The color of infinity inside an empty glass

Hello Livejournal'ites.
I know my friends out there in ChaoticMUXland and Otherwise want to know what I've been up to, so I'll tell you.

I've been up to work, mostly. I've given up on that PEST program ever being useful like I want it to and have just been using the bruteforce method to find out the direction and magnitude of groundwater flow that best match the head measurements I have. It's actually been pretty effective, so I'm not unhappy. I actually have answers, and that's good.

In other news, I went to see American Pie 2 Tuesday Night. It was lots of fun. At least as dirty as the first movie, but still as cute, if not cuter. I enjoyed the movie immensely.
Next on my list of movies to see: Rat Race.

In even other news, I've decided to take my diet to the next level and plan to (finally) go to the gym today and try to figure out how to do what I need to start losing weight.

In even more other news, I finally figured out EXACTLY what to do about Neogenesis. Instead of playing tommorow and let it die naturally, I'm taking an approximately two month vacation to write out and change the rules and hope to start it back up in two months, around Halloween.

mp3.com amuses me. I ordered my own 2nd CD "Scintillate Scinitllate Asteroid Minific" once for a cheapie price and for reasons I'm still not certain of, I got two CDs. So now I got an extra CD I'm still trying to decide what to do with. I think I know what I'll do with it, if the person in mind wants it.

That's all I can think of, TTFN
-LITE

Yesterday was a terrible day for Neogenesis. It's the kind of day that really makes me question why I'm even bothering to run this campaign. All you other GMs out there know what kind of work running a simple campaign based on a set system is. Now add to that the headaches of trying to play with the system to fit your campaign and you get the idea of what kind of hard work I'm putting into this thing.
Yesterday I had to wonder whether the hard work is even worth it.
A good part of the occuring problem is my own fault. I should have had the entire system down pat before starting to roleplay. The ENTIRE system. Magick, Fighting, Experience Points and the lot. I didn't... this has caused alot of groaning on my and the players' parts. I've changed the magick system, stealing it directly from mage.. wrote it in GREAT detail (even the bits I didn't understand completely like Soulflowers and Soulgems.. just for completeness), was GOING to write up how to battle on the web page so everyone else knew (as a note, no one currently playing has ever played Mage or, apparently, any of the white wolf games.. which I think is a major drawback.. especially in a situation like this where we're playing online and they can't peruse the rules book.)

You want proof of how bad yesterday went? OK, let me tell you.
The players were directed to save a woman in the fifth floor of an apartment before she died.
So they get to the door and it's locked.
My character, having felt heroic, got there first and tried to break the door down. it was a fairly heavy, but old and slightly rusty iron door. To no avail yet.
Now all the characters had to do was get past the door.
There were lots and lots of ways to do this.
Break it down physically (three or four of us may have done it)
Or use magick
With Matter, one could turn the door to putty, or a liquid or gas. Or change the door into paper, cardboard or anything else easy to open.
Use Forces to pop the pins out of the door, get lock to pop and the door to swing open..
Use Mind to convince someone inside the building to open the door.
Use Spirit to convince a GHOST inside the building to try to open the door.
Use Fate to cause the improbable possibility of the door lock not working or opening
You get the point, right? LOTS of ways to open the door.
The next person after LITE, tries using magick.. except he can't do what he wanted to do.. make the door disappear into nothingess.. because that requires Prime 4. Mind you said person DID have Matter, so could have just transformed the door into something else. But when i tell him he can't just make it disappear, he has a hissy fit and lets the next person try.
The next person comes up.
He has matter too.. he tries to turn the lockening mechanism, I think, into a metal gas. I say sure. He rolls his dice and botches badly (two botches). NOW it occurs to me I could.. perhaps should have done was turn the entire door into a solid block of, like, hard steel or something. At the time I tried to make the campaign a little amusing, though, and have the spell bounce off the door and turn his clothes, watch and wallet into gas, making him naked as a jay bird.
To the end of last night, I hadn't heard the last of it.
The player had the character have a breakdown, unable to move.
And so now that player is probably out of the game, and of course it's MY fault.
Well, you know what, peeps, if I HAD magick and managed to nuke my own clothes, I WOULDN'T have a breakdown. I'd be supremely embarassed, mortified even, and angry at myself. But then I'd either make myself new clothes or get some and fast. And despite what everyone else said.. I think they'd do the same thing.
Finally, the third person in line uses Forces to pop the pins out (by this time I'm feeling nice, so I let them do it easily just so we can move on.)
Throughout the entire game, the player who had the breakdown mopes and whines as I try to get them back into the game. Saying.. I'm out, I can't RP past today, probably, anyways. I'm out. It seem a bad way to get yer character out of the campaign. I'd rather have written him out to let him live his own life out of the focus of the RP.
Whatever.
GM rule #1: You can't control the other players.

