Solid State

The GITS SAC: Solid State Society OST (ie soundtrack) came today. It's not bad, it has a couple songs from previous shows alas with one that temptingly close to my favorite dramatic music from 2nd Gig. The Chief's theme is darned impressive. Good boost your morale music and such. I did a ton of paperwork tonight, keeping up with bills, etc, etc.

I am a little dissapointed, Death of a Journalist, the latest DMZ graphic novel (so no links today) is being delayed by Amazon. The good news is that the latest Exalted supplement is shipping early and the Halo graphic novel is coming as well. The Halo reviews are mixed but I am curious. I've seen the front cover and it's rather pretty.

And I just had a 40 min. phone convo with the sister, lost my train of thought and need to go to bed. So night!

Shadows and Phantoms

This weekend felt very lonely except for a few points. What am I doing wrong?

Spirits Within

"This was the phantom cleansing mission, it was supposed to end the war. My father's in here somewhere." - Sgt. Whitaker

So some book news although it's also RPG related. Found out why Rappan Athuk: Reloaded is so hard to get. There were only 1000 copies printed. It's been probably a year since it's came out so go figure. Kinda doubt Amazon will be able to get it for me in the end so now I am left with the problem of what to get in its stead. Part of me is tempted to go with World's Largest Dungeon but reviews are mixed and playability is limited. To do the whole thing could take 2+ years! It's longer lengthwise then Ptolus. I'll put the question out to the folks over on RPG.net and see if they have any suggestions about an alternative dungeon crawl.

In less geeky news I looked at houses today. Granted only from the outside for the most part. One house happened to have an open house so I got to go through it. It was lower on my list which probably was good cause I wasn't terribly impressed by it. My top choice thus far remains on top. Doesn't look like it much has of a yard but that might be more of a plus for me (less yardwork). Anyhow things are still early in the game so no big worries.

Well time to make sandwhiches. Hope part of this was less confusing Jamie (Side note to all: you can now get to Jamie's blog from here, see sidebar) but at least I provided links! :D

Weekends

Well lesse, my garage door won't open, my one of my shoes is half busted and Friday was a long day. Not sure what the weekend has in store for me at this rate.

I'm rewatching parts of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex. I've found its one of the few shows I can pick up (either season in fact) and just watch through most of it in a burst. Kinda odd in a way I suppose.

Not a lot new at the moment. The house search is beginning albeit slowly. Tomorrow I will probably go drive by some of the initial candidates. Also need to go shopping for news shoes. I need to get more professional shoes anyways so this pair will prolly become work out/beater shoes.

Reading continues apace, could be awhile til I finish either book. I've been waiting on Rappan Athuk: Reloaded for awhile from Amazon but I don't think it'll show. Debating buying it direct from White Wolf. It's more expensive but the book is hard to find.

That's all for now. Looks like I'll be home most of Saturday so might even get Ptolus report up.

World of Darkness

So I am running a new World of Darkness game for PointCon on that Sunday (it's early much I can't remember the date) if you any of the -2 readers care. Right now it'll either by the White-Wolf adventure "Chicago Workings" or "Nelson Hall by Night" which would be my own adventure in our lovely Nelson hall. Reader input is allowed on what I do. w00t?

Not much else to say except Scion is getting previewed on White Wolf front page. It comes out early Aprill, I'm pretty excited.

Alas yes this is a gamer oriented post. Sorry. Ptolus will be forthcoming sometime I hope.

-25

I love the warm Wisconsin winters! Anyhow, this'll probably end up a lot shorter then I'd want but tonight feels rushed for whatever reason. Some bits of news: I've finished Man-Kzin Wars IV and moved onto The Silmarillion. Going is a bit slow cause I've had to go home for lunch the past few days to sort out things with the realtor. Also Silmarillion tends to be a slow read. I've only finished the intro letter and gotten into the first part. I am 4/7ths of the way through Major Ingredients but reading has stalled some there too cause I've been crashing at night.

Might get post for Ptolus up tonight so stay tuned?

Poor Bears

But at least they made it the Superbowl!

Life and Things

(Alternate title Things and Life)
So I've been on the job a month and survived. Whee. Funniest moment: Co-worker sends his latest build report. Report: 1 error, 0 warnings. Error: Maximum Number of Errors.

Hilarious. You probably had to be there or see the screenshot. Twas great.

That's all for now. I post tomorrow maybe.

Technology

What is it of late with me and technology? I'm losing on almost all fronts and then winning on one. The iPod seems to work all of a sudden. But the receiver seems to be slowly flaking out and the previous wireless router, oft suspected of being a bit slow/timing outish, now may look golden to the 3 times as expensive on that can't push a signal out to my living room! I need to talk to Al, maybe somehow it got set up wrong or something is interfering. It worked great before so what the heck is stopping it now? Bloody technology. At least I only deal with the code end. *sigh* Anyhow going to go play some Street to calm myself down and then look at houses/make lunches for the rest of the week.

Changes

I have to admit one of the most conscientous changes I've found that reminds me I've graduated is all the shifting of e-mails from my UWSP account to my other accounts. No longer can I have notifications go to my UWSP account as that doesn't have long to live. It's a little sad. It'd be nice if the UWSP account could live on but that'd get expensive for the UW system to manage.

My wi-fi router has issues. I think in fact it's always had issues because it was a $20 refurb and I should have just gone and spent $50 on a brand new top line model. I'll probably do that now. Not sure what I'll do with the refurb. It may still function I am just not sure I care. My setup now confirms it times out semi-regularily hence the slower performance I've had with it. Not sure why it quit working last night but oh well.

I'm sick. Blah. This weekend has been rather blah. Hopefully things will look better this week, it all seems a bit grim right now.

Project Progress

So remember how sometime in the early-mid summer I started copying out D & D monsters from the books into a spreadsheet for ease of use? Well I finally finished the first mosnter manual. At this rate I suspect I'll finish by 2010 if I ever finish at all :D

File Under "Ooh"

So now the little personalized Google homepage is set up so that you can expand RSS links and read brief parts of the articles. I can read Slashdot off my Google homepage. Very cool.

The two bad things about working out in January are the double rushes: one right after the new year when all the people who resolved to be in better shape work out and thus fill up the place for a month or two and secondly the wave of college students who are essentially doing the same. By March the place is half empty. Crazy.

Possible Redecorations

Yea I know, little short burts all night. What can I say? Anyhow here is part of my efforts to unwhiten my walls. I've found my old movies posters are looking bent, folded, and sorely old (my favorite for Black Hawk Down got folded real badly so it's almost an eyesore now :/ ).

So here's some stuff off DeviantArt that's available in prints. Kinda listed them in a vague order of favorite to least...

