Results

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

Obligatory October Post?

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

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

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

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

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

That's all.

Snow in April

Snow in April, originally uploaded by mirv120.

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

Completely Unrelated...

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

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

Also got Human Occupied Landfill. It's amusing!

Stuff from GenCon

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

GenCon

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

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

I Belive in Harvey Dent

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

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

That's all for now!

That's Horrible I Mean Great

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

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

July Days

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

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

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

Anyhow need to work out. More soon in theory!

Sing Along

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

Biking

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

To the glorious racers of the kart and bike

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

Purges and Clean-up

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

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

4th Edition

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

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

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

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

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

RIAA Litigations and how the Tech Community can Help

Hehe

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

Obama vs McCain. Nov 4th

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

Indiana Jones Returns

Well actually saw this Sunday night but owing to a lot of things haven't gotten around to commenting on it til now. Will attempt to avoid any spoilers but be warned ya know?

Anywho, I'd say overall maybe a 3.5 - 3.75 outta 5. Very good action, def. good humor too. Well worth your time to go see it. Which leads to why such a low score? Well it's not unique or original. There's some of the old Indy in it and granted that's expected but it also borrows a lot from newer fare: The Mummy series and Stargate. I was waiting for Richard Dean Anderson to run by with Thor in tow. The other issue was the pacing. Somehow it just wasn't right. Almost seemed too fast if that's possible.

I think in the long run it will stand alright amongst the Indiana Jones but probably never be the best. I suppose it's hard to top a legend!

Webmaster Tools

Google has another toy out there called Webmaster Tools. Mostly it tells you when Google's bots last trawled your page and in general what Google sees when it does trawl you. Not sure how useful it'll be but hey I'll give it a shot. This blog has to be way over-managed for the amount of posts and readers it gets.

I do have to chuckle a little because "Rappan Athuk" seem to be the big hits this blog gets. Turns out it's because the blog entry shows up one the first page of a Google search for the above so people actually see it. This would be the page in question that ironically the main link to that page is from this blog here.

Kind of odd how that all works.

This does make me want to go back and play both Rappan Athuk and Ptolus which were the two big games that I got that were essentially self contained (yes I know they both required the three 3rd Edition D&D core books, thanks for the remindor...) The challenge now would def. be getting a stable group of players. This summer looks to be rocky as people will be gone and the people who would be interested don't necessarily play well together. Ah if only Dani & Brady were here. Them with Carl and Casey and I've got almost the perfect team. Throw in some irregulars and it'll do alright.

Anyhow, Google's Webmaster tools, check them out if you're a web geek like me! :D

Big Blue

Well went all out today and took off the afternoon from work to paint the guest bedroom. Probably should of taken a bunch of photos to document the thing for no reason other then to document it for historians to analyze 800 years later whilst trying to determine the primitive lifestyle of those of us living in the year 2008. I didn't though so onwards.

Went with an eggshell sheen as opposed to the original semi-gloss. In fact that was really the only change as I stuck with the same color, Ocean Sigh (is that really a color, sounds more like a sound effect to be honest). Painting went surprisingly well, taping was probably the biggest pain. I did not tape the ceiling and I really should have. There is now an uneven blue edge to most of it and at some point when I get re-motivated I will have to tape off the walls and re-paint the ceiling edge white. At least I only needed one coat.

Looking at it now as the sun is setting (so there is no direct sunlight into the room) it looks pretty good. I think I maybe should have gone with maybe one grade flatter sheen but it's def an improvement over the previous. I still like the color that got picked out. I wonder if it would be more helpful if they made the little color cards with a color different variations of sheen too cause that's what got us in the first place.

So if you want to see the redone room stop over. Maybe not this weekend cause Josh will be crashing there!

Speaking of this weekend, any of the -3 readers who are from Point (that's all -e/i^2 of you), at some point a bunch of us are going to see the new Indiana Jones. Somehow I got put in charge although no one let me know. I am attempting to coordinate now so if you are interested give me a holler. I'm targeting Saturday at this point cause I think the girls are moving on Sunday and Josh will be here Saturday night.

That is all. On a side end note I will try and blog more regularly as Dani says its good for my 3.5 brain cells. And she's a geneticist so I'd better believe her! (Or to quote Futurama: "Better listen to him, he's a whale biologist.")

On 24

Well this weekend I will attempt to re-paint the guest bedroom so it is slightly less blue. I am just shooting for a flatter version of the current color. With luck it will turn out very nice!

I am re-watching Cowboy Bebop with Dani (kind of a long distance dual running commentary). It's been a long time since I've seen this! It's still good fun!

Dreams of the First Age

IE what my original A/C dreamed since it was that old. But it's replaced so hopefully the electrical bill will be significantly lower this year. We shall see.

Dreams of the First Age did indeed finally come out last week and I have been perusing it much since then. Overall I'm impressed by the quality. The mechanics seem pretty good although admittedly the crunch assessment is not my strong point. Stuff is powerful so it's hard for me to gauge.

Setting wise it's quite interesting. Favorite setting point I've run into so far is that there is a Primordial still on the loose during the 1st Age and there seem to be no indication that it's been dealt with up to the current time in the setting.

Haven't gotten far in the Meru guide either but it's well put together. The map is nice too but the places are a bit hard to read and I'd have loved it to be bigger.

