Dust

Ok, I actually don't have much to say. Just that the wall of stress that had hit me seems to have gotten slightly lighter. This probably not the case but maybe I am finally adjusting to my semester schedule a little bit.

I am re-watching Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig (ie season 2). Boy I am picking up a lot more. I think this might be because I am aware of the overall arc of the story so I am watching for things early on that explain things later on. Plus just re-watching usually seems to add new bits of information just about every time. Makes me wonder about just how little we take in when watching something. I can still occasionally catch new things in Firefly and I've watched that several times. Additionally I am really enjoying the musical score, it does a fantastic job at highlighting key points to the show and setting the mood.

Anyhow, better get back to working on homework and such. I am making an attempted effort to actually do a lot of my reading this semester since I work so much and don't really have much else on my plate school wise.

Junta in Thailand

I have to admit as soon as the news referred to the new Thai government as a junta all I could think of was the game. Ironically one of the governments (I think Denmark) referred to these events as like those of a bananan republic. Better warn people over there to watch out for the Interior Minister!

Spur

I just picked up GITS 2nd Gig. That was rather spur of the moment of me. Then again of late I really feel like I need something to take my mind off stuff. So much for the last semester being non-stressful.

Arr

It's talk like a pirate day matey! Garsh!

Der

Why is that whenever Islam feels its under attack by the West for claiming they are a violent religion they riot violently in response to the injust claims? Oy.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Muppet Theater

"I" sing!

Not sure how to title this

Slate.com did a graphic novelish representation of the 9/11 Commission Report. While it'd be good if people went and read the book it can be a bit dull and dry at times. I actually thought the "comic" was a joke at first but it's not and it seems fairly detailed. You can find it here. It may still take awhile to read. I stopped halfway through the first section. It still stands that if you have the time you should read it. Afterall it is the official look at the events of 9/11 and surrounding it and democracy does function on us being educated.

Armed Struggle

Lately life has been kinda surreal for me. Today the sunlight seemed to help to cut through it a little bit. I hate the start of the semester if mostly cause I have to find my footing. Knew it'd happen and it still seems to throw me. Oh well. Pete Yorn is a pretty decent musician. I am enjoying one of his songs free and he had on a soundtrack I bought way back that became one of my "London Hits", ie a song I discovered digging through my iPod music files while abroad. Good stuff. Also good stuff: a couple of my books are shipping including the Ennegram book so now we have one in Stevens Point not tied to one of the wayward XA leadership folks. Then again maybe I am a wayward XA leadership type til end of December. Who knows. My curiosity is: if leadership sucks this much informally how much does it suck professionally? Maybe CEOs get paid boatloads of money because all they do is meet with people as powerful as them. That would be most unfun.

Random theology thought I've had of late. Why do we need all these incredibly big words and confusing stuff relating towards God? I mean theology, philosphy, etc, etc all seem to try explain what Jesus did with simple parables. It strikes me that what is happening is that humans in their attempts to both understand and be superior to each other have created a field that while it attempts to explain God pushes many farther from it especially those who don't have that kind of high extreme end thinking. It just seems to me that when Jesus and then His disciples after Him could explain things in relatively simple terms so that all could understand and do it to a satisfaction that God would enshrine their works for all to read that we should do the same or else we simply distort/diminish/hide the true message from others. I suppose its bound to happen either way but I just think that maybe some very fervent people are helping the enemy by getting overly technical on things. I doubt this will change anyone's position but that's ok. The faith lives regardless the people and how they believe and that's what matters.

Huh, that was long. Did I mention I really like Pete Yorn's music? The new song has been looping throughout this. Impressive eh? So yea. This is a long content heavy post. You know what's really sad? Some employer might look through this and judge me unhirable. Does this thing really accurately portray me well enough to determine my employment? What an odd world we live in!

"This honored comrade's identity rests with God." We were still there 62 years ago and we're still here 5 years later. Faith manages.

Stimuli

"What was it like being dead?"
"It was alright. No sales tax!"

Ah rvb you made me chuckle again.

