go go gadget beans

Here's some more Doom & Gloom on gas prices. The fuel industry had made a bid to get Congress to give them liability protection against lawsuits for MTBE, but in a smart move, Congress said no, fully aware that protection against liability would mean that the additive that is a known pollutant of our groundwater would never be phased out of fuel. So, over the next couple of months, we'll be seeing that oxyginate taken out and replaced with ethanol. MTBE makes up about 10% of the fuel we use, so that's a lot of ethanol. The fear here is that bottlenecks in shipping could cause a shortage of ethanol and jack gas up to $3 a gallon. Big surprise, they just add another buck or so onto last year's freak out summer price, we won't hit and then over the winter as fuel prices ease up onto that target, nobody will notice or complain because we're still too damn happy it wasn't $3 a gallon over the summer. There's a chart on the above link of average gas prices by state. I thought it was pretty poignant that the three lowest states were Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. States without heavy urban areas and a reputation for people only driving their fucking SUVs when they need to yank a fuckin tree out of the ground or haul some cattle to market. Supply and deman is really evident in that chart....

On another note, I couldn't find a news article, but it's all over the radio. In a speech on her latest tour, Condolezza Rice said that we're aware America's made thousands of tactical mistakes in the war in Iraq, but she thinks we'll be judged by history, not on the results of those mistakes, but on the merit of the intentions we had in going to war there in the first place. Really? Are we really evolving from a species that judges merit based on outcome to one that judges intent over all else? How's that gonna play out in criminal cases? Is it ok to be drunk and kill a family of 5 in an auto accident if you didn't really mean to do it? "I didn't know the gun was loaded, it was an accident. " "I'm not paying child support, I thought the bitch was on the pill. I didn't want to get her pregnant!" That's how we're doing things these days, huh? Good. My annual review is coming up at work. I'll just tell them I deserve a "Role Model" rating because I intend to do my best every day I come in. It's not my fault the internet is an integral tool to my work flow. What is that, a 5% raise instead of the barely above inflation 3% I can expect from a "fully effective" rating I'm likely to see? That's a whopping $552 a year extra I'll get for that little change in evaluation. whoot.

Seriously, what historical event has ever been judged on the merit of the intentions behind it? Primarily, that would mean we would have to look on some event that failed in a positive light, and we don't really do that. Of course, looking on something that succeeded in a negative fashion would be the same. Then there's the fact that intentions are subjective. The South was just trying to preserve a cultural way of life in the Civil War. To the Brits, the dudes in the Boston Tea Party were just a bunch of whiners that didn't understand world economics. Hell, the photographers involved in Princess Diana's accident were just trying to keep the public informed about their heroine.

Intentions. fah. To keep the whole post circular, the gas industry has known about the possible shortage of ethanol since June of last year, yet they failed to act. I'm not going to judge them harshly for the price I pay at the pump, though. No. I'm going to judge them harshly because their intention can only be to publish the electing public for the officials we put into office not kowtowing to the industry and giving them an armored hull that would let them continue to foment cancer, autism, and whatever other illness you want to associate with polluted drinking water.

catatonic violence

Here's a question for ya. Is it easier, on a personal level, to control a violent tendancy if that violence is directed outward than it is if the tendancy is directed inward? Ie, is it easier not to punch someone's head off because you've had a bad day, they're a dick in the movie theater, of the sumbitch just parked so fucking close to your car a newspaper couldn't open the door for you? Or is it easier not to hurt yourself because you didn't win the last tennis tournament, only got 3rd in the spelling bee over the word "triskadecaphobia", or can't seem to lost that last 1/2 inch needed to fit into the size 0 pants?

The trouble with the question is that it's a personal one, primarily based on which way you direct anger. I rarely think I'm at fault, so not hurting myself is easy. My alpha tendancies, though, mean my first reaction is usually to one up someone, so if your a loud mouth I consider sewing it shut. If your an ass in your truck, I think about jacking your rims. Ok, the latter is more passive aggressive and financially rewarding, but passive aggression is still aggression, so even then, is it easier not to to juvenile shit like that to someone else than not to say things like, "I can't find a different job because I suck at x." Let me tell you, if I didn't have such high standards as to the value of personal property, there'd me many a truck in my parking lot with newly minted bumper stickers reading, "Whud're dem yeller lines fer, ma?"

Logically, one would think it's easier not to lash out at others, for a law-abiding person. There are legal and societal pressures against such a thing so there are bigger reason NOT to do that than the reason to do it (being, "I just felt like it" quite often). You can hide it if you hurt yourself, though. And you can hurt yourself through action directed at others. Low self esteem? Drugs and wonton fucking clear that right up. Does that necessarily make it easier not to deck some jerk in a restaurant, though? Or just put the reward for not doing it higher? Two years of freedom is a big reward (vs prison time). You don't get that obvious penalty for drinking heavily, chronically watching porn, or any other self destructive behavior (hell, most of em have a short term reward). We even encourage it as a society in some cases (you need a bigger TV so you can stay home on your couch and watch more mindless entertainment that will tempt you into not saving so you can wear X shoes, eat Y food, visit Z for vacation and be cool when you drive by in this cool car. bugger retirement, nobody lives that long anyway. social security and medicare will take care of all that).

So, despite not being able to understand the motivation behind it (although I do fall into the chronic porn and video game section) my opinion goes that it's harder to avoid self destructive behavior than it is to avoid destorying others. Although, it could be argued that the latter is just another method of the former redirected with some excuse or another.

devastated septum

I've been tooling around my various blogs, forums, and news sites hoping something would catch my imagination for blogging, but no luck. So you get a shopping list instead. I was thinking I'd drop my entertainment allowance this check on some D&D books or another (loved Tome of Magic, I should blog a review of that). The question is, do I grab some books that'll help in the campaign I'm desperately trying to get started, or do I grab some action that'll keep my prep time to a minimum in the games we play before the campaign gets started?

In category A we have:
Oriental Adventures: I have a lot of notes from this book, but since one of the major national powers in the immediate starting area is a pseudo Japanese empire, it would be a handy tome to have at the table

Magic of Incarnum/Expanded Psionics Handbook: One of the big things I want to do with this campaign is provide a different flavor of magic. Rather than the organized schools of wizardry and disorganized innate sorcerer abilities of the core D&D Vancian system, I'd like there to be something else. The aforementioned oriental culture doesn't have arcane spellcasters, instead using shugenja as a form of mystic samurai, but that's not moving away from the Vancian system, just limiting it. The turu only use Shadow magic from Tome of Magic, so there's a different feel. Psionics and soul magic would be a big change.

Spell Compendium: More spells. Kind of a dumb idea for a setting that you're trying to steer away from standard magic, but I love me some magic.

Races of the Dragon: Since dragons are the major deities in the setting, this is a good book for adding some "natural" weirdness in.

In category B there are just a few, but a couple of em are big:

Compleat Encounters: This is a series put out by Paizo. For $16 you get a scaleable adventure and three unpainted minis. Hell, I'd buy em for the minis, so you add an adventure that I could use in our random advenutres prior to starting the campaign and I'm sold.

World's Biggest Dungeon: This product is heavy. Seriously, it weighs in at over 5 pounds. That's a lot of dungeon. For the $100 price tag, it better be. Stuposedly it uses every monster that's in the SRD, so that's pretty much the entire first monster manual aside from a few iconic figures (squid heads, cats with tentacles, etc). Years of exploration are held within, and since one of the things the crew wants most is dungeon exploration, this solves that problem infinitely.

