Conversations with a Wizard

I should first be clear on the word wizards, wizards are what a friend of mine calls the crazy homeless people. The idea is that their brain is so full of magic and then faced with the knowledge of an alternate dimension they no longer know which plain they exist on. This causes what we see as babbling and conversations with invisible people.

This wizard was a new wizard, not yet babbling.

I sat on the steps of a large trying to look Gothic cathedral in Sacramento smoking a coffin nail and waiting for a friend to meet me for dinner. It was then that a wizard spotted me, wizards are drawn to tobacco smoke for it is a weakness of theirs and this is why in most old films and books they are seen smoking pipes.

Wizard: Do you have any change?

Me: Uh yea I think I have a nickel.

I produce an nickel and two pennies and offer them to the wizard.

It is here that the wizard puts the change in his mouth. I assume either for safe keeping or performing some magic spell. He opens a large book and begins reading silently, the book is much to large to be a bible. He stands for a moment next to me leaning on the gaurd rail reading and shuffling the change around in his mouth. Turning the page he slowly looked up at me over what I assume can only be a book of magic.

Wizard: Can I bum a smoke?

Me: Of course (it is unwise to anger wizards)

He took the smoke and reached deep into the front of his pants for an uncomfortable amount of time finally producing a lighter. Where he kept it that it took so long to find I would rather not know. I would like to assume he had a bag of holding hidden and that it was not in fact up his ass

Wizard: Ah, American Spirits. You like smoking these?

Me: I do, I figure they are worth the extra money. I get them when I can afford them

Wizard: Yea they’re really smooth. You know what else is really smooth?

Me: What’s that?

Wizard: Freebasing pure cocaine. If you like American Spirits you’ll love freebasing cocaine. You should only do it if it’s pure though.

Silence

The wizard looks back at his magic tome and we continue smoking.

After a moment the wizard starts to search through his bag of holding. I rise and slowly walk away.

Wizard: Mumbling as I walk away, Real smooth… Like American Spirits

To this day I will always associate American Spirits with wizards freebasing pure cocaine.

Hello All!

Sorry I haven't posted in so long it has just been crazy busy here.

I'm not sure if I told you all yet but my job at Apple got extended! It was only supposed to be a year but they kept a few of us on for another semester. Which means I got a raise and a chance to extend again after this semester if all goes well. The only thing is, and why I haven't been on in so long, they have me working at 5:30 am. My body is finally getting use to it but now 5pm feels like 9.

Also I went to go see The Devil's Carnival while it was here! They are doing an encore tour so I suggest if it comes back around to Sacramento, or where ever you are located, you go see it. It is the same people who did Repo! The Genetic Opera so you know it will be good. And it's an actual show not just a movie. So there are costume contests and guests from the film etc.. While I was there I got to meet Emilie Autumn! I love her! So talented and so beautiful. She's a classically trained violinist who also plays Goth/Industrial music. I also got a poster of her character from the movie signed along with the sound track. Pictures and links below.

Signed Merch:



Me talking to Emilie Autumn (and having no idea a picture is being taken):



Song from The Devil's Carnival:



Emilie Autumn:



<B>Moving on</B>

I'll try and make the rest short here. Mainly just photos and tags.

There was my friend Rob's birthday.


My friend Fatty and his girlfriend came down for a few beers. I hadn't seen them in a really long time and they were passing through Sac during the eclipse so it was really good to see them


We've started have a game night here at the apartment finally! Last time it was Munchkin and Taboo and next time will most likely be Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan. Sadly the only picture of game night I have is of all the booze we bought for that evening


One of my new favorite beers here:


Pops went hunting so we have a freezer full of venison. So two nights ago we had venison and yellow potatoes. The deer was cooked with salt, pepper, garlic, red pepper flakes, rosemary and butter. It was damn tasty.


Even if you don't know who Jenny Lawson is (The Bloggess) you should read this book. It's nice to know there is another crazy out there. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this book.


I'm sorry world but I had to buy this game. I'm a big fan of all things ridiculous and this is full of it.


