No news is, well, no news...

In the absence of something to write, here's a picture from Christmas.

And here are a couple of pictures from my game.  First, the guy my Players are fighting, Obsen, the evil swordmage and leader of the chaotic Cult of Fire!

And finally, our current combat map:

Been a pretty interesting fight so far.  I think I might actually KILL THEM this time.  Mwhahahahaha!

If you're wondering, I play with not one but TWO professional physicists, a semi-pro MMA fighter, and a professional librarian.  And one other guy whose occupation I just realized that don't know. 

Hmmm...  What are you hiding Relek?

Podcasts and Bike Flats

I finally had a flat this morning during my commute.  It happened as I was turning right off of Manhattan Ave onto 110^th Street, fortunately adjacent to Morningside Park (see picture).  I’ve had enough flats on my other bikes to know that I needed to have a spare tube on hand, but it was still annoying as all Hell to have to stop, and I got cold while I stood there fixing it.  Still, the only real problem I had was when the rear chain ring got caught on the chain.  Turns out that it’s VERY hard to get the rear wheel off when you’re in first gear.  But luckily a kind passerby—and bike shop veteran!—stopped to help me hold the bike steady while I worked, and I eventually got it free, or else I’d probably still be standing there wrestling with it.

This is isn’t the first time I’ve flatted on my foldy, but it was the first time I’ve stopped and changed a flat in the street or had occasion to use the little hand-pump that’s stored in my foldy’s seat post.  Ingenious invention!  It took me maybe thirty seconds to get the tire inflated once I actually had the new inner tube installed and the rear wheel remounted on the back of the bike.  Nice design there.

Speaking of bikes, today was also the first time I’ve downloaded and listened to PodiumCafe.com’s semi-weekly podcast Bike Talk Radio.  It was a fun show if a bit of a downer given the fact that this episode focused on the doping allegations facing last year’s Tour de France winner Alberto Contador as well as a long-form interview given in recent months by disgraced Tour champion Floyd Landis.  I’ll spare you anything like analysis here, but if you’re interested in discussions of doping as a science in pro cycling, this episode is a pretty good primer.  With that said, the next episode promises to focus more on the start of the Spring cycling season in Europe and some of the coming Classics races.  That one will hopefully be a little more encouraging and entertaining.

And yeah, I gotta say that I LOVE podcasts.  Sally got me a new IPod Shuffle for Christmas, which was awesome because the new model shuffles can hold podcasts as well as songs.  Personally, I’m not much on all the new mobile phone technology, but I do lots of stuff where you can listen to the radio while you work, and so now I’m up to between five and ten podcasts per day depending on the day.  If you’re wondering, I subscribe to:

-          Marketplace (an NPR radio show from American Public Media)

-          Music City Miracles Radio (an SB*Nation podcast from MusicCityMiracles.com)

-          Bike Talk Radio

-          The Economist

-          Critical Hit  (a Major Spoilers D&D podcast)

-          Major Spoilers (comic review radio from the guys at MajorSpoilers.com)

-          Real Time with Bill Maher

-          Tri Talk Radio

-          ESPN Radio’s Football Today

-          The Official Wizards of the Coast D&D podcast

I recommend any and all of these, of course, but everyone in America should be required to listen to Marketplace and the Economist.

Finally, in the course of reading the news this morning, I stumbled upon the following on Slate.com:

"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae"

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine

There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed

Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;

And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

…Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,

Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;

Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

…When I awoke and found the dawn was gray;

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

…Yea, all the time, because the dance was long;

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,

But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,

Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;

And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

…Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

—Ernest Dowson

Nice, no?  The quote in the title is from Horace.  I tell you that because I didn’t know it, so I assume that you didn’t either.

Early Season Blues: The Downside of Nice Weather

Look, I’m not complaining.  It’s been as cold as all Hell in Connecticut for the past month-and-a-half or so, and it feels not just nice but actually, actively AMAZING to have a little sun out in the sky for once.  I can even see my grass in a few scattered spots.  That’s good.  Very good.  But the downside is that now it’s not just me out there on my bike in the City every day.  Now everybody’s out.  Which, again, is really all good.  Studies show that the best way to improve biker safety in a city is to add more bikes so that drivers get used to seeing and thinking about bikers on the streets day-to-day.  And it’s not like the other bikers get in the way. 

What they do is add an element of competition to the daily grind.

