eric takes the incomprehensible position that, being the man, he’s honor bound not to break the engagement, and that it would be far better for him to marry her, to continue to be cold and occasionally cruel to her, and never to let her touch him.

I know Eric is playing by the rules and Edith isn’t. He had to ask her to marry him, and a well-regulated heroine

When Knighthood Was in Flower, by Charles Major, was the #9 bestselling book of 1900. On one hand that was a relief, because it would have been horrifying to find that it sold better than To Have and To Hold or Janice Meredith, both of which were, you know, good. On the other hand, it’s worrying to think that this book was a bestseller at all, since it’s kind of terrible. Actually, I can’t think of anything I liked about it. Or, I don’t know, the title is okay, I guess. If by “knighthood” you mean “being fickle and selfish.” And there’s one sort of entertaining bit in which Charles Brandon imagines going to New Spain and pining for Mary Tudor: “I shall find the bearing of Paris, and look in her direction until my brain melts in my effort to see her, and then I shall wander in the woods, a suffering imbecile, feeding on roots and nuts.” I don’t know what kind of success he’d have with the roots and nuts, but believe me, he’s got the suffering imbecile part down.

Other than that, though — no, sorry, including that, the book is pure drivel. It pretends to be a history of the romance between Mary, the real-life sister of Henry VIII, and Brandon, the 1st Duke of Suffolk, told by their close (fictional) friend Sir Edwin Caskoden. Major/Caskoden insists right up until the end of the book that the few small differences between his account and that of the contemporary chronicler, Hall, are all Hall’s fault, and Caskoden’s story is corroborated by other sources, but it’s complete nonsense. Major seems perfectly happy to change the manner of Brandon’ father’s death, make Brandon younger than he actually was, ignore the two wives and two daughters Brandon had before marrying Mary and the wife he married immediately after her death, and completely alter the character of Brandon’s position at court, and really, that’s fine. It’s fiction. I’m just annoyed picks out one small difference from the historical record and pretends that everything else is accurate when it very obviously isn’t.

But even that wouldn’t particularly bother me if Major’s version of the story wasn’t so stupid. Or if there were any characters in the book with whom I could sympathize for more than a page at a time. Or if Major didn’t hate women so much, although, to be fair, I don’t think he realized that he hated women. He’s just all into chivalry, which means he has no confidence in their intelligence, abilities, courage, or honor. I mean, there’s this bit where Mary is in disguise as a man, only her “utter femininity” is so undeniable that the disguise doesn’t really work, and a fight breaks out between those who want to rip her clothes off, and those who think it sucks that Brandon should have to defend her all by himself. Twenty men are wounded, and according to both the characters and the narration, this is totally Mary’s fault, because women just can’t help breeding mischief. That’s my biggest problem with so-called chivalry: “Let’s do things for women because they’re great,” quickly becomes “let’s do things for women because they can’t do things for themselves,” and from there it’s pretty easy to get to, “women have no good qualities (except maybe chastity) so aren’t we awesome for

My new post at Edwardian Promenade is up! It’s about one of my favorite Elinor Glyn books, The Visits of Elizabeth, and two sequels, one by Glyn and one…not.

I found myself thinking, halfway through Elizabeth Visits America, about the way books take place in their own separate worlds. I mean, I often think about how an author’s style sort of creates an alternate universe, so the works of Elinor Glyn take place in a world where women are naturally a bit conniving and men are very simple and countries age like people, but here I was thinking more about how I read a lot of books set in the same time period, but somehow I always relate them in terms of style, not history. Anyway, there’s a bit in Elizabeth Visits America where Elizabeth is in New York, and she talks about young people who aren’t out in society yet, and how the boys and girls are as familiar with each other as siblings, and how their dances are almost like children’s parties, and I suddenly realized that — remember, this is 1909 — hey, that’s Patty Fairfield that Elizabeth is meeting, basically. So, I don’t know, I thought I’d share that.

Anyway, the post is here.

Brace yourselves: this is a long one.

