Tungsten Bathtub

SINKING IN THE HEAT

2010-01-26T09:27:00.003-07:00

I learned an important lesson this week. Heat kills video cards, but only you can prevent heat death.

Heh.

Anyway, the full story is like this. My previous computer, we’ll call Monster-Lappy because of its size, had all sorts of trouble with the video card. Since it was a Dell system and under a long term warranty, I had the video card replaced three times in four years by Dell technicians. The symptoms were always like this. First I’d start getting artifacts in the games I was playing. The artifacting would increase until the computer locked up, and I rebooted and played again.

Those of you in the know are already nodding sagely realizing that this is probably an overheating problem. I was clueless however. I would keep this up until these visual glitches were constantly occurring even in non 3-D applications, like, Windows for example. Eventually, the card would fail to the point where I couldn’t even run the system anymore and I’d call Dell for a replacement.

When the warranty expired and my video card died again I looked at buying a video card and replacing it myself or at just getting a new system. With the Monster-Lappys track record, I just decided to go ahead and purchase a brand new system instead.

I found an excellently priced refurbished HP mini-tower system, we’ll call Brainy-Comp because it’s an i7 quad with 9 GB of RAM. Brainy-Comp was full of new components including the video card a 1 GB GeForce GTS 250 card and it is really fast and even has the new Windows 7 that I have really enjoyed. However, I noticed that after playing any 3-D game for a while (Fallout 3, Dragon Age Origins and Star Trek Online) I was getting artifacts appearing in my game again. Some games were worse than others, but eventually, they would always lockup and force me to reboot.

With all this evidence, it finally sunk in that I needed to figure out what was going on. This was now happening to me on an NVidia card so I couldn’t just blame it on ATI (who made the card in Monster-Lappy) any more. A bit of research turned up the interesting conclusion that the stock cooler on many video cards only works in optimum conditions. Conditions that are not usually found in your average off the shelf computer system.

A bit more research turned up a thriving after-market full of replacement VGA coolers. I installed a program called RightTemp to pull the temperature data from the CPU and GPU and was shocked to find that at rest my video card was running at 63 degrees Celsius. That was way too hot. Leaving the tool running showed my card maxing out at 93 degrees Celsius and generally that is about when it would lock up. Artifacts started showing up around 79 or hotter.

Convinced now, that it was a heat problem I ordered the Scythe Setsugen model cooler for my card. The installation took me around 40 minutes to fully remove the stock cooler and add the new one. After re-routing a bunch of cables I got the card put back into my box and fired it up. The base line temperature of my card was now 41 degrees Celsius, slightly cooler than my CPU at base.

Running the game that caused crashes the quickest before, Star Trek Online, gave a result of a maximum high temperature of 54 degrees Celsius. That is around a 40 degree difference. Amazing, plus the fan on this one is much quieter than the fan on the old cooler.

I have to say, I’m very pleased with this result. I hopefully, have saved myself the heat-death of a video card, which is a good thing. It’s also good because by modifying my video card I’ve certainly voided the warranty that it may have had. However, I think it’s a perfectly fair trade off in this case because I expect that Brainy-Comp will live much longer running that much cooler.

Dry Aged Meat

2010-01-22T12:15:00.001-07:00

Most of my creative writing is going towards the food blog with my wife. We just completed an experiment in dry aging meat before cooking it and it turned out really really really well. For the complete story (and pictures!) head to the food blog for the write up.

CALENDARS 2010

2010-01-12T10:35:00.004-07:00

I'm convinced that the proper way to say this year is twenty - ten. Not two thousand ten. However, even though I believe that it's hard to change the habits of the last ten years by saying two thousand first. I'm working on it though since I like the right way better.

Speaking of this year I have a thing for calendars. Since I was a teenager I've been buying the yearly Tolkien wall calendar. I've really enjoyed them and the drawing of the events and places from all of the Tolkien works has always given me a bit of a longing to go to Middle Earth myself. It's just one of those childhood things that I've kept up. It's a good way to indulge my inner child while still being an adult.

A few years after I started buying the Tolkien calendars I also started buying the Star Trek (The real one that is) calendars. I've also done that annually for years and years now. I did have a bit of a crisis this year though thinking about which Star Trek calendar to get since there was one based on the new Movie as well. In the end, though, I decided to go with tradition and I'm glad I did, since the suspiciously calendar shaped object under the tree turned out to be the 2010 (twenty ten) Star Trek wall calendar.

A few days after Christmas I went online to Amazon.com and ordered the 2010 Tolkien wall calendar for around $9 plus shipping. Two days later I got an e-mail saying that my order was canceled because they were out of stock. That was really weird. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before on Amazon.

Oh well, I thought (foolishly as it turns out), I'll just try again. This time I could only find the calendar for around $12 plus shipping. No big deal, that's about right anyway so I placed the order. Two days later I got an e-mail saying my order was canceled because they were out of stock. That was REALLY WEIRD. Only one other time in my life had that happened and it was just two days ago for the same item.

I went back onto Amazon. Now the calendar was only available for $33.00. Holy crap. What is going on here. As of today, the lowest price for one is about $40 and the highest... Wait. Are you sitting down? Because this one will probably surprise you. The highest one is listed at $2,634.

Are you kidding me? Why would anyone pay that much for a calendar. EBay shows a similar story. There aren't any currently available on EBay and the archives show them selling for around $110 each. Amazing. I suppose that they just didn't print enough. Sucks for me though. I am hopeful, that there is another printing that will drive the prices down. I intend to check these out from time to time, who knows, maybe the price will drop after the new year demand is over.

But worse case scenario for this year? I'll just run with my Star Trek one.

Neglected

2010-01-11T10:38:00.002-07:00

Wow. Blog neglect. It's a terrible thing.

However, I am also blogging at a new food blog called the Paces We Eat. Since my wife and I are booth foodies and are incapable of eating out without sharing plates and trying to figure out what the food is cooked with and what we could do to replicate it. A food blog was just natural.

That doesn't mean that all my creative writing will go there but it is definitely a division of my attention.

OH NO! I’VE BECOME ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE

2009-07-30T08:43:00.004-06:00

You know. The ones that write about their cat on their blog.

Ugh! I can’t believe it either.

OK. I promise that this will not be a regular thing – but a little post will be OK right. I mean it’s just a taste really. It can’t possibly have any harm, and I’m sure I could stop writing about the cat any time I wanted to. It would be easy.

I started the morning wanting to write about our kitten Mystique. So I thought I should take a picture of her since she is growing so fast. Here is how she usually looks in the morning.

Yup. She’s pretty blurry in the morning all right. She’s so excited to have the people come out of the bedroom that she can’t hold still.

But I wanted everyone to see that her spots are becoming more distinct so I tried to bribe her with kitty snacks.

That worked briefly but then she went on to attack her second most favorite enemy. The dreaded tiny-stuffed-penguin! TUH-DUH-DUUUUUHHHHHHH!

Her attacks are classic pounce with claw-claw-bite attacks and if her claws hit she starts a grapple attack and if she succeeds in grabbing a hold she gets a free rake attack with her hind legs.

Her most favorite enemy though is socks that have feet in them. Feet alone aren’t good enough. Socks alone aren’t good enough. She mostly ignores both, but combine them in proper order and she’ll happily get to work stalking and attacking the socked-up feet.
Finally my lovely wife held her still long enough to get a fairly non-blurry picture of her. She’s a cute cat and so far there haven’t been any real problems with allergies – however, tonight she gets a bath since my wife is noticing a tickle in her throat. This breed is supposed to not hate water – so I am hoping to emerge from the bathroom without life threatening scratches.

FACE THE BOOK

2009-06-30T11:32:00.001-06:00

I’ve been on FaceBook for almost two months now. I went there largely because of the strong recommendation of a friend I trust. He’s a convert to FB.

I am not.

I found FB to be bewildering at first but I quickly learned how to navigate the pages and to post my status updates. It was nice to be able to have “tag lines” that are more verbose than the single line in my Instant Messenger program. Plus I reconnected with friends that I haven’t seen since high school, and I was able to get David Lockes e-mails and even started an e-mail dialog with him. (FYI: David Locke is a local sports caster on 1320 KFAN)

I quickly discovered a number of FB games too. There was Mafia Wars, Pirates, Word Paths and others. In fact LOTS of others. In fact I had to quit looking for games there were so many.

I quit playing all the FB games about two weeks ago. They suffer from some common design flaws that I could no longer tolerate after the newness of the games themselves wore off.

My biggest complaint with the games I summarized in a comment on the Rabid Paladins site. I’ll repeat my comment on games here, but I recommend reading his blog for the full context. I have spell checked the version below but other wise I stated:

That is an excellent description of why I quit playing the FB games cold
turkey.

1) I'm penalized for not playing every
day. The "encouragement" to play every day is that you loose abilities or
opportunities by not logging in to each game you signed up for every day.
That is the complete opposite of a casual game. Casual gaming doesn't
actually have requirements like that.

2) The PvP aspects of
people who play to game the system. I have refused multiple friend invites
from people I didn't know who just wanted to add me to their mafia or other
game. I am not on FB for that and I refuse to "friend" complete
strangers. This personal decision leaves me in an untenable position in
any PvP game - I am unable to amass a large enough crew to even complete some
tasks much less to defend myself against someone with 500 pseudo-friends.
The aggravation was much stronger than the fun I was having.

I went
into those games hoping for Trade Wars from the old BBS days but instead I got
PvP wack-a-mole.

No Thanks.

The other thing I can’t take any more on FB is the HUGE number of web quizzes. I have admitted to being a sucker for them – but FB has done the equivalent of poisoning the town water supply by making it so simple for anyone to create a quiz. The quizzes I used to take had many questions and clever results with often funny or at least amusing quotes. The FB quizzes are short, simple and often non-sensible. I’ve taken more quizzes on FB than ever before and more often than not I don’t publish the results on my home page because I thought it ended up stupid. Not just that I didn’t like the result of what color my aura was (for example) – but that I thought it was completely wrong without the faintest trace of anything resembling me.

The only thing I’ve kept from FB over the last several weeks then, is my home page. I do like that method of keeping in touch with people and being aware of what is going on with friends and family. I can read or ignore the home page depending on how social I am feeling. It’s social contact with an off switch I guess.

FB isn’t the end all be all that it is hyped up to be. I’m not going to delete my account but I’m happy to have cut my FB time way back from where I was a few weeks ago and I haven’t regretted the time spent doing other things in the least.

I BOLDLY WENT….

2009-05-08T10:50:00.003-06:00

….To the first showing of Star Trek last night. They did a limited opening of the show yesterday and the full opening will be tonight. I was absolutely blown away. Go see it.

No really. Go see it.

This is a well paced action movie with extremely likeable characters, a hopeful attitude, and enough nods to the old time fans like me to make us quiver with joy. I saw the movie with a room full of other ~~nerds~~, err…. ~~fanboys~~…. well I guess those are all accurate after all. Let’s just call a Trekie and Trekie I guess. The fans last night seemed to love the show just as much as I did, but I strongly believe that even non-fans will really like this movie.

In fact I think even anti-fans – if they can put aside any prejudice and give the series reboot a try will find that this movie is full of life and hope and excitement and altogether is eminently enjoyable.

The first thing that struck me as the film progressed was how likeable the characters are. I remember why I liked Kirk, and Spock and McCoy so much and that comes through strongly in this show. It applies just as much to Sulu, Scottie, Uhura and Checkov too. I want to go have dinner with all of them because they seem like fun people with interesting personalities and just so….. likeable.

The next thing I noticed (OK this may actually be the first thing since one of the _VERY_ early sound effects is highly reminiscent of an old sound effect) is how faithful they were to the FEEL of Star Trek. The transporter sound, the ambient bridge noises, the red alert sirens were all modernized but based on the traditional sounds. Non fans won’t care but if you enjoyed the original series this will put you back in the mood. It goes beyond the sounds though to capturing the friendships between the leading characters and while it’s not strictly like the old days (you know what I mean if you’ve seen it) the budding friendship between the main three is absolutely true to form. And lets not forget to mention some absolutly histerical uses of key catch phrases.

The SFX. WOW. Amazing. There are two absolutely standout shots of the Enterprise that keep replaying in my mind. One in the atmosphere of Titan with Saturn in the background and one at the final battle that keep replaying in my brain. SOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOOL. The new Enterprise is amazing and I’m totally falling back into my ~~fanboy~~….err trekie mode aren’t I? Maybe I’d better stop for a minute and take a deep breath….

…. OK I’m better now.

Speaking of new the look and feel of the technology has all be updated to look futuristic again but still retain enough of the old feel to be right. The hand phasers for example are really good looking. I may have to get a replica. But they look like phasers. The Enterprise has slightly changed lines but it looks like the Enterprise. The bridge looks WAY less like cardboard and plywood but it still feel like the bridge is supposed to.

The movie is full of action, and humor, and drama. The pacing is a skillful blend of all these elements to keep movie goers from being bored at all. The acting is well done and consistent. The characters have believable motives and internal consistency in both themselves and in their interactions with others. I’ll say it again and what I say three times believe.

Go see it.

AMAZING CAKE

2009-04-28T13:45:00.003-06:00

My lovely wife is able to do the most amazing things with cake. She has a history of making amazing cakes. This year for the oldest boys birthday she made a Rock Band cake in the shape of the Rock Band guitar controller.

It's amazing. One of the cool things about this cake was that the youngest boy helped roll out the fondant. It was his first time ever working on a cake like that and he did a WAY better job with the fondant than I did my first time touching it.

I've noticed lately, that he is very interested in helping with anything in the kitchen. We may have a budding chef on our hands.

The game group also got a cake for my birthday along with Rabid Paladin and Coyotes birthdays.

This one was also a Rock Band theme but in this case was the drum controllers.

PICTURES FROM DISNEYWORLD

2009-03-30T11:22:00.004-06:00

OK. Here is a selection of pictures from our trip. Since it was 29 degrees this morning and snow covered everything when I left the house the pictures look extra warm today. I wouldn't mind being back in 80 degree highs and 65 degree lows again.

These will be presented in somewhat chronological order with my comments along the way.

The first night in Orlando we went to Downtown Disney. After dinner we wandered the shops. They have a Lego store there with, like, every Lego in existence. Plus quite a few giant Lego sculptures. Here I am next to a life sized Lego clone trooper.

The next morning saw us off to the Magic Kingdom. This picture didn't turn out as well as I had hoped but heck, it's got that princess castle thing in the background so you know for sure where we were. Plus, it looks really warm there and I'm cold today.

The next day we were at Disney Hollywood. This is from the lobby of the Tower of Terror. You can see the cool shirt that got us an extra all-lines-bypassed ride on the Tower after one of the cast members working there saw me wearing it.

Look its warm!

Here we are indulging our inner geeks (ummm.... yeah OK you got me there, plus our outer geeks and pretty much our whole entire being as geeks) on the Star Tours ride. Note C3-P0 in the background.

Dinner at Le Cellier in Epcot ended with a fantastic Creme Brulee. Here is is half eaten after I realized I should take a picture of the cute decorations they made for us.

Here is the decoration our housekeepers made for us after they found out it was an anniversary trip.

Finally, this picture is just for fun. There were tons of people wearing character hats. They have just the very top of whatever character the hat is for. The top part of Stitch, the top parts of Chip and or Dale, the top parts of Donald Duck or Goofy. Every time I saw people wearing these hats I just kept thinking of Belkar, from Order of the Stick. Why? Well he has a habit of making his own hats, see.

Here I am in full Belkar mode.

WHAT I ATE ON MY SPRING VACCATION

2009-03-24T10:36:00.002-06:00

This is the summary of the vacation trip we just took. IT’s longer than usual. I’ll have pictures online later this week since they are being developed. The to long/didn’t read version of this post is: Disney World was awesome. For details….. well, just keep reading.

Our first evening there we had arrived in the late afternoon. Since we had a 3 day hopper pass we were going to save the park access for the full days we were there so instead we hopped a shuttle bus down to an area called Downtown Disney. It’s basically an open air mall with lots of shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and upscale stores. There are even some night clubs out on the far end but we never went that far down. Our goal at Downtown Disney was to eat. Jana had found a website for a restaurant called Raglan Road pub. It’s an authentic style Irish place and the menu looked fantastic. This was a great meal. We started with the calamari and tempura veggies. They served malt vinegar with it and that was wonderful. Then I had the steak and Jana had the roasted chicken. Her dish was awesome as it came with a wonderful spinach sauce. For desert we had some toffee over ice cream. All in all that was a pretty good meal.

After heading back to the hotel and managing to sleep on a double bed we made arrangements to move to a room with a king size bed. Disney service is wonderful – they agreed to move all our baggage and all we had to do was stop in later after visiting the parks and find out our new room. Then we were off to Magic Kingdom. We did the usual MK stuff and had a ball riding the rides. I _may_ have been a little spazy but I really like riding rides. It’s a great way to play with your inner five year old. This time I didn’t manage to break very many rides at all – although the notable exception was Splash Mountain. We picked up a fast pass for Splash Mountain and rode Big Thunder Railroad then came back to Splash Mountain to find out it was broken. I was bummed since that is one of my favorite rides. I love not only the ride but also how non-PC it is. They could never tell a story like that anymore.

We also picked up our Happy Anniversary badges as we entered the park. I love the celebration badges. We wore them each day and had lots of people say “happy anniversary” to us. You can pick up badges for birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, just married, and a generic “I’m celebrating” badge just by asking the Disney guys at city hall for them.

For dinner we headed over to Epcot and wandered the pavilions. We settled on trying the Biergarten restaurant in the Germany pavilion. This ended up being my least favorite meal during the trip. They serve a buffet style meal and you share tables with other diners. The floor show was quite amusing since they do an Oktoberfest thing and they had a live band teaching German songs and getting the crowd into the act. The food though suffered from all buffet style problems – the best item on the menu was the bratwurst and I could have ordered that from the little restaurant out front instead of paying a ton for the big restaurant in back. The schnitzel was pretty good too and I did eat a LOT of food. So that does make up for some of the lack of quality.

Back at the hotel we checked at the front desk and got our new room. YAY! The king size bed was much more comfortable. It is reported that I spoke in my sleep that night about “the sampo”. Jana said she was amazed that I didn’t wake up because of how much she was laughing. You’ll have to get the full story from her though. I was asleep.

The next morning we were off to Disney Hollywood. This has two of my very favorite rides at Walt Disney World. The Tower of Terror and the Aerosmith rollercoaster. We picked up a fast pass for the tower and went to stand in line for the coaster. The wait was about an hour for that ride but we are smart travelers and had snacks and books in our bag. Before long we were off on the ride. Then we returned to the tower to use our passes. This is a great ride and I love it, it’s just to bad how short the ride is. As we were getting off one of the Disney employees working there came up and asked to see my shirt. I was wearing my Mystery Science Theater 3000 shirt featuring Dr. Forrester with big green words that said “I’m Evil”. He thought it was really funny and asked us if we wanted to ride the tower ride again. We said something like HECK YEAH and he took us back through the employee access elevator right to the start of the line and put us right back on the ride. That was way cool. I love the Disney attitude.

Later that night we headed back to Epcot for dinner. We were thinking of trying the Italian place but learned that they were fully booked up for both that day and the next day. After wandering about some of the other pavilions we decided we would try the steak house in the Canada pavilion called Le Cellier. And let me tell you that ended up being the best choice of the whole trip. Jana had the green salad to start and I had the Seafood salad. Mine was amazing we both enjoyed it. There were big pieces of Crab and Mussel in the salad and the dressing was wonderful. Next I had the Filet Mignon with mushroom risotto and a white truffle sauce and Jana had the Chicken Coq au Vin. Both dishes were wonderful. I especially liked the risotto – they used a lovely nutty type of mushroom in the mixture and it really set off the taste of the steak well. Our waitress was very attentive and friendly and learned we were there for our anniversary. (The badges we were wearing may have been a clue.) And when we ordered the Maple Crème Brulee for desert she brought it out with the plate all decorated with the words Happy 1st Anniversary and a little Mickey Mouse head. Plus she brought out a little award certificate for us to take home. It was amazingly thoughtful. Plus the Brulee was PERFECT. It was a fantastic meal. And our server earned both a big tip and a follow up e-mail to her management saying what wonderful service we had.

Once we were fully sated we decided that we had a little time left so we hoped onto the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom. We thought that we could probably get onto Splash Mountain during the parade since the lines would be shorter. Jana was a little worried about getting cold since the sun had gone down but I reassured her that I hardly ever get wet on this ride. A little splash is all. Well…. The lines were short all right and we were soon on the ride. The log before us got DRENCHED so I thought for sure we were going to be fine. But we were soon in the exact same place as the log before us had been when I heard the click of the log at the top of the flume starting it’s drop. Oh crap. I’m about to get us both soaked. It was like being under a fire hose. I had never gotten so wet on this ride before. I managed to crack up the people in the seat before us by saying “don’t worry honey we won’t get wet” as we were trying to wring the water out of our hair and clothes.

The last day we went to Disneys Animal Kingdom. This is a perfect park to wind down in since it’s less crowded than the others and it features several nice walking trails that you can take at your own pace. This was important since both of our feet were starting to be tired of all the standing in line. This also features two really good rides, the Kali River rapids and the Expedition Everest coaster. We picked up a fast pass for the rapids and went on the coaster. It’s a really fun ride, kind of like the Matterhorn but more in the dark, and has some sort of corkscrew inside. It also features a part of the ride where you go backwards.

After that we went on the rapids ride. We both had a lot of fun quoting me from the previous day “don’t worry I hardly ever get wet on this ride”. Of course we did get wet – but it was not as wet as we did on Splash Mountain. Jana bought a skirt to change into after the ride and the sun quickly dried us both out. We enjoyed a more leisurely day at this park and after some consideration decided to just eat here as well. There are two nice sit down places in AK and we chose to eat at the one in the Asia area called Yak and Yeti. We had the pan seared pot stickers to start that came with really nice soy and lime sauce. Next I had the Miso Salmon and Jana had the Honey Chicken. They were both really good with strong flavors balanced out with the Jasmine rice. Desert was also really good there, we had the fried wontons that are stuffed with cream cheese and come on a skewer with grilled pineapple and a cream and vanilla drizzle. I think they should have served a pineapple sorbet with it instead of the vanilla ice cream but it was still a great desert.

The trip ended the next day as we had to get up at oh-my-heck-o’clock to get on the bus to head back to the airport. The weather was universally good for us with 80 degree days and gentle breezes. We left a ton of restaurants behind us that we still need to try so we’ll be heading back there again. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that the Walt Disney World parks have become our favorite place to vacation.

CAPTAIN OF A STARSHIP FOR 12 MINUTES....

2009-03-09T09:33:00.003-06:00

OK. I know I've said this before. And I know I'm just confirming what a nerd I am by bringing this up again, BUT....

The new Star Trek movie looks so good, that I am bouncing in my seat wishing it was time for it to be released already. On Friday they released the third trailer for the show. I'll wait. It's worth your time to see it.

There. See what I mean? Amazing. The one line keeps echoing in my head this morning. "Your father was the captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved over 800 lives, including yours. I dare you to do better." It gives me shivers, and so does the scene of Kirk sitting in the captains chair on the bridge.

I love the idea of adding depth to the characters and I hope that they pull it off so well that the franchise is rebooted successfully. This is one of my all time favorites and I'm definitely an old school Treker who is much more fond of TOS (the Original Series for those not used to the abbreviations) than the newer ones. I love the idea of a remake that creates a powerful drama to go along with the action and excitement of the final frontier.

Plus I really really hope that the music they used in the third trailer is part of the actual movie score too. I've loved the sound effects from previous trailers including the correct sound for the transporters and the red alert sirens but the music from this latest one was dramatic and powerful and set off the frantic pace of the trailer very well. I hope it's in the finished product.

I'd be surprised if this is the last time this movie is mentioned on these pages.

