A Most Interesting Game

            So, a few years back I was in a restaurant with part of my wife’s extended family. At this point in time we hadn’t been dating very long, so I didn’t really know who anyone was. Across from me sat my wife’s uncle, a man with a bushy, black, grey-streaked beard and a brightly coloured beanie (yellow and red, if I remember correctly).

            Partway through the evening, after losing interest in the conversation of the rest of the table, this man (who I hadn’t spoken to at all, since I’m kinda the shy quiet type) gathered together two salt and two pepper shakers and put them in the center of the table. He then gave me this serious, considering look, and very deliberately moved one of the salt shakers on an angle to rest beside a pepper shaker.

            Not entirely certain what was going on, or what the intended rules for this game were, I decided to play along. After a moment of consideration, I moved a pepper shaker to make the pattern of all the shakers relatively symmetrical.

            My wife’s uncle made an impressed face, nodding, as if this was a very cunning move. Then he moved a salt shaker, and I followed up with a pepper shaker. This went on and on, for probably half an hour or more. We never said a word to each other. We just kept moving shakers, playing by whatever rules were implied by the other player’s actions and aiming for imaginary goals that we weren’t entirely certain of.

            The game came to an end when someone else at the table finally asked us what we were doing. Playing a game, we replied. What were the rules? Oh, we’re just making them up as we go along.

            The magic of the silent game was broken, there seemed no point in going on with it or restarting now that it had been defined. But to this day, this was the most unique – and I’d even say profound – way I’ve ever been introduced to someone. Strange as the experience was, it was incredible – and the memory of it will stay with me forever.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Do Ants Value Life?

            While observing the ants exploring my house (particularly the kitchen) this spring, I started to wonder: do ants value life?

            As general rule, living beings have strong survival instincts. It makes sense – an animal that doesn’t care if it lives or dies is less likely to survive to reproduce, eliminating those characteristics from the DNA chains. Bet what about creatures that are literally born to serve?

            Ants obviously have a high fatality rate. They go out in droves seeking food and many never come back. Confronted with a threat, an ant will struggle to stay alive. Yet, at the same time, an ant that dies on patrol is forgotten (apart from the pheromones it emits to alert the colony of threats).

            What value does a colony place on a lowly worker? They are mass-produced, specifically because of how many of them die. It seems as though ants don’t care about life at all – each of them living only to further the existence of the colony.

            At the same time, ants take extremely good care of their young. Further to that, they usually have duties around the nest when they are younger and aren’t sent out foraging until closer to the end of their life spans. This suggests a certain respect for the outside world and a desire to prolong the lives of the individual ants.

            Yet, this also serves a practical purpose – why send out the young, who still have a lot of work left in them, when the old are available? So, it could simply be survival.

            Which leaves me here, still wondering. What is the value an ant places on life? Perhaps they simply don’t have time to ponder it, with the possible exception of the queens – who seem to be the whole reason why most colonies exist in the first place.

            So, does a queen ant value life? She lives up to thirty years – ten or more times the length of regular ants – so she has plenty of time to ponder. These are her children we’re talking about, living and dying while she watches – generation after generation. Does she mourn the loss of a worker, or are there so many that she simply doesn’t care? Does she, perhaps, value only her own life?

            Now I need to hire a team of scientists to develop a way to talk to ants so we can ask them.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Aliens and Abduction

            While I’ve always been open to the idea of other life in the universe (it’s such a big place, after all), I’ve also always been quite sceptical about the idea of said life abducting and experimenting on humans. Then I had a look at how humans treat the wildlife of the planet.

            Now, I’m not suddenly a believer in such things, but my scepticism has shifted from “That’s ridiculous, why would they do such a thing?” to “Well... we do it, why wouldn’t they?”

            Our biologists and other experts regularly traipse out into the wild. They will observe animals in their natural habitats and, sometimes, capture them. They will then do various medical examinations on the animals before releasing them. Sometimes, they’ll tag them or give them tracking collars – or implants.

