The Long Awaited Spore

Okay, I guess I need to write this.

But I keep getting Distracted by playing the game.

It's really addicting.

My first game, I played just bumbling along upgrading as I go - No real plan for my species. I named them Skawish. I wanted to see how close to Mr Squishy I could get, but I didn't name them that because I didn't want that name stuck to them if I didn't like them. I played as a carnivore, and pretty much just wiped out anyone that got in my way—it seemed like an easy way to go. Then I got to space.

In space stage all I really wanted to do was explore, but there were all these needy races that occupied the space around me. I was running all kinds of missions for everyone and got tired of it, so I just started to ignore them. Which apparently upset a couple of them—trespassing or some nonsense—and they declared war on me. Which was bad.

I mean really bad. I had no economic system in place, so I had no money. Since I wasn't making money, I couldn't really upgrade my ship with weapons or health. On top of that, every time I turned around, my home-world was being attacked.

I gave up on the Skawish. I found a relatively close star to the Skawish and started the Scrom race. I made the Scrom race Herbivores and added a second mouth as soon as I could so they could be Omnivores. This allowed me to eat Fruit instead of other creatures and led to a race of a peaceful religious nature. In Civilization I took one city by military force, but the rest I converted.

So the Scrom are in space now, and I make friendly with every race I meet. This has made for a very pleasant space stage. By this time I had also sort of figured out the Economics  of the game. I'm not rolling in it—but I have enough to upgrade my ship. I got the Black hole key, so I can jump through black holes. I was just checking it out, and whaddaya know—I ran into the Grox. I was specifically trying to avoid them, because I had heard that they don't make nice, regardless of the situation. I hightailed it back to my home planet, and I avoided going through the black holes for a while, but I ran out of missions from my home planet, sort of, they wanted me to declare war on someone, but I don't want to ruin my reputation, and then they just started bugging me about finding the Grox. So I went and said Hi again. and they pretty much just ignored me, but my dang home planet wants me to find out the secret of the Grox at the center of the Galaxy. Fine, so I went through some black holes and then started to move toward the center of the universe, but My interstellar drive wasn't good enough, so I was running into dead ends, and then the Grox were everywhere. I was just ignoring them, hopping from star to star, but they started to attack. I gave them money to placate them but as soon as I hopped to another star they attacked again, so I went home. I'm current;y trying to get achievements that will unlock the highest power interstellar drive then see if I can do a speed run to the center of the galaxy.

I'm also trying to find the Skawish, in my Scrom game. See if I can help them out a little.

The one thing that surprised me about this game. I was so looking forward to using the editors to create. But Every time I'm playing the game and I have to stop to create, it can be a little annoying. What you can do however is create things ahead of time and then just use them when it gets to that point in the game. I'll probably do that the next time I start a new game.

The Geek Test

Every Once in a while I take the Geek Test again.

Todays Score: 56.80473% Extreme Geek

What Happened So Far

The hard drive on my Inspiron 6400 was doing some "clicking"

I, being responsible, used birthday money (thanks Harriet) to purchase a new Hard Drive. I connected said new hard drive via USB and was prepping it to put into the laptop.

Now, Certain Dell Laptops have a cool feature called Media Direct. It is essentially a highly specialized installation of Windows, with it's own specialized user interface, designed only to play Media. It boots up fast and can play media files, DVDs, and Office Files—and that's it.  The Benefit is it uses less battery power to do so than your typical windows environment. If your booting up just to watch a DVD, or to present a Powerpoint—Media Direct is a nice way to do it. The installation of Media Direct 3 is located on a separate partition of the hard drive. Oh, also it has it's own button—so when you want to boot into Media Direct, instead of pressing the Power Button, you press the Media Direct Button; or if you're already in Windows and Want to use Media Direct, press the button and the program loads in the windows environment.


Also, Dell computers have a Partition set aside that has a customized Windows Installer that can restore the system back to what it was when you originally received the laptop. Some people find these partitions that are taking up precious hard drive space to be bloat, and blow them out when they first get a laptop. That's fine - generally that's me too, but in this case I wanted to keep it all.

