A political gamer in my pocket.

The Minnesota State Fair - There's always someone uglier

2007-09-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hit the fair last night. Here's me food list:

Teryaki Ostrich on a Stick - rubbery, looked like hamburger, and tasted bad. Yuck.
Cotton Candy
French Fries
Mini Donuts
Dippin Dots
Hush Puppies
Frozen Grapes
Corn Dog
Fun Dip

Played Skee Ball, and road the Ferris Wheel with two wheels on a larger wheel. Good times. Oh, and I signed up to win an iPod from the Republicans, scored a free blinky thing from the post office for noticing that the trend in their quiz was that the answer is ALWAYS the biggest number, and met Mark Wheaton (sort of).

GC from Indy

2007-08-22T04:50:00.000-07:00

Well, no posts from the Con. No time for love Doctor Jones! Honestly, about the only thing Nick's laptop was used for was confirming event locations and updating Nick's D&D minis collection (nerd). It's been a week now, so the early days are hazy, but I'll try for a quick run down of events. Some of them might be summaries, so the real humor will show up on someone else's blog....

Thursday - Thursday housed the first in a long series of seminars with writers that said things like, "Don't make up your own world completely," and "Only make as much language as you need." That's not what I went to the seminars for, so most of them were a waste of time... The basic Green Stuff sculpting class I took was good for getting a sense of tools I'd need, but really didn't do much in the way of basics. However, True Dungeon made up for both of those let downs... It rocked, except for half of the party being turned to stone halfway through the event. *sigh* Oh well. John made it through alive at least. Thursday, all I scored from the vendor hall was an adventure from Paizo. Thursday was also the night of the Oompa Loompa, and me ralphing my dinner because I was laughing so hard.

Friday - Friday held another seminar that wasted my time, but followed that up with a fun and rousing game of Godlike. What did I learn from Godlike? I know the rules exceptionally well. Well enough I could end most encounters by myself in two to three rounds. Less if my squad mates listened. I should have been the Lt. I followed Godlike up with (or maybe precluded it, can't remember) a class on costuming that Wendy had signed up to take. I'm not sure why the class cost $7.50. It included a xeroxed booklet with a few tips, and there was no actual hands-on stuff. Scratch that, I know why. The instructor had wanted a two hour class, in which we would have made a top for belly dancing or a cloak, but we only had one hour. Friday was too busy for me to hit the dealer hall. We had rad sushi on Friday, though. I took a nap that evening and slept through the seminar I really wanted to take on RPG and education. Oh well.

Saturday - The last day for John and I as I wanted to hit the road early. Saturday was saw a seminar that didn't completely suck as well as a class on sculpting that helped out way more than the basic class and gave me tons of visions of cool dragon sculpts. Midnight Zombie Show was also Saturday, but I skipped. Matt when in my stead, and he and Nick had a blast. Hell, Nick even won a board game for good roleplaying... I scored fat loot on Saturday; playtesting and purchasing Condotierre from FFG (card game about rennaisance Italy), and picking up some dice and hentai for Wendy and I. Oh, and I bought Shadorwun's newest book, Augmentation.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the City of Brass boxed set, and I went cheap and didn't buy many of the RPGs that were on my list, because I can get them all locally. Sure, buying at GC means vendors go back. Unfortunately, I wanted to get to my mom's for lunch, otherwise we might have went back Sunday for some bargain shopping.

Oh well. The Con was fun, and I successfully pitched a setting to a publisher. Time to start working on that.....

Oh yeah, and WotC announced 4th edition.

Gen Con and reviews

2007-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, since it's been a month plus since I posted last, the reviews will be a jumbled collection of things I can sort of remember. Driving Lessons has Rupert whatshisname (Ron Weasely), and that boy can act. He starts working for a crazy old lady at the bidding of his ridiculously publicly Christian mom. Antics progress from there. I liked the movie a lot.

Kung Fu Hustle also rocked, but don't expect much in the way of serious here. Also, don't expect a whole lot of the big band dance lines I remember seeing in the trailers. Either way, the movies a good slap stick parody of a legendary figures kung fu flick. Good times.

Who Killed the Electric Car? This movie isn't too bad, but the beginning is a little too propogandist for me. Sure, it's a documentary, but it's not an objective look at the issue. I always think that documentaries should do one of two things. Present both sides of an issue in a non-biased fashion so the audience can make up their own minds, OR present a mostly one sided view of an issue along with suggestions on how things can or could have turned out differently. This one did neither. It mosly pointed the finger at the auto industry, a few political figures, and American consumerism (oh, and don't forget Big Oil), and briefly outlined why hydrogen cells will fail. Even so, I liked the flick and it's good enough to get the ole brain gears going.

On the gaming front, we picked up a Nintendo Wii. The game list is now Wii Sports, Wii Play, WarioWare, and Red Steel. We get the most use out of Wii Sports. I'm looking forward to getting Zelda:Twilight Princess and Mario Strikers (the soccer one, not sure if that's the right game). Also in the gaming field, Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's came out. I'm a little saddened at the music selection and the dummed down version of the game, but I'll still play it when the need arises. I've heard rumors of Guitar Hero III on the horizon.

The biggest news of all, though, is Gen Con! August 15th we roll down to Indy for some serious fun. I think the gaming will be minimal this year, so we'll see how much fun it is compared to last year. I have a Godlike game and the Midnight Zombie Show. The rest is seminars and classes. Two classes on minis sculpting, which should be interesting. We scored a hotel two blocks from the convention center this year, and judging from the construction downtown, I'm glad we did. Whoa.

Hopefully I can post from the Con, and even more importantly, post more than once a month in the future. Summers winding down, so I may be spending more time in front of El Computador anyway.

Independant

2007-07-05T19:19:00.001-07:00

The fam came and went. Readers, I hope your Fourth was as fun as mine. Hopefully, the familiy visit went as well as they say it did, and they'll come back sometime.

Breif recaps

- As mentioned, the family was here for four days. We hit the Science Museum of Minnesota, shopped, played Phase 10 and Wii, and ate at Fuji Ya, Everest on Grand, Khan's, and the Uptowner. Good times. My little bro (almost 6'6") is starting his own D&D campaign. I'm so proud.

- Work on the Gen Con mega adventure continues. I think I figured out the setting for my second artifact. Now I just need to stat it out, get Nick's character stats and post the sign up sheet online. I think maybe I'll do the latter first, as that'll give me more incentive to get shit written up... Also, continuing to meet with Nick every Sunday might help. Gen Con's only a month away!

- Picked up Expanded Psionics Handbook. Strangely enough, the book helped me narrow what I wanted the Borderlands to be in Iorthim. That's strange because I'm thinking Wild West. How did I get that from psionics, which play such a minimal role anywhere in the setting anyway?

- The Savage Tide continues. In our last game, the group shopped, then headed out to find Vanthus Vanderboren. The shopping was almost a full session itself, but it did a lot to secure the party as friends, boost some interesting dynamics, and bring out some personal story for a few of the characters. Pulled Kord more heavily into Bill's life, exerted a little more independance and pomp from Satanos, fortified Kima's feeling of loss for Oreana and accentuated her strangely placed girlyness, and put Nyfel on the fringes of the group where he belongs. Everyone's having fun, and looking forward to Wednesday nights. Whoot.

- I need a Wii.

2nd day

2007-06-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

Caught Daywatch this weekend with Nick. Good fuckin flick. Nick was a little displeased with a deus ex machina twist at the end, and I'll admit that given just the two flicks it does seem that's the case. Not having read the books yet, I'm reserving the displeasure until I know for sure if the twist actually has something to do with the final part of the trilogy or not.

Other than that, there isn't much to complain about if you take the story for what it is in the setting it builds. I definitely have to read the trilogy to see what's missing. Either way, toss the DVD on your Netflix for TOMORROW and then catch the movie while you still can. Unless you've seen Nightwatch, then get your ass to the theater.

Oh, and if you've seen Ice Pirates, tell me whether you think the "sex" scene with Anton/Olga/Sveta is inspired by the "sex" scene in Ice Pirates...

Vente

2007-06-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Nick and I are planning on running an Epic level adventure at Gen Con. If enough people sign up, we'll have two teams chasing an artifact, racing each other for a wish. So far, my team is thus:

Incarnate Golem Monk 17. With a 100 ft move and Spring Attack, this bad boy controls the field. His Tumble of 23ish means he's going where he wants to go. Nearly 250 hit points, an AC of 40, and a flurry of blows for six attacks (half of which are at +33 to hit) all combine to mean he's there to stay when he's decided to.

Dwarf Rogue 10/Dwarven Defender 10. A Bluff of 23 means this guy applies his 5d6 sneak attack A LOT. With an attack similar to the monk, minus the flurry of blows, he hits a lot, too. Viatka, his keen dwarven waraxe of frosty chaotic outsider bane +5 just adds to the fun. Spending most of his cash on AC pumped his up to 46. Which is good, cause he's got less hit points than the monk.

Aasimar Sorcerer 4/Cleric 5/Mystic Theurge 10. I've barely even though about this guy, but he'll be able to cast over 90 spells PER DAY. That's hardcore.

Human Wizard 16/Archmage 4. Slowly working on this guy. Spell-like ability dispel magic 4/day combined with Mastery of Counterspelling means that at least four times a day he's sending a spell targeting him right back at the caster... Master of Shaping makes his area effects even more potent. Hell, I might just make the dude an Evoker rather than a wizard. Oh, did I mention he can automatically quicken any of his spells up to 3rd level?

All I can say is, "It's not fair. These are bad ass characters, and I don't get to play any of them." :(

Tres

2007-06-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

Phil got a PS3. His woman felt bad for him and let him get one because they just had a baby. Not sure how that works, but there you go. Score for him. Got to play it a little last night.

True to form, the graphics are pretty damn impressive. He has a motocross type game and Need for Speed:Carbon, and has downloaded a ton of demos. Didn't play NfS. The motocross game was a blast, but it was disappointing in that multi-player was online only. Phil had bought a 2nd controller so we could do some racing, then come to find out, nope. Did a little bit on the Grand Turismo demo, but other than graphics, I didn't see much difference between that game and the one I have for the first Playstation.

Played the demo for Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Holy shit is that game bad ass. If the PS3 makes down into my "spend on a console" range, say $200-$300, I might get one just for that game. It was frickin' sweet. I don't normally like demos, either.

We also played Super Rub a Dub, which is a rubber ducky kids game that just uses the tilt axis of the controllers. Fun as hell when you're drinking. Those games are great.

The skies are falling

2007-05-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Or rather, people in the chair. We've got an antique, 1920's dining set, and several weeks ago, one collapsed under Anthony. Quite humorous, and we now have what we need to fix the joints on the rest (except for time, gumption and know how. but those come along as you go).

We've also got a slick set of director's chairs that are at least 30 years old, but possibly 50. Wendy changed the fabric on one. The other was fine, so it's been in the closet I use for a work shop and minis studio. Today, I'm painting, when I hear the tell-tell sounds of a cat scratching on my couch. Look out. No cat. They're both at the bathroom door trying to figure out how to get in and watch Wendy shower. Can't blame em there.... I ignore this hint of pending doom and continue painting. I hear it again, louder, less tentative, and I pause in my brush stroke to ponder this sound. I get only the slightest hint of movement under my butt before the seat rips clean in half and I plummet to the floor.

In my most Jedi move this week, I not only avoided whacking my chin on the workbench, but I also avoided any mistake with the brush and set my almost finished mini on its base on top of the workbench on my way passed it. Score one for the reflexes.

Battlefield Ressurection

2007-05-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

PC Gaming
I haven't played BF 2142 in a couple of weeks now. I normally don't play much by myself anyway, and with Phil's new son due any day now, his play time has been almost non-existant. Hopefully John gets high speed soon. ;)

At any rate, this week, if I've hopped on 2142 and Phil/Scott weren't on, I'd shut her down and fire up Guild Wars. I only have Prophecies, and I thought I was pretty far along when I had faded out of the game last time. Turns out, I'm not. I learned there are 25 story missions. I've finished 7. So, just over 1/4 of the way finished...

Either way, I'm enjoying it. I have a level 15 Necromancer/Mesmer that specializes in Blood Magic and Domination hexes. Mostly, he foces on damage over time spells, but keeps a good vampiric spell in the queue for finishing off the occasional monster whose DoT wore off 50 hp too early. As usual on MMOs, I'm not too social, so I mostly let the NPCs tag along with me.

It's been a little over a year since I last played the game. I think. The 2nd GW had came out shortly after the last time I played. I have to say, I like some of the features that have made it into Prophecies from the upgrades in the other game. I'm noticing that exceptional crafting stuff is dropping more often. This is the stuff like a Massive Hammer of Runic Fortitude that you can use the Exceptional Salvage Tool on and pull off the Haft of Fortitude or whatever, then use that as a craft item on another hammer to enhance that one. I'm not sure what the player market looks like on those, and I must be offering them for too little, because I'm making a killing selling them... Considering the shit that I want to buy costs in the tens to hundreds of platinum, though, I'm gonna have to pump up my prices.

Tabletop Gaming
Even though it'll be another couple of weeks before we get together again, I've wrapped up the first session of Godlike. I wanted to ease the guys in, so the first encounter only has one talent, and he doesn't even manifest until a certain amount of carnage is reached (so it's completely possible that he dies early and doesn't even manifest). There isn't' even any heavy armor until a little later in the session.

It's hard to estimate how many encounters there really are, though, because the mission is to capture a point and hold it until reinforcements arrive. If they reach the point and slaughter all the Italians, that's one encounter, but if half of them run away, regroup, and find/rescue/whatever their LT or Sgt, it might be two or more encounters depending on who survives. So, the squad may have to attack and then defend. Of course, they could sweep in stealthily, kill the radio man and brass so no distress call is sent, then slaughter the Eye Ties from the inside, then go home for a nap. We'll see, I've never seen these guys in a semi-tactical game before.

For those of you that want to know about the enemy talent... I'll talk about him after the game. Don't want to ruin any surprises for Nick. Suffice to say, I pulled a character from the Stalingrad campaign I had planned for John and Flynn. Good guy? Bad guy? Neither. Let me correct myself and say I stole the Talent from a character that freaked out seeing the destruction wrought by the initial German air assault. If it works out, I figer I'll start pulling some themed spell collections from D&D to use as Godlike talents when I'm at a loss for what the characters should face. Melf, Evard, Mordenkainen; here I come.

Too long Dr Jones

2007-05-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

I should post more. Lessee. Reviews that are too short to be useful:

TMNT - I liked it. Had a good Turtles feel to it, mixed with a bit of Gargoyles. If you liked those, and you can still enjoy them without analyzing them as an adult, you'll probably like TMNT as a good bit of entertainment. If you liked them, but are too old to put the grown up aside (read LAME), you might still like it for the nostalgia. Either way, it's good for kids in my book.

Loreena McKinnet (sp?) - Whether you like her style of music or not, there's something to be said about any music that's played by top notch, highly skilled, and highly professional musicians in a live venue. I liked the show, and even picked up a few ideas for D&D or Godlike campaigns. That's just icing on the cake, though, cause (and here's where I get mushy) this show meant a lot to Wendy, and anytime I can be involved with her during an important event like that, I'm down.

Grave of Fireflies - Is GoF a good movie? Yes. Do I recommend you watch it? Yes. Here's my warning, though. It's the saddest damn movie I've ever seen. If you've ever taken care of or stuck up for a friend, younger sibling, older sibling, parent, pet or basically anyone you ever cared so much about that it would hurt to lose and/or fail them, it's a hard movie to watch. Do it anyway. It builds character.

Gaming
We haven't played Savage Tides or CoC for awhile because Wendy's had to pick Emily up for work at 8:30. Makes gaming hard when it starts around 7ish.

Last Sunday we did get together at Nick's for some character building for Godlike, In Nomine, and Werewolf.

No one brought In Nomine, so scratch that one. Big surprise there. Justin's in charge of running that game, but the books are at Charlie's. Guess what game I doubt we ever play....

Turns out White Wolf decided that World of Darkness was a sourcebook and everything else (Mage, Vampire, Werewolf) was a supplement. I didn't see that anywhere on the Werewolf book, and neither did Nick. Near the end of creating my Werewolf character we figured out that the last 1/3 of character creation or so can't be done with just the Werewolf "supplement." Oops. Nonetheless, Charlie and I both have partially completed werewolves. Charlie has an intelligent character that's in tune with the spirits and most things occult. I have a charismatic scout that's good enough at stealth, but shines at tricking information out of others. Justin didn't even get started because he and Charlie both came VERY late and he started on Godlike while Charlie worked on Werewolf.

In Godlike, eveyone picked 2 pregens and started on a character of their own. Nick picked the bulletproof strongman and the super alert nearly precognitive Irish Catholic. Then he made a Scottish Highlander, son of a distiller, whose powers include Zed (the ability to nullify other powers) and Inebriation (the ability to make others feel drunk. Really drunk). Charlie picked the time controlling truck driver and the angry French boy that can turn into just about anything. Justin picked the regenerative lizard and the hypercool singing sergeant. His character started off as a Ranger that could cause violent dyssentary by spitting into food, but then focused full on on teleporation instead. He's not quite a maffia Nightcrawler, but close.

Now, I've got til June to round up an adventure and get Charlie's character finished. I'll hound Nick to get the WoD book and also borrow In Nomine from Charlie or get the three of us together to make characters for that. I don't mind running Godlike first, but I'd like to have everything ready to go for the next guy so we don't have any lag between the short intro mission I have and the next game. Given the opening I have for these guys, I really need to see which of two directions they decide on before I work too far ahead. Don't want to plan one campaign and have them play another after all....

High Adventure Wednesday

2007-04-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

I'll start with Wednesday. We hit D&D and started up the Savage Tide path. The crew is as follows:
John (both humans of course)
Satanos - a young goth lad. Warlock. whipping boy of John's other character and pseudo adopted ward of one of Wendy's.
Bill Grimm - a huge fighter. modeled somewhat after Caramon Majere and a little of Ben Grimm (The Thing). Trouble is, Bill's one of the smartest in the group. His "low Charisma" of 10 means John plays him as an uncouth brute. Too bad, he could be the teams unofficial leader otherwise.

Wendy
Kima - an elven archer fighter type. She's a wiz with a shortbow. Not your typical elf, this girl has a bad case of ADD and eats a lot. I mean A LOT.
Oreana - human spirit shaman. she's the big sister of the group. Looks out for Satanos and likely keeps everyone from arguing.

Me
Nyfel - Nyfel is the fat kid everyone forgets about, which is great, because he shouldn't do too much as a a DM PC. He's a wizard/cleric, and I'm trying out the "booster" archetype from Complete Mage. His only offensive spell is magic missile.

*Spoiler warning*
The first job given in the Savage Tide is to board a ship and recover a signet ring for the party's soon to be proprietoress. The group does some good research, comes up with a good plan, and then hire the loudest boatsman in the world. Bribing him to be quiet solves the problem, but their ability to be incognito is nil. They eventually do sneak up to the ship, though.

Unfortunately, both of the armored fighters get hung up in the ships rigging trying to board. A fight begins before they're even aboard. There's 7 pirates and a leader aboard. The party makes pretty quick work of the underpaid pirates thanks to low morale. When it comes time for the pirate boss, though, and the monster that's loose in the hold, things go awry.

