It's been a while. Years? Probably, but I've started outlining my fourth K book. After months of trying to figure out how to start and write this book, I've finally come up with an idea that works! I'm not sure how to end it, or even where to go past halfway through the book, but even getting that far is huge progress for me. Even though I love my writing blogs, getting back to my favorite characters in my favorite setting is going to be a joy for me. I have a story that I want to tell that I've finally been able to figure out how to map (via Google Maps no less) and ideas are flowing. Given my free time coming up, I can't wait to get started.
Back to it!
December 11, 2008
November 25, 2008
A new and irritating question
Getting published, like fo' reals, is riding high on my mind right now. I'm not entirely happy with being employed as I am, and though the money is good, I don't feel entirely satisfied with where my life is. I would like to be able to make my hobby, writing, if not my job, at least a profitable hobby. I've been writing for several years now. Though some of my writing is bad, I have mostly found my voice, and am getting pretty good at writing stuff that is potentially publishable. What's the problem?
I like my writing blogs. I like having the ability to have a thought, write it out, and publish it on the web immediately. I like my micro stories, since they're mostly too short to be considered for publishing. It's quick, it's easy, and it's fun. I like my assigned projects, I like the weird shit I come up with while bored in meetings, I like it all. So what's the problem?
As I get better at writing, I find my micros to be growing. Not just a little, but hugely. Now these little scenes in my head are, rather than simply being a scene, are becoming entire stories. Not all of them, obviously, but some are reaching lengths, and we're talking nine thousand (!!!) words here. That's actually an upper limit for some publishers of short stories. Suddenly I'm writing things that are possibly of publishing quality and are also large enough to consider submitting.
So the problem is, where do I draw my blog line? I don't think I'll ever stop trying to write micro stories, but if I'm writing possibly publishing worthy short stories here, what do I do? Not blog them? That would seem obvious, but one click publishing! That's a lot less red tape than the formal publishing route.
Mostly I think I'll keep blogging stories as I see fit, only keeping the occasional particularly good idea to myself for attempted publishing. Maybe the way it'll work is I'll submit the piece, and if it's rejected then post it. That sounds reasonable. One question I do wonder about is if things that have been published via blog are immediately disqualified for real publishing? Not sure about that. I'll have to ask my writing sources.
More on this later as I find answers to my questions.
I like my writing blogs. I like having the ability to have a thought, write it out, and publish it on the web immediately. I like my micro stories, since they're mostly too short to be considered for publishing. It's quick, it's easy, and it's fun. I like my assigned projects, I like the weird shit I come up with while bored in meetings, I like it all. So what's the problem?
As I get better at writing, I find my micros to be growing. Not just a little, but hugely. Now these little scenes in my head are, rather than simply being a scene, are becoming entire stories. Not all of them, obviously, but some are reaching lengths, and we're talking nine thousand (!!!) words here. That's actually an upper limit for some publishers of short stories. Suddenly I'm writing things that are possibly of publishing quality and are also large enough to consider submitting.
So the problem is, where do I draw my blog line? I don't think I'll ever stop trying to write micro stories, but if I'm writing possibly publishing worthy short stories here, what do I do? Not blog them? That would seem obvious, but one click publishing! That's a lot less red tape than the formal publishing route.
Mostly I think I'll keep blogging stories as I see fit, only keeping the occasional particularly good idea to myself for attempted publishing. Maybe the way it'll work is I'll submit the piece, and if it's rejected then post it. That sounds reasonable. One question I do wonder about is if things that have been published via blog are immediately disqualified for real publishing? Not sure about that. I'll have to ask my writing sources.
More on this later as I find answers to my questions.
November 20, 2008
November 5, 2008
A special word
To all you racist fucks out there; to all you people who referred to Obama as "Hussein"; to those who pointed out his heritage as if it were a bad thing; to all you people who said, "I ain't voting for that n***er."; to all you people who called him a Muslim; to all of you who referred to him as an "A-rab"; to all of you who brayed the words "coward", "appeaser", or worse; to all of you who said, "A black man cannot lead this Christian nation."; to all of you who secretly hoped that he would be assassinated before his election bid could be taken seriously, and those of you who still hope for that to happen... I have five words for you.
President Elect Barack Hussein Obama.
P.S. Suck it bitches.
President Elect Barack Hussein Obama.
P.S. Suck it bitches.
October 23, 2008
It lives! Mostly.
Recently, I had a case of misfortune when my Xbox 360 began to slowly die. Had I seen the signs, and spoken to the correct people, I could have headed that bullshit off at the pass and moved on with my life. Unfortunately, I didn't know the signs were a portent for worse things to come, so I continued to play the thing expecting that, you know, it would work. Silly me.
The first sign came in the intensely difficult, but very fun Ninja Gaiden 2. There was a point in a level that I just couldn't get past. I gave up on it and moved on with my life. The next sign came while playing Airstrikes 2: Hooray for Airstrikes (actually Mercenaries 2) when the game wouldn't load a saved game unless it was connected to Xbox Live, and even then the load times were unbearable. Eventually I borrowed Force Unleashed and found the load times to be painfully slow. Last, while downloading songs for Rock Band 2 the downloads were so slow I thought I might die before the bloody songs got here, but I blamed that on Comcast.
Then came the final straw, I booted the machine and, other than the splash screen at the beginning, nothing would load. No game, none of the ones I mentioned above, would load. I poked and prodded as best I could, eventually removing the hard drive to determine what the error was. As soon as I detached the oddly quiet hard drive, every game booted incredibly quickly before bitching about needing a place to save data. Put hard drive back on? No worky.
Thus I emailed Xbox Support and told them my hard drive was busted. The guy who emailed me insisted I try some steps, but, lo and behold, I did have the internet and had already done every single step already, reiterating that my hard drive was no longer in the land of the living. The email dude told me to call Xbox Support. I called, got a monumentally unhelpful shrew of a woman who repeatedly implied that I was an idiot, but eventually, after I told her my hard drive was the trouble, she told me I'd need to send my Xbox to Microsoft for repair. Just not on this call because their system was down.
I called back the next day, repeated my problems again, explained how my hard drive was broken, and I was assured that it could be fix. I put in a repair order, got all that nonsense taken care of, and, even though I would be without my Xbox for possibly a month, I was happy knowing that my hardrive would be brought back from the dead.
I got the email from Xbox telling me about how to pack up and send my box back to them and as I was preparing I noticed a little detail: "Detach your hard drive for you cannot send it in." What?
Shortly there after I was on the phone with Xbox Support AGAIN, this time just short of yelling at people, trying to find out wtf was going on. This latest support person told me, of course I couldn't send in my hard drive. Xbox only repairs the Xbox itself, not the attachments of any kind. I asked him why someone before him had told me that this was possible, and he told me I was lying because, obviously, anybody who serviced me before would have told me I had to replace my hard drive for Xbox doesn't repair them. Without telling him to go fuck himself, I asked if buying a new hard drive would allow me to keep all of my data, and he told me yes, all my downloaded accomplishments, gamer tag, and saved data would be restored when I got the new hard drive. Then he put me on hold to talk to someone to get my repair order canceled, and something like an hour later I gave up, hung up, and went off to do other things.
And, no, it's still not over. I called back AGAIN. I talked to another idiot long enough to be put on hold so I could talk to a supervisor. This was the first competent human being I spoke to. Repair order? Canceled after verifying my information. Help me recover my gamertag? Sure, just a second. Then the bitch hung up on me. Motherfuckers.
And I STILL didn't have my gamertag recovered. Rather than talk to a human I tried talking to the Xbox phone bot and he was a useless piece of shit. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, I tried using an email address on my gamertag that made sense only in a twisted sort of way and, hooray, it worked! I actually got my gamer tag back. It took a long time, but after that I was confident that my shit was restored.
I'm sure you've already guess that, yes, my shit was not restored. After a little research, I did find that I could "download again" all the things I spent money on. Hooray! And I did. One at a time. There's no "download again everything", so I had to go through every single download and tell it to download again. Also, only ten could be set to download again at one time, so it took a while. My save games? Gone. Can't be restored.
