A Blog with a purpose to discuss important things in life, like politics on multiple levels (mostly swedish), music, movies and video games together with the challenges in my personal life (that is none actually, it's just a smooth ride, or is it?).
I was with most of my family in Örebro this weekend to watch a theather show with my sisters boyfriend in one of the rolls. A childrens play with a little viewer participation called "The Ballad of Sigyn the Dragonslayer". The story goes that the audiance is travellers in an inn where we meet two servatns to the throne and a wizard and witch, the last two telling us about the threat of Gnollerna (which I belive isn't based on gnolls) and then let us look on the daily life of the servants through some magic vision. There we see the princess Sigyn, a rebellious princess who wants to fight and a very feminim prince. Of course the conservative king (sisters boyfriend) don't approve this and tries to marry the princess with a knight and uses potions to make the prince more maculine. Of course it doesn't work, but the princess falls in love with the knight although she accidently sent him out to get the head of the dragon who terrorize town. They only find is burnt cape. The king have had enough and sends his son to once and for all rid the town of the dragon. Of course he gets in trouble and it is up to Sigyn with the help of the audience to save him.
Here begins the next session with the audience divided in two and the servants leading them around to different people for aid. The wizard gives all the children magic stones and a spell to fight gnollerna, the witch gives two potions (one to each group), the first a potion to bring people back to life and the other to scare gnollerna away (she also gave my group the gnoll spell since we were there first and finally we met the dwarf smith who gave us a sword and... something else to the other group (maybe a knife), I didn't hear what. During our tour of this part of the city gnollerna attacked twice and we recited the spell to keep them at bay until we could join the other group and then find the prince who was tied up. Using the anti-gnoll potion they ran of and he was released (with the knife maybe). We found the princess and the prince told us that the dragon was controlled by gnollerna. We went to an arena and there the dragon showed up (they did it like a chinese dragon puppet) who the princess killed with the sword. In the dragon the wounded knight was found so the fairy life potion was used. Back too the castle, king apologize everyones happy. The End!
Well, might be time for a sporadic post to commemorate over 10 000 views on the blog. If they are all one of the same person reading I don't know. So what should we discuss today? Well, we can write about the latest meltdown of Swedish politics that went down last week. The last couple of months the four oppositions parties had made a full-scale frontal assault and banded together to stop the raising of the state income tax (I've learned afterwards it was something down annually to counter inflation and all that although it was a bit higher than usual). These four parties were the left party, the social democratic party, the green party and the Sweden democrats. To achieve this, since they haven't planned on putting forward a single budget, was to break out this bit from the governmental budget and get a vote on it. This is seen by many as a break against the compromise that a budget must be voted as a whole as to avoid political chaos when it is a minority government and no one can muster a majority for an alternative. The opposition try to justify it with that it is allowed in order to ensure the finances of the state (which open a real can of worms since what is seen as the best for the state differs greatly and could lead to a social democratic minority government see their budget picked apart, and then we are not even disusing the implications for the red-green parties as they made a deal with the Sweden democrats)
This is the back-ground, the vote was last week and everyone expected the opposition to win since they have a majority. THEY LOST WITH ONE VOTE! The vote was cast and the result was 154 with the government and 153 with the opposition. How was this possible? First of the Sweden democrats had one member in New York for a political meeting and since they aren't involved the weighing principle he couldn't be done with. But the opposition still would have had a two vote majority. The second problem was that the party leader of the left was in the south of Sweden debating the school minister and a communication miss between the left party and the weighing committee failed to take one person away from the government side. They opposition still would have had one vote majority. Thirdly, two politicians from the social democratic party was in the area, but in the wrong building and missed the vote. Not anyone either, the party's stand in for their party leader who isn't voted into parliament and one of the veterans. After 1-2 months of boosting speeches they fail to deliver, becoming the laughing stock and showed some immense incompetence and failure to organize themselves. If the governmental parties are lucky this will throw such big doubt about the oppositions fitness to rule that the center-right parties win for a third time.
We return with the forgotten election as a precursor for the following elections next year, the church election of 2013. First of, I didn't vote since... it's kinda pointless and I don't know anything about what I'm voting for, which parties are in it (of the eight parliament parties there is only three that goes by there own party name, the other is just members of the party in the swedish church) or what they stand for. Doesn't help that I personally think that politicians should not have anything to do in the church to begin with, especially since there only tactic seems to be that people must vote to keep the Sweden Democrats away or when the youth leagues says that Jesus would have been voting for this party or that party (in this case it was SSU, the social democratic youth league). That doesn't really help me to go vote, more likely push me away... you know, rebel against society. But it's over now and the result is in... almost. As of writing there is still two districts left to count, but I wonder what takes them this long since there is just above 690 000 voters in the whole country (out of a voter population of 5,5 million people, also a decrees of over 200 000 from last election) and it was 19 hours ago the election closed, we finished counting the regular election at 1 AM. So people talks about a heightened voter participations, but it's probably more due to a lowered population than the actual 20 000 extra voters. Also the news was all over yesterday about more people in the booths than before and so on... which I call statistical bullshit die to the actual number of voters. My personal guess is that there is less voter booths (or whatever it's called), in the regular election there has to be at least 2000 voters in that booth (I guess to keep the election result secret) and with a loss of 200 000 members that probably means mergers to keep the numbers up in some of them, therefore the belief that there is more voters.