So in the news or something like that I've ordered all three of The Red Star graphic novels. I was very impressed with the artwork that Green Ronin used for the RPG of the same name and the story is intriquing. I am pretty excited for that.

Incidentally I also pre-ordered Makeshift Miracle from Zub as he just opened it up for pre-orders. I'm rather vague on the story but he is a phenomenal (spl?) artist. I'm mostly familiar with his work through UDON for Exalted but after perusing his liverjournal for past year or so I've also enjoyed his random sketches. They are amusing and fun to look at. For awhile I think one of my icons was of his sketches of an Invader Zim character.

So I am really pumped about this fall because I should get some outstanding looking graphic novels to read. That's all for now.

Stutter Step

Somehow I am already off-balance this semester. Maybe I am always like this the first couple weeks I just never quite remember it from semester to semester. I usually adjust a little slower then most to change and naturally this is a big change. Suddenly I have work and classes to manage and mentally I have gotten times a little off. Work is slow initially and that is probably good.

It's tough because this is the point a lot of people jump "gung-ho" into the school year while I prefer to ease slowly in. So in a couple weeks I'll look back and this slump and wonder what I was thinking. Until then, who knows.

Classes will be interesting I think. History 212 will probably be pretty dull. I am hoping my other history class (215 I think) will be better but considering that it is a 200 level class I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath. Rel 101 might actually be something of a mental challenge. It also tackles the major religions from an academic standpoint which is kind of tough for me. Part of me will most likely chafe as Christianity is played out as no different as any other belief system. Ah well, that's secular schools for you and it's good growth to be able to step back and analyze your own beliefs and those of others. WDMD 305 may be very interesting. The normal Prof up and resigned end of July and the old head of the CIS department got pulled in to take over. Alas he has a very different teaching style and teaching philosphy then the previous prof. The old one was more focused on design and using Dreamweaver (prolly the most used professional web development software). This prof is instead eschewing Dreamweaver for mostly hand coding and doing stuff with PHP, MySQL, and a little Cold Fusion. I'm fine with all that it shouldn't be too much of a challenge except maybe the PHP which apparently he thinks all of us have taken WDMD 301 (and thus are fairly familiar with it) when we all haven't. CIS Web emphasis and WDMD Minors don't nessecarily need to take it. I also gather that WDMD majors didn't understand it all that well because a lot of WDMD is design. Basically it looks like the Prof is ignoring how the major is set up (whether for right or wrong) and following his own beliefs. I guess I'd prefer to go the design route but from my CIS standpoint the coding aspect is probably more practical.

In other news my Dolphins are losing 14-10. Chambers hasn't gotten any catches so I am sad. He's been targeted thrice but hasn't been able to reel one in yet. The D looks kinda weak sadly. Culpepper seems to be doin' ok. The Fins kick/punt returner/WR is pretty talented. I might pick him up if I have some slacking receivers. Have to watch him for a week or two tho.

In brief gaming news I am prepping for Brady's Eberron game by getting familiar with the world. I like some of the concepts for it but overall am skeptical on the setting. I rather prefer Forgotten Realms over it although Forgotten Realms has a lot of issues on its own. Makes me want to develop my own setting. But yeah, that'll probably never happen.

That is all.

Jump Around

So despite having, in theory, a relatively easy schedule today (and my schedule in general) has been kind of crazy. It's def. been worse but there is a prototypical amount of mayhem that must just be required for first day of classes. Fer instance: my work schedule is slightly different then I was given so I actually had more free time then I thought. It's a plus that. To balance out I logged into work this morning set up my work account (so I can get paid) which included setting a password and promptly forgot the password completely. So now I have to wait for admins to change the password and they are doubtless swamped with a million and seven things cause it's the first day.

This weekend now I am shootin' home to get the CRV cleaned up from the road trip (CRV sayeth: "Hoorayeth!") but at the same time Al & Steph are out of town this week so they really need people there to help out at church. Normally Carl could fill in and do my job just fine-it's relatively easy and all- but Carl is gone this weekend hence why I am going home.

