Driving madness

So CNN has confirmed that drivers in the northeast are the worst in the country.

This does not surprise me. What does surprise me is that according to the scores, Virginia drivers are slightly above average. Of course, Maryland and DC drivers rank at 44/49.

For a while now I've thought about posting "Martian Dog's guide to Driving in Virginia." Basically it amounts to, "If you think the other guy might be drunk, he is. If you think he isn't drunk, you're wrong." I swear, driving here makes ME want to drink. No sane person drives on these roads.

I don't know how any states scored lower than the DC area. Rhode Island must have competitions to see how many animals and small children one can run over. I imagine living in Rhode Island must be like a real-life version of car wars (only with more web updates).

One nice quote

It is important not to have the unrealistic expectation that we will find a magic key to help get rid of [all suffering]. It takes determination, patience, and more than one week.
--Tenzin Gyatso

One more auction down

The auction ended last night. There's always a flurry of activitiy right then. I had to send out 30 invoices, and that takes a while. I wasn't too happy with the way the auction started, but it ended up ok. Today we'll ship most of the stuff out.

I don't know if I'll put up another auction or not. At this point I'm leaning towards not, because nothing is prepared. We technically have time for one more, if we're on the ball.

In the meantime, don't think about monkeys.

WTF?

So my brother took this test to see what kind of D&D character he is.

He's not terribly happy with the results.

Here are my results:


I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Orc Fighter Ranger


Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.


Race:
Half-Orcs are a cross between a human and an orc. Generally, this kind of mating does not occur willingly, so half-orcs are almost never raised by a full set of parents. They tend to be less intelligent and attractive than humans, but are generally stronger and hardier. Violence is a part of their nature, and few half-orcs manage to overcome this to follow other professions. They are generally treated with disdain by other races, if not outright hostility.


Primary Class:
Fighters are the warriors. They use weapons to accomplish their goals. This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.


Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Deity:
Lathander is the Neutral Good god of spring, dawn, birth, and renewal. His followers believe in new beginnings, and work for the betterment of all. They have no preferred weapon, but they typically wear plate mail and a shield, with red and yellow tinting. Lathander's symbol is rosy pink disk, typically cut from rose quartz.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)


I have issues with a lot of this. As a gamer, I tend to think about this kind of stuff.

I tend to think of myself as most similar to a Dwarf. Preferably a Warhammer Dwarf (any race that keeps a Book of Grudges is OK with me). Mostly I want to hit things and rain fire down on them. That would make me some kind of crazy hybrid --in Arcana Evolved terms I'm pretty sure I'd end up as a mageblade. In D&D terms I'd be some kind of crazy fighter/mage, fighter/sorcerer. If you bring in the psionics handbook I'd end up as their crazy fighter/psion hybrid class.

So anyway, the half-orc bit is right out, as is the secondary class. The alignment is probably correct (though at different times I'd call myself LN vs NG).

From the detailed results:

Detailed Results:
Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXX (6)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXX (7)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXX (6)
Lawful Neutral -- X (1)
True Neutral ---- XXX (3)
Chaotic Neutral - (-2)
Lawful Evil ----- (0)
Neutral Evil ---- (-3)
Chaotic Evil ---- (-2)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXX (5)
Half-Elf - XXXXX (5)
Elf ------ XXX (3)
Halfling - (-4)
Dwarf ---- XXXX (4)
Half-Orc - XXXXXXX (7)
Gnome ---- XX (2)

Class:
Fighter - XXXXXXXX (8)
Ranger -- XXXXX (5)
Paladin - XXXXX (5)
Cleric -- XXXXX (5)
Mage ---- (0)
Druid --- (-1)
Thief --- (-8)
Bard ---- X (1)
Monk ---- (-1)

I guess I'm not martian after all

So if I take the test one way, I get:

Which member of the JLA are you? Batman Losing his parents to a tragic mugging, Bruce Wayne took a vow to wage a one man war on crime. Using the image of the bat to strike fear into criminals, he dons the guise of the Dark Knight after the sun sets. A genius detective and scientist he is a valuable member to the League even without powers

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

But if I change one answer (to one I think is equally accurate) I get:

Which member of the JLA are you? Superman Rocketed to earth by his parents to escape their doomed planet Krypton. Kal-El(Clark Kent)'s contact with the Earth's yellow sun gives him amazing abilities that he uses to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. He fills the role of leader in the JLA.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

To the numbers!

From EB: $258
From the used book store: $160
w00t!

On one hand it's sad to think that 1 large and 1 small suitcase worth of games, DVDs, and CDs boils down to approximately 5 new games, but on the other hand, at least they're not getting thrown out. And hey, something is better than nothing. At least EB took everything.

The used book store is much more picky. They passed on a book that I paid $50 for 5 years ago. I got nothing.

The great purge continues

Both Eunice and I are getting rid of a lot of stuff before we move.

I've been auctioning off almost my entire RPG collection. I started another batch on Thursday. Sadly, it's not going as well as I had hoped, but the auction is still early.

Last weekend we took a bunch of books to a local used book store. They had to give us 2 separate gift certificates because we got a little over $100 in store credit. The rest of the books (and there were a lot left over) went to Goodwill, along with 7 or 8 trash bags full of clothes.

Today we're heading to our local EB and FYE with two plastic bins and a small box full of CDs, DVDs, and XBox/Playstation games. Whatever they don't take will go along with 1 more large box (about 1.5 to 2x the size of a regular book box) of books to the used bookstore. Whatever survives that trip is once again going to goodwill, along with half a box of dishes.

It really is amazing how much stuff I have accumulated, and how much both of us are getting rid of. I didn't even mention the box of video tapes, or the stack of graphic novels. I think the graphic novels are going with me to work, where I hope to find good homes for them.

