CGI vs. Real

So in the sudden free time I have acquired whilst preparing for the road trip I have randomly been watching movies. I've gone through nearly all the tv series I have so I am back to movies. I watched Star Wars episodes: III & I and noticed something: I like the Yoda as a physical puppet rather then a computer model and I can generally tell the difference between the to.

Now granted it's kinda obvious which is which when he is sprinting around in a way that Frank Oz could never do but if you ever really look close you can still figure out what is CGI and what isn't. The technology is good but not foolproof yet. Somehow physical models just look more real to me, maybe that is what makes the original trilogies better in my mind. When I see a Star Destroyer bearing down part of my mind knows there is a real model of it that is there. Can't really explain it better.

Armed Struggle reminds me why I don't like the IRA. Whereas the Brits and the security forces had by the '90s at least gotten to the point where they no longer were out of control (as could be argued the RUC especially was in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s) the IRA continues knee-capping and killing civilians all in the name of Ireland. One thing with Armed Struggle I find implausible is how English (the author) portrays IRA Volunteers dying as tragedies but not British soldiers or on-duty RUC officers. If you're going to call it a civil war then at least grant both sides the same status eh? Guess I can't blame his bias when I have my own.

Point of curiousity to those readers who'd actually comment (guess I might need readers for that wouldn't I?) which do you support current situation where Northern Ireland is part of the UK or having Northern Ireland be part of Ireland? Feel free to give a reason if ya prefer. I'd just like some thought interaction is all.

Oh and if you can't tell, I'd be for the status quo, essentially they can vote to become part of Ireland whenever they want. This leaves the onus to the nationalists to convince the loyalists that joining Ireland is to there benefit. In the meantime I expect the British to keep pushing for equality between those divided.

Memory

I am greatly frustrated by my inability to remember a name of a base/city somewhere in the South East Asia. It has to be in the pile of islands down around Indonesia and such as I know I got it from one of Samuel Eliot Morison's History of US Naval Operations in World War II series and an early one at that. Sometimes I wish I was back home where I have access to my more extensive collection of World War II history books and more particularily Dad's much greater collection of books, including the entire 15 volume set mentioned above. Pretty sure it begins with an F...

(About 20 minutes passes here)

After much more looking (I looked earlier in the evening) I have managed to find it on the island of New Guinea: Finschafen!

Oddly enough if I had had a decent atlas on me (or known one online) I probably could have found it easier. Wikipedia does come through in the end tho proving that most of the information we need is out there we just have to find it.

Carl's D & D Rnd 7

This week in the City of Stone.

Also probably shortly on the same blog is commentary on GenCon and White Wolf's announcements (*cough*Exalted Modern*cough*). I think. I might just be shamelessly promoting the RPG blog.

Oh so Many Random Things

At some point (probably tomorrow) I will get around to talking about Carl's game this week. It was rather interesting.

Anyhow, this week has been kind of strange as a lot of things are wrapping up and it has actually been rather high stress. Mostly probably due to the fact that 480 looked like it might not ever end. Looks like it will be done by tomorrow so now I can focus exclusively on the trip west. Oh and the 72,000 other things I need to get done before then. Hence why I was just a bit belligerent about 480 running late, I've got a lot to do already somehow.

I am trying to have some relaxation time. I finished the Janisaries books when I was home so they got left there along with a couple other books that I've managed to finish. Still have a couple books up here waiting to be read but also replenished the stocks with a couple more history books (The Battle for Moscow and The Battle of Kursk) and a Heinlein, and Man-Kzin Wars IV. Of course I've still got The Color of Magic and Wild at Heart waiting as well so I should be good for books probably up til next June. Especially if any of the non-fiction are slow reads. I've picked up Armed Struggle with the intent to finish it this summer. I'm down to less then 100 pages and this is another one I've been "reading" since London. It's been a struggle because it's somewhat dry and it tends to be pro-Republican whereas I am somewhat pro-Brit. Several of its events are covered in Secret Soldiers so its interesting comparing them. That is my reading situation in a nutshell tho. There are of course hordes of RPG books but I read them at random.

Speaking of RPGs I need to get my butt in gear getting ready for my Exalted campaign this fall. I'm also toying with seeing if Carl would be interested in sorting out the Silhoutte system from DP9 so we could run tactical scenarios with the very awesome ships and mecha in the Jovian Chronicles setting. Have to discuss it with him at some point I guess. It's funny cause this last school year I was in semi-gaming drought. I was running Exalted and that was about it. Now I am in 2 D & D campaigns and will be in an Eberron (guess that's technically still D & D) and running Exalted this fall. Crazy. But I enjoy gaming for the most part, aside from when my dice decide to kill me repeatedly.

Finally, need to tweak the structure on the blog a bit. Some people have new blogs and others have gone quiet. I've found Chuck's liverjournal and (I think) Carl's so some new ones to add. Furthermore Google actually did a major upgrade of Blogger but it's in Beta and I wasn't quick enough on the gun to get in but in theory this will add a lot more features/usability. Might change the look of this thing as well. Interesting times.

That's all for now.

Volleyball Is Over

So guess I can tell the summer is coming to an end. Today was the last day of volleyball. Doubt next summer it'll happen again so it's sad to see it go. I really enjoyed it a lot even if I was never all that good. Think I got better then I was but that doesn't say alot ya know? :D

Today also felt like autumn. You know it's coming when you feel that first day even if it's in the middle of August. Sure, it'll probably get hot again before that but just for a day you can tell that in a month or so the leaves will be beginning to change and school will be in session and the summer will be a distance wistful dream. Everything changes and the wheel of time keeps turning.

Whee, philsophical tonight.

Summer Days

I've been quiet of late due to finals, being sick, going home, and just the general sort of wrapping up summer class and preparing to drive a couple thousand miles the week after that. This week should slow down enough I can post a few times so I can prove I have not died. Just not tonight cause I need to unpack and/or sleep!

Issues

Seems blogger is having issues with posts and the like guess one of their databases are playing mary-hobb with their data. Explains a post I had dissapearing.

Two Presentations

And CIS480 is over. 'Course I have to come down with a cold concurrent with that so I am feeling rather blah at the moment. Wish us luck but either way in less then 48 hours we'll be free men!

Carl's D & D Rnd 6

The casualty list in. It was an interesting session. About half the party is now up to 4th level so we're starting to get decently strong powerwise.

They released what?

Well Apple was releasing info on their new stuff at the WWDC AOL got in the act and released some stuff as well: user's personal searches.

Yup, that's right, AOL released over 20 million queries by over 650,000 users and simply put a random number ID in place of the userID. Cheers :/

Dani's D & D Rnd 5

Here is another session of Dani's game. Enjoy!

...

Huh, that was a most interesting display of why fundamentalists are idiots. I'd talk more about it but I still need the full story. Oh and Billy Graham movies, as a rule, suck worse then "Open Water" and "AI" combined.

In sort of good news I got most of my homework done. Still lots to do tho. :/

Yay!

I got to have Strongbow today :) I miss London :/

Climate porn?

An interesting article.

Dani's game was tonight on a rather short notice. I'll get something up eventually. Looks like we will have one more session next week and then be done.

In the meantime I need to practice my powerpoint presentation for tomorrow.

Inspiring

All of you need to check this out. True art and beauty!