I've also been running though the Penny Arcade RPG's On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness in order to justify the 3rd one which they decided to make as a 16 bit RPG which make the little nerd in me squeal with joy.

As a side not to that a couple of friends want me to play Vampire: The Eulogy as a LARP with them. Not sure how I feel about that. I love PNPRPGs but have always shied away from that one. I've heard way to many horror stories about that game from my other PNPRPG friends. The people who are playing it are cool so I know there won't be any crazies so I might give it a shot. It's like one or two nights a month. If I do I'll let you all know so if they find my body in the Sacramento river you'll know why.

And lastly I'm totally addicted to Downton Abby. I'm not ashamed of it! Ok maybe just a little ashamed. But it's so addicting and, believe me, there are worse shows I watch.


And speaking of worse shows, WHY THE FUCK is Tara still alive! Come on True Blood. I was so happy she was gone. She is the most annoying character on that damn show.

Alright I believe that is all for now. I'll try and catch up on everyone's blogs but I'll probably just clear my inbox, which is going to take me like an hour, and then just start reading them from today on. I hope this finds everyone well!

Hello All!

My apartment now officially feels like a home:



It just wasn't the same without my comics around. That and I was really starting to need them here because my comics were piling up without a place to put them. It's nice to have a saver at a comic shop again, I really missed going down to the shop on Wednesday morning and spending the day reading.

It was my friends birthday last Friday. Party started like this:



Ended like this:




All in all it was good times. The party I went to yesterday with the same people however was probably the worst party I have ever been to. "Security" showed up to the apartment we were at 4 times and not for any of the good reasons that they show up like people running around naked outside, sex on the lawn, the entire place singing so loud you can hear it down the street, or people jumping off the roof (all of which has happened before just not with this group), but because the downstairs neighbor didn't like the fact that there was a party. Because of security showing up throughout the night the host, being paranoid, kept telling people to shush. Party was so bad that I left it sober. Which is a first in a long time.

Also I started actually cooking again. Well cooking things that don't just involve boiling water. I've been lazy lately because it's hard for me to really get in the mood to cook when I am just cooking for myself. I need to start eating healthier however so I went out and picked up "The Joy of Cooking," which is my favorite cook book, a four pack of Guinness (which is a kind of tradition when I cook) and made some Baked Potato Soup.



While cooking I treated myself to one of my only weaknesses:



I love bread and brie. I will sit there and go through the entire loaf of bread and the entire wheel of brie easy. Mmmmmmm

And this was the final product:



I'm not sure if it looks as tasty there as it actually is but my roommate and her boyfriend have been pigging out on it all week.

Speaking of my roommate she has a piece at the Crocker Art Museum in April! We're all really excited for her. She got into Metalworking almost a year ago and started making jewelry and now she has a piece at the Crocker.

Here is some of her stuff



She sells the Storage Books (Dreams, Secrets, etc.) and the heart necklaces, The beetle necklace is the one going in The Crocker. I sadly couldn't find a completed picture to post for you all but I assure you it's beautiful.

While looking for stones for her next pieces we went to this place in Vacaville called The Rock Shop where I found this in a room surrounded by quartz crystals




I totally wanted it but it wasn't for sale. I think they do human sacrifices in their back room after seeing that wood sculpture. Also I don't know if you can see it but there are red splotches on the carving. I think the most noticeable one is on the man's hand. So in the back roads of Vacaville there is a little old couple that sells rocks and performs human sacrifices to their vengeful jackal god. In my imagination anyway.

It has been raining a lot here in Sacramento which means I've been listening to a bunch of Tom Waits



Well I believe that is all and I hope everyone is doing well. I'm now off to finish my book and do some homework.

My plans for the day:



Sorry I haven't been updating lately but life has been crazy busy just with work and school. Luckily I had some vacation time saved up and ended up taking 3 days off work for my birthday. It was a small affair but a ton of fun.

First was Burgers and Brew for Lunch.



That is EJ and my roommate Marilyn. I have no idea what EJ said but the look on her face is priceless. Hayden was there with us but he was hiding from the camera. After that we went to go see the worst movie in the world, Ghost Rider. I never thought it could be worse than the first one but it was. Although once Hayden turned "The Rider" into a euphemism for penis the movie became much better. "The rider is coming out tonight and I can't stop it." We were laughing in a crowded theater with everyone staring at us. It was good times.

