Snow en masse

It's rather deep, soon to be blowing kind of cool :D

White

Wow, it is really, really, really snowing out there. I sure wish I could be curled up at home watching it snow rather then running around out in it. This morning I got lucky a classmate gave me a ride in. Totally did not expect it but it was much better then walking, he is truly a scholar and a gentleman.

After Goulet's boringness I have to go install Oracle 9i and some other software on a couple computer's for Client/Server. Should be straight forward I hope. After that I need to do another group project. Hopefully I will be able to get out by 7 but who knows.

The walk back should be interesting because I doubt anything has been really shoveled. Why can't we get days off of school?!?

Princess Mononoke. Interesting movie. Very nice animation. Then again Miyazaki's movies tend to be very well drawn. Anyhow time to sleep. 'Nother long day of class and projects. Whee.

Great so now I feel more single then I did before...

Elderly

Well after doin' t-bell, hardees, and grazies in that order plus not enough sleep and some stress tossed in my body reminds me that I'm not a freshman anymore. Blah! I feel old and kinda embarrassed.

Did you see the Grey's? They blew up Kyle Chandler! Cripes, whose gonna save Chicago now the little tabby cat? It's one of those things you could kinda predict as he walked out but still. I dunno, I've read about the nasty effects of gernades, etc being a student of military history but it's still scary to see it. Pink mist, ack. Can't believe they killed Hobson. But George rocked. George++

Other news. None in particular. Another busy week. It look like I've got approx. 12 to go and then summer and hopefully another internship at the Clinic. Life doesn't slow down from here it only gets more hectic. Just have to live with it.

Point Con Finale

Well today was annual budget. Gave Amanda the wrong room so it was just me facing the 13 less then cheerful looking budget folk. However I think I did alright. Talked with Melissa and she said they'd prolly axe some of the budget for Salt (so students would have to pay part but not all). So hopefully that's the worst that'll happen.

PointCon was this weekend. Almost didn't go. But decided to stop in and put a little money into the raffle (that White Wolf owes bigtime for getting me hooked to Exalted) and then talked Isaac into running a game of D20 Modern/Apocalypse. Was fun, lots of gunfire. Kinda wish we could have had more time to explore but the LARP called several people away. The raffle treated me well- $10 put in for 12 tickets of which 6 returned dividends so I now have a pound of dice and 5 new books including a Rifter!

Anyhow now I need to do some homework that I neglected to do this afternoon. Would love to hang with folks (especially cause I did so all afternoon) but Flash calls and then Goulet.

Yay for walks!

So the Olympics have started, how many people are going to try and watch? I think I may try and have it on as background noise but actual watching will be limited sadly. Too dang busy!

Highways

So randomly looking at US highways that have run by or run by my places of residence. US 14 runs literally from Chicago to Yellowstone and the irony is I have driven on the road I can look at from my bedroom Window nearly a 1000 miles from home! US 10 runs straight my place here to my sister's place (and yes doubters it does reach the Twin Cities it even goes to Fargo). Pretty cool. :D

Yea, I'm a nerd. And I love Wikipedia!

Oops

More fun from the brilliant minds who get angry over stuff from half a year ago (presumably in about a decade they're going to be reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally ticked about Iraq when they finally notice it's been invaded).

From the Beeb: "Long live Islam. Destroy Denmark. Destroy Israel. Destroy George Bush. Destroy America," protesters shouted as they marched to the Danish embassy in the rain from a nearby mosque.

Lesse, George Bush has 0 connection to this nor does America (well we finally printed some of the cartoon last week but who hasn't by now?) The Israelis aren't that suicidal, they know if they did something like this their neighbors would use it as a pretext to invade (and then promptly get destroyed again). Oops, guess somehow people got their stories mixed up! So I'd really love to see who's pulling the strings on the Islamic masses.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." -Robert Frost

I like it almost as much as my all-time favorite (if overused) quote: "Faith manages."

Off-kilter

That's been today's theme. Ever have one of those days where everything should be just fine but one little thing derails everything else? Yea. So it hasn't been a bad day, just not a good one...

Anyhow, hope you all had better ones then me!

Burning

So does a country count if it neglects to fail to protect embassies placed in good faith in their countries? Seriously, I'd cut my own ties with those countries. I don't think Syria, Lebanon, or Iran can survive as well without Denmark or Norway (or the EU) then the other way around.

More humorous is the fact that these "spontaneous" protests are not only protesting against Denmark but also very quickly the United States and Israel. Seriously, it's understandable that they have an issue with Denmark but as soon as you turn every complaint you have against the US and Israel the arguement becomes invalid. It just screams "someone behind the scenes is pushing an agenda" as well as happily using a bunch of faithful believers as pawns. It has ocurred to me that at some point in the future Islam will look back at this point in history and bemoan the corrupt and hateful leaders who pushed their own agendas onto their religion. History seems to be repeating itself.

Frankly while I understand the outrage I can't understand the violent response. For that matter I really don't understand why violence is always the response. I just want to ask them that if they are so right in their beliefs why do they kill everyone who challenges them? Shouldn't the faith be strong enough to withstand such menial assualts? Isn't the bully's response violence when he is too dumb or unsure of himself to be react any other way? Wouldn't testing the faith and having it withstand the onslaught without fighting back show more strength?

The depressing thing is I have no way to ask this of any leader over there. I'm not sure they'd even listen. At this point I guess they've got an awful lot of power, just judging from past events where even moderate governments are allowing these protests to take place, so I suppose it'd take actual divine intervention to get them to change their tune.

Well I should really go and work on Flash now...

Jack Johnson

So I bought one of the older Jack Johnson albums (On and On) today. Now I've been listening to it along with In Between Dreams and I've noticed that whenever I hear a song from In Between Dreams it feels odd. Not that the music is bad, it's quite good. I wouldn't have bought more Jack Johnson if I hadn't enjoyed the earlier stuff. Somehow it just evokes a strange mix of feelings. I'm not sure what. I listened to it mostly in the summer when I was working so I guess it's tied into something from this summer. At a loss what it is and if I can get it back or even if I want it back.

Oh yay

Someone remind me I'm dumb. Also, I hate Flash, just so everyone is aware of that!

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Well first off congrats to the Steelers for making history. Not that many folks here care. How'd I end up as the only die hard football fan?

Things feel like they are on edge. They will either slide back into the doldrums or lighten up. I dunno how things will fall but really hope for a better outcome. Anyhow here's hoping. At least accepting certain facts of reality again.

Anyhow. In other news I really don't want to do Flash. Seriously, I just hate doing homework for that class. I know I need to and that it'll actually be kinda cool to know more stuff but it seems like way too much work. However I said I'd do two weeks worth of reading in all my classes so I have to do it. Me and my darn promises eh?

Can't think of much else to babble about. Positive attitudes! :D

Exalted Rnd. 8

"Smile at them" -diplomacy at its best
"As much fun as it would be to flirt with you I think I'm just gonna roll." -um, one of those times the role v roll play problem is easily solved.
"Cause dragons are better then gods." -well sorta...

This was the welcome back to playing your ST hasn't done enough preparing so therefore there will be a minimum of rollplaying but did I mention you'll get 100 XP session. So yea, think it was a little slow but anyhow: teh recap 2.5! So the Realm had their civil war. Mnemon won. Yay an almost identical personality to the Empress. Wonder how she'll turn out as a replacement? Soooo that little fiasco gives our plucky Solars a decade to consume 1/3 of the Hundred Kingdoms completely and another 1/3rd really (really really) likes them. Mask of Winters loses a minor war which only helps to make the Threshold love the Solars even more. Way to go MoW, make your enemies stronger. Or is that what you want?!? The other major events during the downtime: Rathess joins up. Not many details but lots of Dragon King tech went out to the group. Plus several hearthstones. On the downside a fair amount of resources will get drained into Rathess to make it of any use. Finally the Guild got talked into selling 51% of itself to the Solars (well the Eclipse did smile...). However the Solars promptly outlaw slavery and the Guild revolts. Essentially everyone South of Nexus is pro-Solar and everyone North is pro-old school. More trouble except that the Solars now have a powerful supply train and are filthier rich.