Shackled City Adventure Path: This series of adventures originally appeared in Dungeon magazine. For $60 it takes the party from level 1 through level 20 in a complete campaign. I'm interested in it cause I'd love to see how the "pros" handle a full campaign. Mostly, that's a lot of time to spend on one plot, so I'd like to see how they keep it inetersting....

Really, I prolly have enough unplayed adventures in my Dungeon subcription to last so I don't need to buy more adventures. Of course, we're not playing in the campaign yet either, so I don't necessarily needto buy stuff for that, either, specially when I could just go to B&N and figure out all the shit I need....

*shrug*
Gotta poop.

Shackled

I got nothing but complaints this morning. Maybe I'll post later.

Shonen Jump

A quick review for SJ, cause I'm work, can't flip through the pages and might have forgot something, but I have nothing else to chat about, so here you go.

Whistle
Blah. I kind of dug Eyeshield 21, but I'm not too into sports manga. Add to that the general difficulty of getting me interested in a title with one chapter in SJ and I'm just not interested in Whistle at all. Although I like soccer (especially the Swedish, English, US, and Japanese women's teams) I'm just not too worried about the subtle cheating and moral dilemmas of young players.

Naruto
Naruto lays out the next phase of the tournament, gives the characters a month to train, and introduces us to a little more info on some behind the scenes plots that are brewing, especially concerning the still unconscious Sasuke. We get to meet/remeet Naruto's knew trainer, and I'm damn sorry I missed Naruto's "doppleganger harem" technique from a past issue. The series wraps up with a knew character that could swing either direction on the pro or ant sides of the agonist line. There was a rather long exposition on stamina manipulation regarding chakra and techniques, but it was done with such a funny looking, almost stick figure design that I dug it. Hell, Wendy wants a t-shirt from one of the panels.

One Piece
Rock. A little blast from the past shows up as the gang explores Roguetown. Zolo gets some new swords and mebbe falls in love. Sanji, of course, finds a hottie to lust over. Then shit hits the fan. Not one, but four villains return, and as if that's not enough, we're introduced to another arch rival for Luffy's crew, Captain "White Chase" Smoker. It's too easy folks, I'm not touching it. Fun character work as we see each of the crew just being themselves, and we get a cliffhanger at the end. Good laughs sprinkled throughout, too.

Hikaru No Go
The Lion's Tournament finally begins. We cut through all of the games and end on a cliffhanger with Hikaru's game nearing it's finale. Not much to be said on this one without giving away the results of the tourney, except at least one pro gets put in his place, and I think we'll get some more tension between Toya and Hikaru brewing in this arc.

YuYu Hakusho
The tourney continues. Genkai pulls out a trick on ponytail boy and we meet the final member of their opponents (who is a joke). Love brews, a little hero worship develops, and I don't remember the ending. Since YYH is usually my least favorite out of the stories I read, it has to work harder for me to dig. I got some good chuckles out of it, and the action did keep me reading, so this one's on par with the standards I set for the title.

Shaman King
Yoh and the band travel Route 66. Pompador boy (can never remember his name) is the Legendary Hitchhiker. In the search for the Patch village, the crew discovers more than they should, and they meet a hottie Seminole shaman named (I think) Lilirara. Mmmmm. Really, though, this series is mostly just full of the usual "Why/how is Yoh so calm and easy going at a moment like this?" Not much else happens. Hell, I even thought the first couple of pages would have made a better place to end last month's series than where they did. Regardless, Lilirara is hot enough for me, so this series served its purpose. ;)

As usual, I skipped YuGiWontGoAway.

PS. Everytime the annoying woman on the other side of my cubicle says, "I just don't know what to do with myself," (which is at least once a day to get attention from her coworkers) I have to fight the urge to say, "There're two bridges just 1/4 mile away. I can give you a ride if you'd like."

In a dust cloud of rolling, twisted steel, rended flesh and crumpled bones, it is done.

Finished up our 2nd SR4 adventure last night. On the one hand, I feel bad because nobody but Charlie and I did anything at all, but on the other, I'm pretty confident that there will be plenty of nights where the antagonist is some astral or otherwise magical threat and my insane LMG action just won't cut the mustard.

When we'd last left our characters, they were in Adelaide looking for a certain gentleman possessing certain stolen goods. Gaz (my troll) was repairing our ship, while Theo, Baru, and Jacob (our employer) were searching the brothels. During some downtime, Gaz called up one of his contacts to see if that international fixer knew of anyone that might have info in Adelaide. Turns out, our mark had just scheduled a meeting with my contact to sell the item we were hunting for. With some quick wheeling and dealing, I orchestrated a suitably complex SR4 backstab wherin my contact would buy the amulet from our mark but leave him stranded in the Outback, we would roll up and screw up the sucker's day, then turn around and secure the amulet from my contact vis a vie a judicious favor from us at a later date (1 week).

*NOTE: I'm sure that wasn't in the cards at all, so props to Charlie on the improv.*

Next thing, we're in the air outside of Sydney hunting for our prey. Turns out our boy Jacob had a serious bone to pick with this chummer. Also turns out he's a rigger, so we fly up on him and his two rotodrones are ready to fight. Well, Gaz has a rotodrone of his own, and fucking cargo plane loaded with an LMG. Takes about three seconds to knock out his drones, the whole time the chicken shit is running away (like he can outrun us, hehe). Baru (Nick) sets up his sniper rifle as I pop open the cargo door, all set to snipe out the mofo's engine block as I whip up in front of him. On a whim, I give him a shot aross the nose of his dune buggy, hoping to pop a tire or something, but his evasive maneuver is a little to hard and uncontrolled, sending the buggy into one hell of a crash (16 points of damage to it's little 6 points of body). We land, Reggie (our target) crawls out, Jacob kicks im around, shoots him, kicks im, shoots im again, we all have a sammich and get paid. Generously. 10 times the orignially negotiated fee.

Good times, and our next job is a "recovery," bringing someone back from the Outback that maybe shouldn't be there. Of course, it's a freebie, so there's no telling what kind of a chunk it'll take out of our savings, but we've netted 174K for the biz plus 50K a piece personally, so we can stand to do a favor or two for someone that knows virtually everybody in the world. It also sounds like the sort of job that means I'll be rolling some pilot checks and maybe a repair or two, but otherwise, Nick and Rachel get the show. Fine by me. I missed a glitch by 1 die on every roll but one last night. hehe.

2 fer

First of all, no game. I played Battlefronts 2 and my idea for a game Friday is too similar to that. Really, it's almost exactly the same only there are no squads in the Star Wars game. oh well.

As to the review. Inside Man is damn good. Good and twisty and even when you think you got it figered out, you might be right and still wrong. With the cast, of course they did a good job, although there were a few parts that were just written questionably. Overall, though, great film. I could have done with a little less jerky/1st person running and spinning camera. I know crime scenes are chaos. I don't need a shot that's as jerky as a twitchy poodle that chugged a Red Bull to show me that.

Regardless, watch the movie. Good times.

I'll review the gaming from this weekend later.