Sadly, I have been reminded that to view this thread you need to be a member of RPG.net's forums. Boo :(

Carl's D & D Rnd 5

Here is the direct link. Random note, most of my RPG related musing is located on the same blog if you are curious.

BTW, it's 82 degrees that feels like 87 right now. And it's 0200!! Man it's hot.

Mental Stimulation

Yea, I got to debate and discuss some of the deeper things in life this evening and it was great. I need to do that more often!

Have you ever wondered?

Why whenever the Israelis retalitate when terrorists attack them that they are "violating human rights" or "committing war crimes" but the terrorists apparently are not even when they specifically target civilians? Not that the Israel campaign in Lebanon is really a good thing at the moment, they do seem to be targetting civillians at this point which is a bit unusual, generally they are more tactful about it. Suppose I shouldn't expect parity in the press or general public tho should I? Especially not in the US or Europe.

One Hundred and What!

So tomorrow the temp is supposed to be 102 with a heat index of over 110. Needless to say VB will probably be canceled and that makes me sad. I've highly enjoyed the event but hard to pull folks out in that kind of heat. Please God cool things down here!

Today I just feel inadequate.

What The...

Well if you missed it the oil corporation's handed in their earnings for the second quarter. Guess Katrina didn't really hurt them that bad. Kind of wonder why they needed any government aid though when they have a profit of between 5 to 10 billion dollars. More then ever I'd scream profit windfalls tax!! I think they can survive on half their profits. Cause ya know 2.5 to 5 billion dollars ain't enough to support research or pay their executives. Or maybe feed Africa.

Sorry, just frustrates me a bit. Also makes me wish I was an oil exec or had large shares of their stocks.

Sort of Busy?

Yea, kind of in the midst of being somewhat busy to the point I can't think of much of interest to post of late. Or at least not put up much of quality. Hopefully that'll maybe change this weekend so guess check back at whatever random pace you normally check?

Anyhow, I am greatly enjoying my Cowboy Bebop tuneage. It's quite good and oh so varied!

It rained so we didn't play VB edition

Yea, so volleyball got rained out and that leaves me with nothing to do in a time I generally hoped would be spent on socializing. :/

Anyhow Tyler seems to think I need to talk about the books I got this weekend. Not really sure anyone would care so instead I will provide random video footage of explosions to amuse. When all else fails nuke them from orbit...

The music I ordered finally did come. It's several import CDs of Cowboy Bebop soundtracks. Now unsurprisingly they are bootlegs but I got them through a keep Amazon Marketplace vendor so I am not terribly surprised and they are very high quality. I am highly enjoying the music though especially the stuff from "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" of which I really love the soundtrack but up to this point only had a few songs from it. That was mostly cause I hadn't seen the movie until after Napster got buried so I lost my access to foreign music. I always had hoped iTunes would pick this kind of stuff up but they haven't yet.

Probably a canidate for best soundtrack of the year for me but we'll see how the staying power is. Certainly the musical variety remains fantastic. Cowboy Bebop really does cover nearly every musically genre so have to give a salute to Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts for that.

Away

I'll be gone a couple days to visit the sister and a friend who reside in the Twin Cities burbs. It'll be my first time driving in that large of a population (Madison or Green Bay not sure who is bigger held the record prior) so wish me luck or prayers to not kill myself in traffic.

I got a couple of the WoD books today. I realized somehow I forgot to order WoD: Armory so may have to get that from Bookworld. I am still pretty excited about running this game (even gonna have a Police Chaplain named Al) but honestly it won't have a chance to get off ground for awhile. If I am unlucky and have to move away from Point to work who knows when it'll happen.

But anyhow have a good weekend all.

The Thing and other things

So a bunch of ECSPers watched John Carpenter's The Thing tonight. Kinda gross and rather nerve wracking at times but in the end not incredibly long term scary. Unless you are going to Antarctica and the neighboring camp has Norwegians and sled dogs. John Carpenter's movies are rather fun to watch, he makes them nicely suspenseful (although most of his characters are a bit dense, the tendency to split up is amazing, gamers learn not to do this can't horror movie characters learn to do it) and usually not way too graphic like horror movies these days. Extremely over the top gorey violence does not ever equal a good plot and especially does not cause you to think!

I just had a random thought, I dought anyone else will do this cause hardly anyone reads this who also blogs (ok hardly anyone reads this period you all got better taste or stuff to do :D ). What's on favorites toolbar? You know the little quicklinks that you can customize just below the URL address?

I've got a bunch. I'll list them name on the toolbar and where it goes.

APOD: Aka Astronomy Picture of the Day. A very long running page the updates with different pictures relating to astronomy. Covers the whole gamut and has some very beautiful pictures.

RPG.net: The one RPG site I visit regularily. Has very active forums. It's the place where I get my random motivational pictures from and keep tabs on RPG news.

Scifi Wire: SciFi Channel's New page. It keeps tabs on SciFi news although lately I've gone their less and it has become less and less useful over time.

Comics: My daily comics fix from GoComics.com (also Comics.com)

Radar: Weather radar at Intellicast techinically this one looks over St. Cloud, MN but it covers all of Wisconsin and Minnesota so I can see what's coming.

Forecast: Intellicast forecast for Stevens Point. Varying accuracy although the far end of the 10 day forecast is wrong as much as it is right.

MAHQ: Mecha Anime Headquarters. Not so useful anymore but occasionally fun to read. I think the name explains itself.

RvB: Red vs. Blue, the webshow. It's funny but has slowly gone downhill overtime. Still check out season 1 if you can, it'll make you laugh (warning bad language in the shows).

AOL Mail: Yea, that explains itself.

Blogger: My link to maintain this blog and others.

PP: Pointless Pointer or what you are reading right now. I use my blog as a links collection for everyone else's blog so I pass through this a lot. Screws up my hit count :/

Gmail: Google e-mail. You want an invite just ask.

UWSP Mail: Also self explanatory. Sorry to get one of these you need to lay down a couple thousand dollars every couple months.

DTRPG: Drive Thru RPG. I only mainly go here from their free RPG that changes every couple weeks. Interesting site tho that is really changing how RPGs are distributed.

Facebook: Yes, I go there too often. That college networking page. It's better then mySpace so quit looking at me like that.

WP: Wikepedia, all the information you could ever want and cross-referenced 3,000 ways. Sure it's not perfect but I got a B in History using this (and it would have been an A except for stuff that wasn't its fault).

IMDB: The Internet Movie Database. Every actor for every movie and tv show ever. Or close to it. The Wikipedia of movies more or less.

D2L: The nefarious Desire 2 Learn site that most UWSP students have suffered through and apparently now most UW students are saddled with. In December that one will be banished forever.

That was fun wasn't it? Time for bed, presentation later this morning.

Er...

So I just bought the entire mortals line of WoD off Amazon. It's not as bad as you think but yet it is. I really shouldn't spend money like this but it's hard. I am bored and for whatever reason I got it in my head to attempt to run a mortal WoD game at some point in the future. Someone take Amazon (and probably Noble Knight too) away from me. They tempt me with too many books: rpg, fiction, non-fiction! A couple of the supplements should be interesting reads though as they are either adventures or locations.

