The Alien

So this is Xmas...

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:14:49 GMT

My Christmas started really well and then I got sick. This put a crimp into our dinner plans and we had to leave a bit early. I had terrible stomach pain. I ended up sleeping from about 2:30pm-5:30pm and then from 9:00pm to 9:00am. That's how I tend to want to deal with being unwell or in pain.

The night before we had a very enjoyable celebration at my mom's house and Christmas morning was very nice at our house as well. I gave and got some really neat presents and was able to be close to (some of) the ones I love.

I seem to be mostly recovered from the stomach pain now, but I'm sore in that way that spending the vast majority of a day sleeping while sick will get you.

Soon I'm going to take anghouedd to visit her sister and then pick her up later. I think I'll read in the meantime. Or maybe see a movie.

Maybe I'll just sleep in my car. Sleep is still very attractive.

Random note: The Good Eats episode about bakalava is hilarious. Both in its execution and in its premise that it's not hard to make. Usually, watching Good Eats leaves me thinking I can do anything. But that episode just left me boggled. You want ME to do THAT? This has got to be what other people feel like when I say "Oh, it's easy." about system automation or something. But the episode is absolutely worth watching even if you never plan to make baklava or you're already good at it. I think pharfig would appreciate the representation of Nebuchadnezzar, who is clearly winking and blowing kisses at the camera. "How YOU doing?" he is presumably thinking. It's awesome.

In honor of my new audiobook...

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:44:24 GMT

No, I didn't write it. But the one I am just starting to listen to is A Game of Thrones. I read it already, but I figured it would be an enjoyable thing to listen to as well. I'm not really sold on the guy they have reading it. He doesn't do voices all that well...he can't really get the 'cranky old man' sound out of his voice when he's doing someone arrogant. And are there arrogant 9 year olds in this book? Of course.

But never mind that! Having this all back on my mind again moves me to ask ... what are the Words of your house?

You know, "Winter Is Coming", "As High As Honor", "We Do Not Sow" and so on.

Mine might be "I Think We Can Automate That". I'm not sure. Maybe "Friendship is Forever".

A novel approach

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:49:41 GMT

There's a flash game on Kongregate right now, set in the world of Dragon Age: Origins, that lets you get rewards you can use in Dragon Age: Origins.

Nothing too unbalancing, I don't think, but it's a neat tie in. And unlike most flash games, you can save whenever you want and come back when you have a few minutes to kill

The Big Problem with Champions Online and Star Trek Online

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:20:10 GMT

When Champions Online was new...indeed, between the beta test and the retail version being available in stores...they offered lifetime subscriptions.

Plenty of people thought it sounded crazy to buy a lifetime subscription for a game that wasn't even out yet. Especially since they changed a few things radically(much for the worse they later admitted) just as it was being launched.

I bought such a subscription. Maybe I'm crazy. After all, I bought a lifetime subscription for Hellgate: London, too. That game failed, by the way, taking my lifetime subscription with it. Fortunately, the man behind Hellgate was hired by Cryptic to work on Champions Online...

Man. I'm an idiot. :(

I'm not here to say Champions Online is dying. I don't think it is.

However, one of the extra benefits you got with the lifetime subscription was, "Guaranteed Star Trek Online Closed Beta Access".

That closed beta began October 22nd. It's been a month, I'm still not in. The closed beta ends no later than January 12th, since that's when the open beta begins. That's less than two months.

Of course, there was also the problem where their main community guy said that people who had purchased the special subscriptions would get in first. Later he said he had been 'mistaken'.

Well, that's just great. Some people will probably want to say "But they never said you would get in to the closed beta early! They could let you in for the last 20 seconds and still live up to the bargain! HAHAHA!".

I know that, because a lot of them are already saying it. I wouldn't bother saying that here. It's not going to make me any happier with the company to think they found a clever loophole to screw people than if I think they're just shirking their end of the bargain generally.

It's such a disappointment. I bought a lifetime subscription in large part because I wanted them to have time to make the game work. Most MMOS these days don't work all that well at launch. This one certainly didn't. Three of my friends also bought lifetime subscriptions. We don't really play anymore, we're just waiting to hear that the game is actually fun again and it's easy to do missions with your friends.

Of course, we waited on Hellgate, too. The only reason we aren't still waiting is that the game is dead.

New Year's Eve

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:40:57 GMT

Perhaps I had bad timing with the last post.

I'm having a New Year's Eve party, as I always do. It is on New Year's Eve, as it always is.

For my local friends, who will come? Who will not? I need to know. Please comment.

Those of you from other states, or who already said you weren't coming in the previous post, do not need to comment unless you're coming. :)

I do need to start planning and knowing who and how many will be coming would be really handy.

White Collar

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:48:07 GMT

I don't think I mentioned this previously, but I've been watching White Collar. It's a rather interesting crime show, not particularly gritty...

I like it quite a bit. The main character, the sorta reformed criminal, reminds me a lot of Dauber, ochaos's character from my D&D game. A classic rogue.

Dollhouse is no more

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:08:45 GMT

Why does he keep putting shows on Fox?