So result is SD doubled, the right-wing parties fall back, unaligned party lists goes forth while the red greens goes slowly upwards. What does that mean? I have no idea. I hardly even care. The only interesting part that this election showed that politicians and political scientist appearing in media doesn't know the routines of the election. How can they not? Should I be surprised when a local politician in Karlstad pressed charges of election fraud on my polling station (HA now I remember) and didn't understood the normal procedure of the election. In this case is the high number unqualified votes that later can be deemed as qualified. Why are there so many? Probably due to people writing the official party names like Folkpartiet, Moderaterna or the Green party, who all three isn't part of the election, but free liberals in the swedish church, burgios alternative (which changed earlier last year which could cause problems for the voters) and green party members of the swedish church. They are not qualified, but in the higher instance people understand what they attempted to vote for and will put that vote there. This was not understood by one of the more prominent professors in political science. How is it not? Has he never worked with the very foundation of the electoral system? This is why there exist conspiracy theorist that believe that we who manage the votes change the outcome by throwing away certain party votes and so on... when not even an educated political scientist bother to know this and all you need to do is sit down when the votes are counted since they are public. That simple! It might be boring waiting to midnight watching people count paper notes, but that is all. It might even strengthen the democratic foundation due to someone even thinking of doing it would have been caught red-handed. I might even say it's more important than go vote since this at least would strengthen the belief in the system compared to everyone feeling unsatisfied due to the election results.
Last update was probably the last for my DnD games for a while, or more likely ever. Nothing due to the group, sadly it's my own fault for not plan ahead when I had the time. At the end of this week I travel home to partake in the yearly crayfish party... and then I will probably remain there. After 7 years, I am forced back home. Not surprising, I stopped growing as a person 2 years ago when I entered the unemployment line, my whole life seemed so put on ice and now the transformation is complete. Broken, devastated. Nothing more than a husk of nostalgia and crushed dreams... damn that's depressing. I need something happy here otherwise its gonna seem like no hope at all. Umm... well... uhh... I'm going to Norway this wednesday! With the municipality, which will be the... last time with them... as well... Uhh, thats not helping.
So what will happen with this blog that have been devoid almost entirely of content and only saved by the weekly DnD summaries. I might start up what it was supposed to do, when it was relaunched in 2009 after a holiday break after my Washington trip in 2008, to discuss politics and the temperature is rising yet again with almost a year to the next general election and only 9 months to the European parliament election (and that's not even counting the church election in a month... I think). Hope we see each other then.
So the war of the cathedral is over thanks to me and the scum destroying the wall cannons, the red redemptions has overrun the rest of the mutant defenses. Avoiding further confrontation (as I only have 1 wound left) we find our way to the Red leader who gives us a small update and let us go to the medic. Were I regain 1 wound... lucky me. Well, better that than nothing like the scum who the medic botched to do anything, especially since he has a trait that makes him lightly wounded regardless of amount of wounds left. We at least can enjoy our stay for a while.
The others on the other hand is still in the heart of the cathedral, when the door closes and a warning is heard:
"Automatic Self-destruct sequence started. 5 minutes to detonation."
Makes you hear this music during this short segment:
The ribbins find a ventilation which they open with a chain-sword and rushes in. The cleric first that gets stuck in a corner and the psycher who has to push her so they can escape. He very sad for that since he got such a good roll on his agility test. As they run away, a silence suddenly breaks out, than a sound wave crushing everything in its way making everything white... than black (then green, then red and lastly blue... that was a joke we made, not that great).
Back in the infirmary we start to feel a trembling, everything shaking and we hit the floor (of course in character cursing the psychics name since that is the logical solution to believe). wall disappears then... silence. The red redemptions started a frantic search and rescue operation for those caught in the blast and we both knew that our friends were in the heart of the explosion. Still in bad condition we set out, me searching with the auspecs to find them. We find a huge pile of rubble with two life-signs in it so we start digging... for 1 hour and 10 minutes due to an extended test we both made at the same time for four successes. Meaning we had to roll 14 times... if you don't take into account we both used fate points as well pushing it to 17-18 rolls.
