There is constantly a song in my head. It prevents me from thinking sometimes. It's out of control. I've been thinking of blogging a play list of the songs that get in my head throughout the day.
Catch Me—Smurfs (Yep, this was running through my head when I woke up. Trust me it was better than that crazy world of Tim Burton meets E3 meets Transit Oriented Design that I was stuck in. Dreams are weird, but sometimes I'm glad to wake up from them.)
Viva La Vida—Cold Play
I can see clearly now—Johnny Nash
All You Need is Love—Beatles
All My Lovin'—Beatles
She Loves You—Beatles
Band on the Run—Wings
Getting Better—Big Daddy
A Day in the Life—Big Daddy
James K Polk—They Might Be Giants
Chill Theme—Dr. Mario
La Bamba—Ritchie Valens
I don't know the name, but the part that keeps repeating goes—Bop Bah-Dop Bop Bop Dah-Dop.
Music Box Dancer—Frank Mills
Fixing a Hole—Beatles
Transformers Theme from the Original Cartoon
The Mesopotamians—They Might Be Giants
Dare to Be Stupid—Weird Al
Escape—Rupert Holmes
Transformers Movie Themes (The 2007 Movie)
Rules: These were songs going through my head throughout the day, Songs I listened to did not count (I listened to several albums as I worked today) if something I listened to was lingering 5 minutes later when I was onto another task and not listening to music, it qualified for the list.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Lost and Found
I'm a backpack guy. I haul things in backpacks. Since elementary school I've hauled things in a backpack.
In kindergarten it was square and looked like a Hershey Bar, and the straps could be reconfigured to work as a backpack, or messenger bag, or satchel.
In Jr. High and High School I avoided my lockers almost religiously. They were in far too inconvenient locations, so I carried everything. Except Senior Year, that was a good locker year. For a brief stint in high school I tried a satchel, but the canvas material just didn't hold up that great.
On my mission I started with a back pack, but there was a bombing at the Olympics—and the bomb was in a backpack, so our mission president bought leather man-bags for all of us.
Home from a mission and off to college, I bought the biggest day bag that Jansport made, and lugged that bad boy all over campus. That bag has been retired to Hobby Game transporter status. I keep Carcassonne, Battle Cattle, The Settlers of Catan Card Game & Expansions, Guillotine, Zombie Fluxx, Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Lupus in Tabula, Are you a Werewolf, Ticket to Ride USA 1910 expansion, Cranium Zigity, and Lord of the Fries in it. (Funny Fact—I still haven't taken all the art supplies out of it, probably because games won't fit in that particular compartment)
Even now I have a backpack that I take most places. Good places to buy backpacks are Ross and TJMaxx. You can generally find a nice $80 Laptop Backpack in the neighborhood of $25-30. I bought one for a laptop, then I bought another one for toting around the Wii. The one that I bought for the Wii had a secret compartment in the bottom that held a Rain-jacket for the backpack.
I swiped that rain-jacket from the Wii pack (which resides behind the couch most of the time) and gave it a more permanent home in the pack that I use all the time; and it has been very useful as of late.
I got drenched last week, but my bag and its contents were bone dry.
Yesterday when I left the house it wasn't raining, but it looked like it might be when I got downtown. I was going to put the rain-coat on my pack, but it was missing. I searched the places I keep the pack but it was gone, and it was time to go. I guessed that it had fallen out of the pocket I keep it in, or that Moira had been playing with it. I didn't have time investigate further, it was time to walk to the bus stop. In walking to the Bus Stop I found it. It was sitting on the lawn of the High School. Good thing too, because it was raining when I was walking to the bus stop after work.
Monday, when it was time to leave work I checked my pockets and found that my cell phone was missing. I called it to see if it was nearby; it wasn't. So I was trying to think of all the places I could have dropped it. On the walk from home to the bus stop, on the bus to downtown, on the walk from the bus stop to work, in the company car that I took to a remote office, at the cubicle in the remote office... or maybe I didn't pick it up when I left home and it was still sitting on my desk.
It was still on my desk when I got home.
Yesterday I forgot to grab my keys when I left the house. I didn't notice until Emily informed me during a phone call a little before I left to go home. I'm glad she told me—If I had noticed on the way home, it would have been another panic session all the way home.
I found a Lighter on the ground at the bus stop yesterday. One of the nice Zippo ones. I picked it up—then I felt guilty about it after I got on the bus, since I had just that morning benefited from someone not picking up something I had lost. It's broken, the lid doesn't close all the way, and it's scuffed up a bit—perhaps it was tossed out the window of a moving vehicle. It sparks, but doesn't light, so it's most likely out of fuel. Maybe I'll put it back where I found it. Could I get fined for littering?
I pick up any and all change I find on the ground. Including pennies. I found a Euro Cent a few weeks ago.
In kindergarten it was square and looked like a Hershey Bar, and the straps could be reconfigured to work as a backpack, or messenger bag, or satchel.
In Jr. High and High School I avoided my lockers almost religiously. They were in far too inconvenient locations, so I carried everything. Except Senior Year, that was a good locker year. For a brief stint in high school I tried a satchel, but the canvas material just didn't hold up that great.
On my mission I started with a back pack, but there was a bombing at the Olympics—and the bomb was in a backpack, so our mission president bought leather man-bags for all of us.
Home from a mission and off to college, I bought the biggest day bag that Jansport made, and lugged that bad boy all over campus. That bag has been retired to Hobby Game transporter status. I keep Carcassonne, Battle Cattle, The Settlers of Catan Card Game & Expansions, Guillotine, Zombie Fluxx, Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Lupus in Tabula, Are you a Werewolf, Ticket to Ride USA 1910 expansion, Cranium Zigity, and Lord of the Fries in it. (Funny Fact—I still haven't taken all the art supplies out of it, probably because games won't fit in that particular compartment)
Even now I have a backpack that I take most places. Good places to buy backpacks are Ross and TJMaxx. You can generally find a nice $80 Laptop Backpack in the neighborhood of $25-30. I bought one for a laptop, then I bought another one for toting around the Wii. The one that I bought for the Wii had a secret compartment in the bottom that held a Rain-jacket for the backpack.
I swiped that rain-jacket from the Wii pack (which resides behind the couch most of the time) and gave it a more permanent home in the pack that I use all the time; and it has been very useful as of late.
I got drenched last week, but my bag and its contents were bone dry.
Yesterday when I left the house it wasn't raining, but it looked like it might be when I got downtown. I was going to put the rain-coat on my pack, but it was missing. I searched the places I keep the pack but it was gone, and it was time to go. I guessed that it had fallen out of the pocket I keep it in, or that Moira had been playing with it. I didn't have time investigate further, it was time to walk to the bus stop. In walking to the Bus Stop I found it. It was sitting on the lawn of the High School. Good thing too, because it was raining when I was walking to the bus stop after work.
Monday, when it was time to leave work I checked my pockets and found that my cell phone was missing. I called it to see if it was nearby; it wasn't. So I was trying to think of all the places I could have dropped it. On the walk from home to the bus stop, on the bus to downtown, on the walk from the bus stop to work, in the company car that I took to a remote office, at the cubicle in the remote office... or maybe I didn't pick it up when I left home and it was still sitting on my desk.
It was still on my desk when I got home.
Yesterday I forgot to grab my keys when I left the house. I didn't notice until Emily informed me during a phone call a little before I left to go home. I'm glad she told me—If I had noticed on the way home, it would have been another panic session all the way home.
I found a Lighter on the ground at the bus stop yesterday. One of the nice Zippo ones. I picked it up—then I felt guilty about it after I got on the bus, since I had just that morning benefited from someone not picking up something I had lost. It's broken, the lid doesn't close all the way, and it's scuffed up a bit—perhaps it was tossed out the window of a moving vehicle. It sparks, but doesn't light, so it's most likely out of fuel. Maybe I'll put it back where I found it. Could I get fined for littering?
I pick up any and all change I find on the ground. Including pennies. I found a Euro Cent a few weeks ago.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Deadlands Board Game=Awesome Cowboy Figs
At our Game Saturday, P was mentioning that he was looking for a place to get some Cowboy Mini Figures.
I told him that you can get Cowboys and Indians made of the Same plastic that Green Army Men are made of at the Dollar Store. (F.Y.I.—The ones at Honks are of much better quality than those at Dollar Tree)
I just noticed that there are some new pictures from the Deadlands Board Game posted by the publisher.
I'm definately getting this game when it comes out.
Look at these Figs!! (Click Image For Full Rez)
I told him that you can get Cowboys and Indians made of the Same plastic that Green Army Men are made of at the Dollar Store. (F.Y.I.—The ones at Honks are of much better quality than those at Dollar Tree)
I just noticed that there are some new pictures from the Deadlands Board Game posted by the publisher.
I'm definately getting this game when it comes out.
