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-CnetTV quote: "Top 5 Worst Wii Games"-

I had a couple dreams that I remember having, but only one of the two in any detail. Highlights included an albino guide dog puppy and meeting an old friend of mine.

Oh, how about another storytime! This one will probably be shorter, due to the fact that the floor fan is blowing on me in a most irritating fashion.

Kh'aar

It happened some years ago that I was seized with the desire to wander the earth and see the strange sights on it. So I took my bag and began to walk across the tracks of the land, up and down, into forests and out of them, through villages and beyond the print of mankind.

I saw many curious things in my wanderings about, but one wonder outmatched them all. It happened as I was going hungry out of a certain city that I came across a nomads' camp, in a black clearing of the trees on the city outskirts. As I approached the camp, hoping that its inhabitants would be more hospitable than those in the town, I was surprised to notice that each slumbering form (it was a warm, clear day, so sleeping without the benefit of a tent was not odd, in itself) was yet encased in armor. As I walked closer, I was more startled to see that the resting nomads were several times my size, and of a most curious girth and form. I later learned that they call themselves the Kh'aars.

Being a confident, and essentially nomadic youth myself, I threw in my lot among them, and was rewarded the next morning when one of them had a stiff pouch of food in his pocket. As he was a good deal larger than me, his pocketful of food served as a full breakfast and extra for me. That night, I slept in their camp.

The Kh'aars are an insular lot, only banding together when they happen to use the same camp square. Indeed, the next day, all semblance of a camp was gone as each Kh'aar ambled off in their separate directions. I stayed by the side of the fellow with the food (I know my place!), eager to learn of this novel race. Information came slowly. His people apparently have strict taboos on superfluous speaking -- he spoke only in toneless monosyllables, and only then, when very agitated. Still, I could learn much simply from watching BOBS, as he called himself. The first order of business was the armor that so puzzled me that first night. The Kh'aars wear it nearly from birth, and never take it off until their death. As might be expected in such a permanent fixture, their metallic clothing comes in many different hues, and can in fact be painted at a whim.

They take the greatest care not to damage their precious raiment, as this in itself can lead to their demise. Their lack of verbal communication is well made up for in their visual displays, which I found quite stunning when I first witnessed them. If two Kh'aars are attempting to move in close consort, it is not strange to see first one eye wink, then the other, and thereby this ponderous people manage to manuever their bulked forms around each other with minimal discomfort. When more complicated movements are necessary, several staves are affixed to the ground, with either symbols or three winking eyes upon their capitals. In some arcane way, these staves further communicate how to travel around each other with the least mishap.

Their visual communication goes still further; even their very names are permanently emblazoned across their ever-present armor -- an invention I thought quite useful in reducing repetitive introductions. Their names may be legally altered, for a fee, but the display of their names is actually directed by law, with serious penalties for its absence. Furthermore, no two Kh'aars in the same region may have the same name. The purpose of these laws, or even their enforcement among such a scattered band, is still unclear to me. A more functional ordinance is that surrounding their eyes, as the organs are vitally important to their daily navigations. Should even one of their eyes fail, the Kh'aars are bound by the regulations of their people to have it doctored to health, or be relocated. Again, as they are a nomadic tribe, I found this penalty strange, but clearly there is a deep fear of such a punishment; at no time did I see a Kh'aar with less than perfect oculars. Nor did I ever see one lacking their ceremonial black boots, with their characteristic ripples all about. As roaming to and fro wears down the carefully carved ripple design, the shoes are replaced so that no individual lacks the acceptable footwear.

Happily, the Kh'aars did not hold me to such stringent requirements. I stayed observing their ways for some time, until I was forced to leave when BOBS was carried off with hooks by a rival clan, after camping too long in their territory. I continued my wanderings across the earth from that day, but I never did find a race so unusual as the Kh'aars.

I wonder if you have heard of them?

Reality check. Hum-diddly-huummm.