After that it was off to the bar to meet up with a couple more people. This was my birthday gift from Katherine



We named him Augustus. So he is now Augustusours Rex the Glittersaurous. Also Katherine Vlogs so if you want to see a video of how the night turned out you should check this video out. Jump to about the 2 minute mark and you'll see the birthday.



Also it is beer week here in Sac but sadly I have only been able to do one event this week. Me and Mark went to a place called Bulls because they had a deal where you pay $5 for the first beer and then it is dollar refills all night and you get to keep the glass



Those are our Pabst pint glasses we ended up with. However in going to Bulls we ended up with a surprise. Turns out that it was also bikini bull riding night. Which actually turned out to be really ridiculous and a lot of fun.

Also this just came in the mail



That's my H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society membership renewal. It was actually free for me this year which is awesome! I got the notice that I didn't have to pay this year the day before my birthday, it was an awesome gift.

This is my excuse for never getting my homework done:



That is Anti-Homework kitty. We actually have to leave textbooks we are not using on the table so she won't sit on the ones we are using. You'll get up to get coffee and then come back and she'll be sitting on whatever you were working on.

And I'll leave you with two things.

One: I totally can not wait for this to start again. I just have to finish the second book before it comes out



And Second: I've had this song stuck in my head all day. It's off Saul Williams new album. I want his jacket



I hope everyone is doing well

Hi all! Sorry it's been so long, I've been pretty busy.

It has been so busy actually that even though me and my friend Mark have almost the exact same schedule we don't get to go out for beer Wednesday. So last week we did beer Wednesday on Thursday, Mark refuses to call it anything but beer Wednesday even if we do it on a different day of the week, and hit up The Shady Lady up here and treated ourselves to some good expensive booze. With the craziness of school we figured we deserved it.



We usually hit up Chicago Fire for beer Wednesday for their $2 pints of Pabst but we had just gotten paid. This is John and Mark at Chicago Fire





Mark is actually a big music kid. He actually built his own studio in his house. Even built his own mic booth and all the instruments are directly hooked right into the computer so anything you play gets recorded without further setup. It may not sound like much but as a DIY project I think it's pretty awesome. This is the main control area. I sadly didn't get any pictures of anything else in the studio. We'd been drinking all day so it wasn't really the first thing on my mind sadly.



Also earlier in the week my friend Kelli came back from Disneyland and knowing what a huge Alice in Wonderland nerd I am brought me some Unbirthday Tea back



My birthday is coming up next week and some of my friends will be coming down to Sacramento to hang out and have a few drinks. We're planning on getting lunch somewhere and then going to see what will probably be the worst movie in the world, which would be Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and then cheap drinks. The reason we are going to see this awful movie is because Ghost Rider was the first comic I ever read. It was in fact the comic that got me into reading comics. The first movie came out on my birthday and this one comes out the day after. This is great actually because it means I can drag other people to see it and they have to go (evil laughter). As soon as the group of friends that drug to see the first one saw the release date of the new one they all knew what was coming.

The rest is all school really. I love my classes so far this semester but they are kicking my ass. The plus though is that Sarah is in my detective fiction class. Sarah is an absolutely adorable girl that used to be in almost all my classes. We used to talk now and then but never really ever got the chance to actually hang out. Luckily this semester that has changed. She is trying to come out more but sadly lately our schedules are clashing. However she may be coming down tonight to watch Sherlock and hang out. We were supposed to do sushi and Sherlock but things came up on her end so we're trying to at least do Sherlock. Hopefully plans will work out.

On a side note I have started writing again. I have picked up my cyberpunk hard boiled detective novel again and plan on dedicating my Fridays to it.

That's all. I hope everyone is well

Hey all! Fair warning this will probably a bit of a photo dump and a bit long. Feel free to skim


I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years Eve. Work has been nuts. For the past two weeks we all had a mandatory 47 hours a week and more if we could swing it. Trust me 8am-8:30pm shifts are not cool or fun. Luckily we were given New Years Eve off with pay and New Years Day off.