Like I said, kinda crazy. I'm sure it'll all work out. Especially if I write down my password this time...

Football Season Begins

Ah you know the football season is right around the corner when the Fantasy Football drafts are abound. Tyler and I did a couple drafts so I'll have an interesting season keeping tabs on things.

Despite having two days without classes my schedule still looks to be fairly busy. Work's 14 hours really fills a lot of time too. Here's hoping for a good semester!

One Semester Left

One day of summer left and then I've got one last semester of school. Crazy.

Oh funny

Brits do have more fun especially when it comes to the names of their ministers!

Work

Work schedule is in and it's not too bad. Worse thing is I am working in the LRC. This is something I had hoped to avoid. I also work at 0700-0900 but oddly enough this doesn't bother me much. I can sleep in a lot on this schedule so getting up early will be good discipline for me and will hopefully also keep my sleep schedule in decent check. Mostly you just hear stories about LRC so would prefer not to deal with that.

Have 7 hours in the CPS in 4 & 3 hour shifts Mon/Tues. Won't be bad tho and might be easier depending on if Prof's reserve the main lab alot. We shall see. I work under Dani in South Quad on Thursday evenings so that should be interesting. Ironically I will have now worked over half the different labs I think. It'd be close. I've worked North, South, UC, CCC, CPS, LRC & (N)FAC. That leaves Allen, HEC, CNR, CAC, & SCI. Pretty close I guess. We have a lot of computers labs. Swarms in fact.

Final thoughts on things. It's a good schedule. I get Wed & Fri off as requested. I got the weekend off for the first time. I figured I'd still get that cause I am still vaguely low in the ranks. Can't complain and just gotta hope things go smooth in the LRC. Oh and my later LRC shift I've got one of the LRC LC's with me anyways so that should smooth things out anyways.

All in all I am happy I got a lot of time in the CPS (even sans Filteau should be fun) and a shift under Dani (I love knowing my boss, makes life so much easier knowing their tolerances and making them happy.) Looks to be a good way to end things!

Changes

Wow. Def. realizing that I miss being around the girls after hanging with them for so long. Funny thing cause I know I wanted some alone time but at the same time it's strange not having them, Lars, and the two dogs around. Ah well, a couple days and they'll be back in town.

In the meantime I've cleaned things up a bit and organized a little for school. Got my books today and then hung out with Carl. Carl got the Colossal Red Dragon "mini" from Wizards today. Now keep in mind in D & D the average medium size person mini takes up a one inch by one inch square that is equal to 5 feet. Now Colossal creatures are something liek 30+ feet tall/long. So consider that this dragon has a base that is 5 inches by 5 inches and it's prolly close to a foot tall. Really gives a good impression of scale in a game. The gargantuan black dragon looks tiny next to it cause well colossal is twice its size.

In the meantime while enjoying that I watched Troy crushes 5 others in Monopoly. Man, it's been forever since I've seen that game played. Crazy times.

Tomorrow might get to hang with Kara and then a work meeting all afternoon. Here's hoping they actually paid attention and didn't schedule me Wed & Fri!

Balls' Gang Goes to Denver

Well this could be a long post so grab a drink, something to snack on, a pillow if you get bored and fall asleep easily, and a squeaky tennis ball to amuse yourself with, last week myself and three girls went west to find Lars, mountains, and Nebraskan cornfields. Events may end up slightly out of order, alot happened what can I say?

So funny story about heading out. See we were expecting it to take about 24 hours to make it there so we timed things so we'd leave here about noon and get to Denver about noon. By about Nebraska we realized we were going to get there early, say 10 or so. By Colorado we realized we were going to get there really early, say 5:30 or so. So after the excitement of Kum & Go in Iowa and Nebraska by Night (White Wolf really needs to make that supplement for one of their games, I'll write it for them if need be) we hit Denver about 4:30 AM. We killed time by having an hour long breakfast but still arrived at Lars' place in the foothills at 6:30. So we enjoyed the sunrise over Denver and the scenery and then played cards in the driveway until John's (Lars' uncle) girlfriend came out of the house and discovered 4 college kids sitting there.