(1) World on Fire
(2) Fishing
(3) Autumn Days (same artist as World on Fire)
(4) Road to New Atlantis
(5) The Lonely Tree
(6) Countenance

There you go. Give me your top 3. The sad thing is I was really going for my vertical then horizontal prints but I didn't find many :/

Primatech Paper

Can you get past the jobs code on this page?

Ptolus 2

The 2nd round of Ptolus is up.

School Starts Again

But not for me for the first time, well, ever. That's really odd. Looking forward to being able to spend time with people who are back though! In other news I'll have a Ptolus update hopefully tomorrow night, the PCs got a nice pile of loot so they should be happy happy. Rather surprising turnout for today's championship games today it was fun to watch: Bears vs. Colts who woulda thought? Can't call it right now!

Final note, I borrowed my unused smaller tv to Jo for the semester and now my bedroom looks really barren so thinking of getting some prints off of DeviantArt. May post the final candidates for comments from the readership(?) if anyone cares to comments. All probably tomorrow.

PS New Heroes tomorrow and a new Battlestar that was tonight (may copy it from Al & Steph).

Blog Neglect

Yup, that's what I have been doing. Ok here's my excuse: I've been busy. I come home and I have stuff I want to do even if it's just kicking back and relaxing although half the time I have legit stuff to do so it's kind of a weird mix. This weekend will probably be crazy too cause I am running Ptolus again so that'll be most of Saturday. Sunday everyone is coming back so probably (hopefully?) gonna be hanging out with them and catching up.

So what's new here? Well it finally snowed and then proceeded to get cold. Finished Assignment in Eternity and just moved into Man-Kzin Wars IV. It's been awhile since I've read one of the series so having to remember things about Niven's Known Universe. More short stories though! This is the third book in a row that is short stories. It was getting bad with Heinlein and Russell's books because some of them have very similar themes. Luckily Man-Kzin Wars are much newer (1991 compared to 40s and 50s for the other short stories) and all are set in a very specific if hugely broad setting-a huge amount of Niven's material takes place in the Known Universe which is a full universe.

The Star Trek cards came and I am geeking out on them. I'm such a nerd. But it's fun to relive the old days a little bit and I did pretty good for actually cards pulled. I won't bore you with the details (or scare any of you left who still thought there might be hope :D ). Somewhere in me there must be a strange gene that loves to organize and sort. Mom would be kind of proud I think.

Well time to read and get to bed. One day of work left this week and then (yay!) the weekend!

Nostaglia is all in the cards

Had one of those moments of nostalgia where I am remembered the old card collecting/gaming days of Star Trek and Star Wars CCG. I haven't played Star Trek since high school and we're talking freshman or sophomore years at the latest. A lot of the guys who I knew who played quit playing and thus the games dried up. I still have tons of cards and would love to play, I was unstoppable for awhile in that game, but don't know if there are any players anymore. There might not even be many players for the 2nd edition of the game. I found online that entire boxes that use to sell for $60-$80 now sell for $6-$15. (I bought some, I don't know why, for old times sake?)

Star Wars still lives on despite having no new cards or official support - Decipher has practically gone under itself. I do wish Seth and Brent were back so I could try out some decks I'm making. Probably will get crushed. Seth is a good player and has good strategies/decks (plus nice set of cards) and Brent is a good player too. But they are both far away, maybe in a couple years? (Next year in Coruscant?)

I feel like I should write something

However I haven't a clue what to write aboute. The soundtrack to 'X' came today and it's quite cool. I pretty much love the main theme which they occassionally (er a lot occassionally) beat to death in the show -ask Twism- but they also have a couple of the other pieces of music that I have discovered I enjoyed without realizing it at the time. On the "Be Human" soundtrack for GITS 1 & 2 focusing on the Tachikomas I discovered a couple pretty cool songs. Possibly the most amusing moment (in looking back retrospect) was the point where I was having a somewhat serious chat with a friend and the X Soundtrack hits the very serious moody theme. One of those odd timing things ya know?

Well that's all I got. I am plugging away through both my books. At this rate I could actually maybe run out eventually although I think once I get to The Silmarillion my pace in that area will slow and Entities or whatever I pick up next for at home will probably not roll along as fast the short stories. I really am highly entertained by Russell's ability to throw strange twists into stories. Rarely do you see what's coming at all!

Good Omens on the Street

I love making up weird titles based off what I am gonna talk about. And the major ingredients of this post are books and NFL Street so go figure!

So I finished Good Omens and it was quite funny. The end was somewhat anti-climatic but in a way that might be part of the joke. Anyhow I have moved on to Major Ingredients. It looks like I've read more of it then I remembered probably the first 3-4 stories at least maybe 1-2 more then that. It's ok the, I'm enjoying re-reading them. Russell is a very fun author to read. His stories generally have odd twists, apparently a lot odder if you read them originally in the 40-50s. I'm also starting Heinlein's Assignment in Eternity which looking at it now appears to be compilation of a couple of his shorter stories in his Future History. It's been forever since I've read The Past Through Tomorrow/The Green Hills of Earth(which is the shorter version of Past Through) so remembering that setting may be a challenge even though really the only constant is Earth in the setting.

On a random less bookish note I'm really getting into NFL Street 2 and actually improving a bit being able to pull off style moves somewhat regularily as well as crush the opponents regularily. Nice way to relax after work. Not nearly as fun as my favorite way: sleeping. :D

Well gonna read a little then crash. PS: Hi Aprill Joy (maybe I can send some readers your way!)

Wii-porting

So I got to play the Nintendo Wii last night. Pretty dang fun. Really tempted to get one although probably not this year considering my other intended purchases plus I have to fix the iPod. Talk about a game system designed to reach out to non-gamers. Evie was borrowing her boyfriend's system while he was gone for a week and she and Amber were having more fun then me. Def. works you up into a sweat in competitive games (ie Wii sports Tennis and Boxing). Madden was something of a challenge mostly because a lot of common moves are now done by motion rather then button. Practice, practice, practice I guess. Anyhow if you get a chance go and play one, you'll enjoy it.

In other news: if I haven't said so before fantasy football turned out alright. In my 3 leagues I got a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finish so I did quite well. The Bears struggling at the end hurt me a lot. Also the Rams doing awesome the last two weeks knocked me out of one championship battle. Here's to next year!

Blink

Yea, some house cleaning happening here. Namely I switched to a new template (hopefully I managed to switch my Analytics stuff too) and cleaned up the links. You'll probably notice a ton of them are gone. You'll also probably notice that you weren't really reading (or likely evening checking) nearly all of those that dissapeared. I'm trying to reign the numbers back down a little bit and weeding out blogs that have been silent for a year or more. It's sad but the pruning needed to be done. Welcome to 2007!

