Back in, um, pain

In mid December, Frangelica and I were getting ready for my company's Christmas party.

One Saturday morning I woke up and could hardly move. Getting out bed was painful. I hobbled like an old man over to the bathroom. In the time since the previous night the bathtub wall had somehow grown to nearly thirty feet tall. Or at least, that's what it felt like.

After a hot shower I was better. Not great, but better.

I sort of have a history of back trouble. My father's back has gone out a few times. It went out once when he was playing with us kids at the school playground. He went to pick my sister up and he went down. I believe the paramedics came for that one. I remember he managed to get up on his hands and knees, and then couldn't go anywhere from there. Another time, his back went out when he bent over to pick up his toothbrush.

So anyway, my dad has had back trouble. So does my mother. Me, when I have trouble it's almost always with one shoulder.

This time, however, it was my lower back. Anyone who has had back problems will tell you how painful it is, how tense you get. You spend a lot of time wondering when your back will give out next. All of a sudden, the ground seems really far away. Getting in and out of the car becomes and adventure. You hobble from place to place. People wonder if you're just a young 80, or if you really are 30.

The only things that tends to make backs get better is time and rest. Well, that and moving correctly. Lift with your legs. Don't bend at the waist without bending at the knees. Get out of bed by turning on your stomach and inching backwards onto the floor. Be really careful of where and how you sit down, because if you choose poorly you won't get back up again without help.

Anyway, that Saturday I took it easy. By Sunday things were better. Not 100%, but better. Monday passed without incident.

Tuesday, Frangelica wanted to go to the mall to get makeup for the upcoming party. We went to Sephora.

Frangelica approached an employee to ask about some mythological powder or ungent or some such alchemical concoction. The employee smiled.

Before I knew what was happening, Frangelica was swarmed. At one point, there were three employees working on her. Over the course of our visit, all five store employees helped her with something.

In the meantime, I stood up and tried not to look too out of place. Which was hard, because I was the only male non-employee in the store. And my back was killing me. That's the other thing about back problems. Walking is more or less ok. Standing is bad. I stood for what felt like hours. I would have gone outside to sit on a bench, but I knew Frangelica needed me to pay for what was looking like about one million dollars worth of makeup.

Eventually I couldn't stand it any more. I told Frangelica I was going to hobble out to a bench. The employee chirped, "We're almost done."

Foolishly, I believed her. Looking back on it, they were only halfway through.

I must say that when Frangelica emerged from the flurry of activity, she was stunning. By which I mean, even more stunning than usual.

After some small discussion we decided that the various ungents, creams, powders, tonics, and whatnot would be Frangelica's Christmas present.

By the end my back felt a little better, but only because it had gone numb.

The next day I could hardly move. Getting out of bed was a Herculean effort. Scaling the sheer walls of the bathtub was too. A hot shower didn't help.

So, off I went to the doctor. Naturally, my doctor was on vacation, though I did like the doctor I saw. He hooked me up with industrial strength Ibuprofen and some groovy muscle relaxants, told me about a couple of exercises I should do and then sent me home.

The next day I went back to work, fuzzy from the muscle relaxants.

Normally, you shouldn't take the muscle relaxants and drive. It's a bad idea. But this is Virginia (the "welcome" sign to the state says, "Welcome to Virginia. 2 drink minimum"). Being numb improved the driving experience. Sure the idiots were still there. Sure I nearly died. I just cared less.

Anyway, about a week went by and my back wasn't getting much better. Sure it was a little better, but it wasn't the amazing improvement I was expecting. I was running out of muscle relaxants. So, back to the doctor I went. Naturally, both my doctor and the doctor I had seen previously were unavailable.

The doctor I got was a small Chinese woman. "If you're not better by mid-January, come back and see us."

Right. Clearly, I forgot to mention that with back problems, everything is slow, including the healing.

Now that it is mid January, I am feeling a lot better. My back is still a little tender, but I'm almost back to normal.

New Year, New Plague

Once again it's been more than a month since my last post. I apologize for that. Part of the reason is that Frangelica and I were visiting friends and family in the Chicago area.

Then we came home and got TEH PLAGUE. Again.

Clearly this whole family visit thing just doesn't work in my favor. The Grandma and the Spinster visit over Thanksgiving, and we get TEH PLAGUE. Frangelica and I get better. Then my back decides to give me... trouble. And I get a more mild version of TEH PLAGUE again, just before we drive back to Chicago, which made the drive that much more fun.

Then, just a few short days after we get back from Chi-town, Frangelica and I both get sick. Again.

I'm ready for a new, more healthy year now.

So, what's happened in the last month? I think that calls for a few new entries.

Litigation

I have felt for a while that our society is over-litigious.

It started with the disclaimers you have to watch on DVDs. At first the disclaimers were just standard FBI warnings of doom. Now most DVDs I watch come with disclaimers about the extra content, specifically the commentary.

Today in the doctor's office I saw a special copy of Sports Illustrated. It had a cover that was a giant ad for Viagra. On the cover, in bold print in the lower right corner was a disclaimer that stated that just because SI put the special cover on the magazine didn't mean they endorsed whatever the special cover was selling.

A few minutes ago I was checking my email. I recently joined several mailing lists relating to game development and test driven development, so I'm getting a lot more email. One of the messages I just read had the following disclaimer, no doubt attached by the company the individual worked for:

E-Mail messages may contain viruses, worms, or other malicious code. By reading
the message and opening any attachments, the recipient accepts full
responsibility for taking protective action against such code. Sender is not
liable for any loss or damage arising from this message.

Really folks, this is just silly. All these disclaimers are getting out of hand.

Next I expect there to be disclaimers shown during movie previews, printed on restaurant menus, and in prefaces to comic books. Perhaps we should sign something before we enter a store, use a pen, or are handed a piece of paper. I'd hate to have to sue someone over a paper cut I received while reading their disclaimer.

Lost

Wow.

To give you an idea of how much Eunice and I like this show, we rented it from Netflix. After the end of the first disc we went out and bought the first season. This is some of the best TV I've seen in a long time.

I would seriously consider getting either cable or satellite TV, along with a TiVO just to watch this.

Luxor: Amun Rising

I sense less free time in my future.

Behold, my doom.

Chirp Chirp

After two short months I'm back on the blog.

I'd like to say that I had a good excuse for being silent for so long. I could say, for example, that I had been recruited as a secret agent and have been deep undercover. I could use the somewhat more standard, "I've been busy" excuse.

The latter is closer to true. It's been a combination of busy, sick, and lazy.

Frangelica and I are currently fighting off TEH PLAGUE. We're feeling better, but I'm writing this after a caughing fit at 5 in the morning, so not that much better.

More news to come.

More adventures in cooking

I'm about to make hamburgers. Once again, I'm terrified.

I have learned 2 important things.