Look at these Figs!! (Click Image For Full Rez)
Don't Go In the Mall!!!
There are probably some spoilers ahead—those that visit from the Savage Worlds Forum may want to skip the read if they plan on playing in a Zombie Run Game. You've been warned.
Saturday Night we continued our Zombie Run, Savage Worlds Campaign.
Only one player from the first session was able to attend, but we had Three new players for a Total of Four. So it was a good size group. After the first session we had a lot of questions about the combat, so I spent some time online researching what exactly we did wrong. Turns out it was mostly inexperience with the system, there were all kinds of strategies that would negate the difficulties of fighting zombies, and armed with this knowledge we disengaged the House Rules from the last session.
This session involved a Mall. The party was notoriously low on fire arms, and this mall happened to have a Gun Store in it. In the Middle of the Mall. A Mall with 240 Zombies in it.
I had Fun, I hope everyone else did as well.
Things of Note in the Image (Click for Full Size):
LARGE Map of the Mall.
240 Zombies, some already off of the map—having been mowed over by the Cars the players took into the mall.
Dice Tray from Dicecapades for those that don't have their own dice. (Shocking that some people don't have their own, I know)
Orange Mini Poker Chips, used as Bennies.
Red Mini Poker Chips, indicate Shaken.
White Mini Poker Chips, indicate Aiming.
(Not Pictured) Blue Mini Poker Chips, indicating grappled.
Notice the Small Map of the Mall on the Outside of the Customizable GM Screen. (I had this covered, and when they got to the mall there was a dramatic reveal and I told them that these could be found at each of the mall's entrances)
Zombie Run Character Sheets—located at the Savage Worlds Yahoo Group.
Two allies for every Player Character.
(Not Pictured) Spontaneous Batch of Fresh Chocolate Chip Cookies.
They drove two vehicles into the halls of the mall and Left the truck outside. I made the Paper Flats for the Vehicles based on Pictures I could find.
I was looking for a Chevy Silverado, but could only find a Ford F150 (1997)
One of the Cars is the car I drive but a slightly newer model, Ford Taurus (2003)
The other is a car I've never heard of, but I found a good picture of it: a Volkswagen Phaeton (2004) which I couldn't recall the night of the game.
Things I noticed during the Game:
Everyone was getting pretty tired near the end—next time we won't go so late (the next Encounter shouldn't take as long—but it is kind of disturbing)
Players will always surprise you. I didn't think they would explore the Mall as much as they did, or split up as much as they did.
I did play it a little easy on them, I had the metal gates for the stores down, so the Zombies weren't all constantly converging upon the players as soon as they entered the mall.
Brian seemed to be dying to be more creative, but wasn't sure what to do—if he comes next time, I can assure he will have a chance to be more creative. This session was mostly a combat encounter.
Justin is still a power player (Munchkin) and I'm not sure if he will ever change, he always seems bored if he's not getting loot of some kind.
I'm still a little unsure of some of the rules, but this session went much smoother than the last.
Things I remembered after the game.
I forgot to hand out XP. Two points to everyone that played.
Saturday Night we continued our Zombie Run, Savage Worlds Campaign.
Only one player from the first session was able to attend, but we had Three new players for a Total of Four. So it was a good size group. After the first session we had a lot of questions about the combat, so I spent some time online researching what exactly we did wrong. Turns out it was mostly inexperience with the system, there were all kinds of strategies that would negate the difficulties of fighting zombies, and armed with this knowledge we disengaged the House Rules from the last session.
This session involved a Mall. The party was notoriously low on fire arms, and this mall happened to have a Gun Store in it. In the Middle of the Mall. A Mall with 240 Zombies in it.
I had Fun, I hope everyone else did as well.
Things of Note in the Image (Click for Full Size):
LARGE Map of the Mall.
240 Zombies, some already off of the map—having been mowed over by the Cars the players took into the mall.
Dice Tray from Dicecapades for those that don't have their own dice. (Shocking that some people don't have their own, I know)
Orange Mini Poker Chips, used as Bennies.
Red Mini Poker Chips, indicate Shaken.
White Mini Poker Chips, indicate Aiming.
(Not Pictured) Blue Mini Poker Chips, indicating grappled.
Notice the Small Map of the Mall on the Outside of the Customizable GM Screen. (I had this covered, and when they got to the mall there was a dramatic reveal and I told them that these could be found at each of the mall's entrances)
Zombie Run Character Sheets—located at the Savage Worlds Yahoo Group.
Two allies for every Player Character.
(Not Pictured) Spontaneous Batch of Fresh Chocolate Chip Cookies.
They drove two vehicles into the halls of the mall and Left the truck outside. I made the Paper Flats for the Vehicles based on Pictures I could find.
I was looking for a Chevy Silverado, but could only find a Ford F150 (1997)
One of the Cars is the car I drive but a slightly newer model, Ford Taurus (2003)
The other is a car I've never heard of, but I found a good picture of it: a Volkswagen Phaeton (2004) which I couldn't recall the night of the game.
Things I noticed during the Game:
Everyone was getting pretty tired near the end—next time we won't go so late (the next Encounter shouldn't take as long—but it is kind of disturbing)
Players will always surprise you. I didn't think they would explore the Mall as much as they did, or split up as much as they did.
I did play it a little easy on them, I had the metal gates for the stores down, so the Zombies weren't all constantly converging upon the players as soon as they entered the mall.
Brian seemed to be dying to be more creative, but wasn't sure what to do—if he comes next time, I can assure he will have a chance to be more creative. This session was mostly a combat encounter.
Justin is still a power player (Munchkin) and I'm not sure if he will ever change, he always seems bored if he's not getting loot of some kind.
I'm still a little unsure of some of the rules, but this session went much smoother than the last.
Things I remembered after the game.
I forgot to hand out XP. Two points to everyone that played.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Animation Studio
My blogging frequency may taper off a bit. My Father in Law sent me an odd e-mail last week. It had a description of an animation studio looking for local talent. It then stated if you are interested, to e-mail—but there was no e-mail address. But it did have a phone number.
I mulled it over in my head for a while. There were some things about it that made me wary. A collective of passionate artists working for a share of the revenue was one a flag that appeared red to me. Ultimately my curiosity got the best of me and I called the guy. He was in a meeting and asked if he could call me back.
When he called back he had just left the meeting and was on his way to another meeting. So he very quickly described the project, asked me a little about myself, and asked me to send him information about myself and some examples of my work. He also solved the Mystery of the Oddly worded e-mail; it was cut and paste from an online add and was relying on the internal e-mail system of the page. This was around nine in the morning. I still wasn't sure about it. He stated that the reason they were working for a share of the revenue, was because they didn't want to get an investor—and then have that investor pull out. A good friend of mine working on a feature film lost his job recently due to that very situation, so it certainly makes sense to me.
I briefly talked to my wife about it and she thought it would be good for me to be working on a project. I mulled it over a bit more and decided to send my resume and show reel. It took me a while to find the good copy of my resume, then I kept getting distracted when I was updating said resume; I almost shut down my computer to go to bed multiple times, and would remember I hadn't sent that e-mail yet. When I finally got the links to my show reel, and portfolios up and running it was about 1:00 in the morning the next day and I finally hit the send button.
I heard back quickly, there was an e-mail from them when I got to work informing me of a time and a place we could meet. (I just now thought to look at when the reply was sent—just shy of half an hour after I sent mine, he wasn't kidding when he said he doesn't sleep) I still wasn't sure about it. I didn't really want to give up my Saturday to a job interview with a company that was already giving me a weird vibe, but after talking to my Wife again I had decided to give it a go (one of my hang-ups in all of this was spending all my time on it—this requires a lot of patience, understanding, and support from the family, and I just wanted to make sure that they were on board with me). So I called to verify the meeting. Apparently it was the first company meeting, they would talk to me beforehand and invite me into the meeting if they liked me—or send me packing if they didn't, with the possibility of a callback.
Saturday...Still not sure about this, I wanted to look nice, but not like I was trying too hard. So I felt a suit would be overkill. I wore Pinstripe Cargoes with a Short Sleeve Shirt and Tie (My Rush Limbaugh No Boundaries Collection Tie) and of Course—Suspenders.
I arrived at the location about about 10 minutes early. It was located on Campus of a Local College—a campus I didn't know they had. The building was small. I waited a few minutes, no need to show up too early. When I tried the door it was locked. I tried every door of the building (3) all locked. Someone else was there for the meeting as well. Then a couple others showed up, then some more. Casual conversation and cell phone call to our intrepid leader took place. Apparently everything was ready for the meeting, except, our intrepid leader had misplaced the door code. As a result, the meeting started late, and I was just invited in. (Did I mention that everyone else was in shorts and T-Shirts)
I was jazzed after the meeting. It seems like a goofy way to start a company—but what do I know about starting a company. There's a possibility that the project will be a success and I'll get a decent amount of money from it, or I may see nothing, but I'm still glad to be on board.
