cath lab fx

Tis another day of working up a blog post in my head in route to work and forgetting it due to crisis upon arriving at work. Today it wasn't even a life threatening crisis, as is sometimes the case in the ER.

This week are our "team meetings". I was under the impression that mine was at 3:30 tomorrow, while "J" had to go to one at 5 today. Well, she was here at 3:30 today, confirming that today was the 3:30 meeting. For whatever reason, my password wasn't working, and I was locked out of the network, meaning I couldn't check my email/schedule, but if I had spent the typical 30 minutes on hold with the IT dept, I would have missed the meeting. So, I asked a different coworker, "T" that was supposed to be at my meeting with me what her email said. She of course confirmed it was today.

The crisis set in because the lady that was supposed to cover the ER for us hadn't arrived, and the person I normally give a lunch break to, "Break Needer", was freaking out about not getting her lunch break. Things got doubly confused when her supervisor called her before ours, confirming the meeting was at 5 today and 3:30 tomorrow, but that all three of us in the ER were to attend, so Break Needer had to take her break right then. While she was on the phone with me, our supervisor called back, telling everyone that I was initially right. The meeting was at 5 today, J was going to that one, and T and I were attending tomorrow's 3:30 meeting. Confused? I sure as hell was.

What pisses me off most is that T didn't check her email at all. She was "too busy to bother at the time," but was sure she remembered the meeting being today. Now, had she told me that in the beginning, instead of saying she'd checked the damn email, there would have been no crisis. There would have been me sitting on the phone with IT getting my password fixed so I could check the damn email myself. I'm mostly pissed cause this is her modus operandi. She ALWAYS says, "Yes, I did that" without doing it. And no one ever calls her on it. Complain to management? Check. It's an across the board "she's not that bad."

Fun. Corporates rock.

a few more links

First of all, dig this movie; Eternal. We have to get this movie into the cities.

Second, and most importantly. There's a new webcomic up over at TorC Press. That's two in one month, people! We're back up to pre-summer rates, and summer isn't even over yet. Do a happy dance.

Death Note: A Review

Got Shonen Jump in the mail yesterday. Just read the first story before bed time last night. It's called "Death Note." Basically a kid finds a notebook from a "death God" that let's him kill someone by writing their name in the book. He decides to stop crime, etc. Goes slightly crazy, so on and so forth. Art is a little too close to YuYu Hakusho for my taste. Story, while original and off kilter, doesn't have too much long term potential, I think. I can see the kid getting in tons of trouble as a psychotic antihero, but there's just not much suspense in watching someone write a name. Maybe after it gets a few book sized issues under it, it could be a good psychological/social commentary story, but I don't see it staying in SJ mag long. It doesn't mesh well with the style/flavor of the other stories. *shrug*

gearing up for '08

Think there's some hidden message in this series? Think ABC is telling us it's OK to vote for Hillary if she runs? hehe. Regardless, it looks like it could be a good show.

Love is an Epic-Level Challenge

Oh, Order of the Stick. Today's title stems from there. Great comic.

And for even more funny imagery, read Joe's latest blog at TorC Press. You're looking for the "Mousetrap" post.

I know, I know.

Ok. I know I said I'd try to recap gaming this yesterday, but it didn't happen. I spent the day setting up gear for a trip to Voyager National Park/Forest. Had to get my fishing tackle ready and make sure my skin tight, silver laced, "under armor" like thermal underwear I bought on sale at Gander Mountain not only fit, but was effective. Both are the case, though the leggings are a bit tight (one size bigger is too damn big, though.

Anyway, Saturday, the gang got together for gaming. We managed to get started a little before 10. We were all around shortly after 9, but Nick/Luke needed Macchiatos.

The party, as you might recall, had stopped at the Thirsty Fool before heading into the desert on a camel to complete a secret mission for the magic school. This weekend, they set off. The two day journey to Kashral Oasis was uneventful as Gregorious skillfully guided them across the scrub and scree of the wasteland.

