Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in sirin15's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, October 17th, 2009
12:25 pm	Since LokiDR decided to do a list of all the games he had played in and ran, I thought I'd give it a shot as well. Games I have run: Star Wars D6 - This was the first game I ran, ever. I think most people had a good time, and, in my estimation, that's all that really matters. I would say that's pretty good for a first time GMing. Werewolf - I was asked to run this because no one else would. I was trying to make some kind of an epic plot, but, I've never really been good at that sort of thing. D&D 3e Pool of Radiance/Curse of Azure Bonds - This game started out with almost 10 people, and it was a good mix of people, all kinds of hilarity ensued. D&D 3e PoR II - I tried running PoR the next year, didn't end up quite as good. d20 Modern - I was attempting to do some kind of an X-files game, but, school caught up with me and I turned the game over to someone else. Star Wars d20 - I was trying to do something interesting with this, but, it was another case of my inability to spin plot out of thin air. I have attempted to run various RPGs for my brother and father online, with varying degrees of success. (I'm leaving out the various RPGA mods I have run) Games I have played in: Calvin's 3e D&D Game of Death - This was my first ever table-top RPG. Characters died. Lots of times. The longest lived was my 'bard' which taught me to never play a bard. Ever. NinjaDebugger's TFOS - This was my first 'anime' based game. I was completely FAIL at this game - it was a game where the point was to skip school and get laid.... (or something like that). I was a lot of fail. But, it was very early in my table-top career. LokiDR's Shadowrun I - This was my third table-top RPG. I knew basically nothing about Shadowrun, and, I think that put me in situations where I acted in contradiction to what I would do now with the same character. Granted, my actions were not specifically the reason for the implosion for this game. The single greatest moment I remember from this game was calculating whether a building would collapse after a cabinet full of explosives exploded. LokiDR's Shadowrun II - This was a 'sequel' of sorts to the first one - had some different players though. I remember bits and pieces of what was going on in this game, but, I don't really remember the overall plot. As LokiDR said, it kind of ended badly. LokiDR's 3e Airship Game - I played two different characters, a samurai/highlander guy who had to leave the chaotic evil party or else lose his alignment, then kind of a gunfighter guy, but I had to quit the game due to time constraints. LokiDR's 3e Epic Game - I got to play a Hound Archon, how awesome is that? Jason's game of doom - This is the only high level D&D game I ever played, and I pretty much sucked. My first dude died because I missed a session, the second one died because I was a moron. The third one didn't die. wattshumphrey's 3e island game - This game was cut tragically short, but, it was headed good places. I was going to get to play the paladin of uber healing. (I.e. uber undead slaying!) NinjaDebugger's Tomb Of Horrors - This was a single module that we played at the end of term a few times. I think what made this module fun was knowing we had no chance in heck of winning, and the fact that we could pretty much try whatever the hell we wanted since we knew we were all gonna die anyway. (And the fact that the djinn said the key to victory was pissing on a skull....) Ohio 3.5e game - My singular post-MSOE in person table-top RPG experience. Turned out to be pretty cool, as I was playing the last priest of a almost dead God, trying to resurrect him. (The game world was such that gods lived based off of number of worshippers, and the city that contained almost all of his worshippers was decimated.) I was playing an uber-divine summoner called an Avatar. All I have to say is - Celestial Bees are awesome. (At lower levels, celestial badgers are also awesome. I even named them - Escobar and Horhea. Hmmm.... I think that's all the games I've played in. I -hope- I didn't forget any. I'm leaving out RPGA again... I wasn't particularly impressed with my time there. My coolest RPGA moment was in Living City, there was a time-travel mod where you got sent back to the time of troubles. My character was a cleric of Azuth, so, he kept trying to "leave the mod" to go meet Azuth. lol. So, my apologies to anyone I might have forgotten in this post. Didn't mean to... but.. memory sucks sometimes. :/ (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