Here is a blurb I found at the end of PG’s text of From the Car Behind:

Why should a young well-bred girl be under a vow of obedience to a man after she had broken her engagement to him? This is the mysterious situation that is presented in this big breezy out-of-doors romance. When Craig Schuyler, after several years’ absence, returns home, and without any apparent reason fastens on Nell Sutphen an iron bracelet. A sequence of thrilling events is started which grip the imagination powerfully, and seems to “get under the skin.” There is a vein of humor throughout, which relieves the story of grimness.

It describes a book by David Potter called I Fasten a Bracelet. Here’s a review of it from The New York Times:

Of course an author has a right to draw a cad or a blackguard, but we demand that he shall recognize such creatures for what they are. When he blends the two and presents the composite as a hero, there must be mutiny on the part of even the most long-suffering of readers. This is just what David Potter does in “I Fasten a Bracelet” (J.B. Lipincott Company, $1.25.) The autobiographical protagonist is introduced, returned to the United States from Sumatra. He takes possession as a master of a certain luxurious home. Its widowed owner and her daughter, especially the daughter, he treats with the utmost contumely and insolent tyranny. He commands the daughter’s slavish obedience, her movements are all to be subject to his orders; dinner parties are to be given at his bequest; the fair and high-bred Ellen is to give an account of her goings out and her comings in; she is to conform to his whims; she is, in short, a scorned and insulted bondswoman, to punish whom he presently locks upon her arm a two-inch band of iron, “more nearly a handcuff than a bracelet,” once the badge of servitude of an African slave. And all this because he was the rejected lover of the lady who afterward, as he mistakenly supposed, forged his name upon a check for a large amount!

Fancy a gentleman, a man, taking such a method of revenge. Yet this is Mr. Potter’s hero, and one whom the much-tortured heroine declares in the end to be “a very noble person.” Where is it that a wife doubts her husband’s love unless he gives her an occasional beating? Of that country must Ellen Sutphen have been a native. The book is fairl readable, but both characters and situations lack reality, and it contains nothing which atones for its blunder in a hero.

And, just for good measure, here’s another from The National Magazine:

On the strength of certain incriminating evidence against Craig Schuyler, his engagement with Ellen Sutphen is broken. He seeks comfort in travel, while his social set take his disappearance as tantamount to a confession of guilt. “I Fasten a Bracelet” opens with his return to his old haunts. During his absence a check payable to Ellen and bearing his signature has been cashed by his bank. Schuyler knows of the Sutphen reverses and in his mind brands Ellen a forger. It happens that her brother has confessed to her his guilt, and that she has the money to make restitution upon Schuyler’s appearance. The fact that he could believe her guilty arouses her pride and indignation, and she remains silent. Schuyler proceeds to dominate her movements, and as a mark of her slavery places on her arm an iron

4 Comments on I Fasten a Bracelet, last added: 6/15/2010

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Cathlin Barry said, on 6/11/2010 12:08:00 PM

Very intriguing. I think I’ll try it.

Melody said, on 6/11/2010 12:20:00 PM

Well, I won’t say it wasn’t fun to read.

anshika said, on 6/15/2010 4:35:00 AM

you know..the book says the author is David Potter but the download link is Edward Barron..minor detail but intriguing..there’s also a blurb for a book by david potter called The Accidental Honeymoon which sounds cute..unfortuntely i don’t think its available online..

Melody said, on 6/15/2010 6:24:00 AM

I noticed that as well — my guess is that David Potter was Edward Barron’s pseudonym, but who knows?

“The Accidental Honeymoon” is a really good title. And I do think Potter/Barron is a pretty good writer.

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If you’re like most people, you’ve had many different hobbies in your life. Some of them were athletic, some were intellectual, and others are probably best left unsaid. But if you’re like me, you’ve probably come to notice that nearly any hobby you might choose suffers from one critical weakness:

The presence of other people always screws them up. 

It doesn’t matter if you are hiking, rock climbing, playing Axis and Allies, or what.  If it involves other people, there is always at least one idiot who won’t take it seriously, or always has to ‘win’, or for some reason or other makes you want to kick their head in. In relationships this is true as well, but that’s another article.

