Monkeys With Typewriters

MeepleTown has launched!

2010-06-11T08:31:00.003-05:00

Monkeys With Typewriters started out as my personal blog, but over the months it has somehow evolved into a delicious disaster of boardgame coverage. Over time, I found that I had a lot more people reading for my gaming-related posts than my personal musings. I've decided that it's time to spin off the gaming content onto its own site so I can give those topics the attention they deserve.

Therefore, I am happy to announce the launch of MeepleTown, a new site for boardgame reviews, editorials, event recaps, and more!

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may notice occasional "classic" (okay, old) articles re-posted on the new site. The goal is to bring fresh, new updates on a regular basis, but until I have a few more contributors, I'm going to use existing content to fill gaps.

Which brings me to my other plea: I need more contributors! If you're a gamer and are interesting in writing articles (occasionally or as a regular column), I'd be happy to consider your submissions for MeepleTown. I can't pay anything (hey, this is costing me money!), but if you're passionate about games and like to write, it's a good forum for your thoughts on the hobby. Toss me a message on Twitter (username WhiteHowler) or send me an E-mail and let me know what you'd be interested in working on for the site.

I'm excited to be a part of this new project and hope you'll all come along for the ride.

Arkham Horror: The Story Begins

2010-06-07T08:01:00.003-05:00

A group of my fellow gaming friends and I have decided to embark on an epic multi-session campaign of Arkham Horror, each week facing a new Ancient One and drawing one step closer to a final showdown with Cthulhu.

We started by using only the Dunwich Horror expansion, along with the character and item cards from all sets, and the Personal Story cards. As the campaign draws on, we'll be adding the small-box sets and alternating out the different big-box expansion boards. Eventually we'll have all rules from every expansion in play, and for the battle against Cthulhu we may actually use all four game boards.

Here's our starting roster (this will probably change as adventurers get devoured):
Diana Stanley the Redeemed Cultist (Christian)
Lily Chen the Martial Artist (Joe)
Patrice Hathaway the Violinist (Hillary)
Kate Winthrop the Scientist (Chris C.)
Jim Culver the Musician (Franklin)

(What can I say? The female characters tend to be better.)

We've instituted some house rules to make the campaign (hopefully) flow more smoothly.

General Campaign Rules:

- Seven random Ancient Ones are selected and placed in order of difficulty from easiest to hardest. Cthulhu will take the eighth and final spot. Each week we'll play a game against the next successive Ancient One.

- Investigators that are Devoured before the Ancient One awakens are gone forever. History. Toast. Grab another one and start over.

- Investigators lost (even "Devoured") in the final battle are considered to be knocked out or temporarily insane. They'll be available for the next session.

After a win:

- Investigators gain one Skill card, which will carry over to the next game (along with all previously-collected Skills).

- Investigators reset all money, spells, and items to their initial starting values. However, Investigators may keep items and spells collected in a previous session rather than a random starting item. (For example, if my character starts with a random Common Item, and I collected a Carbine Rifle this game, I may choose to bring that in as my "random" Common Item for the next game). All extra items and spells over the starting values are lost.

- Investigators may trade items or spells freely between games (again, remembering that you're limited by your initial starting possessions).

- Investigators keep all memberships, titles, and rail passes. Discard bank loans, retainers, blessings, and curses.

- Investigators may discard all but one Injury or Madness card. If the player only has one of these cards, it may be discarded. All Corruption cards are discarded as well.

- Personal Stories "reset" each game.

- If the party won its first attempt at a given Ancient One, the next game will begin with a Herald in play. Ouch.

After a loss:

- The obligatory "it was all a dream" clause. Five unused investigators are discarded from the available pool, and the players will face the same Ancient One for the next session.

- The next battle with the same Ancient One will have a Guardian in play.

- If the investigator pool runs out and we lose a game, the campaign is over. We decided that we'll probably play out the final session against Cthulhu just for fun, and call it a draw if we win.

My plan is to post a quick recap after each game. I'm not yet sure how often we'll be able to play, so this may stretch out for a while.

We're all excited to be embarking on the campaign and hope you'll follow our triumphs (and grisly deaths) as we attempt to save Arkham from the Elder God menace once and for all!

Atlanta Game Fest Wrap-Up Part 3

2010-06-03T08:45:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the third and final part of my Atlanta Game Fest wrap-up! There are just a few more new games that I haven't covered yet, so let's tackle those first:

Hansa Teutonica - I don't think this has even been widely released in North America yet, but it seemed to be the big hit of AGF. It's a straight-up worker placement game, but the different things you can do through the placements are interesting and varied. There are several "tracks" on the player board that can be gradually unlocked to provide more options each turn (more actions or placement options, easier worker replenishment, etc.), which allows for several strategies for victory. I enjoyed the hell out of this game, and it's definitely on my short list for my next big game order. Rating: 8/10

Macao - The other hit of AGF, there must have been half a dozen copies of Macao present. It's a resource collection game with a rather unique planning element. Each turn dice are rolled to determine the available resources, and players must allocate them to an upcoming turn (for example, a blue four and a green two are available, which means you can have four blue resources four turns from now, or two green resources two turns from now). Players can use their resources in a variety of ways, buying and selling trade goods, jockeying for turn order, or investing in infrastructure to allow more resource flexibility. There are huge penalties for having no resources on a given turn, so there's a lot of forward-thinking strategy here. The game mechanics are all extremely innovative, and the only knock against it is that my first session seemed to take forever. Our four-player game lasted nearly four hours, which is a bit longer than I wanted to spend on this type of game. I definitely want to give it another shot; if we can get the playtime to a reasonable length, I can see this becoming a favorite with my group. Rating: 7/10

Forbidden Island - I picked this up shortly before the Game Fest started, so it wasn't completely new to me. Designed by Matt Leacock (who also created Pandemic), Forbidden Island shares many concepts and mechanics with its predecessor. It's a pure cooperative game, where players are attempting to recover four treasures from an island. Unfortunately, the island is sinking rapidly, and there isn't much time to recover the treasures and escape the island. The game takes some knocks as being "Pandemic-lite", and while the description is appropriate, Forbidden Island plays much more quickly and has a strong enough theme that it never feels same-y. If you're a Pandemic fan and want something similar that plays in half an hour, this is a very good option. Rating: 8/10

I also had the opportunity to playtest two unpublished prototypes created by Richard Launius, designer of Arkham Horror. I won't go into too many details, but one was a thrilling cooperative sci-fi themed survival game, while the other was a frantic dungeon escape where players tried to one-up each other without getting the entire group killed. Richard loves giving players unique, well-defined characters and tons of dice to roll, and these prototypes were no exception. Both were a lot of fun (though the co-op game was decidedly more polished), and I hope to see them in a game store soon.

Oh, and I did mention my acquisition at the AGF flea market, right?

It's a complete Arkham Horror set, including all six expansions. Not only is the entirety of the Arkham Horror universe included, but the set is pimped-out with custom dice bags, plastic containers for all of the counters, nice printed tuckboxes for all of the cards, and extra printouts of player aids and "cheat sheets". And naturally, since Richard Launius was present at the event, I just had to get him to sign it, right?

And at long last, I think it's finally time to conclude my coverage of Atlanta Game Fest 16. The event was a success in every conceivable way. I had the opportunity to try tons of new games, and more importantly, I made several new friends.

I'm sure AGF will stand as one of the highlights of 2010 for me, and I can't wait for the next one!

Atlanta Game Fest Wrap-Up Part 2

2010-05-27T11:13:00.003-05:00

Welcome to the second installment of mini-reviews for new games I tried out at Atlanta Game Fest 16. Note that I only managed to get in one play for most of these, so it's quite possible that my early impressions were wildly off.

The Golden City - A very elegant worker-placement game with a light bidding element. Each turn players bid on sets of two cards. These cards are then used to claim villages and city sections, which can both score points and give some other boon (extra money to bid with, extra cards, or most importantly, a golden key). The city itself consists of an outer ring that anyone can enter (scoring points for being the first or second player to place in a given section), and the inner Golden City. The latter requires one of a very limited number of available keys, but scores many more points for placement. I'd never heard of this game before it was pulled off the shelf to play, so it was a very pleasant surprise to discover such a excellent game. If I have one major complaint, it's that the rules are possibly a bit too simple, and I feel like there's plenty of room for another play mechanic. Still, there's enough depth of strategy to keep coming back, and the game runs quickly enough that it should never feel drawn-out or tedious. Rating: 8/10

Cyclades - My most-anticipated game of the weekend, and I was not disappointed. Cyclades is part area control game and part auction game, with just a dash of wargame thrown in for good measure. Claim the favor of a specific god, then use its powers to amass power, gain wisdom, or simply smite your enemies. When we first set up the game, I was concerned that the combat and territory capture element would ruin what otherwise looked like an intriguing and well-themed eurogame. However, this didn't happen, at least in our playthrough. There was very little actual combat, and while several players built up militaries, this acted more as a deterrent than as an invading force. There seems to be plenty of room for disparate strategies, too: a couple of players build up their armies and navies, one went for stable income and buildings, while I slowly collected a small fortune with which I performed a coup de grace to plunk down two metropolises in one turn and win the game. I absolutely can't wait to try this game again (and to be fair, I was having a great time even when I thought I was in dead last place). Rating: 9/10

Samarkand: Routes to Riches - I'd read a little about this on BoardGameGeek and wanted to give it a shot, despite hearing less-than-favorable reviews from other folks at the Game Fest. We finally got a session together, and it turns out that the negative buzz was correct. Samarkand is an odd mash-up of route building, tile collection, and politics. Think Through the Desert, only up to two people are controlling one caravan (by investing in the family that owns it), and you have to visit specific tiles -- which happen to be useless to the other player invested in your caravan. You can also score bonus points "marrying" two families by making two caravans run into each other for the first time. Samarkand is not a bad game by any means, but while the concept is sound, I feel like the different mechanics don't mesh together as well as they should. Rating: 6/10

Medici - This is actually a fairly old game, one that I'd been generally avoiding because I don't tend to enjoy most games with a heavy auction component. Since bidding is 99% of Medici, my opinion is fairly predictable: I didn't care for it at all. It didn't help that I was with a group of players who had played Medici dozens of times previously, some of whom were actually counting tiles. I did alright for myself, not knowing exactly how the scoring worked or what the distribution of tiles was, but I don't think I'll be wanting to play Medici again anytime soon. Rating: 4/10

Summoner Wars - Wow, I hate to post three negative (or at least lukewarm) reviews in a row. However, my wife and I tried out Summoner Wars for the first time, and I really didn't like much of anything about it. I'd heard that the game appeals to Magic: The Gathering fans who want more of a tactical/spacial element, but most of the mechanics fell flat for me. Movement is oversimplified (move two spaces), units tend to be too same-y, and the balance of the set we played (Elves versus Orcs) felt off-kilter, with wild swings in either direction that seemed almost random. It wasn't exciting, and we were both wanting the game to end well before it did; I actually sent my leader in a suicide charge, figuring it would be over one way or the other. Rating: 2/10

That's it for now! I have one more Atlanta Game Fest wrap-up entry to come, in which I'll give give my initial impressions of Hansa Teutonica, Macao, and Forbidden Island. I'll also give my final thoughts on the overall event (and probably take the opportunity to shamelessly boast about the awesome purchase I made at the AGF flea market). Stay tuned!

Atlanta Game Fest Wrap-Up Part 1

2010-05-24T07:32:00.006-05:00

I just returned from Atlanta Game Fest, so it seems like the perfect time to resume blog updates. The event consisted of four days of wall-to-wall boardgaming with far too little sleep in-between. Over the course of the weekend, I played a quantity of games that can only be properly described as "a crapload".

The final tally looks something like this:
31 total game sessions played
20 different games
14 games that were new to me
2 unpublished prototypes

In the coming days I'm going to post a few sets of capsule reviews of the new games I tried. It's difficult to form a solid opinion from only one or two plays of a game, but I'll give it my best shot.

