A picture, cause my sis wanted one. This is a Lionfish, it lives in water and eats things that also live in water or that have fallen into the water where it lives. I took this picture at the Vancouver Aquarium.

This is another picture, taa daa! This is a picture of a turtle, it is a silly turtle, it was moving too fast for me to take a picture. I am the slowest picture taker in the world apparently, but I guess I can't be good at everything. This was also taken at the Vancouver Aquarium. I had lots of fun there.

This is Kotei Season

It is here, it is early this year, it has been here for a while now. I was looking through my deck today, picking out cards that need to be replaced, and proxies of cards that I need to get, good luck. This is my first Kotei playing my true Clan, the Phoenix. Last year in Vancouver I played the Mantis Clan, and this year in Seattle I played the Shadowlands.

I started playing L5R back in Diamond Edition, a few sets in. Aaron and I looked at all the starters left in the display box, and he chose the Dragon Clan, the one I wanted, so I took the Phoenix Clan. They were similar enough for me to be intrigued by both. The Dragon are the enigmatic mystics that live at the top of a mountain and speak in riddles. The Phoenix are their neighbours, pacifists governed by an Elemental Counsel instead of a Champion. What really drew me into the clan was the awesome destructive power of their many spells, especially Kuro's Fire! I could sit back and gain honour every turn and never attack, simply wait for my opponents to come to me, then, Wham! You all burn. It was great fun.

Now it nears the end of the Lotus Edition, and begins with the new Samurai Edition. Things are stirring in Rokugan, the Emporer is dead and the Khan, Moto Chagatai, Champion of the Unicorn Clan, seeks the throne for himself. If you didn't know already, L5R is an interactive storyline CCG, we, the players, have a say in the future of our environment through the choices we make when playing tournaments, participating in the RPG, and interacting with the worldwide community of players. It is very unlikely that I will have any direct say in the choices made at this years Kotei here in Vancouver, I hope to win some games though, and merely watching the movers and shakers decide characters fates is exhilarating. Last year Patrick was runner up with the Unicorn Clan, Bryan Reese won, but since Pat conceded the final game he let him choose the story prize. The Unicorn Clan had already enlightened 3 personalities for that half of the season so he was allowed to choose a member of another clan to become enlightened, he chose Isawa Sawao of the Phoenix. Thanks Pat!

If by chance I win this year, out of all the options I have to choose from, land, influence, opposing the Khans bid for the throne, and supporting his bid, I will most assuredly choose to support the Khan, to repay the favor Pat showed to my clan. But I'm sucks, so I will not have that choice.

I just finished a 1lb bag of licorice, so I must rest.

The busy life of me, and the knights who say...

Hello, nope, no fiction this time, has bee a month and more since my last post. Sheesh time flies when you are having fun. Speaking of fun, my life has been a whirlwind these past two months, new friendships being the most exciting, and I am going to visit my little sis in Scotland and travel Europe with her. She is a poor missionary so we will go budget. Got my ticket already, I leave on the 26th of March come back on the 4th of May, yay! I think this time away will be very good for me and people here as well, time to relax and get thoughts in order before making and huge decisions. One of which is whether I will return to school this fall. I am seriously contemplating taking courses to give me an avenue into Forestry/B.C. Parks stuff. I want to be a forest ranger, I already have the pin that says "Ranger" from my dad when he was a leader in Boys Brigade. Plus Aragorn was a ranger and he is cool. But seriously, I took the advice of my friend Mark to heart, he was talking about how Gods will is hard to grasp sometimes, and all that we are left to do is move forward until he closes windows to direct our path. After he said it like that I remembered a speaker in Capernwray talking about it in a similar fashion, that it was like a plane in the old days that would fly in silence listening for radio signals, if it heard the signal that meant it was off course, so it would adjust accordingly. As long as it flew between the two signals, in silence, it was on the right path. So we will see what He has to say about this plan of mine, I just don't want to get so caught up in it that I will miss the signal.

In other news I went to the Vancouver Aquarium on Saturday. I have just bought a new digital camera for my trip and took it on a test run. A Panasonic DMC-TZ1, only 10 pictures between my weenie memory card and the internal memory, I'll have to learn how to post them here, some of them at least. I also bought a new scent of deoderant by Old Spice, I've always been an Old Spice guy, and I saw this add, it's really a stupid add, but I went in and looked for the scent shown, it was more expensive than the others, and kinda reminded me of Axe or Tag or some other stupid crap that young punks would buy, it's called "Showtime", lame. But if it helps me with the ladies... boo-ya! Naw, I don't think I need it, I'm sitting pretty right now, the opinions that I care about have been expressive of this kind of sentiment: Jerk, Arrogant, Huge Ego, Smart Alec, and Strange. All in all par for my life.

My RPG is also going smoothly, just starting to get the characters drawn into the main plot of it, after over a year. Taught them a new lesson as well, talk to people, they didn't learn it right away, and paid for it.

Anyway ta ta for now