No amount of buff spells can counter not rolling above a 12 for a group of level 2 adventurers. Bill's sword got stuck in the mast, and he had to use his javelins as melee weapons. Took him a little time to take care of the pirate boss. Kima stayed up top to help him, which left the three support characters in the hold to take on a melee brute; a rhagodeesa. Given tactical options, the story might have gone differently. Unfortunately, they were stuck in a 20 by 20 hold with one tactic available: hit it with everything you have.

Oreana cast shillelagh and Nyfel used enlarge person on her. In retrospect, he should have used it on Bill up top to end that fight quicker. Satanos couldn't hit jack with his eldritch blasts, and his other abilities are more utilitarian. Once we have a little down time, Nyfel will probably make a dozen or so magic missile scrolls for Satanos to use with his Use Magic Device skill. Unfortunately, the rhagodeesa needed a 5 or higher to grab Oreana with it's tentacle things and a 7 to bite her (which dropped to 3 if she was grappled). She was doomed if her back up crew couldn't come up with something. They didn't.

Oreana died.

Her scream finally elicited help from Kima, and she made short order of the rhagodeesa, but it was still too late.

We stopped after the team found the ring. We didn't role play out the encounter with Lavinia, but we will. The group took the money they earned and had Oreana reincarnated. She came back as an elf. Too bad, I was hoping for a bugbear or gnoll.

Overall, good fun.

Bill's a strong character.
Satanos needs something, but I'm not sure what yet.
Kima can hold her own in, and, like Bill, she excels when things are right.
Oreana has potential, but she's hampered by a low strength. With no range weapon her AC is pitifully low. To her credit, we were cutting produce flame short. She should have been getting two attacks with the spell, not one. Overall, though, she either needs a bag of holding or bracers of AC.
Nyfel's just what he's meant to be, although I doubt he lives long. He's the type of character that picks the magic items last, and his AC will lag behind because he'll be pumping out scrolls whenever possible. With all of his buff spells, I'm gonna need to come up with some means of tracking when the effects end.

Should be interesting. Hopefully, the game stays fun. It's meant to be our goof off distraction so that we can maybe be a little more serious in the Cthulu campaign. We'll see if that effect works out.

SR4 Loki Shaman

2007-04-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday we're getting back together for the mad rpg character session. We should have our SR4 characters done, and we'll make characters for Godlike, Anomane (sp?), and Werewolf. As I think I mentioned before, I've got 9 characters for Godlike ready to go. I want the crew to pick at least two so we don't spend all day making characters for just that game. I should have my SR4 character ready to go by then, too. For the most part, he is. I still need a personality and knowledge skills. Hopefully, I'll get to use those this time. Didn't happen with Gaz.

Parts of his personality are already determined.

He's an elf.
He's a caster of some Charisma based tradition.
Raven is his mentor.
Only two of his seven spells are combat spells, the rest are manipulation.
He has 9 dice in etiquette and Con, with 11 in Fast Talk (good bullshitter); plus 9 dice in spellcasting (with 13 in manipulation), but only 7 in ritual spellcasting, and 6 (1 level) in counterspelling.
5 dice in a firearms skill means it better not get that far on a bad day.

I was originally thinking of making him a shaman of the Crow people, but that character doesn't mesh with this character's skills OR the actual Raven mentor spirit. That character was a tad more benevolent than what I've sent this character up to be.

This character would be a dick if he wasn't quite so sauve. He manipulates everyone into getting what he wants, but it's not a brow beating, crush your will sort of manipulation. It's subtler. People want to help this guy, in part because he's capable, and sometimes does, help them back. He's not bad, but he does take more than he gets.

My thoughts for his tradition are threefold: shamanic, but with a power hungry twist; black magic, possibly opening him up to some good roleplaying options as he struggles with spirits that he can't quite manipulate like normal metahumans; and the Norse tradition, as a follower of Loki.

Let's consider Loki. As I understand it, the cult of Winternight saw the Matrix as the chains holding Loki prison and set about to destroy those chains to bring about Ragnarok, yada yada. They saw otaku and deckers as spawn of Loki. With that in mind, clearly they were wrong. If they were right, why did they fail?

I just decided I'm gonna name this guy Fritjof Odegard. It means "peace thief from a desolate place," so that should tell us a little bit about this chap. He's a snow elf from Sweden. Not albino, but white hair and pale eyes nonetheless. Luminescent white skin that his tattoos seam to glow from. I'll figure those out later. I digress. Back to Loki and Fritjof.

So, Fritjof doesn't worship Loki, he's a ganner. That's a spellweaver according to Street Magic. Hence, no worshiping, sacrificing, prostrating, etc. Instead, there's idolizing, hero worship, and acceptng guidance from Raven as the voice of Loki. At least, that's how Fritjof sees it. That leaves him some room to risk pacts with powerful spirits, possibly kiss the toxic side of things abit, and depending on where Charlie takes it, really struggle against the dark side of magic that involves Loki.

Public knowledge of Fritjof doesn't reveal much background. Raven spoke to him when he awakened and helped him find a pretty posh living in whatever sort of society the elves of Scandanavia have, but wanderlust, greed, and a taste for excitement sent Fritjof packing. He's in Denver because Minnesota was too much like home, ie boring, and Denver's similar climate-wise but way more exciting.

That's Fritjof Odegard in a nutshell. Thanks for listening. The bummer is I like this guy, I'm excited to play him, but I'm fully cognizant that the likelyhood of this SR4 campaign being a long term story is slim.

Checking in

2007-04-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

For those that read this that don't chat with me in some other forum, the promotion is working out well. Had three days this week flying solo and scored one comment of "You picked this up very quick!" Well, yeah. I fix shit that other people broke. Not that hard. Oh, and they pay me to break stuff during "testing." Also not hard. I got $6 more an hour for it. Whoot.

In worse news, I won't be posting any updates on getting published in Dungeon or Dragon magazine. Why? WotC isn't continueing the license with Paizo, so the mags are closing as of September. Makes me sad. I'm flying a wait and see on both WotC's proposed online content and Paizo's Pathfinder subscription service.

The Pathfinder is a 96 page bound book adventure path (first campaign runs levels 1-15 in 6 books) that sounds like it's a mix of Dungeon and Dragon mag content with the added advantage of being OGL. My trouble with it is the $19.99 plus $4 shipping price point. That's steep. First, it's only slightly less than a WotC splat book, and it's not hard cover. Granted, I paid more for 150ish pages in Expeditious Retreat material, but I'm always making new worlds. I usually only run published adventures in a pinch. My main reason for the subscriptions to the mags was to stay abreast of what they needed in submissions. It's a prestige thing I guess. Some people look confused when I say I've got shit published with a 3rd party publisher, but their eyes light up as if I'm famous when I then mention I have submissions into Dungeon mag...

Still, I get the first issue of Pathfinder with my subscription credit, so we'll see how it is. And I'll see what WotC puts out, too. Most importantly, I'll see how the restructuring in both companies affects the freelance market. The plus side is that not trying to do at least one subscription a month frees up more time for pursuing bigger paid projects. The down side is that 5 cents a word is so much more than 1/2 a cent per word, and the 5 is gone now.

!e! Yep, that many games

2007-04-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, Wendy wasn't feeling up to Cthulu, and I was bemoaning the fact that there was some cool shit in both the Age of Worms and Savage Tide campaign paths that they would never see. So, we made characters for Savage Tide. Wendy and John both made two (John did a fighter and warlock, Wendy did a fighter and spirit shaman), and I filled in the gaps with a personalityless wizard/cleric. I don't know much about the other two, but the DMPC is basically gonna be a booster type filled with self doubt and constantly comparing his own inabilities to the heroic actions of his friends and teammates, while never realizing that he's somewhat and sometimes primarily responsible for the success of those same said heroic actions. On the one hand, I hate the guy, on the other, I'd love to have him as a player character. There's a big understanding with the players, though, that if this guy steals the limelight or gets any favoritism, tell me, and he's out. Also, he's never confidant enough to give an opinion.

That takes care of Horrorble Hump Day (so named for playing Cthulu on Wednesday of course). On to Shadow Sunday.

Turns out that Charlie was/is about as uninterested in having Outback survivalists in Hong Kong as we were in playing that game. Couple that with his current bid to be a Fanpro Commando (John, if that goes through, you'll have to come play SR4 at the Source once a month), and the man is experiencing burnout on our Sunday gaming. Understandable, but frustrating from a player perspective. From now on, my new motto is "Don't quit, kill em." At least then there's an end to the game. ;)

Charlie's original request was for someone else to GM entirely on Sundays. No one jumped up and said, "Oh hell, yeah, I've got this great idea!" So, we started out by making a list of every game that we had and one of us would run. Pretty much everything but Shadowrun had at least one of us waffling on it, and nobody was really willing or confidant enough to dedicate to running that. So, we each picked a game we'd run, and we'll alternate through adventures. For instance, I'll run a Godlike mission, followed by a chapter (or whatever the hell White Wolf calls adventures) of Werewolf ran by Nick, then some Inomine from Justin, and finally SR4 from Charlie. Or some order like that. We'll each finish our respective adventures before passing the GM scepter.

Honestly, I don't expect much story to come out of this. Let's look at our SR4 experiences thus far. Anything more complex than going into a low security building to retrieve some data has taken upwards of four weeks to finish.

Godlike is hard to tell. We had five full combat encounters in six hours of play at GenCon. Having only played it once, I don't know if that's fast or slow. I think it was fast, as I know we blazed through a few encounters on sheer numbers. The game started with 10 players and ended with 6. One encounter was drastically shortened by some quick thinking by a few of us. I think we faced 3 or 4 rival talents that were supposed to be tough, but the sniper took out one with a rifle grenade to the head, and I blew up the human torch by saying "Hot Potato" and tossing him a satchel charge, which he caught instinctively, blowing us both up, but not so badly that I didn't regenerate. :) I digress.

So, let's say four weeks average per SR4 run. 1 week to research, 1 to get in and hit a cliffhanger, 1 to fight the big bad and run away, and 1 to hide out and drop the loot. Let's say 3 weeks on Godlike. Werewolf? Hell, I don't know, 3-6 depending on whether Nick runs a thick story or just full on bruiser sessions. Inomine is a wild card, but let's stick with the average and say 4. So, I run a Godlike session. It'll be 11-14 weeks before I run another one, barring weekends off for camping, tournaments, conventions, weddings, vacations, etc. Think any of us are gonna remember what the hell we were doing 3 months ago?

My bet is we rethink the whole think around Gen Con. Consider the 29th is our next session, and that one's character development. Add that to us probably playing twice in May, most of June, and probably twice in July. What you have is Gen Con coming on and we've played one mission of Godlike or Werewolf and maybe one round of Shadowrun.

But who knows, that might be great for my ADD.

Router poop pop drop netgear to linksys Stop Flop

2007-03-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, our router died. Not sure what's wrong with the damn thing. It doesn't broadcast a wireless signal most of the time, and even when it does, you can't connect to the internet wirelessly. You can connect to the internet via ethernet cable through the router, but what's the point in having a wireless route if you're using ethernet cables?

The router was a netgear WGR614. We got a little over 18 months of use before it crapped out. Obviously, I didn't want to go the netgear router route. My netgear wireless card in my PC is holding up ok (a little glitchy at times, though, and I can't create a full on network through it to save my life), but still. Nor did I want a D-link, cause every piece of equipment I've ever had from them crapped out in 6 months or less. So, I went with linksys. Hopefully, it stands up. The signal is a little weaker than the netgear was, but I like the interface so far, and the firmware is 10 times easier to upgrade, so I'm pleased so far.

So, that's my Yay for the weekend.

and it's off

2007-03-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

Hoorah. Fired off the adventure proposal for March. Let's see how long I can keep this up, eh. I'm gonna lay off the Campaign Workbook and any Dragon ideas until after I get Joe's site topped up. That leaves me the next couple of weeks anyway to just brainstorming and Cthulu. Might have to consider not doing Cthulu every week, though in the meantime.

Unfortuantely, there's word from editors on the Paizo forums that there won't be a meeting to review proposals anytime soon. Might as well fill the waiting with more proposals, right?

duldrums

2007-03-12T04:53:00.000-07:00

Whoo boy. Add another trip to the roster this year. Fuck. I was gonna be able to swing most of the travel action with relatively little vacation time, but the third wedding is definitely this year, so shit got hectic and tight on the budget and vacation bank. I'll have to watch that shit close.

As such, this morning left a bad taste in my mouth about Gen Con and the expense of the hotel, so I had to go hang on the forums about to get pumped back up. Considering the productivity of this weekend, it wasn't too hard.

Weekend Recap
300 rocked. I loved it. You won't get much intellectual review out of me this morning, though. Go see it, that's all I can say.

Got the basic layout for the TORC Press revamp done, barring further revamp suggestions by Joe. Hoorah. Moving on to the CGI script that will let Joe update the News & Production sections on his own. That'll be fun. What little I know about Perl only allows me to modify other Perl scripts to fit my needs. Accordingly, I'm not even sure Perl is the way to go, but that's where I'm starting.

Still hung up on the query to Paizo. Anyone know what the style of movie/narrative/story is called when you have several different factions chasing the same item? Sort of like Smokin Aces or Hanna Barbera's race cartoons. One stupide term shouldn't be this much of a hang up, but without it, my opening line is lame squared.

The mystery mini-campaign is probably getting put on hold yet again. I really need to focus on Joe's site, so I don't have a ton of time to research. I might be able to work on it at work for after I get the Paizo query written up, and I might swing a day a week or so, but that's about it. I know that I won't make much headway on CGI scripting just doing it Thursday through Saturday. *shrug*

absolute safari

2007-03-09T05:04:00.000-08:00

Yes. Score. Figured out the problem I was having on the new TORCPress web design. Safari renders differently then IE, so it looked wrong. I had put the position data for the DIV tags into the CSS file. Apparently, that info has be directly coded into the html instead. Whoops. Trial and error figured it out, but not before I broke the IE version, too. LOL. I did learn that the IE version will work more consistently if I do a little extra coding up top, though, so score two for me.

Thinking about starting another blog. Actually several. One that we could all log into to add road tunes for Gen Con, and at least one other that we could all use to post costume and shirt ideas, and later, once the game/panel schedules are up, we could post the things we're interested in. *shrug*

spring dreamin

2007-03-06T04:56:00.000-08:00

Wendy's about to steal the lappy to go to work. Brevity is key.

Gen Con update- Roster: Me, Nick, John, Matt. We're expecting 5, so the hotel sits at 200 ea. Nick's paid, John's almost there, Matt still needs an update I think. Have any of us bought tickets yet? I doubt it. LOL.

SR4 update- We went ghoul hunting but found Nagas instead. They were friendly at least. Oh, and after much complaining about how much money he's given us in the past, Charlie gave us old data that could be worth upwards of a million nuyen. If we can sell it.

Project update- The mysterious publishing project conitnues. I've got a lot of research done on one faction and have laid out the water and coastlines. Interior of the map is sketched up and it's just a matter of deciding on style to finish it. I still have to research/decide on Vikings and research some of the more traditional enemies.

Got a solid enough idea for the March paizo submittal to write that up, too, I think. Calling this one "Big Tom and the Little Orphans." The February proposal is "A Dish Best Served Undead" along with a critical threat for one of my old characters. The latter won't pass muster, though, as I forgot to rebuild him with level appropriate treasure and use the elite stat tier. Oh well. Still have to decide on a Campaign workbook or Dragon piece for March. My goal is at least one adventure and preferrably and adventure plus campaign workbook each month, on top of some solid 3rd party work.

Still working on Joe's rebuild, too. Damn Safari uses a different render engine than PC browsers, and it doens't like my div tags. :( Might have to use some javascript to say, OH, HI Safari, your private room is waiting. Bleh.

Where have all the Elder Gods gone?

2007-03-01T04:38:00.000-08:00

No Cthulu last night. John had to finish up a few papers for school. Didn't look like Wendy was in the mood, so I didn't ask. Next week, baby. It's the end of the world next week.

Instead, i got a fair amount of research done, focusing on games and toys for one of my cultures. I'm drawing up blanks on their actual religion and can't decide whether to give them a new class or not. Cleric doesn't work at all, and druid has a lot of cannonicle associations to get around to fill the role as is. *shrug* I'll figure it out. Might just work on my map and the other cultures a bit until I get an idea.... I should research and see if there's any other OGL classes that would work. That'll make the pitching phase a little more hairy, though, when I say, "Oh yeah, I used the SpiderMonkeyNinja class from SomePoorSchmucks OGL .pdf called '649 Classes You'll Never Need'." It's OGL, so it's legal, but most of the smaller guys don't like to step on each other's toes.

Got a little 2142 in as well. Scored a promotion, Major Silver now, and kept my unlock in my pocket for the expansion. I actually DIDN'T want to play as commander last night, but both servers I played on, the round was almost over when I came in, and the next round didn't have a commander. My overall goal was kill streaks, as I'm only 3 away from a couple of ribbons that need the highest kill streak of anyone in that round.

Came close on the last game with 10, but we lost too quick to get more. Most kills in that round was 18, so I don't know what the streak was. It was annoying because none of our squads would defend our titan. So, we had 1 guy defending it. Fortunately, the entire enemy force was defending their titan, so the 1 guy had only to kill the same 1 guy that occasionally podded over to ours. Unfortunately, my 1 guy wasn't very good, and their 1 guy was. So, that part of the battle went like this:

Enemy lands on our titan, runs in, kills Bob. Bob respawns on the titan and runs back to Enemy. Bob kills Enemy, but not before Enemy blew up one console. Enemy defends his own titan until he dies, then spawns as recon and comes back to ours again. Kills Bob, blows up console, then Bob kills Enemy again. Rinse and repeat. That 1 Enemy took out our whole Titan by himself. Why didn't I do anything? *shrug* Honestly didn't care that much. You can't die in the titan guns unless a teammate kills you. And when I was manning the titan guns, people were trying to destroy them, which meant they weren't defending the titan or capturing missile silos or attacking my consoles. It also meant my kill streak went up and I got repair points. :) So, on a personal level, I had more fun in the guns than running into the titan to kill the Enemy every 5-7 minutes, plus, it's hard to defend the titan as engineer, but you NEED to be engy to repair the guns if you wanna use them. *shrug*

Now, in previous rounds, I got a FUCKLOAD of defend kills setting my C-4 traps. Love those things. Overall, I ended up with two 10 kills streaks, but it wasn't enough to get me closer to those ribbons.

Put your cap back on

2007-02-28T04:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the end of the month. February. Usually gaming shit takes off late in the year and dies down mid-summer for us, but this season was backwards. It died down late fall when we started house/apartment hunting like mad. It's just now rejuvenating.

As I've mentioned, Shadowrun is back, and our Australian characters are in Hong Kong. I'm disappointed for two reasons. 1 - We weren't made for this environment, so it's a fish out of water story, but without the associated fish out of wateryness. Which leads to 2 - Hong Kong is a city of public face. It's everything. We're brash, abrasive, uncouth, and in Baru's case, poorly educated, yet not once have we stumbled into a brawl for insulting some schmuck. Granted, your average human asian laborer isn't gonna nut shot a mystical orc or cybered troll in full camo, but you'd think in two weeks or so at least some ganger or Triad kid would throw down. *shrug*

And tonight, we hit it Elder God style. John and Wendy are pitching up characters for a trifecta of Cthulu story arcs I have in mind. Three eras, three generations of characters interrelated by family, friends, location, and/or plot. Should be fun. I've been thnking about it, and I can weave the 1890's and current plot lines simultaneously, but the 1920's St. Paul is heavily dependant on the 1890's, at least at the beginning, so unless I wanna give those characters full on short term amnesia, that ones gotta wait. That, unfortunately, means the current era has to wait as well, otherwise it would give too much away. *sigh*

And that's that. Two submissions into Paizo that have yet to be shot down by the Gray Render, so they might make it to the meeting, whenever that is. Started some fun research on a pseudo-campaign setting to pitch to the 3rd party market. Good times.

in bed with a 1 ton woman

2007-02-22T04:53:00.000-08:00

Just saw a video from the news in Boston, they had a low-speed cop chase. The police were following a 2000 pound Scottish heifer. Best part was hearing the cop giggle in the background of his traffic cam.

