Articles For Your Pleasure.

You are walking along a path on a bright summers day. The sun is low in the sky and it reflects off some dew on a nearby patch of grass. A light breeze wisps through the trees, carrying the scent of wood and blossoms. You can hear the sound of leaves rustling softly and of birds singing in the forest. You hear the sound of footsteps, your footsteps as you make your way along the path.

A small movement up ahead catches your eye. You stop to try to figure it out but squinting doesn't help so you continue towards it. Oh, it's only a turtle, slowly making it's way across the path. Wait a minute. Where's there's a turtle there's water.

You continue along the path for a long time, but you are not tired. In fact you feel so full of life and energy that you want to run, but just a little. So you proceed at a light jog and notice how easy it is. After a while you begin to breathe harder and small beads of sweat form at your brow. You are smiling because you feel great.

Suddenly you have to stop. There just ahead of you is a river. You stand still, and listen to the water as it washes up along the banks. You deeply inhale the fresh, clean smell of the water.

Looking down, you realize that the path leads cleanly into the river, well used and not washed away.

You look across the river and see the path as it continues up the opposite bank. You take a moment and think.

You feel compelled to continue along the path, and that you need to get to the other side of the river. It's not too wide and it appears calm enough to swim. You see the sun reflecting off of the still water, and you realize that the day is becoming quite hot and the water looks so cool.

You go for it. As you dive in, the shock of the cool water is invigorating. It flows soothingly around you as you swim, and it tastes as good as it feels. Your clothes begin to feel quite heavy as they become saturated. It gets harder to swim, and it takes allot of effort to stay afloat. It's way too deep to touch bottom way out here and the water is now very cold and black. You tread water for just a moment to catch your breath, then you continue towards the other bank. Your confidence builds as you swim closer to the other side. You can do it, just a little farther now, almost there... finally your feet touch bottom and you stand up and wade to the shore.

As you stand ashore your legs feel like rubber and you fall to your knees, exhausted.

Your arms and shoulders feel like mush as you kneel there catching your breath. Soon you feel strong enough to stand and you turn around to see what you have accomplished.

What has happened? The river is gone! You look down and you are standing in a puddle of mud with foot prints leading up to it along the path. But you are wet and your clothes are wet. What a strange occurrence. It could have been some kind of magic or an evil trick has been played on you. Feeling cheated you turn and continue to walk up the path.

The path is the same as it leads you through a barren sandy dessert. There is no wind and no birds singing. Sighing heavily you plod on through the heat, glad for the wetness of your clothes to shield you from the merciless rays of the sun.

Something ahead catches your eye. You stop to try to figure it out, but squinting doesn't help, so you continue towards it. Oh, it's a mountain goat standing quietly on top of a rather large boulder. Wait a minute. Where there's a mountain goat there's... oh no.

You stand there shaking your head. Sighing heavily you continue forward along the path.

Jesus Christ, Karl Marx and a short fat uninteresting man named Jung were sitting in an alley sharing a bag of Doritos when Satan himself appeared. Jesus drew up in outrage and demanded Satan depart these surroundings. Karl Marx remained oblivious because he believed in neither heaven nor hell. He simply thought that Carl Jung was eating more than his fair share of Doritos.

Jung, sensing the violence of Jesus's reaction to Satan said, " now just relax my friends. Let's all sit down and peacefully discuss our feelings. And as for you satan," He said through a mouthful of Doritos, " Have a seat over there on that trash can and tell me all about it."

Karl Marx sat and shook his head and mumbled something to himself about exploitation and communism, while Jesus stood looking dumbfounded at Carl Jung. Suddenly a huge shadow loomed over the group.

Christ started, looking sheepishly over his shoulder. " Father, forgive me. I know I shouldn't let Satan get to me, but he's always following me around and I've told him over and over again that I don't want to play with him."

It turned out that Christ was explaining himself too soon. The shadow wasn't caused by God, but by a massive space ship. Everyone, except Karl Marx, looked up in amazement as two tiny green space creatures jumped out and landed right in the middle of the group. They looked about with a sneer on thier grotesque faces then quickly snatched the bag of Doritos away from Carl Jung and then dissappeared, space ship and all. Satan jumped up and said, " What the hell is going on here? Listen Christ, this game was bad enough with dingbats like Marx here not believing in anything, but now we have little green men?"

Jung sat stroking his beard, waiting for Christ to answer. Christ shrugged his shoulders and said, " Dad thinks that people have needed to believe in other worlds ever since they managed to get to the moon. They just need to realize that good and evil exists everywhere."

Satan grumbled and disappeared. Christ went home to talk to his Father. Jung sighed because he realized that he wasn't going to be paid for this session.

Karl Marx walked over to Jung and smacked him upside the head saying," What'd you do with my Doritos?"

Ain't it funny how life goes on?

by Pasha

Cherion Chex was my most memorable and favorite Dungeons and Dragons character. Cherion was a fighter class centaur who had the temperament and personality of an enraged bull. She was constantly getting into fights in an attempt to prove her strength and test her wits. This would prove unfortunate in many situations, sometimes leading to near death experiences and disrupting the group she traveled with. She was always pitting herself against their leader to gain control over the group.