Which leads us to day 1: the girls napped in the morning but wanting to be on a normal sleep schedule I opted to stay awake. I met Lars' uncle John and played with Jabez and Mickey (John's dog) a little. Then Lars and I headed down to Denver to get some food and check out Valhalla's Games which was going out of business. Now they had a nice deal since they were going out of business, if you bought more then $400 dollars of stuff it was half-off. Lars and I figured we could find enough stuff between the two of us and went all out. I picked up over half a dozen books, plus Junta (which Aprill rather enjoys and after playing it I concur), the Star Munchkin expansion, and some other random stuff. Lars got Ninja Burger, some minis, a mat (for the minis), and another board game which I forget what it was called (Knight Warriors?). All in all I was pretty excited. I'll post the RPG book haul over on the gaming blog if you are interested. Afterwards we all went to Casa Bonito for dinner. It was a very interesting Mexican theme restaraunt. By this time I was dog tired however having been up nearly 40 hours and having driven halfway across the country, and deprived of my normal oxygen count and sacked out.

Wednesday Lars had us going down to Sox Place to help volunteer. It is a place for street youth to get a meal and hang out during the day. I was kind of nervous cause this could be pretty people interactive volunteering and with a category of people that through travelling I have been taught to give as much of a wide berth as possible so not exactly my thing. We helped clean and organize the place and then just kinda watched and talked to the kids coming in. They were an interesting bunch, not all that much different from your average group of people in the end. Not sure it's something I'd do again but certainly wasn't a wasted day and it was nice to be able to help out there. They do great stuff there. In the end once again we were bushed but first we made a meal for John, Brigit (his girlfriend), and Lauren (his daughter). It was good stuff. Then kinda crashed again as our bodies were still looking for oxygen.

Thursday we headed for the mountains. Or higher up since Lars lives in the foothills. Our specific target was Mt. Evans a 14,258 foot (according to the little bronze marker at the top) giant just up the road from Golden. The cool thing was it had a paved road right up to about 100 feet below the summit so we could "climb" it with relative ease. Or we could bike it like the dozen or so people were doing. It was very cool to do if a bit unnerving to realize your car is less then a foot from a couple hundred foot vertical drop at times (Dad's wariness of heights has worn off on me). We saw various mountain fauna, the mountain goats in particular had taken over the burned out restaraunt at the summit. After rolling down in neutral because Lars was nearly out of gas we at Beau Jo's Pizza in Idaho Springs. Great pizza! The irony was a couple hours later we headed over to Lars' godparents for supper. They had made another huge meal for us which we somehow managed to consume. That evening Lars and I kicked back in the hottub and enjoyed life (yea, you're jealous, admit it).

Friday we helped do some cleaning at Red Rocks Church which is where Lars is involved at. It was pretty simple stuff and it got us lunch. Their set-up is very interesting. They are in an amusement park set up by a mining company to dampen noise from their mining. It was the only way the city of Golden would let them mine the area. So it was a church in a small themepark. It was still pretty big. After that we visited the Colorado Mills mall and I found Alex a birthday present (The Lorax, which Al and Steph had, shockingly and appallingly, never heard of). Then we returned home for a relaxing night. The girls and I took advantage of the hot tub while Lars ran some errands.

Saturday Lars and the girls went to go volunteer at the Orphan Exchange. This meant they had to get up incredibly early while I got to sleep in because I was going to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins in Aurora. It was going to be an interesting day driving for me though because I was gonna have to cut across Denver to get to Aurora. The highlight of that drive was I25 with 12 lanes of traffic moving at 5 mph. I made it there fine though and spent some quality time with the relatives. It's a little strange around my cousins as they find me as a giant jungle gym and I'm not really used to that. Hopefully I wasn't to much trouble for my aunt and uncle. They cooked me a great meal though so I drove home nice and full.

