Dallas Trip + Hot Chick = Awesomeness

Today I head up to Dallas (from Houston) to pick up my friend Jeremy's kid so he can spend a week with her. That'll be awesome but on top of that both Jeremy and AJ will finally meet the famous Chandler Whitworth for the first time so I'm super excited! And, you know, I'll get to see her, but that's only a tiny part of the awesome (*coughliarcough*). I'm leaving in a little bit--it's now 7:48 AM--so I'm going to now go get prepared for the awesome.

See ya!

With more awesome than usual,

Caleb James Nelson

I could ironically joke about how long it's been, but that's never funny...

Let's update!

The job I had in December/January stopped giving me hours, yay! Seriously, no hours since like mid January... I don't think they need me. It was nothing malicious they just really don't need me, no nearly enough customers, I think...

Moving on, I may start working at Jimmy John's again; not the same one mind you (this one's a whole 2-3 miles away...) but the same franchise. I'll probably be working in-shop as they have plenty of drivers, but income period is good at this point. Hooray for past experience and the referral of a friend!

Other than that nothing major is going on, I think... I've been the GM (Game Master, think boss) of a table-top game for the past month and a half, that's been awesome. Two of my friends are engaged,  though only one of those is recent. Confirmed I am in-fact an otaku (def: stays at home a lot hold-up in ones room doing "nerdy" things like reading manga and unable to socialize... wait, what's new about that?). Sleeping in a total random schedule--I keep staying up most, if not all, of the night on the interwebs (fact: there are multiple of those!).

On a different note I feel a lot more like myself as of late, less fake. I don't know if I've ever intentionally hidden my "true self," but I feel more true to myself. Warning: this entails many inside jokes being thrown in the middle of discussions, most of which only make sense to me because my mind went off on a tangent about ten minutes ago and it's impossible to trace it back by then. Like "Brians..." in a zombie voice; that seems like it would make sense except I didn't think of it on my own, I got it from Jeremy, who I think got it from Tomska (youtuber) who probably got inspired by someone else. Any topic or phrase that reminds me of any of these, or makes be think of them, or reminds me of something that then reminds me of them (or however man iterations occur before I think of them), or leads me to "Brains..." could possibly spawn this random line, or I might remember the line itself and laugh hysterically inside while a slight murmur escapes my lips and I beat it shamelessly to dust with a shoe (thanks for sticking that analogy in my brain [heh, "Brians..."] Zach). And yeah, inner-brain Inception (analogy->Zach->brain->brian->realizing thought in thought->wanting to put in->*reverse order* [and then the universe explodes]), go me.

Getting out of that monster of a paragraph ("Ha, he made self-referential humor! And broke the fourth-wall! Twice!"), I feel like I'm able of being myself more than I use to, that I'm less afraid to show my inner-self. I still have a lot to improve but I'm happy.

Ending this before I insert even more parentheses (and failing),

Caleb James Nelson

It's been like forever, what up?

Over the past few days I've realized that a few of the people I know or follow (webcomics, video people, etc.) know each other, or that they work together. Extra Credits is group of people who make awesome videos that go into the workings of video games and stuff (terrible description, but seriously, look 'em up!) and I recently found out the creator of a webcomic I follow, Name Game (though she's not updating for a while now), is the fourth member and second artist of the group, which blew my mind. On top of that, my friend Sarah White--someone I met at a con that worked for a company that now shut down--knows the Extra Credits crew and did art for an episode not too long ago in September talking about Game Schools. Seriously? That's amazing! No wonder I loved them. After realizing this it made me think that our lives are a lot smaller than we think, not tiny, but not humongous either; just made me think.

That's all I really had to say, nothing grandiose today.

Working on my levels in GM,

Caleb James Nelson

Thoughts and Feelings: What Goes On Inside My Squishy Brain

Summer school: that time of the year where students squish 16 weeks of school into 4 1/2, causing a singularity and destroying half the city, earth, or what have you.

Honestly, as much as I actually enjoy finishing a class and not having to worry about it, doing summer school is rough. I actually prefer it in a way, you don't have as much time to get distracted from the work and mess around. At the same time, you don't have as much time to get distracted from the work and mess around.

As many of you should know, I am a huge fan of getting distracted from my work and doing something else; in fact, if I could do that consistently and not get punished for it, I totally would, but alas that just isn't the case. Playing video games, browsing the internet, and hanging out with friends is great and awesome, but it all becomes meaningless if it isn't distracting you from something. Whether that be stress or more stress, you need something to be distracted from for all activities not related with the stress to be fun and awesome.