Random Stats

In 2006 roughly 6400 visits and 10,000 pageviews occurred on this blog. Busiest month was February with roughly a 1/10 of visits and pageviews. December was the slowest. In fact the trend was pretty downwards all year. Guess I neglected my shameless advertising.

Down to the River to Pray

Let's see. News. Aside from work. Reading Good Omens it's pretty funny. I'd highly suggest it. Next up is Major Ingredients but might be a little bit depending on my schedule. I'll be getting to bed earlier with any luck (prolly 10ish most nights) so that cuts into my reading time. I am getting Rappan Athuk: Reloaded as a late Christmas present (ie using Christmas money). It's a big old box set of a dungeon crawl. It was either that or World's Largest Dungeon which was bigger but less highly quality and reviews. I am thinking that I may keep the focus of this thing more on books as it's maybe the most interesting thing I talk about and I do it regularily anyways.

I'm eagerly awaiting the return of college friends who are gone. It's just too quiet and lonely here otherwise.

:/

First days are always some of the hardest.

One Shot: Bastion of Broken Souls

It can be read about here. Time to sleep since work begins in less then 8 hours. Wish me luck!

2007

...has arrived. Happy and safe new year everyone.

Break Update

Hokay, I should write something here before people assume I died in the snowstorm in Point. Alas I missed it completely by less then an hour. So not a white Christmas for us in La Crosse. Ah well, hopefully the snow will still be there in Point!

Anyhow Christmas wasn't too bad. Funniest gift: a measuring glass that also works as a shot glass. Talk about great for someone like me who isn't a good cook. After I botch the cooking I'll have a shot glass handy!

Other fun things: I got a big Foreman grill. Pretty exciting but I need more counter space to be able to use it. Maybe when I get a house?

Major haul comes from books. Dad and I went to Uncle Hugo's today. Yay for books (I'm a book nerd as alllllways). Got both of the Eric Frank Russell anthologies (Major Ingredients & Entities). Tolkien's: Silmarillion and the Tolkien Reader. Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings-my Dad loves this book and it is pretty funny. The "boggies" (aka hobbits) immigirating to the Sty (er Shire er wait) under the guise of a band of iterent grave-robbers won me over. Gaiman & Pratchett's Good Omens finally returns to paperback so I got that as well. I also picked up a book copy of Chaositech for my Ptolus campaign and decided to check out Secrets of Zir'an which flopped cause it had some semi-illegible pages.

In addition I picked up a couple of Alternity books for Carl and the Werewolf core book for Dani (hopefully the right edition). That's all for now. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a good new year (I almost wrote "had a condition once", wonder what that meant.)

Home

Yay for home! Merry Christmas everyone!

And then there weren't many

The University is rather sad and lonely with everyone leaving...

Last Call

(Alternate title Beeks and the Deathly Hallows)

So I'm working my last work shift which is my last act as a student at University Wisconsin - Stevens Point. There's nothin' left after this. It's bit a strange. Doesn't help that the last couple days have been kinda gray and grim and internally I've been the same. Just some things left hanging that I've felt maybe I kinda screwed with my irrepressible timing ability.

Tomorrow barring bad weather ala Denver heading for home and Christmas. Still got wrap my presents (oops!). Home may be relatively busy visiting family and just running errands that need to be done there. Then back here for London reunion and work.

I'm done. It's strange. And good. And sad too. No more late nights :/

I forgot

So after I graduate I still gotta take finals. Hahahahaha...awe, I just made myself sad.

Ok it's not actually all that bad, I'm done tonight so it's not like things drag out the whole week. Then I've got a couple days to hang out with folks before everyone goes home. January is kinda a lonely quiet month (even more so since I am sans roommate) although work will probably fill things up more then I realize.

Speaking of, I'm not sure I can quite get my mind around that in a couple weeks I'll be working full time. Academically I understand what's goin' on but still kinda boggles the mind since in a lot of ways it's a totally new expierence (with the internship you knew that eventually you'd get a break, etc, etc).

Good luck on finals to everyone who still has them!

News

I graduated, now what?

Picking the below

Opening Credits: Cells (instrumental) - The Servant
Waking Up: Living Water - Ryan Farish
First Day At School: Cats in the Cradle - Bon Jovi
Falling In Love: Wounded Feet - Telecast
Breaking Up: Life is like a Boat - Rei Fu
1st date: Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
Prom: What Planet Is This? - The Seatbelts
Life's OK: Da Da Da - Trio *
Driving: The Courier - Randy Edelman (The Last of the Mohicans OST)
Flashback: Wind - Akeboshi
Getting Back Together: Golden Brown - The Stranglers
Wedding: Conquering Fools - OAR *
Birth of Child: Can't Take it In - Imogen Heap
Final Battle: The White Tree - Howard Shore (Return of the King OST)
Death Scene: Someone Said Goodbye - Enya
Funeral Song: Hurt - Johnny Cash
End Credits: Targetron - Nathan Lamont

Well there's my picks, not totally sure about all of them but think it'd be an interesting track. Got Twism to do it too!

Random Meme

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.

Here's Mine/Also done with top 500 songs

Opening Credits: Murron's Burial - Braveheart / Amnesia - Chumbawumba
Waking Up: Conquering Fools - OAR / Drops of Jupitor - Train
First Day At School: The Stone Table - Chronicles of Narnia OST / Cats in the Cradle - Bon Jovi
Falling In Love: Final Duel/Into the Death Star - Star Wars: Return of the Jedi OST / Strangers - Wolf's Rain OST
Breaking Up: O Tannebuam - Vince Garibaldi Trio / Like WOW! - Leslie Carter (Shrek OST)
1st date: Collide- SF Game Center - Seatbelts / Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) - Offspring
Prom: Christmas is Coming - Vince Garibaldi Trio / Clocks - Coldplay
Life's OK: Judas' Death - Jesus Christ Superstar / Wassail, Wassail -Mannheim Steamroller
Driving: A Fistful of Dollars - Futurama episode commentary / Rhythym Emotion - Gundam Wing OST
Flashback: Home with Me - Chumbawumba / Big Yellow Taxi - Counting Crows
Getting Back Together: Into the Blue - Moby / The Holly and the Ivy - Mannheim Steamroller
Wedding: Pain - StereoMud / Stumblin' - Powderfinger
Birth of Child: Hell or High Water - Tinsely Ellis / Circle of Life - The Lion King OST
Final Battle: Invoke 4 - Gundam SEED OST / The Throne Room/End Titles - Star Wars: A New Hope OST
Death Scene: Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby - O Brother Where Art Thou OST / Princes of the Universe - Queen
Funeral Song: Postcards from Italy - Beirut / No Other Way - Jack Johnson
End Credits: Alien: End Title - Jerry Goldsmith / Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies

Conclusion: iTunes is not a good judge / Somewhat better judge when limited to songs I listen too (I have a day's worth of music I have never played even once)

Next up: what'd I'd play if I could pick (prolly sadder then letting iTunes randomly pick but I need something to do I am kinda nervous/bored)

"We have done the impossible and that makes us mighty." -Sqt. Mal Reynolds

That makes me smile.