            This all seems quite normal to us, but what must it be like from the animals’ perspective? Does a captured sloth, upon being returned to its family, saying (very slowly), “I swear! I was abducted by humans! They experimented on me and put in this implant.” The poor thing would, of course, be met with jeers. “Phaw! Humans don’t exist! Even if they did, they wouldn’t experiment on you.”

            So, I’ve come to conclude that, in the unlikely event that there is a species out there so advanced and so different from humans that they view us as wild animals, there is a possibility that they would abduct and experiment on humans.

            On the other hand, for a species to be so vastly different from humans that they need to study us to understand us, I wonder if we aren’t imposing upon these hypothetical beings more human nature than they would have.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Unhelpful Help

Of Dice and Glen is a story being written following D&D 5th Edition rules and using Minecraft as the battle mat (and to set the scene). Each of the two writers control their own characters and share the job of Dungeon Master (controlling the environment, story, monsters and background characters). As a result, neither of us has any clue of what's going on or where this is going. So, let's have fun!

This story is split between episodes being posted on the second Monday of every month. You can find the first episode here and the previous episode here.


Of Dice and Glen Episode 13: Unhelpful Help

“Couldn’t miss it...” Luna muttered, crowding close to Shaddar in fear of the big building before them. “I bet the gods can see this monster from up in the sky...”

Approaching the iron-bound door, Shaddar raised a fist and knocked.

After a short pause, the door opened a crack.

“Well?” a voice said gruffly from close to ground level.

Shaddar took a startled step back from the disembodied voice. His shift brought the woman, less than half his height, into his view. He breathed easier.

“Yes, um,” he said, clearing his throat and removing his hand from his sword hilt. “We’re looking for the local authorities.”

The halfling squinted from one of the strangers to the other.

“You’ve found ‘em,” she said simply.

“You’re awfully short to be more than one authority,” Luna put in, helpfully, losing some of her fear at the sight of this harmless looking person.

The halfing frowned up at the tiefling, then looked further up at the white dragonborn.

“Is that yer pet?”

"No!" Luna was shocked, and offended. She stomped her foot and stared from the halfling to the dragonborn. "Listen here, yah little runt, he's a person, same as me. He's not a pet! You got that?"

“Calm down, Luna,” Shaddar said, aiming to place a calming hand on her shoulder but getting the top of her head instead. Then to the gnome, “Forgive my friend, she’s a bit highly strung. We encountered some goblins and kobolds not far from here. We killed them, but they were digging up an old tower and had a note suggesting there may be a greater threat - perhaps one that will put your village in danger. We wanted to warn you and hoped you might be able to help figure out how much of a threat there is."

Luna beamed as Shaddar brushed the top of her head and watched him as he spoke, looking particularly smug when he mentioned the slaughter of the evil creatures infesting her forest.

The halfling gave Luna a baleful look.

“I suppose you’d best come in then,” she said, opening the door and muttering something about housetraining.

"Thank you," she said to the halfling and bounced over the threshold.

She glanced around the room they found themselves in and was immediately disappointed by the lack of boots. Sighing heavily she grabbed up her tail and started twiddling the end.

The room was a simple square with a doorway leading off to one side. The floor was worn woodwork, with a table in the center. There were a variety of chairs, enabling peoples of various heights to sit at the table. The back wall had three doors of iron bars, held firmly in the brickwork.

Shaddar followed the overenthusiastic tiefling in, his eyes scanning around. He found a chair suited to his height and sat at the table.

The front door crashed shut and the halfling slid several heavy bolts into place before she came to the table and sat in a tall chair.

“What’s this threat of yers?”

Squinting suspiciously at the actions of the halfling, Luna inspected each chair in the room, then sat on a stool entirely too small for her, but it was the closest to Shaddar. She looked like an adult sitting at the children’s table, her knees level with her shoulders. Her tail curled beside her and flicked idly.

“So glad you asked,” she said, before her friend could speak. “Some troll-spawn is digging and invading and- and- and...” She waved her hands. “You know what I'm saying! Evil! Forest! Big trouble!”

“Someone discovered an old buried tower,” Shaddar added. “Goblins and kobolds were digging it up. We found this.”

The dragonborn pushed the note across the table.

The halfling cast Luna a disgusted look while reaching for the note. She ran her eyes across it. A flicker of worry crossed her face before returning to her usual scowl.

