Random thoughts... - by Tocky
Pyrian on 6/2/2023 at 08:11
Ultima III was my first, Ultima V was my favorite. Ultima VI kinda turned me off to the series; never played Ultima VII, lol. The way people talked about it at the time sounded an awful lot like "VI, only more so". V basically peaked the "old" Ultima mechanics, VI was something...different.
Anarchic Fox on 6/2/2023 at 09:49
Something different, and something better. It is the first game in the series I can call simulationist.
Twist on 6/2/2023 at 17:20
Well I'll bridge the gap between the two of you and say that Ultima V and Ultima VII (esp with Serpent Isle included) are my favorites. I think.
Ultima III: fond memories for it being my first non-arcadey video game and for the treasured memory of my dad leading me into Ultima and into RPGs in general... but it wasn't my favorite Ultima. I don't think.
Tocky on 19/2/2023 at 03:03
Every so often I get a hankering to use my metal detector for things other than finding where quarters are in my grandchildren's esophagus's. Esophogusi? Anyway I got such an urge today and walked into the pasture to see if I could find more evidence of general De Bienville's (SP?) encampment. I was hoping for a musket ball or button. I have told of my finding a puddle of lead and my imagining of the hurried forming of lead balls.
This time I wandered over to where a house had been a hundred or so years ago and got a strong reading right off. It turned out to be a part of a brass horse harness. Interesting but I think of a later era than seventeenth century French persuasion. Or perhaps not. Was brass used then? I have no idea. At any rate I am thorough and considerate. After finding it I scanned for other bits less literal and hit upon a bell shaped tag which was an advertising pin for a quack "cure" of the patent medicine wagon huckster era. It was for Dr. Bells Pine Tar Honey. A cough remedy around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century.
This is a lucky day. Most times it's nails, ax heads, and assorted aluminum. As I said though, I am considerate. I always fill my divots. No cow shall have a turned ankle on my account. That was when I found my bestest most lovely find. An Indian arrow head. Crumbling the dirt into the hole with my hands as a final archaeological sifting, I felt it and could hardly believe but there it was. Not Bienville's accoutrement but his enemy's. True, it could have been deposited anytime before or shortly after but what if it fell out of a quiver near the river that night? Sure, it might be an errant fling at a deer never found. But what if it wasn't? What if a Chickasaw never saw it fall as he watched the campfires of those troops? I don't care. That is the way it is in my mind. And in my mind he is my kin, my great great grandfathers great great grandfather a stones throw from my house so long ago.
Of course after such luck on my first hole I never lucked again today but the archaeologist in me sings and dances.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/qJW24Xy.jpgCool little vein of gold on the left side no?
Tocky on 1/3/2023 at 05:07
Dave from Saving Able came by to see the old gang where I work today. Turns out being a rock star is everything it's cracked up to be. He had just got back from a Japan tour. We talked for three hours just the two of us before the other guys made it back for this pic. He told me about Anne Wilson, Lizzy Hale, Joe Bonamassa, man, he has rubbed shoulders with rock gods at this point.
And yes, women do throw themselves at rock stars with their legs open. Everything he said was halfway between brag, awe, and confusion.
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https://i.imgur.com/9XwKcui.jpgTocky on 10/6/2023 at 02:36
I have had today several happenings which were presaged. I know I've spoken of having lived this life before but I don't really believe it and I know you don't. But then I have days where I know the script as I often did in my youth. And it isn't an easy script to guess either. I won't bother with all the things which I knew would happen as they did but two stand out because of how unlikely they were. My boss, Jay, comes into my office quite often with the strangest shit he has seen on the internet and we discuss how fucking odd the world is when work isn't intruding on our fucking the day right off. It goes quicker when you are fucking right off.
Anyway, he says he has just seen where Opra and Sandra Bullock have been promoting a skin cream and I will never guess what it is made of. I knew. I never saw or heard a thing about it in any way prior but I knew. It was so crazy to say I almost didn't say it but I did anyway. Foreskins. He was blown away that I guessed. I pretended to be as well. I acted as if my mind was just as blown but it was the way this whole day has gone. It's not as if I can do anything to change a day I recall or feel or however I do it. I just read the script. No matter how messed up that script is I still say the words. I have no idea if what he told me was even true. I'm sure as hell not going to Google baby foreskins and find out, but he said I guessed right and acted as if he was amazed. It was a damn good act if it wasn't real.
