Merlin's Links Page

If I've inadvertantly left you off of this page...please email me and I'll add you forthwith. Oh, if you do that, make sure you mention it's about the friends page. I've had a couple people email me and I had no idea what they were talking about, since my memory is about as long as your average male BMW driver's penis.

Another, perhaps better place to see the large grouping of people in the Bay Area would be to visit Gretchen's Horde Page.

There is no real particular order on this page, much like there is no particular order in the universe. January only comes after February because some idiot happened to write it backward two thousand years ago and now everybody's doing it that way. Oh wait, they're not doing it that way? Silly me, my mistake.
Kyriel	Lynette. We share a brain, and about 30 seconds after I met her I knew that we were somehow connected, cosmically or something. It all started at this Star Wars gig, you see. I ran up, late as usual (but not very, also as usual) and I didn't know anyone in the crowd I was going to meet, except for Felan. So naturally she's the first one I see, and she's standing there all bouncy and bubbly and immensely attractive, and she's talking to me like she knows me and I'm not even sure who she is. We didn't even really know each other beyond a passing familiarity online (Kai'merel!) but there you go. So there was the crowded movie and the crowded dinner and the discovery that we have very similar attitudes and likes and now we're together pretty much all the time. So that's my Significant Other.
Xenon	Xenon, AKA Chris Hanson, basically my surrogate brother. There are various mentions of him on this page--and, in fact, the only reason he didn't have much mention on this page until now (Dec '99) was that I didn't realize until a few months ago that he had a web page and I don't update this page quite as often as is necessary. Chris and I met in high school, and there are only two people I met while I was in HS that I keep in touch with. Chris and I got along fairly well, and once Chris's mother got used to me (which took a few months) she kinda adopted me as one of the extra children along with David Kessner. Which was a nice feeling. I got to be the best man at Chris' wedding, and undoubtedly I'll ask him to do the same at mine, whenever that happens. (Note that I now say 'whenever' and not 'if') Update (May 30) Chris will the best man at my wedding Jun 29, 2002. If you're reading this after that date, mentally replace will with was
Drunen	Drunen M Calqhuon, Ian Cahoon, instant daddy, one of my best friends from 'back home'. Twenty nine short days from meeting to marriage and still going strong, last I checked. Tall, wide shoulders, a great friend. Too far away and I don't call him enough. I don't call anyone enough. If you were my best friend and lived next door, I still wouldn't call you enough, but at least you could come over and kick my ass for it.
Sev	Sev, who moved away on me a couple years ago. One of those people that I wanted to make an effort to get to know better, but never quite knew how to make that effort without looking stupid. It's a problem a lot of geeks have. From time to time I talk to her online, and she's inordinately happy for someone in Seattle, so I guess I can't complain too much.
Malkin	Whom I miss very much; moving away from that area, I left a piece of me behind. Boy, that sounds awfully sappy and melodramatic coming from someone who essentially doesn't care about people.
Carinah	So, uh, in 1991 or something like that this person I've never heard of sends me a random talk request on a machine I was on in Ft. Collins, CO. I never really quite understood just what she was doing on a machine in Ft. Collins, CO, given that at the time she lived in Chicago and there had to be more interesting machines to mess around with in Chicago, but there you have it. Because she was interrupting my valuable mucking time, I told her to get her butt onto, uh, some muck and she did. Now look where she is? I mean. And I never even got to kiss her, despite repeated attempts from both parties to forge, uh, something sinful I'm sure.
Tim	He lives in Santa Cruz, he plays a mean Monkey King, he GMs Stephen Brust-inspired RPGs and unfortunately uses the Hero system which I essentially don't like, but hey, what's a system compared to a little good RP? He's got an awesome house, which I need to visit a little more often. Partly for the hot tub, partly for the company, and partly because an excuse to drive to Santa Cruz really is a good thing. It's just over the hump and away we go!