This marks the first time I've ever signed an NDA. It's kind of an odd feeling—I'm not sure what I can and can't talk about.
Thus far I've sunk around 20 hours into it in 4 days—the add said 10-15 hours per week. Guess we'll see where this goes.
I mulled it over in my head for a while. There were some things about it that made me wary. A collective of passionate artists working for a share of the revenue was one a flag that appeared red to me. Ultimately my curiosity got the best of me and I called the guy. He was in a meeting and asked if he could call me back.
When he called back he had just left the meeting and was on his way to another meeting. So he very quickly described the project, asked me a little about myself, and asked me to send him information about myself and some examples of my work. He also solved the Mystery of the Oddly worded e-mail; it was cut and paste from an online add and was relying on the internal e-mail system of the page. This was around nine in the morning. I still wasn't sure about it. He stated that the reason they were working for a share of the revenue, was because they didn't want to get an investor—and then have that investor pull out. A good friend of mine working on a feature film lost his job recently due to that very situation, so it certainly makes sense to me.
I briefly talked to my wife about it and she thought it would be good for me to be working on a project. I mulled it over a bit more and decided to send my resume and show reel. It took me a while to find the good copy of my resume, then I kept getting distracted when I was updating said resume; I almost shut down my computer to go to bed multiple times, and would remember I hadn't sent that e-mail yet. When I finally got the links to my show reel, and portfolios up and running it was about 1:00 in the morning the next day and I finally hit the send button.
I heard back quickly, there was an e-mail from them when I got to work informing me of a time and a place we could meet. (I just now thought to look at when the reply was sent—just shy of half an hour after I sent mine, he wasn't kidding when he said he doesn't sleep) I still wasn't sure about it. I didn't really want to give up my Saturday to a job interview with a company that was already giving me a weird vibe, but after talking to my Wife again I had decided to give it a go (one of my hang-ups in all of this was spending all my time on it—this requires a lot of patience, understanding, and support from the family, and I just wanted to make sure that they were on board with me). So I called to verify the meeting. Apparently it was the first company meeting, they would talk to me beforehand and invite me into the meeting if they liked me—or send me packing if they didn't, with the possibility of a callback.
Saturday...Still not sure about this, I wanted to look nice, but not like I was trying too hard. So I felt a suit would be overkill. I wore Pinstripe Cargoes with a Short Sleeve Shirt and Tie (My Rush Limbaugh No Boundaries Collection Tie) and of Course—Suspenders.
I arrived at the location about about 10 minutes early. It was located on Campus of a Local College—a campus I didn't know they had. The building was small. I waited a few minutes, no need to show up too early. When I tried the door it was locked. I tried every door of the building (3) all locked. Someone else was there for the meeting as well. Then a couple others showed up, then some more. Casual conversation and cell phone call to our intrepid leader took place. Apparently everything was ready for the meeting, except, our intrepid leader had misplaced the door code. As a result, the meeting started late, and I was just invited in. (Did I mention that everyone else was in shorts and T-Shirts)
I was jazzed after the meeting. It seems like a goofy way to start a company—but what do I know about starting a company. There's a possibility that the project will be a success and I'll get a decent amount of money from it, or I may see nothing, but I'm still glad to be on board.
This marks the first time I've ever signed an NDA. It's kind of an odd feeling—I'm not sure what I can and can't talk about.
Thus far I've sunk around 20 hours into it in 4 days—the add said 10-15 hours per week. Guess we'll see where this goes.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
NOA wants all my monies.
E3 is happening this week, and the Nintendo of America's Keynote just ended.
New, Old School, Side Scrolling, Cooperative Play, Super Mario Brothers Game
Wii Fit Plus
Wii Sports Resort—Motion Plus, Skydiving, Archery, Basketball, Golf, Table Tennis and More.
Motion Plus—one to one motion sensitivity.
Wii Vitality Sensor—peripheral for relaxation/meditation game
SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2!!!!!
Plus, from other companies:
Rock Band Beatles
Rock Band Lego
Guitar Hero 5
DJ Hero—maybe
EA Sports Active—out already and an expansion has already been announced
Tony Hawk Ride—with skateboard peripheral
TMNT: Smash up
Your Shape—another fitness game, but this one looks at you with a USB webcam type peripheral, whuch is almost creepy "wii will be watching you"
Luckily a bunch of this stuff is slated for 2010, then again a lot of it is slated for this year.
New, Old School, Side Scrolling, Cooperative Play, Super Mario Brothers Game
Wii Fit Plus
Wii Sports Resort—Motion Plus, Skydiving, Archery, Basketball, Golf, Table Tennis and More.
Motion Plus—one to one motion sensitivity.
Wii Vitality Sensor—peripheral for relaxation/meditation game
SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2!!!!!
Plus, from other companies:
Rock Band Beatles
Rock Band Lego
Guitar Hero 5
DJ Hero—maybe
EA Sports Active—out already and an expansion has already been announced
Tony Hawk Ride—with skateboard peripheral
TMNT: Smash up
Your Shape—another fitness game, but this one looks at you with a USB webcam type peripheral, whuch is almost creepy "wii will be watching you"
Luckily a bunch of this stuff is slated for 2010, then again a lot of it is slated for this year.
I FOUND IT!! (An Accidental Diatribe on the History of Table Top War and Role Playing Games)
See Yesterday's Post First.
I knew I had seen it somewhere recently, I knew I had seen it and that seeing it is what had jogged my memory of it—I couldn't remember where I had seen it though.
The Program is Called Vassel Game Engine.
Looking through the games available, it appears that the reason the program was created, was primarrily for those that play war simulation games. Have you seen these games?
These Games Come With manuals that are books. They come with pages and pages of Chits that need to be punched out. They come with large maps made of hexagons, and you generally have to have a pretty good grasp on war history and be very good at strategy to play them. And they take a long time to play, people leave these things up for months. At least that's the impression that I get—I've never really wanted to play those games.
What's facinating about these historical war strategy games, is that they are the direct ancestry of the Table Top Roll Playing Games that I enjoy so much. Table Top War Gaming has a long history. In 1911 H.G. Wells wrote a book called Floor Games, and in 1913 another book titled Little Wars. These were structured rule sets for tabletop war-gaming. In 1971 Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren published Chainmail, a rule set for Medieval War-gaming in a Fantasy setting, meant to capture the feeling of the Swords and Sorcery pulp fiction of the 1920's (i.e. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian).
Swords and Sorcery Fantasy is different from Contemporary Fantasy. The main difference is level of magic. Swords and Sorcery is often referred to as Low Fantasy; the Villains are Human, there is a little bit of Magic, and there are some Fantastic Creatures (i.e. Conan). Contemporary Fantasy is often referred to as High Fantasy. Magic is everywhere, Wizards abound and Dragons Fill the Skies (i.e. Lord of the Rings).
Chainmail was a proper war-game, where each figure represented a group of units. Dave Arneson used the Chainmail rules in a setting he named Blackmoor; but instead of having each player represent several units, he had them represent an individual—and thus Dungeons and Dragons was born (originally published by Gygax and Arneson in 1974), the father of Table Top Role Playing Games.
But I didn't mean to get in to a diatribe about the history of Table Top Gaming. I just wanted to mention that in attempting to repair my Windows 2000 machine—I saw a Vassal Windows folder in the Desktop Folder, and knowing the name I could easily find the website. Someone even already started the work and has Zombies!!! and three expansions already available.
By the way, does anyone have a ntfs.sys from Windows 2000 service pack 4 handy?
I knew I had seen it somewhere recently, I knew I had seen it and that seeing it is what had jogged my memory of it—I couldn't remember where I had seen it though.
The Program is Called Vassel Game Engine.
Looking through the games available, it appears that the reason the program was created, was primarrily for those that play war simulation games. Have you seen these games?
These Games Come With manuals that are books. They come with pages and pages of Chits that need to be punched out. They come with large maps made of hexagons, and you generally have to have a pretty good grasp on war history and be very good at strategy to play them. And they take a long time to play, people leave these things up for months. At least that's the impression that I get—I've never really wanted to play those games.
What's facinating about these historical war strategy games, is that they are the direct ancestry of the Table Top Roll Playing Games that I enjoy so much. Table Top War Gaming has a long history. In 1911 H.G. Wells wrote a book called Floor Games, and in 1913 another book titled Little Wars. These were structured rule sets for tabletop war-gaming. In 1971 Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren published Chainmail, a rule set for Medieval War-gaming in a Fantasy setting, meant to capture the feeling of the Swords and Sorcery pulp fiction of the 1920's (i.e. Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian).
Swords and Sorcery Fantasy is different from Contemporary Fantasy. The main difference is level of magic. Swords and Sorcery is often referred to as Low Fantasy; the Villains are Human, there is a little bit of Magic, and there are some Fantastic Creatures (i.e. Conan). Contemporary Fantasy is often referred to as High Fantasy. Magic is everywhere, Wizards abound and Dragons Fill the Skies (i.e. Lord of the Rings).