So anyway, it’s 2009, and the problem of finding good entertainment is worse than ever. We’re in a depression, and can’t afford anything fun. Doing things outside is dicey, since a lot of us live in areas where the weather is terrible most of the time, and even when the weather is good, people on the street will beat you senseless and rob you. Not because those people need the money, but because it’s like saying hello – at least here in Wilmington, and where you live probably isn’t too much different. 

It’s hell. So under circumstances like this, what do you do to entertain yourself that is safe, cheap, and involves as little human interaction as possible?

Why, there’s only one thing you can do… go back to your roots, acquire a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons, and play it by yourself!

Why is this Hobby Awesome?

1. Every guy with even the slightest bit of imagination, deep inside, loves the concept of Dungeons and Dragons. Even if you don’t like fantasy, you get to kill things, take their crap, and face no consequences. Even most women would like the experience if they really gave it a try. Well, probably not. Screw them.

2. Rolling dice, writing stuff down, and having some interest in doing so will take you back in time if you’re over 30. You’ll feel like you’re 11 again. If you’re under 30 and have spent some time being broke, it might do the same.

3. You’ll get to use your imagination, which does not get exercised at all by computer games (except for roguelikes which you also need to play, if you haven’t already). With a pen and paper experience, you can picture the damp, dark hallways and imagine the groups confusion when surprised by some giant, nasty beastie. If you want to get all nerdy about it, you can even maintain a history of what your individual characters accomplish, so that they get some depth over time and take on some life.

4. It’s free and you can do it anywhere as long as you have a flat surface and your materials. You don’t even need electricity. As long as you have light, you can do it in a basement while drinking tea, for chrissake. Any hobby which can be performed in a basement with a cup of tea next to you is Win.

Why wouldn’t I want to tell anyone that I do this?

1. It’s Dungeons and Dragons, and you’re probably a reasonably functioning adult. You not only will get laughed at, you will also become re-acquainted with another activity that you indulged in as a kid – getting your ass kicked by people who are bigger than you are. And that’s just the men… all that is nothing compared to how girls will treat you.

2. It’s an activity which is designed for more than one person, and you’re doing it by yourself. Something like that never looks good. Does having a tea party by yourself look good? Does playing football by yourself look good? No, it doesn’t. So stay quiet.

3. You’re going to be playing a version of Dungeons and Dragons which went out of print about 20 years ago (I’ll get into why later). It means that even game nerds, who are on the absolute bottom of the social totem pole, will spit on you because they will not consider you to be relevant.

Wow! Playing a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons by myself sounds Awesome as long as I don’t tell anyone! How do I do it?

You need the following materials:

First Edition D&D Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual (All available on E-Bay for about $40 total)

Dice which have the following number of sides: (4, 6 (get 3 of them), 8, 10 (get 2 of these), 12, and 20). They should be available at your local gaming store for about $5 total. Yes, they still have gaming stores if you look. They’re like peep shows… the people who have that need, know where to go to fulfill it. And just like peep shows, you’ll see a lot of awkward, pasty looking men scuttling out of the front door with brown paper bags under their arms. Don’t look anyone in the eye.

A table, a pencil, some paper, and a room where you can be sure that no one will walk in on you. Wherever you go to look at porn is probably the ideal place for something like this, too.

Some randomly generated dungeons which can be found at http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/. The resulting dungeons are created for a rule set which is much newer than yours will be, but it’s easy enough to create house rules on any monsters/experience points which are not covered specifically in the dungeon descriptions. Commercial dungeons made for solo adventures are also OK, but there aren’t many of them and a disproportionate amount of them suck.

A critical hit table which can be found here:http://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/vinifera/critical_hit_table_2e.pdf . What that will do is, if an attack against a monster (or against you) is really, really successful, it can result in an arm being sliced off or something – which adds to the flavor big time.

Then play away, Dungeon Master! Don’t read the room descriptions, just move around the map and read each description as you enter. If a room contains a secret door or hidden treasure, roll a 6 sided die for every party member – if you roll a one, the door or treasure is detected. Create groups of at least 8 characters, because with bad luck and critical hits, the mortality rate will be high.

