Roleplaying Session Pt. 1

The scene: A cluttered basement. A card table is center stage, covered with various books, papers, and dice. There are open cans of caffeine-free coke and several open bags of chips scattered both on and around the table. There are four people seated around the table, we will call them KEITH, ZACH, CHRIS, AND MATT. KEITH has just finished a phone call with his girlfriend and has rejoined the group.

KEITH: Fuck it, guys. Let’s just play.

ZACH: Trouble in paradise, Keith-o?

KEITH: (mumbles unintelligibly)

MATT: That reminds me. I have to leave in an hour to meet my girlfriend.

ALL (but MATT): WHAT??

MATT: I told her I’d meet her. It’s no big deal, I don’t have much to run game-wise tonight anyway.

CHRIS: For Christ’s sake…

ZACH: You’re fucking kidding…

KEITH: This is bullshit.

MATT: Anyway, when we last left our intrepid adventurers, you were deep in the bowels of the earth, beneath the mountains of mist, in the goblin-city, trying to save your informant, Pike, who has been captured by the goblins. You were following the Ranger known only as “Strider”…

CHRIS: (singing) Down, down to Goblin-town, Down, down to Goblin-town…

KEITH: (coughs) Ripoff!

ZACH: Ripoff? Of what?

KEITH: Forget it. You don’t read anything. (to MATT:) You could of at least picked an original name for the NPC…

CHRIS: (still singing) You go, my lad! Ho ho, my lad!!!!

MATT: I didn’t have time. Anyway, the Ranger looks at you and says: “I’m pretty sure there are more goblins ahead. I can tell by their disgusting spoor. They are many.”

CHRIS: Well, no shit, dude. We are in their mountains…

MATT: He says “I’m just saying, be ready for anything.”

ZACH: Beremgast is ready!!!!

MATT: Who? Oh yeah…that’s right. I forgot you were playing him. What characters are you guys playing again?

ALL: (separately) For Christ’s sake….Jesus Christ!...How could you forget…?

ZACH: I am Beremgast. I’m a wicked strong barbarian with a halberd…remember? I was almost gutted by that fen boar last time we played?

MATT: Oh yeah…

CHRIS: I’m Lumpy Longfoot…the hobbit archer. I can pick a fly off a fly’s ass at 100 yards, remember? I shot that Troll through the eye at point-blank range last time.

MATT: Oh, yeah.

KEITH: I play Hithrandir, the wizard…

CHRIS: Kinda sounds like Mithrandir, or you-know-who… (coughs) Gandalf!

KEITH: Don’t give me shit, dude. I looked it up. In elvish, “hith” means “mist”, and “–randir” is “one who walks”, so I am “Mistwalker”, literally translated.

CHRIS: OK, whatever.

KEITH: That’s what it means! You wanna look it up?

CHRIS: I said whatever!

KEITH: ANYWAY… I’m called Mistwalker because I always cast misty clouds around me and then catapult out of them in a series of acrobatic backflips which distracts the enemy, and then I kick their asses with my martial arts skills.

ZACH: How about you make a wizard that actually casts spells like fireball next time?

CHRIS: Yeah, your “mist” always fucks up my archery.

KEITH: I’m just playing in character. Besides, you still shoot everyone in the eye anyway.

ZACH and CHRIS: Whatever.

MATT: OK, where was I?

ZACH: Spoor.

MATT: Right. OK, so Strider tells you “We should be careful.”

KEITH: I don’t say anything.

CHRIS: Why would you? He wasn’t talking to you!

KEITH: I’m just saying, I don’t say anything.

ZACH: I lean over to Lumpy and whisper…”Ooo, that guy’s mysteriously silent!” and point to the wizard.

MATT: Strider starts to move ahead, looking at the ground. What do you do?

CHRIS: We follow him. I’m trying to move silently.

ZACH: We all are.

MATT: Make your rolls. (All players roll dice) Keith and Chris make it, Zach, you fail. As you’re walking, Beremgast steps on a duck. “QUAAAAAAAACK!!!!” goes the duck.