Once in Kashral, there was a bit of interest in the party camel, and the package of goods was delivered. The characters attempted to find out a bit more about their mission, but met with resistance as the oasis' authority figure had sent a mercenary out to remove the slavers harrassing the community. He mistakenly thought THAT was the PCs mission, thanks to all of their secrecy.

However, after a quick nap, the group decided to head off anyway, once they got directions. Before they could get directions, though, the mercenary arrived with a prisoner in tow, asking to meet with both Sammuul (community leader) and Jazeela (communtiy mage). The PCs joined everyone in Sam's tent out of curiosity. The merc gave Samuul a chest with a magic rune of some sort in it, hoping Jazeela could decipher it and further unravel the mystery of the slavers.

[DM Note: An idea I had here was to have the encounter happen AFTER the PCs had just left, makind for a chase across the desert. Unfortunately, I had that idea at 7am this morning.]

It turned out the mercenary wasn't the mercenary, instead being a jackalwere in disguise. Inside the chest was the real merc's head, but the chest was firetrapped. Samuul opened it just before Crenius could stop him, and went up in flame as his perfumes and oils lit on fire. Two of Samuul's guards died in the explosion as well. Then shit hit the fan.

As the two jackalwere revealed their disguises, everyone fell asleep except Gregorious and Jazeela (whom I kept forgetting WASN'T elven). Jazeela quickly awakened Crenius and Levvy (after Wendy won paper/rock/scissors against John). Crenius immediately cast Light of Mercuria, but Levvy couldn't resist the Jackalwere's gaze attacks. Gregorious boldy stepped into combat, attacking the jackalwere that was previously acting as a prisoner.

That jackalwere turned out to be a druid and quickly hit Jazeela with a Sunstroke spell, causing nonlethal damage, although she avoided the fatigue. The "mercenary" jackalwere stepped up and sliced into Gregorious with his magical silver dagger, and also put Crenius back to sleep with his gaze attack.

A second Sunstroke left Jazeela fatigued and weakened. Shortly after that, she was unconscious. The mercenary jackyl turned out to be a sorcerer and cast Tenser's Floating Disk, then heaved Jazeela's unconscious body onto it.

Gregorious bravely threw the jackyl out of his way and leapt onto the disk to save the unconscious caster. Unfortunately, the jackalman proved stronger and heaved Gregorious off of the disk before fleeing. Once outside the tent, the two sprinted into the desert in jackal form, with an unconscious wizard in tow.

Gregorious quickly woke everyone and a guard left to rouse the community healer. Gregorious was healed and everyone packed up ready to leave. Samuul set about wheeling and dealing, offering aid to the party in exchange for their fabulous camel. A deal was struck. Everyone was set to go, complete with mounts and a camel handler.

Unfortunately, that's when Zeke threw a temper tantrum, refusing to go. He was better off by himself than with a group of no-tactics glory hogs. Words were exchanged, Gregorious threatened Zeke's manhood with his shortsword, and Zeke tried to kill Gregorious, only stopping after bringing the poor ranger to the brink of death. During the scuffle, Crenius hopped on his camel in a huff and set out after the girl and the obelisk. Levvy followed, not knowing what to do.

Again, Gregorious was forced to visit the healer. Zeke stuck around for him, feeling all was back to normal after establishing he was the party bad ass. Unfortunately for him, Gregorious used his ranger skills to push his camel into a frothing gallop, leaving Zeke literally in his dust as the ranger sped to catch up with his real friends.

Zeke tried to follow, but got lost, being a battle mage, not a desert survivalist. Throughout the night and all through the next day, Zeke hunted for his companions, finally feinting from heat exposure, but managing to stay in his saddle. Fortunately for him, his camel, named DM, found the group itself once given its head. He arrived shortly before dusk and promptly went to sleep outside their tents.

Shortly after his arrival, the group awoke to leave. Exhausted as he was, Zeke slept through the quiet breaking of camp. Crenius tried to leave him a note, but words escaped him. He left him only a blank sheet of parchment. As the group headed into the desert without the gnome once again, Levvy grabbed some camel dung and nailed Zeke with it, awakening him before he was left to die.