Warnings

Dungeons and Dragons has a lame reputation for a reason. If there is anything you take from all this, read the following and be sure to remember it well!

First of all, I am not talking about playing D&D in a group. Do not finish this article then run out and join the first pack of neckbeards that you can find. You will suffer, and everyone around you will suffer, and the most tragic aspect of it all will be that it could have been avoided.

Let me explain:

D&D was originally based on miniature war gaming. When it was first conceived of, play was 99% built around the idea that you go into some dark hole, indiscriminately kill monsters who are all ugly and all bad, become more skilled, then crawl into another dark hole to apply what you learned in the last one. Simple, right? It’s more than simple, it’s Awesome. In fact, everything should work like that. Life would be much shorter, but it would be interesting and have some sort of meaning.

However, over time, the group game evolved away from that idea. Nowadays, the average D&D player is even more poorly adjusted to society than I am. They don’t like fighting monsters unless the odds overwhelmingly favor them. They throw fits if their characters die, and worst of all, they enjoy going into imaginary towns and posturing in front of imaginary villagers. This causes conversations that are so lame, so ridiculous, that they defy description. For example, once in a while you’ll get some guy who wants his character to get laid, so he sits in a tavern and tries and get with some buxom tavern wench who is, of course, being played by a another neckbeard who is sitting on the other side of the table behind a cardboard screen. Neither the person playing the male character or the one playing the buxom wench has any experience with women and dating. The banter at the table goes like this:

Keith: “OK Seth, so you go into a tavern and sit down. This girl comes over to you and she’s got really big boobs and long black hair… ummm… and she stands close to you and she’s like, ‘Hey’.”

Seth: “What’s her comeliness?”

The crackling sound of rolling dice issues from behind the cardboard screen. I am seated at the middle of the table between the two neckbeards and look down at my hands with a grim expression, since I know how this story will end. I set my lips into a tight line and begin using the dice in front of me to build little towers, in an effort to ignore the conversation.

Keith: “15. No, she’s hotter than that, like 16, 17.”

Seth (blushing): “Dayummmmmm! Hehehehe. OK, so I say ‘hey’.”

Keith (as Buxom Wench): “Hey… ummm… you’re really hot. What’s your name?”

Seth (in his deepest voice): “I am Lord Comforter, prince of Down and hero of Qwertyuiop, and I am at your service!

Seth again: “Hey Keith, I like, lean over and press up against her boob to let her know I like her.”

Keith (giggling and blushing): “OK. So she presses back and leans over so you can see down her dress and then she’s like, ermm… That’s a big sword you have there. Do you have any other.. ummmmmmmmmm…. weapons?”

Seth (flustered): “Well, I have this bow and erm, a magical war hammer, and ermmmmm… ”

Keith (blushing so hard that he can barely talk): “No, Seth, she didn’t mean it like that. She meant it like…”

The conversation is broken by the sound of breaking glass. I have just smashed a bottle on the edge of the table, and am waving the jagged end at the other players with a wild gleam in my eye. Again.

Me: “For the love of God… that’s enough. Stop. OK? You need to stop. I will kill you both!”

10% of group Dungeons and Dragons is enjoyable. The rest consists of interactions just like that and you will end them just like I do, by threatening to kill people and being 100% serious about it. Where I’m going with all this is that while playing on your own is awesome, playing in a group is not the same experience.

Second, I am not talking about playing a new version of Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, I know you’re by yourself, but show some self-respect and play like a man. You want an old as hell version, with rudimentary character classes, rules that are simple and written by guys who would have done so for free, and no character motivation other than a desire to clean out random dungeons, kill stuff, and get more powerful. It’s that, or it’s nothing at all. Role playing and using exotic characters smacks of having a tea party with dolls, and you will have none of it if you want to have a Socially Frowned Upon hobby that is Awesome and not one that sucks.

So that’s it. You are now ready to play a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons in the most Awesome way possible – one that involves no kind of interaction at all with other people. Now get out there, cover a table with weird looking dice, homemade character sheets, and some crude rulebooks that are at least 25 years old, and get to it! 

And don’t tell anyone.