In Space

Man, I just had an ass stomping idea for a video game, but I need to rent a couple of space combat games to make sure it hasn't been done yet or at the very least, this idea would be doing it better. It's basically squad based space combat on a large scale, with each battle's objective being to capture or destroy the enemy command ship. Players can take on various roles within the command ship and other large ships (commander, technician, gunner, etc) as well as fighter and bomber pilots or just regular troopers involved in boarding operations. I'm not talking just capture the flag action, here, but real benefits, such as locking down a ship's hangar bays and shit; things where the a boarding party is faced with the decision of destroying laser batteries from the inside which are then inaccessible if they capture the ship, or just going straight to the command deck and taking over the ship for themselves with little to no collateral damage. The ultimate goal is obviously to take over the command deck or flat out destroy the enemy command ship, but it's not immediately obvious on some maps which is the command ship.

Game play issues that arise are:
Can dead players respawn on squad leaders? Can they respawn in captured enemy assets immediately or should there be a time after capture that no one can respawn on a ship making boarding parties from both sides necessary? Will there be an actual "pilot" class or can anyone just hop into a fighter/bomber/transport? Same goes for laser/missile batteries. Does everyone wear space gear, or is there an activation time in airlocks to put that on? If so, how do you keep everyone from running to an airlock to put on space armor then just staying on their own ship to defend against boarding parties (the idea here being the raiding team should be outnumbered, but facing mostly unarmored opponents, while the raiders themselves have a slightly better defense because of their space suits and environmental gear)? Possibly limited air supply, an inability to change weapons quickly while in a suit, and some actions (such as going prone, repairing equipment, and jumping in artificial gravity) completely prohibited....

Oy. I was thinking a BF2 or Halo mod might work, but maybe not....

Wearing What?

So, in that damn Shakira song, there's a line that says "...make a man wanna speak Spanish," but I swear to god if I'm not listening to it via headphones I hear "make a man wanna see her in Spandex." I like that version much better. Como te llama? Tu llama es brain aneurism.

Two games; what happened?

So last night was the 2nd attempt at an inaugural Wednesday game night. Last week we had one that was Wendy, John, and myself. This week - just John and me. No big though, cause we busted out characters like madmen.

For the random adventures we'll be slugging through while my slow ass muscles out a campaign, John made a human fighter/scout (gestalt). I think he went with middle-aged, too. Should be a fun character with a lot of damage potential, and if he grabs the feats he was thinking of throughout character progression, he's looking at a 25% chance to crit by the time he's an old man, lol.

I whipped out a character as well, to get the full on experience of gestalt character building and went with scout/shadowcaster. A short little turu, the guy focuses on moving and blasting away with arrows. Went with fundamentals that do nonlethal damage or affect AC and attack rolls, and a mystery that gives the target +6 AC for 10 min/level. Good times. Didn't buy his gear, other than leather, shortbow and a sickle, cause right now, I still don't know what the turu are gonna be about as far as the Ride skill is concerned. Horses are a bit too big for 6' tall grass hunting. I might have to make up some predatory cat, lizard, or something else for them. Besides, humans have mastered horsemanship......

Then we moved onto Mechwarrior. Don't know when we'll get a chance to play that, but it's on the game list so we busted out some characters. Both members of the Draconis Combine, both of our characters went to the Sun Zhang Mechwarrior Academy, and through good rolls in that phase we both passed into Officer Training School as well. Both saw a tour of duty, so when game time starts, we'll be 23, the equivalent rank of Major, and John will be piloting a heavy mech (I think he rolled up a Grand Dragon), and I'll be sitting in an Assault mech. Good times.

15 minute terets

I just worked a coupla hours in the ER and no shit, my last patient had Terets. Man. No ribbing on him for having a mental illness here, don't take this that way. SUMMBITCH was it funny, though. I'm talking, I say, "What's yer zip code?" and he replies, "541 oh fuck no fuck no fuck. 541 fuck. 541 fuck 0 fuck no fuckno. 54105." This was every question. Yeah. The best part though, this dude's 40ish, and strumming his fingers on the desk while I enter his insurance information when he suddenly looks at his mom and yells, "FUCK!" then looks at me and whispers, "fuck no fuck no fuck no".

My peeny is still there, but...

Where's my manhood gone? Shakira took it. Last night I grabbed that song Hips Don't Lie for Wendy, but I threw it on the play list this morning and really like it. Of course, the playlist was odd to begin with, making more susceptible to new things. I'm talking:

Tripod (Australian comedy band)
Aquabats
Petey Pablo
White Stripes
TISM
War
The Wooly Booly guys
Weylen Jennings
Shakira
Alien Ant Farm

Yeah, weird mix. I blame on that. Well, and Shakira's smokin...... I wouldn't mind icing her muffin.

Ahhh, euphimism. The best way to be a pig and the fastest way to get the testosterone back. That makes this a worthless post. Prolly means it's the one that'll get all the comments. hahah!

Classy

I haven't sorted it all out, yet, but for the Iorthim campaign, classes are gonna be race and culture specific. For example, the turu are the only race that can be Shadowcasters immediately, and they're the only race that takes to it naturally (ie, they can level up and learn mysteries on their own). The the other races can take classes in Shadowcaster, BUT they first have to take the feat that lets them learn a 1st level mystery. Along the same lines, they have to really work to understand the mysteries of shadow, so they don't just gain access to those by leveling up. They have to find training or some outside source to gain power over shadow, and that means adventuring. Of course, most magic is like that. Each culture will have it's own unique way magical path that comes naturally (probably) but magic users tend to be like Indiana Jones. Even some of the "natural" paths require extensive study abroad.

For instance, I'm kicking around the idea of a means of using temporary tattoos to replace vestigal pacts for pact magic. Rather than drawing a vestigal symbol to summon the aspect of the being he wants to bond with, he real quick whips up an appropriate tattoo of the beast spirit/ancestor he wants to honor, slaps that on his person, mutters/screams/sings a chant and bammo, now he's tattooed, but bound to the spirit of the Ram. To make a ram attack, he uses a standard action, but instead of charging his oppoenent, an etheral ram leaps from his tattoo. The tattoo fades over time and is gone after 24 hours, taking the spirit with it. Certainly, this isn't an original idea, but it's a blending of tattoo magic from many a martial arts setting with the Pact Magic from Tome of Magic that doesn't really fit in this campaign. Pact Magic in it's original state isn't likely to exist, but there will be suitable replacements. Rather than binding vestiges, the binder is likely to contact demons, devils, angels, fey, etc. It's stronger near a breech, but does that mean you get a bonus to your binding check or your target gets one? Probably your target, but there might still be bonuses to the abilities you get from putting yourself at risk, there. Deja vu. I'm done now.

What is Iorthim?

In our very first campaign back in Octoberish '04 (damn, that long, huh?) I posted a lot of shit about it here on the ole blog. That gave me a pretty solid reference to what I initially wanted the campaign to be, as well as to what the players should expect if they'd bothered to read it. I didn't do that as much with the 2nd campaign, instead modeling most of it around the characters the players created and taking on world construction sort of willy nilly as a problem arose. I still posted game things here for the 2nd campaign, but it tended to be more of a game report and only contained things the characters knew at the end of the session. Both were fun posts, and I hope both were fun reads. I don't know which got the players thinking about the game/setting more, mainly because my crew isn't one to give unprovoked feedback. (I sometimes think that none of my friends give unprovoked feedback, because NONE of us can take criticism very well, with me being one of the worse at knee jerk reactions despite eventually taking the feedback into consideration.) Regardless, in an effort to organize my thoughts a bit and hopefully get some[the] players excited about gaming again, I'm gonna do both again, starting with posting shit about the development of the new campaign as I come up with it. Hopefully I can get John and Nick (and whomever else wants to play) together while I'm developing shit to start testing out the rules variants we want to use.

