Mary Noble

About 3 weeks ago my grandmother passed away on her 88th birthday. It was very sudden. The night before we were all talking and laughing at dinner as normal. That morning she got up, got dressed, and made her bed. She never went anywhere without making her bed.

We all loved my grandmother very much, and we all miss her. She was an amazing woman who had an amazin life. She left home at 17 to get a job to help support the farm. She was working as a switchboard operator in LA on the day the Japanese bombed Perl Harbor. She ran a college bookstore that made a tremendous amount of money.

She saved everything. She had ration books from world war 2. She kept every card her husband ever gave her. She had my mother's Kindergarden report card.

We had a memorial service for her last week with just a few local friends and family. My sister made a great video using pictures from my grandmother's (extensive) collection. I hope to have it linked here at some point, but we're having some trouble getting it on the intarwebz.

I loved my grandmother very much, and I miss her.

Mr. T and Shatner vs. World of Warcraft

I didn't know you could fit that much awesome onto a web page

Goodbye old man

Yesterday we had to put our dachshund to sleep. His health had been deteriorating for some time.

Dachshunds make wonderful pets. They have a lot of personality. They're awfully cute. Due to the way they are built they also tend to sound a lot bigger than they are. You can even race them if you want to.

When they get older they tend to become grumpy old men.

I'll miss you old man.

When I get to be a criminal mastermind

I am totally hiding spreadsheets in videogames.

Autobots wage their battle...

...to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.

In our microwave.

At least, that's what Frangelica told me. Last week our microwave broke. Today we had a repair guy in to look at it. He told Frangelica that the Megatron wasn't getting enough power from the Transformer, and we'd probably need a new microwave.

Stranglehold part 2

I've been trying to replay Stranglehold on the "normal" difficulty setting. I managed to make it to Chicago.

Stranglehold isn't the game in my head. It isn't the game that the demo promised. It appears to be a game about moving forward slowly and using cover. At least, that's what it is in the higher difficulty settings.

At this point I'm not really sure what it's trying to be. It's not the crazy stunt game I thought it was. It's certainly not Gears of War. It's trying to be more cinematic than that.

I think at this point it's a game I need a break from before I get frustrated enough to take it to EB and trade it in, or put it up on half.com.

Stranglehold

I recently finished playing through Stranglehold. I wanted to like it a lot. It reminded me of Max Payne, in that it was probably the best action movie I played through this year. However, Max Payne was a better game, even with the really annoying dream sequences. For those of you who haven't played it, Max Payne is an awesome shooter that makes you feel like you're playing through an action movie. Except when you're in one of the two dream sequence levels, where the game becomes a bad platformer and is about as much fun as getting a root canal.

Now then, when Stranglehold is good it's awesome. You get to play as hard boiled detective Tequila (voiced and modeled after Chow Yun-Fat). The slow motion effects are great. The game even gives you style points for effective kills. The environment is full of destructible objects, some of which you can use to kill bad guys (for crazy amounts of style points).

It also has more than it's share of bad points.

At it's core, Stranglehold is about killing hordes of bad guys while doing cool stunts. When Stranglehold focuses on that core it's a lot of fun. When it strays from that core it's frustrating and very not fun.

One of the most frustrating levels has trip lasers all over it. What's a trip laser? It's a laser that is attached to an explosive. If you cross one you die. Congratulations, restart the level. It's the first level where you really have to be careful about where you put Tequila. One misstep and boom, yer dead. Up to that point the game has trained you to be mobile. Slide on carts. Slide down banisters. Leap through the air. And then it kills you on the trip laser level.

After a while someone decided that Stranglehold needed to be more like splinter cell, in that you need to be sneaky and inch forward to live. Again, this goes against it's fun core. The level in the ruins towards the end of the game is particularly bad. The game puts you in what looks like it was an urban war zone before you got there. Most of the level looks the same, and the spaces are very confined, so not conducive to crazy cools stunts. It is conducive to having a ton of guys shoot you from cover, however.

Stranglehold also sometimes becomes a "hunt the foozle" game. The bad level here actually comes pretty early. The game drops you off on an island, and you have to hunt down and destroy several drug labs. Several hidden drug labs. In a large area that's hard to get around in, in part because every area looks like every other area.