My basic idea is to run a mortals game centered in Stevens Point where the PCs are University students. This gives common ground and might also give a chance to make things a little creepier. Something amiss in Schmeekle, the thing that got out of the CNR building (other then the standard fare that escapes the herptology folks), and so on and so forth. Not a hack and slash kind of horror story but probably something closer to Call Cthulu, not that I have read that. I just remember how much fun I had freaking out my PCs in my Exalted game when they were in a couple places they thought were infested by demons but didn't know where. I'd like to run a game like that but without all the weird powers that the major lines bring and also want to run something different from the standard fantasy fare. Plus nWoD is a pretty simple system especially for folk who are used to oWoD and Exalted (the other major Storyteller systems).

I suppose this really deserves to be in my gaming blog less then here but oh well. I'm not even sure when I'd run this game. Certainly not this summer when I have three games I am in. In the fall I dunno because I will be running Exalted and in two games (maybe three). I'm just really excited by the possibilities. But don't worry those in my Exalted game. I am still plotting your utter demise, I mean exciting new adventures! :D

Books

I forgot how fun it is to read fiction. I'm already on the second Janisaries book. At this rate I migh even finish all three in a week or less. That'd be really good as I'd feel more caught up on my reading. They're also pretty interesting and it had been forever since I read the first one. Think sometime when we still have the RV so that must have been sophomore year of high school or earlier.

I remember when I really started reading a lot in middle school how I could not understand how my Dad could forget the plot of books he'd read. By high school I had realized that your brain simply cannot keep track of all the information, at least not in a way we can dredge up, and with the amount of books Dad has read that he's prolly forgotten most of the stuff about most of them. I've hit that point where a lot of the books I've read are like that. I can barely remember details of any of the Star Wars novels I read in middle school and high school even the really good ones. Plus all the Heinlein's I've gone through. Wish I had better memory but somehow too that makes owning the books better because you can go back and re-read them and it's fun all over again.

Night Watch

Well Allison and I watched Nochnoy Dozor (in English "Night Watch") last night. It was pretty good. A bit hard to follow but far more plot I think then you American equivalent horror film. I suppose more stuff will make sense in the remaining parts of the trilogy which haven't come out to the US or come out at all, yet.

Not a lot else new at the moment. Lars is attempting to run a play by e-mail (PBEM) game of the Iron Heroes variant. It should be interesting although I am a little miffed that right off the bat I am limited to only 5 PC levels of character because of his strange background system. Honestly, I understand imposing limits on characters but I hate when your growth is removed from your hands or your background is heavily controlled. I don't mind if you have to be from a certain region or what-not or if there are certain classes aren't allowed (ie no magic users or no divine magic, etc, etc) but I hate being told by no choice of my own, you will be limited severely in character generation through no choice of your own. It's not a roleplaying challenge if I get it forced on me (and it's not my fault why it happened, ie if I went and got my character maimed in play it'd make sense) but I guess we'll have to see.

Anyhow, time to go to bed. Morning cometh far to soon!

Finishes

Well finally finished Naruto so I can give Dani back the last 6 DVDs. I suppose technically I haven't finished it yet because the show continues to be produced in Japan and the subs are about a season behind. Dani is actually getting the next 3 I think so I suppose in a month or two I will have another 2 dozen episodes to catch up on. The show is ok, some of the characters are quite interesting but the pacing is horrible a lot of the time and there are a lot of elements that show that this is, by nature, a kid's show.

Speaking of finishing things, when I finish Secret Soldiers I'll be about halfway done with the books I bought while I was in London. I am nearly done with Armed Struggle so when I get to that after Janisaries it should go pretty quick. That leaves me with The Road to Berlin which will take forver to read. It's bigger then The Road to Stalingrad by far and that took awhile to finish. I also have Barbarossa which is more of a German perspective of the whole Russian campaign and also encompasses the entire thing. It's smaller then The Road to Stalingrad so it might not take all that long depending on the writing style. I love reading history but it can be slow going.

Of course then I have several Man-Kzin Wars to knock off and a Tom Clancy novel, The Color of Magic, and at least one Heinlein novel. Probably more things beyond that. The list is long. I really need to read a lot this summer so I can catch up!

That's all. Ex-blonde, go cheer for Twism as he presents again tomorrow :D

"I don't believe it. The sharks have jumped themselves." A quote from RPG.net (on flying sharks that have ranged bite attacks).

Today was interesting. I got up and decided to go for a bike ride and do some errands. Visited some folks and got a couple outstanding errands finished so it was all good. Managed to bike for maybe 45 minutes or so and on the way back I see Seth pulling into his place so I visited him. Then Yakul decided to go for a run so I helped Seth look. In the end was out biking/erranding for nearly 3 hours. That's a lot of biking for me especially on a light lunch. Then after cooling off and cleaning up Lars call me when I am making chow. I feel kind of bad because I wasn't very chatty even though I hardly get to talk to Lars anymore. Guess my stomach has more control of my actions then I thought :/

I am excitedly waiting for some mail to come. I ordered a couple of Cowboy Bebop soundtracks off Amazon. I went through one of the vendors so even though they are imports they were pretty cheap. I'm hoping they weren't bootlegs but honestly if the CDs are good quality I don't terribly mind, I am getting it for the music so if it's all there and CD quality I can live with that (considering it was a third of the price).

I started a random project yesterday: putting all the D & D monsters onto on spreadsheet. This way I can sort them by CR/HP/type/name/book/whatever and at some point maybe I'll run a low level D & D game where I can take advantage of the information. Either way it's a project and it'll probably take me forever since I have all the Monster Manuals and they probably have a 100+ monsters in each and then there's the 20 other books too :o It'll keep me busy though.

I am trying to get back into Secret Soldiers to finish that so I can start on Janisaries so that way I can get to the later (and smaller, the first Janisaries book is illustrated) Janisaries series before or during the trip out west. Speaking of that you know how hard it is to coordinate 5 people meeting? I need to get everyone who is going out west together but noone's schedule meshes. We gotta meet tho before we go to hammer things out so hopefully that'll sort itself out!

Well I've rambled enough here for now. Time to go find something productive to do.

Forecasts

I love forecasts some days. Google says that it's supposed to be thunderstorms today and intellicast claims its sunny. Now currently it's been cloudy all of the day so I find it highly amusing both are way off. Maybe it'll storm and clear up before the sun sets tho!

Volleyball was a lot of fun yesterday. Actually yesterday in general was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with people for over half the day and got exercise, ate good (if incredibly unhealthy) food all day it seems. I think my efforts to eat healthy and/or shed a little weight are doomed to fail. I work out somewhat regularily and bike to class and play volleyball and am attempting to eat less (if I am failing I am eating my usual consumption) and still I stay the same.

Anyhow, need to go to County Market because I am almost out of juice, milk and fruit.

Italia!

So I caught that last 10 minutes of the World Cup finale. What an excellent finish. Thankfully the Italians crushed the French! Now I am in desperate need of a rest, too much driving today!

London 7/7

I have just realized I forgot a rather sad moment in history that passed a year ago Friday. The only drive in to work I specifically remember from all of last summer, when London was attacked. London will always have a place in my heart.

Two much lesser notes, no Carl's game this week but some random gaming related thoughts.  Follow one of the previous game links back to the other blog. From there you can find your way to the main page of the blog (rather then the specific game post).

Dani's D & D Rnd 4

Here is Dani's game for this week. A very short entry.