So the actual plot: very short. In the aftermath of the Realm civil war the Vermillion legion flees in the general direction of Caelestis. Taking their new airship they flew out and meet the legion. Some negotiations ensue (more smiling yes) and the Vermillion legion joins ranks.

Monthly Funs

"They were playing Wagner, that's the most fun I've had in about 6 months." -Tyr

Now I remember why I bought 1st Season of Andromeda!

2 years

Somehow this schenanigan I call a blog has survived two years. Don't ask me how. Honestly I figured it'd have petered out by now. This last year has probably looked pretty negative if everything is weighed in. That's because when I'm down/lonely/generally in a pessmistic mood I seem to post more then when I'm happy. Sorry to the -2 readers out there. I'd promise this year would be better but not completely sure I could keep that promise.

Feeling a little in limbo at the moment. Not quite sure where things are going except that whatever I thought they'd do they probably won't. That's life. I've found I can't predict what life will be like from semester to semester. Odd to think things change that much or that fast. I wonder if they'll continue to change that much once I've graduated. Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Signed for the new apartment, move in end of May if I'm lucky. Got to see Jenny yesterday! That was a happy surprise. Also might get to see her again Saturday. Kind of crazy since I haven't seen her since May of last year. That's part life too I guess having people dissapear and then show up suddenly only to have them leave again. (One strange concept about life, you can be so close to someone and then have circumstance split you forever. I think of two guys who rowed together for 17 hours at Dunkirk saving lives and then never saw each other again. Surely braving death together makes you brothers but then life takes you on your seperate course!)

I do feel kinda lonely right now. Think it's the fact I am so busy that I am just jumping from thing to thing and haven't established a pattern for the semester. I am very much a creature of patterns so I always feel off-balance (and am far more easily shaken) when I am in-between routines.

Well think I will dig into Rifts. Only 25+ books left. How much of a nerd am I that I am plugging away through an entire RPG series in a semester? Speaking of books though I finally got a fun assignment. I get to read two books on the modern Middle East and review them! I ordered a couple books off Amazon. One on the Yom Kippur War (seemed appropriate considering I read about 6 Days War last semester) and another more general book covering how the 3 different religions have dealt with Israel. Both look interesting and were decently rated. Plus they appeared to be relatively un-biased. I may be pro-Israeli for the most part but I realize there's another side to this war.

Anyhow, that's a long anniversay/birthday post. Time to relax and read.

Now for something less dark

I love Congress. These honest, forthright public servants, out fighting for truth and the American way. Their staffers hard at work making sure the truth is told and never, ever distorted for political gain. :D

Yes, I was talking about the fictional Congress in this new book I am reading, why do you ask? *chuckles to self thinking that was really humorous*

Seriously, what kind of people are we electing these days?!?

Push

How is it the second week of school and already I feel so over-whemlingly busy? Oy!

Faith manages

It's weekends like this where I come out feeling worse then I did going in where I have to remind myself that.

On a positive note: Grey's was quite good, my roommate is a superb cook, and I've realized that everything I know about rolling up electrical cords I've learned from Scott.

It just feels like this will be a very lonely semester all of a sudden. I'm feeling very pessimistic and I don't like it.


At least it's snowing.

Can't forget: faith manages

There is a time for everything,
a season for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to rebuild
A time to cry and a time to laugh
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to lose.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak up.
A time love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

odd concept

Creating worlds, Theresa found, was addictive. At night, when she set her work aside and stumbled into bed, she would dream of it: new shapes of reality, new styles of existence, new ontological and theological substructures on which she could build a cosmos. If it were not her work, she knew, and free, she would spend everything she had, and more, so she could keep on creating; and that would not be so bad, or such a waste of a lifetime.
Naturally, they had not perfected the process. Even the management had the humility to understand that - they were mere humans, toying with divinity. Some aspects of the universes they built were primitive, unrefined, and incomplete. These technical flaws paled before the simple truth of their efforts: that each creation caught all the subtle flaws in their being and magnified them, that each weakness in Theresa's honor appeared a thousandfold in her work. That, in short, for all their beauty, the defining characteristics of Theresa's creations came not from her deliberate efforts but from the dark places in her heart.
All unaware of it, Theresa was building her own Hell.

-Prebyter Harah Jane, Fruit of a Poisoned Tree

Folks we could use some extra prayer for Chi Alpha these days...

On jargon

So random rant that doesn't have much thought behind it. Is jargon just an excuse to make people feel smarter then other people? I suppose that we create jargon so that people "in the know" know exactly what we are talking about quicker by having a simple term or phrase to describe something rather then describing it each time but I've been thinking of late that a lot of time that just perpetuates several problems. One it increases the need to train newcomers greatly by not only having to explain a process but then explain terms for that process. Then you have to make sure the newcomer correctly associates the right term with the right process. Furthermore whoever is teaching the terms (and presumably there will be many people over a vast distance) must have the same definition or otherwise the term begins to have different meanings causing problems with communications as people mistake common terms' meanings. Now this problem alone can be allievated by having some sort of universal agreement on the meaning of a term. Particularily in areas where the jargon is already set in stone and only rarely are new terms added. I'd hazard philosphy as an example although I am fairly sure new ideas/terms arise on a regular basis, perhaps the fact I cannot think of the example points to impossibility of this idea? Whether its feasible for less "dynamic" areas of life/study some things simply change too quickly to allow for set-in-stone definitions. Take the IT world for instance. Have someone define client/server. Have someone else. I'll bet you get several different definitions albeit they may be fairly similiar. Anything pop culture related would be similiar as jargon changes probably on an almost daily basis if you looked at things as a whole. So basically my point is here that terms are by no means universal and there is no way to keep it that way. Essentially jargon defeats common communication.

My second point in this gigantic run-on sentence filled ramble is that jargon also is a cop out in communicating between people who are in the know and not. If a layperson is discussing/debating an issue it is all too easy for anyone possessing jargon to use it to confuse the debate. In essence instead of tackling the problem they avoid it by forcing one side to concede they haven't a clue and then claim victory. Jargon makes discussion all big words and less common ground and understanding. Furthermore I'd say the onus lays on the person who possesses jargon to spell things out without using the jargon if they want it to be a valid arguement. If you want to prove that you are smarter then saying I know more in Area A then you does not prove anything. Explaining what you know in Area A so that someone else understands it as well as you and allowing them to challenge your ideas on equal footing (and in lay terms) shows not only great intellect and patience but enough confidence that your ideas can stand up on their own and not behind any shields.

Right, that was probably terribly redundant and otherwise non-sensical. Oh well :D

Day One of the Last Year

Well things went well today. Slept til noon. Got up, putzed around. Called the two places I am most interested in living in next year. Scheduled one appointment, left a message (not returned) for the other. No classes at all. Worked at 3-5 in CPS. Got a working CPS key prior to that. I am amazed that Diane and Jackie know which building the key is for by the 6 digit number on it. I shouldn't be but I am. The work shift was fairly dull, there is a prof who has two classes during my shift so helped him set up and that took a fair amount of time. Chatted with Kat and read a ton of Rifts in between. I really am happy I got a tablet. Now with pdfs I can read off a computer without having it bother me. I probably will read more of Rifts then I have of Exalted by the simple fact that I will have 10 hours a week to read for a little bit until homework bogs me down in February. Afterwards attempted to help get Kara connected to the internet. Didn't succeed, I blame resnet. Met Blaine and met her roommate who ironically I've met before. Waiting to see what her roommate says about a boy being in the room. Apparently Blaine doesn't count, but he is kinda a stiff :D Worked out and that was good, i've missed that for over a week so rather sore now.