So let's recap. Can I send in my hard drive to be repaired? "Yes." Lie.
Can I get all my data recovered with ease? "Yes." Lie.
Can I restore all my data? "Yes." Lie.
Thankfully, minus saves and a lot of my patience, my Xbox lives again! I have a new hard drive, one that in theory will work better for a while, and I can play those games that I'm so looking forward to. At least the fucker plays. I should count my lucky stars.
The first sign came in the intensely difficult, but very fun Ninja Gaiden 2. There was a point in a level that I just couldn't get past. I gave up on it and moved on with my life. The next sign came while playing Airstrikes 2: Hooray for Airstrikes (actually Mercenaries 2) when the game wouldn't load a saved game unless it was connected to Xbox Live, and even then the load times were unbearable. Eventually I borrowed Force Unleashed and found the load times to be painfully slow. Last, while downloading songs for Rock Band 2 the downloads were so slow I thought I might die before the bloody songs got here, but I blamed that on Comcast.
Then came the final straw, I booted the machine and, other than the splash screen at the beginning, nothing would load. No game, none of the ones I mentioned above, would load. I poked and prodded as best I could, eventually removing the hard drive to determine what the error was. As soon as I detached the oddly quiet hard drive, every game booted incredibly quickly before bitching about needing a place to save data. Put hard drive back on? No worky.
Thus I emailed Xbox Support and told them my hard drive was busted. The guy who emailed me insisted I try some steps, but, lo and behold, I did have the internet and had already done every single step already, reiterating that my hard drive was no longer in the land of the living. The email dude told me to call Xbox Support. I called, got a monumentally unhelpful shrew of a woman who repeatedly implied that I was an idiot, but eventually, after I told her my hard drive was the trouble, she told me I'd need to send my Xbox to Microsoft for repair. Just not on this call because their system was down.
I called back the next day, repeated my problems again, explained how my hard drive was broken, and I was assured that it could be fix. I put in a repair order, got all that nonsense taken care of, and, even though I would be without my Xbox for possibly a month, I was happy knowing that my hardrive would be brought back from the dead.
I got the email from Xbox telling me about how to pack up and send my box back to them and as I was preparing I noticed a little detail: "Detach your hard drive for you cannot send it in." What?
Shortly there after I was on the phone with Xbox Support AGAIN, this time just short of yelling at people, trying to find out wtf was going on. This latest support person told me, of course I couldn't send in my hard drive. Xbox only repairs the Xbox itself, not the attachments of any kind. I asked him why someone before him had told me that this was possible, and he told me I was lying because, obviously, anybody who serviced me before would have told me I had to replace my hard drive for Xbox doesn't repair them. Without telling him to go fuck himself, I asked if buying a new hard drive would allow me to keep all of my data, and he told me yes, all my downloaded accomplishments, gamer tag, and saved data would be restored when I got the new hard drive. Then he put me on hold to talk to someone to get my repair order canceled, and something like an hour later I gave up, hung up, and went off to do other things.
And, no, it's still not over. I called back AGAIN. I talked to another idiot long enough to be put on hold so I could talk to a supervisor. This was the first competent human being I spoke to. Repair order? Canceled after verifying my information. Help me recover my gamertag? Sure, just a second. Then the bitch hung up on me. Motherfuckers.
And I STILL didn't have my gamertag recovered. Rather than talk to a human I tried talking to the Xbox phone bot and he was a useless piece of shit. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, I tried using an email address on my gamertag that made sense only in a twisted sort of way and, hooray, it worked! I actually got my gamer tag back. It took a long time, but after that I was confident that my shit was restored.
I'm sure you've already guess that, yes, my shit was not restored. After a little research, I did find that I could "download again" all the things I spent money on. Hooray! And I did. One at a time. There's no "download again everything", so I had to go through every single download and tell it to download again. Also, only ten could be set to download again at one time, so it took a while. My save games? Gone. Can't be restored.
So let's recap. Can I send in my hard drive to be repaired? "Yes." Lie.
Can I get all my data recovered with ease? "Yes." Lie.
Can I restore all my data? "Yes." Lie.
Thankfully, minus saves and a lot of my patience, my Xbox lives again! I have a new hard drive, one that in theory will work better for a while, and I can play those games that I'm so looking forward to. At least the fucker plays. I should count my lucky stars.
October 2, 2008
Bloody buggering morons...
Once upon a time, there were things called third-party email clients. They were readily accessible by anyone and everyone was happy. Then mean people, known as bosses, decided that the potential risk of people downloading viruses, trojans, and worms was too great to allow people to use those 3rd party email clients, so they told their employees who liked checking their email at work to go fuck themselves. This made many people unhappy, and had the totally expected side effect of people being pissed off enough to try to find ways around this no 3rd party email idiocy.
There were two main ways of dealing with this new no-email scenario, the non-techy way and the techy way. Non-techy people were still capable of figuring out that they could get their 3rd party emails forwarded to their work email address, thus getting their emails. This was a really bad idea for a couple of reasons: 1) work addresses are easily read by those bosses so personal email via work is too easily read by other people 2) work email is usually Microsoft Outlook, also known as The Easiest Email Client To Get A Virus, Trojan, or Worm with, and therefore is a horrible idea. So by blocking third party emails, the bosses, also known as morons, basically guaranteed that Outlook would look at these emails and happily open the door for any kind of evil software that exists, thus shooting their stupid idea in the foot, the face, you name it.
The techy way to deal with the problem was to find interesting technological ways around the blocks. Most people don't know this, but there are actually two main ways for websites to talk to their readers: HTTP and HTTPS. Now that S on HTTPS means secure; it's a different protocol and one that isn't often blocked because blocking sites that are already secure could be viewed as idiocy. As such, many third party email clients still had HTTPS sites up that had not been blocked by bosses/morons. The techy people, knowing that these secure email clients had all sorts of protections against viruses and whatnot, used these HTTPS sites, secure (ha!) in the knowledge that they were both getting to keep their email and also doing their boss/morons a solid by protecting the company from being raped by the evils of the Internet.
Sadly, even the morons eventually caught on to the HTTPS sites, and tried to block them. This didn't bother the non-techy people who were busily filling their companies with viruses; only the techy people started getting boned by morons. Techy people, however, thrive in the face of adversity. Now there are a few new options depending on the tech available for those poor email deprived types, and few of them are good for the company.
1) Email on my phone! Many phones are now also capable of surfing the mobile net, meaning people can check and reply to their email on their phones. Why is this bad for the company? Simple. Assuming average people have an average typing speed of 30 words per minute, rather slow, an email could take a couple minutes to write. Now try that on your cellphone. If you're fast, and I mean fast, you might manage 30 wpm. More realistically you might get 5-10 wpm out of that tiny little keyboard. That's tripling or more the time it takes to reply to an email, thus hurting productivity. This also cannot be blocked unless you're willing to wrap your entire building with copper to block all cellphones, which you can't do because of work-only or on-call cellphones. Good call morons.
2) Remote access to my home machine. Though not entirely safe for the home user, it is relatively easy to set up a way for your home machine to be accessible via the internet, be that by Remote Desktop or another cool method of proxy, you now have access to your machine at home. Not only that, you have access to a machine that doesn't have a single business restriction, meaning you can email, IM, even IRC without problems. You can also browse the Internet for anything, midget pr0n if you were so inclined. Say goodbye to your work productivity. True here as well, this cannot be blocked because of the business use of Remote Desktop. Again: good call morons.
The simple, obvious, better, and just plain nicer answer here is: don't be pricks, let people check their 3rd party email for five minutes. It's safer, smarter, better for productivity, and keeps people happy.
I'm not holding my breath.
