Monthly Archives: July 2008

How to make non-smokers like you

I have always had strong feelings about smoking, as I’ve never even smoked a single cigarette in my life and never understood the compassion, with which so many people destroy their health. Still, I have a lot of friends who smoke and I used to be a douche about it. Yet there comes the time, where you start to realize that you can’t and shouldn’t change somebody just because there is something about him/her that you don’t like. So this is what I want to do: a list of a few guidelines for smokers to get along with non-smokers.

6. Don’t recruit

Smoking is a choice. It should stay that way. You wouldn’t believe how many people react to the fact that I have never smoked with the following statement: “You don’t know what you’re missing, try one!” If I wanted to smoke, I would. So respect the choices of others if you want us to respect your choice of smoking.

5. Propose to smoke outside

If you enter somebody’s home and you want to have a smoke, propose to your host that you want to go outside to do this. If your friends don’t mind you smoking inside the house, they will probably tell you. Asking to smoke inside is in my opinion always a bit rude and direct (your host is after all left with a room filled with smoke and a smell that won’t disappear so quickly).

4. Don’t assume

Even though we live in a society with a large percentage of smokers, you should never assume that everybody is ok with it. If you go out with somebody and you want to have a smoke, just ask them if they would mind when you smoke in their presence. From my own experience, I must say that most of the time you won’t face any objections.

3. Clean up after yourself

If you smoke in somebody’s house, or in their car, then try to be clean and don’t leave your ashes and stumps lying around. They were friendly enough to let you smoke, so don’t mess up their stuff.

2. Don’t blow smoke into a non-smoker’s face

Going to a pub is usually smoke intensive enough for my taste (yes, there is still no smoking ban in Luxembourg concerning pubs). The smoky smell tends to stick to your clothes, so the last thing you need is some jerk-off blowing fumes into your face.

1. Control your habit

The thing that bothers me most is when you are hanging out with somebody who smokes and they constantly have to take small breaks to have a cigarette. Be it while watching a movie, playing a game, or simply having a meal, there is nothing as disturbing as somebody leaving every 30 minutes because they can’t control their addiction. If you can’t sit through a movie, a meal or a 2 hour car ride, without getting the shivers, you’re doing it WRONG!

This list is not supposed to point out general negative points about smokers. Most of the people I know would never do these things anyway. Of course it should also be said that non-smokers can be a pain too. If you don’t smoke and if you maybe even hate it, try to be tolerant. Don’t bitch and moan about your friends smoking. If you can’t stand it, stay at home. A much better way to go about this is to make a compromise. For example you could go to a non-smoking bar one night, and then to a smoker’s club the other.

The lack of human contact

Depression seems to be one an increasing mental disease in our modern society. People are cut of from emotional input, as they spend more and more time in front of a screen instead of in direct human contact with each other. I myself find it at times really stupid that I would spend so much time on message boards or social network sites, instead of calling my friends and going for a drink. Anyway what I try to say is that we tend to forget how much time we spend in indirect social interaction, compared to the direct way. Recently I did an experiment (if you can call it that), in which I reduced the time I use sites like Facebook or software like MSN and ICQ to an hour a day. Of course I never sat around and only used these sites, but I will work, read or watch stuff in the meantime, but then your concentration really suffers and most of the time you spend even more time doing these different activities than you normally would. Still, the amount of newly found free time and especially productive time I gained was astonishing. So my tip to fight loneliness and frustration (especially if you don’t get any work done, because you waste time idling around the internet) would be to simply get out more. Be it going for a walk or calling your friends to have a drink or watch a movie, direct social contact will often make you feel better (even if it doesn’t immediately cure your feelings of depression).

I’m still not sure if I should like the following article or not. There are some interesting ideas in there, but maybe the “4 easy ways to treat depression” method oversimplifies the issue a bit. Anyways have a look yourselves and tell me what you think on the topic of depression.

Musical Performances

Flash mobs seem to become more and more popular, but this time I stumbled upon a truly original performance. Extremely funny and cool, especially if you look at the baffled faces in the audience.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “LiveLeak.com – Unexpected performance“, posted with vodpod

I also found this group of Japanese dancers, doing the robot with an astonishing expertise.

