Say What????

I like to move it, move it!

2008-07-20T01:41:00.004+02:00

Well the first large chapter of the story is complete and as I promised the page will be moved over to Wordpress.com. I was very busy today and everything is up on there now. To keep it simple I used the same WebID I had over here. You will find it on http://saywhatwhatwhat.wordpress.com.

I would like to thank all the people that work on Blogger very hard. I love the platform, but I just need a bit more background information and stats. Thanks for the good times.

Hellhound!

2008-07-19T23:46:00.001+02:00

“How dare you desecrate the world with the devil’s sign? You shall all be banished from this sphere and cast into the fire of hell where you belong! Demon worshipers!” – “AAAWWW Enough already you crazy fool!”, screamed Ian and raised the young man of the ground and threw him down the hole in the floor. From down below a battery of insults could be heard from the priest, but Ian could not be bothered, for he was looking at the symbol that had been painted on the downside of the manhole cover and had provoked the violent reaction by the otherwise shy and reluctant young man. But he had no time to make anything of it, as suddenly the small boy ran back into the warehouse, and up the steps and with him came another wave of hot air. The boy started to bark and growl at them. But this was not the bark that a small child would emulate. It sounded like a giant dog and chilled the two vampires to the bone. The air around them started to really heat up now and it seemed like the boy was the source of the sudden increase in temperature. The doctor had also returned to the warehouse and ran up the stairs to join Ruthven and Ian, who looked like they had just come out of a sauna. It must have been thirty-five degrees Celsius by now and the temperature was still rising. Victor, who was unsettled by the odd behavior of his new protégé, tried to appease the boy. “What’s wrong? Nobody wants to hurt you. Calm down.” But the boy answered only with more severe barking and snarling noises and the three vampires could see how the floor around him started to glow in an orange tone. Ruthven, who had no intension of bursting into flames, drew a handgun out of his jacket and aimed it at the child. Even though he was making all those abominable noises, he had still the look of a scared little kid on his face. The Ventrue was just about to fire a shot, when Victor notice him and yelled, “What are you doing?” Ruthven jerked his arm as he fired the gun and hit a box sitting on top of a medium-rise wall behind the boy. The box was blown of the wall by the impact of the bullet and a loud splashing sound could be heard.

“You have no idea what you are up against, boy! You will pay for this! Do you hear me?” The pounding voice of Steward O’Leary was still resonating in David’s head. He had finally managed to overthrow the dominant personality of the insane priest and regain control of his actions. He tried to figure out where he was and in the darkness he couldn’t see much. Once again he regretted that he never paid attention during the Auspex teachings of his sire. The only light came from the hole in the floor and as he looked up he suddenly noticed that he must be standing in a round chamber, about as big as the platform above, as he could clearly see the whole disk. The platform was resonating in a dimly red light, as if it had been heated in a blast furnace and on the inside David could clearly discern the rest of the drawing that he had previously seen on the manhole cover. It was a large devil’s trap in the shape of a pentagram. ‘So that’s why the boy couldn’t leave the platform before we opened up the manhole’, he thought to himself. It suddenly dawned on him that the ramblings of his most insane personality must have had a point after all. The boy really seemed to be some kind of a demon.

Ruthven had in the meantime gotten an idea that might save their skins and so he yelled to Ian, “Hey Brunswick! There seems to be an opening to the waterfront behind that wall. Try to smash the little bugger into the water! Use your hammer!” The Brujah enforcer jumped into action and ran over to the boy. Next to the child, the heat was unbearable. If it hadn’t have been for his superior resilience, he would have fainted immediately. As he swung his sledge hammer, the skin on his hands and face started to blister and the end of his jacket caught on fire. With as much force as he could muster up under the circumstances he threw his hammer against the chest of the boy, who flew several meters and landed next to the mid-high wall. As if nothing had happened the kid stood up and climbed up on the wall. He turned towards them, spread his arms and started to his demonic bark again. The temperature had risen to an unbearable level and Ruthven saw no other way out than to shoot again, but this time with full intend to kill the little devil. He took aim and fired, hitting the child right in the chest. The moment the bullet impacted with the boy, a darting flame burst out of his chest and he fell over backwards into the sea. Seconds after the splashing sound, plumes of steam rose from the water and a loud fizzling could be heard. But this victory gave the three vampires no time to rest easy, as the whole building started to rumble. It felt like a strong earthquake and the roof panels started to come lose and crash to the ground. “Quick into the hole!”, yelled Victor and the three lunged towards the circular opening in the floor. One by one they jumped in, and not a moment too soon, as a giant metal panel crushed to the floor and closed the opening above them, burying them underground.

That’s it. This is how far we have played in the first session and I hope you enjoyed the read, as much as I enjoyed writing it all down. Quite a cliffhanger isn’t it? Well you will have to wait, same as we players, but I promise that I will continue the story as soon as we have finished our next session. Big thanks to my three fellow players and the game master Ben, who thought of this impressive story.

Trouble at the Harbor

2008-07-19T22:07:00.005+02:00

The four had just settled in, when the Seneschal pressed them to divulge all they had found out during their investigation. After a few minutes, the main conclusions they had drawn at the Old Church were laid out and Taylor finally told them, what had seemed so urgent when they had arrived. With a worried look, the Nosferatu informed them, “My informants have just told me that several strange reports have come in from the harbor area. Apparently they are connected to our deaths and I would strongly urge you to investigate immediately. Most reports came from the Surrey Commercial Docks, so you should probably start there.” Before anybody could reply, one of the guards came over and escorted them towards the door. The drive to the harbor’s dock area was a bit longer than expected and it gave the team a moment to revisit everything they had found out so far. David thought about the four dead vampires and the idea suddenly put the whole immortality issue into perspective. ‘Seems like it can be over pretty quickly after all’, he reckoned, but he tried to push those feelings to the back of his mind, as the upcoming task was much more important. The four got out at the entrance to the commercial dock area, a vast space with a seemingly endless number of large metal containers that had been neatly stacked and placed in regular intervals. Several homeless people were rummaging the area and as nobody of the four vampires knew what exactly they were looking for, they thought it might be a good idea to question the local populace. Ruthven took some money out of his wallet and flailed it in front of one of the men sitting next to a shopping cart and a large cardboard box and asked, “Hey you! Did you see anything interesting these last couple of hours? Hey I’m talking to you!” But the man was sound asleep and would probably not have woken up unless the world was about to end. Victor tried a more gentle approach, “Excuse me sir, you didn’t happened to see anything out of the ordinary recently, did you?” The guy he had spoken to, had a baffled look on his face and mumbled to himself. “What? How? So little… but so… terrible…” As he was saying this, he kept pointing in the direction of a large shipping warehouse. “I think we might as well start our search over there”, Victor concluded and the team went off in the direction of the enormous building. On their way over, David noticed several scorch marks on the surrounding freight containers that looked like small hands had burned into the metal.

The front gate of the warehouse was made of massive steel and it was closed with a padlock. On the bottom of the door was a small hole, not bigger than a cat flap would have been. It seemed to have been cut open with a blowtorch, but it was too small for any of them to slip inside. Ian who had brought his immense sledgehammer grumbled, “Please step aside. I’ll handle this, easy!” He heaved the hammer over his head and aimed a blow at the padlock. With an incredible force he struck at the lock and the impact with the metal door gave off a loud bang. The lock however seemed intact. Ian looked at it with contempt and seconds later the group could hear a clicking sound, as the small metal object snapped into two. Ruthven opened the gate, which creaked spookily and the four vampires entered the premises. ‘If somebody is expecting us, they sure know that we are here now’, David thought to himself. The front on the inside of the warehouse was fitted with shelves, which were packed with crates of all shapes and sizes. On the far end, the team could see a light burning on the left side, around a corner made by several high shelves. One of the crates had a familiar looking symbol on the side, a mask – the kind they were in Venice during the carnival. “Isn’t this the clan symbol of the Nosferatu?”, David remarked innocently. Ian replied, “Well I’ll be damned! What do those guys need so many crates for? I’m curious what’s inside.” And before anybody could object, Ian had punched a hole in the side of the chest nearest to him. He pulled out his hand and was holding a blood pack. “Seems like the Nosferatu use this warehouse to ship in their blood products”, Victor concluded and nudged Ruthven into the direction of the light at the end of the row, adding “Let’s see what else we can find here.”

None of them was prepared for the sight that presented itself, once they turned the corner. There was a large metal platform, about a meter off the ground. A few steps led up to the giant round structure and in the middle of it was a small child crouched over and fiddling with something on the floor. The four went up the steps and slowly approached the boy. Victor, who was best at connecting with people, crouched down next to the child and said, “Hi there. What are you doing here all alone in this big and empty building? Where are your parents?” The boy did not react and kept scraping at the floor with his hands. They could see now that he tried to pry open a manhole cover that was sitting in the middle of the platform. Victor tried another approach, in the hope to connect to the child. “Are you trying to get down there? Why do you want to go down into that hole?” – “Cause I wanna go back to the ugly people. I was outside and everywhere they were afraid and I couldn’t understand and they were mean to me and told me to go away and then I was all alone. The ugly people were mean to me too, but I know them and I wanna go back!” – “You don’t have to be alone anymore, we are here now. You can come with us and we will find your parents. How about that?” said Victor in the hopes to get the child out of the warehouse. They were after all still hunting a dangerous killer. In the meantime the other three were looking around, hoping to find any clues as to why a small child would be sitting around in a warehouse in the middle of the night. The doctor finally managed to get the boy away from the manhole cover and Ruthven and Ian tried to lift it up in turn. The boy suddenly spoke again, “Will you hurt me like the ugly men do? I don’t want to be hurt anymore, please!” – “Of course we won’t hurt you. You are safe now. Let’s go outside and we will get you some food and a bed.” Victor took the child’s hand – he couldn’t have been more than eight – and went down the steps. Just as the boy wanted to step down, he stopped moving. Victor urged him on and asserted once again that he would be in safe hands with them. But the boy did not move and started to cry, “I can’t move. I’m stuck!” Suddenly the four noticed that the air in the room started to get hotter, like if a warm breeze had been carried in. Behind the boy, Ruthven and Ian were still trying to lift the cover and slowly got it loosened up. David was standing next to them, looking over their shoulders, but not contributing much to the effort. The Brujah went down on both knees and tried with full force to lift the metal plate up and finally the material gave in and he lifted the circle over his head. At the same moment, the boy stumbled down the stairs towards Victor, who caught him in both arms. With a bewildered look on his face, he hugged the child to his chest and left towards the entry gate of the warehouse.

In the moment that Ian had pulled the cover over his head, a whiff of damp air escaped from below it. David, who was still standing next to the two vampires, looked at the circular shape in Ian’s hand and could see a pentagon with continuing edges painted on the inside of the disck Just as he saw the drawing his head started to spin. Suddenly he was hearing church bells and his innards started to cramp up. The bellowing voice of an old man started to resonate in his ears, yelling, “Boy! You little unholy pest! Get back to the hole you crawled from and stay there! It’s my turn now!” He suddenly lost all control over his body and it was as if he had become a passenger in his own mind. The priest had regained control.

Sorry to interrupt

2008-07-15T19:22:00.003+02:00

I'm terribly sorry to interrupt our story at this point, especially since the last few submissions are coming up, but I am so swamped at the moment that I hardly find time to write and if I do I prefer to contribute to my newest site, Comic(s) Relief. I promise however to upload the final part of the story this week, probably on Friday.

After that I will move this site over to wordpress.com , as I miss a lot of user statistics and other goodies here on blogspot. This site will remain open, but I will repost the vampire story on the space. I'll keep you posted on the changes and hope you enjoyed the ride with me so far and will accompany me to this blogs new home, when the time comes.