Overall worth the purchase and the wait!

More RPG.net fun

"Yes. Like all truly impressive disasters it begins with a wedding..."

-tabrumj, RPG.net forums (in reference to how the end of Exalted's 2nd Age would commence)

Mario Kart Wii First Impressions

Well all the levels are unlocked. Folky, Steiner, and Carl came over and we slogged through all 32 tracks on 150cc and battled it out balloon and coin style. (Our team lost both battles and Steiner did not dominate in the races, the world is upside down!) Overall a fantastic new game. Cycles are hard on some levels and while I like the Wii Wheel my back hurts like hell, I need to find a good position to play it in I think my posture is off. Or just use the gamecube controller. Overall looks like a keeper especially with instant online play.

Heh

"Gem has agents of five or six separate apocalypses gunning for it." - from rpg.net

Outside

It's nice to be outside again. I've been getting out on walks that are outside and it's great. The next couple months I will have to bone up before it gets so hot that I retreat down to the basement (where I will revel in the fact that it stays too cool unlike now). I attempted to seed some grass down tonight, we'll see if it sticks. Have to keep up on the watering and hope for the best. Also will be curious if any of the lillies of the valley survive next to my garage. There's still snow there so they might not even know it's spring yet. Then again considering this weekend Wisconsin might not be quite sure yet either.

Got Scion: God and Little Wars (wargaming by HG Wells, does that make us nerds more legit when a classic writer wrote on something we do?). Both are interesting, S:G rounds out the series although White Wolf is releasing a pair of books Scion: Companion and Ragnarok later this year. Not terribly interested in either but they managed to do something rare in the gaming world, put out a new series that actually took hold and did well.

That's all for now. Going to go enjoy the latest Tudors episode.

Reading

Well both Exalted books arrived yesterday and I have been geeking through them. Impressively DMZ: #4 Friendly Fire showed up today and I have read through it. I love graphic novels in that you can read them fairly quick. DMZ is an interesting read. Depsite having opposing views with the author (Brian Wood) I still find I enjoy the series. It's very gritty, sometimes I think it attempts to be over gritty at times that actually weakens its case, but in the end it generally gets across the feel of a hopeless war. Except this one is on our home turf. Some of the premises might be hard to believe but that doesn't reduce the story much. And after all I enjoy Exalted so this should be a piece of cake for believability.

More random

So for fun irony I ordered the latest Exalted books on Amazon which ship in "1 to 3 weeks" as well as 2 books in that were in stock (Scion: God and Little Wars). Now guess which two are shipping? Don't get me wrong I am excited to get them now rather then 1-3 weeks from now but just find it kind of funny.

I am slightly amused by the random search results that turn up on this blog. I wonder how deep people go when they stumble across this.

Checkbox hmm

So my little Gmail thing now has checkboxes. They don't do anything but they are there. Wonder what they'll do. I'll send in some Tauren marines and find out?

Out like a lion

Well not really sure this is too bad (although I could be wrong). Then again I guess personally it feels like I am being mauled by the lion. Oh well, this too shall pass. God willing.

Anyhow, been busy reading. Picked up The Forever War Easter weekend and plugged through it real quick. It's a fast read if a bit depressing. Major counterpoint to Starship Troopers. The two should almost be read back to back. I enjoyed it even if it is kind of a downer type of book.
Incidentally I also picked up Dracula. I generally avoid classics but I'd heard this is written in the style of journals, letters, newspapers clipping, etc so thought I'd take a look. It's not too bad (am I allowed to criticize a classic, hmm I guess I don't really care either way). I have to admit that the descriptions of Dracula's castle are rather eerie.

Still sitting on my night stand are Star Wars Dark Nest #2, Velvet Elvis, and Rwandan Genocide and the Church (note that's not the exact title I don't think but am too lazy to get up and look).

Anyhow I am off to write a couple entries that are long overdue for gaming over at Wolf359 for Carl's various games. I really am eager to run a game soon I think.

That's all. Enjoy the last day of March March Madness.

Awake

It's 2:37AM. Why am I still awake? I pass out by like 11:45 on weekdays and really if it wasn't for reading I'd be out an hour before then. My mind is just alive right now though. Huh.

Monday

Hmm at some point I think I passed another year for this blog. Oh well moving on.

Up in the cities this weekend I picked up a bookcase from Ikea. It's name is Billy but I didn't give it that the Swedes did. I'd heard good things about it from other gamers for book storage. This is probably due to the fact that they claim it can hold up to 66 pounds! Please note that a full shelf full of RPG books weigh alot. Not 66 pounds however unless you have a big shelf or a match baker's dozen of Ptolus. Anywho, it looks very nice. It's narrow and tall and fits nicely in the corner of the room rounding off the space between my original rpg bookshelf (which is awesome, I still love it Dad, just outgrew it!) and one of the normal bookshelves (which has been suffering as a standin rpg bookshelf and has bowed shelves to show it). I think it adds a nice touch to the room. Certainly this place looks more like a library. Of course the piles of paper on the desk and floor kind of ruins that. I need to get stuff organized again. That is the goal this week. In the meantime I am geeking out and am excited because I have more room for books again! On a side note I also have a dozen plus books I need to get organized and sell since I have no interest in using them along with most of my minis.