But that entire scene was ridiculous. Shit happens... if you botch, then you suffer consequences. Period. The roll is random.. or as random as possible based on a computer's random function.
I'm frustrated with where the roleplay is. I'm beginning to think that letting people play essentially themselves was a mistake too. I thought it would be cool.. that they'd get more into their characters. But some of the characters can't get into a "What if" Scenario. What if I DID have supreme magickal powers.. what would I do?
Personally, I'd do what I've always tried to do... help people. I'd try to use the powers properly and follow the wiccan rede of "An Harm Ye None, Do What Ye Will."
But some of the characters can't seem to get into it. A little moping and whining as loved ones suffer unspeakable fates is understandable, but when you have a breakdown because your own magick nuked yer clothes.... and, btw, you have a willpower of 9 which means yer VERY strong willed. No.

In essence, it was a terrible RP session. And while I know that some of the fault is mine for publicly emberassing the one players... No. No No No No.

I don't know.. but when the players aren't having fun and the GM isn't having fun, does that mean it's time to pack up and quit? My personal answer is yes.
But for the sake of fairness to all involved and because, despite the overpowering feeling of otherwise, i am a nice guy. I'll give it another try.

But I've thought about it pretty thoroughly and while I DO enjoy GMing, it isn't worth the agitation. Not when I could otherwise be having fun by playing video games or going out or whatever. I'm doing this campaign to amuse myself and, incidentally, a few other people roleplaying it. When I can't amuse myself with it, then something is wrong.

Oh well, peace out folks. Ciao.

THIS is a cool and amusing link about what I would do if I Ever (Goddess Forbid) Became a Vampire.

So, Mink Car is officially out on TMBG Unlimited! That means I have it LEGALLY (whereas before that, I had it ILLEGALLY thanks to a really cool guy). I STILL think the Album Kicks.. even tho The Elegant Too RUINED "I've Got a Fang!" (they couldn't ruin Mr. Xcitement.. it already sucked.) Still.. I'm learning to like Fang and Xcitement regardless. And to think, HOPEFULLY within a month I've got my own AUTOGRAPHED copy of this CD :)

I'm both excited, agitated and bummed.
I am bummed because I was supposed to be at the beach today, but my mom isn't feeling well, so we didn't go.
I am excited because, weather permitting, i should have two of my very best friends at my house in a week and we'll all be going to Six Flags Darien Lake Amusment Park (WHEE!)
I am agitated because my brother's friend Justin was supposed to get me $15 Darien Lake tickets and help me get a cheap price on getting my muffler put back in place and he failed me on both counts. So I now have to go and spend money I have to borrow temporarily to pay for both.

Otherwise, everything is OK. Neogenesis is picking up pace and I'm enjoying it immensely. Just wrote out the Official Rules for doing magick yesterday.
Everything else is cool.

Peace!

I haven't written in a while. Partly because I'm that busy. Partly because I just haven't felt like I had anything important to say.
So, I've been busy. Part of it is working on The Neogenesis Home Page. The page currently has character sheets for the players (and main NPC, LITE) along with logs of most of the RP since this thing started. I thank my "mad skillz" with Macromedia Dreamworks to get the page up :) I'm proud of it :)
So I saw Planet of the Apes opening day on opening day. It was an OK movie... not spectacular but not terrible either. Good sound effects, good costumes, decent plot. Nothing caught me as terrific, though. And I PERSONALLY thought the ending was TOTALLY unnecessary ;) All in all, it was an OK sci-fi with a good script and a good plot, just nothing caught me as superspecial.
So, as I may have mentioned, the plan is to go to Darien Lake with some friends and enjoy myself. I had put out an invitation to my friends on the east coast (specifically, Kareila, her husband Robby and arabella.) I didn't expect any sort of positive reaction, but Kareila says if arabella wants to go, she's game. *boingy* I hope they show up :) It'd be really cool :) It'll be fun without them as, hopefully, Dave feels well enough to go and Josh's friend Justin who rides coasters too. Then again, Darien Lake was cool last year with just me and Josh.. can only get better with friends :) The more, the better? Still, here's hoping...
This week's Neogenesis was fun. I went to bed and all sorts of evil ideas sprang to mind. More to the point, I'm in a position I'm comfortable with.. where the players run the show as much as me. Do they do this? or not? If they do it, does this happen or not? This should break the game wide open so that the players finally have enough freedom to do what they want to/would do instead of what i want them to do. Most of my players seem pretty psyched too with what this campaign, so that's good :)
Not much else to talk about. I've played with the digi-cam (alot) and have some REALLY nice photos of my four darling cats. I've gotten a certain album I shouldn't have yet that's really really REALLY cool. And we MIGHT be seeing "America's Sweethearts" tonite (my family and I)
That's about it. I'll sign off then and try to remember to post more. Hasta! =D