Havana - A light resource-management and action selection card game. Players secretly choose cards to play from a set deck. The cards allow players to gather resources, steal from each other, and ultimately acquire the victory point tiles that inhabit the middle of the table. The unique thing here is the method of choosing turn order -- each player's pair of cards in play forms a two-digit number, which determines who gets to perform actions first. Each new card will cover up an existing one, resulting in an ever-changing number. The higher numbered cards are much more powerful, but going early is the only way to maximize resources. This trade-off mechanic is relatively simple, but the game is short enough (around 30 minutes) that it doesn't get stale before a winner is determined. Rating: 7/10

Peloponnes - Resource-management is one of my favorite themes, while I'm not generally a fan of games with a heavy auction or bidding component. This left me a bit torn on Peloponnes, as both elements factor heavily into this game. Improve your city and cultivate the surrounding lands, while making sure to feed your citizens and prepare for the upcoming, inevitable disasters. Sounds cool, huh? Unfortunately, the bidding mechanic feels too limiting, as once a player bids on anything, he is committed to paying exactly that amount for something. This constraint probably helps the game from devolving into an all-out bidding war every turn, but that may be just what this game needs. I didn't hate Peloponnes (and actually ended up winning by two points), but overall it left me a little flat. Rating: 5/10

Castle Panic - In this semi-cooperative game, players work together to protect a castle from an onslaught of orcs, trolls, and other nasty critters. Attack cards are continually dealt out to players, which allow them to attack the rampaging hordes based on their current position (for example, archers can hit monsters that are far away, while swordsmen have to wait until the monsters are almost upon the walls). If the castle is destroyed, all of the players lose. However, unlike most traditional cooperative games, there is a "winner": the player responsible for slaying the most enemies. Honestly, I don't know that this element is necessary. The game is already difficult, and not helping the other players to the best of your ability seems counter to the spirit of a co-op game. Of course, this point was moot for our session, since the Orc King showed up with his buddies and trashed our castle quite effectively. Castle Panic is fun, but I doubt it would ever be my first choice when looking for a co-op game to pull off the shelf. Rating: 6/10

Union Pacific - I know. Everyone has played this except me. However, I'd never had the opportunity until this weekend, and I was excited to finally give it a try. I wasn't disappointed; while UP ultimately a stock investment game, players have a lot of control over their own fortunes, and there's a lot more depth than I expected. There's a fine balance between enticing other players to invest into improving routes that help your stocks while attempting to keep a majority share on as many companies as possible. I can see why this is my wife's favorite boardgame, and I look forward to playing it again (I only wish it were possible to actually buy a copy without paying an arm and a leg). Rating: 8/10 (and may go up with more plays)

Wasabi - Pick up ingredients and place them on the board to create sushi combos and score points -- the bigger the combo, the more points scored. There's nothing really revolutionary about this tile-placement game, but it is light, fun, and well-themed. The special action cards make Wasabi just deep enough to keep me interested, and I'd definitely try it again in the future. Rating: 7/10

That's all for now! In the next installment I'll cover The Golden City, Cyclades, Samarkand, Medici, and Summoner Wars.

You got your Ameritrash in my peanut butter

2010-02-10T14:28:00.007-06:00

In recent years, a clear distinction has formed between two different styles of boardgame.

Eurogames tend to be characterized as "design-heavy, theme-light". You'll find elegant designs requiring few rules. Luck (and dice) are a rarity in most cases, requiring players to win solely through strategy and smart play. Player interaction is often light or nonexistent, and the most opposition players have to contend with is being blocked out of an auction or a space on the game board. The theme often feels tacked on, and a Eurogame set in medieval times would usually work just as well with a prehistoric or science-fiction setting.

The other category is widely known as "Ameritrash". It seems to be a derogatory term at first glance, but fans of this genre have embraced the title as their own. Ameritrash games tend to be theme-heavy, with a lot of direct conflict and tons of dice to roll. Game mechanics are tied closely with the theme; Space Hulk or Last Night on Earth would have to be completely redesigned if the setting were shifted to a stone-age village or a 17th century sailing ship. Many Ameritrash games have a "last man standing" winning condition, in which players are gradually eliminated until only the winner remains.

While I enjoy a wide variety of games, I tend to gravitate toward titles with a more Euro-style design. I like to experience some measure of player interaction, but I find constant direct opposition to be either stressful or monotonous. I don't enjoy seeing a string of bad luck ruin a well-laid strategy (even an opponent's). And I feel that player elimination is the worst design element in the entire boardgaming universe; the penalty for doing poorly should never include not being allowed to play.

However, I absolutely love games with a strong theme. Caylus and Power Grid, while being quite strong from a design standpoint, often fail to grab my attention. I enjoy the mechanics, so I don't usually shy away from playing these, but I don't find anything particularly engaging about either of them. They're just too bland and dry. A lot of my love for games like Arkham Horror and Talisman originates with the art style and solid theme.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a common misconception that Euro-style concepts and a strong theme are mutually exclusive.

Vlaada Chvatil's designs really stand out for me in this regard. They generally play more like "pure" Eurogames*, but the setting is inseparable from the gameplay. Galaxy Trucker simply wouldn't work outside the frantic space-junker universe, and I find Dungeon Lords to be an almost perfect balance of heavy theme, highly-stylized art, and well-integrated play mechanics.

I'd love to see more game designers explore this concept, because I think both Eurogames and Ameritrash can bring can bring something wonderful to the table.

* Except Space Alert. That one's impossible to categorize. It transcends mere labels and becomes something unique and beautiful. And terrifying.

Only a master of evil, Palamedes

2010-01-28T10:36:00.004-06:00

I finally had a chance to play Shadows Over Camelot for the first time last night.

The rules were explained, and then the Role and Loyalty cards were dealt out.

Aha! I am Sir Palamedes... the traitor.

Wonderful, how am I going to pull this off having never played before?

I decided to play completely straight, sacrificing cards and life points several times in order to help the cause. The only slightly shady thing I did was place siege engines whenever possible. Our first few turns resulted in an extremely poor position on the Excalibur board, so not wanting to play a black card didn't look too suspicious.

I was lucky enough have a hand completely full of Fight cards, which I showed off with an almost solo victory over the Saxons. We finished off the Grail quest, and things were looking good for the heroes. I volunteered to start destroying siege engines while the other players attempted to complete more quests.

Suddenly, we had a string of misfortune, and we found ourselves at ten siege engines (twelve is an immediate loss for the good guys) as the player before me started his turn.

Knowing that many of the black cards could result in more siege engines, he considered paying one of his two remaining life points to avoid the risk. He asked if I could get an automatic win against a siege engine during my turn.

Yes! They trusted me!

"I can handle it," I answered enthusiastically.

A Grail card came up, adding an eleventh siege engine to the board. The other player used his turn discarding to try to save the Lancelot's Armor quest, which was starting to look bleak.

Barely able to contain my evil grin, I placed the twelfth siege engine on the board, ending the game. There were several seconds of stunned silence before I turned over my Loyalty card. Nobody had ever suspected me!

My first foray into Shadows Over Camelot was an absolute blast, and I'd definitely play again.

I've heard that the game can easily turn into a micromanagement nightmare, where one or two players give extremely specific orders, and anyone who doesn't follow them to the letter is obviously the traitor. I hope it never comes to this -- I like the idea of coordinating strategy a bit, but it should probably be limited to vague suggestions ("Camelot is in trouble, but we're also at risk of losing the Grail").

Puzzle Party!

2009-10-26T08:35:00.011-05:00

Over the weekend some friends and I drove down to Auburn University to participate in the Auburn Puzzle Party, a semiannual team-based puzzle-solving event. Because some of the puzzle elements required knowledge of area landmarks, we merged with an existing group of Auburn locals to form an eight-person team.

Our team, one of six competing in the event, established "base camp" in an off-campus Burger King (this would come back to haunt us later) and met over at the party organizer's house for the introduction.

After reading a comic posted on the door of the house, the teams were herded inside and treated to a live-action sketch. The premise was that we had been touring the Large Hadron Collider, but had stumbled into the laboratory for a secret time-travel project (dubbed, appropriately, Quantum Leap -- the "host" character even carried a colorful hand-held computer named Ziggy).

According to the background story, we had traveled back to the 1980's. The entire house was full of 80's paraphernalia, complete with costumed characters who could have jumped straight off the Flashdance DVD (sorry, VHS tape). The participating teams were tasked with solving puzzles that would help us figure out the identity of a Russian gangster/killer/terrorist. The exact details of the storyline were a bit hazy, but rest assured that the plot would have fit perfectly into an episode of MacGyver.

With the introduction complete, the team captains were given large envelopes containing three the first three puzzles, each beginning a separate chain. Each solution led to an new envelope containing next puzzle in the chain, a number of victory point tokens, and few puzzle pieces that, when fully assembled, would create a pictogram/rebus leading to the final envelope -- and, presumably, the identity of the villain.

The puzzles themselves were enjoyable, all heavily 80's-themed with some requiring a fair amount of 80's pop culture knowledge. Extensive use of the Internet was also invaluable for many of the solutions.

For one early puzzle, teams were required to solve a cryptogram consisting of Q-Bert swear-word characters. The solution led to a metal pyramid at one of the campus buildings, under which the next envelope was hidden.

Another puzzle came in the form of an audio CD, from which players had to identify short snippets of 80's songs (fortunately, mostly hits) in order to spell out the location. The answer seemed fairly straightforward: "TOOMER'S COFFEE, FIND WAR AND PEACE, SAY WORD UP". We headed to the coffee shop, only to find that there wasn't a copy of War and Peace on the shop's bookshelf. After scaring most of the patrons by wandering around and randomly yelling "Word Up", my team spotted a young woman reading a book. You can probably guess what it was. After confronting her directly and saying the magic code phrase, we were awarded the next envelope.

Other puzzles weren't quite as elegantly designed. One that kept us stumped for over two hours consisted of a Pac-Man maze full of dots, power pellets, and ghosts, along with rules on movement through the maze. We correctly assumed that the dots spelled out morse code characters, but none of the valid paths through the maze made any sense. The spacing was ambiguous, and it was difficult to figure out where the breaks were. After banging our head against the puzzle for hours, we called the party organizer for clarification. Apparently all of the teams were having trouble with this one, and the key was to ignore spacing altogether (which would have been more intuitive if several groups of dots/dashes hadn't been spaced tightly together in valid morse code groups).

Another puzzle required identification of stars on a provided star chart. Connecting the correct stars would spell out part of the solution. The problem was that the puzzle creator had used a specific computer program to generate the star chart, and it was nearly impossible to match up with any publicly-available resources from the web.

It was unfortunate that we ran into snags like this, because both puzzles were extremely interesting in concept but failed somewhat in design. Still, most of the puzzles were quite fun, if occasionally a bit too easy.

Unfortunately, due to getting stuck on all three puzzle chains at approximately the same time, my team didn't manage to finish. My small group at "base camp" solved the rebus pictogram with only 10 minutes left before the final deadline. We were carrying the group's victory points (cleverly disguised as Russian currency) that had to be turned in before the deadline, so there was simply no time for us to pick up the final envelope.

Even though we didn't quite finish, we had a great time with the event. Everyone contributed to the group effort; from my encyclopedic knowledge of 80's pop music to our team captain identifying braille patterns within seconds of seeing a puzzle, every player was valuable.

As close as we were to grabbing the final envelope, I think we would have easily finished on time if we hadn't made a couple of key mistakes:

Most significantly, using Burger King as our base camp was a terrible idea. A sticker on the front door touted free Wi-Fi internet access, but it wasn't working correctly. Despite having three laptops with us, we were forced to tether to my friend's cellphone to get online. When he left to pick up a puzzle piece, we were stranded without web access for nearly an hour. We also didn't have access to power for our electronics -- the restaurant had plenty of outlets, but none of them were turned on. The Burger King was several blocks from the university proper, while most of the puzzle solutions led to campus locations. We could have saved a lot of time by choosing an on-campus headquarters with reliable power and internet access.

Also, we spent far too long stuck on specific puzzles when we could have called for clarification much earlier. It was my understanding that we had to spend victory points to receive clues for anything we were stuck on, but it turns out that clarifications were free in some cases. We didn't see an actual copy of the event rules until pretty far into the day, so this could have saved us an hour or two of solving time.