Speaking of books though I finally ordered the last couple books for Jovian Chronicles. Turns out Dream Pod 9 has most of their books at half off and all the Jovian Chronicles and Gear Krieg books are included. I snagged the last Gear Krieg Tactical book I am missing as well but held off on the Gear Krieg RPG and Luft Krieg despite a fair amount of interest. I suspect those books will be half off for awhile and if not I don't think they will be dissapearing from the likes of Noble Knight anytime soon.

While reorganizing my books, something I thoroughly enjoy, I listened to Mark Driscoll talk about the Emergent Church. It was intersting. He also covered some of the issues I had with Velvet Elvis which was nice. And yea I still haven't finished it. That is all.

Passing

Gary Gygax passed away this week and while hardly anyone outside of the gaming world seemed to notice (some football player decided to retire I guess) his passing still marks the passing of something great. 30+ years later Dungeons and Dragons still dominates the gaming world. However the affect was greatly widespread spawning an entire industry which helped spawn many sub-industries which have since surpassed their parents. Thanks for bringing us something fun Gary!

Ides of March (ice on my sidewalk)

Well March has rolled in. Not sure if it's lion or lamblike. See it's been warm but we got an inch of ice. I guess though it hasn't been bad which means that we're gonna get it in a couple weeks eh? Life's been ok. Fealt a little beat down but taken great solace in the sagas of Miles Vorkosigan especially his post Dendarii days. Dad has a lot of the later books which I don't owing to my reading from his collection and not acquiring them myself meaning my re-reading is limited except for fortuitous weekends (such as this past one) when I am home. I plowed through Memory in about a day and it provides poignant remindor of how much Miles life has changed especially when the next book I have is A Civil Campaign.

It has been a nice retreat out of the doldrums although I do not have any permament escape unlike the half-sized hero of the above sagas. Just have to tough it out. I really miss having some greater goal to work towards though. In the meantime I do have some book keeping I should get to. Tomorrow as now it is time to sleep!

Leap Blog

Looks like February is finally done. I'm ready to leap into March. In the meantime I hope your leap day was better then mine. :/

8 Months Later

8 Months Later, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Today!

New Home

New Home, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Right after I moved in.

Sidewalk tunnel

Sidewalk tunnel, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Just thought a picture or two could explain it better.

Vaguely Tragic

Looks like Charter managed to scramble Cartoonnetwork one of the few channels on regular cable I would watch and one that somehow my cheapy digital cable snagged in. Dissapointing but it was a nice 9 month run of it. I survived fine without it in my old place so I am fairly certain I can power on now. Still I will miss the late night Adult Swim even if the quality has dropped off so much since the first couple years.

I need to exercise I more. I am working at cutting back the portions I eat but now I need to burn some extra calories. Tough to do in winter. I wish Wii Fit would be out already that would be worth a try! Have to wait though. In the meantime I'll just try and walk back and forth in the basement. Odd way to get exercise but it works if I keep my mind focused and do it often. Just have to get into the habit!

Winter Wonderland

Everything is that pure clean white again. Notice that my posts for the past several months have been dominated by snow? Well that's cause Wisconsin has been dominated by it. Note the snow piles I have that are taller then me now!

This year has felt kind of like a slump. It seems I can end years on high notes but I can rarely start them on ones. Last year might count as an exception if simply because I made so many huge changes. The routine of it all just feels depressing: get up, go to work, come home, sleep, rinse & repeat. There's not much fun going on. Nothing that I can really look forward to of late.

Can only pray that'll change. Anyhow enjoy the white stuff, at least it looks darn peaceful and quite nice!

More Snow

Ah winter but at least this morning's snow ended by the time I started removing it and was of the light and fluffy variety and thus was easily removed. Primary day is looming near in Wisconsin and I see about one Obama ad an hour when I am watching the news or when I was enjoying Jericho. Wouldn't be so bad except he pushes anti-war ads which I disagree with. Wisconsin has a huge anti-war sentiment especially in the younger crowd, this campus points to that, so the ads make sense.

Hope all you Wisconsinites do go and vote whoever you're planning to vote for.

Speaking of Jericho, it was pretty dang good! You can go watch at CBS.com so I won't ruin the plot but I am impressed. Part of me actually would like things to wrap up after these 7 episodes. I'm not sure this can continue away from its original premise. Who knows though, I'll watch and see!

Old Works

I'd forgotten all about this!

Shines the name

To the everlasting glory of the infantry.

So today is Fat Tuesday if you care about Mardi Gras (or are Catholic I guess) and Super Tuesday if you care about politics (or are running for President and part of the Democratic or Republican parties).

It kinda boggles my mind that the networks call states as soon as their polls close. I mean Illinois is done voting and they give it to Obama and the same for Massachusetts for Romney. Now granted I don't really care if they do win but how can you call it before the results are even officially in? Sheesh. But it is kinda fun to watch. I got my favorites and then I got the people who I am ok with winning and I got the people I don't want to win. Like a sports event almost.

Not much of news worthy note here. Punctured a tire this weekend at home but have since gotten it repaired. The snow is mostly off the sidewalks and driveway except maybe the very end where it's been plowed up so much I may never get rid of it. What a white winter. Betcha there's major flooding this year especially if it really warms up fast in about April or May.

That's all I got for now.

Life

...rolls on. I feel a little adrift right now.