“So, what of it? Yer took care of ‘em, looks to me like the problem’s solved. Not a concern of ours, anyway.”

“Come, now,” Shaddar said, his tongue flicking irritably. He knew the halfling was just trying to put them off. “We both know that whoever sent those monsters will be back with more.”

“Yer right,” the halfling sighed. “I just don’t see what to do about it. We’re a small village here; we don’t have the manpower to go chasing a mystery.”

The halfling clearly was going to be a difficult bore, so Luna sprang to her feet and began wandering the room. She inspected the nearest barred room with interest. It didn't look very comfortable. There was a bucket in one corner and straw on the floor, but other than that was empty.

“We were planning to do the hunting,” Shaddar said, nodding to where Luna was no longer sitting beside him. Noticing she was absent, he cast around the room frantically until he found her. Good, she wasn’t getting into trouble yet. Just to be safe, he kept an eye on her. “Our forest is in danger. We came here to warn you and to get information on where to start our search.”

The halfling brightened considerably at this.

“What we need to know,” Shaddar said, “is if this signature, this skull crowned in flames, means anything to you.”

“Disgusting over-dweller...” Came an unfamiliar voice from the furthest cell.

Intrigued, Luna scurried over and peered through the bars. This cell was no different from the rest, except that it had an occupant, and what an occupant it was! Her skin was as dark as the shadow of a raven’s wing, and her hair the exact opposite - a luminescent white that seemed to glow in the dim light of her captivity. She was tall, her chin tilted upright, although her eyes were imperiously closed. She wore simple clothing of rough cloth, but she wore them like rich robes.

“How dare you gaze upon a daughter of Lolth!” She spat at the tiefling. “I will serve up your severed head as an offering to the spider-mother. Wretch!”

“Really?” Luna was fascinated. She rested her small chin and hands on the cross bars and gazed in fascination up at this apparition. “How? And who's Lolth? Is he nice?”

“Keep away from that drow,” the halfling called from the table. “She’s extremely dangerous. We caught her kidnapping children from a burning house.”

“Kidnapping children from a burning house?” Shaddar asked incredulously. “Sounds like she may have been rescuing them.”

“Well… yes… You’d think so,” the halfling admitted. “But if that was the case, why did she set the house on fire first?”

The tiefling barely heard the words of warning, brushing them away in favour of this newest interest.

The dark elf drew herself up to her full height and glared down at the impudent demon child.

“Lolth is not a weakling male,” she spat. “But an exalted and powerful goddess! Humble yourself before the power of the mother of spiders!”

Reaching forward, the elf grabbed for where a belt would have been, but her hand met only empty air. Her face fell and she turned away with a mortified snarl.

Waiting patiently for the power to manifest, Luna idly scuffed her tail in the dirt.

“Lolth sure is taking a long time,” she put in, conversationally.

“Come on, Luna, leave the prisoner alone,” Shaddar called. He turned back to the halfling. “So, about this symbol. Does it mean anything to you?”

As the symbol caught the light, the dark elf’s gaze happened to fall on it. Her eyes widened and she drew in a hissing breath that was clearly audible to the front of the building.

Shaddar heard the noise and spun to face the drow.

“You know this symbol? Does it have something to do with your evil people?”

He was really starting to worry now. The chaotic dark elves had a reputation for evil rivaled by few. This could be one of the worst disasters possible to befall his forest.

“Evil?!” Squeaked Luna, turning and staring at her friend. “How do you know she’s evil?”

Using the opportunity to keep silence, the dark elf turned back around and ignored the other people in stony silence.

“You’ve never heard of the drow?” The halfling asked, her face a mask of disgust. “After a huge war with the surface elves, they moved deep underground. The only time they come to the surface is to raid settlements, killing everyone except those they take as slaves. They won’t do anything unless it benefits ‘em in some way. They say that they’ll do anything for power. In their underground cities drow will kill their own mothers if it will gain them money or status.”

“If drow are invading our forest,” Shaddar concluded, “we will be lucky if the entire place isn’t burned down.”