Books rehash

Yay, they came! Now of course which one do I read? The various Exalted 2E books I'll prolly attack in little bits and pieces. Scroll of the Monk I may read mostly for the new martial art forms. Have to see what the differences are but I might convert them to 1E if I ever run that again. Probably tackle Driscoll's book once I finish purusing the Exalted books. Then onto The Impossible Country by Brian Hall. This actually is a precursor to the Yugoslav civil war so should be interesting. I had a hard time on Amazon finding any decently rated books on that war which somewhat surprised me. Maybe I am searching by the wrong keywords. *shrug*

Anywho, that is all.

Worldview

Interesting food for thought. Watching "X" and the opening credits show Earth from orbit. It's centered over Japan. It's easy to forget that our worldview naturally has the United States at the center or relatively close due to where we grew up. Still it's kinda odd thinking of South Africa being the center of the globe. Of course it's a globe so there is no real "center" persay.

Old Connections

Yay, reconnected with an old friend! Also beat Sketchfighter (and then proceeded to start playing in Hard mode). It looks like WDMD may turn out ok, I should pass at least. Still need to do put some time into it but might get this figured out. Yay. I graduate in a week and it's kinda strange. Suddenly I'll be done and then everything starts over again.

I don't actually much else to say at the moment. Yea, I'm deep I know...

The Obligatory 0214 Post

Well not much that actually obligates me to do this. Thought I would anyway.

So let's see, what have I been reading of late? Not much. I am in transition between books since I finished Battle for Moscow. I haven't really felt like picking up Wild at Heart although I intend to eventually. Not really feeling the deep, insightful read. So I am waiting for Amazon to deliver Mark Driscoll's Confessions of a Reformist Pastor which Al introduced me to and is hilarious. Seriously the guy is a ball of laughs and it was a pretty funny Chi Alpha where Al was quoting him although most of Al's messages usually have a laugh or two in them so good figure. Book seems fun and imfortative so that will probably get first dibs and be my Christmas break read. Next up because it'll come in the same package with be the book on the Yugoslav civil war. Can't remember the name. I got interested in the area after seeing about 1/3 or 1/2 of Harrison's Flowers (random side track, IMDB switched the website a bit and it's really weird!).

Hoping when I am at Uncle Hugo's that I can find the pair of Eric Frank Russell Anthologies that Dad has (entitled Major Ingredients and Entities Amazon tells/reminds me). They've been out a couple years so I suppose it is touch and go but I remember I really enjoying his works but never getting a chance to really read them because by the time they came out I was in college. Also the reason why I never finished the Pacific half (nor even started the Atlantic) of History of the United States Naval Operations in World War Two by Samuel Eliot Morison. Who did such a good job, by the way, chronicling the Navy in the Second World War that he got a ship named after him.

There you go. Tons of my reading thoughts. Honestly buying books (moreso RPGs) is my guilty pleasure. Next year I am gonna have to set a spending cap because this year I initially said I wouldn't buy anything past January (when Exalted finished up) and well I've spent a lot. Gotta save for the house :D

Final thoughts: Yeah Toast!

Interesting

Well surprise surprise, I can suddenly use Blogger Beta. They finally got around to porting the old gaurd in. Here's hoping to a smooth run.

I meant to post this yesterday since it was December 7th. Anyone remember?

As for me, yesterday was pretty good except for that I found myself rather overwhelmed by WDMD as he fully intends us to code the stuff in PHP and I have no clue. Thought others were in the same boat but doesn't look like it. I will have to sit down and work my butt off.

Got to chat with a couple friends that I normally don't get to talk much too (of course always hope that I can improve on that) and also plugged away at Sketchfighter, which will have to stop now til PHP is complete!

That's it for now.

That's Sketchy

Oh dear I've discovered a distraction! Probably not good for trying to focus on the confusing class that is WDMD. In the meantime I think i've made a misstep but I'm not sure.

Winter

Well winter may not officially be here yet but it certainly feels it all cold, blustery, and snowy. It looks like we're gonna get an inch or two of flurries that will take about 5 days to arrive. Guess I can't complain, everything is white. I'll try and toss up some photos for the 1 of you who doesn't live in the state of Wisconsin and is therefore seeing this first hand.

This week feels really busy but I think in perspective it's not really that bad at all. As long as I keep cracking at it I can stay on top of things and really with this history paper I am and these couple quizzes after this week the only class with assignments still will be WDMD.

Ptolus 1

For those who are interested results from first session of Ptolus are here.

And here the Word of the Lord...

Today was pretty busy. Ran Ptolus and it went pretty well. Geez, it can take a long time to get people up a level at the normal rate! I've got lots to learn about DMing. Then went and saw Scott's documentary. It was pretty good, can't see why it got banned! It was a little shorter then I thought but that was ok. I got a chance to go out and see the candlelight hike in Schmeekle. Have to admit I didn't expect much but dang that was pretty cool to do the trail by candlelight. Really creepy actually too, just a trail of torches in the dark. Cool!

Almost Over

Wow, I graduate in 16 days. I start work in little over a month. What happened to the time? In a sense life won't change a whole lot. I'll still be in Stevens Point and my friends will still all be here for the most part (except for those lucky people named Seth and Kat who are going overseas!) so the only radical shift is that I'll be working the 8-5 5 days a week. Maybe a tough shift initially doing the early morning thing but after that I'll prolly just adjust to a more normal life schedule. Isn't that a scary thought?

Anyhow I should get back to working on Ptolus stuff so that goes well Saturday. Things are getting busy leading up to finals so it's good I am just doing a starting shot and then waiting til after finals!

Whee

Today was a pretty good day even if it showed that I've got a lot of growing still to do. And lots of Ptolus work...

Yay

The hardcover copies of The Red Star Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate and Nokgorka came today. Very elegent simple covers and the bindings seem better. Ironically they are too tall to fit on my bookshelf. Said bookshelf was built to hold RPG books primarily so it is surprising that it wasn't tall enough. This one is getting pretty full now too (won't moving be fun?) so might have to ask for a second one for my birthday. I must be some sort of crazy to ask for bookshelves for my birthday eh?