LAN to the AM

So last night we had a pizza/movie (Pirates of the Carribean 2)/LAN night. Pirates 2 was ok, the first was better go figure. Apparently a lot of people didn't know that Pirates 3 was already in filming and thus there will be a sequal which is, not unsurprisingly, set up in this movie.

LAN was awesome. Lots of fun. We played Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It was only 5 of us initially and 6 later on so at times things were a little slow and at times bloody frustrating because it's hard to overwhelm an enemy when your numbers are so small. I did a lot of offense and a lot of defense. Offense usually won although a couple times the D held out once we reduced game time down to 10 minutes from 20. Played almost every map they had to offer.

Some favorite: the submarine base. A lot of fun to swim around even if it made it bloody hard to patrol against attacking engineers. The Allied war documents level that the Allies absolutely owned on. I don't even know the name. Basically for the first two rounds I sat in the gaurd tower with the machine gun and cut down enemies while Seth and Ron were everywhere and nowhere popping up and killing the Axis. The few guys who did get through met long range death that they didn't even locate the source of until the second round. The third round they pressed that so I abandoned the tower for a different vantage point. That level would be a challenge to win for the Axis with small numbers honestly. It's very easy for the Allies to defend.

In the end we stayed up til 3:30 AM playing and I didn't get to bed til past 4. It ruined my attempts to reset my sleep schedule to a more regular time but that's ok. I'll have to get up early tomorrow and Monday so hopefully I'll get back into things then.

That's all for now. I will do a write up for Dani's game eventually. It'll be short because I was the only one who showed.

:/

I hate it when it looks like I have a lot going on and most of it falls through.

Which is important - it's science that's led us to discover these things, but science is also pathetically impotent against them, in much the same way that pretending to be a My Little Pony is useless against a nuclear explosion.

(from RPG.net forums)

Continuity

So I was watching "The Gathering", the pilot episode of Babylon 5, and I caught something I had missed when I saw it the first time so many years back. When Kosh first meets Jeffrey Sinclair (well actually someone impersonating him) he addresses him "Entil zha, Valen". Now most people probably missed it completely and even those who wondered would probably figure it was some sort of Vorlon greeting. However you learn (prolly is season 1) that Valen was the greatest of the Minbari who set up their current form of government and rule of law. Why would Kosh refer to Sinclair as Valen? Because in Season 3 we find out they are one in the same. Talk about planning ahead. In the trailer they already had laid down plot points for a season 3 years later.

Also Ed Wasser, Mr. Morden, plays one of the C&C crew.

Music

So late on this 4th of July I am sitting back after an enjoyable semi-productive day and have to say that one of the most interesting soundtracks I have to just listen is too is the original score of .Hack//Sign. It's a variety of music that is all pretty easy to listen to and evoke various moods and flavours. One of the best "listen to while working/playing" scores out there.

That is all.

Who dares wins

Heh

Harry Potter to the Dark Side, originally uploaded by mirv120.

My Short Attention Span

I've rather noticed I get easily sidelined from any self projects I start. I stay interested for a day or two then lose all interest again for awhile. It's part of the reason RPG books are generally scattered throughout my place because I reading several parts of several of them at any given time!

So World Cup results are both surprising and a little dissapointing. England lost. They played well considering. Tough game to watch tho. France beating Brazil, well who would have guessed? Brazil was bound to lose at some point though. Probably make them that much more of a threat in 4 years.

Today def feels busy even if I did slip a two hour nap in already. It probably feels so strange because I've been up since 7:30 and done a ton of errands already. I still need to finish cleaning tho. Isn't that fun? Volleyball tonight! Last week I did a decent job at assembling people I am hoping I might be able to pull that off again. Plus hopefully Seth & Evie will show too making the job of having enough folk a little easier.

Carl's D & D Rnd 4

Here is the latest and greatest from the City of Stone. Warning it's long, I guess I am fairly into Carl's game cause I remember things to a fairly scary amount of detail. If only I could do that for lectures!

Many Things

Well have a bunch of random things to talk about so maybe one of them will be interesting. Prolly not. We shall see.

So I went for an hour bike ride tonight. Did not actually plan to go for that long but wanted to go at least 30 minutes and ended up in Iverson Park. Now I've been to Iverson a few times and thought I knew its basic layout. However I hadn't actually explored on foot or on bicycle and it turns out to be huge in comparison to what it looks like. I figured the Plover River was its border but it stretches over with trails beyond it and trails that run out past the railroad track as well. Needless to say I spent a lot of the ride exploring far more then I thought.

They started demolishing the UC this week. Ironically they took out any nearby trees first. Not sure why, Tyler suspects to please Goulet. However they have proceeded now to demolish several walls. Progress?

Ok, just two random things for now.

Long Crazy Day

Today has been one of those days that's just been long. Got up at 6AM so that we could meet for CIS480 for weekly presentations. Survived that even though Goulet interupted me again in the middle of the presentation. How unprofessional is that and why does he always do it to me? Anyhow did the work out thing afterwards listening entirely to Flipsyde's "Someday" which for whatever reason rather motivated me. Then plugged home and did a little homework and wrestled with my e-mail which for whatever reason was making Word docs unrecognizable. That's MSFT for ya.

Met Sean for lunch at Country Kitchen where we think that the waitress mighta (keyword there) been interested in me. She was kinda cute so maybe see about stopping by Country Kitchen again sometime for a lunch. Not like I've got much to lose eh?

Then Sean and I moved two vehicle loads worth of stuff from the old church office to the new church office. This took the entire afternoon and was a ton of work. I earned my lunch today!

Kicked back now and am studying some Exalted stuff as I ponder how the various players in history view the Usurpation and the curious thought of how powerful First Age Exalts were. Plus I am finding interesting places to send my PCs this fall.

Word of the day: Trondheim

Procrastination towards Self Improvement?

So as little personality tests go we have the postive but then there's also the negative. I'm almost more curious to see what people think my negative attributes are (hey, I can find a lot more on that list to describe myself then on the postive one, go figure).

Back to practicing on that bloody powerpoint. Although actually I think it flowed pretty well just too short by half...

LOL

I'm gonna shamelessly post this article from the Onion that mentions this glorious city of Stevens Point. Katy found it first as I cannot claim to regularily peruse the Onion these days.

Today Feels Like Thursday

It does. I keep thinking the week is almost over when it is only halfway done. Weird thing is that this week has been pretty structured so it really should make more sense then that.

Random good note: volleyball went well! I got enough people out to do 3 v 4! Really humorously if Al, Steph, and Evie had been in town we could have done 5 v 5. Makes me feel slightly less alone when I think about it. Sometimes Stevens Point can feel very empty in summer.

Anyhow, I am currently procrastinating on my powerpoint presentation for CIS480. Actually I managed to put more stuff in there then I thought I would. Hope noone is terribly bored by this though. Granting since we are meeting at 7:30 AM I am not sure half the class will even be really awake.

Found out Seth is going to China the end of summer. Knew it was a possibility he'd be going that soon but somehow didn't really realize it. He'll be gone two years and I suppose it's pretty unlikely he will be able to get home much during that time. Two years is a long time. I haven't a clue where I'll be in that time.

Not much else to talk about. Life is pretty quiet really.

Memoirs noone will read

Saw Memoirs of a Geisha with Amber on Saturday night. It was quite good despite being a slower movie. Rather confusing a lot of the time, probably make more sense to watch it through again. I'd highly recommend it but be aware it is a slower movie! It's a strange thing to look at in perspective because Japan's whole culture shifts radically as the movie goes.