FACE UP

2009-02-25T16:18:00.003-07:00

Well, I'm not sure how to admit this but I created a Facebook account.

Yeah, yeah, I know I've grumped about how it is just for kids and how there is no reason to get one. Well I caved in anyway, since there is a word puzzle game on Facebook that I really want to try playing.

I've created my account - sent some friend invitations out to people I recognized after it dug through all my e-mail addresses and now I'm looking at a home page that is bewildering.

Who are all these other people it thinks I might know?

How come it's not a friendly happy picture like other users?

Where is the tamagotchi kitty thing my wife has to keep logging in to feed?

Most, importantly, where is the darn word paths word puzzle I came here looking for?

Maybe I was right and this is for kids - am I hitting the stage of life where it's just to hard to figure out some weird new application like this. Also, am I supposed to talk with people here? Mostly I just want to check it out. Even after signing up I still can't figure out not just what to do here, but the more important question of what I WANT to do here.

I guess I'll play with it for a day or two and see if it's worth keeping or if I should just delete the darn thing and give up on word paths.

A ROMANCE?

2009-02-05T10:38:00.004-07:00

I've been happily making my way through my pile of Christmas books. I've had a few digressions as I started to reread the P.I. Garrett novels (which I HIGHLY recommend) and I had to detour into buying two extra Space Opera books so that I wouldn't start with book 3 in a series. (They were The Myriad and Wolf Star by RM Melouch, I can recommend these to but only if you like space operas. I'll be reading book 3 The Sagittarius Command next.)

One of the books in my pile kept drifting down even though it was very favorably recommended by two of my book loving friends. My problem with it was that my lovely wife mentioned to me that she had a hard time finding it because it was filed in the romance section instead of with fantasy.

I can't imagine why, I mean just look at that cover. The long flowing hair. The intertwined vines. The red lips. The cover art just screams....... well OK, it does look like a romance cover. Just see for your self.

Poison Study, though, is a terrific adventure story set in a unique fantasy world. Maria Snyder has created an all new type of magic use and set it in a vibrant kingdom that recently went through a military coup. Our heroine is set on a path as a condemned murderer as the new food tester for the supreme military commander which sets up a plot of intrigue, adventure, discovery, and yes, even romance.

I'll refrain from saying more about this except for: 1) Go read this book. You'll love it and 2) I just put the sequel Magic Study on my list of books to get.

And finally: 3) I promise not to hesitate to read a good book just because it is shelved in the romance section. A good book holds its own regardless of what people try to categorize it as. In my opinion I would have never placed it on a romance shelf but I can see why it is there. Where ever they put it in your bookstore, Romance or Fantasy go ahead and give this one a try. I'm sure you'll like it.

PUPPY DOG STORIES

2009-01-07T10:35:00.003-07:00

Well the chaos and work of the holidays has passed and it's back to work time now. I loved having the boys over and we took them and one of their friends sledding and to several parties and in general had a great time.

The aftermath consists of looking at houses, wondering if we can sell our current house, cleaning up, shoveling out (a LOT of shoveling out), and enjoying the presents from Christmas.

The "to be read" pile at the side of my bed is much larger thanks to Christmas gifts from my kids and sweetie. I have plenty to read for the next few weeks. I was uncertain about one set of books but they have turned out to be fairly fun. It is Dog Days, and New Tricks by John Levitt.

I've never heard of this author before and wasn't sure what they would be like. I have found that in the urban fantasy genre it is really hard to pick out good new authors. But it did have a cute puppy on the cover so I started in with the first book.

For most of the first book I liked the story well enough and I do like the (mystical) puppy Lou, but I thought it was fairly predictable and uninspired. It had a Mr. brooding semi-bad boy hero and a collection of characters around him and most of the usual tropes of an UF style story in it. It was pleasant and comfortable to read.

Until the end when it surprised me. I don't often get surprised much by stories and maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention but the plot twist near the conclusion of Dog Days got me and that made all the difference in the world in my opinion of the book. The twist was of a personal enough nature to the protagonist that I started to actually care about him and his responses to the event.

When I was done with that one I started in on the second book, New Tricks. I've enjoyed it as well to. I was very glad to see that the emotional burdens shouldered in the first book remained and I could see the protagonist changing in believable ways. I liked that. He's still Mr brooding semi-bad boy (which may be a requirement in UF and probably appeals to certain segments of the reading population (read: girls)) but he's a much more likable character now.

I haven't been surprised (yet) by anything in New Tricks but I can recommend the stories. They aren't for young readers since there are adult themes in the books, but I was glad to see the situations handled with tact and discretion. That makes a delightful and welcome change to many of the urban fantasy books of late. Besides, they co-star a cute little (mystical) puppy dog. What isn't to like?

QUANTUM MEANS SMALL AMOUNT

2008-11-25T09:03:00.007-07:00

So we went to watch Quantum of Solace last night. I have to say I liked the film but it was definitely not as good as the first Daniel Craig James Bond flick. I really like the idea of the series reboots that have been happening – taking a familiar property and updating it to reflect current trends, culture and technology. And the 007 Reboot with Craig is no exception. I like that it’s less goofy and a darker type of story than before but they really missed a few key points in this one.

First of all, one of the things that made Casino Royale so good was the personal connection the audience could make with Bond. I could buy into the relationship he developed with Vesper and could see the pain that he went through because of it. It allowed for empathy with an otherwise brutal character. In this installment they failed to build any empathy and instead Bond comes across as a cold unfeeling robot. He was supposed to be driven by fury but it seemed instead like he was driven by.... i don't know. Accounting? Boredom? Whatever it was, it was NOT seething rage.

Second of all, the video editing was not as good. The fight scenes were speeded up to quickly and combined with jumpy camera work make them very difficult to follow. I was rarely able to work up a sense of peril in the fights because I couldn’t’ hardly tell what was going on.
Third of all, to many plot important points took place off screen. I mean isn’t this a big budget film? Don’t they have enough money to do the actual plot exposition ON SCREEN? Having a character casually toss off critical plot points as something that had just happened off screen is not a good way to tell a story.

Fourth of all, this story is VERY closely related to Casino Royale. In fact, the beginning of this film is set one hour after the end of the last. I didn’t know that. I didn’t figure out all the connections between this story and the last one until the film was almost over. If you are going to rely so heavily on something told that way I expect a “previously in James Bond” type recap at the beginning. In fact, a 007 film seems perfect for that, they could have used the traditional opening segment to gently remind viewers what happened in the last film that is important to this film. Then they could do the 007 shoots the circle thing and start whatever song they have for the opening credits. Instead the developers just assumed that we all watch Casino Royale at least every other month and would surely still remember all the details of that film

Fifth of all, they failed to use the 007 Theme music properly. They teased at the theme several times during the course of the movie but never actually PLAYED it until the ending credits. It’s a classic theme for a reason. It should get more than token reference during the film
Now, having said that it’s still a good film and I’m glad we went to see it. I can recommend it as a fun show just that they let me down a bit. I might have liked it better if I had recently seen the first Craig film and had those details fresh in my mind- in fact I probably would have liked it a lot more had I kept in mind the tragic ending of that film as his motivation for this one – instead of trying to remember exactly how that all fit together while watching this one.

Like I said before I like the reboots of these classic shows. I think the 007 reboot is working, especially the first film and I’m very interested to see what they continue to do. I think the Batman reboots have worked extremely well – especially Batman Begins, but Dark Knight was also successful in my mind. I really like the BattleStar Galactica reboot and even considering the middle of the third season I think it’s a very successful restart of a classic series. I think the Fallout 3 game I’m playing is an effective reboot if you will of a classic game. In each of these cases they have adapted the classic elements with modern techniques and, in the case of the movies and shows, more believable characters.

One reboot I’m really excited about is also related to last nights movie. One of the previews shown was for the upcoming J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek. I admit, that I shouted “whoohoo!” in the theater as soon as I realized that they were playing the Trek preview, and also yelled “Yeah!” when the line “I’m James Tiberius Kirk” was delivered. If you haven't seen that preview I highly recommend the Star Trek link above. You can see it there.

This reboot looks very exciting and I’m thrilled to think about more human and less “rick bermaned”, to coin a phrase, characters. The thing that made Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn such a good film was the story telling and the character interactions. They were real and believable there, and I have high hopes (and the preview doesn’t dash them) that this reboot will feature more believable characters. Characters that are MORE loveable BECAUSE of their foibles and not less.

I suppose time will tell but in the meantime I’ll keep hoping and keep rooting for the makers of the series reboots.

CAN'T...... STOP........MYSELF..........WEB QUIZES

2008-11-21T12:47:00.001-07:00

You Are The Stuffing

You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together.

People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

THE BIG GAME

2008-11-21T10:29:00.004-07:00

I'm very glad to have my new job. It's a very different sort of pressure to work in the legal industry than what I've done before but the people I work with are on the right hand side of the IQ bell curve and when the pressure does come off they seem to have good parties.

I've tried really hard to fit in and make connections with others. This weekend is the big rivalry game between BYU and Utah. The powers that be offered a $100 prize to the person dressed most patriotically for their team, one for each side.

I was already wearing my UofU tie all week long and I like being involved in office games so I started trying to think what I could do to be a part of it. I told my lovely (and talented and amazing wife) that wouldn't it be funny if I came as a giant pom-pom?

She not only thought it was funny but thought she could make it happen. She stayed up late last night and when I came upstairs from the bedroom this morning my outfit was complete! And it was amazing.

The competition at work was fierce. There were probably eight people decked out in UofU red. Oddly there were only three in the BYU competition side.

The winner of the prize for the U was split by a team entry. The Gangster and his 'ho. I have never seen any one person wear so many UofU branded items at one time before.

As a special reward the powers that be created a special prize on the spot for me as having the most creative outfit (and for not just wearing my regular weekend clothing).

Pictures of the winners below with faces obscured at the request of the subjects.

GO UTES!

2008-11-13T12:21:00.005-07:00

Time for a Fallout 3 follow-up post.

I have to say I am enthralled by this game. I've played slower than either of my other two friends who are also playing but I don't think I enjoy it any less. I am repeatedly delighted by little touches that just blow me away.... sometimes literally.

For example, I was exploring the Museum of Technology and having a hoot seeing the broken wright flyer and a mangled P-38 Lightning on display. Some of the displays were still in working condition with recorded messages and lights and it was wonderfully atmospheric. As I wandered I entered a planetarium with a big old fashioned star projector in the middle.

The device came to life and started presenting it's show. I stood there transfixed looking up at the swirling galaxy on the ceiling and enjoying the robotic presentation. When I was suddenly jarred out of my reverie - and I do mean startled I definitely jumped in my chair - when I heard two super mutants come into the room behind me shouting about getting the intruder and then proceeded to messily kill me before I could regain my composure.

Oh sure I had saved and so I reloaded and played that encounter differently but not before I spent several minutes just laughing out loud at having been so completely surprised by the setup of the encounter and by my willingness to sit and watch a virtual museum display.

It speaks to the strength of the FO3 game, atmosphere. And while I am not very fond of the first person viewpoint (and that is one of the reasons I play it less - I'm prone to motion sickness in that type of game if I don't limit my play times) - and I find some of the NPC characters to be flat, the overall atmosphere of the game is amazing. If you are on the fence about this game I have to highly recommend it as money well spent.

ARID WASTELAND

2008-10-29T10:11:00.005-06:00

Wow, long time no post. My blog is an arid wasteland indeed. My only defense is that I’ve been busy. I’m finishing up some part time work with a previous employer and looking forward to going full time with a new one in November. Yup, I’ve managed to scamper off the sinking ship of my old job and land a really good gig with a huge law firm in SLC. It’s a long commute but looks to be a really stable job. Add to that a number of legal complications with getting my ex-wife to let me have my kids on my weekends and the usual keep-stuff-running and well…. That is the way it goes sometimes I guess.

The real wasteland though is awaiting me at home. I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Fallout 3, because…well because I’m a huge fanboy OK? I’ve loved the previous games in the franchise (hey I even enjoyed Fallout Tactics although not as much as the real Fallout games) and it arrived yesterday. Before collapsing last night I managed to get through the REALLY LONG install process and play the intro portion of the game where you create your character and leave the vault.

I am very pleased with what I have seen so far. The change in perspective was a little disconcerting. A first person viewpoint is not my favorite way to interface with an environment but oh boy is that environment amazing. They captured the look and feel of the Fallout universe very well and managed to setup the beginnings of an emotional story line all during the intro. I hope that the rest of the game can live up to the expectations that they have set.

I think I’ll redo the intro now that I’ve seen the process once just to make sure I get the character that I want and then it’s off into the Capitol Wasteland for fame and adventure and hopefully a chance to find Dogmeat!

I had talked a friend into looking forward to this game too. Honestly, it didn’t take any convincing at all but he’s been looking forward to it as well. If his wife is reading this then he DEFINITLY DID NOT BUY A COPY AT THE STORE WHEN HE WENT TO GET WIPER BLADES! If his wife isn’t reading this, I can’t believe he beat me into the wasteland! Amazing, I thought for sure I would completely one up him with FO3.

Well I do have him totally beat in one way though. Did I mention that I was a Fallout fanboy? Well as if anyone needed proof of that, I preordered (Way back in May) the collectors edition of FO3. This came with some really cool goodies in addition to the game. Chief among them are my newly prized possessions of the FO3 old-school metal lunchbox and my Vault-Boy bobble head doll.

BTW: very cool wallpapers can be found at the Bethesda site here!

ACK! NO! STAY AWAY!

2008-09-25T09:22:00.003-06:00

Somewhere in my wanderings I must have clicked the link that said "yes please send me an advance reading copy of your book". I mean I don't remember it at all. It just seems like the kind of thing I would do. It's the kind of thing I would do and then forget all about it.

So last week a package showed up with a book in it. A book I didn't remember asking for. Well it looked vaguely interesting even though it was another in the "here is another butt kicking heroine saving the world" genre. It was Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland.

It started OK. The story wasn't very original but it was acceptable. The primary characters were OK too. Relationship-wise it felt like an episode of supernatural. Two protagonists who desperately love each other and express it by bickering and arguing all the time. The only twist here was that it was a man and a woman so there was also an underlying sexual tension. I could have enjoyed the book in a mild way on that basis and said so to anyone who would have asked.

Then it got to the half way point in the book and it took a RADICAL turn for the worse. Turns out that our female protagonist (and the character for whom the entire projected series is named for) is an empath. That doesn't sound so bad does it? But in this universe an empath is a supernatural creature that can absorb the powers of other supernatural creatures...... by sleeping with them! UGH!

From then on the rest of the book was skimmed not read. She proceeded to save the world (for now) by sleeping with several really icky characters. No morality, no consequences just sex.

I don't mind having characters in books have sexual relationships. It's part of life. But they should be handled delicately and behind closed doors, never graphically. I'm pretty sure when Elan said "wanna make out" or when Rhett picked up Scarlet it didn't lead to a hot game of scrabble if ya know what I mean. *wink wink nudge nudge* but that is all that was needed.

This book was clearly designed to setup a series where the heroine continually saves the world by icky sex scenes so without any reservation I'm throwing this book by Lori Handeland away and I will quite likely never read another book by her. I have to strongly recommend to all my friends that none of you bother to waste your time with this either.

NEW REVIEW- THE ABBEY

2008-09-22T12:44:00.001-06:00

I had fun with this one. I don't really play many adventure games but this one is one is pretty good. I did have to use the walk through to get out of the first chapter since the game has no hint system - but once the story got rolling it was fairly easy to know what to do... the challenge was to figure out HOW to do it.

The review is here: Enjoy.

HARD LIMIT

2008-09-16T10:13:00.003-06:00

I love reading. I read all the time. I usually have a book stuffed in a bag or pocket whenever I go anywhere even if I'm sure I _won't_ be able to pull it out, I've often got one along with me.

Fortunately, there are tons of books to read. I usually stay in the Science Fiction area, but I also enjoy a good mystery, urban fantasy, or high fantasy novel.

Because there are so many books to read I don't feel compelled to read all the way through something. Generally, I will give a book 100 pages to catch my interest. If it can't pull me in by then away the book goes and I'm off into another one.

For example, last night I was working on a novel by Lillith Saintcrow called Night Shift. It's another one of the seemingly ubiquitous butt-kicking-heroine urban fantasy novels. I don't mind them, I liked what parts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I watched (which is some of it) and I've enjoyed other urban fantasy with female protagonists as well. (But the one my beautiful wife just wrote and is looking to get published is better than them all, he said with no bias.)

At 104 page I decided to put it down. Why? Mostly because I hated the lead character. She just wasn't likable. Mostly, she was mean to people. It wasn't even justified, she was just a giant meany mean head.

The other major problem with this book was the pacing. I expect action and character development in a book - i don't want it all spaz out fights all the time so slower sections of the book help to add to the tension of the overall story and my understanding of the characters. I enjoy that part.... usually.

In this case the book was paced by using whining. It's a really odd choice, I know but it appears to be a conscious decision. The lead character spent all her introspection time whining about how she's not good enough, how she hates what is happening around her, how her poor life was so hard. Waa waa waa. OK, characters have backgrounds but if I wanted to read a bunch of whining about a poor upbringing then I'd have picked a book from a different section of the store.

Good grief. At 104 pages I decided that another 219 pages of a whiny meany head was more than I could stand. The lead was so annoying as to drive me completely out of the story. It's a wild contrast from many books since I often like, at least some aspects, of the characters and for some I'd love to have lunch with them someday. Harry Dresden and a cheeseburger anyone? It's to bad, because the central mystery was shaping up to be intriguing.

MEANWHILE....

2008-09-12T12:25:00.002-06:00

So I am working for a company. Sorta. My current job cut me back from full time to part time two months ago. There is also a brewing conflict with my ex-wife concerning parent time activities. That has all relatively sucked and is all much to long, and whiny, and emo to really put in a blog post.

So instead, while that has been going on I've been trying to find other things to do. The job market has been slow lately, but I did have an interview with a fairly prestigious firm in Salt Lake City recently and I've been in touch with a recruiter who thinks she can find me a good position too. All good things.

Then out of the blue the Editor at Strategy Informer told me that I could earn an easy few bucks by writing news articles for his site while his regular writer is out of town. So for the next ten days (OK, OK, eight now since I've already done two) look on the Strategy Informer news page for articles written by dtungsten. That is yours truly pumping out news for gamers. The pay is measly somewhere around 1 or 2 dollars per article but it's also fun and since I have more free time than I would really wish for it's a great activity for me.

FALL DOWN GO BOOM

2008-08-23T09:47:00.002-06:00

I have five year old knees.

No really. Not like they don’t creak when going up stairs or are spry and limber. But rather they look like I had a massive wipe out on my awesome big wheel. (Oh. My inner child has an AWESOME big wheel.) Unfortunately, my outer self is the one with the scabbed and scraped up five year old knees.

You know those giant coolers you used to be able to get from McDonalds? The ones full of nasty orange flavored drink? My lovely wife brought home a cooler about that size – but this one was full of really good fizzy raspberry lemonade. Over the course of several days I did my manly duty to try to drink that cooler down. It was just too much.

So, yesterday, it was time to take the cooler outside, dump it, clean it up and get it put away. On the side of my house we have a dirt car port, perfect, I thought, to dump sticky lemonade in. Leading up to the car port is a decorative cement area with rose bushes and wooden spacers between cement blocks.

Stupid…. Wooden…. Spacers…..

On my way over to the dirt, hauling a giant cooler, my toes caught on one of the wooden spacers that have warped upwards a bit. I began to sprawl.

Oh crap! (And other words) went through my brain, while I was somewhat horizontal in the air just above a giant cooler of raspberry lemonade that was already beginning to spill. I’m going to land in the lemonade and get all sticky. *sigh* That is what being a grownup has brought me to. I didn’t want to get sticky. I’m horizontal in the air ABOVE CEMENT and worried about the sticky.

So because I’m insane that way I tried to twist, IN THE AIR, with no leverage at all to get away from the impending giant puddle of sticky lemonade. Through heroic efforts I managed to wrench a muscle or two and then I landed. Face down, complete sprawl, knees on cement and face in dirt. Oh and it turns out that the lemonade when mixed with the fizzy soda is really exceptionally sticky.

I managed to rip out both knees in my jeans as well as bloody both of my actual knees along with a random collection of muscle sprains. The good news is that none of the neighborhood children were near enough to be exposed to a Yo-Samity-Sam style string of cussing.

Now it’s the next day and I’m stiff and my knees hurt. I’m a much bigger baby about being hurt now than I ever was when I was five. Kids just seem to pick up from things like that and after a kiss and a cookie they are back out on that awesome big wheel. Personally? I’m going to leave that cement area alone for a while.

WHO'D A THUNK IT?

2008-07-11T08:35:00.001-06:00

Can't..... resist.... web...... quiz.........

How evil are you?

Fortunately, it's not an eviiiiiil web quiz.

CLASSIC BOOKS

2008-06-26T12:03:00.004-06:00

OK so my lovely wife just posted an article listing the top 100 books according to someone or other and then went through the list highlighting the ones she had read. She's read 45 of the 100 on the list and wants to read another 10 of them. I could just blog the list and highlight what I've read.

Then one of our mutual friends with a delightful bent on reality wondered "who is this list according to". It's apparently compiled by a bunch of "stuffy Brits" but there is no mention of the methodology or selection criteria used in the compilation. He's read 47 of the 100 and would have read another 10 if he had followed through on all his assignments in college. I could blog about how clever that was and how often we ignore the motivations behind the headlines.

I've read 20 of the 100. And I'm pretty sure I've read all the ones on that list that I want to read. However I'm an avid reader. I think my friend has it right in his opinion that the list is clearly shaped by its creators. Were I to make the list it would look rather different. There is a serious lack of science fiction which is a shame. The literary world often exempts Sci-Fi from any serious consideration thinking it's just fluff. What a shame - some of the most insightful and compelling commentaries on society I've ever read have been science fiction. That's worth a blog article too but I'm not going to blog that either.

In keeping with the randomness inherent in this site and the wonderful serendipity of all creation I found this comic today which excellently highlights one of the problems I have with "classic" literature. Click the picture to go to the site and while you are there browse the rest of his excellent work. Enjoy.

AND NOW A NEWS FLASH

2008-06-23T09:42:00.002-06:00

The guys over at Strategy Informers have been working on getting more news items up. They don’t have a budget for it (yet) but promise to have one someday. In any case, I’ve volunteered to write a few news articles for them from time to time. I am definitely no hard hitting journalist. (Although, I do have a cool hat and I could probably figure out some way to get a press badge into the hat band.)

The first article I did for them was a quick blurb on engine optimizations for a game that I probably won’t play that make it better than a game I never played.

The second article is a silly piece on how players in a game I haven’t (and probably won’t ever) played have killed more imaginary bad guys than the entire population of the world. Fortunately I don’t think any politicians are trying to imagine up ways to use that stat to provoke knee jerk reactions from people who won’t (or when I’m feeling less charitable… can’t) think for themselves.

I’ve not been checking the comments from either of the news articles. Since they are news I’ve tried not to put much of my own opinions into them like when I do reviews. This should be drier than that. But it’s still fun to see my name up as the author and I can always aspire to gaining critics as good as these guys.

DARK WATERS

2008-06-05T11:33:00.002-06:00

It’s the dog days of gaming like it always is around this time of year. Most of the major releases are being held back for the big shopping season at the end of the year and the stuff coming out now is the lamer titles.

So..... I displayed what a massive Fallout fanboy I am by pre-ordering Fallout 3 now. I just have to wait until sometime in October (I hope) for it to be shipped.

In an effort to keep playing a game I picked up a copy of Mask of the Betrayer, the expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2. It hasn’t arrived yet. NWN2 wasn’t a terrific game but the buzz on MotB is that it is a vastly better game and game experience than the original campaign was. I understand that they are also working on a second expansion called Mysteries of Westgate. If MotB is good I may give that a shot too.