CHRIS: What the fuck is a duck doing deep in the bowels of the Earth? I look around for the initials “A.S.”

MATT: No initials. You don’t know why it’s here. (rolls some dice) It’s dead now, though. Beremgast squashed it.

KEITH: Good job, Beremgast. Now we can’t ask the duck what it was doing deep within the bowels of the Earth, cuz it’s dead. (rolls dice randomly) Ooh! An 18!! I’m keeping this roll for when I need to hit someone in combat.

ZACH: Did the duck’s death cry alert anyone?

MATT: You don’t know. But so far nothing’s happened.

CHRIS: We continue following the Ranger. I have my bow out with an arrow ready to go.

ZACH. I have my halberd. It’s not like I can put it away.

KEITH: I don’t have any visible weapons.

CHRIS: Of course not. You’re far too cool.

MATT: OK, so you follow the cavern for a while and suddenly you turn a corner and see a big goblin carrying an axe. He’s looking around like he’s on guard duty. It doesn’t look like he noticed you. Strider moves up silently and—

CHRIS: Wait a sec…I had my bow out! I shoot the goblin.

MATT: You think it might be better to let Strider kill the goblin because if you miss he’ll yell and might bring all his goblin buddies running.

CHRIS: I won’t miss. Besides, I’m tired of this guy killing everything.

MATT: Fine. Make your roll.

CHRIS: (rolls dice) A 19, plus my offensive bonus, plus my magic bow’s bonus, plus my bonus for attacking a creature larger than me, plus my bonus for already having my arrow nocked and ready….an 87!!! He’s toast!

MATT: (through a mouthful of chips) Your arrow takes the goblin in the eye. He gurgles and flails around for a second, then collapses. He’s wearing armor and it would make a lot of noise if he fell, so Strider catches him on the way to the floor. “Nice shot,” he says to you.

CHRIS: Oh, thanks, Strider. I live for your approval.

ZACH: Thank God he was there to catch that goblin corpse, huh?

MATT: You move quietly around the corpse of the guard and follow Strider. You come to a large cavern. Inside are roughly 20 goblins. There’s no way around them, it seems.

KEITH: Forced combat. I love it.

ZACH: I rush in and attack the first goblin I meet.

CHRIS: I pick a goblin and fire while I can still see, before mist-man starts his shit.

MATT: OK, Strider fires 6 arrows at once from his bow.

KEITH: I cast my Mist spell. Wait a sec- 6 fucking arrows?

MATT: He’s good. Now you know why the elf-king sent him with you.

ALL (but MATT): WHATEVER!!!

MATT: Ok, make your rolls. (all players roll dice) OK, Beremgast runs up and cuts a goblin in half before he knows what hits him. Disgusting goblin ichor sprays the walls and covers his halberd. The goblin’s entrails are flung about like wet ropes. The remaining goblins look up in horror (CHRIS makes the goblin-in-terror face), just in time to have Strider’s arrows fall into them. He hits with four and four of them go down—

KEITH: Only four? The guy’s slipping.

MATT: I meant six.

CHRIS: What about MY arrow?

MATT: Yours hits a goblin in the eye. He dies. The rest of them charge.

KEITH: Is my mist spell taking effect?

MATT: Yeah, it’s getting cloudy in here.

ZACH and CHRIS: Great.

MATT: OK, next round. The goblins are charging. One will be able to attack you this turn, Lumpy. You too, Beremgast. Strider gets another six arrows ready. What do you guys do?

CHRIS: I run towards the goblin and tumble.

ZACH: I try and kill another goblin with the backswing.

KEITH: I catapult myself through the mist in a series of acrobatic flips designed to distract the enemy. Let me know if they’re distracted. I rolled an 18, remember?

MATT: You need to roll again. That was like 10 minutes ago. In fact, all of you make your rolls.

KEITH: Fine. Whatever. (rolls dice) An 18! What are the odds?

