more bf2 shenanigans

In case my random stories of fun and indiocy about the BF2 servers weren't enough to prove the point, here's some good imagery concerning the buffoonary we sometimes experience in the game.

ethanol vs. hybrid

Expeditious Retreat Press

Awhile back I did a review for a few books from XRP (Expeditious Retreat Press), A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe and A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture. I heartily recommend these books to anyone interested in world and city building in a fantasy/magical setting. Very good stuff.

More so, I recommend buying them in print version direct from the company. Why? Well, number one, they're big books, so that's a lot of printing if you're like me and really like the tactile sensation of paper. Second, and especially with MS:E&C, there are some examples that I find myself looking at a lot, and as a .pdf it's just a lot of scrolling. Here's the kicker, though. I recommend ordering direct from XRP for one main reason. My order came with a HAND WRITTEN NOTE, thanking me for the order and offering up any customer service aid I might need! That's on top of being brilliantly packed in a solid box (I've had books come in padded envelopes) and shipped quickly. Nothing to complain about on any fronts.

If, despite all of this, you're still hestitant to consider the purchase, here are links to free samples. Download these even if you don't game in a fantasy setting. They're pretty interesting reads even without a gamer or authorial bend in your day.
A Magical Medieval City Guide
A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping

Only a democracy of our choosing

So, we all know that Hamas won the elections in Palestine and is now the ruling party there. Democratically chosen by the will of the people. What's the first thing the world does, especially Israel and the U.S.? Well, of course we say we don't deal with terrorists and threaten to cut off all aid of any sort to the Palestinians. No, "let's see what they do." No, "Hey, let's talk about our problems now that you're running a nation. We can sit down, tell you what will piss us off, you do the same, and we'll go from there." Nope, the West just says, "Ooh. You're bad. Swear off violence or we won't talk to you." Now, what nation ANYWHERE besides Canada and Switzerland can do that? You've gotta have some pretty big neighbors willing to protect you (or be so remote nobodies interested, like Sweden, Finland, etc) to swear off violence. Palestine doesn't have that.

My concern is how hypocritical it looks to anyone not blinded by the flag, the anti-terrorism rhetoric, or any of the other hype tossed about by the administration. Here we are, trying to set up a democracy in Iraq, but we don't even give the new democratically elected leaders of Palestine a chance. I'm not saying we should coddle them and be best friends, but I've seen no indication that either Israel or the U.S. has made an effort to deal with Hamas at all since the election. None. That bothers me. That says to the people of the world that we only support democracies that share OUR views of the world. That's not a good political position to be in. That's the position of some of our enemies. Just another thing to consider in ten months when we hit the ballot boxes.

Dwarf Baywatch

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/mexicoustunnelcrimedrugs

Good to know they aint swimmin across no more. hehe. I've about a million racial slurs in my head right now, but that would be unfairly targeting the Mexican people for the actions of a few unsavory characters. Sort of like hating all Americans because half of us put Bush in office twice.

SuitSat

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/26jan_suitsat.htm?list786792

This is pretty cool. With a HAM radio or police scanner, we can listen to a space suit fly overhead in orbit. Wonder if it'll be screaming....

Dust to Glory:Review

Dust to Glory is my new guide to life. Not just a documentary about the Baja 1000 (my next life's challenge once I've conquered Gen Con), the film does a bang up job of capturing the blending of the spirit of competition and community that you get in the racing world. Especially THAT race. The Baja 1000 is all about the challenge and conquest. Prize money is surprisingly low compared to the cost of the race, but there are sponsors across the board, from car and motorcycle companies to beer, energy drinks, and Mexican hotels. The film gives you a good feel for the big names of Baja and a decent amount of history on the race. There are A LOT of intense camera shots, good interviews, and the voice over walks a fine line, being mostly inspirational, but never quite teetering into cheesy.

My only quip with the film is the almost complete focus on the big names. There're few little guys mentioned and even less footage of them. Thousands of people enter that race and hundreds of them come away seriously injured. You don't really get that feeling from the film. And with over 250 hours worth of footage shot, with crews working 40 hours straight during the filming, I'd think there'd be some footage of a no name dude on a dirt bike duct taped together rolling into the Honda B team pit in desperate need of three things: food and water, gas and a fresh tire, and a fucking splint for his broken forearm from a spill 40 miles back, but I'll be damned if He's NOT going to finish the race despite only being at the 250 mile mark....

