Had a nice Oester celebration yesterday and Black Sabbaththe day before was a hoot. Hard to go back to work but at least it’s Dingus Day!
Winning the war on Candlemas!
Americans and Canadians will be celebrating Groundhog Day today. As you know, if the groundhog sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of Winter, but if he does not see his shadow, it means Spring will be here in just six weeks!
As you may not know, this holiday is little more than a thin veiled attack on the true meaning of February 2, Candlemas, whatever the hell that is.
Something to do with a mass involving candles, would be my guess.*
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*No, obviously Candlemas is a holiday in honor of Candlemass. \m/
Happy Holidays!
+ "x"
"XXX"
"XXXXX"
"GOD JUL"
"BUON ANNO"
"FELIZ NATAL"
"JOYEUX NOEL"
"VESELE VANOCE"
"MELE KALIKIMAKA"
"NODLAG SONA DHUIT"
"BLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDA"
"""""""BOAS FESTAS"""""""
"FELIZ NAVIDAD"
"MERRY CHRISTMAS"
"KALA CHRISTOUGENA"
"VROLIJK KERSTFEEST"
"FROHES WEIHNACHTSFEST"
"BUON NATALE-GODT NYTAR"
"HUAN YING SHENG TAN CHIEH"
"WESOLYCH SWIAT-SRETAN BOZIC"
"MOADIM LESIMHA-LINKSMU KALEDU"
"HAUSKAA JOULUA-AID SAID MOUBARK"
"""""""'N PRETTIG KERSTMIS"""""""
"GESE A BMDE KERSGEES"
"ONNZLLISTA UUTTA VUOTTA"
"Z ROZHDESTYOM KHRYSTOVYM"
"NADOLIG LLAWEN-GOTT NYTTSAR"
"FELIC NADAL-GOJAN KRISTNASKON"
"S NOVYM GODOM-FELIZ ANO NUEVO"
"GLEDILEG JOL-NOELINIZ KUTLU OLSUM"
"EEN GELUKKIG NIEUWJAAR-SRETAN BOSIC"
"KRIHSTLINDJA GEZUAR-KALA CHRISTOUGENA"
"SELAMAT HARI NATAL - LAHNINGU NAJU METU"
"""""""SARBATORI FERICITE-BUON ANNO"""""""
"ZORIONEKO GABON-HRISTOS SE RODI"
"BOLDOG KARACSONNY-VESELE VIANOCE "
"MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR"
"ROOMSAID JOULU PUHI -KUNG HO SHENG TEN"
"FELICES PASUAS - GLUECKLICHES NEUES JAHR"
"PRIECIGUS ZIEMAN SVETKUS SARBATORI VESLLE"
"BONNE ANNEBLWYDDYN NEWYDD DDADRFELIZ NATAL"
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
A polyglot Yuletide greeting posted annually to library forums by J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (mac@slc.bc.ca) of Special Libraries Cataloguing
Like this:
Season’s Greetings!
Pen on post-it note, by John Kenn, click image to go to his web gallery.
Like this:
Checking out until after the Axial-tilt holidays
FWIW, I’ll be offline until the 27th or so. I won’t be checking in to approve comments or anything but rest assured they’ll be approved when I get back.
A few ‘scheduled’ posts will go off while I’m gone too.
Like this:
Buy Nothing Day
WordPress just freaking ate two versions of this post. I give up. My point was, don’t go to Stuffmart today for more stuff. Live.
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd
Let them have their little toys
matchbox cars and mordant joys
exciting in their plastic cage
frozen food in concrete caves
Take a life it’s going cheap
kill someone no one will grieve
freedom’s yours just pay your dues
we just want your soul to use
–Black Sabbath, “Cornucopia”
Saturday Nov. 12 — (inter)National Gaming Day
National Gaming Day @ your library
Yeah, it’s National Gaming Day @ your library this Saturday. Your local library may be participating, if you are in the US, as well as several other countries, including one library in Pakistan! More info here.
My local library is not signed up but some branches of the libary I work for are, so that’s something.
Like this:
Splice the mainbrace! (repost)
Avast!
‘Tis talk like a pirate day, you scurvy dogs!
“Arrr….?” — oh scupper that squiffy talk!
All you lubbers, if you’re ready to go on the account, lookee hereand here and you’ll be barking like a real son of a gun, belike!
Some scallawags fit for the hempen halter...
Originally posted 9/19/2010, without the image.
Sprite curses
April Fool’s Day is traditionally the time people put up prank posts, but screw that. It’s also a perfect time to write up some pranks monsters can play on PCs. I’m going the easy route and focusing on curses placed by sprites.
Sprites are supposed to be nonlethal but annoying. They can cast curses on PCs, as their main attack, and the effects can be pretty much anything that is annoying or just embarrassing — the rules are completely open-ended, at least in B/X and earlier editions of D&D. (Are there sprites in 4th ed.? Or are they irrelevant to combat and thus left out?)
They might make a dwarf’s beard fall out, or make a halfling smell strongly and offensively of feet, or give an elf large warts on her nose, and so on. Sometimes it’s pretty easy to think of something that will humiliate a given character, but other times if you’re like me you’d rather just roll something up on a table. This month I’m going to try to write more of the kind of posts I like to read, and one kind of post I love reading is random tables, so here’s a table of spritely curses because that’s just the kind of thing I’d probably need at some point in my campaign anyway. Most of these will cause reaction penalties. All sprite curses are permanent but may be removed by a Remove Curse spell.