There were two main ways of dealing with this new no-email scenario, the non-techy way and the techy way. Non-techy people were still capable of figuring out that they could get their 3rd party emails forwarded to their work email address, thus getting their emails. This was a really bad idea for a couple of reasons: 1) work addresses are easily read by those bosses so personal email via work is too easily read by other people 2) work email is usually Microsoft Outlook, also known as The Easiest Email Client To Get A Virus, Trojan, or Worm with, and therefore is a horrible idea. So by blocking third party emails, the bosses, also known as morons, basically guaranteed that Outlook would look at these emails and happily open the door for any kind of evil software that exists, thus shooting their stupid idea in the foot, the face, you name it.
The techy way to deal with the problem was to find interesting technological ways around the blocks. Most people don't know this, but there are actually two main ways for websites to talk to their readers: HTTP and HTTPS. Now that S on HTTPS means secure; it's a different protocol and one that isn't often blocked because blocking sites that are already secure could be viewed as idiocy. As such, many third party email clients still had HTTPS sites up that had not been blocked by bosses/morons. The techy people, knowing that these secure email clients had all sorts of protections against viruses and whatnot, used these HTTPS sites, secure (ha!) in the knowledge that they were both getting to keep their email and also doing their boss/morons a solid by protecting the company from being raped by the evils of the Internet.
Sadly, even the morons eventually caught on to the HTTPS sites, and tried to block them. This didn't bother the non-techy people who were busily filling their companies with viruses; only the techy people started getting boned by morons. Techy people, however, thrive in the face of adversity. Now there are a few new options depending on the tech available for those poor email deprived types, and few of them are good for the company.
1) Email on my phone! Many phones are now also capable of surfing the mobile net, meaning people can check and reply to their email on their phones. Why is this bad for the company? Simple. Assuming average people have an average typing speed of 30 words per minute, rather slow, an email could take a couple minutes to write. Now try that on your cellphone. If you're fast, and I mean fast, you might manage 30 wpm. More realistically you might get 5-10 wpm out of that tiny little keyboard. That's tripling or more the time it takes to reply to an email, thus hurting productivity. This also cannot be blocked unless you're willing to wrap your entire building with copper to block all cellphones, which you can't do because of work-only or on-call cellphones. Good call morons.
2) Remote access to my home machine. Though not entirely safe for the home user, it is relatively easy to set up a way for your home machine to be accessible via the internet, be that by Remote Desktop or another cool method of proxy, you now have access to your machine at home. Not only that, you have access to a machine that doesn't have a single business restriction, meaning you can email, IM, even IRC without problems. You can also browse the Internet for anything, midget pr0n if you were so inclined. Say goodbye to your work productivity. True here as well, this cannot be blocked because of the business use of Remote Desktop. Again: good call morons.
The simple, obvious, better, and just plain nicer answer here is: don't be pricks, let people check their 3rd party email for five minutes. It's safer, smarter, better for productivity, and keeps people happy.
I'm not holding my breath.
October 1, 2008
My notes
The following are my notes, all of them, from my company's very important quarterly meeting regarding everything important we need to do.
Steal ideas from Geico.
Useful meeting, eh?
Steal ideas from Geico.
Useful meeting, eh?
September 30, 2008
Getting published online ain't easy
There's a general rule of publishing: Money flows to the writer. Anything else is usually a scam or vanity press. However, almost everything one can easily find on the internet has reading fees, or contests with entry fees, or some other combination thereof. There are agents a plenty who are trolling the internet desperately seeking new writers who are suckers so that they can get reading fees, editing fees, etc, out of these people who don't do their research. Really, when it comes to getting published, even with short fiction, everything is just as much of a pain in the ass as trying to get a novel published.
Fortunately I don't make decisions lightly, so before I get to the point of sending off my short stories somewhere, I research the website. So far I haven't found any legitimate, or at least "reading fee" free sites on my own. I've been sent to a few places that actually have reasonable submission guidelines and no fees, but they're usually not specifically after my typical writing style, modern fantasy, so I don't want to waste their time or mine with submissions that will just be rejected. So I'ma keep looking.
As always, I'm open to suggestions.
Fortunately I don't make decisions lightly, so before I get to the point of sending off my short stories somewhere, I research the website. So far I haven't found any legitimate, or at least "reading fee" free sites on my own. I've been sent to a few places that actually have reasonable submission guidelines and no fees, but they're usually not specifically after my typical writing style, modern fantasy, so I don't want to waste their time or mine with submissions that will just be rejected. So I'ma keep looking.
As always, I'm open to suggestions.
September 22, 2008
September 11, 2008
Era over
With a surprising lack of drama, I have quit my kungfu school. There are many reasons, but the main one was the lack of kungfu. Say what? I went to the school in the interest of learning kungfu, Hung Gar kungfu specifically, and for a while I did. Recently, however, the emphasis in even the supposed kungfu classes changed to a more modernized kungfu style rather than the traditional. I understand the changes, I just don't like them. With these changes my career at my old school ended as I was only ever interested in kungfu. So now it's time to find something new to try.
And found it I have: Capoeira! Examples are here, here, and here. Brazilian breakdance fighting? Fuck yes! I've been interested in capoeira for years, but now I think I'm finally going to get around to actually taking some classes and see how I do at it. Really what I'm looking to do is something different. Years of karate left me strong, fast, capable, but very different in style from kungfu or taiji. Years of both kungfu and taiji have left me flexible, fluid, and confident, but with a strong grounding in keeping my feet on the ground. Capoeira, being mostly kicks, acrobatics, and basically like breakdancing, will make me more fluid, more flexible, and even stronger. I can't wait to try my first class.
Failing finding available capoeira classes, I have two other schools suggested to me by my last instructor. One is a true Wong Fei Hung lineage Hung Gar kungfu school which is, I must admit, very tempting. The other is the school of an instructor that used to teach at the school I just left, and his school is very tempting as well as he was one of the best teachers I've ever had. Even as I leave my school, I leave with wonderful options before me. I look forward to what my new martial arts career has to offer me.
And found it I have: Capoeira! Examples are here, here, and here. Brazilian breakdance fighting? Fuck yes! I've been interested in capoeira for years, but now I think I'm finally going to get around to actually taking some classes and see how I do at it. Really what I'm looking to do is something different. Years of karate left me strong, fast, capable, but very different in style from kungfu or taiji. Years of both kungfu and taiji have left me flexible, fluid, and confident, but with a strong grounding in keeping my feet on the ground. Capoeira, being mostly kicks, acrobatics, and basically like breakdancing, will make me more fluid, more flexible, and even stronger. I can't wait to try my first class.
Failing finding available capoeira classes, I have two other schools suggested to me by my last instructor. One is a true Wong Fei Hung lineage Hung Gar kungfu school which is, I must admit, very tempting. The other is the school of an instructor that used to teach at the school I just left, and his school is very tempting as well as he was one of the best teachers I've ever had. Even as I leave my school, I leave with wonderful options before me. I look forward to what my new martial arts career has to offer me.
September 4, 2008
My frickin' neck hurts
Though my title does leave the door open for many, many a gay joke, the real reason I'm complaining is that my neck is legitimately the sorest it's been in recent memory, and it's all thanks to a crazy new exercise at kungfu. We're doing rolls, i.e. somersaults, and rolling for a few minutes can get you very dizzy. But that's not why my neck hurts. Rolling is easy. Break falls, not so easy.
A break fall is when you drop to the ground (or at my level, hurl yourself at the ground) and twist to one side or another and slap the ground in timing with your landing to that the impact is spread across more area and does less damage. This sounds weird, but it does work well and I have years of being tossed around like a rag doll as experience to prove it. Another important detail it to keep your head from hitting the ground, so you carefully keep your neck tense to avoid clunking into the ground with your skull. Fun. So what do break falls have to do with rolls?
Simple: our new exercise routine is to roll up and back down our mat many times to get good and dizzy. Then we roll once then break fall and repeat on both sides. And there's more than one kind of break fall: there's side, back, and front break falls. Each of them is difficult in its own way, but when you combine them with rolling it gets more complicated. For my low level kungfu class, this is less of a concern because I get a nice break in between roll sets. For my advanced kungfu class, which typically consists of just me, I get to roll and break fall for about eight to ten solid minutes. That many breakfalls and rolling leads directly to neck pain.