2:10 pm	Too much? So, just plain raising taxes on people is one thing. Yeah, fine, you want government programs to do stuff. (Obviously, none of the stuff actually benefits me in the direct way, because I'm in the category who will be getting tax increases. If you want (and, as most people that I know are on the fairly liberal side of things) you could argue that these government programs are helping me indirectly by doing something or another for people with less income than me.) I can understand the arguments behind raising the overall tax bracket percentages and stuff like that. But now they're talking about punitive taxes on people that work for a company for getting bonuses, effectively to let the government decide that these people should not get bonuses, so taxing them at a ludicrous rate (i.e. 90-100%). (The company in question is AIG, which recieved $170 -B-illion from the government, and has given out 165 -M-illion in bonuses for the previous year.) It is kind of like what the omnibus budget did for the patent office - Oh, you can collect 1 billion this FY in fees, but you can't keep 5 million of that until you do a reexamination of patent examiner production quotas. 5 million out of a billion?? (not to mention that it is highly unlikely the PTO will -collect- a billion in fees this year anyway) I mean, after you take out the 165 million in bonuses, we've still given AIG a crapton of money. What is 158 million to that huge sum? Not to mention that AIG was obligated to pay those bonuses anyway... so at least it is 158 million that'll be going into the economy instead of sitting around gathering dust while congress sits around doing nothing. Seriously. So, the question is, should we just really go all left wing and declare that there is such a thing as someone making too much money a year, and institute a new tax system that taxes income over some threshhold at 100%? How do you decide how much money is too much? Hmm? Is 85k too much? How about 120k? (85 is approximately double the median household income, 120 would be approximately double the average household income) Maybe 50k is too much because it is double the poverty line, and who should be making twice as much as the poorest person?? So, with all this money, what will we do? Well, obviously we're going to go into a free national healthcare system ala Canada and the UK. If you watch Michael Moore's movie 'Sicko' it makes it sound like these places are medical utopias right out of star trek where everything is ponies and unicorns. I don't expect Michael Moore to tell both sides of a story like this. I don't expect whoever makes a documentary to tear down 'socialized' medical care to present both sides either. But, let's be honest, a national healthcare system won't be -that- expensive, so, what else can we spend our enormous tax revenue from all the rich people who will be donating all their income to the government now? How about nationalizing the educational system! Get rid of all this local control and assume full federal control of all public school districts and universities! Obviously since they're being funded with taxpayer dollars, Congress will have to approve the national school curricula every year... imagine what fun kinds of textbooks we'll be getting when the religious right takes over congress again (it will happen eventually, just part of life)! Anyway. I'm going to stop my rant here for today. I'm just pissed that washington is so up in arms about such a -tiny- amount of expenditure by this company. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 20th, 2009
10:22 am	New Car! So last weekend I bought a new car (those of you on facebook already know this, but there's a fair amount of non-facebooking people that read my LJ). I finally completed the financing today after a long and arduous process of getting completely ripped off without knowing it. I was thinking that it needs a name... since my brother falsely remembered that the Dukes of Hazard's car the General Lee was a challenger (it was actually a dodge charger), I was pondering calling my car the Admiral Adama. :p I've also been told it resembles the Knight Rider car, Kitt.. which is actually a Chevy Camaro. I looked for references for Challengers in pop culture history, and it looks like the only thing was a white one used in the movie Vanishing Point, and a red one used in the original gone in 60 seconds. Anyway. I have t3h new car, and even more debt, yay debt. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
1:11 pm	GenCon Hotel = FAIL Ok. So, all of the rooms at the connected hotels were gone in the first 10-15 minutes after housing reg opened. My dad just barely got he and I a room at the canturbury (which is a tiny ass place). I checked out the rooms later today, and there's still kings open at the omni... but I'm thinking I'm going to wait and see if something opens up later in the year with people cancelling or stuff. I think that's how everyone got into the westin last year if I am remembering correctly? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