So, last night I played some 2142. Was working on my silver Titan Commander Badge. I'd finally reached the 1000 titan commander point requirement, so all I needed was 20 minutes as commander in a round. That's no problem, as my team wasn't good enough to sweep the other guys (although we got sweeped the game before cause that commander sucked).

The round starts as usual, I move the titan into range of its guns and start defending a few silos on my own. We start winning, enemy shields go down, they stop us from hitting their titan from the inside, but then the same happens on our side - Our shields go down, but most of the team stays in our titan to defend. So, we have two squads out battling for silos, one in the enemy titan, and 14 stragglers not in squads defending our titan. Let me reiterate. WE ARE WINNING.

So, I'm not sure which dude did it - once someone asked for a UAV, but it was deployed elsewhere, and once a sniper asked for a supply crate, but it was recharging after I dropped one for a tank and battlewalker. Maybe it was one of those guys, maybe not. I'm in a titan gun, in a rousing battle with four engineers that kept blowing up the titan guns. We had three engys on the titan repairing our guns, hopping in and blowing those guys up. Nobody would take that silo, easy as it was sitting under our titan like that. Our guys just ignored it. All of a sudden, one of the clan members of the server I'm in kills me, shoots me flat out in the back of the head. No way this was an accident either, I'm in a shielded hangar surrounded by nothing but friendlies. Hell yeah I punish the guy for a team kill. So, I spawn back there. He's nowhere to be found. He didn't kill me cause he wanted my seat, didn't mutiny cause he wanted to be commander, didn't respond to "Why did you just shoot the commander in the back of the head," nothing.

Regardless, we won, and I left the server. My warning to you is this
(=A=) clan has some rude and stupid players on their clan. Don't play on their server.

Bossanova. Chevy Nova?

2007-02-20T04:45:00.000-08:00

That's right. CG Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Out in March. I love it.

What's new here?

In the gaming world, Shadowrun has geared back up with Gaz and Baru heading to Hong Kong to hunt for Dreamstones (bleh) and their lost sister (meh). It's really annoying but we're makin the best of it. What's annoying about it? We made characters for the Outback. For survival. For hunting magical beasts. Now we're in a city where everything you do insults someone's honor, and we're really insulting. Our current adventure has us trying to outscam a scammer triad, and while Nick and I have tons of ideas, Baru and Gaz don't. The other character in the group is a pirate, so he should be knocking this shit out, but he's not. His idea isn't bad, but I still can't piece together how this plan is gonna get us the book we need. Supposedly it'll get us into the gang, and once we're on the inside, we're past the magical wards and just have to whack "30-40 personal guards" and we're fine. *shrug* We'll see. It's still good to be gaming again. Just wish the adventure was ready to go when we fuckin got there.

On Wednesday nights, the request has went up for Call of Cthulu in a campaign setting. So, we'll be starting up the trifecta campaign. Three characters per player, each in a different era, each intertwined into the same plot. Good times. I think I can get by with running the 1920's and 1890's parallel and putting the present era as an endgame. Should be fun.

Politics? Haven't been paying attention. With 21 months til the election I could care less about who's exploring the presidency. So far, none of the Dems have turned me on in the race against Coleman, and you'd think that wouldn't be hard, cause I fucking hate that guy. How do you vote against Kerry for flip-flopping, but Coleman, who was Dem, but now smokes Bush cock, was put in 2 years before. And look at him now vs. pre-war. Then - We gotta kill Saddam or the terrorists will be in America raping our goats. Now - We gotta get out of Iraq or the world won't be safe anymore because Iran will drive up the price of caviar. He just rolls onto his back for whomever can keep him in office doesn't he? Not who I want representing my state. Then there's all the crazy fuckers that I can't do anything about. Michelle Bachman for one. WTF? What cooch monger got her elected? When did the permanently insane get to lead the country?

And here's where I should put in a conclusive paragraph, but I have none. Still no word from Paizo. Tonight I'll either finish up a Critical Threat submission or work on the campaign. I hope.

New schedule

2007-02-14T04:49:00.000-08:00

So, on the phone, on hold, I started developing rules for a new CCG. Nick gave me a kick ass idea on how to improve it, and then we learned there was already one out there similar that bombed.

Before that, though, I'd come up with a sort of after work production schedule for my three big projects right now - updated Joe's site, the CCG, and a partial campaign setting to pitch to a couple of pdf d20 publishers. The CCG was #2 on the list, since I'm sure it's such a good system the collective human subconscious will take it from me and give it to someone else if I don't pitch it to the right company soon.

However, since it's less likely to get bought because it's already been done a little differently and failed.... it's dropped to #3. So, the new production schedule is thus:

Mon/Tues - campaign
Wed - game night
Thur/Fri - TORC Press
Sat - Whichever one I feel like
Sun - CCG and game night

Of course, those are all interrupted by real life. This Monday I worked on taxes. Last night I rearranged the den and started working on (mostly finished in fact) a Photoshop project for Wendy. Still need to finish reupholstering the chairs. And there's always Battlefield to play. ;)

Regardless, that's that. Happy VD Day everyone.

Oh yeah, and I have a couple of ideas for Paizo submissions. I have to get another one together by the end of February, since Wendy and I made a deal to goad/conjole/push/pork/entice/etc each other into hitting the short market harder. I can usually work on them at work, though. lol

yet another book

2007-01-31T15:47:00.000-08:00

OK, nevermind. I had a rant about government officials pumping out books like mad. Inspired by Chuck Schumer's latest attempt to win recognition by telling America what the Dems need to do to win again, of course. But as I wrote it, and read it, I sounded more like I was saying that government officials were slaves of the people. Really, they're representatives of the people. I bet they don't even realize that anymore. I could rant about that instead, but I'm rather deflated and checked now. Aint this a pathetic post? And considering I just started to digress from my own point in response to my previous poorly thought out point, I think I'm calling it done for now. My convoy of thought got lost on some back country synapsis. The Hills Have Eyes is playing out in some forgotten portion of my brain.

New Coke

2007-01-29T04:49:00.000-08:00

Personally, I like the taste of the old Classic Blogger over this new Blogger business. New Blogger is getting none of my money!

And we're done with that stupid bit. Got knocked out with a cold last week. Mental note, if you feel a viscious sore throat coming on, screw the rest of the dungeon. Didn't make it to work Thursday, shouldn't have went Friday, not quite feeling up to it, today, but perseverance shall prevail....

Not much on the game review. Descent still rocks. BF 2142 still rocks. About 70 points away from 2nd Lt. Gold. I'll grab the Assault rifle upgrade with that, and then I can start unlocking Support stuff. Almost to got the silver support badge. Got the silver resupply badge last night. Crazy ass titan mode, with about 7 guys on the titan with minimal opposition. Just ran around with the hub out. Ended up with 22 supply points.

Politics wise, who cares about Pres '08 right now? Fucking annoying. And what's with this exploratory comitte BS? Either you know you wanna run or you don't. You know what America doesn't want? It doesn't want a President that only does things if a poll says it's a good idea. I'm not talkng we want Bush II again. But we don't want a lilly livered bourgoise sissy that's afraid to fail....

I could be wrong, though.

Oh, and before I got, there's a 2142 booster pack coming up and Phil-uh-delphia gets to playtest. Dirty bastard.

Found It!

2007-01-24T04:59:00.000-08:00

Great news. The little notebook with the little adventure is safe. Bad news is I have to send a Disclosure Agreement with the query letter, and I have to print that out. No Ink. Worse, No Paycheck. That's right. Rather the postman decided we didn't live here, or the stupid hellspital mailed it to the wrong place and it's stuck in forwarding limbo, I gots no money.

Bleh

Mostly settled in

2007-01-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

Things are up and running in the new place. Got a little curtain conundrum to figure out, and I should get some damn plastic for the worthless windows. Need some rugs and an extra book shelf or two, then we're golden. Need to get some art up on the walls, too.

There are a few things I could complain about, but compared to most of the people I know right now, life is golden. Except I lost the damn notebook with a completed adventure I wanted to submit to Dungeon magazine in the move. Damnit.

Ran a little Cthulu this week. Good times. The published adventures in the book leave a lot of room for improv, and unfortunately leave a LOT of holes in the info you need when the investigators ask the entirely wrong questions. You definitely can't worry about railroading too much in the game, cause sometimes you just need an NPC to say, "Why the fuck are you asking me that? That has nothing to do with anything!"

Regardless, if you play the game with a D&D mindset, your character will die. I think that's what we learned. It was evident the big bad was *probably* just through the next wall, and with one character down to 3 hp and a whole lot of sanity loss, they still went in. And died. One death included a face being ripped off.

And boy do I need to remember all of the little things that can make you lose sanity. Hell, the group probably would have ran screaming from the building, kept the retaining fee and split to the midwest if I'd remembered to make em roll for being attacked by beds, blood pouring from a ceiling, etc... Oh well. That's what test runs are for. I think in the future, though, I'll try to write any Cthulu reports up in the first person like Lovecraft.....

Finnigen, begin to bend. It like Bekham

2007-01-03T04:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know. Wanted to do one of those Wheel of Fortune "Before and After" style titles. There you go.

You want New Year's Resolutions? I got two. First, my goal is to get at least two things published. The RoW project is looking pretty close to done. That's one. I've got a list to submit to Paizo once I write a few of them and get a good idea of word counts, and I found a pdf magazine for back up. Should, if I continue to write stuff, be able to get at least two pieces out into the gaming world.

Second, and this one's a bit more challenging, centers around actually gaming. Characters, either DMing or playing, but take a group of players and/or characters from level 1-8. It'll be a bit tougher because I keep coming up with new ideas for campaigns, but I think that if we have a core campaign and just tickle the others once a month or so, it's possible. We'll see. Just gotta try not to get burned out.

That's about it. Need to go research air fare to Australia.

It's that time

2006-12-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Here's the year in review for the World of Shafe.

Career
The big job move was switching from Riverside to the corporate office at Fairview. Better hours, more interesting job. Life at work doesn't suck nearly as bad.

On the freelance front, let's see. I think I had already scrapped the Organ Grinder plans before 06 started. The construct book flopped. We got it done, THEN the publisher decided he couldn't make any money on it and wouldn't print it. There's a kill fee he could pay me, but I'm not pursuing that because I don't want the work to set in an in box or personl campaign forever. There's a two year time limit on the thing, so this time next year, that shit gets shopped around. Besides, the kill fee was $20. That's not really worth the effort of taking the guy to court in New Jersey. Moral of that story is, negotiate your kill fees to be worth the effort (at least worth the effort in your mind).

The RoW projects was postponed through the hurricane season, then writers dropped out and the project was revamped. As I was struggling to figure out how to fit my piece into the revamp, it got postponed again, then revamped again as more people quit. Just a couple of weeks ago I realized I could leave the piece as is, shorten it when a final word count is announced if necessary, and from here just work with the editors if changes are needed. Done.

That gives me time to get some of my other ideas onto paper, yay. I'll get into next year in the gaming section.

Finances
Despite a few minor crises and sick cats throughout the year, we hit our savings in reserve goal this year. Which I promptly used as a down payment on a new car. Which I promptly hit a deer with. Repairs were perfect, but not in time for a wedding in Ohio (which was great fun), so I can now say that renting a car isn't TOO bad. And the Dodge Caliber is a fun car to drive. I'm still not a big fan of station wagon/crossover/whateveryouwanttocallittomakeitcool, though.

Got some stocks this year, which have performed in a much crappy fashion. Unfortunately, I forgot to dump one this week for tax reasons. Oops. Oh well. By this time next year, it'll either be kicking ass or have disappeared off the face of the planet. Almost bought some other stocks, but the money wasn't there (see the cat crises and car above). One would have rocked (almost doubling at this point), and the others....not so much. What I need to do is the same thing I did when dad gave me 2K to invest. Take 10K of fake scratch and invest that. Track it, and slowly buy into it with the real money. Unfortunately, the scratch dad gave me met a terrible end at the hands of unforseen smoker hate and smoking lawsuits.... That was 10 years ago. Wow I'm old.

We looked into buying a house. Found a beautiful condo. Thought about ARMs and 80/20 splits, etc. Thought about having $15 a month not dedicated to food or a bill. DIdn't want to be hungry if the cat's got sick or Wendy's car died. So, we opted for a new apartment. Found one. We'll be moving in on 1/7/07.

Aside from the apartment and the accompanying getting of stuff for that, for the new year, we still have to make a vacation and savings plan. By vacation plan, I'm talking visiting the family, Gen Con, are we going to Origins, can we make it to Europe, etc. Hopefully we can lace the year with a few weekend trips anywhere but here. Savings wise, *shrug* Cash reserves are still abyssmally low. Gotta get that back up, then hit the stocks again. Wanna get a CD ladder going. Now that we've got all the kids in our life their respective dragons and wizards, I might switch over to savings bonds for gifts. It's a boring gift now, but trust me, when you turn 18 and unload those things into a fat $200 cash, Uncle Brian and Aunt Wendy aren't so lame.... Besides, I'd rather be the cool adults cause we're cool, not cause we give cool toys that just get lost in the miasma of gifts everyone else is throwing at the kid.

Gaming
Lots of Battlefield. BF2 until October and mostly BF2142 now. Good times. Guitar Hero (and now GHII) rounded out the party gaming. Mortal Kombat released a new one for the parties at Phil's, too. Woot.

On the RPG front, I can't remember which D&D set I was running at the start of the year. Crenius/Zeke/Levvy? Yes. That camnpaign went the wayside, probably due to scheduling. Then we moved into the pass around campaign - Meguaba, Marlibaut, Project, the nameless assassin. That one switched to Nick DMing when scheduling killed it for Wendy. Then it died when Wendy and I started looking for a house and pretty much stopped gaming.

Shadowrun met the same fate. House front killed it. When we put that one on hiatus, the characters had just recovered the dream stone, broke Nick's characters legs, and escaped from a toxic spirit with a tribe of aborigines in tow. I was set to figure a way to screw the international fixer that had hired us to grab the dream stone, and it sounded like we would be heading to Hong Kong. Then we learned that there were still two dream stones left, one of which is in the magical malaise that Sydney has become. My character and I both lost interest.

Finally, after 100 years of lust, I made it to the mecca of gaming this year. That's right. Gen Con. I went as total fan boy and packed in as much gaming as possible. Played some fun and not so fun board games. Played Serenity, Godlike, and holy crap I can't remember all the RPGs. Godlike made it into my library when I got back. Still can't get enough people with a real interest in playing it though. :( Played Call of Cthulu, which also made into the library, finally. Also played in the Midnight Zombie Show, which is a must for any zombie fun or anyone that likes improvisational roleplaying and thinking on your feet. If we go next year, I'm taking booze. The Ram is a must for any Indy visits. About the only things I'd change about Gen Con is that I'd do a little more non-RPG stuff (like anime), I'd hit some of the shows, like the costume contest and the ENNIES, and I'd definitely network with more people. Wish I would have exchanged info with the British guy that played Captain America in Godlike. All in all, Gen Con might have been the big highlight of my year.

So what's up for next year? Hopefully the RoW will wrap up. If it does, I MIGHT pitch an idea or two to the company for some solo stuff. I have a list of about 8 articles to pitch to the big magazines in gaming. I'll keep watching the one job posting site for stuff, and should seriously search out some of the other forums for freelance work. I'm thinking kobolds, new monsters, maybe something with a defiler.

On the personal gaming front, there's three campaigns I'm really jonesin for. There's the Dungeon magazine Savage Tides adventure path. There's the Call of Cthulhu generational trifecta. There's the campaign that's been in the world I've slowly been working on since the Crenius/Zeke/Levvy story died. All good fun. Not sure where to focus. Oh yeah, and there's the World Serpent Inn thing, but that's more of a means of running one shots with a regular group of characters than a real campaign. I figure that's a good outlet for the tradiional kill things and take their stuff style of playing so we can hopefully focus on more storytelling with the other three campaigns. Gen Con 07? Hopefully. Right now it's in the "I'm saving for it category." Finances will determine if it goes into the "I'll put it on my credit card" category. LOL.

Oh yeah, and hopefully we can buy a Wii.

Politics/World Events
We voted. I think it was a 50/50 split on the people I voted for making it or not, but that was brought down by the fact that for a lot of the county attorney and one person running shit, if I hadn't heard of the person, I wrote in someone I knew. So a little better than 50/50 on the shit I cared about. At the very least, I can honestly say that the stuff I had control over didn't leave me with any "Oh god, we're screwed" thoughts. Now stuff in other states.....

I'm running out of steam on this thing. I got nothing on the politics. My body has certain needs which I must attend to. Like eating. I'll try to touch on the things I'd like to see if I do a full "the year ahead" type post in the next few days.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

A late Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, Pali Bahatma Gohili Whathavya Buddhist Wateva, and an early Happy New Year to everyone.

Brief report on this side of things, scored Age of Empires III, Guitar Hero II, a harmonica, and booze/food/money on this end. AOE3 is cool, but not too far removed from the others of that line. Set in the New World, if you like the series, you'll like the game. I wanna score the Native American expansion when i have cash.... Guitar Hero II rocks harder than the first, with kick ass tunes, real Primus (not a cover), and mother fuckin Trogdor. I dig, I recommend.

Still working on the resolutions. Look for those closer to the date.

Oh yeah, and Moose Drool Brown Ale. It's good. It is to Guiness what marijuana is to heavier drugs...it could lead you on a path to the dark side. Of Beer/Ale.

Songs I can now play on Harmonica:
Frera Jaques
Oh When the Saints
Camptown Races (sort of)
She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain (sort of)
And
I've almost figured out the Imperial March by myself. Whoot.

Songs I wanna learn:
the Cantina Song
anything Johnny Cash
blues stuff

why isn't this working?

2006-12-19T04:35:00.000-08:00

My blog isn't showing.

I shtick I'b durnk.

2006-12-06T15:27:00.000-08:00

It's almost $30 to have a TV or computer monitor recycled. You can't throw em away cause it's bad for the environment. Plus it's illegal in Minnesota. So, I hit Twin Cities Free Market.org and find someone that needs a TV and someone that needs a computer monitor.

The computer monitor guy emails and says, "Do you have stuff than just a monitor, cause if that's all you got, it'll have to wait until I have a pick up in that area." Well, lick a dick big guy cause it's free and it's happenin on my time, not yours. Soon as I find someone else that needs one, hereyago. Anybody need a computer monitor?

Today, I called the lady about the TV. First thing she asks is if I can bring it to her tomorrow. She lives in south Saint Paul, so I ask if she can drive and yes she can. Well then, hell no I'm not bringing it to her. We'll have to meet somewhere. She asks if I can call her tomorrow after work to arrange things, and I say fine, thinking she probably needs to head to work herself, it being almost 2pm and second shifts are starting in an hour. Then she says, "Good, cause right now, I'm too drunk to drive anywhere I think. "

Bottom line, the website isn't the golden child of reuse and charity that it was probably envisioned to be. It's unemployed drunks begging for handouts and scheister business men reselling other peoples refuse.