So my neck hurts. I get dizzy a lot in class. At least it's entertaining!
A break fall is when you drop to the ground (or at my level, hurl yourself at the ground) and twist to one side or another and slap the ground in timing with your landing to that the impact is spread across more area and does less damage. This sounds weird, but it does work well and I have years of being tossed around like a rag doll as experience to prove it. Another important detail it to keep your head from hitting the ground, so you carefully keep your neck tense to avoid clunking into the ground with your skull. Fun. So what do break falls have to do with rolls?
Simple: our new exercise routine is to roll up and back down our mat many times to get good and dizzy. Then we roll once then break fall and repeat on both sides. And there's more than one kind of break fall: there's side, back, and front break falls. Each of them is difficult in its own way, but when you combine them with rolling it gets more complicated. For my low level kungfu class, this is less of a concern because I get a nice break in between roll sets. For my advanced kungfu class, which typically consists of just me, I get to roll and break fall for about eight to ten solid minutes. That many breakfalls and rolling leads directly to neck pain.
So my neck hurts. I get dizzy a lot in class. At least it's entertaining!
August 27, 2008
Stick a fork in it
That's right, after months of work, just now coming up on six months, I've completely plotted and prepared my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Woo! It's been a long ride, and it's not over yet, but the end is nigh, and I will be happy to see it end if only because I get to bring this story to a hopefully epic conclusion. What's in my D&D future? Hopefully someone else running a D&D game so I can take a well deserved break and our previous DM can continue his break after running the previous three games.
I have plans for other games, perhaps shorter games, perhaps longer games, and always games that have better preparations and controls, but always something fun and interesting for a demanding crowd. I could be working on my 4.0 game, but a little break from this kind of writing, and a return to my novels, seems like what I should do for a while.
I have plans for other games, perhaps shorter games, perhaps longer games, and always games that have better preparations and controls, but always something fun and interesting for a demanding crowd. I could be working on my 4.0 game, but a little break from this kind of writing, and a return to my novels, seems like what I should do for a while.
My scary room
I have a sleep disorder. What sleep disorder? Good question. Suffice it to say that whatever it is, it's a bitch and I wish I could hug it with bullets. It's probably some variety of insomnia exacerbated by my anxiety disorder. The short story is I can be tired, physically and mentally, put my head on my pillow, relax, try to sleep, and just kind of sit there waiting for hours. I assure you, the combination of being tired, irritable from being awake still, and the frustration of not getting to sleep all pile up till I'm a grouch monster. When I do eventually get to sleep, I then normally wake up long before my alarm and get unfit, doze for five mintues then wake back up "sleep" for an hour or more, and finally give up, wake up, and am a miserable wreck for the day.
As such, I have done many crazy things to "clean" my sleeping environment. I only use my bed for sleep. I avoid my bedroom for anything other than sleep, getting dressed, and the like. I make sure my bed is comfy as well as the temperature in my house. I try to make sure my room smells nice via candles. I have a white noise machine that soothes my brain in theory. My bedroom is a soundproofed and quiet as I can make it.
However, none of this is scary. One of the issues with where I live is that some of my neighbors think that their outside lighting should be as close to one million candle power as possible, so my house is very bright even at night. Light, as you might guess, is the opposite of helpful for someone with a sleep disorder. My shades, while reasonably light canceling, were insufficient, so I went on a mission to get room darkening shades.
Trials and tribulations followed but ultimately I set up my stupid shades and made my room very dark. Mission accomplished.
By very dark I mean VERY dark. So dark that if you've had lights on in the house, that's including just a TV or computer screen, when you walk into the room you are totally blind. It's also so dark that when, in the middle of the night I've been watching, say, a zombie movie or playing, say, Resident Evil 4, I walk up the stairs and past my room, glancing into my room is like staring into a black hole of evil. I'm really not afraid of the dark, but staring into the gaping maw that is the doorway to my room in which I cannot see a single thing is just enough creepy to make me shudder from time to time.
If, someday, I disappear, blame a Grue.
As such, I have done many crazy things to "clean" my sleeping environment. I only use my bed for sleep. I avoid my bedroom for anything other than sleep, getting dressed, and the like. I make sure my bed is comfy as well as the temperature in my house. I try to make sure my room smells nice via candles. I have a white noise machine that soothes my brain in theory. My bedroom is a soundproofed and quiet as I can make it.
However, none of this is scary. One of the issues with where I live is that some of my neighbors think that their outside lighting should be as close to one million candle power as possible, so my house is very bright even at night. Light, as you might guess, is the opposite of helpful for someone with a sleep disorder. My shades, while reasonably light canceling, were insufficient, so I went on a mission to get room darkening shades.
Trials and tribulations followed but ultimately I set up my stupid shades and made my room very dark. Mission accomplished.
By very dark I mean VERY dark. So dark that if you've had lights on in the house, that's including just a TV or computer screen, when you walk into the room you are totally blind. It's also so dark that when, in the middle of the night I've been watching, say, a zombie movie or playing, say, Resident Evil 4, I walk up the stairs and past my room, glancing into my room is like staring into a black hole of evil. I'm really not afraid of the dark, but staring into the gaping maw that is the doorway to my room in which I cannot see a single thing is just enough creepy to make me shudder from time to time.
If, someday, I disappear, blame a Grue.
August 25, 2008
VEEP Joe Biden
Being from DE I am not immune to the "that's so cool" factor of having one of our senators being tapped to be Obama's VEEP. However I do have to mention why I never liked Biden in the first place. Here's a short list.
Ok, he might be VEEP, that's neat, but I pray, for the good of the Internet and our privacy, that he never see the Presidency other than from the next desk over.
- Biden is Pro RIAA.
- Biden tried, twice, to get legislation to gut PGP and online encryption. TWICE.
- The man tried to come up with the Patriot Act first, then supported the Patriot Act.
- He's anti P2P.
- He's a skeptic of Net Neutrality.
Ok, he might be VEEP, that's neat, but I pray, for the good of the Internet and our privacy, that he never see the Presidency other than from the next desk over.
August 22, 2008
You could cut the irony with a knife
So due to an unsettling situation involving my car, that being that the clunking noise coming from my trunk was actually coming from my muffler that was busily and quite happily detaching itself from my car, I find myself at Saturn of Newark today waiting to find out just how screwed I am in terms of all my car repairs. I mean, the muffler, obviously, but also weird sensor issues, messed up cruise control, as well as the usual oil, lube (suggestive tone of voice optional), and tires malarkey.
As entertaining as all that nonsense is, that's not the irony. See, I took the day off work to make sure I would have enough time to take care of my car situation, and I brought my laptop to entertain myself with. However, the only place I've found to plug it in is in a tiny cubicle with a phone. So now I'm sitting in a tiny cubicle in an uncomfortable chair doing exactly what it is I would probably be doing at work right now, that being checking email, web comics, and blogging as you can see. Shortly I'll be working on my campaign. It's a normal work day! In a tiny cube. In an uncomfortable chair. At Saturn.
I'm going to go slice my irony and have a sandvich.
As entertaining as all that nonsense is, that's not the irony. See, I took the day off work to make sure I would have enough time to take care of my car situation, and I brought my laptop to entertain myself with. However, the only place I've found to plug it in is in a tiny cubicle with a phone. So now I'm sitting in a tiny cubicle in an uncomfortable chair doing exactly what it is I would probably be doing at work right now, that being checking email, web comics, and blogging as you can see. Shortly I'll be working on my campaign. It's a normal work day! In a tiny cube. In an uncomfortable chair. At Saturn.
I'm going to go slice my irony and have a sandvich.
