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Date: February 1st, 2020.

Time of Writing: 10:42 PM.

Weather: Little misty late at night but throughout the day it was decently warmish.

Mood: A universal sigh.

Day Overview: Woke up my normal time today and got to my weekend business of trying to go back to sleep, at which I was moderately successful. When I peeled myself out of bed I read some stuff on the computer a bit before I noticed it was basically time to go to get some lunch before the first Vampire session. I headed to the dining hall at the base of Orchard Hill, atop which sits the dorm building where the campaign is being placed. It's my least favorite dining hall for a few reasons. Firstly, it's disorienting, and the barely used kosher dining section really messes with my memory of where the dish return is supposed to be. Secondly, the selection rarely if ever changes compared to the other dining halls. Thirdly, it's incredibly plain to sit around in. I actively want to leave when I'm done, nothing about the place invites me in any capacity to stay a while and talk to whoever I'm eating with. I just instantly want to leave.

The session was pretty good, got off to a bit of a rough start but soon enough got going. Seeing how the systems play out in real time is actually really cool, and got me enthusiastic to interact with the world in a more thoughtful way. I don't know if I did my character all that much justice yet, he's supposed to be overly talkative and I felt like I was getting talked over a fair amount. I won't summarize the events of the session, but I will say that I was thoroughly duped by an illusion. Afterwards I went over to Spencer's dorm and hung out with him and Via for a bit before Via left to go to a frat party with her cousin. I stuck around with Spencer and talked a lot about Vampire The Masquerade, and he said it sounded cool. I then floated the idea of starting a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for the friend group, and he seemed on board when I asked him if he'd like that. I explained more generally what that would be about and then we went to get dinner at my second least favorite dining hall, the one next to his dorm.

The only real thing elevating this above the other is that they have a good half of the hall dedicated to Asian food, and I love me some Asian food, but that was closed on the weekends which was sad. We went and got food on the other, boring side. I had a little slider burger and some sweet potato fries, and Spencer had some pasta. We sat near some people from the Clarinet section, but I pretended not to see them, instead taking out my laptop and pretending to be incredibly focussed. One of the people there was my Rank Leader from last season, it was her and her friends there. Spencer went over and said hello while I got food (and was hiding). After dinner Spencer and I went back to his dorm and talked more about RPGs and watched YouTube videos I'd saved. There was some testing of mechanical keyboards in there. Now, I'm back in my dorm, spending another night inside.

On My Mind: Being the Dungeon Master for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (if you're wondering why I'm avoiding the ampersand it's because I don't know how to get it to not glitch up my html) would be exciting, but also incredibly daunting, because I've never done it before and it involves a lot of work. I have a good idea what module I'd try to run - that would be The Lost Mines of Phandelver - but I might want to do a preview session before hand with some premade characters just to ease the players into the mechanics of the game. I don't really have money to buy them dice or anything, so they'd have to use something electronic or just pass around my own dice. Which is sad, because it's really good to have your own set of dice to develop a relationship with, I really like my red dice for instance.

Overall I think a campaign would be really cool. Spencer is down for it, Dev is into Game of Thrones so he already sort of knows fantasy settings and stuff, and Jess and Via would probably be interested in at least trying it out. If not then I can pull some other friends, and get a crossover episode going. I wonder if my Rank Leader was getting food with her Dungeons and Dragons campaign squad. My Vampire group probably would have gotten food together if one of us didn't have to go to work right afterwards. Hmmmm.

• Her Life in Reverse by Hitchcock's Regret: This one was personally recommended to me on Rateyourmusic by my writing friend Brackie! Thanks for the recommendation, there's basically no way I would have checked this one out otherwise, which is a shame because I would have been missing a really good album. There's a good mix of The Beatles and Radiohead and just some general british-y alternative rock on this album, and it all is sequenced incredibly well together. Some alt-country too, and sometimes the singer reminds me of Jeff Tweedy. It might not sound good that I've described this album completely in relation to other artists so far, but it's a solid album, I swear! It's got some harmonies on it, real nice, that remind me of the Beach Boys - damnit!
  
  A couple of songs on the front end of the album are a bit on the long side, but pretty soon the songs get increasingly dynamic and interesting to warrant their runtime. The lyrics are pretty standard, occasionally a bit cringe, so the real start of the show is the songwriting. Some of these hooks are incredibly clever, and all of the songs are a fun listen. Plays a bit too close to its influences, I wish it branched out a bit more, it does its style pretty well but stays too far within that sphere too much. A good example of the branching out I'd like is on Milkwood Moon. which feels like a standard take on alt-country until the strings come in and everything sort of just takes off. That bit hit different, gotta say. Not the biggest fan of the veer towards the blues the next track goes, though. A bit all over the place but overall a solid artistic statement. 8/10.

Produced: I'd say my actions in the campaign today make this a pretty non-zero day on their own, and I contributed well to the group enough to feel like I've met whatever imaginary quota I have for being a person who makes things today. Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out, it's just sort of where I am right now.

Other Thoughts: Welcome to February, the second month of the blog! Do you like the new style? Hate it? Got any suggestions? Let me know! A note that tomorrow's blogpost will probably either be delayed or super early because of the super bowl party I'm going to. Go Chiefs!