Bombing Mars

Life has been a little hectic of late but mostly in a good way. School work is picking up as naturally the semester winds to a close. December is traditionally a time in the collegiate's life where they are bombarded by homework. Mostly I think because professor's realize they have a ton of stuff they need to get through and suddenly about 3 weeks to do it. Hilarity ensues. (Begin Jack Benny music?)

I am now employed once I graduate and that's very exciting. It means I get to stay in the area and I am pretty thrilled by that too. Having start over somewhere else does not thrill me. I suppose I am oddly enough setting myself up to be here for a long time but that doesn't bother me at all. Perhaps i'm like the one guy in American Grafitti who decides to stay for a little bit and ends up being their my entire life? Who knows.

I got a new cell phone over break. So far it's a toss up on whether I like it better then the old. Don't get me wrong it has better battery life and seems to get better signal reception both things I bemoaned my old phone. However its interface feels less efficient and it has 3,735 more features then I need; there is a major trend within phone manufacturers to produce some really cheap but fairly crappy phones and the rest are expensive and have a bunch of features that a bunch of trendy teenagers would like but not much practical value. Basically what the last sentence means is that I'm a phone luddite. I go for practicality over features. Function over form?

Also when I was home I found a big gamut of Rifts books at my local FLGS. The whole lot was for sale very cheap (less then $6 for a book and consider even Rifts books are usually about $18) and a couple are ones I'd debated getting. It was a nice haul. My bookshelf is almost full. It was pretty empty a year and a half ago. Pretty sure my guilty pleasure in life is buying RPG books. However at least I am buying something that stimulates my mind!

Gray

Today is one of those quiet days where everything seems to mimic the weather.

Star Wars & Firefly

So it appears that I have a month or so to make sure Kat has seen all of Firefly and episodes 5 & 6 of Star Wars. Better get crackin' :D

What's Wrong Me?

Yea I know, I haven't written in a couple days. Whenever I feel like I want to write once I get there the feeling is gone. Actually of late things have felt a little off-balance. I think Thanksgiving will do me good getting me away from here and taking my mind off all the stuff that I tend to worry about when I am in Point.

What have I been up to? Well helped Carl to celebrate his birthday and that involved a lot of food and board games. I am really loving the board games. I only have a couple (primarily Junta although I'd count Munchkin/Ninja Burger in the board game category) and really don't get to play a lot but they tend to be fun to do. The challenge is initially you need enough people and then generally have to explain the rules. I'm so-so at rules explanation so for somewhat complex games like Junta I am daunted by teaching new players even though I really want to play. So Aprill if you read this invite me next time! (Ok she prolly never will but I can dream eh?)

After looking at the Top 50 Sci-Fi/Fantasy books I went on Wikipedia and looked up Hugo Awards. It's amazing how many of the winners/nominees I have read. Def. due to my Dad's influence although considering a couple writers basically get major repeat noms or wins if you prefer a certain author or three you end up reading a lot.

I picked up A Bridge Too Far again. It's been awhile since I've played this (much long since I played the original Close Combat) so it is a fun re-hash. Plus unlike RTS I do decently at this because the game isn't about speed but about tactics. Trust me speed just causes casualties, I'm reminded that from time to time when I attempt to bum rush the Germans. I am still sad that CC III-V came out only on Windows and are so old that none of them run on XP (will something designed for 95/98/ME run on XP by any chance?) Oh well. That's life isn't it?

Anyhow, it's 2AM and I have to get up around 8AM although I won't fall asleep anytime soon. I'm wide awake. This means morning will hurt a lot but not much I can do make myself more tired.

Randomly: Traci's on facebook! Pretty cool considering I haven't heard from her in ages (my fault that).

Russian Fronts

So I am reading The Battle for Moscow right now. I know I said I'd pick up Wild at Heart whence I finished Ptolus but Moscow got picked up for when I work out and now I am hooked. So far it's pretty interesting. It's a little different take then Road to Stalingrad primarily because it focuses more on the Germans (Stalingrad and its "sequal" Road to Berlin are almost entirely from the Russian POV) then the Russians about 60-40 spread in fact. Its analysis focus on leadership decisions and the level the decision is made on. All the way from squad level (tactical) to divisional/corps (operational) to overall theatres and the war as a whole (strategic). So far it has been stressing how a given leader excells at a certain type. For instance Hitler is pretty good at operational command but struggles much above that.

This definitely focuses on the entirety of Barbarossa being one gigantic strategic blunder. One that could have been remedied had the Germans had a better focus. It's a fairly easy read so I am shooting through it. One thing that I found impressive was it describing the Russian terrain on the steppes. Flat flat land that when it rains because a giant puddle all the way to the horizon a foot deep. Man, that's crappy terrain to have to fight over let me tell you.

That's my reading for now. I am also dabbling in various D & D books as I prep for my Ptolus campaign.

Thoughts on the vote

Democracy has to be government by the compromise that makes everyone the least happiest. It frustrates me when everyone gets really angry when every vote on every issue/candidate/toast doesn't go their way. Makes me think that in general Americans have gotten so righteous that everyone else who disagrees with them in an uncultured heathen. So I guess that makes us all righteous uncultured heathens...

Think that's my profound thought for November.

In obscure analytical news in the past year 6676 visits were recorded on this page. Rough estimates conclude that probably 6677 of those were by me :D

Less profound but interesting. A meme of sorts I took off of BHM's journal:

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett*
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein*
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Java Based Ptolus

Was thinking of using a lot of computer support so to speak for when I run Ptolus. Mainly to have most of the PDFs available if I need them but also to take advantage to my listing of nearly all the MM creatures (just have animals and vermin left to enter- try to ignore that I started this in July). Additionally I was thinking I could make a fairly simple Java programmed that'd calculate XP automatically. Be a good way to get readjusted to programming again since in theory I will be doing that starting in January even if I am not programming Java. Good project to keep me busy!

Lesse, not much else new. The snow is half gone. I never did find anyone to go out for a walk with me in it. Granted there'll be lots of more snow at this rate and that's darn exciting all on its own.

That's all for now. I should really be tryin' to get some sleep!

Reflecting on the Day

Ever have days where despite being relatively productive it doesn't feel like you've gotten anything done? That was today for me. I cleaned the apartment did my history homework (discussion and a quiz) and it still feels like I did nothing. I dunno. Now I am kinda bored but am not sure what I want to do. Maybe I'll go for a walk although walkin' by my lonesome isn't much fun.

White Wolf Online

World of Darkness coming to a computer near you? In other news: yay my hardcovers of The Red Star ship Monday :)

Snow

Wow, lookit all the snow! It sure came down considering at 11 nothing was even falling from the sky. Driving's kinda crazy though but can't complain cause everything is white and pretty. Hard to believe last night I was biking around!