I was going to use Ghost to copy the partitions "as is" to the new hard drive and then expand the C:\ partition
to take up the rest of the space (the new drive is bigger), then partition off a new section and use Ghost to copy the system restore partition. I was doing some research into partitioning and the way Dell has theirs set up. I learned that Media Direct 2 is insane and I'm glad that I have 3, but 4 would be better, but is likely unattainable. I also learned that there is some special preparation the drive must go through
 for the Media Direct to work. Using the Media Direct CD that comes with the Laptop you can run a program that sets up the partitions as they need to be. Most people that upgrade hard drives seem to run the Media Direct Installer, to prep the new hard drive and then use Ghost to Copy the windows installation to the new hard drive. This is what I thought I was doing.

But What I had actually done, was not prepare the new drive at all, and repartitioned my system drive. Losing Everything.

So I've spent the weekend just building the system on the new drive.
The old drive has not been formatted, just repartitioned, so there is a SLIM chance that I may be able to extract some things off of it—I'm not holding my breath though.

I've been searching my memory to figure out if there was anything really critically important on that drive. And I can only think of a few things that aren't backed up somewhere. There are some things that are gone that I will miss: My Original Photoshop Files of Squishy Comics, and My saved Game from Spore are Notable.
But I can live without those.

I'm going to Give Test Disk a shot, but won't be brokenhearted if I'm out of luck.

UPDATE:

Using Test Disk I was able to restore the partitions to their proper order. All the Data is still there. I'll try booting the system later.

A Tale of Two Canons

When we were in Sun Valley, it finally happened. It's been threatening for a while. But in Sun Valley, it bit the Bucket. This is a sample of what our camera was doing.

 

And it only looked like that, if there was a LOT of light. Normal Lighting conditions generally gave an all black image.

Well, then Kella was born, We borrowed my sister's camera in the hospital. Well, with a new baby and no camera—that's living in the Dark ages. So I found the same model we already had on E-bay for about $60, it was Just the camera, no battery, memory card, not even a wrist strap. Since it was the same model we already had all that stuff. 

I got repair quotes from Canon and from Local Camera shops and every one quoted $180. Now that we had a replacement I was going to be brave and open the thing up and see if it was just a loose connection. I wasn't about to crack it open blindly so I went online and was trying to find information. I'm glad that I didn't open it, I should have known this, but didn't think about it — the flash holds a pretty significant charge and I can see myself getting a pretty good shock. The other thing I found out when I was researching, was that the problem my camera was experiencing was covered regardless of warranty status, as it was a manufacturing defect. So I sent it in and they repaired it Free of Charge. They even paid the shipping, both ways.

So, now we both have our own cameras. 

UPDATE: I thought all was well, then I started taking pictures with the camera that was returned. The Camera is Near Sighted. With a new Baby in the house Close up pictures get taken a lot; then I was taking some pictures down town and they were all coming out blurry. Every picture I take that focuses past 4 or 5 feet is blurry. 


I called Canon again and they stated they will be sending another shipping label—I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: The Camera Has returned, it's normal vision has been restored. . . . "and there was much rejoicing—yay"

Gaming Update

Let's see, what have I been up to (Gaming).

Zombies!!! and Humans!!!

Recently we noticed that there is a new Gaming Store that opened close to our home (Noticed before it was open and attended the Grand Opening). Which is exciting; Hastur is a good store, but I hate driving all the way over there, and the Mall store that is close to us really has a limited selection. The new store is awesome. Since it is close I have made a decision to support a local business. I purchased Humans!!! and Zombies!!! 7: Send in the Clowns from them, despite the fact that it cost a little more.

Humans!!! is great. I'd almost venture to say that I like it more than Zombies!!!. The Mechanic is a little more complex, and I don't think we quite have the intricacies of Humans fighting back figured out yet, but I liked this game. I've played it twice. The first time the first round of moves took. . . forever. The second time I thought it would be much easier, but I didn't remember the rules as clearly as I thought I did, so it took some time to get off of the ground as well.