Tomorrow I have real classes and an apartment to tour. Both of my CIS classes too :/

System Launch

Dear Buddha for Christmas I'd like a plastic rocket and a pony.

I think I'll watch that tonight. We had XA tonight and it was good. Spent quite a bit of time afterwards chatting with people. I'm not looking forward to classes at all this semester. I guess I really want to get working so I can enjoy having a real salary, etc. But I'll miss everyone if I am working. In fact I've been thinking a lot about when I finally move away. I don't really want to. It'll be a tough to make a bunch of new friends especially as close as what I've got now. Frankly I don't like the lonely feeling and even in Marshfield I'm just a little too far away from Point to visit very often or on short notice. Guess technology needs to update things just a bit more so I can travel between cities quick! Yea, not really an option. Not something I should worry about anyways, that's at least a year if not more away. Who knows, I might even end up working here in Point although I am really shooting for Marshfield.

I should probably worry about the here and now if I am gonna worry about anything at all.

Have a good first day all. For those of you already in things hope they are goin' well.

Stand By

Well somehow they switched the work meeting to Saturday so I got my schedule. It's not bad. Thankfully I only work at 3pm on Monday not anytime in the AM (something I feared greatly). I work almost exclusively in CPS although I got a UC shift saturday morning (at 10, blah). No North Quad which I was hoping cause I know folks there so it'd be nice cause I'd have an excuse to be up in that area. Ah well.

Here's to surviving another semester. Chi Alpha tonight. Werd :D

Post Finals

Post Finals, originally uploaded by mirv120.

My roommate wasn't the only one down and out post finals.

Busy Day

Wow, so much for a relaxing slow Friday prior to classes starting. Let's see, got up rather late for going to Marshfield cause I managed to mis-set my alarm. Managed to get there not too late and caught up with Andy and Kurt (now working full time). It was good times. I miss those guys and work. Then on the way out got a call from Al asking if I wanted to help out with some office work. Didn't really have anything pressing so went and did that. Not sure if I was a terrible help but hopefully did something useful. Anywho after that did go home and kill some time playing Mario Super Strikers with the roommate. Mario games can be very violent, completely rated E violent but still, slide tackling, blocks in the back, checking, it's all legal! Then got to hang out with Evie, Amber, and (Intern) Kim and watched RedEye. Decent movie.

So that's my day. Enjoy the pictures below, welcome back to school folks!

Casualties

Casualties, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Sometimes you just gotta nap

Page Updates

Updated active blogs and quiet blogs. Added a whole shtick of my space pages, those at least with somewhat active blogs. That is all.

Ironic

So how's this for irony? I try to tape something Saturday night. I ask Dad to tape it at home. Neither place got it right. *sigh* I must have been in a complete moment of stupidity last week.

Pause

Well back from SALT, can't really say much about my own expierences, it wasn't what I expected. Now that I am home trying to tie up any loose ends since I won't probably be home til spring break. Much to do when I get back and then classes start. This break I was worried about being bored but that certainly has not really happened. I've kept quite busy. I am sure that this semester will be insanely busy as well.

On impulse I picked up the first season of Andromeda. Kind of like EFC it was the only good season of the show. Very much an impulse buy. Prolly the last one for awhile unless EFC Season 1 ever gets out of DVD limbo. Yea, I'm a nerd, I buy seasons of sci-fi shows :o

Prolly not a new concept

But perhaps one of the reasons science cannot prove/dissprove the existence of God is very simple. Taken from a scientific standpoint wouldn't it be reasonable to assume if there's a God that He would not be capable of being measured/scaled/identified by a system He created? Essentially He'd be limiting Himself by fitting into a box meant for beings obviously of a much more limited scope.

Crunch

Well Madden today was so-so. Barely beat Lars and then got annihilated in the franchise 27-6 (had a 0.0 QB rating). Can't win them all I guess!

Had lunch with Lars today. Prolly be the last time for a long while since he goes out West next Monday. Strange to have him leaving. However people come and go so just have to hope our paths cross again somewhere down the way. He donated some dishes to me and now I have 16 matching coffee cups and 8 matching small bowls. Time for a tea party! Well I'll probably take some home for now, might be useful later in life. Lars and I also delivered garbage cans to Amber and Evie's place. Random factiod: the CRV can hold two full size plastic cans with room to spare!

Apartment search continues slowly. Lots of it comes down to how much I am willing to pay especially since I'm going to want cable internet/tv and that tacks 90 onto the price of anything. Stupid Charter and their monoply!

Random news: seems like Prince Caspian has gotten the go ahead to follow The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It looks like it'll be done like the HP movies though so if all 7 books make it I suspect it'll take a decade or more.

Blah, I'm gonna go lie down, stupid cold.

Happenings

Well got up for breakfast today even tho I was feeling the oncomings of a cold. Breakfast was good but have to admit curling up in bed afterwards was much better. Anyhow at least I am mostly past the point where I ache now and onto the nose running part. For the moment it hasn't been too bad so I am hoping with lots of rest and fluids I can keep this in check/eliminate altogether prior to Salt.

The blonde is visiting tomorrow and I am also meeting Lars for one last lunch. This break def. has a lot of changes going on.

Not a whole lot going on. It's odd I've been able to keep fairly busy over break but most of it is worth much discussion. Some random things that have happened in the past week are: baby-sitting, LANing, SW:CCG (lost twice), putting up signs for ECSP, worked on the Exalted campaign, slept, read, slept some more.

Still need to do some actual work towards searching for a new place for May. Whee.

Delta Reports

Well the LAN party out in Marshfield was interesting even if it did somewhat peter out faster then I thought. It wasn't that anybody had left it was just that by 4 it was only 3 of us awake and the likelihood of anyone being up before noon was nil and I was going to head out by noon so I opted to leave about 7 when Tim finally decided to call it a night and that left me and Chuck. So I went home, got to see the drive back from the opposite direction in the whee hours of the morning.

Gaming was fun, played Rise of Nations and Serious Sam primarily. I did alright. Serious Sam was actually probably the most fun. We played the last level of it as a giant co-op with inifinite lives so it was a huge insane no-holds barred shoot-out. The highlight was when Tim and I ended up being the tail end in the final portion and Tim got turned around and when I finally reached the end of the gauntlet and cheer cause I am a) at the door and b) everyone is there he realizes that he got turned around. The end result was: I had the least kills and Tim had the most deaths. Henceforth since we were last we became Delta Company and to make matter complete our squad leader (by the implication that he had reached the end first) was Pirate Mike. What a squad. Our motto was "Last One's Out" mostly cause we'd be late or lost all the time! Lotsa fun.

Also played Rise of Nations which is kind of a AoE clone I think. Pretty fun to play. I actually picked up on it fairly quick, by the second game I was actually useful!

Heard some interesting stories though and had a fair amount of fun so twas a good time. Went to take a nap today when I got home and ended up somehow sleeping through my alarm (or waking up turning it off and not even remembering it at all) so ended up having a 3 hour nap. Whenever I have weird sleeping patterns I have incredibly vivid dreams, wonder why.