That night was a quiet, uncomfortable affair as Zeke slept in fits atop his camel again, Crenius deciphered ancient Nyran texts, and no one spoke. The silence was split only by discussion of which direction to skirt a cliff the group came across, blocking their entrance into the Great Salt Basin.

Next morning, finding an overhang, the party made to set up camp, only to find a man-sized scorpion already "camping" their. Zeke and Gregorious made short order of it, and the party slept.

After another night of grudging silence, the group spotted the ruins shortly before dawn. Then we stopped playing, because if we'd started to invade, the game wouldn't have ended for quite some time and it was almost 1am.

Tune in two weeks from now for The Monkeys Enter the Obelisk or Quick, Free the Slaves. That'll Distract the Jackyls!

seasonal affective disorder

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/11/1674_50273.htm

I'm thinking both Joe and I have this problem....

A chain link fence

Tomorrow the party heads into the desert (D&Dwise). I'll try to post about that this weekend. In the meantime -

Here's the trailer for Doom. Now, I'm not a big fan of a lot of 1st person shooter games. I dig Halo for its multi-player action, and that's about it. Why in the HELL would I want to watch a 1st person shooter movie? Sadly, the game's fan based will probably spend enough on the flick to make it a viable economic investment sequelwise. :(

For those skywatchers that read my blog (Nick and myself I think), tonight we get both Jupiter, Venus, and the moon in one shot. Rock on.

And finally, for the economists among us (just me probably), here's a bit of what Greenspan is saying is the matter with our economy. While he uses a bunch of jargon, the basic message is something we all learned in Econ 101, or Adult Living if you went to Clay City High School. A high trade deficit is bad in the long term, and YOU SHOULDN'T SPEND MORE MONEY THAN YOU MAKE.

I remember once when discussing high school with my wife, I was baffled that basic classes like Adult Living, wherin you learned to balance a check book, evaluate credit card and loan offers, set a budget, etc, wasn't a required class. Her response was, "Those classes were for the stupid kids." I'm pretty sure that's what our current governing body thinks as they run up our national debt and push through as many free trade agreements as possible....

But I digress. The important thing to take from this post is that I should post a D&D report this weekend and that Doom is already -ed. (there's some writing style I just made up that won't stick cause it's confusing as shit. See, "-ed" is a way of adding past tense to a title that is a noun, but turns into an adverb in the past tense.... Lame as hell, but I'm keeping this paragraph anyway. Mainly just to frustrate the people that think I put too much extraneous crap in my blog. In fact, this paragraph will be why the "Behind the Screen" series of articles doesn't go anywhere until I make a blog for that by itself.)

Flight of the Hefty Valkyries

Some little trashbag could be a space shuttle. Dig it. Good times.

In other news, 9 New England states are forming their own Kyoto treaty. Good stuff. I know California, Washington and Oregon are looking at doing the same thing. Combine that with wind farms in Illinois and Minnesota (that I know about for sure), and the fact that the DFL candidate for mayor of St. Paul has a proposal to build a huge bio-energy plant in town to power the recycling plant and it's surrounding buildings.... Good stuff.

And, it's now Hurricane Katrina. Preceded of course by Emily, which is backwards, but man I hope the next one is Stephanie. That'll cover the whole Guiderra family in one season. Funny, but only if you know our friends up here....

HP trailer

Here's a full Harry Potter trailer, with French subtitles no less.

Other than that here? Well, I drew a flowchart-esque map of the relationship between two major players in Myrrhlanthus. Talk about confusing stuff. It's going to be real fun explaining it as Antonius Ventraire. :) This would be a longer post, but I can't remember a word....starts with an 'm', has a 'v' in it, means extravagant plots involving lots of little pieces.... *shrug* hehe.

6%. Is it enough?

I can't find the report right now, but Market Place, on National Public Radio, had a stint that today that we were raising fuel economy standards on light trucks and some SUVs. Wish I could find more specifics, but here's a report on it over at CNN.

Basically, minivan mileage goes up by 1.5 mpg, while small SUVs have to go up as much as 9 mpg. It's an average of 6% increase over 3 years, from 2008 to 2011. Is it enough?

