In Brief

First off, some Exalted news, the cover for the Houses of the Bull God (coming October) has been released. This covers Harborhead and the Cult of Ahlat (aka the Bull God). That's all, was gonna write something but don't feel like finishing it yet so maybe later (or more then likely not at all).

Tech Humor

What's scary is that this is true: Apple Product Cycle

Addendums and Such

Happy birthday to Ryan and my sister, 20 and 24 respectively!
I have this nagging feeling there was something I meant to mention when I blogged today but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. It shall nag me until I fall asleep and then it'd better go away doggone it!
I got some reading for my trip to Europe. Two books: the 9/11 commission report (unless it's utterly huge, that'd be rather ungloss, have to see how big/much it weighs when it arrives) and a book entitled "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda". Not exactly happy reading I'll admit but at the moment current events have rather garnered my attention and I have already read a fair amount on World War II so now I am trying to expand my knowledge base, granting I still have lots of reading to do for that war. I picked up a book on the Germans drive to Moscow and I never did finish even the Pacific half of the Samuel Elliot Morrison 15 volume Two Ocean War series. I also got a book on the 6 Days War between Israel and all her neighbors.
Do I really need to take this much reading along? I dunno, certainly 2-3 books is about what I read in the average semester, maybe a little on the low side but I figure there are times that I will certainly want to escape and read even if this isn't exactly escapism reading.
I got the iPod power adapter world travel plug kits and since they basically are just different pronged plugs for the power adapter Dad and I are trying to figure out if that little gizmo isn't actually smart enough to be convert power from different countries (ie, it figures out which plug is in there and then converts it to the correct type of juice for the iPod to keep it from frying like an egg on the sidewalk in August). Rest assured it's a mystery although I am gonna hit the Apple website and hope to turn something up there.
Well Starcraft is calling out to me, I managed to crush 7 opponents (who thankfully nuke each other as much as me, stupid nukes vaping all my carriers...grr) so I am feeling "lucky". One last night of work from 10-6:30 then starting the midnight to 8 run. I finally met Steve Friday morning because I was running late getting all the pulls done, stupid managers changing how the process is done without asking the people who actually know/do the work! Hopefully I didn't come across as too grouchy ignoring the fact I was (cause of the whole being 15 minutes late for a dumb reason) cause he is the new manager and he definitely is making major changes and the night crew I think is somehow on his bad side already and I'd feel bad if I added to it.
Starcraft...
summons...
now!!!
:D

Our Wonderful Little World

First off, a little show of how the UN inability to react to current crisis situations while millions suffer in Sudan. This is in fact not exactly a new problem just one that has heightened enough to reach the Western Media's ears for once. However it is rather evident to note that the UN has be unable to act at all and even its resolutions are weakened. Hopefully it won't be as bad as Rwanda (however granting the US also dropped the ball, although not nearly as much as it's not mandated by the US) but one never knows. At least Africa is attempting to get it's act together and do something.
Good news for Iraq in the fact that the Saudis appear to be willing organize an Islamic peacekeeping force to aid (and hopefully replace) the belaugered US forces there. Frankly I think getting US forces out will help to some extent to show we are not trying to stomp out Islam, just trying to establish democracy and freedom in the region, even if it means allowing others to do it.

Jovian Chronicles

Well in my random search of the web I've stumbled onto yet another game which looks very interesting. It's called Jovian Chronicles, from a company called Dream Pod 9. Incidentally I actually own a book of theirs, which I got for free sorting for Jason, that converts most of their mechs to d20 system. It looks pretty cool, basically a well integrated story which, as usual, is a big seller for me. Also pretty cool looking mecha which is fun to play with. I happen to run across it on DriveThruRPG when getting their weekly free download (the top levels of a super dungeon, interesting concept, especially for simpleton dungeon crawlers). However it's a well developed line so any purchasing will definitely wait til 2005, have to save up for London, granting I don't think I will spend a whole lot there but no way to read anything on my computer when I am overthere so either way best to wait. Besides patience is a virtue right? I should work on being more virtuous.
Finished Heaven's Reach, it's ending reminded me quite a bit to The Postman in the fact that things got kinda philosphical/metaphysical and in the ends things didn't wrap up as nicely as I'd like, I mean what happens post-Streaker arrival to Earth? Sheesh Earth was about to fall, and what about civilization on Jijo? I guess I'll just have to live with the lack of wrapping up. At least they got the Tytal to talk :D