So when the game is cool, it's very cool. And when you hit some of the more frustrating levels it makes you want to repeatedly punch the designers who are responsible.

If there's a lesson to be learned here it's this: Stick to the fun core. Get rid of anything that doesn't relate directly to the fun core of your game.

A second lesson might be: Chow Yun-Fat greatly raises anything's level of awesome.

The many talents of ninjas

It turns out that not only do ninjas flip out and kill people, they answer questions and even rob gas stations.

Iron man movie

I just tracked down the trailer for the Iron Man movie (due out next May). It looks pretty cool. Not as cool as transformers, but still pretty cool.

Ptolus Evolved updates

I just posted a mountain of information to the Ptolus DMing messageboards.

We'll see if I'm laughed off the intarwebz.

Back again

Well, that went quickly. I just noticed I haven't blogged in two months. I'm clearly not doing too well with those resolutions.

In the last two month I have (in no particular order)

• Worked like crazy to hit a deadline
• Missed that deadline anyway
• Gone to Gen Con
• Caught a case of the creeping con crud
• Played a few XBox 360 demos
• Started my Ptolus Evolved campaign --we made up characters last week!
• Seen the movie Stardust
• Seen Transformers for the 2nd time
• Bought a copy of HeroLab and started modifiying it for use with Arcana Evolved
• Read some of the stuff I got at Gen Con (mostly the free adventures from Goodman Games)
• Starting reading the last Harry Potter book
• Finished it by listening to it on CD

Also, for the record, the Stranglehold demo is awesome. The game looks to be so awesome as to be unfair to other games. You're playing through a John Woo action movie as Chow Yun-Fat. How can that not be awesome?

Transformers: The Movie

I just got back from seeing Transformers.

This movie is so awesome it's unfair to all the other summer blockbusters.

Seriously.

On a scale of 1 to awesome

The self destruct button ranks right up there with the USB Missle Launcher.

Our Domestic Explorer

Harley strikes again!

Frangelica and I have our own space --we've taken over the basement of the new place. The basement has acoustic tiles in the ceiling. We put Cinnamon's litter box in a closet. The closet doesn't have a ceiling.

See where this is going?

Yesterday I pulled Harley out of the ceiling.

So awesome.

The Martian Has Landed

We're in our new place in Kansas. We have all of our stuff. We still have 2 rooms left to paint.

Also, Live Free Or Die Hard is awesome. It's exactly what it needed to be --nothing more, nothing less.

Welcome to Kansas

Recently we've allowed evolution to be taught again!

So far I have seen a giant inflatable ape, a giant inflatable dinosaur, and a giant inflatable toilet.

Yes, a giant inflatable toilet.

So awesome.

Game collection

I just sold a big chunk of my RPG collection. The deal worked out to $1.78 per pound cash, or $2.32 per pound if you include the store credit I'm getting for the shipping costs. If I had taken the store credit only deal it would have been $3.24 per pound (including the extra credit from shipping).

For the record, I'm happy with it. Everything I sold is stuff that I haven't used in quite a while, if ever. I'd rather the games go to someone who will use and enjoy them.

Computer opposites

We're lucky we weren't sucked into some kind of PC/Mac vortex.

Dire Boar

Or possibly something out of Princess Mononoke.

Regardless, I vote that we give Alabama back to the animals before they take it back en masse.

Here's the story.

And now for the hard part

I really wanted to title this post, "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" for no good reason, other than that batman quote has been one of many random things running through my head for the past few weeks.

A lot has happened since my last entry. We've sold the house in Illinois and bought a new one in Kansas. The block is finally lifted and we can start working on the impending doom that's been, um, impending for a while. That is, we finally get to start packing.

Naturally, we sold the house as soon as I left to go back to Virginia for a couple of days. When I got on the plane the house had not sold. When I stepped off the plane it had. Had I known that in order to sell the house I would have to leave the state I would have left long ago.

Otherwise Frangelica had a birthday. We threw a party for her a few weeks after the fact. By "we" I mean "I paid for a chunk of it and Frangelica made all the arrangements, including getting the decorations, setting up the decorations, and inviting everyone."

