Realignment: Neutral Evil

     Neutral Evil, like Neutral Good, is probably used mostly as a stock default alignment for villains. For those generic bad guys who you don't need to bother putting a lot of characterization and backstory into, NE allows you to give them a basic, workable (if two-dimensional) character type without a lot of preparation.
     But, as an alternative, I think NE also makes a great alignment for a major villain or mastermind. The same aspects of Neutrality that make common enemies simple can also make a major villain work well.
     See, neutrality on the law-chaos axis allows you to focus more on the good-evil axis. In this case, it give you free reign to develop your villain's evil side, without having to worry about any kind of constraints. A NE villain can be completely focused on whatever it is that makes them focused, which means sometimes they may work with the law, and other times they will break it. 

     What immediately jumps to mind is a politician or corporate-type villain. These are people who will use the law when it suits them, but are perfectly willing to work back-alley deals when necessary. They may be legit on the outside, and many of their operations will be perfectly above-board (even if ruthless and amoral), but they will also work the shadows when they need to close the deal. The more interesting aspects of these types of villains, of course, is that they may not even think of themselves as evil. Their motivations are purely selfish (usually greedy for money and/or power), and they don't care who they hurt on their way to the top, which definitely makes them evil. But they probably still consider themselves legitimate businessmen and/or politicians as opposed to mobsters. Hell, organized crime members are probably more Lawful Evil than a politician or corporate bigwig. At least the mafia have some sense of loyalty (or at least a healthy enough fear of what happens to mobsters who go around betraying other mobsters).
     A lot of it boils down to what you want out of your villain. This is an interesting, and difficult decision to make. A good villain has good motivations. The forces that drive a villain are what make them memorable, as opposed to the faceless hordes of common baddies that your PCs will wade through. A major villain should have an obsessive goal, something that they want so badly that they are willing to shake loose of any sense of morality that most people would submit to.
     Neutral Evil is a great alignment for this, because it keeps them focused on the evil and allows them leeway on how to interact with law and chaos. An unconstrained villain, conversely, is able to be much more focused and single-minded.
     So, remember, great villains need to have an ultimate goal, and they need to be free to pursue that goal in whatever means necessary. Even if they occasionally don't commit crimes.

Internet Rant About Internet Rants

     I generally don't like to get political, mostly because I find it all a gigantic waste of time. But I guess part of the charm of having a blog, and all other social media, is being able to speak your mind.
     Unfortunately, that's the part of the internet I'm finding particularly insufferable right now. I made the mistake of looking at Facebook the other day, not long after the guy from Chik-Fil-A came out against gay marriage. And I had surprising feelings about this.
     See, I'm a pretty liberal guy. I'm all for gay marriage. Why not? What possible difference could it make to straight people if gay people are allowed to get married? I'm not a big fan of the color orange but I certainly wouldn't try to ban other people from wearing it if that's what they wanted.
     But the surprising feelings I had were not outrage at the Chik-Fil-A guy, but unutterable annoyance for everybody else on the internet who were reacting with outrage. Because Facebook (which is 90% of my internet activity, really) has become inundated with posts and videos and cleverly captioned photos and large picture files that aren't even photos but just text put on some colored backdrop in a way that makes you wonder why anybody would bother instead of just writing it as a normal post. It's just wall-to-wall indignant rage.
     For the sake of ease, I will now address the Internet as a single entity using the second-person "you."
     Look, I understand you're upset. The guy from Chik-Fil-A is a bigot, the worst kind of douchebag scum, one of those people who uses religion as an excuse to be terrible to other people. Guys like that have no redeeming quality, and we all know this. But what you have to  realize is that he doesn't know this. He never will. All the bigots and religious zealots who preach hate are never going to see what is wrong in themselves. If they were capable of such introspection and empathy, they wouldn't be bigots. But they are, so ipso facto, they're not. All your video rants and pithy sayings aren't going to change their minds. The only people who are going to react to your posts are the people who already agree with you. Yes, it is nice to have solidarity. It is nice to have support. We should all get together and have a big group hug to remind ourselves that not everybody in the world is a hateful dickhead.
     Except you're not doing that, are you, Internet? You're not rallying behind gay people to support their rights. You're trying to organize a boycott against Chik-Fil-A. You're not defending, you're attacking. Not to mention, you're attacking in quite possibly the most ineffectual way possible. When has a grass-roots boycott ever done anything to a major corporation? Hey, remember how we were all boycotting BP because they dumped a kajillion tons of toxic waste into the ocean? How's that boycott going? Or did you forget already, Internet, because that was like so last year? Boycotts are pointless. Do you think the tiny dip in profits is going to make Mr. CEO rethink? Well, for starters, if you think any loss in profits is going to come out of the CEO's pocket, you have a frighteningly naive idea of how corporations work. The CEO's paycheck will not be diminished one iota; if the company loses money, what they're going to do is lay off the lowest-rung workers to recoup the costs. So, congrats: your boycott may make some minimum-wage employees lose what crappy job they have.
     All these posts are slacktivism at their worst. It's people who are willing to take five minutes to go on and on about what the Bible does or does not say about marriage, but can't be bothered to go out and do something useful like vote. Our generation has no concept of what to do to actually effect real change. But we have webcams and Google to point out the important things we need to make our point, so that's close enough.
     Additionally, all you're doing is strengthening the bigots' resolve. Do you think that the religiously-motivated Chik-Fil-A is going to have a change of heart because you're mad at them? Or do you think the general backlash is going to make them feel persecuted, which is exactly the sweet spot for a Christian. Christians love nothing more than to feel marginalized for their beliefs. It makes them feel like Jesus. I am not joking, either. I used to be very devoutly Christian, and it was a badge of pride to be "mocked and scorned" for your religion. The second you attempted to argue and shame the Christians, you just cemented their mindset forever. Now they know they're on the narrow path to God (again, a big thing in the religion), since all the sinners and nonbelievers are rallying against them.
     My only consolation is that you'll forget about this all soon, because you're nothing if not fickle and ADHD, Internet. But something else will come along soon, and then something after that. My only hope is that we, as a culture, have figured out a better way to deal with it by then.