Iorthim is the name I've tentatively given the world the campaign will take place in. (It's actually the third name I've tentatively given it.) Rather than continue on this path of describing the design process thus far, I'll try to give you a teaser in just a few paragraphs.

What is Iorthim?
Iorthim is a world that is coexistent with all of the planes of its multiverse (which isn't necessarily made up of any or all planes from the standard D&D multiverse). At any given time, these planes open onto each other at various points and it's possible to accidentally step into another plane. It's still highly unusual to be walking to grandma's and end up in the Selkie Courts beseeching the Fey princess Orsinfahl to return you home, but it's possible. Most of the time, a breech is accompanied by a sign of some sort; a shimmering in the air, a mist or fog, a change in vegetation, and sometimes even a blatant road sign warning travelers they are entering the Bachaanal Party Row. While things do come through, more often than not, influences are what pass through a breech. For instance, almost like clockwork, every 50 years the demiplane of Rage opens slightly onto Iorthim and the world erupts into great wars. Every millennium or so, the same demiplane opens more completely and releases a great horde of beasts upon the world - bent on complete and utter destruction.

This means that life on Iorthim has changed much over time. Religion has shifted from a trinity of deities that created everything to worship of regional dragons and is slightly shifting to worshiping of other things that have slipped through various breeches and contacted mortals. The dragon based religions are still the most prevalent, but a couple of actual nations have shifted to a more organized religion and theocracy. Magic is a constantly shifting study of chaos as well. Because of the all too common destruction of institutes of learning, magic and technology are a roller coaster of discovery and rediscovery. Most magical study of any path involves more exploring of ruins and contacting extraplanar beings than it does time spent in a musty library. As such, mastery of magic is a highly personal experience and most magic users practice a blend of bending arcane power to their will, praying for spells from their deity(s), pact magic, truename magic, etc. Despite the wide assortment of paths to magical proficiency, magic itself is still rare and viewed with much skepticism and distrust. To the common folk, magicians are either con artists, in league with devils, or outsiders from another plane that have stepped through a breech. None are to be trusted.

Races
There are four native races to Iorthim and two that have immigrated from other planes, either due to expansion or persecution (there are other races of course, but these are the six availabe as PCs). Of the native races, humans are the most wide spread, ruling over a couple of independant nations, populating many border towns and city states, and even working to create a unified land of all the races. Humans are orginally descended from elves, left as stewards when the majority of them were called home, but have since evolved so far from their elfish ancesterage they can no longer breed, ie no half-elves.

Elves are the least populous, exiled and banned from their traditional oceanic home. Most of the elves have been called back to the sea, so those remaining are stuck on land, either because of ancient pacts with former allies (ala what is now known as the ice elves and their giant masters in the artic regions) or because of transgressions and crimes against nature of some sort, generally many generations ago, and cursed to languish under a punishment bestowed upon their ancestors. The elves of land are rare, spread throughout the lands of other races, struggling to find an identity and a racial cohesiveness and purpose in a land that was once a kingdom they ruled, but is now nothing more than a prison.

The Turu are a barabaric, nomadic people living in the deserts, savannahs, and barren wastes of the as yet unnamed but populated continent. They have horns and head-tails, a passive form of ecolocation (developed from hunting in grass taller than they are) and their bodies are striped, vertically, with the coloration depending on their environment. They are highly accomplished horse people. The turu were once the chosen people and assistants to the Underlord (ruler of the dead and the dark underground) but hubris, laziness, a penchant for creating slave races of their own, and slave riots caused them to be cast out of the underground homelands, stripped of their racial memories, and misunderstood and hated by the residents of their new world. That all happened eons ago. The only ancestral memory the turu maintained is a strong affinity for shadow magic and the Plane of Shadow.

The Aranea are the first immigrants to cross a breech. Shapechanging spider people (from the Monster Manual), many are secretly hidden in several human settlements. They do have a small nation of their own, abutting the lands of the xenophobic Sternfalk (see below) and putting them in almost constant war with the avian people. The aranea came to Iorthim on a mission of colonization, not expecting it to be populated and not expecting the breech to close behind them. A breech to their homeworld has never happened again. None remember how long they've been here. *Note: Playing an aranea means taking levels in the aranea monster class. This isn't as big a deal as it might be, though, since we're using the gestalt character rules.*

The youngest race on Iorthim are the Sternfalk (Raptorians from Races of Wild). Fleeing racial persecution on their homeworld, a small group came through a breech, lost in heavy fog, and have since been unable to return (of course, they haven't really tried, either). Sternfalk are even more rare than elves worldwide, but unlike elves, they've established a tight hold on an area of mountains (just as unnamed as the main continent). While they have little in the way of city and the population, their alien tactics and magics have managed to repel all "invaders" for the thirty years they've been on Iorthim. As their first generation of people born on Iorthim comes of age, the migratory tendancies of the youth are slowly overriding the fear of persecution and the unknown brought with the original people. Sternfalk are just now starting to "adventure" into the world. In the areas around their "country" they are overcoming the fear they bred by attacking all interlopers and being met with acceptance. Farther away, though, they are met with the same distrust as any magic user and almost instantly assumed to be something that crossed through a breech.

Lizardfolk mostly inhabitant a collection of islands south of the main continent. (There are a few variants from the standard MM1 lizardfolk, but some require monster class levels.) I haven't yet developed their society, since part of me wants to make them a theocracy that is actually ruled by their deific dragon god. Unfortunately, that makes them a hard race to play. Adventuring lizardfolk would either have to be ambassadors, missionaries, outcasts or spies. All but the outcasts have an sizeable collection of in game issues that I have a tendancy to forget about (sort of like having a teifling in a primarily human and decidedly anti-fiend environment but people RARELY reacting to that, even in a HUGE port city no matter how metropolitan its attitudes). Hell, every societal idea I've cam up with so far makes them either very xenophobic or highly aggressive. Aztecan, Incan or Mayan would be fun, but again, it doesn't leave much room for a PC. Although.....it is possible that they're similar to a South American culture, BUT ALSO the only people with any real naval ability, meaning they're the Vikings of the setting; primarily traders, but occasionally raiding small fishing villages for slaves and sacrifices. They carry a lot of exotic goods from their swamp/jungle/volcano islands and also crazy amounts of fish and sea goods. Yeah, I'm liking this a lot.

Sorry
Ok, so that's more than a few paragraphs. Believe it or not, that actually was part of the development and I just made up a lot of shit I was hung up on. Let me know if this gets anyone jonesin to play.

No Shirt, No Shoes, Yer Arrested

Dig it. This guy's gotta be from a small town. It's the sort of thing we do. React. Go. Oh shit, where are my shoes?

I do.

Man. They're discussing gay marriage on MPR. A lady just called in and basically said, "I can accept gay marriage, but since God say's it's bad, it's bad. See, it's not me being discriminatory, it's God, and he's the boss. I'm just toeing the corporate line, basically." Here's the thing, though. The spokeswoman had the best comment. She's Mormon and her mom is devoutly Mormon. When she asked her mom how she could hold such strong Mormon convictions and still love her daughter, lesbian partner and their kids. I'm with her mom on this one.

God sets out what His people should do and believe. HOWEVER, he clearly says, "Judge not, lest ye be judged yourselves." So, you can follow His path and offer guidance, BUT it's not YOUR place to PREVENT others from sinning. That's between them and God. Nuff said.