Funny, I felt like I had more to say at the moment but I don't. It's Lars' birthday today so happy birthday to him (think it's his 727th or something, he's old).

Volleyball tonight at 6:15pm. The more the merrier!

Carl's D & D Rnd 3

Here is the link. It was pretty fun. We're finally 2nd level!

On a side note, if you're bored go look at the personality test link below and rate what you think about me. Com'n, please :D

Something to do

So I was reading Katie's blog and found an interesting page she had discovered called a Johari Window. So if you're bored check this out and participate.

Make it Three

Here's something I bet you didn't know. (If it's no longer 6-24-06 you'll have to find that page in the APOD archives I'm afraid.) Pluto has three moons. Charon, Nix, and Hydra. The last two just got names. Pretty interesting stuff.

In a slightly more random topic, I ran my first X11 app today.

Slightly More Useful Content

Well seeing as Allison needed to go to bed early I actually have some time that isn't very late at night. This week has been a lot of late nights as I've been hanging out with Jamie as she's been house sitting (the place has 3 dogs and 3 cats all who are relatively friendly so it's a lot of fun playing with them and chatting with Jamie), and of course there was Dani's D & D game in there. Plus CIS480 has begun so that has consumed some time and will certainly begin to eat up more and more as time goes on.

I finally got and set up my wireless router so this post is coming via my wifi network. I'm pretty proud even tho I did have trouble setting up (modem needed to be reset). I got it up and running now tho so finally I have flexibility.

I've been re-watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (1st Gig). It's one of those shows that hide a fair amount of subtly in it and rewatching dredges up a lot of things that might otherwise be missed. I am also seriously enjoying the music by Yoko Kanno. She by far is one of the best artists I've listened too.

Speaking of music after watching Hero monday I downloaded the soundtrack. It's kind of sad one so I had held off on getting it til now but there was one track that really reached out to me. It's called "Gone With Leaves" and it reminded me greatly of "Metamorphis Pt 1" by Phillip Glass. Turns out the composer of the Hero soundtrack, Tan Dun, is a student of the Phillip Glass' style of music. Feel pretty proud I caught that.

Well that's all for now. This week was really pretty enjoyable and I hope the rest of my summer is as good.

Keeping Busy

Sorry there hasn't been much content of late. I've been swinging between keeping busy and sitting around and I really can't motivate myself to stay focused of late when I am sitting around.

Dani's D & D Rnd 3

Here is recap of last night's game.

I've finally finished reading the geography section of the FR corebook so I've moved onto the Underdark which is somewhat shorter and much less thorough sadly. Maybe they will eventually do more on the Underdark.

Live from B240

Just finished creating our first presentation for CIS480. I'll be giving it tomorrow morning so wish me luck. I hate presenting but I'll only have to do it 2 1/3 times this summer so it's really not so bad. Plus I'll get the two of those done tomorrow and a week from tomorrow. That'll be nice at least. I don't mind being quasi-in charge as it's probably more practical for me to be that since I am around and have more free time but I still hate speaking in front of a group even one that's only 10 people including myself!

In the meantime Congress continues to be distasteful: they voted themselves a $3300 raise and then shortly thereafter voted down raising the minimum wage above $5.15 an hour. Gee I'm glad that they have their priorities straight there and are looking out for their constituents especially since we know most Congressman barely make ends meet. Think it's about time we ammended the Constitution to not let Congress set their own wages and promptly hack them down to enough to cover living expenses and that's about it.

It's been a pretty busy week but highly enjoyable thus far. Here's hoping the rest of summer is as good!

CIS 480 Begins

Well this next 8 weeks may very well be quite crazy. The task we've been given is quite doable but I have no doubt I'll be learning a lot as I go through it and I'd hazard a guess that my partners are in the same boat. It's a little strange basically working with people rather then getting a coding project but reality is that working with people is probably key to any job out there.

So here we go!

Sunday

Well Carl's D & D game was cancelled due to it being Father's Day. Didn't find out til today but everything worked out well. Kicked back a little bit and beat C & C Red Alert 2 and then sort of moved onto to the expansion. Had a friend over and watched Hero. The more I watch it the better I realize Hero is. The "yellow" scene with the leaves and the "green" scene in the throne room and by far my favorite scenes. It's such a vibrant sad movie. Discussing it we wondered if a lot of Chinese films end with most/all the protagonists dying. Haven't seen enough movies to know. *shrug*

Class tomorrow then movie at 8:30 everyone is welcome to come over. I'll turn on the A/C if there is a lot of us so it isn't so hot! Anyhow going to get ready for bed I think. Try and sack out by midnight so I will get 7 or so hours of sleep!

Upcoming Books

Well poking thru RPG.net's forums led me on a long daisy chain through DriveThruRPG and eventually at D & D's home Wizards of the Coast. The basic run down is that WotC finally opted to put a larger portion of their line into legal, albeit DRMed, pdfs. However they come at full price so it's debatable whether they will sell nearly as well as other pdfs on the site which are usually cheaper then their physical equivalents.

Anyhow I was more interested in the news coming out of Wizards on the Monster Manual IV and the Forgotten Realms supplement Dragons of Faerun. MM4 serves the base purpose of making my shifter even more useful/adaptable/overpowered and beyond that honestly doesn't serve a lot of purpose unless I run a D & D game someday and then folks aren't going to be happy because I will be able to throw something like 7.2 billion random monsters at them (albeit most easily defeated prolly by a level 15 party of 5). Dragons peaked my interest initially because it was described as Faerun's version of the Draconicom and thus I hoped it'd stat out some of the more interesting FR dragons. Alas it looks like it will be more setting information then anything else although I'll still prolly pick it up.

Alright. There you go. Random D & D news. Do with it as you wish.

FIFA

So I'm a little envious of my friends who are in Germany right now because they have the chance (at least in theory) of being able to go to a World Cup Match. I haven't seen many of the matches for this cup on tv mostly because they air on the morning and they also air (I think) on ESPN which I know longer get. The previous world cup had the benefit of being in South Korea so I would be able to watch at night. Maybe now I will get lucky since next week with classes I'll be up. Perhaps its on ESPN 2 or it might even replace the daily soaps on ABC (god forbid). I'll have to look into it. Anyhow go teams USA and England (not Britain because the Welsh and Scots get their own teams I do believe). Joga bonito!

In the meantime I am hoping it might actually rain here. Or thunderstorm. It seems that the storms are missing us sadly. Boo!

Tomorrow is Carl's D & D game. We're busy gaurding this old lady. I totally forgot to write that into the summary, oops. Something of course is afoot!

Oh Really

So I was reading Exodus 16 where God supplies Quail and manna to the people of Israel in their 40 year journey to the promised land. I was surpised to find out that manna literally means: "what is it?" It was a very surprising meaning. I always figured it meant bread or something along those lines. Obviously nowadays its connotation is that of food for the most part but it is kind of funny to think about sentences with manna replaced with "What is it?" It's also amusing that a lot of fantasy games use manna as the power for magic or what not. I guess it fits pretty well that some designer needed a mystical power source and used manna for it. Guess they didn't know what powered the magic either!

Carl's D & D 1 & 2

Read about it here.

:|

It occurs to me that this blog doesn't serve much more purpose then my ramblings about my life. I wonder if I should attempt to give it some direction...