Chainmail was a proper war-game, where each figure represented a group of units. Dave Arneson used the Chainmail rules in a setting he named Blackmoor; but instead of having each player represent several units, he had them represent an individual—and thus Dungeons and Dragons was born (originally published by Gygax and Arneson in 1974), the father of Table Top Role Playing Games.
But I didn't mean to get in to a diatribe about the history of Table Top Gaming. I just wanted to mention that in attempting to repair my Windows 2000 machine—I saw a Vassal Windows folder in the Desktop Folder, and knowing the name I could easily find the website. Someone even already started the work and has Zombies!!! and three expansions already available.
By the way, does anyone have a ntfs.sys from Windows 2000 service pack 4 handy?
Monday, June 01, 2009
Do you ever?
Occasionally, I run across something when looking for something else; invariably I file it away in my head—and then I can't find it again when I want to revisit the idea.
Ever since I introduced the Google Toolbar into my life, and started using Google Bookmarks, this hasn't happened with as much frequency; because I can file things away and even if I've rebuilt my computer, my bookmarks are all still there.
I bring this up because I just spent an hour or two trying to locate something, and I cannot remember what it was called to save my life.
Ages ago, I wanted to try playing Carcassonne on the computer. About the time I had decided to buy the computer game, they discontinued it. So I was just looking for alternates—I knew there were several unofficial versions of Settlers of Catan, and was looking for an unofficial Carcassonne.
I found something, I downloaded it, thinking it was an unoficial computer game—what it turned out to be was a program that allowed for the playing of board games over a network exactly like playing at the table. No automatic scoring, no helpful hinting at where you can place the tiles. You had to download the base program and then the graphics set for whatever game you wanted to play (they had several).
The Carcassone one, when launched displayed a virtual table (grid) and had some placeholder "buckets" for the pieces. One bucket had all the tiles in it and the others had the different colored meeples and scoring track. If you connected via network or internet with the same set you could use this to play the game, by dragging and dropping pieces onto the virtual table, and it was just like the real game, you had to do it all yourself. I thought it was interesting, but not what I was looking for.
Recently I've been trying to do a game mashup of Zombies!!! and Savage Worlds. I think I'm ready to do some Game Testing with the modified rules I've written up, and this program would be perfect. I could just scan the tiles and cards into it, take some pictures of the zombies, I think it had a dice roller built in, I could use whatever custom art I need for additional cards without having to print anything out or have play testers read my handwriting. But I can't find the program—I can't remember what it was called.
Do you know?
Ever since I introduced the Google Toolbar into my life, and started using Google Bookmarks, this hasn't happened with as much frequency; because I can file things away and even if I've rebuilt my computer, my bookmarks are all still there.
I bring this up because I just spent an hour or two trying to locate something, and I cannot remember what it was called to save my life.
Ages ago, I wanted to try playing Carcassonne on the computer. About the time I had decided to buy the computer game, they discontinued it. So I was just looking for alternates—I knew there were several unofficial versions of Settlers of Catan, and was looking for an unofficial Carcassonne.
I found something, I downloaded it, thinking it was an unoficial computer game—what it turned out to be was a program that allowed for the playing of board games over a network exactly like playing at the table. No automatic scoring, no helpful hinting at where you can place the tiles. You had to download the base program and then the graphics set for whatever game you wanted to play (they had several).
The Carcassone one, when launched displayed a virtual table (grid) and had some placeholder "buckets" for the pieces. One bucket had all the tiles in it and the others had the different colored meeples and scoring track. If you connected via network or internet with the same set you could use this to play the game, by dragging and dropping pieces onto the virtual table, and it was just like the real game, you had to do it all yourself. I thought it was interesting, but not what I was looking for.
Recently I've been trying to do a game mashup of Zombies!!! and Savage Worlds. I think I'm ready to do some Game Testing with the modified rules I've written up, and this program would be perfect. I could just scan the tiles and cards into it, take some pictures of the zombies, I think it had a dice roller built in, I could use whatever custom art I need for additional cards without having to print anything out or have play testers read my handwriting. But I can't find the program—I can't remember what it was called.
Do you know?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wait....What?
So I took my lunch to the break room ant threw in in the microwave for a minute. Then I remembered what it was when I pulled it out. PB&J—oops.
Edit: Update:
So I threw it in the Freezer for 15 minutes, the Tortilla was cold and hardened in some places (yes I make sandwiches on tortillas—it's convenient), the PB and the J were warm in some places and cold in others. It was edible, but different.
Edit: Update:
So I threw it in the Freezer for 15 minutes, the Tortilla was cold and hardened in some places (yes I make sandwiches on tortillas—it's convenient), the PB and the J were warm in some places and cold in others. It was edible, but different.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Confessions of a First Time GM
There are probably some spoilers ahead—those that visit from the Savage Worlds Forum may want to skip the read if they plan on playing in a Zombie Run Game. You've been warned.
No matter how many times you've read through the Core Rulebook. No matter how many times you've gone through the campaign book. You're not prepared.
Tonight marks the first time that I have ever run a game. I invited seven people over and got three—I think that was just about right for tonight. I over prepared in some ways and under prepared in others.
I'm very glad that I decided to go with a campaign module rather than something home brew. It was very good to have the story and encounters already planned, because it was hard enough dealing with the rules. Rules that I thought I had down just were not making sense. At first they were having no problem hitting the zombies, but because of a quirk of the rules they could not put a zombie down. We ended up throwing the head shot rule out the window. Then it became possible to actually put a zombie down without rolling perfectly.
I've read the rules over and over and I thought I had them down pretty good, but I was surprised how many times we ended up reading through the rules for clarification.
I have one regret—and that is not letting them go off the rails and make it to the airport. Since that was fairly early in the game, I wasn't sure how to handle it. I now know what I should have done. Oh well—hindsight and all.
I also should have fudged the dice roll when they went scavenging in the small town. There's a 50% change when scavenging that you'll run into 3d6 zombies. I rolled 10—which took a while to resolve. I should have fudged it and only put out 5, a shorter fight and we cold have gotten to the mall.
Overall I think it was a pretty good evening. But I've hit the forums with my questions to figure out what we did wrong. The following is for those that played—you can read it too, but it might not be very interesting.
Okay, first thing I found was that because the zombies do not have a natural weapon listed. They are considered Unarmed Defenders. That means on every Fighting Roll against them you get a +2, this effectively reduces the head shot penalty in melee combat to a more manageable -2.
Next, grappling. What I missed in the Core Rulebook, is that when someone successfully grapples with a raise the opponent is shaken. (and in Zombie Run, the zombie gets to bite at this point)
And the other thing we overlooked was that standard damage can put a zombie into shaken status even if it cannot kill it. And once it's shaken there's only a 12.5% chance that it can attack on it's turn and a 50% chance it can attack on the next turn.
Strategies that could have helped the players:
Ganging up—adjacent attackers add +1 to fighting rolls up to +4. (so if 5 guys gang up on one, they each get +4 to their fighting roll [that would be enough to negate the -4 for called shot to the head]
Aiming—taking an action to aim gives +2 to the shooting roll in the following round.
So, Ideally the characters should group up and take on a zombie at a time, using a standard attack to shake the zombie and then another character calls the head-shot. This would give a gang up bonus to help negate the called shot penalty; that, and the +2 for unarmed defender make actually hitting the zombies possible without the rule modifications we introduced (i.e. we threw out the -4 head shot penalty and assumed everyone would be aiming for the head all the time).
Anyone shooting should stay out of reach of the zombies and then aim; they would be shooting less, but have a better chance at a kill shot.
I think I now understand why the module encourages the heavy use of allies. Initially, I thought keeping track of 9 characters, when only three were playing would be tough, but that's the beauty of Savage Worlds. It's crunchy and yet simple and it wasn't hard at all. Though after playing last night, I must admit—it's got more crunch than I thought.
For those I invited that were unable to make it, there's still room for more in the party—I'll let you know when the next chapter of Zombie Run takes place.
No matter how many times you've read through the Core Rulebook. No matter how many times you've gone through the campaign book. You're not prepared.
Tonight marks the first time that I have ever run a game. I invited seven people over and got three—I think that was just about right for tonight. I over prepared in some ways and under prepared in others.
I'm very glad that I decided to go with a campaign module rather than something home brew. It was very good to have the story and encounters already planned, because it was hard enough dealing with the rules. Rules that I thought I had down just were not making sense. At first they were having no problem hitting the zombies, but because of a quirk of the rules they could not put a zombie down. We ended up throwing the head shot rule out the window. Then it became possible to actually put a zombie down without rolling perfectly.
I've read the rules over and over and I thought I had them down pretty good, but I was surprised how many times we ended up reading through the rules for clarification.