On the Market Place/NPR report, an expert in the field said it would amount to a month of oil savings over 15 years time. Other analysts have called the move "woefully inadequate", and many are already pointing out easy solutions for auto makers to dodge the requirements (the simplest being making cars slightly bigger).

Regardless, it's a move in the right direction. Earlier this year, some senator or another pointed out that if we raised fuel economy standards to 30mpg by 2015, we could be almost completely independent of foreign oil by 2030 or something. *(could have those dates wrong)* Unfortunately, like this report, I was in the car upon hearing that news and didn't have time to immediately do my own research. I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to digging through sensationalist journalistic sluff to find real facts, so I can't find hard evidence of the report on NPR, the senator making the claim, or the evidence he/she was touting. :(

Still, it's something. Maybe not enough, but I remember the message in the 80's was that 1 person recycling won't save the world, but that's 1 less person not recycling. Generally, if I test the waters with a little effort, and there's no acknowledgement of said effort, I'm not going to give something my all. Perhaps instead of bitching about the little victories, we should applaud them and work toward bigger victories. *shrug*

In other news, a couple of sunspots should be making some pretty sweet auroras in the extreme north tonight and tomorrow night. Cool stuff.

Behind the Screen:XP Rewards

So, I just had this whimsical idea for a little blog article I'd do around my other more mundane yet personal (and probably boring) posts. I should start a separate blog for this, and I might later if I stick with it. In the meantime, it goes here.

This particular rant/discussion/what have you, stems in part from a discussion my group had awhile ago, and a post over at ENWorld. In yet another "What's wrong with 3.x" thread, the poster declares that power gaming is destroying the game. A major point of his is the speed with which characters level. His example holds that players can take a character from level 1 to level 20 in a year. (I'd link to the post but can't remember which one it is. I know, this is bad practice for a semi-serious article.) His point was rebuked by many other posters, pointing out the control the DM has with awarding XP and treasure to his players.

I found the entire thread interesting, because my group's chief complaint in the aforementioned discussion was the turtle crawling pace with which we're leveling. Two levels in six months! Egads! And those two levels are the "fast ones," being levels 1-3 for one character and 2-4 for the other three. (As a side note, I can't fail to point out that in a different campaign which I partially DMed, in four months time the characters only leveled once, from 8-9, and that's with access to much more healing and considerably less downtime than the present characters have.) Nevermind that less than 60 days have passed in game.

This disparity brought me to the following conclusion. There are two very different goals for level progression in most game groups. The Players, of course, want nothing more than to level as quickly as possible. The DM, however, likes to slow things down a bit, keeping the group at a power level that he/she is familiar with.

From the player side of the table, it's easy to see that level progression is the surest way to more power. Magic items can be stolen. Contacts and allies can die or be turned against you. Fighter feats and higher base attack bonuses are much harder to do away with. And if your DM is a stickler for the "Character Wealth by Level" chart, you're not even seeing a magic weapon or armor (probably not any permanent magic) until level 3.

The DM sees things a different way. He's got a story to tell. He's got an adventure to plan. If an adventure runs slow and takes multiple game sessions, that's prime time to plan ahead. Nothing hurts more than sinking 4+ hours into an adventure only to have it made obsolete when the PCs hit level 5, allowing the party to now fly over the beautiful hedge maze leading into the evil sorcerer's tower. That's an extreme example, and one easily fixed by a skilled DM, but it's an undeniable fact that the more power the characters have, the less control the DM has over them.

Some would say this is a fault in the game, but I argue that it's nothing more than differing opinions of the game's fans and a benefit of the game itself. Much like the game can be played as an all out melee, a set of tactical encounters, or a heavily social roleplaying event, the pace of advancement is tailorable to the taste of the individual. Balancing the desires of all involved is just another plate in the air for a long term gaming group. Power gamers desire the taste of fast advancement, while story tellers and roleplayers generally need less in the way of constantly evolving skill sets. I've seen many a gamer change their mind about speed of leveling with nothing more than a different side of the DM screen facing them.