12:46 am	Stuffs Ok. First, a minor business issue. It is getting close to gen-con housing time... and last I checked, the housing arranging people are not going this year. Therefore, either.. we need a new housing arranging person... or.. just not have a housing arranging person? Thoughts? Business over. Begin politics. I don't know that I'd want to be going into the office of President as popular as our current president is. I mean... he can only go down from here... its like looking down the mountain and knowing... damn.. I'm either going to really piss off the moderate republicans that like me now, or the extreme left wing people that want payback for 8 years of right wing rule. I was going to rant longer, but, who cares? He's gonna do what he's gonna do, and unless it is wildly out-of-step, he'll be able to bully congress into it for about a month or two. (Does anyone -really- think that Pelosi or Reid is gonna be able to stand up to the Obamamaniacs????? Its just like hulk hogan, but without the wrestling!) End Politics. Begin wierd idea. So I have been working on maxing out everyone in Dynasty Warriors 5 lately (my brother got DW6 for the PS3... I was very disappointed with it... to go from 50 some musou modes to less than 30? lazy and lame.) and got the craziest idea since ever. What if you took the idea of Dynasty Warriors, and then applied it to the revolutionary war??? You could have Washington running around with a giant axe beating the crap out of thousands of redcoats! He could yell for his musou attack 'I cannot tell a lie!!!'.... Does anyone else think that would be totally awesome??? Plus the french would get to be the yellow turbans, because you'd obviously have to include the french and indian war! ..... Ok, I guess its lame. But still! End post. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 8th, 2008
11:20 pm	Taxes! No death! http://www.greens.org/s-r/09/09-18.html So... now, all of my dear liberal readers can mark out for this idea. Boiling it down to its barebones, you end up reading the exact same thing the president elect was talking about... decreasing taxes on people making under X, and hike them through the roof on money that is earned over X. But... how do you even arrive at 'X'? This essay purports there to be a "Ten Times Rule", which I have been unable to find mention of on the internet in this particular context. I've done a little research trying to see if an idea like this has ever really been implemented, but it seems like it has not. The closest has been the income taxes in the US after ww2 until the 1960s or 70s, when the top tax bracket was taxed at like 91%. (I assume my readers know how the tax brackets work, i.e. every dollar made between 0-X1 is taxed at some percent, then the dollars between x1-x2 are taxed at some higher percent, and so on.) This apparently was also tried in Sweden for a while until popular unrest at the huge tax rate brought it back down. Since we're talking about taxes, let's talk about another favorite tax plan... the 'Flat Tax'. Advocated for by Steve Forbes in his unsuccessful run for president against Bush2, it was touted as being great because it eliminates the IRS. Everyone would pay X% of income, and that would be that. No deductions, no hiding crap, you just pay X%. There are a few problems with this, first being... what -is- X%? Obviously, it has to be high enough so that we don't go deeper into debt because of less tax revenue. On the other hand, if it is higher than the lowest current tax bracket, you're raising taxes on the poor. So, then you start doing things like, oh well, money up to the poverty line isn't taxed at all. But this hides the real problem with the "Flat Tax" proposals that were put forward in 1996 and 2000. What -is- income? Anyway. I'm not going to go through all that, because the Flat Tax is as dead as a doornail anymore because of the results of the elections in 1996 and 2000 (i.e. republicans shot the idea to death). So, that brings us to the present... where we've got Mike Huckabee screaming his head off about a "Fair tax". This is a really lame-ass name for the tax proposal, because what it is is a National Sales Tax. Now, before you start screaming about sales taxes are regressive, the Fair Tax includes a prebate, which essentially means that at the beginning of every month, all tax paying americans get a check from the government for the sales taxes that someone spending money at the poverty level would pay. (i.e. (poverty level)/12 * tax%) There's been more said about this tax plan than I would care to write here. After a little thinking, the main problem with the Fair Tax should be obvious. If I make so much money that I can't spend it all on stuff, then I don't pay tax on money I don't spend. I.e. I'm an investor, and made 30,000 on my investments, but then reinvest the 30,000 bucks... I'm not paying any taxes on that $30,000. Or if I just let it sit in my bank account. Heck, you win the lotto, you pay no upfront taxes on that money, and you can just let it sit in the bank getting all kinds of interest that you're not paying any taxes on. Remember that 1% interest on 10,000,000 is still 100,000, more than enough for anyone not living in DC/NYC/california to live off of comfortably. So what you end up with is the middle class (who spends the largest amount of actual dollars on stuff... after all, the rich will avoid buying stuff in america or else not buy stuff at all so as to avoid paying the sales tax) paying the largest amount of their income to the taxes, while the higher people end up paying less since they won't spend as much of their income. So... if all of these proposals suck... what -do- we actually need to do with taxes? Well, my libertarian friends would say 'F$$k income taxes! Its my damned money and you'll take it from my cold dead hands!'