In the meantime I've been reading a ton of books. I've chewed through at least 6 in as many weeks. I recently started on the Dresden Files series. I picked them up because of the show on the sci-fi channel. While I like the TV show, the books are better. That's not a surprise. I haven't seen the whole series, though, just a few episodes. I'm up to book 4.

Oh yeah, apparently there's going to be a RPG.

I've also been chewing through various Warhammer books (the fiction kind, not the gaming kind).

Anyway, I haven't been posting because my stress level has been high, and I just haven't felt like being on the PC much.

At least now we can get started with moving. As of mid June I'll be a Kansas resident once again. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh yeah, in a couple of weeks I'll turn 4 years past unemployable.

This also means that I need to get to work on a new Ptolus game.

Off to pack!

Yet more showings

It's nearly a month since my last post and still no offers on the house. Showings have been crazy though. Tomorrow, for example, we have 3 scheduled. Now if we could just get someone to make an offer...

Furniture Fortitude

Two posts in one day. It' clearly a sign of the apocalypse.

When Frangelica and I moved out here we put our fancy new sofa and chez lounge in storage.

Naturally, it flooded, and the cushions have some water damage. I didn't have them professionally cleaned. The pieces themselves have stayed in the storage facility. It doesn't have any standing water in it or anything, but it is humid.

Today I called to see about getting the cushions cleaned. After all, I sprung for the warranty.

Problem 1: The chain we bought the pieces from (The Room Store) doesn't have any stores where I live now.

Problem 2: The warranty doesn't cover flooding damage, nor does it cover damage caused in storage.

Problem 3: They discontinued the pieces, so we can't order new cushions.

Right. Expensive (to us) furniture potentially down the tubes.

Our options at this point are:

1. Get the pieces (and cushions) cleaned and hope for the best.
2. Clean the pieces and try to find some other way to replace the cushions.
3. Trash the pieces and start at square one

I've talked to a professional furniture cleaner and he suggested at the very least replacing the cushions. He said that if mold is deep in the cushions they can't get it out.

I don't like any of the options. I think option 1 is out because I have allergies and I don't want to risk mold being in the pieces/cushions. Option 2 is also risky because of there possibly being mold in the pieces themselves. Option 3 makes me sad because we really liked those pieces and they were a bit pricey (for us).

Decisions, decisions.

Crazy Realtors

The house has been up now for a couple of weeks and we've been showing it like mad. Last weekend we had a lot of showings.

Saturday morning we had someone over to clean the house to prepare for an open house on Sunday. At 9:30 I got a phone call from the realtor. The nice woman asked me if anyone had contacted me about a showing at 10:15. I said no. I told her we had someone there cleaning the house and as much as I wanted to say yes, we couldn't possibly be out of the house in 45 minutes. However, if she wanted to come see the house at noon that would be fine.

The nice lady from the realtor hung up. I was expecting a call back about a showing.

Instead, at 10:15 we get a knock at the door. It's the Crazy Realtor (whom I will call CR --she's not the same person who called me). CR is there with a couple in tow. Could they please see the outside of the house? CR said the couple was trying to decide between our house and one other, and they wanted to decide today. My mother told her we were in the process of cleaning the place, and she could look at the outside all she liked. If she wanted to come back at 11, she could see the inside. CR agreed.

We scrambled and managed to get the dog tranquilized, got the house clean, and sent my Grandmother off to her hair appointment.

When we returned at about noon there was no indication that CR had been there. Realtors are supposed to leave cards when they show the place. We don't know if CR showed up or not.

So, my mother calls our Realtor, Darcy. Darcy is great. We're very happy with her.

Darcy said that CR is known for muscling her way in to showings --for saying anything she has to in order to get her folks in to see houses, including that there might be an offer on the table shortly. Not only that, but CR had called Darcy Friday night to set up the showing and Darcy told her no, and that she could come back on Sunday between 2 and 4.

So CR called the office directly. When we said no then, she just showed up and told us a story about a possible offer.

Right. We won't be holding our breath for that particular offer.

Sunday we had 2 showings and an open house. The first people were late getting to the house --they showed up an hour and a half late to look at the house. We had already left and come back, and I was out scavenging for lunch for everyone. But it's all good. They looked at the house with Frangelica, my grandmother and our two dogs on site. They stayed for all of 3 minutes. One person didn't get out of their car.