I have one regret—and that is not letting them go off the rails and make it to the airport. Since that was fairly early in the game, I wasn't sure how to handle it. I now know what I should have done. Oh well—hindsight and all.
I also should have fudged the dice roll when they went scavenging in the small town. There's a 50% change when scavenging that you'll run into 3d6 zombies. I rolled 10—which took a while to resolve. I should have fudged it and only put out 5, a shorter fight and we cold have gotten to the mall.
Overall I think it was a pretty good evening. But I've hit the forums with my questions to figure out what we did wrong. The following is for those that played—you can read it too, but it might not be very interesting.
Okay, first thing I found was that because the zombies do not have a natural weapon listed. They are considered Unarmed Defenders. That means on every Fighting Roll against them you get a +2, this effectively reduces the head shot penalty in melee combat to a more manageable -2.
Next, grappling. What I missed in the Core Rulebook, is that when someone successfully grapples with a raise the opponent is shaken. (and in Zombie Run, the zombie gets to bite at this point)
And the other thing we overlooked was that standard damage can put a zombie into shaken status even if it cannot kill it. And once it's shaken there's only a 12.5% chance that it can attack on it's turn and a 50% chance it can attack on the next turn.
Strategies that could have helped the players:
Ganging up—adjacent attackers add +1 to fighting rolls up to +4. (so if 5 guys gang up on one, they each get +4 to their fighting roll [that would be enough to negate the -4 for called shot to the head]
Aiming—taking an action to aim gives +2 to the shooting roll in the following round.
So, Ideally the characters should group up and take on a zombie at a time, using a standard attack to shake the zombie and then another character calls the head-shot. This would give a gang up bonus to help negate the called shot penalty; that, and the +2 for unarmed defender make actually hitting the zombies possible without the rule modifications we introduced (i.e. we threw out the -4 head shot penalty and assumed everyone would be aiming for the head all the time).
Anyone shooting should stay out of reach of the zombies and then aim; they would be shooting less, but have a better chance at a kill shot.
I think I now understand why the module encourages the heavy use of allies. Initially, I thought keeping track of 9 characters, when only three were playing would be tough, but that's the beauty of Savage Worlds. It's crunchy and yet simple and it wasn't hard at all. Though after playing last night, I must admit—it's got more crunch than I thought.
For those I invited that were unable to make it, there's still room for more in the party—I'll let you know when the next chapter of Zombie Run takes place.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
It's a Small World After All
Back when I was in High School I used to listen every Sunday to the Dr. Demento Show. A Syndicated radio program that plays novelty music (i.e. Parodies, Comedy, and all around goofy music that most people have no idea exists). I only stopped listening because the local station stopped carying the show.
I recall once he played a parody of "It's a Small World" that went something like—"It's a world of Slaughter a world of Fear, It's a world of Death and there is no Cheer"—or something like that, it's only a vague recollection.
Anyway, that song keeps trying to get in my head; luckily, I can't remember the words, just the sentiment. The above lyrics are made up by me, but very well may be the real words—that's not the point though.
The point is, that Justin bought Small World and we had a play the other day. This is why that song keeps trying to infiltrate my consciousness.
Small world apparently is a remake of a game called Vinci. Looking at the images of Vinci, I can sort of see what kind of changes they made (I'm a little too lazy to read the instructions to see if I'm right). The biggest of which is the theme.
Small world takes place in a typical fantasy setting, while at the same time lovingly mocking the fantasy tropes we've all come to love: Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, Ghouls, Skeletons, etc.. In this world, there is not enough land for all the many races that wish to take up residence. As a result, we have Feudal Europe—there's always a war going on.
Now I don't really like game reviews where they sit and explain the rules for 10 minutes—so I'm not going to do that. I'll just give a quick overview. On each turn you take over parts of the map with your chosen race or you put your race into decline so that you can use a new race on your next turn. Each race has a racial trait and those traits are matched with a randomized skill, which creates a variety of strategies for taking over the map. At the end of each turn you score the number of spaces that you managed to occupy. After 10 turns you see who has the highest score.
We were playing this just before a scheduled D&D session, and when our DM got there we had one or two turns left. Just looking at the game in progress is intimidating and seems complicated, and he stated as much. But actually this game is far simpler than a lot of the strategy games out there.
Part of what makes this game fun is the theme—I like there to be a story to the game. I'm not so much into abstract games, but take an abstract game and tack on a well thought out theme and I'm all over it.
As is typical of most of our first time gaming sessions, we misinterpreted one of the rules until the 7th or 8th round (of 10) which would probably have made things go a little different. Also, unlike other take over the world games (RISK I'm looking at you and your ilk) you aren't judged on your ability to take over the world. You're scored at the end of each round, so the ability to hold a territory for the remainder of the game is not quite as important as taking over as many spaces as possible each round—I kept forgetting this at first, and by the time I got it, it was too late; and since it was time for D&D we didn't play the traditional now-that-we've-messed-it-up-and-played-it-wrong, let's-apply-all-that-we-learned-in-this-first-not-real-game-to-a-second-actual game.
As is typical of Days of Wonder games, the components are very high quality and worth the higher price tag. I definitely recommend this game.
And since I cannot remember the parody words, I keep getting the actual song—It's a Small World, stuck in my head. I hope you do as well after reading this Muahahahah.
I recall once he played a parody of "It's a Small World" that went something like—"It's a world of Slaughter a world of Fear, It's a world of Death and there is no Cheer"—or something like that, it's only a vague recollection.
Anyway, that song keeps trying to get in my head; luckily, I can't remember the words, just the sentiment. The above lyrics are made up by me, but very well may be the real words—that's not the point though.
The point is, that Justin bought Small World and we had a play the other day. This is why that song keeps trying to infiltrate my consciousness.
Small world apparently is a remake of a game called Vinci. Looking at the images of Vinci, I can sort of see what kind of changes they made (I'm a little too lazy to read the instructions to see if I'm right). The biggest of which is the theme.
Small world takes place in a typical fantasy setting, while at the same time lovingly mocking the fantasy tropes we've all come to love: Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, Ghouls, Skeletons, etc.. In this world, there is not enough land for all the many races that wish to take up residence. As a result, we have Feudal Europe—there's always a war going on.
Now I don't really like game reviews where they sit and explain the rules for 10 minutes—so I'm not going to do that. I'll just give a quick overview. On each turn you take over parts of the map with your chosen race or you put your race into decline so that you can use a new race on your next turn. Each race has a racial trait and those traits are matched with a randomized skill, which creates a variety of strategies for taking over the map. At the end of each turn you score the number of spaces that you managed to occupy. After 10 turns you see who has the highest score.
We were playing this just before a scheduled D&D session, and when our DM got there we had one or two turns left. Just looking at the game in progress is intimidating and seems complicated, and he stated as much. But actually this game is far simpler than a lot of the strategy games out there.
Part of what makes this game fun is the theme—I like there to be a story to the game. I'm not so much into abstract games, but take an abstract game and tack on a well thought out theme and I'm all over it.
As is typical of most of our first time gaming sessions, we misinterpreted one of the rules until the 7th or 8th round (of 10) which would probably have made things go a little different. Also, unlike other take over the world games (RISK I'm looking at you and your ilk) you aren't judged on your ability to take over the world. You're scored at the end of each round, so the ability to hold a territory for the remainder of the game is not quite as important as taking over as many spaces as possible each round—I kept forgetting this at first, and by the time I got it, it was too late; and since it was time for D&D we didn't play the traditional now-that-we've-messed-it-up-and-played-it-wrong, let's-apply-all-that-we-learned-in-this-first-not-real-game-to-a-second-actual game.
As is typical of Days of Wonder games, the components are very high quality and worth the higher price tag. I definitely recommend this game.
And since I cannot remember the parody words, I keep getting the actual song—It's a Small World, stuck in my head. I hope you do as well after reading this Muahahahah.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
This is Not Your Father's Star Trek?!
As with all Movie Reviews that I may write, there is a major possibility of spoilers. Don't read if you don't want it spoiled.
I saw Star Trek this weekend. I've been very excited for this movie. My Father introduced me to Star Trek in the early eighties (I think). I watched it every chance I got. I don't remember the first time I ever watched it, but I have been a fan since that time. I have seen every Star Trek Movie in theaters since IV (Except First Contact—I was on my mission). Back when they started Star Trek: The Next Generation I was excited for that to come out, then I watched the show and I hated it—then I started watching it again in the third season or so and only after I came to enjoy those later seasons, did the shows from the first two seasons become enjoyable to me. When I found out that they were relaunching the franchise I was excited. This is exactly what Star Trek Needed.
I'm a fan of Lost, I think it's one of the most intelligent shows on T.V. right now—I think that that, combined with scheduling issues is one of the reasons it's been struggling a little in the ratings department. But I'm not here to talk about Lost. I bring it up only because the creator of Lost, Mr. J.J. Abrams was a brilliant choice for director and served to get me excited.