The tiefling listened with doe-eyed amazement to this history lesson, then to her friend’s concerns. Slowly, she turned back to regard the dark elf.

“Are you evil?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the drow and she held her silence for a moment, her mind working frantically. One hand twitched as a testament to her inner turmoil and she laughed suddenly, high-pitched and without humour.

“I do not know, little demon child,” she said, and for the first time her voice was lower, hesitating. She turned and Luna could see tears dampening her face.

“Ha!” The halfling sneered. “She’s evil, alright. She’d kill her own mother for a piece of silver. Probably did.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shaddar said, approaching the cell. He waved the note in front of the bars, his tongue flicking anxiously. “Do you know this symbol or not?”

“Don't cry,” Luna said, too soft to be heard over the derision of the halfling and the demands of the dragonborn. She turned to look at her friend, seeing his tongue and frowning, trying to figure out if he was angry or worried.

“The affairs of the puny surface dwelling blasphemers is of no interest to me,” said the dark elf, turning her back on the dragonborn. “I know nothing of any symbols or a tower.”

“I never said anything about the tower,” Shaddar said coldly.

There was a long silence as the dark elf refused to speak.

Discover what happens next in Episode 14: Bargains

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Just an Interesting Thought

            So, this past month marked the anniversary of myself and Colleen. Four years of marriage, however since we got married on the third anniversary of when we started dating, we’ve been together for seven years.

            Now, science tells us that that every cell in our bodies are replaced every seven years. So, from a purely physical perspective, does this mean my wife and I have been a couple for our entire lives?

            An interesting thought, although one that makes me wonder why I allow my brain to talk.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Difficult Decisions

            Lately I’ve been playing Skyrim – one of the best video games out there. There are a large number of factors that make this game so good, but one of them is the amount of choices you have in the game.

            At the beginning of the game, you go through a brief introduction to the main plotline accompanied by learning how to play the game, then you are sent out into a massive world. From that point on, you can do whatever you want. You can follow the main quest to get to the end of the game, or just go off exploring and doing minor side quests. If you want to go around stealing from all the residents of the world, you can (although you may find yourself in jail). If you want to ignore the quests and focus on skills, go right ahead.

            However, the brilliance of Bethesda (the company that made the game) shines through the most when it comes to the decisions you have to make as part of a quest. Some of them are black and white with a clear right and wrong, but some of them... some of them just have no good choice to make.

            There are a number of big quest lines alongside the main one, and one of these is a perfect example one of these challenging decisions. It’s a decision so hard to make that I have yet to make it once – even though this is my third time playing through the game and it is the second most important plotline.

            Basically, the nation of Skyrim is part of an Empire which recently signed a peace treaty that, among other things, outlawed the worship of one of the world’s gods. That particular god was particularly revered by the people of Skyrim and it has incited a rebellion against the Empire.

            It falls to you, the player, to choose the side of the war. Empire, or rebellion? Well, it may seem like a simple choice at first, but as you delve deeper into the plot, you discover more about each side of the war.

The rebels are in their homeland, being banned from worshipping one of their gods, thus their cause is just. Of course, the leader of the rebellion killed the High King of Skyrim – there is debate among the populace as to whether it was a legal challenge or outright murder.

            On the other hand, the Empire only banned the worship of this god because it was the only way to save the Empire from a more powerful enemy. That particular enemy is in the background watching and even fuelling the civil war as it weakens both sides. That means it would be better to side with the Empire because it consolidates power for the future when the lurking enemy takes to the offensive again – at which time, presumably, the god could be worshipped again. Yet, to take that side is to go against the freedom of the people.

            As you wander the world, you receive propaganda from both sides of the war. The Empire is weak and wants to rule Skyrim with a puppet queen. The rebel leader is a murderer and just wants power. When you enter one of the Empire controlled cities you witness a public execution. When you enter the city of the rebel leader you discover that the humans living there are extremely racist against the elves.

            The more information you receive, the harder the decision is to make. Because, there really is no good decision – either choice has negative consequences. Now, of course, this is only a game. It doesn’t really matter what choice you make.

            However, many real life decisions are just as complicated and convoluted. Choices are only rarely black and white – in spite of how we often treat everything as if it is. And that is what is so amazing about Skyrim.