Despite that, though, the flick is solid and well worth the money. Besides, the directors/producers took out 2nd mortgages on their homes to make the film. So go buy it! Everyone needs the movie....

Disney/Pixar

Whoa

Disney might buy Pixar, which would mean Steve Jobs (Apple owner) would be the biggest shareholder of Disney. Crazy.

electric 85

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm?release=22474

E85 meets gas/electic hybrid? Next year you can get that in the new Escape. Good idea. I just wish Ford would port some of their fuel efficiency stuff into small cars for me, BUT more importantly, into family sedans. Seriously, Escape Hybrid sales aren't great because the SUV is all about more, and the people likely to buy a g/e hybrid won't get an SUV. However, not everyone concerned about the environment can cram their family into a Prius or even a Civic. There's an Accord g/e hybrid coming out, if not out already. Why had it taken this long? Hell if I know. Give the savings to the families....they need em.

I'm known for...

Influenced by some random dude in Germany and my buddy Bjorn, constantly challenging both myself and Anthony for the title of King Random, here's my reputation according to Google.

Brian is known for his books on diners and Klondike ice cream bars.

Brian is known to everyone as a respectable man, and a good friend. (I also heard this one a lot at the wedding, so it must be true if drunk people and the internet say it is.)

Brian is known for his opening "whimp out move", where he moves a pawn only one square.

Brian is known for being anal retentive, spending 3 hours to wash his car, and a unique ability to make up new words such as Bondalai, Hydrolix and BootieTootie that mean absolutely nothing.

And finally, Brian is known for killing the previous king Máel Muad mac Brain (of Éoganacht Raithlind) in 978 . In 1002, he was recognized as king of Ireland on the submission of Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill. His forces were victorious at the famous Battle of Clontarf near Dublin on Good Friday, 23 April 1014, but both Brian and his son Murchad were killed there.

Sorry, I had to go with three sentences on that last one because few people know that I was once King of Ireland for twelve years. I've since risen from the dead, of course, remarried, and am living well in Minnesota with two cats. I've put MOST of my royal days behind me, but I still don't do the dishes that much. (Unless it's a matter of sex or death. And by sex, I mean life of course) :)

Jehovah's Witness and pie

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060125

Here's another good CAD comic.

Also, here's another odd SDF:Nonreal comic:

http://www.torcpress.com/webcomic.html

Reservoir Gone

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060125/people_nm/penn_dc

Our boy Chris Penn went the way of the dodo today. Here's a moment of silence for him.




Too bad, cause I really liked him as an actor, and I've liked pretty much every movie he's in that I've seen. That's not a lot, but it's something. :(

What are you known for?

http://blog.outer-court.com/prejudice/

Dig it. This guy did tons of searches on Google for things like "Americans are known for" and just compiled a list. That map shows his results. Good times. Brits are apparently extremely unclean, and Americans don't like to walk. hehe. My favorites? Turks are known for using weapons, and Indians (as in the eastern variety) are known for cheating. whoops.

Sonnet Gaming

http://pigeonalacarte.blogspot.com/

I was orginally just going to quick link to this post because I strangely like the idea of a game that required all actions be expressed in sonnets.

Then I got to thinking. I'm seeing a lot of posts in the "intellectual freelance indy RPG development community" (despite all my personal traits, I never really thought I'd be part of any kind of "indy" community. I really like financial security a bit too much) about games that I've never heard of with a few key things in common. The most important of these is player approval and a general lack of GM. Now, I'm working with little detail and a lot of interpretation here, but it seems the games run with action being driven by the narrative primarily, and a player can take control of the narration by spending some resource or winning some conflict. Other players can support that narration and get stuff too, or use their resources to add to or redirect the narration. *shrug*

My first thought was that this play style is becoming popular because it appeals to older players more interested in escaping a boss/employee power structure AND it appeals to female players (no slam there). But then I got to thinking about the social structure of the games we play, then I lost my train of thought because there was some work to do. Once the train started rolling again, it was on a different track of course. Derailed again, and then I didn't feel like blogging anymore. Somewhere in there is a discussion about wondering why I'm drawn to alpha male personalities (most of my friends are), when I myself have such strong alpha traits. Then I realized that's the structure of my family, so I'm mainly recreating that aspect of my life in my friends. Huh.

Keep The Boat in the sky

http://www.fireflyseason2.com/Index.asp

*shrug* I'd pay $3 for an episode, since a full series would cost $40-50 on DVD anywho, and that's most likely how I'd buy. Go and cast yer vote. I'd hate to become one of the crazy, but kind of cute, chicks standing at a booth on a comic book convention. Tis a show worthy that, though.