Ouch

So just read on the Google Blog that they have released Google News in Arabic. Curious even tho I knew I wouldn't be able to read a thing. When the page loaded I had a rather painful realization. Arabic is read right to left. This I knew. HTML in its most basic form however renders top-left (ie if you do not format anything in any way it will heavily favor top left for spacing and layout). You know how much of a pain it must have been to develop that page? Guess that's why Google people get paid well!

IT

IT, originally uploaded by mirv120.

More motivational poster fun. Made this one myself with the help of Twism (being the photographer) a ways back.

Progress in a glacial sort of way

So I sorted everything out of my lower drawer where I dumped about a million papers prior to moving. Then I put my bike together. Doesn't sound like a lot but that drawer was a mess. I am pretty proud of myself. In cleaning tho I realized I need some magnets. I have a Marvin's menu and a Papa Murpht's menu and nothing to attach them to the fridge with.

I am rather excited about getting my bike together. Now I can wander around a bit more and get exercise at the same time. I'm curious to see how well I can maneuver with a backpack on my back. Throw in the factor I've hardly ridden in the past couple years to make it more interesting.

Not much else to say at the moment. Looks like this weekend it will be getting rather warm again. It really seems to be swinging back and forth on the chart. Odd.

Wednesday

Had a fairly productive day today (or yesterday). But first off I should remember to say Happy Birthday to Amber who celebrated Tuesday.

Went on a major shopping trip out to Wally World picking up about a million things that I needed around the apartment. Swear I spent more time looking for stuff in Wal-mart then anything else. I ran into Mary which was nice I haven't seen her in awhile. I also swung by campus and paid tutition, called what seems half a dozen people but prolly was only 1 or 2 to straighten out billing and other stuff from moving. Happily my credit bill arrived here so now I know everything is going to correct address bill wise. Wish I didn't have to pay the bills tho.

Called Lars and chatted with him about the trip at the end of summer. Trying to make sure everyone is on the same page well in advance. Now I gotta remember to send out for maps of various states in between here and there. Also called Jenny and talked very briefly with her. If only I had the spare change to make a jaunt out to Maui and visit her! Maybe in theory if I didn't do any side spending I might.

I ended up getting C & C Decade at Walmart. Hoping that'll entertain me most of the summer. A huge variety of different missions. There is a first person shooter even. The practice multiplayer is kinda strange but hoping maybe the real thing is cooler. If we get enough people to buy in might make a good LAN package. On a useful note since I already had C & C Generals we've already got an extra copy to borrow out.

Still lots to accomplish this week. Had a very long list!

"And you know what that makes us?"
"Big damn heroes, sir."

So perhaps I should give a real update

Why? I dunno.

Let's see. Class starts in a week. Well less then a week now. The apartment is more or less unpacked and has been for awhile. I am doin' the last couple loads of dishes that needed to be done so they'd be clean post move. Since ya know anything transported in a box using old newspapers as padding prolly should be washed prior to use.

Right now I am plugging away at Secret Soldiers. It discusses terrorism and the global response to it focusing on the special forces groups that are created to counter terrorist groups. The first three chapters are rather dry as the go over the huge numbers of active groups in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There were a lot more groups out there then I thought and a lot of them were active. In Europe alone it seems terrorist bombings were fairly common place. Hoping once I get out of the overview chapters that things will be more interesting as individual chapters cover major operations and the like.

The new apartment is very nice. Small but I honestly don't really need much more space. It'll be nice when I get wi-fi set up so I can compute out in the living room tho. I have a full size couch! Yay for that. I can sprawl out and watch tv! Or read or write or whatever else. Have to get Twism over to see if it causes nap induced nightmares however. On a side note one of my random strident goals is to clean the place partially/fully every weekend so that it stays pretty nice.

That's all for now. Need to try and finish up dishes.

Dani's D & D Rnd 2

Decided I'd post these on the other blog I use very occasionaly for RPG related rambling (lot of quasi-theory stuff) rather then make everyone else scroll past. Here.

Brief

Happy Birthday Evie. Been kinda disorganized of late hence why haven't posted much. Will try and get things together this week and write some more. Is all for now I'm afraid.

Finally the Interweb

Yea so I've finally got cable in the new place. No wireless yet, need to find a cheap wi-fi router. Not in a huge hurry tho. The iMac seems to run a bit slower then the Wintel box. Maybe it's just the specific browser (Safari) but I dunno. Fool around with it some as time passes. Blogger managed to go down right after I got everything running denying me a wonderful time killing event.

Somehow this summer is lonelier then last. This probably is partially cause I was at work 40 hours a week and commuting another 10 greatly reducing the amount of time I had in the apartment. More people were around and most of them were directly in Point. Hmm.

Day in GB

So got up early (for me at least, 8:30) and visited Kara-Rae in Green Bay. It was an interesting drive. I tried to short cut by taking a county road that Hwy 10 simply passed over so had to back track and then got the same treatment by Hwy 172 in GB so ended up running a bit late.

Got there and we went to eat right next to Lambeau Field. Now I've been to County Stadium and the 95% completed Miller Park next to it but never near a major football stadium before. It's huge. Not sure I've ever seen that massive of a structure in my life (not that I can think of and I would think I'd remember). Pretty amazing. Then we pretty much toured around the city to the point where I kinda sort of have an idea where things are. Chatted, etc, etc. Hope Kara had fun sheparding me around :o

Got back in time for Dani's D & D game and that was good I made it on time because it was just me and Isaac. That report will be forthcoming. Real internet comes tomorrow as well so I am excited about that!

Summer Reading

Well since I was back home I picked up an armload of books I want to/should read this summer. Since my backlog is passing 20 books (assorted mix of novels and historical non-fiction) I figured i'd better attempt to make some headway. I grabbed all three Janisaries. I've read Janisaries in high school but it's been so long that to read the sequals I will need to re-read the original. By the end of high school I understood what Dad meant when he said he couldn't remember much about books he'd read even a couple years back. I grabbed Secret Soldiers because I've read enough bits and pieces of it that I figured I should just plow through and finish it. The first couple hundred pages thus are pretty dry but once actual operations are detailed should be more interesting. On a whim I also snagged The Dig by Alan Dean Foster. It's been awhile since I've read it but it's one of the most interesting worlds I've ever explored. That is essentially the short list. Armed Struggle is on tap if I get done. I've prolly 60-70 percent complete with it anyways. Beyond that I am unsure of what to tackle. I have 3-4 books on the Russian Front in the World War II but am unsure of which to tackle first plus I'll need to space them out.

Of course there's always side trips for RPGs. I'm still attempting to finish up the Forgotten Realms geography (all 100+ pages of it). I'm past halfway but that'll move in spurts.

Well time to read and then sleep. Have a good night all.

Sorry

Yea, computer at home was in the shop so no internet there hence the lack of posts. I get internet later this week so then I'll write some more. Maybe a little in between then but I am trying to keep busy. I brought several books from home to read so I am trying to actually work my mind muscles rather then just surf the interweb all summer.

New Digs

Well I'm at the new place, fully moved in, and mostly unpacked. It's very strange being all alone. Part of it I'm sure is also me just being unuse to the new place. Hopefully I'll have people visiting fairly often. It'll be better once I get internet next week so at least I feel slightly less cut off. The wi-fi here is weak and spotty. I'm thinking of picking up a wireless router so I can use the tablet around the place more easily.