Anyone need a TV?

hyrbid taxi yay

2006-12-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

60 days til we move, and guess what. We have a place! Whoot. We'll be on Grand Ave. Now we gotta decide if we want a garage.... It costs extra, but in the neighborhood, Monday they clean one side of the street, Tuesday the other. Couple that with Grand Ole Days and the other festivals in the area, and it might be worth the extra cost to only have to fuck around with ONE car on the street....

Moving on. Remember way back when I was talking stocks? Remember Ballard Power Systems, the Canadian fuel cell technology company I was recommending. Here's some news. In a partnership with a hybrid technology company (can't remember the name), they've got some of the energy transfer systems into New York. How? The taxi committee in that city has approved that company's Crown Vic hybrid stretch limo and the Ford Escape as suitable vehicles, emission wise, for ferrying people around the city. Hybrid stretch limo. Shit yeah. Glad to see my idea of buying up a butt load of hybrid Accords for a green-ish taxi service isn't a total wash... The company also has some gear going into California now. Couple that with the fuel cell bus action in D.C. and that's some growing news. Now if they can just turn a profit. ;) Sad thing is, I'm pretty sure they're making money in Japan, selling fuel cells as back up power supplies and what not, because non-renewably generated electricity is damn expensive over there I'm told. *shrug* Gotta spend it to make it, right?

I just hope the recent downward trend in oil doesn't kill the growth of the industry. Well, that, and I hope that ethanol doesn't derail it. I'm still skeptical about using food to fuel transportation. I mean mechanical transportation. It'd be ironic if the world's need to drive generated famine. Can't say I trust the modern tendancy to build government policy around (or agianst, in the case of the Prez) news clips. Doesn't strike me as a good way to keep people fed. Until the media screams, then we're out of gas again.... But the tipsy boat trend we're on right now is a rant for another day.

Thanks for stuffin

2006-11-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

67 days. Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry I missed it.

In the world of Minnesota, we got hit with some global warming, and had about a 60 degree turkey day. Wendy made a great dinner (yes, I helped. Had to stick my hand up the turkey's butt). Had a good time after the meal with some cards, some Life (Pirates of the Carribean), and some living room beach ball dodge ball. Excellent!

Today, we're looking at apartments. We decided not to bid on the condo, cause an ARM interest only loan is pretty much the same as rent, and we'd be REAL tight on the budget for awhile. Didn't want to have to get a 2nd job to get a house, so, it's postponed. Both the apartments we've seen so far were balanced with a little good, a little bad. The first one was great, but a tad too small. Still in the running though. The second one was just like John's, which is great, but the stove is almost too small for two pans. That's a deal breaker in my book, despite it being across the road from a great restaurant and the grocery store... So, we'lll put that one into 3rd place. Out of two. Well, technically 3, but the one we saw earlier in the week is out unless we're flat out desperate. Hopefully the one this afternoon is sweet, cause it's 84.5 cents per square foot. Cheap as hell up here.

Anyway, that's all I got. Watch out for global warming.

73 days and bidding

2006-11-19T07:51:00.001-08:00

Today, I wrote the letter notifying our land"lords" that we wouldn't be stickin around. Pretty cordial, as I got no real beef with the people that run the place, except they're mostly idiots and they have poor taste in tennants. Most the other shit isn't their fault initially, just that they're too slow to fix the crap that they inherited when they bought the place. I mean, we've been hearing since day one that they were gonna replace the carpet and wall paper in the community hallways.

Instead what have they done? Jacked the price of the laundry machines.

To avoid a repeat, we're on the verge of putting a bid in on a condo up on Snelling. There's a small list of things giving me an aneurism about it, though. Mainly, the fact that in order to afford it, we needs interest only loans. So the only equity we make on the home for the first five years is due to the whims of a fecally challenged housing market. Add in the fact that it's a 5 year adjustable rate mortgage, and there's the potential to go from bad to worse.

The plan, then, is that Wendy is gonna apply at all her favorite stores on Grand (cause they're within walking distance of the new place) to get a little breathing room in the budget. I'll either do the same or hit Fed Ex. What we need to do is make an extra $1000 (LOL, ROFL)a month payment on the small 20% loan we got to avoid PHI. This'll speed up the rise in equity on the home, so that in three years, regardless of what the market does, we'll have enough of the value paid off that we can refinance into a conventional fixed rate mortgage and avoid a big spike in our payments in 2011 or 2012 depending on how long closing takes.

That's all dependant on them accepting an offer that's $5000 below their asking price and $10,000 below what they supposedly paid for it... Oh yeah, and if our family loves us enough to loan us a couple months worth of payments that we'll just give right back after closing.....

If they don't, Wendy has a list of apartments for us to blitz.

73 days and bidding

2006-11-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

78

2006-11-15T18:09:00.000-08:00

78 days to go. Or not. The letter we got from our landlord saying our lease was almost up said the date was 12/31/06, even though the lease says we moved in up here 2/1/05 and we extended the lease for a year in '06. By my math, that means it's up 1/31/07. Dicks. I'll take care of that tomorrow.

Actually, I just had a thought. I'm gonna get some financial poop together. If we can get the place we really want in the next few weeks, I might let it go at 12/31 cause that'll save us a month's rent. I'll have to ask John to ask a lawyer friend if the termination notice supercedes the lease. john? ;)

ballot +5694030a3j10

2006-11-07T04:50:00.000-08:00

Vote. It's your civic duty.

But first, I digress. Just to keep the countdown alive, it's 85 days til the lease is up. We found one condo that's probably a go, but I'm hesitant to get a pseudo wonky interest only loan....

Back to politics.

What do we have here in Minnesota? Ballotwise, there's the transpo thing, and that's about all I've educated myself on, let alone heard anything about. Then we've got governor, senator, representative in some districts (still don't know if I'm in one of those districts), mayor in my town, several state positions including Attorney General, etc..... Ironically, this year, most of my views are aligned with the Independance party. And let me tell you, I'm hip to that. Can't say I've been a fan of the two party system for quite sometime.

Hell, I still say we drop independant electoral funding, make ALL candidates split an annual election fund pulled from taxes on the federal, state, and local levels, ban advertising and campaigning by groups not associated with the party (or at the least, say that if one of them runs an ad, the candidate in their party loses that much from the tax fund, which just stays in there for next year), and put in a run off voting scheme similar to Europe. You vote for 1-5 in descending order and the guy that gets the most 1's wins. Second place is vice president.

How am I voting?
Governor - Peter Hutchinson. I hate the DFL candidate Mike Hatch, and while Pawlenty has done a decent job, he hasn't done a great job.
Senate - Amy Klobuchar. It's between her and the Independant guy pretty evenly on most issues, but he's got a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Besides, I can't get down with Kennedy's yesman style, and just in case the race closes tight, I'm voting him out more than anything.

Everyone else I can't remember their names, but I'm going mostly independant, except for AG, where I'm going Dem, because, while I can't stand Mike Hatch, his former coworker in the AG's office is really the most sensible of all the candidates.

But Now, Wendy needs the compy.

T-minus OH FUCK HOW LONG?

2006-10-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

Whelp, yesterday marked 100 days until our lease expires. Wow. That makes the little place on Juno all the more attractive, AND makes Fed Ex more of a necessity than I'd hoped. Probably that or rent a little longer. The smart thing to do at this point would be to get an apartment and just save the difference between the actual rent and what we expect in a house payment. *shrug* And make sure we get a build/buy clause apparently.

No gaming this weekend. I was a bit under the weather Sunday night and Charlie worked, and last night, John worked til 8ish. Ouch. Honestly, no skin off my ass. In part due to my mood lately and in part due to BF 2142 coming out, I just haven't been in an RPG sort of mind set. Sure, I'm getting great ideas for Iorthim and progressing on that slowly, but otherwise just haven't given a fuck.

As for a 2142 review, mine would be biased. Gotta love a game where I can get 20+ kills in a round as a sniper consistantly. A lot of that is maps that are designed for infantry combat. Camp Gibraltar is a dream come true. I like that the global scoring system awards a point value for badges and awards that goes toward your rank. Makes those combat efficiency pins and infiltrator pins (5 head shots in a round as sniper) more valuable, cause I'm finding them pretty easy to get. The unlock system is more fun that I thought it'd be. My only beef with it is that it really, really awards the guys that do nothing but play the game. While none of the unlocks are game breakers, a lot of them give definite advantages. Hell, you need three promotions to get the stealth suit...

Cleaning up the piehole

2006-10-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

So, we're shopping for a house. Or a condo. Or a townhouse. Really, I'd prefer a house, cause I'd like a basement/game room. Something to turn into an RPG mecca. I can wait on that, though, cause obviously we can't afford anything in the Ramsey Hill area that's a full house. *shrug*

Since new housing means an inevitable move PLUS a major need for cash, we're raiding the stocks of stuff that we "might use again sometime" and dumping it all on eBay. I hit the first phase today, the five (whoa! so many) 3.0 edition D&D books I've just not ever used since we switched to 3.5. All those class specific trade paperbacks. Still debating the games we don't play (but might sometime hehe) and the games that I've obviously picked up at cons cause they were A)$5.00 or less and B) have great amounts of nostalgia attached. I'm looking at you AD&D 2nd Edition and Battletech/Mechwarrior. Some of the books on that space in the closet are staying for one reason. No real eBay value. Seriously, I don't think any of the five people that have heard of Furrie Pirates or Supermegatopia are gonna buy it on eBay, and even though I found the newest incarnation of the Marvel Superhero RPG to have an interesting game system, the success of Mutants and Masterminds really, really lowers the value of that sourcebook. *shrug*

Regardless, tomorrow or later this evening, I'll throw up auctions for the entirety of my L5R collection. That SHOULD be a big pain in the ass, because there's thousands of cards in there, but I went through them all the other night and grouped them by card, at which point I noticed/remembered that I've either sold or tossed out the majority of the worthwhile rare cards, so I've just got a bunch of commons and uncommons. Rather than dick around with hundreds of full set commons, there's gonna be four auctions. One auction of strongholds, fourteen in all. One full set of the five rings. One auction (might break this one down) containing the remainder of my rares. And one big honking auction of everything else. That's a full stack of cards over 14" tall! I figure I'll get like $3.00. lol. Oh well, shipping is gonna be liike $10 on that bitch.

So, if any of my blog fans want any L5R cards before I put those auction up, let me know. ;)

Next week I'll probably hit the fiction shelves......

The WTF of the day - 10/18/06

2006-10-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Metro Transit has an advertising deal with Lavendar magazine (it's the Minnesota gay/lesbian mag). One of their drivers came forward because she didn't want to drive buses with those billboards on it for religious reasons. While MTC wouldn't remove the ads, they did accomadate her as is legally required by giving her routes that don't have that ad on them. She was cool with that.

But then, the union that she's a member of that represents the bus drivers stepped in. Know what they said? They said, "Hey, MTC. You can't give her different routes. That's promoting intolerance!"

WTF?

They stare bug-eyed as he looks in on them.

2006-10-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

The party this weekend turned out to be pretty fun. I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time. Thanks for coming guys. Guitar Hero dominated the living room, and the gourmet cheese platter owned in the kitchen. Whoot. People didn't drink enough beer though. Oh well, more for me. hehe.

No major epiphanies to report. One thing I'm noticing on the political scene this year is a lack of revolutionary new ideas. You know how some election cycles you get someone with a great new procedure or system that'll change the world, and usually everyone else has to scramble to come up with something else to run against it? Nothing this year. At least, not a national or local level for us. Maybe next year I'll have my new system of getting corporate sponsors for students hashed out and I can run on that. :)

Did you know the Incas made baby pens? Yup, they dug a hole in the ground and tossed the kid in with a little shade and some toys while the parents worked. Yup. Now Wendy's got to go to work and needs the lappy back.

cobwebs and crickets

2006-10-09T04:54:00.000-07:00

Holy shit. Over two weeks without a post? How'd you people survive!?

In all honesty, I've been pretty drained of emotion, creativity, and critical thought lately. It's October, and while it's one of the best months of the year, I traditional get pretty depressed about now. It's not a crippling depression, and I certainly don't let it stop me from having a good time, but it's not a good time for me to have other responsibilities. Like a blog I can no longer post to from work. Or a 3D project I should work on, but don't want to cause the pay is low, the other associated art is junk, and the thing has turned into a bigger headache than it should have been.

The house quest continues. We found a few condos we can afford now, so we'll check those, double check finances, and hope to score. Found the perfect place this weekend, but it's about 60K out of the price range. Skylights, rooftop deck, fireplace, great acoustics, new kitchen, sun room. Nice.

With no tranisition at all.....We came up with a costume idea for Wendy already, but I'm still at a loss. Do I match her again? Or do I fly out on my own? Recycle some stuff or go full on new? or full on nude? Wonder if I could pull off a fetus in a test tube.....

I'll leave you with that one.

week in review

2006-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Well, since I didn't mention anything during the week, here it is all at once. Work was "formal training." That ended up being a classroom setting, going over stuff I already knew cause I'd been working for a full week already. The other two in the class were mostly confused, cause they didn't know how stuff applied to the real world. In our after class review, I mentioned maybe giving people a day of sitting with someone before training began, but they said, "No, cause you'll pick up bad habits." Thing is, when I asked for specifics on certain procedures, the trainer said, "I'm not sure how your manager wants that to work, you should ask her or your neighbors." No big, somehow I earned a rep as the golden child of PASS, and it sounds like I'm being eyed for a move to the Process Improvement team. Rock. As long as more money's involved.

News wise, the astronauts made it back safely. Rock. I got annoyed with MPR for mentioning that one of the candidates this year has received money from Muslim groups. They didn't mention who the other guy has received money from at all. The really annoying part is that throughout the week they were almost eviscerating the other guy for bringing up the original fellow's ties to Muslim groups during debates. Quick flip of the coin there, huh? I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd pointed out the dude saying something like, "I have no ties to Muslim groups now, I was young then," or something. But they didn't. Let's get off the Islamophobia, please. In my late teens, I thought I'd seen a shift from a united nation during the end of the Cold War era to a deeply split, catty, and embittered land when we didn't have a favored enemy. I think I was wrong. America's big. We'll never agree, outside focus or not. Makes me think I should refocus on a few ideas I had about forcing party politics out of the voting floor.....

Gamewise, early in the week on EVE, one of my agents offered to build a Breacher for me. I'd been flying around in a Rifter, which is a fast, heavily gunned killing machine. The Breacher is a little slower and less versatile, and it reverses the Rifters weapon configuration, switching three guns and one missile launcher to three missile launchers and one gun. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the power grid for 3 long range launchers, so I went with one missile launcher, one short range gun and two rocket launchers, with mostly speed boosts on the back side. OMFG do I love that ship. WHOA! The Rifter is tough as nails and reliable, but overall pretty boring. My rig is set up to fly in circles, take a little beating and slowly wear down one target with missiles while chewing up another with guns, moving the guns from target to target as necessary. The Breacher just blows through guys. Especially when I pop in an EMP set up or two. Without EMP missiles, it's a bit more slow at the killing. Even so, it's a ship that requires a lot of tactics and fast reactions to keep the missiles flying. I love it. Except it's ugly.

So what did I do? Researched all the frigates and found the most missile heavy of them all. The Kestrel. Slower, but a little more versatile, than the Breacher, it's a pretty ship with ports for 4 launchers and no guns. Trouble is, it's Caldari. I'm Minmatar. So basically, I had to learn to fly all over again. That was about 4 hours of training for my avatar, but all is good, and I'm about to go hop in the Kestrel now. Hen Wen is the next name on my Prydain list, but I think I'm gonna save her for a different ship. That means the Kestrel is going to be Gwydion.

And that's all I got for the week. This weekend, I think we'll look at a couple of houses and tomorrow, we get to catch the MN Orchestra on the FREE. hoohoo.

weekend in review

2006-09-18T04:26:00.000-07:00

So, the Pope started a holy war. The prez threatened to shut down the CIA interrogation of terrorists. Gas went down, but will prolly go back up because of the holy war and terror rising. The Vikes won, the Bears won, the Rams lost and the Packers lost. Hegs and I are gonna buy a rodeo bull and name it something like Big Hairy Scrotal Torsion.

Oh, and we had a LAN party. Good times. Nick got his first taste of BF2 online AND a LAN party. Hegs ranked up I think twice, and got numerous badges. Fun was had by all.

Right now, though, I need breakfast, so this gets cut short.

ElPrezo gets Bloody

2006-09-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in my email address book......

http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=111184

Good stuff.

Vrock on

2006-09-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, we fought some Vrocks. They'd invaded the town we just arrived in, we needed something to do, and the two met in the middle. John and I toe to toe with two demons. I'd say that as usual, tactics eluded us, but it's only partly true. We definitely started off with a little battlefield control, but it turns out, most demons that are worth a fuck can greater teleport at will. So no controlling their movement for us... Turns out the vrocks didn't like the mummy I gave to them all that much and pretty much ignored him, focusing on John and I. Scratch that tactic, then.

That pretty much left me with two options. Send John running for around so I could use my negative energy burst, or we both continue working in attacks of opportunity and fighting/flinging spells. We chose the latter. Had we focused on one vrock it might have done the trick, but without clear deliniations as to which bird ta'narii we were hitting, the damage got spread out.

Once again, we saw how frustrating the spell selection for dread necromancer is. Its spells that affect undead are will saves, but undead have a strong will save. Most of its other spells are fortitude saves, but most everything besides spell casters has a high fortitude save. So, at level 10, even the powerful 5th level spells have a DC of 20, which means most monsters need a 5 or less to beat the spell. Looks like my 5th level load out is gonna be greater dispel magic, 2x summon undead v, and 2x slay living, unless I know undead are involved, then swap the slay living for undeath to death. Oh well. At least there's no expense components in there, except for undeath to death. Too bad we used most of our gems for bribes last night. lol.

Overall, fun game, though.

odd nervous system

2006-09-11T04:18:00.000-07:00

So, todays the first day at the new gig. Didn't even really care about all that until Hegs and I were standing under a tree at Renny. Then it was like, Man, What if I'm late? or SUCK? or get lost, etc. My solution. Fuck em. Who cares. If things roll bad, I pretty much need six months out of the gig before I start looking for something else. I can man that up. Why six months? Don't wanna change jobs while trying to buy a house. Surprising credit hit.

So just for the Red Pun, here's a morning work out for those of us that don't take 2 hours to do our hair:

Spend 20 minutes or so either listening to the morning news or snooze buttoning through it. The former gets the brain used to caring again and might get some more creative thoughts in the shower other than, "If I was gay, would I enjoy the act of washing my butt sexually, or it would still only be pleasant because a clean butt is a nice feeling?"

Spend a good chunk of time thinking about breakfast. Very important, cause eating at 6am, then not again til noon is gonna leave me hungray at 9am.... Without the time to think there, I'd settle for BK on the way in. Not a bad breakfast, but who wants to spend $60 a month on breakfast? Fruity Pebbles this morning, and I might have something else in a few minutes, BTW.

Hit the computer with a decent amount of time to spare, respond to emails, read blogs, read webcomics, write blog, generally do the things I used to do at work, but not get to anymore because rumor has it their stricter about internet use at the corporate office. Now, some people might say, "But you left your other gig because they were getting stupid about internet use. Now you're knowingly going into a situation that's worse?" Yes. Why? Because in the act of changing jobs, it's easier to accept that many things are different. New building, new bosses, new protocol, it's like starting over, so I can ignore the "old hand" side of my mind that says things like, "I've been here five years and reading the news on hold has never been a problem!" In reality, it's always been a problem, it's always been our policy not to, but other managers have focused on other issues during budget crises, wheras the higher ups now what productivity numbers high, and if the workload isn't there, we should find other work to do, so on and so forth. So, get that internet shit done in the morning.

