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...