. This ignores the obvious issue of things that the market demands that the government do. (I.e. the interstate highway system) Or things that the constitution demands that the government do. (I.e. mint money, provide a military for the common defense, provide inventors and authors limited monopolies over their creations) The government is gonna have to have taxes now - the only way to get rid of them would be for the libertarian wet dream of all government programs not mandated by the constitution disappearing. Income taxes are a big issue in our country. They have been a big issue throughout history, in fact. They may not have always been called 'taxes' but perhaps 'tribute' or whatever, but there's always been some kind of payoff for a 'governing force' to protect its citizenry and provide for public goods like roads and military defense. The real issue for us now is who is going to pay the taxes, and on what will we tax. I highly doubt that the 'Fair Tax' is the end-all savior of the government budget. Look at Florida, it has no income tax and relies totally upon sales taxes and other types of taxes to provide revenue. It isn't exactly floating down easy street financially. It is very easy to glance at the communist manifesto, look at 'OMG that guy is making 10 million dollars! I'd just be happy to have 10% of his salary!', read all kinds of class warfare type literature, and go 'Let's take their money! They don't deserve it!'. I mean, this is, in effect what voters were saying by electing Obama... especially after the whole 'Joe the Plumber' debacle brought the tax policies to the limelight. The problem is that the wealth isn't actually distributed by taxes. Taxing the "rich" at an absurdly high rate is not going give -you- more money. It is going to give congress more money to play around with and not give to you. They'll give it to Ford/GM/Chrysler, a bunch of banks, defense contractors, and all kinds of other things that are not you. I have really out-rambled this entry... so.. i'm going to stop now since I seem to have passed the point of getting a coherent point out. That's what I get for not coming up with a point for writing. Hahaha. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
7:08 pm	Backup! I got Backup (a short story from the dresden files) from Amazon today. I finished it in less than an hour... it was an interesting -short- story. Luckily it wasn't expensive. It was an interesting book, fleshed out some new stuff in the world that is interesting. I also read the graphic novel compilation that came out recently. It was also fun. Still... nothing compared to Fallout 3 next week!! ;) Weeee! (Comment on this)
Monday, October 13th, 2008
5:11 pm	Christmas in... January? GARRRR! I was at the grocery store. Guess what I saw... Christmas stuff!!!!! It isn't even half-way into October yet!! I also heard that some casinos in Biloxi already had their christmas decorations up before september was even over! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
10:14 am	Amazon... wtf man? We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (DVD-ROM) or other games in the PC Games > Role-Playing category have also purchased Barbie Horse AdventuresTM: Riding Camp. For this reason, you might like to know that Barbie Horse AdventuresTM: Riding Camp will be released on October 21, 2008. You can pre-order yours by following the link below. Current Mood: confused (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
7:58 pm	Arrrrrggggghhhh So... I was watching this totally biased video about Islam ('Islam: what the western world needs to know' or something like that. its on google video). This documentary is almost calling for someone to lead a second crusade because Europe (and possibly the Americas) are turned into Islamic states. At the end, one of the guys is almost begging for another huge terrorist attack to galvanize anti-Islamic sentiment in the US to the levels that the anti-Nazi and anti-Communist sentiment was during their respective wars. Watching it is almost like watching all these political ads. They find all these examples that support their thesis and plaster them up, and get a bunch of 'experts' that agree with what they're saying to get their point across. It isn't like they just make up stuff though. However, if you take their 'worst case' scenario... you end up with 1984... Oceania (the Americas and the UK), Eurasia (which would be the new Caliphate), and East Asia (the communist superstate of China+Russia)... it fills out the map almost exactly the way Orwell made it. Anyway... I also watched both seasons of Burn Notice. Decent show. I also watched the season premieres of Chuck and Heroes. Also decent shows. In other news, I am attempting to start cooking things from Good Eats (not that most people on my friends list watch this show)... I'm about 2 for 3 so far... but waffles and french toast are easy compared to chicken kiev. My future plans for failing include chocolate fudge, funnel cake, and.. um.. other stuff which I will probably fail at. In even more other news, I don't really have any other news. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