Fortunately, both of these problems are easily remedied. If we go back for the next event in the Spring (and we're definitely planning on it!), I have no doubt that our team will put in an even better performance.

I'd like to give a huge "thank you" to everyone responsible for organizing and running the event. The amount of prep-work involved seemed incredible, from the 20ish unique puzzles and custom-developed website to the human-sized wooden sliding puzzle and free pizza and drinks at the end. It all made for an absolutely amazing Saturday that I will remember for a very long time.

Quick update

2009-08-14T08:20:00.003-05:00

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I'm planning on spinning off the boardgame content into its own blog, but that process probably won't begin for at least a few more weeks.

I do have a pretty huge queue of games I'd like to talk about in upcoming posts. Just off the top of my head:

- Space Alert
- Dominion: Intrigue
- Ghost Stories
- Queen's Necklace
- Citadels

And lots more! No lack of ideas, just a lack of time at the moment.

Tales of a grizzled MechWarrior

2009-07-10T14:10:00.008-05:00

The focus of Monkeys With Typewriters has shifted to boardgames over the past few months, and it's a direction in which I'd like to continue.

Still, I'm a gamer in the most general sense, and the news that a new MechWarrior video game is in development -- headed by the original BattleTech creators -- is just too exciting for me to pass up.

As most gamers probably know, MechWarrior is heavily based on BattleTech, which was conceived as a tabletop miniatures game but quickly gained popularity through its video game translations. In BattleTech's violent universe, huge robots called "mechs" are the unrivaled war machines of the future. Imagine hundred-ton walking tanks with a dizzying array of weapons, stalking across the battlefield, easily laying waste to anything they encounter -- short of another mech.

Rather than rehash the few details we've learned about the upcoming game, I'm going to relate a story. If you you're new to the BattleTech universe, this may inspire you to check out the games -- whether tabletop or computerized. If you're an old mech nerd like me, perhaps your love of the game will be rekindled.

Back in the mid-90's, when the Internet was still in its infancy, dozens of mech enthusiasts played on the BattleTech 3056 MUSE. The MUSE was a text-based, real-time online mech combat simulator. It faithfully recreated all of the rules from the tabletop game, translating game rounds into real minutes and seconds, and updating players with ASCII-drawn sensor scans and terrain maps. Players represented a pilot -- a MechWarrior -- each assigned to a unique mech. Entire large-scale wars were fought "in-character" between the different factions in the game, with dozens of mechs taking the field for a single fight.

Sit back, kids, and let this grizzled old BattleTech nerd tell you a war story...

My personal mech on the 3056 MUSE was a heavy assault unit called a BattleMaster. Aside from a healthy mix of short- and medium-range weapons, the thing had insane amounts of armor. My mech, in particular, seemed to be nigh unkillable, lasting through several battles that it really had no right surviving. Despite taking massive internal damage on several occasions and having more than a few arms and legs blown off, nothing could ever quite knock out my BattleMaster's main reactor.

My unit was the Eridani Light Horse, a well-known mercenary group consisting of several dozen pilots. I remember our first in-character engagement: a long, running battle through the forests of some godforsaken Draconis Combine planet. What began as a light, company-level skirmish slowly degenerated into a war of attrition as both sides ran low on ammunition.

My BattleMaster represented itself well, dishing out punishing shots from its energy weapons even as the ammo supply for its rocket launchers dwindled. I managed to destroy a nearly undamaged enemy Awesome (another Assault Mech with three devastating Particle Projection Cannons), emerging from heavy woods and firing a couple of point-blank volleys into its back.

Still, I was taking a lot of hits, most notably from a particularly pesky Griffin. The Griffin is a somewhat smaller medium-class mech, but its lighter armor and firepower is more than compensated for by its incredible mobility; not only could it run circles around an assault mech like mine, but it was fitted with jump jets that would allow it to make huge, fiery leaps over difficult terrain.

I'd been trading shots with the Griffin for the better part of ten minutes when my opponent finally got a break. With a blazing volley of firepower, he finished off the internal structure in my BattleMaster's right torso, destroying most of its functional weapons and snapping off the left leg. My mech fell hard to the ground, severely damaging the actuators in the remaining leg. I was prone and immobile -- and facing away from the Griffin.

As I lay helplessly on the ground, the damaged but still mobile enemy mech closed in to finish me off. Enlightenment hit me like a lightning bolt: the Griffin was standing in my rear firing arc! I triggered my remaining rear-facing medium laser. Headshot! The Griffin's head, already missing much of its armor from our earlier exchanges, offered little resistance. My beam of coherent light sliced right through the cockpit. The enemy mech slumped to the ground, its pilot dead.

My BattleMaster unable to stand, I knew I was out of the fight at that point, but my teammates quickly cleaned up the rest of the enemy unit. We loaded back onto our dropship with millions of credits in salvaged equipment -- including a nearly-intact Griffin, absent one head.

And that, in a nutshell, is the essence of BattleTech.

Oh, sure, I was playing a primitive text-based game, and this new version of MechWarrior promises to be a beautiful, state-of-the-art simulation. But it's all the same game at its core, whether on a tabletop, an ASCII-based text window, or a fully-rendered 3D world.

I'm hopeful that the upcoming MechWarrior game will live up to its BattleTech pedigree and can bring this type of incredible, adrenaline-filled experience to a new generation of gamers -- and to some of us curmudgeonly old ones, too.

No time for love, Doctor Jones

2009-06-30T14:11:00.003-05:00

Thebes
Designed by Peter Prinz

In Thebes, players take on the role of competing archaeologists who are trying to earn fame and fortune by discovering ancient artifacts from long-dead civilizations.

Gameplay

The board depicts a map of Europe and North Africa, set at the beginning of the 1900's. Spaces on the board include major cities such as Paris and London and ancient ruin sites ranging from Mesopotamia to Greece to Egypt. Players move between these areas, collecting research, supplies, and team members from modern cities, and then using these resources to dig for artifacts among the ruins.

Four cards rest face-up on the board. While the cards have different functions, each has two common elements: the city where that card can be obtained, and an amount of time (in weeks) it takes to pick up the card.

The edge of the board contains a 52-week time track with a token representing each player's progress throughout the year. Every action takes a variable number of weeks, so the players will rarely occupy the exact same time slot. The track also determines the players' turn order; the person currently "earliest" in the year moves first, which means the order is constantly changing.

Each turn, a player can make one movement action, moving anywhere on the board -- spending one week for each "hop" traveled -- and then perform one of three actions:

- Pick up a card located in the current city, spending the number of weeks shown on the card.

- Dig for artifacts. If a player is at a dig site and has any knowledge about the civilization in that location, from one to twelve weeks can be spent on a dig expedition. The amount of time spent digging increases the number of tiles the player draws from that dig site.

- Discard and replace all face-up cards. A player must be in Warsaw to perform this action.

There are several different cards, each important in its own way:

- Knowledge - These colored "books" represent research performed on a specific civilization. The more knowledge a player possesses, the more tiles that can be drawn from the dig bag during an expedition. There are also General Knowledge cards that count as any color (but take longer to research) and Rumor cards that act as one-shot Knowledge for a single dig.

- Legislature - These are straight "victory point" cards. Picking one up has no effect until scoring at the end of the game. However, the points awarded by each Legislature card increases exponentially as more cards are collected by any one player -- a single card isn't worth much, but eight or nine will award a player with a flood of points at the game's end.

- Shovels and Research Assistants - These represent supplies and staff. Possessing shovels allows a player to draw extra tiles from a dig bag, while research assistants act as bonus research of all colors.

- Automobiles and Zeppelins - These allow a player to move around the map more quickly.

- Exhibitions - These cards have colored dots representing artifacts from different civilizations. If a player possesses the right combination of artifacts, these cards can be collected simply by going to the city on the card and spending the requisite number of weeks exhibiting the artifacts.

Digging allows a player to draw tiles from one of five canvas bags, representing the different dig sites. Each bag contains several artifacts, a few "bonus knowledge" tiles, and several empty sand tokens. The number of tiles drawn is determined by the level of knowledge of the civilization, as well as the number of weeks spent digging. A small cardboard wheel is supplied for each player, printed with a cross reference between knowledge points, weeks digging, and the number of tiles drawn.

Artifacts and knowledge drawn from the bag are kept by the player, while any empty sand tiles are returned to the bag. This means that over the course of the game, each bag will gradually contain fewer artifacts, reducing the likelihood of good returns from a given dig.

The game ends after a predetermined number of years. Once the last player's token has passed the year-end mark on the time-track for the final time, scores are tallied. Each artifact collected from digs has a point value printed on the token. Add in any points given for collected Legislature and Exhibition cards. Finally, compare amassed knowledge: the player with the most knowledge points of each color gains a bonus 5 points (which can have a huge effect if a single player can master two or three -- or more -- knowledge categories). The player with the most points wins.

Review

As you may have gathered from my previous reviews, I tend to avoid very heavy games, rarely wanting to delve too deeply into a huge multi-hour boardgame or deep economic simulation. Because of this, when the game's owner began introducing the rules for Thebes, I held my breath as the dozen or so different types of cards in the deck were explained.

However, the complexity began and ended with the cards, and the rest of the rules turned out to be quite streamlined and intuitive. While each player will amass a huge number of cards throughout the course of the game, almost none of them have to be "used" -- most are simply a display of available resources. Each turn is a simple "move and act" process, so once a player understands the individual cards, there's not much else that has to be memorized.

Gameplay flows quite well. The time-based turn system is quite innovative, and it allows for some unique strategy -- for example, if you're a few weeks behind the other players, you can sometimes perform a few quick actions all in sequence before anyone else gets a turn. It's also very easy to figure out when the game will end, so strategies can be formed to fit one or two last digs or exhibitions in before the end of the year.

The only downside to the variable turn order system is that when performing a very long action (say, a 12-week dig), it may be a long while before a player will get to act again. During my second game, I initiated some very long digs -- at one point, I got up, went to the restroom, bought a cookie from the newsstand, and sat back down… and it wasn't even close to being my turn yet.

I am quite impressed by the different strategies that are available to the players. Gathering several Legislature cards can allow one to run away with the game (as I gleefully discovered during our very first session), but only if the other players don't stop it. Doing early "quick digs" may only allow a few draws from the dig bags, but with the best chance of drawing artifacts. A slower, research-heavy strategy can allow a player to draw an insane number of tiles from the bags, but the bags won't be as well-stocked because the draws are made later in the game. And Exhibitions are always a strong option for a player lucky enough to hold the correct combination of artifacts.

If there's one element of Thebes that doesn't appeal to me personally, it's the complete lack of player interaction. In true Euro-style, there's no way to directly interfere with anyone else's actions. At best, you can try to swoop in to grab a desirable face-up card before an opponent, or try to perform preemptive digs to try to deplete the dig bags. Once it becomes apparent that an opponent is in a position to win, there isn't much that can be done to stop him, even through collaboration by the other players. Your only option is to take a few risks and try to boost your own score before the game ends.

While the design is solid, the physical game components are very hit-and-miss. The board is serviceable but not beautiful, and the cards are thematically appropriate but can sometimes be hard to read at a distance.

However, the other bits and pieces add a lot to the game. The wooden player pawns, which have more than a passing resemblance to Indiana Jones, are perfect for the setting. The "dig wheels", which determine the number of tiles drawn during a dig, are both attractive and useful. The dig bags, in particular, are a very fun element -- reaching into the bags to randomly draw out valuable artifacts (or, more often, worthless colored sand) is much more exciting than it has any right to be.

My initial impression of Thebes is very favorable. The theme is original and meshes very well with the gameplay, while the rules are easy to learn without sacrificing depth. The strong balance between random factors and strategic elements is perfect to keep the game interesting without being too dry for more casual players to enjoy.

I can definitely see why Thebes was nominated for the 2007 Spiel des Jahres award, and I look forward to my next opportunity to play.

