Free Falling

Well this week continues to be not the greatest. Last week kind of foretold this (starting about Wednesday but I could see it coming from earlier tho) but yea that was the slide, this is the fall. Last night there was hope because it was Tuesday Night Mario Kart and we (Eric, Steiner, Nathan, and I) got in some high quality MK action. We (everyone other then Steiner) are catching up to Steiner in skill. If we had another 3 months it might be vaguely equal. Alas we have 2 more weeks and then it's all over, possibly forever. That's how life is though. It just ends at some point.
Today was a let down so far. Usually lunches on Mon/Wed/Fri are great. I get to spend quality time with two of my good friends (it varies with the day) but today (and last week) Wed was lunch was basically eat and sit in silence. Perhaps I am just being paranoid but I am really worried I did something to piss her off. Frankly I have no clue what's going on, but it's been on my mind now because it feels like I did something wrong that I am not being told about (so I can at least apologize and then get lost if nothing else) but yeah that is really on my mind right now. For me, after God, friends and family are what it's about and well it seems like I am losing touch with one of mine now (actually quite a few, lots of people seem distant, maybe it's just me tho) and that worries me to no end. Whatever is going on, more then likely it's my fault, because this week seems like that just about everything is.
Getting off my self pity and worry since noone cares. People might be interested that Apple has updated iTunes. iTunes is now a year old and has sold 70 million-yes million- songs in that time. Quite a few. I have about 100 out of that number. I actually do buy music now since iTunes Music Store came to be. Go figure music industry. You actually made money through downloads!
A salute to Neph again for humor on the Exalted forums. In response to whether firewands-think one shot ancient flamer throwers-could be parried by Sam Gamgee he said: With an suddenly-unhappy Smeagol, if Sam is smart about it. This just cracked me up. Decent humor is sometimes hard to find on forums these days!

From Iranian News

Tehran Times Take it as you will.

Minor Victories

Well with thanks from one of my classmates (whom I actually don't know her name) I am finally passed the sticking point that held me up all yesterday in VB.NET Why it sucks so bad I don't know, to tell the truth I think it has to do with Microsoft and their multiple lousy products but probably in reality it is more some tech didn't set things up right on public machines. There is no problem in A224 lab which is less restrictive so go figure.
Kudos to Neph for his hard work defending Exalted from the morons who live only to deride the game further because it doesn't conform to what they believe is true. This has already run Scott Taylor (aka izzylobo) to leaving the industry for awhile (see his LJ) and I am wary it may drive others as well. Anyhow see the defense here. I don't think a lot of the people who bitch so much see this but when you keep doing it over and over and over and act like its your right to bitch you drive away talent who work hard and get only your complaints as response. So thanks to those writers who stick with it and help us even when we don't act in way to deserve it.

Update (15:18):

Watching continued stupidity from peoply complaining who seem to be asking permission from writers to do what they want in their games instead of what's in the books, as if that makes it more valid. Sheesh, why do gamers have such a hard time with their own Golden Rule (If you don't like something, CHANGE it!)? I can definitely see where Scott Taylor and Bruce Baugh are coming from. Read Bruce's latest post for the World At Large and see what I mean.

Criticism can be useful at points but there is a general point where either you act on your criticism (ie, if it's that bad quit buying the product or actually go out and attempt to change something rather then put out philosphical ideals for the world to see but never or rarely act to achieve them) or you should shut up. I am probably guilty of not shutting up. Certainly on my roommate I should shut up, only a few weeks left anyhow. I could try and act to fix things but I don't. There's just one example for me. I think though part of human nature is to love someone/thing to hate and hate with a passion. In many cases it might be a love hate relationship which makes it all the crazier. Who can really say?

Anyhow back to CIS. I am 1/3rd the way through it and I just got done with the easy 3rd. I told myself no supper til I am 2/3rds of the way done so I had better get going because the Wooden Spoon lunch was dissapointing and my stomach is not letting me forget that!