I reinstalled NWN2 in preparation for getting Mask and then was instantly bored. I have no desire to replay the original campaign. It made me mad for reasons well explained by others. So I went searching for user created modules. I found one. I found one that may delay my playing Mask until it is finished.

The user module Dark Waters is amazing. I have to admit I haven’t played very far into it yet but it has custom (and reasonably well done) voice acting, extremely clever custom scripting, a fascinating back story, custom music, custom sound effects, and new items. The readmes hint of pirate battles, new card games, and new powers. I love the ability to set things on fire and have them take damage from it. Just seeing that is worth playing the module by itself.

But the best part about it so far, is the story. You start as classic newbie adventurers from a small village who stumble into a way through the sealed door in the mountains above your village. You, of course, get trapped inside and in an effort to escape find the past coming back to haunt you in strange and mysterious ways. Historic rivalries and friendships become more meaningful to you as the story begins to unfold and the tension is slowly ratcheted up.

Again, I’ll grant that I’ve only played an hour or two of what I estimate to be a six to twelve hour game (counting both parts that have been released). I hope that they manage to keep it up but just going on this first look I’d have to highly recommend it. If you have NWN2 installed still go grab parts one and two and play them. If you don’t have NWN2 installed still, I can’t blame you. I took mine off too. But really, this user created content is WELL worth your time. Give it another shot. I did and I’m glad I did.

SKIN THIS

2008-05-28T12:33:00.004-06:00

Wow, long time no post. Weird.

Hmmm... what kind of excuse can I use to explain the lack of content. *think think think* I know! It's... ummm... this new diet. Yes! That's it. I've been on a radical new diet summed up here that explains it all.

Bah! No one will believe that. *think think think*

Ah ha! I've got it. I've been spending all my free time on RockBand. That's not actually the truth either but it's a pretty good excuse anyway. My love and I wrote a review of RockBand once. It's one of the best party games out there. We frequently play it with our friends and not to long ago my wife and I picked up our own system to play it on.

I like the Rockband controllers. They have nice big buttons for me and I like the form factor better than the smaller Guitar Hero ones. They do have a reputation for being less robust though and that is a problem. I've had to send one of my controllers back because it would not deploy the overdrive no matter how much I tipped it back. (HAH! which gives me a chance to link to still one of my all time favorite Basic Instructions!)

The basic controller looks like this.

It's functional but boring based on the black and white Fender Stratocaster. I found a skin for sale on the Internet and purchased it. My guitar now looks WAY cooler. The picture is a little dark - the red is much brighter in real life but this picture will give you a good idea of it's essential coolness.

The skin was a little bit difficult to apply. It's basically a giant vinyl sticker. The narrow strips were a bit of a pain to stick on especially around the white parts of the guitar and around the whammy bar and buttons. Otherwise it went on pretty smoothly. The instructions said to use a hair dryer while you push out the bubbles in the skin and that worked remarkably well. I ended up with a really cool looking guitar that can even stand close inspection. What wrinkles I couldn't remove are mostly hidden in the black skinny areas again around the bottom and near the buttons.

The skin hasn't changed the actual playing experience at all unless you count how much cooler I am now with a cherry three tone sunburst guitar. Once my other guitar returns I'd like to skin it too. There are lots and lots of skins available. With any luck I'll be able to find a ZZ Top style furry guitar skin for that one.

MORE BEGINNINGS or THE INTERNET IS SO COOL

2008-04-30T09:50:00.003-06:00

A while back i got to talking about some of my favorite all time game intros. That was a fun little article that can be found here.

I was doing the periodic maintenance on my computer that any game player must do from time to time. I was removing old games, and games I wrote reviews for that sucked (the games not the reviews), and remembering fun times past.

In that nostalgic mood I retreated into my blog archives to replay a few of those favorite intro movies. The movies for Mechwarrior 2 and Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy are some of my all time favorites.

A third favorite was the intro movie for X:COM Terror From the Deep. At the time I couldn't find a copy of it, but since then a few have appeared on youtube.com. Here it is:

I've watched this intro many times. Probably a lot more than I should admit and I have always enjoyed it. Watching all three of the above mentioned intros in a row I could see that each of them is dramatic and tense. I wish I could find more intros like that (and games like these too!).

These are all well thought out introductions meant to capture your interest and add flavor to the actual game play. All three of these succeeded. I just finished playing Fantasy Wars and the intro to that game was trite and slooooooow moving. It felt like an afterthought to the game - something they had to add because there were animated logos for every company involved in the production too. It added no flavor and the only emotional impression it left was "Ugh, not again!".

Intro movies may be a forgotten art but I hope not. The teaser trailer movie for Fallout 3 makes me think that there are people out there who still carefully craft their stories and use intros as a critical part of setting the scene and pace and taste of a game.

FANTASY WARS

2008-04-21T11:53:00.003-06:00

Another game review by me. http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/mythicwars/review.html

They persistently use ~Js name on the reviews for some reason but this one I wrote. The pictures are strangely miscaptioned too. I'll have to check my original source to see if that's my fault or theirs. You may or may not see those mistakes since the publisher has been contacted and is correcting them.

Anyway, the game is solidly average. I played it even after finishing the review so I definitely don't hate the game. It makes me long for a new classic style X-COM or Jagged Alliance game. I loved the turn based small unit tactics games lots and lots but this is certainly a fun little game to fiddle with especially if you like turn based strategy games.

CREATIVE COOKING

2008-04-14T14:15:00.006-06:00

Several weeks ago I was sitting at a game night with many of my good friends enjoying myself when one of the little girls at the party informed her parents that she had found a spider. Only being an adorable little girl she called it a pie-der.

You’ve probably heard kids call spiders that before. I know I have. In fact I’ve heard it lots of times but something happened to me at that moment when I heard the word pie-der. I was suddenly overcome with a vision. A vision I knew I could make real.

Two weeks later at a gathering of those very same people I unveiled the worlds first chocolate pie-der.

Before I made the pie-der I searched all over Google because I thought I couldn’t be the first person to ever think of this. While assembling the legs one of my friends pulled out all her Halloween cookbooks (of which she has a remarkably impressive collection) and we still could not find a pie like mine. So I claim the world first.

When it comes to creative cooking though I am a sous-chef to the master chef my lovely wife ~J is. She regularly makes fantastic meals. It’s a joy to watch her cook. She recently made two fantastic cakes.

The first was for a joint birthday, mine, The Rabid Paladins and Coyotes. We all have birthdays within a week of each other and since we are all members of the same gaming group we celebrate them all together each year. Last year, you may recall, had the famous battle map cake. This year ~J made us all a cake of consummate majesty, the Trogdor cake.

My sons’ birthday is a little bit more than a week after mine and he wanted a very specific cake too. This one took quite some doing but I think you’ll agree with me the results are fantastic. The Wii cake complete with oversize Wii controller.

Oh, and just because it was cute I’ve included a picture of my friends cat Ivan. Please forgive the blur – Ivan moved as I clicked and then scampered off of the matt before I could get another shot. I’m really not sure what size category that Ivan would be but it’s really big. I’m glad he was just a wandering monster who wandered off instead of being one of the DM’s creatures.

I WIN! I WIN!

2008-04-09T14:35:00.003-06:00

For about the last five years I've participated in my works annual NCAA mens basketball tournament Pick'em game. It used to be a $5 buy in and the winner takes the pot. The last few years, it's been for bragging rights instead and occasionally a work donated prize to the winner.

I've had a clever strategy of listening to talk radio and looking at what I consider the hustle stats (assists, blocks, rebounds and especially offensive rebounds) for each team when making my selections. This synthesis of data has never worked well enough to win my groups until this year when I managed to finally place 1st place. Go me!

No prize given (at least so far) but I've managed to use my bragging rights for a day or two and that was lots of fun.

BRIDGES TO THE MIDDLE

2008-04-08T08:54:00.002-06:00

I've just been published today! It's my first article that pays per word and I'm really excited about it. Bridges to the Middle.

One of the most interesting thing is the editing process. I submitted about 1400 words and after help by a terrific editor at Escapist Magazine ended up with a really tight article of around 950 words. I do miss the joke that got cut but I also like how tightly the article reads now.

Besides, I can always ramble here.

BLEARY

2008-04-02T12:14:00.003-06:00

April fools day. *sigh* I'm not really fond of April fools day. I really don't go in for practical jokes in any way shape or form anyway - they often tend to seem mean to me. (Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm just a big softie.)

So I'm happy to report that while the day was DUMB (not only with a capitol D but with all the others capitalized too) I did manage to escape it without falling victim to any of the usual wacky hi jinks that typically accompany the day.

It was dumb due to some annoying problems I had to work through in my job, loooooong drive times required to accomplish the days goals, and a spectacularly badly timed muscle cramp. Fortunately the day came to a close with much giggling and snuggling with my amazingly wonderful and beautiful wife ~J. Love ya doll.

Hope you all escaped April fools days intact as well.

HUMAN CLERIC

2008-03-17T11:42:00.002-06:00

Over on his blog my friend The Rabid Paladin has a link to a really cool web quiz. It's one of the longest I've ever seen but it's definitely fun to take, especially in light of the D&D campaign I'm playing with him and the rest of the regular group. I play the cleric in our current game so it's interesting to have the test place me as:

I Am A: True Neutral Human Cleric (5th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-12

Dexterity-10

Constitution-12

Intelligence-14

Wisdom-11

Charisma-10

Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Clerics act as intermediaries between the earthly and the divine (or infernal) worlds. A good cleric helps those in need, while an evil cleric seeks to spread his patron's vision of evil across the world. All clerics can heal wounds and bring people back from the brink of death, and powerful clerics can even raise the dead. Likewise, all clerics have authority over undead creatures, and they can turn away or even destroy these creatures. Clerics are trained in the use of simple weapons, and can use all forms of armor and shields without penalty, since armor does not interfere with the casting of divine spells. In addition to his normal complement of spells, every cleric chooses to focus on two of his deity's domains. These domains grants the cleric special powers, and give him access to spells that he might otherwise never learn. A cleric's Wisdom score should be high, since this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

TRIPS FOR GROWNUPS

2008-03-11T11:50:00.003-06:00

I have to HIGHLY recommend Disney World as a great place for grownups to visit. I’m sure kids can have fun there but I think it’s even better for grownups. My beautiful sweet bride and I just returned from a honeymoon trip to Disney World and we had a blast. This park boasts a number of features that appeal to a more adult sense of fun from walking trails in the Animal Kingdom, to the world pavilions of Epcot the whole series of parks seems to be balanced for more adult tastes.

The food at Epcot would be wasted on childish palates anyway. We ate there three out of four nights and had some terrific meals. My favorite was the Restaurant Marrakesh in the Morocco Pavilion. The food was amazing and the atmosphere there was all out to make you feel like you were in a foreign land. I was highly impressed.

One of the fun things about Disney are the little extras they put in to the experience. On our first day there I saw a couple wearing big badges that said “Just Married”. Well so was I and I wanted to find those. So that afternoon as we were focusing more on shopping and exploring than on riding rides I asked a cashier if she knew where I could buy those pens. She told me to go out to the City Hall building and ask them for one.

So off we wandered to Main Street USA to the City Hall building and went in to find them. I would have been happy to buy them but they just hand them out if you just ask. I was thrilled. It’s my favorite souvenir from the trip. We wore those badges for the entire rest of the trip. The next day we had 18 people tell us congratulations, the third day we had 13 people say it and on the final day 23 people told us that. Plus we had an automatic excuse for being smoochie and cuddly (hmmmm I wonder if the badges will work on my friends) and got put in the very front seat of the Splash Mountain ride.

They also have badges for Anniversaries, birthdays and 1st time visitors so if you are at the park and fit into one of the categories be sure to stop in and get yours.

LIGHT POSTING MONTH

2008-02-28T09:24:00.002-07:00

Well, I've not posted much this month but I can only plead that I was really busy. What with getting married this Friday (to the mostest awesomist amazingest and loveliest fiance evar!) and everything that goes along with that. I've had lots of stuff to do between cleaning up my apartment, moving out (with the help of fantastic friends and family) and getting components that we needed for the wedding dinner and actual wedding itself done.

In the midst of all this happy chaos I received a good news e-mail from The Escapist Magazine. They have accepted my pitch submission and would like an article from me due on the 17th of March. I've got some outline ideas written down already (thank goodness) so I'll hit this article hard right after the honeymoon trip is over.

rFactor - my 3rd review

2008-02-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm getting the hang of this review a game theme I've got started on. Although to let you in on a little magic behind the scenes, my reviews are _much_ better because my wonderful fiancee ~J edits them for me before they get shipped off to SI.

Anyway, the latest one is a review of rFactor, a racing game. Well not just a racing game any more than Falcon 4.0 was just a flying game. This is a simulation in every sense of the word and unless you are totally into racing and want to experience every single aspect of a racing weekend including the time in the grarage, qualifying laps, practice rounds and the interminable race itself you should probably not play this game. If you do I've found the game for you.

rFactor - check out my review here.

THERE IS LIFE!

2008-02-05T13:39:00.001-07:00

More fuel for the life on Mars crowd. And this one is pretty convincing really. I mean the face at Cydonia was pretty good, and the Bigfoot shaped rock… errr… I mean big foot shaped Martian, but really this is pushing it just a little too far.

This picture was snapped in 1998. (Click for a larger view!) It’s clearly a smiley face. What else could it be? But no, many people said it was just a fluke of nature or a bad photograph. The Mars Global Survey craft took this picture on the first day of its survey.

See! It still looks like a smiley face even with the new fancy pictures. (Again, click for enlarged view!) Even though NASA still claims it is random chance and the propensity of humans to project onto inanimate objects.

The official name of this crater is Galle crater located at 51.1 degrees S, 31.3 degrees W. It’s approximately 134 miles across.

ROAD TO THE BHG

2008-01-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Apparently the US Navy is starting down the path to Galactic Civilizations 2 Black Hole Gun. Heh. Seriously though the USN announced yesterday that they plan to test fire an electromagnetic rail gun at 10 Mega Joules. That is serious sci-fi stuff. Much realer than the little orange men nut jobs all over the world discovered last week too.

A rail gun is basically a way of propelling something really really fast. So fast that you could technically just have a solid ball or rod and still do tremendous damage to your target just from going fast. Think of car crashes for an idea. Neither car (presumably) has explosive warheads but when they crash together a lot of damage is done just because they are moving.

For given values of kinetic energy it’s probably more effective to just have solid masses instead of actual payloads on the projectile although I’m not familiar enough with the math to know where the sweet spot is. I would assume that the lower the power used to launch the projectile the more likely it would be to have an explosive warhead on them. At some launching power it would no longer make any sense since more damage would be done by the kinetic impact than by the payload.

OK major nerd mode there.

Anyway, rail guns are cool ideas and can be used for lots more than throwing bullets. Massive rail guns could easily accelerate something to orbit and might be a highly effective way to send cargos (if maybe not people because the acceleration stresses would be really high) to space. This summer I rode a roller coaster that used magnets to accelerate the cars instead of using a chain and a gravity drop for the initial boost. Same thing as this gun on a different scale.

Anyway, check out this fun little animation of how rail guns work plus get an intro to the physics over on science.howstuffworks.com.

LITTLE ORANGE MEN

2008-01-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I will listen to what I like to call Whack-Job-Nation to fall asleep. It’s more commonly known as Coast to Coast AM (usually) with George Noory. It’s basically a national call in talk radio show but the only twist on this one is that it’s for crazy people. I suppose that is why I enjoy it. I get a kick out of listening to the crazy people talk about werewolves in their sheds or shadow people in the hallway or aliens beaming them hither and yon. Heck I have my own crazy so I probably relate.

In my opinion the host is not one of the “believers” but rather he is an entertainer. And that is how I take the show too. It’s very entertaining to listen to these very sincere people espouse the most fantastical theories and ideas. Last night was fairly entertaining – even though I fell asleep very quickly. There were several calls about some picture that shows an actual Martian captured by the Spirit rover cameras. “Spiffy!” my brain thought, “That is way cooler than the face on Mars.”

The discussion was callers saying they knew it all along and now here is the proof with Mr. Noory egging them on to more and more outrageous claims. Not only was it entertaining but it aroused my curiosity. This morning I did a little Google-fu (and found my buddy Neuron Scream had a link to an article about it in in his IM message) to find out what the furor was all about.

First of all here is the real color panoramic view. See any aliens? You can click on the picture to go to the NASA site where this was hosted for a better view. (BTW: The site is slammed be prepared for VERY slow load times.)

Me neither. Yes, there are people whose job it is to poor over enlarged versions of these pictures with magnifying glasses. These people are called scientists. There are also people who have made it their hobby to poor over enlarged versions of these pictures with magnifying glasses. These people are called nut farms.

Here is a false color version of the same picture. (Again linked to a larger NASA version.) Any aliens now?

Nope. Same here. I can’t see anything but rocks.

OK. Then let me help you. Here is a picture with an arrow. Go back to the big NASA picture and it’s totally easy to see it now right?

*sigh* I must be blind or stupid but I still can’t see the Martians. OK here is another help. This is a zoomed in picture of the panoramic view – still in false color.

Ah Ha! Aliens! Monsters of the inky black! Umm… well at least monsters of the orangey um… orange.

This final close up – the most zoomed in picture I could find shows the beast in all its startling fury and ichors.

Oh. Wait. Never mind… looks a lot like a pixilated rock. Which, it almost certainly is. The principle of Occam's razor is well applied to this situation. If there are multiple possible explanations for something the simplest one is the most likely one to be correct. It’s a rock. It would be fun to have orange, rock encrusted, and pixel-y space neighbors but I’m afraid we only have orange, rock encrusted and pixel-y space um.. rock neighbors.

ROCK TO THE BAND

2008-01-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

A fun party with awesome friends turned into a joint effort game review with my lovely fiancee ~J. The results can be read here: Rock Band Review

And a random picture!

Resistance is Futile

(If ohms less than one)

ALL OF THEM. :(

2008-01-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

My work has quite a number of Apple fans. It’s no surprise given the nature of this company. There are a number of artists and I support probably one third to one half of our users on Macs. I’m not anti-Mac any more than I’m anti-Windows or anti-Linux. I think they each have their place. When I sell myself to potential employers I emphasize how I like to use the best platform for each application. I have Linux, Solaris, and Windows servers. I have Windows and Mac clients. For the most part I can make them all play nice together. It’s a good thing.

But Apple fans are interesting. They often claim long and loud about how Macs are teh bestest evar and often are hard to convince. I usually avoid these by making my “I’m a best of breed” user claim above. Comparisons between Vista and Leopard have sparked a round of Mac and PC e-mails in my company. That e-mail thread resulted in this little gem. It cracks me up every single time I see it.

Mac: I'm a Mac
PC: And I'm a PC
Mac: Say, PC, what are you doing there?
PC: Oh, nothing, just playing a video game.
Mac: Which one?
PC: All of them.
Mac: :(

LIKE CALLS TO LIKE

2008-01-08T13:01:00.000-07:00

Since there can never be to much hype: My wonderful fiancee has a professional article published today on The Escapist magazine. It's the best article in the issue (he said with only a little bias). No really. You can read the others if you like but it's true. The point of the article is to talk about how we game together as friends. These are wonderful people and I can't say enough good about them. And I'm very grateful and happy (and occasionally hysterically laughing) to be a part of them.

It's funny but the article ~J wrote is all about celebrating the unifying effects of gaming. Games have brought us together as friends and strengthened our lives by creating a social network that goes far beyond just something to do.

Most of the other articles in this issue treat gaming as something shameful to be hidden or coped with. That is rubbish... plus I can say from experience, that hiding yourself just won't work. You'll do more damage in the long run denying yourself.

Embrace the crazy, I say, and be sure to check out the article: Like Calls to Like.

FIRST POST OF '08 AND IT'S FALLOUT!

2008-01-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to go back to games that I really liked and play them over again. I’ve done it a number of times like with System Shock 2 and I’ve replayed several of the Ultima Games over. You could even argue that my UFO:Extraterestrial playing is just replaying my X:COM experiences over again.

I’ve revisited the Fallout games a number of times. The first one is nearly impossible to get running on modern systems and once it is up and running it’s very unsatisfying since the program didn’t age very well. Fallout 2 is a better experience although, graphically it’s still a letdown. Fallout Tactics runs fairly well and even plays nicely – to bad that game was just the combat. It’s like half of a fallout game. A fallout game for console (duuuurrr) ‘tards as I suppose Yahtzee would say.

I think it’s great how user mods can extend the life of a game or even revitalize one completely. I read today of the Fallout 2 Restoration Project by this guy over on No Mutants Allowed:

The basis of the mod is to add back additional content that never made the release version of the game. Looking through his release notes shows quite a few new quests, NPCs and even extra Easter eggs. Reading through the thread on the site gives clues that this was a labor of love. I’m highly impressed by his willingness to create such a mod and find myself interested to download it and give it a shot.

My Fallout 2 disks are with a friend who needs to play them (and he also needs to ~~play~~ read my Planescape Torment game too). I won't name names since I don't want to harm his gamer cred but his initals are Coyote. I may have to borrow these back quick - at least long enough to check out this mod.

SCI-FI GEEK

2007-12-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice audio Sci-Fi geek test. Try and beat my awesome score.

Your Score : 85 credits
You're an extreme sci-fi geek! You're probably wearing your very own homemade TRON costume right now!

	I received 85 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds here Canon powershot

Thanks to the wonderful ~J for the link.

ROUGE AND OR ROGUE DEVICE

2007-12-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

The other day a user came to me and said she had an IP Address conflict warning on her computer. That is really weird since I hadn’t cleared the DHCP server cache lately so there should be no conflicts on my network at all. I went over and sure enough she had reported the error correctly. I did a quick ipconfig release and renew and watched what happened next. Within a minute she received the error again. Hmmmm, I thought, something is going on here.

I set the user to use a manually configured IP in a space I knew was free on my network and went to work sleuthing.

We had recently installed a device we are testing called the Cymphonix network composer. It’s basically a really fancy proxy server that sits in line between your LAN and your firewall. It sniffs all the traffic on the switch and builds a database of devices that allow the administrator to create rules for Internet access for different users and systems.

This was a good time to see what it had learned over the last few days. Armed with the MAC address from the event log on the users system I looked for any reference to this device in my composer database. *ping sound* There it was, and even more interesting it had a service port open. Port 21, that is FTP. Nice.

I opened an FTP client to the port and got a login prompt. I tried several of the more common username and passwords and got nowhere. Hmmmm, I thought, time to dig deeper. Examining the login prompt I noticed something that looked like a LinkSys product ID. A quick Google search revealed that this device was most likely a LinkSys wireless router. I peeked over on my Available Wireless networks and sure enough – there is a brand new Linksys wireless network visible. Unfortunately it was secured so I couldn’t log in to gain any more information.

Next step was to block it at the firewall. Using its MAC address I was able to block any and all packets to and from that device right at my border. That secured my network and would cause trouble for anyone connecting to the device wirelessly – at least as far as accessing the rest of the world.

Step the third, try and find the beast. I got on the switches and started looking in the tables there for a MAC address and a port number combination. I soon learned that the MAC address was coming from one of the ports on the second floor. We had recently sub-let almost the entire second floor to others but I had been lazy and not disconnected all the patch cords from the second floor hub. Grabbing the key I trundled downstairs to the switch closet and removed and coiled all the cords between my switch and offices I was no longer responsible for.

Back upstairs in my office I checked again for the offending FTP server… it was no longer on the network. YAY! I reset the user and all was good.

Lesson to learn here though is remove the physical access from unneeded ports. If this device had been configured properly so that it didn’t conflict with one of my users it would have taken ages for me to notice its presence, allowing whoever set it up to use our internet connection at will.

I’m not sure if it’s a rogue device or a rouge device because I’m not as smart as Roy (Ugh, which is a reference to one of the Order of the Stick (which I have written about before) comics but it's a print only one so I can't link to it but here is a link to todays comic), but I promise that if I ever find it I’ll put some red on its cheeks so that it’s both.