11:48 pm	I decided to post, weee. There isn't a whole lot going on around here. I got to sit through a tropical storm, which inconvienced me for maybe 1 minute when the power blipped, but other than that, it didn't bother me at all. It sounded like metro had a few issues, but even those got resolved fairly quickly. I imagine the people that live close to rivers and stuff had issues though. It rained hard for quite some time. I got myself an LG Rumor. It is nice having a phone I don't have to practice typing on. I had thought about getting an uberphone like the Mogul or something, but I decided that I probably wouldn't use most of the uber features anyway. This is also my first phone that has a camera in it. And man does that camera suck! If I wanna take pictures i'll fricking bring my real camera. I've been doing a pretty good amount of overtime for the last month or two, so getting extra money is nice. Unfortunately, as I was warned, it is kind of addictive. At least if I want to keep getting the overtime I'll have to actually try, as opposed to the coasting I've been doing. Work is kind of 'eh', as I am quickly realizing how truly subjective this job is. The supreme court isn't trying to make it any easier either. The lack of a real objective standard makes the job kind of stressful. I'm making a character for iris_of_ether's Dark Age Mage game she is planning on running. I haven't really played in a world of insufficient light game before... and I imagine that a world of insufficient light during an age of insufficient light is pretty darn.. um... light-challenged. Guess there won't be any lantern archons there! I've been keeping track of some of the 4e talk going around and such. It occurs to me that all tabletop RPGs are kind of like MMORPGs in certain ways. They make a base product, people mess around with it, they release a bunch of expansion productions or micro-transaction items/stuff, then they make a new one or a sequel or whatever. 4e is just a new platform, it has its own quirks, advantages, and disadvantages. It is very close to what one would have if you took Diablo and turned it into a table-top RPG with turn-based combat instead of real-time. I think that my issues with the product will lessen as there are more and more options for characters - but in the end, it seems to me that characters are not really as 'versitile' as they were in 3-3.5e (my original d&d version, though I am familiar with 2e and have played a few games of it). A PC has a set of powers, and that's it. All that said, I'm trying to put together a three-session module as kind of a prelude to the previously announced ruins of adventure/pool of radiance campaign. The module would be based around the last days of the fall of Phlan, and the PCs would probably be like 11-13th level (i.e. important people in the town). This would provide some better flavor for the campaign as PCs could be related to those characters, or something. I'm not going to wait for WotC's game table. It sounds like that is going to take a -long- time for them to finish, if they ever do. The last time I tried to run D&D over the internet, I ended up using a program called gametable combined with teamspeak (because it was the only VoIP program I was familiar with). (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 18th, 2008
9:41 pm	The Gen of Con! Alrighty. I have returned from Gencon. I'm guessing that I may or may not have a bunch of readers who don't know who I am now too since I've friended just-n-examiner and apparently it is also possible that people can come across my journal while looking for stuff related to the PTO. So... this is my disclaimer here that nothing I say is any kind of an official position of the office or anything like that. I'm too lazy to copy the exact legal language, but, well, like I said. Nothing here is any official position of the office. Anyway! Gencon was exciting. Got to see friends, got to beat my head into the wall about an insane puzzle contest. Found fun board games to play with my brother and his wife and anyone that wants to join me. Didn't buy any of the games because I was informed about a cheap online site to buy them from. lol. I bought over 50 packages of pirate ships to put together. it was exciting. Huge boxes. There seemed like the con was a little more subdued than normal. I don't know if there were less people.. less vendors.. or what. Maybe the fact that this was the first Gen Con that Gary Gygax wasn't at put a cloud over it. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
