[the phantom]

Yesterday I had a dream about Hurt & Heal, featuring Mac, Tuor, and Pitchwife (and others I cannot recall). Perhaps you won't find this dream entertaining, but it's definitely one of my favorites.

We were playing with some sort of new Hurt & Heal system set forth by Mormegil. The rule was, whichever category we picked (Ainu, Monsters, Lonely Mt Dwarves, etc), we had to include ALL characters that qualified. Given that fact, we obviously had to be more specific- eg rather than "Elves", we would have to go with "Elves of Doriath".

Well, someone (I believe it was Mac) suggested that the new thread be "Men of Brethil", and this idea was well received by everyone. I, on the other hand, was dead set against it, as I had my own ideas I wished to put forward, and so I tried to convince everyone that "Men of Brethil" was a bad idea.

(We weren't having this talk on the Downs, but rather on some sort of voice-chat thingy on the computer.)

My primary argument was that there were simply too many men of Brethil, and that our list would be far too lengthy. Naturally this point was contested and Tuor asked me to start naming them to see if my point was true. I started rattling them off- "Turin, Niniel, Dorlas, Brandir, Ebor, Manthor, Avranc, Hardang, Handir, Hareth, Haleth, Haldad, Haldan..."

I was doing well, but I realized there were only a dozen or so left, and that I'd have to look up half of them to be able to name them, and even then it certainly would not be enough to push the total up to an amount that would discourage my fellow Downers from playing the game. In short, I was definitely on the losing end of the argument.

So I did what any decent chap would do in this situation- I started making up names.

Realizing that there were so many beginning with "H-A-L", I figured I could come up with a score or so of real-sounding false names, and if I rattled them off quickly and with confidence perhaps they would be accepted. So, I proceeded, mixing in false names with a couple of real ones- "Halbir, Haldar, Halbad, Halbeth, Halden..." (I was doing splendidly!) "...Halran, Haldorn, Halmir, Halbuguz, Haldir..." (Crap! Did I really just suggest "Halbuguz"? I hope no one caught that.) "...Haldin, Halthan, Halrad-"

"Wait a minute!" Pitch interjected. "Halbuguz?"

Crap. Busted.

And then I woke up. And frankly, upon waking I was still rather upset with myself for my slip-up. "Yeesh, that was stupid. Halbuguz? I mean, really, you're supposed to be smarter than that, Phantom! *grumble grumble* Man, I'm an idiot. *eye roll* Seriously, Halbuguz?"