MATT: Ok, Keith, your wizard flips like Mary-Lou Retton and comes to a stop in the middle of three goblins. They’re so impressed and confused by the mist and your physical prowness—

CHRIS: ProWESS. –WESS.

MATT: Whatever. I say prowness. The goblins are distracted. What do you do?

KEITH: OK, I need you all to stand up for this.

CHRIS: Oh, for fuck’s sake…

ZACH: (sigh) (the players all stand up and play halts while they arrange themselves in the formation of the three goblins currently facing KEITH’S character).

KEITH: OK…the first thing I do is throw a front kick at the first one like this, trying to catch him in the throat. (KEITH mimes the kick in slow motion, aiming for MATT’S throat), then , I spin in place like so, and whip my heel around to crash on the side of the goblin’s head who’s behind me (again with the miming, this time towards ZACH). Then, finally, I whip my legs around and throw TWO kicks to the face of the third goblin to my right, one with each leg, like so (KEITH demonstrates this as well, aiming two kicks towards CHRIS’S face.) Got it? (The players resume their seats. There is much shaking of heads.)

CHRIS: That’s FOUR kicks in 3 seconds. There’s no way you could do that.

KEITH: I was slowing it down to demonstrate. I COULD’VE done it faster.

ZACH: Bullshit.

KEITH: I could! I once got into a fight with a guy who could throw 7 kicks in 2 seconds! We called him Quick-Kick!

MATT: Isn’t that a GI Joe guy?

KEITH: I don’t know…but that’s what we called him. I almost lost, he was so good. (The players stare at KEITH blankly.) What? You don’t believe me?

ZACH: Okaaaay…. So anyway, I guess if Strider can fire 6 arrows a round anything’s possible. Beremgast makes his swing. (rolls dice) A NATURAL 20!!! YESS!!!!!! (Zach jumps out of his chair and cracks his head on the support beam of the house. He falls to the ground, stunned. Play halts while the players determine if ZACH needs stitches. He doesn’t.)

CHRIS: I make my roll too. I fire my bow as I’m tumbling.

MATT: (looks at his watch) OK: Here’s what happens: Lumpy charges into the goblin, tumbling. The goblin swings his rusty sword and it whistles over Lumpy’s head. The hobbit comes out of his roll and fires an arrow directly into the goblin’s eye at point blank-range. The goblin dies.

ZACH: (imitating Scarface) Beremgast says “Say hello to my little friend!” Get it? Little...‘cuz he’s a hobbit…

MATT: Meanwhile, Hithrandir catapults through the mist in a series of acrobatic flips designed to confuse the enemy, which it does. Then he drops three goblins with his lightning fast kicks. You hear the sound of goblin necks breaking like dry twigs.

CHRIS: Good one.

MATT: Beremgast swings his halberd in a wide arc and with a mighty swing cuts through the bodies of 3 goblins all at once!! The rest are victims of Strider’s arrows. I have to go. (begins packing up his stuff)

KEITH: Wait! Is Pike here?

MATT: Oh yeah. He’s tied up in the corner. He looks dead.

CHRIS: I rush over to him.

MATT: (still packing up his stuff) He’s alive-barely, but that won’t last long. You remember the code words you have to say in order to get him to talk to you?

CHRIS: Yeah. “Pike,” I say…”Do you have any coal?”

MATT: He looks at you and with his dying breath says…”You…must…go…East…auaaaaughhhhh…”

(The players look at each other without comprehension.)

CHRIS: Could we have some more coal, please?

MATT: We’ll pick up here next time. I have to run. (Exit MATT)

ZACH: Well, that sucks. Wanna play darts?

KEITH: Don’t worry guys. I anticipated Matt’s desertion, and I invited some other friends: RILEY, OWEN, and CHUCK. They should be here soon…

---TO BE CONTINUED---

25 Things

This post is a shameless ripoff of a friend's blog, in which he did the same thing a week or so ago. But what the hell-it was a good idea and I've decided to copy it. Sue me if you can.