June game round-up

2009-06-16T12:04:00.006-05:00

Hillary and I met up with our local group last night, and I got through four different games in about three hours. Most were pretty lightweight, so I figured I'd just write a quick paragraph on each rather than trying to review four games (three of which were completely new to me).

Incan Gold is a fun little filler game that we'll sometimes break out while waiting for more gamers to arrive. Players take on the role of archaeologists who are searching for treasure and valuable artifacts hidden inside an ancient Incan temple. Unfortunately, the temple is also full of dangers, such as poisonous spiders and rockslides. Gameplay consists entirely of a "press your luck" style decision every turn (no whammies!), where each player must either hightail it out of the temple and keep what he's carrying -- and pick up any undistributed treasure on the way out -- or press on further and risk losing everything to one of the aforementioned hazards. Incan Gold is not a deep game by any means, but it's a quick and fun distraction. It can also support up to eight players, which is great when you have a larger gathering of gamers that wants to play together before breaking up into smaller groups for more involved games.

Fresh Fish is an odd spacial management game unlike anything I've played before. The board is a nearly empty grid of undeveloped lots, starting out with just four marketplaces (power, fuel, fish, and... board games). Players must claim land and build factories to supply the marketplaces. The closer a factory is to its corresponding marketplace, the better a player's score -- however, distance must be measured along the road. This is tricky, because the road hasn't been built yet! Placement of the road has a few rules: it must touch every factory and marketplace, and it must have access to any claimed but undeveloped lots. Also, road tiles are only placed when they have to be -- for example, if there's only one open exit from a marketplace left, the road has to go there. At the end, the player with the lowest total distance to market, minus the money he has left (low scores are good), is the winner. This game is pretty darned confusing the first time through. Our session had several new players, and none of us really understood how road placement worked until we were well into the game. The whole thing made my head hurt, but I'd like to try Fresh Fish again now that I (sort of) comprehend how everything fits together.

Witch's Brew is a light card game where players score points by creating potions. Each player has an identical "deck" of character cards and must choose five of these each turn to form a hand. The beginning player shows a card (for example, "I am the Wizard!"), and play goes around the table with all other players either passing (if they don't have the card that was played), stealing the role ("No, I am the Wizard"), or conceding the role ("So be it!"). The player winning the round gets to perform that character's action, while anyone who conceded gets a lesser reward. Roles generally allow players to collect gold and ingredients in various ways, or to manufacture potions from these materials. This was my first play ever, and I'm already a big fan. The game mechanics are unique and clever, and the theming is excellent. Games tend to flow very quickly, and newbies should have no problem picking up the rules. Witch's Brew would be a perfect "gateway" game for most non-gamer friends.

Scripts and Scribes is another short card-based game that revolves around suit collection. There is a deck containing five colored suits (along with gold and Popes). Players take turns drawing five cards from the deck, deciding what happens to each card: three go "up for grabs", one stays hidden and goes into the auction stack, and one stays hidden and is kept by the drawing player. After the drafting round, the auction stack is turned up card-by-card, with players bidding gold cards in an attempt to improve their hands. Each of the five suits is won by whichever player has the highest total points in that suit. Suits are worth a certain number of points, which can be altered throughout the course of the game by playing Pope cards. I'm lukewarm about this game after a single play -- there's nothing inherently wrong with the mechanics, but there weren't any unique elements that I hadn't seen before in a dozen other games. You try to draft well, make smart purchases in the auction, and then someone wins. Scripts and Scribes is fine for what it is -- a simple filler game -- but I doubt I'll be begging for anyone to pull out the box when other games are available.

Burning at the stake would be more fun

2009-06-12T13:02:00.004-05:00

One of the guys from our gaming group brought Joan of Arc last week, and boy, was that a giant, festering three-hour turd of a game.

Yeah, it's going to be one of those reviews. Buckle up, kids.

I'm not going to waste time giving an overview of the game like I normally would. Just know that it's a medium-weight territory control game, hampered by the worst design decisions, most poorly-written rules, and largest amount of "dumb luck" moments of any game I've played in recent memory. That's all you really need to know to enjoy my review.

Let's start with the rules. The English rulebook is only eight pages, which you'd think would make for a nice, simple, streamlined game. Instead, the game's owner brought pages of printed-out errata from the Internet, and we still had trouble making sense of some of the mechanics. There was a lot of flipping back and forth to find a given rule, and huge amounts of information seem to be almost willfully omitted. Keep in mind my group contains several serious gamers, who have no problem understanding much heavier-weight games.

A lot of the comprehension problems stem from the fact that there is very little text on the game components, presumably in an effort to make it cheaper to publish internationally. The deck of "battle cards" consists of yellow number cards (simple: you add the number to your attack roll) and several different "special" red cards. Each of these red cards has a completely unique (and often complicated) function, yet there is no text at all on the cards themselves -- not even the name of the card. You have to find the picture of your card in the rulebook and figure out what it does. Some cards even have a table or two that you'll have to roll the dice against, but none of this is printed on the card itself.

The game itself seems like a cumbersome mishmash of mechanics pulled from different games. Each turn starts with the players voting on "War" or "Peace", which you'd think would have a pretty big impact on things, but it really just determines the number of attacks you can make and possibly cause an extra Event. Then there are the Events and Foreign Intervention. These are both completely random mechanics and there's usually very little player response that can occur -- it's more a matter of "roll the dice and see who gets screwed".

Then there's the meat of the game: expanding and conquering territories. It's pretty standard: each player can use some Battle cards, then you roll the dice and add the result to your battle cards and any defensive fortifications. The higher number wins.

You may have noticed that I've said "roll the dice" quite a bit. Virtually every element in Joan of Arc is randomized. I'm not opposed to a bit of luck-based play in lighter games, but for a multi-hour game that claims to be strategy-based, the number of random factors is ridiculous.

Here's a list of completely random elements:

Turn order (100% random, HUGELY important in this type of game)
Events (randomly changes gameplay for a turn)
Foreign Intervention (random chance to lose a territory)
Battle Cards (random deck, determine your battle strength/abilities)
Combat (roll dice, pray)

We played this stupid game for nearly three hours and didn't even get to finish. I think maybe somebody won, but by that point I was happy just being done with it.

If you read my blog regularly, you know that I've never bashed a game so completely (the only other boardgame I've enjoyed less is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that's a distant memory that I won't be revisiting with a review). However, Joan of Arc contains exactly zero redeeming factors for me.

To paraphrase Spinal Tap: How much more could this game suck? The answer is none. None more suck.

If you're looking for a light-to-medium weight territory control game, skip this one and pick up Small World (my review) instead. You'll be getting a fun, accessible, streamlined product, rather than a horrible jumble of half-formed game design.

Guest review: Diplomacy

2009-06-01T15:55:00.004-05:00

During Play On Con last weekend, Hillary and I went looking for late-night gaming. A full seven-player game of Diplomacy was starting up, and we were invited to play. I had a crushing headache at the time and bowed out in favor of a quick nap, but Hillary stayed on to fight her way through the all-out warfare and cutthroat politics.

She wrote up a nice review of Diplomacy from a newbie's point of view, and so I present it here...

__________

Diplomacy is a strategy/war game that is very easy to understand, but can be very hard to play, depending on your skills and the skills of those you are playing with. There is no luck element to this game and the outcome relies solely on the interactions of the players.

Here's how the game goes:

There's a map of Europe. You draw markers to decide which country you are and get a predetermined number of units (the same for everyone). You can do a handful of things each turn: move a unit, hold a unit, support another unit's move, support another unit's hold, and convoy a land unit to another land via a ship in the area. On each turn, you write your orders and then hand them in to one person who makes sure they get executed correctly. Every "year", there is a spring turn and a fall turn. The number of units you get in the spring is determined by the number of supply centers, cities marked by a star on the map, you had in the previous fall. If you ever have 18 supply centers in your possession, you win. Simple, right?

Keep reading.

Here comes the fun part -- I mean that both literally and ironically. What makes Diplomacy Diplomacy is the negotiation of treaties, the forming of alliances, and the inevitable betrayal of said alliances. During the "writing orders" phase, players go off to the side or leave the room to negotiate with other countries. This is what makes the game truly interesting, because you have to decide what you want, how to get it and who to trust. A game of Diplomacy can get very cutthroat depending on the players and the circumstance. In the game I played, I had to leave for about 20 minutes because of an emergency with my hotel room and when I came back, one of the players was eliminated and looked rather put out. The player who had been the main impetus for this happening apologized by explaining why he did what he did and then saying "sorry you got screwed". He added "you've got to check your friendships at the door with this game."

My idea, for about 2 turns, became to figure out any way I could to screw this particular player because he was cutthroat and he was absolutely going to win. That idea went away when I realized that I was terrible at the game because I lack any ability to visualize military tactics or any notion of how to be cutthroat. So instead, I became said player's bitch. He told me what orders to execute to bother another country, and I moved wherever he needed me to, even if that meant that he took supply centers from me. I probably didn't live up to the group's expectations for the perfect adversary for the 7 player Diplomacy game some of them had been wanting to play all weekend, but I honestly gave it my best shot -- I am just not cut out to be a diplomat.

Some games like this can end up being a "kingmaker", where you figure out you're not going to win, so you then have to figure out which "horse" to back. Diplomacy doesn't necessarily have to be that way for a couple of different reasons. First of all, In the game I played, it was considered completely acceptable to say "I can't do anything else" and put all your units on hold indefinitely. In addition, the game can be voted a draw by all players left in the game, which is what the last 3 players decided upon long after I left the game.

Pros:
Easy to understand, different from most games, no blowing on dice or crossing your fingers, and involves "the human element" more than any game I've played.

Cons:
It's LONG (I played for at least 3 hours and the game went on long after I left), not for the sensitive soul, and requires a very specific skill set for planning moves and "negotiating" with other players.

Overall impression:
Diplomacy is very cool and I understand why it is highly rated on BoardGameGeek. I had a blast despite realizing after 2 or 2.5 hours that I could not play this game well. I actually really like how much it involves the human element -- every game could turn out very differently depending on who you're playing with, what their aim is, etc.

Conclusion:
If this game sounds like the type of thing you would like, step up to a table next time you see someone get out the box. If it doesn't, step away from the table and go grab your Apples to Apples box, you hippie pansy. If you're not sure whether or not this sounds like fun, grab a chair and some popcorn and watch the drama unfold... if you like what you see, join them next time.

One last note:
The fact that this is essentially the "anti-Hillary" game and I still had a lot of fun definitely says something. I wish I could play again, but I am solidly in the "step away from the table" crowd given that I am a sensitive soul, am not good with military tactics, and my attention span lasts all of 30 seconds. I don't think you'll ever see me near a game of Diplomacy again... unless it's with popcorn.

Play On Con 2009 wrap-up

2009-05-29T12:08:00.006-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, Hillary and I had an absolute blast at last weekend's Play On Con 2 convention, held at the Alta Vista Hotel and Conference Center in Birmingham. It wasn't a huge con (estimate was around 250-275 paid attendees), but there was rarely a lack of things to do, people to talk to, or games to play.

I touched on the traditional gaming side of things in my last blog entry, but I wanted to write about some of the other experiences we had over the course of an amazing weekend.

On Friday night, we cleaned up at the Blackjack table during the charity casino event. Over the course of two hours our chip totals stayed fairly static, so we decided to go "all-in" on the last hand. The dealer busted, and we cashed out for some pretty good prizes.

Next up was the Chick Flick Trivia Pajama Party. Neither of us know a damned thing about chick flicks, so we attended more for the spectacle than a desire to actually participate. We both surprised ourselves by answering one question each for our respective teams: me with my unexplainable (and somewhat embarrassing) knowledge of "Spanglish", and Hillary with her spot-on Thriller dance from the scene in "10 Things I Hate About You".

Saturday was all about gaming for us. Morning featured a live-action game of Wiz-War, complete with life-sized board, costumes, props, and oversized spell cards. I heard a few people mention that it was their favorite event of the entire weekend, and I can't disagree. Hillary entered the game as a wizard and did very well; I ended up helping the organizer by handing out kill trophies and occasionally entering the map as a summoned bat or fire imp, yet I had no less fun than the participants.