I should have studied or slept

...but isntead I got another laugh (perhaps God decided to send me a little cheer, but I can't speak for His actions). As you might recall I am part of the Gmail e-mail beta through Google. Initially I had a lot of problems. Safari wouldn't work with it, I could see the page just fine but I couldn't click on anything, it was like looking at a picture of my page. Mozilla and Netscape, the two major Mac browsers supported couldn't even get that far-frankly they suck anyhow. So I used a Science Lab computer and made a comment. Ironically when I got home, Gmail worked with Safari (yay!) and now I see this off the Google News page. Isn't life funny. BTW if you want my new Gmail addy drop an e-mail to my current UWSP address.
Cheers from a somewhat happier Pointer (until I have to hit the homework this afternoon).

One Bright Shining Star

My sister's getting married!

Imagine that.

Hate it All

Today sucks. I head down to do homework after getting a nice 12 hours of sleep. Find out my iPod Hold switch is broken and I can't use it at all because it's set in locked, ie, the touch pad won't respond to touches. Less then a year in and the one (1) moving part is broken! What the hell? Apple is supposed to be quality stuff isn't it? But not to be outdone after I finally manage to get focused on homework again Visual Studio .NET proves that it can't do simple thing without hanging up, aside from taking 10 minutes to update it's help system (which I don't use) without allowing you to click out of it (thus wasting 10 minutes and nearly locking the computer again). Thus I cannot get even halfway through the assignment because I cannot establish a connection to the database. Now I have wasted most of an afternoon and evening and gotten absolutely NOWHERE.
So this week looks like it will absolutely shitty. I could rant about people right now (I feel pissed off at just about everyone minus maybe 3-4 people) but I won't. Damn, I'm angry though. What a worthless day.
At least Kyle listened and put his incredibly horrible smelling shoes in the hallway. I can't believe he lives with that kind of stench or that he expects anyone else to deal with it (Dani pratically had to leave the room yesterday when he took them off for 5 minutes).
Grr....

Britain

Yea, today was the big mandatory meeting. Things look pretty set to go for the hop across the pond. I was kinda surprised it's is mostly (2/3 or more) girls. I thought the numbers would be somewhat more equal. Oh well. I can't complain the way things are. I have to start hunting for a new (normal) backpack and one like backpackers use plus a digital camera. Right now too looks like if I can do things right I will be able to go to GenCon Europe and hopefully they'll pre-release Exalted: Fae Folk there although I don't really care if they do or not I just hope that I can make it and White Wolf represents.
Twism and I finally managed to finish unlocking the last protected stuff in Mario Kart on Kyle's Gamecube. Steiner had already done this with Eric's cube so it's not new but now both rooms are empowered. We rule, yea!
I think that's all for now. I don't feel like putting any deeps thoughts in at the moment. Too bad for you!

Poor Baldwin

Well this will really be Eric, Will, Teng, and whoever else gets elected problem but guess who's roommate decided he should run for treasurer? Yes. Scary. Granted it isn't technically my problem anymore but what in his mind made him want to do that? It's not like he does anything (less then Ben if that's possible, not that I really care that much, I don't but people ask me cause he's never around to ask, why he doesn't do anything) so why take something which according to the CAs I ate supper with requires a heck of a lot of work and responsibility? Yea. That's my roommate is stupid rant for today.

I now have a gmail account but using it has thus far been a problem. It doesn't work with Safari or the old IE Mac OS X version. Now I downloaded Mozilla 1.6 and Netscape Navigator 7.1 and neither can get to the page. The irony is I can get into the page with Safari but somehow nothing reacts to my mouse clicks. How in the world can I not click on links or anything? Must be XML I guess. I dunno. That's all for now.

Oh boy

From my Cisco days I know this is deep, deep trouble. More on this later maybe. After the IT people finish panicking.

Hamas: Friend of the US?

Israel has now killed two leaders of the group Hamas back to back. The world has condemmed Israel for this action. I am confused. If we take out Osama bin Laden will the US be condemned? It's not like Hamas is the legitimate government of the State of Palestine, as I recall the duly elected (in theory) leader of that government is Yasser Arafat. So how can you condemn a country for killing two men who have vowed to bring that country to destruction? It's not exactly like they are good people towards the US or Israel. (Yes, that is a biased source. Here is another with a near opposite take and one from about as close to the middle as you can get(?)). Granting taking out the leader may not help overall negoiations for peace but on the same side is Israel negoiating with terrorists or the Palestinian (spl) state?
Anyhow, rant over.