Cloverfield

Was pretty darn good! Carl said there was a rumor that Abrams is going to go back and do this movie from another perspective. That'd be very cool although I think this movie stands decently on its own. Very Lostesque with a fair lack of knowledge beyond the immediate. I enjoyed it. That's all for now :D

Snow

Is it just me or has it seemed like it has snowed a lot this winter? Next house I get has no sidewalks! Yes I think that's a wise call on my part!

Anyhow the tree is down (much sadness). Primary season rolls on. I'm really just waiting for super Tuesday (Wisconsin votes 2 weeks later, I think it's just a superficial thing ya know like letting the Packers beat the Patriots in the Superbowl instead of just giving them the title now?) to see who will be running against who. In the meantime the press will go nuts about the tight race and how every primary changes everything when really at this rate only the first Tuesday in February will (unless of course the straights go willy-nilly, that'd just be fuuuuuun).

Since I've now used up my () quota for the night I'm gonna go pack for home home. Which is home home anyways? Here or where I grew up? Anyone got theories.

Oh for interesting commentary for anyone who vaguely cares about politics and faith is be here. You can tell from the obviously not identical moniker that I commented. The lousy part is that I am unsure how to exactly follow up on the comment(s) after me although it seems like I should. Any suggestions?

January

The Christmas tree is still up. I was gonna take it down this weekend, honest. Things just got in the way! That is all (yea I know totally random).

New Year

Welcome to '08 a little late. Congrats to Lars and Beth on their marriage. This week was rather wild with all the travel. LA was interesting not sure I'm a fan but the t-shirt worth temps in January is nice. The people were fun. It's a shame that it's rather unlikely I will cross paths with a lot of them anytime soon again. Weddings can certainly bring together a diverse and random pool of people as evident from the bachelor party.

Highlights for me: chatting with Al on the drive there and back, chatting with the lady in LAX at 1AM, the Pacific Ocean at night (and that lone container ship out there), seeing Lars and Al about as happy as I've ever seen them, meeting Sam, Joel, and Jay and hanging out with them Friday (ever done 6 u-turns in 10 minutes?), caucus night analysis including calling Katy on the East coast (8PM = 11PM ya know) and finding out when the NH primary was, and hitting Goodwill for no other reason then we could!

Anyhow I'm home now and shortly life returns to the old norm. The tree needs to go down soon and that's really sad. Yet I'll enjoy having more room to play the Wii. Life rolls on as usual. Amber gave me a CD with some Newsboys on it and they're pretty dang good! Yay for new music!

Statistically speaking

Well 2007 is about to roll to a close. Whilst I am prepping to go see Lars married and in between Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii (oh so addicting) and an Exalted one shot that went surprisingly well (yay!) I took a look at Google Analytics. I really don't like the new set up but that's all they've got now so here we go.
Numbers are down about a 1/3rd of 2006. It's a little depressing but considering I posted about a 1/3rd as much it fits. My high was 22 visits this year, in '06 nearly 100! That's a lot for one day although I don't know how much of that was me. In fact I don't know in general how much of it was me but I suspect somewhere between 1/3rd and 2/3rds of all visits are from me passing through.

Will 2008 be a better year for posting? Who knows! I must admit I doubt it although I am not abandoning this blog yet. I simply need to figure out if I can find a proper niche of interests to write about. Or maybe re-dedicate myself to posting on a more regular basis.

All that said and done happy new year! 2007 was a year of huge changes (full time job and a house) but 2008 looks to be the year I start to settle in. Who knows though what it will bring. As they say: "I regret nothing, I lived as few dared to dream!"

Merry Christmas

It needs to be said. Hope everyone had a good one. I'll be celebrating back in Point by digging out of the foot of snow there (after doing this in La Crosse).

The reason why Mike Huckabee is the next President of the USA

Watch. Now that the election has been decided thankfully we don't have to weather any more campaign stuff.

On a side note Mike Huckabee does look like a wonderful candidate, as in I think I've found the guy I'd vote for!

Two posts in one night

Yea that's my title. TimeSplitters4 goodness here. Enjoy.

Dolphin Days

Well somehow Miami pulled off a victory snapping a 13 game streak of dismal losses and hapless quarterbacks. Don't get me wrong they really weren't that good (*sigh*) but somehow they got a win. That means even if the Patriots go 16-0 at least the Dolphins won't have gone 0-16. There is even a minute (something like the same chance of me being declared the Pope next week) chance that they could upset that Pats at home and go on a 2 game winning streak!

Anyhow, that's the sports new. Not much else goin' on. Work is kinda tough right now I wonder if it's related to it being almost Christmas. Or I am distracted by other things. Who knows.

That is all!

Progress

So had a moment of brilliance (or anti-brilliance) this evening I managed to get my little digital weather sensor working. Somehow when I was trying to set it up several months back I flipped the battery and no signal ever since then. Finally realized that and flipped it back the otherway. Power on! Well least it's running.

I also hung up two of the new pictures today so now only one thing left to hang in the living room. I feel rather productive tonight. Off to read a little more Patriot Games and then sleep!

Lights 2

Lights 2, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Lights 1

Lights 1, originally uploaded by mirv120.

First Snow

First Snow, originally uploaded by mirv120.

The next morning. Somehow I got myself on a corner where they plow both streets fairly quick!

First Snow

First Snow, originally uploaded by mirv120.