Random fact: did you know that Detective Conan has 350+ episodes? Finally a long running new show! Speaking of that, I am gonn help out the lame adult swim promotion which is amusing regardless.
Speaking of sites, I was talking to Lars and he/we attempted to find a Chi Alpha group in London. So far we haven't had any luck but this appears to be their main page if you ever go to Europe and are looking for some Christian fellowship. I hope I can find a place, otherwise it could be a very lonely 3-4 months Christianwise.
Speaking of Europe I am not exactly sure which books I am taking with me yet. Bible is a default, but beyond that I am not sure. No RPG books, they are too bulky and too heavy (happy Lars?) and besides gettin' away from that for a little bit isn't nessecarily a bad thing, granting if I can find a game over there and have the time I'd be open to it. However I am trying to figure out which two paperbacks I am going to bring, and yes they are sci-fi (sorry Lars :D ). Right now I am leaning towards Startide Rising of which Brightness Reef/Infinity's Shore/Heaven's Reach are sequels too. Also thinking about A Civil Campaign by Lois MacMaster Bujold because it's frankly just hilarious (a 30 something hyper-active midget attempts to woo a woman admist his cousin the emperor's wedding). Really not sure tho cause I picked up most of the remaining Man-Kzin Wars novels when we were up in the Twin Cities from Uncle Hugo's and I should try and start reading them, ya know?
Anyhow this weekend I went down to visit Allison. It was a blast! Best weekend this summer by far. It was nice to be able to talk and hang out and basically just get out of town and spend time with my friend! Her family was really cool and thanks to them for housing me for a night! Madison was actually a lot nicer then I thought granting I hadn't been in very much of it til then. The only downside to the whole thing was now I realize how lonely it is here back at home. That is life though I guess, anyhow sleep time. My schedule is about to get a whole lot screwyier as we are going to start working midnight - 8am this Sunday. Dumb General Office people!

Star Wars and stuff

Yea I know, a lack of interesting updates, haven't felt the writing bug lately and have been kinda busy as of late (actually got out of here for once), sorry if you actually missed my ramblings.
Anywho, big news is: the final installment of Star Wars-Episode 3-now has a name: Revenge of the Sith. Pretty big news. Also covered are the release dates for the original trilogy DVDs (Sept 21st, old news tho) and release for the Clone Wars shorts, and the two animated series onto DVD. Of course the actual movie doesn't come out for nearly 10 months so still a long wait for anything really substantial.
I am about halfway through Heaven's Reach now, it's getting pretty good, a lot faster then the other books in the trilogy. This might be because it's shorter or just cause everything needs to be wrapped up now, I am not quite sure. I am enjoying it though and hope that the wayward Streaker is allowed to get home with most of her crew whose still alive. Frankly you can't kill off too many more before it's too unbelievable to think that she can function.
Well that is all for now, I might write some more later whilst I am watching Adult Swim and relaxing, but no promises. Work was tough last night especially when I could have stayed in Madison and hung out with Allison for another night (stupid work suddenly scheduling me on a day they hadn't in weeks!)
Oh and Ricky Williams has decided to retire from the Dolphins. Not sure what my favorite team will do now for offense but I hope they can turn this into something good. Just wish Ricky woulda shown a little better sense in his timing! (That's my last thought for now, honest!)

The Voting Take

Here's a good reason why our election stuff is crazy. At least we get a laugh even if it's at our country's expense!

More Crap

As if one fake wasn't enough now Sci-Fi channel has followed Michael Moore's footsteps in making a fake themselves. Granting they did a darn good job at it so who knows, maybe if I went to see Moore's I'd fall for that too (it's possible I am really a sucker for such types of films). Anyhow it just pisses me off that Hollywood has decided to trash something that is supposed to be non-fiction just for a quick buck. Not that I should be surprised, it is Hollywood.

Random Achievements for Me

Yay, I finally finished Proverbs, it only took me a couple months cause of my usual pathetic procrastination but yea finally getting focussed in and reading up again. Now under recommendation from Lars I am moving onto Timothy I (and probably Timothy II, since both are shorter).
In somewhat less phenomenal news I finally got a NWN character up to lvl 20. My wizard, after repeating the closing chapter like 5-6 times, so yea that took too dang long. I would have preferred that the story could let you get to 20 without having to repeat the scenario (I figure you could get to 20 by playing the scenario thru twice or doing the last part several times like I did). It's not as much fun but I wanted to see what making it to the top was like. On the nice side I have a bunch of powerful items so I am pretty well equipped!
Dun have anything else to mention, it's been kinda slow here, I am looking forward to next weekend getting down to Madison, hopefully will have some tales to tell after that or something.