And Simon Peg as Scotty was a brilliant move as well, that was another element that excited me.
Also, the marketing of this movie was brilliantly handled. There was the teaser that revealed the exterior of the Enterprise; I think I saw 3 different trailers and they were comprised of mostly the same footage, I didn't feel like I had seen the whole movie before it came out. They didn't try to sell this movie—they let it sell itself.
But it was the writing that made this movie so great—they showed utmost respect for the source material, while at the same time upgrading it for todays audiences.
There was a trailer of this movie that stated,"This is not your Father's Star Trek."
And though I think that was necessary for marketing to bring in the non-trekkie, it's a half truth.
On one hand, the way that they avoided canon was brilliantly executed—looking at it that way, this is an alternate time line and all the Trek that came before is not entirely nullified while at the same time allowing them to do whatever they want with the stories.
On the other hand all the Exploring Strange New Worlds, Seeking Out New Life and New Civilizations, and Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before—is all there. All the Action, All the Wonder, All the Excitement that made this Series great originally. It's all there.
All the Star Trek Tropes are Securely in place. Kirk is Smart, Good in a Fight, and Likes the Ladies. Bones is Cantankerous and "a Doctor Not a ..." Spock clings to his Vulcan heritage, while not rejecting his human side (and has Green Blood). Scotty is Jovial and Scottish, funny and Brilliant and "Cannot Give 'er Any More."
There was a running joke throughout the beginning of the movie where Uhura would not reveal her first name to Kirk—as this was happening, I realized that I had watched Star Trek my entire life and did not know Uhura's first name, this made the joke even better. I looked it up later and was relieved that her first name was not canon until this new film.
Chekov pronounces "v" as "w" Sulu is a fencer—and a Red Shirt Ate it Early on.
So this is definitely your Father's Star Trek. It makes you feel like you did when your Father introduced you to the show when you were a kid. It's just that entertaining.
I saw Star Trek this weekend. I've been very excited for this movie. My Father introduced me to Star Trek in the early eighties (I think). I watched it every chance I got. I don't remember the first time I ever watched it, but I have been a fan since that time. I have seen every Star Trek Movie in theaters since IV (Except First Contact—I was on my mission). Back when they started Star Trek: The Next Generation I was excited for that to come out, then I watched the show and I hated it—then I started watching it again in the third season or so and only after I came to enjoy those later seasons, did the shows from the first two seasons become enjoyable to me. When I found out that they were relaunching the franchise I was excited. This is exactly what Star Trek Needed.
I'm a fan of Lost, I think it's one of the most intelligent shows on T.V. right now—I think that that, combined with scheduling issues is one of the reasons it's been struggling a little in the ratings department. But I'm not here to talk about Lost. I bring it up only because the creator of Lost, Mr. J.J. Abrams was a brilliant choice for director and served to get me excited.
And Simon Peg as Scotty was a brilliant move as well, that was another element that excited me.
Also, the marketing of this movie was brilliantly handled. There was the teaser that revealed the exterior of the Enterprise; I think I saw 3 different trailers and they were comprised of mostly the same footage, I didn't feel like I had seen the whole movie before it came out. They didn't try to sell this movie—they let it sell itself.
But it was the writing that made this movie so great—they showed utmost respect for the source material, while at the same time upgrading it for todays audiences.
There was a trailer of this movie that stated,"This is not your Father's Star Trek."
And though I think that was necessary for marketing to bring in the non-trekkie, it's a half truth.
On one hand, the way that they avoided canon was brilliantly executed—looking at it that way, this is an alternate time line and all the Trek that came before is not entirely nullified while at the same time allowing them to do whatever they want with the stories.
On the other hand all the Exploring Strange New Worlds, Seeking Out New Life and New Civilizations, and Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before—is all there. All the Action, All the Wonder, All the Excitement that made this Series great originally. It's all there.
All the Star Trek Tropes are Securely in place. Kirk is Smart, Good in a Fight, and Likes the Ladies. Bones is Cantankerous and "a Doctor Not a ..." Spock clings to his Vulcan heritage, while not rejecting his human side (and has Green Blood). Scotty is Jovial and Scottish, funny and Brilliant and "Cannot Give 'er Any More."
There was a running joke throughout the beginning of the movie where Uhura would not reveal her first name to Kirk—as this was happening, I realized that I had watched Star Trek my entire life and did not know Uhura's first name, this made the joke even better. I looked it up later and was relieved that her first name was not canon until this new film.
Chekov pronounces "v" as "w" Sulu is a fencer—and a Red Shirt Ate it Early on.
So this is definitely your Father's Star Trek. It makes you feel like you did when your Father introduced you to the show when you were a kid. It's just that entertaining.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Question of Family and Business
This is getting annoying.
When it was just one or two instances I really didn't think much of it, but it's getting entirely too frequent.
I called to wish my Mom a happy Mothers Day and found out that another family member was purchasing a house just around the corner. I just can't understand why the family doesn’t think to use my wife as a Realtor. I'm relatively certain that she knows my wife is a Realtor. Being a Realtor is my wife's full time job (after being a Mom, she chose to be a Realtor so she could work from home), and yet they chose to go with someone else, who incidentally is not a full time Realtor. I know there other great Realtors out there, but Dang-it we need the business.
We barely get by on my income alone, and my wife's income is just enough to supplement our income and keep us afloat. It's also my understanding that my wife barely avoided a purging that took place at her Real Estate Franchise due to the economy, and frankly it would be nice if she actually got some business this year.
I'm sure nothing was meant by my cousin not using my wife's business in helping to get a home, but this is just the latest in a long string of family members not helping us out by letting my wife help them. I can think of far too many transactions off the top of my head where family could easily have helped out family and went with the business of a stranger, or family that's much more established financially—or oddly enough, no one at all. It's especially frustrating when the situation would put my wife in the role of the agent helping the person purchasing the home, because the commission is paid by the seller i.e. it costs them nothing for my wife to help them and she still gets a paycheck. Again, I'm sure there was nothing implied but it's just starting to feel like a personal insult.
She's very good at her job. I've watched her doing her thing, and if I had to do that, my head would spin—but it's right up her alley and she enjoys every second of it. She pours heart and soul into every client regardless of the risk. There's always the chance in her field of business that things won't work out and she won't get paid. I've seen it happen numerous times that banks couldn't work out the loan or something of that nature and clients were forced to pull out and all that work she did was for no pay.
And it would be a lot easier to let this roll off the back, if they weren't going to be living literally around the corner from us and going to the same Ward.
I know that in the eternal scheme of things, it's pointless to let these kind of things bother you. If you keep these emotions bottled up, you'll eventually explode—better to let off some steam. In fact—allowing something like this to eat away at you can be quite literally damning. But that doesn't mean I can't be upset about it for a couple weeks. I don't hold grudges, they destroy the soul, but I do allow myself to get angry or upset in short bouts.
As a large, green, ogre once said, "Better out than in."
And because, I don't want to hear how I'm completely off base on this, or that I'm absolutely right (I'm not seeking validation). I just want to rant in order to get this out of my mind and off my back and out into the air. I'm not trying to foster discussion, this is personal therapy, publicly viewable (Let the Voyeurism Commence). I'm disabling comments for this post.
When it was just one or two instances I really didn't think much of it, but it's getting entirely too frequent.
I called to wish my Mom a happy Mothers Day and found out that another family member was purchasing a house just around the corner. I just can't understand why the family doesn’t think to use my wife as a Realtor. I'm relatively certain that she knows my wife is a Realtor. Being a Realtor is my wife's full time job (after being a Mom, she chose to be a Realtor so she could work from home), and yet they chose to go with someone else, who incidentally is not a full time Realtor. I know there other great Realtors out there, but Dang-it we need the business.
We barely get by on my income alone, and my wife's income is just enough to supplement our income and keep us afloat. It's also my understanding that my wife barely avoided a purging that took place at her Real Estate Franchise due to the economy, and frankly it would be nice if she actually got some business this year.
I'm sure nothing was meant by my cousin not using my wife's business in helping to get a home, but this is just the latest in a long string of family members not helping us out by letting my wife help them. I can think of far too many transactions off the top of my head where family could easily have helped out family and went with the business of a stranger, or family that's much more established financially—or oddly enough, no one at all. It's especially frustrating when the situation would put my wife in the role of the agent helping the person purchasing the home, because the commission is paid by the seller i.e. it costs them nothing for my wife to help them and she still gets a paycheck. Again, I'm sure there was nothing implied but it's just starting to feel like a personal insult.
She's very good at her job. I've watched her doing her thing, and if I had to do that, my head would spin—but it's right up her alley and she enjoys every second of it. She pours heart and soul into every client regardless of the risk. There's always the chance in her field of business that things won't work out and she won't get paid. I've seen it happen numerous times that banks couldn't work out the loan or something of that nature and clients were forced to pull out and all that work she did was for no pay.