Then there's the projects. With an RPG writing gig still floating in "What's our next deadline" limbo, and the CG project working to spread it's badly tiled wings, there's a lot on the table, potentially. (that's not including the other work I should be doing, like expanding the homebrew and dropping query letters to Paizo, or perusing the freelance work on various CG forums...) The fact remains that my creative burst is usually between 3am and 7am, then again between 10am and 2pm. Can't work on stuff during the latter, so why not the former. I could sleep at such times as to make the full 4 hour spread accesible, but right now, it's not necessary. *shrug*

And what if, like today, there's still 45 minutes left after all of that? Well, eat another bowl of cereal, and consider the following options: brainstorm another RPG proposal, paint some minis, start on the myriad selection of water colors I should do, or as is most likely the case, consider playing EVE or Guild Wars.....

All told, if it takes more than 3 minutes to do my hair, Wendy has a hand in it.

recharging the capacitor

2006-09-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

Man have I been exhausted this week. Tuesday I set out determined to get my ass out of bed at 5:20am every morning. I think I did 5:45 Tuesday. Each day it got a little later, hitting 7:15 this morning. Why'd I try? Well, next week the new gig starts and I gotta leave my palace at 7:15. Sure, I could shower and eat in about 20 minutes, but I don't really like doing that. Well, I do, but I don't like leaving once that's done. I'd rather chill for a half hour or more, checking emails, do a little art, etc before I start the real day. That's why 5ish is tempting. Not sure if it'll be possible though. Certainly not if I don't learn to sleep again sometime soon. I think I forgot about three weeks ago.

Anyway, I digress. What a lackluster last day I've had. A few people have said the requisite "Stay in touch," but that's about it. I got a card, but that was supposed to be yesterday, and the dude just forgot.... *shrug* No big. It actually makes not talking to any of my coworkers that much easier, which is something I'd kind of looked forward to with a few of them.

And in case your reading this and saying, "who cares about you, talk about a game," here's my current rig in EVE online:

Bo3 Coll (the name)
Minmattar Rifter (ship type)
-High Slots-
3x 200mm Gallium Machineguns (1 w/EMP, 1 w/Proton S, 1 w/Phased something or other)
1x standard missile launcher I (w/Flamehurst missiles, cause I found em cheap in a random system. Like 0.20 isk each. Hard to pass up that deal even if I should be using the EMP missiles since I use the launcher to weaken shields until I can close with my cannons)
-Medium Slots-
Shield Booster I
1 MN afterburner
1 empty
-Low Slots-
1 standard armor repair module
1 engine/agility boost (can't remember which one)
1 nano armor hardener thing (the one that gives an 8% boost to all damage resistance)

Obviously, I still haven't decided whether to speed tank, armor tank, or shield tank. Mainly cause so far I've only bought the cannons and ammo. The rest is rat loot. I'll start running some missions soon and see which I prefer. Shield tanking is tempting since it recharges itself, but I need to hit some capacitor boosts for that. Armor tanking is the easy way to go with a Rifter I'm told, which is why I'm tempted not to do it. Actually, though I like speed tanking the most, since it also directly benefits regular travel. I just need to figure out how to do that. lol.

Regardless, I at least know I can fight off two rats with a "significant" threat level and only lose about 8% shield with the bird as is. Hopefully I'll get to run "Worlds Collide" and really test the beast against Minmi rats. That mish usuall sends me running at least once in the Slasher (named Taran).

Oh, and I need to train up the morph skill and through a jump clone in the space dock that's holding Gurgi. That's my fast little shuttle. Although, with the afterburner on the Coll, it can fly 150% faster than the Gurgi......

and the world lost a hero

2006-09-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_on_en_tv/obit_irwin

Steve Irwin took a freak occurence to the heart today. Damn stingray stabbed him. Normally, that just hurts like shit unless your old n frail or young n weak. Or if it somehow manages to stab you through the heart while you're diving. :"( I'm gonna go morn.

Septiembre Del Busy

2006-09-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

Man. I'm looking at my calendar cause I'm bored and shirking my duties. This month's packed full of fun.

I started off this morning by getting up when Nick was just hitting the air so I could take my car in for it's 5K mile service. I forgot his radio station and didn't get to listen to him, though. :( I blame the haze of sleep.

This weekend, we may get to check out some townhome/condo action. Might not cause the realtor Wendy called was a douche. Sounds like we're heading out of town to do something this weekend too. Might try to rustle up a crowd and south to Le Seur to volunteer and help with tornado clean up. That shit hit a couple of weeks ago and they're still working. We'll wrap up the Labor Day weekend with some moving. Good times.

Wednesday we get to meet with a lender and see how much home we can afford. This will be about as much fun as drawing on the sidewalk with a piece of granite. Invisible granite. That feels like a rancid monkey nipple.

Follow that up with a Ren Fest visit the weekend after that, hopefully which Nick gets to tag along to. Wendy's dad will be here and it's a birthday celebration, but nothing says we can't bring friends. ;)

Also, on the 11th I start my new gig over in the corporate offices. See how long it takes me to either move up or move out. lol.

Don't forget Minnesotans. September 12 is the primary elections for a lot of shit, most especially gubner I think.

I'm pretty sure we're coasting after that until the 24th when we get to catch the Minnesota Orchestra for free.

Boolah's birthday falls in here somewhere, too, which means i need another birthday present (I'm way behind and just want to say I fully intend to get something for Country, my bro Justin, and my mom. I'm a bad person, I know.) I can't remember when Hegs' is. I suck.

And let's not forget the International Day of Peace on the 19th, Citizenship Day on the 17th, and Ramadan on the 24th. For the Japanese in the house, the 18th is Respect for the Aged Day. Cant' forget that one. Those Aged can be real fucks when they aint respected.

Anyone know when the lacrosse season starts? Want to try to hit the Swarm again.....

scoreless

2006-08-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

We've all seen it. The bright green shirt with the iconic gamer figures in wedding garb and a caption that reads "Game Over". We know it, we love it. Nick got me one for my anniversary.

So, I'm burning "Casual Day" stickers all through my last 6 days in my current position cause they're no good in the corporate offices. I opted for that shirt today. As I'm strollin through the hellspital, I'm thinking how funny the dichotomy of sexes is regarding this shirt. Behold.

A chic sees a dude in this shirt and, barring the freak occurence of nature called a hot gamer chic, she's universally knocking that dude off her list of mates. He's either A) married or B) horribly single and telling the world that he views marriage as a death sentence because he refuses to give up the gamer lifestyle for something as trivial as love/sex/female companionship. A lifetime of save points can not be replaced by the responsiblities of a family (besides, we all know the good parts stop when the ring goes on. Unless you're me.)

Compare that to a dude seeing a chic in the same shirt. He's sees one of two things (after noticing how the shirt compliments her breasts). He sees a married chic that's announcing to the world that she somehow got shackled with the only dude in the land that doesn't get at least a partial stiffy at the thought of his eternal bed fellow whooping his ass at Mortal Kombat. There's potential there if he can work it right, and the best part is, her dude might unwittingly foot the bill... OR he sees a gamer chic that's announcing to the world that no cock can come between her and her magic buttons. The latter's just as good, cause it means you can plop down on the couch next to they honey, grab controller number two, and mash some shit up until she's too wet to win which is when it really gets fun.

Of course, there's the third front, which happens rarely, but paranoid (or realistic) dudes might see a chic that's telling him, "Look, geek. It's gonna happen. Even morons get humpin. Yer gonna find someone, prolly a fatty to match your fattyness, worlds collide, babies are made, you're hitched or paying child support and then, the last game system you'll even own is your right hand in the shower." Those guys are just weird, though.

sj.10.06

2006-08-30T14:35:00.000-07:00

No, that's not the IP for sexy japanese. It's this months issue of Shonen Jump, and man did it rock. Let's start at the beginning.

OMFG! Naruto rOxOrs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, the book opened with Naruto and what has to be the best damn fight in the tourney thus far. Holy shit was there some ass whoopin to be had. I almost feel sorry for the little guy, especially with the touching chat at the end.

Shaman King was decent. Some ok character development for Horohoro, but nothing spectacular.

Same with Hikaru no Go. Good, but not great.

The you get Yuyu Hakusha. Another ass whoopin fight that almost ends in a shocker. Almost. We're batting .500 here on the awesome.

Then, Yugibutt. That drops the average. It could rock. I don't know. Waste of toilet paper in my book, although the thought of having his face on my ass in newspaper ink gives me enough of a chuckle that I'll entertain the idea....

We end with One Piece. Hard. Wrap up the Baroque battle. Or do we? The plot thickens, and I start thinking we need to add some broth to the soup before we need a fork to eat it....

So, yeah, if you read Naruto, Yuyu Whosaidthat, or One Piece, pick up the issue. It pwns so much $ss. If not, u suxors u damn noob. I'm so l33t.

or something

transition

2006-08-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Last night could have been the last dying breath of our Menagerie campaign, but I think we saved it. For now, we'll play on Monday sans Wendy until she gets Monday nights off. That'll prolly change again next semester with John's classes, but in two weeks, I'll be getting off at 4:30, so we can both start earlier and have some socializing time before we begin.

Personally, last night was one of the most enjoyable sessions I've had DMing in awhile. Not sure why, maybe it was the wing nut style of the session, but I felt pretty good with the RP of the three significant NPCs.

That being said, my worry is the session wasn't interactive enough for the group. Not a lot happened to challenge the players. I'd wanted to get a significant encounter in near the end, but there wasn't much time and the audience was waning. I have to say, though, the RP the group was putting out was goin on awesome, too. We had some good group development, some good independant character development (the assassin's eyebrow? hell yeah), the out of character chatter was minimal, and everyone pretty well stayed in character even then. Good stuff. I hope we can keep up that flow next week when it's just John, Nick, and myself.

On a personal evalution front, I'd say rather than making the crate big and unruly, I should have simply secured it to the ship in a permanent fashion. I figure a captain holding his estranged lover captive in an interdimensional space warp and utilizing her super manipulative air powers to the benefit of his ship and crew is NOT going to want the secret door to the cell stolen, broken, or accidentally thrown overboard when the ship's being chased by the Black Pearl or Flying Duchtman and needs to lighten the load.... I just need to be less heavy handed about it. Next time. next time.

mother fuckin

2006-08-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend, among other joyous events, Hegs and I caught Snakes on a Plane. I went in expecting crap, and that's what I got. But I think I liked it. It's the kind of movie that's a great rental, especiallywith friends and an MST3K vibe.

Regardless, the movie worked its way into a dream I had, and at one point, I was being chased by a donkey. This donkey was walking bipedal, had no hair/fur, and very very thin skin. It was headless, and its forelegs were actually snakes. Now, in a normal dream, that'd be scary as shit. That's the kind of fucked up thing that leaves you short of breath when you wake up. But after SoaP (LOL, Funny acronym), it was just another oddity....

I'm not sure which part was more annoying; the obligatory sex scene which had some titties and marked the first people to die (gotta keep to the genre roots, right?), or SLJ saying "I've had it with these mother fuckin snakes on this mother fuckin plane," which was a line added in just so he could say mother fuckin. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED both parts. LOVED em. They just felt forced. Which is ok. Cause we caught the matinee and had fun. That's all I ask.

Regardless, I'll leave with this piece of wisdom. "Get off my dick, you fuckin snake."

Around the world in 80 days

2006-08-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

OK. So I've wanted to run a campaign/adventure series called Fireball Run for sometime now. It's pretty much a spoof on Cannonball Run set in a D&D fantasy world.

Hence, my interest when I found a forum thread comparing a few different campaign ideas, one of which was a pulp, pre WWII, steampunk/etherscope race around the world. I'm reading the thread, enjoying the ideas, when someone suggests that you'd need checkpoints or some other reason take a certain route otherwise, "someone will just take the shortest distance around the world." Initially, that was the funniest damn thing I'd seen all day. I mean, the world's a big ball. There is no shortest distance. It's not as funny after thinking about it, though. But still. I've got nothing else to post about today.

Nevertheless, it'd be a fun campaign I think.

Dwarves rule the outer reaches

2006-08-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

In news that'll make Hegs happy, Pluto's not a planet anymore. The folks in charge of that sort of thing have decided to be a planet you have to be:

Round

Orbit the Sun

And you must have cleared out all the crap in your neighborhood.

Since Pluto shares it's orbit/region of space with other objects, it's a dwarf planet, not a full on planet. So is Ceres and Pluto's cousing UB xxxxxx (whatever the damn serial numbers are on that thing). So now, we've got 8 planets and 3 dwarf planets in the solar system.

My question is - What do we do when the orc planets attack our peripheral defenders?

Slice it down the middle

2006-08-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Today the FDA announced that women 18+ don't need a prescription for the morning after pill. It's estimated that this will cut the 3 million unplanned pregnancies every year in half. Hooray for a step toward intelligent reproduction. Now let's follow in the steps of Australia and base welfare checks on a child's grades in school.....

Dragonlance Movie

2006-08-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

Those of us that wanna watch it know it's coming. Here's the link to the semi-official site for it. The confirmed Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, and it's animated. Fall 2007. Whoot!

You said it was a good size.

2006-08-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/08/tiny-dice/

0.3mm cubed on the sixers. Wow. A set of em cost over 100K yen, though. That's like $870.... Still, Shadowrun, Warhammer, etc.....PWNED on the dice front now.

Deific

2006-08-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

At Gen Con, I played my first ever game of Godlike and LOVED it. The game is set in WWII, and the characters are simple grunts in the Allied military. However, each character has a particular "Talent" or super power. Some can fly, some are super strong, some are invisible or bullet proof or both. Talents are only limited by your imagination and the headache the GM is willing to take on.

So, on Thursdays, Hegs, Flynny and I are gonna take up a little Godlike. Probably sporadically, cause we like to mix up Thursday game night. So, unless things change, here's what it looks like.

The characters will be Russians defending Stalingrad. Good times. John's first character is a Hyperbody, which means he's super strong. As it stands, he can lift about 6 tons and throw 3 tons or less like a baseball. Good times. We might adjust that with some advantages and fun flaws, but it'll be bad ass either way. Flynn's character is a well educated son of a professor whose power centers around cold. We haven't completely hashed it out, but it sounds like he'll be able to make it really, really fucking cold, then turn shit to ice. Hard to live when yer brain turns into an ice cube.

So, since Stalingrad was a cluster fuck the first few days, I'm starting them off there, as a tentative forward defense to aid the volunteers until the rest of the Russians roll in (trying to be a bit more historic and not make the Russians the worthless yak humpers that Enemy at the Gates portrays them as). In the Godlike setting, several hundred Talents sprung up in Stalingrad, both citizens and soldiers alike. That's giving me fun times on Russian peasant Talent front.

Like the kid with an invisible friend. Or the chic that helps the AA volunteer women keep on fighting the initial panzer push....I won't/can't say much about either of them, cause they're both integral to the opening scenes I think. Good stuff. The real challenge in the game will be playing on the empathy of the PCs when John tends to play characters that are severly lacking in emotional connection to anything. With or without that, it'll be fun to kill a lot of Nazis.

Anyway

Road to Rollin

2006-08-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the mega Gen Con '06 review post. YAY! Hopefully I can get through it all today. We'll start with Wednesday.

Wednesday
We rolled out about 9:30 in the morning heading for Indy. Nick slept for awhile. Somewhere in there we started working up a character to run through some solo on-they-fly adventures on the trip. We came up with Shredheart Twinkletoes. Fighter2/Scout2/Cleric1. He'd use a Scythe dedicated to his deity making it a LARGE Keen Scythe of Throwing and Returning +2. Lots of damage potential there. Quick stop over at Culver's. Nick took a massive shit. Back on the road. Later Nick hid under his sweater and played Battlefield 2.

Total road time:9.5 hours (record)

Hit the hotel, unloaded stuff, fiddled with internet for a few minutes, didn't care much about that, and headed out to the Ram. Parking downtown was damn expensive, so we found a free parking meter about 10 blocks away from everything and stored the car there. Between the Indy police station, and a brightly lit Bail Bondsman. We hoped that would make it safe. ;) En route to the Ram (or maybe wondering around downtown looking for the car later) we scoped out a cheaper parking ramp only 2 blocks from the Dome that would net us a savings of $30 parking there for the week.

The Ram. Was. Crowded. The hosting staff was pretty confused, so it took a little over an hour to get a table, but the good news was they were still serving food long after the menu was supposed to switch over to the bar snacks. Nick grabbed a Tarrasque Burger, I passed on the Hippogriff Havarti Sandwich and had a Sesame Grilled Tuna thing off the not D&D menu, and we both split some Chuul Rolls (of course). Unfortunately, they brought Troll Fingers instead of Chuul Rools, and there was no butter kelp. A quick bite of Troll fingers proved that deep fried pickles weren't our thing, and we got em replaced with the correct food. My sammich was tasty, the Tarrasque Burger was gargantuan, and the Bloody Buccaneer Brew made especially for Gen Con '06 was really, really, really fucking good beer. We vowed to return. Headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Thursday
Thursday started bright and early. I think we hit the alarm at 5:30ish. Shower, get around, rub the sidewalk at McDonalds and head to the Con. Thursday was my WW II day.

I started off with the Savage Worlds game. We were archaelogist/explorers with a rich patron. It's just a year or two before WW II. Uncle Sam needs us to find a German scientist and protect the Fountain of Youth. There was quite some railroading here. A little bit of creativity netted us pulling ahead of the Germans, at which point, the scientist sent one of his men to offer that we join him. How'd he find out we had the "key" and a snazzy conquistadors hat? I don't know. But when we skipped town early rather than meet with him, he still showed up at the Fountain with a unit of Nazis. Even so, the game was fun because the GM did good impersonations, the crew played tight, and I got to start Gen Con off with my bad southern accent. (As it turns out, Johnny Knoxville was the only character I played that DIDN'T almost require I use that accent. Everyone else was either from Texas, the South, or a sci-fi equivalent.) Game Highlight: My greaser avoided a catastrophic boat failure by taking a little pre-emptive action, and I got offered a wrenching job that paid "a duck a day." Damn rednecks.

I spent a little time in the dealer hall, but didn't by anything, then it was on to Through the Desert with Nick. Play the game with a kid under 12 and it might be fun. Play it with Nick, me, some other dude, and a 15 year old bored girl, and there's little enjoyment other than cock blocking the other dude.... Game Highlight: Only took 45 minutes and left me with a few hours to kill before Godlike.

From TtD, we headed over to a Japanese restaurant near the Con for some sushi, Sapporo and saki. As usual, the saki Nick wanted was unavailable. Weird, that. Regardless, the sushi was good, and it's a spot we'll probably eat at again next year.

At 6, I hit the Godlike game. We had to make it to Bastiogne, relieve the 101st a bit, cause havoc on the way and get as many supplies as we could. Not only did we have a great crew, but the game rocked. The GM was a bit abrasive, and one couple left halfway through because of that. I think part of their gruff was that the wife had picked the character in the group to see the least action. She was the healer an no one really got shot til after they left. That made for a boring game for her, added to being late, and I see why the split. The rest of the party (aside from the healer) was a flyer (little Mexican dude that new more about WW II than the GM), Captian America (played by a British dude), our super strong man (played by medic's husband) that carried an MG42 all by himself, a radioman that could intercept radio signals WITHOUT a radio, a sniper that was bullet proof, a Jewish German resistance fighter with the Zed ability (could 'turn off' other people's powers), and me, a professional soldier that could regenerate everything but decapitation.