7:35 pm	GenCon Hotel This is a GenCon posty for those that are staying in my room. (From what I can gather, I think that is wattshumphrey and oboedan .... I think? If that's wrong, iris_of_ether can fix my perceptions of this.) From what I understand, it is going to be 200$/person or so to split the room. (I'm not sure how the math works out, as I'm sure iris_of_ether knows how this is going to work.) My brother is going to be staying with us (he has told me that it is a 90% chance his leave will be approved, so if he pulls out, he'll still cover his part of the room, or at least I will cover what he won't of it.) In other news.. I still haven't got my badge yet. Was anyone else dumb enough to use the UPS shipping option for their badge? And if so, have you gotten said badge yet? Edit: I see my badge is due to be delivered today... only a week and a half late. Too bad I'll be at work and can't pay the COD. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
11:49 am	WTF! Ok. There's an English (i.e. UK) band that I really like, Dragonforce. They don't tour in the US almost ever, but they are this summer. Guess what the two dates are? They're playing in Indianapolis the day before Gen Con, and they're playing in DC the sunday of Gencon. The concerts start mid-day, so it is nigh on impossible for me to make it in time for either concert. On top of that, they're playing as part of a bunch of other bands that I don't really like, so that is at least a good feeling that I won't have to sit through a bunch of other bands I don't want to hear. Or pay money to hear them. *grumble* Work is work, they're starting a new pilot program for some patent applications where I do a pre-search and give the applicants the results, then we have a little chat with them to try and issue their application. The response to the program has been huge, and even though it is a pilot program, nearly half of the applications on my docket have filed to be included in the program. This is kind of bad, as the pilot program applications will all be going through our QA department, so that means that they'll take me twice as long as normal to do because I'll be double/triple checking everything to make sure I don't get an error. The only bright spot about the program is that it seems that most Applicants are amending their applications along with applying for the program so as to make the cases allowable on the first office action. (I.e. I'd have to find 2 pages of limitations in order to reject the applications, something which is nigh on impossible unless something is -really- not new at all). Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on with me. GenCon time is nigh, which is positive. Hopefully the Army will approve my brother's leave request so that he can come also. Oh, I also think I've mentioned that they've lowered the rank at which I'm allowed to work at home permanently, so I will be eligiable starting sometime within the start of 2009 (Jan-Feb) to "hotel". I'm somewhat tempted to go ahead and jump on the program, but I'm not sure. There's plusses and minuses. (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
8:52 pm	Watching! I finished Trigun a while ago. Not bad, but it isn't really 'exceptional'. I watched Ironman. Enjoyable movie. I am watching Fushigi Yugi (sp?). It isn't horrible... except 50% of the dialog consists of these two lines. 1) "Miaka!" 2) "Tamahome!" guess what the next two most recited lines are? 3) "Mi...aka..." 4) "Tama....home....". Just stfu and get back to work!!! Other than that, I think its alright. Actually kind of deals with some adult issues I wouldn't have expected in this type of anime. Been doing some instant watching on Netflix. Nothing special... actually.. a bunch of really horrible movies. :p Battlestar Galactica...... I won't comment, in case some people haven't watched, stupid spoilers. I really hope that Reaper comes back next season. It'll be fun for lost to come back also. I REALLY wish they'd bring back the Dresden Files show. I'm not sure how I'd feel about it now that I've read all the books (which are awesome), but, well, its still a cool idea. Other than that? Nothing going on here. Goin' to work, gettin the dollar. Ain't life grand? (9 Comments |Comment on this)