A new book club

Oh yeah, I read a news report on Yahoo about the book Osama recommended every American read. I can't remember the title, but I think it's this one, which this link takes you to at Amazon. The funny thing is, before OBL said read it, the book was languishing down around 290,000 or lower in Amazon's sales list. Now it's up to # 30.

Compete with that one Oprah.

What's next for Osama's Book Club?

Probably The Bush - Haters Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years .

or

The Bush Family Cookbook : Favorite Recipes and Stories from One of America's Great Families

But Probably NOT

The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own

But it would be funny if it was the latter. :)

Mashed

Here's a quote I thought was funny from another gamer blog I just found, but this quote is from an entirely differnet unidentified source. It's about structuring systems to be "dick retardent."

"....I mean that there's these rules, but there's giant holes where people can do all sorts of stuff and we assume they won't. I'm talking about the idea that a GM in D&D can have three thousand ogres attack and the rules don't say he can't. In a more hippie game, like The Face of Angels, I can start every conflict with "If I win, your mom craves my sexy body," and that's legal. We assume that this won't happen, but it can."

Reviews

LAN party - Went to my first one this weekend. Still trying to figure out if it's worth the effort of disconnecting, reconnecting, disconnecting and reconnecting my computer, but the fact is, it was DAMN FUN. Would have been more fun if A)we could all play BF2 online together and B)we could have got any of the other games to work correctly over the network, but even without that, twas a good time. John, Phil, Scott, and I played an inordinate amount of BF2 on our local connection. It was fun owning the computer in a four person squad, but it was even more fun owning Phil and Scott when John and I faced off against them. I've come to the conclusion that my play style is "wrong" because I actually like a lot of the 'unlock' guns that people say suck. I've found the G3, FN 2000, and PKM to be superior to the other weapons as far as my kill to death ratio is concerned, and I abhor the MP-7 submachine gun. I can't tell you how many times I was totally out of ammo with that little thing (with not even a spare clip in reserve). Needless to say, I got pretty good at unloading a gun into someone and switching to pistol to finish them off. But I digress. My personal favorite round was when we did Strike at Karkand and limited ourselves to pistols and knives, with heavy weapons allowed for vehicles. Wish it was a ranked server, as I got 7 knife kills that game. The worst round? On a ranked server against the =FEAR= clan. Those fuckers are spawn campers and dicks. I'll never play on that server again. Take the last flag and win or defend your own camps, but don't park a tank and APC outside our last flag and just continue to kill everyone as they spawn. That equals asshole. Or asshat is you're on a BF2 forum.

Rise of Nations - I picked up RoN to take to the LAN party, but no one was really interested in playing it, because the RTS game of choice, which wouldn't work, was Battle for Middle Earth. I grabbed the "Gold edition" which is the game and expansion. The game has 24 nations spanning 6000 years you can play. Are you familiar with the real time strategy genre? Think Warcraft. Build peasants, use them to build buildings and collect resources. Use buildings and resources to create an army and research technology. Use the army, resoures, and the diplomacy button to alternativetly kick the shit out of your enemies, ally with them, or brow beat them into submission. I can't figer out how to do the latter, and so far, I've only been on maps that let you ally with ONE nation. That's annoying, because the computer doesn't have that restriction. Last night I was reclaiming Greece for Alexander the Great, womping some serious ass, when all five of the remaining nations allied against me, forming the Lokroi nation and being a pain in my ass. Pissed me off enough I popped out a 50 unit army (killed a few citizens to make room) and rushed their capital, leaving like 7 enemy towns between my army and my nearest city, but fuck em. Nationalize against me, will they? Stupide greeks.

Anyway, aside from the standard RTS game play, there's a conquest mode as well. Conquest mode looks pretty similar to a board game such as Risk or A&A. You have a map with your armies and territories, as well as those of the enemy forces. You can move your armies around, attack other provinces, and do all the diplomacy stuff (right now, I'm doing Alexander the Great). If you attack a province with two more armies than the defender, you can overrun it instead of fighting, which doesn't cound as your one attack per turn. When you do attack, the game jumps from the conquest map to the strategic map, which is just your RTS game. *shrug*

All in all, not a bad game, and it's cheap now, since it's a year or two old. Solid $30 in my book.

Q-bert on a qubit system? Not yet.