The evening capped off with a hypnotism show in the main programming area, which drew a lot of laughs. Sadly, none of the participants was ordered to act like a chicken.

As everything moved upstairs for the night, we discovered that a few events had been delayed or canceled without notice, causing us to miss a couple of things that we'd wanted to attend. I was a little bit annoyed about the nighttime programming breakdown (hence my unhappy Twitter post that night). I mentioned it to a director, and he was very understanding and apologized profusely (so much so that I felt kind of bad about bringing it up).

Sunday featured a patio picnic and hula hoop party, complete with live surf music. Daikaiju was awesome, as expected. I wish they could have performed a longer set, but they were playing the con as a courtesy and were double-booked for a "real" show later that evening.

The main programming for the evening was a Rock Band tournament. This was not a question of "how good are you at Rock Band" -- there was a Guitar Hero event for the score whores earlier in the day. This was "how much of a spectacle can you make of yourself?", and the answer is "huge". Great costumes and an energetic crowd made the event truly memorable, with a Jimmy Buffett cover band ("James Tiberius Buffett and His Enterprising Young Men") coming out on top.

Monday morning brought a Dance Dance Revolution tournament, which attracted an impressive three participants. Note to organizers: maybe no physically-taxing events on the last morning of a con. It was decided that the three of us were all winners for actually being awake and ready to dance after such a long and sleepless weekend, so we just played DDR for fun until we could barely stand up.

This did not take long.

A "con in review" session and a short Memorial Day ceremony on the patio overlooking the city wrapped up the weekend nicely for the walking zombies who made it through the weekend.

To keep from going over-the-top with praise for the con, I should definitely point out two significant (as compared to the Saturday night programming breakdown) problems that arose over the course of the weekend.

The hotel had opened up a jazz club sometime after the convention organizers booked the place, which meant that nighttime programming on Friday and Saturday had to be moved upstairs. This wasn't a huge issue, but the upstairs areas (especially the RPG/boardgaming area) sometimes felt cramped. Also, it would have been nice to have the restaurant and patio available for gaming or audience-friendly programming.

A somewhat larger issue was the hotel's Sunday double-booking with a local hip hop radio station's "Wet 'n' Wild Pool Party". We had more problems with this conflict, because the downstairs areas became extremely crowded, and the participants of the party kept wandering into our events. There was a bit of culture clash too, but we gaming nerds tend to be very open and accepting, and I didn't hear of any real altercations between the two groups.

Despite these problems, the Play On Con directors and staff were extremely friendly and helpful, and someone was usually on-hand to help or answer questions. The weekend was a shining example of the old "when life gives you lemons" proverb, and the con staff handled every obstacle masterfully.

This post has grown much longer than I originally intended, so I'll wrap it up.

I will say that we've already preregistered for Play On Con 3 sometime in 2010 (dates and location should be announced in the coming weeks), and I strongly urge our gaming friends not to miss it.

If you haven't been convinced yet, let me offer two little words that might do the trick:

Free alcohol.

See you next year!

16 reasons you should have attended Play On Con

2009-05-26T10:25:00.004-05:00

Hillary and I spent the holiday weekend at Play On Con 2009 in Birmingham. If you're not familiar with Play On Con, it's a small (but growing) gaming-themed convention that just finished up its very successful sophomore event.

I'll do a more extensive write-up of the weekend later, but I wanted make a quick post to say that POC2 was the eleventh convention I've attended, and it was far and away the best experience I've ever had at a con.

I know a lot of our friends were on the fence about attending and ended up not going. To give just a taste of what you missed, here's a list of games, contests, and tournaments that we played over the course of the weekend:

Blackjack (charity casino)

Chick Flick Trivia (and pajama party!)

Live Action Wiz-War

Pandemic

Arkham Horror

Citadels

Diplomacy

Balloon Cup

Virulent

Scarabs and Scorpions

Gamer Triathlon (Suicide Chess, Dice, Memory)

Bang!

Munchkin Bites and Star Munchkin (tournament)

Small World

Dance Dance Revolution (tournament)

Rock Band 2

Quite a list, huh? And it doesn't include the programming we attended... or all the events we missed because we were too busy gaming (there was an entire floor of the hotel dedicated to nighttime parties and drunken revelry that we didn't even venture onto).

I'll give a more coherent look back at the con once I've recovered a bit (I'm still rocking an awesome sleep/nutrition deficit), but hopefully just seeing the sheer amount of gaming opportunities available will inspire you to attend next year.

Tell me what's on your mind

2009-05-19T10:15:00.003-05:00

(Hmm... I think maybe my title references are getting a bit too obscure.)

Last night Hillary and I met up with the area boardgaming group, and we got to try Power Grid for the first time.

I'm not going to post a full review, since this is a heavier-weight game than I've been covering, and a single play isn't enough to get a solid feel for it. I'll just give some quick thoughts.

The first thing I noticed is that there's a lot to remember. Even the experienced players were referring to the game turn cheat sheets pretty often. The actual decision-making mechanics are pretty simple though -- there's an auction phase, a resource-buying phase, and a building phase. We've done all of these things before in various games, just not necessarily in the same one. At the end of each turn, players' powered cities pay off, and there's a "maintenance" phase that evolves slightly as the game progresses.

The only real criticism I have from my first play is that it's incredibly easy to get behind early on, and it seems very difficult to catch up. I was struggling to upgrade and fuel my power plants while trying to save enough cash to expand. Meanwhile, the lead player was able to throw around cash like a... cash-throwing-around machine. It's frustrating to find yourself in a deep hole fifteen minutes into a two-hour game.

The game mechanics attempt to balance uneven games by rearranging turn order (the lead player has to go first in bidding and last in building), but in my game the leaders were always able to extend their lead just enough that there was no real hope of catching up.

I definitely want to give Power Grid another spin and see how possible it is to catch up after poor decisions (or bad luck) early on. The theme is solid and the mechanics are engaging, so nobody will have to twist my arm to get me to play this one again.

On another note, we also played Incan Gold, which is becoming one of my favorite "filler" games. It often gets panned for being too simplistic -- the only decision players face each round is "stay" or "leave" -- but the games I've played so far have been quite fun. It's kind of like Apples to Apples: ridiculously simple, but everyone is laughing throughout the game. I should write up a full review in the near future.

PlayOnCon

2009-05-15T14:47:00.004-05:00

I really didn't mean for this to turn into a boardgaming blog, but it's what we've been into the last few weeks. Maybe I'll surprise everyone and give my thoughts on the finales for Lost, Dollhouse, and Star Trek in an upcoming post.

PlayOnCon is coming up Memorial Day Weekend. It's a gaming and "fandom" convention in Birmingham and was apparently fairly successful last year. I'll probably spend most of my time in the open gaming area (24 hours of random boardgames), but I'm looking forward to the programming as well.

Aside from several panel discussions and gaming events, Daikaiju (a crazy psycho-surf band from Huntsville) is playing on Sunday night. After seeing them at WorkPlay, I can wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone who enjoys fun, high-energy music.

A draft of the programming schedule is now available. There will also be 24-hour open gaming, room parties, and more.

Today is the last day for preregistration, but weekend and daily passes will be available at the door for a slightly increased price. I know a ton of people following my blog are Birmingham-area gamers, so hopefully a bunch of you will come check it out!

Generic reference to the bad guys on Deep Space Nine

2009-05-07T13:07:00.004-05:00

I wrote up a review of Dominion last week and forgot to post it. Oops. Hillary and I also got to try out Zooloretto with our local gaming group, so I'll get a quick review of that one up too.

Gameplay:
Dominion is a medieval-themed card game where each player attempts to build the best personal deck by buying cards from various face-up supply piles in the center of the board. Gameplay flow is simple: play an action from your hand, buy a card from the supply area (which goes into your discard pile), and then discard both your hand and all cards played this turn, drawing five new cards to replace them.

Yeah, you read that right. You chuck your entire hand every turn. Use it or lose it. I was a bit confused when the rules said that any card I bought from the supply area would immediately go into my discard pile. It didn't take long before the dynamic made sense, though; as soon as a player's draw deck is empty, the discard pile is shuffled to form a new deck. Since players are going through cards so quickly, all purchased cards will end up in the draw deck within a few turns.

Ideally, you want to find a balance between buying Treasure cards (the currency that allows you to buy everything), Kingdom cards (which grant special abilities or bonus resources), and Victory cards (which score points at the end but are absolutely useless when drawn into your hand). Everything you buy ends up in your deck, for better or worse.

Winning conditions are simple. Once any three supply piles are empty, or as soon as the high-scoring Province supply deck is gone, the game is over. Players go through their deck counting up Victory Point cards, and the player with the most points is the winner.

Review:
The rules are clear and simple; no complaints there. We figured out the gameplay flow within the first few turns of our initial game and rarely had to consult the manual while playing. The language on the cards is very clear, and it's easy to tell a Kingdom card's benefits at a glance.

There's not much to say about the physical components; you get several decks of cards that are fairly standard CCG-style quality. The artwork is decent (but not spectacular), and the cards are visually distinctive enough to tell them apart at a glance. The game box contains a plastic tray that keeps the individual card types separated -- it works well, but future expansions might complicate this a bit.

I've heard complaints that Dominion suffers from the "game playing the player" syndrome, and I can't completely disagree. In a given hand of five cards, the best play is often obvious. Still, with sixteen supply piles on the table, there are always decisions to be made. Maintaining a good deck balance is key -- victory cards are useless when drawn into a player's hand, but they directly determine the winner. It seems contradictory to say that a game offers so many options every turn and yet lacks strategic depth, but this has been my experience so far.

My main problem with Dominion is that there isn't much player interaction. You're building your own deck, and your actions (other than the occasional "Attack" card) don't affect your opponent. The supply piles are large, so there's no danger of resources running out until toward the end of the game.

It would be nice if there were more options for interfering with your opponent's plans. I can imagine situations where an obvious winner would emerge halfway through the game, yet the other players would be powerless to do anything about it.

I posted a draft version of this review over on the SA forums, and several posters mentioned that Dominion works much better with three or four players. After seeing how well Pandemic scaled down for two players, I had hoped that Dominion would do the same.

Having been absolutely blown away by Small World (admittedly a very different type of game) barely a week ago, it would take a lot to impress me; Dominion isn't quite there yet, but I'm optimistic for future plays. And replayability should be high, since the game comes with 25 different Kingdom card types, of which only 10 types are used each game.

I'll report back once we've tried a game with more players, but for now I give Dominion a very reserved "thumbs up".

Disney rides would be better with Berserking Skeletons

2009-04-29T10:16:00.003-05:00

Hillary and I met up with the Birmingham group of boardgamers again this week. One of the attendees had brought his copy of Small World, which was just released this month. I'd read favorable reviews of the game, so we quickly jumped into the group and gave it a try.

Gameplay:
Small World is a light civilization-style territory control game with a few minor wargame elements. I've been told that the game is basically an updated, fantasy-themed cousin of Vinci (which I've never played, so that description didn't mean much to me).

Each player takes on the role of a civilization, one of several fantasy races (orcs, giants, humans, tritons, etc.), each having its own unique ability. Each race is also randomly paired with a special attribute that grants another ability (such as Merchant, Flying, or Diplomatic). The attributes are fairly powerful, and can create very effective combinations with a race's built-in ability.

The gameboard is a colorful map consisting of a few dozen regions, several containing symbols that denote natural resources. Although not laid out in a hex pattern, the board reminded me a bit of Catan; each region is distinctly a field, or a mountain, or a swamp, etc. Scattered around the map are remnants of a "dying" civilization that once controlled the area, but otherwise the lands are clear and ready to be settled.

Players colonize and conquer by placing the unit tokens for their race on the map. Taking a clear area requires two units (barring any special abilities), while conquering an inhabited area, or one with a mountain, will take more. The simple rule of thumb is "two units plus one per piece of cardboard already on the space" (a piece of cardboard being any token: an enemy unit, a defensive emplacement, or a mountain).

