Ghosts...

Alright, so I asked my lovely Cupcake for a topic and she said ghosts with a question mark at the end of it. I’m not sure why the question mark was there. I guess that’s probably an indication that she wasn’t sure, and I should take the post wherever I felt it was necessary to go. As for where that is… I couldn’t tell you. Lol.

I guess I could just start talking and see where that gets us.

Ghosts are believed to be a paranormal occurrence that is often cited as proof of an afterlife. The belief is that ghosts are the remains of a person’s soul, what was left over when their physical body died, and usually, it’s believed that ghosts are created when someone has a violent death or where they die in a way that they weren’t exactly ready for it. And, as such, their soul tries to continue to exist without the body, trapping their soul here on the material realm and preventing it from moving on to the afterlife. Even though the soul tries to remain on the material plane it isn’t one hundred percent successful. You see, ghosts are immaterial; they lack mass, and exist merely as a collection of energy that shifts between our plane (the material plane) and this other second plane called the ethereal plane. The ethereal plane kind of overlaps ours and exists basically as a field of energy that connects all life… yes… the ethereal plane is the Force.

Now, that’s pretty much what I know textbook wise about ghosts.

Have I ever had any experiences with ghosts?

I can’t rightly say that I have. Not one hundred percent to my knowledge. I’ve never seen one in person. I’ve never been in the room when a strange voice comes out from nowhere. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in ghosts. Just because I’ve not seen one, doesn’t mean I’ve not felt one.

The ethereal plane, or the Force if you prefer, is something we’re all in contact with. And, as such we have the ability to “sense” certain things about it and our surroundings. That feeling you get when somebody is staring at you, and you’re not looking in their direction, that is information transferred via the ethereal plane. Or cold spots, when a suspected spirit is in the room it will drain the energy away from the point of its manifestation and anybody near that spot will feel the air get cooler. Think of it this way, heat is energy, if it’s getting cold the energy is going away. Then there’s the doom and gloom feeling. The moment when you simply know that something’s wrong, that there’s something that’s not natural in the same room as you. I’ve had that feeling many a time… usually in graveyards. This is why I stay far far away from graveyards.

Now… what else can I say about ghosts…

They make interesting enemies when it comes to table top RPGs. Why? They’re almost impossible for the PCs to hit without special weapons, and if used right, they can really force some wonderful role-playing moments. Convincing a ghost that it’s dead, and trying to help it move on to the afterlife; that would be a killer trip for anybody. And, often, the PCs will loot whatever corpses are left after a battle. This can make for an interesting recurring villain as a ghost will hunt down the person who stole from it and do whatever they can to get what was stolen back. And, in that same vane they can make excellent quest givers. I could cite examples of the latter in a wide array of games on the market today, and yes, many of those examples would be RPGs.

Now… what else… I could probably go on… but I really don’t want to. It’s getting late, and I want to go to bed now.

Gnite kids.

Ryan

7-12-14

The Desert

Author: due.chiacchiere
Website

This is not to be mistaken for dessert, which happens to be tasty pastries stuffed with sugar. Or cake. Or any wild number of possibilities. Dessert is also not the topic of this post. It evokes an entirely different sort of imagery than what I intend on using for this post.

The desert. A vast wasteland that stretches on for miles and endless miles. The sun hangs low in these places, so it's closer to the ground and thus more capable of scorching rock and earth until nothing can grow. Anything that might have helped life flourish in these is incessantly beaten with fierce winds till it's ground to sand. The things that live there are broken and twisted creatures, designed to thrive on the destruction of other lives.

It's no place for a man to walk into unprepared.

It's no place for a man to walk into period.

Yet, in one fashion or another, we are always walking into the desert. Always walking into that unknown land stretching out before us. Before the present. The desert could certainly be used to represent the future and the unknowns it can bring.

It works as an image of the future for those who are dreading it. And, for those who feel they have no future.

The desert, the future, is simply where they go to die.

That's not the way my imagination is running right now. Just saying.

No, I'm thinking of a different figurative desert.

I've been poking at working on my novel, Cold Lunch, now for about a month. I even put the DnD game on hold until I get it finished. But, it feels like I've been wondering in a desert. I seem to have lost the connection to the book, the river than once ran through this desert and made the fields fertile and full of new life and new ideas.

Putting a book down and walking away from it is a bad idea for any writer, because you can lose that connection. That river can run dry. And, most times I would say this is fatal for the novel.

But, I'm trying to pull a Frankenstein here.

I've been reading through what I had written previously trying to make it rain. If I can find that connection again, then the river will run again, and the fertile fields will return. I don't know if i'll find that connection though...

At this point, I'm starting to feel like I've put the DnD game on hold for no reason at all.

I dunno.

I'm going to go wonder through the desert some more. Maybe preform a rain dance.

Later kids.

Ryan

5-6-14/5-7-14

Water (as a destructive force)

This will make the third time I’ve tried to write this post, and the third day of working on it. Though, yesterday was F*** It Friday, so I hadn’t planned on working on it then anyway. What I’ll do now, I suppose, is try to create some semblance of a post that makes sense in one fashion or another.

Water, H2O, is the most important liquid on the planet. The human body is composed of two-thirds water, our blood is salt water (also called saline) while protein thrown into the mix. The earth’s surface is two-thirds sea/ocean to one third solid landmass. Water also happens to be the number one most corrosive liquid on the planet as 100% of things placed in water will dissolve into nothing given enough time. It is also considered one of the most important ingredients in life. Life as we know it began in the sea billions of years ago, and in astronomy the number one goal in finding earth-like planets is finding planets with water on them.

Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons is covered in a thick layer of ice, and scientists believe that down past that ice is a water ocean, and possibly life. God only knows how long it will be before we can test that theory though. Our space program is moving at a crawling pace, and faster than light travel is still decades, if not centuries, beyond our capabilities. Though, according to Star Trek, we’ll have achieved faster than light travel (or Warp Speed, which is a way of bending space time and not necessarily moving faster than the speed of light) by the year 2063. That is also supposed to be the year first contact takes place in the early part of April (I forget which day), and that’s something I’m looking forward too. Lol. Even though the Vulcan’s are dicks and won’t allow us information to a reasonable warp speed for a century or more. I mean seriously, do you know how SLOW warp one is? Just play STO for a few hours and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

And, none of that has anything to do with water. Or how water is a destructive force. I think I might have started in that direction, but God only knows.

Anyway, things I think of when I think of the destructive power of water can pretty much be summed up in one word: Atlantis.

Yup, the mightiest of civilizations wiped off the face of the planet in three days and three nights. Tidal waves, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, yup Atlantis pretty much had it all.

Also…

The most powerful cutting tool on the planet, called a waterjet, is a hyper pressurized jet of water. I think. Pretty sure it can cut through a three inch thick piece of steel in less than a minute. But, I’m not sure. Again, I didn’t check Google.

And, that’s enough from me today.

Ryan

4-24-14/4-26-14