Ye Olde Church

2008-07-14T19:39:00.004+02:00

When they arrived at their destination, the four investigators were immediately greeted by a man, who they assumed to be Malik Quina. He was rather tall, and his dark skin complexion was enhanced by his huge bald head. On his chest he flaunted a similar insignia than the one that the guy in military clothes, who they had encountered only moments ago, had been wearing on his hat. The impressive structure behind him was several centuries old and stood out amongst the modern architecture around. The old church building had really been turned into a club and created an interesting and compelling location for Goth and Punk fans to celebrate at. Quina, who was to David’s surprise wearing some kind of a long black leather skirt, had a stressed look on his face as he welcomed them, “Mr. Taylor has called to let me know that you were coming. Please follow me and I will show you to the room, where the incident took place.” He immediately rushed off towards the back of the building and didn’t even give the four vampires a chance to introduce themselves. When he finally stopped in front of a large metal door, surrounded by two guards, he turned around and spoke calmly, “What happened behind these doors is a complete mystery to me and my men. I hope you can make something of it. And please keep it all calm and quiet, I don’t want my customers to be disturbed in any way.” As he said the last part he looked at Ian, who seemed to take the hint. David was wondering if there had been some kind of an incident between the two vampires, prior to this meeting. “If there is anything else, I’ll be inside. Boys, open the door for them and stay put!” The two musclemen sprung into action and with, what seemed to me an enormous effort, slowly pried the huge metal door open.

The sight that presented itself, when the four entered the backroom, was even worse than at the mall. Once again there was an air of burned flesh and fire lingering about, but in this confined space a small odor of sulfur was also faintly distinguishable. The four investigators split up and each of them looked at another corner of the room to gather the evidence quickly, as the horrible smell was burning in their noses. This time they found not one void on the walls, but three. Three vampires had perished in there, without leaving a single shred of evidence of their existence, except for the two white circles on the walls and the bright stain reaching over the counter of the small bar in the left corner. ‘This one must have been thrown against the bar and ripped into two by the blast’, David thought to himself. When he found no other evidence at the counter, he turned to his friends and noticed that they had gathered around a small window on the wall with the metal door. As he passed the frame of the huge entrance, he noticed that the door had melted and was deformed from the inside. The fire must have been incredibly hot to singe the massive iron construct. The young man made a mental note and proceeded towards his companions and saw what the fuss was about. The small window had broken and there was blood on one of the shards. Victor was examining the scene and after a while concluded that the blood was neither human nor vampire. There were no other clues in the room and so they decided to present Quina with what they had found out.

When they entered the club through the main entrance they were almost swept of their feet by the loud music pumping through the speakers. The room was packed with people dancing to the Darkwave music and frolicking about. They found the owner at the bar, where he was giving orders to his barkeeper, “… and one third tonic water. How many times to I have to tell you this? Oh, you are back already? Please follow me to my office so we can talk.” The office space was extremely well isolated, as the music died almost instantly when David closed the door behind him. The room was rather functional, but a few artifacts had been placed around the place to give it a mystical touch. On one of the walls were also several medieval weapons, and shields sporting the same symbol that the man was wearing on his chest. The four told Quina all they had found out and concluded that it would have been impossible for his guards not to see the assailant, as he must have passed them, when he or it got out of the window. As he heard this, the massive vampire hit his forehead with his left palm and beckoned them to follow him outside to the two guards. After a few angry words, their fears were realized as the two guards had really left their post shortly on the day in question, giving the killer an amble opportunity to sneak out undetected. “This will have consequences you two bozos! As for you, I thank you greatly for your help. Please tell Seneschal Taylor that I’m impressed with your work. Furthermore, if you ever should like to shake it up a bit, you are always welcome at my club, free of charge!” With this, Quina bid farewell to his four guests and returned to his duties as a host. David and the others concluded that it was time to get back to the Haven.

When they entered the large ballroom back at the Prince’s lair, they saw that Taylor was hectically talking to his men, running from one side of the room to the other and bellowing orders in an almost hysterical tone. As soon as he saw the quartet, he hurried over to them and, after catching his breath, divulged, “Good that you are finally back, something has happened!”

Repercussions

2008-07-10T20:58:00.004+02:00

When the four vampires stepped into the giant ballroom, the seneschal was already sitting at his usual place, typing actively on his laptop. They were standing in front of the large throne for several moments before Charles Taylor noticed them and David seemed to get impatient. He was standing still saluting the old Nosferatu, desperately begging for attention. With a bemused look on his face, Tailor chose to reciprocate and asked for a status report. After they told him about the mall and what had transpired at Mike’s apartment, they were nervously anticipating a response. Killing another vampire was very much frowned upon amongst Kindred, but the seneschal appeased them by assuring them of the legality of their actions. “The coward has killed himself, so don’t worry about any repercussions. I will handle it from here. Was there anything else?” – “Sir, Yes Sir! We were intercepted by three soldiers on our way back to the base. They popped one of our tires and told us to abandon our mission or suffer the consequences. Strangely enough they also told us that the war is over, but I have not received such a report yet”, replied David without hesitation. Taylor shook his head as if he was trying to wake from a dream and turned towards the other three asking, “Anybody care to elaborate on that?” Victor took initiative and explained what had happened between the four investigators and the “Trio Infernale”. “This is rather unfortunate. I was under the impression that the three had understood when I told them that I didn’t like their methods and was looking to resolve the matter otherwise. Well apparently they haven’t and I must apologize for the misunderstanding. If you see them again, it would be wise to avoid them. They can be quite unpredictable, I’m afraid.” – “So that’s it Colonel? We are just supposed to “avoid” them? We were following orders all this time and you can’t even control your own squads? I…” But David’s rambling was cut short when he saw the expression in the eyes of his counterpart. He suddenly felt a chill coming over him and fell silent on the spot. His stance shifted from the solid position he had assumed to salute into a stoop and he took a step back.

The last few hours he had felt sick. It was a feeling as if he was imprisoned in a dark cellar, unable to control his own actions. He had often before lost control like this, but never for such a long period of time. It was embarrassing, each and every time he awoke from his trance and had to deal with the repercussions of his actions. But that was the point wasn’t it? They weren’t his actions, they were theirs. ‘Now is not the time to get weak’, David thought to himself, but sooner or later he had to stand up to his inner demons.

The Nosferatu had been lost in thought for a short moment after he had silenced the young man, looking at the screen of his laptop as if he tried to study the content by heart. He was muttering, “Well, well”, and it took several seconds until he resumed his reserved demeanor and continued, “since you have not yet discovered who is responsible for these horrible crimes, I think it best for you to visit Malik Quina in the Black Friar District. He has a club called ‘Old Church’ and a similar event to that at the mall has occurred there just yesterday. He will provide you with all the necessary access and information for your investigation. I will let him know that you are coming, so he should be waiting for you on your arrival.” Taylor gave the four a condescending look and turned his attention back to his notebook. Half annoyed and half obedient, the four vampires left the ballroom and headed back out towards their taxi. Moments later they were en route to the Black Friar District, hoping that this time, they would turn up more useful evidence than the last time.

This is our job!

2008-07-09T18:22:00.001+02:00

The three people emerging from the alley were heading right for the taxi and its passengers. One of them was dressed in a kaki t-shirt with camouflage pants and combat boots. His hat was sporting a symbol that Ian thought looked familiar, but he was unable to place it. Next to the military walking muscle, a woman was walking towards them. She was however in a somewhat covered position and as she came nearer it became visible that she had blood around her mouth. Although she was dressed in dark pants and a black tank top, she looked more like a wild animal than like a woman. The third guy was even creepier. He was dressed in a long dark coat and his face was disfigured by several scars. His baldness didn’t help to make him less hideous, as it revealed his pointy ears.

The look of these three dingy characters sent shivers down Ranjit’s spine and he slowly backed away towards the trunk of the car. When David saw the guy in military garment he stood still and commanded, “Look alive private! Sergeant John McCain from the 32^nd regiment! What’s the situation? Has the enemy advanced to this front yet?” –“Man, what the hell are you talkin’ about, fool? There ain’t no war going on here. Are you insane?” The muscleman’s response baffled David. ‘What does he mean, there is no war going on?’ he thought to himself and turned towards Ian, who was standing next to him, still clutching the carjack in his right hand. “Brunswick! Did you know about this? Did command send anything about a ceasefire agreement? What the hell is going on, private?” Ian, who was growing tired of David’s delusion and was starting to get worried about the motives of the three strangers, chose to ignore the young man’s ramblings and addressed his counterparts, “What do you want?” His gaze fell on a shiny dagger, just like the one sticking from the back tire, glistening in the bald man’s hand. The three were obviously vampires and had no real intentions to hide that fact. They had probably never heard of behaving low profile. The ugly guy in leather was probably a Nosferatu, and the girl seemed to be of Gangrel origin. Ian couldn’t be sure about the guy in military clothes although the symbol on his cap did resemble his own clan insignia. The Nosferatu took a disapproving look at the investigators and said with contempt in his voice, “You better listen to what we have to say, if you don’t want to end up like your tire.”

The Gangrel woman bent her body into an upright position and added hysterically, “So you are the four, who were sent out to replace us. You want to steal our hard earned money and get all the thanks, is that it?” Ruthven had also finally gotten out of the car and looked at the whole scene with a questioning look. “And for what would this gratitude be received? What do you think we are cheating you of exactly?” – “Ha, so the old fool, didn’t tell you?”, the woman snapped back at him, turned to her friends and added “He hires somebody else, while he has a team on the hunt and doesn’t even tell them about us. What a manipulative dick.” She turned back towards the four baffled investigators and gloated, “We were the first on this case and we will finish the bloodhunt so we can get paid. I would recommend that you will no longer interfere with our investigation or you will suffer the consequences.” Ian was clutching his fist and tried to control his anger. The arrogance of the woman was insulting, to say the least. The woman turned around and said to her comrades, “I think they got the message”, and the three disappeared back into the alley they came from. Victor and Ian were glaring at the dark corners on the opposite side of the street and it seemed like they would jump on the Brujah’s bike at any moment now, to pursue the arrogant trio. David, who was still captivated by his soldier persona, spun around and yelled, “Ok let’s get this tire fixed and drive back to base. The mission is more important now. We have our orders! Where is that damn driver? Ranjiiiiiit!!!” – “Are they gone?” The voice came from the back of the car. Ian, who was still shaking with anger, opened the trunk and pulled Ranjit out with one arm. The man blushed and bent back inside the trunk to pull out the spare tire. With the mechanic’s help, the deed was done in a matter of minutes and the team was back en route to the Haven.

Encounters in the dark

2008-07-08T08:25:00.003+02:00

David’s ears were ringing from the shotgun blast. The gun had gone off almost next to him and he was trying to regain focus, to understand what had happened. When he looked at his friend the mechanic, he noticed that he was covered in blood and gray matter, breathing heavily and almost growling. This second display of Celerity must have made him hungry and the fact that he was sprayed with blood and human flesh probably didn’t help him to control his inner urges. From the door adjacent to the hallway the pit-bull emerged, slowly trotting towards the remains of his master. The animal was clearly distraught and it didn’t even notice the four dumbstruck vampires standing around in the lobby. Brunswick was still shaking and when the dog sat down next to the pile of ashes on the floor, David noticed that the Brujah looked at the dog with an unnerving stare. He licked his lips and took a step forward, still having a glance of hunger in his eyes. He bent down, picked up the dog and just as everybody was preparing to witness a gruesome scene, Ian seemed to come to his senses and put the animal back on the floor. Just as its paws hit the ground, the pit-bull scurried off to the back of the living room and hid behind the couch.