Now, I'm not even gonna touch on this bastard that's talking about family protections and growing the population, etc. Based on this guy's speech, I'd say we shouldn't just ban gay marriage. We should banning marriage from EVERY couple that doesn't intend to have children. You should only be able to get married if you intend to get married, and I'd go so far as to require pregnancy before marriage, AND require marriage after pregnancy. No more divorce until your kids are 18 and moved out of their house, too. If marriage is solely to facilitate raising children, it should be about just that.

Anyway, that's one of those rare socio-religious posts you'll get from me. I just feel that in a democracy, there's NO room for religious guidance in public policy.

It's the End...er...beginning of the Universe as we Know It

Alright all you whosits in Whoville. Here's an article that briefly talks about evidence of inflation at the beginning of the universe. Would that be the beginning of time? Well, that's a philosophical question not fit for this forum. It all depends on your definition of time. Does time exist because we track it? Is time anything more than a measurement of passing events and aging processes? Who cares, my Cheerios are getting soggy.

It's the End...er...beginning of the Universe as we Know It

Alright all you whosits in Whoville. Here's an article that briefly talks about evidence of inflation at the beginning of the universe. Would that be the beginning of time? Well, that's a philosophical question not fit for this forum. It all depends on your definition of time. Does time exist because we track it? Is time anything more than a measurement of passing events and aging processes? Who cares, my Cheerios are getting soggy.

SIFTPY

Oops. Didn't post yesterday. Forgot. Funny thing is I didn't get a whole hell of a lot done yesterday at work, either. Today, I did get a lot done, despite feeling like shit. Still, by my calculations I'm 220 minutes shy of having a "fully commendable" productivity this week. That's just under 25 verifications I'm not sure how to pull out of my ass. Even if I somehow managed to wrap up the work comps and miscellaneous shit that both queus are waiting on call back on tonight, I'd still be looking for 16 account to work on. Not to mention I have 100 minutes to do alla that in. Ain't gonna happen.

Nonetheless, time for that ole slave to the payclock try. In other words, I'll lurk in the other queus and find as many fast and easy patients to take care of as possible.

The most annoying thing is, I have to email an explanation of my "unallocated time" at the end of the week to the bosses, which they say shows up on the review in May, BUT that time doesn't show up in our weekly productivity email. For instance, last week I spent 2 fucking hours on one patient and another 2 1/2 running various cost estimates and helping out other teams, etc. That shit would bump my productivity from the 75% they quoted me up to almost 83%. That's the difference between an inflationary cost of living raise and a "fully effective" raise. But anyway, purty much everyone's heard my rants about applying productivity standards to a customer driven business model. It puts undo stress on the employees that care and quickly makes them not care.

Sorry Nick, if you read this far, you got this crap two days in a row. Exciting isn't it?

yearly checkup

After being on hold, once again, to get a "pre-cert" for a patient, only to find out that the benefits rep was misinformed and only outpatient procedures considered cosmetic needed pre-certs, we had a conversation about cosmetic tonsilectomies. The consensus was that the next personal modification would be tonsil sculpting. Personal I'm looking for a girl whose tonsils read "Must be this long to ride."

On an entirely different note, it's game time baby. We played SR4 Sunday night, and due to weather and a late start, it was another one roll night. As in I rolled once, to figure out what was on fire on our ship. I don't think Nick hit the dice once, and Rachel made a couple of negotiation rolls that were doomed to fail from the start, although she did succeed in quintupling our income from this run (but that was probably because Charlie was faced with something that extreme OR we'd just dump our employer in the fucking desert, leaving Charlie without an adventure to run, us with a bad reputation, and possibly a major plot twist averted before it began). Thing is, we even tried REALLY hard, and did an admirable job of staying on task, but still didn't make it too far. *shrug* We'll get rolling soon, though.

I hope. Seriously, we've been playing SR4 since before Christmas, and haven't rolled combat dice once. Since Nick consistantly makes hand-to-hand characters and Rachel consistantly makes mage/shamans, my highly mechanical/technical/social characters have really been the only ones that have rolled to do what they were made to do. Really, though, that's because the first character was made to do EVERYTHING, but nothing really well, whereas Gaz is a mechanic/pilot and we've spent 80% of our time so far in the ship. Really, though, Gaz can hold his own in combat with an axe or non-auto gun, Baru (Nick's character) should be keeping us alive in the Outback (and prolly will be since hiding our ship at the end of Sunday cost us a lot of water), and Theodosia (Rachel's) spell selection is versatile enough to see more action, I think. It's not like nobodies been doing anything, just that our characters aren't doing what we designed them to do (although mine is close, I'm still itching to open up with a drone mounted LMG or shotgun/crossbow, whatever. Gaz just wants an excuse to kick in his wired reflexes)

Funny thing is, I made a character last night a little influenced by the gunslinger adept in the book. He/she fights with dual MP-5 SMGs. With a 6 Agility, 6 Automatics (specialized in SMG) and Attribute Boost of 4 on Automatics, the character has 18 dice for shooting BEFORE using his/her Agility Ability Boost physical adept ability. Using two guns means he splits the dice, but that's still 9 with each gun. Fire a short burst with each weapon, then one short or long burst with only one weapon gives two 9 dice shots and one shot with 12 or 15 dice (depends on burst size due to uncompensated recoil) and that's 9-12 bullets in the air each Initiative Pass, or two full clips (40 rounds total) in a combat round. All with a pretty solid chance of hitting. Hell, if one mother fucker really needs to die, it's conceivable the character could put 15 into a called headshot and still lay down a wide burst to hold other opponents at bay, giving the head shot 10 or 11 dice (can't remember how much called shots take off) and a 1 die wide burst that'll still hold opponents down even if it doesn't hit shit.

So what's the point of this exercise in bad ass? Really I'm just pointing out that the players in the SR4 group are not on the same page as the GM in the group. We continue to make characters that are primarily combatants, but Charlie's game model seems to be 1-Use all of your skills and contacts to get to point A and 2-Have climactic battle at point A unless one of the characters finds a way around the battle. A full 80% of the new character's resources are meant for fighting. I think Baru is pretty close to that. Gaz is prolly 50% combat and 45% getting the crew to combat. I really didn't pay that much attention to Theodosia, so it's hard to say, but I think 1/3 or 1/3+1 of her spells are directly or indirectly combat related. Could be much more. And yet, we've not rolled combat dice once.

Part of that is us, as players, fucking around too much. Most of it, though, is the characters not matching the adventures so far. No one's really at fault, these things just happen. I think we need more high drama moments, though, whether they be combat or other. Imagine the tenseness in the room if we A)had to repair the ship quickly to fly off with our loot while B)fighting off a pack of poison gas breathing para-dingos with C)a mana storm on the horizon and clearly coming this way. Gaz needs Baru to help hold the wing in place while Gaz holds it on, but Theo needs Baru fend off the dingos while she prepares the big spell that'll save us all. ETA for the mana storm - 2 minutes. Add to it the hippy that paid us to take her out to pick exotic Outback Easter Lillies screaming her head off the whole time, in Theo's ear, and she still hasn't learned that damn silence spell..... Good times. It's all about the drama.

Fingering the keyboard

I was thinking about doing an article for a freezine about modern computing wonders I could see around the corner based on the Microsoft Origami "ultra mobile personal computer." I'm lazy though. $15 is a lot of money in the industry for a 300 word piece, but not enough for me to write a 3000 word piece.

Here's an idea I was thinking about for the article, which I'll post here cause I think it's purty cool and mebbe some genius type technician will pick it up and run with it.