1. Do not use the rough side of the sponge on the pots and pans we have.
2. I have a copy of How To Cook Everything, so I don't need to spend half an hour or more searching the internet for basic cooking instructions.

The sad sad tale of a cheap futon

Well, chalk this one up to, "you get what you pay for."

The cheap futon we bought just broke. Several slats of pressboard served as the support for the cushion. Three of the slats buckled. One snapped into 3 pieces.

Time of death was set at 10:47 p.m.

Time from assembly to destruction? A little over 1 month.

No food poisoning yet

Well, the pork chops haven't killed us yet.

I'll keep you all posted.

Chops

As I type I'm in the process of attempting to make pork chops.

I'm terrified.

In case this is the last communication I have with the outside world, tell my family I love them.

More on jobs in the video game industry

Here is another interesting article on working as a game developer.

It makes some good points, like how the working conditions are at least partially the fault of the workers themselves.  I can attest to the odd climate around the office at Tiburon.  It made 100 hour weeks not only seem reasonable, there was something wrong with you if you didn’t put in that kind of time.

Part of the problem does come from bad management and what I like to call Managing By The Bottom Line.  Hiring new college grads and working them like mad looks great on paper, but in reality there is a not-insignificant cost to hiring new people.

Anyway, I’m not really in a good ranting mood.  People who know me know that I can go on about the state of the gaming industry for hours –I’m sure everyone involved in it can.  I’ll leave you with the original ea_spouse article, as well as a link to the FAQ, the press page, and Gamewatch.org.

I will say that there are some good employers out there, and if anyone reading this is thinking of going for a game industry job, be careful, and do your research.

leet-speak for the rest of us

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

News of the Sad

Va. Laptop Sale Turns Into a Stampede

Favorite quote:

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding
chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of
him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went,
'Bam,'" the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his
new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

"They
were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I
thought that it was just," he said.

The high cost of exploration

Anyone who knows me will confirm that I don't have a sense of direction. One consequence of my lack of direction sense is that I make heavy use of yahoo maps driving directions. One other consequence is that I don't like to get in the car unless I have a definite destination. I'm not much for exploring.

Frankly, as long as I know where work, Best Buy, a Mall, a grocery store, a book store, and a gaming store are I'm good. Restaurants are usually around the mall and Best Buy. The mall usually has an EB Games. I can even do without the mall, best buy, the bookstore, and even the gaming store as long as I have internet access, because there's always Amazon.

So basically, I don't like to explore. I have my set of places I know how to get to, and beyond that I usually don't care. Here in Virginia it's worse, because getting around is difficult. There are no roads that go in straight lines. Most roads have at least 3 different names and intersect with themselves. Add to that the maniacs that drive around here and you can see my reluctance for exploration. Well, the maniac drivers and my fear that I'll end up someplace where all I can hear is banjo music.

Well, today Eunice and I went exploring. We were thinking that maybe we'd like it better around here if we knew the area better. Maybe we'd find some good inexpensive places to hang out. Maybe we'd find some place where people don't drive with their ass. We didn't find any of those things.

We found residential areas. We found strip malls. We found a library. We lost and then found Eunice's backup pair of glasses. All for the low low price of $2.65 per gallon.

We also found that getting around isn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was. You see, roads don't matter. Every road leads to every other road. The fact that the roads are a spaghetti-like mess works in your favor. As long as you're on a road of some kind and you have a good grasp of 5th dimensional physics, you'll make it to your destination.

Fortunately, we found no banjo music.

Great questions of our day

Do jumbo eggs come from giant mutant chickens?

A New Month And New Habits

As I suspected, my writing goals slacked off when Eunice returned from Chicago.

Now it's a new month, and time for some new habits. I have added some "writing time" in the evenings. I'm reading a new book (Seven Hobbits With Highly Defective House Holes, probably written by JRR Tolkein in his later years).

Eunice is getting into the act by making jewelry and trying out a new blog, though not at the same time.

I intend to use some of that writing time to work on that campaign I keep talking about.

It should be an interesting month.

New Hobby

I have a new hobby, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.

Check it out here.

Harry Potter part 2

I finished Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince earlier this week.

Wow.

I have to wait two years or more for the next book? Awwwwww man...

Harry Potter

I am a Harry Potter fan, but I'm not rabid about it.

I went to Borders to pick up my copy Saturday evening. It wasn't as busy as I thought it was going to be, but they did open at midnight. I figured I wouldn't have too many problems picking it up on Saturday.

They had all the Harry Potter books hidden behind the front desk. In order to pick up your copy, you had to go check in at the Harry Potter desk to get a ticket. You could then take the ticket to the checkout counter to pick up the book. When I came in, there were seats for two at the Harry Potter desk, but there was only one person there. There wasn't a line. The checkout counter was similarly deserted.

I was browsing the sf isle, looking for something to use the 25% off coupon on that I got when I per-ordered the book when the manager's voice came on over the PA system. He said, "Attention Borders customers. We have about 150 copies of Harry Potter available for anyone who didn't pre-order. If you'd like a copy of Harry Potter but didn't pre-order, come to the Harry Potter desk for a ticket."

Thirty seconds later, the manager came on the PA system again. "All available assistants please come to the registers."

I looked over at the checkout counter. There was a line that went all the way to the door.

New Goals (Offline post 3 of 3)

I want to get into writing again. Growing up I used to write a lot. I either wrote character histories or short stories based on games I was reading or playing. Once I started to write a novel. I never planned anything. I just had the urge to write, and whatever story came out, came out.

I miss that creative outlet, and I’d like to get it back.

So, the new goal is to write every day. I’m going to start at 1000 words and adjust from there. 1000 words a day, 5 days a week. I’ll give myself a couple of days off. I do need a solid number of days, preferably set days. I can’t say “as many days as I can” because I’ve been down that road before and it leads to no writing.

I can write more, as long as I hit my goal, but I can’t write less. However, if it turns out that I can’t consistently manager 1000 words a day I’ll knock it down to 500. I’ll have to try it out for a few weeks, especially once Eunice gets back.

And for the record, writing for this blog doesn’t count.

Today I hit more than 1000 words across three different files. I have started working on the background information for my Arcana Evolved game. I ultimately decided to switch from a handwritten journal to my PC for ease of editing. Unless I get extremely motivated and learn some mapping software I’ll do any maps by hand. Though I’m sure it is possible, doing maps in Microsoft Word sounds like negative fun.

I have had a few false starts before. The last real effort I made at writing was in 2002 when I banged out a short story. I’m not sure why I stopped writing at that point. I’m hoping that announcing my writing goal in a public forum will help keep me motivated.

My biggest hurdle will be, well, myself. I’m a perfectionist, and many times I let that stop me from starting something. I don’t want to do bad work in any arena, so many times I won’t start because I know the work won’t live up to my standards. I just need to remind myself that my standards are unreasonably high, and frankly, the first draft of anything isn't very good.