Edit: While following up on this post I found a group that does similar stuff. They call themselves Improv Everywhere and here is a food court musical they performed: Click me! I think it’s hilarious, but most people in the audience seem genuinely annoyed, which is too bad.

Nerdy Art

Now this is what I call extremely nerdtastic art. Have a look at Mike Mitchell’s collection here.

Also check out this image of Link created by Melbourne a member of the Ghostpatrol.

And here are some Tattoo’s that I found impressive. First off, look at this amazing Spider-man tattoo by Dan Hazelton.

And this one is only funny if you watch the video before and than think about it: what was first, the tattoo or the video? 🙂

(for higher resolution pictures, click on them)

Let’s move it all up!

This is the new location of Say What????, the place where I talk, rant and comment on anything that comes to mind. I will repost some of the old topics from the Blogspot page, but I think that a simple referring link should suffice, for the outdated on unimportant posts. I chose to change over to WordPress, because I write for two other blogs on this platform already and I really love the options you have. Especially the Blogstats are very detailed and helpful.

So here we go, have fun and enjoy the new layout!

P.S.: Remember to check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog This is the last day it will be online!

EDIT: I just found a neat import function, so I might import all the old posts from Blogger.

EDIT 2: The tags where converted into categories, so I will have to fix that manually sometime, but otherwise everything is up here now. Hurray 🙂

Hellhound!

“How dare you desecrate the world with the devil’s sign? You shall all be banished from this sphere and cast into the fire of hell where you belong! Demon worshipers!” – “AAAWWW Enough already you crazy fool!”, screamed Ian and raised the young man of the ground and threw him down the hole in the floor. From down below a battery of insults could be heard from the priest, but Ian could not be bothered, for he was looking at the symbol that had been painted on the downside of the manhole cover and had provoked the violent reaction by the otherwise shy and reluctant young man. But he had no time to make anything of it, as suddenly the small boy ran back into the warehouse, and up the steps and with him came another wave of hot air. The boy started to bark and growl at them. But this was not the bark that a small child would emulate. It sounded like a giant dog and chilled the two vampires to the bone. The air around them started to really heat up now and it seemed like the boy was the source of the sudden increase in temperature. The doctor had also returned to the warehouse and ran up the stairs to join Ruthven and Ian, who looked like they had just come out of a sauna. It must have been thirty-five degrees Celsius by now and the temperature was still rising. Victor, who was unsettled by the odd behavior of his new protégé, tried to appease the boy. “What’s wrong? Nobody wants to hurt you. Calm down.” But the boy answered only with more severe barking and snarling noises and the three vampires could see how the floor around him started to glow in an orange tone. Ruthven, who had no intension of bursting into flames, drew a handgun out of his jacket and aimed it at the child. Even though he was making all those abominable noises, he had still the look of a scared little kid on his face. The Ventrue was just about to fire a shot, when Victor notice him and yelled, “What are you doing?” Ruthven jerked his arm as he fired the gun and hit a box sitting on top of a medium-rise wall behind the boy. The box was blown of the wall by the impact of the bullet and a loud splashing sound could be heard.

“You have no idea what you are up against, boy! You will pay for this! Do you hear me?” The pounding voice of Steward O’Leary was still resonating in David’s head. He had finally managed to overthrow the dominant personality of the insane priest and regain control of his actions. He tried to figure out where he was and in the darkness he couldn’t see much. Once again he regretted that he never paid attention during the Auspex teachings of his sire. The only light came from the hole in the floor and as he looked up he suddenly noticed that he must be standing in a round chamber, about as big as the platform above, as he could clearly see the whole disk. The platform was resonating in a dimly red light, as if it had been heated in a blast furnace and on the inside David could clearly discern the rest of the drawing that he had previously seen on the manhole cover. It was a large devil’s trap in the shape of a pentagram. ‘So that’s why the boy couldn’t leave the platform before we opened up the manhole’, he thought to himself. It suddenly dawned on him that the ramblings of his most insane personality must have had a point after all. The boy really seemed to be some kind of a demon.