Garrett	My ex housemate. The guy who got me into Shadowfist and then Feng Shui. I recall really hating Feng Shui at first, because everyone would talk about it and it sounded so lame. Ahh, I have such a closed mind sometime, since it turned out to be one of the best things since sliced bread. Who first sliced bread, anyway? I want to shake his (or her) hand. But anyway, this blurb is about Garrett. Garrett is a writer. This means Garrett is moody. Garrett is charming. This means Garrett is occasionally surrounded by chicks. This isn't always a bad thing.
Josh	Josh is my lost little brother. Stick us together and you'd swear we're related, but we're not. I used to hang out with Josh and drink, when he was a younger Josh and I was not. We don't really talk a lot anymore, it's too bad. But that's the way life goes, you drift in and out and people come and go. He's still around, and all. It's just hard to have a drink with someone on the wrong coast.
Ceci	Ceci is the King of Chaos. This means nothing to you unless you play AmberMUSH, but she is. But before she was King, she was Johann's sister. Well, not really. Sort of sister-in-law despite the -in-law part of that being quite dead. Isn't that how RPing always goes? Ceci is maybe moving into the area. Her friend told her to hit on me if she does. Ooh la la! My ego needs trips like that!
Sylvan	Sylvan knows me as an imp. Which is to say short, scaly and obnoxious. In reality, I'm neither short nor scaly (unless I've been camping) but the obnoxious part fits. Sometimes. When I feel like it. That's the obnoxious part about being obnoxious--it's only when I feel like it. There's symmetry there. (Zathras used to being beast of burden for others needs. Is bad life. Zathras probably have bad death. But at least there is symmetry.) Sylvan is a linguist, and a poet, and a writer, and many things that English majors often are. She likes to throw my imp form up into the air and make it stick to the ceiling. And she writes a web journal.
Spud	He hates me. Despite repeated attempts, he's always managed to miss me by five minutes, lose my number, lose someone else's number, or generally slip on a banana peel and be in just the wrong place to actually meet up with me. I'm sure he's a really nice guy offline. Of course, I'll never know.
Charlie	I only get drunk when Charlie's in town. This isn't actually true, since Scott and Angie recently decided to feed me zombies, but it's otherwise true. So in essence, I only get drunk in town when Charlie's in town. I can say this because I was in LA when Scott and Angie fed me zombies and made me drunk enough to act stupid. Anyway, Charlie is four feet tall, bald, rotund, Texan, and oh did I mention he's a compulsive liar? Y'all. Charlie's only problem is that he's paranoid, and I occasionally worry that when I make the sudden, animalistic move to, say, tickle brightly colored Angie, he'll accidentally put a hole in the wall. Or someone. Or someone and the wall. That would be bad.
Angie	Ahh, taken, this one. But taken by someone I like and respect, which means a lot, so hey, this is a good thing. In general, she's pretty awesome, though she listens to kind of odd music for my tastes. The difference here is that she dances. I don't. I look...well, to be honest just like everyone else when I dance. Alas, I feel like I'm going to accidentally maul the six people nearest me. And if I get too crowded it turns into the feeling that I will deliberately maul the six people nearest me. I don't dance. but Angie does.
Ysabel	Listening to Ysabel talk about her sex life is like watching a bad porn, mostly because it's hard to believe it's all true. it is, though, there are photos. And the stories. And the web page. There's a TMI page, which she had me read once. It really is TMI, but it had nude photos. I don't get to see nude photos of too many of my friends. Even if she's a transexual and I never really have worked out just how I feel about that kind of thing. Nude photos, man.
Dwan	Janne Torklep, who recorded her name and put it up as a .wav so us Americans could pronounce it. Her photos suggest she's pretty attractive, which doesn't explain why she ended up with the creep who fathered her child. At least she didn't stay with the creep long enough for him to actually mess with the child's sanity by, say, pretending to be there as a father. If I ever get to the Scandinavian countries, I'll stop and visit Dwan. I have no idea when that will ever happen. But world travel is on my list of goals, about four line items down from world domination.
Maya	Picture a proper, refined Englishwoman with an English Public School accent. She's gone to the right schools, she's had the right upbringing, and she's carrying a whip. Oh my; you never know what sort of people you'll meet in a place like this.