Snow!

w00t! We're gonna get snow tomorrow! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

Election Results

Well I think the Onion sums up the election quite well so I will just say read their article on it.

Special article for Folky he'll get why I think he'll be amused by it ;)

This just in...

Tallahassee, FL (AP) Early polling results from Florida appear to give Fidel Castro victory in the gubernatorial race by an overwhelming majority. Initial reactions were mixed but reportedly Castro was just as surprised as the average Floridian at his victory.

In other news Congress has officially banned Florida from voting until 2072 on the account on "those idiots being unable to vote correctly no matter what we to help them out".

GOTV?

So apparently there is an election or some such thing tomorrow. I'd recommend staying in a doorway or taking cover under the nearest...oh wait that's for earthquakes. Hmm, I suppose you could always go vote. If you are from Chicago I think you get to go at least twice.

Oh yes and because we are all told how to vote I'll tell you too: on the referendums vote "Maybe" because what else will we have for controversy if you vote with one of those more definitive words?

"What about the floating pig out there?"

"That's a government pig."

Pause

This feels a little unbalanced kind of like the calm before the storm. Today wasn't bad but something felt off. Well here's hoping I'm wrong.

Movies, Ptolus, Corinthians, and Old Times

This week has felt rather nostalgic. When doing my brief hours in the Chi Alpha office some Cru reps came in one of them was an old acquaintance from back freshman year when Ole, Twism, Brad, myself, and a bunch of others would go and take advantage of free soup/salad time at Debot. An amazing amount of that core are all married now. It's odd more so because of all of them the only one I keep in touch with is Twism. How times changes.
Then I managed to hang out with Amber and Evie and there's more memories of years past with Lena and them being silly and generally acting somewhat below our age. The good old days of going to watch CSI: Miami and mocking Horatio and his sunglasses.
Today when I went to get some nessecities at Wal-mart I made the mistake of going past the $10 movie section and picked up four movies: Shrek 2, Snatch, Super Troopers, and Kingdom of Heaven. Tell me if that isn't the weirdest combination of movies?
In the meantime I have been re-reading 1st Corinthians and will be moving onto 2nd Corinthians if I can keep this pace up. I am also trying to plug through the last 100 pages of Ptolus so I can get a game running.
And in the background I have a track from DDR 3 playing that I found after seeing it on a YouTube clip for Invader Zim (which I am really looking at buying but it's expensive on Amazon, makes me sad).

In the end I realize the God is way smarter then we can imagine and covers all of his bases need be. Mr. Wonderful indeed!

Mr. Wonderful

Finally finished with locations Ptolus. Only about 100 pages left to go. Wonder if I even will be able to get a game going prior to break not that break should stop me from running a game most of my potential players live here now. Not sure my player's potential characters will live very long in some of these places though, the dungeony parts of the city seem rather anti-playercharacteral.

Anyone ever seen Invader Zim? I was watching some clips on YouTube and it looks pretty funny, well at least GIR :D

Oddly Humorous

So after having lunch with a couple friends I was driving through campus and got stuck on 4th when all the students were crossing between classes. I wasn't in any hurry so I was fine with just watching the continual flow of students go by. The funny thing was that I had tuned in on the local NPR affiliate who also play classical music and ironically the students crossing the street matched to the music. It amused me some :D

Not sure what I've gotten myself into but now I want to procrastinate again...

Book Goodness And Other Things

Hmm it's Halloween. Not that exciting. More of a pain that's it really windy and therefore chilly outside. I am attempting to be rather productive today cause stuff could pile up next week. For the first time in awhile the CPS lab is half dead. It's a little unreal considering this place usually is a zoo.

I got Prison of Souls today. It's nice and highly complicated in comparison to Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate and Nokgorka but that might be also cause I've only read it through once. Alas I gotta wait once again for the next one to come out and they are still writing things so could be awhile!
DMZ 1: On The Ground has the same issue, DMZ 2 doesn't come out til January of February. Should count my blessings there though and from a practical sense the delay is understandable. Before they become graphic novels these are actual comic books so it takes several issues before there is enough for a novel.
Pride of Baghdad is also impressive and I gotta admit the ending made me a little sad. Pretty good book that can do that.

Not much else new and unusual here. Carl makes dang good soup but in general Carl is a dang good cook. (I got a Lars replacement, hooray! hooray!) Things feel busy again but I think in retrospect they aren't too much different then the past couple weeks.

Well off to write some religious studies papers.

Monday Day Longs

Ah today was a long day for some reason. I was permanently tired even though I got a decent amount of sleep. My body is crazy sometimes. Maybe it was the fact I had lots to do today. I got it mostly done too. I worked on a web page and it was rather challenging but I think it turned out ok in the end although it's not finished (then again it's kind of a prototype so maybe did not need to completely finish it til it's ok). Also general studying for a quiz.

Tomorrow is religous studies up the wall but that's ok. Then I dunno, this week feels like I have a ton to do. Guess I need to get organized.

Carl made beer cheese soup tonight. Twas good. Plus I got some of my books I ordered. Yay. Wasn't that random? Anyhow I am done. Maybe more tomorrow!

LibraryThing

Do it, I'm mirv120 of course :D

Movies

Two similiar movies about two very different wars: the Balkans and Rwanda.

From Slashdot

Hmm today I learned how to rig the elections and then learned how some liberal bloggers are helping to keep the Democrats in the same category as the Republicans. I just love how politics happily invades every sphere of existence and always with that wonderful spin although granting this started several years back. Maybe I'd believe it more if they were pointing searches for their candidates rather then using this to point people to bad press about the opposition.

Marketing Issues

It must be tough for PR departments around this time of year trying to get the word about their cool new products. All the local channels just show campaign ads and nothing else. It's like watching a political infomercial channel (with all the subtleness of Fox News/al Jazeera). I'm darn lucky to be gone in 2004 so I didn't have to watch it!

Something Book Reviewish

So I finished American Gods which means I can return to Ptolus.

So the valid question would be: "what did I think"? Well as you can probably guess it was at least decent cause I read through it in what 3 days and in the middle of that I did study and take a religious studies test too. First half of the book was ok. Thought it had a few too many sex scenes and was a little confusing but the second half focuses more on the story and is therefore less confusing. Also by this point I'd figure out what to be looking for in the story so I got more out of the characters. The confusion actually works well as the reader gets to figure out the world with the main character.

I loved the fact that a huge amount of this book takes place in Wisconsin and in winter. It made it feel like home. Perhaps since the middle portion is primarily focused on those two setting points is what made the latter half better. In the end the book surprised me. It's not blow you away great but it's certainly a good read and the main character is enjoyable to support. I'd probably get a ton out of re-reading the book at some point but who knows when I'll get a chance with the backlog!