Zombies!!!: 7 Send in the Clowns, unlike previous expansions really feels different. The setting is a circus and you begin trapped in a "Fun" House, when you escape the Fun house, your placed in the Circus by another player. The goal from there is to get a clown car from the Big Top and escape via the entrance to the Circus. The Zombie clowns aren't any different from standard Zombies!!! zombies, other than the Creep Factor of a Zombie Clown being much higher. I guess what really set this apart was the size of the Map. It's much smaller, and though there are only 30 Zombie Clowns included, we did not run out. The scramble to get a clown car and get out first had us stopping each other at all cost. By the end of the game there were no more Zombies on the map and we were just scrambling to get out before someone could play a card and send us away from the goal — it was quite fun.

Then there is Ticket to Ride the Nordic Countries edition.
This "Expansion" was previously only available in the Nordic Countries. It has now been released in the U.S. as a standalone game. When this originally was released in the Nordic Countries, I read about it and thought it was exactly like the Swiss Expansion, but with a different Map. While that is mostly a correct assumption, there is a key ingredient that makes the flavor very different.

It is well established in Ticket to Ride, that if you want to take a wild card from the visible draw piles, you were allowed to take only the wild card. The Disadvantage here being that instead of taking two cards as normal you only get one; by drawing from the hidden draw pile sometimes you luck out and get a wild and another card, or sometimes you get two wilds, by drawing from the visible pile you can get two colors you need to complete your goals — or one wild. Taking a wild becomes a move of desperation when the colors you need are not coming up.     Nordic Countries changes all that by requiring a wild card on many of the routes — taking a wild is no longer done in desperation, but necessity. It really is different, and it really is quite fun.

Now, let's talk about thrift stores.
Sometimes, when you go to a thrift store, you score.
I have in the past mentioned, that I am no longer a fan of Settlers of Catan. At one time it was my favorite game, but now I can hardly stand to play.
I sometimes get this itch to go to thrift stores and check out what they have. I recently scored an unopened copy of The Settlers of Catan Card Game for a Dollar. That's not something to be passed up. The Settlers of Catan Card game has the same Flavor of the original, without the annoyances. I actually really enjoy it. It is a 2 player game and I find myself enjoying the game. So much so, that on a recent trip to the recently opened Friendly Local Gaming Shop I picked up the Expansions. I bought this because it was too good a deal to pass up, and I have played it enough and am not sick of it. The Set Up is a breeze and the play feels quick, though I don't think we've finished a game in under an hour yet. The Expansions are like different spices on top of the game, it's still the same dish, but each has a little different flavor.

We did an experimental 4 player version of the game, utilizing a friends sets. It lasted too long. It was harder and felt tedious. We may try again with an adjustment to the rules.

One More Catan note before moving on. We played one Scenario from the newly released Catan: Traders and Barbarians, and I still don't like traditional Catan.

Now, on the same Thrift Store Trip, I picked up a mysterious game for one reason, and one reason alone.
The Oddly Shaped D4 that was in the box.
Even if pieces had been missing I would have gotten it just for that Die (I have an obsession to feed).

Then I got it home and realized that there was some sort of Green Stain on the bottom of the Box that stunk like death. The Box (as cool and Triangley  as it was) had to go.

The Game is called: The World According to UBI.
It comes with a HUGE outdated map of the world. (The game was published in 1986)
The first read through of the rules was very confusing, that's part of the flavor of this game.
I had to read the rules 3 times to even get it.
Instead of saying, throw the 2D6. It says Roll the Rubis Cubis.

Ultimately, it is a Geographic Trivia Game, and as weird and impossible as the game is, I found it oddly satisfying. We didn't even finish the only game we played. But it is fun.

You get questions that are phrased like: Ubi Rodin's Thinker Think?
And the Answer is Not Paris. You cannot answer Paris. You have to Take the Rubicon Reticule (A hexagon window) and line it up on the map on the location you think the answer corresponds and state the Hexagon number; so the correct answer to this question is 5, or if you answer with Triangle Precision 5-A.

The rules are insane and make for a really long game for those that are not historical and geographical geniuses. Like I said, we didn't finish, not even really close, and we had to implement house rules to even get as far as we did.

The Rules state that The player Born closest to March 15 begins first. I think I should take this to the next Ides of March Party.

Then of Course there's Spore. But this Blog is already too long.

Chrome So Far

So far I really Like it.

It's Fast... No, Really Fast..... Did I mention Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast?