Landlines: Something Else to Make You Feel Old

Remember when people used landlines and it was possible to pick up two different phones in the same house (i.e. on the same line) and eavesdrop on others conversation? That's how little brothers annoyed their big sisters, it was classic. How do kids do it nowadays?

Realignment: Neutral Good

     We're at the last trio now, the neutrals. Now that we've gone through a lot of the variations Law and Chaos, we need to look at those who are not strongly bent towards either direction of that particular axis. We'll start, as we've done the others, with the Good side of things.
     In a lot of ways, I think Neutral Good is as easy to play as Chaotic Evil. I think NG is the default alignment for hero PCs in any game, even games that do not technically have alignments. This is the person who's primary response is to do what they think is right, regardless of how that fits in to prevailing structures and laws.
     This is a popular alignment choice, and it's easy to play. Neutrality on the Law-Chaos scale is something I usually recommend for first-time roleplayers. When you're not used to alignments, it can seem pretty daunting. Good versus evil is pretty easy to suss out, but the other axis is a bit trickier. In this way, a new player can be a hero without having to strain themselves too much on what it means to be lawful or chaotic. They can focus on being good. In this particular interpretation of the alignment, "neutrality" means that you don't care to choose between the two. You are most concerned with the second axis (in this case, Good). If doing good means following the laws, that's all fine and dandy. If doing good means breaking the law, then so be it. There's nothing holding them except their own concept of right and wrong.
     However, for more experienced roleplayers, neutrality on the Law-Chaos scale could mean more. While there's nothing wrong with the "neutrality-as-ambivalence" angle, we've seen with the other alignments that neutrality could also be caused by indecision or a conscious choice to keep some kind of balance.
     Neutrality as indecision, in the case of NG, I think largely depends on the setting for the game and how the character reacts. When a character runs up against a corrupt governing system or unjust laws, there is conflict there when they try to do good (and, as we've discussed before, we tend to default into assuming that following "Law" is the right thing to do, as opposed to disorder and anarchy). Perhaps they believe in some laws and not others, like a Robin Hood who sees nothing wrong with stealing from the rich to give to the poor, because it is the Good thing to do (even though normally stealing would be considered bad or "evil"). A lot of times, breaking the law in regards to an evil person or thing falls nicely into neutrality. Sure, murder is wrong, but killing a cadre of rampaging, bloodthirsty orcs is good.
     Harder still would be the character who chooses neutrality as a way to maintain some kind of balance. When paired with Good, you have a character who thinks the world needs to have some rules and order, but also some freedom of choice. Again, as Americans, this is a mindset that we easily fall in to (for the most part) just by virtue of the culture we are brought up in. What makes it tricky is when you find yourself needing to do something unpopular to maintain that order. Sure, redistributing wealth may satisfy your ideals of balance, but what then do you make of the PCs who are going to end up toting small fortunes in magical gear? Is it Vow of Poverty time? And what if you save a village by killing off a band of raiding orcs? Doesn't balance need restored to the orcish community who just lost so many of their members? Or does the writ of "good" override this sense of balance? It could be an interesting way to play a character, who may be constantly having to reassess his or her ideas of what is the "right" thing to do.
     Nevertheless, don't be afraid to let NG be a mainstay for your characters, especially if it makes it more fun to play. Sometimes you just want to saddle up and slay the evil dragon, and not have to worry about the destabilizing the local economy when you come back to the city with ten wagonloads of loot from the hoard.