So this morning there was frost on my bike seat when I came out from morning shift of work. I thought the dew was the show-stopper. Shows me! Rather tired all day, napped between work and my test and had strange dreams but not enough nap. Be interesting next week when I am up later. But I seem to be able to survive on very little sleep besides which I can sleep in most Wednesdays. Twas nice to see the sun today. Gotta admit at this point the sun is better then the grey-gray of clouds in late fall and it feels like late fall. Only flurries or snow make clouds ok.

Statistically speaking the most obvious equivalent for a county in Wisconsin called Lumber would be Wood right? Either way I don't think there is a Lakeside, WI so the trick is to figure out where it is. Lakeside, Lumber County, WI. A couple hours north of Madison (meaning beyond Point).

Prison of Awakiness

It's almost 2 am and I am wide awake. I gotta be up at 6am to work and I got a test that I haven't really studied enough for at 11am. The inklings of a cold that would not go away despite adequate sleep and lotsa fluids is now finally into the runny nose stage. Yet I still feel pretty good. Course gonna feel bit worse in about 4 hours but what can you do? Least I have lots of reading material and more on the way.

Mythos

So reading American Gods (and aside from expecting to be a)snowing and b)freezing because of said reading) I've realized how much fun it would be to create your own mythos. Not a mythos based oneself but rather just create any old one that would somehow fit into today's society. It'd be a challenge in a lot of ways to make it seem feasible for a pantheon to exist in today's world but not impossible in fact relatively easy. It would just take a certain amount of care at times.

Anyhow, that's my thought. I really should be studying for religious studies because I have a test tomorrow but I will admit that I'm not. I'm reading and procrastinating and genetrally not motivated.

American Gods

So after a discussion with Carl today about Neil Gaiman I went and found American Gods from Bookworld today. I realize that I really love books. I shouldn't be getting more books but I am. I am going to have a huge library eventually but I wonder if I will have read all of it!

I suppose though I could be spending my money on worse things. I'm gonna need a bigger bookshelf soon though.

C for Vendetta

(alternate title V for Cookie)

Remember, remember the 2nd of November

(Yes 2nd was intentional)

LotR Redux

So I actually sat down and watched the special features from the LotR special edition dvds. They are 3-4 hours long each. Wow. That's really long. Interesting tidbits tho. Kinda fun to sorta watch in an absentminded, not quite there, way. I realized that last fall semester I finished the semester off by watching the entire trilogy twice through and then the entire Star Wars saga (all 6) in less then a week while I ground through homework. Don't think I will need to do that again thankfully although there was something downright legendary about that time in my mind. Twism and I pounding through our projects so focused that entire movies would pass without notice. Oh the good old days. Hard to believe that was last year and I count it as a good old day. Maybe I am slightly whimisical for times when I just had people around. Single apartment is nice but occassionally have the company all the time is far better (the two each have pros & cons).

Anyhow Mario Kart is on tonight. There's a rehash of the good old days. And then maybe over to the LAN party. We shall see!

Darkness Falls

As Tyler pointed out. It's dark out already. This week has kind of been a doldrums, not that I am complaining. It's just not been terribly exciting for good or bad. Makes me kinda wary as usually these middle grounds don't last long and I have a tendency to expect them to go down hill (me of little faith I suppose). In the meantime I suppose I should enjoy the slightly more relaxed pace of it all right? That just leaves me with the debate between bio-informatics and generic positions. Hmm.

Well back to reading Ptolus.

300,000,000

200,000,000 more and we'll be at half a billion. (You can do your part by getting married and having 72 children. Wait...)

I'm not so sure that I'll actually be making it out to Hawaii these days. Not gonna lie, that makes me pretty sad :(

Reading

Today is an odd day. I don't really have much on my plate. One e-mail needed to be sent and a short paper written. That's done it took very little time. That leaves me with Ptolus (p 302 of 655 - the rest of the book is appendixes/indexes/appendindexs) to read for the remaining 3 1/2 hours of my shift. I'd better be on p 400 when I'm done I guess.

There really ain't much else new with me. Not that that is very odd, life is pretty quiet. Class, work, reading, and when I can fit it in (not often enough) friends. The one disadvantage with my schedule now is I never have enough time with my friends. I have very few free evenings and my weekends tend to be overscheduled. On the bright side in a couple months hopefully I will be gainfully employed by day and nothing taking up my evenings. We'll see.

Blargh

I hate it when my stomach feels like crap. :/

It's cold

Well I got snow but someone turned off the heat and then turned on a fan. Be careful what you wish for eh? Sorry I've been quiet of late. Pretty busy with life and stuff.

Long day

Hmm normally Wednesdays are pretty good but this one seemed off. It was kinda cool that it snowed today and I got to see Jessie. Mostly though it just felt off. Couple randoms thing I can point to that attributed but I dunno overall why. Must be one of those weeks eh?

Long week already

This week just feels long and its only Tuesday evening. Oy. Not much news. Plus I'm tired.

Reading

So I bought and read Jurassic Park on Saturday. Back to Ptolus tho!

Well that could have been handled better on my part...

Anyhow. As a lot of you might be aware yet another UWL student ended up in the river of late. Think I wrote about the last one too a way's back. It's a bit depressing actually. See I get home this evening and what's one of the frontpage stories? An article about how this year's Octoberfest (ie Not-Sober-Fest) noting that this one set the record for ER cases relating to drinking. 32 years and we're setting records. Rather sad. Someone had a .42 blood alcohol count! No wonder people keep ending up in the river. That drunk near the main channel of one of the biggest rivers in the world? *sigh*

And

I know, I need to update active blogs again, etc, etc.

Urgh

Yea, that's right.

So Ptolus is def. a big distraction at the moment. I am slowly crunching through it. Ironically I may actually plug through it in a week or two at this rate. Very interesting reading too. Lots of plot hooks even within organizations. I haven't even gotten to locals (except jumping ahead to skim the two evil fortresses on the Spire). At least I am enjoying it though so I didn't waste my money. Pretty sure I'd like to run this for people the whole thing can support a full run from lvl 1 to lvl 20!

Anyhow, this weekend I'll be home. That should be fun. I'll even have the place to myself for a night. That might actually be kinda lonely. I've realized that while I really want a house it'll be darn lonely with just me. Hadn't thought of that initially and don't know why. Guess I might need to recruit housemates. Or get hitched? (Ok quit laughing, it could happen someday, maybe even before the 2nd Coming.)

Right, well I'm out.