My Bias

Yea, more grumping about Moore, but now it's international (although its coming from the the Washington Post). This caught me off gaurd, I figured most of the world would like Michael Moore since most of the world hates George W. Bush. Apparently we're arrogant even when we agree with people, something to keep in mind for me this fall. :/

Return to Blue Planet

So went up to Twin Cities yesterday, got a backpack from REI, gonna train up by dumping a sleeping bag and all my RPG books in it to sim weight of 3 months were of stuff needed to survive near a hostile country (France :D ). Also got to stop by a Borders bookstore, they are quite impressive, then again with our tiny B & N and Waldenbooks it's not hard to be bigger then them, granting this store dwarfed even the bigges B & N I've been too (think it's the one at the Apache(?) Mall in Rochestor). Also got to stop by Uncle Hugo's and found a number of the Man-Kzin Wars that I don't have yet, no elusive VIII which Dad's been hunting for awhile. I've done 1-3, 5 so I picked up 4, 6, and 7. Be awhile before I read them, prolly post-Europe, maybe I will take two of them along. Finished Brightness Reef and started onto Infinity's Shore. The first book really consisted of a whole lot of not much happening, kind of dissapointing. Right at the end though you could figure out a lot of stuff. Reading through the cast of characters for Infi's Shore I'm realizing a lot of my favorite character's from Startide Rising didn't make it. It's also been quite a bit since Startide Rising as far as I can tell, maybe as much as 5 years although not sure on that since the time measurements are really strange (duras, put a various pro-somethings on that words and you make bigger and smaller time segments).

My big sort of story tho is that at Uncle Hugo's I found the Blue Planet four pack. It's a nice deal and I had a couple Blue Planet books (the original out of date core book and a v2 expansion on uplifted Ceteceans) so I got it. It sort of expands the world but mostly just fleshes out the details. However I really do love the idea of a water planet. I think I really got tied into that with Startide Rising but there is more then one science fiction story/show which has had water planets and I usually loved them all. Something about deep oceans which hide so much just makes them really cool. Also I love sentinent dolphins and orcas. It's just really cool, I mean name another game where you can viably play a orca? The only catch right now is I don't have the v2 core books and the original one doesn't work at all with the expansions so eventually I will have to break down and get them (if I can find them which may take even longer since Amazon doesn't carry them and frankly I am not sure if Fantasy Flight Games is doing so well or if Biohazard Games even exists anymore). I highly doubt I'll ever get anyone to play it anyways, just another story which I've gotten engrossed in. Too bad I couldn't have found something cheap to get engrossed in, like watching clouds or something. Or working 40 hours weeks at Shopko (heh, if I could get scheduled that much). Oh well I suppose I could have worse things to waste my free time with. Jon, one of my co-workers, is going to attempt to run a game of Demon: The Fallen. I am onboard although I am not real big on the game, first it's Demon my least favorite part of world of darkness (for obvious reasons) and second it's world of darkness, not my kind of thing to have a game in a dark, paranoid and ultimately doomed world. Kind of strange game already, it's being run by a (fairly devout as far as I know) Catholic, with me as one of the major characters. Maybe Eric is a raging atheist to balance this out. I am going to take a shot at this tho, it probably won't go for more then a few sessions. I just hope I am not somehow betraying my faith and beliefs just to get a little roleplaying in, not a very good sign of belief. Anyhow...

Going down to visit Allison in a couple weeks. Pretty excited, aside from visiting Jessie I really haven't seen much of anyone so it'll be nice to get out and hang with another of my friends. I'd love to swing down after that to visit Jenny but I highly doubt I can pull that off cause I've only heard from her once this summer and I am wary about calling. Not sure if I should or not, I am horrible with calling people anyhow and don't want to intrude on her life. Yea, right, well, at least I get to hang out with Allison before I depart. I need to get in touch with Lars too and stop by Stevens Point, file for an absentee ballot, (and maybe even catch Katy if she is home for once :P ). So many things to do, so little time. Summer is a strange concept of boredom and lack of time. Then again school is like that too.

Ok, time to take a break and relax to some music and take a cat-nap so I can last the night at work. Switching the schedule around is crazy, at least I can use Signs to keep me up.

Destiny

Actually breaking news yesterday didn't see it til 5 minutes before I went to bed this morning, hence why doing this now.

Anywho, without further ado: Gundam SEED Destiny has been announced. Leaked due to the registering of their webpage-no the link I sent is not it- the rumors prove true. A new Gundam, pretty cool. Can't think of more thoughtful commentary. Catch ya later.

And it's Edwards!

Yup, John Kerry is announcing that his running mate and that person will be: John Edwards. CNN and Fox News should have ya covered if you want info. As some of you may know, I voted for Edwards in the primaries and have also stated that if Kerry picks Edwards I will support the ticket. As such barring any stupid unexpected events (Kerry dumps Edwards, Edwards quits, one of them takes such a radical turn that it scares China into occupying Paris, again) my vote is now set for Kerry. Good boy for picking a decent VP, now do us a favor and do what Bush did: let his VP run the show :D

Ok I am sleepy now, Holly have fun at your dance!

Reading...