That's all, betcha most people got to the 2nd paragraph and quit reading eh? :o

Yay, Done

Well today is pretty good. It finally started snowing so it doesn't look so blah outside. I'm done cleaning finally. I dunno if there is anything else I can do. Oh well, it looks nicer at least. Sorta smells better too but I think that might be cause I've used air fresheners somewhat more then before. *shrug*

In random news, in Fantasy Football I somehow took the championship. Mostly on Larry Johnson and Chris Chambers with some timely support from Rudi. I can of understand the concept a little better now so hopefully next season I will be able to put together a team that will do a little better then 7-6 in the regular season. Part of the reason I did so well was the fact that nearly all my opponents were completely apathetic. That helped a lot.

So now what's on tap? Need to rebuild the Star Wars decks so I can get my posterior kicked by Seth again. This weekend good ol' Pirate Mike is having a LAN party in Marshfield so I will probably partake in some of that goodness. Not a whole lot to do but sleep, read, game, and generally relax prior to SALT.

Clean Up Status

What is this day 2 of the clean-up? Anyhow, living room and bedroom are done. That leaves the kitchen and bathroom. Theoretically I will get them done tomorrow. My task list is somewhat shorter at least. I ran down almost all the errands I needed to do today. I vacuumed and I sorted. The living room looks pretty clean except for maybe the top of my desk and the mid-table (where Twism has a stack of papers). Otherwise thins are pretty clean. Somehow Twis keeps his desk fairly clean on top. Not sure how. I'm envious, mine gets cluttered really quick.

I'm really glad I got a convertible tablet PC. Last night I settled down to read a couple of RPG pdfs. It's nice to be able to read them like a book rather then the normal PC monitor sort of view. I may actually get some use out of them though without having to print stuff up.

I've finally re-attacked Greg Boyd's Letters From a Skeptic. I picked up a little prior to where I had left off. It's a good book. Actually tackles a number of questions I've had. Funny thing with being a believer is that you don't nessecarily know anymore then anyone else unless you actually do ask questions or investigate. I've still got a long way to go. This just scratches the surface. Well, noone ever said it's an easy path. Actually the line from a very old cartoon theme song comes to mind: "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it!"

So I've learned that a fair portion of people I know have myspace accounts. I'm not quite sure if I should dump them all onto here (although since I have Lena's on here I guess the precedent would be: yes). Not really planning to jump on the bandwagon though. I've got this monstrosity, facebook, theoretically a LiveJournal, several random forums I track, and so on and so forth. Can't remember another password or for that matter post in another place. Heck I have several blogs floating around (good luck finding all the others) that I neglect. I did realize a fascinating theory: the reason why I suck at school is because I have to remember 1,245,632,035.2 passwords. All my memory is spent on that and there is no room for school. Yes, that's my new excuse and I'll be sticking to it!

Alrighty, that's enough for now. G'night all.

Structure

Well, part one of the clean-up is in complete. Tomorrow I'll have to finish up in the living room and my bedroom. Then I can attempt to tackle the monster that is our kitchen. Oh joy.

I don't feel very creative as of late. It rather depresses me. This is my time to stretch my mind and do some writing, etc. It's just kinda blank. Blah. I am still unsure if I am going to run anything for PointCon. It would help if I knew my work schedule for spring. Among other things. Also trying to slowly read through Rifts. Talk about a meaty system. Sounds like lots of high-powered fun but seeing as I know noone else who plays/reads it I'd have to run it. Oy. Same thing for so many of the games I have. Suppose I will have to become a better gamer. Maybe wherever I end up working there will be gamers. Ok, time to read!

About Time for a New Year's Post Already

That's it.


Ok maybe not, instead I will randomly write stuff inbetween sorting out what papers to send to the great binder in the sky. Boy that's quite a mess. This will be quite an undertaking to clean things up. Oy, hard to motivate myself to do it too.

Ok, that's all for now. Yea, kind of a useless post, on the bright side it can only get better!

Weather

Well in the sheer irony of a very white December we've lost almost all our snow and it's been drizzling or misting so we will enter January with bare ground. Blah.

Not much to talk about. Went to the Cities yesterday, good we did cause today it got hammered. Stopped by Uncle Hugo's. It's an interesting little place stuck in some of the less privileged parts of Minneapolis. It's got a great collection of books especially, cause I am interested in them, old RPG books. Plus some new ones too. It's kinda sad that it's one of the best FLGS (that's Friendly Local Gaming Stores) I've seen in the US and I can only get there about once a year.

Continue to plug away a Civ4. It's rather addicting but taking a break now to delve into Rifts and finish up Walter Lord's Dunkirk book.

Also plugged through all 10 Band of Brothers episodes. That's a depressing series. Then again war is depressing. It's very well done though so I'd recommend if you could stomach some blood then you should watch it.

Anyhow, time to finish up Dunkirk, get some sleep so I don't kill myself driving home!

Civilization

Well after some initial difficulties Civ4 is up and running. Pretty fun game. Very similiar in a lot of ways to Alpha Centauri although with some improvements and some stuff I wish they had kept/ported over. Addictive as expected. Just wish combat made a little more sense (I've expierenced some oddities) and cultural conversion would be faster.

If anyone cares I'll be in Point end of the week for New Year's etc.

Dec 25th

Merry Christmas all!

Statistically Speaking

Finals are over. Yay.

Movies listened/watched: LotR extended edition (all 3): twice. Star Wars (all 6): once. Indiana Jones (1st movie only). Total time spent doing homework as judged by movies that played in background: 40 hours.

GPA trend with finals: down (hopefully just slightly)

What I learned in December: Nothing

Where I'll be living June 1st: No idea.

What I'll be doing the next 3 weeks: absolutely nothing.

Wheeeeeeee

Salute the Grads

That'd be Brent, Evie, and Maggie. Yay for them :)

Exalted Rnd. 7

"It is a dead language." -on Old Realm being the equivalent of Latin

"A warstrider with roller-skates." -ever wonder what a truck would be in Creation?


The wrap up session. Quotes will be added later (and this sentence will be redundant). Not much action, a lot of our Eclipse demonstrating her (his?) dicepool. Basically through diplomacy France, Lubo, and Straytos all join the newly liberated Wabash. The Twilight annhilates both shadowlands with one spell. Scarily efficient that Solar Circle sorcery. Lookshy has a treaty with Wabash. Guild actually gets out negoiated. Place is scouted for geomantic information. Manse and 3 demenses found. Also picked up: copy of Broken-Winged Crane. Yes, our Twilight has lots of bad materials. Renamed Sterling to Aurium (Sterling being the capitol of Wabash) and later the combined nations to Caelestis. Now the PCs want to have somewhere up to 20 years of downtime. Right up til the time the Realm essentially gets involved. Lot of work involved there. Well time for bed, I can't believe I lasted a semester!

Social Commentary

An interesting column on how people spend their time and how to possibly better spend it.

Nap

Nap, originally uploaded by mirv120.

The first of many casualties...

Crisis Management

Crisis Management, originally uploaded by mirv120.

In truth Java brings out the best in programmers. Well not as well as VB but close... (ok, points for what's the real story behind this picture, Tyler you don't count).

Thinking

Thinking, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Ever wonder how brilliant coders sort their thoughts?

Beginning

Beginning, originally uploaded by mirv120.

A little photo-type saga of our Java final. Beginning, middle, and end.

Insert a Lamer Title Here

For some reason I feel I should toss something up here even though I don't have much to say. A couple of things theoretically in the works, they may fall through. I'm in a good mood and I ironically post quite a bit less then when I am unhappy. Guess I want to share the misery or some such sinister thing. As a result it's been commented that this blog ain't much of a fun read. Luckily I have links to 32 thousand million billion other people's blogs and journals who aren't so grumpy. Everyone can read them instead :D

However I am in a good mood as it is. Random attribution to this is almost certainly the Miami Dolphins who've won 3 straight and finally emptied that 6 pack I bought prior to week 1. Yea, only took them 14 weeks but they finally got six wins :) Speaking of winning, somehow I made it into the playoffs in fantasy football and I may even make it to the championship. This is has been a ride heavily based on the efforts of Rudi and Larry Johnson and one Chris Chambers of the aforementioned Dolphins.