Pink Form Letters

First an update on the neutrality issue. Heard back from a couple people in the know. This is apparently a legal and allowable stance for the SGA. Can't say I am thrilled and the previous administration certainly handled touchy issues like this better then the current one. I got a form letter response today from them. It was a rather generic but I guess one can't expect much more. Nice to see that our little government emulates its bigger brother quite well.

I suppose I cared mostly cause I tended to not side with the "Vote No" campaign but I think they'd be just as ticked if the SGA had sent out a "Vote Yes" e-mail so arguing for neutrality it a fair compromise. Oh well.

In other news, what would you say if this blog went pink for the month? I know Tyler is opposed but Katy liked the idea enough that she made her Livejournal pink. It's for a good cause but I'll let people weigh in. So actually weigh in!

That's all for now. I got the rest of GITS:SAC 2nd Gig and Ptolus today so pretty excited/consumed by that.

Ptolus

It's huge!

October

Wow, the leaves are starting to change fast. I should get out to Schmeekle and snap some pictures for Jenny. That'll be a Wednesday project probably. Get out for some exercise and all. It's October already. Graduation is hurtling towards me. The mind boggles at all the stuff I probably need to do and don't even realize it. I've just started job hunting and that of course makes me nervous. I'm always worried I'll make some little faux pas and the HR person will just toss my application even though I'd be good at the job. Sometimes details can elude me and I'm aware of it enough to worry about it. Ah well, God'll put me where he wants (someone remind me about this post when I am hired as the IT expert for the Amundsen-Scott Base, Antarctica).

I finished The Color of Magic last night. Yea, I know that wasn't on the reading list but I needed some light reading and that fit the spot perfectly. What can be funnier then a failed wizard sheparding a tourist (with sapient luggage) around the world while doing their best to avoid Death? Yea, you can't think of anything cause it's hilarious. In all honestly I'll probably be massively sidetracked in Ptolus (pronounced Tawlus btw) before I really get into Wild at Heart. Then again I suspect Wild of Heart may cause much thinking and we all know how I avoid that like the plague! :D

I have the urge to read Jurassic Park. I wonder if it is on discount at the B & N back in La Crosse? They are moving really soon (yay a new bigger store, I can't wait!) so a lot of stuff is supposed to be marked down I'm told. I'm excited. Don't ask me why I suddenly want to read Jurassic Park. Somehow I looked it up on Wikipedia today and realized the novel sounded pretty good. Can't hurt to try it out anyways. Oh, I know why now. Cause the British game warden (Muldoon?) was in the video we had to watch for Religious Studies. That also inspired this quote, from a Rabbi in the video: "Do you know Brother Christiani that in 500 years velociraptors will kill you?" Ok, so he didn't say that but I thought it'd be funny.

Yea, I am wide awake and I'll be hurting around 6 when I have to get up. So I should get to bed. Night all.

"You must understand. We are all criminals now. Everyone of us on this ship. Our own have been ordered to shoot us out of the sky. We're under attack on all sides. I know you want to go home. But that is impossible for any of us now. There is one way for us to go. Forward, only forward. Into what we cannot know." -Kyuzo, The Red Star

Neutrality

This has been a strange day in a lot of ways. I get up this morning and dutifully check my e-mail for work and because I just check my e-mail regularily. Today's was a bit of a surprise. There was a shouting (ie ALL CAPS) e-mail from the Student Government Assocation urging me to VOTE NO! I thought it a bit odd because there wasn't as far as I know any student referendums on campus or at stake in November. I was right there weren't. Instead the SGA had decided that they were going to represent all students by e-mailing the entire student body and urging them to VOTE NO!

Not urging them to get informed on a major issue that could affect their lives. Not providing both sides of the issue for students to make their own informed opinions. Not maintaining a high standard of neutrality so as to be an unbiased source of student representation on a local, state, and national level. No they went ahead and picked a side.

Did they ask the student body for any input? Send out an e-mail stating that a resolution was coming up to discuss the SGA weighing in on the issue? No. Are they legally allowed to endorse a side in a referendum? I'm unsure at the moment. Gut feeling says yes although they cannot endorse a political candidate so it's very possible that they legally cannot endorse a position for a referendum. I will make an effort to follow that up.

The greater concern for me is not the issue they supported but the precendence it sets for SGA in the future. In the previous administrations while I was well aware of the people serving in the government's standing on issues they kept their personal beliefs to themselves and fought for what they said they would fight for students. Issues like tuition and university budget. They made an effort to not get bogged down in divisive political debates where the student body was split on the issue. No students are split on tuition, they universally want it to go down and most don't complain about a bigger budget unless it makes the tuition go up so these are not at all divisive.

So where do we stand now? Will the SGA tell me how I should vote on every issue they can from now on? Do they think that they have particular insights into the world that I do not? Will there political siding hurt me because politicians in Madison look at them and say: "They tell my constituents to vote against me and issues I support. Why am I approving state funding for them?" Will students ask: "Why are my segregated fees going to a group that is supposed to be neutral and instead are vocally advocating things I am opposed to?" Afterall it's our money so shouldn't the SGA be accountable to us?

Those are my thoughts. I am surprisingly riled up about this hence actual action on my part. I'd urge others to do the same. We need the SGA to be aware of their responsibility to all parties and not just become the mouthpiece of a select few. A tyranny of the majority or the minority is not acceptable!

Music and Things

So iTunes has been running this promotion through Facebook where each week they often 25 free songs for a different given genre and they've actually had couple songs that I've enjoyed. There are probably more I just haven't gone through all the songs (100 new songs is a lot especially if you don't like all of them). That makes me kinda happy and gives me more songs to loop. I bet somewhere Tyler is thankful that he isn't forced to listen to me looping the same dang song over and over and over.

On semi-impulse I bought Ptolus today. What is Ptolus you ask? Well it's a gigantic RPG book. I really do mean gigantic. It weighs in at over 6 pounds and has over 700 pages of setting goodness. For reference look at the book in some of the pictures here. I hadn't realized how monstrous this book was even though I've heard lots about it. So I am pretty excited even if it was rather on the pricey side. At least I got it massively on sale!

I should prolly get to bed now. Night all.

Three prong efforts

I just noticed that I've been actually able to keep all three of my very different blogs somewhat up to date of late. Technically I have been helping to keep the XA blog in tune as well so maybe I should say four prong efforts. Somehow that makes my day in a simple way.

In random reading news I finally finished Armed Struggle. Moving onto Wild at Heart now.

Dew

It depresses me somewhat that I work so early on Tuesday mornings that dew forms on my bike seat while I am away. Oh and riding to work as the sun rises too. At least I can nap for a bit now tho.

And GITS:SAC has entered season 3!