Let's see you bastard adventurers loot my hoard after I melt it all into one giant gold puddle.

Pack Up the Cats

     In my spare time I do some editing work for Dark Moon Digest, a position that consists mainly of helping read through the slush pile of story submissions. I come across a lot of different types of stories, but not nearly quite so much as I do the zombie story.
     Now, I've ranted about the zombie genre before. I won't bore you with it again. Today, however, I read one that made me think. It spent a disproportionate amount of time with a couple arguing about whether or not they were going to take their cat with them as they tried to escape the zombie hordes. The man was all logic, saying that they couldn't afford to take the cat, while the woman was (stereotypically) over-emotional about wanting to bring the cat along. There was so much detail about them trying to leave food out for the cat to survive on, and worrying about what would happen to him, that I started to feel all knotted up inside. I had to go downstairs and give my own cats a bit of a snuggle, just to reassure myself that my own little furry companions were okay.
     That's the part that I feel ostensibly ridiculous about, because I realize that if there is a zombie apocalypse, I will try to pack up my cats along with whatever other survival gear I'm taking. It is a perfectly awful idea, but I don't know if I could bring myself to leave them behind. My cats are not the survivalist types. One of them, Phineas, doesn't really know how to hunt. If there's ever a bug (like a giant cockroach) in the house, he just kind of walks after it and paws at it. It's more an act of curiosity than hunting. The other, Mercury, is just old and out of shape (well, round is a shape, but you know what I mean). And both are indoor cats, so I just know they wouldn't have a clue how to do anything like climb trees or find shelter from the rain. Not to mention Phineas is such an attention whore that he'll likely run up to the first zombie he sees and try to get it to pet him.

Okay, I'm clearly not concerned about all pets.

     I know a lot of people like this. People who are huge fans of the horror genre, where blood and guts is the norm. We see humans getting stalked, tortured, and killed, and it's just par for the course. The fact that the zombies used to be humans doesn't get us all unsettled and sad. But threaten or kill a dog or cat, and suddenly everything is a hundred times worse. I don't care if one of the survivors hanging out in the mall gets eaten by zombies, but I'd be downright choked up if I saw one chewing on a cat.

     I'm sure this is a common enough reaction, but I wonder what it is that makes me like that? Is it an innocence thing? That would make some sense. Domesticated animals, like children, can't defend themselves (at least, not to the level that an adult human can, what with weapons and such), so it is all the more horrible when they are victimized. There's logic to that, I guess.
     Yet my brain doesn't consistently follow the logical path. When I think about the zombie apocalypse (which I do, not as often as some, but more often than is strictly healthy), and I think about leaving the cats behind, it just seems impossible. The entire time I was dodging and clubbing the undead, I'd be worried about my cats. Hell, the fact that they'd just be sad and lonely without a ready source of cuddles would make me feel guilty, let alone starvation or dehydration. But do I have the same level of worry about the well-being of any of my human neighbors? Would I go out of my way to gather them before making a run for it? Nope. It literally never even crossed my mind until this minute.
     So, I guess that's where my priorities lie in the apocalypse. There might not be anybody else left alive, but as long as there are fuzzy animals to have as pets, I'll be fine.

Happy Birthday Hastur

Sometimes I worry that humanizing evil cosmic entities will somehow make us unprepared for their return to Earth, where they will enslave us in madness and death. 

Then I have to remind myself that these things aren't real.

Then I have to wonder, "What if they are...?"