Generating Excitement

So I found some fun random generators. A couple I may actually use later for more significant purposes but in the meantime I will put one or two up here for you to peruse.
Writing Challenge
Quick Story
Weird Name <---useful for genning Exalted names.

My CIS test rather beat me up pretty bad, not looking forward to getting that back really. Hope I hold a B in that class. *sigh* At least the rest of my week should be fairly easy, although my weekend will be hectic.

Confessions of an AM rambler

I have a test in less then 8.5 hours. I haven't studied enough. Then again I should know it fairly well so I don't need to study much right?!? After this I will read some more and hope I actually know this, syntax is a real pain, especially when everyone including the Prof relies the program to crosscheck any errors before running. So it seems unfair to me. That is the life for CIS students, indeed anyone who has to take tests in regards to programming languages.
Let's see, what else do I have on my mind that I want to blatantly throw out for public consumption til I realize what stupid stuff I say and edit it. In fact realizing this I am not gonna say what I was gonna originally babble. Thankfully watching Gundam SEED let my brain re-engage. I am done for now, no need to bother you with my loneliness. Right. Ende.

28 Days Later

So Allison got me to watch that movie. Not too bad and even a happy ending. Definitely higher quality then 13 Ghosts. I can see why this movie got awards. Anyhow I enjoyed it and wasn't too creeped out (gee, interesting to actually be in those places now...). Not gonna say a lot more because it is late. Gundam SEED has begun on Toonami Saturdays. They cut out or messed up all the cool theme music. I am sad. Otherwise interesting to finally watch it again (I haven't watched the episodes I have in awhile). Watching some of the Animatrix now and then getting to bed.

From the Newsfloor

Sent by a friend. Interesting read on sorority life. Apparently the stereotypes are true. Gee, makes you wonder what those frats are up to. But don't get me started on that. I want a few more years of personal observations (and my former roommates list of stupid things I have seen people do) before I hit that.

Rollercoaster Thursdays

That's how they feel, but they never ever seem to live up to expectations.
First off, some blog statistics for those who do it or are just randomly interested in that kinda stuff. I thought it was rather interesting. Actually found it awhile ago and dug it up now for your reading pleasure
You can save Enterprise! Yes do it! Forget some anti-Bush pledge! Do something that is worthy! Yes I am teasing you anti-Bushites. American politics: where we vote for the least worst canidate. Anywho, irony is when the due date is.

I am done now.

Whoa, comments

Yea, so through my wonderful comment system I have discovered an Exalted artist's blog/LJ/whatever. I'll throw it up there on the side for you to peruse.

From the Forums

From Neph more specifically. Off the forums:
(Begin Post)
I've explained this elsewhere. I wish I had it still.

Whatever they once were, the Yozis are now the ultimate archetypal forces of pain and lies. They want their freedom. They want to punish Creation and all its denizens for their long imprisonment. After that, they want to get back to ruling the cosmos as eternal tyrant overlords. To this end, the Exalted stolen by the Yozis become princes among slaves. They serve as a warning of what the Yozis intend for Creation, a symbol of Yozi power and the intrument whereby the Yozis may enslave others. In one hand is suffering and in the other their honeyed treachery damns the world. Fear them because they will hurt you and keep on hurting you.