August 20, 2008
Another test another facial wound
Last night I took the eighth test I've taken at my kungfu school. Barring something that went horribly wrong that I don't know about, I passed. My weakest part of the test, as always, was my endurance, despite the fact that endurance was all I concentrated on for the better part of the last two months in my fu clases. Regardless, I worked through it, tired myself to the brink of nausea, and made it through. I got hit in the face about five times (and somehow in the elbow), but I soldiered on and gave as much as I got. All in all, it was about as enjoyable as a root canal, but at least it's over.
Post test I limped over to a friend's house where he had some magical elixir that promised to make my muscles hurt less the next day, which I drank (it tasted like milky Tang). I'll be damned if the only things on me that actually hurt aren't where I got punched/kicked. Everything else is a little sore, but really not that bad at all. Hooray for magic elixir!
All told, I did not have fun. I hate these tests. I don't get a sense of accomplishment from them, just a sense of "thank god that's over." This is of course leading me to the obvious conclusion that I'm not going to take another one of these tests. I'm gonna have to ruminate on this one for a while, but due to my extreme distaste of this style of testing and total lack of interest in getting new belts if this torture is what I have to put myself through, I think my time at this school may be coming to its end. Much to think about and discuss, but the result may be inevitable. Meh, we'll see if talking makes any changes, but that hasn't worked for me in the past so I really doubt it'll help now. But there's always the chance I suppose. Better to consider the hopeful than to ignore it. Weird for me to say, but true nonetheless.
EDIT: Oh yeah, facial wound. My sparring partner and I were, you know, sparring, and I got tired of being punched in my tired face, so I went for grappling. I successfully knocked him down only to watch him escape and stand again. Frustrated, I tried again and this time when I pulled him off his feet I dropped his head on my head. Dizziness and moment of "wtf just happened" followed, and I have a much less impressive than I'd hoped bruise/dent on my face. There you go, facial wound.
Post test I limped over to a friend's house where he had some magical elixir that promised to make my muscles hurt less the next day, which I drank (it tasted like milky Tang). I'll be damned if the only things on me that actually hurt aren't where I got punched/kicked. Everything else is a little sore, but really not that bad at all. Hooray for magic elixir!
All told, I did not have fun. I hate these tests. I don't get a sense of accomplishment from them, just a sense of "thank god that's over." This is of course leading me to the obvious conclusion that I'm not going to take another one of these tests. I'm gonna have to ruminate on this one for a while, but due to my extreme distaste of this style of testing and total lack of interest in getting new belts if this torture is what I have to put myself through, I think my time at this school may be coming to its end. Much to think about and discuss, but the result may be inevitable. Meh, we'll see if talking makes any changes, but that hasn't worked for me in the past so I really doubt it'll help now. But there's always the chance I suppose. Better to consider the hopeful than to ignore it. Weird for me to say, but true nonetheless.
EDIT: Oh yeah, facial wound. My sparring partner and I were, you know, sparring, and I got tired of being punched in my tired face, so I went for grappling. I successfully knocked him down only to watch him escape and stand again. Frustrated, I tried again and this time when I pulled him off his feet I dropped his head on my head. Dizziness and moment of "wtf just happened" followed, and I have a much less impressive than I'd hoped bruise/dent on my face. There you go, facial wound.
It's time to complain about Niwano Hana
"What?" you gasped, shocked at the title you just read. "Complain about Niwano Hana? Are you mad?"
Yes, yes I am, but not for that reason. The complaint I have about (nearly) everyone's favorite sushi bar is that it sets the bar so goddamn high it makes going to other sushi restaurants something of a problem. I have been to most of the other sushi places in DE and, frankly, I've never had better sushi than I have at Niwano Hana (or NH) as I shall refer to it from now on.
Now many restaurants (Kyoto, Utage, Mikimotos, etc) are prettier and have better bars. Kyoto especially is a gorgeous very Japanese styled building. NH is a cheap carpet, cheap chairs and tables, cheap Japanese-like styled place. But as unimpressive as the ambiance in NH is (I've heard music from FFX there for Christ's sake), the important part, that being the food, is fucking awesome.
This isn't to say that Kyoto's food is bad. In fact I can't say I've had a bad sushi meal at any other sushi place (other than Jasmine, but that's "Asian Fusion" or whatever the fuck). In fact at most sushi restaurants I get that same glazed-eye beatific look on my face as I savor every last bite of my sushi. The problem is that no matter where I go, I look at the price of what I want, wince, and then think to myself, "Wow, I could have gotten this exact meal for like $7-10 less at NH."
And it doesn't end at food! Green tea at NH is free, and the real drinks (e.g. beer) are surprisingly reasonably priced as well. They don't have a particularly impressive bar, but their beer is decent, their plumb wine palatable, and their sake isn't the radioactive draino that sake often is.
So basically my complaint is that, sans the atmosphere, Niwano Hana is the perfect sushi place! I've occasionally had bad service there, but I've had FAR worse service at other places. NH is just so chill, cheap, and flavorific that it makes it hard for me to want to go to other sushi bars! Curse me for finding the best sushi bar ever.
Yes, yes I am, but not for that reason. The complaint I have about (nearly) everyone's favorite sushi bar is that it sets the bar so goddamn high it makes going to other sushi restaurants something of a problem. I have been to most of the other sushi places in DE and, frankly, I've never had better sushi than I have at Niwano Hana (or NH) as I shall refer to it from now on.
Now many restaurants (Kyoto, Utage, Mikimotos, etc) are prettier and have better bars. Kyoto especially is a gorgeous very Japanese styled building. NH is a cheap carpet, cheap chairs and tables, cheap Japanese-like styled place. But as unimpressive as the ambiance in NH is (I've heard music from FFX there for Christ's sake), the important part, that being the food, is fucking awesome.
This isn't to say that Kyoto's food is bad. In fact I can't say I've had a bad sushi meal at any other sushi place (other than Jasmine, but that's "Asian Fusion" or whatever the fuck). In fact at most sushi restaurants I get that same glazed-eye beatific look on my face as I savor every last bite of my sushi. The problem is that no matter where I go, I look at the price of what I want, wince, and then think to myself, "Wow, I could have gotten this exact meal for like $7-10 less at NH."
And it doesn't end at food! Green tea at NH is free, and the real drinks (e.g. beer) are surprisingly reasonably priced as well. They don't have a particularly impressive bar, but their beer is decent, their plumb wine palatable, and their sake isn't the radioactive draino that sake often is.
So basically my complaint is that, sans the atmosphere, Niwano Hana is the perfect sushi place! I've occasionally had bad service there, but I've had FAR worse service at other places. NH is just so chill, cheap, and flavorific that it makes it hard for me to want to go to other sushi bars! Curse me for finding the best sushi bar ever.
August 18, 2008
Trinity Blood: a disappointment
Trinity Blood is a series rife with drama and frustrations, and that started before I even started to watch the fucking series. I bought the series from my favorite bookstore and went home to watch it, and just as I was getting into it I got a lovely disk read error. I sighed and prepared to clean the disk to get whatever fingerprint or smudge was on my disk, but was shocked to find that brand new, out of the wrapping, there was a MASSIVE scratch on the damnable disk.
I went back to my bookstore and found out that, because the particular series release that I had purchased was no longer in stock, that meant that it was no easy task for the disks to be replaced and that my bookstore buddy would have to eat the cost of it. Fuck that. So I contacted the company directly and asked them to replace their shitty disks, and they responded saying that the place I bought it from would replace the disks, which I already know wasn't true. I started to worry that I really would have to let my bookstore buddy eat the cost of.
Then the brilliance of "what about the Internet, you sodding git," hit me. I have friends. They have DVD burners. I legally own the series. Asking a friend to give me a "backup"/replacement disk as downloaded from the internet was much smarter. In fact, when I did get my replacements, from a lovely friend indeed, the quality of those disks was higher than the unscratched normal disks in the series. Huzzah!
Now, a proper review of the anime. It starts slow. The general world is that after Armageddon, a proper end of the world with nukes and everything, the world goes on with the only notable difference from before being that there is now a vampire society for some reason that is at odds with the Vatican, the hope and the light of the human existence.