Realignment: Chaotic Evil

     I actually don't know if I have much to say about Chaotic Evil. I think it might be the easiest alignment to play. Any kind of depraved, horrible, disgusting act you can think of can be applied to a CE character. Murder, torture, sacrificing virgins upon evil altars, talking in the theater, and all those other things that earn you a special place in Hell.  You don't need to worry too much about motivations; the Chaotic element really covers you there. Just be as evil as you like, and you're right on track.
     So, really, I guess the challenge is to come up with a CE character who maybe doesn't succumb to every ungodly whim that pours into their diseased brain. 
     The first hurdle to overcome is the "chaos" part. This implies that the character doesn't have any kind of plan. On the other hand, the chaos could be part of the plan. The Joker might be a classic example of CE, and he most certainly is capable of some very complicated, carefully-orchestrated operations. There is a orderliness to the chaos (or, a method to the madness, to use a classic phrase). Another example--presented by my wife--is somebody like Kim Jong Il. In some ways he was lawful, in the sense that he expected his orders to be followed and he could create new rules that had to be followed. But nobody would argue that he wasn't crazy, and if that wasn't chaos in that man's head, then I don't know what is.
     The other element to keep in mind is the evil part. As mentioned in earlier installments of the series, one thing to consider is that evil might be in the mind of the beholder. A person with a skewed sense of ethics could easily fall both into categories of Chaotic Evil. A character who kills because they think they are doing people a favor by sending them to heaven would certainly be evil, even if their chaotic brain makes them think they are not evil. Just make sure that their motivations aren't too influenced by dogma or other rigid rule systems. Because then you just have inquisitors or the people responsible for the Witch-trials, and I think they fall more in the Lawful Evil category. 
     My last thought on making CE more interesting is to remember that there are other acts which can be considered evil that does not rely solely on murder. Theft and arson can be considered evil acts, especially if done maliciously and repetitively by the criminal. One could even go so far as to say that somebody who uses others for nothing but sex is CE; they aren't capable of any kind of emotional attachment or commitment (chaotic), and they are out for nothing but their own personal gratification (evil). The pain they cause is mostly emotional, but that doesn't make it less legitimate.
     So, Chaotic Evil is an easy alignment to do normally, and a hard alignment to do specially. Luckily, it is the kind of alignment that is mostly just used for villains, thugs, and henchmen types (since the main boss archvillains are normally LE). But if you ever get involved in a game where the PCs are evilly-aligned, consider some other options than just the rampaging psychopath.

Scammer Calling

     Last night I got a phone call from possibly the worst scammer in the history of trying to run scams. The call came at 3:45 from a restricted number. Of course, the only reason I picked up the phone at that time of night is that I think it is going to be some kind of emergency (especially since my wife works third shift). The call went something like this:


     Me: Hello?
     Scammer: Hello?
     Me: Who's this?
     Scammer: This is Beatrice (sic), I need your credit card number because of some suspicious activity on your account.
     Me: Yeah, nice try.
     