“I’ll take this,” barked the young Malkavian as he grabbed the shotgun from the floor. “Everybody, look around and stock up on equipment if you can find anything of use. Meet up, downstairs, ASAP!” He stomped off towards the bedroom and emerged from the door seconds later with a small box of shotgun shells. Ignoring the other three, he stomped off towards the front door and disappeared down the hall. The soldier personality didn’t seem to irritate the others that much anymore. They had gotten used to the fact that the boy was part of the loony clan. The Malkavian usually choose their future clan members among the psychologically damaged and so it was no wonder that David had been sired at an asylum for the mentally sick. It was much easier to sire somebody, who already was insane and would fit into their ranks, than to make them crazy yourself. Their fellow team member was however a bit different, as his insanity was split off from his normal persona. Still, it was impossible for him to live a quiet life, because his other identities were constantly battling within him to take over.

When Victor, Ruthven and Ian, who had cleaned up a bit, finally came outside, David was sitting in the front seat, next to Ranjit hanging out of the window with the shotgun wailing in the air. “Come on people! Get in, it’s time to move out!” The drive back to the Gangrel Haven was used to compare notes. The team was trying to figure out, why Mike had killed himself and came to the conclusion that his paranoia had driven him to a point where the thought that everybody was out to harm him and that suicide would be the only escape. Just as they drove onto Gangrel territory, the taxi slowed down. “What’s the matter, Ranjit?” asked Ruthven from the backseat. “The tire blew out. I’ll have to change it.” The driver got out of the vehicle and took a look at the left back tire. “Well this isn’t good,” he said with a frightened look on his face. Ian had stopped his bike just behind the cab and walked over to Ranjit with a carjack in his hand. When he came round the car he noticed it too. There was a small throwing knife sticking out of the deflated rubber. “I guess you better all get out and take a look at this,” he proposed and then took a look around to find out where the dagger had come from. Ruthven, who was not about the get his hands dirty by helping to change a tire, stayed put while Victor and David got out of the car. David stormed around the car and started yelling at the scared driver, “What’s the hold up? We can’t just stop in the middle of enemy territory! Have you never learned that you don’t stop during a war, no matter what? Come on people, let’s go!” – “Stay right where you are!” The voice had come from a small alley just across the street and when they all turned around to look who had spoken, they noticed three shadows walking towards them.

Dog eat dog

2008-07-07T12:56:00.002+02:00

The three kindred were still standing in the sparsely lit hallway, with David hiding in the shadows, when Brunswick, mechanic extraordinaire, sprung into action. He positioned himself in front of the door and readied himself to smash the wooden panel out of the frame, when the doctor gave him a calming gesture and responded to the resident’s inquiry, “We are here to ask you some questions. You have nothing to fear from us. We just want to know what happened at the mall.” The moment Victor had opened his mouth, David felt enchanted. Somehow the words of the doctor had a magic undertone, compelling you to listen very carefully and follow the directions he was giving. Unfortunately it did not seem to have the same effect on the man inside the apartment and the Brujah, who started to get impatient, decided to knock down the door and skip the measly introduction. As soon as the door swung open, his eyes fell on the growling dog in front of him. A second later he saw its master standing at the far end of the corridor, with a 12 gauge pointing at him. Before he could react, the pit-bull jumped in his direction, aiming for his right arm, cheered on by its master, “Get him Scrat!” The giant suddenly dodged and the dog bumped off his right shoulder against the wall. David was impressed by the speed with which his new friend had reacted to the dog’s attack.

“STOP!” The thundering voice of Vathek had surprised the other investigators. He was looking at Mike, the gun slinging maniac at the end of the hall and was concentrating very hard. The young vampire had heard that some of the Ventrue have the ability to control the minds of others by giving them specific commands. It was impressive to see how the man inside the apartment suddenly froze up and turned into a living statue. Just as David wanted to express his amazement, Ian once again turned into Action Jackson. He grabbed the stunned dog by the throat and darted towards Mike. When he passed a door on the right he threw the dog into the adjacent room and rushed forward until he stood just centimeters from the other man. With a quick grapple maneuver he punched the gun out of his opponent’s hand and grabbed him at the neck. The speed with which the Brujah had executed these three actions was impressive. ‘Finally a true demonstration of Celerity,’ thought David, still reminiscing the earlier display Ian had given him at the mall. When the young man had first chosen to vanish in front of the Brujah, he had tried to avoid alienating him by simply running of unseen. So he let him in on his secret, showing him how he managed to dissipate into the dark and move around unnoticed. Ian had in return shown David the merits of being a Brujah. “This is called Celerity,” he had said, before closing his eyes, concentrating real hard and then punching a whole in the concrete wall. Apparently the enormous fellow could spend some of his blood reserves in his body to accelerate his movements or increase his strength. Ian explained to him that it was an ability inherent to the more physical inclined clans, like the Brujah and the Gangrel. So there he was, standing in the door, looking down the corridor where the human statue’s neck was tightly stuck in Ian’s right hand. David quickly snuck inside and tried to step behind Mike, when he notices something odd. The shotgun that had been knocked out of the antagonist’s hand seemed to be floating in the air just next to the guy. David grabbed the shaft and tried to pull it away from the Gangrel but he noticed that, as he pulled on the gun, its former owner’s armed also jerked into the same direction. It took him a while to realize that the weapon was fixed to the man’s arm with a thin silvery wire. Victor and Ruthven, who had finally also moved down the narrow corridor, saw that David was pulling on the 12 gauge and noticed the wire glistening in the dark.

The doctor stuck his hand in his right pocket and pulled out a small shard of glass and put it in the palm of his hand. He closed his eyes and suddenly the piece of glass was hovering over his hand. Seconds later it flew towards the wire, but the impact did nothing except shatter the shard into little pieces. Apparently the wire was not thin enough to snap it with a piece of high velocity crystal. After this display of magic, David was finally convinced that Victor Brauner must be a member of the Tremere clan, who have the ability to control things with their minds and sometimes even command fire. Just as the young Malkavian tried to give the gun another yank, his opponent suddenly awoke from his frozen state. With his left hand he grabbed Ian’s wrist so hard that he was released from the giants grip. Almost simultaneously he pulled back his shotgun, put the barrel under his chin and fired. With a loud bang, the almost headless body slid to the floor and seconds later, turned into ashes.

Mike Who?

2008-07-04T11:05:00.005+02:00

“Guys! You better take a look at this!” Even though the discovery of a human skull was not something he was particularly happy about, David managed to pull himself together this time. This adventure started to get weirder and weirder and he could not allow himself to fall into one of his dementias, every time something unnerving happened. Still, he could feel the need to give orders and have a look out for Tangos rising inside of him. ‘Get a grip!’, he thought to himself and stood up, to give his companions a better look at what he had unearthed. “I guess we can be fairly certain that the fire claimed a victim after all”, the doctor remarked sharply. “Don’t forget the void on the wall. Something was definitely between the heat source and the concrete at the time of the blast.” Ian had not forgotten the strange shape on the wall and decided to take a closer look. “I’ll just be a sec.”, he said and with a giant leap he jumped to the balcony on top of them, just next to the mark. While the three others were still looking at the skull, wondering about the extreme temperature it would take to fuse the remains with the concrete, the front door opened and the guard stepped inside. He was having a smoke, but when he saw David he threw it away and thought it best to put on his mask again. He certainly didn’t need another one of the young man’s insults. Ruthven smiled at the sight of the cigarette. He was a lobbyist for the major tobacco companies, and even though it was not as much fun watching a vampire using his product – they could not get cancer after all – he enjoyed that his industry was still going strong despite the recent bans on smoking. “Well I guess that settles it! There was definitely a person where the void is!” Ian was bending over the railing of the balcony holding half of a boot, which looked like it was salvaged out of a burnt shoe factory. “It was probably one of us, there is nothing left, not even a tiny piece of bone.”, Ruthven said with a shudder in his voice, thinking about Final Death. “That’s no way to go. Well let’s recap what we know so far.” With a hard thump, Ian jumped off the balcony and rejoined his teammates.

The group discussed what they had discovered and came to the conclusion that the fire could not have been of natural origin. The temperatures were too hot for a normal fire and the area of the fire was also perfectly round shaped. Natural fire was never this controllable. They also concluded that the two dead guys were probably Jonathan and whoever Mike had sent in as his replacement that day, since they found the remains of one human and one vampire. They shared their insights with the guard, who only added: “That fits. Mike would do anything to get away from work. Maybe the bastard is even involved in all of this. I wouldn’t put it past him. Here is his address if you want to check him out.” He handed them a piece of paper with a barely legible location scribbled on it.

It was only a short drive to the apartment building where Mike was living. When they arrived they thought it would be cautious to not alert the vampire too early to their presence. Ian broke open the door with a silent tug and they snuck up the stairs to the second floor landing. The doors looked all the same and on top of them was a small light bulb to illuminate the doorway. Except for one door on the left, where the bulb had been screwed out. As some vampires are very light sensitive, it was a good bet to start their investigation at this door. David had cowardly shifted with the shadows again and Victor kneeled in front of the door and tried to take a look through the mail slot. He attempted to open it very slowly, but as soon as he lowered his head towards the door he clumsily bumped into the metal mail cover. He opened it anyway and heard a sudden growling noise from behind the door. And sure enough, the first look he got was the broad and angry snout of a large dog drooling and snarling at the intruders. “Um, guys. I think he knows that we are here.”, said the doctor, and just as he did, the dog started to bark loudly. Seconds after a voice could be heard from the apartment, “Who-ho-ho’s there? Don’t come any closer if you hold your life dear.”

Haunting fires

2008-07-03T16:27:00.004+02:00

“Um, hello…. Sir. Mr. Taylor sent us, and we were wondering whether you could help us out. We are supposed to investigate something here but other than the black floor outside and a void on the wall, we didn’t find anything.” Ruthven was not sure if it was the proper tone to address the giant with the meat cleaver, but he gave it a shot as he started to feel a bit lost on his supposed quest. “Taylor, huh? Typical of him to get other people to do his dirty work. I bet he didn’t even tell you what happened here, right?” It was a bit unsettling that the grossly looking brute was this friendly. Victor took the opportunity to communicate his own opinion on the matter, “Well he saw us fit to investigate in this matter; that should suffice.” – “Sooooo, you are the Butcher right?”, said Ian from the back of the room. “That’s what they call me. I can tell you work has been piling up since the incident. Now that I lost both my assistants it has gotten extremely hard to keep up with the clan’s demands. You have to know, I’m the main blood supplier for the Gangrel. I process meats and drain the blood in order to conserve it for later use.” After a lengthy conversation with the man, who calls himself ‘The Butcher’, the team found out that his two assistants Jonathan and Mike had not shown up for work after the fire. If it had been only Mike who had disappeared he wouldn’t have been surprised. It turns out that he was still a very young vampire and hated working at the mall. He even went so far as to have himself replaced on several occasions by a human. “It’s not that we hate humans, but it is always dangerous for us when they are introduced prematurely to our world. In this case, it was not that much of a problem since the guy was hoping to get turned soon. It’s still annoying when you never know, who will show up for the job. Anyway, on the day in question I was out on business and Mike and Jonathan were supposed to stock up for the next blood transport to the Prince’s Haven. I don’t know what really happened, but when I came back, the entrance was filled with smoke and several pieces of broken furniture were lying around, still on fire. I have seen neither of them since.” – “So this Mike… He seems like a ‘nice’ guy. In case nothing happened to him, where could we find him?” The butcher gave them an address and added, “So if there’s nothing else, I have to get back to work.” – “Actually”, the doctor added with reluctance, “would it be possible for me to take a look at your warehouse?” The creature shrugged, and opened a door behind the counter and went back to work. “Knock yourself out.”