To quote from A Man Named Jayne by The Great Luke Ski(lukeski):

And if I ever get another Sci-fi TV show,
I think I'm gonna show it on...
UPN! Or the WB! Anywhere but Fox!
I still hate that network! They cancelled Wonderfalls too, those rotten bastards! And The Tick and The Lone Gunmen and Dark Angel and John Doe and Tru Calling and Tru Calling again and probably Tru Calling for a third time! Even Greg the Bunny... (fades out)

Or that's as close as I can get from listening to it. This makes me sad. I liked that show quite a bit. even if it caused some fairly bitter arguments about ethics and morality between myself and anghouedd.

The Next Iron Chef (spoilers)

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:02:16 GMT

anghoeudd and I have been watching The Next Iron Chef. I like this program because I like Iron Chef and also because...it's a competition rather than a reality show. No focus on people crying, breaking down or human misery.

So...

We really did not like Chef Appleman. I didn't think he was fit to be an Iron Chef. They're presented as almost superheroes for the most part, the Iron Chefs. On Iron Chef America in particular they're shown as being kind, sportsmanlike and generous.

Everything Chef Appleman wasn't. I don't care how good he was at cooking stuff, you can't be that big of a jerk and still fit the honorable champion mold. I suspected from the start that the reason they didn't edit out him being a huge jerk was to increase drama before he was inevitably eliminated.

Perhaps I was right?

So now he's gone and I'm singing a traditional folksong of my people that is usually reserved for when a house falls on someone.

And I'm doubly glad I went to BlizzCon

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:12:50 GMT

Apparently at PAX, they had swine flu.

At BlizzCon, they give out hand sanitizer.

Not that I used it...

Top songs from the past

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:17:57 GMT

I've had a Napster account for some time. Once upon a time I bothered trying to rip their protected music to something I could put on my ipod... yeah, that was a pain. Since then, I probably should have cancelled my account, but I have not.

Recently I was looking over the site and saw a feature where you can get(and make a listenable playlist from) various Billboard charts(Hot 100 and so on) from a wide range of years, from the 1950s to the current day.

I was reminded that Bohemian Rhapsody was on the radio when I was a senior in high school. I was a big Queen fan...and it wasn't because of Wayne's World, though I liked that movie and have a story or two on the subject...

No, what got me into Queen was Highlander. That led me to purchasing A Kind of Magic and then Classic Queen and then...more stuff.

Where was I? Oh, right. I think it's interesting to be able to look at the kind of music that was popular on various chart types during different years, whether in my life or not.

My Champions Online experience

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:46:26 GMT

Patching...

Have to go to work.

Work!

Come home...

Patching didn't quite work.

Patching...

Talking to voider...

Patching...

Talking to voider...

Trying various crazy things...

Patching...

Patching...

Sleep time!

Waking time!

Hey, patching is done.

Verify game launches. Gee, that's a lot of power sets and costume options.

(2 minutes pass.)

Time to go. Maybe I'll actually get to play the game tonight after work!

For my Champions Online open beta friends...

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:36:31 GMT

Just a note, if you used the File Planet download(as I did), you need to patch before you can play, after you unlock it.

Seems to be wanting to download three GB of data. So at your first opportunity, unlock and start the download.

Then, when you actually have time to play later, you might actually be able to!

So much to do!

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:24:27 GMT

Most of my friends who play WoW have been busy doing stuff in the game recently. Me too. Lots of fun stuff going on. But if you play WoW, you know. If not, you probably don't care.

Work has been quite busy. In addition to all my scheduled projects... CVE-2009-2692. If you have Linux machines you are responsible for, you have probably already soiled your pants over this one. If you haven't heard of it and you ARE responsible, go read it. If you're not a Linux SA, you probably don't care.

I downloaded and played part of the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum. Seems neat, but my sound crashed and since it's a demo, I'll have to start all over again. No save game. Oh well.

I went back and gave Pox Nora another try. It's basically a collectible fantasy miniatures game online. I hadn't played since briefly trying it in 2006. It's gotten much better and they now have single player campaigns. Some are even free! It might be worth picking it up again, I'll see. No co-op play.

Having preordered Champions Online I get to the be in open beta next week. This is great, except that I'm also going to BlizzCon next week.

Obviously the rather expensive convention I already paid for wins out over the free beta test. :)

Speaking of BlizzCon, we'll find out about many neat things there, I'm sure. Including the next WoW expansion. I think most of the crap floating around about the expansion is just that...crap. Even if some of it turns out to be right, there have been so many conflicting ideas someone was bound to get something wrong.

People are too violent

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:05:50 GMT

I'm not talking about war, or kids playing video games...not talking about robbers robbing, police policing or various other things of that sort.

I'm talking about the people who say things like "If someone said that to me, I'd punch them in the nose."

Or insert another, more violent act here.

Really? It's not that I might not bust out the ultraviolence on someone who said something to me... If what they said was "Any last words before you die?" or "I'm on my way to murder your family." for example.

Though I must admit, there are only three times I've been violent in my entire life that I can recall and that's despite getting picked on and beaten up all the time. I generally never lifted a finger to defend myself. It's just how I was.