I have to salute Tyler as he has to put up with me on a Java project. He is definitely doing a lot here, hope I can catch up so he can relax a bit. At least I got the interface done now just have to integrate. We're pretty close, he really pounded a lot out this weekend.

Got the Firefly soundtrack today. Have to admit it was a bit dissapointing but haven't heard it all yet. Truthfully though the soundtrack for the show is not nearly as powerful as some other shows I watch. It has very select powerful moments so it comes down to if my tastes and whoever is selecting what goes on the CD are one and the same. It doesn't sound like a science fiction soundtrack at all and that fits perfectly with a show that isn't really a science fiction show when it comes down to it.

Ok, enough rambling, back to work.

Music

So when i'm doing homework I randomly listen to iTunes...

1896 songs

Sort by title:
First: (Ghost) Riders in the Sky - Johnny Cash
Last: something in Japanese - GITS: SAC 2nd OST

Longest Song (ignoring a few non-songs prior): A New Hope and End Credits - John Williams
Shortest Song: Ironside - Quincy Jones

By Album:
First: Open Your Heart - Yuki Kajiura (.hack//Sign soundtrack)
Last: That was a crazy game of poker - OAR

Top Five:
Wind (short) - Akeboshi, Invoke4 - Gundam SEED, Anna ni Isshodattanoni - Gundam SEED, Evangelion Opening Theme - Neo Genesis Evangelion, Dijurido - Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop)

Yea, lots of anime soundtracks floating around there. Better get cracking on java.

Happy

Do I really need to say more then that?

Drifts

What an odd night. Kind of a long day. Now I can't sleep. Isn't that sad. Going to be tired tomorrow. And somehow in the end I am now a treasurer, and I'm ok with that. What a strange walk this life has been. I do miss the peace of London. More then even I want dissapear into Regents and hide out.

At least I know what a Tengu is. Although I think for my purposes perhaps this definition is more appropriate. And while I was looking up that I also looked up this. This one actually makes some sense to me, as does this one. That's all I've got for now. Points if you can figure out the common ground I am using. Wikipedia is fun.

Why can't I sleep? So odd. I'm tired.

Drifting a little further, the Ghost in the Shell tonight was interesting. It subletly advanced the plot and I think I've got the two episode types down: dividual and dual.

According to dictionary.com dividual means: Divided, shared, or participated in, in common with others.
Dual means: (1) Composed of two usually like or complementary parts; double: dual controls for pilot and copilot; a car with dual exhaust pipes.
(2) Having a double character or purpose: a belief in the dual nature of reality.

I couldn't determine which of the 2 meanings fit better for dual for the purposes of the episode or the show. Time will tell, we're only three episodes in. Oddly enough the two words have similiar meanings. Perhaps there are more types this time. Last season there were simply stand-alone and complex (a quiet explanation of the name Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex in a way) so I am judging off that assumption.

Well time to see if I can sleep, while the post probably won't reflect it, the time actually is 0230 not 0203.

Cool Down

So a little less frustrated then I was last night. Still think I am just going to take next semester to focus on classes, work, and friends. Stay involved but do less. From what I'm told CIS 358 is 99.9% busywork (and several acres of pristine rainforest converted into paper per student) so a good deal. Well except for the trees, poor trees.

Anyhow, I like those rice/noodle packets where in 10 minutes you've got a meal. Mmmm :) Course I really need more then one pot that I can cook them in, otherwise have to do dishes really often. Guess that might not be a such a bad thing either though.

This analytics stuff is amazing the amount of data tracked. Rather scary too. I knew of course you could track location from Ambrosia but with a little basic knowledge it's scary. It's easy to forget sometimes that to be annonymous on the web involves an insane of amount of skills. Otherwise you're about as annonymous as Brett Favre at a Packer's Press Conference. I do love statistics though. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into a field that would do that.

Guess I should do some laundry now. Whee. Clean clothes.

So I am feeling the urge to rescind myself from anything beyond school and work next semester. Prolly keep Exalted cause I greatly enjoy running that (benefits outweigh the costs, yay for a large playing field allowing ad-lib). I've just noticed that a lot of my external stress has come from things that I don't need dragging me down. So I'm toying with the idea of relieving some stress (hope for some opening and closing shifts in CPS and North Quad, those are much fun). Not a done deal yet, should sleep on it but I think I want to be an observer again. Means I'll have to keep my trap shut at times but that's something I see as a positive too. I can't take randomly getting fried, it'll kill me before any true employment can.

Selah

It's that weird moment where you've discovered half the stuff you thought was due next week isn't due for two and suddenly half the pressure (ya know that overwhelming urge for your head to explode from stress and overwork) seems to have dissapeared. I'm not worried tho, procrastination will make it return. Looks like everyone else seems to be surviving as well so good deal. I'm writing a couple longer posts that may or may not get posted so forgive if things are quiet. Don't have much to say temporalily.

1 Year Ago Today

A year is a long time. This time last year I was snug in bed at home. For the first time in almost 4 months. Europe a not so distant memory. I miss MTH and York Terrace East and most of all Regent's and Hyde Parks. I miss it all. But you can't go back. This fall wasn't nearly as much fun. Next fall will be worse. Be really fun to run away back there but I know it won't work out. That's life though isn't it?

On a very random (if disturbing) side note: nuclear catastrophes make me giddy. Yea, it kinda worries me too.

On a slightly lesser note, I finally created an LJ user account. It's mirv120 I like unique names. Hence why I only have used mirv120 several billion different places.

Exalted Fans

Take a look.

Side note. Picked up a new RPG totally on impulse at Games People Play called "Roma Imperious". Looks very interesting.

The Next Big Gaming Thing

That's right. First a trailer. Don't worry it'll load quick :D Then the actual future of RPGs.


D02. :D

Procrastination...

This Java test boggles my mind cause I am not even sure what exactly to study. Could be a ugly thing tomorrow morning. At least ASP is completed. Currently I really feel the urge to write. I want to write back Tricia, write a long post relating to religion and RPGs, and I want to get my new blog off and running (more to come when it gets off and running if that actually happens). Of course I don't have time for any of this. In theory every waking second I should be doing homework. Yet as usual I find myself wholly incapable of just that. Half of my stress relating to homework is self generated. Crack down early and this would be a moderately tough time. Instead I'll be spending many late nights. Go figure. I'm dumb. Then again it's rather a common thing with people isn't it?

Life plods on. I don't feel as lousy as I did at the start of the week but I wonder if it's not just the general insanity blocking out the bottoming out I was feeling. It sounds depressing and it kind of is. Guess I am the type of person who actually thrives in an odd way under a deadline. When under pressure to some extent I can block out external stimuli to get the most demanding problem out of the way. When I get it done I even get a kind of exuberance, one less thing to worry about. Crazy way to go about life and probably why my blood pressure tends to range on the high side.

Oddly enough things are very uncertain right now. I have no idea what will happen next year. Chi Alpha is getting some major shake ups that will essentially change everything, but if all goes well (which I have to believe it will, faith manages and all that) it will essentially stay the same. I picked up being an LA again so my schedule so carefully constructed with get 10 or so hours of time added to it that are out of my ability to manage. I applied at the Clinic again. Should be essentially a cake-walk to get back in as long as I am professional about it but as usual I am worried. The future holds what the future holds though so just have to sit back and see.

And keep in mind you don't need to be Exalted to shake the very foundations of the world :)

Updates Updates Updates

Shuffled some blogs down to the Quiet area. Added several new blogs. Enjoy, peruse, etc.