It's only missing one thing as far as I'm concerned. I miss my Google Tool-bar Bookmarks Drop down Menu.
It's odd that there is no Google Tool-bar integrated, at the very least it should have my Google Bookmarks Integrated.

95% converted..

I Thought I Was in Familiar Territory

Google Chrome Launches today I understand.

It's a new browser.

I was thinking to myself, let's check it out—because I really Like Google products. (I can't live without Google Toolbar, and you shouldn't either)

So I did a search to see what I could learn about this new browser and was eventually led to this site.

It's a comic book that explains the mindset behind the creation of the new Browser, because everyone is thinking, "I already have Firefox (or insert favorite browser here) why do I need Chrome?"

As I was reading the Comic and being really impressed by the thought that went into Chrome. I kept thinking this artwork is familiar... the whole feel of this comic is familiar. I think I even said to myself this feels like Scott McCloud.

Then I got to the end credits. 

Words by the Google Chrome Team. Comics Adaptation by Scott McCloud.

I KNEW IT!!!

I own Understanding Comics, and Reinventing Comics, and I would Like to Get Making Comics.

I just knew that the whole thing felt like I had been there done that, even though it was completely new.

This is old technology

This will change the world.

But Tesla had free energy long ago.

There's nothing new about the repression of technology.

New Font

Some of you may have poked your head over onto my other "blog" where I keep Mr. Squishy Comics. I started it in 2006 with one comic and have since then posted. . . a second comic. 

I always start these projects and then get hung up on something I want to do of which I am no master. 

I finally got around to creating a font that is based on my handwriting. I'm still tweaking the font's default spacing, but I have re-done the two comics posted at (Mr.) Squish(y) so if you want to see a sample you can take a look. Luckily I only had to manually adjust the letter-spacing in 2 places.

I actually have quite a few comics drawn that I had intended to post on the site, I even spent a month fiddling with CSS trying to get the site to look like I wanted. I was going to try 3 times weekly, but that didn't happen. Maybe I can do once a week. But I need a better process for getting the pencils into the computer; my scanner is painfully slow and my digital camera worked pretty good for the first two, but the third is not working out so well.

War of the Worlds on my mind.

It's funny how the mind wanders from time to time. 

I was walking home from the Bus Stop last week, listening to my Zune. I have so much on there and I find that I am so indecisive that I just always put it on random. On came one of the songs from one of my favorite albums of all time. An album that few people I have met have ever heard, let alone heard of. It was a "track" from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. 

I don't know what it is, but I like Concept Albums immensely. 

I was musing the War of the Worlds over in my head and thinking about what an amazing Work of Fiction it is. 

Think about it with me.

H.G. Wells wrote the War of the Worlds in 1898. 

He predicted Chemical Warfare, Military Vehicles, Flying Machines, Space Travel.

The Book reads like Moderns Science Fiction, all the trappings are there, but when it was written this was cutting edge stuff. The very idea of a "Martian" invasion was so Alien to the world. (Pardon the Pun).

Since then it has been adapted time and time again. Orson Wells famous 1938 adaptation for radio. George Pal's 1953 film, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (1978), the 1988 TV series, and the 2005 Steven Spielberg film
are among my favorites.

What I find interesting about all the different adaptations is that it is almost always Modernized and set in the present day, also the location is generally changed as well. In fact, the Jeff Wayne version is the only one I have experienced that still has it set in Victorian England, though the music is a Progressive Rock Album from the 70's and has thus been modernized in that sense, of course using that argument any non-book adaptation is a modernization.

I would like to see a Period film made, an A budget movie that is. There was a low budget direct to DVD version released concurrent with the Spielberg version, that I have never seen. 

I think it is interesting that certain stories just kept getting told Time and Time again.

It makes me wonder what of today's Pop culture may be remade in 100+ years.

Does anything made today have the longevity?

More about Spore.

Just Watch This. (It didn't work for me in Firefox — Use IE)
When it finishes it will automatically play another, and another, and another, etc. I think there's 6 or seven.
Seriously, this is the only PC game I've wanted since 2005.

My Eyes!!!

I need bleach for my eyes.

I mean - I know it's hot and all, but seriously!!!

The Incident happened here.

