All Hell Breaks Lose

Arriving home from my 3-day immersion, I find that everything is in chaos and disarray.

Well, there's the coup going on at Makati, for one (and it's really nice of the renegade military to hijack a hotel of all places to be their public base of operations).

For another, my room stinks of bug spray because mom had the place without my permission (so if it isn't second-hand smoking that kills me, it'll be insecticide, and that's another problem I can blame on mom).

And there's this 223 emails flooding my inbox.

Right now, I'm just waiting for a storm of earthquake to end it all.

One Dozen Mosquito Bites

Perhaps that's the worst complaint I have about the immersion, although it was really a nice experience and the family that adopted me were really kind.

And as much as I want the one dozen mosquito bites to be an exagerration, I'm sorry but it's not. There's like half a dozen on each arm, and three in my left middle finger alone.

Of course I've always known that I'm the favorite of flies. I mean if I were in a room of a hundred people, all of the flies would probably flock to me. Unfortunately, that theory was proven during the immersion. I mean my family didn't have any mosquito bites. My partner during the immersion didn't have mosquito bites. It was only me, me, me. And it stings.

Also subsisted on something like 1.5 liters of mineral water and my muscles probably started to develop out of pumping water. It's only now that I really got to appreciate faucets: the house I stayed in was deprived of such luxuries. That's probably the worst of it. Well, that and half of those in the immersion were smoking like there was no tomorrow.

Ignorance is Bliss

At around the time the coup was starting in Makati at Saturday evening, those of us in the immersion were having our bonding experience (yey! two cute girls in the immersion, although one of them already has a boyfriend).

Bonding involved smoking (unfortunately), karaoke, card games, getting drunk, mind games, and sleeping at 3 am despite the fact that we had to go to mass at 6 am (the latter didn't happen though).

And when we finally arrived at Ateneo, the report came in that there's no classes tomorrow (assuming further school days aren't cancelled, that's a total of three class days since Thursday is a school holiday [this is me being the shallow student that I am]). Unfortunately, some of us in the immersion were having problems getting rides home or even their parents stranded on the other side of Luzon. And it's probably worse for those who participated in the immersion involving far flung places.

Vin was Right

Well, braved the streets of EDSA (which was closed) because I had to get the latest copy of Dragon magazine. So amidst protesters, lots of police, and a really long path to Megamall, I did manage to go to Comic Quest to buy the magazine (Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide is also available).

And of course, my brother was freaking out that I actually walked all the way there just to get a magazine.

At least it wasn't as suicidal as say, going to Makati. But I probably would if A Different Bookstore came out with all three D&D rulebooks, discounted.

ADB/Ink and Stone Having a Sale

'nuff said. (Unfortunately, they're closed because of the coup.) Moving on...

Philippine Irony

One of the text sprayed along the walls near Mega Mall was "Gloria Resign" and "Return Law to the Philippines". The latter statement, I am surprised. I mean so by breaking the law, you're returning law to the land?

And please, if it's just another protest to have things go your way just because it didn't turn out the way you want to, it's not exactly called being lawful. I mean policies shouldn't be enacted just because you have the most political power, or the most influence (like say, EDSA II), or the most number of participants (EDSA III).

But that just shows you what kind of "democracy" we have here in the Philippines. And why it doesn't work.

But for good or for ill, I still love this country, and I'm not one of those people that's suddenly going to abandon it. I know the ills of this nation, but a good chunk of my life has been spent here and I can't imagine myself anywhere else (sure, I could use a vacation of two but...).

Corruption

Well, Elbert finally played RPGs yesterday. I guess nothing motivates you more than the fact that your significant other is into RPGs. I just wish Tobie could have been the game master for Elbert's first experience in Vampire RPGs but we can't be choosers.

On a side note, somebody told him that if he wanted to play a "real RPG", he should play D&D. As much as I love D&D (especially since that's the system I'm most familiar with), it's not THE RPG. I mean sure, it's the first (just like Lord of the Rings pioneered the adult fantasy genre but that doesn't necessarily make it the best) but I don't think it encompasses the entire concept of RPG gaming. It's as stupid as recommending all the anime you like to a complete stranger. Sure, he'll like some but what's good for you isn't necessarily good for the other person.

And to put it bluntly, D&D is more of a hack and slash type of game compared to Vampire which is more "socially oriented". I'm not saying which one is better but a good balance of the two should be good and the difficulty is finding the appropriate mixture for different kinds of people.

So to encompass RPGs in one broad statement such as "play D&D to know what true RPGs are" is rather... horrible. Terribly horrible.