Ruthven had in the meantime gotten an idea that might save their skins and so he yelled to Ian, “Hey Brunswick! There seems to be an opening to the waterfront behind that wall. Try to smash the little bugger into the water! Use your hammer!” The Brujah enforcer jumped into action and ran over to the boy. Next to the child, the heat was unbearable. If it hadn’t have been for his superior resilience, he would have fainted immediately. As he swung his sledge hammer, the skin on his hands and face started to blister and the end of his jacket caught on fire. With as much force as he could muster up under the circumstances he threw his hammer against the chest of the boy, who flew several meters and landed next to the mid-high wall. As if nothing had happened the kid stood up and climbed up on the wall. He turned towards them, spread his arms and started to his demonic bark again. The temperature had risen to an unbearable level and Ruthven saw no other way out than to shoot again, but this time with full intend to kill the little devil. He took aim and fired, hitting the child right in the chest. The moment the bullet impacted with the boy, a darting flame burst out of his chest and he fell over backwards into the sea. Seconds after the splashing sound, plumes of steam rose from the water and a loud fizzling could be heard. But this victory gave the three vampires no time to rest easy, as the whole building started to rumble. It felt like a strong earthquake and the roof panels started to come lose and crash to the ground. “Quick into the hole!”, yelled Victor and the three lunged towards the circular opening in the floor. One by one they jumped in, and not a moment too soon, as a giant metal panel crushed to the floor and closed the opening above them, burying them underground.

That’s it. This is how far we have played in the first session and I hope you enjoyed the read, as much as I enjoyed writing it all down. Quite a cliffhanger isn’t it? Well you will have to wait, same as we players, but I promise that I will continue the story as soon as we have finished our next session. Big thanks to my three fellow players and the game master Ben, who thought of this impressive story.

Trouble at the Harbor

The four had just settled in, when the Seneschal pressed them to divulge all they had found out during their investigation. After a few minutes, the main conclusions they had drawn at the Old Church were laid out and Taylor finally told them, what had seemed so urgent when they had arrived. With a worried look, the Nosferatu informed them, “My informants have just told me that several strange reports have come in from the harbor area. Apparently they are connected to our deaths and I would strongly urge you to investigate immediately. Most reports came from the Surrey Commercial Docks, so you should probably start there.” Before anybody could reply, one of the guards came over and escorted them towards the door. The drive to the harbor’s dock area was a bit longer than expected and it gave the team a moment to revisit everything they had found out so far. David thought about the four dead vampires and the idea suddenly put the whole immortality issue into perspective. ‘Seems like it can be over pretty quickly after all’, he reckoned, but he tried to push those feelings to the back of his mind, as the upcoming task was much more important. The four got out at the entrance to the commercial dock area, a vast space with a seemingly endless number of large metal containers that had been neatly stacked and placed in regular intervals. Several homeless people were rummaging the area and as nobody of the four vampires knew what exactly they were looking for, they thought it might be a good idea to question the local populace. Ruthven took some money out of his wallet and flailed it in front of one of the men sitting next to a shopping cart and a large cardboard box and asked, “Hey you! Did you see anything interesting these last couple of hours? Hey I’m talking to you!” But the man was sound asleep and would probably not have woken up unless the world was about to end. Victor tried a more gentle approach, “Excuse me sir, you didn’t happened to see anything out of the ordinary recently, did you?” The guy he had spoken to, had a baffled look on his face and mumbled to himself. “What? How? So little… but so… terrible…” As he was saying this, he kept pointing in the direction of a large shipping warehouse. “I think we might as well start our search over there”, Victor concluded and the team went off in the direction of the enormous building. On their way over, David noticed several scorch marks on the surrounding freight containers that looked like small hands had burned into the metal.