The main character, Father Able Nightroad, is a sort of helpless whiny twit who is still somehow endearing even as he's annoying. He attempts to help people without a huge amount of success, and there are other Vatican agents who are cool but more or less there to fill out the character list without ever actually getting any decent story about any of them. Oh, and for some reason Father Able is also a Crusnik, which is called the next step up from vampires, but has something to do with nanomachines and... Frankly it doesn't make a lot of goddamn sense, but he looks cool and kicks ass, so that should make up for some of the other details of the series.
Or not. This anmie suffers from a slew of over used anime mainstays. For instance, there is a beautiful female agent of the Vatican who looks like she's smuggling watermelons most of the time. There is a section with an incredibly irritating young girl with a mysterious past, woooo. All of the important characters are rather that being one dimensional are we'll say 1.1 dimensional; there's a pretense of characterization but in reality they remain the face with recognizable hair and a weapon that they were and that they always will be. Every weapon that is ever fired has a twenty second power up time and looks like it's becoming a sucking void of doom rather than a giant beam weapon. And, of course, the Father Able, the Crusnik, only uses his powers at a certain level for a while, but then after he updates, he only uses the second power; it all just feels tacked on and useless.
However, even for all my prattling on about the downsides, there are good things to this anmie. It is beautiful, and I mean really beautiful. They mix standard animation and computer generated animation very skillfully, and the one dimensional character are always drawn very well and the animation itself is smooth and elegant in its simplicity. The voice acting, though VERY annoying at times, is generally superb with interesting and talented actors for almost every character. And the music is sublime. My only complaint with the music is that it often feels out of place for the scene the music is in, but it is almost always beautiful and pleasant to listen to.
Ultimately, without giving too much away, the end of the series is VERY unsatisfying, even for an anime. I enjoyed the series generally, but too much was left wide open with not even a vague attempt to tie up loose ends. The series ends on a loose end. After having watched Samurai 7, a particularly good anime, this was lacking. So borrow it from me if you're interested, but I'd skip it if I were you.
I went back to my bookstore and found out that, because the particular series release that I had purchased was no longer in stock, that meant that it was no easy task for the disks to be replaced and that my bookstore buddy would have to eat the cost of it. Fuck that. So I contacted the company directly and asked them to replace their shitty disks, and they responded saying that the place I bought it from would replace the disks, which I already know wasn't true. I started to worry that I really would have to let my bookstore buddy eat the cost of.
Then the brilliance of "what about the Internet, you sodding git," hit me. I have friends. They have DVD burners. I legally own the series. Asking a friend to give me a "backup"/replacement disk as downloaded from the internet was much smarter. In fact, when I did get my replacements, from a lovely friend indeed, the quality of those disks was higher than the unscratched normal disks in the series. Huzzah!
Now, a proper review of the anime. It starts slow. The general world is that after Armageddon, a proper end of the world with nukes and everything, the world goes on with the only notable difference from before being that there is now a vampire society for some reason that is at odds with the Vatican, the hope and the light of the human existence.
The main character, Father Able Nightroad, is a sort of helpless whiny twit who is still somehow endearing even as he's annoying. He attempts to help people without a huge amount of success, and there are other Vatican agents who are cool but more or less there to fill out the character list without ever actually getting any decent story about any of them. Oh, and for some reason Father Able is also a Crusnik, which is called the next step up from vampires, but has something to do with nanomachines and... Frankly it doesn't make a lot of goddamn sense, but he looks cool and kicks ass, so that should make up for some of the other details of the series.
Or not. This anmie suffers from a slew of over used anime mainstays. For instance, there is a beautiful female agent of the Vatican who looks like she's smuggling watermelons most of the time. There is a section with an incredibly irritating young girl with a mysterious past, woooo. All of the important characters are rather that being one dimensional are we'll say 1.1 dimensional; there's a pretense of characterization but in reality they remain the face with recognizable hair and a weapon that they were and that they always will be. Every weapon that is ever fired has a twenty second power up time and looks like it's becoming a sucking void of doom rather than a giant beam weapon. And, of course, the Father Able, the Crusnik, only uses his powers at a certain level for a while, but then after he updates, he only uses the second power; it all just feels tacked on and useless.
However, even for all my prattling on about the downsides, there are good things to this anmie. It is beautiful, and I mean really beautiful. They mix standard animation and computer generated animation very skillfully, and the one dimensional character are always drawn very well and the animation itself is smooth and elegant in its simplicity. The voice acting, though VERY annoying at times, is generally superb with interesting and talented actors for almost every character. And the music is sublime. My only complaint with the music is that it often feels out of place for the scene the music is in, but it is almost always beautiful and pleasant to listen to.
Ultimately, without giving too much away, the end of the series is VERY unsatisfying, even for an anime. I enjoyed the series generally, but too much was left wide open with not even a vague attempt to tie up loose ends. The series ends on a loose end. After having watched Samurai 7, a particularly good anime, this was lacking. So borrow it from me if you're interested, but I'd skip it if I were you.
August 17, 2008
Razzin' frazzin' Wall of Force
Something which I still have not quite learned correctly about my D&D groups is: Never underestimate their ability to take a carefully planned encounter and kick it to the curb and then curb stomp it in ways I didn't plan for. This evening, for instance, had one of those exact scenarios. Bear with me now...
The enemies: Juggernauts, huge living stone constructs with six arms that would punch the shit out of anything in reach before running it over and potentially killing it right then and there.
The scenario: I admit I was stealing shamelessly from a Final Fantasy game, but there was a narrow passageway totally blocked off by the two huge monsters and they were going to slowly roll down the passage way and the players would be encouraged to fight balls almost literally to the wall trying to kill the creatures before they inevitably reached the players and started raping them with giant stone dildos (not literally, but you get the idea).
How they fucked it up: I totally forgot some of the spells that my players had access to, and of course that was the first spell that appeared, the Wall of Force. It was large enough that the Juggernauts couldn't get around it, over it, under it, and because the wall is largely unbalancing to the game, they couldn't destroy it either. So what was going to be a quick but nerve wracking game of "can we kill them fast enough" turned into an annoying game of, "we're killing them slowly at a distance while they're slowly killing us back." Wars of attrition, while effective, are sadly boring.
What I could have done differently: To be fair, nothing. I could have given the Juggernauts the disintegrate spell, but that's a one shot kill spell that would have made the creatures that much more dangerous. I could have given them short distance teleport spells, but that's really defeating the purpose of the monsters and really stretching what they're supposed to be able to do. If they weren't on Mechanus (the Clockwork Paradise, basically a plane of existence entirely composed of gears and cogs) I could have just had someone dispel the damn wall, but they're stuck on Mechanus for the time being and I'm just boned.
However, all in all, this doesn't bother me. One encounter doesn't go well? Not a huge deal. They've been through two now, and I have about a dozen left for them. Some aren't nearly as impressively planned out, others are even more planned out, but none of that matters. I had a blast tonight! Everyone, even if they were irritating the shit out of me by making my well planned combat backfire in my face, really seemed to enjoy the whole night. Even the messed up fight provided plenty of the other best part of the game: comedy. They hate Mechanus, but it gives me free reign to do weird and amusing things to them, and they definitely appreciate the new landscape in which to struggle and fight. And, much like the Hokey Pokey, that's what it's all about.
Also, making puns while in a plane entirely composed of gears cogs, is really easy! "Come on guys, let's get it in gear!" "That is a giant cog." "These cogs are making me testy!" Can you think of worse gear and cog puns than my tired ass? Do let me know!
The enemies: Juggernauts, huge living stone constructs with six arms that would punch the shit out of anything in reach before running it over and potentially killing it right then and there.
The scenario: I admit I was stealing shamelessly from a Final Fantasy game, but there was a narrow passageway totally blocked off by the two huge monsters and they were going to slowly roll down the passage way and the players would be encouraged to fight balls almost literally to the wall trying to kill the creatures before they inevitably reached the players and started raping them with giant stone dildos (not literally, but you get the idea).