Combat is neither random nor contested -- if enough units are used to attack, a player can force enemy units out of a space and take it. For the final move of a turn (usually when only one or two units are still available), a player may roll a die and add the result (0-3) as "bonus" units, only useful for determining the attack's outcome. When a stack of units is defeated in battle, one is removed from the game, and the rest are returned to the owner to redeploy among other territories. This causes attrition among each civilization as battles are fought, since most races can't replace a unit token once it is lost.

At the end of each player's turn, that player receives victory points based on the number of spaces currently controlled, plus any bonus points granted by special abilities (for example, Humans get an extra victory point for each field they control, while Orcs get a bonus point every time they conquer an occupied region).

A key game element is the ability to "decline" a civilization and choose a new one. When declining a civilization, each unit stack is reduced to one unit, and the civ can no longer move, use special abilities, or conquer territory. However, the race still scores points for the controlling player as long as it continues to exist. A common strategy is to make a quick land-grab with a populous or unusually mobile race, put it into decline, and then choose a more combat-oriented race to either defend the now-declining civilization or simply start conquering more territory while the declining race continues to score points.

Gameplay seems to run about 60-90 minutes. With five players, our first game lasted around two hours, but the second was over within about 75 minutes. Each game only runs eight rounds (at least for the five-player version), so at any point you've got a good idea of how far into the session you are, and how much time you have left to set up a win.

Review:
After two games of Small World, I have to say I'm very impressed. The random combinations of races and attributes keep the game fresh, and the combat dynamic is so light and simple that conquering territory never becomes cumbersome. At first I was worried that the imbalance between the different race and attribute abilities would be a problem, but this wasn't the case in the sessions I played. Civilizations move up a "stack", and players can pay victory points to take a more desirable combination that's a bit further down. Even if a player lucks out and gets a very powerful combination, chances are good that there's something else on the stack that can counter or defend against it.

Player interaction is moderately high. While there's no way to immediately respond to another player's action, you can directly affect their units and territory on your own turn. For example, during one game Hillary controlled nearly half the board and had a great race/attribute combination. It was obvious that she would win handily if left alone, so I started a new civ as a heavily militant race and blitzed through her borders, conquering nearly her entire territory within a couple of turns. (I'm lucky I didn't have to sleep on the couch that night.)

I do have a few minor complaints about the game design. The first problem concerns turn order. There's a distinct advantage to going first, especially later in the game when removing enemy units (and their potential to score points) is as important as capturing your own territory. Since players score at the end of their own turn, moving earlier in a round is beneficial -- especially during the last round. I've already seen a suggested rules variant for fixing this (keeping victory points visible and ordering turns from lowest to highest current point total), and I'd be interested in trying this out to see if it balances the game a bit better.

My other complaint is that the gameboard gets very busy, and it can be hard to keep track of everything that's going on. The unit counters don't have very distinct color schemes, especially when a race is in decline (tokens are flipped over to a "grayed out" side). This can make it difficult to spot units of different races and count up victory points at the end of a turn. It would have been nice if the designers had given each unit counter a unique race-specific colored or patterned border.

Aside from this, the game components are well-made and the artwork is appropriate to the theme. The cardboard counters are thick and seem like they'll hold up well during multiple plays. The game's plastic box insert keeps all of the dozens of tokens separated perfectly, and hopefully other game publishers will use it as an example of how to design built-in component storage.

Most importantly, the game is fun. After finishing our initial two-hour session, the owner of our copy asked "Do we want to play again?", and the answer was a quick and unanimous "Yes!". I can't think of too many hour-plus games that get this kind of reaction.

Overall, Small World is an excellent game, and I would have already bought my own copy if my wife hadn't already threatened to kill me for buying Dominion this week.

A plethora of games

2009-04-27T08:33:00.003-05:00

Welcome to my boardgame blog! Well, not really; it's just the only interesting thing that has been happening lately.

Over the weekend, Hillary and I visited a couple of friends that we don't get to see very often, so the four of us spent an afternoon hanging out and playing games.

First up was Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which our hosts had played but my wife and I were new to. I liked the house-building dynamic, and it seems like every game will go differently, which keeps things fresh. I did notice that until the haunting occurs, the players are pretty much on their own, and anything I did had no real effect on anyone else. The particular haunting we got seemed to be heavily skewed against the traitor (my lovely wife), but I'd have to play more to decide whether the game has real balance issues.

Our friends hadn't played Pandemic yet, and we'd been wanting to try a four-player game. Since we had two newbies, we decided to play the "easy" mode with only four Epidemics in the deck. The game plays a bit differently with more people, and we found that the individual Roles are much more important. As the Dispatcher, I spent most of my actions each turn shuttling people around the map. Likewise with the Researcher; most of his turns consisted of slinging cards out to the other players. We won pretty handily, and I kind of wish we'd started on the "normal" difficulty. The game seemed to be a hit, and we're looking forward to trying it with more Epidemics in the deck next time.

At this point we wanted to play a quick filler game or two, so next up was On the Dot, which I had picked up before the weekend. We were all new to this odd little puzzle-solving game, so it took a few rounds before we got the hang of it. Hillary wasn't a big fan of this one (she later complained that she had to play a logic game against three engineers), but at least the games are short. The rest of us enjoyed it for what it was -- a quick little time-waster with no real player interaction.

Since the group was divided over the previous game, we broke out one of my wife's favorites, Apples to Apples, for a bit. I am terrible at this game, but it's always fun either way. Something "Adorable"? How about "Chainsaws"! Our friends own several custom cards with lots of inside jokes (which we're mostly in on, fortunately) so the game generated a lot more laughs than usual.

We decided to continue our string of lighter games with a couple of rounds of Bausack Noir. Not much to say about it -- each player builds a tower out of a collection of differently-shaped blocks. We'd all played before, so we stacked up our towers and spent most of each game trying to screw over our fellow players with oddly shaped blocks. Always fun.

The girls both had things to do, so my friend Bill and I opted for a two-player game to finish off the night. He suggested BattleLore, which I'd never played before but was interested in trying. It was about what I expected: a very light wargame with simple combat. We played a starter campaign (Battle of Agincourt) and didn't add in any of the expansion elements. I took on the role of the English, and managed to eke out a very close win by being incredibly lucky with my archers' attack rolls in the first couple of rounds, taking out most of my opponent's cavalry before they could get in range. I enjoyed our battle, but it didn't seem deep enough with just the basic rules -- at least with something like Heroscape, each unit has unique stats and special abilities. It sounds like the game will be more interesting if we try it with the more advanced rules and start adding in magic and expansions.

Everyone had a great time overall (excepting Hillary's distinct dislike for On the Dot), and it reminded me why I got into this hobby into the first place. Hopefully we'll get another chance to do this again soon!

You know how hard it is for me to shake the disease

2009-04-22T08:21:00.004-05:00

I'm a bit late on the post, but we got to play three games of Pandemic over the weekend, and it has already jumped onto our "favorites" list.

This was our first taste of a 100% cooperative boardgame (aside from a really screwy Lord of the Rings game I was in several years ago that I later discovered we hadn't been playing even remotely correctly). We weren't quite sure what to expect, since it's pretty rare that a game that isn't specifically designed for two players scales down correctly.

The players take on the role of scientists from the Center for Disease Control, responding to simultaneous outbreaks of four deadly diseases around the world. Players have to balance treatment and containment of each disease with searching for cures; you can't win without discovering all four cures, but you lose if any of the diseases get out of hand or if there are too many regional outbreaks. Each character has a different role with its own special ability (for example, the Medic can treat an entire city in one turn, while the Dispacher can instantly move players around the world), so players have to use teamwork and communication to contain and ultimately cure each disease.

The game design feels like it's heavily stacked against the players, with several Epidemic cards seeded into the player deck that both cause new infections and intensify the existing ones. There's only one criteria for winning the game (finding all four cures), but a multitude of ways everyone can lose (eight outbreaks throughout the course of the game, running out of disease tokens of a specific color, or exhausting the player card deck). Even though it can be frustrating, the level of difficulty is a good thing for the longevity of the game. After all, if we knew we were going to win every time we pulled Pandemic off the shelf, it wouldn't come out very often.

Our first three games were on the "beginner" difficulty (four Epidemic cards in the deck). We quickly lost the first game to mass outbreaks as we figured out the rules. Our strategy formed pretty quickly, as we managed to win the next two games (barely -- at the end of one game there were only three cards left in the player deck, one of which was an Epidemic that would have put us over the outbreak limit). We're going to start stacking the deck with more Epidemics next time and see how the difficulty scales; I've read that five is hard, and six is absolutely brutal.

Pandemic is definitely going into our regular rotation of two-player games, and it looks to scale very well up to four players as well. It's definitely worth checking out if you want to take a truly cooperative game for a spin.

Game Night... with Strangers?

2009-04-21T10:28:00.003-05:00

Last night Hillary and I met up with a group of local gamers we'd found through BoardGameGeek.

The group has been playing together weekly for quite a while, but it was our first time attending. I'm always a little hesitant to meet new people who are into gaming and other geeky stuff, because... well... if you've ever met random people at a sci-fi or gaming convention, you know what I mean. Everyone was very friendly though, and it was a fairly diverse group of people from an age/profession standpoint. There was a good turnout, so we ended up splitting into three groups, each playing a different game.

My group's first game was Winds of Plunder, which is a pirate-themed resource collection/control game. You play a pirate captain, sailing between Caribbean ports and collecting crew, weapons, and provisions. Each commodity gives you a different advantage during the game (and a bonus ability if you have the most of a given item), as well as being worth victory points at the end. Players bid on the wind direction each turn, which determines where you can sail -- the only way you can go against the wind is by burning ALL of your actions for that turn. Players can explore new ports to gain bonus points for visiting all ports in a region, and the occasional treasure map gives the opportunity to score a progressive (and potentially huge) amount of victory points for digging up booty.

I like the game for the most part, although there are a few game elements that didn't seem quite balanced. A few of the player cards (which can be played as one of three actions on your own turn) seem overpowered, while a few are only useful in very rare and specific situations (for example, a card that gives you a free movement against the wind if you're in last place -- given a four-player game, this is only going to be useful 25% of the time at most). Also, while you can attack and plunder an opponent's ship, combat is too simplistic and consists of "whoever has the most guns wins". Cards can only affect the outcome of a battle if played before combat; this greatly benefits the attacker, as you can only play cards on your own turn.

Regardless of any minor criticisms of the rules, the game was very enjoyable. I should mention that the game feels sufficiently "piratey" -- a theming element that a lot of pirate boardgames seem to lack for some reason. I somehow eked out a victory during the final point count-up by controlling the largest arsenal and most provisions. The victory point total was hotly contested throughout the game, so there's decent balance regarding the outcome, even if individual elements might seem a bit skewed.

It was getting late by the time we were done pillaging, so we opted for a quick "filler" game, Marrakech. It's an extremely simple game -- players move Assan (a big fat token wearing a fashionable fez) around the board (an outdoor marketplace), laying down carpets of their own color. If Assan lands on another player's carpet, the controlling player has to pay the owner a certain amount of money -- think paying rent in Monopoly. The strategy is a overly simplistic; the "best" move is usually obvious, and options are pretty limited on a given turn. Still, the rules are short (one page), the turns are fast, and the game ends when the last carpet is played. All of this makes Marrakesh is a good option when time is very limited.

Oddly, I won this game too, which makes me feel a little guilty. I generally try to play my best (and would hope that my opponents will do the same), but I'm always worried that I'll come off as an overcompetitive asshole when I get a winning streak going. I'm more concerned with having fun, and I enjoy a hilariously disasterous loss almost as much as pulling off a clever victory.

Still, everyone seemed to have a good time, and I look forward to meeting up with these folks again.

Settlers of Catan, but not the good one

2009-04-14T10:51:00.003-05:00

(Adapted from a review I posted over on the SA Traditional Games forum.)

Hillary and I received a copy of the Settlers of Catan Card Game for Christmas, and we finally got around to breaking the shrink wrap a few nights ago.