Time Sense

I was thinking today about time sense in RPG games. Specifically my Exalted campaign. In two weeks it will technically wrap up (I say technically because it may very well live on in the spring). It started in mid-September and will run through mid-December. In game time I was surprised when I crunched the numbers in my head a fairly similiar amount of time has passed. I'd give date comparisons but I can't keep my Ascending Waters and Descending Fires in order and those wouldn't mean much to you since there are more "months" in a year and less days in a "month". Regardless it was a surprise because there was very little built in downtime between sessions. In fact there was essentially non although a couple sessions started with downtime. The events of the first session took a day. The next session was a month of travel time followed by a half day at an encampment followed by another week or two of travel. The next session involed combat and a couple days travel. After that maybe a week and a half in Paris. Then an entire session that covered less then a day in game time (behold flying wheel-less wagons, the new airliner!). This current session took only a couple days and that was all travel, the revolution taking maybe an hour max. Next session will involve 3 weeks of downtime and since it's generally wrap-up will probably cover a fair amount of time (up to a month). Total time about 4 months. Did not expect it to synch up at all.

Now I'll bet that was all rather random and confusing to most of you, but that's ok. :D

Exalted Rnd. 6

So been a couple weeks since we played. Left off with our Circle boldly planning a strike to seize the local shadowland's warstrider. This involved getting into a citadel at the heart of said shadowland. I actually expected them to make a much grander entrance but instead them snuck up onto the outskirts of the town. Here they rallied the mortals in the shantytown to rise up and due to the Eclipse's phenomal skills even got some of the ghosts in the area to revolt. Meanwhile as the pandemonium of a peasant revolt drew away the gaurds allowing the Night and Dawn casts to slip in. This had the highlight humor of the much smaller Night pulling the Dawn over. Upon entering they attacked the 4 guards. Immediately one goes to sound the alarm. The two stronger ghosts attempt to snag the attackers and then go in for the kill. They actually succeed in doing some damage before the very powerful Dawn kills them in one round. On the far side of the city the Eclipse, Twilight, and Heroic Mortal (whose player was AWOL, a miscommunication on our part) advance with the revolt getting to the citadel gates. Eclipse anima flares and pushes the mortals forwards. The gaurds attempt to close the gates. The Twilight quickly forces the gates open ala magma krackens killing most of the gaurds and scattering the rest. At this point the Dawn attempts to attune to the warstrider as there is a lull.

Now the Abyssal and some hastily gathered troops arrive. The troops are sent to deal with the forces coming in through the front door while the Abyssal goes to deal with the Night gaurding the warstrider that needs to be attuned. The Night does get the advantage on init but lacks much damage giving capability. Abyssal combos and cuts her down in one turn. Leaving her to die he then proceeds to get jumped by the Dawn who hastily exits the warstrider and gets the drop on him. What happened to the Night now happens to him but somewhat worse and the battle is essentially one. In the process he is discovered to have a sorcery-disrupting ring which the Twilight takes. This ring is henceforth described as the Plot Device™.

Victorious the Circle leads the peasants back to their capital of Wabash and is greeted by an initially wary but then very happy defense force.

Next session: aftermath.

Off the feeds

Introverts have more brain activity apparently. Nice to know I've got something going for me. Also the Chi Alpha webpage actually got a facelift. Wow, I'm shocked too even though I'm the one who put it up (but not the actual creator).

This has been quite a day for weather, fog, mist, sunshine, rain, temps nice enough to be ok without a jacket, downpours. All it needs is snow and ice tonight (blah as ice would be) and we'll have hit just about everything. I need to work on ASP but I'm so tired...

Edward Estlin Cummings once said "The most wasted days is one without laughter" so why am I wasting so many days lately?

I'm not too sure that I can go much father
I'm really not sure things are even getting better
I'm so tired of the me that has to disagree
And so tired of the me that's in control

I woke up to see the sun shining all around
How could it shine down on me?
You'd think that it would notice
I can't take anymore
I had to ask myself
"What's it really for?"

Everything I tried to do, it didn't matter
and now I might be better off just rollling over
'cause you know I tried to hard but couldn't change a thing
And it hurts so much I might as well let go

I can't really take the sun shining all around me
Why would it shine down on me?
You'd think that it would notice
I no longer believe
Can't help telling myself
"It don't mean a thing"

I woke up to see the sun shining all around me
How could it shine down on me?
Sun shining all its beauty
Why would it shine down on me
You'd think that it would notice
I can't take anymore
Just had to ask myself
"What's it really for?"

The New Gig is Somethin' Else

Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex (ie GITS SAC or just GITS) 2nd Gig premired tonight on Adult Swim. It's very good. I was curious if they could top the first season but if the first episode is any indication then they probably will. Fun stuff :)

Yea, that's all. :D

Are ideas free?

Picked off Slashdot...

Unproductive Or Some Such Thing

Well I have led the Byzantine Empire to control of all of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor (including the Middle East). Took awhile (basically marathon played today and yesterday afternoon) but I managed to actually make a complete win In Total War. Wasn't sure I would because I didn't figure out naval stuff until finally today. The lack of help files or a manual can really be a challenge. However I did manage to pull it off wiping the Brits off of Ireland. Probably the hardest thing was the game's propensity to allow massive rebellions of defeated factions across Western Europe. I can understand basic rebellion but it gets very annoying when the enemy can develop troops and equipment, from occupied lands, that those lands can't make and all in one turn. Also that you couldn't predict the rebellions and attempt to placate the civilians very easily. One turn they'd be happy then spontaneous revolution that produces fully armored knights and siege equipment. Slowed the pace down for same end result. That's my major complaint. I won though so I guess I should sit tight.

White Wolf finally announced something on their writing contest that my roommate has entered. Kinda dissapointing. Then again WW hasn't shown much management skill in running this contest.

Google Analytics seems to be getting up to speed now. Only took about a week. Think they really got caught off gaurd by how many people want to see how many people go to their blog/website/livejournal/etc and get stats on it. It's rather fun though at times. Especially the map that shows where in the world people are coming from! Also I am easily amused especially with statistics.

I am also enjoying the Google personalized home page and the fact that I can see Slashdot RSSed and Slashdot is such a brilliant news site. It's relevant stuff and the editors make smart commentary on the news they post. Worth your time to check out especially if technology issues matter to you. And if you were wondering how popular this site is, sites that get Slashdotted generally crash from the surge of traffic!

Well today is going to go down and as unproductive school wise but oh well. Catch ya later folks.

News from the Underground

Saw Harry Potter last night. Twas good. Not fantastic but HP fans will enjoy it. It felt rather rushed though. That's the problem with taking a long book and making it into a movie. Lots of stuff gets left out. I'll stick to the books but an interesting expierence to go to a midnight opening. Was really sleepy this morning.

The Google Analytics stuff is pretty cool but rather fluky at the moment. Guess Google underestimated the fact that everyone and their 20,000 closest friends might want to track their traffic. Figure it'll sort itself out. In the meantime Twism will refresh on my blog 62,343 times and my hits counts will surge up tremendously accordingly while he tries to fool the analysis software.

Looks like I will get to go home earlier then expected next week so pretty excited about that. Yay for home and not having to cook or clean or any of the menial type chores!

Yay

It's still white out there although also probably rather much colder then yesterday. There are even a couple icicles hanging outside our window. Happy, happy.

First Snow

First Snow, originally uploaded by mirv120.

If you look back on May 2nd you will see the last time it snowed in Stevens Point. I like snow.

International Programs

Seems in the cheerful flurry of budget cuts and proposed budget cuts UWSP might be chopping their International Programs Director to save some quick cash. Basically the end result would be more cost for the students going on the trips and probably much less organization in general of those trips. Our Budget Director and SGA Veep are organizing an effort to get student testimonials in an effort to keep the IP Director, leave a comment if you want to help out and give one (or I suppose if you want more info in general). I will forward what was sent to me on to you.