Cursor	Kate, Batman forever, kids, an Imp from Impere, someone very tall. Yes, these are all disjointed images; that is what I have of Bob.
Lisa	Woohoo! This one's a babe. Taken at such an early age, too, it's very disappointed. How's an old man supposed to flirt with the younger generation if they're getting engaged while they're still teenagers! It's a damned shame is what it is. I haven't seen her in, like, a year. Last I heard she was doing EMT stuff in New York, graduating college, and fighting with her parents, but not necessarily in that order.
Trip	Trip's a great guy when he's not filling the world with self-loathing. And don't let the orangatan picture fool you, his hair isn't that* red.*
Air	Air is known for being perpetually late, which makes her quite appropriately named online. You can never rely on the wind. It's either there or it isn't and there isn't much you can do about it. Air is a lot of fun to hang out with, when she's around. Air is joining us on the correct coast! (Which is what I call the left coast, because it's not the right coast.)
Chance	Chance lives in New York City; she used to live in Queens, in the oh so safe neighborhood of John Gotti, and for awhile my car lived in front of her house while I stayed in Manhattan and looked for a better place to put it. On the very day I went to go retrieve it, someone stole the hubcaps. I did eventually replace the darn things, since it's embarassing to drive around without hubcaps. But this isn't about my hubcaps, this is about Chance. Chance is a MUSHer and a LARPer and a very good friend. Chance makes mead. Chance has been more successful at getting me drunk than anyone else in history. Except maybe Charlie. Chance now owns a house. I have yet to see this house, but I will, when I have some time to fly back to New York. We tried to get Chance to move to SF and it almost happened; then she found a job she actually liked and a house. That sure ruins moving chances. Chance's husband is a demon who thinks I wear the wrong shades of black, and whose mission in life seems to be to torment me until the end of time or something.
Bard	Bard, AKA CJ, is now a graphic artist at Foundation Imaging in LA. But the Bard I know is a lover of New York City, the one person I thought would never leave that big city. Especially given the incredible deal she had on her condo. CJ is grouchy, CJ is interesting, and I know at least one person who'd like to date CJ. CJ is also a fine artist and unsurprisingly overworked--I think everyone in her line of work is asked to devote life limb and first-born to the job.
Louie	Louie is one of those nice guys that everyone just sort of automatically likes. He's sometimes known as the International Bank of Louie because he has this bad habit of letting all his friends borrow money. Some of them still owe him quite a lot; and yet I can't fault him for this because when my mother died and I didn't have the money to fly back to her funeral, he lent it to me and let me go for a few months before making me pay it back. It was very cool. Louie bought a far too expensive house in Mountain View, but it's a nice house, and it's in Mountain View which is a big set of plusses.
Iago	What do you say about Iago? He's been a lot of things in his time. Completely brilliant in his own right, but often more interested in enhancing the brilliance of the people around him. He's a good roleplayer, a good web designer, a good coder, and a good guy. That's a lot of goods. More people should get that many goods.
Agrimony	Agrimony used to be Harmony, but she decided that she wasn't very harmonious anymore. Then she was a tiggie which is a hedgehog which is kind of bizarre when you think about it. And then she was also Blue Phoenix, the cheesecake ninja in my Feng Shui game. And then she's also an officer in my guild on Everquest. And she has blue hair now, which used to be purple. And it's short. It used to be very very long and now it's very very short and rather remarkably brightly colored.
Blue Haired Angie	Let's see. She has blue hair. She's cute, she's easily embarassed. She's highly ticklish but doesn't like to be tickled. I think this is a ruse, but I haven't tickled her in a very long time. She likes to flip people off and that's become one of her trademarks. She was Otaku but she's since pulled away from that a bit. She roleplays, she Larps, she has given us the phrase "Angie Ocean-gasm" because of her reaction to seeing the ocean.
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The Bazilian	The Bazilian gets a link for three reasons. 1) He pointed out a typo that I wouldn't have expected anyone to ever notice, 2) because he knows everyone and you've probably already seen his page, and 3) Cosmic Irony. Don't ask what that means.