Ok pictures from our first snowfall. This was before I went to bed Saturday night.

White December

Well it really came down! It's still snowing and I'd say we got 6-8 inches so far. I'm glad I got the snowblower. I used it once and it's got even more to do tomorrow. I'll get a picture up tomorrow.

Good news: I got the outside lights up with the help of Carl!

End November

Another month rolls to a close. I've been a homeowner 6 months now. The Christmas tree is up and weather willing the lights outside will go up tomorrow. I picked up a cold from work it looks like. In an attempt to limit the sickness rolling through I am getting the flu shot so here's hoping for a healthy 2008. It doesn't help that I have been re-reading A Civil Campaign and that has kept me up an hour or more later every night this week. I've probably read that things twice over this week!

Artistically challenged?

Well I got some more prints for the house finally. We'll see what people think I guess. In the meantime yea for new decoration!

So while I support the writer's guild strike I am sad because Heroes will be cut short. Rather a shame. Better not end the show forever though. That would make me rather sad. Can never tell with industry execs tho. Speaking of though...

Driscoll on Corinthians

If you have iTunes go search the Podcasts for Mark Driscoll. Snag some of his sermons on 1st Corinthians they're quite good!

Quote that?

Overheard from Joe's game the past couple sessions:

"I'm the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm the cleric of death, the beacon life." -Zach

"I pull out my lawn chair and wait for the crazy to be done..." -Zach

"I'm a gnome. I tunnel." -me

"Gnome hooked hammer and crowbar baby- I'm the most lethal thing on this island!" -me

"So we have yes bushes and no bushes...I like it." -Isaac

Sort of gaming related.

More nWoD campaign ideas.

Talk about a long running thread. This thread has finally passed on. Quite a run though. Luckily it lives on!

Ok link overload there but it's an impressive thread lifespan!

Work Work

Wow a long day. Not a bad day though so I should be thankful. So anyhow some more attempts to try and get the place decorated:

Bathroom
Stairwell
Living room?
Office? Bedroom? Living room? I like this picture but it's kinda gray/dark
Bedroom? It's a little small but I love it. Yes, I'm a military nerd...

I also like this one but don't know where to put it.


Hmm that's all I got

Home

Back in La Crosse for the weekend. It's the longest I think I've ever been away from this "home" although since I have a home in Point I guess the issue is more confused. It's strange to be back. The basement flooded in August so there's no carpet down here.

Randomly for those who asked: Emy Js has pumpkin ice cream. I don't know for how long tho!

Dog days

So did a little blog updating that was probably long overdue. Spurred on by Tyler's newest attempt to blog. He's gearing up for NaNoWriMo so have to see if he can pull of 50k in November.

Work was long today. Filteau and I got sushi afterwords so that helped some. It's almost November which means I'll have been working for 10 months. Wow. Time flies.

One thing I noticed when I updated links. Hardly anyone I know is actively blogging anymore. Heck even I am barely putting in decent effort. October which pretty much a dry spell til right at the end. I dunno why it is but I find it harder to write in here. Maybe I just need to prioritize.

That's it for now...

Trick or Treating Recap

So I bought about twice as much candy as I needed so now I have a ton left over. Anyone want some candy? Looks like I got about 75 trick or treaters.

Also pumpkin ice cream is great. Really. Awesome.

Additionally: random gamingness.

October Rolls Down

Well Halloween is tomorrow. Yes I'm aware that's tomorrow is not Oct 31st however the city of Stevens Point does not seem to be aware of this item. Well actually I'm pretty sure they are aware of this as well. It's that whole safety thing although just doesn't feel like Halloween to be doing it during daylight hours 3 days early! Did you know that they pushed daylight savings time a week back so it'd be light out longer for trick or treating. But anyhow I picked up a ton of candy (3 large bags) and hopefully that'll be enough. Either I'll have way too much or way to little candy I guess.

The yardwork is slowly wrapping up. The trees have lost all their leaves (only took 2.5 full passes on the yards and 9 or so 55 gallon bags of leaves). Now I just gotta clean the gutters and wash the windows and I'm already for the winter I guess.

Not sure what else is new. Probably report how trick or treating went tomorrow.

SimCitizen

So massively addicted to SimCity 4. I'll use that as my excuse why I haven't blogged recently. Oh and lots of leaves to be raked. Plus a side trip to the Cities. Yea, busy...

A little Serenity

Is it funny that I had a good night when I looped the best track from Transformers: The Score (Arrival on Earth is the track name btw) lit some candles up and curled up with Nobilis and read for an hour that it was a very peaceful night? Alas that is now coming to an end and I must go to bed to work tomorrow.

Protest

Its interesting to watch governments rise and fall and noticably in the past couple years relatively peaceful revolutions. Now a similiar event seem to be unfolding again in Myanmar (Burma) although it remains to be seen if it will survive government crackdowns. My prayers go out to these monks and those marching with (and supporting) them.

September Rolls Down

Wow, time is flying it feels like. Another month has rolled past. I've been in the house for over 4 months. It seems so long ago that I came in here on a cold rainy May evening and entered this place, empty and deserted. Now it's home in almost every sense of the word (home in La Crosse still retains its homeness as well). Still need to work on decorating the walls a little bit methinks. And sort/file papers. Fall is coming and soon winter will be rolling around. I'm excited. Even if it means snow removal at 6 AM before work.