DR. WHO ALL THE TIME

2007-12-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not trying to be all Dr. Who all the time, really, I'm not. It's just that it has seemed to come up rather a lot for me lately. Recently I was sent this link by one of my friends and I've totally been geeking over this one.

Like I've mentioned before my favorite Dr. was Peter Davison. The new seasons being done by the BBC have been great. I think both of the Drs. that they have cast (Christopher Eccleston as Dr. number nine and David Tennant as number ten) have been very fun in their own ways. And both of them have captured enough of the flavor of the other doctors to make them very believable as the Dr.

Anyway, back to the link. The BBC has produced a 7 minute webisode that fits in between their current programming gap to hype up the return of the show on Christmas. And what do you know it stars both Peter Davison revising his role as the fifth (and like i said my favorite) doctor and David Tennant again as the tenth doctor. Enjoy....

And for your amusement and edification here is a complete list of all the doctors.

MY BLOGS WEB QUIZ

2007-12-06T16:02:00.001-07:00

While this isn't really a web quiz I also couldn't resist rating my actual blog.

Tip of the hat to the lovely and talented ~J for finding this for me.

Get a Cash Advance

START AT THE BEGINNING

2007-12-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

I was reading over on Blues News today, which I am wont to do. There was a link to an article on a site called Gamershelp.com that I had never heard of. I don't know anything about gamershelp.com. I don't know what their biases are or what they usually cover. I don't know who writes for them, or what any of their industry affiliations (if any) are. However, the title of the article listed on Blues News really caught my eye. It said "The Greatest Video Game Intros of All Time."

WOW! I instantly reviewed in my head my all time favorite game intros and then clicked the link and was astoundingly disappointed because none of my favorites made the list.

Most game intros don't hold up well. Even the good ones aren't worth very many repeats. I always watch them at least once to see if they are any good but there are a very few that I will watch over and over. There are even fewer that I've thought about after the fact and wondered if I could just watch them again and again and even previously done some hunting for in the past.

Well isn't progress grand? Thanks to the Internet i was able to quickly locate two of my top three favorites.

Mechwarrior 2

and
Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bears Legacy

I also enjoyed watching the intro to X-COM: Terror from the Deep as well but I was unable to find a video for it online. It shows an alien submarine tracking and sinking a surface ship and then the launch of X-COM interceptors. Also a very fun movie. You can apparently pick up X-COM: TFTD from Steam these days. Details can be found here at the Home of the Underdogs.

ALPHA PRIME? NOT SO MUCH

2007-11-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

I recently played and reviewed a game called Alpha Prime. The review is now up and available for general consumption at Strategy Informer.

The review in a nutshell: It's mediocre.

OK there you go... but in order to get all the wonderful clever comments you will have to go to the link and read the full review.

IT’S MY SUPER WHOS-ITS

2007-11-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve mentioned before how I’m playing City of Heroes with my friends and also how I’ve never really groked super heroes. It’s just not my thing. I have no ranks in Knowledge (geek comics). Lots of other Knowledge (geek other stuff) ranks but just not the super hero comic genre.

But that didn’t stop me from taking a which super hero are you web quiz. Two of them even.

Your results:
You are Robin

Robin		67%
Superman		60%
Spider-Man		60%
Hulk		50%
The Flash		50%
Batman		45%
Supergirl		42%
Wonder Woman		37%
Catwoman		35%
Green Lantern		30%
Iron Man		30%

Young and acrobatic.
You don't mind stepping aside
to give someone else glory.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I’m not sure how I feel about being Robin. I mean part of it works since I do often prefer to play the support roles in most of my games anyway so I can see me being an assistant superhero instead of the superhero. But, I'm pretty sure I left my acrobatic days behind me - well for given definitions of acrobatic, I suppose. So Robin will work for me, just as long as the Batman isn’t to scary.

Next I followed the link to which supervillian are you? This turned out to be:
Your results:

Your results:
You are The Joker

The Joker		60%
Riddler		54%
Dr. Doom		50%
Mr. Freeze		48%
Green Goblin		40%
Lex Luthor		39%
Catwoman		37%
Magneto		36%
Mystique		36%
Apocalypse		34%
Venom		30%
Juggernaut		28%
Dark Phoenix		28%
Two-Face		28%
Poison Ivy		26%
Kingpin		11%

The Clown Prince of Crime. You are a brilliant mastermind but are criminally insane. You love to joke around while accomplishing the task at hand.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

The Joker – hehehehe – not bad. I do tend to tell jokes and have fun (even goofy fun) while getting things done although I think the Joker is rather more over the top and malicious than I tend to be. I’m a kinder gentler Joker I guess so that is a sometimes fit.

DR. WHO? YES! PRECICELY!

2007-11-09T09:34:00.001-07:00

I like the TV show Dr. Who. *boing boing boing big surprise alert* OK yes not a shock really. The iconic Dr. Who was Tom Baker.

Everyone seems to remember the scarf and long heavy coat. I really do like him a lot. But my favorite doctor was Peter Davison

OK now it’s going to seem like I’m changing gears here so hold on….

I’m playing a game called City of Heroes with my friends. It’s a massively multiplayer game where the players take on the persona of super heroes and fight the hordes of teaming villains running around the city streets.

The game itself is like most of the MMORPGs…. Basically it’s just Massively Multiplayer Whack-A-Mole. Game play wise it doesn’t do much for me. I never really got into comic books and the whole super hero thing. My tastes run more to high fantasy and science fiction. I have absolutely no interest in playing it when my friends aren’t online.

The parts of the game that they do best are the costume design phases and the ability to play with friends even when there are many levels in differences between you. I love being able to play with my friends and not worry about being out leveled and becoming a useless fifth wheel like I’ve felt in previous MMORPGS. Some of the missions are interesting and the special events are fun.. Things like killing some super-giant-deadly villain or the Halloween event or what not. The rest is just whack-a-mole.

So in the most recent Halloween event the reward for picking up some special salvage was an additional costume slot and like I said I like the costume design part of this game.

One more gear change then we’re there….

My primary character on CoH is called Cherenkov Glow. When you design characters you can pick from a primary and a secondary power set. I had heard that there were radiation power sets and having some familiarity with radiation and nuclear power decided to use them for my character. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that all the radiation effects are an icky green instead of the more accurate and really cool very pale blue… the blue color of Cherenkov radiation to be precise.

Cherenkov has three costume slots now. I have my bunny outfit, my fairly normal laboratory scientist looking outfit and now proudly presenting (and not to mention bringing all the threads back home) my new Peter Davison Dr. Who outfit.

WOW SPIFFY

2007-11-06T11:36:00.001-07:00

I have a very talented friend who kindly upgraded my engineering art page into a really cool new site. Thank you very very much Kelly - you teh awesme! Her amazing work can be found here:

I CAN HAZ TRIBBLZ?

2007-11-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

My sense of humor is often simple and direct. I can crack myself up by just about anything. I'll often remember a joke I heard or a comic I read hours after encountering it and just start giggling to myself. This isn't to say I don't appreciate and enjoy sophisticated comedy as well but some types of humor find an easier path to the giggle ganglions in my brain.

So it should not surprise you that I love the lolspeak sites. They totally crack me up. The first one I found was Icanhazcheezburger but since then I've discovered Meme cats as well as a few other less active sites.

There is something about the cute little kitteh faces coupled with the often snarky comments that just tweaks my cognitive dissonance funny bone. You can even teach yourself how to lolspeak by taking this easy online kitteh as a second language course.

However, in my lolspeak googling I stumbled across a masterpiece of long form lolspeak. A retelling of the classic Trouble With Tribbles story done in lolspeak. Without any further ado I give you:

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY

2007-10-11T09:30:00.000-06:00

Well, I can't claim to be breaking the news since the first offical post was up on Paperclippings but I can confirm it. Last night my wonderful dear friend ~J agreed to marry me and I couldn't be happier. And while our secret identites as Bunny and Kitty remain hidden I have created a (full of engineer art) web page for us here but it does have lots of pictures of bunnies and kitties in case you need them.

TO COOL FOR MY COMET

2007-10-03T15:20:00.000-06:00

Sometimes things are just to neat not to share. This is one of those things.

This is the comet Encke. It's official name is 2P/Encke and was named that way because it was the very second periodic comet discovered (The first was halleys) and because its period was determined by the astronomer Johann Franz Encke.

The picture above is a link to a time lapse move on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. Each frame is approximately 45 minutes apart. It shows the comet being approached and passed by a coronal mass ejection. As the mass passes the comet it rips the tail right along with it. The APOD site states that the tail was probably ripped off by the magnetic forces in the coronal mass ejection and not the physical interaction - which is in itself interesting since that implies that the tail is electrically charged. I always thought it was evaporated matter from the comet itself - but perhaps it is, rather, some ion.

EDIT: found this story about it too - adds more to what could have happened to that poor tail.

PSSST.... Hey, buddy.....

2007-09-24T15:29:00.000-06:00

..... Wanna try a web quiz?

Well you know that I do. This one vectored by my girlfriend and good friend ~J. Our results show us as quite the pair - and really - that is no surprise. We are busy learning that IRL and probably don't need a web quiz to confirm it - but it is very amusing to see. A previous web quiz had us as a bunny and kitty and we've definitely adopted that for ourselves and have had just a wonderful time with it. The secret of who is a bunny and who is a kitty is left as an exercises for the student.

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

I AM WHO?

2007-09-17T09:40:00.000-06:00

Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?

Reno. Apparently I am Reno. I have no idea who this character is. Should I be happy to have this comparison with me? I like the playful part but not sure about the cocky description. I would have said of myself – playful and shy maybe.

In case it’s not painfully obvious yet, I don’t play FF games. I am a long time PC gamer. One of my favorite types of games are the RPGs. I’ve been playing them on my computer as long as I’ve been able to. Now, this means that I’ve been playing western style RPG games. My first exposure to the Eastern style came shortly after I started working at a company making PS1 games, Singletrac. I had never had a game console up to that point.

(Tangent: well that is not strictly true – my computer gaming development went like this: Intellivision -> Apple IIc -> IBM PC so technically I have had a game console before this point).

Anyway, shortly after starting work at this company I found myself with several PS1 games and nothing to play them on – so I got myself a play station. Our games were pretty darn cool but they weren’t really my favorite genre and after the novelty of playing things that I had contributed to (although in a minor way – I am infrastructure not production but my name IS in the credits and that is totally wicked cool). I started looking around for something else to play on this system.

FF7 had come out fairly recently and according to the marketing onslaught and the scuttlebutt at work it was the big daddy RPG of the PS1. So one day I came home with it. I loaded the game up and started trying to play it. I thought the movie sequence at the beginning was pretty darn cool but then came this train ride. Holy heck – would this thing never end? Read click x, read click x, read click x, oh no panic run to another car, read click x, read click x, read click x, oh no panic and jump out of the train.

The game felt…..weird. I had a hard time identifying with the characters and it was clearly something I was watching not something I was being. I’m not sure if it was the culture differences that did that to me or just the style of game play. I never felt that I was the hero, ummmmmm Ash? Rokuku? Reno? Whatever. I never felt that I was the hero, what’s his name.

The other thing that bothered me was the stylized combat. I think I could have managed to swallow that after a while. But during this learning curve when I was struggling with the strangeness of the game and trying to decide if I wanted to go where the designers wanted me to go I ran into the weirdest thing of all. I was attacked by a house.

Apparently, somewhere along the line I had angered the house gods and they sent a sentient angry house to get me. It shoot bombs out of its chimney and bounced around cheerfully trying to kill me, the hero Toshiba, errrr whatever my name was.

I could no longer take it. I never even tried to finish that battle. I turned the game right off and have never played any FF game again.

I was watching my son play Paper Mario this weekend and reflecting on how similar the style of the game was – especially during the combats and do you know what? I don’t regret walking away from FF at all. I guess I’m just not cut out for eastern style RPGs. I’ll stick with something more serious like the Fallouts, and Baldurs Gates and heck even stupid ones with auto leveled creatures like Oblivion over the option of following Fuji, errr, whatever his name was around the planet Surreal.

OBLIVIOUS

2007-08-28T08:43:00.000-06:00

By now anyone into the PC gaming scene has heard about the ridiculous anti-piracy methods that were implemented in BioShock. And while the SecureROM protection is certainly not a root-kit, it does install software without explicit permission from the user and it makes the assumption that anyone who installs the games is a bad evil crook.

The purpose of this software is to attempt to control how many times the game can be installed before requiring the user to contact tech support, beg forgiveness for to many installs, and receive another serial number.

I was planning on getting a hold of this game. I am not willing to pay for the privilege of being treated like a thief.

(OK, well technically I DID play for the privilege to BE a thief before, hmmmm)

Anyway, this is a game that I was seriously excited for. I am a huge fan of the System Shock and System Shock 2 games. BioShock was touted as a spiritual successor to these games. I did install the demo and geeked out over it since the game play reminded me strongly of my old SS memories.

I’ll go no more into this because it’s been discussed by much cleverer people than I.

But, the thing that I keep wondering about is how this decision was made. I keep imagining a conference room filled with clueless morons and deciding that it couldn’t possibly have happened that way. The people making the decision to treat legitimate users as plundering hordes must have been made by intelligent and educated people. How then, could they have made such a stupid mistake? What could have blinded them to the fact that the only people who will be harmed by this decision are the legitimate users? How could they have thought that the people engaged in software piracy won’t just remove any protections?

I suppose someone must have made the analogy of putting a home alarm system on your house. The point of a home security system (for most people) is to shift the risk reward ratio so that bad guys will choose to rob the house next door instead. This strategy actually works pretty well for a situation where there are multiple targets of equivalent value.

If this was the thinking they choose to use then they were wildly wrong. Each piece of software is a unique target. Thinking that the pirates will just hack someone else program instead is a serious logical blunder.

Anyway, since I never finished Oblivion, after removing the Bioshock demo and all traces of SecureROM from my system I re-installed it. I guess I’ll just play that instead.

ILLUSIONS & PHANTOMS

2007-08-16T09:07:00.000-06:00

I’ve heard some stories about people that blog about their works and get in trouble for it. So this is definitely not about my work in any way. In fact it was something that happened to someone else. In another work place far away. At a completely different era than mine. Ummm, on a different planet. It, errrr, all came to me in a dream where the ad was shot in the server room, ahh, in my dream.

There.

Anyway, I got to watch part of the process of creating a TV advertisement the other day. I’ve seen lots of ads on TV. I mean, who hasn’t? They are everywhere. I have never seen one shot before though. On TV the ads take 10 to 60 seconds and, if they are done well, are seamless and smooth. The reality behind that is wildly different than the perception.

The server room I have has a nice big glass window and someone along the line decided it was a perfect setting for an ad they had come up with. I got involved by first of all being asked to clean it up. *grin* Yeah, this dream had me spending some time cleaning a room.

On the day of the shoot crew members started showing up around 11 AM. They had a truck. A big truck. They started wheeling huge carts loaded with stuff to the lobby of the building and prowling around looking at lights and angles and windows. The evicted one worker from her cube and I opened the server room for them. I pointed out the things to please not touch and the things that were OK to use taking care to point which power outlets were on different circuits and therefore available for them to use – no problem they said there is a generator they will use for their own power anyway.

They then commenced to setup lights. And reflectors. And filters. And giant pieces of cardboard. And cables. And signs. And a giant camera. And lots of tape to hold everything in place. All in all I counted 20 crew members working on setting up.

The actors showed up and were cast – three made the show the rest were sent off. Two girls came and setup a bunch of chips and soda and crackers. I watched people asking them for gum and to help with tasks on the set. I guess they have the entry level job that gets all the little tasks. Props were set up and the lighting was completed in my server room. I have never seen my server room look so cool with the spiffy red and blue glows coming from it.

It was now approximately 2 PM. Makeup had been applied, angles chosen, and props setup. The actors were in place and the director called for rehearsal. .About an hour later they were ready to for actual shoots of the ad. Places were taken again and off they went.

Frankly, I couldn’t tell much of a difference between rehearsals and takes except that there was slightly less fiddling between each attempt. This is where my brush at fame almost occurred. The art director decided that he wanted someone walking in the hallway opposite the actors and asked me to come along. I was supposed to walk down the hallway and give the actor a bored hi five as he passed. WOOHHH! That was cool – I’ve never been filmed like that so it was exciting. We did four takes with me doing that before the art director said that it wasn’t working for him and they asked me to leave. Drat – so close to fame and fortune. Oh well I’ll have to stay with the salt mines.

Finally, around 4 they had finished and gave each other a round of applause and put everything away. All this was for about 15 seconds of film. I have no idea how much goes into post production, not to mention the rest of the ad with all the phone numbers to call and the rest of the pitch.

This whole experience gave quite an insight into what goes into producing the calls we all see every day to buy things or to choose this product over another, or to a certain course of action. What looks simple on the surface is simply the veneer over a complex and time consuming process requiring hundreds of man hours to create a few seconds of viewing time.

My server room never looked as good as it did on the TV monitor that day. That is a lesson I’ll take from this experience.

HI I AM DRAKE....

2007-08-08T10:07:00.000-06:00

chorus: Hi Drake.

....and I'm a blog addict.

With a tip of the proverbial and electronic hat to ~J here is the latest in my on going quest to add every even mildly amusing web quiz in the world to my Blog.

57%

Minneapolis Singles from Mingle²

I'm not sure I entirely agree with it since I don't think I blog _that_ much but it may be weighted heavily on just having one that gets semi regular posts. I'm averaging about 5 posts per month right now, which is below the goal I had when I restarted this (trying to hit more like 8 posts per month). In addition to that, though, I regularly check several blogs in my favorites list every day to see if there is anything new.

I thought I would have a lower score because I don't use a feed aggregator or RSS / Atom type feed to keep track of blogs I like. Instead, I just roll through my favorites list at lunch time checking up on sites.

JUST WANNA WRITE

2007-08-06T12:10:00.000-06:00

I have absolutely no topic burning a figurative hole in my mind to write about today. Well, that’s a pretty good thing I guess. I mean I really don’t want anything to burn an actual hole in my head and I suppose that if it were I wouldn’t be in the mood to write about it anyway.

Sometimes, I just feel the need to start writing something down. This weekend I had a little bit of time when my kids were away and the house was quiet and I had finished what I was reading and I hadn’t written in a while and the journal was right there and and and. I wrote a page of stuff and learned a little bit about myself in the process

Anyway, writing is usually an enjoyable process for me. Sometimes I’ll write something just because I want to write. See todays entry for example.

Sometimes, I’ll write because I can’t figure out what I’m thinking. No seriously, I sometimes have no idea what I’m thinking about or feeling and in order to get in touch with that I have to start pouring it out on paper….errr or electrons. Whatever.

The process of making the fingers try and express what is going on in my head forces a … well not a simplification… but a crystallization. I can no longer just feel or think I have to express. This flows the mental stuff through a filter of language. That process of filtering often gives me insight into what the heck it is I am feeling.

Plus there is a power to naming your thoughts and feelings. Once they are named and described you can look at them and decide to keep them or not. You can more easily see where they came from. You can choose to change them or just accept them as they are.

I think that this crystallization process is probably the reason people are encouraged to write journals or do any therapeutic writing. It’s important to get in touch with your own feelings before you can relate to anyone elses or even to handle your own with any skill.

The writing on this blog is for fun. It is almost like scratching an itch to sit down and compose something and put it up. Maybe it’ll never get read (heh heh except I know I’m in several friends RSS feeds so it WILL get read) but that isn’t the point anyway. I love that people read it – it’s a fulfilling feeling but the primary point of writing here is just for fun.

Writing for fun is therapeutic as well. It’s important to take some time to do the things we enjoy. Spending even a few moments doing something just because it’s fun for you to do is extremely healthy. It sends a message to your brain that you like you. And this sub-conscious message acts to improve your mood and your outlook on life and strengthens yourself image and confidence. These all have positive effects on your relationships and other bits and pieces of your life.

So I’ll keep writing every now and then thanks for tuning in.

CHEWY STORIES

2007-07-27T13:50:00.000-06:00

I was talking with a wonderful friend the other day about some of my favorite books and mentioned how the one non-church book I had taken with me on my mission was Neuromancer by William Gibson. This was is 1989 but I had just recently discovered this book first published in 1984 and subsequently winning the Hugo, Nebula and Phillip K. Dick awards.

Neuromancer was for me, a ground breaking book. I had read a great deal of science fiction and fantasy up to that point in my life but this book had such a different feel than what I had read before. The scenery descriptions were very wordy and elaborate. The characters were believable and easily imagined and yet they seemed sparse as if there were hidden depths to them that were merely hinted at. The mythos of cyberpunk created an atmosphere was moody and disturbing and yet not completely hopeless for me.

That was my first exposure to cyberpunk and it’s still my favorite example of the genre. For a time there were quite a few cyberpunk like stories being published but that has since slowed or stopped. Some of my favorite cyberpunk style authors are the aforementioned Gibson, of course, and Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, Neal Stephenson, George Alex Effinger, and Phillip K. Dick. Some of L.E. Modesett Jrs future books have a cyberpunk undertone to them and the influence of the genre can be found in many modern Sci-Fi stories although often without the darker view of the future that characterizes most cyberpunk.

One of the most appealing things to me that this style of story had to me was how “chewy” the stories were. These were not light, happy, and goofy stories but they were serious and dark. They often showed individuals with a profound lack of control over their lives struggling to find peace with their external realities and find a measure of control or safety. Not that there weren’t moments that weren’t laugh out loud funny but that the feel of the story was heavier.

The first anime series that I’ve ever really liked (many others were OK or pleasant to watch but this one is compelling and induces a desire to rapidly promote the next disk up my Netflix queue after each viewing) is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex has a definite cyberpunk flavor to it. This series is feeding my need for chewy stories lately.

Funny enough, thinking about the other books I’ve liked in the light of these musing on cyberpunk reminded me of the fictional detective stories of Phillip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler. Those stories were also heavy on the descriptions and hinted at complex and imperfect heroes. Those stories also had a protagonist who was searching for his own measure of peace and control in a world that was hard to understand – leaving him somewhat jaded.

While I love all sorts of stories and read voraciously I often find my favorites to be the flavorful and chewy stories like the ones I discovered when I found cyberpunk.

RISO-HUDSON

2007-07-12T09:16:00.000-06:00

A few years ago I was introduced to the Enneagram method of personality testing. This is a fascinating construct of personality types created by Don Riso and Russ Hudson. Its premise is that there are nine major personality types that people can fall into. It further posits that there are nine levels of health within each major personality type with distinct and noticeable behaviors and attitudes at each level. Finally, it rounds out the personality descriptions by adding a “wing” to each personality type. (That was my description, their description is here.) Let me illustrate with my type:

My predominant personality type is #9, the Peacemaker.

free enneagram test

The easy-going, self-effacing type. Nines are accepting, trusting, and stable. They are usually creative, optimistic, and supportive, but can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. They want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but they can also tend to be complacent, simplifying problems and minimizing anything upsetting. They typically have problems with inertia and stubbornness. At their Best: indomitable and all-embracing, they are able to bring people together and heal conflicts.

I knew I was a nine when I was reading the book and ran across a description of the 9 personality type that described nines as someone taking a bike ride through a beautiful park on a lovely day. They are admiring the scenery and the people and the whole experience of the ride, with no one aspect rising above the other. The nine is so into the entirety of the experience that they don’t notice that both tires on the bike are flat. They are getting somewhere but not efficiently and without being aware of themselves.

That fit me perfectly; I’m perfectly able to ignore problems by immersing myself into the rest of the experience of life. Much of the rest of the descriptions of the nine also fits me well. In the book each personality type is also given nine levels of health.