If you’re like most people, you’ve had many different hobbies in your life. Some of them were athletic, some were intellectual, and others are probably best left unsaid. But if you’re like me, you’ve probably come to notice that nearly any hobby you might choose suffers from one critical weakness:

The presence of other people always screws them up. 

It doesn’t matter if you are hiking, rock climbing, playing Axis and Allies, or what.  If it involves other people, there is always at least one idiot who won’t take it seriously, or always has to ‘win’, or for some reason or other makes you want to kick their head in. In relationships this is true as well, but that’s another article.

So anyway, it’s 2009, and the problem of finding good entertainment is worse than ever. We’re in a depression, and can’t afford anything fun. Doing things outside is dicey, since a lot of us live in areas where the weather is terrible most of the time, and even when the weather is good, people on the street will beat you senseless and rob you. Not because those people need the money, but because it’s like saying hello – at least here in Wilmington, and where you live probably isn’t too much different. 

It’s hell. So under circumstances like this, what do you do to entertain yourself that is safe, cheap, and involves as little human interaction as possible?

Why, there’s only one thing you can do… go back to your roots, acquire a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons, and play it by yourself!

Why is this Hobby Awesome?

1. Every guy with even the slightest bit of imagination, deep inside, loves the concept of Dungeons and Dragons. Even if you don’t like fantasy, you get to kill things, take their crap, and face no consequences. Even most women would like the experience if they really gave it a try. Well, probably not. Screw them.

2. Rolling dice, writing stuff down, and having some interest in doing so will take you back in time if you’re over 30. You’ll feel like you’re 11 again. If you’re under 30 and have spent some time being broke, it might do the same.

3. You’ll get to use your imagination, which does not get exercised at all by computer games (except for roguelikes which you also need to play, if you haven’t already). With a pen and paper experience, you can picture the damp, dark hallways and imagine the groups confusion when surprised by some giant, nasty beastie. If you want to get all nerdy about it, you can even maintain a history of what your individual characters accomplish, so that they get some depth over time and take on some life.

4. It’s free and you can do it anywhere as long as you have a flat surface and your materials. You don’t even need electricity. As long as you have light, you can do it in a basement while drinking tea, for chrissake. Any hobby which can be performed in a basement with a cup of tea next to you is Win.

Why wouldn’t I want to tell anyone that I do this?

1. It’s Dungeons and Dragons, and you’re probably a reasonably functioning adult. You not only will get laughed at, you will also become re-acquainted with another activity that you indulged in as a kid – getting your ass kicked by people who are bigger than you are. And that’s just the men… all that is nothing compared to how girls will treat you.

2. It’s an activity which is designed for more than one person, and you’re doing it by yourself. Something like that never looks good. Does having a tea party by yourself look good? Does playing football by yourself look good? No, it doesn’t. So stay quiet.

3. You’re going to be playing a version of Dungeons and Dragons which went out of print about 20 years ago (I’ll get into why later). It means that even game nerds, who are on the absolute bottom of the social totem pole, will spit on you because they will not consider you to be relevant.

Wow! Playing a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons by myself sounds Awesome as long as I don’t tell anyone! How do I do it?

You need the following materials:

First Edition D&D Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual (All available on E-Bay for about $40 total)

Dice which have the following number of sides: (4, 6 (get 3 of them), 8, 10 (get 2 of these), 12, and 20). They should be available at your local gaming store for about $5 total. Yes, they still have gaming stores if you look. They’re like peep shows… the people who have that need, know where to go to fulfill it. And just like peep shows, you’ll see a lot of awkward, pasty looking men scuttling out of the front door with brown paper bags under their arms. Don’t look anyone in the eye.

A table, a pencil, some paper, and a room where you can be sure that no one will walk in on you. Wherever you go to look at porn is probably the ideal place for something like this, too.

Some randomly generated dungeons which can be found at http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/. The resulting dungeons are created for a rule set which is much newer than yours will be, but it’s easy enough to create house rules on any monsters/experience points which are not covered specifically in the dungeon descriptions. Commercial dungeons made for solo adventures are also OK, but there aren’t many of them and a disproportionate amount of them suck.