David was crouched on the floor in the entrance hall, while Ian and Ruthven were standing around, looking for clues. Suddenly he heard a whisper, very faint from the right corner of the enormous hall. He thought he had imagined it, when the sound grew stronger. “It’s all your….” ‘That voice! No, not again! Why can’t he leave me alone?’ David started to panic, but he was still compelled to walk in the direction of the noise. “It’s all your fault! I thought we were friends!” There it was again, this time stronger almost like somebody was standing right next to him. He looked around, and threw a look at his team members, but none of them seemed to hear anything. There was nothing there. “You betrayed me! You are a murderer! You killed me just like you killed your grandfather! You MONSTER!!!!” The voice had turned into a deafening scream and David flinched and backed into the corner. He thought he saw something for a split second, but on a second look there was still nobody around except for the four vampires. Something suddenly grabbed his shoulder from behind. The boy jerked around and there he was, Steven, his old friend from the asylum, clear as day. David blinked and he was gone again. And without realizing it he himself started yelling, “Why can’t you leave me alone? I’m sorry…. Just let me be!” He dropped to his knees and almost started to whine, when he noticed that his right knee had hit something sticking out of the concrete floor. He looked around and noticed that his friends were looking at him with a bewildered expression. The sounds had stopped as sudden as they had appeared and he turned his attention back to the bump in the floor. Like the rest of the room, the place was covered in smut and so he started to clean the place with his hands best as he could. Ian and Ruthven were on their way over to him. Victor had just emerged from the shop and he saw that the three were gathering at a small spot in the right corner of the room, so he decided to join them. When the rubble had cleared David stood up and backed away from the place. He had uncovered a human skull, sticking out of the concrete, looking like it had been fused with the floor at an extreme temperature.

Fresh meat

2008-07-02T17:27:00.002+02:00

Once inside the impressive shopping mall, the four investigators split paths, each of them looking around in another part of the entrance area. The floor and walls were all covered in a black substance that seemed to be smut. The air was filled with the smell of a recent fire, mixed with a note of barbecuing. The dark shadow was in the shape of a large circle but extended also up the walls, making it look like it was caused by a perfectly hemispherical explosion. Upon taking a closer look at the walls, they saw that at one point there was a void where the flames had not reached the concrete. It was about 3 meters from the floor and the size of a grown man. Ian, who found the black smut intriguing, asked the doctor for a test-tube to take a sample. Victor, who was staring into the dark beyond the barely lit entrance, turned around and threw a tube to the brute in leather. Ian stretched out his hand, caught the glass cylinder and instantly smashed it to tiny bits. Grumpily he brushed off the shards of glass and picked the broken bits out of his hand, when he realized that the minuscule parts on the floor started to move and scurried in the direction of their former proprietor. Ian rubbed his eyes in disbelief and thought he was probably hallucinating. Not willing to smash another of the fragile cylinders, he went over to the doctor and equipped with a new tube he started taking samples of the black substance. In the meantime Ruthven had joined Victor at the edge of the blast radius and they both noticed a window just a few meters from where they were standing, with the sign saying ‘Butcher’s shop’.

David, who had finally snapped out of his episode, had chosen to use one of his inherent abilities to look around the premises undetected. So he tried to remember everything his sire had taught him about Obfuscate, the ability to make everybody around you believe that you are invisible, and blended in with the shadows. He snuck past the two high society members of the team, and decided to have a look inside the shop, the two of them found so interesting. He remembered that the Seneschal had mentioned something about a man simply called ‘The Butcher’ but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. When he was still in St.John’s, he had often snuck out of his room to meet his friend Seth Johnson, a fellow patient at the asylum. He was a master at opening doors without making a noise and even a shop door, outfitted with a bell, was no obstacle for the young man. With the finesse of a cat burglar, David reached up to stop the bell with his left hand and in the meantime opened the door just a slit to slide through. Serendipitous about his success, he looked around the small shop, still hidden from sight by his special ability. He looked through the smudged windowpane and saw that Victor was walking off to the shop next door and tried to pry open the door, while Ruthven and Ian where coming in his direction. Suddenly he noticed a buzzing noise from behind him and he quickly turned around to investigate. His eyes needed a couple of seconds to adjust to the half-light. He had never paid much attention when his master tried to teach him about Auspex, the ability to see in the dark and heighten your senses. At mastery you could even determine the demeanor of other beings by their spiritual aura. He shook his head to rid himself of the memories of his training and slowly recognized the silhouette of a very large being standing in front of him, with its back towards the youngster. The creature was apparently busy working on something on the desk, but David could not see what it was. At this moment the doorbell behind him rang and the noise startled him in a way that he lost his concentration and became once again visible to his surroundings. Ruthven had entered the store, the doctor and the mechanic hard on his heels, and he looked at the Malkavian with astonishment. “How did you…” – “What’s this? Who’s there?” The creature behind the counter had turned around and flicked the lights on. With a short buzzing sound the luminescent neon tubes sprung to life and bathed the room in an unnatural light. Behind the counter was now clearly visible a giant of at least 2 meters height, extremely broad shoulders and a leather mask on his face. He was wearing an apron that might have been white sometime in the past, but was now blemished with an obscene amount of bloodstains, ranging from deep red to almost black in color. In his right hand he was holding a giant cleaver; his right arm was packed with muscles and was almost twice the size of his left arm. The man, if you could call him that, was such a scary sight that the team was rather surprised when he said, “Oh hello there. How can I help you folks?”

The journey begins

2008-07-01T18:36:00.005+02:00

Ian was rummaging through the shelves, keeping an eye out for any equipment that might come in handy on their mission, when suddenly the previously catatonic boy darted past him bellowing, “Right! Let’s get to it! We got our mission. Assembly is at 0100 hours. The enemy is at bay!” The Brujah enforcer was stunned at the sudden change in demeanor of the young boy, who was behaving like a soldier on the hunt for weaponry. David grabbed a pistol off the shelf but handled it with such negligence that the magazine fell out and hit the floor with a loud clank. With a confused look he picked up the mag, snapped it back into the gun and racked the slide. Ian, who was still watching the young man, suddenly jumped into action, grabbed the weapon from David’s hands and put the safety back on. Handing it back to him he said, “Better watch what you’re doing before you shoot yourself” The reply was equally puzzling as David said, “Thank you private!” Ian turned back towards the shelf, grabbed a tool belt with several large and heavy wrenches and snapped it around his waist. In the meantime Dr. Brauner put several tubes and supplies from a medical cabinet into his bag while Mr. Vathek was yelling on his phone in a demanding voice to somebody called James.

Once everybody was assembled outside, a taxi drove up to the curb and the driver, a Middle-Eastern looking man in his forties, stepped out and beckoned them to get in. “My name is Ranjit. Mr. Taylor gave me a location in the Woolwich district and asked me to tell you that your investigation starts there.” After a short drive, with a quick stop at Ian’s motorcycle workshop, they arrived at an abandoned shopping mall parking lot. Ian stepped off his Harley while the other team members exited the vehicle and they then all made their way to the entrance. There was a smell of burned flesh lingering in the air as they approached the building. A sentry, wearing a paper mask to apparently shield him from the smell, was standing in front of the main door. “Who’s this? Entry to the premises is prohibited!” When Ian stepped towards the door, the guard ripped of his mask, put a hand on the Brujah’s massive shoulder and pronounced with a raised voice, “Maybe you didn’t hear me, I really can’t let you in!” When David looked at the now exposed face of the guard, he noticed that his nose was in the shape of a bat’s nostrils. Startled by the view of the deformity, he took a few steps back, formed a cross with his index fingers and yelled, “Demon! He’s a demon! Holy mother of God, save yourselves!” Everybody else, including the guard, were taken aback by the sudden psychic outburst of the youth. Ruthven, who had after the first outburst of David come to the conclusion that he must be of Malkavian descent, turned to the sentry and said calmly: “Don’t mind the Malkavian. You know that they are a troubled kind. Charles Taylor sent us to investigate, so you better step aside now.” Bewildered, the guard moved and held the door open for the four visitors. “Begone demon! Thy kind will never rule this earth! You shall be cast back into the depths of Hell!” Bellowing his insults, David was pushed inside by Ian, who gave the guard a pacifying look, before disappearing behind the giant door. Inside, the Malkavian turned towards the giant and said, “Would you have some parchment and a feather with some ink for me? I have to write a letter to the Holy Inquisition post haste. They have to be informed of the abominations walking the earth in this area.” Ian shook his head and gave him a piece of paper and a pen, in the hopes that he would soon calm down.

Prince Volus's request

2008-06-30T19:34:00.013+02:00

As promised here is the next part of David Hunter's first adventure. I'm retelling the events from memory and I hope to be as accurate as possible, but for the sake of the story I might change a few things slightly to fit the account better.

Hounds of Hell

Ian and David were led down a corridor at the end of which was a big hall, where the two gentlemen that had entered earlier where already waiting in front of a big throne. The throne had giant batwings and on it was an impressive figure, who could only be Prince Volus. Next to him was a man dressed in a suit but with a hideously disfigured face. It didn’t help that he was probably in his sixties, when he was turned. The Nosferatu was probably the Prince's right hand and therefore also a person of respect. David threw a quick look around the room and he immediately noticed the abundance of guards stationed in the ballroom. One of them was strangely scratching his ear with his foot. When the four had finally assembled in front of the throne, the Prince cleared his throat and spoke, “Thank you for coming. As you probably already know you have been called upon to help in a bloodhunt, called out by the Gangrel clan. A fellow Kindred has gone on a killing frenzy and what is even worse, he is killing our own kind. My Seneschal Charles Taylor will get you up to speed.” The Prince glanced over to his left side and the Nosferatur stood up to address the four bystanders. His gaze momentarily locked with David’s eyes sending shivers down the young vampire’s spine. “As my master just told you, this task is of the utmost importance. There have been several violent deaths and we need you to investigate the scenes and report back here with your findings. One of our dormitories has been prepared for you and you will also find some gear downstairs if you need to stock up first.” At this moment the Prince stood up and walked out of the room. It was only at this point that the four realized that the giant wings were not actually part of the throne, but of Volus himself. ‘He must be a very old and powerful Gangrel to have such explicit animal features’, David thought to himself. The Nosferatu made a bow in his master's direction and continued, “Prince Volus is one of the first Gangrel who managed to create a civilized society amongst his Kindred, right here in London. Therefore, the conduct of the frenzied vampire is even more disruptive than usual. You have to stop him at all costs.” - “What’s in it for us?” David turned his head to see who had been so insolent as to ask such a thing. It was none other than the gentleman who had first entered the building. “Well Mr. Vathek, first of all you will help to keep up the Masquerade and prevent a possible clan war along the way. As if that wasn’t reward enough, the Prince has also agreed to please you with a proper monetary recompense.”

The boy could see a smile creep on Mr. Vathek’s face. ‘He must be of the Ventrue’, he thought to himself. His sire had often warned him about them and he still remembered his voice from the day he had been introduced to the Masquerade and the different clans. “The Ventrue are the nobility of our kind. These blue bloods hold the Masquerade very dear and are often leaders in our society. As such they surround themselves with worldly possessions and often sport an entourage of both humans and other Kindred. So beware, as they don’t take kindly to our more open-minded clan members. They think us mad and a danger to the secret nature of the Kindred.” He knew he could trust his master, but the fact that this Ventrue had chosen to apply for a reward other than the fact that he would protect the Masquerade took him aback. Maybe there was more to the different clan members than the strict teachings of his master had led him to believe.