And it would be a lot easier to let this roll off the back, if they weren't going to be living literally around the corner from us and going to the same Ward.
I know that in the eternal scheme of things, it's pointless to let these kind of things bother you. If you keep these emotions bottled up, you'll eventually explode—better to let off some steam. In fact—allowing something like this to eat away at you can be quite literally damning. But that doesn't mean I can't be upset about it for a couple weeks. I don't hold grudges, they destroy the soul, but I do allow myself to get angry or upset in short bouts.
As a large, green, ogre once said, "Better out than in."
And because, I don't want to hear how I'm completely off base on this, or that I'm absolutely right (I'm not seeking validation). I just want to rant in order to get this out of my mind and off my back and out into the air. I'm not trying to foster discussion, this is personal therapy, publicly viewable (Let the Voyeurism Commence). I'm disabling comments for this post.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Friday Game
So we played our first session of Savage Worlds on Friday.
First we converted our D&D 3.25E characters, and due to the complexity difference between systems (D&D is high and Savage Worlds is lowish) combined with the fact that we're all new to the system, that took a little longer than anticipated. Then we spent a good hour trying to remember where we left off. It's been months since we played in this campaign. Then we were off—sort of.
To give our DM credit, he was really trying to not railroad us. I think, however, that everyone was sort of in the mood for a more railroaded evening. I know I was—I really just want to get to the conclusion of this campaign; give my character some closure, and then start a Savage Worlds proper campaign, rather than a Savaged D&D campaign. I only wish that we'd been able to have a combat encounter so that the players that are only familiar with D&D could get a real taste of the awesomeness that is Savage Worlds. As it was I think everyone enjoyed the Wild Die mechanic.
In fact, I'd like to run a Necessary Evil campaign—I don't know if this group would be the group to run it with. I know P would want to join, I know one person that would play if he happened to be there that night but probably wouldn't commit, and I know one other person that would join. That would bring the total to 5 and a half players. Which is one and a half more than I thought I might get.
I'm also dying to use Savage Worlds in some sort of Zombie game, because I have a lot of plastic Zombies (care of Twilight Creations) that I want to use. I know I've seen a Zombies!!! homebrew using the Savage Worlds rules somewhere online. I had not read it yet and now that I want to it's nowhere to be found. Just thinking about it off the cuff, I think it would be quite easy to have everyone create Novice Savage Worlds Characters, and then play Zombies!!! using the Savage Worlds Combat and movement. I'd have to take a look at the cards for Zombies!!! and see if there was a good way to impliment their usage or not—I know I'd want to keep the weapons, but maybe change it so the location dependant cards were not dependant on location (I've been thinking of changing that for our house rules anyway). I think I'd want to change the Zombie Movement rules, and up the per square limit for zombies. Hmm, now that I have an Idea of how I would do it, I really want to find that document I came across before, and see how they did it.
First we converted our D&D 3.25E characters, and due to the complexity difference between systems (D&D is high and Savage Worlds is lowish) combined with the fact that we're all new to the system, that took a little longer than anticipated. Then we spent a good hour trying to remember where we left off. It's been months since we played in this campaign. Then we were off—sort of.
To give our DM credit, he was really trying to not railroad us. I think, however, that everyone was sort of in the mood for a more railroaded evening. I know I was—I really just want to get to the conclusion of this campaign; give my character some closure, and then start a Savage Worlds proper campaign, rather than a Savaged D&D campaign. I only wish that we'd been able to have a combat encounter so that the players that are only familiar with D&D could get a real taste of the awesomeness that is Savage Worlds. As it was I think everyone enjoyed the Wild Die mechanic.
In fact, I'd like to run a Necessary Evil campaign—I don't know if this group would be the group to run it with. I know P would want to join, I know one person that would play if he happened to be there that night but probably wouldn't commit, and I know one other person that would join. That would bring the total to 5 and a half players. Which is one and a half more than I thought I might get.
I'm also dying to use Savage Worlds in some sort of Zombie game, because I have a lot of plastic Zombies (care of Twilight Creations) that I want to use. I know I've seen a Zombies!!! homebrew using the Savage Worlds rules somewhere online. I had not read it yet and now that I want to it's nowhere to be found. Just thinking about it off the cuff, I think it would be quite easy to have everyone create Novice Savage Worlds Characters, and then play Zombies!!! using the Savage Worlds Combat and movement. I'd have to take a look at the cards for Zombies!!! and see if there was a good way to impliment their usage or not—I know I'd want to keep the weapons, but maybe change it so the location dependant cards were not dependant on location (I've been thinking of changing that for our house rules anyway). I think I'd want to change the Zombie Movement rules, and up the per square limit for zombies. Hmm, now that I have an Idea of how I would do it, I really want to find that document I came across before, and see how they did it.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Writer's Block
I feel like I have it.
Last month I wrote 10 blog entries, this is my 7th this month. While that might not seem like a big difference, it sure feels different. I just have nothing to say—makes me feel like my brain is slow. I guess if you count my Savaged Characters Blog you could add 13 to this month's total.
Embarrassingly enough I've only posted one Squishy comic this month. I just haven't had a good Squishy Idea all month.
I need to exercise my brain.
I think I'll bust out the Imagineering Workout that I got for Christmas. Just reading that made the ideas start to flow. Hm, I just discovered that there is a companion book The Imagineering Way.
I need to get that block off of my shoulder.
Last month I wrote 10 blog entries, this is my 7th this month. While that might not seem like a big difference, it sure feels different. I just have nothing to say—makes me feel like my brain is slow. I guess if you count my Savaged Characters Blog you could add 13 to this month's total.
Embarrassingly enough I've only posted one Squishy comic this month. I just haven't had a good Squishy Idea all month.
I need to exercise my brain.
I think I'll bust out the Imagineering Workout that I got for Christmas. Just reading that made the ideas start to flow. Hm, I just discovered that there is a companion book The Imagineering Way.
I need to get that block off of my shoulder.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Do You Ever Wonder What People Are Thinking?
So we have this FLGS (That's Gamer Talk for Friendly Local Gaming Store—just say the letters F-L-G-S) that's literally just down the road.
The people that run it are nice, but I just have to wonder what they're thinking sometimes.
This first part is hearsay—via a friend of mine that spends a lot of time there. The Husband wants to sell Magic Cards. (For the uninitiated that's the Magic the Gathering Collectible Card Game) The Wife, who seems to wear the pants in the relationship, doesn't want to be a Magic Shop. The Husband continues to purchase Magic Cards and it is now source of the bulk of their profit, but she is still annoyed at him.
Now, I can understand not wanting to be a magic shop. However, selling Magic Cards does not make you a magic shop. That only becomes the case if you start buying and selling individual cards (likely from a big glass case). So her reasoning makes no sense, especially if their profit is mostly coming from those cards at the moment.
My second observation.
A few weeks ago, I wanted to go to The Game Store. Now, when I say The Game Store, I'm not referring to the FLGS down the road, I'm talking about the FLGS half way across the valley. So I went. My three year old daughter wanted to go with me, so I took her. Driving home she asked me when we were going to the game store. I laughed and informed her that we had gone to the game store. She said, "No, the game store with the puzzles."
The game store with the puzzles is the FLGS down the road. They sell wooden puzzles and have a few open on a short table at the front of the store where kids can play with them while parents browse the larger ticket items throughout the store.
The reason I prefer to drive half across the valley to an FLGS, rather than down the street is two-fold. They have a much LARGER selection of merchandise, and they have lower prices.
For the benefit of my daughter, I went to the FLGS down the road, since that's where she thought we were going.
The wife was not in the store (which I found unusual, and it occurred to me that it had been that way the past three times I had been in there) the husband greeted me and asked if I was looking for something, I told him I was there for my daughter's sake. He casually mentioned that everything in the store was 20% off. So I took a look around and ended up purchasing a game I had been eying for a while (Dicecapades) and then left.
A few days later, while riding home on the bus, I looked over and the store was completely empty. Then I remembered my friend that spends a lot of time there casually mentioning in passing that they were moving locations. Otherwise I would have thought that another FLGS closing it's doors for bad business sense.
But think about this, if my friend hadn't mentioned that to me, I wouldn't know. As it was, I didn't know that the sale I was benefiting from was a Moving Sale, until I noticed they were gone.
Because of that casual mentioning of the moving, I checked out their website when I got home. No new address on the main page. There was a blog entry that stated they were moving and noted the last day of business at the old location, but that was it.
I mentioned all this to my friend the next time I saw him and he told me that the reason she wasn't there, was because she had gone and gotten a job. Leaving her husband to run her store. Then he told me that the sale was technically a going out of business sale, because they knew they couldn't afford the rent in that location, and they did not have a new location. A few days later I checked again out of curiosity, and the front page still had the old address, but at least there was a blog entry with the new address and when they would open the doors.