Meanwhile under the rubble the cleric awakens while the psycher has overstrained himself using so many psychic powers during the cave and raid on the cathedral so he lost conscious. The cleric wakes him up and lights a candle to gain some light. Around them they can hear the sound of digging sounds... not above them, but besides them. Some rodents of some kind. One even rears its ugly head and get a bullet in it from the psychics revolver. To get help the psychic decide to send a flair to alert us... and of course he gets a psychic phenomena, "the earth protest" or what it was called. An earthquake so that can explain why it took over 1 hour to dig in the pile as we fall forward and hit our faces. No damage for us though, it's a bit worse for the ribbins and they take a couple of wounds as their legs gets crushed. Now the air starts to thin out as well and they fall back into unconsciousness. In this moment me and the scum finds a sight of cloth in the rubble and uncovers the psycher who points us toward the cleric who don't breath when we uncovers her. We turn to the psycher who at the moment is our only medical trained personal at the moment and lift the rubble from his kegs and he crawls toward the cleric and does CPR in order to revive her. After that he instructs me to make a spleen for his legs since my intelligence is so much higher than the scum... didn't do him any good though so the scum and I have to pick them up and carry them to the infirmary. They get patched up a little and are rewarded some extra supplies and a truck so we set out to finish the last side-quests.
That includes searching for the friend to the tech-priest that gave me the auspecs. We locate his house, but no one answers the door and it's blocked. The psychic is resting in the truck due to his fatigues so me and the scum push the cleric inside so she can take the rubble away from the door. While clearing away she finds a man dead inside, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She stops to look under his robes and she sees that one of the legs have been crushed and taken away. She hurries up to get the rubble away and the rest of us can enter. We search the body and the room finding an id-card on the man and a golden case with a chant written on it that the thief pick up. In the blood we discover footsteps going toward the stairs to the second floor. As I obviously recognize this as a sign of the mutant who did the same to me, but instead of a leg it was the arm, Archimedes Noxt. Still severely wounded after a long battle we prepare the best we can as we climb the stairs. While walking we hear rapid metallic sound right at the corner at the end of the stairs. The scum (having the highest defenses, armors and life) walks first at something is thrown toward him and as he fails his rapid reaction he is hit in the face with... paper from a writer hooked into a couple of monitors and auspecs. We find a window that is open and assume Noxt left there a long time ago so I pick up all the papers I can find and bring it with me to the base. On the way back I sit in the back and holds the tome I got from the cathedral and warns the ribbins that it might get out of hand. The psychic gets suspicious and warns me not to read it, telling him straight up that this is the only chance I got I open the book. I don't read it, somehow its content is directly transmitted into my mind. A story of Logar, the first to betray the emperor (I think, I'm not that good with the fluff of this world). Then a huge beast snarls at me in the book, zap, and he is closer, zap, and closer until he bite my throat. I scream in terror and awakens with the book closed. Insanity now risen to 21 and corruption of 5 so while the psychic scolds me I can't do anything else than laugh and talk about the knowledge of the universe I have and how their fears is keeping them away from progress.
At the base the scum returns the grenades since they clearly was to many faulty ones (jokingly we thought we should show this by pulling the pin on the last two we have and throw them with the others, worthy a comedy). I on the other hand returned to the tech-priest and gave him back his auspecs (which he scolded me on due to upsetting the machine spirit for forcing unwanted parts on it), the id-card and the data from his dead friends house. Apparently a environmental nut since had focused on the pollution levels and they have apparently diminished due to the war. How that worked I don't know. I also mentions the case that contains an unknown machine and he want me to bring it to him so I go and get the scum and wouldn't you know, they contain a pair of glasses, how nice. With enhanced dark-sight, + 5 literacy and the case is even psycher resistant (that one was probably due to me asking since it had a chant on it and the glasses would very likely be destroyed by a cry of the banshee anyway). All that fixed we give our report to the commander and gets transported to a shuttle to take us back early to the inquisitors ship. Due to segregation policies the ribbins is in the back and the scum not far away while me, a respectable adept of the empire sits in the front with the tome in front of me. I hear high heels against the floor and a women sits down besides me. Beautiful if it wasn't for a scar across one of her eyes that have gone blind.
"Do you have it?"
"Yes, here it is!"
"We promised you the knowledge of the universe as thanks for getting us this, so what do you want to know?"
"... who am I?"
And that is how we end this session and this part of the campaign. Awesome is it not? So filled with clichés, but goddamned it, it's fantastic.