25 things you may (or may not) know about the Angry Piper

1. One of my most odious personal habits is this: I love sunflower seeds, but I hate cracking the shells to extract the good part, and besides, only the shells are salted. So, rather than spending a lot of time cracking, eating and spitting shells, I just cram a handful of seeds in my mouth and chew them all up, sucking out the good part and spitting out the woody, pulpy residue. It's very gross. It looks like something you would line a hamster cage with and afterwards I'm liable to spend the next 5 minutes spitting out small slivers of shells, but by then I'm ready for another mouthful.

2. 5 years ago, I didn't drink beer (I didn't drink at all, in fact) and I weighed 40 lbs. less. I also exercised regularly. I think there may be a connection somewhere.

3. My heroes (or at least people who inspire me greatly) include: Harlan Ellison, Paddy Keenan, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., J.R.R. Tolkien, and William Shakespeare. 4 out of 5 of them are, or were, writers. My hero used to be Bruce Lee. I feel I've grown.

4. I was an asshole in high school. Some would say I'm an asshole still, but I was really an asshole in high school.

5. If I had my life to live over, I would have started playing bagpipes earlier. I also would have started writing earlier. And I probably would have tried to be less of an asshole in high school.

6. I have over 6,000 comic books. That number is decreasing, but not as quickly as I would like. I can't begin to guess their value. It's a lot.

7. I have a very close friend who I am a little afraid of. And no, it's not you, Malach.

8. I like big butts and I cannot lie.

9. If there is one relationship in my life that I could go back in time and try again, it would be the one with my brother. We get along great now, but it wasn't always so. I regret that.

10. One of my biggest pet peeves, right up there with telemarketers and popup windows, is the fact that when I go to the freakin' deli for a pound of turkey I end up paying for half a pound of turkey and half a pound of water.

11. I couldn't possibly choose my favorite movie. Nor could I choose my favorite book. I think people who can do either haven't seen enough movies or read enough books.

12. My local newspaper is horrible. It's bad enough it's written at the 3rd grade level, but it also routinely contains spelling errors and the directory is often wrong. For example, if you're looking for Want Ads and it says it's in section C4, try checking D2, because it has just as much of a chance of being there. Once, years ago, I took a big red magic marker and corrected all the mistakes I found, then put the paper in a manila shipping envelope and addressed it to the editor. He has yet to respond.

13. My boss is such a piss-poor manager that when I apply for another job I will list my current postion under "supervisory experience", because every day for the past two years he has shown me what NOT to do in order to be an effective leader.

14. My favorite superhero, hands-down, is Spider-Man, and has been since I was 13. However, if I could BE any one superhero, I'd pick Superman, because hey-he's freakin' SUPERMAN.

15. I was once in a commercial for a comic shop. In that commercial, through the magic of special effects (a firecracker and a mask), my head exploded. Yes, I still have the commercial. No, you can't see it.

16. Two years of working with adolescent girls has reinforced my conviction that I never want children. Ever.

17. Two places I can literally spend all day in: a used book store and a comic shop. And I do mean all day.

18. When I was in college, I deliberately rented every Linda Blair movie I could get my hands on. I'm still not sure what that was all about. While I can't say for sure what my favorite movie is, I can certainly say Linda Blair wasn't in it. My friend Roland has a picture of himself standing with Linda Blair at Spooky World (she's quite short). She autographed a can of pea soup for him.

19. I, along with three friends who are no doubt reading this blog, once sculpted a 4' high erect penis, complete with scrotum, out of snow (I have pictures). We did this on the front lawn of my friend's house. At some point during the night, the snow turned to rain, melting the penis. My friend's father got up to go to work very early in the morning. To this day, we are all unsure if he saw the penis in its erect or flaccid state, and we're all too scared to ask.