We're hoping to get the number of boxes we'll have down to 30 or so (from an estimated 60). I found some of the documentation from my last move, and I think I had 45 boxes then (plus 30 miscellaneous items). I think if we add Eunice's stuff to that the number of boxes shoots up to at least 60.

I just hope we can find good homes for our stuff, or at the very least the money it generates will help goodwill.

Star Wars Mania

Eunice and I saw Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith on Thursday afternoon. It's my favorite of the first 3. The writing is better, and Hayden Christensen is more tolerable. I still have trouble seeing him as the dark lord of the Sith.

It was very cool to see him don the armor, and to hear that tell-tale respirator noise.

Monte Cook has some interesting star wars comments here.

I find the marketing blitz amusing. Why am I looking at Darth Vader on a box of cheesits? Does the dark lord of the Sith really endorse these tasty cheesy snacks?

Speaking of Darth Vader, he has a blog.

Who knew?

2 weeks in 5 minutes or less

There would be more here, but a combination of events just ate my post.

So here's the short version.

We celebrated Eunice's birthday with a couple of friends. A good time was had by all.

Eunice crammed for exams and I crunched for E3.

We managed to watch Blade Trinity (and no, I don't recommend it).

We walked to the theater to see Unleashed. It was much better than Blade 3. We had to hurry on the walk home to avoid the downpour.

I started playing Jade Empire for the XBox. I'm impressed and having a lot of fun.

I may actually get back into World of Warcraft.

Two short weeks later...

Things are slowly returning to "normal."

The past two weeks have been pretty crazy. Eunice has been studying for her final exams and I have been crunching for E3. I'll try and make some time to post a more detailed update later.

A quick auction run through

I just finished going over everything else I want to auction off. It's looking like at least 4 more auctions, all of which are pretty big. I'm dividing the stuff into categories.

It also looks like most of my collection. I'll have to look to be sure, but I think I'll have about a box of stuff left over.

We have already made what I consider to be an obscene amount of money off of the auctions, if you include shipping charges. I think we'll be able to pay for a good chunk of this move. If we can get everything auctioned off in time.

Random thoughts

In other news, my latest ebay auction just ended. I feel like it went fairly well. About half the items sold, and we made a good chunk of money.

I have mixed feelings about selling my roleplaying books. On one hand it makes me sad to part with them. I have quite a large collection. On the other hand, I know darn well that I'm not going to read most of these books. I'd prefer they go to someone who will give them a good home, rather than stay with me and collect dust.

Auctioning them off is really a winning situation. Not only does it generate money, it reduces the cost of the move by making sure we have less stuff to move.

Logically, selling the books makes sense.

Emotionally it's still difficult sometimes.

Even now I can hear Eunice saying, "Don't sell them if you don't want to." I do. I want them to be read, enjoyed, used, and well taken care of. I'm just not going to use them. It seems shameful to have them sit and gather dust.

Actually, if there's anything I regret about selling items on ebay, it's upgrading Eunice's paypal account to accept credit cards. The upgrade means that paypal takes a percentage of every transaction, and, combined with the ebay posting fees, makes $1 sales almost not worth it. After everything is said and done, I probably make a quarter on a $1 sale.

In other random news, one of my favorite fantasy franchises, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has found a new publisher. It's a great, dark fantasy world. Picture medieval Europe, with all the Tolkein-esque races present. Add an unstoppable force that seeks to destroy everything (Chaos). Now turn the volume up to 11. That's Warhammer. It's two fisted dark fantasy.

I admit, I'm more in love with the fiction and feel of the world than I am with the game system, though that worked fine. I never had much of a chance to play it. It being a medieval style fantasy game and competing with Dungeons and Dragons meant that I never found a steady group.

Still, I read the fiction. I just started reading another book in my favorite Warhammer line, the tales of Gotrek and Felix. From the look of things, it appears that I'm behind in their adventures. I just started Beastslayer this evening. I still have Vampireslayer and Giantslayer to go. The book are all great. I highly recommend them.

The game itself has several interesting points. For one, I really liked it's take on a class system. Instead of your standard Warrior, Wizard, Rogue, Priest you had basic and advanced careers. So, there was a career for a bounty hunter, highwayman, or, on of my personal favorites, rat catcher. Each career comes with its own set of advancements and starting equipment. The rat catcher, for example, starts with 1d6 dead rats and a small yet vicious dog.

I always felt the magic system needed some work, but if I am to believe some of the reviews, the magic system looks more interesting in the second edition. You have to love any magic system that could drive your character insane.

Frankly, the critical hit table in the combat section is worth the price of admission. Just reading it is a blast. How many times can the phrase, "death from shock and blood loss is almost instantaneous" be amusing? Many. As you can guess, combat tends to be very deadly. PCs are pretty resilient though. They get fate points, which they can use as a get-out-of-death-free card (among other things).

Another thing WFRP has going for it is The Enemy Within campaign. It is fairly widely recognized as one of the best RPG adventures ever written. Naturally, I say, "widely recognized" and now I can't find much on the web. A search on google turns up very little worth linking two, though there is a short review that does mention that TEW is critically acclaimed and a fan favourite.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough about my favorite blend of fantasy and horror, though it does appear that my rambling has saved you from my waxing philosophical.

It's 2 a.m. and I should try to go to sleep.

Ah insomnia, my old friend

Here it is Sunday night and I can't sleep. It's been a while since that happened. Usually it's Eunice who is wide awake and me that is snoring soundly.

Mostly I just want to pose a question.

Does everyone wax philosophical in the late hours, or is it just me?