Dogs, Gutters, and Heroes

So I have concluded that I really dislike dogs primarily on the grounds that their owners seem to think that they don't need to climb up the waste their pets leave on my yard. Bah, I am a bigger supporter of civic virtues of late.
On a side note, my gutters seems to collect a lot of leaves. A lot. At least I know where all the leaves of my front tree are going for the winter!

And finally: Heroes is beginning again, yayayay!

Yea, Soundtracks

Yay, Transformers: The Score is coming out Oct. 9th. I really enjoyed the score so I can't wait.

Realmslore

Well got a bunch of the Forgotten Realms books today. Champion of Ruin, Champions of Valor, Power of Faerun, Mysteries of the Moonsea, Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave, and Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land. Carl would say I need to run a Forgotten Realms game now and he's probably right considering I own most of the books. Really need to read them and take into the account the time shift. The books advance the timeline very slowly but I've gotten them out of order so some events that are "current" in one book aren't anymore. It looks like that the last book for Forgotten Realms Anauroch: The Sundering of the World will set up the transition to 4th Ed.

Anyhow I am book geeking out (is that a real term?) so that's it for now.

Fall Comes

So I got the first season of Heroes on Thursday and have been plugging away at it. Maybe not quite as good the second time around cause I know most of the secrets but I do enjoy watching to catch things alluded too.

Also snagging up the rest of the Forgotten Realms corebooks. More on that as they roll in.

Hmm, that's all I got right now. Sorry, it's kinda short, I don't feel extremely chatty :/

Enter September

Well the place finally has rain gutters around it, the efforts of the Labor Day weekend. Of course now I need it to rain which hasn't quite happened yet.
Filteau is here for a week so it's a little strange as I have a roommate for the first time here at the place. Different actually having someone around but not bad. It's to have someone to chat with.

Anyhow, that's it for now.

Rappan Athuk Outside & Lvl 1

Is up here for your reading pleasure?

Off to clean the place now for the folks.

Return to DMing

Well kicked off Rappan Athuk tonight. Not sure how well it went but hopefully I'll improve. I'll do a write up here eventually on the gaming blog.

Known Space

We Made It! is a phenomenally awesome name for a planet. Yes indeed. Why yes I am reading another Man-Kzin Wars why do you ask?

Picked up BESM: 3rd Ed for $22 over at JadeCo today. Yay for 40% off sales. Last week I snagged a cribbage board and a Dragon and a Dungeon magazine (Yak folk were featured in the Dungeon so I had to get it, ask Carl why).

That's it for now. Very close to picking out art work to finish decorating my walls.

Fantasy mirrors reality

So this was an odd story to read on the Beeb. It seems that a disease afflicted by one of the bosses in WoW called "corrupted blood" spread out of control like a real serious fast spreading disease. In some cases according to the Wikipedia article over half the population of some servers were being wiped out. The story on MSNBC as well. I guess World of Warcraft gets a little more press just in an odd way.

It's raining again but at least my basement isn't flooding or worse like those from back home. On the bright side I might get some grass to grow as I put down seed. Anyhow, back to work.

Think of the Neglect

So fooling around Google Analytics and was looking at my other blogs. Now this blog suffers from a sort of mild neglect of late but the others are doing quite a bit worse. Pillars at least has been updated within the past couple of months but Autumnhold hasn't been worked on in awhile. I wonder if I can pick them up again. Try and post at least once a month. Give myself some goals here outside of work.

I wonder. Well time to get back to sorting. It feels like fall although that's a long ways off I guess. I like this feeling, gray and cool. Just wish the trees were changing color (yes I know that'd negate the gray factor a bit).

4th Edition

Ironically when typing the title I typed $th Edition which in some ways certainly applies. For those of you who you A) Care and B) somehow haven't heard the 4th Edition of D&D was announced at GenCon on Thursday (although it was reported by Enworld on Wednesday. As more info has percolated out it actually sounds pretty cool. A lot of people were wary but this sounds like a competent re-design of D&D. WotC appears to have paid attention to how people play and done their best to support that game style. Granted we'll have to see come winter and more importantly next spring when the previews and actually books come out respectively. I'm curious and I have to admit I will probably get the core books. I know a lot of D&Ders around here are skeptical but since I'm half-collector and half-player I'll take a look. Besides which I can see why starting over after 8 years is a good thing. Better then how quick Exalted turned over and I eventually got sucked back into that too.

In non gaming news I guess there isn't a whole lot. It finally rained a bunch. Heck it rained all day yesterday and is misty all day today. My grass will be green again! It did throw my plans off yesterday a bit tho but I didn't inside stuff: lots of laundry, etc. Today I am procrastinating on starting to sort through the billions of papers that I need to tackle but after this I'll do that. Saturday evening Allison and I spent part of the night trying to hunt down a random old movie I want to see called The Car. No luck so eventually settled on The Covenant which came out last year. It was ok, not fantastic but did have some interesting points. Very pop culturish. Saw Titan AE this week as well and although it's obviously somewhat more oriented towards younger audience I was very impressed with the graphics and the soundtrack wasn't half bad either.

Well I suppose I should get to it. Enjoy the rain!

Brought to you by the Coalition States

Hmm, penny for anyone who can reference what the Coalition States are. Or maybe not, Google and Wikipedia know right off the bat...