     I'm actually surprised I had the mental wherewithal to make that last quip. Of course, that is the scammer's tactic: get me when I'm sleepy and not thinking straight. Their hope is that, in your panic, you'll just give up the info. My mother-in-law got a similar kind of call, although this one was actually "professional" enough to have a recorded message quoting the name of her bank and everything. Again, suspicion was born when, after calling her, they wanted her account number.
     I was most surprised by the sheer laziness of the scammer, though. Seriously, this guy was mumbling so much I think he might have been eating a snack at the same time. The scam part of the call seemed like a last minute idea after calling the wrong number. He might have just been that high. "Wait a minute, this isn't Dominoes. I wonder if I can get a credit card number to get more munchies!"
     It does also remind of a time I did almost get scammed. It was a longer process, and I'm ashamed to say it took me two days to figure it out. 
     It was last winter, after I had been laid off and out of work for about three months. I got a message from a prospective employer for a work-from-home job. I know those are usually scams, but this one was touting the name of a legit company. Combine that with my desperation, I was willing to believe that somebody would hire me to manage accounts from home.
     I started getting some niggling doubts when the employer wanted to do all the interviews online, via Yahoo messenger. But I thought to myself, maybe this is how things are done now in the modern world. I'm such a borderline Luddite, maybe the whole face-to-face thing is old-fashioned. When I "got the job," I was excited enough to post online and call my folks and everything (which, of course, just made it all the more humiliating later).
     I guess I'm glad I let my paranoia get the better of me. After insistently searching online for some connection between the scammer's alias and the company he purportedly worked for and coming up with nothing, I finally found a news article which talked about this new method of scammers. See, after suckering in the "employee," the scammer will claim that new office equipment will be needed. So the employer (scammer) proposes to send the employee (victim) a check, which will not only cover the cost of the new equipment, but also the starting bonus. However, the equipment must be bought through a specific company, which is really just the scammer. The victim is then supposed to deposit the check (which, of course, is no good), then send the fee for the equipment to the account of the office supply company (the scammer). By the time the victim has found out the check has bounced, the transfer of the fees will already have gone through.
     This method relies on two things, of course. First, the desperation of the job-seeker, which needn't be explained in this current economy. Second, the "act of good faith" on the part of the employer/scammer. They make it seem like they are putting themselves out on the line, since you could just take their money and run. If there were any money, of course.
     Probably the most frustrating thing about the entire process was that, once I figured it out as a scam, I tried to play along until I could get somebody to do something about it. The company he was pretending to be from at first seemed like they were looking into investigating and taking legal action, but essentially lost interest after a day. And essentially there was no way to call the cops because there was nothing to track except a Yahoo account which is impossible to trace, since no verified personal information is needed to open one.
     So, I guess there's no real punchline to this post, except to be a cautionary tale. I hate being tricked more than anything, and this incident stands out as a stinging blow to my ego (for not immediately recognizing it as a scam) and my faith in humanity. But it does help to share, and all I can hope is that with some little warning nobody else may fall for it.

A Totally Convincing Graveyard

Begging pleading won't just get you sex, but also permission to desecrate corpses! There's a moral here somewhere, but I think it's just that I shouldn't be allowed to come up with morals for stories anymore.

Realignment: Chaotic Neutral

     Of all the alignments, I think Chaotic Neutral is the one I have the hardest time with. One reason is because the alignment is so hard to define, but also partly because the type of people who tend to play CN also tend to be problematic players.
     If we were to break down the component parts of this alignment, as we've done before, what we find a personality type that would be tricky to play. We're talking about somebody who is either morally ambiguous or otherwise uninterested in specific ethics (the neutral on the good-evil axis) but is in favor of chaos. This is a person who doesn't care about right or wrong, but does care about making sure there isn't any kind of law, rules, or orderliness.
     Perhaps it is my upbringing in a civilized, industrialized Western country, but this sounds an awful lot like a villain to me. This sounds like some kind of crazy anarchist, somebody who's only purpose is to spread lawlessness. They might not have "evil" in their alignment, but it strikes me that this person could do evil all the same.
     Which is often the problem with CN players. In most all of the games I run, I try to keep things nonevil. Any other kind of good or neutral alignment is okay, but I tend to discourage evil alignments because evil PCs are not good team players. And in my opinion, people who do not play well with others, should not, well, play a game with others. But then there's the person who chooses to play CN because it's something of a loophole. Yes, it's neutral, but it also gives you free reign to do virtually whatever the hell you feel like without being unfaithful to your alignment. I've had several discussions with players where I had to explain that torturing prisoners is an evil act, not something a CN player would do.
     Then again, I don't know if I can even say that with certainty. For somebody who is chaotic with no regard to good or evil could justify torture because it struck their fancy at the moment. Which is generally the attitude you get from a CN player: with this alignment I can act randomly with impunity.

Although, admittedly, sometimes being plain crazy can be fun.

     I think PCs need to have more personal philosophy and psychology than that. Only seriously mentally ill people are going to be as unpredictable and volatile as CN characters tend to be. So let's look at some other options for playing this alignment.
     First, you can take a view of chaos that does not conform to my own admitted biases against the alignment. Chaos does not have to just mean the opposition to law. Chaos can also be seen as synonymous with freedom (in the Unearthed Arcana D&D supplement, the Paladin of Freedom is a CG variant for the class). Perhaps a CN person believes that nobody should be constrained by anything, be it law or custom or concept of higher morality. A hippie in true fashion, this type of character would espouse freedom not just from governmental bodies, but also from ethical restrictions. This person would probably not be out to hurt anybody; in fact, they would feel that unfettered expression is the key to the good life for everybody.
     Second, neutrality on the good-evil scale does not have to be a conscious choice on the characters part. You could always have a person who is just wishy-washy, or who's concepts of good and evil are utterly skewed from the norm (and this kind of mental skewing would also keep in line with a chaotic mentality). What if things they think are "good" and "evil" are not what most of us do? If you take a step back, that's easy to imagine. For instance, there are people who believe that the killing of an evil being is a good act, while others would say that killing for any reason is wrong, and thus an evil act in itself. It's hard to say that either viewpoint is incorrect. For example: the "woodland avenger" type of druid or ranger, who kills a man that chops down a tree. Most of us would see this as an evil act, because human life is greater than plant life. But the druid/ranger might argue that the tree has been alive for hundreds of years and has just as much right to life as a human. The point is there is neutrality because the good-evil axis is covered by too much gray area.
     For all my fellow GMs out there, just keep this in mind when a player wants to whip out the CN at character generation, and hopefully we can all (myself included) broaden our perceptions of this alignment.