How they fucked it up: I totally forgot some of the spells that my players had access to, and of course that was the first spell that appeared, the Wall of Force. It was large enough that the Juggernauts couldn't get around it, over it, under it, and because the wall is largely unbalancing to the game, they couldn't destroy it either. So what was going to be a quick but nerve wracking game of "can we kill them fast enough" turned into an annoying game of, "we're killing them slowly at a distance while they're slowly killing us back." Wars of attrition, while effective, are sadly boring.
What I could have done differently: To be fair, nothing. I could have given the Juggernauts the disintegrate spell, but that's a one shot kill spell that would have made the creatures that much more dangerous. I could have given them short distance teleport spells, but that's really defeating the purpose of the monsters and really stretching what they're supposed to be able to do. If they weren't on Mechanus (the Clockwork Paradise, basically a plane of existence entirely composed of gears and cogs) I could have just had someone dispel the damn wall, but they're stuck on Mechanus for the time being and I'm just boned.
However, all in all, this doesn't bother me. One encounter doesn't go well? Not a huge deal. They've been through two now, and I have about a dozen left for them. Some aren't nearly as impressively planned out, others are even more planned out, but none of that matters. I had a blast tonight! Everyone, even if they were irritating the shit out of me by making my well planned combat backfire in my face, really seemed to enjoy the whole night. Even the messed up fight provided plenty of the other best part of the game: comedy. They hate Mechanus, but it gives me free reign to do weird and amusing things to them, and they definitely appreciate the new landscape in which to struggle and fight. And, much like the Hokey Pokey, that's what it's all about.
Also, making puns while in a plane entirely composed of gears cogs, is really easy! "Come on guys, let's get it in gear!" "That is a giant cog." "These cogs are making me testy!" Can you think of worse gear and cog puns than my tired ass? Do let me know!
August 14, 2008
I wish my hobbies paid more
Unless I somehow actually get my book published, all my writing has thus far netted me precisely $0.00 profit. I've written hundreds of thousands of words, many of them in a row, some even in stories and books, and gotten nothing but a warm sense of satisfaction for my efforts. Dungeons and dragons is worse. Considering that I'm running a game wherein we play maybe five hours a week, I'm putting probably ten to twenty hours of work into the game almost every week. This week alone, totally while not at work, ahem, I've spent about ten hours designing a single encounter that my players will probably blow through in an hour or so. My only consolation is that there's a pretty good chance that I'll total party kill them at least once. Kung Fu? All told, I probably only spend four or five hours a week on Kung Fu, but I actually pay money to do that! My hobbies aren't money making.
The truly sad part is that I probably work harder at my hobbies than I do at my job. When I do have work, I work hard and get it done. But frankly, I almost definitely have more hobby work time a week than real work time these days. I've been complaining about not having enough work for, oh, years now, and while it's getting slightly better with my latest boss, I'm still idle a lot.
My ideas for making money, like publishing my books or freelancing for D&D, keep getting shot down. Book? Publishing is very bad right now (economy) and the actual publisher I want to work with is trying not to go out of business to boot. Freelance articles for D&D? Licensing issues since if I came up with an idea that they bought, they'd own it and I'd never be allowed to use it on my own ever again. Writing for 3rd party D&D people? That's all up in the air since D&D 4.0 came out and mucked everything up. Everything I'd like to do that could actually theoretically make me money? Bang, thud, dead.
Sometimes I really hate how life goes. At least my campaign rules.
The truly sad part is that I probably work harder at my hobbies than I do at my job. When I do have work, I work hard and get it done. But frankly, I almost definitely have more hobby work time a week than real work time these days. I've been complaining about not having enough work for, oh, years now, and while it's getting slightly better with my latest boss, I'm still idle a lot.
My ideas for making money, like publishing my books or freelancing for D&D, keep getting shot down. Book? Publishing is very bad right now (economy) and the actual publisher I want to work with is trying not to go out of business to boot. Freelance articles for D&D? Licensing issues since if I came up with an idea that they bought, they'd own it and I'd never be allowed to use it on my own ever again. Writing for 3rd party D&D people? That's all up in the air since D&D 4.0 came out and mucked everything up. Everything I'd like to do that could actually theoretically make me money? Bang, thud, dead.
Sometimes I really hate how life goes. At least my campaign rules.
August 13, 2008
Metal ladies
I am on a mission. I need bands, fronted by women, that rock. Evanesence, Flyleaf, Lacuna Coil, etc. Unfortunately they also have to be vaguely popular as I'm trying to plug them into my personal radio stations and the one I'm using that I won't name for fear of it also being blocked by the douchebags who work here only really knows somewhat popular bands. So if you have ideas comment or email me.
Hypermilling
Another cool word for a decidedly less cool concept. Anyway, hypermilling is a fancy word to describe "driving in a manner to get the maximum amount of gas mileage out of your vehicle". I've been trying some, and only some, of the techniques, and I've found they actually can be very effective. My car theoretically gets 26/34 mpg city/highway. I'm currently averaging around 32 mpg total. That's nuts. With gas a $4 a gallon, that saves me close to $20 a month, which is small but statistically significant. Assuming your car doesn't do 26/34 (hahahahahahaha suckers), if you can improve your mpg then you're really doing yourself a favor.
So how does one hypermill? Well, firstly, you need a manual transmission car or a true hybrid to do it. These techniques work best for the hybrids, but aren't bad for manuals. There are a few things you can do in an automatic, but I don't think you'll see the impressive mpg boost I have. So anyway, here's the techniques I use based on how useful I find them:
The only other nonsense I have tried is, as far as I can tell, either just nonsense, fucking dangerous, or gives such an imperceptible improvement, if any, that they're not worth the effort. As far as I'm concerned hypermilling should be about bang for the buck. What I've listed are the easy and relatively safe things that I do that I have found to be effective. If you're looking to save some coin, try 'em out and let me know how you do!
So how does one hypermill? Well, firstly, you need a manual transmission car or a true hybrid to do it. These techniques work best for the hybrids, but aren't bad for manuals. There are a few things you can do in an automatic, but I don't think you'll see the impressive mpg boost I have. So anyway, here's the techniques I use based on how useful I find them:
- Accelerate gently. Yes, drive like you're old. This is probably the biggest improvement you'll see in any car, including automatics. The reason is totally physics. If you jam on the accelerator from a total stop, you're bring potentially tons of weight to a speed quickly thus using more gas to get to the speed limit. If you accelerate more slowly you're using far less gas and still getting to the speed limit (eventually anyway). Don't be a total douche and drive über slow if there's people behind you, but you don't have to try to do a 0-60 in 5 seconds every time you take off.
- Maintain steady speed.I thought this sounded like a load of hooey (or bullshit if you don't like my 50's cursing), but according to Edmunds.com (car review people) if you can maintain a single speed it will markedly improve your milage. Even better, if you have cruise control a computer will control a single speed, taking your foot out of the equation. Having tested it myself, I have to say I'm pretty damn sure this works.
- Drifting in neutral. Now we're in slightly dangerous territory, especially if you're stupid enough to try this in an automatic, but this works wonders. If you're on a hill, and you're going down said hill with your foot on the gas the whole way, or using your engine to control your speed, you're using gas. If you drop your car into neutral and control speed with your brakes then you're using considerably less gas. You can test this by just looking at your engine's rpms. One thing worth noting is that some hypermillers say you should turn off your car when going down a hill and then kick start your car at the bottom. While this is a way to save even more gas, it's VERY DANGEROUS since most modern cars have power steering/brakes/etc which could easily get you killed if there's any kind of situation you need steering or braking for, like, oh, the bottom of a hill with a kid crossing the street. Got it?
- Sitting still? Turn off your car.While this makes some sense, there is the valid question of how much gas you're actually saving considering that, depending on the car, it can take a considerable amount of gas to start your car. The best answer I have is that if your car starts really easily, twenty seconds or more means you should turn off your car, otherwise just skip this one.