Once she had met up with a Paladin ( a medieval good guy), named Raven. He was the picture of maleness, 100% man. He was tall, big shouldered, had jet black hair, blue eyes and always wore the best armor, an admirable quality to Cherion. But, most of all, he treated her like a lady. ( he was supposed to, he was lawful good). Cherion was instantly smitten by Raven and wanted to change her ways, to become a Paladin, like Raven. She saw the kind of respect and admiration he attracted and wanted the same. She was jealous of any female who payed a little too much attention to Raven, and quickly made it known that he was spoken for.

Through many hardships, fights and adventures, she finally gained Paladin class and loved it. And thanks to a wish spell, granted her by a devine intervention, she had come to possess a fine set of beautiful, black, gigantic bat wings. ( she wanted the feathered kind, but those wish spells are pretty particular you know.) During this time she had lost track of Raven and she missed him greatly. She couldn't wait to impress him.

During an alternate adventure, she finally relocated Raven and greeted him enthusiastically. And since he wasn't doing much of anything, she invited him to join the group, much to the dismay of the other adventurers. One Paladin per group is about all anyone can handle.

All was just dandy for Cherion and Raven until the group accepted a new adventure. It quickly became a typical hack and slash routine, and poor Cherion lost her temper during an intense battle and killed without reason. ( The innocent victim turned out to be neutral and uninvolved). Therefore poor Cherion lost her Paladin status, and Raven. He was very disappointed and even though he cared for Cherion, he had a reputation to uphold. And unfortunately, he had no room in his heart for murderers.

All this caused Cherion to start anew and began to act like a female centaur should. She repented her sins and lightened up and gained more friends, and soon began to attract the respect that she deserved. Happily, she met a fine male centaur in an alternate world and set up house with him, so to speak. They lived a long and happy life together, and on occasion, Cherion would be called to join in on an adventure.

Cherion, being a centaur, was approximately 8 feet tall. She had thick blonde hair that flowed down her back and over her horse shoulders. She was Palomino in color and in incredible shape. Her human part was well muscled and, shall we say, well endowed. She was very proud and always wore the strongest, shiniest full plate armor.( Only while adventuring of course). She fought with a broad sword, long sword and carried a large shield. Her hooves proved to be quite formidable during a battle as well.

Cherion was very enjoyable to role play. Last I heard she has three foals, all palomino and all of them had inherited her fine personality. Who knows maybe someday she'll adventure again.

She could use a break from motherhood.

by Pasha

Love is a funny thing to describe. It is so easy to feel and yet so slippery to talk about. It is like a bar of soap in a bath- you have it in your hand until you hold on too tight.

Some people spend their lives looking for love outside of themselves. They think they have to grasp it in order to have it. But love slips away like a wet bar of soap.

Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, carefully, caressingly. Let it fly when it wants to. When love is allowed to be free, it is what makes life alive, joyful and new. It is the power and the energy that motivates music and dancing, creativity and everything in this world. Love is what brings people together and keeps them together for lifetimes.

As long as you have love in your heart, then you will find it everywhere, and it will find you.

by Michael Jackson

The Enterprise was in orbit around Earth. I was working as a civilian with Data, and he and I were discussing with Geordi how to retrieve a whale from one of Earth's oceans.( sound familiar?) Picard was there as well, and everyone was treating me as a person of great importance. They kept looking to me for answers. (Wow!)

Worf contacted Picard, saying there was trouble on the planet's surface, and wouldn't it be nice if he got some help. So Data, Geordi and myself, beamed down, ( that was cool!), to the edge of an ocean, where this whale was swimming around. Data was standing up on a rock that was very close to the water. He was keeping an eye on the evil bad guys, that were trying to take the whale we needed. Geordi scooted over to Worf to help him with the bad guys. Data secretly told me that he'll swim out to the whale and shrink it with a device he constructed, then stick the whale into a bottle.

I said, " Data, you have no buoyancy. You can't swim." But, he went ahead and did it any ways, walking along the bottom of the ocean to get to the whale. He successfully shrunk the whale and stuck it in a bottle. He brought it back to shore and we beamed aboard the Enterprise before the evil bad guys figured it out. We put the whale in a tiny aquarium that Geordi had built in engineering.

Right after that, Picard, Data and myself had a meeting with some important dude from Earth, to discuss the whale. When the meeting was over, I said to Picard," Captain, I have bad feelings about him. He's not to be trusted."

" I agree." He said, just as the whale was beamed away right before our eyes. Data had expected this move,
and beamed it right back within seconds.

The whale had to be taken to another planet, and fast, because the shrinking process wouldn't last too long, especially because of all the transporting going on. So we hit like warp 21, and were at the planet in milliseconds, with the bad guys hot on our trail. We beamed the whale down to their ocean, and just as it touched the water, the whale expanded to it's full size and executed a perfect belly flop. Someone miscalculated the beaming coordinates. Poor whale. But all in all the mission was successful.

"Here?" She whispered to him sweetly.

"We're alone," He said discretely.

"I've been good 'till now," She sighed.

"But you're human," He replied.

"It's so big!" She hesitated.

"It's all yours," He proudly stated.

"OH, I shouldn't," She protested.

"If you love me," He suggested.

And loosing all resistance,

She gave into his insistence

AND

Ate every single chocolate in the box!!!