We won't be holding our breath waiting on that offer either.

The other showing and the open house went very well. The open house was supposed to go from 2 to 4, but everyone didn't clear out until 4:30.

Hopefully we'll hear something soon.

Everyone cross your fingers and hope for a good offer.

And while you're at it, hope for less Crazy Realtors.

Selling a house

The house finally went up yesterday.

I have been around when we sold houses before but I don't remember much from the experiences. Just getting this house ready to sell has been painful. We have cleaned, sorted, and packed a crazy amount of stuff.

What I find most stressful now is keeping the house in a "model" state. "Model" means "unlivable." That is, we can't have anything personal --no family pictures, etc. We can't have anything that illustrates a shortcoming of the house.

For example, our tiny bathroom has a tiny shower. The tiny shower only has a soap dish. It doesn't have any room for things regular humans need --like shampoo and conditioner. So, we have to keep our hair care products in a box, and only take them out when we shower.

All of us here are really hoping the house sells soon. We joke about the "model" house and the "fictitious family" that lives there. The fictitious family doesn't have hair, for example. The fictitious family has one cat (not 2 cats and 2 dogs). The fictitious family doesn't read, or at least doesn't have many books. Bookshelves, after all, are used for tasteful displays of cute but generic chotchkes.

I don't know how long my sanity or my job can take this. Working at home and showing a house are not really compatible. Still, the house only went up yesterday. We have already had one couple come look at it. Someone else is coming tomorrow morning. Hopefully the house will sell soon and we'll be able to start moving forward with the rest of the packing and getting a new house.

Boo for packing!

I made a lot of progress this weekend. I have 3.5 fileboxes of books, DVDs, and games listed on half.com. I have another 3 or 4 file boxes worth of books that are outright going to Titan Games. I also have a small pile of CDs that are going to CD Source. And I have a few book boxes worth of stuff that's packed away and ready to move.

Damn, I have a lot of stuff. And most of this is out of storage. I still have the stuff in the house to go through. The stuff in the house has to be sorted and packed in the next week and a half. The rest of the stuff in storage needs to be sorted and re-packed sometime after that.

I also found out that I can comfortably fit at least 18 file boxes in my car and still see clearly out all the windows.

Now, I'm tired. I'm going to do something brainless for a while. Maybe Neverwinter Nights 2, or Reaxxion.

Kansas City Bound

It's official. My mother has a new job in the Kansas City area, and Frangelica and I will be headed out there. My mother is leaving in mid April, and Frangelica and I will follow after either the semester is over or the house here sells, whichever comes later.

I'm looking forward to moving back to Kansas. I lived there for a long time. So much so that I tell people that's where I'm from, even though technically I was born elsewhere. Kansas just feels like home.

Fortunately it appears that I'll be able to keep my job, so long as Kansas has modern amenities like indoor toilets and the InTaRwEbZ.

Hooray for modern conveniences!

Boo for packing!

SETI at home as a security device

Apparantly SETI at home hasn't found any aleins, but it has tracked down a stolen laptop.

Games

I've been wanting to play a game for a while. I have a few options.

The XBox isn't usually a good option, because it's set up on the main TV for the family. I don't mind it, but that does mean that if someone else is watching TV --no Xbox for me.

I'd like to play a good RPG, but those are lacking. I purchased Neverwinter Nights 2 a while ago and have played through the first few areas a few times as different characters, trying to figure out what I'd like to play. I'll probably go back to it at some point, but I'm not sure that point is now.

I'm tempted to go back to playing World of Warcraft, only because I found out my brother plays, and I'd love to hang out more with him (but nobody tell him I said that). Of course, WoW is a time sink, and one I'm not sure I want to get involved with again. Besides, my brother is only playing through the middle of April, and last I heard he's level 32, which will take some catching up.

The sad part of all this for me is that there just isn't much I want to play, period. The last game I really wanted to play was Gears of War, and playing through about 2/3 of it on "hardcore" has pretty much burned that desire right out of me.

It's also not like I don't have other things I could be doing. I could, for example, be working on any one of my goals for this year.

But honestly, I just don't feel like it.

Showpocalypse!