Another was while watching "The Keeper of the Flame" on TCM with my wife. I said a line with the same inflection as Tracy before he said it. It wasn't just the line. It was the inflection which I matched before he said it without ever having watched this movie. There were other smaller things which I knew and mimicked throughout the day and one to start the day that was annoying as hell just because I knew and could do nothing about but those two were so unlikely. Why this day was remembered is beyond me to know but it was. I can say it's bullshit and so many strange coincidences but damned if I don't feel I'm right on track and this one happened before.
I can't be the only one. Surely you have done similar and felt the oddity of recalling a day just before it happens.
Oh and here is pic of me and Kev, my old bud who came to visit about a month ago just because. It's of our initials we carved in the old Toccopola post office when we were seventeen. God what a wonderful age. No way I would have guessed back then that we would be these old geezers pointing to them so take that predestination!
[IMG]
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https://i.imgur.com/GyGcWOq.jpg[/IMG]
Or would I? I don't want to know.
Tocky on 29/7/2023 at 06:09
Well I've found another rabbit hole to go down. Horror posters have quadrupled in price lately so I don't buy those like I used to. It's good in that the ones I own are worth way more than I paid but mostly bad in that I can't get the few I don't have for a decent price anymore. So I've been buying screen used movie props. Some go for thousands but some are remarkably affordable. A sword from Zena Warrior Princess for under a hundred? Yes please.
It's hit and miss. A lot, like Samuel Jacksons outfit in Pulp Fiction is way pricey. Twenty thousand pricey. But an extra helmet from the epic movie Alexander? A tad over a hundred. And my baby got me one for my birthday. I suppose it's a bit goofy of me to collect hats and head gear but now when we watch the battle scenes I can say "Look! There's my helmet!" and "There it is again!" and "ooooooo he took a good lick on that one! I wonder if that's how the chin strap got broken" which of course means everything in the world. So much depends upon the red wheel barrow.
Anyway you all likely think I'm a goof and that is a dead on assessment but I don't care. Here is a pic of me in the helmet. It's even within the realm of possibility that Angelina Jolie stroked the knob at some point.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/KighGBQ.jpgHere it is in the movie.
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https://i.imgur.com/45wPTSk.jpgheywood on 29/7/2023 at 18:12
I saw that and thought if you had GBM on the other side of that window, you'd make quite a pair.
I love that you guys went back to revisit a moment like that from your youth. I've been longing to do something like that ever since I lost my dad. And 17 was a good age for me too - a lot of freedom and little burden.
rachel on 29/7/2023 at 20:01
Quote Posted by Tocky
Another was while watching "The Keeper of the Flame" on TCM with my wife. I said a line with the same inflection as Tracy before he said it. It wasn't just the line. It was the inflection which I matched before he said it without ever having watched this movie. There were other smaller things which I knew and mimicked throughout the day and one to start the day that was annoying as hell just because I knew and could do nothing about but those two were so unlikely. Why this day was remembered is beyond me to know but it was. I can say it's bullshit and so many strange coincidences but damned if I don't feel I'm right on track and this one happened before.
You're a storyteller, as in you know how stories work, and you weren't born yesterday, watch enough and read enough and you can predict lines like magic sometimes. I've done it a few times I can remember, and probably others I don't... Pattern recognition of tropes and character archetypes will do that for you. It's a cool trick if you can master it ;)
Tocky on 31/7/2023 at 02:17
It doesn't feel like that. For all the world it feels like remembering. Sometimes it's just a feeling. Like Friday I was late for work and I had been feeling that something bad was going to happen since I saw a couple of guys in the pasture across from me. It's always been an absentee owner situation. Not anymore. The guys wife left him so he decided to come live in the country. What is the thing that all city people do when they move to the country? They try to make a place look like the sterile landscape they came from. But I was late. When I came home I found this-
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/L5w1u4d.jpgThis is what it was before-
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https://i.imgur.com/Vv8Shrd.jpgDid I know? In that way that you ignore what you know I did. I didn't want to think he would do this. What sort of idiot sees a beautiful country lane and thinks "if I screw this up it will be great!"? I think I know why his wife left him now. And worse. I know he will put up one of those Mc- mansions. He will make certain it will be seen from all sides. I have had dreams where I stood in that road looking through a tunnel of trees at the moonlight. Remember my drawing? He has no concept of what is beautiful and I will hate him. I already do.
But LOL, I would love to see someone photoshop GBM into that post office window.