“So if there are no other questions I would suggest you all get acquainted with each other, as you will be spending a lot of time together from here on out. Consider this your Haven for the next few days, we keep a small herd if you get thirsty. Just make sure that you don’t fall into a frenzy and destroy our home while satisfying your hunger.” David couldn't help but notice the Nosferatu's pointedly glaring at Brunswick while delivering that last bit. As the heavyweight seemed to have gotten the not so subtle hint the prince's Seneschal turned his attention to Mr Vathek, while whispering something to his personal guard. The sentinel went to the adjacent room and came back with a laptop that he handed to Taylor, who immediately started typing, still throwing an awful lot of glances at the Ventrue. The guard then came over to the quartet and led them to the cellar entrance. The four of them were left alone and as they were standing there in the room filled with shelves and what seemed like several large rectangular boxes on the floor, the man with the scar broke the silence. “Well this is quite a mess we got ourselves into. My name is Dr. Victor Brauner, some of you might know me from the papers, I’m quite a famous scientist.” - “Bronswick’s the name”, said the giant with the leather jacket. “Let’s get to it, got me a sweet lady waiting back at the chop shop.” Noticing the puzzled expressions, he added “Gotta bend her frame back to shape”, which didn't really help. “Chopper needs a new transmission,” he explained. Bike repairs. 'S what I do when I'm not busting punks. Anyway, ain't you a bit green to be part of this?” Now the doctor was also looking at the young man: “What’s your name son?” David looked up at Ian and then over to the other two men and gulped loudly, “My name is David… David Hunter.” - “If they expect me, Ruthven Vathek, to sleep in these twenty dollar coffins, those animal clowns are sadly mistaken. I guess I’ll have to call James to send over a decent bed.” – “Coffins? Those are coffins? And they want us to sleep in them? Are they insane????” Vathek looked at the boy and replied, “Well the Gangrel are not particularly known for their hospitality, but aren’t you freaking out a bit?” But David couldn’t hear him. He backed away to a corner and sunk on his knees talking to himself. “This can’t be happening…. How did I get myself into this mess?”

The hounds are unleashed

2008-06-30T00:33:00.009+02:00

Today some of us got together and we started the first chapter in a Vampire the Masquerade campaign that a friend of mine had prepared over the last few weeks. For all of you who are not familiar with the game, you can find out what it is all about here and here. I decided to rewrite the events of the game into a small story and share it with you. As such a game expands over several hours, the story will probably be quite long. I'll post one part every day and hope you'll enjoy it.

Hounds of Hell

It was around midnight when the young David Hunter got out of his taxi in front of the big building situated on the Isle of Dogs. He was sent there by his sire and was supposed to partake in a bloodhunt, a concept he was not at all familiar with. He only knew that his sire Dr. Carl deGras had chosen him to represent the Malkavian clan and that Prince Volus, a high-ranking member of the Gangrel, had requested his help.

Ever since he had found him in St.John’s Asylum all those years ago, the doctor had been good to him. David never really understood why his grandmother had put him there in the first place; maybe she was just overburdened after the death of his grandfather. Death had always been a big part of David’s life, ever since his parents had perished in a car accident after a frontal collision with a drunk driver. As if by a miracle David had survived the accident but he had been stuck in the car for several hours before he was finally rescued. The memory of his mother’s dead body hanging over him, dripping blood all over him, still haunted him to this day. When his grandparents adopted him, the boy had not spoken in days. At first it had seemed as if they could provide a secure and loving haven for him. After a while however David had realized that his grandfather talked an awful lot about the First World War. Apparently he had served in the war when he was only a teenager and kept recounting all the horrible tales of the things that had happened to him in the time he had spent in the trenches in Ypres. When he was not spinning tales from the war he schooled David in the importance of faith. By the time he was fourteen, the boy could reproduce every last bit of scripture, as his grandfather had made him learn the bible by heart. The pressure put on the youngster by the old man grew from year to year until the grandfather died in a mysterious accident at home. One morning his wife found him at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. When she tried to tell David what had happened she found him standing at his window, preaching the Book of Revelation to the outside world. She tried to snap him out of his religious trance but when she touched his left shoulder he turned around and bellowed military commands at her. At a loss, the old woman turned to St.John’s Asylum to seek help for David. It was the last he had ever heard of her.

There he was now, standing outside the impressive building, not knowing what to do next. He threw a quick glance at the entrance where two guards were stationed, but he could not muster up the courage to walk over to them. Instead he put on his headphones and was listening to “the Cure” when suddenly another taxi arrived at the curb. A man, who could only be described as a giant, stepped out of the backseat, and walked over to him. The guy was wearing a black leather jacket and was all muscles. David gave him a quick glance, saw that he was mouthing something in his direction, which he couldn’t understand due to the music still blasting at full throttle, and he quickly shifted his gaze back at the floor. As the colossus didn’t move, the boy decided it might be better to put away his Ipod and as he did this, yet another car arrived around the corner. This time it was a black stretch-limousine, the kind that David had only seen on TV until this point. A middle-aged yet very handsome gentleman, wearing an expensive suit, stepped out of the car and walked straight up the stairs towards the two guards. After a few words with a raised voice, he was let in. Before any of the two vampires still standing at the bottom of the stairs could say anything, yet another taxi drove up the curb to reveal a man in his mid-thirties emerging gracefully from the backseat. He was dressed in a way that seemed appropriate for a man of wealth and David thought he knew the man with the striking scar on the right cheek from somewhere. He too went straight up the stairs and vanished inside the enormous front door after a few words with the guards. As the door closed, one of the two guards came over to the boy and the giant with the deep voice and asked if he could help them. The big guy identified himself as Ian Brunswick and added that he was probably expected. The guard checked his list looked at the boy and said, “So then you must be David Hunter, am I right?” The boy just nodded and both of them were granted permission to enter the building.

The Lord of Darkness is back

2008-06-28T18:22:00.002+02:00

At the Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide International this weekend the newest installment of the Diablo game series was finally unveiled. This is exciting news as it has been already 8 years since we last heard from the world around the Lord of Chaos. A small peak can be taken at the official Diablo 3 page that launched today (expect heavy online traffic). Let me know if you are looking forward to his as well. Further information will be added here if it gets available.

Metal Gear the story so far...

2008-06-27T19:50:00.002+02:00

As promised I will provide the means to brush up on your Metal Gear knowledge on the internet and in any other ways I can think of. First off all, those who are not aware of this yet: Konami has released a standalone encyclopedia on the PSN store that includes all the information on the past titles and everything on the newest game. Still I would like to give you some links and possibilities to revisit the waste story of Solid Snake’s past. I will post them in chronological order (story wise).

Metal Gear Solid 3 – Snake Eater:

The limited edition of the Subsistence release of the game included a third DVD that had the cut scenes, some codec messages and the boss fights cut into a 3 hour movie.

The youtube user alexfung23 has added an extremely large collection of Metal Gear Walkthrough videos that include the whole game and are interesting if you want to see EVERYTHING that happened to Naked Snake. I created a playlist of MGS3: here.

Metal Gear Solid – Portable Ops:

There is sadly no video that I know of on the internet and no comic/novel depicting the events of this game.

Metal Gear 1+2 (MSX):

Here is another playlist created with the videos of alexfung23.

Metal Gear Solid:

Now this is the title you will probably find most ways to recap. First of all you can view the cutscenes and the codec messages when you have finished the remake Twin Snakes. Then there is the possibility to relive the events of Shadow Moses through the comic by Ashley Wood and Kris Oprisko, which was such a success that it was even released in a digital version for the PSP called Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel. This digital comic includes music and sound effects. It will be released with voiceovers on DVD once the second part including the digital comic of Sons of Liberty will hit the shelves.

The most recent addition to the Metal Gear Solid franchise is a novelization of the game by Raymond Benson.

And for all of you who still have not enough here is the playlist of Phoenix9215987’s videos.

Metal Gear Solid 2 – Sons of Liberty

MGS2 was also treated to a comic book again with the artwork of Ashley Wood and story adaptation by Alex Garner. The digital version has not yet been released but will probably include complete voiceovers by the cast of the game series.

Here is the final video playlist of alexfung23.

This is it. Several hours, if not days, worth of material for all of you who cannot get enough of the world that Hideo Kojima created over 20 years ago. I’m tempted to write a review on the newest title, but I’d also like to shift my attention to something else. So who knows…

Solid GOLD!

2008-06-26T20:37:00.003+02:00

It’s the year 1998 and the Sony Playstation has been around for a few years. With the new CD-Rom support, game developers got the opportunity to vastly increase the multimedia elements of their games and amongst them was also Hideo Kojima who had heard a lot of good things about Sony’s first console. It is not surprising that he decided to continue his most popular franchise on the new console, enriching the game world with a new adventure of Solid Snake dubbed Metal Gear Solid. On September 3, 1998 Kojima’s newest masterpiece finally hit the shelves and became an instant hit selling over 6 million copies worldwide.

The story continues Snake’s adventures several years after the incidents at Outer Heaven. Once again the soldier is recruited by his former chief Roy Campbell, to infiltrate a facility on Shadow Moses Island that has fallen into the hands of terrorists. This time the villains are none other than members of Foxhound, the special unit that Snake was a member of himself when he was still in active duty. He has to rescue several hostages, amongst them Meryl the niece of Campbell, and stop the terrorists from launching a nuclear strike against the US. Everything works according to plan until one of the hostages dies of a heart attack. As Snake proceeds to the ArmsTech president Kenneth Baker he faces Revolver Ocelot in a challenging gunfight. However their duel is cut short when a ninja in a strange exoskeleton appears out of nowhere and cuts off Ocelot’s hand. Snake’s opponent runs for cover and the ninja also disappears using high-tech stealth camouflage. After telling Snake that the facility is only a cover for a new Metal Gear, Baker also dies of sudden heart failure.

On his search for a way to disable the powerful walking weapon Snake runs into Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, the scientist behind the new Metal Gear called Rex. Once again the ninja makes an appearance and divulges that he is in fact Gray Fox, who was supposed dead after the Zanzibarland incident. Snake defeats him in an honorable fistfight and makes his way to the holding facility of Metal Gear. On his way he defeats most of the other members of Foxhound until he finally faces of with their leader, Liquid Snake. Liquid reveals that he is in fact Snake’s twin brother and that they are both the result of a cloning project in which a group of scientists tried to replicate the legendary soldier Big Boss. He jumps into the cockpit of Rex and tries to kill his brother, only to have his precious weapon sabotaged by Gray Fox. Fox disables the tank’s radar but gets crushed in the ensuing battle. After destroying Rex Snake and Liquid have a face-off on top of the burning carcass of the tank and ultimately Snake emerges victorious. He frees Meryl and tries to leave the facility but moments before they could escape Liquid reappears and just as he tries to kill them, he falls to his knees and dies of a heart attack. It turns out that Snake is carrying a virus that was programmed to eliminate the terrorists and everybody who knew too much about the Metal Gear project. Ultimately the virus should also kill Snake, but the programming was changed last minute.

Metal Gear Solid had such a huge success that it was remade for the Gamecube in 2004. The game was called Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and retold the events of Shadow Moses with updated graphics and more impressive cut scenes.

I have left out several characters and key plot parts about this recap, since I don’t want to spoil too much of the games for you. I have also decided to stop my recap session here, since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is way too vast to summarize in such a short blog entry. However I will post several links, where you can brush up on your Metal Gear history in my next post, so keep your eyes open.

Last time I posted the first of GameTrailers.com’s recaps. The others, can be found here: MGS recap

Eat your fruit and vegetables!

2008-06-24T14:44:00.003+02:00

Remember all those years ago, when you just didn't want to eat that portion of green beans but you still had to? Well it turns out that your mom was right. I stumbled over this interesting article just now and I thought I'd help to spread some knowledge, especially since I know some people who wouldn't touch a fruit or a vegetable if it hit them in the face.
Sally Squire (Health and Nutrition columnist over at the Washington Post) summarizes briefly which vitamins and other helpful elements are present in the different fruit and vegetable groups.
Click here
So enjoy the read and remember to eat healthy!

Metal Gear: a retrospective

2008-06-23T12:10:00.001+02:00

Most of you who are into games will probably have heard, or even anticipated the release of the latest Metal Gear Solid games. “Guns of the Patriots” is in fact the last game that will be spearheaded by Hideo Kojima himself, but in an interview he said he would be looking forward to a new generation of Metal Gear games by younger developers. Over 20 years ago Kojima pitched his idea of a sneaking based game to Konami and after some initial doubt the development firm agreed to producing the game, without knowing it would turn into one of the most important gaming franchises of our time. In Metal Gear initially released on the MSX2 in 1987, you control a special agent with the codename “Solid Snake” on a mission to infiltrate Outer Heaven, a fortified military state supposedly having a WMD. On this mission he is also supposed to rescue another agent (Gray Fox) that is held captive inside the base. It turns out that the WMD is in fact a bipedal walking tank called Metal Gear and the legendary mercenary leading the base is none other than Snake’s mentor Big Boss.