A critical hit table which can be found here:http://www.angelfire.com/dragon3/vinifera/critical_hit_table_2e.pdf . What that will do is, if an attack against a monster (or against you) is really, really successful, it can result in an arm being sliced off or something – which adds to the flavor big time.

Then play away, Dungeon Master! Don’t read the room descriptions, just move around the map and read each description as you enter. If a room contains a secret door or hidden treasure, roll a 6 sided die for every party member – if you roll a one, the door or treasure is detected. Create groups of at least 8 characters, because with bad luck and critical hits, the mortality rate will be high.

Warnings

Dungeons and Dragons has a lame reputation for a reason. If there is anything you take from all this, read the following and be sure to remember it well!

First of all, I am not talking about playing D&D in a group. Do not finish this article then run out and join the first pack of neckbeards that you can find. You will suffer, and everyone around you will suffer, and the most tragic aspect of it all will be that it could have been avoided.

Let me explain:

D&D was originally based on miniature war gaming. When it was first conceived of, play was 99% built around the idea that you go into some dark hole, indiscriminately kill monsters who are all ugly and all bad, become more skilled, then crawl into another dark hole to apply what you learned in the last one. Simple, right? It’s more than simple, it’s Awesome. In fact, everything should work like that. Life would be much shorter, but it would be interesting and have some sort of meaning.

However, over time, the group game evolved away from that idea. Nowadays, the average D&D player is even more poorly adjusted to society than I am. They don’t like fighting monsters unless the odds overwhelmingly favor them. They throw fits if their characters die, and worst of all, they enjoy going into imaginary towns and posturing in front of imaginary villagers. This causes conversations that are so lame, so ridiculous, that they defy description. For example, once in a while you’ll get some guy who wants his character to get laid, so he sits in a tavern and tries and get with some buxom tavern wench who is, of course, being played by a another neckbeard who is sitting on the other side of the table behind a cardboard screen. Neither the person playing the male character or the one playing the buxom wench has any experience with women and dating. The banter at the table goes like this:

Keith: “OK Seth, so you go into a tavern and sit down. This girl comes over to you and she’s got really big boobs and long black hair… ummm… and she stands close to you and she’s like, ‘Hey’.”

Seth: “What’s her comeliness?”

The crackling sound of rolling dice issues from behind the cardboard screen. I am seated at the middle of the table between the two neckbeards and look down at my hands with a grim expression, since I know how this story will end. I set my lips into a tight line and begin using the dice in front of me to build little towers, in an effort to ignore the conversation.

Keith: “15. No, she’s hotter than that, like 16, 17.”

Seth (blushing): “Dayummmmmm! Hehehehe. OK, so I say ‘hey’.”

Keith (as Buxom Wench): “Hey… ummm… you’re really hot. What’s your name?”

Seth (in his deepest voice): “I am Lord Comforter, prince of Down and hero of Qwertyuiop, and I am at your service!

Seth again: “Hey Keith, I like, lean over and press up against her boob to let her know I like her.”

Keith (giggling and blushing): “OK. So she presses back and leans over so you can see down her dress and then she’s like, ermm… That’s a big sword you have there. Do you have any other.. ummmmmmmmmm…. weapons?”

Seth (flustered): “Well, I have this bow and erm, a magical war hammer, and ermmmmm… ”

Keith (blushing so hard that he can barely talk): “No, Seth, she didn’t mean it like that. She meant it like…”

The conversation is broken by the sound of breaking glass. I have just smashed a bottle on the edge of the table, and am waving the jagged end at the other players with a wild gleam in my eye. Again.

Me: “For the love of God… that’s enough. Stop. OK? You need to stop. I will kill you both!”

10% of group Dungeons and Dragons is enjoyable. The rest consists of interactions just like that and you will end them just like I do, by threatening to kill people and being 100% serious about it. Where I’m going with all this is that while playing on your own is awesome, playing in a group is not the same experience.