The Malfeans lurk in fitful slumber, more and less than dead within their temple tombs. The spite of the Yozis is the pettiness of a spoiled child who had his favorite toy taken away before being sent to his room. The manifestation of that spite is a temper tantrum, albeit one on the scale of the titans. That comparison doesn't diminish the horror of that cataclysm, but consider that the Malfeans aren't like that. The spite of the Malfeans has no bounds of selfishness and malice. Yozis want what was theirs, and they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they can have it again. Malfeans want what was theirs and they can *never* have it back. They watch and dream and remember and wallow in alien bitterness, knowing that all they ever loved or covoted or cared about has passed from them. The lurk in shadows, dreaming of shadows. They cannot or will not let go, and so they linger in agony until and perhaps beyond the end of days. Their spite is sour grapes spite. What they cannot have, they will destroy, and they will laugh when all is ashes and embers. Their servants have given themselves over in similar lingering, holding to life or its semblance beyond their time so they can extinguish light, life and hope. Abyssals are doomed where Infernals are damned. The deathknights *will* serve the forces of darkness by action or inaction, and if they struggle against that doom it shall burst from them to scourge the world on their behalf. The Malfeans do not yoke the Abyssals directly because there is no need. Abyssals are tainted, stained to the core of their souls. They will serve their purpose. That is inevitable. Let them play. Let them think themselves free.Let them wallow in life so they can come to hate it more. With every passing day they draw closer to the bleak epiphany of their doom, and ever onward to ragnarok. The Yozis plot and scheme for dominion, and so they claim full dominion of their slaves. The Malfeans crave nothing but the murder of the whole world, and so they are content to let their doomed killers wander free. Where the Abyssals go, death follows. What more do the Neverborn need?

--Neph

(End Post)

Summed up nicely. Kinda a miserable life for Abyssals and Infernals tho.

Addendum from same topic:

(Begin Post)

Well, it's all in how you define redemption, actually. An Abyssal can be redeemed in life with truly Herculean effort. If slain, however, the permanently tainted Essence goes back to Exalt a new deathknight. This process continues indefinitely.

An Infernal cannot be redeemed in life, but all you have to do is kill him to set his Essence free. Yes, the next few incarnations will have urges, but that's ok. They can fight those urges or they can be quickly and summarily executed until the taint passes. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if there were Endings Caste devil hunters who covertly did that in the first age.

"But I'm not a devil worshipper! Why are you doing this."

"Because you could be. Because that risk is not worth taking. Because
it is necessary. Goodbye."

The Yozis have their Infernals absolutely, but only for a life. Then they have to lure them away again or snatch someone else.

Deathknights incarnate to their malformed Essence to the end of days, when they shall bring an end to days. Once more, I stand by my assertion. The Yozis desire dominion, but the Abyssals are ultimately harder to redeem and more doomed in the long run.

--Neph

(End Post)

Out of WDMD 101

Here is an interesting article related to anti-Americanism (it's actually a book review of sorts). I found it on the Ambrosia webboards. You might not agree with a lot of what says tho. Be warned but read it anyways, keep an open mind(?)

Player's Guide

Ok I am feeling educationally unproductive so I will sit down and review the Exalted: Player's Guide.
The book is split into 5 Chapters plus standard intro and one appendix.
The intro is the standard introduction for an Exalted books. It covers terms and some basic concepts covered in the book. Not much to say.
Chapter 1: Merits and Flaws. Merits and Flaws are new to Exalted. For that matter they are new to me as I have never played in a game with them. The stigma around them leading up to this was generally bad as World of Darkness games apparently had given people a bad taste in their mouth when mentioning them. However from my perspective they are quite good. Some seem a little useless but many I see could help round out a character's past/physical description. Large Size, Heirloom, and Past Lives are some of these for Merits and One Eye, Disfigured, Addiction, and Nightmares are among those Flaws which add flavor to the game and PCs. M & Fs require a lot of Storyteller oversight to control possible abuse of the system. That is perhaps the biggest weakness they have.

Chapter 2: God Blooded. God-Blooded actually encompasses not only God-Blooded, but Demon-Blooded, Ghost-Blooded, Fae-Blooded, and Half Castes (which took Nephilpal quite a while to come up with). It describes how each of these sub-races are created and what the requirements are to create one (ie, what conditions have to be met so the baby is God-Blooded rather then mortal). How to generate a God-Blood is covered. Patron and Inheritance backgrounds are introduced here to describe how powerful the parents were and how much influence their parents exert on their lives. Both are quite powerful backgrounds designed to make the God-Blooded a little more playable in the high powered world of Exalted. A number of specific Merits and Flaws apply to each type of God-Blooded allowing further indivulisation. A new Arconoi path is introduced for Ghost-Blooded. The creation of akuma (aka Demon-Blooded) and Infernal Exalted (also called akuma) is covered including the spirit charm which taints and controls a willing Exalt's Essence. Even if noone ever wants to make PC's from this section it opens up a lot of room for NPCs.