The bus I was riding was entering the freeway. I was trying to browse the internet, but the page just wasn't loading fast enough; sometimes the internet is a little slow on the bus. So I glanced out the window. I looked over the edge of the freeway (You can do that on these tour style busses, the passengers are litterally sitting higher than Big Rig Truckers) and what did I see?

A completely Naked Guy

Luckily the bus was moving at freeway speeds and the incident was over with before I even realized what I had seen.

Guh - I think I'm a little sick.

Gates can't be that bad.

First, Read this Blog.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

I have had the exact same frustration with trying to download something from the Microsoft downloads site.

I'm glad that Bill Gates has experienced this first hand and yelled at those responsible to get it fixed. 

Seems like he's just as much an end user as any of us. 

The thing that blows me away, is the fact that someone thought that no one would be trying to Download a Microsoft Product from the Microsoft Download site.

There's an adage that goes: The Combined I.Q. of a committee is that of the Lowest I.Q. in the group, divided by the number of members of the group. I don't know if there's any truth to that, but it seems true-ish. (There is an interesting Thread on the subject here, the final post may surprise you a little.) 

Spore Creature Creator

I have been waiting for Spore for Three years now. Tuesday, the Creature Creator was released as a demo, as well as a way to make sure that the Universe is populated by all kinds of creatures when the Full product releases in September. I HIGHLY recommend downloading the trial version of the creature creator. The trial version comes with a limited palate of creature parts. But it is still very very fun to play around with.

So far most of the creature's I've created are pretty standard fare — I haven't really really branched out like I have with the Wii Miis.

More about Wii Fit.

Last time I mentioned this, I explained that I had been foolish and had not pre-ordered. I was under the impression that I would not have a Wii Fit until the 16th of this month (that was when new stock shipments were due). Tuesday my friend that works in a warehouse called and told me that he was bringing one home for me.

First — when you are just playing this on your own and not messing around with a group of friends, you can really work up a sweat. Second — the game thinks it's funny. Since I had played it lightly a couple times and then the device went home to my friend's house, when I started into the game again it made fun of the fact that I had not played in a while, it acted as though it had forgotten my name. Third — it's a lot more fun to work up a sweat to Wii Fit than any other exercise program I've ever tried.

Thing is, I hate exercising, it's boring; but this makes it into a game — and I love to play games (sports do that too, but. . . I hate sports). So an hour goes by fast. When I'm jogging in place and my legs are hurting as my Mii is running all over a cartoony island jog park, I have to keep pushing forward, because it is a game that must be beaten. I keep saying to myself keep going, you've done this before, this "level" cannot defeat you. I really hope that they make more fitness titles that use the balance board.

So now that I've done it just about every day for nearly a week I can truly say I'm really pleased with the product. It's fun and will help me get in some much needed physical activity; I've really been turning into a couch potato.

Zombies!!!

This is old news, but I wanted to mention it.

A couple weeks ago (see, old news) we had a game night at the home of a friend of ours. — I may have mentioned before that I like Games— We started the evening with some light chatting and then when it was time to bust out the games, we started with Zombie Fluxx.

The only reason I have the original Fluxx, is that I found it on clearance at Barnes and Noble. They had marked it down to $10, and if you bought one, you could get a second free. I quickly read the back and the concept of a game where the "Rules" were in constant Fluxx appealed to my Inner Demon that Loves all things Random. I picked up two. I gave one to my sister as a gift, and for a while it got thrown in to the Game Rotation.

As a game however it was lacking in something. Strategy and Goal setting mostly. Since it's always in "Fluxx," It's a total Crap-shoot as to who wins. So it gets a little boring, though I still like the concept.

I'm glad I got that original game, because it led to getting Zombie Fluxx when it was released (and anticipating the upcoming Martian Fluxx). Zombie Fluxx introduced a new element to the game: cards you do not want. This introduced a (small) element of strategy, as you are attempting to get rid of (or collect in some cases) said cards.

The Zombie theme itself adds to the game as well. Though it must be played with the right group of people, some people just can't get into the Campiness of a Zombie theme, but some can. Which is what happened a couple weeks ago. Everyone was having fun with the Theme, which puts fun into overdrive.

Naturally when the random winning wore thin (it always does eventually with this game) we busted out Zombies!!!.