We started off with a quick "learn the rules" combat. Among other things, it set the stage for the sniper failing his stealth rolls, taking aim, and then having his target mowed down by machine gun fire or grenades. Bottom line, if you're playing a sniper, make sure the group plans accordingly and picks targets. Sniping doesn't work in the chaos of storming a defense very well. My favorite part about this combat was the Han Solo moment. Turns out, the Krauts were on the radio getting directions when we mowed em down. Our radioman intercepts the signal, they ask "What's going on?" and he says, "Umm, I don't know. Just some weapons misfiring. I think the radios broke." Disconnects and says, "I didn't like that conversation much anyway." Then we find a German code book and things get better for the radioman. Too bad he didn't have any bluff skill....

Later, we roll into a checkpoint loaded with Nazis and a couple of Tiger Tanks. We don't expect our stolen papers to get us far, so our Captain quick learns how to say, "Shut up, I have to pee," in German. At the checkpoint, the radioman passes over the papers, argues with guard, the Captain "wakes up" jumps out of the half track, gives his speech and heads for the tanks. In the meantime, one guard heads to get the colonel. The colonel approaches the captain, cap drops his charge with a 10 second timer, heads back to the half track and starts a count down over his head while faking a big, yawning stretch. I yell to the crew in back (I was the driver), one tiger tank blows up, and we fucking go into Nazi blasting action. Strongman leaps from the truck to other tiger tank and flips it over, while the rest of us shoot Nazis heads off. The captain gets into a round of fisticuffs with the colonel, most of the Nazis run away, we knock the colonel out, grab two trucks, tons of blankets, gas and ammo, and start interrogating the colonel. He won't bow to intimidation from the strongman, so the captian says, "You're right, brute strength won't do the job here. Let me show you what we do to prisoners that won't talk," and proceeds to stab me in the fucking lung repeatedly. Kraut told us everything we wanted to know. He didn't know much about troop movements, but we learned a lot about the artillery surrounding the town.

We rolled into Bastiogne, delivered our supplies, were treated as heroes, got some sleep and went out to bust up some artillery. That's when we met our first talents. Zed is real effective against flyers, and our little Jew took out the Nazi human jet real quick. Our armored man took out their armored man by being smarter than him and using a rifled grenade rather than going toe to toe. Knife to a gun fight and all of that. They also had a human torch type character. He didn't like me much after he'd watched me get mowed down by an MG42, lie there for a round or two, crawl for a round or two, then get up and starting fucking Nazis in the eyes again. He came straight for me. Too bad. Being the point man, it was my original task to set my stachel charge at the optimal point to destroy the artillery.

Instead I played hot potato. With the torch. "Catch!" as I tossed him the charge. He did.

Good thing I could regenerate.

The final fight was a bit more anticlimactic, but still fun.

Game Highlight:Tough call.I think the players were the highlight of this game. Wish I could have got the contact info for the British guy. He was purty cool. Unfortunately, there wasn't an opportunity to do it without also trading info with the GM OR looking like i was hitting on the Brit.

Friday
Friday I opted to skip my 8am Blue Rose game so I could make it to the noon Serenity game on time. Too bad. The dealer hall didn't open til 10, so I had a couple hours to kill doing jack. Can't remember what I did, cept wonder around talking to Wendy on the phone. In the dealer hall, I hit the OOTS booth and the Paizo booth, then grabbed as many freebie things as I wanted thanks to the Gen Con coupon book. Decided EVE Online looked fun and grabbed a 20 minute free online demo of it for later. Thinking about getting into the Pirates of the Burning Sea demo, too. Demoed Anachronism, which I love, just for another free character. I'm up to three now, and I've spent no cash on the game. Demoed something else, but it was lackluster and I've forgot about it.

Headed over to the Serenity game, and the DM was a half hour late. Coulda caught my morning game. :( Serenity was fun, but the crew was pretty well crap. Out of the five other players, I like two of them and the DM. The other three were confused about roleplaying in a cooperative game environment. I had just enough fun not to leave because of the Firefly fanatic. I really would like to play this game again with people I like. Game Highlight: Getting plot points for a far too subtle jab at Captain "Look at my mudder's milk t-shirt" (the annoying guy) that only the GM caught, and getting plot points for the sweet in-game rant I made at the character that was allergic to everything. I basically just said everything funny I've ever said about my own allergies while calling him Snuffles, Snufflestupidus or some other variant. It was all planned, as our goal was to start a brawl. We did.

After Serenity, Nick and I hit True Dungeon. Damn was it fun. Combat is a shuffleboard system, spell casting is all about memorization, and picking locks is close to the game Operation. My advice, don't be the rogue. First, to utilize your sneak attack, you don't make an attack for the first round. Most combat in our group lasted 2 rounds, with the one going longer than that being the one that I died before doing anything. Second, "I search the pillar for traps," always met with "You find nothing," even when it was trapped. Third, when you opened the treasure box, you could either get a clue for the room or grab one treasure for yourself. None of the clues were useful. So, don't be a rogue. Despite that I had a blast, and I only wish the chubby hermetics would have got the fuck out of the way instead of standing around like cattle. Game Highlight: It's a toss up between solving the web trap puzzle or watching Nick get reamed out and then hung inside out by the drow priestess at the end of the dungeon. He was looking for a potion to revive me with instead of paying attention to her. Good times. She was hot, too.

We ended Friday night with another visit to the Ram, where they made us twice the drinks we ordered but didn't charge us. So actually, we ended Friday night milling around the Con for a couple of hours after dinner while I sobered up to the point of legally driving.

Saturday
Saturday started with 8am Cthulhu. Call of Cthulhu that is. My 2nd favorite game of the weekend, it only edged out Godlike because the GMs were cooler and had a ton of props. Not kidding, we packed into a van at one point, and the made all 8 of us squeeze into the space and seats of a small van. While driving down the road, the deputy found a snake on him. He actually had a rubber snake, so when he screamed and threw it behind him, several of the other players reacted to snake as if it were real. Great, great stuff. There was a lot of splitting the party, so the two GMs were pulling us out of the room, comparing notes, etc. they had a powerpoint presentation, music, stayed in character for ALL of the characters, and all of that combined to help all of us players do the same, so there was a lot of redneck Tennessee county officials hitting on the hot intern (which was a skinny Arabian man), while she complained about her dad getting her this job and alternately took a lot of picture with his/her cell phone and disposable camera for real. We were all rewarded with a free book at the end and most of us lived, except one. Only one person went crazy, too. Not a normal Cthulhu game. Turns out, though, the ritual we stopped was beneficial and would have destroyed Yigg. Instead, we let him live on forever. Whoops. Game Highlight: The snake in the van.

More vendor hall while killing time for the next game, and I scored some mad loot at the Goodman Games cheap table. I'm talking a hardback, three softbacks, and a little spineless number all for $10. Hit Paizo again and resubscribed to both of their magazines, hoping that would again be the impetus for me to hit the writing solidly... Scored another round of freebies with the Gen Con coupons, then headed over to the next game.

The next game was a board game with Nick called Collateral Damage. Turns out it's not published yet, so we had to sign NDAs. Can't talk about it much, but the game itself is damn fun. You're basically an anime gang boss and your thugs, all drawn from various anime shows like Tenchi, Lupin III, and shit with high sexual tension, continually beat the shit out of each other and the cities of Japan while falling in love, having sex, and beating the shit out of their rivals. Fun stuff. Game Highlight: One of Nick's characters grenading the fuck out of everyone in one of the cities. I didn't do shit, cause I kept getting craptacular characters and had very little notoriety. *shrug*

After that, Nick and I had time to kill, so we hit the vendor area a bit more, then headed out to find food. My next game wasn't til 11pm. Rather than polish off a round at the Ram again, we opted to explore. Across the road. We hit Alcatraz, which was a restaurant/brewery in the same vein as the Ram only from San Fransisco. I ordered up a Pelican Pale which was described as lightly golden and gave me images of Amstel Light. Turns out it's a red that's somewhere between Killian's and Guiness to my pallette. Opted for a different beer, but everything they had was described as being close to Heffweizen (not my cup of tea). Passed on the beer and we went for the food. Nick ordered an appetizer that was prawns cooked in a caramel apple thing and wrapped in bacon. Too bad it was just three prawns and the bacon overpowered all the flavor. Nick had jumbalia and I had fish and chips. Neither was bad, but neither was good enough for us to go back. The only advantage the place had over the Ram was a 15 minute wait vs. the Ram's 1 hour+ wait if you couldn't sneak into the bar.... Needless to say, no Alcatraz next year. Food was a bit more expensive than the quality.

My final game of the evening and the Con was Midnight Zombie Show, a freeball, ham it up, annual event based off the All Flesh Must Be Eaten rules. The guy's been running it for 8+ years I think, and it's usually the biggest game of the Con. This year, zombies attacked the Oscars. I was Johnny Knoxville. I sat at a table with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Vin Diesel, Denzel Washington, and Simon Pegg. We were an ass whoopin table. Unfortunately, it wasn't an ass whooping game. It was really more of a have a good time/do stupid shit game. Coincidentally, the best part was when Jenna Jameson, Britney Spears, and Drew Barrymore made out (the players did too). OK. That wasn't the BEST part, but pretty damn hot nonetheless. Bottom line, Midnight Zombie Show scored my vote for best event at the Con and I'm definitely gonna be there next year. Mel Gibson turned into a zombie and ate Jennifer Lopez, because Cristina Ricci wasn't meaty enough. Katie Holmes died. Twice. She kept coming back because Nicole Kidman enlisted her in the Destroy Tom Cruise quest. Tom Cruise turned several zombies into scientologists. I think Lindsey Lohan died, I know she got used as a battering ram. Vin Diesel prayed to Pelor (D&D deity) to strike down the evil at Neverland Ranch, because Britney Spears and K-fuck were breeding a new worker class. K-fuck used his cell phone douchebag power to live, but Britney Spears died despite Jenna Jameson's best efforts...thanks to half of the damage being divine. The Olsen twins grew their dark empire. Joan Rivers saved the world thanks to help from Sigorny Weaver, Samuel L Jackson, Elijah Wood and a few others. Too many funny moments/stories to recap..... I'll save them for later.

Game Highlight: This one gets two: Everyone's fun addictions and stupid "powers." I was addicted to Stupidity. Johnny Depp was addicted to Malaysian porn. Samuel L Jackson was addicted to saying "Mother Fucker." Nicole Kidman could use Voodoo magic, but only on Tom Cruise. She made it her mission to destroy him.

Also, a LOT of the people stayed in character. Some just went over the top, but the players of Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp, Robert Deniro, Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers....those people were good. My favorite line - A zombie chicken truck is jacknifed in the road in front of Deniro's cab. Deniro pulls out a grenade and tosses it at the truck. The DM had said you could have whatever gear you might take to the Oscars. He asks Deniro, "Robert Deniro, you brought a grenade to the Oscars?" In full on Deniro accent, the player says, "What the fuck you talkin about? I didn't bring no fuckin grenade to the Oscars. No way I brought a grenade to the Oscars. I brought two goddamn grenades to the fuckin Oscars!" Good times.

Sunday
Sunday I slept in and Nick took a cab to the Con to watch a lot of anime. Spent a few hours in the vendor area wrapping up purchases and headed out. Great time all around.

All told, my cheap swag booty ended up being over $150 worth of books for $15. Love it. Grabbed a few new items, the aforementioned subscriptions, an adventure complete with minis, a few more minis, but failed to find a thri-kreen, satyr not eating pizza, and a kenku. Hopefully I don't fuck up the mods for Wendy's kobold mini. First time modding, so that'll be interesting... Watched a few new online games coming out. Check out EVE online and Pirates of the Burning Sea if you want space or sea based piracy and trading. Decided All Flesh, Godlike, and Call of Cthulhu are all games I'd like to get going. Didn't really meet as many people as I'd have liked. Really only walked away with one email address, and I know I lost that. :(

Can't wait til next year. Hopefully the crew will be bigger, and I'm definitely going to try to get more well known on ENWorld and hang with those guys. At the very least, I'm gonna try to avoid 8am games and replace those with sleeping in because of late night pick up games. There should be way more, "Hey, let's go to X and get a game of blah blah blah going while we drink heavily." That's all contingent on getting butt-raped over a hotel closer to the Con. Walking distance would be nice.....

C minus 4 days

2006-08-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

Well, with Gen Con 4 days away (and two of them weekend days, hoorah), here's what I think is left. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Nick's making jerky. I'm making Chex Mix. Gotta get stuff for that.
Need to make a Target run today. Hope they have backpacks. Don't want to take the satchel I have right now, as it's easy to slide a hand into without opening. I'm not carrying much, but what I will have must not be stolen (mp3, camera, etc).
Pack. That can wait. Or not. None of the clothes I'm taking are work appropriate, so I could start packing now.....
Hit the Source/B&N and try to study up on a few of the games I'm in. Don't really want to be the guy that's like, "What's a Carthuvian Death Dance do again?" Plus, with Savage Worlds, which is the first game I play, if I know how, I can hopefully swing by a dealer's booth first thing and try to score some limited swag. Otherwise, I'm SOL on that front.\
Find all the damn batteries Wendy's absconded with and charge them. Those bastards owe me back rent.
Maps. Maps to the hotel. To the convention center. To parking. I really, really, really want to find maps of the area around the convention center. True Dungeon is in the Marriott ballroom, which means that's where the Tavern is. The TD Tavern is a hangout place with a cash bar and other TD esque games you can play while chillin. It's free to get in on the day your in the TD event. Whoot. But anyway, MAPS.

I think that's it.

sigh

2006-08-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

Well, they good news is it isn't strep. No way it could be with the gallons of snot my body produced yesterday. Hell, the sore throat went away by yesterday afternoon and just got dry and rough feeling instead. This morning, even the congestion seemed to be leaving, but it's come back. Along with a mean cough. Bastard. Guess I'm taking it easy this weekend. :(

Curses

2006-08-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

Con's a week away. Yesterday I started developing the symptoms of strep throat.

NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Think I'll try to hit the doc in the AM tomorrow.....

Swag list

2006-08-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

We leave for Gen Con a week for tomorrow. Hooey is it gonna be fun. Nick's talking a return to the days of my bachelor party, cause he "accidentally" saved too much money. Me, I'm faced with a dillemma on both the timing front and the fundage front. See, with the car purchase, then the car smashy, Wendy's ward going to summer camp, and the menage-a-treas (spelled that wrong, didn't I?) of weddings we had this summer, my Gen Con savings has been stunted. But here's the swag list I hope to grab, nonetheless:

Order of the Stick swag - Both books I don't have, maybe the game. If I get there early enough, I get tons of free crap. Trouble is, I have an 8am game on Thursday morning that I really want to play, but I think the dealer room opens at 8am. Hmmm. Oh yeah, I need to make up a story and a couple of children's names so I can get some OOTS coloring books, too.

Game swag - D&D wise, I'll be looking for cheap versions of Oriental Adventures, the Expanded Psionics handbook, and I think that's it. Nick's got most of the new stuff I've been considering, so I'll check out his pile tomorrow night to see if I should get any of it for myself. Other game wise, if I like the games I'm playing at the Con, I might try to pick them up. Most likely Serinity RPG is in, as well as Call of Cthulu, easy peasy. I'll check out Cold Steel Reign on Boolah's recommendation if I can find it, too. Oh, and of course, Sunday I'll cruise the dealer room looking for bargains. Any game I might consider playing that's 75% off is a possibility. ;)

Other stuff - Well, I've failed thus far in finding Record of Lodoss Wars on DVD. Might grab that if I see it cheap. Also, wardrobe wise, I need to get 4 new t-shirts (was five, til my anniversary, thanks Nick). I know OOTS will have a couple I want (still waffling on the "I prepared Explosive Runes this morning." shirt) I don't necessarily, and probably shouldn't, get all four of them at the Con, so maybe one or two. Oh yeah, at Wendy's request I have to go find Carrie what's her name from Mythbusters and get my photo taken with her, too. It'll set with the Shafe/Ray Park photo. You Illinois boys remember the Asian man lubing up the light saber in that line? Can't think of much else. I'm sure that's more than I can score, though. I have several 2 hour slots open for shopping and eating and a few board/card game sections I don't mind skipping. (I need to go back to the Source with a list of those games I'm playing, look at them, and decide.) For instance, I'll prolly skip SPANC to go the Ennies. John has it now, so why do I need to play it at Gen Con? Not to mention the Ennies is possibly a chance to hob nob with the pros over dinner. I think the dinner might be private, though. I thought about bidding at the charity auction for a seat at the Dog Soul table just to get in closer with those guys, but didn't. Limited funds strike again. Oh well, the Necromancy Games table seat went for over $500.

Speaking of Necromancy, prior to playing this Dread Necromancer in our PIA campaign, transmutation was my favorite wizard school to specialize in. Had the most versatility, creativity, etc. But now, I think the necro is pulling me in. There's just something to be said about being an enchanter/summoner of the DEAD. Good times. And you're never lonely.

Elastic Loaf Lovers

2006-07-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

Somwhere between early '01 and late '02 I became concerned that we'd put a retard into office. I can't remember what triggered it. Maybe there wasn't a clear cut event.

Iranians have it a little easier. They have a clear cut event. Here it is. They're dumping some 2000 words from use in Iran. Pizza? "Elastic Loaf." Helicopter? "Rotating wings." Mobile phone? "Companion phone." (I guess phone is a Persian word) Cabin? "small room." Chat? "Short talk."

Someone needs to take this guy out behind the "small room" and have a "short talk" with him that probably ends in a "posterior support" "striking with a piece of wood."

Doomed

2006-07-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

So I call an insurance today for benefits, like I do so often. It rings once, picks up, and says:

"Look upon my works with pain and despair."

then promptly rings again, and goes straight to the insurance directory computer.

"What the fuck," says I (being jerked from a half slumber), hang up, and call again.

This time, after the first ring, I get jazz music, then transferred to the directory computer. Whoa. So, I pick up my cell to call Wendy and tell her, only my phone turns off when I pick it up, then turns back on (battery meter has 2 of 3 bars on it).

Man. I'm fucked.

tentacular

2006-07-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

Fuckin right. Got a little modeling done. Laid out the eyes and tentacles of the blob monster. Not bad for 45 minutes. Granted, this is all guide work right now. The next phase is to actually start drawing up the curves and piecing them together. The tentacles will be pretty easy since I modelled them straight to aid somewhat in boning... Figuring out how to cut the patches to accomodate the skin folds and 2 dozen eyes the thing has will be fun.

Spikey bits

2006-07-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

OK. Here's an interesting allergic reaction for ya. Goomba move, too.

Today, I ran into a pine tree. Sort of. Ran into a low hanging branch while checking the time actually. In fact, I didn't even run into the branch, just got stabbed on the left side of my face by 30ish pine needles.

Now, I know I'm allergic to pine trees and the like only because the doc said so. Well, now I know from experience.

That side of my face is experiencing some fierce burning and itching. Strangely, my left eye feels droopy and drowsy, while my right really doesn't. Congesting has upped a few notches, but that's a pretty normal state of existance for me at this point in life. I can't tell if the spike in body temperature is a result of the needles or not. There's a hint of dizziness. Besides the eye bit, the weirdest part is being able to feel where each individual needle penetrated. Crazy.