I feel the need to pass on some great books I have read over the year's. Yea they are all pretty much science fiction, I take after Dad like that, besides our tastes are the same and I can pilfer from his huge collection of books. Surprise, I read other stuff, besides RPG books. :D

The Legacy of Heorot (Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle/Steven Barnes): The tale of the first human colony on Tau Ceti. Centers mainly on their efforts to survive especially when they encounter planet's most vicious predator, a grendel. I enjoyed it mostly because I really liked the characters especially the main character, been awhile now since I had read it and its sequel: Beowulf's Children. A third book set in the same universe called Destiney's Road dealing with humanity's next attempt at a colony I haven't read.

The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle): The story of humanity's first contact with another race amidst the rebuilding of the Empire of Man. The aliens, called Moties, are very well done as are many of the primary characters. This one also spawned a sequel which was not as good but still a decent read called The Gripping Hand.

Startide Rising (David Brin): Follows the Earth vessel Streaker as it hides out on dying planet while her crew struggles to repair her and escape several large enemy fleets. A lot of the concepts introduced in this book I loved: uplifted Dolphins as crewmembers on a starship, probability weapons, and the general essence of being on the run throughout the story. It always bugged me though that we never find out more about why the Streaker is on the run, although I presume the last trilogy will answer that. A seperate tale called The Uplift War takes place in the same universe and is almost as good.

Footfall (Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle): An elephant like race attacks Earth to use as a new home. It's been a long time since I have read this so can't say a lot about this but the human starship propelled by h-bombs was pretty cool.

The Dig (Alan Dean Foster): Written more towards teenagers then adults this is the novelization of an older computer game where three humans accidentally get sent to a dead alien world after save Earth from an asteroid. I suppose for me this book is really good because it describe some things not covered by the game, it's still a short interesting read. I love the Portal at the end.

Antarctica (Kim Stanley Robinson): Set slightly in the future, this book covers the events of when the Antarctic treaty is not renewed. The continent itself really the star of the show. This got me to read the much longer (and slightly not as good) Red/Green/Blue/Rainbow Mars series.

Cetaganda/A Civil Campaign (Lois Macmaster Bujold): Two of the Miles Naismith Vorkosigan series, both of these novels are the most enjoyable of the series due toward their more humorous bent. Cetaganda follows Miles as he attempts unravel a crime on the homeworld of nation's primary enemy during a state funeral no less. A Civil Campaign deals with Miles and his attempts at courting as well as continuing to handle his new job as Imperial Auditor admist the Emperor's wedding. What can I say, when Bujold makes a funny Miles story they are hilarious. The rest of the series ain't half bad either I'll admit.

I'd give you a Robert Heinlein book but there are a ton to pick from. Some good ones: The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, Starman Jones, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Star Beast. Look if it's Heinlein it's probably pretty good, especially a lot of the stuff he did from World War II to the 70s or so.

And last but not least: Major Ingredients (Eric Frank Russell): His collection of short stories that I am never gonna be able to finish (due to me always picking it up a week prior to leaving for school). However he has some very unique looks at science fiction and it's very refreshing.

Anyhow, there you go, some of my top picks. There are other series and books I've read but I guess these are some that eventually I will go back and read when/if I get the time.

Uplift

Well it's been awhile since I've read any of David Brin's Uplift series. I got through the first 3 books about the time the final trilogy tying up what happened primarily in Startide Rising although also in Uplift War. So I've finally cracked open Brightness Reef. 3 books in a month and a half shouldn't be too hard for me I hope. Anyhow I read Startide Rising in something like two days although admittedly that was my favorite book out of the series (something about dolphins being almost all of the main characters even on a starship alone kept me going). Also they used probability weapons. So cool :D This trilogy follows what happens to the Streaker as it continues its flight from nearly everyone else.

Allison, I hope you're doing alright. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Minor addendum: it seems that blogspot is having issues again if you don't add the www before the usual address. Maybe this is only for Safari but thought I might add that in, in case people are having troubles.

Maintainence

Probably not much of a conversation piece here but I did updating of the old sidebar. Major addition is I added a "Quiet Blogs" section for those people whose blogs are rarely updated. I've had one or two which were fairly neglected and I eventually deleted them and behold now I cannot remember them at all so they are lost forever. So this is my way of keeping them around but also desigating that you probably don't need to check them as much, if you check them at all. If you don't, I could care less cause I check them thru here. Anyhow I added two new blogs right to that as well moving two down. I added one up top that I had stashed away in bookmarks section. Part of me currently is debating at the moment tho about doing some massive sidebar housecleaning but I am not sure.

Finally I fixed the Exalted forums link. White Wolf juggled the IP addresses around and it no longer worked. Twas a bloody pain to sort that out when they initially did it. Anyhow, that's fixed. Mostly all of this was just because I felt constructive/bored. Sometimes having your day inverted can kind of suck.

At the same time, my dull, kind of depressing world has been rather shaken up. However I still cannot determine whether exactly this is a good/bad/both type of event. Go figure. Off to watch some Rocky and Bullwinkle and do more London paperwork (yay?).