2:18 pm	4e! A bustling port city, the jewel of the northern moonsea, a center of civilization and a major trading outpost... all these things the City of Phlan was. 40 years ago, a massive migration of chromatic dragons across the world (known as 'The Flight of Dragons') devastated the city, leaving it vulnerable to attack from a massive army of all types of goblins, giants, kobolds and other creatures united under the leadership of a mysterious person known only as "The Boss", who swept in and conquered the city, leaving it a wretched hive of scum, villany, and stink. In recent years, a small resistance group has flourished and managed to reclaim a portion of the old docks area of the city and has set up a provisional government with the mission of removing the invading forces from the city and restoring it to its former glory. Who knows what treasure remains in the gutted buildings and mansions of the city? What great treasures of knowledge yet remain in the city's great library? A Temple devoted to the gods of good has been perverted by the conquerers into a Temple of the dark god Bane... perhaps it is your mission to cleanse it of its stains? The city council is offering large amounts of coin to any group of adventurers that will assist in re-taking the city. ........ Yes, that's right friends. Ruins of Adventure 4e is coming! I have started conversion of this classic D&D module based on the computer game Pool of Radiance. It will take a little bit more work, but this will also give time for WotC to get the online game table working (which I would like to use for this game). For those of you unfamiliar with the module, it has something of a story in it, but it is far from plot intensive. Based on previous runnings, any real story is generated by the player characters, and not any big twists from the module itself. It is D&D, so, it centers on combat. In some aspects, it is a dungeon of the week sort of adventure, with plot and whatever going on in between adventures. For those of you who played the last time I ran it, I am going to do some of the things slightly different to mix it up for you. There were slews of NPCs that I did not use, as well as possibly adventures that you guys never actually went on. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
10:41 pm	I haven't posted in forever, but, well... whateva? ;) I've watched a bunch of crap from netflix. I finally have seen -all- of the x-files. It turns out I had seen the end already, which was kinda crappy (that I had seen it already, not that the finale was crappy). I am fully caught up in Lost, I'm starting Trigun now, which is kinda nice. Not exactly a super serious show, but it is entertaining... and that's what it is all about. Work is work. I'm doing what I'm supposed to, producing just fine. I'm starting my production period now, so I have to pay a little more attention to make sure I get my promotion... but well, I'm not exactly worried. Yay bureaucracy. I've had another couple applications go to issue, if anyone is interested in seeing them... they're easy to search for. I've been painting a bunch of warhammer 40k guys. I'm not very good at it I don't think, but, well, they look good enough for me. Its kind of like those plastic wizkids ships. They're fun to put together, but I'm not really sure that I really want to actually 'play' the games that are associated with them. I've also started playing day of defeat: source. I wish they would make science and industry source too... but I guess that's hoping for too much. PC gaming in general seems headed for the scrap-heap. It makes me think that instead of buying a new PC I should have just got a PS3 and an XBox 360 and a bunch of games for the same price. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
5:31 pm	Hmm? Ok. I went out and bought a copy of Suikoden III, as I had read it was one of the top 25 PS2 games. I started playing it as Chris... and... I am totally lost. Maybe I'm used to Final Fantasy-esque babying as far as the combat system and.. well... everything... but I totally didn't see anything like that at all. Did I start playing as the wrong PC? Do I just have to get to a certain point and they'll tell me what the heck is going on with the systems? (Did I really have to start with Suikoden II or something? There seems to be an 'import saved game' function... so are they just assuming that anyone playing III already played II so they don't need any tutorials??) Other than that, it seems ok... seems like it is pointless doing the usual rpg 'run through and loot all the houses' thing, because there doesn't seem like there's anything to loot in the houses. I'm also fooling around with Dragon Quest VIII, of which I think I'm about 1/3 of the way through. Also fooling around with Burnout 3, which is kind of fun for seeing what kind of huge wrecks I can make. I kinda suck at racing, but, racing games have never been something I'm good at. Other than that, I don't have anything interesting going on, other than my former employer passed away a week and a half ago or so. I'm just trying to be unlazy and actually go to work once in a while. ;) (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 19th, 2007