20. One of the songs I remember most vividly from my elementary school music class was Don Gato, the saga of the fat cat who fell off a roof. I was sure that I was the only one who remembered this song, until a friend told me she remembered it too, and dug the lyrics out of cyberspace for me. We did not go to school together, and I didn't meet her until we were both in our late 20's. Funny little world, ennit?

21. I hate hate HATE Bob Seger with the white-hot intensity of 1000 suns. If I never hear Old Time Rock & Roll again, it will be too soon. I don't know why it has been consigned to every wedding I have attended since 1985, but it makes me feel like I'm in hell every fucking time I hear it.

22. I, too, love roleplaying games. My favorite would be Dungeons & Dragons, even after all these years. The most intense roleplaying game I ever participated in was a Vampire: The Masquerade game run by my friend Chris, and it was a great time. But when I think of the best rpg times in my life, I'm in a basement with a non-regulation pool table, dart board, and three friends who drank way too much caffeine-free coke and made me laugh so hard I almost pissed my pants, and it's 2 am and we're on our third game of the night, with one more to go (Boot Hill, of course!) ere we sleep. Thanks, guys.

23. My favorite Disney movie is Beauty and the Beast, mainly becuse of the wicked cool library the Beast has in his castle, but also because it's a great movie.

24. I have a weakness for blaxploitation films. Coffee, The Big Bird Cage, TNT Jackson, Dolemite, Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's son-in-law, Black Samurai, Shaft in Africa, Blacula, Superfly, Avenging Disco Godfather...I love 'em all. And no, they're not politically correct. I also have a full run of Power Man comics, the first black superhero ever to get his own magazine, back in the 1970's. It's about as good as you'd expect.

25. I had an ex-girlfriend about ten years ago who used to hound me mercilessly about the fact that I didn't share my personal problems with her. The truth is, I didn't really have anything I needed to share, but she didn't believe that. One day, after a particularly annoying hounding session, I confessed that I did indeed have a problem that I could use some fresh perspective on. To make a long story short, after telling her for about 15 minutes that I felt I could trust her, that we'd come so far in our relationship that she would understand me, that I desperately needed someone to listen and not judge me, blah blah blah.... I told her my problem.
I told her I was a werewolf.
It's the only time a girl has ever punched me in the face, and I guess I deserved it. In an unrelated story, that same girl has disappeared off the face of the Earth, and I've tried finding her several times, just to see what she's up to. Oh well.

Perhaps it's for the best.

Automated Menu

Thank you for calling Keith's relationship hotline. Keith would monitor the call, but most likely he doesn't care enough to do so since he only cares about himself. If you are a current, soon-to-be ex-, or ex-girlfriend of Keith's and wish to lodge a complaint, or if you are unfortunate enough to be interested in becoming the first and making your way through all three of these stages in the most emotionally painful way possible, please feel free to use our touchtone menu:

If you wish to complain about Keith in any way, please press 1 now.

If you wish to congratulate, praise or otherwise flatter Keith, press 2 now.

1

You have indicated you wish to lodge a complaint. This is hardly surprising as #2 exists only to save Keith's feelings (pointless, really, since he doesn't have any). Please select from the following menu. For your convenience, these are listed from most common to least common complaints:

If you wish to complain that Keith doesn't see you enough and/or spend enough time with you because he's reading, writing, playing and/or listening to bagpipes, or just engaging in "alone time," please press 1 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith is somewhat reclusive and jealously guards his personal space and is not comfortable entertaining guests (including you) at his home, please press 2 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith is incapable of even the most basic form of love and is emotionally dead inside, please press 3 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith seems to call you more out of a sense of obligation rather than a genuine desire to hear your voice and make needless small-talk for as long as you wish in order to feel validated as a person, please press 4 now.

If you wish to complain that you have a better chance of digging a hole to China with a plastic spork than getting Keith to open up and reveal his true self to you, please press 5 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith doesn't want to be responsible for anyone or anything but himself and is incapable of looking at your future relationship with any kind of permanency, please press 6 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith will never marry, live with, or sire children with you because he loves his solitude far too much and will no doubt die alone amidst thousands of old books, most likely wearing a moth-eaten sweater and a kilt, only to be discovered due to the foul stench that escapes his putrifying body, please press 7 now.