The game had such a success that a few years later Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake was released (sadly only in Japan). Once again Snake has to infiltrate a base, but this time in the mercenary nation Zanzibarland. He is supposed to rescue a scientist who has developed a new way to refine petroleum in a very effective and cheap way. However during his mission he finds out that once again the real threat is a Metal Gear tank. He has a run-in with Gray Fox who has defected to Zanzibarland and also Big Boss survived the destruction of Outer Heaven to take revenge on Snake.

Gametrailers have created a recap anthology of the Metal Gear games which I will include with each small article on this page. Next up will be a revision of Snake’s first adventure on the Playstation called Metal Gear Solid.

Back in time... continued

2008-06-18T00:51:00.004+02:00

Last time I talked about the two most popular TV shows from my childhood, but there were several others that I really enjoyed at the time and still love today.

One of those has to my delight been recently released on DVD. I’m talking about the Misfits of Science, a show revolving around a group of people that could be labeled as superheroes. The team had 4 members: Dr. Billy Hayes (Dean Paul Martin) is the leader and the only one who has no special powers. He was a scientist at the Humanidyne Institute and worked together with Dr. Elvin "El" Lincoln (Kevin Peter Hall), who gave himself the ability to shrink to doll size. They are joined by Johnny Bukowski, a.k.a. Johnny B (Mark Thomas Miller) a Rock n Roll musician who after an accident gained the abilities to shoot lighting from his hands and run extremely fast as long as he is “charged up”. The final member is Gloria Dinallo (Courteney Cox) a teenage girl with telekinetic abilities. Together they help people in need and study supernatural phenomena. The show has a decent mix of action and comedy and became quite popular in Germany. Sadly it never took off in the US and we were left with only 16 episodes.

Another short-lived show from the 80s was Street Hawk, which has sadly not yet been (and probably never will be) released on DVD. Street Hawk was about the police officer Jesse Mach secretly picked to test a new weapon against crime - a high-tech motorbike capable of speeds of over 300mph and equipped with a laser. Jesse was joined by Norman Tuttle, the technical genius behind the Street Hawk project, who stayed in touch with Jesse per computer and lend him remote assistance in his crime fighting. The show had a similar charm as Knight Rider. Although there are only 13 episodes the show still has a huge fan base.

"This is Jesse Mach, an ex-motorcycle cop, injured in the line of duty. Now a police troubleshooter, he's been recruited for a top secret government mission to ride Street Hawk. An all terrain attack motorcycle, designed as a fighter of urban crime, capable of incredible speeds up to 300 miles per hour and immense fire power. Only one man, federal agent Norman Tuttle knows Jesse Mach's true identity. The Man... The Machine... Street Hawk."

All work and no play...

2008-06-06T12:43:00.004+02:00

I'm sorry that I have not been able to continue my "Back in TV time" series in the last few days. I'm extremely busy writing a paper on Franz Kafka's "Das Schloß" (which I have started working on way too late) and have therefore no time to work on my blog efforts. As soon as I have handed in said paper I'll continue the series, which will probably be in the week after the 15th of June.
Until that time here are some trailers of the new Batman movie and the animated "Prequel" that are coming up soon to keep you entertained.
Enjoy:

Gotta get back in time

2008-05-28T15:35:00.005+02:00

I don't know about you, but for me the shows I watched in my childhood are still among my favorites. Sure some of them don't stand up to the memories I have about them, but they just have a certain charm that I can't escape. Some of them are shows that most of you probably know but some were only around for a single season and still managed to get a place in my all time favorite collection.

The first an probably the most famous is the 1982 series Knight Rider. The police officer Michael Long is critically wounded by a gunshot wound to the face while investigating a criminal organization. After extensive surgery he wakes up in the hospital with a reconstructed face, not recognizing himself. He is approached by a special foundation, the Knight Industries under the supervision of Wilton Knight, to help them infiltrate the crime syndicate that wounded him in the first place. They provide him with a special car the Knight Industries Two Thousand (K.I.T.T.), fitted with bullet proof alloy and artificial intelligence, to help him with his crime fighting work. After Wilton Knight's death, Michael adopts his last name and becomes part of the Knight foundation. Together with his liaison Devon Miles and the technician Bonny Barstow he fights for good and for the protection of the innocent. The show ran for 4 seasons with a total of 90 episodes and established David Hasselhoff's career. NBC has recently filmed a remake pilot of Knight Rider and the show that has been picked up for the upcoming fall schedule.

"Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law."

I'm sure you remember these 4 maniacs all too well: The A-team. Four Vietnam vets, found guilty of a crime they didn't commit, establish themselves as soldiers of fortune known as the A-team. They are for hire and try to help the helpless anyway they can. Col. John "Hannibal" Smith was the leader of the group, the brain of the organization and an expert at disguise. Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck was the ladies man and the con artist, while Sgt. Bosco "B.A." Baracus was the muscle and a genius mechanic. The final member of the team was Capt. H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock, the pilot and loony of the group; before they could accept a job they usually had to break him out of the mental hospital. The team was constantly on the run, pursued first by Col. Lynch and later by Col. Decker. Apparently the movie rights to the film have been bought and there is a new version of the A-team planned for the big screen in 2009.

"If you have a problem, if no-one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, the A-Team."

Over the next few days I will add several posts on this topic so stay tuned if you want to go back in time with me.

Don't go berserk now!

2008-05-25T11:10:00.004+02:00

Last week I told you about a few comics that are based on popular tv shows. This week I chose a manga, actually my favorite manga Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, to give you a small introduction into this Japanese art form. In Japan the manga has a much higher significance than comics have in our culture. They are read by every age and social group and are extremely popular. A broad range of topics are covered reigning from action to comic to romance and many more. Thus it does not have the “nerdy” image that western comic books have and plays a big role in Japanese culture.

Berserk tells the story of the fighter Guts, who as a baby is found by a mercenary gang, brought up by them and trained in the art of the sword. The mercenary group is however not composed by the most moral beings and Guts is treated like a slave and at the age of 9 he is even molested by his godfather. Ultimately he kills the leader of the gang in an attempt to defend himself and has to leave them. He travels from battle to battle. His fighting is so impressive that he is noticed by Griffith, the leader of the Hawks (a very strong mercenary group), and after a confrontation with him, Guts is proposed to join them. Here he finds friends for the first time in his life and faces atrocious battles and incredible evil with them. Later on the world seems to go crazy and everything that Guts believes in falls apart. His love interest for Casca (one of the female mercenaries) and his close friendship to Griffith clash and end in a “monstrous” tragedy.

I don’t want to spoil the read by telling you what exactly happened between Guts and Griffith. In 1997, the studio Oriental Light and Magic released a 25 episode anime of the series, which roughly covers the first 13 books. As of November 2007, 32 volumes of the manga have been released.

For those of you who have been intrigued, let me just put up a small warning sign: Berserk is not for the faint of heart. The Manga and the Anime are both graphically explicit and contain extreme violence, gore and sexual material. Still the storyline of the series is by far one of the best I have ever read.

The images used in this post are all courtesy of Berserk Chronicles

Web comics

2008-05-17T17:11:00.007+02:00

As you might have realized up to this point I am into all kinds of geeky stuff and as such I'm also a comic fan. Most of you probably know Superman, Batman, Spider-man and the rest of the DC - Marvel universe. Nowadays comics are not exclusively released in traditional comic books anymore but you can read a lot of them on the internet by now.
Of course you have your traditional web-comics like Penny Arcade, HijiNKS ENSUE, Ctral+Alt+Del or Reallife comics but in the last few years a lot of Tv shows started to publish tie-ins on the web.

The popular scifi-drama Heroes is publishing small web-comics to show you different perspectives of their show. It is also used to keep the fans interested during the summer break. The stories are intense and the artwork is also exceptional and have been such a success that they are now released as paperback comic books.

All of Joss Whedon's shows (Buffy the vampire slayer, Angel and Firefly) are currently continued in comic book form. Buffy's season 8 has already developed over several magazines and it's a great way for the fans to find out what happened to the gang from Sunnydale after the impressive series finale in 2003.

The popular CW show Supernatural has also released several comic books that tell the story of the two protagonists' childhood.

Webcomic list

Just plain weird

2008-05-13T10:22:00.006+02:00

Here is a video that I really liked and as with most things that I like, I want to share it with you. Enjoy:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

And something else you might enjoy:

And don't forget to read all about last weekends festival event over on MFG reviews!

The Moral Choice

2008-05-08T17:46:00.004+02:00

I have played many games on almost any possible medium since my early youth and as a gamer, you are constantly confronted with people talking about “the next best thing”. Most of the time however these hypes don’t come through and you end up with a mediocre game and a foul aftertaste of wishing you had spend your money on something else. It is therefore even better, when once in a while a game comes along that not only lives up to the hype but manages to surpass every expectation. One of these games is the new GTA IV. Every blogger who has only the faintest interest in gaming is writing about the new Grand Theft Auto game by the developers Rockstar and so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and talk a bit about my recent source of sleep deprivation.

What makes GTA IV so different from its predecessors is not that it redefines gaming in any way. It does not include any extreme game play changes, nor does it change the way the story progresses. It still is and feels like a part of the previous installments. You have to pass missions for different NPC characters to advance in the story and gain money, power and become infamous amongst the different gangs and law enforcement agencies. The difference with GTA IV lies in the details and this is where the game really shines. You don’t feel like you drive through a computer generated city anymore with polygon characters that just populate the sidewalks, but you feel like you are in a real breathing metropolis. The pedestrians have conversations, talk on their sidewalks, look at shop windows, react to abrupt weather changes, scream for help when an accident occurs and react in a genuinely realistic way to foreign influences. If a murder occurs on these streets the other pedestrians won’t walk idly by as if nothing had happened, but they will react with horror and fear.

Rockstar improved almost every negative point of the previous game series. They have included a virtual cell phone that lets you plan activities with the friendly NPCs, you can take a cab to any location in town (which saves an enormous amount of time), and the radio stations don’t feel as unreal anymore due to the frequent news broadcasts that are introduced into the shows to talk about the recent happenings in Liberty City. Animation details like the way you break into cars, reload weapons and jump over fences are big plus sides of the game. The aiming system has also drastically improved and the characters new ability to take cover behind pillars and boxes makes it easier to survive in this world of crime and corruption. Which takes me to my next point: in-game violence.

Due to the realistic animations and lives of the population of L.C. you feel genuinely inclined to not harm any of them. They are for the first time really innocent bystanders and your conscience will prevent you from plowing through a populated sidewalk with your car. Furthermore the protagonist of GTA IV is not a cold hearted criminal anymore without any remorse or ideals. Nico Bellic does not come to America to live a life of crime, but to escape a violent past of war and poverty. The game also gives you the opportunity to spare the people that cross you and therein lays the key to a more likeable hero. Nico is not a dumb criminal anymore who does everything to gain power, he does what he has to, to help his family and to find the people who destroyed his life back home. The story telling fits in with movies like The Goodfellas or The Godfather and could also be compared to shows like The Sopranos or Rescue Me. The game includes strong language and violence and is therefore not available to minors and the responsibility lies with us adults to keep it that way. So if your teenage kid at home cries about how much they want to play this game, don’t give in. It really is not the right kind of entertainment for them!

IGN.com Review

Edward Albee

2008-05-04T15:58:00.004+02:00

This newest blog entry is comprised of the introduction of my last term paper on Edward Albee, a contemporary American playwright. I enjoyed the work on this paper because I like Albee's plays and have a deep respect for his person and work. If you have never read (or even better) seen any of his plays, you should keep your eyes open for performances near you.