I've been reflecting on a lot of things I've done in the past year and remembering what I was ignoring and what I was ignoring it with (hanging participle aside). Strangely, it brings back fond memories of my friends and growing closer to them, not the stress of failing to accomplish what I was ignoring. It doesn't make me want to ignore the big stuff more, actually it's making me realize why the stuff I was ignoring is so important. Aside from being super important for me to be a good person--in addition to a good husband--if all I'm doing is ignoring what needs to be done, ignoring it gets boring and stale, invalidating the very reason why I'm goofing off.

Just something that's been on me for the past... I'll say four hours, that's the time I've been consciously focusing on it.

I wish you well and hope you all remember that I actually exist,

Caleb James Nelson

Remember me? No?! Yeah, I don't blame ya...

Man, six weeks without a post, I'm not keeping up with this too well like I planned. Well, guess I should start talking.

For those of you who don't know, about a year and a half ago I was introduced to a table-top system that I fell in love with; the Lucid Gaming System covered everything that I disliked about D&D and the d20 system and did it in a way that made sense and that I liked.

A few months ago PtME, the super small company that created the system, went dark and I heard next to nothing from them. Yeah, I had a friend who was connected to them and filled me in on some of the details, but overall I didn't know how much was absolute truth or what he speculated about; Wesley is great and all, but I got the feeling that even he wasn't entirely in the loop, just how things go.

Anyways, on Monday I went to check out their online forums. It had been a while and I had a question or two I thought would be good. When I first got there it didn't click--I thought I had input the web address wrong--but after another try I read what the webpage said; the PtME site had expired. So I made a trek over to their Facebook page (something I had no idea existed -.-) and posted a comment about it, asking what was going on. I knew that two of the three original people had left because they felt it was their time but I had heard that the project had continued one way or another. Today I got their response:

"Hey Caleb, right now the project is on hold. No one is working on it or doing anything for it. I am not sure when the project will continue."

I can't say I was happy when I read the response, but I'd been hearing things and rumors and so I wasn't too surprised. I wished them luck and thanked them for responding, ending with telling them to stay safe and awesome. I've met and talked with pretty much every main person involved and can say that I am on good terms with them. They are all great people and appreciated me voicing my opinion and giving my view as someone not part of the company; seeing as everyone that I know that has played the system has helped the company and considered interning for them, they don't have many people who aren't part of the company in some way--they're kind of awesome in that way :)

I don't really know why I've made this post, it's just something I care about; LGS is a source of many good memories and friends and I hope they come back to the project. Until then, the phrase "no one is working it" is kind of a lie. I know people who are working on it right now trying to perfect the system and expand on somethings that aren't complete. While PtME itself may not be working on the project that doesn't mean it won't go forward, the fan-base loves it too much to let it stay stagnant.

I guess the reason I wrote this is to inform more people about the table-top game that I love, to help persuade the company to come back and work on something I know they love and that has plenty of fans trying to spread their knowledge and get LGS the fan-base it deserves. D&D is great and all, but it doesn't have the personality that LGS does.

Anyways, thanks for reading (or not reading, how many people actually even know this exists?)

Working on my next level in Nerd,
Caleb James Nelson

Level Up in... Video Games?

This semester I am taking a Technical Writing course. This course is meant to teach you what you need to know for the business world, at least text wise for things like memos and stuffs. For my midterm I was to write a business proposal for my final project and treat it like I needed it to be approved (because I did). The teacher had the class think of a few ideas in class and shortly type them out so that we could figure out what we would do.

Well, I put down doing a hands-on, teaching seminar for beginners (specifically people with little to no experience) in fighting games to introduce the basics and it got approved. Actually, not just approved, but basically chosen by my teacher because it was the best of the three ideas I had; this means that for my final project in Technical Writing I need to play video games so that I have the experience to be able to do my final project: I have to play video games for school.

Honestly, this took me by surprise as I totally did not expect it to be decided upon of the three ideas that I had. Anyways, because it would be difficult to teach the class with a hands-on seminar, I'll be creating a video to show in class of me "teaching" my friends how to play; not exactly the proposal, but she's approved this because of the constraints of the class.

Tl;dr: I have to play video games for school because my teacher approved my idea to help beginners get into the fighting game community. Anyone for a high-five?

Lvl 5 Ninja/Lvl 2 Mathematician/Minor in VIDEO GAMES,

Caleb James Nelson

Another Obligatory Post

Bleh, I just really don't feel like posting, as the ten day break implies. I don't know, I'm just so out of it, I don't feel like doing anything. It's been a joke for most of my life that I'm a lazy bum, but honestly I'm not sure that's really true. I work at things I'm interested in and I don't for things I'm not unless I feel it is necessary. Besides things I have a passion towards I am apathetic at best.

Well, that's really all that's on my mind.

Gradually leveling up my Math Skillz,

Caleb James Nelson