I will post campaign details as I can. As of this writing have decided I’ll use Ruins of Intrigue as the basis for the campaign, with some modification. Unfortunately I don’t yet have anything I can post. I want to do a player handout with house rules, character creation guidelines, and a mini-guide for Serran and The Diamond Throne.

I'd like to start the campaign in early August.

Now I just have to recruit players. Oh yeah, and do a whole lot more work on the game.

Thoughts

Last night the mail consisted entirely of a free newspaper.

I picked it up, thinking "Maybe I have been too hard on this publication. Perhaps it has something useful to say."

The first headline that I saw was:

"Take A Look At The Exciting World Of Stamped Concrete!"

...complete with the !

Reading List (offline post 2 of 3)

With the start of a new month and a new residence, I thought I’d start writing a semi-regular blurb here.

I read. A lot. Actually, sometimes, I don’t read that much –that is usually when I am most unhappy. I primarily read Fantasy and Science Fiction, as well as gaming related books.

I usually read one or two books at a time –one for pleasure and one for some form of self-improvement. The last three books I read were:

City of Towers, by Keith Baker.

The short version:
This is Keith Baker’s first novel, and it’s pretty good. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. The characters are cool (and likeable), and the action keeps moving. I know it was good because more than once I kept reading past my own personal deadline. Any book that will make me sacrifice sleep in order to find out what happens next is good.

As the back cover says, “Experience Eberron through the eyes of its creator!” I find Eberron to be interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was the result of WotC’s setting search. They paid Keith approximately $110,000 to write Eberron up as a campaign world.

I haven’t read the campaign setting book, but from what I have skimmed and read elsewhere, Eberron has some very interesting things going for it. One thing I find very appealing is that most of the world is fairly low level, or uses NPC classes. That means that the PCs are special simply because they’re PCs. It also limits the use of higher-level spells. It’s difficult to get a True Resurrection when the highest level cleric in the known world is 17th level.

Anyway, I didn’t want to dive into the campaign setting itself for a variety of reasons. For one, I’m pretty much completely sold on Arcana Evolved, and the thought of going back to regular D&D is not terribly appealing. So, I picked up the fiction.

Mr. Baker’s first book is pretty good. There are one or two nits I’d pick with it, but overall I really enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to the next two. The most glaring nit is one case of “as you know, Bob” syndrome. That’s where characters say stuff that they already know and would never discuss out loud, for the sole benefit of the reader.

For example (and this specific example is NOT found in City of Towers):
“As you know, Bob, we’re both Paladins; sworn to protect innocents and the realm. Our God helps us by granting us holy abilities. And I’m not wearing pants.”

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy, or wants more information on Eberron itself.

Marked for Death, by Matt Forbeck
Short Version:
This is the second Eberron book, by veteran author Matt Forbeck. In some ways I wish I had read this one first. I’m not sure where I read this (it could have been Matt’s web page, or one of the blogs I check daily), but Mr. Forbeck said this book was basically a western. I used to be a big fan of Deadlands (which Matt also worked on), and the Western fantasy Genre, so this book seemed to be a no-brainer for me.

Like City of Towers, the action keeps this book moving along, and more than once I read past my self-imposed deadline. I give this book two big thumbs up. I will definitely be reading the next two books in this series.

If you’re really hurting for cash and you absolutely had to pick between City of Towers and Marked For Death, I’d recommend Marked. Otherwise, fantasy and Eberron fans should read them both.

The Dharma of Star Wars, by Matthew Bortolin
Short version:
As you can tell by the title, this isn’t a work of fiction. It’s a book about Buddhist themes in Star Wars. Some of my friends and family know that I’ve been quietly pursuing an interest in Buddhism, and this was the latest book in a short but growing line of books I’m read on the subject.

I particularly enjoyed the author’s writing style. It was very relaxed and conversational. He was able to explain some Buddhist concepts that I didn’t yet have a good handle on. I’d recommend this book for anyone with an interest in Buddhism, as well as anyone who ever really, really wanted to be a Jedi.

That’s it for this week’s book list. I will update the book list as often as it changes, which is usually not as often as I’d like. Sadly, I don’t read particularly quickly. Speed-reading is a skill I wish I had kept up with after I learned how to do it in High School.

Movie Reviews. Spoilers! (offline post 1 of 3)

The move is finished and my Internet connection is dead. Until I’ve got another live connection I’ll be updating this document, and later I’ll update the blog.

I’ve seen three movies in the past two weeks. Eunice and I saw Land of the Dead and Batman Begins together, and I saw War of the Worlds when she was away.

Spoilers ahead! Consider yourself warned.

The review of War of the Worlds holds the most detail because it is most fresh in my mind.

Land of the Dead was pretty good. Eunice and I have really taken a liking to zombie movies, and this one was directed by the master. It really made me want to see Romero’s other “Dead” films. I did wonder what a post-apocalyptic society needed paper money for. It had a good mix of horror and comedy. I don’t think that it’s one I’ll eventually own, but I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

In my own fortress in a post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world, I will have tight security, multiple escape routes, and NOBODY will be allowed to bring the zombies inside. Everyone will get the food they need. There won’t be any of this have/have-not dichotomy. Sort of like my ideal world, only with brain-eating zombies.

Batman Begins was the best Batman movie in a long time. Possibly better than the first movie, but I’m not sure about that. They both felt very different. Batman Begins made Gotham feel like a real place. And best of all, there were no nipples on the bat suit.

War of the Worlds was ok. It was about what I expected from a summer blockbuster –a lot of special effects. The alien tripods were really cool. I have a lot of trouble believing some of the things that happened, like how the tripods were buried for a few million years. If they were here that long, and underneath big cities, why didn’t anyone ever dig one up?

Still, War of the Worlds was entertaining. The ending was disappointing, but Tom Cruise’s character did change from a self-centered ass-hat to a much more fatherly figure. Overall I’d say Signs was a much better alien invasion story.

As usual, there are a whole lot of interesting things that could happen in the aftermath of the invasion. What happens to all that alien technology that’s now just lying around? What about those freaky red plants? How does the rest of the world react? Especially in places where there isn’t really a strong government.

There are also lasting psychological and religious issues. What does Man do when presented with incontrovertible proof that he isn’t alone in the universe? How do various religions adapt? What new ones form? Lots of interesting stuff happens after the credits roll. This is also beyond the scope of the book, but it's the kind of thing I think about.

I live again!

The DSL connection is now on!

I did write a few updates for the last couple of weeks. I'll post one a day until they're all up.

Done at last

Yesterday at about 5:30 I turned in the keys to the old apartment.

Now, to sleep for 3 days.

Yet more Packing

I finished the bedroom this evening.

I still need to pack the front closet, bedroom closet, two bathrooms, laundry room, dining room, and living room.

The list seems big, but it shouldn't be too bad. I may yet be able to pack everything by Saturday. We'll see.

Details

I'm very detail oriented. Sometimes to the point of being obsessive.