Christmas Eve:
This was Christmas Eve




Andrew and Pabst at Benny's Bar. It was actually a really nice Christmas Eve. I got off work, went to the bar, got drunk, and hung out with Andrew. Nothing uber special but really fun. He's really one of my favorite people to hang out with.

Christmas:
It was good but odd. It was the first Christmas I ever spent alone really. I worked most of the day but my mom came down that night to bring me Christmas dinner and these:



They are my favorite thing about Christmas. My mother calls them snow balls but they're really Russian Tea cookies. She makes them every Christmas and I almost ate the whole tin. My roommate even made me hide them from her so she wouldn't eat the whole thing. And then Lex brought me this:



Penguins and Beer. Two of my favorite things. My friends know me so well. So in summery I worked and then my mom came down for an hour. I spent the rest of the night drinking tea and watching the Doctor Who Christmas special. All in all it was a really nice night.

New Years Eve/Day:
New Years Eve was great. It was my first day off in forever and I got to spend it with people I hadn't seen in forever, or what feels like forever. Most of my close friends live in Fairfield so I don't really get to see them. It was nice to walk into a room of people who are genuinely excited to see you. Hugs were given and beer was drank. I brought Andrew with me and he had fun meeting new people and putting the names of people in my stories to faces.

EJ: I see EJ more than anyone else really because he like to come up to Sac to drink and watch movies. I love this picture of him though. The man loves his whiskey. He's an awesome laid back metal kid political science major who is really just a big teddy bear. He's a bit of a perv sometimes but I've never known a girl who has not felt completely safe around him. He's the guy girls go to at a party if someone is bothering them. He's a big guy and he has no qualms what so ever about laying some drunk disrespectful asshole out without warning.



Drea: Drea is one of my exs and one of my closest friends. She still calls me up in the middle of the night to talk about life or calls drunk to talk about her boy trouble. She's good people and I happy she stuck around. She was so innocent when we first met but she was always a sarcastic bitch. Which is part of why I love the girl. When we met she had pink hair and was shy except around her friends. I took her out to her first goth club and we hooked up that night. Now she's a hard drinking sarcastic bitch man eater with a bunch of piercings and tattoos that runs around naked at Burning Man and is still an awesome girl



Ryan: We call him Beowulf. The man branded himself self in the chest with an infinity symbol to prove a point and will turn logs in the fire with his bare hands and not flinch. The man is a beast. It's funny though I think the only time I've ever heard the man say ow is when he does something small like stub his toe. He belongs in a coliseum somewhere. That being said he's one of the nicest guys I know. Him around our friends kids is fucking adorable. I wish I still had the picture of Julian (Funky and Amber's 4 year old) chasing him around the backyard with a light saber.



Funky and Amber: I've known Funky forever. He used to live in this dilapidated Victorian downtown that had two bedrooms and 10 people living in it. Someone slept in the closet and someone in the bathtub. All the goth and metal kids hung out there and they had a coffin on the porch that wasn't even stable to stand on. Amber his "wife" is perfect for him. The guy goes off on tangents, forgets what he's doing, and is always working on some crazy new project and Amber grounds him. They have 2 beautiful kids and they are the people that everyone in the group measures their relationships up to. They've been together for years and still act like the day they first met.



And lastly
Brian : Fats or Fatty. He's my drinking buddy. Has been since he was 15. I of course didn't know he was 15 at the time he was just at all the parties with a backpack full of beer and we hit off. Me and Fats are close enough that when he needed a place to stay I rented him and Ryan out my house in Vallejo about $1200. The place was in a nice neighborhood, has a pool and hot tub, gave them all the old furniture, and they had one of my old friends Jason move in later. They never paid rent on time, they would sometimes go 3 to 4 months without it but they always paid and I would have probably let them stay rent free if I didn't need the money for school. He's like a little gypsy though and travels all over the place but always calls me to say hi.