On a side note, Google has offered yet another new service for the general public. I am going to toy around with this one and see what it does. Might not need that clunky old counter after this!

That's frelling great.

For the record...

as of December 4th, 2004 AD/GCE I have sworn an oath not to sing karaoke within the confine of the United States of America or its satellites.

Thank you and good night.

Exalted Rnd. 5

Why are we getting the box?
I'm not entirely sure.

When you start with the stupid crazy plan you continue!

They have a will to live, code red! -ghosts on mortals living the shadowlands

This session starts out with some down time. Our Eclipse and Dawn come out of their limit breaks (both which they act out well and kept track of on their own!). The basic end decision for the Circle is that they must go south to Wabash and the shadowlands. They know that their is a warstrider there of the soulsteel variety. So the Circle heads south. The eventual conclusion is that the fastest way south is to use sorcery to fly in. In the efforts to acquire an object (in this case a wall) the party discovers a mortal slave on the run from his owners. After some persuasion they convince the slave to go south with them as it will be "safer" (honestly it probably would be).

The Circle heads south and discovers that the older shadowland is pretty empty so they move down to the larger shadowland. The Night caste sneaks in posing as a shadowland mortal and manages to scout out the location of the warstrider in a city and citadel of an Abyssal. Returning with this info we're now set for a big showdown in a couple weeks.

Weird

So life has been rather strange as of late and I must admit I am confused about a lot of things. That's not really news though is it?

Generally I am bemused when problems beset the French but watching the news has made me nervous none-the-less. Have to admit I figured this would blow over. It just seems to be getting worse. Are we on the way to seeing the 5th Republic born through another bought of anarchy? Is this a problem that is bound to occur in other European countries? If it stayed in Paris it probably wouldn't bother me so much but in a matter of days the entire country seems to be rioting. I have to admit I am surprised they haven't deployed troops (ok, not making a surrender joke right after that is really hard) because I am fairly certain in the US the National Gaurd would be meeting rioters. Just have to watch and see.

Totally random question: would anyone want a gmail invite? I have a billion and never use them. I suppose most people don't really care but thought I would offer. Just leave a comment, with an e-mail address if you don't think I have yours (need it to send the invite).

The Fighting 401

Or something like that. Today was rather unproductive. I barely got anywhere in Flash, didn't touch Java. Did clean the bathroom so guess that counts for something right? Bummed around a lot. Really have nothing new to talk about either...

Wasn't that a useful post?

Er...

Nabbed from Brent's blog.

oo-rah

Hostile This!

I like books. They are possibly one of my favorite things. I probably got this from Dad (not that Mom is a non-reader she just checks book out rather then purchasing them) although I've rather tread my own path to an extent since high school. Originally I pretty much did straight up science fiction but of course now I get a lot of RPGs too.

Anyhow I love going home cause I can buy more books :D So I picked up Waterdeep: City of Splendours and Modern Military Ships at B & N. Waterdeep was a bit depressing, right next to it was Mage. Now Mage is twice Waterdeep's size, just as pretty, and barely $5 more. The catch being it's nWoD and I don't buy nWoD. Ah well. The Modern Military Ships was nice, oddly organized, but lots of up to date info so a fun read.

A River City Hobbies, La Crosse's FLGS, I found a new game called Fireborn which quite peaked my interest. Set in modern day London it deals with people who have dragon-blood or some such thing in them. I just like the modern concept I guess plus it's in a city I know!

Ok, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow, flash essay up the butt :/

Think my one chance is a flub, back to square one yet again ya know?

Exalted Rnd. 4

Well somehow got through another session of Exalted.

"So you go and pretend to be a thief." -Brady (talking about our thief)

"Kitten's alignment is chaotic fluffy."

Anyhow: Circle is still in Paris at the start of the session with some basic information that the situation is pretty crappy but not a lot of data on Wabash. Our diplomat goes out to try and remedy that by talking with the military leaders and then the city hall. Basically she blows the entire bueacratic set up away not once but twice and calls the Marshall of the French Army a "cheese eating surrender monkey" (admittedly I set that one up). She does get a fair amount of information about the current situation and returns to the inn to report. While she is out our ninja disguises herself and gets accepted by the local Thieves Guild as one of their old members (by sheer luck) called Yani. The rest of the Circle does some shopping.

With information in hand the ninja is sent to set up a meeting with the local rebels who seem to know more then anyone else in town. However because the Circle is unwilling to admit they are Solars (or some other sort of powerful beings) the rebels think they're more crazy then powerful and just give some limited advice. It was amusing to keep mentioning how they'd need a legion to clear the Shadowlands when the unkillable human shield is camped outside the door standing gaurd.

At this point our diplomat limit breaks and then shortly thereafter our meat shield also breaks. The diplomat goes on an overindulgence binge and cleans out Hello, Meat and eventually is boarded up there by the meat shield after he is unable to persuade her to leave. The rest of the party then proceeds to go and investigate the old Wabash occupation camp outside of town. This involves getting out of the city at night. The limit broke meat shield simply opens the main gate and walks out, in full orichalcum armor. The French military gaurds flee in terror or attempt to surrender. As soon as they are out and have shut the gate the Circle determines it might be better to go get the diplomat and turns around and walks straight in through the front gate. Noticeably the city watch has fled. The French Army in their defense lost most of their best troops in the war.

When the Circle finally does get to the camp they find it deserted and several dead bodies on pikes. They def. look like they were killed in a way to create hungry ghosts and keep the bodies usable for zombies. The ninja manages to find documentation pointing towards a failed coup and then finds a tiny shard of soulsteel.

The party is now returning to Paris to wait out the limits and also to get some downtime to train up new skills, Charms, etc.

Pause between moments

Well this week is rather busy. It doesn't help that I procrastinate a lot. Or that I stupidly caught a cold cause I didn't get much sleep last week. Get to go home this weekend tho so that will be nice even with have WDMD to do.

To kill time lately I've been sketching out another world although this time I've been using the convertible to organize it. MS OneNote is pretty nice for organizing all the contents together so I've enjoyed do it and I can access various things that I have organized away. This keeps my focus and makes it easier to put concurrent thoughts with their initial ideas. Will it ever come to anything? Doubtful. I have fun doing it though.

My biggest distractor is def. C & C Generals. Not a surprise really. I've also been paging through various Forgotten Realms books. FR probably is what got me to writing a new world. I always am trying to integrate fantasy and sci-fi and never get very far.

That's it for news. ASP test on Friday and Exalted on Wednesday. Still a busy week.

American Empire: Wal-mart

So we got onto the subject of Wal-mart today in History. This subject always amuses me. Wal-mart has to be one of the most hated corporations in the world (Microsoft being the other major competitor). Yet when I think about all these people ripping into it I fall back to what I always think of when the Wal-mart debate rages: they did what all Americans dream of. Think about it, capitalism basically is a pull yourself up into the realm of the wealthy and stay there (the whole the rich get richer and the poor get poorer thing). Wal-mart is all about that. Sure they trample on the little guys but that's how America's economy works.