- Drafting larger vehicles, especially tractor trailors. This definitely works really, really well. It's just illegal to follow a truck really close. Though you literally can drive within six to twelve inches of a big rig and turn off your car and drift in neutral behind it, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DO THAT. So dangerous. However, following a truck at two to three seconds is still enough to get remarkably better gas mileage. So don't be a dick, but following trucks will help even if you're following at an appropriate distance. Neat.
- Lighten the load. Take every unnecessary item out of your car. Seriously. A lighter car gets better gas mileage. Granted taking ten CDs out of your car won't do shit, but if you've got extra shit you don't need in your boot (trunk), get rid of it. Some hypermillers say you should take out your spare tire and jack, as they're heavy, and rely on AAA to save you. PLEASE DON'T BE THAT STUPID. The emergency wheel is there for a very fucking good reason, leave it alone.
The only other nonsense I have tried is, as far as I can tell, either just nonsense, fucking dangerous, or gives such an imperceptible improvement, if any, that they're not worth the effort. As far as I'm concerned hypermilling should be about bang for the buck. What I've listed are the easy and relatively safe things that I do that I have found to be effective. If you're looking to save some coin, try 'em out and let me know how you do!
August 8, 2008
When it rains...
What the fuck? Isn't one enough? Do I really have to have two fucking women messing with my head? Can't it be one at a time?
Time to get drunk.
Time to get drunk.
The coolest name for the lamest profession
vexillology \vek-sil-AHL-uh-jee\, noun:
The study of flags.
What the fuck? That's the single coolest sounding word of the day I've received ever. Ever! And it's the study of flags? That makes no goddamn sense. This word deserves to be about something cooler than this! Seriously.
The study of flags.
What the fuck? That's the single coolest sounding word of the day I've received ever. Ever! And it's the study of flags? That makes no goddamn sense. This word deserves to be about something cooler than this! Seriously.
August 6, 2008
I got the blues.... radio station
Ok, I may not actually have the blues. Yes, I am a tiny bit depressed that I'm not having much in the way of luck finding the right girl for me, and yes my whole work situation is stressing me out, and yes my book publishing situation is irritating me... Ok, so maybe I do have the blues. And I love listening to the blues. How does that make sense?
See the blues don't help people who are depressed. As much as I've paid attention, the blues songs I've listened to so far today include a man begging a woman to treat him fairly, a man complaining that the woman he loved left him for another man, a man promising that he's ready to do anything the woman he loves wants while she shuns him, a man considering suicide after ninety days of hoping his woman would come back, and a long description of what the man's night was like when his woman left him (cold and dark apparently). None of these things make me feel better about anything.
So why the hell do I listen to this music? Because I love it. My favorite kind of blues is an old black guy playing a guitar crooning about his crappy life. Why? Well, I suppose you could call me a racist fucker who enjoys the misery of black people, but really I love how much skill, how much passion is put into these songs. They may not be the best guitar players in terms of technical skill, but they make guitars sing. Combine that with a truly heartfelt story of a man having a bad day/week/month/life, and you get some really amazing music. As a person who loves death metal, punk rock, and other fast music, I guess the blues balances that shit out.
See the blues don't help people who are depressed. As much as I've paid attention, the blues songs I've listened to so far today include a man begging a woman to treat him fairly, a man complaining that the woman he loved left him for another man, a man promising that he's ready to do anything the woman he loves wants while she shuns him, a man considering suicide after ninety days of hoping his woman would come back, and a long description of what the man's night was like when his woman left him (cold and dark apparently). None of these things make me feel better about anything.
So why the hell do I listen to this music? Because I love it. My favorite kind of blues is an old black guy playing a guitar crooning about his crappy life. Why? Well, I suppose you could call me a racist fucker who enjoys the misery of black people, but really I love how much skill, how much passion is put into these songs. They may not be the best guitar players in terms of technical skill, but they make guitars sing. Combine that with a truly heartfelt story of a man having a bad day/week/month/life, and you get some really amazing music. As a person who loves death metal, punk rock, and other fast music, I guess the blues balances that shit out.
July 28, 2008
Dungeons and Dragons
During my long blogging blackout, I took over the reigns of my D&D group and started a campaign! Now if you're done thinking about what a loser I am for playing D&D, I can get around to actually talking about the interest of my running D&D, and it's not just my immense nerdliness.
Running a successful and fun D&D campaign isn't just a matter of randomly throwing together some monsters and vaguely planning out a dungeon; it's about writing an over-arching story that is powerful enough and interesting enough to involve all the characters playing; it's about writing a story that is flexible enough to allow characters to do what they wish while still allowing me to guide them to where I want them to go; it's about learning how your players work so that you can challenge them with fights, monsters, traps, political situations, and anything else you can come up with; most of all, especially for me, it's about being a writer with enough skill to entertain people, to keep within a certain set of rules, to break those rules when appropriate without the players ever knowing, and always to have a good time while doing it. Writing a campaign is so difficult and interesting that it has kept me entertained for months now, and will continue to do so for a few more.
Will I be happy to be a player again? Oh yes. Hell yes. God being in charge sucks sometimes. But for now being the god of this world is great.
Running a successful and fun D&D campaign isn't just a matter of randomly throwing together some monsters and vaguely planning out a dungeon; it's about writing an over-arching story that is powerful enough and interesting enough to involve all the characters playing; it's about writing a story that is flexible enough to allow characters to do what they wish while still allowing me to guide them to where I want them to go; it's about learning how your players work so that you can challenge them with fights, monsters, traps, political situations, and anything else you can come up with; most of all, especially for me, it's about being a writer with enough skill to entertain people, to keep within a certain set of rules, to break those rules when appropriate without the players ever knowing, and always to have a good time while doing it. Writing a campaign is so difficult and interesting that it has kept me entertained for months now, and will continue to do so for a few more.
Will I be happy to be a player again? Oh yes. Hell yes. God being in charge sucks sometimes. But for now being the god of this world is great.
Work can huff my nuts.
Yes, work is frustrating. It is, however, even more frustrating when you are kept idle and bored most of the time. Many a person has told me I'm an idiot for complaining about being bored at work, but each and every one of those people is fucking wrong. If I've been busy for days, weeks, months at a time, then having some down time is fantastic. Unfortunately, when work is the break and down time is the norm, boredom becomes unbearable you bastards.
This is a subject I have gone back and forth on here at work, that being what to do. As an amateur writer, I can often fill my time working on novels, my abortively bad short stories, or lately on my D&D campaign. However, if we reach a point that my muse is taking one of her week long smoke break (stupid bitch), then I'm up ye olde creek you never want to be up sans paddle. The only plus of this situation lately is that since I am seated in a fairly unpopular section of the building I don't really have to pretend to be working much and can fairly obviously just do whatever while I wait to actually get work.
Work may change. Maybe if I beg enough I'll actually get work. Maybe not. And don't think for a second that if a better option appeared I wouldn't leap with great enthusiasm at said option. There may be an option to work with my father doing what I actually trained for in college coming down the pipes soon, possibly. Maybe not, but that's a thought.
This is a subject I have gone back and forth on here at work, that being what to do. As an amateur writer, I can often fill my time working on novels, my abortively bad short stories, or lately on my D&D campaign. However, if we reach a point that my muse is taking one of her week long smoke break (stupid bitch), then I'm up ye olde creek you never want to be up sans paddle. The only plus of this situation lately is that since I am seated in a fairly unpopular section of the building I don't really have to pretend to be working much and can fairly obviously just do whatever while I wait to actually get work.
Work may change. Maybe if I beg enough I'll actually get work. Maybe not. And don't think for a second that if a better option appeared I wouldn't leap with great enthusiasm at said option. There may be an option to work with my father doing what I actually trained for in college coming down the pipes soon, possibly. Maybe not, but that's a thought.
First Post!
Time for a new blog. My old blog was a pain to update due to Opera, the locked down nature of my machine here at work, and other issues, so here's a new one. There ain't much here yet, but there will be eventually.
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