Being a long-time fan of Catan, I had high hopes after reading the rules. The concepts behind the card game are very similar to the board game, right down to the costs of settlements and cities. You build roads and settlements, which can later be upgraded to cities (allowing different and more powerful buildings to be created). If you're familiar with the board game, you'll recognize familiar elements like the bandit, the "largest army" token, and the victory point system.

Once we started playing, though, we found the game to be painfully slow. Most expansion cards (which consist of buildings you can create in your settlements/cities or actions you can play during your turn) tended to be completely useless in most situations. For example, I started the game with two city-only building cards (which is a problem since you don't start with a city) and an action card that only applied to a very specific situation that wasn't likely to appear until much later in the game. It seemed like we never had the resources needed to do anything, and because it's a two-player game, trading didn't seem like a good idea in most situations (unlike the rampant, marketplace like atmosphere in the 3+ player board game).

The resource system is both better and worse than the board game. You start with six regions, each corresponding to one of the faces of the single die that you roll during the production phase. This means that you'll get one resource every turn, which lessens the "random string of bad luck" problems that can absolutely cripple an otherwise good Catan board game player. The problem is that you can't set yourself up to cash in, either, so both players tend have a similar number of resources at any given time.

We also found that a few of the cards are really, really imbalanced. The Mint, especially, which is a city building that allows you to trade one gold for any other resource. The problem is that the rules explicitly let you do this an unlimited number of times per turn. If you luck out and get a second gold mine, the Mint pretty much can't be stopped. There are several other expansions that range from overpowered to virtually useless, and there's very little middle ground.

As the game drug on, we found that victory points are surprisingly hard to come by; even after cherry-picking the point-awarding buildings out of the expansion decks, we were both short of the 12-point victory total after what seemed like an eternity of play. We finally agreed on a house rule that only ten points were required to end the game. I won a few turns later, but it was a hollow victory.

I doubt we'll be playing this one again. The flow is just too cumbersome for what, at the surface, seems to be a fairly lightweight two-player game. I love my multi-hour Talisman and Puerto Rico sessions, but two-player games really need to be quick, engaging, and fun. Sadly, the Catan Card Game is none of these.

2009-03-25T07:39:00.002-05:00

For you Twitter... uh... ers, I've set up a Twitter account.

I'm not sure how often I'll update it, but probably more often than this thing.

Fun with IT

2009-03-23T14:17:00.001-05:00

If I have to work another day in IT, I think I'm going to shoot myself.

(Not literally, don't call the men in white coats, please.)

2008 Presidential D&D Game

2008-10-28T12:56:00.002-05:00

Blatantly stolen from the World of Warcraft forums...

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA: Well, if you'd bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you...

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty "Matterhorn, son of Marathon" shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: "My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one."

MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.

OBAMA: OH NO YOU DIDN'T.

MCCAIN: Whatever, so's your mom.

OBAMA: So's your FACE.

MCCAIN: So's your Mom's face!

HILARY: WTF you guys. Why am I playing the cleric?

MCCAIN: Hilary, we've been over this.

HILARY: No, dude. I am so sick of being the girlfriend healer. Seriously, I can't even use a sword. !*%# this noise.

KUCINICH: IM A BARD

OBAMA: That's nice.

KUCINICH: MY FAMILIAR IS A PURPLE SNOW LEOPARD

MCCAIN: Oh, Jesus. Here we go.

KUCINICH: DID I MENTION MY WIFE IS A TOTALLY BANGIN DRYAD WITH 20 CHARISMA

HILARY: C'mon you guys, I've been playing this *@#* since Gygax was in eighth grade. Why can't I be the party leader with the magic sword for once?

MCCAIN: Because no one wants to see you in a bronze bra.

OBAMA: Oh dude, BURRRRRNNNN.

HILARY: SCREW YOU, Grandpa. I will so kick your ass.

MCCAIN: Yeah? Bring it! I didn't spend 3 years in the Abyss with Githzerai hooking my nads up to a car battery to get beat by some Wellesley girl.

HILARY: WHATEVER, you can't even lift your arms over your head.

RON PAUL: I brought my Planescape character!

OBAMA: Dude, we're playing Forgotten Realms.

RON PAUL: I rift in from Sigil! I'm a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Barbarian/Monk/Rogue!

MCCAIN: DUDE, that is not even LEGAL.

RON PAUL: Ronpaul the Barbarian say: suck it! Guns and abortions and weed for everyone! WHEEE!

PALIN: Hi folks! Sorry I'm late! I brought caribou burgers.

HILARY: Who the HELL is this?

MCCAIN: It's cool, she's with me.

HILARY: No! No, it's not cool! Every time you bring one of your rodeo-queen girlfriends in here she ends up playing some succubus infiltrator and killing the whole party!

MCCAIN: Now, that is patently untrue.

BIDEN: He has a point. Cindy turned out to be a vampire.

MCCAIN: DUDE. SHUT UP.

GM: You guys, seriously, if you don't knock it off with the bickering I'm going to start docking XP.

MCCAIN: You know what? !*%# it. I'm suspending the campaign.

GM: You can't do that! Only I can suspend the campaign! I didn't suspend it for the 1988 Mountain Dew shortage and I'm not going to suspend it now.

KUCINICH: YOU GUYS I AM TOTALLY CASTING A CANTRIP

MCCAIN: Oh my god, Dennis, shut up, you don't even count.

KUCINICH: YOU GUYS ARE %%*#S

BIDEN: Where are the Cheetos?

RON PAUL: Wait. What happen to tiny Mormon Man?

GM: You find Mitt's lifeless, drained corpse has been stuffed in the broom closet.

HILARY: Oh, God DAMMIT.

MCAIN: Not ok! NOT OK!

OBAMA: What, I didn't even get a detect evil roll for that one?

HILARY: I TOLD you she was a succubus, but did anyone listen? Oohhhhh no, Hilary's just jealous of the beauty queen.

RON PAUL: Pretty Lady screw Mitt lifeless. Ronpaul SMASH!!

MCCAIN: Would you please go light up a spliff and stay out of this? The grown ups are talking.

RON PAUL: Why pretty lady suck life out of Mitt and not Ronpaul? Not fair!

HILARY: I mean, never mind that I'm the one with 17 Wisdom, but does anyone listen to the girl? Noooooo.

RON PAUL: Also Mitt have stupid name. Who name kid after baseball equipment?

KUCINICH: HAY YOU GUYS CHECK OUT MY HEAD OF VECNA TRICK

HILARY: This never would have happened when Tim Russert was our GM.

GM: You know what? Forget it. Rocks fall, everyone dies.

OBAMA: Screw you guys. I'm going to go play Bunnies and Burrows at Jon Stewart's house.

HILARY: Me too.

MCCAIN: Me too.

KUCINICH: GAZEBO!

Pretty amusing, but not enough "my friends" references.

Video Games Live

2008-10-10T09:30:00.005-05:00

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the first-ever Video Games Live show in Alabama.

The Alabama Symphony Orchestra and UAB Choir performed over two hours of video game scores, ranging from the classics (seriously, Pong) to a certain Blizzard game that hasn't even come out yet.

A mostly-complete setlist of what they played:
- Classic game medley: Donkey Kong, Robotron, Frogger, etc.
- Dragon's Lair / Space Ace
- Metal Gear Solid
- God of War
- Civilization 4
- The Legend of Zelda
- Metroid
- Kingdom Hearts
- Warcraft 3 / World of Warcraft
- Starcraft 2
- Super Mario Brothers
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Halo / Halo 3
- Final Fantasy 7
- Castlevania

The performance was amazing; it was often easy to forget that I was listening to a live orchestra, because it sounded too perfect to be anything but a professionally-recorded soundtrack. The songs that were originally orchestral were spot-on, and the older game scores that had to be translated from bleeps and bloops to a symphonic piece were very well-composed and instantly recognizable.

The UAB choir was particularly awesome, especially considering that virtually everything they sang (other than the "SEGA" logo, which had us rolling on the floor) was in Latin, Swahili, or... well... Elvish. The swelling chorus during the World of Warcraft theme was nothing less than breathtaking.

Toward the end, host Tommy Tallarico -- yeah, that guy from the horrible "Judgment Day" show on G4TV -- came out and performed some guitar wankery during the Halo, FF7, and Castlevania themes. It was appropriate for Halo, but he quickly wore out his stage welcome with all of the grandstanding and prancing around in front of the orchestra.

Overall, it was an incredible show. My inner geek has shown through once again, but damned if VGL wasn't the perfect way to get me to spend a night at the symphony.

Corollary

2008-10-08T14:01:00.001-05:00

Sony: "No price drop on the Playstation 3 in 2008."

Me: "No purchase of the Playstation 3 in 2008."

Ooh, burn.

NO CARRIER Episode 8

2008-09-16T09:51:00.003-05:00

The curse is broken!

After an extended hiatus, we've got the new podcast ready for you! Check our our show notes at the NO CARRIER homepage or if reading words isn't your style, you can just download the MP3.

Less talk more rock

2008-08-25T15:06:00.003-05:00

Wow, I haven't updated this thing in a month. I may get back to the D&D thing soon (was anyone reading it?), but I had typed this up for one of the forums I post on and figured I'd put it up here.

My top 5 favorite Rock Band songs (by instrument):

Guitar:

The Grateful Dead – Franklin’s Tower
The Mother Hips – Red Tandy
Muse – Hysteria
Boston – More Than a Feeling
The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter

Bass:

Muse – Hysteria
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dani California
Rush – Working Man
The Mother Hips – Red Tandy
The Grateful Dead – Franklin’s Tower

Drums:

The Mother Hips – Red Tandy
Radiohead – My Iron Lung
The Who – Baba O’Riley
Smashing Pumpkins – Siva
Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun

Vocals:

Weezer – El Scorcho
Pixies – Debaser
Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives – I Get By
Smashing Pumpkins – Zero
Pixies – Crackety Jones

Probably not anything too surprising, except that I'm probably the only person on the planet who enjoys singing "I Get By".

Also, "Red Tandy" by The Mother Hips is criminally underappreciated. It's quite possibly the all-around best song in the game (or at least up there with "Hysteria").

Kid 'n' Play not in attendance

2008-07-22T14:26:00.004-05:00

We had our housewarming party over the weekend, and the turnout was excellent. We ran out of chairs at some point, but nobody seemed to mind standing around to socialize. Lots of co-workers and friends were in attendance, and most everyone seemed to mingle together pretty well.

I made a huge platter of buffalo wings using the Good Eats method, and I have to say they're the best wings I've ever eaten. It's all about the cooking method -- the wings spend ten minutes in the steamer to render out a bunch of fat, and then go in a very hot oven for 45 minutes. Doing it this way gives you a nice crispy outer skin that the sauce clings to, while keeping the interior nice and tender. I will never put wings in a deep fryer ever again.

Hillary made a couple of cakes, one of which she labelled "the Delicious Disaster" because it didn't turn out quite as visually appealing as she'd hoped. It tasted excellent, however, and I think people ate more of the ugly cake than the pretty heart-shaped one she made. She also cranked out what may be the best buttercream frosting I've ever tasted.

Once the party was in full swing, we busted out Rock Band and proceeded to get our rock on. Unfortunately, my bass drum pedal, which was already sporting a hairline crack, decided to snap in half when my friend Adam (who henceforth shall be known as "fat-feet") started playing on it. We muddled through a few more songs, after creatively utilizing some kitchen flatware as a splint for the bass pedal.

As the crowd started to dwindle, we gathered around the coffee table for a rousing session of The Great Dalmuti (also known as Dilbert Corporate Shuffle). It's a perfect game for a group of 6-10 people, as hands go very quickly and the rules are extremely easy to pick up. You also get to play musical chairs, which is fun in any context.

Anyway, it was great fun. Thanks to everyone who could attend, and if you couldn't make it this time, I'm sure we'll host something again soon -- as soon as my new bass pedal gets here.

NO CARRIER Episode 7

2008-07-17T09:07:00.003-05:00

We interrupt this D&D game to present you this week's episode of NO CARRIER. We went longform this week, covering topics from the Activision/Blizzard merger to nVidia's mobile chip woes.

You can check it out at the NO CARRIER website.