It was one of the best sessions of Zombies!!! I've ever played. This game definitely has to be played with the right group. First of all, everyone has to kind-of "get" the whole zombie thing. I mentioned how I feel about zombies on my Sketch Dump Blog. I think if everyone playing has a similar attitude, and also understands that the rules of Zombies!!! are more Video Game than Ultimate-German-Style-Board-Game-Extravaganza, then everyone involved can have a good time.

Something I found Interesting, with previous groups that I've played with there has been a tendency to forget that you have cards in your hand. The cards, when played properly really enhance the game.

One thing I've noticed that happens in a lot of games, not just Zombies!!!, is the tendency for everyone to still be having a lot of fun when someone gets close to winning, so they gang up on that person —Realistically, I was only half way there (10 zombies in my pool) but cards were a flyin' and I found myself standing bewildered back at town square after all that had been thrown at me— That in and of itself is all part of the fun. However then what happens is that everyone spends the rest of the game ganging up on that person, regardless of who is now close to winning the game. That person becomes the person not allowed to win. I don't know what causes this behavior, but in competitive games where you can "stab-your-buddy," this seems to happen frequently.

I have to apologize to everyone we were playing with, I made a mistake concerning the rules. Don't worry, we ended up playing it right. I must have been thinking about another game (though I still can't figure out what game that is — Zombietown maybe) when I stated that you could combat another player. Someone asked how, and I couldn't remember exactly how (because you can't — though I know exactly how it could be done based on the current rules) so we continued on without even trying. The following is from the F.A.Q. located on the Twilight Creations website:

Combat

Can I kill other players?
Uh, no! You are trying to escape the zombie horde, not trying to become a world class murderer.
Source: Kerry June 16, 2005

But I really want to, can't I please?
NO! Now knock that off!
Source: Kerry June 16, 2005

D&D 4th Edition

For the past few years I have had jobs that have downtime. I've had to wait for a call to come in, in order to do anything. My current job is much more hands on, but it also has an element of waiting for things to break — as a result I have familiarized myself with a number of web comics.

One of the comics I read is Penny Arcade. (My only disappointment with PA is that they use strong language from time to time.) The artist and writer are very much involved in Video games and tabletop gaming, though they have very different taste in games. I also read PVP, which is written and drawn by the artist. PVP is video game/tabletop gaming related.

Dungeons and Dragons is coming out with the 4th edition of their rule-set in less than a week now. It's interesting to watch how people respond. Some act with apprehension (My GM for instance, because he has invested in well over $200 on 3/3.5 edition[which I totally understand, this is the very reason I do not even toy with the idea of CCG's]). Others are excitedly anticipating this new upgrade to the most well known Pencil & Paper roll playing game.

A few months ago Tycho and Gabe (a.k.a. Jerry and Mike) of Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz of PVP got together with some marketing folks from WotC (pronounced wot-see: referring to Wizards of the Coast, publisher of Dungeons and Dragons) and played some 4th Edition D&D. They played Keep on the Shadowfell, which as of this writing is the only 4th edition product on the market. At the time they played it, it had not been released yet.

Background information given, here's what's interesting about all this. They recorded the game. They played for a good eight hours, they are breaking it up and distributing it in podcast form. The first of which has been released.

I listened to the episode. Here's what I found interesting:

As far as experience goes. One of them is a D&D veteran and has been playing for years. One of them is a Noobe and has NEVER played, and one of them used to play back in 2nd edition. They all picked it up very easily.

The magic system has been revamped, and there are 3 types of spells: At will, which can be used as often as wanted; some that can be used once per encounter, and some that can be used per day.

It seems that they have tried to simplify things a bit. No one ever did spot checks or listen checks; it appears they've lumped all such checks into a single perception check.

Healing. Everyone has a number of self heals they can do per day. These self heals are for a certain number of hit points and can be used once per encounter. If you have a cleric or other healer class in your party they may assist during an encounter to set off one of your heals on your behalf even if you have already used one during the encounter.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the podcasts in the series. There is some language though.

Last Night's Gaming Session

No fights, very little rolling of the dice, and a Mission that seems eerily familiar.

While I don't mind the High RP nature of the session, in fact I prefer it, but there's just something about the random number generation of a die skittering across a tabletop that excites something primal within me. What's going to happen? I don't know, but let's allow this die to determine the outcome.