The front gate of the warehouse was made of massive steel and it was closed with a padlock. On the bottom of the door was a small hole, not bigger than a cat flap would have been. It seemed to have been cut open with a blowtorch, but it was too small for any of them to slip inside. Ian who had brought his immense sledgehammer grumbled, “Please step aside. I’ll handle this, easy!” He heaved the hammer over his head and aimed a blow at the padlock. With an incredible force he struck at the lock and the impact with the metal door gave off a loud bang. The lock however seemed intact. Ian looked at it with contempt and seconds later the group could hear a clicking sound, as the small metal object snapped into two. Ruthven opened the gate, which creaked spookily and the four vampires entered the premises. ‘If somebody is expecting us, they sure know that we are here now’, David thought to himself. The front on the inside of the warehouse was fitted with shelves, which were packed with crates of all shapes and sizes. On the far end, the team could see a light burning on the left side, around a corner made by several high shelves. One of the crates had a familiar looking symbol on the side, a mask – the kind they were in Venice during the carnival. “Isn’t this the clan symbol of the Nosferatu?”, David remarked innocently. Ian replied, “Well I’ll be damned! What do those guys need so many crates for? I’m curious what’s inside.” And before anybody could object, Ian had punched a hole in the side of the chest nearest to him. He pulled out his hand and was holding a blood pack. “Seems like the Nosferatu use this warehouse to ship in their blood products”, Victor concluded and nudged Ruthven into the direction of the light at the end of the row, adding “Let’s see what else we can find here.”

None of them was prepared for the sight that presented itself, once they turned the corner. There was a large metal platform, about a meter off the ground. A few steps led up to the giant round structure and in the middle of it was a small child crouched over and fiddling with something on the floor. The four went up the steps and slowly approached the boy. Victor, who was best at connecting with people, crouched down next to the child and said, “Hi there. What are you doing here all alone in this big and empty building? Where are your parents?” The boy did not react and kept scraping at the floor with his hands. They could see now that he tried to pry open a manhole cover that was sitting in the middle of the platform. Victor tried another approach, in the hope to connect to the child. “Are you trying to get down there? Why do you want to go down into that hole?” – “Cause I wanna go back to the ugly people. I was outside and everywhere they were afraid and I couldn’t understand and they were mean to me and told me to go away and then I was all alone. The ugly people were mean to me too, but I know them and I wanna go back!” – “You don’t have to be alone anymore, we are here now. You can come with us and we will find your parents. How about that?” said Victor in the hopes to get the child out of the warehouse. They were after all still hunting a dangerous killer. In the meantime the other three were looking around, hoping to find any clues as to why a small child would be sitting around in a warehouse in the middle of the night. The doctor finally managed to get the boy away from the manhole cover and Ruthven and Ian tried to lift it up in turn. The boy suddenly spoke again, “Will you hurt me like the ugly men do? I don’t want to be hurt anymore, please!” – “Of course we won’t hurt you. You are safe now. Let’s go outside and we will get you some food and a bed.” Victor took the child’s hand – he couldn’t have been more than eight – and went down the steps. Just as the boy wanted to step down, he stopped moving. Victor urged him on and asserted once again that he would be in safe hands with them. But the boy did not move and started to cry, “I can’t move. I’m stuck!” Suddenly the four noticed that the air in the room started to get hotter, like if a warm breeze had been carried in. Behind the boy, Ruthven and Ian were still trying to lift the cover and slowly got it loosened up. David was standing next to them, looking over their shoulders, but not contributing much to the effort. The Brujah went down on both knees and tried with full force to lift the metal plate up and finally the material gave in and he lifted the circle over his head. At the same moment, the boy stumbled down the stairs towards Victor, who caught him in both arms. With a bewildered look on his face, he hugged the child to his chest and left towards the entry gate of the warehouse.

In the moment that Ian had pulled the cover over his head, a whiff of damp air escaped from below it. David, who was still standing next to the two vampires, looked at the circular shape in Ian’s hand and could see a pentagon with continuing edges painted on the inside of the disck Just as he saw the drawing his head started to spin. Suddenly he was hearing church bells and his innards started to cramp up. The bellowing voice of an old man started to resonate in his ears, yelling, “Boy! You little unholy pest! Get back to the hole you crawled from and stay there! It’s my turn now!” He suddenly lost all control over his body and it was as if he had become a passenger in his own mind. The priest had regained control.

Sorry to interrupt

I’m terribly sorry to interrupt our story at this point, especially since the last few submissions are coming up, but I am so swamped at the moment that I hardly find time to write and if I do I prefer to contribute to my newest site, Comic(s) Relief. I promise however to upload the final part of the story this week, probably on Friday.

After that I will move this site over to wordpress.com , as I miss a lot of user statistics and other goodies here on blogspot. This site will remain open, but I will repost the vampire story on the space. I’ll keep you posted on the changes and hope you enjoyed the ride with me so far and will accompany me to this blogs new home, when the time comes.