5 years

Wow, it's been 5 years since I've started blogging. Lots has happened. I've been toying around with this thought for awhile but I think it might be time to wrap up this pointless venture. The links will stay and probably all the posts but after this no promises on consistent posts. Just too much going on these days to focus on this. Who woulda thunk it'd make it this far eh?

2009

Welcome to 2009 I guess. Here's to a good year ^^

Double post o'-rama

Kind of as an afterthought added a link to Evergreen Church here as well.

December

Wow, December rolls around already. The blog neglect continues here. I'll admit that this is truly a random entry event now rather then a regular affair. This is essentially a death knell to most blogs I learned way back. Well I'll leave this poor thing on life support awhile longer or in any case leave it out here so that maybe someone can use it to get to a blog that is better maintained then mine.

Snow finally has fallen here so the ground is entirely white. The snowblower is in the shop (I have had no luck with my two small engine devices this year) so it was shoveling this morning. I don't mind tho, good exercise and the snow is light. My neighbor shoveled out my sidewalk for some reason. Possibly due to generally charity, it was very nice of her though. I'll have to take some pictures of my outside now that I have snow to reflect the lights. I think it'll look amazing although I haven't gone out at night to see it yet.

I have been plugging away at Hunter inspired by my lady to read it full through. Assuming I finish it'll be only the 2nd RPG I've actually read straight through. The first one I read through of all the irony is Ptolus go figure.

I'm updating the sidebar a bit with a couple new blogs: one of Aprill's and Al's current one (which has existed for awhile but I have neglected to put up).

Results

Well he won. The next 4 years will be interesting. I will admit I was more indifferent in this election then I thought I'd be but I think the results turned out fine. Democracy lives on. Although fruit flies in Paris may not like the results one bit ^^

Obligatory October Post?

So I've severely neglected this blog of mine and it looks like that's not gonna change anytime soon. There's leaves to be raked and of course a lot of time with my special someone ^^

In the meantime if you're bored the good news is next year Starcraft 2 will come out as 3 games and not one providing copious amounts of playing time. It looks like Terrans get first rub followed by Zerg and Protoss. Wonder if they will wrap things up or keep the story rolling. Certainly Warcraft has grown into a series with a life of its own and I doubt the original designers ever saw that.

As for me I've been pounding through Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn up until I hit the "Kill the Black Knight" mission where he kills Ike on the 2nd attack every time. This takes the fun out of it just a bit. Maybe I will re-try tonight tho.

On a gaming related note: Looks like Brady's Exalted game may get off the ground for its one shot in November, I am recruiting people like gangbusters so we could have 8 Solars if everyone shows up (highly doubtful but who knows). I am digging through Roll II to get tons of 1st Circle Demons to deploy on our side.

Also started reading Hunter: The Vigil finally. It's a pretty good read and with luck I will roll into Witchfinders right after. If I can get a mortals nWoD game off the ground knowing these will be a good thing.

That's all.

Snow in April

Snow in April, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Uploading pictures from my camera (which i don't use very often) and found this gem from end of April of this year. Or maybe later this week? Who knows around here ^^

Completely Unrelated...

Wow the gall of some criminals. Doesn't sound like they've caught the people.

Also got the Exalted 2nd Edition screen and dang if it's not the highest quality screen I've ever seen. It's made of the same stuff their hardcover books are made of. Wow!

Also got Human Occupied Landfill. It's amusing!

Stuff from GenCon

So instead of double posting I'll just provide a link to my post for my GenCon wrap up. It was a good time! Read on

GenCon

Is almost here! I'd note that this would delay any posts but they are generally delayed anyways so it's unlikely anyone would notice. Not that there's much to notice here. Really thinking about ending this...

However until I do will attempt to give a decent GenCon report on stuff I see and swag I get. It's a little sad that I am going to such an enjoyable event while Georgia is being invaded and bullied by Russia whilst the West watches in the wings. Granting Georgia isn't entirely blameless but we're now allowing Russia to throw its brunt around without so much as dire threat in its direction. Sometimes politics is depressing as people die and the big countries just bandy about words. Perhaps that's just the truth of things but somehow I think people in Gori would prefer a squadron of B2 bombers rather then threats that this will hurt Russia's relations with the West.

I Belive in Harvey Dent

So after helping Carl move he borrowed me most of the major Batman graphic novels (technically all are comps of comics) that lays out the basis for the new Batman movies. I've plugged through Batman: Year One and The Long Halloween. They are interesting particularly with the correlations to the new movies. Something to read. I don't read enough anymore even though I have tons and tons of reading material. For instance 20 books waiting to be read and 3 being read (most started in about March or February of this year). Part of that distraction is gaming books which I do read randomly -I've only ever read Ptolus straight through- which eats up my reading time. Right now Alpha Omega has my attention. I need to look a little more into Burning Empires since that is new to my shelves as well.