How does this relate to packing you ask? I went through the bedroom this evening. I didn't finish. I dusted. I ended up starting two boxes and finishing off one.

If I don't speed up significantly I'm not going to make my goal of being all packed by Friday night.

As Eunice reminded me, we're at the point where, unless we need it immediately, stuff just has to go in a box.

Oh well, off to bed. Hopefully there will be more progress to report tomorrow night.

Packing Update

Last night I successfully packed the study hole.

It amounted to 1 medium sized box + some overflow and two duffel bags worth of miscellaneous craft and sewing stuff. Four sets of glass Christmas ornaments are still out.

Things are not progressing terribly quickly. Eunice is on strict orders from both me and the doctor to not help --she's got to fly home in a little over a week and is having enough trouble breathing.

Remaining rooms: 2 bathrooms, entry closet, walk in closet, dining room, living room, bedroom.

The good news is that the living room and bedroom are both partially packed already, so it's not as bad as it looks. There's still a whole lot left to do.

Packing progress

Writing has been set aside for the moment. I have far too much packing to do.

The kitchen is done*. Now I will move on to the study hole** or the bedroom.




*Except for a half-dozen assorted baskets and bowls, and all food items.
**Technically, it's the computer nook, but I don't see how anybody could fit anything other than a laptop in there, since there are no holes for cords and there isn't room for a CRT monitor. It was supposed to be Eunice's study area (thus, "study hole"), but it's ended up being an in-apartment storage area. It's also the next place I want to stack boxes, so I think it's next on the packing parade.

Packing

I just spent two hours packing up the kitchen. I have two boxes to show for it. There are many more to go.

This week is going to have a lot of late nights.

471 words

I started something new this evening that I intend to continue with. I did a little writing.

I described my dining room in 471 words.

I'll re-read it tomorrow and see what I think.

MST3K'n it

Moving day is less than 2 weeks away. Naturally, I'm terrified. I think we have about 12 boxes packed. I foresee busy days ahead.

One of the grand traditions my siblings and I have is "Cheesy Movie Night." It's our own version of MST3K, except we pre-date that. We find the best/worst cheesy movies we can, and mock them unmercifully. A good time is had by all.

As a side note, we've found that there are essentially two kinds of bad movies. "Mockably bad" movies are just that --exceptionally funny though they were never intended to be comedies. "Lost time bad" movies, no the other hand, are movies which are so bad they are not even mockable. It's important to note that many movies are intentionally cheesy, and don't fall into the "mockably bad" category. Only movies that were meant to be serious can be mockably bad.

For Cheesy Movie Night, we find as many intentionally cheesy and mockably bad movies as we can stand and watch them back to back. Previous movie nights have included Anaconda (mockable), Deep Blue Sea (mockable), and Wing Commander (lost time).

Last week's selection included disc 1 of Invader Zim (awesome), Darkness Falls (mockable), and Demon Hunters (also awesome). The next night we watched Demon Hunters 2: Dead Camper Lake (equally awesome).

Cheesy movie night is a fine tradition, and I highly recommend it for anyone.

Spinsters, birthdays, and surprises (oh my!)

Allow me to introduce my sister the spinster. Like my brother terrestrialboy, she's not terribly sane. None of us are really. But at least we're the fun kind of crazy.

Anyway, there was a grand conspiracy concerning my birthday. Many, many people were involved, including my mother, grandmother, Eunice, the spinster, and t-boy. They managed to sneak t-boy onto a plane and get him here for my birthday, without my knowing about it. It was a blast.

Tasty tasty!

Brains!

My new "sucker" tatoo

Last night Eunice and I finally started packing. Don't get too excited, we only managed 4 boxes, one of which is shipping off to my brother (and before you ask t-boy, you're getting more than one box).

Anyway, while we were packing I hear a knock on the door. That's odd, because we don't get visitors. Well, not terribly friendly ones anyway. The only visitors we get are trying to sell us on either religion or merchandise.

This particular visitor was selling magazines so he could get a trip to Europe.

So what did I do? Did I turn him away? Oh no. I purchased a subscription of the Nickelodean magazine for a children's hospital. The price included a $12 processing fee. I paid in cash.

I am such a sucker.

Too... Much... Luxor...

For last year's spring break, I bought Eunice a subscription to Game Blast. There was one game she really liked and wanted the full version of, and the site itself had lots of other games, so we figured we'd buy the subscription and go from there.

Since then I've played some of the games myself. The most addictive one I've found so far is Luxor. I can't even tell you why. I just fire it up whenever I have a few spare minutes and play... for half an hour or more.

I ought to un-install it, so I can get back to reading. And I will. After one more game.

T minus 3 weeks and counting

I handed over the rent check for the final month in my current apartment. I will not be sad to leave.

That said, I'm moving in 3 weeks and nothing is packed.

Time to panic? Most definitely.

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?

Roaming majestically across the living room

I'm not sure what my upstairs neighbors were doing at 6:30 this morning, but I think it involved herds of wild rocks rolling to and fro across the wilds of their apartment.

Serenity Trailer

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/

Endless Expansion

I'm pretty sure my brain is trying to expand beyond the confines of my head. I'm sure it has it's reasons. Perhaps it's so excited about moving to a new place that it wants a change of its own.

In unrelated news, you will now refer to me as either The Gatling Gun of Patience or Brother Nine Iron of Joy of the Unitarian Jihad. I think that technically I'm only a sympathizer but I'm sure they won't nitpick.

Shipping fun

I'm going to talk about this in as generic terms as a can, in order to protect the innocent. You are warned.

So our last set of auctions ends. I made special arrangements with one person to ship one of the books overseas. Overseas shipping isn't cheap. It turns out that there are two shipping options. One option is about 11 dollars, and arrives at the destination in 4-6 days. The other option is 15.50, and arrives in 4-10 days. The cheaper option does not allow for insurance.

The buyer wanted insurance. Keep in mind, the item cost less than $10.

So, this person paid about 6 extra dollars so the item could be insured and possibly arrive later than if it wasn't insured.

In all fairness I should say that this was my first experience shipping anything overseas, and the price I quoted for shipping was the higher of the two --because I wanted to err on the more expensive side. It was unclear to me from looking at the USPS web site whether shipping would be $11 or $15, because we packaged the book in a small box and not a large envelope. In my defense I would have happily refunded the difference.

But, they wanted insurance.

On another note, I'm happy to say that some of the items I put up last already have bids. I'm taking this as an excellent sign, considering that they'll be up for a week.

Look at the bones!

I was viciously attacked by a bee this morning.

Ok, by viciously I mean "Eunice found it on the bed, and I tried to squish it with a Kleenex, at which point it stung me."

That makes 2 bee attacks on me this year. First in Connecticut, and now here in my own home! I've got to increase security.

We managed to capture the bee in a plastic container and escort it outside.