Finally finished Second Foundation which means I am now done with the Foundation series. Or at least the original. Now the question is do I attempt to finish Velvet Elvis or pick up another book. I won't make very good pace for another month or two but it looks like my lunch buddies will be leaving in the next couple months for better offers in other places so by the end of the year it may be just me reading at lunch again. Oddly I don't mind. I kinda liked plowing through books. Granting I like being social too. It's a weird balance of life I guess.

I should read more when I am home but half the time I can't get focused in until I should be sleeping. Maybe it's cause I page randomly through RPG books. Right now I am bouncing between Damnation City, Vampire: the Reqiuem and Werewolf: the Forsaken. Damnation City and WoD: Chicago really inspired me to get the two core books because otherwise I don't know what the heck some of the terms are. The nWoD games are very political and having the cores helps to make sense of the situations. Too bad there are supplements to better support Chicago for Prometheans or Changelings as it'd be interesting to see how all the different types of WoD "races" interacted in a city. I'd bet it'd be very strange. Not that werewolves, vampires, and mages aren't strange enough (plus ghosts and spirits cause ya know they're mainstays).

In retrospect I really should finish Velvet Elvis but it just hasn't grabbed me. It started out good but not so much. Maybe I just don't quite agree with Rob Bell's views and it silently grates on me. Or if it does it's just not as well written as Mark Driscoll's book whose name I can't remember now and am too lazy to get up and look in the library two rooms over or search this blog. Driscoll tossed a lot of humor into his books which made them amusing even if I disagreed on some of his points.

Still haven't narrowed down the prints choices yet. Sort of putting it off. I have so many other things I need to do I guess that it may wait. This week will be busy. This weekend sure has. Helped Jeff get his deck in order. Mostly I just held things in place so he could screw/saw/mark up them. I might actually be able to put a deck together on my own tho now. It probably wouldn't be as good as if someone whose worked more with wood would be but I am learning I guess. This week I think I have stuff going on every night. Hanging with Carl Monday, getting my hair cut and then over to Ellen's to hang on her porch Tuesday. Movie night Wednesday? More porch time Thursday (although that's tentative). And last movies in the park Friday and it's Star Wars so should pull a big crowd. Oh and cleaning the apartment Monday for sure maybe more later in the week if I don't get done! At least I will be done with the apartment after that.

Think that's all for now. This was a long rambling post.

Updates

Al relocated his blog so I updated that and Rachel has moved her blog to Myspace an area that I tread much less so that link is removed.

Also, see the links for images now as actual links below...

The Tides of August

Hmm, bought more books. Mostly RPGS: Monster Manual V, Shining South (a Forgotten Realms supplement, one of the old location books), and Damnation City a Vampire/nWoD book. The most interesting book at the moment is probably Damnation City which details how to build a viable city in the World of Darkness although it's rather Vampire centric (hence the name). However it's interesting city building rules. I also got the reprints of the Dark Empire graphic novels for Star Wars.

Not much else new. Lars is in town this weekend so that's pretty exciting. Hopefully get to actually hang with him a little bit. That's all for now. Have a good weekend.

Deviation

I'm plugging away at attempting finishing the decorating my walls. Here are some links to peruse and give me feedback. Be warned it's apparently a laaaaaaaarge list:
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Anyhow, no news on the reading front, still stuck in Second Foundation although also perusing WoD: Chicago.

Nerdom?

So is it bad that I am listening to the Robot Chicken Star Wars skit "Palpatine Phone Call" and I recognize the voice of Seth Macfarlane (for those of you drawing blank looks he's the creator and half the voices on "Family Guy") by one phrase he uses in the skit. He's the Emp btw. Truly I am a nerd. :D

Harry Potter Transforms?

Read HP7. Not too bad. Didn't quite beat the spread but I was betting on Voldemort too :D

If you haven't seen Transformers drop what yer doing and go see it. It's quality! Yea, isn't that deep wisdom? Maybe not.

Nothing else of real substance at the moment alas.

War and Politics II

Another fun one related to the war: when did the withdrawal become a "re-deployment"? I mean are we keeping them on active duty when they are returned to the United States? Are we beaten so badly that Congress thinks the Iraqis will be landing troops on the East Coast? Meh, the whole debate leaves a bitter taste in my mouth as its all about politics and the only people who matter are the polls.

That's all for now...

News?

Hmm, my blog feels like its slowly dying of neglect. Let's see what's new? Work is busy but generally straight forward so that's good. The house is pretty much set up, basically just some interior decorating is left but that's not on a set schedule. I still need to sort through that stack of papers but think that may get neglected a little longer. Not good I'll admit.

I'm finishing up Second Foundation. I should really tackle Velvet Elvis after this but I got Night Watch and am debating reading that. Floating around in RPG land I also have Oadenal's Codex for Exalted and Magic Item Compendium for D&D for new perusal.

To celebrate that I won't be paying dual rent next month I am going on a book buying spree I think. Probably pick up a bunch of RPGs. Have to see tho. Harry Potter 7 comes out next weekend but that will be a weekend blitz. Poof and done.

Sadly beyond that there isn't much news. More later?