Last night Frangelica and I went to see our buddy Ktorrek. We had a great time as usual. Unfortunately, as soon as we got there it started to snow.

It turned into what the folks back in Virginia would call "Snowpocalypse!!!!!!" or even "Snowmageddon!!!!!!!!" (the ! are necessary). That didn't stop us from having dinner, but it did eventually stop us from coming home until this morning. Unfortunately I had to sleep without my machine, which means I only slept for about 4 hours, and only for some limited definition of sleep.

Anyway, as I type this I'm looking out a window and it seems that Snowpocalypse has followed us down from Madtown. If I were back in VA there would be panic in the streets. Except there would be snow in the streets, so really, there would be panic in the homes. And there would be a run on toilet paper and milk. Here I think we'll just stay in until the streets clear.

Welcome to the blogosphere

A buddy of mine is now blogging over on myspace. He includes pictures of what he's seen driving around Kansas City. So far, this is my favorite.

You have to love holy water on tap.

Slow news day

I'm a little quieter here than I'd like but that's because I'm updating my gaming blog, which at this time has a very restricted readership.

Anyway, I've listed more stuff to sell on half, including a couple of XBox 360 games. Here's the link to the store. I actually sold one of the trade paperbacks, which is surprising. I dropped the prices so that even with shipping it's less than cover price, which I'm sure helps.

I have quit playing Gears of War for the moment. I've run into a maddening snag. As I've mentioned previously I'm trying to play it through on the "hardcore" setting. Well, the mission "Belly of the beast: Tip of the iceberg" is kicking my butt. What's worse is that every time it restarts it's two minutes before I see action, with two conversations and a cut scene that I can't button through.

If I hear Cole say, "Look at all that juice" one more time I'm going to throw my controller through the TV. It wouldn't be so bad if I could save at the point right before the fight starts so I didn't have to sit through two minutes of dead game. I hate cut scenes I can't button through.

The simplified rules of economics --D&D style

Be warned, the color scheme is difficult to take.

http://www.gamerchicksrule.com/content/node/15

My love for you is like a truck

I did manage to get my favorite XBox 360 achievement yet, titled...

My love for you is like a truck

I don't even know why I like it so much. It just sounds cool.

Domestic Explorer

Today I dubbed Harley a domestic explorer.

He constantly tries to get to places he shouldn't around the house. He is fearless. Even spritzing him with the water bottle doesn't dissuade him for long. He's sort of like Indiana Jones, only annoying and furry. And stinky.

Anyway there's not much else going on this week. I still have books up on half and none of them have sold. I think that it's going to be much more difficult to sell trade paperbacks on half than it is to sell more expensive items, because the paperbacks are relatively cheap and shipping isn't. I plan to cut the prices some more and see if they go. If not I'll donate them to the local library or the goodwill.

My diet isn't going quite as well as I had hoped. If I read my scale right I've only lost 1 pound in the last couple of weeks. This is kind of upsetting because the last time I was on Atkins I lost 30 pounds without trying. I'm wondering if my lack of exercise has anything to do with it. Since I moved out here I don't even run around the office to talk to people any more.

So, I've started walking a few nights a week with Frangelica at our local mall. The mall itself is kind of lame, but it's well lit and temperature controlled, so we can reasonably walk there when it's 10 degrees outside.

Anyway, until next time...

WATCH THE SKIES!

Ultimate Gaming Table

One day this shall be mine.

Until then our kitchen table with Tact-Tiles still works nicely. Though if I were buying today I'd seriously consider flip-mats instead.

Atkins, sleep, and insurance.

I will be out of the induction phase of Atkins on Monday. I'm looking forward to some fake carbs. I'll have to hit my buddy up for some of his cheesecake made with splenda.

I do have a weigh in but it's a few days old. I've lost 4 pounds so far. W00t!

Otherwise I've been busy with a DM-only blog for my Ptolus campaign. I've limited the readership because I don't want my own players snooping around. I believe Frangelica intends to start a player's blog, but she hasn't done it yet.

I'm currently having a bit of trouble with my doctor and my insurance company. I have a CPAP machine. Once again I am in need of parts. We have this clever new cat that managed to tear up the elastic that holds the mask on, and I need it replaced. You'd think I was asking for narcotics.