In other news, according to eBay we've made quite a chunk of money. I put up the next big chunk of books (about 43 in all) a little while ago. And there are more to come! At least 2 more boxes worth! As always, bid early and often.

Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu Hustle is awesome. It is the best movie I've seen so far this year, and yes, that includes Sin City.

I can't help but compare KFH to The Matrix. It's better in almost every way. There are no dead spots, and Keanu Reeves isn't in the same league as Stephen Chow.

Now, I must head to NetFlix in search of more Stephen Chow movies!

The Blog-sphere gets a little more crowded

Oh, teh terror. My brother is blogging. Try not to get any on you.

And just like that the search is over

This weekend Eunice and I found a new apartment. We don't have to move until the end of June. We were just sort of looking around to get the lay of the land, and we found an apartment we fell in love with. It's close to a strip-mall type of area with a 7-eleven, CVS, grocery store, a few restaurants, and other stores.

Best of all, the layout is sane. It's a little bigger than what we have now, only it's all rectangles and usable space, as opposed to the weird angles and unusable space our current place has.

I realize I'm not really conveying the very well. We're really, really excited to be moving into a better apartment. Did I mention it's slightly cheaper? I could go on at length with the problems our current apartment has, but frankly that's depressing. I'm just happy to have found a new place to live.

Our first auction on Ebay went pretty well. We cleared a nice sum of money. It'll be nicer when one of the buyers finally pays us of course. I just put up another list of 22 items today. Bid early and often! I have a move to pay for!

Ebay and Exercise

We're still waiting to hear back on 4 of the items we auctioned on ebay last week. In the meantime I'm entering the other items (too slowly for my taste) via ebay's free Turbo Lister application.

The turbo lister has some issues. My biggest one being how long it takes to edit an entry. It takes about 3 seconds to bring up an entry, which feels like 2.5 seconds too long. The spell checking is also strange. It doesn't understand contractions for one. Eunice thinks it might have some sort of crazy custom dictionary.

I can't complain too much, because it is free. If I wanted to lay out some money I could use one of their other two apps, but I don't think I want to do that. I'd really like something that makes a database of stuff and lets me upload it at will, and so far Turbo lister is the only app I can get that will do that, at least on the cheap. I may go ahead and try one of their other applications. You can use them free for 30 days.

In other news Eunice and I took a walk this evening. I'm feeling pretty good right now, but I probably won't be able to move tomorrow. w00t!

Okay, I admit it

I think Wil Wheaton is cool.

Ebay 4tw!

So putting up a few books on ebay went very well. I put up 10 books under Eunice's account. 9 of them sold (one for more than I paid for the book in the first place). The initial foray got us a little over $100.

We're pretty pleased.

Now the real selling begins. I downloaded their "turbolister" program, which lets me add entries and upload them at will. So now all I need to do is add 5 boxes worth of gaming books to a database. Ooof.

Striding boldly out of the 18th century

I lived in Kansas long enough to consider myself a native. I also lived in the only liberal oasis in the state.

My brother (who says that there's not nearly enough of him in this blog) just sent me this link.

I can't say that I'm surprised that Kansas voted to amend their constitution to ban same-sex marriages. I mean, what can you really expect from the same folks that at one time voted to ban the teaching of evolution in school (in all fairness I found one link that says that later Kansas put evolution back into the curriculum, along with cosmology, plate tectonics and the notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun).

It saddens me greatly that same-sex marriage is an issue at all. I think there are better things our government could spend time on. What two consenting adults do on their own shouldn't matter.

But hey, I'm only an alien-human hybrid. What do I know?

Living Will

My mother just sent me this. Knowing the Internet, it's probably all over the place by now, but hey, what's one more right?

I'm inclined to use this as my living will.



Living Will
I,________________________(fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of idiot politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a die t Dr. Pepper, it should be presumed that I won't ever get better.

When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery. It is my wish that these boneheads mind their own business, and pay attention to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who aren't in a permanent coma.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case. I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me. I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and crusade on my behalf. They should mind their own business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.

Signature _________________________________________
Witness __________________________________

Adventures in re-location

The lease is up in two months. It's no secret that Eunice and I don't like our apartment. So, we're looking at moving somewhere else. Preferably cheaper.

To that end I'm selling off some of my roleplaying books. Check it out. It's our first eBay foray.

We also listed a bunch of stuff on both half.com and amazon.com (though at this time amazon hasn't updated my listing --either that or I'm pointing at the wrong place).

Anyway, bid early and often. I have moving expenses to pay for.

Decaffeinated

Eunice needs to cut back on the caffeine.

So, as a sign of solidarity, so will I.

I expect this to be painful. I expect that, for the next few days, I'll be tired, cranky, and have a headache. At least, more than usual.

I've stopped drinking caffeine before. Usually this is brought on by a doctor's visit. The doctor asks how much soda I drink. I tell him "anywhere from 6 to 10 cans a day," and the doctor tells me to cut down. The 6 to 10 can figure includes fountain drinks at lunch, etc.

The hard part is going to be drinking things at work. The tradeoff for me with caffeine has always been sugar. So it was either drink diet soda (with caffeine) or sprite (with sugar). Seeing as how I'm trying to stick to an Atkins diet, the sugar option is right out. Yes, I know that there is decaf, sugar free pop. However, I can't get it out of the pop machine at work.

Anyway, in the spirit of April Fool's day, here is a link to my favorite Chick Tract. On a side note, I did find one tract in a book I bought from Borders.

I could go into a discussion here about why gaming isn't a tool of Satan, etc., but I don't think there is anything to be gained. People that argue this point usually have their minds already made up (and probably aren't readying my blog anyway). I will say that I'm a gamer, and I'm proud of it.

And for the record, this place terrifies me.

And in the spirit of good fun, here are a couple other funny links:
Nodwick!
Typos of Doom!

Things other than WoW have taken over my life

It's been a while since my last update. I can see the dust starting to settle around here.

There is a little more to report on the car front. I was going to pick up Eunice from school last night when I heard a very loud "CLUNK". The car seems fine. I think something may have hit the side of the car --it being a Saturn, it doesn't dent very easily. Hopefully the Vehicular Fortitude saga is over for now.

I did find one disturbing thing while trying to locate the source of the noise. I was looking around in the trunk and saw that my emergency roadside kit was soaking wet. It turns out that entire little corner of the trunk is soaking wet. There is even some standing water. I didn't find any evidence of anything having exploded, so I have to wonder how all the water got there, and how I'm going to get all the water out. Our complex has an industrial strength vacuum --we'll be trying that in a bit.

Eunice's computer died and was later resurrected. Her power supply quit working on us, right when she needed to write a paper. Fortunately we were able to replace the power supply and the computer felt significantly better. The new power supply has 2 fans and is louder than the last one. That'll take some getting used to. At least she has her computer back.