Text messaging is becoming increasingly popular, and of course a phone keypad is based solely on 12 keys arranged in 4 rows of three. What else has four rows of three items? Your fingers. Four fingers, three little bones between the joints. How cool would it be if your UMPC's keyboard was a touch sensitive glove you were. Hell, you mouse pointer could be controlled via a sensor on your thumb, ran across the tip of the index finger or palm (finger is easier to control because they "world's smallest violin" gesture comes pretty naturally). Since the younger generation that's had text messaging since age 3 can fly through a conversation that way on their phones, they'd easily slip into the new style of computing.

Now, take this glove, make it wireless, mix it with sunglasses that'll project your UMPC desktop onto the inside of the lens, and you've got a sweet mobile platform you can carry in your backpack. Combine it with the fact that many cities are developing public access, city wide wireless networks, and you've got some sweet shit going on.

correction

I was wrong this morning. The four inches on the window seal was misleading. We had 8 1/2 inches this morning when I left for work. Best part of the morning commute? You know those city buses that are two buses connected together? One of those was jack-knifed on the northbound side of I-35W. That was pretty sweet. All told, there were three buses between my house and work in various stages of sidewalk or ditch, and two other reports of buses in similar straits from coworkers. Know why that is? The bus drivers own the road, in their minds, merging as necessary, not as traffic allows. I've been cut off by virtually every bus driver in the metro area it seems. Trouble is, no one else knows that the bus drivers own the road, which leads to a lot of heavy breaking on the bus part, which is a recipe for disaster on icy roads. A little respect keeps you outta the ditch, that what I always say. Works for the mafia and for city buses.

*sigh*

Monday. The temptation to call in sick is always there. Especially with weather like today. We got mebbe an inch last night early on. Just enough to lull people into thinking the bad weather missed us. Judging from my window ledge this morning we've got about four inches already, and it's still dumping. Good times. Makes the back yard pretty. Makes the drive in to work shit. Hence the temptation to skip.... Then there's the moral dilemma; leave early enough to be on time, leave at a normal time and be late, or leave late to miss the morning traffic and blame it on the power going out and resetting the alarm. Tough one.

Muzak

Here's my top 10 favorite Muzak (hold music) covers of the last few weeks.

1.Blitzkreig Bop (not kidding)
2.Beyond Thunderdome (that Tina Turner song, you know the one)
3.Fight for Your Right to Party (no shit man. This company was my favorite fucking company for holding today. Almost asked them to put me back on hold.)
4.The instrumental song on all the Jock Rock style soundtracks. From the 80's. Can't remember the name.
5.Tequila (slow and jazzy. Peewee Herman can't groove to this one)
6.Low Rider
7.Chariots of Fire
8.Bang a Gong
9.Smooth Criminal
10.What a Wonderful World

Good times.

Oddities

I've got nothing today. No rant, no opinion, I'm just coasting down the road of life, waiting for my solar cells to charge up.

So, like Nick's discovery of the once extinct squirrel rat, I'll leave you with these tasty bits of unusual information.

In Chicago, you must past a written driver's ed test to graduate from high school, even if you're blind. Good thinking.

In case you don't believe in karma, here's evidence. Doofus stole a car, then stopped and asked for directions. Unfortunatley, the house he stopped at belonged to none other than the father of the poor women he stole the car from. Dude recognized the car, called her to double check, and then called the police. Whoops. That's why I hold the door open for people.

And finally, a cute one for the ladies. What's an old bird to do when her mate dies? Well, this orangutan made a new friend. A cat. Wonder if it gives her little kitty massages like my cat Arthur does....

Oddities

I've got nothing today. No rant, no opinion, I'm just coasting down the road of life, waiting for my solar cells to charge up.

So, like Nick's discovery of the once extinct squirrel rat, I'll leave you with these tasty bits of unusual information.

In Chicago, you must past a written driver's ed test to graduate from high school, even if you're blind. Good thinking.

In case you don't believe in karma, here's evidence. Doofus stole a car, then stopped and asked for directions. Unfortunatley, the house he stopped at belonged to none other than the father of the poor women he stole the car from. Dude recognized the car, called her to double check, and then called the police. Whoops. That's why I hold the door open for people.

And finally, a cute one for the ladies. What's an old bird to do when her mate dies? Well, this orangutan made a new friend. A cat. Wonder if it gives her little kitty massages like my cat Arthur does....

X3

Here's your X3 Trailer.

Watching the watchers

Night Watch is a Russian flick from Channel One Russia. I'm sure the studio isn't the the Russian equivalent of the 15 minute brainwashing we got from Channel One news in schools in the late 80's/early 90's. :) Might be though.

Regardless, the movie is built around the premise that shapechangers, vampires, etc exist, and choose sides, light or dark, in a teetering balance of power that has moved from all out war to good cop/bad cop system manipulation. However, no action movie is complete without the threat of Apocolypse, and the since this is the first movie in a trilogy, the movie is all about building up to the Apocolypse.

It's hard to judge acting in a language you don't know, but body language and facial expression was all believable. The cinematography was only slightly off in a few spots (when the main character, Anton, realizes the photo on the desk is his ex-wife, I didn't even notice the photo from the 20 frame sweep of the desk we got), but pretty solid overall. Good use of color/lighting and music to set the mood most of the time, and the theater we saw it at (Landmark Uptown) had the sound system set to really enhance the audio experience. When the soundtrack tried to punch with the subject, you felt punched. So, on the technical front, a pretty solid film.

Storywise, I'd say the same. There were a few exceptioinally cheesy points (the bus flipping of Zawhosisname), a major slice of the plot just dropped the wrap up entirely becoming nothing more than a deus ex machina type distraction (only applied to the good guys rather than the bad), and I still can't figure out why the damn power plant blew up, but after the ball dropping plot wrapped up, all the power came back on. It's a Russian power plant, though, so someone probably just kicked it into submissions. Same way Gaz gets the Kestrel working in a tight squeeze. All of those things, though, can be explained away to the film being Russian. There's a reason why films, especially in the U.S., do better or worse in certain regions. It's all about cultural expectation. Many of the tasks and societal expectations we take for granted aren't the same elsewhere, and it usually shows through in film. I'll chalk the "Check, scratch off that threat, now everything returns to normal," effect up to that.

All in all, Nightwatch is a pretty solid film, so if you're in my area, or it's in your area, go check it out in the theater (cause I know my boys have seen it on Pickle's TV already). I dug it enough to catch the hole trilogy, but I will warn you that despite the culturing differences I thought were off, the film does have a lot of traditional storytelling twists and plot points in it....

poo witta bunnies

One of the fun tangental things you learn about in my job is odd illnesses and injuries (like getting Botox injections in your butt). Gamekeeper's thumb. Yeah.

Blind Furry

Furry Lobster found!

More Gen Con info

Yay. It's a little news, but I finally found out that Event Registration begins on May 1st. I'll have to check back to see what time (maybe even take the day off or a long lunch depending on when it is). Kind of important because we want to do True Dungeon, and I know that fucker sells out fast. So, mark the calendar Nick. hehe. Oh yeah, and before I forget and the post disappears, here's a link to the "Keeper of Gen Con Lore." Fun reading to get you pumped up and some decent tips.