Incidentally the probably more hilarious thing is while middle/upper class people tend to rail on how Wal-mart keeps the poor poor and exploits its workers and all that I've yet to actually see them motivate the lower classes. The arguement that you should pay more for your food works great if you actually can afford to not shop for the lowest price but I've yet to see an argument that deals with the fact that Wal-mart does well because it's so cheap. It's funny really that the only solution we have is to basically burden the lower classes with higher prices somewhere else to punish Wal-mart. Middle/upper classes won't suffer much (maybe some but it just might mean we buy a little less I doubt anyone will starve) while some lower class folks probably take full advantage of the prices that Wal-mart can force out of their vendors. Now is it a good thing what Sam Walton's Empire is doing? Can't really say that I think so but the company has put itself in a good place. They have enough power to influence government, they control a huge amount of the market, and they serve a niche which would find it probably harder to live without them. I'm not quite sure when they pulled this all off but let's face it, they make more money in a year then most national governments! Last numbers I saw put their GDP in the Top 20 of the world! Any changing or affecting them is going to have to be far more comprehensive then somewhat embittered liberal (or otherwise) idealism.

Blah

Well it definitely feels like the world wants to collapse today. Go figure.

Even more ramblings

Yes I am a busy poster this office hour.

Ok so if you missed it the Russians have a minor war going on in one of their cities right now. I can't really imagine how it'd be like to be in a city like that. Most of the cities I've been in are quite a bit smaller (say 1/6th or 1/8th the population) but still how disconcerting would it be to be at the airport and suddenly have a battle just break out there? Or driving by a police station? It's just very strange to me.

I'm done now cause I need to go research the IRA in the ol' library.

Deep Pondering

So I was just thinking from random spiels people have made in Environmental Politics that what if democracies that function and last can only come from strife and lots of mistakes and oppression? Arguably all the Western democracies certainly have very colored pasts. In fact I'm not sure there are any democracies that have a nice cheerful happy history. Perhaps we can only seriously pull up and give ourselves democracy with much pain, death, and many many mistakes?

I'm dead postive this is not new ground in people's debates on democracy but it was a new idea for me.

Random Thoughts

So if you put in the 6 digit zip code in the UK it takes you to a fairly close area to where you are (at least in London). I just find that pretty awesome that the zip alone can get you within a maybe 10 blocks of your address. No, I'm not missing London terribly, why do you ask?

Rolling to another tangent have you ever noticed that some people have names that are just more fun to say both first and last as if they were designed to be always said as a whole? This is almost certainly just a thing I do but it greatly amuses me.

Now finally some substantial stuff: Apple finally released a video iPod. While certainly inevitable I have to admit I am surprised it happened so soon. I really figured they'd hold off. I also must admit I am slightly grumpy as my 5 month old iPod is now hopelessly out of date. For the same price today I could now get a 30 GB, color screen, able to play video iPod. Grr. Of course that was nearly half a year ago so there wasn't any positive inkling that any kind of video iPod would come out at all. Heck the iPod Nano caught a lot of people off-gaurd and made iPod Minis artifacts and that sure was a surprise (my roommate got a Mini only a few weeks before the Nano arrived, there's a good time to be grumpy). Apple is certainly pushing the bounds though. Guess I am curious to see how video iPod does but the Nano is doing well and I thought it'd be much more of a niche (if the Mini was around possibly true).

That's all for now...I am gonna go back to looking at pictures of Hyperion (gosh it's creepy looking moon in that picture).

Exalted Rnd. 3

First some quotes:

"Do you want describe it as you vaporize him?"

"This is not the cat you're looking for."

"It's like binary!" (Dani on her init rolls: either a 1 or a 0)

This week was combat central. I wanted to try out some Exalted v. Exalted combat so I sent some of the Wyld Hunt in. Now they had all the reasons in the world to be investigating the area but my very cunning Solars nearly talked them out of it. I gotta admit Brady did an impressive job in talking his way out of things part of the reason why noone was attacked accept for Isaac. However I did want to have some Exalted combat partially so I would get the feel of things so I sort of forced the issue (I probably should have had them let them pass but on a ST's note they were very suspicious that they were there even if they didn't realize it). Combat was impressive if somewhat one sided. I nearly brought Isaac down first off due to some very well designed Dragon Blooded but just fell short so he axed DB #1. DB #2 managed to off Isaac and nearly half his own troops (I had not thought about using an area affect Charm when surrounded by allies, oops!). At this point I was unsure how things would go, the rest of the Circle was cowering or hiding so the Wyld Hunt didn't see them as a threat. Mostly they saw them as mortals duped or enthralled by a Solar. I wasn't quite sure how I'd do that but Isaac solved the problem by reviving and hammering DB #2 with his Grand Daiklave of Way Too Big Dice Pools. The remaining mortals proceeded to get ganked by most of the Circle. After removing the valuables of the Wyld Hunt the Circle proceeded to sneak across the very weakly gaurded border of France and then headed to Paris (yes the joke gets bigger and better or something like that). Here they began to peace together the situation along with some info looted off the dead DB's bodies. Next time looks like Brady's moment to shine, the combat is over for awhile. Of course that means I have to work out more story! That's all for now. Lots of stuff in the news I should talk about but not tonight.

Oy

Hmm, seems like I need to go through and move some blogs off the quiet list eventually. It's getting long, I have to admit I know longer check many (if any) very regularily unless I think someone might have posted. Another weekend project...

"I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end."
-Margaret Thatcher

Interesting quote, explains alot about the lady. Sometimes I think I am very much like that...

It's Fall

I love this season. Ok so maybe it feels a bit on the chilly side today with that wind but there's just that crisp, cool, fresh feeling that I can't really describe that hangs in the air. I can't soak up enough of it. Today is going to be one of those strange, weird days that's both fulfilling and also unfulfilling. Kind of the almost perfect day that could have one thing more and then my mind would be clear. Oh and if the Java test weren't tomorrow. Boo to that.

Met a couple of our SGA representatives today both very nice folks. Up to this point I just knew Crawford, Squirrel (aka Sara), and Ms. Amy Clark. Now after knowing Crawford one can only imagine what my state of mind towards SGA is. Primarily: how did anything get done? Ok, I'm kidding there he was a decent President I guess, didn't pay much attention to the state of things. Now I am also slightly off track (but that's not news with this blog). Anyhow just like to say they seem to be all honest decent folk so if you have a problem actually have issues go chat with them not that my word makes a huge bit of difference.

Anyhow Java calls and then I need to sneak over and seize Lena's three-hole punch. Whee.

Indecision

I'm in one of those moments again where I am stuck. Do I act or do I keep the status quo? Both have risks and thus far I have kept to the status quo (and it hasn't hurt anything). I dunno.

I would like the temp and humidity to drop soon though. This is misery and it's October! This feels like August! Blah.

The Last Battle

Well I finally finished the Chronicles of Narnia, only took me since the end of June to read all seven books. They're pretty good but really strike me much more as children's novels then anything else. It was a little hard at times for me to take them as seriously as I did Lord of the Rings or the last couple Harry Potters. Serious in this case of course being how believable in a sense the world seems to me, perhaps its an odd tendency but I enjoy books better if I can fully immerse myself into them, hence my fondness for RPGs. On a side note the movie: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe looks to be quite good and I will have to sally out to see that this December. Got to see the trailer on the big screen before Serenity and def. blew me away!

Well time to go work finish my stuff for Flash. Where's a comfy, comfy couch when I need one? (Hehe, hope Amanda doesn't think I'm too nuts for overusing that phrase today, not that I'm not probably slightly crazy but ya know.)

Anyhow, that's all for now.

Serenity

Well it wasn't the best movie I've seen but it was very, very well written. Ok first off, Reavers scare the crap out of me. They make the Borg look like friendly loving people. I have to say they are probably the best done villain group I have encountered in a sci-fi show. Creepy, creepy, creepy but still well done. Anyhow several major twists which threw and the plot didn't manage to keep me wondering til the end. This felt more like a thriller/suspense movie rather then sci-fi western. So now this review wasn't all that useful I'd imagine but that's ok. I can't say a lot without spoiling it but I think this is worth your $27.50 to go see (or in matinee $27.49).