If you wish to complain that Keith has far too many female friends, some of whom he's had a "history" with, and that he should no longer be friends with them because they make you insanely jealous, regardless if the "history" is only in your mind and he's known the friends for 20 years and has only known you for 2 hours, please press 8 now.

For all other complaints, including any combination of the above, or if you are so angry with Keith that you either don't know where to begin or couldn't possibly choose from so narrow a list of reasons why, please press pound now.

#

You have indicated you have a complaint or complaints not specifically covered above. Rest assured you are not alone, and that Keith has heard many variations on the above complaints from many different sources. It is due to the high volume of complaints that this line was established. Please do not think your call will be ignored.

Keith is always challenged and refreshed by suggestions on how he can be a better person and live a more fulfilling life. Thank you for your call, and please feel free to leave a comment.

DISCLAIMER: This post was not prompted by ONE person exclusively, but rather based on a pattern and history of complaints dating 1986 - present.

The War on Terror

For my grandparents' generation, the question you could be sure everyone knew the answer to was "Where were you when the War ended?" For my parents' generation, it was "Where were you when you heard Kennedy was shot?"

For ours, it will forever be "Where were you when the Towers fell?"

I know where I was, as, I suspect, do you. I was in the art room at the screenprinting place where I worked. I didn't see them fall; it would be days, believe it or not, before I saw the famous footage of the planes crashing into the buildings (I didn't have a TV at the time). I heard it on the radio-heard the exact moment when the first tower collapsed straight from Peter Jennings. Up until that moment I honestly thought there was no way a plane could have destroyed one of the Trade Towers, but back then I didn't know just how hot jet fuel burns.

For months afterwards, I had a small American flag on my car like so many of you. I was all about finding those responsible and making them pay through the ass. We knew who they were, and we knew where they were. I endorsed bombing the Christ out of them until they were dead, every last one of them. For a while, that's what we did.

Then we fucked it all up.

Today, four coordinated explosions targeted London's Transit System. While they certainly didn't cause as much damage or loss of life as the 9/11 attacks, they did enough. At first, people didn't know who was responsible, and the IRA was suspected. They were quickly ruled out as likely suspects, however, once the British government thought about it for a bit: the IRA, despite their heinous history of attacks on British civilians, are too smart to blow themselves up along with their targets. Suicide bombers they aren't. No...that particular trait is characteristic of some folks who should be familiar to us by now...they blew up 2 of our embassies in Africa. They toppled the Twin Towers and aimed a plane at the Pentagon and, lest we forget the other Americans on the plane bound for Chicago, crashed that plane into a field in Pennsylvania. They have publicly claimed responsibility for all these acts and also were responsible for Metro bombings in Madrid, Spain. You know who I'm talking about: Al-Quaeda.

Didn't we try to eradicate these dickheads back in 2002? Isn't their leader a 6'6" tall conspicuous-looking fellow who needs DIALYSIS for Christ's sake just to stay alive? Isn't his face the most hated face in America? Doesn't everyone know who he is? WHY HAVEN'T WE CAUGHT THIS FUCKER YET? Because we STOPPED LOOKING, that's why!!!

Christ, I'm pissed.

Outlined below is my plan to fight the War on Terror. Believe it or not, it doesn't include bombing "those people" back to the Stone Age. At least not at first. See, I'm one of the more enlightened folks who tries to think things through and who tries to limit his stereotyping to a minimum. In other words, not all Arabs are terrorists, much like not all Asians are geniuses, not all Blacks are gangstas, not all White Americans are George W. Bush.