Last weekend Eunice and I went to visit my sister. Eunice needed a dress hemmed, so we used that as our excuse to go for a visit. We had a lot of fun, except for the part where I was stunned by a wasp. It turns out that 40 degrees is indeed warm enough for some wasps to be out. It got itself caught in my pullover and stung me when I tried to take it off. At least now I know that I'm not allergic to wasp stings.

Eunice and I finished watching all 4 Samurai X discs. Samurai X is part prequel and part sequel to Kenshin, and is much darker. You find out why Kenshin is the way he is, and you get an ending to the story that is much better than the ending supplied by the original Kenshin series. If you're a Kenshin fan I'd recommend it, but be warned. The tone is completely different from that of the series.

So, with Kenshin over we moved to a new set of movies in our Netflix queue. We have jumped in to Jeremiah (the showtime series). We're enjoying it so far. We just saw episode 8 (Firewall) and it's starting to get good. I did enjoy the earlier episodes in the series, but the series really gets good around City of Roses and Firewall.

I have some high expectations for Jeremiah. J. Michael Straczynski is involved. And if you don't know, JMS did Babylon 5, my favorite sci-fi series of all time.

Of course, in doing my research for these links I've just found that Jeremiah was not renewed for a third season, and that JMS declared he would never work with MGM again under it's current administration. It also appears that season 2 isn't yet out on DVD.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about the series the more I watch it.

Finally, I've been busy reading Arcana Evolved. It's very cool, and deserving of it's own post (again).

Anyway, I'm off to watch The Return of the King with Eunice, to celebrate Easter.

Happy Easter everyone!

Vehicular Fortitude, part 4

So I went to pick up my car on Tuesday. It is nice to have the car back, even though I am about $1600 poorer.

The first thing I realized as the car shot forward was that the friction point on the clutch had changed significantly. It went from somewhere around halfway up to about 2 centimeters off of the floor. The next thing I noticed was that it became a whole lot harder to change gears. I had to pull on the stick shift pretty hard to get it to move.

So, in one of my not-so-bright moments, off I went towards home, shifting painfully and trying to cope with a clutch with an instant friction point. After a couple of miles I could no longer get the car in to any gear at all. I missed one light cycle trying to get the car into any gear except reverse.

Did I mention that the road I was on is very, very busy, almost all the time?

Before the next light cycle came around I managed to force the car into second gear. I used a side street to turn around (and almost got stuck in neutral once again) and headed back towards the dealership.

The folks at the Saturn dealership were very nice. They sent me on my way with a rental car and a promise to fix the car first thing in the morning.

They delivered. The next day my car was as good as new. Or at least the clutch was.

Hopefully this will be the end of the Vehicular Fortitude series for a while. My pocketbook can't take much more of this.

Gaming tables evolved

Ok, despite the title this doesn't have anything to do with Arcana Evolved.

This gaming table setup is pretty awesome.

Someone else has a similar setup, detailed here.

All I can say is that once I'm independently wealthy, I'm all over this.

Vehicular Fortitude part 3

Sadly, there is now a part 3 to go along with parts 1 and 2.

This month my car is 7 years old. Apparently in car years that's somewhere near 1 million, or at least that's the point where everything starts to fall apart. I admit that I don't really understand what they need to do to the car. It has something to do with some crazy leaking, replacing the clutch, and moving either the transmission or the engine out of the way to deal with the crazy leaking. All this to the tune of nearly $2k.

So today the car is at the dealership, and I have the fastest, most maneuverable car in the world as a replacement. That's right, a rental.

I'm sure wackiness will ensue.

Old News

I may be unfit for duty in the Israel Defense Force. Not that there was any chance at all of me joining the IDF.

The article is actually talking about LARPing, where players dress up as their characters and live the role. Sometimes they hit each other with foam weapons.

I've never been into LARPing. I have been at cons where LARPs have been present. I even went and watched one LARP that was run by a buddy of mine. I'm perfectly happy saying, "My character makes camp for the night," rather than actually making camp. Most people who know me know that I don't get along with the so-called Great Outdoors. On more than one occasion I've said, "The Great Outdoors would be better if it were inside, temperature controlled, and bug-free."

My gaming sessions tend to be more like this.

Stabbin'

Stolen blatently from my buddy's blog! Here is the perfect gift for someone who likes stabbin' stuff!

The Order of the Stick

I was browsing the Arcana Evolved messageboards (here and here) and found a link to a great web comic called The Order of the Stick. It's pretty funny. It's funnier if you're a gamer and have read or played d20, but that isn't a requirement.

The site also has various articles and other resources for d20 gaming, though I haven't yet had a chance to dig around much --I've been too busy laughing at TOotS. The guy who runs the site is named Rich Burlew. Apparently he was one of the runners up in the Wizards of the Coast Fantasy Setting Search contest, so based on that alone the site is probably pretty good.

Regardless, I've found a new comic to keep from working, err, I mean amused.

Gaming Evolved

I'm very excited.

Today, Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved ships. AE is what Monte calls a "director's cut" of his original Arcana Unearthed.

Arcana Evolved is an alternate Player's Handbook. It has new races, classes, spells, the whole nine yards. It's predecessor, AU, brought me back into 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons gaming again. I hate to sound too much like an advertisement, but it really made the game new and exciting again.

For a while last year I ran an AU game, but it fell apart when work picked up. I have AE ordered at my Friendly Local Gaming Store, and I hope to start up a campaign again.

Bumper Stickers

Normally I'm not a bumper-sticker kind of person. However, I'm very tempted by this one.

Pizza and rat bashing together at last

I played Everquest for more than 2 years off and on. I started when it launched. I had horrible alt-itis, and could never play one character exclusively. Which means that even though I played for 2 years, I never got a character over level 25.

When I was strongly addicted I would come home from work, fire up EQ and play until after midnight. I'd get up, go to work, and repeat the whole thing all over again. Weekends were entirely consumed. There were several nights where I would either pick up something on the way home, or I'd order pizza.

Now I've kicked the Everquest habit (and moved on to other habits like City of Heroes, World of Warcraft, and Dark Age of Camelot), those wacky folks at Sony Online Entertainment have made it even easier to deal with the monotonous real life problem of ordering food while you're playing EQ. You can actually order pizza online.

As a gamer, I think this is awesome. Feeling hungry? /pizza

I can only imagine where this will lead.

ZIM

Action figures of spooky doom!

Movies

Eunice and I have seen a couple of movies lately that are worth talking about.

First, Eunice and I rented The Butterfly Effect. We had wanted to see it when it was in theaters, but we never got out to. I hadn't seen any ads for it other than at previews to other movies, which is usually a good sign. I've found that the suck-itude of the movie is almost always directly proportional to the size of its ad campaign.

Anyway, on to The Butterfly Effect. The title refers to chaos theory, which states that a nearly imperceptible change can have massive effects. A butterfly flaps its wings in central park and the coast of Indonesia is hit by a massive tornado, which to me shows butterflies to be a menace on global proportions, but maybe I missed a point.

