Double Decker Buses

As in two come at once.

The demise of P&P has meant that another referee, Nigel, has stepped into the breach and like buffoons we have started The Great Pendragon Campaign. Hot off the press, this is a massive expansion and revamp of the classic 'Boy King' supplement. It will take YEARS to complete. It is ludicrous to even consider that we would do it. It's bloody great!

I love Pendragon. I love every bit of the system because it drips flavour. My character is Brion O'Hara, the son of an irish squire from Skye. He's a big lad with red hair, strong, good with the spear and the horse and a master of the hounds. I am ignoring his Orate 10 because frankly, anything sniffing of Bard would drive me insane with my self-stereotyping.

As with all textbook Pendragon games, we are vassals of Sir Roderick (and yes, we did the joke) in Sarum, Logres. We were knighted (and the big lug made his horse vault as well!), we have our demenses. We met some etheral woman, met challenges, found pledged wives and fought saxons to a stand-off in our first massed battle. Brion even distinguished himself by leading the charge on his new uber-fast horse after being challenged by one of our gallic brothers.

Great stuff. I loved it. I was buzzing at the game (which may have been the wine) and buzzing after the game. If we can keep the atmosphere and the general tone of the game, I think the characters are going to shine.

Now thats a lot more positive, isn't it?

Warcraft is plodding along. I have been turning attention to Gortessa in the end game a little and levelling Kylea (to 47 now) before she returns to the pvp arena. I have a feeling that the guild may be coming to an impasse as Burning Crusade approaches. A little more hardcore, a little less forgiving - a cull may be coming, the numpties should watch themselves!

I got Green Lantern#4 sent off to the editor at DC Infinity last week, which was a relief, and he gave the green light (ha! no pun intended) to a new title, Zatanna. That should be fun. Oh, and I was namechecked on Other People's Toys, a podcast about fanfic. It titilated me!

So, in general, whilst I am still knackered, things seem to have calmed down a little bit.

I do have a yearning though. I haven't been on a road trip for months. I'm getting itchy feet and that cannot be good.

Neil

Arse! (will contain profanity)

Well, I have to say that I am totally and utterly arsed off with life at the moment. For the last few years I have been waging a silent and not-so-silent war against real life and advancing 'age' and the battle ground has been my plethora of hobbies.

Yesterday I realised that I may have met a rather metaphoric Waterloo.

Over the years, I have had to rationalise a number of the things that I do in order to compensate for the responsibilities of married life and fatherhood. No longer can I travel the length and breadth of the country playing cards. No longer can I watch the Wrestling Channel at the drop of a hat. No longer can I roleplay every weekend and alternating week nights etc. No longer can I be a slave to a far away company and their website.

However, changes in my workplace have meant that I am now, at my traditionally busiest time of the year doing not one (Marketing Manager), not two (Marketing Manager and Marketing Sales Assistant) but THREE (Marketing Manager, Marketing Sales Assistant and Print Shop Administrator) jobs. Thats a lot of work and a lot of mental fatigue. I thought I could handle it. I suppose I can, but the side effects are hellish. In short, I am mentally (and increasingly physically) knackered.

So whats the effect been?

- I have, after much thought and soul searching, had to cancel Pulsars and Privateers. This was not an easy decision because it may have further implications for my play group than simply the end of a game. I don't feel easy doing it, but in the end I had to face up to the fact that I was simply unable to raise my enthusiasm and creativity out of the gutter when I returned from work to do ANY preparatory work for the project. Normally, I can feed off the enthusiasm of others as well, but a number of the players have been on holiday or had life stresses of their own and you cannot rely on that. Hopefully, a Pendragon game is going to spring from the ashes, but for the next seven months I think I can safely say that my tenure as the Iron GM has concluded.

- I now grab maybe half an hours wrestling TV a week because I have simply lost the ability to stay up late and watch it and the kids holidays have allowed them to encamp the teatime telly. It really really exposes the child in you when you have to exert Daddy Power Privilege to get to see the week old repeat of RAW!

- I've been passing on raids in Warcraft a little more than usual because I am simply too tired to go through the repeated tasks over and over again. Sure I'm still playing but that's more because it is almost an effortless pursuit.

- Did I mention that I'm writing fanfic again? In a week 'off work' - where I did little else but think about work - I wrote four paragraphs of one issue. Not through the want of trying, more through the want of sleeping!

- I have an RPG group on the horizon playing in a superhero game but everytime I sit down to write out some details on the character, my mind is a blank. It may happen - the GM is churning out some quality background guff for it - but in the end I'm sceptical. Our first character generation session was cancelled due to a last minute withdrawal by one of the players for no specific reason. Deja vu?

So here I am - drained - absolutely fucking drained. I'm so absorbed with the pressures of work that I cannot even muster the energy to have a self-brainstorming session on the Metro like I used to do, because every time I do, it just resets back to thinking about the next piece of work that needs to be done and how little time I have to do it.

Pretty much hobbywise at my lowest ebb. Which is shite.

Hey, if this is the bottom of the glass, maybe it's time for a refill?

Neil