12:52 am	ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH ... (not the castle...) So, I went to the mall today, picked up burnout 2, some wierd demon summoner game, Pheonix Wright 3, the final left behind book, and a new dan abnett 40K novel. (I just got paid and decided I should buy some stuff. Yay for helping china's economy!) Obviously, the above has nothing "ARGH!"-worthy in it. On my way out of the mall, I had to pass by this booth where these two attractive ladies were selling massage/aromatherapy junk. You know, the little booths you just walk past as fast as you can because you're not interested in their junk. Unfortunately, I guess these salesladies were trying to actually make money, thus I was accosted, despite my attempts to avoid them. So, I listened to their crap for about a minute or so, and they're putting this like warm/cold aromapack on my neck, then this girl starts massaging my shoulders and back. (This being the first time that a girl had done said thing to me anyway...) So, yeah, I've got this kind of herbal smelling thing that you want me to buy on me. Then she gets out this other massage assisting thing that you put on your hand, and starts using that. Luckily, I was saved because some other customer that she was accosting earlier came back to actually buy something, so I told the other girl that I really wasn't interested in their stuff, and made my break for the door. So, here's the question. Am I supposed to buy their junk just because they are hot girls that were attempting to give me a massage? WTF? What's with the whole touchy-feely thing anyway. They didn't even -ask- if they could put their product on me, and start massaging. What if I had been allergic to the artificial materials or "herbs" they use to give fragrances to these goofy heat/cold packs? Hmm, apparently it is now 1am. I better go to bed now. :p Got a long week of telling people they can't have patents ahead of me! ;) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
8:21 pm	Hi again. I'm posting again. Haha. Nothing really going on though. I took a trip on the metro into DC to buy a cake from CakeLove (www.cakelove.com) (I got the "My Downfall", as it was the only cake they had in stock at the store. You have to order ahead if you wanna get something specific.) I thought it was a fairly decent cake, but you have to let it get to room temp. before you eat it, as they say all over their website. ---Rant warning--- I was thinking that I'd like to rant about being alone. I've noted that my friends list is absent of this kind of angst since almost all of you have significant others and/or spouses. hehe. However, this is indicative of almost everyone I know in general. I can count on one hand the number of single people I know. Is this because I don't go to bars and drink? What is even the point of going to a bar and drinking? I don't have friends that go to bars and drink... and it feels silly to go to a bar and drink alone, when I don't really even like to drink. Okcupid.com what somewhat useful back in columbus, but I seem to be too far below the median attractiveness quota for the washington DC area females to bother contacting. I have met one person there that lives in this area, and she is not interested in meeting because I live on the opposite side of DC from her (that, and obviously, since I know her, she has a boyfriend). Not to mention, beyond that, any of the females that I've found there that don't live around here all promptly find boyfriends after I've started talking to them, who they then subsequently get engaged to. Envy is bad, but, why is it every remotely attractive girl I see on the metro has a ring on her finger? It just makes me so angry. I have minimum physical attractiveness standards. That is the way I am, and I don't think I'm so ugly that I need to just go beyond that line in the sand. (I guess that means I have some self-esteem.) Now, yes, physical attractiveness isn't everything... but... I'm imperfect and have a minimum standard. Sorry. I suck. --- End Rant --- Ahem. Anyway. I went to visit my brother while he was doing CQ (think being assigned as the RA in charge of the front desk at a dorm in college, but the shift is 24 hours long). There was some seriously retarded stuff going on there. I got to see my brother make guys do pushups for picking up his book that was sitting on the table. It was kinda funny. (If you let people touch your stuff ever, your stuff has a decent chance of growing legs and ending up who knows where. Thus the source of the retarded stuff that went on.) He also was giving this guy "counseling" which is basically a monthly performance review. There was a HUGE escalator coming out of the metro station near the base where he was stationed. You feel like you're going to kill yourself walking up or down the stupid thing, it has to be like 2-3 stories tall. I'm glad they were working, it is bad enough walking down them when they're running. I think it was a mistake living so far out of DC. I think it would have been better to live within walking distance of the metro and just get screwed on my rent. It is all a matter of do I want to pay time, or money? Anyway. This post is way too long. Haha. -out- (Comment on this)