For a real taste of turtle flavored level sundae, compare the XP charts of 2nd edition to what we have now. Not even a thief leveled as quickly as a 3.x character.

Comments? Suggestions? Flaming piles of monkey crap you want to throw at me? Post away.

HP, ATF, and progress continues

Well, earlier I posted that the cast on Harry Potter was looking a bit old. I thought Goblet of Fire might be the last flick for em. Not so. I've read that they're all working on a contract for #5. Sweet.

With no transition, last night there was a shooting near my house. In fact, there were two shootings, thirty minutes apart. We must have heard the last one, because I don't remember two. Crazy stuff. As I told Wendy's mom, we live in a good neighborhood, but there's a bad one that literally starts across the road two blocks from us. That shit happens from time to time. Hell, I think the last shooting we heard involved a couple of Minnesota Vikings players.

Progress wise, the power/politics chapter of the Myrrhlanthus guide is almost completely written. Woke up this morning with my ass on fire for that and knocked out about four pages worth of government information. Still need some social info in there, and I have to decide on the placement of some key game charts, but other than that, we're cruising through it. I'm not sure how art is going to affect the page count, but sans art we're up to about 10 pages so far. I'm shooting for at least 50-75 all told. Not sure since this is the first showing of work like this for me, though....

In other news, Gen Con '05 has come and gone. I'll try to find any funny/decent news from that. Next year, I'm going. Possibly in an OGE capacity.

And that's all I got on a hectic Monday.

I like quickies

Short game last night. The crew spent a lot of cash and headed out toward the desert on a mission from the school's headmaster. In transit, they fought a dire jackyl and leveled up, so I stopped them at a little watering hole and they leveled. Very short game, cause we didn't get to start til almost midnight.

Tonight, the Japanese Lantern Festival thing at Como Park. My first time at something like this, so it should be fun.

Most importantly, though, I made major progress on layout and whatnot for the Myrrhlanthus guide yesterday. Good stuff.

four little blue squares

Today, I come to you with absolutely nothing to say. Let me reach deeply into the ole anal cavity here........ Hey. There's my remote!

Ok, sorry. Anyway, I hope that the adoring praise I got for the map of Reginald de Beouf's Estate was honest, because I'm thinking that another line of products that Organ Grinder could put out is similar to WotC's own Map Folios (presently at I, II, and 3D). Making maps is one of my favorite parts of DMing, and I certainly wouldn't mind selling a collection of 15-20 maps with no labels for $5 or so. That's not a great turn around for my time, but hopefully at that price I'd sell enough to make it worth my time....

Actually, I just did a little product research. Wizard's 'Folios' run $9.95 for 32 maps (not sure on 3D), although it's 64 pages there's a map on only 1 side of a page. In the first, they're a mix of about 7 settings, while the second is a Maztican fortress city. From the reviews I've seen on Amazon, blank maps aren't popular in an 8 1/2" x 11" format. So, I either need to include info on each map (essentially writing an adventure), or make them the size of a playmat (ie, 1" square equals 5') and figure out a good way for the pdf buyer to print them....

Oh well, back to focusing on Myrrhlanthus for now.

stability

Back. Yay. Only one more major trip for a few months in the works, and that's the camping trip with Nick over Labor Day. It'll be nice to get the damn routine going again. That's not something I'd normally say, but in the last 5 weeks, we've been home only 2 1/2 of them. Kinda hectic. Definitely feel like we've missed most of the summer or something.

As for the absence, the peops that read this regularly know where I was, so I won't post to the world what was going on. Had a few realizations over the last coupla days (usual for this event) and got a whole new order of responsibility to live up for. I'm partly looking forward to the challenge, but mostly, I know I can't do it. Still gonna try, though....

In lighter news, saw a trailer for HP & the Goblet of Fire. Lookin good, but I've got money that this is ole boy's last year as Harry. His face is getting too chiselled to pass as a sophomore in the next flick.... We'll see, though. Hate to see him go. More importantly, hate to see the present Hermione go.

Anything else? Well, State Fair starts next week. Maybe I can go. We'll see.

CIV

Damn compies at work are down with a bug. So this'll have to be short, cause I'm on borrowed time.