Which isn’t really a bad thing.  I mean, they don’t call it the “daily grind” for nothing.  Even riding can get boring when all you’re doing is riding the same tract twice a day, every day.  Every.  Damned.  Day.  Having a few other guys out there also riding hard… y’know, it helps.

But it’s also exhausting.  For instance, I came upon a guy this morning riding a nice little commuter when I got to Riverside Drive and 110^th Street.  I knew the guy was at least a somewhat serious rider because: a) he was riding an actual road bike and not a fixie, b) his commuter had toe clips, and c) he was wearing actual knickers.  And look, my first thought was not, Hey, I need to go smoke this guy.  First off, I’m still a little tired from all the swimming and running I did over the weekend, and anyway, I’m trying to be an adult about these things.  Trust me, if you race every single Type-A personality in Manhattan every chance you get, you’ll die of a heart attack inside of a month.  This city is stacked to the rafters with assholes, and they all want to prove they can smoke you if given half the chance.  I suppose that’s true of me, too. 

But not this morning.  No, this morning, I told myself that I was just gonna tuck in behind, and let the guy who was obviously a better rider than me tow me in.  It was a windy day, I’d already had to sprint to the train back in Stratford so that I came into the ride feeling wasted, and there are two little climbs between 110^th and my office, and I didn’t particularly feel like tackling either of them.  So, bottom line, getting towed sounded like a pretty damned good idea.  I was ready to admit defeat and let it happen.  Unfortunately, if you start at 110^th and head south on Riverside, you immediately hit a mile-long sloping downhill, and I out-weighed my would-be leader by, oh, maybe twenty pounds or so.  More if you count the differences in the bike weights.  So I had a choice right from the get-go.  Either ride the brakes or let myself fly by and do my own work. 

*sigh* 

I don’t have to tell you which way I went with it, do I?

Disaster struck at the next light.  I’d had to stop to wait for cars, but my man flew by me—from a surprisingly long way back—heading straight through the intersection despite the cars, using a move that’s so patently Manhattan Type-A that at that point I was literally honor-bound to give chase.  Ugh.  Just thinking about it hurt.  Of course, past that light, it’s straight into the first of the two short climbs, but by far the longer of the two.  I chased anyway, slowly closing the distance despite the weight disparity, and by the time we reached the second of the little climbs, I’d actually achieved my goal of getting towed up the hill.  And y’know, it was really twice as awesome as I thought it was gonna be.  But now I’m exhausted, I have been all day, and I still have to ride back and catch the train home.

Fortunately, the ride back to Harlem only has the one climb.  But it’s the one that’s the mile downhill on the way here, the one where I passed my man on the descent.

Ugh.  Just thinking about it makes me hurt.

Finally got back on my bike!

Yep.  After what seems like MONTHS of epic snow and ice, we've finally had just enough sun and warmth to somewhat clear the street.  So I rode in to work three whole days this week, the first time I've been on my bike since before Christmas.  It was nice.  But it was also cold.  As Hell.  I mean, Wednesday it was literally ten degrees when I left the house, and while Thursday was better, Friday was again only in the lower teens.  So I froze my fucking ass off!

Still and all, as I told Sally, a day on the bike is better than a day when I'm not on the bike.

With the extra mileage on the bike, I skipped my heretofore regularly scheduled mid-week swim, instead putting in an honest-to-God distance freestyle workout this morning.  Then we went out for pancakes, which was nice.  This afternoon, I'm hoping to run about four miles, but between you and me, I'm not entirely sure I'll have time.  Emma's got a birthday party, and I have to head out to my local comic shop and pick up the last few weeks' comics.  Later tonight, we're going out for hibachi.  That promises to be AWESOME!

It's also been a pretty interesting week for the old Sellswords.  They picked a fight with a Beholder Eye of Flame and its minions, and our resident barbarian got set on fire.  Twice! We also picked up a new player this week, Tila, who plays the Human Wizard/Assassin Miri.  Miri's got one of the most unusual builds I've ever seen, and frankly, when Tila first showed me the concept, I was a little afraid that she wouldn't be able to keep up.  But so far so good, and I think the guys are enjoying having an actual girl around.  It's definitely a change-up from what we've had up to now.

So like I said, it's been an interesting week, and except for the fact that the fact that the Beholder has a lot of lot of Immediate Actions, which are tough to manage in a Play-by-Post online game, I've been really digging our game lately.

Happy Valentine's Day!