The Satirical Rogue

Due to the advent of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, the World Department Store Floor Wax Zamboni Jousting Championships are back on!

After a hiatus of several years, the WDSFWZJC Council have agreed to allow people to gather en masse in a single location to fight the spread of COVID! At the Charles U. Farley arena in Los Angeles, California (which is in the United States of America), twelve nations gathered to challenge one another in the lethal, but entertaining sport of Department Store Floor Wax Zamboni Jousting!

Spain took the gold medal with twelve wins and no losses, while the Skandinavian team, made up of Norweigan, Finnish, Sweedish, and Danish pastries, took the silver with ten wins and two losses. The bronze went to Japan, with eight wins, three losses and an anime tentacle-porn themed maid cafe which drew over 11,000 people from surrounding countries and packed the stadium to bursting.

Coming in dead last was America, with two wins, nine losses, and a six-hour speach by Donald Trump, in which nothing was said repeatedly. Trump’s handlers, all of whom are incapacitated due to the novel coronavirus, were unable to reign in their orange-hued monstrosity, and received an official penalty from the referee, who then suffered a coughing fit, fell to the ground in agony and rose again as an undead servant of the Dark Lord, Sneezius.

Absent from the match was Italy, which was hit hard by COVID-19, and which was forced to seize the billions of Euros worth of floor wax zamboni equipment and sell it to the highest bidder in order to purchase more medical equipment and media coverage to fight the pandemic. Italian acting foreign minister Doug Marvin, who until last week was a tourist caught in the shuffle, said yesterday that the crisis was far from over, and that the public should stay home and play video games, vacuum their floors, and update their blogs.

For the first time in centuries, China was barred from the championships for mass media propaganda, in which Chinese Lord Prime Minister and Supreme Executive Emperor, Xi Jingpoo, assured his oppressed population that China had taken the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals, and that the Chinese Government was now in possession of six thirds of the world’s precious metals. The oppressed Chinese people cheered their leader on, despite the Prime Minister’s decision to raze the Hundred-Acre Wood and build back-to-back prisons to house the millions of unjustly detained journalists who have been arrested during the COVID crisis.

Finally, the former Russian vassal state, Kablamastan, once a champion of Floor Wax Zamboni Jousting, failed to attend the Championships this year, as their entire medical community has come together to combat COVID-19 in a massive cooperative which would not have been possible if the Kablamastani people had gone out and partied like a bunch of twits. Instead, every person in the nation has barricaded themselves in their homes, expecting the Zombie Apocalypse. Kablamastani Prime Minister Zoopak Zarkblast attempted to assure his people that the End of Days was not upon them, although the fact that he posted this announcement on the bulletin-board outside his office did little to quell their fears.

Stay tuned for next year’s World Department Store Floor Wax Zamboni Jousting and Zombie Whacking Championships, coming to live (and possibly undead) from Abu Dabi, Ethiopia!

If it weren’t for the Internet, I’d probably be leaning out the window, screaming at my neighbors to get off my lawn.

I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff online though, thus maintaining my feeble sanity: Working on yet another campaign setting; playing Astrox Imperium, and Minecraft, as well as playing a game of Arkham Horror on Tabletop Simulator with a group of like-minded friends.

Still, staring out the window at a world huddling together (as far apart as possible) in panic over an arguably non-living thing a billion times smaller than us seems a little odd, even to my fractured mind. Interesting that something so much smaller than us can be so devilishly dangerous. Even humans, the only predators to the immense oceanic cetaceans we know as whales, are only a few dozen times smaller than our prey. And while fleas and mites are significantly smaller than we, they are not nearly as deadly as something like COVID-19.

I suppose it’s just somewhat ironic that we should fear something we can’t even see. Though it then falls to the fear of the unknown; that eldritch terror that we feel deep in our bones at the thought of something that we either cannot, or must not, know.

Or maybe it’s just that the planet has a defense mechanism built into its biological structure that operates much like the antibodies that defend our bodies from disease. Perhaps the world has identified us as a cancer which must be wiped out, and it has sent its deadliest coronavirus yet to wipe us out.

Perhaps the world doesn’t know us that well. For even as we isolate ourselves, barricading us into our homes against infection, there are those who risk their lives for the benefit of the entire species. It is upon them we depend, and upon their sacrifice that our future is built.

So thank you to the first responders, nurses, and medical professionals who risk their lives, are apart from their families for an extended period and who work for the betterment of our nation’s health.