The Mystery of Why There is a Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

     Relatively late in my study of urban legend, folklore, and Forteana I ran across this story of the Toynbee Tiles. I suppose it is a relatively new phenomena, not really gaining steam until the 1990s, so it wasn't until I spent time scouring the internet for new "weird" stuff that I discovered it.
     The Wikipedia article gives more details than I would ever care to cover myself, but here's the gist of it: in numerous cities (seemingly centered in Philadelphia), weird little plaques or tiles would be found embedded in roads or sidewalks. All said the same general thing: "Toynbee Idea / In Kubrick's  2001 / Resurrect Dead / On Planet Jupiter." Dozens of these tiles appear, and nobody has any idea who has done them. It actually even took a lot of work to figure out how they were done, being that the tiles had to be stuck to asphalt and concrete. There were also little side messages attached, which seemed to detail a larger conspiracy involving secret societies that are trying to silence the tile creator.
     A lot of people have gotten obsessed with the mystery, trying to figure out what the message means and who is responsible. They seem to be convinced that there is some larger secret that is just waiting to be decoded.
     Well, I've figured it out. Here it is: some delusional paranoiac has been vandalizing your city.
     Seriously, there's nothing more to it. The guy was nuts, plain and simple. What's the breakdown of the "secret message?" Toynbee was a historian, and he really only talked about resurrections in the sense that he found the Christian idea of coming back from the dead (in your physical body) more believable than the idea of ghosts. Not that he was an expert on the subject or anything; he was a historian, not a scientist. So what does this have to do with Kubrick's move, 2001: A Space Odyssey? Well, Arthur C. Clarke once wrote a short story where there's  a ship named after Toynbee and a ship named Jupiter V, and Clarke worked with Kubrick for 2001, where people are flying to Jupiter.
     That doesn't make any sense, you say? What does any of that have to do with anything else of that? Give yourself a gold star, because you just hit the nail on the head. There is no sense to it, and it doesn't connect. At least not to a rational person.
     But the creator of the Toynbee Tiles is not rational. There are several subtle hints that this is the case. Firstly, attached to the tiles are manifestos and rants about how a conspiracy between the media (Knight-Ridder specifically), the Russians, and the Jews (of course) are trying to kill him and silence his message. Secondly--and most importantly--he sticks goddam tiles into the asphalt with messages about his persecution fantasies. I'm no psychologist, but I don't think that qualifies as normal behavior.
     Discussions on the internet go on about the tiles like there's something paranormal about them. You'd think the tiles were dropped out of the sky by a UFO, the way they carry on about how "mysterious" it is. They make a big deal about how there must be some connection with David Mamet, because he wrote a play where some nutjob calls a radio host to talk about exactly these kind of nutjob ideas, and the fact that there is some newspaper article which references an editorial written by a guy espousing the idea that we'll colonize Jupiter by resurrecting our dead onto the planet's surface (even though it's a gas giant and has no discernible surface). Sure, there is some debate as to which came first (because they can both be credited to 1983), but I posit this: who cares? Either Mamet read the article by the crazy guy and got inspired, or the crazy guy read the play and thought this sounded like a good idea. Do the details make any real difference?
     Finally, while the tiles are still being discovered decades later, it is clear to anybody with eyeballs that now that the whole "phenomena" has gotten popular, there are copycats. Do you really think this guy went to South America to plant tiles? I doubt it. Also, when the tiles are written in entirely different styles, fonts, and with different methods, for some reason everybody hesitates to mention that maybe it's not the same guy. Instead they act like it was some kind of new "phase." Then again, maybe one of his other personalities did it. If you're going to be crazy, you might as well go whole-hog.
     An entire documentary was made about this non-phenomena, titled Resurrect Dead: They Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. I tried to watch it, but got fed up after about 30 minutes. It's ridiculous. Credibility goes immediately down the toilet when your main "researcher" is a guy who has spent years living on the street and describes himself as "a self taught artist, musician, and writer in the Philadelphia underground art and music scene." If that's not a euphemism for "unemployed," I don't know what is. At one point, this guy admitted to having run down the street (after he "just missed" the planting of another tile) yelling about how he believed in the Toynbee Idea. Really, guy? You believe in the idea of bringing the dead back to life on Jupiter? I mean, you've obviously done more than a few drugs in your day, but is your brain that full of holes? This joke of a documentary is an homage to everything that is humiliating and discrediting to the entire field of parapsychology. Here's a hint for next time: having a guy read the tiles in a creepy voice does not make them more significant.
     I am honestly baffled as to why anybody cares about the Toynbee Tiles, with the exception of the public works department that should be tasked to clean the tiles up. All we've got is an anti-Semitic delusional conspiracy theorist with a penchant for what could only very generously be described as "street art." Why does this inspire us to hunt for further meaning? What about this makes us think there is anything worth learning more about? Are those of us who are into the unexplained of our world so desperate for new mysteries that we'll cling to the misguided art projects of mentally unstable racists?
     If so, I think we'd better just quit right now, while we're somewhat ahead.