Sunday we headed over to church early and it was a good thing too. The place was packed. A couple hundred people at least. I still like Evergreen more but it was a nice sermon and all. Worship band was quite good. Totally unuse to sitting in the crowd rather then lurking in the back. We then explored the theme park a bit and then headed over to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Yea that Red Rocks, where the Beatles first played in America, where Dave Matthews, U2, and just about anybody whose ever been good has played. Its huge. You get winded walking up the stairs. Lars, Lauren, and Chris would run it three times a week in the summer. I wish I was that kind of physical shape. I took everyone out to eat at one of Lars' favorite places in Denver (The Yardhouse). It was great food and I got calamari! Yay! We took the rest of the day as an R & R day and went back and played games: Junta, Ninja Burger, and Blokus. Lots of fun. Junta's a blast. You get to assasinate close friends or overthrow them in a coup. Good clean family fun.

Monday was our departure day. It was also Lars' first day of class so he was gone all day. We milled around watching tv and cleaning up a bit. We weren't leaving til 6 that night so it was kind of a strained day in ways. We were sad to be leaving but happy to be going home and we didn't have anything to do til then. Eventually we hit the road and 16 hours later were back in Stevens Point. On the way Aprill did find her Iowa dip and we did have the crazed fun of staring at our cell phones waiting for them to switch time zones automatically in Nebraska. Kat never did get her picture of Nebraska cornfields because we never we actually in Nebraska during daylight hours.

All in all it was a great trip. We never got to the point of wanting to kill each other. Sometimes we needed a break from each other, especially me I suppose since I live alone now I am used to having a lot of personal space but everything turned out fine. I couldn't have gone out with a better group of friends or stayed with a better friend (and his relatives). So here we are back and school is just about to start. I'm actually pretty lonely, life is strange after spending a week with 3 cute girls and two very attention demanding dogs. Ah well the wheel keeps turning and I got a squeaky ball out of it :)

Home Safe

Back home but very tired. More about Amander the Pirate, Meow, and Balls tomorrow when I have slept!

Rocky Mountain High

Well Denver is going pretty well. It's fun but tiring at the same time. Lars has kept us busy out here. Today we're probably gonna hit a Rockies game after church which should be a nice relaxing way to finish things off. As much as I like it out here I do miss home as well so looking forward to the flatness of Stevens Point. This is after all the Pointer not the Buffaloer!

On the road again

I'll be going west for a few days. Noone burn down the place while I'm away, k? If you are bored you could always go to here(gaming) or here. Now I must go help collect cans on Jupiter. Peace out ya'll!

Busy weekend

Ok so I am gonna include Friday in this "weekend" mostly cause with class finally being done my schedule is somewhat mixed up and days are all cluttered in my head.

Friday I helped Brady moved from his old house to new house. It actually was pretty fun. Nice to hang out with Brady (plus he bought me supper, what a class act!) since I haven't really seen much of him in awhile cause he's been up in the Cities. Also makes me want a house really bad because they are just so big. Now I have no use for a huge house but sometimes I just wish I had the space to grow into. Ah well, soon enough I will be working and can look at houses maybe.

Today I cleaned a lot. Still have dishes sitting in the sink. Always have dishes. I'm a slow dishes doer. Tonight was the last movie in the park and it was a really good time. I didn't have anything official to do so I could just kick back with Carl, Evie, Amber, and Maria and enjoy myself. Chronicles of Narnia is a great movie but reading Janisaries made me over analyze the battle. Ah, well, that's life. I even managed to not freeze to death although it was odd having to use the heat in the CRV on the way back. Most of my windows are actually shut in the apartment it's that cool!

Tomorrow the girls arrive for our big trip. Lots of random prep and meetings and such. Should be interesting.

Fooling Around

Well it turns out that the reason why current bloggers aren't able to port over to new the new blogger beta is mostly data integrity related. Alas probably means it'll be awhile before I can port over to the new system. I made a new one based off my Google Account but then managed to pick a pink template :/ The templates haven't changed sadly but there is a lot of more options for fonts and such.

Ok this post gets points for being non-sensical, sorry about that!

Tweaks & Updates

So I added some additions to the sidebar. Explore at your leisure.

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.