And screw those overly-wealthy individuals who horde money at the expense of our society. May their money be worthless, and their power be for naught. May they recede into history forgotten and unloved as the selfish robber barons of history are forgotten; their deeds, the only aspect of their worthless existence remembered, and relegated to the page of history books labeled what not to do.

It is one month into the Toilet Paper Panic of 2020.  COVID-19, also kown as “The Coronavirus” has taken over America, and now commands the might of the whole United States economy.

People have been quarantined in their homes, unable to leave due to doorknobs being removed by gremlins under the influence of the virus.  Windows are sealed closed with FlexTape®, and there is no escape.

It has been four years since my last post in this, my blog, and the last quarter of a decade has gone by swiftly as our nation is harrowed by the onslaught of the extreme hard right.  In 2016, not 9 months after my last post, Donald Trump was elected President.  This was not the will of the people, but rather because some damn fool went back in time to hunt dinosaurs and stepped on a goddam butterfly.

In addition, the nation has moved so far to the right that basic human rights (and needs) are considered “socialism,” and the wealthy 1% have succeeded in establishing the economic might to preserve their posteriors in positions of power.

Hindsight, as they have said for the past four years, is 2020, and this year, we have the opportunity to end the error of Trump, though the zombieless apocalypse may interfere in that too.

All in all, I long for the days of Reagan and Bush, when the plague on humanity was communism, and the Republican party didn’t revel in blood red fascism.  Now unfortunately, the phrase “better dead than red” has taken on a meaning almost completely contrary to its right-wing origins in McCarthyism’s heyday.

I suppose there are those who will call me “socialist” because I want people to have healthcare, because I believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are, if not cemented in the Constitution (it’s in Paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence), at least undeniable rights in any Democracy.

Instead, the rich and powerful have come to believe that the economy is theirs alone, and that those of us who are not in their exclusive “billions” club, are little more than cattle.

Of the five provisions of the preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America, there is no mention of wealth, no text which guarantees unlimited access to resources, or to land, or to the lives of the people. Instead, it attempts to “Form a more perfect Union” in five ways: Establish Justice, Insure Domestic Tranquility, Provide for the Common Defense, Promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

Is justice established?& When the President can violate the law without fear of prosecution?

Is domestic tranquility insured, with the people at each others’ throats thanks to what some call “freedom of the press,” and others call propaganda?

Is the Common Defense provided for, when we are slowly losing the right to defend ourselves?

Is the General Welfare promoted when people must work 2, 3, or even 4 jobs to support their families? And when debts outweigh the lives of those who owe them?

Are the Blessings of Liberty secured? When color is still a factor in determining the guilt or innocence of a suspect? When defense of oneself in court rather than accepting a plea bargain can inflict a far more serious penalty than is warranted? When the penalty for victimless crimes outweighs the penalty for violent crimes perpetrated by those in power?

America might just be dead. CORVID-19 may be the death knell that sounds throughout the lands, marking the end of the freedoms we once held, and the beginning of a new world undreamed of by the apocalyptic prophesies of Verne, Wells, Gibson, and Bradbury.

Or, we might come together and heal. We might stand against this, a most horrible disease, gird our loins and take up arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing, end it (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1).  We might emerge from this crisis stronger than we were when it began, and from that strength and unity form bonds stronger than those of the chain which bound the Fenris wolf, join hands as brothers and sisters and rise up from our own complacency like the legendary phoenix from its own ashes.

But personally, I think we’re fucked.

Happy New Year, everyone. It is I again, the Satirical Rogue who ponders the questions of the Universe and then forgets to write them down, thus they are lost forever in the Mists of Time.

It is now 2016, and I have not updated my blog in three months, leaving my readers (or reader if he’s still out there) wondering what I have been up to recently.

Well, I’ve been working on my game system, YARPS, Yet Another Role Playing System. Somewhat like other systems, it is not entirely new, but it deviates significantly from most games which involve polyhedral dice.

I’ve also been watching a lot of Netflix, and playing both Wildstar and Grav. I actually haven’t played World of Warcraft in several weeks.

On another field of battle, I’ve had my first major problem this year. I went out to my car to find that I had a flat tire. They’re relatively old tires, and I should probably get new ones, though I still have an exhaust problem I need to fix next paycheck… Oh the joys of automobile ownership in the 21st century. Still no flying cars, but all the problems we had last century…

And now Windows 10 is free. Free. I mean, what the heck? Dave¹ suggested that Microsoft is releasing 10 for free so people will have access to the Microsoft Store (kind of like the Apple Store or Google Play). This will allow micro-transactions to generate revenue for Microsoft. Still, I can’t believe, even with Satya Nadella’s new leadership, that Microsoft would offer something for Free…

This post wasn’t nearly as funny as I had hoped it would be. My sense of humor has suffered over the course of a few days of illness, and it is my hope that I can crack a few jokes in the near future.