Ren Fest Saturday. Good times. Nick bought a sword he's been wacking to for 10 years. He's happy, so we're all happy.

Wrote a little Sunday, but I couldn't get into Ventraire's voice, so I spent most of the day just hanging with Wendy instead. Tell you what. I'll be damn glad come next week when our life starts to return to normal.

Out of town the next coupla days for some personal bizness. Look for us Thursday or Friday.

Wizzies

Back from Illinois and Wizard World. Interesting times. The Con's getting too expensive for my blood, though. Costs me $100 to get Wendy and I in the door. Comparing that to what I could play if I'd saved that scratch for Gen Con, which I'm far more interested in, and I start to wonder....

But still, there are stories to be told. I think it was Friday, Country and I were in front of the booth. Country was having no problem bringing people into the table, but EVERYONE was ignoring me. Hell, most didn't even acknowledge I was talking. So, I comment that C-Dog has the shit down better than I. His reply was something like, "Nonsense, you just gotta get in there...Here, nail this guy." So I did. Right up in his business with a "Hey man, come check out the craziest comic at the Con." At least he replied, "Nah, man, I'd rather check out this nekkid chic over here," and he just keeps walking. He makes three steps when Boolah leans over the table and says, "Wasn't that Jason Mewes?" That's right folks, I tried to sale to and was shot down by Jay.

There are more, but this post is long enough....

Regardless, hanging with the family was a blast. Still, it's nice to be back, with all but the camping trip done, I'm looking forward to the daily blah.

So, any progress on Myrrlanthus? No. However, I did make up a new variant of monster on the road, and it should be showing up in the 2nd adventure the PCs are going on in my campaign. In fact, I think once I pin down the CR adjustment, I should be able to set it up as a template and post it on RPGNow.com and DriveThruRPG.com for sale. Have to decide if that'll be the debut OGE piece or not... Anyway.

In other news, Country's studio is rockin and his shit got me to thinking on animation and what have you. Now I just need to decide which project to start. Think I'm gonna put the cartoon avatar on the backburner. It's a bit of a hang-up right now.

Oh, and I'm kickin around the idea of a campaign website. We'll see what the group thinks about that. If I can password it up, I got some awesome ideas for it, and if I can add it to the server, there's some software I can through in that makes it super easy for the group to edit the site, too....meaning the group can post character journals and whatnot.... We'll see.

every CNOOC and cranny

CNOOC dropped their bid for Unocal today. Congress made it too damn expensive for them. Basically, in order to purchase the company, they would have had to go through a four month review of the economic impact, etc. Professional estimates figered it would have been 6-9 months before they could legal purchase the company, during which CNOOC would be paying Unocal's stockholders money to hold the deal...

*happy dance* from me.

and all the little ninjas say "hey-yoooo"

Not much worth mentioning. Monopoly on Saturday night. I went out early cause I didn't feel like mortgaging shit. Meant for a lackluster evening, but hey, I had a sore throat.

Sunday the sore throat continued, with major gum/tooth pain. Still going strong, today. In fact, tack on some swelling. Makes for a fun vacation.

Sunday Nick and his friend picked me up and we hit Vadnais. Found out it was a no boat lake, took most of the steam out of my fishing desire, and we fiddled around for about an hour with no fish. Headed for Joe's, picked up some tackle for the Labor Day trip and we're set. Hit Acorn for some disc golf. Earlier in the week, I found a sweet ass disc at Hansen. Gotta say, I love that thing. My driver I had been using has a tendancy to cock sideways and roll miles when I sidearm it. The new disc doesn't. In fact, it flies so predictably well I shaved a few throws offa my game. It's weird. before this disc, my driving sucked, but my mid to putting game was good stuff. Now my putting sucks ass. Probably, my putting always sucked, but my driving sucked more, and now that I drive consistantly, the putting is noticable.....

That's about it for the weekend. Hung with Wendy and Steph, then with Wendy. Did some freelance editing, of which I still need to report to the company. *shrug* Pretty blah.

Tomorrow, though, we're heading out after work for southern Illinois. Rock.