That turned out to be way more than I thought it would be. I was just going to put their names but the pics with a sentence saying who they were. I got a little carried away there but these guys are probably my closest friends and I would easily trust them with my life and do anything for them and I know it's the same way around. They're the people you call when you're stranded, in jail, need someone fucked up, or just need some plain old support. And believe me each one of us has gotten at least one of those calls.

Other than all that it has just been, work, reading, and SWTOR. SWTOR is the first MMO I've ever really been hooked on.

That's all for now really. I hope this finds everyone well and I hope you all had a great Christmas and that your New Year is off to a smashing start.

Hello all!



Winter has come and it is COLD. Well cold for California anyway

Me after stealing my roommates earmuffs, starting a new book to celebrate the end of the semester, and wearing my favorite pompous shirt



It's also nice that finals are over. Every year they make me want to bang my head against a wall and yet every year I do it again. Finals just reminds me of how small I can actually write on a 3x5 card



End of finals also means I can now clean the area around my computer desk. Can you tell this is where I spend most of my time studying?



I'm not going to lie I miss school when it's not in session, I'm just that much of a nerd. I'm wait listed on all my classes next semester though. Sac State forgot to change my graduation date so I got locked out of the system. It didn't get fixed till last week so I only got to register for my classes a couple days ago. So hopefully I'll be able to get into all of them. If I do I'll be taking detective fiction, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, history of pop culture, and a class on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The semester will be amazing if luck is on my side. Luckily as a senior I get priority when it comes to adding classes.

My friend Greg graduated this semester so we all got together to drink and celebrate. I was the only straight boy at the party lol. Had a blast though, I'm used to being the only straight boy around when I party with Greg. I'm usually his wing man or his excuse to leave a blind date. He'll call me up and buy me beer when he has a first date so that he has a reason to leave if he needs to and if not I get free beer all night. The grad party was a lot of fun, lots to drink and great stories.

Mark and I had the last beer Wednesday of the semester. We're going to try and keep it up through winter break but we live about 20 minutes away from each other so it's a bit tough. We celebrated the end of the semester with beer and corn dogs from Old Tavern



If you live in the Sacramento area and have not had an Old Tavern corn dog you're missing out on life. Their corn dogs are better than any corn dog I've ever had including the ones sold at festivals/fairs.

This is my new food love. Urban Fries from Jack's Urban Eats here in Sac. It's blue cheese, chili sauce, and cilantro



My roommate gives me crap because I take pictures of my food. I didn't realize how often I did it till she started teasing me for it. I tell her sometimes the food is just so damn good you don't ever want to forget it. That and I usually post it on foursquare when I check in I'm starting to think I have a social media problem lol

I got my first Christmas present yesterday



A friend of mine was picking up Christmas gifts at BevMo (says a lot about my friends that we shop for each other at pricey liquor stores) and saw it. For those of you who don't know I have a bit of a penguin problem. I LOVES them. And who couldn't? They're cute and dressed for every occasion. So suffice to say I squeed when I saw it. It's a barley-wine and I'm going to wait till she comes back down to crack it open.

My gift to myself this Christmas was the Star Wars The Old Republic MMO. This of course means that I'll be staying inside this break killing Jedi. I think I deserve some mindless gaming after this semester though.

Also I ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen in ages. She is an English Major who used to be in almost all my classes and I had a huge thing for her. I turned out a buddy of mine had a thing for her as well so being a friend I didn't make a move and she eventually started seeing him which ended really fast and I never really saw her after that for some reason. However a few days ago I ran into her, we exchanged numbers, and she came out for the last beer Wednesday. Turns out we like a lot of the same books (we're both huge Dune fans and she got all excited about my Dune tattoo) and we seemed to really hit it off. She lives kinda far away though so it's kinda hard to get her to come out. We shall see how that goes though.

I believe that is all for now. I hope this finds everyone well

Warning blog contains food and extreme nerdom

Hello all!

How are all of you? I've been doing better since last blog. My friends have been taking me out and stuffing me with food actually. This is the guy who's been coming down stuffing me with booze and food.