More oil ramblings

First, a word of explanation. In a day like today (when my at work productivity is probably in the 40% realm), I'll read a crapload of articles and just minimize the ones I want to pull from. On a day like yesterday, I was just free ball rambling. Today I'll be referencing a few articles, but I'm still writing while on hold with no actual structure to my post, so it's still likely to be a scattershot bird pellet type rant on oil and energy. Sorry if it's hard to follow, but I'm not quite in a position to spend time during the day organizing the damn thing. I might do that some day, just not right now. So, onto the good times. Or let them roll. Whichever you prefer.

First, here's an interesting little bit of knowledge I found, which explains why our leaders were/might still be pushing so hard for ANWAR drilling. Turns out for the next five years, and the past 10 or so, we give some serious royalty relief to oil companies drilling in the U.S. The rest of the quote is just more reasoning as to why domestic companies want to pursue domestic production:

"At a time when energy-producing countries such as Venezuela are raising the royalties that oil producers must pay on each barrel they pump to 30%, the United States is headed in the other direction. Thanks to legislation passed during the Clinton administration and never revised, oil companies pumping oil and gas from federal lands will get about $7 billion in royalty relief between now and 2011. The problem, first exposed by The New York Times, is the result of incentives designed to encourage expensive deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico when oil was selling for less than $20 a barrel. But the royalty relief, which covers all drilling leases from 1996 through 2000, is still in place, even though oil is selling for more than $60 a barrel. Add in the relative predictability of U.S. and Canadian law -- nobody is about to seize domestic oil projects belonging to ExxonMobil (XOM, news, msgs) -- and domestic producers have a big edge on costs and reliability of production. This hasn’t been lost on oil and gas companies: EnCana (ECA, news, msgs), the Canadian-based oil-and-gas producer, has been busy selling off foreign reserves in order to invest in North American projects, for example. Big winners from this North American edge include EnCana, Canadian oil sands producers such as Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ, news, msgs), and companies such as EOG Resources (EOG, news, msgs) that are tapping into the huge Barnett Shale formation in north central Texas."

In this article by the same fellow as the previous article, Mr. Jubak goes into some more detail about royalty fees in the global market, as well as what many of the oil producing nations are doing to further grab control of the energy sector. Here are a few funny little quotes from this article:

"In Bolivia, for example, the government has issued an arrest warrant for the CEO of Repsol after charging that Repsol smuggled oil out of the country." (This one just racks my ass up, because it was in regards to a protest the company made against Bolivia ratcheting their royalties up to 50%.)

While that is funny, there's still this:

"While protesting the arrest warrant issued against its CEO, Repsol pledged to go ahead with $150 million in investments with the Bolivian national oil company."

The gist of this particular article, though, is that while oil consuming nations such as us and the European Union have a disheveled, disorganized response to growing demand on foreign oil, oil producing nations such as those in OPEC, and especially Saudi Arabia have a coordinated attack, planning to expand their refining capacity by around 50%. What's that mean for us? More demand for foreign petroleum products, including gas, heating oil, and feeder stocks for plastics. That's flat out dumb on an energy balance sheet. Look at things right now. Presently, we import crude, spending energy on that, then refine it closer to the end user, limiting the amount of energy we're spending transporting the fuel and feeder stocks. Since we're not likely to stop importing crude just because we're also importing finished product, we'll be spending MORE energy on transportation of product that we're already producing here.

One thing I did take note on at the end of the article is the increasing trend in investing in companies pursuing alternatives to the present energy markets. I've seen the same in my own personal research on XSunX, Ballard Power Systems and a few others.

That's really about all I have today. I did find another article that I don't really have time to get into now. It was a little more evidence in how much OPEC has lost control of the international oil market, basically pointing out their feather ruffling after the State of the Union Address and how fake it was. Basically, after Bush said we're researching alternatives, OPEC or maybe just Saudi Arabia (I forget) said, "You do that, and we'll cut production now." Unfortunately for them, they can't, because most of the nations in OPEC are dependant on Western money being spent on oil to maintain their current regimes. While Iran might be crazy enough to shoot itself in the foot while slapping Bush in the face, most of the other OPEC nations haven't shown a trend toward that. Of course, if they didn't say anything, they'd be seen as week and pandering to Western demands, yada yada, you got all of that yesterday.

Again, that's it from the land of Muzak hold time. Enjoy your meal, and be careful, that coffee might be hot.

energy speculation

I read an article about a lot of the celebrities at the Oscars showing up in Toyota Prius and various Ford hybrid models. Can anyone confirm? Of course, GM did rent out about 50 frickin Escalades to the hoity toities, too, so it's good to see that Hollywood has the same split the rest of America does. *shrug* That's neither here nor there. Here's some speculation on my part based on a few brief reports I read about the oil market in the near (week) future.

OPEC meets in Vienna this week. There's a lot of market forecasting saying they won't cut production. I agree. Why? Well, a lot of our alternative energies aren't productive right now if oil is below $40 a barrel. It's hovering around $60. We're looking at about 5 years before a lot of our alternatives become viable as mainstream sources, but if it spikes up too much more there's nothing that says the people of the world won't put more effort and money into researching said sources to bring them online faster. Right now that's about what's keeping things slow in my opinion. That and most of the companies trying to capitalize on the new industries still aren't turning a profit from those industries. Exxon, BP, those guys (and maybe not so much BP) probably still see it all as a tax right off. At this point, it's pretty clear to everyone that OPEC can't bring oil back to $40 a barrel, so aiming for $60, where it's been for awhile now does a couple of things. It let's the oil producing nations bring in cash quicker and it keeps the raw price of oil out of the news so us lazy Americans (and Brits from what I read) don't get force fed the energy news we should be paying attention to...

BUT, Iran is vocalizing that if the Security Council says "Here's some sanctions, Dickhead," it might just have to cut production. That makes me wonder about two things. First, how long until any OPEC nations step into that mess? Certianly, if Iran cuts production more than Saudi Arabia can pick up, oil spikes, we look at alternatives, and there's always the chance that a wave of anti-oil trendiness hits the pop culture thoughts of the pampered world with too much free time. In a mid term election year in the U.S. that kind of wave won't be good for OPEC for sure. So, it makes sense for them to be thinking about what it would take to keep Iran from cutting production. However, Iran can't cut production too much or it's shooting itself in the foot. Too big a cut and it can't afford to research it's tactial nukes...I mean nuclear energy facilities. Still, right now Iran's toting a rep only slightly less insane than North Korea, and that's only cause in Iran, people get to eat. Where was I going? Oh yeah, here's a serious problem for the OPEC countries...right now isn't the best time to be seen as having pro-Western associations, and telling Iran to put up or shut up without seeming to be catering to our demands for more Black is a tough one for them to pull off. Considering the Saudis are taking a few terrorist hits because of their associations already, I don't see OPEC moving on that til it's too late, despite the fact that it'd be a big PR move in the face of the Western world.

Which brings me to why OPEC might still decide to cut production a tich this week. If they do, prices for oil will spike (so fill up your tanks now) briefly, but most likely return to the mid to low $60's before Iran decides to turn off the valves. Then, IF Iran does cut production, the other OPEC nations (I'm not sure if Iran is in OPEC or not) have some wiggle room to crank up production back to normal or slightly higher, all the while playing the altruism card in the short memoried world media. If oil did hit $70 because they slowed production, but they were able to keep at $70 even if Iran cuts us out, the only way anyone will get too huffy with them at all is if the western media makes a big deal out of them cutting production this week. If they do. I still don't think they will, though. I'm pretty sure that the energy market has fully slipped out of the Saudi's hands and everybody that can produce oil is just freaking out trying to keep their heads above the tide.