I’ll try again in a while. I just hope it won’t be another three months…

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1. Yes, That Dave.

Aside from the 90° weather, today has been pretty uneventful. My computer is down, so instead of cleaning my apartment, I figured I’d post to my blog.

I’m posting utilizing my laptop, which is an older, slower but still reliable system running Windows Vista which works well enough to browse the web and post to my blog, but not so well that it can play games, do CAD, calculate the answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything… However, it works, and that makes it worth having.

Most of my readers (what, are there more than two now?) will likely know that I am not a Summer person. I don’t like hot weather, both because it sucks the life out of me like a vampire that just ate a whole bag of salt and vinegar potato chips and because in excessive heat, I sweat till I’m so dehydrated, I feel like a vampire that just ate an entire bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. In short, if you’re a vampire, avoid salt and vinegar potato chips.

Autumn is my favorite season both because it is cool and colorful and because it rhymes with “bottom” which tends to describe my role in my sexual escapades. At least the ones which don’t involve goats, cheese graters and pool noodles. Also, autumn is the time of year in which we celebrate Halloween, when we dress up in costumes, and I can blend in despite wearing SCUBA gear and an LED peacock hat that makes “gobble gobble” noises.

I also like winter, though to be honest, we’ve had some pretty mild winters in the past few years. A couple of rough ones, but nothing like what they occasionally get up in northern Westeros. Those winters are bad-ass. If Westeros had New Hampshire-like seasons, spring and fall would be pretty nice and all summer long, the Kingsroad would be nothing but hazard cones from Winterfell to King’s Landing.

Then again, there’s two nice things about summer. One, ice cream. True, you can have ice cream in the winter, but it’s just not quite as nice. There’s really nothing like an ice cream zweihander four feet high and dripping sprinkles. Also, swimming, canoeing and water-based recreation. This would probably include golf since the only real golf gear I use are a 9-iron, a sand wedge and a snorkel, and since I spend at least 80% of my time in a water hazard spear-fishing for my ball, I call golf a water sport. I’d have a putter too, but I’ve never gotten close enough to the green to use one. At one point, I actually sank a golf ball, and was pleased with myself until I was told that open manholes are not valid targets.

I guess I’m just not much of a sports fan. Even the World Cup has failed to get me excited, not just because I’m American, but because any sport which doesn’t involve night-vision goggles, flash-bang grenades and razor-wire fencing doesn’t really interest me.

And don’t get me started on curling. That sport desperately needs more WWII ordnance, strobe lights and a sudden-death timer that automatically starts lobbing napalm at the contestants. And an announcer that sounds like a lounge singer that’s on meth. Then I’d watch curling. Wouldn’t play though. Too dangerous.

Anyway, that’s all I can think to say for the time being. I’m going to grab a sandwich and glass of ice water, and maybe throw in a DVD…

Okay, hasn’t been long since my last post, but I’ve had a lot going on in the past weeks.

First, I’ve been meddling with my campaign setting, Amalthion and tabletop gaming system, YARPS (Yet Another Role Playing System), which is somewhat similar to traditional d20-based systems, but different in a large number of ways.

YARPS plays like a lot of other d20-based games, except that it uses only a single d20, though not in the same way as the True20® or Mutants and Masterminds® systems. I originally conceived of it to be a simpler system, though upon failing this, I simply attempted to make it a different system. If you’re interested in checking it out, it can be found here: YARPS

Second, I’ve been playing with a CAD-based map generating program called Campaign Cartographer 3, which is an extremely powerful, yet not very user-friendly tool. I’ve been struggling, but I’m managing to create some rudimentary maps for my system.

Third, I’ve been playing less World of Warcraft® of late, and have started playing a game called Wildstar. It’s similar in style to Warcraft, but extremely different in detail. I”m enjoying it so far, though it’s much more challenging, and due to my unfamiliarity with it, I’ve been making scores of mistakes. Still, it’s pretty cool for a sci-fi based game.

Finally, I recently had trouble with the wiki I mentioned above. Someone somewhere was registering two or three users an hour and adding pages to the wiki advertising everything from laxatives to erectile dysfunction medications. I figured out how to prevent further false registrations and deleted everything, but it took more than an hour to undo the damage.

If you’re doing a website or a wiki, check it regularly to make sure it’s not being hacked…

Anyway, that’s all I have to report right now. I’m off to do some chores I’ve been neglecting all week…