I’m not the “At their Best” level of health but I do believe I’m on the healthy side, I would put myself at level 3 of the 9. I am reasonably in touch with my feelings and instincts (being out of touch is a flaw that nines are vulnerable to) and have managed to become more of myself in the process. Ironically, it was by becoming more into me that I have been able to become more aware of others and more able to support and nurture them. It has also given me increased motivation to pursue my own interests and hobbies and passions.

The nine has two potential wings. A wing is a tendency towards one of the personality types on either side of your primary type. So my potential wings are 8 and 1. Type 1 is the Reformer – a rational and idealistic personality type. Type 8 is the Challenger – a challenging and domineering confident personality. I have a weak one wing – which oddly is labeled the Comfort Seeker in the book – which is also a fairly accurate description.

This whole process of learning the personality types was a very powerful tool for me. I needed an intellectual framework to understand my own ways of thinking because at the time I learned these I was very out of touch with my own feelings and thoughts. Having a structure to attempt to compare my own thinking against opened my eyes to how I think – not just what I was thinking and gave me practice learning what I was feeling instead of reacting to my feelings without even knowing what they were.

I suppose these types of tests aren’t for everyone. But I found it a wonderful tool for understanding myself and those around me. You can take a free sample test here if you are interested in learning more. The sample test isn't scientific like their complete battery but it will likely give you a good idea of your primary personality type.

I KEN SPEL

2007-07-10T12:28:00.000-06:00

I’m a terrible speller. I always have been. Anyone that has ever had an IM conversation with me can attest that I still am a bad speller. I think, in fact, that had it been popular when I was young I would have been diagnosed with a case of dyslexia. My spelling grades used to give my teachers fits. I love books and reading and I would read at any opportunity in school. During reading time I would read ahead of the class. During math or science or whatever, I would often have a book open below the desk and be reading. I remember several times being singled out to please pay attention now because I got lost in a book I was reading and never realized that free reading time was now over.

I’m still not a very good speller and I’m often grateful for the spell checkers that can even correct my spellings of BOOGA. Even with that electronic crutch I’ve managed to self correct a number of errors by simply learning the patterns of the letters through repetition. If I pound something in long enough I eventually learn it.

You may have seen this link before where it claims that spelling is irrelevant as long as the first and last letters are correct in any given word. This works because the human brain is very very good at finding patterns in chaos.

But the fact remains that this type of communication is chaotic. It takes much longer to parse the meaning of the paragraph than it would if it were spelled properly. And what is the point of deliberately slow communication?

In addition since it disregards any of the rules of the language it would be impossible to decipher a new word. Try taking a chemical name and reading it that way. Deoxyribonucleic is easy to read even if you don’t know what it is because it follows the rules of pronunciation. You can read it out loud correctly and someone that knows what it means can explain it to you. Mixing up the letters into a jumble will just slow down the ability to communicate for those who already know the word and prevent anyone who doesn’t already know it from learning it at all.

NO SUPRISE

2007-07-06T13:04:00.000-06:00

I love web quizzes. I've had a lots a fun with them and some of them are even surprisingly accurate (and fun!)in predicting personality types. This is the second one that was a quiz for my blog. I found this one on Amber Nights blog. Based on the use of key words in my blog this site is now officially rated:

So ok, take the kids right on out of the... oh, wait. I mean... Never mind. Like I said no surprise with this rating. At the same site there was a Zombie Survival guide which I also took. It rated me as having a 40% survival chance in a zombie apocalypse. I think i scored low because I'd probably try and find those I loved to help them in such a situation instead of hunkering down in the closest inescapable basement.

USER MODIFICATIONS

2007-07-02T14:53:00.000-06:00

I’m not sure if I should be impressed by what users can do to games or appalled by it. Well, OK, mostly I’m impressed but just a tiny bit worried that game developers will take this as a license to not craft their games carefully.

Let me speak to specifics. A while back I mentioned a review of the game UFO:ET. I ended up with a 7.2 score for the game out of 10. This is a respectable score indicating a well built game with some noticeable flaws but nothing that ruins the experience.

After finishing the review I started looking around for any patches or mods that could improve my experience. I was very pleasantly surprised to find one called “BMAN UFO mod” that actually combines several other user created modifications along with Bmans own mods into one large mod pack.

The game experience with these mod packs is much better than just the straight release was. There are multiple key improvements but my favorites were the inclusion of keyboard shortcuts for common tactical activities like standing up or kneeling down, the ability to reserve time for a snap or burst shot, the inclusion of line of sight (LOS) indicators, and the ability to hire and fire squaddies.

In addition to these there are many, many more enhancements and bug fixes. All of the enhancements are controllable using a new menu system that was also modded right into the game.

It was interesting to note that when the first official game patch was released many of these fixes and improvements were also included – requiring BMan to change his mod pack to remove many of the, now redundant, fixes and enhancements.

I like that games can be changed to suit the user. My enjoyment of UFO:ET is much greater now that it was in its initial release because of the work of these modders. I’ve very much enjoyed the user created content for Neverwinter Nights and other games.

The only qualm I have is a worry that game developers (or rather their overlords) may push to release an incomplete, buggy, or poorly executed game secure in the knowledge that if the license or game play gains enough interest that the user community will modify it to work correctly. That certainly couldn’t happen with most games but things that fit into rabid niche markets (like this X:COM clone or what about the upcoming Fallout 3) will rely on users to fix the problems that shouldn’t belong to them.

SKYS ARE FINE BUT THE GROUND IS HARD

2007-06-26T13:31:00.000-06:00

I’m a weird flyer. I’m enough of a nerd that I love to look out the windows and look at all the planes I can see. I can identify many of them when I’m at the airport. I don’t enjoy socializing on planes so I always have a book and an iPod deployed defensively.

I imagine in my head the stages of the taxi and takeoff and the landings. When we rotate, go air borne and gears up I have a tendency to mutter those things under my breath. (With my typical mutter I probably sound demon possessed. My neighbors probably just hear “KILL KILL KILL” or something so maybe that is a defense against making an “airplane friend” too.)

I’ve had to travel from Salt Lake to the Santa Anna, (or John Wayne) airport quite a few times for my work. I’ve become rather familiar with that airport. It has some unusual qualities. The runway in Irvine is rather small and I’ve never seen any craft larger than a 737 there.

One of the fun things at that airport are the low noise take offs. Because the take off heads off right over Newport Beach (read expensive property) they are required to make a low noise take off. This means for 737’s that you firewall the throttles to get up off the ground, climb as hard and fast as you can and then as you reach the expensive property throttle way back and stop climbing until you are out over the ocean. This gives a nice falling sensation to the stomachs of everyone on the plane so they give warnings before this maneuver to prevent panic.

Because the runway is so short in Irvine pilots need to stick the landing right at the leading edge and slow down quickly. This has lead to quite a few bumpy landings as pilots think (in my imagination) “Oh BOOGA! That is a SHORT runway” and plop the plane down.

Earlier this month I came down with a cow-orker and he sat by a bunch of crew members from another flight returning home one the same one we were on. They laughed and giggled at the hard landing we received on that flight. But that landing was nothing compared to the one I had yesterday.

We were flying a CRJ 700. It was quite overcast with a morning fog and the ceiling was pretty low. I could feel the plane intercept the glide slope as we started our decent and I was wondering how close that needle has to be for the poor guys up front to make a smooth landing when it’s this foggy.

As we broke through the clouds and I started picking out familiar landmarks and I was having fun. As we approached the airport I said out loud “We’re a little bit high”. (My neighbor probably heard “I’LL GET YOU ALL”) It seemed that we were maybe 30 ft. higher than we should have been as we crossed the threshold of the runway. I could feel the pilot cut thrust and cut the flare a bit to drop the plain. At the last minute the pilot flared up again trying to ease down but POW! We slammed hard – jolting everyone in the plane. Everyone was a bit shocked by how hard we landed and there was some muttering in the plane. No one said much because we don’t want to be put in jail by the TSA for complaining about a pilot or something I guess.

The flight home is usually much smoother since the SLC airport has nice long runways. Pilots can just ease on down even if they are 30 ft above the glide slope. Plus I usually end up on CRJ 200’s on the leg back home and they are so small I’m sure they can land nicely about anywhere.

SILLY WORDS

2007-06-08T09:41:00.001-06:00

I have a habit of using silly words. Here are some of my favorites to use.

Cow-Orkers. This came about from the long ago Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban. I used to lurk in that group a lot. This is back in the day when the loudest personality didn’t ruin discussion groups – usually – so there were some delightful conversations and threads that I often learned things from. The newsgroup was populated with extremely clever people and tons of lurkers. But it was also populated with people that were extremely pedantic about spellings. A few famous misspellings gained popularity in the group though. For example someone wrote voracity when they meant to write veracity and from then on it became a running joke to use voracious or voracity to refer to how much truth something had in it. A second famous misspelling was cow-orkers instead of co-workers. I was so amused by that one that I’ve used it ever since.

My kids are a great source of silly words that I like to use. Especially my youngest one. He doesn’t always pronounce his words correctly and some of the mistakes are just awesome. He mispronounces my sisters name in such an amusing way that I always us it now.

One of my favorites from him is how he says girl. It sounds like grill. When ads for dolls come on during Saturday morning cartoons he says things like “I hate this grill stuff”. Heh. It’s awesome. I don’t use this all the time but I use it around my kids a lot. I’m totally amused by it.

He also says wirld instead of world. It reminds me of the Knights of the Dinner Table wurld. I like wirld better though and have a tendency to use that as well.

I picked up a few odd ones on my mission. I went to South Africa and since the history of that land was heavily influenced by British settlers (and Dutch but their words are in Afrikaans and don’t get used as much in English). Anyway, I have a tendency to say flat instead of apartment and boot instead of trunk. I just like the way they sound and (WARNING INSIGHT INTO MY HEAD COMING) I like being different or special and using words like that feels different and even a little special.

One of the funny Afrikaans words was the way they say sure. Instead of a word for sure it’s literally “Yes No” to mean OK, sure. The first time someone said that to me I turned to my companion and said “Well, which one is it?” He just laughed and led me inside the house we had just been invited into. I don’t use that much except for in my head. It way confuses people in America to say Yes No.

There are lots more but if you ever hear/read/see/observe/whatever me using an odd word now you know why.

ULTIMATUM

2007-05-30T10:21:00.000-06:00

My friend Coyote had a link to this site the other day, Blogging Ultima. I’ve read a page here and there since then remembering the times I spent playing the Ultima games. Ultima IV was the first of the series that I ever played and it rates right up there on my list of all time favorite games.

I’ve read up to the point where he just finished playing Ultima V. I enjoyed reading about the earlier games that I never played but the most of all I have enjoyed reading about the games that I had already played.

I believe that the thing I enjoy is remembering the fun I had playing them. Ultima IV was one of the most immersive games I had ever played and V only expanded on the level of immersion for me. I had so much fun in those worlds. It’s a nostalgia trip.

I loved the games so much that I joined the Ultima dragons and registered my own dragon name: Quiescent Dragon. I figured that was a pretty appropriate name for a dragon that wasn't going to really participate in the discussion forums or anything. I was definitly a lurker.

As for the rest of the Ultima games, Ultima VI came out when I was gone on my mission and so I never really played that one even though I had bought it when I returned. VII (both parts 1 and 2) are also on my list of all time favorites. VIII was interesting but just not the same and suffered from some very definite design flaws. Most of the horrible puzzles and jumping skills were fixed in a patch that was released WAY to late to do the release game any good and I did play through it once with the patch and once without the patch and the patch makes for a MUCH better game but still it was never enough to overcome the first impression that the game left. IX was a huge disappointment. This one switched to a 3d engine that was fairly clunky and suffered from “ummm-we-ran-out-of-ideas-or-time” design flaws near the end of the game. As the ending of the Ultima series it was definitely a letdown.

I’m looking forward to the chance to catch up with the blogging ultima blog since I’m sure that I’ll enjoy reading about the games that I did play and I’m curious to hear his impressions of the later ones that I didn’t get to. It will be fun to virtually watch over his shoulder and relive my own times playing these games.

I GOT YOUR TANGENTS RIGHT HERE

2007-05-25T08:37:00.000-06:00

Yes the blog entry where you gain a much to disturbing view of how my brain works is back for part two. I still have a list of things I wanted to cover so we’ll just have to see how far I get.

First of all I wanted to formally mention that my first game review has been published at Strategy Informer. I really had a lot of fun writing it up. I had done a first take of the game UFO: Extraterrestrials on my blog and in the process of writing up a full follow up I realized that I’d basically written a review. Since my friend ~J had asked me once about writing a review for publication I sent it on to her instead of posting it here. The rest, as they say is history, and now I’m a published author. I think I’ll put that in my resume.

When I got to work today there was a gorilla (well technically, I THINK it was a person in a gorilla suit) standing by the door to my building. He was holding a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts with a sign that said “Gorilla Marketing works”. (Tangent within a tangent: Krispy Kreme doughnuts are just not as good as everyone seems to think. They are mostly air and to sweet for my tastes. I like good solid doughnuts made out of real potato flour instead). I hope he’s here to pitch his services to my company instead of enacting an elaborate plot to kill someone with poisoned (yet light and fluffy and very sweet) doughnuts.

Have you ever had the experience of seeing something out of the corner of your eye that really surprised you? Yet, on second glance it turned out to be nothing startling at all. Well something similar to that happened on my way into work this morning. I saw Cthulhu driving a red Honda this morning. He was headed south on I-15 just like me. I was pretty surprised by this – but I don’t think I lost any SAN points. On second glance it was just an extremely hairy and unkempt person driving a red Honda. I think maybe it was Cthulhu who just learned the secret oriental powers to cloud mens minds just like The Shadow did.

Speaking of freeways I have a huge complaint about them. I’m a somewhat analytical person (as long as the subject to analyze is quite irrelevant to common sense or real life I think I’m pretty good at it – when it comes to being normal or figuring out relationships or something like that I’m hopeless) and the human brain is VERY good at identifying patterns. In fact brains are so good at pattern recognition that we will find patterns when there aren’t any patterns there to find. (Try staring at the static on a TV tuned to a dead channel some day to find out.) So I’m sure that I’ve identified a recurring pattern on my drives – Why is the lane I’m in always the slowest one? Whenever traffic comes to a stop I take note of the cars around me. Invariably the ones in the other lanes will soon be so far ahead of me that I can’t see them anymore. Changing lanes doesn’t solve this problem – it just makes the new lane go slow – so clearly I’m the common element in this pattern. I see no way to fix this so:

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Just don’t drive in the same freeway lane as me if you need to get anywhere fast. My lane will be easily identifiable by being the slowest one.

I’ve been running Windows Vista and Office 2007 for the past week and I like them a lot. Vista is waaaaaay faster than XP Pro was. It boots faster and the IE7 engine is noticeably faster than it was before. The only problem I ever saw in Vista so far was that my mouse cursor disappeared when I attempted to run City of Heroes. Poking around the internet a bit showed me that I needed to add the following to the command section of the shortcut for CoH: -compatiblecursors 1. After adding that it worked just fine.

Second Impression of CoH: It’s OK. It’s definitely better with friends than it was in the training missions. I find the game world to be fairly jarring though since it’s filled with thugs just standing around tugging on purses and taunting passersby. But I do like the quest system. You can just pick up random quests from the Police Radio or go to one of your contacts and pick up something more scripted. The groups can be fairly large, and that helps by allowing many of my friends to play all together. The combats are fairly confusing – it’s hard to keep track of all the good guys and bad guys since everything moves so fast. I usually just try to stand in the middle and debuff some bad guys that I hope will live long enough to keep my debuffs working for a while – and then spam the AOE healing spell I’ve got until I see someone has killed the target I debuffed. (Tangent: Although, my debufs are AOE they are targeted so once the bad guy I cast them on has died, the debuffs fade, and they need to be recast.) I haven’t created any alts yet – which is apparently a flaw of mine since everyone else has about thirty or forty different characters. I don’t think a single group night has had all the same characters show up yet.

Second Impression of UFO:ET: I love it even more than ever. The game was either intentionally designed to be easily modifiable or it’s just a fortunate coincidence of its development process but most of the (minor) flaws that bothered me have been fixed by modders. I think my opinion of the flaws is flawed though, since in this case flaws = stuff that was different in X:COM. The mod community is pretty darn impressive. I’ve only picked one mod to add to my game (but that isn’t strictly true either, I’ve picked one mod PACK to add to my game. There are several packs listed on the message boards to pick and choose from though). But I’ve very much enjoyed the changes that they have provided to me. The mods include bug fixes as well as game play balance fixes and changes to make it more X:COM-ie. All in all the list of changes with just the one pack are very impressive. Almost all of which changes I’ve found to be great improvements to the game.

And that is the rest of the list. I’m sure I’ll have more tangent laden posts in the future but for now… enjoy.

GROGGY IS A FUN WORD TO SAY

2007-05-22T09:35:00.000-06:00

I think of that title line a lot. It comes from one of my all time favorite comics, OotS. There are not many things that I preorder. I tend to be, well, cheap and look for sale prices and wait to buy things. But I’ve preordered four times now for Rich Burlows Order of the Stick comic books. I’m anxiously, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word possible, awaiting the most recent book. For the last two weeks I have checked my mailbox every day muttering to myself “Maybe I’ll get a book today.” I’ve had to fight the urge to check the mailbox multiple times each day because the irrational (and some would say largest) part of my brain thinks that maybe the book has a magical delivery system instead of relying on the USPS to come.

In any case I’m a bit groggy today and that has made it hard to focus on any one topic so this is a collection of tangents. I’ve actually got quite a few ideas so when I’m done writing this morning any unused ideas will probably go into a future blog entry.

Yesterday was a really hard day. I woke up feeling weak and vulnerable, anyway. I wanted to crawl back into bed and pretend it wasn’t Monday. Some days are like that. Sometimes you wake up on the top of your game – ready for anything the world cares to throw at you and some days you wake up wishing it were all over already and wondering if there was any way to skip the entire rest of the day. The day proceeded to get worse from there and I had to really work hard to stay sane. I ended up with some cheeseburger therapy (Olympus Burgers on 9th East in SLC has REALLY GOOD bacon on their bacon cheeseburgers), going to a support group, watching some TV, and best of all talking with some friends. Fortunately I’ve survived.

I wanted to like Anime because I have so many friends that love the genre. But I’ve had a really hard time getting into it. I saw the Princess Mononoke (that word is like bananananananana, it’s really hard to stop spelling it once you start) movie and thought it was just OK. I saw some Princess somebody or other the vampire hunter and thought they were all right. I saw the first few episodes of Gundam and while I wanted to like it the show left a bad taste in my figurative mouth.

I haven’t given up though, and after looking at zillions of reviews on Netflix decided to try Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. This is based on some Japanese comics. The show is basically a sci-fi police drama centered on a special unit of cops called section 9. They end up taking the hard or strange problems like rouge AI tanks terrorizing the city, and android assassination attempts. The show was well drawn without all the impossible eyeballs and jittery camera effects that make other Anime unwatchable for me. Furthermore, there were no lewd or provocative scenes but rather it was a straight forward drama with no unnecessary extras, except for the excitable baby tanks with puppy dog like AI personalities but they were cute so I liked them. I watched all four episodes of volume one last night. The remaining volumes will come as they are ordered on my Netflix queue. I have definitely found an Anime style show that I really enjoyed, and I’m looking forward to seeing some more of it.

Checking up on my Daemon shows that I’m still a bunny rabbit. I can see how that could fit me and I really still like it better than the original moth I was assigned to. I’ve upgraded my system since I first filled out the quiz so I’m not able to check all the history of my Daemon changes on their home web site and I can’t remember how many more days I’ve got before it becomes set – hmmmm I suppose I could just scroll down and do some math but see the paragraph on groggy above, I don’t feel much like doing math today. My friend ~J gave me some bunny ears the other day so I’m all ready for the next dress-up-as-your-daemon party. *grin* The bunny picture on the site just doesn't seem to fit. I think I'm a lot cuter than the bunny there. I found this one that I like a LOT better. Not only does it capture how amazingly cute I am but also the silliness in me.

I’ve got more but I feel like I’m done writing for now. See the paragraph above on groggy. The rest of these awesome and awe inspiring ideas will have to wait for another time.

I LIKE BEING SILLY

2007-05-17T12:23:00.000-06:00

When I got to work this morning I went to the fridge to put my lunch into it. Unfortunatly, as I opened the door a bottle of syrup fell out and broke open on the floor. Also unfortunately, the bottle was nearly full and the viscosity of the syrup was such that it rapidly created a huge puddle of sticky goo.

Well, I sighed, and cleaned it up and threw stuff away. There was no name on the syrup and I was feeling bad about just throwing someones stuff away, with out them knowing, so I thought I'd send an e-mail to the office. Then I thought a lame e-mail is boring I'll do something more fun. The message I finally sent was this:

Dear Sir or Ma’am,

We regret to inform you of the passing if your bottle of syrup. Late this morning upon opening of the refrigerator door a nearly full bottle of maple “flavored” syrup leaped to its death on the floor below. Passer-bys rushed to its aid but the syrup was dead immediately upon impact. Refrigerator police are investigating the incident after anonymous witnesses reported seeing a smirking bottle of poppy seed salad dressing near where the syrup leaped from. Clean up crews were able to successfully contain the syrup spill and in the process of removing the remains returned the floor area immediately in front of the refrigerator to previously un-seen levels of cleanliness.

With deepest regrets,

I had quite a few comments from people through the morning on my e-mail. I think I suprised a number of them. I am the IT guy here at work and I suspect that most of them just think I'm an uninteresting nerd. The truth of the matter is I'm a fascinating and complex nerd. Heh.

But if you stop and think about it we all are fascinating and complex and how often do we really show that complexity? How often to we only allow ourselves to BE fascinating and complex at certain times and and the rest of the time just play the roles our jobs, family or circumstances have given us?.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS LAST…

2007-05-14T13:16:00.000-06:00

It’s funny how powerful first impressions are. I had two brand new games exposed to me over the last few days and they have both left first impressions. I’m going to be very interested over the next little while to see if the continued experience with the games changes my current feelings towards them.

Item the first: City of Heroes. Many of my friends and I have a regular Tuesday night online game. Lately we’ve been playing DDO. But we’ve reached a problem with it. The game is very much geared towards having six players and we currently only have five interested. For a few weeks we’ve been kicking around ideas for replacements or wondering if we should just try to slug it out with five.

We’ve reached an agreement to try CoH as a possible replacement game. Coyote had some invitations so we could all try it out for a 10 day free trial. I signed up downloaded the bajillion byte installer, got it installed and started it up.

The character creation process was a lot of fun. I made lots and lots of changes before settling on a character. I now regret what I decided on because it looks so bland in the game which is very vibrant and colorful – but I have heard that there are tailoring stores in the game where you can change your appearance so I’ll have to do that some time.

The next thing that happened is I was dumped into the training zone to learn some of the game basics. There was definitely some bewilderment while I was trying to figure out the menus and on screen displays and rather a bit more bewilderment when I couldn’t figure out how to walk and turn at the same time. Turns out that the key mappings are in the wrong place for turn actions and strafe actions.

The game itself was mildly interesting. I had a hard time not thinking of my Super powers as spells but that has more to do with me not really being a part of the super hero genre I suppose than anything else in the game. The final training mission had me teamed up with a CPU controlled buddy. I was exploring the rooms in this building when I entered a very small break room with a ruined candy machine. The CPU buddy stood in the doorway and when I tried to leave the room wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t push past her, I couldn’t jump over her. I spent twenty minutes trying to figure out some way out of this stupid little room. Finally I managed to jump up onto the candy machine apparently getting just far enough away to trigger her follow subroutine so that she moved a pace further into the room and I was able to get around her.