I'm Sure You Could Make a Bong Out of a Flute

     I started this comic when I was in college. My sophomore year was spent rooming with a pothead and all his pothead friends. They were nice people, and despite what the PSAs suggested, they never once tried to pressure me into joining them. That didn't stop me from getting the occasional contact buzz from being around them, though. One notable incident involved me trying to write a theology paper one evening, only to have almost a full page of it in the middle turn into a transcript of the conversation my roommate and his friends were having about the Tony Hawk video game. This is when I learned to write my papers in the library, where the persistent pot haze was slightly less.

     My point is, I felt particularly inspired to make a stoner out of Azathoth. I mean, he's described as being "blind and insane." I mean, how's that for a descriptor of your leader?

Seasonal Creative Disorder

     I never realized how much the weather effects my mood until I moved to the South. See, I grew up in northeast Ohio, where the presence of Lake Erie made the weather almost universally damp. Our idea of a drought in Ohio was that it might not rain for a few weeks in August. Generally, you expect to go from October to March without seeing the sun, which is incidentally the same months you can reasonably expect it to start snowing (the idea of having to build in a snow-contingency to your Halloween costume seemed normal to us).
     Now, when we moved to Georgia, the state was experiencing one of the worst droughts in its history. Rainfall was at a record low for the first three years we lived in the state. I understand this on an intellectual level, but nevertheless I was left with a very distinct meteorological-based transplant shock. I'd felt like I'd moved to the Southwest, where it was just hot and sunny and dry all the time. Yes, it's gotten better in the last few years, but its still nowhere near as wet as I grew accustomed to from Ohio.

Some are considerably less enthused about rain.

     So I'm surprised now at how happy and relaxed I feel when it rains. There's something about the sound of the rain on the roof that lulls me, not to mention the creative moodiness that seems to settle when it is dark and overcast all day. When it rains, the neighborhood gets quite, except for the sound of the frogs and the bugs that come out to play in the wetness. It's the kind of weather that makes you just want to curl up on the sofa and read a book all day. Or write one.
     Now, there are some reasonable explanations for some of it. For instance, it has been over 100 degrees this last week, so the front that is bringing the rain is cooling us down a bit, too. Likewise, my lawn needs some water before it gets too brown and dusty. Also, I'm happy that it's raining now, during the week, and not on the weekend when the wife and I are trying to get the outside of the house painted.
     Really, though, I think it just makes me feel nostalgic. I don't know if "dreariness" is something that should make one wistful, but for me it does. I suppose we can be conditioned for anything, and in Ohio, you have no choice but to get used to precipitation. And when your childhood involved as much make-believe as mine did, I suppose its only natural that a connection be formed.
     I suppose the question I would pose all the rest of you creative types out there: are there environmental factors that help or hinder your work? If so, what are they? Let me know, so I can figure out if this is normal or I'm just odd.