I have now a mission from a ghost to seek out and find missing spell-books. Which is odd, because I had to do that in another game with a different GM.

I'm a little concerned that my GM has turned my character into Luke Skywalker/Harry Potter. I won't get into too much detail as to my meta-gaming thoughts, as he reads the blog.

I had a very set idea of who my character was when we started this campaign. I had a very fleshed out character to begin with because last campaign I felt like I had no motivation. I do not enjoy playing FI TOR. So I came up with a background. Nothing overly creative, more an amalgamation of several cliche's. But GM has expounded on my unknowns and I have no idea what my character is anymore, at least it's still interesting.

A friend of ours came over late into the game. Generally he's a munchkin, but last night he had pretty much missed the last 3 gaming sessions, and was really confused as to the nature of the current situation, so he reverted to his munchkin ways and his character just stayed in his room at the inn and made potions. There was only about an hour left in our gaming session when he showed up with his brother. Due to things my character had recently learned my character had a run in with his brother's character. It was late and I was quite tired. I fell asleep for a bit, while the two of them were conversing with a ghost.

I've noticed that in our group, when our characters are getting along we don't speak as our characters; but as soon as our characters have a disagreement, regardless of how small, we jump right into character.

This is when we have the most humorous gaming moments.

Bus Blogging

I am currently sitting on the bus, riding home from work. I am riding a fast bus. The fast buses are the same type of buses that are used for tour buses. They have a lot of Cargo space under the seats, and they have used that space to install networking equipment. I must say, it works rather well.

Teleportation

Do objects teleport?

Stardate - years ago when we were first married. We were living in a basement apartment, and it was time to go to church. We got ready and headed out the door. When we arrived at the car we discovered that neither one of us had the keys. Not only were we locked out of the car, but the house as well. We could not get let in by the owners, as they were at church. So I started checking if we had left any windows open. We did not.

So there we were stuck. We were attending a Student Ward and the church was much too far to walk. The Owner would not be home for several hours. I came walking back to the front yard after checking the windows in the back yard (Again), and what did I find in my pocket? The Missing keys.

No, they were not there before. When something is missing, I check where it is supposed to be every two seconds, because there is no possible way that I left it elsewhere. They simply weren't there before. Now they were, 20 minutes later.

What brought this to mind was the fact that Yesterday, my wife was holding an open house for a client of hers (she's a Realtor) and I decided it was time to delve into the Flopside Pit of 100 trials, and get it over with. I powered up the Wii, but a friend of ours had been over and he had been playing Metroid. In fact, I recalled seeing him pop Super Paper Mario out of the Wii and place it gently on the entertainment system while he put Metroid in, however I did not see what he did with the disc after that because I walked out of the room.

I checked the Obvious place first, the case for Super Paper Mario. Empty.
I checked the Zipper Case in which I keep Wii and Playstation 2 games. It was not there.
Then I checked the Entertainment system where I had seen him lay the disc. Nope, not there either.
Then I checked ALL the Wii cases on the shelf. It was not in any of them.
Then I checked ALL the slots in the Zipper Case. No. . . not there.
Then I checked the extra, empty DVD case that sits on the shelf for lending DVD's to people. Still empty.
Then I checked all those places again. . . . . and again . . . . . and again.
Then I called my friend's brother, because my friend was at work. He checked the Wii game cases at his house. Nothing of mine was found in their cases.
I checked All the DVD players because we had had a Babysitter over the previous evening, and you never know what kind of Hijinks are going on when that's the case. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then I checked All the Wii cases on our shelf and the Zipper Case AGAIN.
It was nowhere to be found, and I gave up looking.

This morning I was sitting here and I was mulling over where in the world the game disc could be.
I walked over to the shelf and checked the Super Paper Mario case again.
The first place I looked. (And the Fourth, and the Eighth, and the Twelfth, etc.)
I'm standing there feeling rather . . . odd. Kind of like that cool floaty feeling I get when I'm really zoned into an art project I'm working on, except twisted and weird. I don't really know how to explain.
Confused times several.
There it was, right in front of me, acting like it had been there the whole time.

I think that sometimes objects teleport.