The mission finished uneventfully after that but I was also done. This first taste of the game left me feeling ho-hum and not really excited about playing any more of this. Now granted, this game is an MMO and solo play in MMOs is usually pretty lame – so the next test will come when I play with my friends. Hopefully the game will show its strengths then but my first exposure to the game has definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

Item the Second: UFO: Extraterrestrials. I’m a huge fan of the old X:COM games. I played the Terror from the Deep one first so it’s my favorite but it’s basically the identical game to UFO Defense. They were delightful and spooky games. For a long time I’ve longed for an updated version of one of these with basically the same game play and better pictures. Well that day is finally here.

My first take on UFO:ET was wow this is pretty much exactly what I asked for. The game plays in to major segments the strategy based geo-scape view and the tactical based combat view. In the first you can see the whole world where you can build and manage your bases and detect and hopefully shoot down UFOs.

The strategy portion is fairly faithful to the old X:COM games. The major differences are that you can not hire technicians, scientists and soldiers. Squaddies are apparently assigned to you as you go along, techs and scientists seem to be a part of the lab or workshop facilities when you build them with each one giving you 10 additional people.

In addition some of the other base management actions have also been simplified. There doesn’t seem to be the equivalent of general stores and I don't know how many people I can cram together in that one living quarter. I guess I’ll find out. The research trees have all started well and I like some of the changes with the fighters you use in that you have cannon hard points and missile hard points not just generic weapon ports.

The tactical section is so far the highlight of the game for me. The transport ship you start with can only hold one vehicle and four squaddies so the squad size was much lower than I was used to in X:COM. The first time out the door of the transport within five rounds all my squaddies were dead. YEAH! This game rocks. The second time I tried a tactical mission I was much more careful.

The aliens use decent tactics and avoid closing into obvious kill zones – forcing my squaddies to come to them. Squaddies can level up in rank like in X:COM games and their skills will increase but in this game you get to pick which stats to raise for them when they achieve a new rank instead of the computer automatically raising some of them for you. My guys currently have projectile weapons still and the bad guys are shooting plasma beams (that I can’t research yet).

This game is much less spooky than X:COM was, perhaps, it’s because this is set on a fictional world instead of on earth so there is already some unreality built right into the premise of the game. The aliens are good looking though, and the ones I’ve met so far are very alien not clay-mation beasties like the X:COM Apocalypse ones. I really wish that there was a map function in the tactical view and it would be great if I could left click on an alien to switch to the targeting cursor instead of having to click on the gun in my selected squaddies hand but these quibbles are fairly minor.

All in all this game has left a favorable impression with me and I’m looking forward to the chance to play more of it. Hopefully, this trend will continue.

THE END IS NEAR

2007-05-10T13:11:00.000-06:00

I was tagged in the Blog Apocalypse meme. I’m not really good at memes. I have a stubborn streak in me and, frankly, some outright contrariness that makes me resist what the crowd is doing. I’ve avoided super popular moves because everyone was seeing them. Remember those Gresham books about lawyers that everyone read and raved about – I never bothered simply because everyone else was doing it. They might have been the most masterful entertaining and wonderful books ever to have been written. (I don’t think they were I’m just saying they COULD have been.) And I have not read them because everyone was doing it.

I suppose this is good in a way. If everyone jumped off a cliff I’d probably not do that. But it can also be bad in a way too because I might miss something I would otherwise really enjoy.

On the other hand I just can not resist a good web quiz and lookie here what I found on the Rabid Paladin

SWEEEEET! I'm R2-D! That is pretty neat. BTW: to follow up on the last quiz which is still in flux. My moth daemon has turned into a bunny rabbit which is also pretty cool.

Anyhoo……

The blog apocalypse meme is to pretend that you have just one last blog entry that you can write. You are supposed to leave some nugget of wisdom or some summation of your lifes (blogs?) work. Or something meaningful to you alone, I guess.

Interestingly enough, that is such a focused question that it is way beyond the scope of this blog. I’m not writing about anything in particular here. In fact the real point of this blog is for me to have a chance to do some expressive writing because I’m bad at it and need the practice and also need the emotional outlet of having created something. I do try to be clever in my writing but that is mostly to amuse myself while I’m doing it. There is no topic at all.

The name of the blog is the Tungsten Bathtub. I’ll explain that instead and hope that it counts as some sort of nugget of wisdom to someone.

The Tungsten part is easy. I occasionally play online games with my friends and I have adopted the name Drake Tungsten as my online alias for many of these games. This came from one of my favorite TV shows Mystery Science Theater 3000. The movie was one of the Hercules movies staring Alan Steele in the title role. During one of the skits Joel (I think it was Joel and I always liked his delivery better than Mikes so I’ll just pretend it was Joel instead of looking up which host it was) and the bots were commenting on what a cool hero name Mr. Steele had. They tried to invent a number of other hero names. Crow had a problem with the game coming up with names like Biff Drywall. But Servo came up the Drake Tungsten and I loved it. From the first time I heard that name I’ve used it in games.

The Bathtub part is pretty easy too. I can’t be the only person whose mind wanders while taking a shower. I go in with good intentions of planning out the day and figuring out things and solving problems but I usually end up wondering about why some things happen before other things or what would chairs look like if you knees bent the other way or something equally strange or random. Sometimes I compose blog entries in my head there. Sometimes I wonder about a book I read or a conversation I had. Sometimes I’ll obsess over an upcoming situation playing out possible outcomes again and again. All in all it’s a pretty random thought process.

Therefore I named my blog for part of the character name I’ve adopted and for the location where lots of random thinking takes place.

As far as I know every blog I read with any regularity has been tagged by this meme so I suppose it dies with me. If you never got tagged and feel left out leave a comment or something and I’ll edit the post to tag you in. (Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.) Anyway there ya go.

WEB QUIZ JUNKIE

2007-05-02T13:50:00.000-06:00

Jacob, is apparently, my pusher when it comes to web quizes. He's got another one posted up on his blog and so here it goes on mine too. Like he said there - this one has a twist - for the next twelve days people can click on the link and vote if my answers match your opinions. At the end of that time a final personality match will be given. When I clicked on his quiz it went from a badger to a racoon.

My answers matched me up with a Moth called Voltina. I wonder if that one will change.

NOW ON SALE…. FEAR!

2007-05-01T10:36:00.000-06:00

I hate when people are stupid. I’ve mentioned this before. This morning while driving to work one of the local TV stations sponsored the morning traffic report. The ad copy (I work for an ad agency so I’m allowed to call what they say in ads ‘copy’) said: Watch as our hidden cameras uncover a store that knowingly sells items that can be used for drugs.

I’m supposed to be all afraid that a store sells drug supplies. Oh no, everybody panic! Stores that sell things that can be used as drugs. This infuriates me that this is an issue. Fear driven stories lead to fear driven stupidities. It is implied that these supplies can ONLY be used to make drugs. What stupidity. These stupidities are already impacting the quality of life for many people and it shows no sign of stopping.

Here is a prime example. I few months ago I got sick. I felt miserable but I still had work to do and life to take care of. I’ve been setting up a new life and I don’t have many things in my apartment yet – including medicines. Feeling sick and miserable I went to the local grocery store. I picked up one package each of generic Night-time and Day-time cold medicine. I staggered over to the checkout counter – displaying obvious symptoms of being sick and was told by the clerk that she could not sell me both packages. I boggled at her. She told me I would have to buy one now and purchase the other one later. Why, I managed to finally ask? Because they both contain a compound that could be used to create meth.

There a stupidity caused an obviously sick person to be unable to purchase the medication that would have helped them because of a stupid law.

At another time I went pack to purchase my one and only package allowed of cold medicine but this time I went through the automatic checkout counters. The computer scanned my single package in and then threw up a big sign saying that without proper authorization the transaction would not proceed. I had to get a store employee to come over and finish the purchase for me. Why? I don’t know. What value did it add having to make someone come verify me? I can’t imagine what. Another stupidity.

Stupidities happen because of bad thinking. Bad thinking, or no thinking, is usually driven by emotions and one of the easiest emotions to sell is fear. Look around you at the ads you see today. Most of them will use the classic Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in their message. Watch the message!

BRAVE NEW WORLDS….

2007-04-26T10:28:00.000-06:00

I hate when people are stupid. I find it highly irritating. Part of the reason for this is that I am highly invested in thinking that I’m a smart person. So it’s an ego defense for me to recognize stupidity in others. That is a double edged sword since I do stupid things too and my ego takes a beating when I am forced to recognize that I’m just as stupid as other people. (HELPFUL HINT: I know I’m not as smart as many of my friends but I’ve learned a clever trick of being quiet and just LOOKING smart. It turns out that this is almost as good as being smart.)

Hmmmm… gonna have to follow some bread crumbs back to where I was going with this….

Lately I’ve been super irritated by the recent announcement that scientists have discovered a new planet around a red dwarf type star about 20 LY away. The worst example of this came in a morning news broadcast. The scientists or their group have released a video animation of what the world COULD look like so that their story could get some air time on TV news. The anchor person said “So is this actual video of the new planet?” to her co-anchor as the video was playing. I sat there stupefied. Then I felt a surge of energy – I would have leaped through the screen and yelled “YOU MORON” at them were I able to.

I may not be the normal one – maybe regular people think that it might be actual pictures of a new planet. I’m familiar enough with physics and the general capabilities of our current technologies to know that there is no way we have pictures of a planet 20 light years away from us. It is common knowledge to me that this is impossible. So I’m amazed when someone else doesn’t understand this.

The planet was detected by measuring minute shifts in the stars spin and then inferring that the resulting red and blue shifts are because of gravitational influences of planets in orbit around the star. I’m sure the math is beyond me and I’m over simplifying this. From what I can understand the only things that we can really tell about the planet are: Something is orbiting that star and it has a certain minimum mass (approximately 2x the mass of earth).

With those two details we can theorize a few more things – one the approximate distance of the mass from the star, that given it’s proximity to its star it’s probably a rocky type planet (as opposed to a gas type planet), and that it possibly may have a local temperature able to support liquid water.

From what I can tell that is about it. Obviously these theories are completely un-provable given our current technology. That hasn’t stopped people from announcing long and loud that a human habitable planet has been discovered or that an extra-solar planet capable of supporting life has been discovered. I will grant that these are both potential theories but they are pretty extreme and I see no way to prove them true or false.

It’s stupid and funny. I guess just announcing that there is possibly a planet doesn’t have the same ring to people than announcing they’ve found Vulcan and expect to make first contact any day now. *sigh*

I guess I feel awful smart right now but also really sad. Have we come so far that it’s no longer acceptable to have actual science intrude into our consciousnesses? Are we so unwilling as a society to spend any time thinking but instead need to be drip fed fun sound bites regardless of their veracity? Believing in Voodoo will not help us at all in the long run.

P.S. The link to the voodoo science essay by Jerry Pournelle is well worth your time if you've never see it before.

FIRST PITCH

2007-04-24T09:29:00.000-06:00

I got to my first baseball game of the season last night. We have a local AAA affiliate of the Anaheim of California, Los Angeles, and Surrounding Areas Angels. (Ok that is a joke – but I may have only amused myself with it.) The local team is called the Bees. It’s an AL affiliate so they have to use the Designated Hitter rule which is to bad, but it’s still professional baseball and it’s fun to watch.

The Bees have had pretty good teams the last few years which has also been fun to watch. They missed the play offs last year because in the end of the season they started to loose games – but they started to loose games because of how many of their players had been called up to the big league. So it was a mixed blessing – I got to see a bunch of guys that made the big time when they were local. But I missed out on seeing a playoff game for the PCL.

Last night I was given tickets by my Mom so I took my boys and met her and several other family members there to watch the game. We had a lot of fun – we got to see a real funnel cloud out over the lake as we walked up to the stadium (a rarity in these climes). My 10 year old got a game ball tossed to him by a Bees player and the six year old caught a promo Frisbee tossed into the crowd.

Team sports teach lots of things but I was fascinated last night by what watching a game could teach. Set aside for a moment all the times that my oldest and I talked over rules of the game and explained some of the strategies of the game, but look instead at what they learned by doing.

As the home team would run in from the field if a returning player had a ball he would toss it up to the kids waiting up above the dugout. So my boys would watch the game and when there were two outs they would get up – make their way down the stands and wait over the dugout – then wave and cheer and look hopeful as the players ran in. They were doing something on their own – without being guided or shepherded by me in any way. I could see them the whole time of course but this is something they did. The sense of accomplishment is much greater, I’m sure, because of their own actions. They learned it’s fun to get something by doing.

My youngest ate the entire time he was there. I made several trips to the counter with him to purchase peanuts and popcorn and typical ball game foods. He learned that you can just drop the peanut shells right on the ground at a baseball game. And also how much fun going to a ball park can be. This year is the first year that he is probably old enough to enjoy both the game and the experience – although he didn’t watch a lot of the game but more than he did last year for sure.

I don’t get to watch near as much of the game when I take my kids to a game but I love taking them anyway. When I go to a game myself I buy a brat and a soda on the way to my seat and never leave it once the game starts. With the kids I was up and down all the time helping them to the restrooms or buying the next bag of peanuts or jumping up to get pictures when they did something cute.

That kind of family activity is hard to beat – when I finally dropped the kids off that night they were tired but happy and so was I. Pretty good pay off for the first pitch of the year.

SERENITY QUIZ

2007-04-18T11:56:00.000-06:00

I'm a sucker for web quizes. Since I've written about how much I liked Serenity before when I saw this quiz result up on my freinds site I had to take it too.

Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		65%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		60%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)		55%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		45%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		35%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		30%
Alliance		30%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		25%
Inara Serra (Companion)		20%
River (Stowaway)		10%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		10%

You are good at fixing things.
You are usually cheerful.
You appreciate being treated
with delicacy and specialness.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

I'm highly amused by this one and pleased with the results. All three characters that I rated high in I can see similarities in myself with them. I was a little suprised to see that I scored so low in Wash but I don't have any plastic dinosaurs either so maybe it's right.

FORTUNATE COOKIES

2007-04-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

I like fortune cookies. Well technically I like opening fortune cookies – the cookie itself (with rare occasion) is a twisted dry lump of nearly inedible cardboard. Occasionally, I’ll find one that is really tasty. Not often but occasionally.

But by far the best part about getting a fortune cookie is opening up the cookie to get the fortune inside.

Every time I open one up, especially if I’m eating with friends, I desperately want to hold my fortune up as if I’m reading from it and say: “Help! I’m being held prisoner in a fortune cookie factory.” This is a joke I heard from my Dad when I was young. It has now become so engrained in me that every time I open up a cookie, and I really mean every time, I want to say it. I usually manage to hold it in UNLESS I’m with my kids – then out it comes thus infecting the next generation with the same meme.

I hate when I get a platitude instead of a fortune in my cookie. This happens way to often. “You are a nice guy.” Well whoop-dee-doo. I don’t care. I already know what I am and I definitely don’t want a cookie commenting on me. “You like puppies.” Sheesh – these kinds of ‘fortunes’ are just stupid. Yes people like puppies – people think they are reasonably decent people – so platitudes can often apply to a wide range of people and I’m sure that is why then end up in fortune cookies. But I always feel ripped off when I get one. I want a fortune in my cookie, I want a prediction, not wisdom from the I-Ching or a banal platitude.

If I get a non-fortune in my fortune cookie I will throw it away with the chopsticks and the plate. If I get a fortune though, I’ll keep it around for a while. If it’s a really good fortune it will get stuck up to my mirror where it becomes a little positive affirmation for me every time I see it. Right now I’ve got two fortunes stuck to my mirror.

The first one says: "You will have many friends when you need them". I got this fortune one afternoon about seven months ago when I bought myself a dinner at the Panda Express. Panda Chinese food is comfort food to me – half fast food half Chinese I really enjoy it, and use it sometimes, as a pick me up. It was a message that I needed to hear at the time – it funny because I don’t deserve it but I have terrific friends. They have been a tremendous source of strength to me during this past year which has been rather difficult. I have needed them and they have always been there for me. I can’t get any luckier than that. I hope I can learn from them to be a good friend too.

This fortune is right at the top of my mirror and every time I see it I’m reminded of my friends and feel a surge of happiness just knowing that they are there if I need them.

Oddly enough given my feelings above, the second fortune up on my mirror IS a platitude not a prediction. This one though, had enough truth for me that I kept it. I got this fortune when after visiting a game store prior to playing D&D with friends (and buying new dice which I am clearly unable not to do when visiting the gamer store) we bought Chinese food on the way back to the game. My ‘fortune’ said: "A little madness, a little kindness, makes for happiness".

This one seemed to capture the feelings I have when I am the most happy. I love activities where I can be silly (mad if you will) and let out the comments I think of. It’s not a form of madness it’s rather a form of freedom but I imagine that it looks like madness to an outside observer. I love the times when I can talk and listen and visit with friends to. The best times have been the opportunities to help someone else with something in their lives. The chance to be kind to another really does create positive feelings.

Now it’s like nine in the morning and I have totally made myself want some Lo Mien. That is a peril of blogging that I had never imagined.

BETTER THAN BEFORE

2007-04-11T09:20:00.000-06:00

I’ve written here before nostalgically. I’ve mentioned books I liked and I’ve talked about the types of games that you just don’t get anymore. I generally like my old music better than this new fangled stuff. Fortunately, I haven’t descended to the point where I’m complaining about how I had to walk uphill to school both ways though the snow or about how kids these days just don’t get it right any more. Even though I did and they don’t. I’m really really really fighting the urge to start quoting a Weird Al song called When I was Your Age from his Off the Deep End album. I’ll settle for those links instead.

I got my hair cut the other day. I usually go to SuperFantasticGreatCutsClipsSams because I can find one that doesn’t have a long waiting time and I have no brand loyalty to any of the incarnations of the shop. Sometimes I get a stylist who just wants to rush through my very simple style and get my money and sometimes I get a really good cut. I get good enough hair cuts to make me keep repeating the process it’s like a vending machine that usually works – I’m now conditioned to keep going there.

Stick with me, this will all tie together in the end. Well at least to me it will – your mileage may vary.

This most recent trip I had my hair cut by someone who was clearly of the type of stylist that wants to get the cut done right not fast. Her name was Carlie. I had a chance to talk with her a bit and she told me that the thing she likes the most about cutting hair was that she loved helping people to be happier and feel better. We talked about how you feel after you get your hair cut and what it does for your attitude and mood. I have to admit that my mood is always lifted by getting my hair cut.

As she was working on my hair and we were chatting I mentioned that I usually just let my hair flop and as long as it wasn’t sticking out anywhere I considered it as done. I admitted that this wasn’t so much of as style as it was a complete surrender to entropy. I asked her what would be better to do. She told me my hair was fine – but then as she was nearing the end of the cut she said that my hair would make a perfect Caesar I’d just have to learn to make the front part do what it was supposed to do. So I had her teach me how to do that. I’m not really good at it since I’m used to letting it flop and now I have to try and point the stuff in the front out but it’s definitely fun to have a change.

Next came my favorite part of any modern haircut – the shampoo and rinse. This is the all time greatest invention in modern hair styling. Frankly – I just like being touched anyway. And to have a pretty girl wash my hair is a definite kick. Again sometimes they are routine and quick and sometimes they are done well with a scalp massage. Carlie, again, did this part just right – she took the time to make it a pleasant experience.

While she was doing this I started to remember haircuts of old. So I told her about my first barber. I have no idea what his name was so I’ll just call him Floyd after the one from the Andy Griffith show. I didn’t like going to get my hair cut as a child – I hated having to wait for my turn – there was nothing to do and the place usually smelled like old people. When it was my turn I had no choice but to sit still and let Floyd do the one cut that he always did. The worst part, for me, was that he always asked me if I wanted my nose hairs trimmed. Every single time he asked that. For crying out loud to little kids EVEN HAVE nose hairs? I never knew what to say to that question and I spent the whole time dreading when he would ask it. I could probably use that now but definitely not as a kid. I hated going to Floyds. It wasn’t fun at all.

Old Floyd has nothing on Carlie. Sometimes the good old days and ways just aren’t. I'll take Carlies cut anyday. I'm glad some things have changed.

SS2 VS. NWN2

2007-03-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

I have talked before about both System Shock 2 and about Never Winter Nights 2. I think I’m about nearly done with both games and it struck me as interesting this morning how differently I feel about the two of them. I’m excited to finish SS2 and I haven’t touched NWN2 for ages now. I believe that in both stories I’m at approximately the same place.

In SS2 I’ve moved up through the Von Braun to the umbilical where the UNN Rickenbacker is docked. The story is reaching a climax and important choices are ahead to be made. The game itself is atmospheric and eerie and very interesting to play. My resources are extremely limited and I have to consider how I use them carefully. I have an uneasy alliance with one of the bad guys but expect to be betrayed at any moment. I got to watch a fun little drama unfold in messages as two (of at least three other surviving humans) managed to get off of the Von Braun in an escape pod. Unfortunately, they took the last one with them so the UNN Rickenbacker is my only hope for survival right now.

In NWN2 I’ve built up my keep and have fought some battles while Aldernon the forgetful mage studies the book to tell us how to defeat the ancient evil threatening the land. The story is reaching its climax and I don’t feel that I have any choices to make in the upcoming story. The game is mechanical with very little feeling to it. I expect that I’ll be driven down the proper rails to the “final confrontation” and defeat the big bad (after watching the cut scene, dying, reloading, watching the cut scene, dying, reloading, watching the cut scene, and so on until I finally win the battle that starts right after the cut scene).

So the difference between the two is the level of emotional involvement that they have created in me.

ASIDE: NWN2 is a decent game and I have liked it so far – and to be fair the major advantage to NWN2 is the creation of the tool kit that will allow the user community to create more compelling stories. The single player game in NWN1 wasn’t very interesting either, but there were numerous user created stories that were very fun to play through and gave the game life well beyond what it was released with. Hopefully, the same thing will happen to NWN2.

The question is then how did the one game create an emotional reaction while the other one failed? In SS2 I feel like a part of the story and in NWN2 I feel like I’m watching the story. I think the major reason for this is the complexity of the two different stories.

NWN2 is a straight forward ancient evil has returned to the land and threatened your home – you must rise up from humble beginnings and defeat it. We’ve all seen that story a gazillion times. The twists and turns in NWN2 irritated me – for example the sudden realization of which two characters were related and then being railroaded into allying with the one character even though MY character never would. So far all of the plot twists have been parts of sub quests and the main story line has been quite simple.

SS2 is a complex story that unfolds slowly. The player knows right away that something is wrong on the Von Braun – the glimpse of a crewwoman running down a corridor screaming was the first clue. (Wait – that wasn’t the first clue but it was the first really dramatic scene in the game – and it was done with the in-game engine instead of a cut scene.) Allies shift as your goals change through the story. The players understanding of the goals of the different powers builds up piece by piece until it is all laid out to horrifying view and the player will have to find some way to save it all.

In the end they are both stories of player saves the world. But the development of the story and the complexity of the two make the SS2 game much more immersive and enjoyable. They could both be compelling stories but the CRAFTING of the story in SS2 is what makes it compelling while the NWN2 story leaves nothing to the imagination of anyone participating in it.

Gaming isn’t about pretty pictures and getting the most points and exploding the most bad guys. It’s about story telling. That is why NWN1 had legs – the user community had the tools to tell stories. That is why SS2 stands up so well after all these years since it’s release - it is a well told story. I can’t wait for the next good story to come along to play.

TO MUCH INFORMATION!

2007-03-28T10:58:00.000-06:00

I have set a goal for myself of updating this blog at least twice a week. It is good for me to write and get things out - it's a creative exercise which I need and is also sometimes fun. This week I've been reviewing some things I've written for a therapy assignment and doing a little re-writing so my efforts have been focused there at bit rather than here. However, I think some of them I could put in both places..... errr.... so I will. Neah!.

These are bullet point type answers to a series of questions that I was trying to answer. They are not fully complete in and of themselves since they are designed to get thoughts out on paper that can then be discussed. So don't take them to be the end all be all of my thoughts. I suppose you can if you want though. Heck that's not my problem if you do - but if you do and then I surprise you you can't come back to me and say that it's not like what I said on my blog. Heh.