            Fantasy reflects reality. It is a tool we can use to observe and reflect upon our lives and our world. In the end, it may give us better understanding. Or it could just infuriate us. It’s all up to how we choose to look at things.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Fish in a Jar

            Today I shall share with you a story from my LARPing days. Earlier this year, I told you about how I sometimes make joking suggestions that people take too seriously. This is a story about that, too.

            Firstly, for those who don’t know, LARPing stands for Live Action Role Playing. The one I was involved with is called Amtgard – a fantasy themed game (surprise, surprise). If that still means nothing to you, once a week my friends and I went to a park in costumes and beat each other up with pool noodle swords. Kind of like Dungeons and Dragons live. It’s significantly more awesome than it sounds.

            So, as part of this game, sometimes quests are run – usually only during events with guests from other groups because more people is better for quests and they take a lot of energy to put together. During a quest, people are split into two groups PCs and NPCs. NPCs are the people running the quest – the monsters and characters that tell the story – while the PCs are the players who try to solve the puzzles and defeat the monsters.

            Now, for years, as core members of our group, my best friend and I were usually NPCs, if not the people writing the quest in the first place. This time, however, we were PCs – which, to us, was an opening to have a lot of fun.

            For a few months, we’d been planning a couple of new characters to play – a pair of eccentric gnomes. These characters had no interest in solving the quest. No, they just tended to be around, sometimes helping, sometimes throwing a wrench in the gears. We planned all kinds of antics, such as fishing in a pile of leaves or setting up a “machine” that enchanted weapons (which really had one of us inside casting the spells). The overall intent was to mess with people enough to make them think we were NPCs rather than PCs and have them wondering what our part was in the quest.

            Well, we got word in advance that this quest was taking place during a fair scenario – where there would be games to play and prizes to be won. How perfect was that? All we had to do was come up with some items that we could trade to people, or give them as prizes, with the hope that they’d be fooled into thinking they were some significant part of the quest.

            I have no memory of how the conversation led to it, but this is where – after the laugh I have that indicates my idea is to ridiculous to do – I made the suggestion I never thought would happen.

            Fish in jars.

            However, as usual, I underestimated my best friend’s willingness to run with my crazy ideas. The idea stuck. Why? Because it was perfect for the scenario. In a quest situation, why on earth would there be live fish if it wasn’t an important part of the quest? We would hand them out to people and they’d go insane trying to figure out what they were for. What more could we wish for?

            So, the project began. We went and scouted fish prices, then went to the grocery store and bought four jars of baby food. It was while my friend was eating his way through these jars that I giggled and said the next thing I shouldn’t have.

            I said, “You know, people might ask what the fish is for, and if they do, you should do this.” I proceeded to mime drinking the contents of one of the jars.

            I should have known. He looked me in the eye and declared that he would do it. He then said that he hated me, because he didn’t want to do it, but it was too perfect an opportunity to miss.

            And so, on the day of the event, we went out and bought our fish. We bought feeder fish because of a combination of them being cheap, and that they were intended to have short lives and we had no idea what would happen to them once they were given away. My guilty conscience – still protesting at the plan to swallow a live fish – hoped that they might end up living a better life than that of a bigger fish’s meal.

            We sorted out four fish into their four jars – leaving the lids loose when we could to keep oxygen in the water – and headed for the quest. The game started, and we set to work. One by one, we went up to random people (one of them even an NPC), asking riddles or offering trades – then presented them with live fish.

            They had no idea what to make of them. The expressions on their faces were priceless. Luckily, no one asked what they were for.

            We were having so much fun messing around that I honestly have no idea what was going on with the rest of the quest. At some point, monsters attacked, and the carefree gnomes hopped inside a protective circle and watched the battle. Then the quest was over.

            The best part, though, is that during the quest, one girl had traded her way into owning all four of the fish. She told us how delighted she was with them and that she planned to take them home to the states with her and keep them as pets. It was wonderful – if not for that, I would likely still feel guilty about those fish to this day.

            At the same time, I’m a little sad that no one asked what the fish were for.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.