Anyway, Evan, Ashton Kutcher's character, finds out that he can travel back in time to specific points in his life. The movie is all about him trying to fix various things with a "small" change, and then seeing what happens. Everything hangs together well. Everything is important. It's very well written, and I have new respect for Ashton Kutcher. A word of warning though --some pretty messed up things happen. Evan and his friends don't have a very nice life.

It appears that the second move will have to wait for another post (which will hopefully come in less than a week this time...).

RPG Nirvana

I think I can say, based solely on the name, that this is the BEST RPG EVAH! I don't think it gets any cooler than that. Monkeys. Ninjas. Pirates. Robots. Yup, all the coolness is there.

Previously I thought the award would go to Ninja Burger (also based solely on the name). I mean, it has Ninjas. And they do food delivery. How could you go wrong with that?

For Freedom!

I was a big fan of the PC RPG/strategy hybrid Freedom Force. It had some issues, but overall I thought it was a great game. I have two requirements for any game that claims to simulate superheroes, and FF actually fulfilled two of them.

First, the surroundings have to be breakable. As a hero, I want to be able to knock holes in walls, topple buildings, and generally reshape the terrain by force.

Second, my character should be able to tear up chunks of scenery and use them to pummel bad guys.

Third, my character should be able to knock bad guys through scenery. If I can't knock some blockhead through a building, it's not a superhero game.

So, if I can't tear a street light out of the ground and use it to whack some bad guy through a building, it's not a real superhero game. To date, there have been no real superhero games available on the PC. FF has come the closest. It does let me destroy the scenery, and use chunks of it to pummel bad guys.

Anyway, ever since I played FF, I've been looking forward to a sequel. It appears that I won't have to wait much longer, because you can already pre-order Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich. I haven't pre-ordered it, because I'm not usually a pre-order kind of guy. What is neat about this is how developer Irrational Games paid for the project.

I think it's really cool that they're self-funded. Having worked for both a self-funded publisher and a company that relies on publishers to pay for everything, I can say that from a worker-bee's perspective self funding is much nicer. The big issue for me is having creative control. If you are self funded, you don't have a publisher telling you that they just played Tetris, and they want some of that falling brick action in your RPG, or worse yet they decide your RPG won't sell because RPGs aren't hot right now, and can't you just turn it into a Starcraft clone? But don't forget the falling bricks.

Earthsea

I got A Wizard of Earthsea for Christmas. I had heard that it was a classic of fantasy literature and I'd seen Monte Cook refer to it as an inspiration for Arcana Unearthed, so I was interested. I had also seen the advertisements on the SciFi Channel about the miniseries, so I figured now was a good time to read the book.

It's a good thing I missed the mini-series, because I really loved the book. The author herself talks about what went wrong with the miniseries, and it makes for an interesting read. I think I'm going to have to see the series myself, just to see how awful it actually is.

It just serves to remind me how few people in the movie/tv industry "get" fantasy, or comic books for that matter. It just seems like most fantasy we see in movies and on tv is crap. There are some notable exceptions of course, but by and large the fantasy movies we see measure up to the likes of the Dungeons and Dragons movie.

WoW has taken over my life

So it occurred to me this morning that I hadn't updated for a while. Apparently "a while" means "more than 2 weeks."

I've been playing World of Warcraft. Occasionally Eunice manages to pry me away to play City of Heroes with her, or to watch a movie, but mostly I just play WoW.

I had these grand plans for the new year. Work on and eventually run a new campaign. Write some code at home. Spend more time with Eunice. Read more technical books. Yet what do I do every night when I get home? Play WoW. It's not even like I can keep up with my buddy, who started earlier than I did and plays more than I do.

Oh well, I am at least having fun.

I was intrigued by the Warrior class. Normally I like playing hybrids. Straight up warriors are boring. Gameplay usually consists of running in, hitting the auto-attack button and then making yourself a sandwich. Or at least that was true in the original Everquest. The hybrids always held so much more interest for me. They offered more options.

Warriors in WoW are different. It's a difficult class to play, and I'm pretty sure most of the Warrior community doesn't understand that. At least that's the impression I get from reading the Warrior boards. Then again, according to the warrior boards I'm not in the bad spot for warriors yet. Depending on who you believe, warriors either always suck, or they're fine until 20 and then suck, or they're fine until 35 and then really suck. I'm only 27, so by most accounts I don't have the necessary experience to comment.

Anyway, Warriors are hard to play. All of their special abilities use Rage, which builds up during a fight. You get rage by hitting things and being hit yourself. Sadly, you don't get rage from missing --only you as a player get that. I'm sure there are some warrior issues, but for right now the class seems fine to me.

And how do you tell a good warrior from a bad one? The bad warriors always have a lot leftover rage at the end of a fight --they don't use their special abilities much, if at all. It's very easy to be a bad warrior.

I've rambled enough about WoW for now. I think I want to talk a little bit about A Wizard of Earthsea, but I'll save that for a different post.

Back in NOVA

We're back from our vacation romp in Illinois.

Actually, we've been back for about a week now.

Highlights include:

• Wonderful visits with family and friends
• Being sick in Illinois
• Recovering in Illinois, only to have Eunice fall prey to something that strongly resembles the plague here in VA
• 4 different Holiday parties
• Learning I can sleep reasonably comfortably in a recliner
• Remembering how nice it can be to be mostly unplugged
• Finishing up last minute details with Eunice's new school.
• Getting home and playing World of Warcraft for ridiculous amounts of time (I'm level 20 now thank you very much)

It was quite the Holiday.

I'll save the new years resolutions (or lack thereof) for a different post. Right now I have to get ready to get back to work.

'tis the season for traveling

The plans are made and the car is almost packed. Or it will be after the Holiday Party tonight. Eunice and I are almost off (some might say way off) on our way home to visit family and friends.

EA gets exclusive NFL contract

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/13/news_6114977.html

As someone I work with said, "Hope you liked Madden 2005 because that’s all you’re getting!"

On one hand this doesn't affect me directly. I don't play most sports games. The closest I get is SSX 3, which I broke out again recently. If I were a player, my concern would be for the quality of the game. I mean, competition fosters better products, or at least that's the theory.

The Holiday Spirit

So there I was at the mall. I went into my local EBX to sell back a game I wasn't going to play any more and get Eunice a gift. As I expected, the store was packed. They did, however, have 3 people working registers and one or two more on the floor, which is a lot of the tiny space they have.

Having 3 people on the register seemed to be working, because there wasn't a line. I walked up and asked what I could get for my copy of Fable, and if they had any copies of The Sims 2 left (she already knows she's getting the Sims 2, so it's no big secret).

The guy I had helping me was wound up pretty tight. I don't' know what his problem was. Maybe he'd been working too long. Maybe his shoes were too tight. Or maybe he was just having a bad day. Whatever the reason, it was almost like watching John Cleese do Basil Faulty, only not funny.