Over Christmas, in an attempt to entertain my neice, Willowzebub, I was explaining to her why modern computing processors would eventually reach a top speed in processing power because of the minimum size of an electron. She didn't understand, because she was 12 days old at the time, but she did listen with fascination as I pretty much recited an article I'd just recently read to her. Time will tell if she paid attention, since my whole point was really that she'd be living in a new exciting world as her common technology was going to be based on a vastly different set of scientific principles than our is now. The change has begun:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20060113/bs_nf/40876

Pretty exciting stuff, really.

Behind the Screen: Railroad Collisions

I's forgot to post yesterday even though I had something worth talking about. Oops. Today, I was gonna post thrice so far, and each time lost the topic in a humorous conversation with the old ladies of my office. Just now, it was shucking nuts with one's teeth. Coconuts to be exact.

So, here's a DM related post, so rare these days. There's a lot of conversation in the online portion of the RPG community pretty much all the time that deals with railroading the players, either by running dungeons all the time or by giving them lame "hooks" for adventures that can't be ignored since the characters live in a vacuum. It's the general effect you get for first generation characters in a developing camaign world. The DM might even try what I did and tell the players something like "You get on top honey. You do what you like. Slow down I'm gonna spurt," umm, wait. No. something like, "There's no plot planned, you guys are free to develop the story as you see fit." The trouble is, there's one city, one village, a river, and the rumor of a larger city to the south, and desert everywhere else. The players have the illusion of choice, but there's no knowledge for them to base choice on. Their decisions then are limited to "Is this 'hook' good for us?" and if the answer is No, the next decision is "Should we got east or west to explore the desert."

Now, if the home brew campaign setting is on it's third or fourth round of characters (maybe more depending on how frequent TPKs are), it's possible to hand the reins to the players, since their knowledge of the setting is greater than their characters. The players can say, "Let's explore the frigid realms of Xhevstainski," and make characters appropriate to that. It's also the case for published campaigns.

But what about the flip side? What if the players say, "You know what, we don't want the reins. We just want to use the same characters to explore a series of dungeons. We just want to kill shit and take its stuff." You'd think that's a DM's heaven. There's really little work in that case, since all you need is a subscription to Dungeon magazine. It is, however, a bit stifling as a DM. Running a dungeon is fun for the group as a whole because it's probably the first DM skill a DM developed. We all know how to do it, and all but the newest of it should do it with more panache than a simple, "You enter a 10x20 room with torches on the wall. A group of five ogres look up from their game of bones and snarl at you." We're still guilty of that, but we should do better. So outside of crafting new monsters, architecture or finding creative ways to screw the players with a programmed illusion spell, it makes the DMs job REALLY boring.

My question is this. If your players want nothing more than a series of dungeon crawls, does that make it ok to railroad them entirely? For instance. The group wants dungeons and treasure. Could you give them a dungeon type adventure every third or fourth go, but tell a story in a greater world (involving their characters of course) in the meantime? Can the sequence of adventures be Dungeon, Caravan Guarding, Dungeon, Save the Village, Assasinate a Rival Noble, Attack a Castle, Dungeon, Dungeon if everything is coordinated and following the events of a young merchant slowly learning that he is the lost son of the last King that was murdered in his sleep and whose death plunged the kingdom into civil war? And if so, is it ok if events at that point have given the characters very explicit reasons to stop the grave robbing and fight to save the kingdom? Where's the happy medium when the players want mindless skull bashing, but the DM wants the next best seller from Oprah's Book Club?

coupla reviews

Thud!

Thud! is the latest Terry Pratchett book I just finished. Another marvelous tale dealing with the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork, Thud! covers the investigation of a dwarven murder. A deep-down dwarf no less. We get a lot of history about Koom Valley, and Mr. Pratchett goes a little risque when the deep-downers attack Sam Vimes home. How does it end? It's a Terry Pratchett satire with a fable twist. That's how it ends. Everyone should read it.

Love Monkey

LM debuted last not. The series follows the hijinks of a New York A&R man as he tries to sort out his mid 30s single life and rebuild his career. This'll be a good show, as it seems to have something in it for everybody. Everybody I know, anyway. Besides, Tom Cavanaugh rocks.

good ones

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20031210

On a side note, I just talked to a guy at an insurance company, and his first name is Arkain. Yup. I'm makin an SR character with that one.....

Oh yeah and, SuperPlasmaFragSomeBitchesExpialadocious. Good quote. C-A-D gets the credit there, too. See, I'm spending my hold time reading back issues.....