So before we began this session I just want to inform you that I bought an extra wound (more or less HP) in a Sound Constitution upgrade, totaling my wounds at 13. This is important. We started were we left of, a scream of agony. We geared up and run toward the escape tunnel, which of course have the enemy guarding it. A huge living machine that I can only describe as Devastator from Transformers, with a drill for the left hand and a bulldozer for the right. An epic battle ensues as the scum and cleric both flame the creature and in rage it fills the cave with fumes. I take a shot with my shotgun, rolling a righteous fury and and end up dealing 21 damage to the left arm (without accounting for his defenses and toughness, brining the actual damage down to 13). It goes on for one more round and his chest explodes flinging his breastplate toward us, hitting me and the psycher and then falling on top of the cleric, pinning her to the ground as the oils catches fire and heads toward her. The scum tries to lift it, but fails before she has escaped and then have to slippery hands to do it again. The psychic focus more on healing himself so it's left to me. And for some reason I gain super human strength as I lift the arm up and she crawls away, the scum pick her up and we run away from the ensuing explosion.
Quick healing we run towards the secret passageway into the cathedral (I want to point out that during the battle I used 2 fate points, which I didn't have to spend since I rolled a 9 both times, awesome session so far). We find it, but it's blocked by a wall... and here we stand for a while arguing what to do. So I sacrifice one of my fate points and get the clue, "smash it in". No speak friend and enter I can see. Well it works, while going through the corridor the psycher decide to help me searching for the writing kit of the saint, which we find and I take with me. We arrive at the cathedral and divide the group as there feels to be something important down here, but we are pressed for time as the red redemptionist already started the attack, The psycher and scum heads up to the wall while I and the cleric find the archive. The archive consist of servitors walking around, almost all broken down and a lot of cherubs hanging on the shelfs. I feel a pulling sensation from within the archives and I walk there, more insane than ever. I find a door, opens it and in there is a case with purple mist. Without thinking (to be fair I did, but I'm temporarily insane at the moment so) I open the lid and grabs the book inside with my mostly good right hand... and it begin to freeze as the preserver machine did its job. Screaming in pain the cleric rushed forward and destroyed the machine. Holding my hand until I could feel it again I grabbed the book once again. The sound of screaming cherubs behind the door. I grabbed my shotgun, kicked the door open and blew them away and began to run to the exit. There the cleric ran before me and I grabbed the closest shelf and dragged it before the door and then closed it.
The others headed for the wall and started head-shooting the gunners on the cannons and released a mech on the battle field, hopefully turning the tide to our favor. We teamed up again headed to destroy the rest of the cannons, unfortunately a most gruesome sight befall us, the sight of the tech-priest body, crucified and his head cut of and no where to be seen. The psychic located it and we divided the groups again, the cleric and psycher searching for the head and me and the scum taking out the last cannons. Easier said than done, first cannon easy, but sadly the second one had a psycher that throws fireballs at me and the scum, leaving me with 1 wound (that I want to remind you, I bought right before the session). Lucky for us he rolls a 9 himself and disappears. The small fry flee and we demolish the last cannons, suddenly the psycher reappears again, but the scum hits him with his hammer and throws him over the wall. To be sure we drop a grenade on him... that doesn't explode. We survived at least. The others found the chamber with the head, connected to wires... and talking. Saying the names of who he saw. And another tech-priest, connected to the head as well. Yada yada yada battle, they kill him, disconnect the head end of session. So I got one side-quest left, then we wrap it up. Hopefully without losing my last wound.
Well this took longer than expected, but better late than never, right? Let us begin with the GameCube game, Battalion Wars:
Released in 2005 I missed out on this game since I still lived at home, it wasn't until 2008 I bought it I believe. Didn't play it much since I went of to the US at the time and I also bought Super Mario Galaxy at the time. The problem when you get older is that you don't have time to play them, or if you are unemployed you don't have any money to play them. I also had to import it from Germany which is another problem with games, if you don't get it around release date, there is a big chance it's gone forever. Story is you follow an American look-a-like army as they fight a soviet stand in, but wait ze evilz german attack both and you must join up. Gameplay is a RTS-game with you taking control of any of your troops and lead them against the enemy. I wasn't that good, but with practice maybe, sadly no tv or the game near me. Sold enough to spawn a sequel.
Battalion Wars 2, or BWii (get it? For the Wii?) released in 2008 in Europe. As you can guess I got this one before the original one. You begin repelling an invasion on the Japanese by the British as they search for a super weapon. Afterwards you explore a similar action years before, but with the Americans and soviets. Then you switch perspective as the British fight back the Japanese and that is as far as I got. Some mission were you needed to clean a statue and giving air-support to the cleaning team. I couldn't steer the god damn plane with the Wii control. And now onward to the latest game in the series:
For the DS, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (or as in the states, Days of Ruin). Another one I didn't finish, I'm just at the end as well if I remember correct. Much darker than any other game in the series. Not much to say that the story of the single campaign is interesting in the human extinction and humanly engineered pandemic. Sadly I missed the original CO:s, none of them appear other than in the multiplayer (I presume, I can't check and it was a couple of years since I played it). Yeah, much shorter list and not much about any of the games due to me not finishing them.