Once in elementary school when some bigger kid took the ball from the game I was playing in and held it above his head. I was seven or so, but I jumped on his back and put my arms around his neck for a couple of seconds in an attempt to bring down the giant. I fell and my limited memory of the incident suggests the older kids were too busy laughing to do anything else while I ran away.

Another time in elementary school, I was 9 or 10 I think, another kid starting beating me up. I snapped, grabbed his arm and bit him very hard indeed. And they tried to punish me, which confused me at the time. "But he hit me! Everyone saw it." And they did! Worth noting: That other kid never hit me again. Plenty of people beat me up both before and after, but not that kid.

And finally, in junior high, it was St. Patrick's Day and I was wearing all green, except for the sling my arm was in after an accident. I had a massive swollen bruise on that arm. A kid walks up to me, looks at me and says "I'm colorblind." after which he pinches me right on the part of the bruise sticking up out of the sling.

... OWWWWW!!!! ...

So I kicked him in the crotch as hard as I possibly could. He collapsed. At that point, I actually thought about the situation. "Eventually," I thought to myself, "he's going to get back up. I should leave now.". And so I did. The start of the next period I had PE, so I got changed and lined up for roll call. Suddenly, everything went black and I saw stars. I woke up on the ground. Sure enough, that same kid had come up behind me, laced his fingers together and given me a two-handed smash to the back of the head. While I was standing in line being stared at by the teacher. So he ended up suspended. Not only that, but did I mention he had laced his fingers together? Yes. Well, he broke a couple of them. That marks the only serious injury I've ever dealt to someone...and I wasn't even the one acting.

I'm just not violent. I must not be playing enough video games.

A sign of what, exactly?

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:44:15 GMT

I just purchased a Jimmy Buffet album on the iTunes store. I blame my mother for exposing me to this stuff when I was little.

Jimmy Buffet, that is, not iTunes.

Trouble at school!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:07:50 GMT

Read this story about how terrible it is: Story

Except...that's my senior year they appear to be talking about...and I don't remember that at all.

Not again!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:20:20 GMT

I didn't get paid today. I should have been paid today...

Oh dear. Work D&D game...

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:20:16 GMT

One of the characters should, I think, have been named Mary Sue...

Oi.

Ongoing matters of politics...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:55:20 GMT

No, I'm not here to talk about a missing governor. Nor is this post about the current clownish antics in my state, whose Republican governor is to the left of the President on some matters.

I'm here to talk about Iran. Things there seem to have moved to the "arrest them all" stage. If they follow the standard script, they will get around to trying to arrest the opposition leader soon.

I'm not sure what would happen at that point. I'd imagine there would be at least one rather large rally, which might be an occasion for doing a lot more arresting and headbusting. Would things escalate from there, or die off?

It's uncertain. My sympathies go out to anyone who thinks their presidential election was stolen. I guess having the Supreme Leader say everything is okay isn't quite as soothing as a real investigation.

So...I don't know what's going to happen. I can't really predict anything. But I am concerned for the people there. Not a light sort of concern that they might continue to be oppressed in a general way, but a direct sort of concern that a lot of people might get hurt.

Birthday Party! (again)

Sat, 23 May 2009 02:09:50 GMT

Just a reminder, I need to know if you'll be coming to my party if I haven't heard from you. I want to start doing up the plot and the characters as soon as possible because I've never done the genre or used the system this game will have.

Fun!

So let me know.

BlizzCon tickets, part 1

Sat, 16 May 2009 17:33:19 GMT

I was in the queue within the first 30 seconds, at least.

They sold out when I was #941 or so on line.

<sigh>

Also, it plays games...

Fri, 15 May 2009 06:03:22 GMT

With my new, faster Internet connection, I decided to try the Netflix->Xbox 360 setup. I already had the 360 and the Netflix subscription, so why not?

It looked great and it performed amazingly. We watched an episode of Weeds, one of Dr. Who and have the entire run of Fawlty Towers queued up as well.

This has promise!

Now THAT was way more than I expected.

Wed, 13 May 2009 05:35:33 GMT

Sometimes, when all the pieces fall into place, there are a LOT of pieces.

I imagine even the non-WoW-players out there(the majority of readers, I think) can appreciate that it's pretty funny that doing one thing lead to so many achievements at the same time.

Success!

Fri, 01 May 2009 08:59:14 GMT

I got some neat stuff going at work today. It was a long day, but I actually accomplished a lot. That's always a good feeling.

On a WoW note, I somehow managed to capture a flag in EotS on my mage. How I managed to be the first to click on it(after a few explosions) and how I managed to get back to the FRR with it...I'm not sure. But it happened. I was chased by someone angrily demanding I produce my orphan. I did, but he kept yelling. After I captured the flag I showed him my achievement progress...see? I really did have the orphan out. Honest.

The more things change...

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:45:31 GMT

...the more they are changed.

Final Score, a restaurant I have a long history with, is just gone now. They were taking down signs and so on when I got there. The phone number is disconnected.

My doctor's office now has a copy of Shonen Jump in addition to all the bad health and parenting magazines.