That's all for now. Relaxing tonight!

Good Night and Good Luck

So this will be the last post from the Village. Twism left a message telling me that the Charter guy will be by to dissconnect things tomorrow morning so barring the stunningly bad wireless around here I'm SOL. Oh and also I'm moving too, yeah, that could affect things as well. Dunno when I will be getting teh Interweb in the new place. I will be just the last time I called the other people hadn't called to disconnect yet so couldn't set up a date to install. So prolly be intermittant for a week or so and then back to business as usual. Maybe I'll get lucky and have wireless nearby.

'Fraid I'm not gonna get to Carl's D & D game right away. I'll talk about it eventually, I promise (wait, most of you don't care do you? :D ).

Back to cleaning then crashing. Almost the entirety of my property is in the living room right now but still got dirty dishes!

Tyler's Gone

I enter after a marathon (nearly 12 hour) gaming session to find a place that feels empty. When I turn on the light I am greeted by singular brass key weathered by dozens of hands and thousands of entries. Then I remember, Tyler's gone. A little at a loss I go into the kitchen and check the cubboards. Sure enough his dishes are gone and the fridge is half empty. I plod down the hall. His room has been half empty for a week but last I saw it was still half covered in his things awaiting departure. There were still art prints on the wall. All gone. The room is bare. As bare as it was when I first saw it in December 2004 and pondered if I could talk Twism into rooming with me. Now it's empty again. Tomorrow I will clean and then the day after that I too will depart for a new place in a final flurry of activity.

I'll my him. This is the longest I've stayed in one place other then home and he's probably spent more time with me then any other person who isn't a blood relative. He's also probably the last roommate I'll have until (God willing) I find someone who'll spend the rest of my life. Odd thought isn't it?

So some of you might be curious about the fact that I mentioned a nearly 12 hour gaming session. I'll write on it tomorrow in between cleaning. I'm sure I'll want the break. Take care all.

Then it got very warm

So summer is def. here temp wise. Would have preferred a little longer in the 70s but ah well what can you do? Suppose it's hotter back home so at least I am a little farther north! Kinda jealous of London tho, they're still mid-60s and they were that when we were still mid-30s!

Saw X-Men 3 just a little bit ago. It was alright. Felt like kind of a letdown but I won't say quite why because them'd be spoilers.

This weekend must get on the ball cleaning out, etc, etc. This moving thing will not be much fun. Packed some stuff but don't really have enough bags/boxes so a lot will simply have to be loaded/unloaded as we go.

Reading Material

So finished Da Vinci Code yesterday. It was needless to say a quick read. Boy does the story jump around alot. All those short chapters and each ends on a cliff-hanger. Afterwhile it felt like "Character A pulled around corner and realized the light was red!!!!!!!" *cut* "Character B lifted the coffee mug to her mouth only to discover the coffee was cold!!!!!!!!" *cut* "Character C opened the door!!!!!!!!" *cut* "Character A breathed a sigh of relief as the light turned green before he even reached it but suddenly he noticed that this lane was turn only and he wanted to go straight!!!!!!" and so forth. I read it straight as much to make it easier to keep track of the plot (because re-reading a key part would impossible with everything so strung out) as to finish. Thought the ending was something of a letdown as well but interesting twists.

As for its fictional premise, well I'm a little stumped why it causes such a hubbub. I can poke holes in the theory and I don't even know all that much about such stuff. It's got no true support so people should read it for the entertainment and take it as such.

Now of course I am out of reading material here again. When I go home going to have to snag a bunch of books to bring up.

Ugh

Is this really happening? It rather depresses me that we have such thoughless people and that they pass as clergy.

D & D 1

So we kicked off Dani's D&D campaign today. We were a little short on people only three players for Dani. I felt bad for her because it really sucks when people say they are interested but don't show. Also I was afraid that we'd get beat down. However things started off pretty quick. We had me (aka Vor), Isaac (aka Koa), and Sean (aka Damien). Shifter, Pally-whacker extreme and a Cleric of Corellan Larethian. Isaac's knowledge of D&D is amazing as his character is extremely well twinked so the fact we were half the original party size wasn't a problem. In fact we're darn lucky (except Dani whose job is harder!) that Isaac knows his way around so well!

Anywho we started out with a quasi-intro to other teams and the organizers of this little event. The event btw is an interplanar tournament. The intro was nice I got to see many of our opponents and therefore can impersonate them. I love large groups of creatures, new forms for wild shape. We get ourselves situated in our own homebase pocket dimension. Then take off to our first event which is a mission on the material plane. The basic set up is that a ghost dragon (w00t new form!) who wants revenge on his silver dragon brother who murdered him. Without much dilly dally we manage to locate and arrive at the dragon's cave but Damien and Vor prolly didn't quite do a ton.

The next event was on Gehenna and was a bit more interesting. My corollax lasted approx 1 round before being charred. Ended up sending my grimlakin far away for safety. In the meantime as we got surrounded by two pyroclastic dragons I atempted to use the form of a diamond golemn for combat but was a little dissapointed as his really nice 60/+3 DR wasn't good enough against wyrm level dragons! So eventually did my bemusing trick of imitating my enemies (Dani didn't see this coming). It worked ok. I'm a lot harder to kill because I'm immune to element based attacks but due to my limit of being only able to go up to Huge size at the moment I could not do much damage! Koa again proved to be badass but Damien got some nice touches in with his holy longsword (nothing like dinking for holy damage regardless what DR soaks up otherwise). Also got a new 1 HD Animal Companion to replace Russ Feingold (yea my corollax was named after Democratic senators from Wisconsin and now it seems my 1 HD creature will traditionally retain the fine name of Russ and hopefully the new incarnation a pyro salamander thingy will last slightly longer!)

An interesting start, Dani's gonna have her work cut out for her. I'm highly interested in the MM3 now just for more creatures to emulate but also need to examine current MMs! Want to try to do stuff other then mirror Dani's opponents. Well next game will be in 2 weeks!

Awesome

I got 3 As, A-, and a B this semester. One of my best semesters GPA wise ever. I feel slightly smarter already!

Summer

So I've realized one thing I rather miss with school is having a set schedule. Since work only has me on call (and not even sure how that has/will sort out, might pan out to nothing) I don't really have any schedule. Hopefully it'll straighten out a bit more come the start of CIS 480-I'll go back to wishing I didn't have class again- or otherwise in general I will come up with a routine that I can follow.

I borrowed The Da Vinci Code from Al. Curious to see if it's very good. Need stuff to read. Shouldn't go and pick up any more RPG books for awhile tho. Especially since I don't actually have regular lab hours (*cries*). Ah well, restraint is good. Guess the whole theory of not buying any is pretty much by the wayside eh? Ah well, I'll hold off for awhile now. Nothing terribly pressing that I want anyhow (yea, that'd be a cop out but it works).

Anywho, that's about it for now. Dani's game starts tomorrow night. I'm excited. She's gonna use spell resistance a lot in her creatures so that'll make it a little easier for non spell casters. (Twas my complaint about her last game although honestly I just made a character who really couldn't deal a lot of damage and that was about all I had planned to do with him. We'll hope this one does a better job at bein' useful!) Granted my character can cast some divine spells bein' a druid so I shouldn't talk :D

Less then 7 months to December

Well slipped by 22 without having too bad of a day impressively enough. Can assert to the claim I have the bestest roommate ever :D

Not much to report. Twism moved a lot of his stuff out tonight so it's a little emptier here. It makes me sad. But he'll be just down the way (the bustling port of Port Edwards!).