War and Politics

It makes me very sad now that the only thing politicians talk about these days (especially nearly all of them running for office) is bringing the troops home. None of them talk about actually solving the problem. See they act like when all our soldiers are back in the United States the problem will be solved. And ironically from a pollsters perspective it will because the the 26.7 million Iraqis don't vote in US elections (and therefore aren't people, sorry folks unless you're an American politicians here don't consider your opinion worth much unless you are agreeing with what they are doing).

So what's this mean at as far as I see it? Well, eventually the Democrats will succeed in getting the troops home. It's inevitable since as I mentioned above pollsters rule Washington and the war is obviously unpopular. Have to blame Bush on that one, he certainly bungled the war effort going in. He probably should have emphasized the fact that we'd be in Iraq for decades. (Also it might have been nice if they had planned a little better for the postwar period.) We still have military forces in Germany 60+ years after that war ended. But Americans are lousy at history anyways aren't we? Iraq may of course actually pull things together without direct military support, to say it's impossible downplays the abilities of their people but I see it as unlikely. More likely is a brutal civil war and a country (or countries?) feeling betrayed by the Americans who came in kicked everything over and then left.

Politicians may see themselves elected to office on bringing the troops home but in 20 years politicians may be having to tell those troops to go back into Iraq to deal with a country (or countries) that hate America and are as active against us as Saddam or the Taleban ever was. Didn't this kind of short-sightedness lead to the problem in Afghanistan in the first place back in the 80s?

Maybe it's true that we just will never learn.

Guests

I love having people over. :D

Rut

I'm in a rut lately and I am unsure how to get myself out. Hmm...

Books

So plugging away at an accelerated rate at Foundation and Empire as my usual lunch cohort is on vacation this week. I've got a lot of reading waiting for me. It's all in one place due to the house (well actually I have a couple of Dad's books I want to read too but oh well). 24 books that are unopened sit on the shelf plus Velvet Elvis which is next up on my docket.

The house is mostly set up, you can take a look on Facebook if you like. At some point now I am going to probably throw a house warming party although that depends greatly on my motivation. I started the battle to retake my lawn this evening and I will be interested to see if the weed spray does anything or if I applied it to lightly. I also need to get around to washing the CRV sometime. And securing the ethernet cable in the basement and a million other miscelaneous projects.

Looks like I might be running a mortals nWoD game for Carl & friends. Should be interesting if it does run. Hope I can pull it off, that kind of story is all about the storytelling not so much the system! Anyhow I need to throw some laundry in here quick before I head out to the LTG.

It heats up

Well my house survived the day of super cells last week thankfully. In general things are coming along pretty well. What I really need to do is unpack the rest of my junk. After that I am essentially home free. I am pretty close as it is. Then I just have projects to do and those will be ongoing. Note: When you buy a house the list of things to do never goes away it just changes in size.

What's new? Well I ordered a print for the living room. Will have to find a frame whence it arrive. We'll see how it looks, maybe I'll get more but they're expensive too! Decorating is a lower priority, it will perhaps be higher in the fall/winter.

I've got the itch to buy RPGs again but I am holding off. A couple new Exalted books will come out over the summer and those I will get. Probably Scions: Demigod & God as well. Really digging some of the stuff with Gear Krieg as well. Ah, who knows. It's inevitable that once my apartment lease is done that my "luxury" items will be mostly RPG books. Then again I don't really want much else. Maybe a Gamecube game or two but those are cheap and prolly getting cheaper!

There is a part of me toying with wrapping up this blog. I'm not yet so don't worry if you are one of the few people who actually reads/checks this on a semi-regular basis. It's just that I think in a sense I may be running out of stuff to talk about. I don't talk about work on here and that's what I do 40 hours (sometimes more) a week. It cuts out a lot of the time I had to do random maybe interesting to the random reader stuff!

Cleaning Up and Out

Well everything but a wastebasket and some cleaning supplies is moved out of the old apartment. I even lugged up the hideous old lamp and stand that came with it and had been tucked away in storage for over a year. Tomorrow I'll go and clean the place, finish it off. Then I guess I'll have to hope someone takes it. Otherwise it'll collect dust. The place looks a little forlorn.

In the meantime my house feels quasi-filled with stuff that needs to be sorted and put away. I have a lot of junk, an amazing amount for a single bedroom apartment. (BTW the old apartment is so small I can plug in the vacuum in the hall and it can vacuum literall the entire place. Crazy stuff.

Well time to go read Legacy of Heorot and then crash.

Settling In

Well I am mostly moved in now. What remains is a lot of organizing of things. Major furniture arrives tomorrow, that will be pretty exciting, I'll finally have a real bed all of my own. Also a couch. w00t!

Granting the basement still needs the futon assembled, that tv set up, and even more stuff put away. I should also prolly get that ethernet cable that snakes from upstairs through downstairs out of the way. That'll be fun...

Anyhow, the real home is getting closer!

Home

I own it and am moving in. Guess I'm staying put for awhile. Well come and visit me :D

Starcraft 2, Shrek 3, and 4 Toast

Which one is not like the other eh?

So if you haven't heard Starcraft 2 has been officially announced. I'm pumped for it, first game in awhile that's got me excited. Not even sure the computers I have will run it but ah well.

Saw Shrek 3. It's not as good as previous two. Not bad mind you just didn't quite get me like the others. Think it was the lack of a good soundtrack that might have hurt it the most. Music matters.

Been busy reading, I should fill you in but time for bed now.