That's all just speculation over my lunch break, though. Let me know if you disagree, agree, or could care less. Well, if you could care less, just don't say anything....

common courtesy

Man. This morning coming into the hellspital, my hands were full. I'm talking frickin backpack sliding down one arm with coffee in that hand, and lunchbox plus bag of doughnuts (high calorie day for me. Can't seem to get enough to eat again) in the other hand. There's a woman in front of me, and I know she can see my reflection in the big fucking glass door she's about to walk through. She buzzes her pass across the security scanner to unlock the door and BARELY opens it enough for her ass to squeeze through, rather than holding it so I can get in. Summbitch that pisses me off. Not only would I have to do the happy dance that it takes for my badge to get picked up by the card reader (it's about navel high on me, and my badge sits just under my chichi's), but then I'd have to figer out some way to open the damn door without sitting shit down in the mudhole that always pools by the door. All because some bitch couldn't be bothered by just flinging the fucking door open a few more inches. No, she had to hunch down in her ankle length, antartic, fur-trimmed coat, rich hat, thick gloves (it was like 32, so way to fucking warm for that shit anyway), etc, and slink into the hellspital like I was some hungry wolf stalking her weasely ass and she had mere seconds to get to safety before she became my pre-doughnut snack.

Too bad for her, I'm a ninja. Two secret ninja steps and my elbow kept the door open and I was in like Flynn, mere inches behind her. She pretended not to hear when I used my "Accidentally wake up Joe's Mom in the basement during a Magic game" voice and said, "Thank YOU!" Of course, her hat was 7 inches think and probably lined with baby seal fat, so she might not have heard me.

Clear!

Usually, my Amazon Gold Box is the same stale old offers I haven't decided to spend money on yet. Golf clubs, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way, Discworld, various off road motorsports movies. Not today. Today I almost dropped a grand at Amazon. On what?

Features:

• Philips is the worldwide leader in portable defibrillators on airplanes, and in airports, workplaces, communities, and homes
• The first and only defibrillator available over-the-counter that can be used by virtually anyone with the materials included
• Easy to use with guided interactive voice instructions
• Safely delivers a shock only if needed
• Reliably runs daily self-tests for readiness

That's right. A frickin portable, OVER THE COUNTER, I Can Buy It Without A License Defribilator! Frickin sweeeet.

keep us in debt

Dig It. Senator Coleman voted against decreasing the national deficit because it involved not extending the current tax cuts. Way to put your career above your children's future buddy. Toe the party line. Keep up the good work man. You got two more years to earn my vote back, and that's not the way to do it.

1/2 off

Remember my glowing praises of Expeditious Retreat Press? Well, in honor of GM's day (March 4th, if I had any players I'd point that out to them incessantly, for it is a day to shower your GM with gifts and praise....) XRP is having a 50% off sale on all of their print products. The only reason not to buy one or two now is that you suck.

shower worm

The Appetizer

Here's a little thought I had this morning in the shower. We're seeing the effects that an aging population is having on America. The closer the majority of our workforce gets to retirement, the less concerned that majority is about education and the more they focus on issues like security, but more importantly, affordable health care and the state of Medicare and Social Secuirty Income. There's also, as of late, a decided inability to accept change beyond superficial technological and disposable goods meant to make life easier. We've accepted technology as a Good Thing, but there is a lot of resistance to modifications to our social and infrastructures. Politicians play dirty pool, but with a 24 hour media service in every window, they get caught more. Few changes are demanded on top, and even less is pushed around down through the ranks. We're acutely aware of the repurcussions of an economy based on fossil fuels and military might, but the willingness to sacrifice even a little convenience for a much better future isn't there. Emotional blinders have gone up. The majority of the work force says things like, "I've done blahblahblah for near on 40 years, I think I deserve a little extravagance," and pumps 25 gallons more into their SUV, while the wife does the same with hers.

Now, China's competing with the rest of the world for economic superiority. The growth is based on an explosion of industrial production and capital investment with an unlimited supply of cheap labor. We see the cheap labor variable changing, but not rapidly. China's main hang up is its limited resources, both material and energy. But dig this report from renewableenergystocks.com:

"As Michael Liebreich, Co-Founder and CEO of New Energy Finance, a London based informational clean-energy index explains, "The drivers for the acceptance by China of renewable energy technology are twofold; they have an almost insatiable requirement for energy and therefore they will need not only fossil fuels but also renewable and clean energy in order to avoid a bottleneck to their economic development. The other side to it is that China sees renewable energy as a growth industry with considerable potential, one that they want to have a very strong position in."

As a growing world economy competes for the same oil and gas reserves, the benefits of investing in clean and self sustaining energy supplies has become evident to China. Tom Djokovich, CEO of XsunX, Inc. (OTC BB: XSNX) explains, "Investments in renewable technologies allows the Chinese to hedge energy costs and reduce dependency on fossil fuels in a competitive marketplace, while leveraging the growth potential of solar in the world marketplace. For XsunX, China's mandates to increase the use of BIPV technologies as part of an effort to make all buildings 'Green' represents a tremendous opportunity for our Power Glass® film technology in one of the largest and fastest growing commercial construction marketplaces."

In addition, Wieland Koonstra, CEO of GiraSolar, Legend Investment Holding's (OTC: LVCP) solar division describes, "The main driver for solar growth in China in my opinion is not only environmental or energy concerns; but also their well strategized market entree now that the market is ripe." GiraSolar is a beneficiary of China's activity in renewable energy as a recipient of Chinese exports in this area"

China doesn't have the "old money, old energy" hang ups we have as a society, because there isn't much old money invested in old energy there. Give em five to ten years and they'll be producing even cheaper goods because of an efficient energy market. That is provided oil continues its alpine climb. That all depends on several factors, not limited to our elections this year and in 08, but also including how the world handles Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and if any of the "grass roots" type movements in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries can do anything about dethroning the despots leading them. We won't even get into how our energy initiatives or those in Europe, Canada and Japan factor into things. Suffice it to say that if oil falls below $40 a barrel, we'll see even less of a "green" move than we're seeing now.

The Entree

What I was really thinking about, though, is this. We see the effects of an aging workforce here at home. We see our "hold" on the world slipping. But consider this. China still has a "one child" policy. If that policy stays, we'll see it be more effective as more of China's population shifts into the tighter controlled urban areas. That law of numbers says that for every two people reproducing in a marriage, only one person comes out of the equation. So, the size of their workforce will start to age and decrease rapidly as well. Granted, the Chinese workforce isn't going to peter out in one generation like ours is expected to. Also, a lack of old age entitlement programs means the government isn't spending an ever increasing amount caring for the elderly. Their society, I believe, still has an effective extended family sort of thing, so the elderly are cared for by their children.

Nonetheless, I'm interested to see how long the "one child" policy sticks around. It's not an economically viable standard, but if they stick to it, China's rise to the top might fall a bit short due to workforce alone. I put the next great war at about 2040. By then, our baby boomers will have returned to the heavens, leaving a much younger population shaking off the shackles of caring for a greater number of elderly (how much you wanna bet we don't extend the average lifespan much beyond what it is now over the next 20-30 years, simply because we'll have plenty of old people in that time, and won't have a need to conserve the ones we have.), while across the continents, China will be suffering the same fate we are now, faced with an aging workforce and sitting on a huge military industry with nothing to do but imperialise. We've already shown, thrice, what a young American work force itches to do in the face of imperialization.

I wonder how that's gonna affect MY retirement.