Edward Albee is probably one of the most controversial, misunderstood and underestimated playwrights of the twentieth century. He landed enormous hits with his works Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The American Dream but a lot of his later plays have not re-established this early success, which is not to say that he is not a highly decorated writer. In 1967, Albee received his first Pulitzer Price for A Delicate Balance, and eight years later his second for Seascape. It took him nearly twenty years to receive another Pulitzer Price for Three Tall Women in 1994. Furthermore the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded him with the Gold Medal in Drama in 1980 and in 1996 he received the Kennedy Center Honors as well as the National Medal of Arts. In 2005 Albee received one of the biggest honors in show business, the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.[1]

Already at a very young age Albee had an unusually high interest in writing and tried himself in different genres like poetry and prose fiction with nearly no success. Thornton Wilder, the American playwright and novelist, was a close friend of the Albee family at the time and suggested early on to Edward to become a playwright. Albee remembers: “He’d read my poetry and tell me to be a playwright, to save poetry from me.”[2] For the first thirty years of his life his writing was fruitless until he decided one day, in dire need of money, to write a drama. After several weeks of hard work Albee emerged from his apartment with The Zoo Story, his first play to have a major impact on his career as a writer. The playwright commented this event himself by saying that “something very, very interesting happened with the writing of that play. I didn’t discover suddenly that I was a playwright; I discovered that I had been a playwright all my life, but didn’t know it because I hadn’t written plays... And so when I wrote The Zoo Story, I was able to start practicing my ‘nature’ fully.”[3] As an infant, having been abandoned at birth, Albee was adopted by the millionaires Reed and Frances Albee of Larchmont, New York, a family with theatrical background. He was often surrounded by writers and other people from show business making him familiar with the theatre at an early age. Albee’s youth can best be described as “troubled”. He got expelled from multiple preparatory schools and then graduated from Chaote, a prep school in Connecticut, where his first literary works – short stories, poems and a play – were published in the Chaote Literary Magazine. Even though he later attended a college, he never graduated. Between 1948 and 1958 Albee worked a lot of different jobs which left him unsatisfied and without a career. Albee then once again took up writing by borrowing some paper from a Western Union office where he worked and finally came up with The Zoo Story. “Three weeks later, some fifty sheets of yellow paper had become a play, and I had become a playwright.”[4] Up to today he has written 31 plays.

[1] The Edward F. Albee Foundation: http://www.albeefoundation.org/Welcome.html

[2] Edward Albee: A Casebook. p.141

[3] Understanding Edward Albee. p.4

[4] Understanding Edward Albee. p.5-6

Sweden travel report – Day 3-5

2008-04-24T13:47:00.003+02:00

It’s weekend baby! And so we decided to take it easy on day three, took a long walk into town for some food and watched a movie later on (Voces inocentes), before we went out. Jen and Polo took me to a rock bar called Kelly’s and after some drinks we went to Kvarnen a disco type place. Once again the extremely high alcohol prices became apparent (27 € for 6 pints). Since we all had a good time the next morning did not start until 2pm. We took a walk to get some air and then went shopping to catch up on brunch which was extensive and delicious (Jen and Polo really are the brunch masters). Nothing much happened for the rest of the day, so I’ll skip to my last day in Stockholm.

Sadly the National Museum was closed which was too bad, because I was looking forward to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit. So I took on Kastellholmen a small island in the middle of Stockholm. It holds some beautiful buildings and a few other museums (which were closed as well).

I met Jenny for lunch and we said our goodbyes. I walked the streets of the Old Town some more, bought a few books and when I finally got bored I took the bus to the airport and safely landed at Frankfurt-Hahn later that night. Stockholm really is an amazing town and I deeply enjoyed my stay there. Many thanks again to Jen and Polo for their hospitality.

Sweden travel report – Day 2

2008-04-20T17:17:00.004+02:00

After a good night’s sleep we returned to Stockholm central, this time by metro. Jen showed me her workspace at the Danske Bank and then we parted ways again. I had planned to visit several museums that day, but to my disappointment they all didn’t open until 11 am. So I had to kill some time and I decided to walk around a bit and take in the sights and enjoy the sunny day. I noticed a small church with a graveyard around and while I was taking some pictures, a friendly older Swedish lady explained some of the floral work around the facility.

Around 11 I entered the Historika Mus eet and took an audio guide of the Prehistory and the Viking exhibit. Another attraction at this museum is the Gold Room, a round chamber that holds 52 kilos of pure gold and more than 200 kilos of silver. Furthermore you can see an extensive exhibit of medieval church art on the second floor. This was probably the best of the three museums that I visited this day. It gave a decent overview of the past and best of all it had every information in both Swedish and English.

Next up was the Armémuseum which covers wars from the Viking age to the present time. It holds a large collection of weapons and artillery from all the different eras. I really liked the thorough exhibit, even though only the major displays were translated into English. Non-Swedish speakers are often left to wonder what exactly they are looking at. It was interesting to learn that Sweden was in so many wars, yet managed to stay completely out of the Second World War.

Last and sadly least was the Musikmuseet. It holds an extensive collection of musical instruments and shows different ensembles in Sweden from the 17^th century to ABBA. I was a bit disappointed in this exhibit, probably this was also due to the large group who was in there at the same time and made it impossible to study the displays properly.

I met up with Jenny around 17:00 but before we headed home we stopped at a beer store (yes they have stores only for beer in Sweden, because you can’t sell anything with more than 3 percent of alcohol at a supermarket). When we got back to the apartment, Polo’s girlfriend Marie had arrived as well and we all had some beers and watched some funny videos.

Part 3 is coming up…

Sweden travel report - Day 1

2008-04-19T22:03:00.006+02:00

As I previously stated I visited my old school mate Jenny Roch in Stockholm and I thought I would share some of my experiences with you. I took a plane (Ryanair) from Frankfurt-Hahn and landed safely at Skavsta airport around noon. After an 80 minute bus drive I arrived in the capital and had the afternoon to myself (my friend was still working until 5 that day). I remembered the picturesque Old Town from my first trip to Stockholm (about 8 years ago) and so I decided to walk its beautiful streets and check out the different shops. I had a small bite at a tiny bistro and then started my walk, listening to The Cure.

The streets of the Old Town are narrow and filled with shops of all varieties, the best of them being a science fiction bookstore that had everything to satisfy the true nerd (Books, Dvds, RPGs and even Graphic Novels). After having walked the main streets up and down a few times I visited the Nobel Museum which also hosted the exhibition design4science (images of the world of molecular biology). At the museum, you can find all the information on the Nobel Prize, its founder and the laureates. After the brief museum visit I walked around some more and stumbled on the Royal Palace situated in the Old Town. It reminded me a bit of Buckingham Palace with all the guards standing outside.

Around 17:30, I met up with Jenny and we walked to her apartment, where I got to meet her roommate Polo. We had a typical Swedish diner (mashed potatoes, vegetables and meatballs with lingonberry jam) and I simply dropped into bed. More about my trip to Sweden later…

(To see all the pictures of my trip, click on the title of this post)

Short break

2008-03-31T22:06:00.005+02:00

I won't be able to write anything serious (or stupid) on here for the next two weeks due to a massive increase in my workload and a trip to Sweden that I'll make in about a week. I'll try to be back with more interesting stories and news snippets after the break!
Take care

Honesty prevails!

2008-03-26T22:22:00.003+01:00

What do you think about the truth? Should we always be honest even if we will hurt somebody’s feelings? Or is it ok to lie once in a while just to protect our friends and family? I have constantly asked myself this question in the last few years. Should you tell your friends if you think that they are making a big mistake or should they have the experience on their own and learn from it? Should you tell your partner that he/she has gained weight (to a point that you no longer find him/her attractive) and that you think he/she should do something about it? Why is it that we usually find it most difficult to tell our closest friends and family the truth? I never studied psychology but questions like these still fascinate me. Of course nobody likes to hear that they are doing something wrong or that you think something about them should change. I think if a relationship is close enough, the different parties should be able to criticize each other (as long as this is constructive criticism of course). I wouldn’t think it appropriate to simply point out something negative and not give any helpful advice on how to change it. A small amount of tough love might do wonders at certain points. Don’t accept if your friends resign and throw away important opportunities. Don’t stand idly by when you see that some bad choices are made. Your honesty might make all the difference in the world. And of course when I say be honest I don’t mean be rude. Just don’t tell them you like their new haircut if you really don’t. You can still pack it up nicely and make them feel good without lying to their faces.
So be brave and be honest. You might see that it is quite liberating.

Join the Ayreonauts

2008-03-24T11:54:00.003+01:00

For the last ten years there has been a specific band that followed me wherever I went. Of course I’m not a victim of stalking but merely a victim to Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s pure genius that he puts into his musical project called Ayreon. Lucassen writes the music for these concept albums and then recruits some of the world’s best artists in Heavy Metal and Rock to record it and finally releases it under the name Ayreon. These past records have included talent like: Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering), Daniel Gildenlöw (Pain of Salvation), Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) and Devin Townsend, just to name a few of the many musical geniuses that Lucassen has worked with over the years. It all began in 1995 when “The Final Experiment”, Lucassen’s first Metal Opera was released. Since then Ayreon have come up with seven records and Lucassen has also worked on three other side projects. Ambeon was an ambient based single-singer project featuring Astrid van der Veen, Star One’s songs were all based on popular science fiction themes (like Star Wars and Dune) and Stream of Passion was Lucassen’s first real band in over 10 years. SOP was initially created to showcase the incredible talent of Mexican singer Marcela Bovio a newcomer at the time. Since then Lucassen has quit the band to create his latest Ayreon record called “01011001”, but SOP are still going strong.
If you like challenging music with a lot of variation and if you are not afraid to open your mind to different genres than you should definitely have a look at Ayreon. They are worth it!

Official Page

Myspace

Customer support

2008-03-21T19:59:00.004+01:00

Do you remember the sayings “the customer is always right” and “the customer is king”? I am wondering what happened to them. I would consider myself to be a spender. Not that I don’t keep a security fund in my bank account at all times, but I am not a cheapskate. I still buy CDs and DVDs, I buy a lot of books and I also have my fair share of little electronic gadget to make my life just a little less/more complicated. If you only do your shopping online than you escape what I like to call the customer trap. When was the last time you were at a store and needed some advice from a salesperson and actually got the help that you went there for? I have been duped several times, just to give you an example: I wanted to get a faster internet provider and the salesman assured me that they could upgrade my connection to a much higher speed (he even called a person at their tech-center to confirm it to me). When I finally received the new connection passwords it turned out to have been a hoax because my connection speed was still the same.
More than once I have noticed that customers that are not very familiar with the item they want to purchase are talked into buying a more expensive product that they don’t need. It is sad to see that it is more important to dupe your customers and make a lot of money off them, than to genuinely be interested in helping them. Of course I am very well aware of the ideas behind the free market economy but I’m tired of uneducated salespeople that can’t help you because they don’t know their products. If you want to buy for example a new television it is very important to get the right information before you make a purchase, or you will end up with a device that is ten times more advanced than you actually can use (the new HD standards are not used everywhere and most people don’t really understand the difference between standard SDTV and modern 720p and 1080p HDTV, a difference that has an enormous impact on the price range). So what happened to the friendly helpful salesperson? The last time I met one was when I went to the PC Spezialist branch in Trier. The main board of my new computer was defective due to an error I made while installing the CPU so I had them check it out. At first they told me that it was busted and that I had to buy a new one but then they tried to clean the whole thing and it paid off. The technician gave it an extra effort and thereby saved me a lot of money. Money I would probably have spent in their store. But since they did not try to rip me off I will probably go there more often from now on.
So here is an idea: try to be nice to your customers and ACTUALLY help them for a change, you might find out that it pay off and that they will return because a satisfied customer is a good customer.