First step: recognize, America, that the War on Terror and the War in Iraq are not the same fucking thing, despite what our President tries to make you believe in pointless, vague speeches made from military bases. We went to war in Iraq, according to our President, because of a "clear link" between Al-Quaeda and Saddam Hussein, and because of suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and because Iraq posed a "clear threat" to the security of our Nation, and because, lest we forget, Saddam tried to kill our President's Dad (our current President's words, not mine). Well, there was no link. (There probably is NOW, but that's another story. See below.) There were no WMDs. And Iraq has never attacked the USA. And now, we're neck deep in that shit over there, and it's all our fault.

What we should have done was continue hunting Bin Laden and flush out every last Al-Quaeda motherfucker in the world, not drop the ball mid-game and start a war somewhere else for shady, monetary motives, hoping to capitalize on John Q. Public's gullibility and general idiocy to win support for our actions. But that's what we did, folks. And what was the result? Now everyone with a hair across their ass about the USA (and that's a LOT of people), have a concrete motivating force to join a terror network, and Iraq is that force. We had the support of most of the world when we went after the assholes who attacked us. When we went after a country with NO credible links to our enemies in order to satisfy a grudge (and get our hands on summa dat black liquid gold) we lost what support we had.

That's where we are. Wanna know how we should fix it?

First: apologize. (Never happen, I know...but perhaps the end of this administration may signal a change in foreign policy. I hope so.)

Second: Stop rubbing our big American cock in the world's butter dish and expecting everyone to be cool with it. Get the hell out of Iraq as soon as possible and make sure they have a fighting chance to defend themselves against the clusterfuck we caused there.

Third: work on repairing our relationships with the rest of the world. In fact, this should be number one, as we should be doing it NOW.

Because the only way we are going to truly win a war on "terror", which is an ideology and not a nation, is to make "terror" UNACCEPTABLE. We need to band together...the entire WORLD needs to band together as one, but we can start with the EU and us (I'm sure the conversations at the G8 summit have turned to other things besides the Kyoto accords since Tony Blair returned). And here's how we do that: Any Terrorist attack ANYWHERE is treated as an attack on EVERYONE. None of this "I'm France and I don't want to get involved" shit. Then, spare no expense in tracking the fuckers down. Make an AntiTerrorism League of nations with some fucking balls, meaning no country in the League gives them shit or red tape-the main focus should be eradicating terrorism. And here's how you enforce it: Any country that harbors a terrorist, and we can prove they are doing so, goes on a list. Until they turn that terrorist over, NO NATION in the ATL trades with that country. Yes, I know it will hit the pocketbook, but I firmly believe there is nothing in the world that cannot be found in more than one place. Buy your oil someplace else...and lets not kid ourselves here-the biggest threat trade-wise is oil. But we produce oil. Russia and China have tons of oil, and every nation has stockpiles of it. We may have to conserve, but after a while those oil-producing nations would have to sell oil to each other in order to make a buck, and supply and demand rules, folks. Example: I am oil producing country A. You are oil producing country B. We are crying in our beer because no one in the world will buy our oil because we insist on harboring terrorists. Guess we'll have to sell to each other...but wait, why would I want to buy something I already have in spades? Maybe we should turn that terrorist over after all.

It's crucial to get the rest of the world on board with this idea, and that's tough given our dick-waving foreign policies. If we don't, it'll just be seen as more big-sticking by the USA and they'll sell their goods elsewhere and the only one taking the hit will be us. But if we succeed in this, sooner or later there won't be many places left for these terrorist assholes to run to. And when they're all in one place...

That's when we drop the fucking hammer and the ATL gets nasty. Now it's not give them up or we won't trade. Now it's give them up or we'll come get them. ALL of us, as in every nation in the ATL. It's not a war with just the US, it's a war with the world. Can you handle that shit, bitch?

A final word to the people of London: Bravo. I've never been a fan of The British Government, I suppose it's the Irish in me. But when I heard the reports that people in London were more annoyed than panicked at the attacks on the transit system, I say again: Bravo. I suppose being shelled continuously during WWII has made Londoners of stern stuff. You have my respect and my sympathies for this latest cowardly bullshit. It feels like it happened here.