Roleplay

I love my roleplay*. I only wish there were more and better forums, better moderated. Also, there should be a global organization that identifies all the small entity forums and allows them to link and search throughout. Anytime the word "roleplay" is googled, this parent organization should pop up as the first choice, and then the link should blink in bright, neon lights, "HERE IS ALL THE ROLEPLAY YOU'LL EVER NEED, SORTED, FACILITATED AND MODERATED FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT!"

Small forums could apply to the parent organization, which would then sort the forums by topic, world setting, maturity of content, population and other categories. Forums would receive ratings for quality, participation and ease of play so that roleplayers would know what to expect when they sign up.

For example, as a roleplayer, I want to know just how often to expect a reply to my thread. Currently, I can sign up to a thread, but my only idea of how active it may be is to search through old replies for the dates of individual posts, a tedious process to say the least. Also, I always have this feeling that the perfect world is out there, hidden in an obscure, roleplay forum, one which I'll never find in this vast network of websites, blogs and forums. Another roadblock I've found is the requirement for niggling bits of computer apps. When I run into that, I simply stop the registration process, but maybe, just maybe, what I want is over that wall!

I'm not complaining. I'm making a suggestion for how to improve the ability of roleplayers to find each other and increase the quality of play once we do. Fortunately, I am currently participating in two (or three), fantastic roleplay threads that I love to write and to read, so I'm personally satisfied.

But what about when they run out? Then what? I'll have to wade back into the surf and see what I can find. And...they always do run out. There's no forever (or at least I haven't found it) in a roleplay. The dread of finding and beginning another makes me want to nurture the two (or three) stories I have and enjoy. And with that said, I have someone waiting for a reply...
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*Roleplay: Alas, the general population may not be aware of this utterly fascinating activity, so I'll define it, if such a beast as amorphous, polymorphous and/or omnimorphous can be described. It comes in many forms, which is a good thing and a bad thing, as reflected in this post. The basic play begins with an individual imagining a character s/he would like to act out and in what world setting they'd like to place their character. I won't describe the process of finding a partner(s), the lament of the above post, but once other individuals with similar tastes are identified, they each take turns advancing a written story, usually through posts on a forum, although there are other formats such as Second Life and MMORPGs.

Disclaimer: If a D&D'r ever reads this, I didn't forget you, I just didn't think going into your game and its influence helped define what's happening currently on the web. You esoterics may jaw about that history over cognacs, because I've already written too little about a topic that's too large.

-ling

Label for this post is "utterly random." It is an update to my musings of August 3, Dales-ings.

-ling
diminutive suffix, 1314, from Old English -ling a nominal suffix (not originally diminutive): attested in historical Germanic languages as a simple suffix, but probably representing a fusion of the suffixes represented by English -le (compare icicle, thimble, handle), Old English -ol, -ul, -el; and -ing, suffix indicating "person or thing of a specific kind or origin; in masculine nouns also "son of" (compare farthing, atheling, Old English horing "adulterer, fornicator"). Both these suffixes had occasional dimunitive force, but this was only slightly evident in Old English -ling and its equivalents in Germanic languages except Old Norse, where it commonly was used as a diminutive suffix, especially in words designating the young of animals (e.g. gæslingr "gosling"). Thus it is possible that the diminutive use that developed in Middle English is from Old Norse.

*edited in order to expand abbreviations

The Projects Never End

Last week it was the pergola, still unfinished because we haven't found the right materials for the overhead slats. This week I installed a brick border at the edge of the pavement to make one walk wide enough for the lawn mower. Hard work--'nuff said. This weekend Artisan Al, my favorite construction worker, stone mason, hole digger, tree trimmer and all-around handy man, cut the bricks to add a little style to my work. Besides, all those geometrical figures make me nuts.

Nice right? There's not much he can't do.

This week I'll make a push to finish digging out the bricks of the old (and delapidated) walkway behind the house and hope that by next weekend I can have it ready for us to pour new, concrete walks. Did I mention that Artisan Al is very handy at lifting bags of concrete, too?

A Jaunt

Where the skies are not cloudy all day. That's wheat, folks.

After doing some repairs around the house and yard, Al and I took a short spin on the motorcycle. A girl has got to see some uncluttered Kansas sky once in a while. We also stopped to take a picture of the peace treaty monument near our house. All these years Al thought it was a Chisholm Trail marker. Can you believe that?!

Nominal Aphasia

I've known about this deficiency of mine for a long time. In fact, I mentioned it in a post once and called it a "noun-attack," and now I've learned the name of it from an episode of House. The victim had suffered a stroke that impaired the area of the brain that controlled his ability to recall nouns. The recall of names, as a special case of nouns, can also be affected.

Nominal Aphasia or anomia is the form caused by trauma like a stroke. The mild type is called dysnomia. That's what I suffer occasionally. It doesn't seem to be a problem when I write, only when I'm speaking. It causes me to adopt a kind of stop and start pattern. I begin a sentence, pause for a moment to search for the noun, then begin a new phrase with the recalled noun in place. When the noun is the subject, the pause is not even noticeable because I locate the noun before I begin speaking at all.

I've noticed that my dad has the same problem on occasion. However, he may have suffered mild strokes that produced it. I don't know if he was affected with dysnomia in his youth.