Cthulhu fthagn!

2008-03-20T21:32:00.009+01:00

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."

Have you ever had the feeling that the world is not quite the way everybody seems to think it is? Do you believe in a higher power? And no I don’t mean God. Well I don’t mean your God. Do you dare to look behind the shrouds of reality and be swallowed by the Old Ones? Then step into the world of the almighty Cthulhu and beware of his eternal slumber. If you like horror stories and have never read the works of H.P. Lovecraft you should definitely look him up. Among his best work are the “Dream Cycle” stories and the “Cthulhu Mythos” stories. Lovecraft was plagued by frightening night terrors which gave him the inspiration for his horrifying stories. In 1981, half a century after the death of Lovecraft, his work and especially the mythos he had invented had gained such an enormous popularity that it spun off a pen and paper role playing game. Since then the publisher Chaosium has released several different versions and additions to the game. The basis of the game is simple. To play you need a game master (the person in charge of the story who presents it to the other players) and several investigators (how many is entirely dependent on the scenario). The story is usually situated in one of three different eras: the 1890s, the 1920s or the present. Recently there have also been additions to the game that take place in the Middle Ages (Cthulhu Dark Ages) and the future (Cthulhu Rising). So if you are into horror and suspense stories and also like to role play (and I don’t mean in the bedroom) you should get together with some friends and try out the dark world of dread Cthulhu.

"They were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape...but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them."

The complete works of H.P. Lovecraft

Neil Gaiman parody

Metal Bonanza

2008-03-19T09:35:00.002+01:00

I just wanted to promote a project that I am currently involved in. It’s a Metal review page where you can get some opinions about recent CD releases. The page also includes some information on upcoming events and festivals. So if you are into Metal music, check us out under: http://mfgreview.wordpress.com/ and get involved.

The Effect of Old Age

2008-03-18T18:11:00.003+01:00

In the past decades modern medicine has made unbelievable advances and if you lead a relatively healthy life (that means no smoking and no excessive drinking and binge eating) and are not a victim of a freak accident, you will probably grow very old. After having worked almost their whole life, you would expect people to be happy to retire and use all their new won free time to do all the things they missed out on for the past years. I know several people above the age of 70 and something that tends to strike me, is their belief that they are constantly ill and will die soon. Of course after a certain age the human body is prone to sickness, but even if the doctors ensure a clean bill of health they are convinced that something is wrong with them. I don’t want to insinuate that every person over 70 is a hypochondriac but sadly it often seems that way. It must be frustrating to outlive your friends and close relatives and it might even awaken a feeling of despair or depression.
When I talk about these old people I don’t mean any disrespect. For example I used to have the utmost respect for my grandfather but his constant obsession with his own mortality has it made very difficult to talk to him in the last few years. He has always been a very healthy person (except for his minor heart attack a few years back which he survived without any medical consequences) and I have always found it astonishing how he was still able to chop wood or work in his workshop at the age of over 80. But during the last few years he has been convinced that he will die soon and has given up. He doesn’t care about anything important anymore, ignores his family (two daughters and 4 grandchildren) and waits to be taken by Death. It is very painful to witness the decline of a loved one and it even makes me angry. He is now 86 years old and even managed to get his driver’s licence renewed last year. Unfortunately after Christmas he became so obsessed with the idea that something is wrong with him and so he had to go to a hospital and since then he has not been able to leave even though the doctors say he is fine. He is so convinced that he is dying that they cannot release him (he needs a lot of care now since he has given up and does not want to leave the bed) and it has also been impossible to place him at a retirement home (even though he bought himself a place in a care facility just for such a case). Not that his family wants him out of the way. It is just impossible to give him the care he need at home.
Well I am drifting of my point. My grandfather has always been a person who wanted to be on top of things. He read several newspapers every day, was politically invested and had strong opinions about the world and current events (who could blame him after having witnessed a war himself). This obsession (I really can’t think of another word here) has ruined what could have been a very healthy and productive retirement for him. He even started to write down his memories of the war but gave up because it was too painful. I always wanted to record his experiences so that the horrible events of the World War II would not be forgotten. It is sad to see that nothing is of any joy to him anymore. Worst of all is his apparent anger at the world, which he displays in anger fits he hurls at his visitors. It makes it very difficult for his children to visit him because he usually treats them like servants and strangers (even though he is not senile).
I hope I myself will be able to enjoy the rest of my life and use all the time I have been given to the fullest. I would really love to hear from some of my readers here. What are your opinions on this topic? Do you agree with me? Or do you think I am being too harsh with him? Please feel free to comment.

The Truth is out there!

2008-02-05T18:04:00.001+01:00

Recently I started watching documentaries, first only about history (mainly the Second World War), but now I find it quite stimulating to be entertained and educated at the same time. Sure, there is a documentary trend going around the last few years, but I am not talking about pseudo scientific shows like “Galileo” (a German television show) or “what nobody needs to know” shows on your next best documentary channel.
So let me just tell you about some of these movies that I saw recently and you can form your own opinion. Some of these are quite controversial and even provocative, and the facts presented are not necessarily all 100% proven to be true, but at least they give you a reason to think about the world.
“Orwell rolls in his grave” is the first one. It’s a movie about current political developments, especially in the US, that compares these developments with some of the predictions that George Orwell made in his literary works, like “Animal Farm” and “1984”. Let’s just say it’s almost spooky that he was right on the money over 60 years ago. For more information visit: http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/
I also watched “Zeitgeist” which I liked, but you maybe need to know that I’m a bit of a conspiracy nut. To quote the official website: “Zeitgeist, produced by Peter Joseph, was created as a nonprofit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are.” The movie can be split into 3 parts: The first part takes a new view on popular religious believes and tries to explain some of them with astrology. The next 2 parts are about politics, world economy and also about 9/11 and it’s repercussions. At the end the whole thing takes a turn to a futuristic view of the world that shows what might happen if current trends in the economy continue. I recommend this movie, but you should critically evaluate the information presented in it. Peter Joseph puts it this way: “That being said, It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized.” You can watch and download the movie here: http://zeitgeistmovie.com/
Finally I’d like to present a series about philosophical topics in combination with the idea of happiness. Author Alain de Botton talks about self-confidence, happiness, anger, self-esteem, love and hardship by looking at the works of Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The good thing about this series is that you don’t need to know a lot about philosophy to understand these teachings. For more information visit: http://www.alaindebotton.com/philosophy.asp and you can watch it here: Google video

Opium for the masses!

2008-01-29T17:35:00.001+01:00

It has been quite a while since I last turned on my television, just to get some entertainment. I live in Luxembourg, so most channels are German or French. Scripted programming is usually translated in either of those languages and the big shows from the US are shown here with a delay of at least a year. So if I want to watch any of these shows in English and without the horrendous amount of commercial intermissions I have to watch them on my computer. This just to give you an idea of where I’m coming from.
Now the thing I’d like to rant about is the lack of intelligent programming that has been around for the last decade. When I was a kid, you could turn on your TV and watch a show that had a story and usually a decent amount of entertainment value, sure we had stupid shows like “Married with Children” or “Sledge Hammer” but even these were coherent and meant to entertain; to make you laugh. There were no talk shows, no courtroom “dramas”, almost no reality TV whatsoever. It all started with “Big Brother”, when a bunch of total idiots and social outcasts were locked up in a house and watched day and night. Somehow this voyeuristic concept that would make George Orwell roll in his grave sparked an “entertainment” concept that introduced new shows on a monthly basis into the ether. We now have shows that portray trials in a “real” courtroom, camps with celebrities that are filmed 24/7, girls in bikinis that talk about their body issues (YES there really is a show like that!), etc. The new seasons of “American Idol” and its German counterpart “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” illustrate my point perfectly. The viewer is not supposed to think while watching but to gloat, and to feel Schadenfreude and later on (after the casting shows) even laugh and cry with the contestants. Three moronic judges treat other people like dirt in the name of entertainment and nobody takes issue with this. Seems we all like to laugh at the misery of others just a bit too much to care. Well I guess that’s a good thing, just think what would happen if we started to feel sorry for people that are worse off than us… We might even want to help them! OH NOES! (I know I’m taking a big leap here and a lot of you will not agree with me, but in my opinion the lack of empathy is one of our major problems at the moment. It keeps us from taking issue with poverty and war, as long as we are tucked away happily in our homes.)
The current writers guild strike might seem like a bad thing for the viewer and the networks, but let’s be honest, what better excuse could there ever be for the networks to produce more mind numbing and stupefying shows? Especially in the US where the government wants to keep its people as dumb as possible, quality TV, that might help to keep the viewers critical and interested in a wider variety of topics, is like poison. If the audience still watches TV when there are only reality shows left, then why should the networks finance extremely expensive shows like “Lost”, if they don’t need them anymore? Just keep them clapping their hands like monkeys while the newest one-week-wonders are created, or the “American Gladiators” smash their competition. Just think of the repercussions if they would watch truthful news (which there thankfully are none) and open their minds!
Thank you reality TV for helping us fulfill our full potential. Being FAT and DUMB!

War is peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength

What grinds my gears!

2008-01-28T18:34:00.001+01:00

I’m writing this to vent and maybe also to get a general idea of what other people think, so feel free to comment.
Being a student in my last semester, I can’t help but wonder, how most people see their life, and themselves in it. In the last few years I finished a lot of different courses and all of them have one thing in common: most of the work is done with presentations. You might say: that’s a good thing; people learn how to talk in front of others, express themselves clearly and use modern media in the process. Sadly I have to say that on the receiving end, this usually is nothing but boring.
How is it, that in a room full of people who study English, most of them are unable to speak two sentences in a row without raping the English language on the level of vocabulary or grammar. All of them have had extensive studies in the field, for at least six to seven years before they even started their university studies. At this moment I should probably mention that I’m a student at Trier in Germany, so English is not the native language, but acquired through second language studies in school. So yes, to attain the level of somebody whose mother tongue is English, is very difficult. But if you have difficulty expressing yourself and don’t know the grammar of a language, why would you study it at a university? Worst of all, most of these people are planning to become teachers and TEACH our children later on. To come back to the topic of presentations, the lack of language skill is the first problem you will encounter when you are part of the audience during a group presentation. Most of the time, the person who tries to present a topic (and remember this is with the goal of TEACHING everybody in the room something) has no idea how to express him/herself in a comprehensive way. This usually ends in a stuttering, and searching for words, that makes it difficult if not impossible to follow. Second, and that is something that I had to witness again today with painful agony, is the lack of technological knowledge.
Ok I consider myself to have a knack for technology, be it a computer or a simple DVD-player, but I’m still under the impression that it doesn’t take a degree in quantum physics to work either of those two. I’ll just take today’s example to make my point: A group of three students was doing a presentation on Fritz Lang’s movie “The big Heat” and for this purpose they had planned to show several scenes during their speech. However it seemed to be utterly impossible to work the DVD-player to a point that I had to ask myself if the design of a remote control is still too difficult for a UNIVERSITY STUDENT!!!! The play, pause, stop, forward, rewind buttons have been around for over twenty years now, nobody changes them, the design is so universally standardized that you could work it even if the language aids written besides the buttons where in Japanese. Still this group did not manage to skip to a different scene without excessive rewinding, and forwarding and sometimes even restarting the whole DVD just for the fun of it. I was under the impression we were in the 21st century and technology was not new to us, but apparently some of us still cook with fire and roll a stone in front of their cave at night.
Considering that it takes at least five years to finish your studies in Germany (six years to be realistic) it is disappointing that you have to waste your time, sitting through unprepared presentations where you are supposed to learn something only to listen to people jabber on about eeeh, aaah, oooh, I can’t remember the word, what was it, where was I, etc. Leaving the room after such a session and feeling dumber than before was not what I had in mind when I signed up for my studies…