My blog comments will be in this color and answers to the questions will be in this color. Anyhoo without further ado here is one answer to the question what do I feel when I'm upset or uncomfortable:

When I’m upset my feelings are largely based in anger. I feel frustrated at things I can not control and want to escape into something simple and manageable. When I’m uncomfortable – my feelings are often uncertainty – I really dislike new experiences and will worry over and over about what I need to do or be or say or act when I’m about to do something for the first time. I’ll play the event over and over in my mind trying out different possibilities and practicing facial expressions and potential responses I could make. Then I worry self consciously that other people just do this kind of stuff naturally and it’s weird that I have to practice.

I saw a Dilbert cartoon once where Dilbert was talking with Dogbert in the bedroom as Dilbert was preparing for work. Dilbert was practicing his smile in the mirror and Dogbert reminded him that it was time to practice his sneezing. The punch type line was that Dilbert said that other people make it seem so natural. I don't think I'm quite as extreme as that cartoon but I have to admit that sometimes I HAVE practiced saying things or expressions and have worried that I'll do it weirdly. It does seem natural for some people and maybe not for me. It could all be perception since I have no idea what everyone else feels - maybe we are all like that.

One of the questions was what do you believe in. This was a very hard one to answer. There doesn't seem much of a way to condense the question down to simple answers and starting places. I've re-written this one several times and, frankly, I'm still not happy with it - I don't think it captures the depth of what I believe but simply superficially mentions a number of things that I believe in. Again - this isn't an end all be all answer but a good discussion point. It's also not a testimony meeting - I deliberately left much of my religious feelings and beliefs out of the answer to avoid sounding like I was answering a question in Sunday school..

I believe that people should be able to get along. I think selfishness causes most problems in the world, including the ones I create for myself. I believe we are here because of a plan prepared by our Heavenly Father – but we can’t fully understand our place in that plan or how it really works because we are limited in our views in this world. I believe in trying to make things a little bit better. I believe in being a good friend. I believe laughing is one of the best things you can do. I think time spent at home is more valuable than time spent outside of the home. I believe that the rules aren’t always the best solution but are usually trustworthy. I believe we are here to be good friends and to have good friends.

See what I mean? It's to pat - to simple - I'd probably need pages and pages to really answer that question and each day I might give a different answer to that question depending on where I was at that day and what was on my mind. I think there are some good core ideas there but that the medium of answering this question is perhaps to shallow to allow a real answer.

What am I good at what am I bad at?:

I am extremely loyal and hold on to things longer than others would. I try to make things better. I am a peacemaker. I am a great reader and a wonderful cook. I like creating things. I am very funny when I’m comfortable with whom I’m with. I can tell a decent story. However, I’m introverted and struggle to reach out to others. I have to remind myself to listen to others rather than think about what I want to say. I am to often selfish. I am afraid that people I love will leave me. My self confidence is low enough that doing something new is really hard for me to do.

I think that a lot of people struggle with self confidence. The past year I've been practicing doing things for myself to improve that weakness in myself. It's funny but stopping to buy myself a new book or something is an easy way to tell myself that I like myself and I'm good enough and heck, I even deserve good things. That is a surprisingly effective way to improve my self confidence. The connection may not seem obvious but it's there. As I affirm my own value to myself - my reliance on external indicators of value decrease and as a result I am more comfortable with my own self and therefore more confident in my ability to take care of myself. It's not that I convince myself that I'll always do well or succeed but rather that even when I don't I'll still have value to me.

OK, do you know too much about me yet? Well are you still reading? Whew. Well I'll do one more and then quit. This was my favorite question to answer in the whole document (and there were 32 questions that I have answers for). The question was how do I feel about me. It was fun to answer because as I did so I was remembering how I have felt about me in the past and contrasting that to how I feel about me now. I could ramble on about this but I'll let my bullet pointy type answer speak for itself.

I like me. I feel positive about where I’m at and which way I’m going. I am no where near perfect – nor where I want to ultimately be but I’m also much more at ease with myself than I’ve ever been before in my life. I know more about my feelings and thoughts. I understand better why I do what I do. I’m able to form stronger friendships with others. I have learned how better to care for myself and I like doing it. I don’t get drawn into conflict as easily as I once did. I have a better spiritual life than ever before. I fool myself less.

DON’T SHOOT….. SHOOT

2007-03-22T14:36:00.000-06:00

I have whined before about liking older style games over the newer, and in my opinion, spazier, ones. I ran across a link the other day at the Gnomes Lair about how to update your old System Shock 2 with new user created patches and goodness. It made me long for that experience again so I dug around in the boxes in my closet until I found the disks. SS2 is available on home of the underdogs as well. Then I downloaded as many of the recommended patches as I could. (Two of them are on a site that has exceeded its monthly bandwidth allowance and is now shut down till the end of the month). I installed everything and managed, after a little frustration to get it running.

FYI ASIDE: The trick to making it run smoothly is that this engine does not like hyper threaded and multi-core systems. After launching the initial program open up the task manager, find the sshock2.exe in the process list, right click it, choose set affinity and unclick things until only one (1) CPU is enabled for that process. Until I did that it would crash every few minutes.

The first time I ever played this game I was at a game company that was closing its office. There were basically two people left at this point me and the money guy. My job was to turn all the computers off when corporate HQ gave the money guy the high sign. His job was to fire me and then himself and turn out the lights.

Since there wasn’t anything to do until the word came down I had a lot of time to kill so I played System Shock 2. It was an amazing game and still one of my favorites. One of things that I really liked about it was the style of game play verses the other popular games (Quake of some version or other). There was no rocket jumping, no hyper spazing out – but rather careful, methodical game play.

Resources on the Vaun Braun were very limited requiring the player to use careful tactics to succeed. The basics of the game are: you are in your fourth year of service with one of the three branches of the UNN (the futuristic space military). You wake up aboard the Vaun Braun with no memory of why you are in the medical section and a brand new cybernetic implant. You suddenly start getting e-mail from a mysterious helper and begin to explore the ship.

The story is an absolute hoot so I’ll leave it there at that. It unfolds slowly as you collect data records from the missing crewmembers and e-mails from your helper and loudspeaker announcements from the ships AI, Xerxes, and the psychic emanations from dead crewmembers (ie ghosts).

I had forgotten about the ghosts and as I was exploring the beginning levels of the game I was startled by the appearance of the first ghost complaining about one of the systems on the ship. It was a blast – it’s very rare that a game is well written enough and atmospheric enough to evoke that type of response. The list of games that have actually startled me is low. (Lets see, X-COM, Thief, System Shock 1, Thief 2, System Shock 2 and that might be it. At least off the top of my head that is it. Pattern there? Anyone notice that?)

I would very much like to find more games like SS2. I have hopes that BioShock which is made my many of the same people who worked on System Shock and the Thief projects plays the same way. Some of the descriptions leave me hopeful that it will fulfill this role. And I have to say I love some of the artwork I’ve seen. It has an older, stylistic feel to it that reminds me of the Fallout games. It doesn’t come out until later on in the year and it has already slipped a ship date – hopefully they will be able to ship a completed and well done game. But for now I think I’ll play a little more of this SS2 and enjoy some gamer nostalgia.

I ALREADY READ THAT

2007-03-19T09:22:00.000-06:00

I love reading. It’s one of my all time favorite activities. When I was younger and had lots more free time than I do now I could read hundreds of pages in a day – even to the point of reading whole novels in one day. I still love reading although it usually takes me longer to finish a book than when I was younger.

I find a lot of pleasure in reading beyond just having a story too. I love the feel of the book in my hands and the sound of the pages as I turn them. I especially love the smell of a book – the glue and paper and ink. It evokes a feeling of goodness and safety that I just eat up. In fact the smell of books is one of the things that make libraries so great – smelling all those books in the same building is one of my favorite parts of going to the library.

I go to the library a lot. There are tons of books to read and more coming out each month and I’ll never read them all. The library is a good way to try and stay up on the oncoming tide of books. Most of the books I read all the way though I enjoy but for most of them I’ll never read them again. There are some special books that I love to read over and over. Those ones are my favorites. Those are the ones I buy – and put proudly on my bookshelf. Those are the ones I loan out to get other people “infected” with the series. They are almost always a series.

Lists are ephemeral things – always changing and shifting depending on mood and sun spots, and what I read last, and what is happening in my life. So for your pleasure here is a list – presented in no particular order – of books that I like to re-read. The ground rules for the list are: 1) Fiction – I’m going to leave off religious and non-fiction books that I have re-read. Even though some of them I have re-read many many times and often find enjoyment in them. This is a fiction list. 2) A series of books will get a single entry. 3) I am allowed to change any of my rules at any time for what ever reason I feel like, thus reflecting the basic ephemeral nature of lists that I posited above. Heh.

1) The Dresden Files – I’ve just started re-reading this series and I must say it’s better the second time around. I’m picking up on nuances that I missed before that foreshadows things that have happened in later books and also items that portend major events still to come. My favorite is still Dead Beat – since that one created my most powerful emotional response to any of the books but they are all lots of fun.

2) The Lord of the Rings – This is the series that started it all for me. I reread this every few years or so. In fact I’ve had to purchase the series twice now because my first set of books had fallen apart from being read so much. It still has the ability to evoke powerful emotions in me as I read through it.

3) The Company Novels – Kage Baker created a wonderful character in the Botanist Mendoza and I’ve enjoyed reading all of her works in the company series. Literature Specialist Lewis is also a fascinating character. The primary draw to this series are the compelling characters and the drama they find themselves in – but the meta-story of the creating of the company and what happens in the future are also lots of fun.

4) Cryptonomicon – one of the few “alternate history” novels that I have ever really enjoyed. This one uses several different viewpoints to create a larger story – a near future, a past, and a further-past. Jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint is a refreshing change (although it does make the reading more complex) from most simple stories and it allowed for a richer story line where I as the reader know more of the nuances than the characters in the book do.

5) Snow Crash – Another book by the author of Cryptonomicon, Neil Stephenson. This one is a fascinating what-if story about could a virus be created that will crash a human brain. It’s very sic-fi in nature and includes one of the most fun opening chapters I’ve ever read – The Deliverator!

6) Neuromancer and all the sprawl novels. In 1984 I read Neuromancer and couldn’t put it down. I re-read it almost immediately after finishing it the first time which is quite rare for me. I loved the way William Gibson creates a chewy (for lack of a better term) novel where things are described in allegory requiring me to pause and imagine things as they go along. This has one of my favorite opening lines of all time too “The sky was the color of a TV tuned to a dead channel.” I have liked all of Gibsons novels but the Sprawl Trio and the complementary book of short stories are my favorites by him.

7) The galactic center series by G. Benford – This one almost didn’t make the list. I have reread it several times but some of the stories are definitely more fun than the others. If I wasn’t just a little weird I might skip some of the stories and stick with the others – but a part of me likes completeness and so I start at the beginning and read through to the end. This series posits a machine intelligence living around the galactic center that believes that biological life is a threat to it and so wages war on biology where ever it finds it. The story starts on earth with man exploring orbit and the solar system. The later stories skip ahead and show tribes of people living on abandoned colony worlds – fighting the machine invaders and others in space ships trying to reach safety. All in all the middle of the series is the best part but the beginnings and ending serve to make a nice framework.

8) Foundation novels - this is another series I read long long ago. The first three Foundation novels seem to be written for younger audiences and I can see why they appealed to me as a child. I like them still when I read them now but it no longer fires my imagination as it once did. The later stories in the series were more complex and longer and hold up better when reading them as an adult. However, the first three are the ones that remind me of the sense of wonder that good stories can create and when I read them again I am transported back to that feeling I had when I first read them.

9) The Order of the Stick – This isn’t technically a book but since I’m allowed to break any of my own rules I’m going to include it. I have three of these books currently (book 0, 1 and 2) and I love them all. A comic that can make me laugh out loud when I re-read it is definitely a keeper and one that I’m happy to pay money for to support the artist. Most jokes loose their power once you have heard them once but in OotS the comedy is often derived from the characters and situations but even the sight gags and rules jokes are often funny enough because of which character is participating that I will often break out laughing every time I see it.

10) Dilbert – The Dilbert books also have the ability to make me laugh when I re-read them. They are not as funny as OotS but a few repeated laughs in each book makes them keepers. Some of the lines really stick with me and I find my self anticipating panel when I know it will be uttered.

11) Shermans Lagoon – I really liked these at first but they seem to be more repetitive lately. I think I have all the ones published to date and these do pass the “make me laugh again” test but I’ve noticed that the later books feel very familiar – as if covering the same ground over and over. I’ll probably keep buying them for a while in hopes that it changes but if nothing does I’ll just stick with what I have and enjoy them for what they are.

12) Hitchhikers Guide novels – I’ve read these dozens of times. My favorite books are still the first three but all of the series has good stuff going for it. Seeing Arthur Dent finally get some happiness in the later books was lots of fun but nothing has matched him discovering that his good friend Ford Prefect was an alien and his adventures through time and space are by far the highlights of the series. I should add at this point that I also enjoyed the Dirk Gently Holistic Detective Agency novels as well and they are very re-readable too. I was surprised to learn that one of these novels was VERY much like an episode of Dr. Who but when I watched the episode again and saw that Douglas Adams was the writer for that episode the surprise vanished.

13) The Discworld novels – how can a list of things to re-read not make mention of Terry Prattchet? This guy is hysterical. The novels are delightfully silly and fun to read but there is also a deeper level of humor to them that is just as delicious. I can still remember the moment of realization I had when the thought occurred to me: “Ank-Morpork is America!” Suddenly a whole new level of the story was opening to me and I re-read the series looking for the subtler layers and jokes woven through out the entire series.

Well there you have it. A list off the top of my head of…. Ummmm… 13 good stories to re-read. I’m sure there are others and you list may vary. In fact my list tomorrow may vary too – but I expect that any variations in my list will be only to grow it as I realize I totally forgot something else that I just love.

FOR WHOM THE NERF BATS

2007-03-14T09:04:00.000-06:00

I play DDO once a week with a bunch of friends. I’ve enjoyed it as a chance to play with friends but the overall game hasn’t been anything to write home about. Some of the design decisions were pretty lame and the game is – like most MMORPGs – multi-player whack-a-mole.

The March update to the game introduced a new system of using action points. The action point system was one of my least favorite parts of the game. You can use action points to buy enhancements for your character. These are supposed to allow you to specialize your character into different areas and abilities. You were allowed to pick four enhancements to your character and each mini-level (each level is divided up into 5 mini levels) you would receive an action point to spend. If you had any unused action points when you hit a major level (level 5 to level 6 for example) you would loose those unspent action points forever.

My character is now level 6 and from level 1 to level 6 I had thrown away well over half of the action points ever awarded to me. In fact, one of my character enhancements I had kept since level one for lack of an upgrade path for it. All of the other enhancements were in pretty much the same boat – they were things I’ve had for ages and were at low levels of effectiveness.

The March update scrapped all that and now allows you to have more than 4 enhancements. As a part of that process each character has had their enhancements removed and all their action points restored so that they can re-select enhancements. This was a tremendous improvement on the previous system. In addition if you don’t like what you’ve changed it to you can pay some in-game money and reset them again and try one more time.

These changes to the action point system made my character a much more interesting bard. The highlights include: I have 20% increase to the time that my song effects linger, I have 40 more spell points than before, my sonic and healing spells are 20% more effective than before and I have a 3% chance of generating a “critical” on sonic and healing spells which adds a 1.25 multiplier to the numerical effects of such spells. In addition to that my haggle skill is +3 better than before, I got +1 to my charisma score, my Inspire Courage song adds a +1 to attack and damage (before it was only damage) and I have a 10% improvement in effectiveness of healing spells cast on me. The only decrement I see to my character is that in spite of taking two levels of extra bard song I can only perform a song 8 times before resting where as previously I could do 11. It seems like a small price to pay for the improvements to my character.

For me the nerf bat hit a triple.

For others the nerf bat seems to have hit them right between the eyes. The rouge in our party, Coyote, was really unhappy with the changes to the enhancement system. He was previously enjoying a +3 bonus to all sorts of skill checks that was converted into a time based effect that only lasts for 30 seconds now. We stumbled into several traps that he was unable to detect for some reason. Hopefully that was due to a design of the dungeon and not to his abilities being nerfed but that is yet to be determined.

The rest of the party wasn’t very vocal about their changes. The Paladin/Rouge (what a combo) seemed to like his but I don’t know what they were except that he did get some skill bonuses. What is that score – a single, a double?

I know our wizard took an enhancement that makes it so monsters don’t mind being blown up with fireballs quite so much. That is a pretty cool enhancement since she has a tendency to attract a lot of monster attention after cutting loose with a powerful spell. I certainly spent less time hanging back with the wizard to pull beasties off of her than previously so that’s an enhancement that works for me too! I’d call this a nerf bat double just for that alone unless there are detriments I don’t know about.

The warrior – I have no idea. He always seems to be able to smash stuff dead before I can even hit them. I didn’t notice anything different – so nerf bat score: unknown.

The cleric – seemed to be reasonably happy with his changes. He did note that he was using spell points much more quickly than previously. He also took enhancements to the effectiveness of his healing spells. From outside it looks like at least a sold single for him.

All in all it’s a score for the home team (that would be us) with these changes.

HOW BAD CODING HURTS OTHERS: AN EXAMPLE

2007-03-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

I like daylight savings time. I love having the light in the evenings during the summer. It makes the baseball games much more pleasant not to mention how much more time you can play with or have the kids play outside. It’s a sign of spring. Loosing that hour in the spring is quite a pain but I really do like having the daylight hours match the sunlight.

In case you haven’t noticed (and believe me some of you haven’t). (Well actually. Now that I think about those who will probably be reading this, I have to take that back. I’m sure all of you, that I know that will see this, HAVE noticed so let me try this whole paragraph again.)

In case you haven’t noticed (and believe me there are potentially some people who might possibly one day read this page who haven’t noticed) this year the daylight savings time has been extended. It start earlier in the spring and it ends later in the fall. This by itself is nice. If you are in charge of patching a Microsoft Exchange server or two – it’s definitely not nice.

Let me explain: In order to patch the Windows 2000 clients – I had to update them to the latest security patch level and run some regedits.

In order to patch the Windows XP clients – I had to update them to the latest patch levels by running the Windows Update utility.

In order to patch the Apple OSX clients – I had to update them to the latest patch levels by running the Software Update utility.

In order to patch the Windows 2000 servers – I had to update them to the latest security patch levels and run some regedits.

In order to patch the Windows 2003 servers – I had to update them to the latest patch levels by running the Windows Update utility.

In order to update Exchange Server 2003 – I had to download and install the Exchange calendar update tool and download and install the TZMOVE.exe tool and download and install the patch to the TZMOVE.exe tool. Then run the MSextmzcfg.exe to extract all calendar data from the server we were working on. Run the batch file that produced. Then edit the .ini file associated with the batch file to include a different flag and run the batch file again. Then edit the mailboxes.txt (which is the data file associated with the batch file) file to include all the files that the MSextmzcfg.exe tool marked as non-existing. Re-run the batch file….twice, once with each option from before. Then edit by hand a new mailbox.txt file with the names of any resource mailboxes on your server, edit the ini file with a secret undocumented flag and run the batch file again to update resources. Then go to the exchange server and make sure that it is patched to the latest service pack level, and download and install the CDO update (why they call it CDO I’ll never know). In my case this update returned the result that I wasn’t patched to SP2 even though I clearly was. Beat head against wall. Discover that because I did an in-place upgrade from Windows Server 2000 to Windows Server 2003 that there are three registry keys that need to be deleted. Remove the keys, reinstall Exchange SP2, re-run the Exchange CDO update, and reboot the exchange server. Open up outlook and manually check your calendar – notice that almost all of your appointments have been changed to reflect the date correctly but a few haven’t. Open each of the wrong ones manually, click the recurring tab, click OK, click save. Do that for each one that is wrong and you are done.

*starts singing* Which one of these is not like the other, which one is different, can you tell? */stops singing*

I think I’ve found what castle I need to storm. I’m pretty sure I can find pitchforks, torches and mobs of other to help me. But first I need to go and do this whole process on the other server.

SHOULD HAVE BELIEVED

2007-03-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

I like spooky stories.

I’ve watched a few episodes of the X-Files over the years. I mean, really, who hasn’t? They are, or at least were, heavily syndicated and they made like 7 seasons worth of shows. I almost always enjoyed the show but never really got into it – for quite a number of reasons, most of which were dumb and involved me caving in. Anyhooo…..

I put the first season on my Netflix account and I received the first disk the other Friday. Perfect timing, I had shows to watch over the weekend. After having had a chance to watch the pilot episode and the first several series episodes I have been smacking my forehead going “Why didn’t I watch this?”

Hmmm, that’s not very clear. Let me rephrase. I really really really really really liked the first disk. The shows were clever and well written. The acting is surprisingly good for a pilot episode. The music was perfectly fitted to the pacing of the episodes. The stories were spooky and intelligent enough to treat the non-rational aspects of the show seriously and yet not crazily.

Hmmmmm, maybe that’s not very clear either. Let me try this. I think it would be _fun_ to believe that there are spookies and beasties, and monsters and aliens and all sorts of weirdness out in the world. It would be better than knowing that so many of the bad things that are done to people are done by other people. Plus stories about monsters and beasties are fun because they create an attitude of “let’s beat the monster”. Sometimes we all want to be part of the mob of townsfolk with our torches and pitchforks.

These episodes of the X-Files were well enough written to appeal to that part of me that wants to believe and yet also allowed for the viewpoint that things could possibly be completely rationally explained – it’s just that our understanding wasn’t good enough. In other words, they captured the FUN of letting yourself believe in something fantastic – without preaching that it’s true.

Contrast this to Art Bell and George Noorys radio shows called “Coast to Coast AM”. These people also talk about the beasties and the strange and the aliens and the unbelievable and yet they portray an attitude of "it is all real and those that don’t believe are simply deluded". I do enjoy listening to this show from time to time but it is fascinating to hear these earnest believers call in but I wouldn’t say its fun. It's more like watching a train wreck to me - I just cant stop once it starts.

X-Files captured the fun of the fantastical. I think they will need more than that to sustain my interest for long but they have already laid the ground work for some interesting character development and for a meta-story involving Mulders place in the FBI and how Scully relates to him. All in all it was a promising beginning to a show and extremely entertaining. I’ve bumped disk two up in my queue and hope to be watching it soon.

I can’t believe I waited so long to look into this program. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my pitchfork and see if I can agitate a mob up to storm a castle.

FILTER OF IRRATIONALITY

2007-02-28T13:14:00.001-07:00

All the stuff we think about is filtered through our perceptions and it quite often may have nothing to do with being rational. Take my last rant on turn based games verses real time click fest games. (See I can’t even describe the rant without my prejudices showing through). Some people would say that I’m irrationally biased against the newer style of games because of my enjoyment of the old games. You know what? They might be right – or at least it may be part of why I like turn based games better.

I talked with a friend the other day who illustrated the point perfectly. This friend who is facing a minor medial procedure told me about her nervousness with needles because of an experience she had as a child in a doctors office. The experience was a once in a life time type happening but because it did happen to her anytime that a situation in life comes up that resembles that childhood experience her filters interpret it as scary.

We all have filters. If we don’t accept that and learn what they are we are doomed to be ruled by our own filters.

I have a filter that I secretly fear that everyone I care about will leave me. It’s an irrational fear. It’s based on a real experience from my childhood when my mother passed away after a bout with cancer. It is silly to think that all my friends and loved ones will also just go away but the hidden three year old in my mind IS irrational and to him that irrational fear is no less real.

I’m a grown up now. (OK I know people who would disagree with that.) (OK some more, even sometimes I would disagree with that because I like being silly and childish sometimes.) But the point is that I’m capable of re-filtering my filters by consciously choosing to acknowledge them and then deal with them in the way that a child never could. I can rationally examine my relationships and conclude that people aren’t going to just abandon me and even if people do choose to move on it’s not my fault since everyone gets to make their own choices for themselves.