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040329

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040814

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20040827 (for wendy)

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050323

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050513

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20050604

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20051012

Super Props

Man. Boolah gets a big ass nod and high five for the the funniest damn comment responding to a post that I've read in a long, long time. That's just the funniest damn visual to an already funny visual ever. Good job Major B. Good job.

My lunch is on my screen

Here I am, eatin a muffin and reading a thread on BF2. The great thing about a huge online community is that most of em are morons, and morons come up with some stupid, but funny, shit to do. And other morons come up with some stupid, but funny, name.

Todays word. Tea bagging.

To tea bag an opponent, you kill them, run over to their corpse, and proceed to crouch, stand, crouch, stand, etc, over their face. On their screen, it looks like yer dangling the squigglies. On other screens, it looks like yer dry humping their face....

This, however, isn't the funny part. Well, yes, it is funny. BUT, the quote below from a thread discussing whether or not teabaggers were "homosexual necrophiliacs" or not is the REALLY REALLY SPIT OUT YER MUFFIN funny part. Behold.



"If you can't see the humor in dipping your nutsack in the mouth of a dead enemy, then you have no sense of humor!"

That's right. And I for one, choose to have a sense of humor. Actually not, cause many aspects of BF2 are frustrating enough without some juvenile chonderhead swishing his gig bag around your throat.

Ear farts

Man. Head super congested still. Weirdness ensuing. Pressure is escaping out of my left ear. I can here it. It sounds like to two big pieces of rubber being rubbed together, back and forth. Damn disorienting. Kinda throws off my balance, too.

random morning mumblings from the disorganizer

Can't wrap my head around a linear thought process to save my life. Welcome to Disjointed Junciton. Here're my ramblings.

Alito-During his confirmation hearing, the question came up a lot that was basically, "Why did you say this on your resume, interview, whatever back in 198x?" and his reply was usually something like, "That's what I believed, but I've changed my mind," OR "I was trying to get a job and felt that would help me."

Now, the former I can deal with (and so can Norm Coleman). I made a ton of mistakes in my youth that I now realize were dumb as hell and people shouldn't do, say or think.

The latter, though. Come on. You're applying for a job and say, "Oh, I just said x that doesn't agree with your beliefs because I was trying to get a job for someone that held x beliefs." I wouldn't hire you if you said that even once. That tells me you're perfectly OK with lieing to get a job. How do I know you're not doing it right now? I don't. You don't get the job. Done.

Moving on.

BF2

This past week I've ran into a big problem. Servers disconnecting at the most inopportune times. Grr. Early in the week, I'd scored big time, and managed to get one badge, one ribbon, and was 2 kills from getting another badge. Unfortunately, the very second I get the first ribbon, server crashed. I managed to get the badge on a later day. I'll be damned, though, if in a long game, I didn't get that very same ribbon, and some ten or so minutes afterwards, that server didn't crash too! Fucker. Fortunatley, the next day when I logged in, I'd still received the ribbon. yay. So, last night, I'm in a good long game with very few people. I'm commander, which is boring as poopin. There's a ribbon you get if you're commander for 28 minutes and score 50 commander points. I had 62 commander points, and at the 27 minute mark...... you guessed it. THE DAMN SERVER CRASHED. GRRRRrrrrrRrrr.

On a side note, I learned that while you don't score points for offing dudes as artillery, the kills do count toward badges. The anit-tank badge requires 15hours as anti-tank and 20 kills in a round with the anti-tank kit. I musta offed like 30 dudes with artillery (good thing too, cause my guys couldn't kill anyone). Funny thing is, I killed the enemy commander so many times with my artillery that he quit, leaving the enemy with no commander. Hoorah.

Moving on.

It's weird to be physically weak in just your legs. I'm fighting off a cold, and it's mostly moved out of my head and lungs (still a bit congested and coughing, but no too bad). Unfortunatley, it's headed south, and my stomach feels weird, but worse, I have NO energy in my legs. Very odd.

And I'm done.

creative myopia

I'm sure a lot of my creative brethren have a similar problem, but here's the reason that the freelance game writiing industry is such a tough nut to crack for me right now (and why I'm alternately frustrated by it, but blissfully challenged and locked on with all my attention at the same time); I have serious problems focusing on the task and deadline at hand.

Case in point, my inhabitants/personalities section is due today. Rather than focusing on the last little bit I needed to wrap up in the shower, my mind wandered off to a section I don't need for a few months or so....a treant graveyard. NOTHING to do with the task at hand.

I have a theory for this.