I wish I had a mirror at my desk. I'm too lazy to hit the bathroom and check, but usually when I itch like this, my skin looks like a big dog scratched me, even if I don't touch the affected area at all. I think I'm gonna have to break down and scratch my fucking ear, though.... Since my environmental allergies tend to express as itching and skin irritation (stupid immune system. That is supposed to happen due to FOOD allergies) I'm usually pretty good at not scratching, but fuck me. When yer ear itches, it's hard not to scratch it...

Take Me Out

2006-07-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand. That, and Iron Man are the two songs I'm hung up on in Guitar Hero. I managed to mash my way through Infected and Smoke on the Water this weekend. Actually Infected liked to kill me. Ironic, no. I lost it once at 94% complete and couldn't get the rythm back after that for a few tries. Ouch.

Anyway, sorry for the lapse last week. We were down a couple of people at the hellspital and no one really stepped up to pick up the slack at all. That left me in a mass production sort of game plan, which sucked and made for a shitty shitty week. It all culminated on Friday morning with a Nigerian lady reaming me out because her sis was gonna need to get a cab and drive around the cities with $8,000 cash in her pocket. :(

So Gen Con is 16 days away. WHOOT! What still needs to be done? Well, at this point I think it's safe to say we aint doin costumes or custom t-shirts unless there's A) a local shop or B) Nick wants to pay fast shipping fees. I'll have to talk to him about that. He's the bank of the party right now, as I'm officially doing GC on the cheap now.

So, besides fashion, what's left? Well, we've got our tickets, got our hotel, got our events, got the new car I bought for most of the trips this summer and then didn't get to take on the one I really needed it for. So I think we just need to get food, get there and have fun. I need to remember to look at my MPR member card. I can get it extended to the Indy region, but can't remember how long it takes or when I should do it. It's only good for a week or so once it's done, which is all we need. Gonna be a tight timing issue, there. I think I'll check out the restaurants that get a buy1get1free deal to see where they're at in relation to the Con, first, too.

Foodwise, hopefully we can stock up on travel/camping food and not spend much at the Con. I'm still trying to think what we can smuggle inside so as not to eat $7 hot dogs....

Eccentric night

2006-07-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Last week we started up what Nick dubbed the Menagerie campaign. I've explained the characters briefly before, but I don't think I recapped the game night. As I've mentioned before, the thing is supposed to be a pass it around story. Each DM heads it once and SHOULD start from the point the party left off (that way those of us that don't have time to prep a full adventure don't have to). Last week, Nick ran us through a published adventure. This week it's my turn.

Lacking much direction for our characters at this point, we started in some no name, medium sized town in an area that's civilized enough to have supplies and information, but savage enough to not blink much of an eye over a satyr, kenku, thri-kreen and man-dragon (ie, winged kobold) snooping around for info and buying the entire stock of mirrors. We had a map and rumors to a cave that laired a medusa. Well, sort of a map. It had two rooms.

We get there, and the first room is just as drawn on the map and full of nice stone statues, neatly arranged in two lines forming a natural hallway. Nothing else of interest was in the room, so we headed down the hall. We promptly reached a cavein, but there was a shaft leading way up formed by a disintegrate spell. The crew new it was gonna be tough going then, as a medusa's hard enough, but when the ugly bitch is disintegrating you AND turning you to stone, things aren't fun anymore.

The shaft presented a bit of a problem, as grasshopper man couldn't make the jump up. So, the kobold flew up, fortunately the kenku had a rope (what the hell does a thri-kreen that can easily jump 14' straight up need a damn rope for?), and strained his back holding while the kenku climbed. Satyr followed and the three of them managed to hold the Bone Painter's (thri-kreen) weight. We moved on.

The tunnel descended into the lair of the medusa, and everything was sized to accomadte her gaze attack. The stealthy kenku scouted ahead, but she spotted him right away. I think the satyr charged first and missed. The thri-kreen rushed in as the kenku retreated and cast a Blindness spell on the medusa, hoping to thwart her gaze attack. She seemed to resist the spell. Kobold popped greater invisibility, and we all set to square off. In that mix, a web trap shot out of nowhere and missed Marlibaut the satyr, but a ray of enfeeblement trap hit the thri-kreen full on, ensuring he would just cast spells this battle.

On the next round, Marlibaut shrugged off the medusa's gaze attack and nailed a fearsome blow into her, which negated that illusion. Doh! A lightning bolt whipped into the thri-kreen from nowhwere, and the kobold dispelled the Greater invisibilty and levitaion from the drider that had cast it. A summon Ogre skeleton and angry satyr made short work of the drider, but a couple more webs and lightning bolts were whipping around the room. We managed to locate one of the driders and dispatch it, and we're pretty sure a third one fled. Megauba, ever the environmentalist, recycled the two dead driders into skeletons.

Good thing, too, because after discovering an illusory wall, we quickly found a 90' shaft leading straight down. There were handholds, but none good enough for us to safely climb down, and we had only 50' of rope. So, one drider and the thri-kreen held the rope. The kobold glided down, while the other drider waited at the bottom of the rope for the satyr and kenku to climb down, then carried each down in his turn. The drider up top then carried the thri-kreen down, emperor style. Smooth. (At least, I think that's the order we went in. It was kind of convoluted)

The tunnel we found ourselves in led to some sort of sacrifice room that we didn't explore much. We moved on and came to a huge chasm with ledges pockmarking the sides. One ledge clearly had a tunnel leading from it, but we had no idea how to get there. There was a glowing, odd fungus at the bottom of the chasm, and I sent one drider onto the ledge to see if would react to movement. It didn't. The roper around the corner from us did, though, and quickly lashed onto the drider. The ledge was too narrow for us to make much of an assault on the roper with out being picked off one by one. The kobold flew out of grapple range and tried to fireball it, which failed (rules wise, Wendy had no hope. Even rolling a 20 would only get her a 28 on the caster level check, and a roper has spell resistance 30.) We reconnoitered, weighed our options, and decided that without knowing what was ahead or even if there would be any treasure at all in this damn place it wasn't worth risking. But what about saving the people of the surrounding villages from whatever turned those others into stone? Well, if the driders could cast Greater Invisibilty, maybe it was them. But that didn't really come up.

On the way back, we did happen to notice something awry in the sacrifice room, and that led to another illusory wall. The tunnel behind it circumvented the roper and took us to a ledge farther up and closer to the ledge we wanted to get to. Close enough, in fact, that the thri-kreen stuffed everyone into his bag of holding, and ran and jumped the chasm. On the other side, he quickly deposited the rest of the party before they suffocated.

clan toys

2006-07-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Over at Team RIP, the BF2 clan I'm in, a few of the members are "southern gentlemen." Of course that's a nice way of saying they're a tad more redneck than most of the people I went to school with. That doesn't mean they're dumb though. Quite the contrary. Here's a link to a few of the wartoy gadgets they've come up with:

http://www.teamrip.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1917

The 2nd one (dunebuggy/fourwheeler) is mounted with a paintball gatling gun. That's sweet.

2006-07-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Pass it around wiki

2006-07-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

Our newest campaign is supposed to be a pass it around story. We each DM one week and pick up where the other left off. Each DM can steer the story away from the direction it was headed, but should try to do it in a flowing manner, ie, no waking up to discover that last quest was a weird shared dream.

To facilitate information sharing, I made a secure wiki for the group, but only two of us have posted our characters, and neither of us did any sort of character development outside of posting stats (in case a character sheet is left at home, etc), nor has last weeks DM put up any notes about what NPCs shouldn't be used, etc. So, the first real step in getting the story going, I think, is going to be organization. That's our biggest challenge as a gaming group. We'll have to set a DM rotation. We've got to get everyone involved in the wiki. All that shit. I suppose it's not necessary, but I'm anal and think it will help.

For our wiki, I used jotspot, which I think is related to blogspot here. Now, jotspot offers free, secure wikis, but they're limited. You get 20 pages and 5 registered users. Beyond that, you have to pay a fee. The freebie is fine for our needs, but if I do a serious wiki for a campaign I think I'd either A) set up my own secure wiki server or B) use one of the other free, not so secure wiki options and just not post copyrighted material. Either way, I think in my freetime (not this week then) at work, I might hit ENworld, check out some of the campaign wikis people have posted there, and see what others are using. It's a handy tool, though.

puckered

2006-07-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Been trying to post for the last few days, but work has been shit. This week at the hellspital is what clusterfucks STRIVE to be. Young clusterfucks collect clusterfuck trading cards and get the autographed by the hellspital this week. It's an icon of clusterfuckitude. In the Clusterfucked CCG, this week at FV is the Mox Pearl of the original printing.

Beyond that, here's a big post....

Pirates:Dead Man's Titties.
Good movie. Funnier than the first, but maybe not as good. Still not sure. Regardless, I like it a lot. That's the short and skinny version. Not enough time to get into the whole thing. Regardless, Can't wait for the next one.

In other news, the Mazda has returned. Hooray! It's nice to like driving again. Best part is, the body shop called today with a telephone poll, so I got to actually bitch about the loaner stinking and it taking them 2 weeks longer than they said. Bitches.

In other news, we're going to war with the Middle East. Welcome to another clusterfuck. That Clusterfuck studied here at FV, by the way.

Fuck my ass, what else? I have a whole game theory post in here somewhere but my mind is a jumbled mess of chaos right now and coherent isn't a word that's spelled with a c, h, a, o, or s.

Project # 6248B

2006-07-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

Wendy's added a new beasty to the menagerie. Meet Project #6248B (I think that's his name).

Take a kobold. Run him through a series of mysterious experiments (which he may or may not be willing to talk about) that end up giving him wings, killing him, reviving him, and eventually setting him loose in a psychotic fury upon the crazed wizard that's been torturing him for so long. He teaches himself magic. Steals the dead wizard's libray. Learns some tricks from religious texts about casting divine magic practiced by long dead gods. Spends a little time focusing on spellcasting, then remembers some of the mad expirements and recalls the power of blood. What do you get? Wendy's character. Wizard/archivist/mystic theurge/blood magus. With sunglasses. Good times.

The Menagerie

2006-07-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

ADD and Palyhate got the better of the game crew last night. Well, Palyhate is the wrong term for it, but regardless, the consesus was that the gestalt Palys weren't working out. At first Nick and John were just going to make a couple new characters for the AoW campaign, but then I piped up with a "Let's just wing a campaign. We each DM one week, then pass to the other guy." Everyone jumped on board, and we made the craziest characters we could come up with. Well, sort of. If we'd tried, we could have min/maxed crazier characters that were considerably better than these are. So we made the craziest characters that we actually wanted to play.

It all started off with Nick and John contemplating Azers. Then Nick jumped on the Satyr love train. With that as his base, he knew he wanted to play a Gatecrasher from the Planar Handbook, which pretty much set our level and gave the game a planar travels theme. One character down. A satyr Swashbuckler Gatecrasher with boots of speed that runs all over the battlefield and stings the fuck out of everything. He's either going with a super keen rapier for a 25% chance to crit or a Sun Blade for extra damage output. Fun character either way.

John started off with a human desert ranger (the variant from Sandstorm), but changed his mind and went with kenku after I picked thri-kreen as my race (that's my fav race, and I've only got to play it in one session). Since kenku are inherintly evil, he swapped a few levels of ranger for assassin and grabbed a viper as his animal companion. Stealth master superme, he's yet to pick equipment, so we don't know what method of precise death he'll be dealing.

While John and Nick were pumping out their characters I was teetering between a multiclass character and just a flat out bad ass one. The trouble was I can min/max a fucking kick ass thri-kreen fighter pretty easily, but didn't want to. So I tossed fighter out the window and struggled between warlock/dread necro or just one or the other. In the end, a level 10 dread necromancer won out, so I grabbed some Charisma items, adjusted my stats and came out with a fast, charismatic dread necromancer capable of making up to 90 HD worth of skeletons/zombies (he'll go skeletons because he thinks flesh is inferior). He likes to jump around the field of battle with his guisarme. I'm contemplating coming up with an alchemist fire/goblin skeleton molatov cocktail from above combo.

The goofiness of it all might get Wendy back into the game, and I think she'll try to top the chaos we've created. Good times.

reviews: Guitar Hero & EA Sports:FIFA Germany World Cup 2006

2006-07-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I posted. Last Friday I was ill. Rested up most of the weekend. Monday was a day of apocolypse at work. Rather than rant about all of that, here are a couple of reviews of video games for PS2.

FIFA World Cup 2006
I'm not sure whether this game is a limited version or extended version of the standard EA Sports soccer game, but it's fun. As usual, for me, I find the Amateur setting to be far too easy and the next level, Semi-Pro, to be damn hard. Not sure why I have this particular problem with EA games, but there you go, soccer's no different.

Regardless, game play is fun. Squad management is limited though. You can change you subs and rework your starting lineup, but that's about it. Stat-wise, all you get is goals scored and clean sheets really. So yeah, it's all pretty sparse.

The soundtrack is fun though - full of world pop. It's pretty fun to take your team from the qualifying rounds up to the finals, if you can. Let me tell you, qualifying in the Oceania division is a pain in the ass. First, you play all 5 other teams in that division. Then the top two teams have a 2 game playoff. Then, the winner of that duel goes on to play the African league's number 5 team. That's where I'm at with Australia. Anyway, not a bad way to spend an hour or so.

Guitar Hero
You want a new addiction? Go play Guitar Hero. Seriously. The game is a bit hefty price wise at $70, but if you hit Best Buy with a coupon, you're golden. It comes with it's own controller, which is a guitar, with a "strum bar", whammy handle, and 5 fret buttons. Much like DDR, the screen is a scrollbar indicating which of the fret/note buttons to hit when, in tandem with the strum bar of course. On long notes, go crazy on the whammy. There are 4 levels, starting with easy which uses 3 buttons, up to expert, which uses all 5 and requires "advanced" techniques like hammer-ons and pull-offs. At medium, there are 30 different songs to play; there may be more on harder levels. At medium and above, you get cash for your shows depending on performance, which you can use to unlock characters (like the grim reaper), extra guitars, new songs, etc.

I like pretty much all of the songs I've encountered so far (haven't hit the unlocks yet), but there are some that I think should be in the game, but aren't. There's no Van Halen, GNR, ACDC, etc. There is 'Iron Man' (which is the first song I've got 4 stars on in Medium mode), 'Symphony of Destruction', a little Bowie, Cream, and Hendrix. A decent mix, and really, in a game like this, everyone's gonna have a song or two they think should be in there. Fear not, there's Guitar Hero 2 in November, supposedly with over 100 new songs and a "cooperative" component. I've heard that head to head in the original is super great fun.

Regardless, nailing a 105 note streak and 5 star performance on Franz Ferdinan's "Take Me Out" keeps you rocking and make you wanna play just one more song. So does completely failing on Motorhead's "Ace of Spades."

rain delay

2006-06-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Didn't have a chance to post yesterday. Really shouldn't today, but my attention span is waning. Regardless, all I had to chat about yesterday was just some waxing over modeling styles. I've got even less today, so here's more of the same.

I'm working on a head model for a music video right now. It has a weird shape, almost horse like, but with a dragonesque flair at the end of the snout. I want to use patches to model it. The first step, as I was taught, in patch modeling (in Maya) is to mold a sphere into a pretty close copy of the real model. From there you draw your curves on the model and start making your patches. Now, personally, I hate molding a sphere into a more detailed model. Not sure why, really, but I do. That's probably why I haven't tried sub-d modeling.

So anyway, I did a brief sphere manipulation to act as a guide, and now I'm working on a sock loft. The main types of non-patch modeling of a head (as I was taught) are the breadslice method, sock method, and radial method. With breadslice, you draw the profile of your model, duplicate the line, move it over, manipulate the line as needed, and repeat to the edge of the object, then "loft" the lines/curves in order, wherin the software interpolates a surface from curve to curve. Radial is similar, exept you rotate your curves along the Y axis (so the rotation goes from right to left or vice versa). The sock method is like radial only you rotate along the Z axis, which usually runs through the head's mouth.

So, the plan is, sock method, then draw the patch curves on the that model. Why? With the sock method, you get a lot of unnecessary geometry in the cheek areas to the side of the mouth. You can eliminate that geometry with the patch method, making the model easier to rig for animation.

Actually, though, I'm tempted to skip the sock step and just start freehanding curves for patches. Especially since I have the upper 1/3-1/2 of the head curves done. For this model, the lips aren't a huge concern, so eyes/nostrils/ears/horns are the biggest problem. If I loft the curves now, I've got that section done. That might be what I do.

Yeah, nobody cares. I'll keep going anyway.

The next model for the video is a big gelatonous tentatcled piano player. Think the Gibbering Mouther from 2nd edition D&D (might be in 3.x, too. can't remember) with octopus tentacles. That model's a prime candidate for practicing some sub-d modeling. The real decision here is directorial. Do I want the monster to have so many tentacles it just plays with them all, or do I want it to be able to morph it's tentacles into extra digits, essentially growing a hand when necessary. It'd be a cool animation effect, but there's no real lead up to that in the tune, so I'm thinking the former for simplicity in camera work.

The drummer is still in limbo, and the bass is most likely just gonna be a cool digital effect laid over the whole thing after the models are composited into the stage background. *shrug* We'll see. just gotta find out if Im' flying solo on the piece or if the PhilmcKraken is in on it....
Oh yeah, and I have to fix Pete's eyes in a coupla photos.

trifecta

2006-06-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Here I am, looking for something to blog about, struggling through a haze of cold induced thought disruption, when, what do I find?

A teaser for Spidey 3. That's hot like a plasma torch

06 Dodge Caliber

2006-06-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend we rolled to Ohio for my cousin's wedding. My car's in the shop, and the loaner smelled like ashtray (not to mention the body shop said 10c per mile if I left the state). So, I rented a car for the weekend from Enterprise. Got it for $100 for 4 days. Not a bad deal, and cheaper than the loaner for the trip. They gave me a Dodge Caliber.

I'll start with passenger comfort. The front seats were comfortable and the ride was pretty smooth. I missed the steering wheel stereo controls on my Mazda, but that's a minor quibble. A/C kept us comfortable, wipers did their job front and back (and we saw A LOT of rain). All was good. The driver seat had a vertical adjustment, which I took full advantage of. After 13 hours in the seat, my ass was only slightly sore, which is a marked improvement over the Aspire and slightly better than the Mazda 3 even.

Didn't spend any time in the back seat, but my little bro like it. The hatch/trunk space was small, though. If you eliminated the extra vertical space from the station wagon shape of the car, it wasn't any bigger than my Mazda. Of course, the rear seats fold down to make more space. So does my Mazda's, though. So the difference is only really noticeable if you're cramming in a bike, keg, or mondo camping gear. That's my opinion.

Driveability wise, I missed the "zoom zoom" of my Mazda. A couple times when I had to flip into the other lane to avoid idiots (and once when I thought a guy was speeding up to merge, but he slowed down instead) I knew I was in a wagon. Likewise, while acceleration was ample, it wasn't fun. My biggest beef with the drive train was the auto tranny. It'd down shift or hit the "passing gear" at times when it wasn't necessary, like when just maintaining speed on a hill that even Wendy's Aspire wouldn't shift on.

We averaged about 27 mpg on the trip, with 29 being the highest point, so not much of an efficiency spread. I blame the dip on construction. We might have hit 30 without the A/C, but the only reason that was off was due to rain, which meant we weren't cruising at optimal speeds anyway.