I think that is the only way to counter the way our brains will automatically perceive the world. We must consciously accept our biases and then choose to counter them or not.

TAKING MY TURN

2007-02-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks my desktop wallpaper is some artwork that was used in Fallout. I picked it because I have been wishing lately for a chance to play an old style turn based combat game. Something Coyote just said really made these thought crystallize for me today. I’m really not a fan of the current click-until-one-of-you-dies style of game play. I never enjoyed Diablo or any of its many, many, many clones. I’m talking about old style – X:COM, Jagged Alliance, Fallout style games. I really miss them.

I don’t know of any games that would scratch that particular psychic itch. David Moffat of Ausgamedev.com has created a game called Omega Syndrome that may help. I almost installed my current copy the other day but decided to contact him about recent updates. He said he is about to release a final version really soon now so I’m waiting for him for now.

I also own the games mentioned above but I’m not desperate enough yet to figure out how to make them play on a current system since they are all fairly old games. I’m sure that I would be saddened to get them running only to realize how dated they look now. Even while enjoying them I’m sure I’d wish that someone would create a game with that style but using current production values.

I know I’m in the minority here. Obviously the clicky games are popular because they sell – and they must sell because people like them.

It’s enough to make me think: why don’t I like them when everyone else does?

I can think of some things that answer that. Clicky games don’t lend themselves to parties. Clicky games take away the repeated tactical puzzle element of combat. Clicky games seem to fast.

I enjoy putting together a group to explore the game world with. This may only be for nostalgic reasons but I remember one of my favorite parts of early RPG games was deciding which four characters I would create or take along with me as I entered the game. One aspect of the early Ultima games I loved was looking around for each of the familiar party members and getting them to join the group for one more crack at saving Britannia. One of the reasons that Ultima 7: Serpent Isle ranks so high on my favorite-o-meter is that early in the game an important member of your party is separated from you in a dramatic fashion and you spend a chunk of the game figuring out how to rescue him. I guess I’m just a grouper. And while that makes me sound very fish like I mean instead one that likes playing in a group even if the group is all imaginary friends.

Another aspect of the old style I like is the puzzle element. I spent hours working on the squaddies in X:COM trying to get the perfect blend of small arms, heavy arms and skills into one squad. I’d compare statistics and load outs between different squads and see which one worked best in what situation. Even with all that optimization there would come moments like when I’ve just come up against a new alien with some new capability and all my careful balancing work is now useless because three of the squaddies have just been brain-eaten and turned into bad guys and now I have a whole new tactical environment and need to figure out what to do next or I’m about to loose the mission. The thrill of puzzling out what to do and how to do it was satisfying. Clicky games seem to remove all of the tactical elements from combat instead replacing them with strategic choices of what do I equip my characters with before meeting up with the bad guys and clicking my mouse button as fast as I can. Strategic elements are fun – X:COM again displays that well between building and provisioning your bases all they way down to equipping your response teams but when combat begins I really want tactics to be important. Tactics are NOT: how well I can manipulate my mouse and keyboard but rather important choices in how I allocate the finite resources available to me and how I respond to the situation as I work through the mission. These are choices that do not lend themselves well to rapid clicking in a real time game – in fact they become silly in real time combat style games. Only in turn based games are you truly capable of implementing effective tactical solutions to evolving game play.

Now I have to admit that I haven’t played very many of the new style clicky games. I did play Diablo and I played Dungeon Siege. I didn’t really enjoy either one and never finished either. And I haven’t had much good to think about that style of game play since then. They felt to fast – to simple – to repetitive to remain interesting for long to me. Maybe there are new ones that have over come these problems and if there are I hope someone will let me know what they are.

ESSAYS ON SERENITY

2007-02-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

I read a fun book over the last few days. It was called Finding Serenity. It is a compilation of essays about the short lived Joss Wheden show Firefly. The book was edited by Glenn Yeffeth and Jane Espenson although on my copy at least the cover only lists Jane Espenson.

I liked the show Firefly – it was clever and quirky and odd and seemed to fit me really well. I loved the characters even when I hated the characters because sometimes they drove me nuts. Kaylee was just the cutest engineer ever and Wash was hysterical and Shepherd Book was calm and mysterious and each character had something great going for them.

The real charm of the show for me was the way the characters interacted with each other. It wasn’t exactly a functional crew but they did manage to get by and they did so in a believable way. I loved the essential humanness of each character, they all had flaws and defects but they were also vibrant and good and caring too.

The essays in this book gave me pause to think about the show again. One of the things that struck me most about the essays was how many different positions people could take. One author applauded the show for creating such strong female characters while another ripped on the show for creating such weak female characters. I wasn’t sure for a while which show I had watched after reading those two essays. After consideration I think that both authors were right. It goes back to what I was saying before about humanness.

No person is strong at all times and in all ways – any more than someone is always weak. Each REAL person is a blend of good and bad, strong and weak, brave and cowardly, dumb and smart. That is one of the things that makes us all human – and I think essentially lovable. That is why the characters on this show were loveable. If they were always perfect there would be no opening to love them when they struggle with their problems or overcome a character flaw.

One of the other essays concerned the music of the show. I was surprised to see how much analysis this person was able to pull out of the soundtrack especially since I usually listen to soundtracks and try to find themes for particular characters or situations. Sometimes I get so involved in the music I miss parts of the show and have to mentally or physically rewind to catch the actual dialog. Sometimes the music is more fun than the actual show itself. In any case the essay on the music made me really think about what can be conveyed audibly and yet without words – the next time I catch an episode of Firefly I’m going to listen for these queues.

The highlight essay of the book was done by Jewel Staite in which she picks five memories from each episode to share. The most interesting thing about this essay is that either she was channeling her character Kaylee or she is truly a happy bubbly person since a feeling of that personality type came through very strongly. The memories she shared were almost invariably something that made her laugh out loud or something that she really liked about one of the other actors. She came across as a fun person in the essay much like her character comes across in the show.

In any case – the book was quite enjoyable to read. If you are looking for nostalgia hit from the show this would be a fun book to check out.

TRY IT YOU MIGHT LIKE IT

2007-02-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

I didn’t know MSN would display my iTunes songs!

I use MSN Messenger for my contacts. It works pretty well and I’ve created groups for friend and work contacts. I’ve fiddled with the options and fonts and colors and I find it works for me pretty well. I have set up messenger windows so my friends show up in their own colored window. I know lots of people use Trillian or some other type of multi-service application but MSN has worked for me. Recently MSN has started a beta program where I can actually contact people using Yahoo messenger right through my MSN. I expect that more and more messenger clients will trend towards universal availability.

I also use iTunes. I love iTunes. I think it’s a killer app especially since I also have an iPod that I also love. For several months I didn’t have an iPod and it drove me nuts. I listen to it in the car and every once in a while when falling asleep. I am thrilled with the ability to have ALL my music with me in once convenient package. The Apple DRM model I’m not thrilled with especially with respect to the movies and TV shows available on their site. If I buy a video I don’t want to be restricted on where I’ll play it back so I will stick with DVDs as my purchases for now since they are easily converted to play on my iPod or computer or where ever I want to but the reverse is most definitely not true. That, though, is a thought for another day.

MSN Messenger has a spot for a personal message that you can type in that to share with all of your contacts. I love this idea as a method of customizing the experience and sharing how you are feeling right now. I love these but I really have a hard time when it comes to typing in my own. For a while I had “cuddly yet astringent”. This was from a comment that someone made to me that I enjoyed. I’ve tried movie quotes and song quotes but filling out that blank box is almost as hard as coming up with a name for a character for me. I usually just leave it blank.

MSN Messenger, like lots of IM clients has a “Show What I’m Listening To” button. I’ve seen it used before by people in my contact list. Their personal message would display the name of the song that was currently playing on their computer and the artist that is performing it. I always looked at that option while agonizing over what to put in my personal message space and wish it would work with my iTunes. HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART: I never tried it – I just wished it would work for me. I made the assumption that it would not since I was using a Microsoft IM client and an Apple music player.

HERE IS THE POINT OF THE IMPORTANT PART: I was wrong. It totally works together. I never even tried and just moped about wishing it would work for me without finding out. I was astounded the other day when I turned it on and it worked. I didn’t have to tell it what my music player was or anything it just worked!

As a person I have a tendency to get stuck in a rut doing things one way and one way only. I am reasonably risk adverse and definitely a comfort seeker so doing things the usual way usually feels good to me.

The experience of MSN Messenger and iTunes just WORKING together when I never thought they would is a good lesson for me. Try things. It’s ok. Sometimes they will work and I’ll be pleased. Sometimes they won’t work and I won’t be any worse off than I was before. Sometimes it’s the little reminders that make the big differences.

PLOT HAMMER

2007-02-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t mind being forced into a story. Usually. Let’s face it I’m playing a game because I like stories. I expect my games to have a story to tell and I don’t have a need to try and break out of the story somehow (like by trying to kill Lord British or slaughtering everyone in Cyrodiil which is the typical way people like to break out of stories in games) – I’d much rather enjoy the story.

The more “serious” the game the more I expect a good story. I was playing Dungeons and Dragons Online the other night and we were observing how the doors to rooms would open just as soon as the last monster in the room was killed. Coyote was wondering what magical spell those doors were based on. I’m pretty sure that the spell would be Mordenkinens Plot Hammer. In a game like DDO which is essentially group whack-a-mole I don’t mind it. We’re just there to have a little fun together. I don’t expect much from the story or the world in an MMORPG. Other games particularly stand alone single player games I expect more from. Some stories are not enjoyable and that is annoying enough to break my suspension of disbelief and begin to resent the plot hammer. Another time is when it’s just do darn FAKE that I can’t take it anymore. These are mistakes in games where there is an expectation of quality story telling and a believable world.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is for the most part a fun game. I have mostly found the stand alone game to be plesant to play. Your milage may vary. I’ve had some gripes about being forced into a play style of “kill ‘em all and let Pelor sort them out” when I’d rather try some sneaking around or some sort of subtle approach to the game. And I have run into two bugs during my playing of the game (I’m currently in Act III – attempting to win the trust of the IronFist clan) but neither of them has been game stopping in any way although both were somewhat annoying.

TANGENT: The first was a looping cinematic scene that made fighting the actual battle that started immediately after the movie very difficult to do. Move two steps, start casting a spell, watch the movie again clicking on all the dialog options again, finish the spell, select another party member, watch the movie again clicking on all the dialog options again, open the inventory and select an item to use, try to target the item but….. watch the movie again clicking on all the same dialog options …again. Anyway, that was irritating but not critical.

LESS OF A TANGENT: The second bug was less odd. At one point I noticed I had a quest in my quest log I didn’t remember getting – and in fact the quest log told me to report back to someone because I’d found the mighty weapon it mentioned. Huh? I had no idea what it was talking about. I tracked down the person who had supposedly given me the quest and he went through a dialog tree that was apparently supposed to set that quest. The quest log stayed at the “return and report” message though. I eventually stumbled into an area with a big baddie and after defeating it I was treated to a little dialog that apparently was the weapon mentioned in the quest. Hurray! Ummmm except for one minor problem. It was the exact same weapon that I had JUST BOUGHT at the vendor right next to the guy who gave me the quest in the first place.

That’s right I went on a quest to obtain a holy weapon that I had just bought. Didn’t someone tell this guy there were two of them? Couldn’t he have said something like – go on this quest to get this holy weapon that is oddly just like the one in your hand right there because you are going to need at least one of them later? I mean really. *sigh*

Well the fact is that he couldn’t have done that because the story in NWN2 is on rails. The choices in NWN2 are limited to what companions you take with you (sometimes), what you equip your character with, and which few side quests there are that you do first. I had to go get the bad guy with the weapon in order to advance the story. It turns out that the weapon quest is a small value side quest for certain character classes. I was going to have that exact same fight in that exact same place and way - no matter what I did.

The other time the plot hammer really irks me in NWN2 is the out doors areas. Most of these areas look terrific and have a lot of character. However, after a while you begin to notice that the outdoors areas are all of two types – a big meadow surrounded by impenetrable barriers and narrow twisty trails surrounded by impenetrable barriers. I really enjoy exploring and every time I’m in an outdoor area in NWN2 I’m forcibly reminded how I can not. The indoors areas work very well in the game and have been one of the strengths of the game so far but almost every time I’m outside I feel irritated that I have to go here along this one particular little trail to get to where I’m going.

I am familiar enough with gaming and even some game development to see why the designers have created the game this way. It all comes down to the economics in the end – there has to be x amount of content and it has to fit together somehow and in between that there is tons of details like AI and world databases and spiffy effects so in all of that balancing it’s easy to make the choice of “ok the player can go here but not there because it’s easier for us to make it work that way”. I see that – and usually I’m forgiving of that. I’m willing to work with the designers because I bought the game to have fun. And it bugs me when something jars me out of the “fun zone” while I’m playing.

Looking back over this I think the whole point of the post was to say: Mordenkinens Plot Hammer. Oh well. Now I’ve said it twice so I should be good to go.

The moral of the story is: immersion is good in a game or any story telling device. And things that disrupt immersion are then, by definition, bad for the vehicle. Poorly wielded plot hammers will break immersion.

BLOG RESTART

2007-02-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

In case you were anxiously checking this site waiting for updates I’ll have to apologize to you. I have felt for most of this past year that it wasn’t a good idea to be writing here so what I have written has been private. I’m starting to see signs that things are changing for the better and I also have been a little itchy to write again. Writing is cathartic sometimes and fun sometimes and a really good way for me to find out what I’m thinking.

Anyway I expect to have more posts here soon.

OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

2006-06-30T08:18:00.000-06:00

Well trying to earn some money and do what is right has turned out to be a lot more complicated than I had expected it to. After finishing up my first posting I was on my own for a while. I met up with a big, smelly, but nice enough, guy named Sampson. We took on a few odd jobs to earn some coin, while we were playing body guard for to oafs we ran into something awful.

A group of adventurers came along after some disagreements were resolved we ended up going with them to a remote tower to better protect our clients. That evening we were attacked by some sort of nasty undead rats and some scary snake like things. I felt right away that I should do whatever I could to prevent undead from attacking the living. Undead cringe in the glory of the sun and I knew it was my duty to fight them and any who would use them for their own purposes.

Even though the group is a bit, well, odd. The one that claims to be the princess certainly has connections and she treats her poor companion more like a pet than a person so I guess she could be a princess. The poor girl is some sort of pure innocent – unaware of how shamefully she is being used. The sailor seems decent enough, just a man out earning some coin I'd guess. The pretend pirate with airs of superiority, I guess you would call him, is selfish and vain. I suspect he would probably steal everything in site if he thought he could get away with it and might try for something that made him look good even if it was risky. The witch is a bit scary – the first night I met her she really let loose on the pirate so I think I'll just stay out of her way a bit. The really creepy one is the rat-man. Ugh – those guys are ugly up close. The mage is awfully quiet – I don't know much about her. At least there is a Paladin in the group – I feel confident that she would not be involved with a group if there was anything bad about them.

Well, we quickly learned that a stone golem had carried some boxes around the city that later turned out to have more undead in them. I'm glad I didn't meet the mummy – I heard it was a terrifying battle. So off we went. Did I ever mention that I don't like the sea? I know it's a bit odd for someone who lives on an island but my family has always been more involved with the land than the sea – someone has to produce all the things that get shipped.

The sea voyage to the island of the mage creator of the golems was pretty awful. We got caught in a storm – I was doing OK until everyone else in the cabin started loosing their lunches. The smell was all it took for me and up came all my insides too. Ouuugh! The stench and the mess was horrible. I don't think I've ever been so glad to make land fall and spend some time cleaning up.

The locals on the island were pretty wonderful. We ate dinner at a local house and enjoyed telling stories with each other. The next morning we started off to see the wizard. The locals cautioned us about the Ass-weres on the island and that there may be other creatures. I really wish they had been a bit more … well descriptive of the other creatures.

Shortly after starting off we ran into some sort of nasty plant. It whipped long tentacles around trying to grab us. Fortunately they didn't move very well and we were able to rip them apart from a distance. A few hours later we had a horrible experience. A horde of huge, ugly, nasty clicking bugs jumped out of a tree at us. They were horrible one of them jumped right on me and started burrowing in. There was blood, my blood, everywhere and I couldn't pull the damn thing off! I'm still shivering and weak from the bite that nasty thing gave me. Fortunately, with some help I was able to get free from it and they do make a satisfying squish when you land your mace just right.

Next we came to a river without any obvious way across. The current was a bit swift but the barbarian and the sailor thought we could make it across with some ropes. Good thing too since it turned out that the river was full of nasty little fish with a taste for flesh. Sampson jumped most of the way across the river with a rope and tied it onto something there. The rat guy ran right across next and the witch did some magic that just let her stroll across the river. I tried crossing on the ropes, as I got part way across the stupid things came undone and I was plunged into the water. I was terrified again – I could hardly swim with my armor still on and the current wasn't helping me any. I thrashed as well as I could towards the far shore but soon felt the sharp bites from the scaly fish. Blood, my blood, was filling the water around me and the nasty creatures were increasing in fury when Sampson helped me onto the bank of the river. I collapsed there almost un-willing to go any further into the wilderness. If there had been a way back to the village without crossing that river again I'd have taken it right then.

The rest of the group was able to cross the river without incident. We walked a bit further and set up camp for the evening. Hopefully we'll have some time to rest and nourish ourselves around the camp fire this evening. I feel like I'm learning a lot. One thing I've learned is that I really don't like the look of blood, my blood that is, it's not so bad to heal someone else that is hurt but I hate seeing my own. Another thing I've learned for sure is that the wilderness is not much fun. Looking out into the gathering gloom tonight I can hear sounds I can't place. I hope they are harmless fuzzy creatures that are supposed to be more scared of me than I am of them but with the horrible beasts I've met today I'm not so sure of that saying any more.

I'd like to learn some more about my traveling companions as well. I know I have been led to them to fight the evil we encountered but I'm not so certain why the others are here.

WACK-JOB NATION

2006-05-08T15:44:00.000-06:00

Lately I’ve been listening to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. My sister got me started on it – apparently Art Bell usually does the show but he is off in the Philippines setting up a new studio so in the meantime George is doing the broadcasts.

I have to say I’m sickly fascinated by the show. Privately I refer to it as Whack-Job nation since most of what they talk about is just totally out there. For example various types of werewolves, conspiracy theories, paranormal experiences, and the old stand-by UFO stories. Usually I am completely at odds with what ever they are talking about. I’m rather more skeptical.

Even so it’s fun to listen to. I’m mostly fascinated by the people that call in to it. Do people really believe these things? Well of course they do but how is it possible. Is it just that my frame of reference is so different than theirs that I can’t comprehend why they believe such things?

I suppose that is the point, after all, life is subjective. There is no one person with an absolute lock on what is or is not real. We all experience life through our own filters and color every experience with our own expectations and beliefs. Have you ever talked with someone and realized later that they only heard the part of what you were saying that they liked or agreed with or tried to remember something with someone else who was also there and each of you had different recollections? This is the phenomenon that I’m talking about. We all see things our own way. This doesn’t make me right and them wrong. In fact referring to them all as wack-jobs is simply an ego defense trying to make me feel better than them. Perhaps with someone else’s experiences I would hold different opinions too.

Well, the program provides one thing in abundance and that is entertainment. And to me that is the primary point of the program. Others may find it educational or affirming but to me it’s mostly silly and pleasant.

GAME MEMORIES

2006-05-05T15:03:00.000-06:00

I was reading a friends blog today and it got me thinking about past game memories. I had a lot of fun playing games - especially with my friends. My buddy has quite a few "Game Moments" written up on his site. I felt like writing one of my own so I did and sent it to him. Here it is on this site too.

Guest Game Moment – Falcon 4.0

This is my all time favorite moment playing Falcon 4.0, a game Jay and I played a lot. The game had many flaws but it left some of my strongest game playing memories. The way the world worked and the battle field changed was something to behold. It was also stunningly gorgeous to look at. Nothing, at the time, even came close to how great it looked. I recall the first time I looked out through the reflections of my cockpit at the world spread out below me. I gasped it was so stunning.

I love the simulation aspect of many games and the more “real” I can make it the better I enjoy the game so I always played from inside the cockpit with a view of the instrumentation and the canopy. While the game engine supported switching to outside views I always felt that if I couldn’t check my own six from inside the cockpit I shouldn’t be flying a Falcon.

The hardest thing to learn in this game was the landings. I don’t even recall how may sets of landing gear I ripped off learning how to feather that plane down onto a runway. It was a point of pride to learn how to do it right with me and I spent a long time learning how to approach, line up, glide in and finally flare just right to squeal onto the tarmac without ruining a multi-million dollar (simulated) plane.

My weakest part of the game was air to air combat. Jay was great at that – his understanding of air to air tactics and resource (height, speed, weapons) management was unparalleled. I learned a ton just getting smoked out of the sky by him. Jay was always great to fly with – he has a great blend of aggressiveness and common sense. I tend to be more careful and Jay always pushed me to play just a bit harder. He may have briefly regretted that during this particular mission.

Anyway, Jay and I started up a new campaign one day and signed ourselves up for a mud moving mission. This particular mission had us hitting one of the games favorite first day targets a ship yard. We were loaded down with 500 lb bombs and wing-tip sidewinder missiles for air to air defense. We took off, formed up and headed to our first nav point. I loved listening to the chatter in this game as different flights called their positions and reports in.

Shortly after we passed over the FLOT we were passing to the west of an enemy air base. We were trying to stay out of trouble since we were loaded down with bombs and besides we had a CAP to take care of us right? As we were nearly abreast of the field we got a radar warning lock from a MiG-21. Looking over it was in visual range and had apparently just taken off from the strip. He was low and slow and probably shouldn’t have announced his presence. Jay locked him up and fired. Splash one. We looked around briefly but seeing no more immediate threats turned back towards our target. No sooner had we done so that another MiG-21 jumped us. Some how, this bandit had snuck up behind us. We were heavy and slow to turn or climb – the MiG-21 picked Jay as his first target and quickly maneuvered into gun range. Jay pulled right into a high yo-yo hoping to bring him around in front of me to get a shot. I tried a snap shot as he crossed in front but missed him.

At this point we were in trouble, Jay had a bad guy on his six and I missed the shot and was trying with everything I had to roll my plane onto him. Jay continued to climb and turn right, I was loosing ground on them trying to pull the same maneuver – Jay was always better at energy management than I was. I couldn’t even roll over far enough to get my radar to lock on the bogie since it was in a vertical sweep mode. Guns were out as I was loosing ground on them my only hope was to get a sidewinder off at him. I called out over the “radio” that I was un-caging my seeker head. The seeker heads of the sidewinder missiles were usually slaved to the planes radar to achieve their initial lock on. This makes it easier to pick a bad guy from a friendly. But with the bad guy out of the plain of my radar sweep that wasn’t going to help. Un-caging the seeker allowed it to roam the sky in its own independent pattern looking for a heat source to lock onto.

Jay called back – “Wait, don’t”. I replied “It’s the only way.” I was pretty familiar with the pattern that the seeker head would follow as it looked for a target and I was almost positive that it would acquire the MiG-21 before it found Jay. As I un-caged the seeker I quickly heard the growling tone that indicated it had a target and it was a loud, certain tone. I called out “I’ve got tone!” and then “Fox 2”, as I sent the missile on its way. I remember holding my breath as I watched the missile streak away towards Jay and the MiG. Who would it go after? The MiG broke off of Jay to try and turn away from the incoming missile but it was to late, it turns out that I did have a good lock and he had bled off to much energy trying to get Jay. BOOM! Splash one for me!

I don’t remember what we did next – I think we might have aborted the mission at that point, but we did live through it to drop bombs another day.