Most of us spent our creativity as youths NOT paying attention in school. During lectures, what did we do? Doodled, wrote, made new monsters or adventures, pondered the best mix of iodine crystals and ether for those little snap pop firework thingys.... The creative stuff was an out. A way to avoid the boring shit in History, English, Shop, Trig, Chemistry, whatever. We loved doing it, and even did it outside of class, but most likely, the talent that was growing was significantly developed instead of or along with the other things that were happening in class.

Fast forward to a project with a contract. Something that HAS to be done. Something that feels a little like paying attention in class or copying down the periodic table. Even though it's shit I enjoy, nay love, someone else has the reigns. I'm not deciding I want to be developing the leadership of the local thieves' guild right now. Someone else has said they need it by Friday. It's still wholly mine, but not wholly my timing. I can't detour from the thieves' guild into the ritual they use to open the door of the Pharoah's tomb to hide their loot, because that has NOTHING to do with the CHAPTER on the leadership of the guild.... Deadlines, you see, turn things into homework. Same as in school, I really liked most of my classes, but the chances of me taking the initiative to memorize the Declaration of Independance are NIL if I didn't have to recite it for a test. I'd rather be detailing the leadership of the local thieves' guild than that....

To digress completely, this post is misnamed. Myopia is actually an eye disease where things in the distance are really fuzzy all the time because they're being shot onto the wrong part of the retina (sort of). It's also used to refer to a lack of long-term focus on important things. See, I'm having problems focusing on the tasks at hand, because they seem like WORK, when I'd rather be focusing onthings that aren't due yet, since that's where the FUN parts are.

Discuss.

V C

I love oranges. More so when I'm fighting off another fucking cold because they keep sending me to the ER. My immune system aint up for that anymore. fuckers.

Consequently, I got nothing, and have to fight not to go straight to bed when I get home. Hoorah. Hopefully soon, I'll have something to blog about, but right now, as my energy dips, so does the ole creative juices. Sorry to be a whiny bitch today.

nil bombing

I posted a lot yesterday didn't I? Didn't do much in the way of freelance work, though, so maybe the fact that I have little to yammer about today means I'll go home and get some work done.

To tide you over until my next round of rambing, here're a few links:

Here's the teaser for Clerks 2! Noogins. Alls I can say is these boys need some TorC Press Action. But still. Fucking Summbitch Yay.

Looks like WB is throwing out an Aquaman series ala Smallville. Cool. I hope.

And finally, here's one for the ladies. Where the Wild Things Are brought to the big screen. Live action, big cgi budget, and some of the financing is coming from the peeps that did Batman Begins and Superman Returns. At least it'll look pretty even if they fuck up the story.... Again. Cool. I hope.

So long Knight of the Rueful Countenance

So I FINALLY finished book two of the agonizingly long and slow Don Quixote. Overall I'd say that book two was more enjoyable than book one, because in the 2nd installment, other characters new of the Don and his ailment. Many, in fact, took advantage of his insanity for their own amusement. That made the second book much more humorous. Of course, I think Sancho Panza had a big part of that, because there was much more back and forth between Don Quixote and his squire the second time around.

Surprisingly, I like the book now that I'm done and don't expect to EVER read the damn thing again. It's an experience I recommend to anyone that's looking for a good literary challenge. Tis a bit difficult to go from the American standard style of fictional writing that brings stories to the masses into a book with crap-ass paragraph breaks, a different understanding of entertainment, and a million footnotes.

The weird thing is this: While I was reading it, near the end, I was damn sick of DQ and just wanted the book to end. ******SPOILER WARNING****** Don't read further if you don't wanna know how it ends. ******SPOILER WARNING******

So, ready to be done. In the end, DQ breaks out of his insanity, curses the whole damn affair and dies an intelligent and well balanced man. Brought a tear to my eye and a sorrowful melancholy to the rest of my day. Which was step up from the frustrated wrong side of the bed anger I had until lunch, but still. I'm sad to see the old man go, and knowing that Cervantes wrote his death so that no stupid bastard could make a THIRD book out of his work just really chaps my ass. Cervantes, you're a dick.

****Spoiler over****

Really, that's all I have to say about that. Well, that and;
FREEEEEDDDDOMMMMM!!!!!!!

A Dead Man's ....... Tooth?

Gross. I just learned you can get a tooth transplant. Now, since most transplants come from stiffs, that's just gross. What if you got the front teeth of some hooker that could only turn tricks that were down and out Russian midgets with a bad case of the gout? Yuck.

fleshy

"I'll go get my boobs. I mean shoes."