Adventures in Driving part 2

I know I've ranted about how bad people drive around here, but I have to add one or two more things.

After Eunice and I left the Saturn dealership, we went to the mall.

Yeah, a trip to the mall two weeks before Christmas. It wasn't the brightest of ideas, but Eunice needed to do some shopping, and I had promised to take her.

On our way there I was sitting in a left turn lane, about halfway into the intersection at a green light, waiting to turn. I moved far enough into the intersection to let the guy behind me in as well, so he would also be able to turn on that signal. Apparently I was taking too long. Rather than lay on the horn, he gunned his engine and made the turn before I did.

Driving here terrifies me. I joke with Eunice about how at least 75% of the other drivers must be drunk, and how I can't blame them. Driving here makes me want to take up drinking.

The mall itself was less crowded than I thought it would be. Parking wasn't a big deal. We did have to wait about 20 minutes to have lunch at 1:30, but that was about the worst of it. Well, that and the line for Santa that happened to be where Eunice and I agreed to meet after shopping.

We headed back out to the car after we both picked up a few gifts. Traffic was heavy enough that I decided to go the long way around the mall, rather than attempt the left turn of doom(tm).

Just driving around the mall towards our nearest reasonable exit, we had one crazy woman turn right from the left hand lane, one crazy man turn in front of us without signaling (or waving), and we nearly came to a 4 way standstill because people need to try and cross several lanes of traffic when there obviously isn't room for them to do so.

It's not enough that the roads around here look like they were laid out by drunken apes. The apes apparently also teach people how to drive.

Vehicular Fortitude Part 2

We just got back from getting the car fixed (and a little holiday shopping, but that's a tale for a different entry).

It wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I went in expecting to pay over $1000 to fix the windows, including parts and labor. They offered us an experiment. The correct way to fix the car was to fork over $1k and have them install 2 new window motor assemblies. The motors themselves were fine. It was the plastic guides that broke, but for the model of car I drive, Saturn doesn't make just the plastic guide.

It turns out that the plastic guide for my car is sufficiently similar to the plastic guide for a different model, which can be ordered. So, for about $450 they installed 2 new plastic guides. So far the windows work fine. Of course, the motors may die tomorrow, but that's the risk we were willing to take.

So, Saturn gets a big thumbs up this time around for going the extra mile.

There was also one small problem.

When we got our car back, we noticed several new scratches on both doors. So, I grabbed the guy we'd been talking to and complained. Not a lot of complaints mind you, because he had saved me $500, but still, I don't expect the car to be damaged when I get it back from being repaired.

Anyway, I'm taking the car back in this week and the guy we talked to promised to get someone to try and do something about the new scratches.

All in all, it was a good experience. I wish the car hadn't been scratched up, but really, I can't complain too much.

The tinkering has started

In celebration of my early rise this morning I fiddled with the template for the blog. I successfully figured out how to put up a links section.

ph34r m3

Of course, any minute now this blog will come crashing down around my ears. The servers will actually be on fire, no doubt.

Up and at 'em!

For the past month I've been tired. I've overslept my alarm more than once, fortunately never by much. Last week when we had to take the car in at oh-dark-early I asked Eunice to make sure she set her alarm, just in case I overslept on mine. I'll ask her to do that tomorrow too.

But this morning?

This morning I was up and wide awake at 5:15. No sleeping in to a luxurious 7 a.m. here, no sir!

Oh well. I'm sure I'll pay for this early morning burst of energy later today.

Vehicular Fortitude

I like my Saturn. It's fun to drive.

Lately, my Saturn hasn't liked me.

First, there was the 60000 mile checkup. That one was expensive. During the checkup they found a problem with the rear brakes. I could either fix the problem then or wait. Waiting could cost exponentially more money. So, I bit the bullet and fixed the car, to the tune of $850 for the checkup and brake work.

The next week, on the way to see Ellie the Service Engine light came on.

I waited for Thanksgiving to pass. Ellie visited. That was nice.

While she was visiting the passenger side window got off the track. We managed to get it back on track and haven't moved it since.

So, last weekend I took the car in at oh-dark-early to get the service engine light and the passenger side window both fixed. I had to replace a sensor on the tail pipe. $250. The window requires a new part. Once the clip goes, you have to replace the motor.

$450 for the part. That doesn't include labor.

So off we went for breakfast. After breakfast the service engine light came back on. Less than an hour after we left the dealership. So, back to the dealership we went.

They looked at the car for 2 hours. They couldn't get the light to come back on.

Sigh.

So, Monday morning bright and early I go to take Eunice to school. Eunice decided she wanted some tasty McDonald's goodness for breakfast, so we hit the drive through. I rolled the drivers side window down, and it collapsed.

The drivers side window clip broke.

We managed to get the window back in place, but I have to have both window parts replaced this weekend.

$2000 in repairs in 4 weeks.

Sigh.

Whoah

Whoah

Rumor Mill

I don't know if this memo is real or not.

I do know that it wouldn't stop me from looking for a new job if I was working the kind of hours that have been discussed in various forums.

I also know that software management doesn't necessarily need to be a black art.

There are books on the subject. Books written by smart, experienced people. There are those in the software business that "get it." At least one is even in the gaming industry.

Adventures in Driving

This place terrifies me on a daily basis.

People here can't drive. Actually, they just don't drive well. Ok, they're maniacs.

Coming from the west, traffic through Pennsylvania is sane, even nice. People are courteous, for the most part. Then you hit Maryland and everyone turns crazy. The craziness continues down into Virginia. I can only imagine what DC is like. In my mind's eye I see blind clowns driving unicycle into monkeys, who then get mad and throw poo everywhere.

Maybe I need to have my mind's eye checked.

Some of the worst drivers have the largest vehicles. It's like having an SUV or ginormous pickup truck gives you the right to drive anywhere at any time.

Just this weekend I had someone in a through lane stop and try to backup to the end of the turning lane to try and turn. People run stop lights and stop signs all the time. I had one coworker advise me to just change lanes when necessary --don't signal, otherwise the other drivers will never let you in.

And did I mention the hysteria that happens when it snows? The entire area shuts down. Three inches of snow and the sky must be falling.

What really amazes me is the police presence. Every day I drive Eunice to school I see at least one police car or motorcycle, usually more. I'm not terribly good at spotting the unmarked cars --I'm sure there are several of those. Yet with all this police presence, the driving is still awful.

I'm reminded of our old Doberman, Spock. Spock was huge, even for a dobie. He eventually discovered that he could vault over our 4 foot tall fence without any real trouble.

We tried to break him of this habit in a number of ways. We actually got a special collar that would give him a little shock whenever we pressed a button. The idea being that we would shock Spock when he did something bad, like stand on or jump over the fence. The downfall of this plan was that it required constant supervision.

Naturally, all this collar taught Spock was that he shouldn't stand on or jump over the fence while we were watching.