Second, I am not talking about playing a new version of Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, I know you’re by yourself, but show some self-respect and play like a man. You want an old as hell version, with rudimentary character classes, rules that are simple and written by guys who would have done so for free, and no character motivation other than a desire to clean out random dungeons, kill stuff, and get more powerful. It’s that, or it’s nothing at all. Role playing and using exotic characters smacks of having a tea party with dolls, and you will have none of it if you want to have a Socially Frowned Upon hobby that is Awesome and not one that sucks.

So that’s it. You are now ready to play a really old version of Dungeons and Dragons in the most Awesome way possible – one that involves no kind of interaction at all with other people. Now get out there, cover a table with weird looking dice, homemade character sheets, and some crude rulebooks that are at least 25 years old, and get to it! 

And don’t tell anyone.

Image via Wikipedia

In this article, 10 ways of saving time while getting ready in morning is mentioned. The ideas are very stupid and horrible. I hope you enjoy it. They are as follows:

1. Do not sleep at night. Hence, you do not have to worry about getting up early in morning and to rush for job.
2. Do not take shower rather use deodorants and perfume to avoid public embarrassment.
3. Use the top and the bottom part simultaneously. I mean that eat and excrete simultaneously. However, if you think it is an obnoxious idea, then do reading rather than eating.
4. Brush your teeth while taking bath.
5. While sleeping, wear your shoes, this will save time in morning.
6. If possible, wear your office dress in night.
7. Hire servants who will do everything for you.
8. Wear your clothes while traveling.
9. Buy a car.
10. Finally yet importantly, do not leave your office in evening. Therefore, you will not have to worry about coming back.

You might be thinking that these ideas are unrealistic, but the fact is that many people try these ideas more often than anyone can think. So, go ahead and try them out. Other wise, just relax.

For more of my funny articles, click following links:

1. The Best Prank Articles in Triond: Here is information about the best prank articles ever posted on Triond, along with their links.
2. The 10 Most Stupid Reasons Why Not to Go to Sleep: Warning: reading this topic can make you bald so enter at your own risk.
3. Funny Science Story 1: DNA as Mafia Boss: A funny way to teach DNA replication.
4. Funny Science Story 2: Enzyme: A funny way to teach enzyme substrate interaction.
5. Five Simple Games Which Can Increase Mobile Sales Tremendously: Check out five simple games which every mobile company must consider if they want to boost their sales.

Image via Wikipedia

In this article, 10 ways of saving time while getting ready in morning is mentioned. The ideas are very stupid and horrible. I hope you enjoy it. They are as follows:

1. Do not sleep at night. Hence, you do not have to worry about getting up early in morning and to rush for job.
2. Do not take shower rather use deodorants and perfume to avoid public embarrassment.
3. Use the top and the bottom part simultaneously. I mean that eat and excrete simultaneously. However, if you think it is an obnoxious idea, then do reading rather than eating.
4. Brush your teeth while taking bath.
5. While sleeping, wear your shoes, this will save time in morning.
6. If possible, wear your office dress in night.
7. Hire servants who will do everything for you.
8. Wear your clothes while traveling.
9. Buy a car.
10. Finally yet importantly, do not leave your office in evening. Therefore, you will not have to worry about coming back.

You might be thinking that these ideas are unrealistic, but the fact is that many people try these ideas more often than anyone can think. So, go ahead and try them out. Other wise, just relax.

For more of my funny articles, click following links:

1. The Best Prank Articles in Triond: Here is information about the best prank articles ever posted on Triond, along with their links.
2. The 10 Most Stupid Reasons Why Not to Go to Sleep: Warning: reading this topic can make you bald so enter at your own risk.
3. Funny Science Story 1: DNA as Mafia Boss: A funny way to teach DNA replication.
4. Funny Science Story 2: Enzyme: A funny way to teach enzyme substrate interaction.
5. Five Simple Games Which Can Increase Mobile Sales Tremendously: Check out five simple games which every mobile company must consider if they want to boost their sales.

I’ve been very busy lately, but I always make time to read. What I can’t always make time for is the writing part. So, in an effort to catch up, here are my brief thoughts on Graustark: Graustark is about a rich American named Grenfall Lorry — and his name is pretty much the coolest thing [...]