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060107

I love this strip.

One Way Ticket

If you're cool and 80's hair metal brings a tear to your eye and a little air guitar palpatation to your heart, The Darkness is for you. After getting Permission to Land, the group continues their journey with a One Way Ticket To Hell ....And Back. And the journey is rockin. Ten songs of pure love and falsetto.

Seriously, how can you not love a band with such a song titled "Knockers?" Then there's lines such as:

"I want you in my sack"
"I see your face when I close my eyes, and there ain't no place like between your thighs"
probably Boolah's favorite,
"Listen to my synthesizer!"

And we can't forget my personal favorite,
"I know I'll never be your Mr. Right, but I'm happy to be your Mr. That'll Do For Tonight"

I say buy this album. If you don't, well, "It would appear that male pattern baldness has set in." That might be Darkness slang for "You suck." Which is true if you don't buy One Way Ticket to Hell ....And Back.

jumper bitches

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20051231

Another great webcomic, CTRL ALT DELETE. Boy the robot world sounds great.

Yup. No sex for me when Wendy reads this one....

glad on/glad off

Man. So I got up at 5sees this morning to catch up on the writing I need done for a big deadline coming up. Got some serious rocking done, with a trade off that my eyes and body are just exhausted today.

Regardless, the early morning writing had a supreme effect on happiness and creativity throughout the day. I even hatched on a good portion of the history of the campaign world floating around in my head. Or so I thought. I spent an early lunch kicking it around and making some notes on my Pocket Mod (laugh all you want). Trouble is, there are parts that I can't reconcile with some other ideas I had, and this idea wants to just force all of the other work out of the way and be the central aspect of the campaign, which doesn't work for me. So, over a bag of chips (after the real lunch) I was just road blocked by this idea. In the end, there was no progress and I'm left feeling empty and grumpy. Stupid elves. The break everything.

It all breaks down to a setting with solid religion vs. a proto-elemental theme vs. a mortalized setting with little to no deific presence at all. In the end, though, I'm left with wondering if it even matters, because half the group just wants to dungeon bash and the other half only shows partial interest in gaming. I should probably just focus onthe publishing tasks at hand.

Still, it was a damn fine morning. Can't take that away.

steamed fruit

I was gonna post about how prolific last night turned out, but the last patient I dealt with has me way too steamed for much more than ranting about his ass. Suffice it to say I just saved the guy 10 grand in medical bills PLUS the cost of rescheduling a flight to Hawaii, and he gets pissed at me because if HIS insurance company doesn't require something I must be lieing about the fact that other companies do require it....

So yeah, I got nothing. Scum sizzling rectal bacterium secretion. That's what that guy is.

What I really want to do is talk about Tox. That's my rigger. Elf chic. No charisma. Fast reactions and good logic. Can drive anything but boats, fix most shit and even hack a little bit. Trouble is, she's allergic to sunlight, has a weak immune system, and a serious case of codeblock hinders much REAL hacking. So, she sits in her armored van and experiences the world through a myriad of robotic drones. Several bug sized tracking drones, an pair of iBalls with flash grenades, a couple of VTOL drones, and anthroform guard drone (Doberman) with a light machine gun, a large hover drone armed with an assault rifle, and two mid-sized rotor drones (helicopters) armed with SMGs. Oh yeah, and the shaded, armored van sports a hidden light machine gun of its own, with APDS rounds. Mostly though, Tox likes the late night custom car scene, and she wants to build her own illegal street racer to rig from the van...kind of a late 20th century mystery racer movie type thing. Sleek, all black, no one ever sees the driver... you know the type.

Yeah, I got nothing. Scum sizzling rectal bacterium secretion.

no love

Here I am on hold, MUZAK blasting in my ears. Do you know what I'm learning from the theme of this company's hold music? I'm learning that being nobody unless somebody loves me is putting it mildly. That last song, sang in a happy 30-50 esque era manner flat out told me that without someone in my life that loved me, life wasn't worth living and I should just die. No kidding. It said that.

cost estimate

So, it looks like rooms for Gen Con, right now, are between $30 and $80 a night. I'm half tempted to get a cheap fucking room now, because the Indy Convention Center is right across the road from the RCA dome. I think that weekend is during the NFL pre-season, so right now, I could get a room downtown for what a room in the sticks will cost closer to the Con....