D30 table of sprite curses
- Nose begins to grow d20 inches longer, sprouting small branches and leaves as it does so.
- Anything placed in a pocket, pouch, sack, or pack will, 50% of the time, disappear and reappear in another random container/pocket/pouch/etc. on the target’s person.
- Stinkfingers. One of target’s hands permanently smells of feces.
- Dribbles. Target always dribbles when drinking any beverage. 1 in 6 chance any given potion imbibed will be at 1/2 strength or effect due to loss of volume.
- Must speak in questions only. (If the player messes up and makes a statement, his character feels a stinging pain. Subsequent errors will cause 1 hp nonlethal damage.)
- Must always give false answers to any questions, with same penalties as #5 above for errors.
- Can only shout, never whisper or speak normally.
- Hair grows 6″ per day. Including body hair.
- Sprouts small butterfly-like wings.
- Face freezes in ugly grimace.
- Eyes water continuously.
- Whoopee! Whenever target stands or begins walking, it sounds like he/she farted.
- Stomach growls audibly whenever target sees or smells food.
- Butterfingers. 2 in 6 chance to drop anything fragile when picking it up or setting it down/putting it away.
- Feet grow several sizes, splitting whatever footwear is currently worn. Over the course of a week they grow clown-shoe sized. Penalty to climb, run, etc.
- Hiccups. These subside occasionally but always return. Stealth is impossible.
- Suddenly very attractive to all animals in the area, who will follow the PC and put on mating displays and possibly attempt to mate.
- Grow whiskers, chin recedes, nose grows pointed, ears grow rat-like.
- Sneezing fits (lasting a full turn) whenever a member of the opposite sex touches or comes very close.
- Small yellow flowers begin to grow in among body hair. They smell strongly but not entirely unpleasant.
- Any clothes immediately show large sweat stains on chest and armpits; armor will rust slightly in same areas; body odor is noticeable even in medieval culture.
- Colorful mushrooms sprout from neck and shoulders. Every few days they release very fecund spores which can grow on any organic material, living or dead.
- Skin turns bright blue.
- Tattoo of the word “Stoopid” (in Common) appears on forehead.
- Followed by a halo of flies/gnats/bees at all times.
- Any food touched turns to tasteless mush; drinks turn to stagnant, brackish water. It is still edible/drinkable, just lousy.
- Severely cross-eyed. Misread any writing on a 3 in 6 (scroll spells will fail or be reversed). Memorize wrong spell on a 2 in 6 (roll randomly among those in your spellbook).
- Any gold or silver touched or possessed turns to copper.
- Any strings, ropes, chains, etc. handled, touched, or carried become hopelessly tangled and useless.
- Target is unable to speak or write proper names; all communication must use common nouns, pronouns, etc. Same penalties as #5 above.
Apart from the obvious & expected effects on one’s appearance, I thought it would be fun to add some ‘taboos,’ creating something along the lines of mini-games Telecanter has described, and also some effects that would inconvenience a character by ruining resources and equipment. None of these should be directly life-threatening, although the chance of offending and even provoking patrons/rulers/other major NPCs seems pretty good!
Like this:
Fat Tuesday!
Why did no one tell me there was a holiday where you eat pancakes?
I am very angry about this. 39 years of no pancakes on Fat Tuesday.
It ends TODAY!
Unbelievable. I was raised a Catholic and did the ashes thing on Ash Wednesday and gave stuff up for Lent and did not do anything too fun on Good Friday and all that. But pancakes the night before Ash Wednesday? Never. Maybe Fat Tuesday just isn’t an Italian-American tradition or something. I dunno.
But since I’ve reached the age of reason and don’t have to pretend I believe in the fairy stories* and can pick my own holidays, Fat Tuesday is in.
Image found on multiple sites in a Google Image Search. Not sure who deserves credit for this.
So anyway my preferred pancake recipe is to use about 2: parts prefab pancake mix : 1 part rolled (“quick” but not “instant”) oats, and water as needed for the batter.
I am sure that making your own batter is better than the boxed stuff but I can’t stand using fresh eggs for this because if there are fresh eggs in the batter, I worry unduly about salmonella when I eat uncooked batter. Uncooked pancake batter is pretty good!
The oats add a little roughage and nutrition and kind of stretch out the number of pancakes you can eat without totally blowing your daily calorie allotment. Also they make the ‘cakes taste pretty good. Optionally I add chopped pecans, berries, or even those tiny chocolate chips, but most of the time it’s plain old pancakes on any given Saturday morning.
I also use “lite” syrup because so I can use twice as much. I don’t usually use butter or margarine although my wife swears by peanut butter on pancakes. Nutella when I’m feeling really decadent. So maybe Nutella on Fat Tuesday!
<update: In hindsight I think my sudden interest in Fat Tuesday celebrations probably has a lot to do with my recent decision to get back on track with my diet and exercise. 2:1 Pancake mix:wheat bran is an even more reasonable approach to making the ‘cakes healthy. Pancakes is pancakes.>
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* Just kidding! A dude who was born to a virgin and is his own father and can turn water to wine like Dionysus and got crucified like Zoroaster and rose from the dead like Osiris and sacrificed himself to spare his creation from his own wrath because someone ate fruit distributed by a talking snake … that is totally real!