In the meantime I have been amusing myself by reading RPG motivational posters on an RPG.net thread. Now about half of them would only make sense to gamers but some of them are just downright generically funny.

Yea anyhow. That's all for now. Denver in less then 3 months!

if (Today == 20.5) then MyAge++

This def. amuse me. Pulled off of RPG.net's forums.

Hehe

Yea, Brent made one too. I actually didn't realize that his sign wasn't real (ostensibly because I am not very bright) and found this by accident in between helping half the SOE people burn their SOE portfolios to CD this morning. Needless to say it amused me as well.

Go here if you'd like to generate your own.

In other news, now I am officially done for the spring: work and classes!

Finally Finished...Sort of

Yea, work tomorrow. Joy oh joy. Then I am done. Gonna end up helping Allison move though so that will keep me busy and hopefully getting a chance to hang out with Jamie too. Oh and meet with what would nominally be most of XA leadership for the fall. Saturday there is lunch with the CO and then more moving and Filteau/Lord Westensee's grad party. Busy busy next couple days. Prolly getting up early to help out at church too. For all the crap Sean and I give each other we do get along well and I'd like to help him out since he's basically running the show Sunday. It's a lot and I know I'd appreciate the help in his spot!

Pirate Mike gave me the Futurama commentaries and they are loads of fun. I've seen the episodes enough that I can actually piece together what is going on along with the commentaries. Def. be a nice thing for going out west.

Anyhow, that's all for now.

Pong

So a little b-day celebration for Lena involving going out to eat, margaritas, and of course beer pong. Happy Birthday to Lena now too cause it is the 17th. She's 23 now which means for 3 days or so she is actually 2 years old then me rather then one. :D

Random thing: saw a picture of Brent's fiancee and it's kinda funny but she looks about what I thought she'd look. Is that strange? Yea, that's a bit random, oh well. She looks nice and that's good. Hope Brent has found a good match.

Anyhow. Really should get to bed. Haven't studied history at all which means I need to devote a huge amount of time to it tomorrow and then actually take it. Lotsa stuff to do. Really didn't get much done today. Tonight was fun tho.

Yay

One of those moments where it feels like God may be watching over me but heard back from my new landlord and I can move in a day early so although it will still be a crazy time switching things over. Yay for that.

End of Things

Finals week always feels strange. The regular schedule is gone. Everyone is getting to leave. It's all that change and for whatever reason it never feels quite good. Not that most people aren't ready for a change. Heck I suppose even I am (resistant as I am to change). Maybe it's mostly cause suddenly things aren't so set in stone that throws me at ease. I can't say that next week I'll be in the CPS Mon at 3 and CIS332 at 10 on Tues.

All that said I am wondering if it's gonna be a lonely summer. I think this year I hung out with more people on campus then last year. Plus last summer Lars was around and Tyler was still in the house (if at random intervals). Ah well guess I'll just have to roll with it eh? Suck it up and find stuff to do.

GITS is almost done and it's getting pretty good. It sort of wallowed in the middle as they took their time developing the plot. A bunch of very casual storylines linking up. Now everything is all together and things are certainly interesting. Plus there's an android named "Frodo" (I think) who really like a lot like Legolas and I am wondering the GITS SAC Committee got a little too into LotR when they made this.

Anyhow guess I'd better attempt to tackle that Carter stuff. Ah productivity, take my mind off it's own random philosphizing!

Two Down

Two finals down, 3 to go but none til Wed night. That means I'm sort of free but not as I need to meet with Lena to do carter stuff and I have work as well. Ah life.

Found out my new apartment will prolly not be open until June 1st which is a frustrating change because now I will have to play musical furniture. Next week will be nuts, oy.

That's it for now :o

Halftime for Jose Manuel

Yea, the User Manual is complete, total, and fantastically idiotic waste of time. Really. However it's also my final so it'll get done. Really only about 36 hours left and then 358 is over. Not much else to talk about, that's all I did today. Also too fried to write much. Maybe Monday afternoon I'll get a big content burst.

Update Update: Little ice pellets assualted me enroute to Amber & Evie's. Not quite snow but sheesh, I nearly had to scrape off my car in the middle of May? Brings back memories of this.

Update: My, they do look like white and flurrieish those rain drops. :D

I'm curled up listening to Christmas music, watching it rain (and wondering if the snowline will drift a little further south) and I feel pretty good right now.

Progress

So I looked at my DPR today just to see if they had straigthened out my whole Major w/emphasis thing. They had. So when I looked at my DPR for the first time it said OK for every graduation requirement (it takes into account classes in progress or registered). That feels nice. I'm almost done. That's good too because the CIS department seems be crumbling around the students so getting out is probably a good thing.

It's nice to have some news in what has otherwise been a pretty blah week. Only one week left tho, just gotta grit the teeth and hold the course.

Engel Schläge

Not a lot to talk about. If you're bored you might find this interesting. Or not. Sort of a project of mine but gets worked on in spurts.

Not much new. Kind of suddenly want to be out of here but obviously that's not pratical.

In the meantime nothing particularily new or of interest. Sort of suffering from writer's block at the moment so hence this...

Alternative

So here's an alternative history: what if FDR instead of the whole New Deal militarized the country to help stimulate the economy during the Depression? Sort of along the lines of Nazi Germany but without the nasty Nazi stuff. Producing a large military aparatus would certainly bring the country out of its funk. Afterall it worked for the Germans and later worked for the US in actual history. The alternate thought could be that the US annexes most of Central America and the Carribean and when the Second World War breaks out is a massive military force spread across most of North America (barring Canada) and chunks of South America.

It would be a curious change of events!

Good ol' days

Played Mario Kart with Folky, Billy, and Barry. Man I miss those Tuesday nights. We'd all pile into Eric and Steiner's room and try and kick Steiner's butt. Then we'd get schooled and force him to battle pummelling each other with a multitude of bombs until it look like Hiroshima in rainbow colors. I needed that cause Friday afternoon really fused me over and that was unexpected. Still a little burnt out (oh to run away for the weekend but I have stuff that needs to get done in theory) but at least I feel better. I wish we coulda kept playing, bombs flyin' everywhere is just sheer good clean fun!

I came up with a brilliant (IMHO) use for the billions of excess dice d4-d20 sized that us gamers have. I created a game called: Dice's Revenge at work this morning. I personally think it's pretty cool. The basic rules are only a page long. I have about a page worth of optional rules tho. Prolly gonna expand on the optional stuff. Add complicated things. Yes, I am making supplements. Yes, I am kinda pathetic like that. No, you don't have to play it but I think gamer's might find it amusing. Heck for me I have a couple pounds worth of dice so I created it so I might find a use for my excess dice. I'll prolly post the rules at some point.

Did not get enough homework done today. Somehow have to do it tomorrow. I hope. Did manage to half watch the last 12 episodes of X. Think the first half was a little better actually but I've seen it all now so pretty cool that.

Anyhow Abby is comin' over and we're gonna go for a walk so I can burn off some more energy/stress and maybe vent.

Meanwhile the dice are planning their revenge!