Then there's travel. If I go solo, I'm flying. Why? Round trip, driving, is 18 hours. Give or take. Figer 28 mpg@$3/gal, and it's about $130ish for gas. A round trip ticket with stops in Milwaukee takes 6 hours of flight for $245. I could put together my own itenary on different airlines, fly out with no stops and back through Detroit or something, spend less than 4 hours in transit, and burn about $350. Not cost effective by any means, but if I'm running solo, staying awake on the trip is a major concern (when you consider the schedule is work an 8h, drive 9, spend the next day gaming before checking into the hotel). I still haven't decided about renting a car or taxiing it if I fly. Of course, if you figer $30 a day to rent a car, it pays to spend a little and get a room within walking distance.

Figer $60/day-room/car, $245 plane ticket, $60 for the four day pass, and $30ish/day - food. Total bill: $665 if I'm solo. That's about twice the cost of Wizard World Chicago for Wendy and I, but considerably more luxurious. If I drive, I get a cheaper room, $30/day, spend less on gas $130 and the rest is the same. Total bill:$430. And it goes down with someone splitting the room and gas costs. Of course, with someone splitting room costs, it probably pays off to get a more convenient/closer room and just walk anyway....

Regardless, there's my lame cost breakdown. I didn't estimate the cost of buying shit, cause really the only way to do that is just set put fun money in my jock and leave it at that limit.....

The Rez

olutions.

Last year I was gonna focus on animation and a career there. Know what I did? Started freelance writing in the RPG industry. So no career resolutions this year.

One year, I'll resolve to run the Baja 1000, but not this year. Can't afford it.

I do need to get in shape (not lose weight), but that's the easiest resolution to fail in, so nope. (although I might consider some Sunday morning martial arts if I can afford it with both Wendy and I)

And the format I proposed for resolutions earlier has run into two big snags. None of us can realistically afford the motorcycle cruise of Scotland this year, and I forgot to ask Wendy where'd she'd like to go. Plus, while I know there I places I can improve, I don't want to jinx most of them with a resolution, and I'm otherwise pretty damn happy with life right now.

So, what's that translate to for resolutions? One thing.

I'm going to Gen Con Indy 2006.

For any of my friends interested in going, it's August 10-13. That's a Thur-Sat. Right now, I plan on going all four days. Anyone wanting to come along can crash in my room (for the fee of splitting it that night[s]), but if no one comes, I might just DM a fuckload of games so I get a free room (split with 3-5 other people). If, however, it turns out several peeps wanna come, but can only go on Sat/Sun, I'm cool with that and the schedule will change. BUT, If I'm flying ALONE, I'm flying the Full Monte. Me, nekkid, surrounded by dorks, for four days. Full Monte.

Nekkid is a metaphor for being alone, not necessarily without clothes.

Of course, the setting I'm working on for publisher number two has been moved back to June now for first drafts, so I may have to go and promote that anyway. Not sure what that means for cost, schedule, or anything else, but it does mean I'm there, which meshes well with my plan of:

I'm going to Gen Con Indy 2006.

Any assassins...you know where I'll be.

I'm going to Gen Con Indy 2006.

A screeching halt

I'll give a full weekend recap for the NYE report. Not because the party started Friday and lasted til Sunday, but because the post would be too short otherwise.

Friday I showed up at Nick's ready to play some Shadowrun. Despite his best efforts, Mary still didn't have her fucking character done. My first thought was to just head home right away, but that would have been more insulting to Nick and Rachel than it would have actually made a statement to Dense Mary. (Not kidding man, you'll see what I mean later.) So we hang for an hour and half. At which point, I'm tired and decided to take off if we're not starting soon. Charlie says ten minutes, so I stay. Now, upon my arrival, I bitch about Mary not being ready. I stab a few more times during the first hour and a half. I'm pretty vocal about going home when Charlie asks for ten minutes. About halfway through the session when we start actually playing, Mary says, "Are you mad about the character thing," and then, "You won't let me live that down will you?" Yeah, this is gonna be a fun campaign. I'm still miffed enough about the whole thing that I don't really even feel like giving an in game report.

So Saturday. We rolled on out to Phil and Michelle's. I had strict instructions no video games, cause apparently, Michelle was huffy about Phil playing too much. hehe. So we had a low key eveinng of pizza and movies. Team America blows mighty chunks of Why Did I Fucking Watch This. No real highlights other than that.

Sunday, I finished up the monster gig, only to find out I didn't finish it up this morning, and unfortunately, I still don't know what has to be written or rewritten to get there. That and we have freezing rain and major allergies this morning.

'06 is starting off right.