As for the stereo, there is a 7 or 8" speaker in each door. That makes for fun bass. Didn't go well with Wendy's headache, though. Apparently, you can get a package that has speakers on the hatch door that fold out for tailgating. That could be cool. I didn't like the button arrangement on the stereo, but that's a personal taste thing.

Let's see, what else did I like/not like. The dash on our model was white, and lit up blue. Kinda cool. Had gauges similar to my Mazda, so I felt right at home. Oh yeah. The steering wheel is adjustable. I'm guessing that's why it's covered by a cheap ass piece of rubber, rather than a full enclosure. That's annoying if you drive with your forearm, while you hand is through the wheel resting on the column. Feels cheap as shit. And one more thing. There's two glove boxes on the passenger side. In the big one, there's a shelf that's shaped for bottles/cans. That seemed to be colder than the rest of the car, so it might chill your sodas. It kept our cough drops nice and cool.

Overall, I'd say I give the Caliber a B+/A-. I'm not a big fun of the SUV for many reasons, and this car drives like a station wagon trying to be an SUV (without the 4 wheel drive and associated suspension). I like my cars zippy and maneuverable. BUT, the Caliber isn't made to compete with those cars. It's a wagon with a fun look for those people that demand better than the 12 mpg you get from driving a waste of resources. It performs its wagon duties full on. It's a comfortable ride, gets better mileage than a lot of similar sized cars on the road, and probably has room for a couple of kids and luggage to visit the grandparents for a weekend. It doesn't, however, seem to have the LATCH system for car seats, so if you've got a little un, you might wanna look elsewhere.

So, B+ for me personally, cause it's not a car I'd like to own, but if the grandparents or someone said they bought it for me, I'd keep it. A- for people that are in the market for a car that does with the Caliber is meant to do. It's a solid Mom Rod.

Get in the ring motherfuckers. I'll kick yer bitchy little ass, punk.

2006-06-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's not too often I use l33t speak in a serious fashion, but it's about the only exclamation that can sum this thing up...

OMFG! This is the funniest damn self centered semi-self felating thing I've seen in quite some time. Heard of Uwe Boll? If you're not a movie freak, game freak, spend a lot of time trolling those types of forums online, or a fan of game to movie conversions, chances are no, cause apparently, the dude hasn't made a real film in the U.S. at all. (If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Honestly don't have time to waste on him researching his filmography.) He makes, as you've probably figured out by now, movies based on video games. Blood Rayne, a few others. Working on Postal, Driven, and a few others.

Personally, I've not seen any of his films. Hell, I didn't know most of them existed, and it's a rare CG film I'm not aware of (especially from 2005) even if I didn't see it. Reviews say his work sucks. Other directors say that. Just about every online anything says it. They say it hard and fast. People hate Uwe Boll, but somehow, he keeps getting money to make supposedly bad films. That means they're prolly making enough cash that producers see him as a good way to either make a house payment or take a small loss and not pay so much in taxes. Either way, win for them, and they get the gambling fix out of the way to boot.

ANYWAY, Boll's so pissed at the negative feedback that he's put out an open challenge for the top five critics (and he called out Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary) to meet him in the boxing ring on the set for Postal. Good stuff. Hell, I'd hop in just for the novelty of it, except for two criteria I don't meet. First, I've not written any reviews for him, cause I've not seen his action. Second, I'm not between 140 and 190. I'd have to go back to basic training to hit 140 again.

Sucks being small. No one wants to risk you beating their ass. Of course, with my light, frail bone structure, a boxing match would result in a fractured orbital plate and my left eye would probably sag a bit after that. No good for Wendy; she likes my cheek bones.

gettin sum

2006-06-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I woke up at 5am. Woke up again at 5:30am and rolled outta bed at about 5:45. Except for actually getting up, that's pretty standard. Usually I fall back asleep, though. Not this morning baby. This morning, visions of polygons and pixels (actually NURBS curves) were dancing in my head. So I got up and showered.

Then, I started some modelling. Started on the two headed trombone player for Country's one man show. It's like a cow head shaped lizard thing with antelope antlers and tiger stripes. It's cool. I promise.

Anyway, I haven't animated in something like a year. Let me tell you, I feel like a man that just left the priesthood and got laid. By a woman. Not a young boy. And without the associated guilt of turning my back on God. For carnal pleasure. And maybe some Cheetohs. See, you can eat Cheetohs as a priest, but not off the naked body of a lithe Asian woman that charged you $7, even if she supplied the Cheetohs.

recap

2006-06-19T05:44:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend winning over Wendy's friends. :) My charm goes really well with alcohol and Australians. Well, fake Australian accents anyway. Who'd a thought that playing SR4 on Sundays would have a net gain of a few hotties? Well, me, but I live in a fantasy world bordering on narcissism.

But here's the bad news. Dead deer. Friday night. Passenger doors won't open. Car being taken in for repairs today. Fortunately the car is drivable, so I wasn't left sitting on the side of Hwy 29. I'll post pictures when I have time to dink around with the camera. They're not super detailed because, despite the damage, the car is still super shiny, so you get more glare than contour.

Random thought: Whenever I try to think the word Mandarin, my Star Wars brain replaces it with Mandolorian.

Ninja High School

2006-06-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

I used to read the fuck out of NHS when I lived in Michigan. What's that got to do with anything? Nothing. Just wanted to make that known.

Actually, I was just thinking it would be fun to set up a goof off anime campaign along those lines. Intergalactic Space Born Big Eyed High School or something. Just a bunch of teens in a high school in space. Aliens, super heroes, ninjas, pirates, robots, mutants, whatever. They're all there. If the DMs kept the adventures short, it's definitely a setting that could make a back burner campaign open to anyone to run and any players that could make it.

Could be a good time.

dad's day

2006-06-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

I didn't post yesterday because I spent my free time looking for the best Father's Day gift money could buy.

I just lied.

Actually, though, I did stumble upon that very thing today. Here you go. For $99 you can get a TP dispenser that docks to your iPod. Oh yeah, it mentions in the article that there's a new Swiss army knife with mp3 capabilities, but I couldn't find that anywhere. :( I want one.

Here's one for the gamers

2006-06-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I've talked about gaming in any sense, I think. This month is full of travel for me, so SR4 is on hiatus and between birthdays and injuries that D&D and whatnot has been hit or miss. The video gaming is full throttle, though, and the d20 writing is cruising down the frontage road. Besides all of that diary BS that the blog has once again degenerated into, here are couple of links for the video gamers among us.

The first: A HUGE BEANBAG.

The Sumo Omni has good reviews from the couple of gamers that reveiw these sorts of things, and it looks like a great prop for some carnal relations as well. Scroll over the third position on below the image, and you'll be glad they say "nothing can stain it." Looks comfortable for parties and sitting in front of the PS2, as well. Looks like it's too big for my living room in the present configuration, though. (BTW, the photo gallery has photos from the Playboy Superbowl Party)

Next: A new game controller.

My buddy, Scott, has the Z-board keyboard for playing BF2. He likes it, but his chief complaint is that it's hard as hell to type with that thing in, and even the replacement normal keypad is too small for him. Enter the Fang. The Fang doesn't replace the keyboard. Instead, it's a game controller. Looking pretty when you're not playing and fully functional when you are. Ambidextrous, too. I wonder what the learning curve is like going from WASD keyboard and mouse to just a Fang. For $35 it's cheaper than a lot of the 2nd tier game controllers out there that just look like USB PS2 controllers... I'll prolly grab this once I've got some spare change. Hence, after the trip to Wisconsin, then Ohio, then Illinois, then Indiana (go Gen Con!). So much for fuel conservation on my part.

Anyway, I'll leave you with that. Remember, you can't have functional without a little fun in there. Yeah, my fingers are burning just for typing that one. ouch.

Lemme down

2006-06-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

T-Mobile's running a contest. You pick the winner of a certain FIFA World Cup game each day. If you pick right, your name goes in a drawing for 25K. I've picked right 3 out of 4 days. The one I picked wrong? The USA, man. I mean, as an American, I can't pick the Czech Republic to win even though the US hasn't won a World Cup opener in 8 tries now. Damnit.

In other news, "Zoom Zoom" is fun. We figured it out tooling around backwoods Wisconsin this weekend in theMazda. Nice to have confidence in the car's ability to pass someone over 35' of road. :) One spot might have been 25' of road.

I was going to write a little about an article that was on MPR this morning, but I can't find any news on it anywhere (not even on mpr.org). Basically, there are A LOT of wind farm and wind energy projects that are on hold right now because Congress demanded there be a study on whether wind mills would interfere with aircraft and ground based radar installations. Here's the thing - the FAA and other organizations associated with these concerns have already signed off and given the projects the green light. Then Congress stepped in. Why? Speculation is that the huge wind farm on the east coast near some high value properties (a couple belonging to senators) caused the delay. Trouble is, the delay is causing a lot of land leases and what not to be screwed up, and that's costing a lot of people a lot of money. Like the farmers that are leasing their land to the electric and wind mill companies.

That leads me back to a thought I had in response to a bit also on MPR concerning the amount of fundage Klobuchar has got from the national party for her run in Minnesota. Here's the trouble with Congress as it stands. There's a great divide right now between what's good for Representatives and Senators and what's good for the rest of the country. Kind of confusing, really, since the rest of the country gives them their jobs, but between national parties and lobbyists, someone can continually get reelected through heavy spending and great soundbites.

On the bottom end of things, I'd like to see lobbyists gone entirely and an end or severe limitations on pork barrel projects that get slipped into bills on the back end. Rebuild the congressional buildings out of glass (metaphorically) and put cameras in every corner broadcasting live 24/7 on C-WESEEYOU.

At the higher end of things, I've been kicking around an entire redevelopment of the electoral process that gets rid of Pres/Vice Pres running together, splits the Senate down the middle and opens up the House to a lot more than just a dual party system. The House is giving me the most problems, and the whole thing is pretty low on my priority list right now anyway (specially since it's a bit to radical to go anywhere in the current environment of "I'm not doing anything that won't get me reelected.")

Anyway, I digressed a bit there. Guess I had something worthwhile after all. Well, that depends on whose reading, I guess.

Subtle attempt at Masterba...Manipulation

2006-06-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Let's see if we can get this honky to work today.

The World Cup started today. Germany's off to a rockin start (I hope) playing against Costa Rica right now, and at the 89 minute mark it's 4 to 2. If they win, I get a ticket in the 25K drawing T-Mobile is having. Woot.

Unfortunately, the only places I can get it online are BBC (but only if you live in London), ESPN 360 (but only through certain ISPs and the hellspital doesn't have access), and XM radio online (but only if I pay $8 for a month's service after I sign up for a three day trial period). Damn.

That's about all I got. I spent most of the good rants over the last few days, but all of them were lost in the ether.

2006-06-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the third day in a row that blogger's lost my post trying to update it. That aint cool at all.

A weight off my mind.

2006-06-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

OK, one more time. Here's an article about a program being tested down south. Schools have changed food menus, soft drink producers are voluntarily removing heavily sweetened beverages from schools, and kids are getting weighed at school. They're sending home letters with the reports cards if the kid's body/mass index indicates obesity.

I'm of two minds on this one.

The first is, good that they're taking childhood obesity into consideration and changing both diet and behavior at school to help, not to mention educating both family and students about healthier living, eating, etc. Innumerable studies have shown that teaching kids healthy eating habits sticks with them for life. Why's it matter to someone like me? Insurance premiums. Healthier adults means my health insurance is cheaper.

My beef with it is that I'm worried about the body/mass index. I remember it being a bit questionable because the height to weight ratio was skewed toward extremely skinny. Not good. It sounds like the whole system is set up to not give kids a complex about their weight, but it's still a touchy subject.

Regardless, it might be a step in the right direction. It's working well enough that other states are trying it. Now they just have to figure out a way to teach parents the results of another study that shows that strict disciplinarians have a higher percentage of obese childrens (eating becomes a stress reliever), with parents that don't care and parents that let their kids do anything being tied for second. The best parents are those that set rules, have reasonable standards and are emotionally connected to their kids. Go figure.

Cod Piece of Glory

2006-06-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

What are some other things that go well with "of Glory?"

Pickle of Glory
Shuriken of Glory
Caterpillar of Glory (also works well with Armadillo)
Chrome Exhaust Tip of Glory
Moonroof of Glory
Screen Door of Glory
Kleenex (R) of Glory
Shoestring of Glory
Shoestring Potatoes of Glory
Fit of Glory
Spasm of Glory

The list goes on and on. What I'm getting at is that I spent too much time on the Gen Con forums reading costume design and suggestion threads, left there with a burning need to wear a costume, but not the ren fair pirate costume, only to still have no ideas about WHAT costume to wear, but needing an idea that incorporates Nick, and somehow deciding the whole thing needed to be announced in one big run-on sentence. Yep, I got nothing. And the post I'd originally posted regarding having nothing wasn't able to be posted because Blogger collapsed around the shock that I might actually not have anything worth talking about but still post anyway, unlike the masses of posters that have something important that everyone should read everyday, some of which still don't post everyday despite the importance of their thoughts, thereby depriving billions of souls with a little bit of insight that might make the day infinitely more tolerable and save lives by keeping some poor fool whose new puppy just dumped him for the milk bone in the mail man's pocket from jumping off a bridge into heavy river traffic, causing an accident, possibly involving chemical waste, screwing up the drinking water for a major city and bringing about the destruction of our great nation's economy; which we all know really supports the rest of the world. :) If you read all of that, you like me more than I thought. hehe.

Damn only killed five minutes. It's a long day.

I got nothing.

Oh no!

2006-06-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

Man. I got sucked into a thread at the Gen Con forums about costuming and what not. Don't expect a good post from me today, I'll be reading that for sometime.

Whistle Beep Whirl Buzz

2006-06-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

Whoohoo! Androids on the International Space Station. Right now, it's all about maneuverability and coordinating light, cheap satellites. That'll change, though. Remember when computers were just overpriced giant calculators? Once there's a reliable AI locomotion package for tightly organized groups of satellites, how long do you think it'll be before it's applied to a 2d plane and added to cars? I'm not too hip on that, cause I love driving so much, but there's A LOT of people that just shouldn't have control of a vehicle. And that's just the easiest logical step.

Reef suppression

2006-05-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

Dig this link. Off the coast of Florida, the Navy and co. scuttled an old Essex class carrier. The goal was to sink it upright and let it become an artificial reef. That would not only create some habitat in the area, but bring in a little economy in the form of sports fishermen and divers. Not a bad plan, and it sounds like the EPA road their ass hard about pollutants. Check out the link, cause there's A LOT of really good high res photos of the boat going down. Can't wait to see it on the History Channel, cause there was a film crew with two cameras underwater there.

As for the suppression part of the title, I like cars. A lot. That's because I like driving a lot. Having an Aspire is a rough state of being in that case. Aspires are fun to drive, don't get me wrong. It's fun in a sort of Mario Kart style, though. It's like being at the go-kart track and having a fast kart, or having a normal kart but weighing at least 80 pounds less than anyone else. It's still better than being at the kart track and having the slowest kart out there regardless of weight, though. After almost six years of the Aspire, I hadn't even noticed I'd been driving less, nor had I noticed that I'd completely suppressed that car liking side of things.

So yeah, the new Mazda is a good thing. There's something to be said about being in traffic, deciding you want to be at a certain spot, and KNOWING you've got what it takes in control, acceleration, and braking to get there, with the same kind of efficiency as the "just in time" techniques that Dell Computer made popular in the business world. We'll see how it handles a road trip in a couple of weeks, but for now, the thing is perfect for the work and local conditions it's getting now.

discography

2006-05-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

6 Disc Changer with an odd hodge podge of 5 discs in it. Right now, we're rolling with the following:

John's Mega Misfits Mash - Something like 34 of the greatest Misfits tunes from JH (gracias)
Jackyl - Relentless (the latest album, with "I'm on Fire" currently my favorite tune on the disc
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Quarachi - Stick 'Em Up
Danger Doom - The Mouse and the Mask (right now, #3 "THE MASK FEAT. GHOSTFACE KILLAH " is my fav tune)

Now, combine that with 12 FM presets and you've got the breadth of musical enjoyment covered (as long as you can stand commercialized radio's super tight playlists).

But then, today, I got a 10% online coupon from Best Buy for two days only and thought I might just grab an assload of CDs to cruise in the car. My first thought was to hit GnR up for a bit of Chinese Democracy, but that thing is still in the ether trapped by a muse that needs more cocaine and some serious psychiatric help. That, and the fact that I already have a lot of the hair metal I really, really love, has me stuck at 4 cds (3 of which are GnR), and one of those I might not get/need. Right now, it's looking like this:

GnR - Appetite, and both Use Your Illusions
Motley Crue - Dr. Feelgood

I was also thinking about the Crue's Decade of Decadence. Then I found this collection on Amazon! Actually, though, a lot of the tunes on that collection are way out of my hair metal league. Still, Lita Ford..... hehe.

Any suggestions?

couscouscous

2006-05-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day, Memorizing Day (thanks Country, the ladies dig that one), Mesmerizing Day, or whatever you might choose to call it. Big up to the vets that made sure I could write this blog and be generally disgruntled.

Reveiws:

X-Men III
Hmm. Was the movie a good time? Yeah. Was it a good X-men movie? Sure, but not as good as the first two. Too many characters got too little time in my book. After watching it twice, I can say the only scene that really got me the second time is one of the scenes I can't talk about for those that haven't seen the flick. The climactic action scene was pretty a pretty good time, but it had it's cheesy moments. Regardless, decent flick, worth watching, specially if you're a fan. Stay til the credits are over. Takes a bit of the finality out of the "Last Stand" part of things, but it's cool.

Mazda 3 i touring
Got one of these little guys this weekend. I say little, cause it falls into the compact category, but Nick's 6' something and he's super comfortable in the passenger seat. The back seat has significantly less leg room, but I've yet to do more than "sit behind myself" on the back seat testing. The trunk seems cavernous, too.

The "i touring" designation has a 2.0 L engine, which seems peppy enough to me. I'm coming off an Aspire, though, so electric wheelchairs seem peppy. Regardless, I'm satisfied with the engine response. There's little road or wind noise that makes it into the cab, so I have to relearn how to drive in a silent car. lol. It's easy to do 80 and not notice. Fun, too. :)

The suspension seems a little stiff on road bumps, but damn it's nice on the corners. On the 20mph downhill slalom at the end of Snelling Ave, the only reason I kept it at 40 was because I couldn't see oncoming traffic around the corners. Block that strip off, and I bet 50's no problem, possibly higher. Since I like corners (Real men turn both ways), I like the car.

My only real beefs with the car right now are functionality in the 6 disc changer. Not a feature I required, but the only 3 on the lot with ABS and side airbags had a moonroof and 6 disc changer. Annoyingly, the random feature on the disc changer only randomizes the current CD. It'd be nice if random play covered all songs on all discs. *shrug* Not a big deal, though, really. Considering how slow it changes discs, there'd be considerable lag between songs if it switched between discs anyway.

I'm sure I'll find a few other annoyances as I drive, but so far, so good.

Dr. Mario

2006-05-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here you go. A recent study shows that doctors that play video games for awhile before performing laporascopic surgery perform faster and with fewer mistakes than those that don't. Hehe. Wander if I can convince our doctors here that they should play a few rounds of BF2 with/against their patients before performing on them. That'd totally rock in my book. Hehe.

Just further reinforces that video games increase your hand eye coordination.