Of course for GenCon prep I really, really need to go over Exalted 2nd Ed rules.

That's all for now!

That's Horrible I Mean Great

So apparently Dr. Horrible is still available online. So go check it out. I hadn't realized this but it was helpfully pointed out by a friend!

Still waiting on for the soundtrack. It'll be fun to listen to heading down to GenCon. Is all for now.

July Days

Well July is almost done. I've hardly blogged so here's a token entry. Not even sure anyone reads this anymore. Which probably leads to the question as to why I keep posting once in awhile to it.

Anyhow, July has been busy. A fair amount of traveling and guests kept me busy. But let's see. Saw WALL-E and The Dark Knight. I liked WALL-E better.

Getting excited for GenCon. It's coming up fast. Very happy that Dani got me to come! I'll try and give a report either during or shortly thereafter. (Making up a goal to try and post once a week.) I probably won't have much exciting news from GenCon but I might get some interesting tidbits from White Wolf as I am going to several seminars. Maybe whatever the 7th game is?

Anyhow need to work out. More soon in theory!

Sing Along

You know you want to! Granted for a limited time (ie through 7/20). You can get a Captain Hammer groupie shirt too! What more could you ask for?

Biking

Well this week's mission is to bike into work everyday. It's roughly 2 miles to work (probably a little bit less but I don't have an exact way to measure it so I just discussed with Chuck who used to live down the street) so it's not a long ride but with a backpack I've found it's a little more challenging. So a good daily work out to supplement the Wii Fit. Or have the Wii Fit supplement this? Either way hope the weather cooperates so I can do this all week (and maybe next).

To the glorious racers of the kart and bike

So just raced for hour and a half with 2 friends in regional races. Our intern is darn good, so's my girlfriend. The competition was indeed tough. For some reason I can't get individual friend races to work but pack us into a regional and we pretty well dominate the place. And by we I mean most of my friends, I uh, mediocre the place. Anyhow that was fun and I am sure there will be much discussion at work of the said races tomorrow.

Purges and Clean-up

Yes, it finally happened. All those quiet blogs that never get updated, all those quiet blogs that have been deleted. Some of the top blogs have been moved down to the quiet blog rolls. I think I miss the glory days of this blog when I had a dozen or more active blogs listed plus a half dozen authors' blogs as well. Even think a decent amount of readers turned in. Now it feels like a ghost town.

Ah well, I think I'll be the old man who stubbornly refuses to give up for a little while longer. Even if the old man doesn't get out on the porch to rant about things as much.

4th Edition

Possibly better off over on my gaming blog...
Well I got the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition core set on Friday. Courtesy of Amazon where the gift set where it was in the top 10 bestsellers for weeks. Now it's at 39 although the PHB edges slightly ahead at 32. Who says RPGs don't sell?

So anyhow I've paged through, read, skimmed and otherwise tried to get a basic feel for the game. I have to admit I'm not entirely sure I like it. It seems a little too simple now and more focused towards tactical combat to almost the exclusion of everything else. Granted creating tactical situations appears immensely easier and playing looks to be streamlined but many of the roleplaying elements feel removed.

Ok, yea I know me complaining about lack of roleplaying is ironic. I tend to lean towards the tactical/combat aspects of a game. Yet even those things seem more controlled in 4th Ed. However that may be due to the lack of books to provide options. The roleplaying part well even I occasionally like to have interesting side stuff to use out of combat even if I don't make as much use of it as I could. It's not a game killer but it does narrow down the scope of games that can be played.

The monster manual focuses heavily on very easy to use monsters well set for different levels and strategies. I enjoyed that they did this making instant combat easy to do. Unsure how easy it is to adjust levels but I've heard it's not all that hard. The lack of good creatures made me a little sad especially the lack of the metallic dragons. I await to see if they have another manual with emphasis on good creatures or at least a decent accounting of them. The Draconomicon coming out in the fall only covers chromatic dragons so perhaps the second part of that covers the metallics and maybe the third covers the gem dragons (ie the neutrals).

Overall final judgment leans towards a negative reaction but actual game play (alas probably not soon) will be the true deciding factor. Also a benefit will be how I like the updates to the Forgotten Realms. I figure I will probably keep plugged in just to follow that story.

RIAA Litigations and how the Tech Community can Help

Hehe

I realize I had a big barrage of posts and then went mostly silent again. I should rectify this but alas my big insurance exam is later this week so I really should be studying. More after the exam?

Obama vs McCain. Nov 4th

Bring your own popcorn. Local participation for all applicants of 18 years and older as of venue date.