I'm on their e-mail list, and I still haven't gotten an e-mail mentioning that they have moved. I find that odd.
The old location was half a mile away. The new location is just over half a mile away. So, they didn't move too far. I haven't had a chance to check out the new store yet. It's a pretty high traffic area, and much closer to the road. So hopefully they'll get more incidental/walk in business; and if the rent is lower, that's always a good thing.
I would never want an FLGS to go out of business. Sometimes I'm not surprised when they do.
There was another FLGS a while ago that we frequented, and I was not surprised when he went out of business. His space was huge, but his inventory was small. There was a time when I heard him answer the phone and tell the customer, "that's not the type of games we carry." I seriously wonder what people are thinking sometimes. If I ran a game store, I'd never tell someone that. If they called in looking for Chutes and Ladders—absolutely we carry that and then run to Wal*mart or Toys Я Us if I have to; but I think that I would have at least one copy of each of the run-of-the-mill, find-it-in-most-grocery-stores-or-Wal*mart, games on my shelves already. GET THEM IN THE DOOR, and then introduce them into the new and improved world of gaming.
Okay, that rant is oficcially off my mind now. I can get on with other things.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
From the Journal of Angus MacGillean
How do I keep getting involved in this kind of stuff?
The boys in blue stopped by today asking about a customer. I told them she had purchased an alternator for her Volkswagen Bug a few days ago.
She's a pretty regular customer, always working on that Bug of hers.
I always cooperate with the "authorities" when they come in here, which is far more often than not, as of late. I don't trust anyone though—I've seen far too much as proprietor of this place.
I ended up spending the better part of the afternoon digging up what I could about her, it just didn't sit well with me that the local "constabulary" was asking around.
My ... sources led me to think something bad had happened on the waterfront. They told me about some big warehouse where rumor had it something was going down. I managed to get into the building without being seen (I'm not even sure why I was looking into this, but I just couldn't leave it alone). There was some sort of exchange going on; there was a computer, medical supplies and a lot of money changing hands; and these guys were agitated, one of them had disappeared and they were spooked. I was just about to get a good look at the medical cases when a group of bungling idiots barged in making all kinds of noise.
I recognized one of them, one of the computer geeks that's always scrounging through the bone-yard I seem to be accumulating at Angus'"auto". He recognized me too, he was trying to say something to me, I was trying to keep him quiet and all the sudden the boxes just below me blew apart. The warehouse guys must've gotten spooked again; they just opened fire on the boxes just below the catwalk where I was standing.
Then it happened again. It still doesn't make much sense. I fell through the catwalk and ... I don't know how to explain this, but I could tell that I was pretty much a puddle on the floor. Well I didn't know what to do at that point. I moved toward the middle of the room where I saw the medical boxes and found myself squeezing around and under the boxes that the warehouse guys had just torn apart with bullets, they seemed to be crates of guns.
I found myself under a couple of the guys with guns, and I guess I was slippery as they fell down on top of me and couldn't seem to get up. They were screaming and I was getting even more agitated; I can't even begin to describe how unusual it is to find yourself transformed into a puddle of goo. I just wanted them to stop and found myself reaching up somehow and grabbing their heads. They convulsed and then passed out. I tried to get to the medical boxes and lost grip of the two goons on the way.
I heard sirens (I don't even know how I see or hear when I'm a puddle) and a loud crash and then a motorcycle engine start up, there was gunfire all over the place and all I knew at that point was that I needed to get away from the cops. I moved over towards where I heard the motorcycle, I was right under one actually. I tried to reach up to it and ended up catching hold of the foot of the guy trying to get away on it. I managed to pull him off, but couldn't get on it.
Then there were more sirens.
I ditched the idea of trying to escape on a bike and moved out the door, no one seemed to notice the animated puddle of ... whatever and I figured it'd be best if I could just keep it that way; so I went and sat under a rain gutter downspout, and tried to act casual.
The police weren't there as long as you would expect after an incident involving that much money and guns and presumably illegal activity. They were gone, but I wasn't about to leave, I was still in a panic.
Presumably I fell asleep, I woke up later under the downspout, as my normal gray skinned self. I think I'll stay out of the main office for a few days, let the employees handle the front end of the business.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Lawyers Equal Unnecessary Hilarity
The world is sue happy. This is because a ridiculously large amount of people are convinced that winning a frivolous lawsuit is the only way to get rich. This is because people have won ridiculous lawsuits, when in fact, the gray matter contained within the head plus a little bit of common sense should have kept them safe. The lack of common sense on the part of idiots and judges (who should know better) has led to large amounts of copy being written that just don't need to be. But everyone lives in a state of fear. The fools are running the kingdom.
I present this little gem as proof. I was getting driving directions on Google Maps, and noticed this copy in the bottom left hand corner, that I had never noticed before, and genuinely didn't need to waste my time reading, because frankly, I knew it already—but apparently Google lives in fear that someone stupid will hurt them self and sue. . . . quoting:
"These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route."
I rest my case.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Sound and Motion Sickness
I wouldn't say that my motion sickness is any worse or any less than average. I mock my wife a little when she gets motion sickness from reading in the car (be it a Zune menu, or driving directions, even a little bit affects her).
The first time I recall getting motion sick was at Lagoon when I was in Jr. High. I made the mistake of riding a thrill ride twice in a row. The first time was great, the second time was longer than I could handle and I didn't ride anything the rest of the day—bummer.
Around that same time Wolfenstein 3D came out and that too affected me—I got head aches, but I was so thrilled by the new first person shooter technology that I played on, and eventually stopped getting the headaches. I have since stopped playing first person shooters because, no matter how many innovations they introduce, they still all seem the same to me; and if I play them now, the headaches come back faster (less than a minute usually) and worse than ever.
I made the same stupid roller coaster mistake years later at Knotts Berry Farm and rode the Boomerang twice in a row and couldn't do coaster's the rest of the day.
So now I'm working on a project at work. The project involves people going out with a camcorder and documenting the external state of decay of buildings. This video is being done by amateurs, with no time and no budget, so these videos display all the typical amateur video hallmarks. They are shaky, move too fast at times, difficulties with focus and white balance and are the worst example of a first person perspective ever concieved.
My job is to author them to DVD. My template is in place and I can bust them out pretty fast except for one thing. I have to drop chapters in. I have tried scrubbing the video and just dropping the chapters where they need to be, but I get lost and don't know what to label the chapters.
I was only managing one a day for a while, because it was making me so sick. Recently I figured out a little trick. I can watch them with no audio, and it doesn't bother me. I listen to a little audio here and there just to make sure I'm oriented properly. Combine that with Google Maps and not listening to the audio for a majority of the time and my motion induced headaches have stopped.
I don't know what this means, but I find it highly intriguing—I tried to find out if there was a known reason that this might be, but was unable to find any information. If someone out there knows why this is; point me at an article or something, I'd like to know. If this is new and someone wants to take this and do a study of some kind, feel free—but I want footnote/endnote credit.
The first time I recall getting motion sick was at Lagoon when I was in Jr. High. I made the mistake of riding a thrill ride twice in a row. The first time was great, the second time was longer than I could handle and I didn't ride anything the rest of the day—bummer.
Around that same time Wolfenstein 3D came out and that too affected me—I got head aches, but I was so thrilled by the new first person shooter technology that I played on, and eventually stopped getting the headaches. I have since stopped playing first person shooters because, no matter how many innovations they introduce, they still all seem the same to me; and if I play them now, the headaches come back faster (less than a minute usually) and worse than ever.
I made the same stupid roller coaster mistake years later at Knotts Berry Farm and rode the Boomerang twice in a row and couldn't do coaster's the rest of the day.
So now I'm working on a project at work. The project involves people going out with a camcorder and documenting the external state of decay of buildings. This video is being done by amateurs, with no time and no budget, so these videos display all the typical amateur video hallmarks. They are shaky, move too fast at times, difficulties with focus and white balance and are the worst example of a first person perspective ever concieved.
My job is to author them to DVD. My template is in place and I can bust them out pretty fast except for one thing. I have to drop chapters in. I have tried scrubbing the video and just dropping the chapters where they need to be, but I get lost and don't know what to label the chapters.
I was only managing one a day for a while, because it was making me so sick. Recently I figured out a little trick. I can watch them with no audio, and it doesn't bother me. I listen to a little audio here and there just to make sure I'm oriented properly. Combine that with Google Maps and not listening to the audio for a majority of the time and my motion induced headaches have stopped.
I don't know what this means, but I find it highly intriguing—I tried to find out if there was a known reason that this might be, but was unable to find any information. If someone out there knows why this is; point me at an article or something, I'd like to know. If this is new and someone wants to take this and do a study of some kind, feel free—but I want footnote/endnote credit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)