Mmmmm foods



That is a buffalo chicken sandwhich with Thai Fries. Which I believe are fries with a sweet chili sauce, Sriracha, jalapeños and cilantro. It is made at a brewery in Yuba City that a friend of mine owns who is actually an ex of my mom's

This is him



It was actually his life long dream to open and operate his own micro brewery and now he does. Which if you ask me is fucking awesome.

Also my friend Dylan has been dragging me out to get these buffalo chicken bombs and the Memphis burger



These are really just shredded chicken, jack cheese, and buffalo sauce deep fried served with buffalo sauce and blue cheese.



And the Memphis burger which is a burger, cheese, BBQ pulled pork, and coleslaw. Suffice to say I've been a fatty.

Also Andrew has been taking me out to the Sacramento roller derby. Here's a video of the first one I went to. It's 40 seconds long. Andrew happened to be recording on his phone and this girl just got crazy clotheslined



Me and my buddy Mark have started a tradition. It's beer Wednesday. Since it's the middle of the week of school for me and his last we grab a beer every Wednesday. It keeps us sane for the rest of the week




This has also been keeping me busy





Yup. That is Warhammer 40k and yes I am that big of a nerd. For those of you who don't know what that is it is essentially a game in which you buy these plastic models, put them together and paint them. Each model represents a different piece in your army with different weapons and stats and then you put them on a massive table with 3D terrain in the dark back room of a game store and fight another army that someone else is built. Each one of those tiny things takes me something like a half hour to an hour just to glue together. It's crazy nerdy but it keeps me busy and I do like war games Not to mention there is a place right down the street from my place to play it.

I'm also totally hooked on this show. It's like crack, I just can not stop watching it





And just to close out if you live in Sacramento and don't know, there is a local coffee roasting company, Naked, that makes a damn good bean. So go out and support!

Naked Coffee. MOO


That's all for now and I hope this finds you all well

Emo blog. Feel free to skip

There is a girl that I've been seeing on and off for two years and has been my lover for those two years as well and she just broke things off today to get back together with her ex who I hate (for personal reason. Nothing to do with the two of them).

So I'm not in the best of moods today. I have enough on my plate with school and all the mandatory over time that work is throwing at me me that I really didn't need this. She's always been my rock through the bad days and she always knew just how to make me feel better. Just feels like one of the corner stone of my sanity has been removed and one more straw added to the camel's back.

The sad part is really that with all the on and off and drama that came with it I'm almost to tiered to care and I can't even really muster up the energy to be mad about it. It has just gotten to the point when I can't bring myself to really be upset. It's sad that I'm losing someone who I used to talk about having kids and a life with but it's worse that I just can't bring myself care about it.

I think I need a beer and some angry metal.

Hello all

This is how I spent my weekend:



It was really nice to be able to sit at a coffee shop without banging my head against a table hoping that German will sink in. Tonight it will be back to the grindstone though but it was nice while it lasted.

How was everyone's Halloween? Mine was drunkenly awesome.









The pics aren't that great really but camera phone + drinking = the pictures I got

A close friend of mine's birthday is on Halloween and it is tradition for us to gorge ourselves on sushi to celebrate. This is probably only about half of what we ate.



Other than that I've spent most of the last few days studying and nerding out. By Dec. 20th my social life as I know it will be over and here's why. The 40K army I play just got a new codex and new models so I'll be spending my afternoons that I'm not studying putting together and painting tiny models. On top of that I was finally able to get a new webcam so I can now start playing my PNPRPGs with my gaming group that I moved away from coming up here to Sac so that's at least one evening a week gone and I have a 16 lvl character to roll up. All of this, however, reaches it's peak on Dec. 20th when Star Wars the Old Republic comes out and it has already been preordered. This plus school means no social life beyond a gaming table. This has even already started to overtake school in fact. This is what my bag of holding looked like this morning



As you can see it is already starting to take over. I love social gaming though. Nothing beats yelling at a person or swearing as your army gets destroyed while there is someone actually there and I'm sorry but drinking beer and chain smoking in a friends garage while rolling dice and killing mind flayers just makes me smile inside. Because honestly spending a night hanging out with friends laughing hysterically is awesome no matter what you're doing.

Well that's all. I hope everyone is doing well and I will try and update again soon