I've jumped through hoops and managed to get an appointment with a specialist, because my regular doctor can't give me a prescription even if I'm dying. In the meantime I located an underground organization willing to supply me with select CPAP parts. I was able to get a replacement for the elastic by leaving a large number of small unmarked non-sequential bills in a plain brown bag in a barrel under a bridge. Later I received the elastic along with a nice note assuring me that the dark stain is not blood.

In the meantime I am eagerly awaiting the specialist's call.

Clearly, the only person who values my health and well-being in this whole process is me.

Calls for Cthulhu

Cthulhu is having a bit of insomnia. He's not really awake yet so we're ok.

But he does have his own call in show.

Atkins take 3, day 2

I was supposed to start Atkins a week ago, but I caught the plague. Or as I like to call it, TEH PLAGUEXX0R. It worked its way through everybody, including my spinster sister. She has dubbed me "plague boy" because I was the last to have it before her.

I was all set to write my starting weight here until I found out what it was. Instead maybe I'll operate in changes. So far I'm at 0. Suffice it to say that I could stand to lose about half my current weight.

Otherwise there isn't much new to report. Last Thursday and Friday I stayed in bed and watched T.V. Daytime T.V. still sucks, but it has some high points. I'm a sucker for most of the "reality" court shows like The People's Court. Mostly I have a fascination with human stupidity. Thus, I tend to also enjoy train wrecks like Jerry Springer. Now that we're closer to Chicgao I hope to actually attend a taping some day.

I did manage to put some of paperbacks I've been reading up on half. Go buy them.

Anyway, back to the grind.

New Year, new resolutions

For all my reader (Hi Mom), here are my New Year's resolutions. I haven't ever posted my resolutions before because I usually don't make them. This year I have several.

Here they are in no particular order:

• Lose weight

I will get an accurate weigh in tomorrow so I know where I start. I agreed to do Atkins with my mother, but she had to go and get the stomach flu, so we'll probably be starting next week some time. I also really need to start exercising. This is much more important now that I work from home.

• Beat down debt

For the past few years my debt has been going up. Starting this year it's going down.

• Start accumulating wealth

I somehow managed to get a small savings account while living in VA. It's mostly gone now. I'd like to have some savings again.

• Budget

Make one and stick to it. This is part of the set of things I used to do but don't any more. It's probably why I've accumulated so much debt and depleted my savings.

• Write at least one video game

This is my dark secret. I work in the gaming industry and have never written a video game by myself. I started to a couple of times when I was much younger, on my TI994/a but I never finished anything.

• Finish that Arcana Unearthed Item Maker I've been working on

Enough is enough. I just need to finish the darn thing. I have code for everything except the weapon and armor builder, which is the most complex bit. I'm hung up on the UI.

• Update this blog at least once a week.

I really let this slide last year.

• Read at least 4 technical books, or books that are designed to make me a better programmer

I did OK with this last year. I need to keep it up.

• Post 12 articles to my company's internal web site

This is part of my plan for world domination.

• Submit a presentation for GDC for next year

I have to list this in this year's goals because of the lead time. Also part of my plan for world domination.

• Break 2000 points on my gamer card

I bought quite a few games this holiday season, including Splinter Cell: Double Agent, ES4: Oblivion (side note: technically it's TES4, not ES4 --I never liked that we abbreviated "The" even when I worked at Bethesda Softworks on TES3), and Gears of War. I'm chomping at the bit to play Gears. I'd also really like to get Lego Star Wars 2. Oh, and Dead Rising. I'm sure there will be more.

• Sell or otherwise get rid of more of my stuff

EBay and Half.com worked pretty well back when we were moving to the new place in VA. Now I have a storage area with a bunch of stuff I haven't seen in 6 months. I'm sure I can find something to sell. The idea is to end 2007 with less stuff than I started with.

• Start meditating again

When I was meditating regularly I felt better. Seriously.

• Give up caffeine

I feel better when I don't drink caffeine. And yet I drink it by the bucket.

• Keep the Ptolus game going

I have yet to have a game that's lasted more than a single (pre-written) adventure. I have a decent group and I'd like to keep it together.

That's the list. Now I need to make one suitable for printing.