Chapter 3: Mortal Thaumaturgy. This is mortal sorcery. This includes organizations which thaumaturges are in. It also gives archetypes for different types of mortal thaumaturges as well as how to generate them. The new backgrounds of Expierence and Knowledge are introduced which basically give bonus points for previous life and magical expertise. The library background is introduded to cover those characters who keeps books (this essentially is a good thing for researcher PCs). Some more M & Fs are given to round out characters. Investment charms are given for some high essence beings to give mortals extra Essence to work with for a short period of time. Arts and Sciences are also introduced (basically the thaumaturges' rituals of power). I haven't spent much time reading this so I can't say much more.

Chapter 4: Dragon Kings. Covered barely in Ruins of Rathess, Dragon Kings are now fully fleshed out here. All 10 Paths of the Dragon Kings are covered as well as all 4 species of Dragon Kings. DKs are at this point scattered and mostly savage beings but if raised correctly can become probably as powerful as low level Dragon Blooded. Their Paths are somewhat weaker then Charms but more vertasile. DK artifacts are also listed from Ruins of Rathess plus some new ones.

Chapter 5: The Exalted. First introduced is Exalted Power Combat. This changes some rules in combat attempting to fix abuses and in general make combat more interesting. It is fairly complicated. I have read through once or twice and am still pretty overwhelmed. Along with this a number of charms are Errataed or modified. The list is extensive and many many Solar charms were tweaked. Weapons have gained rate which relates to how many attacks/defenses a turn they can make. Next section is Mail and Steel, ie mass combat. An entire new combat rules system is introduced. The basics are that the leader of a unit essentially is the unit with the units strengths and weaknesses just modifying the leader's rolls. Powerful units can act as independant ones however allow Exalts to roam freely. The rules are fairly complex but less so then the Power Combat ones. Overall they give a good way to allow armies to clash. The next section is Martial Arts. A number of new MA forms are given here as well as training mortals and others MA. The new forms aren't particularily exciting to me although certain parts are interesting concepts. The final section is Elder Exalts. This is very short and just covers the rules for covering extremely long amounts of downtime and generally special rules for Elder Exalts.

Appendix: Writing in the Age of Sorrows. This appendix shows us High and Low Realm script. It is very Chinese although Low Realm is quite a bit easier to read (think High Realm = cursive, Low Realm = standard). Appendix also covers education in the Realm to some extent.

At the end of the book is a character sheet for just about any of the characters in this book. That's all!

Review Time

Yea so I got a pile of books and I am getting close to reviewing them. I haven't really shot all the way through any of them yet but it's coming, be ready for it! In other news, I had a very good day! Got to spend some time with a friend who I've kind of drifted away from, gives me hope that things are back on the right track. I am a little wary that right now I might be hurting one of my other friendships so I am attempting to pull back and think about what I am doing and how I am screwing up (again). This I've found is hard as I usually need to withdraw from society to ponder this for a bit and at the moment my group of friends is so diverse that there always seems to be one or two of them with whom I am hanging out with or have plans to, etc. Almost the perfect life at the moment, almost.
I got more stuff for England today. The classes you can pick mainly and a bunch of other things I need to fill out and run down. I am excited cause I can kill my writing emphasis requirement over there. However I will still need to take one CIS WE class because it's part of the major. Blah! Also found out that my two geography courses this semester are social science and not physical science classes! Wasn't Gifford supposed to know that? Grr... Well eventually I will have to deal with that, who knows when. Post England either way.
Final comments: Lars took all us Chi Alpha folks to Belts. Lots of fun! Quality time with people if Ashley doesn't kill me :D Did I mention Squirrel will be in Munich the same time I am in London? Hopefully we can meet up at some point (hey, her group doesn't go to London, and you gotta see London right?!?).
All in all expect reviews soon, I want to be somewhat thorough so I am not gonna do any on the fly although I am tempted to cover WindZones and Order Book: Michaelites now. That's all for me. Off to bed.