D&D Campaign - Episode 1

2008-07-14T08:58:00.001-05:00

Game Session #1 - May 28, 2001

Color Key:
Player Character dialog and actions
PC actions when controlled by DM
DM communication to players
NPC dialog and actions
Area descriptions and flavor text
Log annotations
Die rolls

This night, you've all chosen to visit one of the taverns in Errol for various reasons: whether to drink, visit with friends, or simply observe people.

It is well past nightfall, in the month of Deepwinter. Spring is on the horizon, but the air still carries the chill wind of winter. Patrons huddle around the fireplaces and ovens of the Cackling Wyvern Inn, which contains the largest tavern in Errol.

The night has advanced enough that only a few stragglers remain around the small stage at the east side of the inn. The rest of the tavern's visitors have retired to their homes or inn rooms, or quietly nurse their final drinks near the warmth of the fires.

A young half-elf woman sits on the tiny wooden stage, serenely plucking at the tavern's rusty full-sized harp. She does not seem to notice the frequent discordant note that issues from the instrument, nor does she acknowledge the random copper piece being tossed at her feet (and occasionally, at her head).

Near midnight, there is a sudden, loud rumbling from somewhere outside. The very walls of the common room shake, dropping hung portaits to the floor and overturning more than one stein of mead or ale.

The tavern patrons (those who are sober enough to do so) jump to their feet, and many cries of alarm ring out from around the inn. The rumble continues, fading into silence after many long moments.

As an uneasy calm settles, many of the more adventurous-looking types make a determined march toward the tavern's only door to the outside. Across the river, against the dim moonlight, a large plume of smoke can faintly be seen.

The sound of a group of running, iron-shod feet is heard from up the street. A handful of Errol Home Guards runs toward the harbor area, and the bridge that crosses the river. One of them stops at the doorway of the tavern.

Guard: There's been an explosion at the docks! We need any able-bodied citizens we can get to help!

Most of the tavern patrons seem timid or inebriated, but five people take up their weapons and packs and follow the guard out.

Upon approaching the bridge, you see that there is a raging fire along the entire coast on the other side of the river. Every building seems to have flames spewing from it, and even from this side of the harbor, the smoke is almost unbearable.

As you approach the wooden bridge, a flaming ember flutters over and lands on the canopy. Within seconds, the dry timber has burst into flame.

Keris: "Well blast."
Reav: "Hmm looks like the party got a little out of control here"
Keris: "well lads, we've got to get across somehow"
Keris: "how about we throw this little bloke across with a rope?"
Ander: Is the river swimmable?
DM: Ander - The port itself is on the far side of the river, and there is little on this bank except for a row of small storage sheds near the waterline.
Reav: "ropes too risky unless its wet first, cant have it burning up now can we?"
DM: Reav - It's hard to tell at night, but generally the river is too swift to swim across.
Ander: is there anything that might be useful in the area?
DM: Ander - You don't see anything from your station near the bridge. The sheds obstruct your view of the shoreline, but there are certainly no ships on this side of the river.
Ander: can i get the shed out of view?

The small contingent of guards you were following rush off toward the water's edge, trying to gather water in buckets, helmets, or anything else that will hold liquid. Unfortunately, their efforts seem somewhat futile.

DM: Ander - You could walk down the shoreline, away from the bridge.
Keris: is the river more shallow/managable there?
DM: Keris - No. It's a fairly wide and deep river (ships take it all the way across the island and out to sea). Unfortunately, all of the ships are on the other side of the river, where the docks themselves are now starting to burn.
Keris: "a'right boys. what can ya do? what talents do ya have?"
Ander: could i swim across the deep/slow part of the river?
Reav: Well, if I knew how wide this here river is, I'd probably try to grapple us a boat from over yonder there
DM: Ander - The whole thing is generally too swift to swim. You could try, but the prospects don't look good. You can see some debris flying into the river and being swept away very quickly.
The river is about a quarter of a mile wide at the bridge. It widens further to the east and west.
Ander: "Maybe swimming it is not a good idea"
Ander: is there any wood lying around?
Keris: how much time do we have?

There is a crash from across the river, and you see the roof of the Quartermaster's Office caving in, breaking into a pile of burning timbers.

Keris: "we've haven't got a lot of time here. Think!"
* Keris looks at group
DM: Well, it will take a while for the entire harbor area to burn. Unfortunately, there's barely anybody over there, since most residents of Errol live on this side of the river.
Keris: "If you can..."
Reav: are there any trees within a decent distance?
Rockface: "We might not be able to do anything."
Keris: Can we dismantle the sheds?
Keris: And make them into makeshift rafts?
DM: Reav - Small evergreens along the shoreline. Not much toward the town (Errol is situated on the edge of a fairly barren plain).
Keris - The sheds are falling apart, but there seems to be some usable wood there.
Ander: "let's take apart the shed"
Ander: "they are practically apart anyways"
Keris: "Do any of you have any way of tying the wood together?"
Keris: is the wood in form of planks?
Ander: "I have my belt"
Reav: "Well, I do have rope here, and some small skill with it, if that helps"
Ander: "Okay, let's use that instead"
Keris: "well, busy your hands more than your mouth and let's get moving"
DM: Keris - Yes, mostly planks, boards, rotting posts...
* Ander starts ripping apart a shed
* Keris starts looking for usable planks of wood
Keris: how much do we find?
Reav: "Well, I'd do more iffin that Dwarf there who isnt so drunk from his ability to stand upright would drag that wood over...."
Reav: and yes, i'll use rope

As you begin to dismantle the sheds, a small flood of rats comes barreling out from between the rotting boards. An entire wall of the nearest structure collapses, revealing lots of fishing supplies, some old wagon axels, and... a decrepit-looking rowboat.

Keris: "ugggh...rats"
* Ander inspects the rowboat for seaworthiness
Keris: I stab one with my rapier and chuck it out into the water.
DM: Keris - The rat quickly goes under.
DM: Ander - It's hard to tell... There are certainly holes in the hull, but it's large enough to get five people across the river -- if it doesn't sink first.
* Reav kicks a rat that comes over in the general direction of the river
* Keris kills another rat and uses it to plug holes in the boat.
DM: Keris - It's not doing much good... Aside from getting blood all over your hands, most of the holes in the boat are nothing but small cracks caused by warping wood.
Ander: "This looks like the yarrest river going boat there be"
Reav: why not use a rapid fox to combine the planks, the boat, and the rope to make the boat more seaworthy?
Keris: "a rapid fox?"
Keris: "is this some sort of game you country folks play?"
* Ander looks over in the river

As the city guards vainly attempt to quench the fires on the bridge, there is a loud creaking noise. The guards attempt to leap to safety, but two are taken into the river as the entire structure collapses and is swept away.

Ander: "ahh, rapid foxes, a danger we haven't considerd yet
Reav: "A rapid fix not fox or did some of those coppers fall in your fair ears miss?"
Keris: "oh flaming ashes, they've fallen in."
* Ander pushes the boat towards the water and scans the river for wildlife"
Keris: "well, if you didn't bloody throw them in I wouldn't have this problem!"
Keris: "hey boy! That girl's still leaking! stop!"
Reav: "Hey, why spend good copper on ears when oh geesh here"
Ander: "Just getting it in position"
* Reav takes some of the chalk bits from his sack and hands them to Ander
Ander: "Why don't we jsut make a run for it. If it does get swamped we can most likely swim the rest"
Reav: "try these for fixing some of those holes, should last long enough to get across the river
Keris: "but it won't save the two gents who've fallen in"

The guards who fell in the river went under fairly quickly, weighted down by their metal armor. You haven't seen them since, though some of the other guards ran down the shore to look for them.

Keris: "oh bother"
Reav: "Hang on, imabye we can get them out with this"
Keris: "well, let's see if the chalk will work"
* Reav pulls out the grappiling hook in his sack with a length of rope attached

Across the river, you can hear some faint cries, mixed in among the roar of the flames and the crashing of burning walls and ceilings.

Reav: "Anyone for fishinng for guards?"
* Ander attempts to plug the holes in the boat with the chalk
Keris: "you there, what's your name?"
DM: The chalk fills in the cracks fairly easily, but it's hard to tell whether it will help waterproof the hull.
Reav: "Who me?"
Keris: "yes, the country boy"
Ander: "well it will have to do"
* Ander places the boat at the edge of the water
Keris: "well, pour a little water on it and see if the chalk just washes away"
Reav: "Just call me Reav miss?"
Keris: "ok Reav, we'll have to forget the guards for now, they're long gone."
Ander: "Al aboard who are going aboard"
Bosbar peers across the river at the burning piers, occasionally scratching his head and pulling at his beard in thought.
DM: Are you lowering the boat into the water? It's about ten feet from the waterline right now.
Keris: "bearded one, you wouldn't happen to have a suggestion?"
Reav: "You in the boat, you forgot the oars or something to stear and paddle with
Keris: "here, take these planks"
Keris: "But make sure the chalk'll hold"
Ander: i'm placing the first 2 feet of the boat in the water
Bosbar glances briefly at you, but appears to be lost in thought.
Ander: does the boat have oars in it? i assumed rowboats come with them
DM: There aren't any paddles for the boat, though there are small grooves meant for oars.
* Keris spits on the chalk
Keris: what did that do
DM: Keris - Made the chalk wet.
Reav: "I dunno about this but..."
DM: Ander pushes the boat toward the water, and the front few inches hit the water with a small splash.
Keris: I run and jump in, grabbing the little man on my way
DM: The chalk in the front looks a bit wetter, but there's no standing water in the boat.
* Reav shrugs his shoulders then packs the rope and kook back in his sack before heading over to the boat
Keris: (taking all of my stuff with me)
DM: How does Rockface feel about a strange half-elf grabbing him?
* Keris doesn't have time to worry about it
Reav: "At the very least we should make an attempt to save whoevers screaming over there"
Keris: "bearded one, get over here"
Keris: "we can use as many hands as we can get!"
* Ander motions reav and the bearded man into the boat
Reav: "Or are you too drunk to enjoy a lucious lady grabbing you hmm?"
* Reav gets into the boat
* Keris glares at Reav
Bosbar nods, grabs his giant floppy hat to keep it solidly on his head, and runs toward the rowboat and the rest of the party.
Keris: "save your pretty words for a pretty lady"
* Ander waits till bozbar gets in and then runs and pushes the boat into the river and jumps in
* Keris hands out planks to the party
Rockface: "I can't swim..."
DM: The boat is currently still on the shore... It will take a bit of pushing to get it riverborne, especially if anyone's in it.
* Reav uses one of the planks to push off the bank?
Ander: it's still on the shore?
Keris: "and you won't have to if we get there before the boat drops us"
Ander: (how embaressing)
DM: Ander - It's about halfway into the water. If you're shoving off, I want to know where everyone is.
Rockface: *cautiously helps launch boat/gets in*
Rockface: "Noone rock the boat."
Keris: "clever. I need cliches like i need a sinking boat right now"
Reav: im in the back of the boat far as i can tell tryig to push off
Ander: I am also in back/pushing and then jumping in once the boat is off
Keris: I'm in the boat watching them push off and getting ready to paddle
DM: Okay... Everyone's in the boat except Ander, who is pushing from the rear. The boat plops into the water and immediately begins to drift away from shore. Ander manages to jump in, rocking the boat severely.
Reav: "you sure you dont need a sinking boat miss whatever your name is? because thats what were gonna be in if we dont hurry before that chalk disolves and turns into chalky water"
DM: The boat begins to drift away from where the bridge once was, pulled by the current.
Keris: "my name is keris."
Rockface: "Good for you... NOW PADDLE!"
Keris: "row against the stream so we wind up somewhere near the docks"
* Ander paddles for all he's worth
* Keris paddles
* Reav paddles, trying not to start a round of row row row your boat
Keris: "a round of what?"
DM: Before you're ten feet from the shore, you notice a small amount of water seeping in between the cracks. The chalk has turned into a bit of a paste. It seems to be helping, but there's still quite a bit of water leaking in.
Reav: "a old boating song, nevermind, not important"
Keris: "think we can make it or shall we try to plug it up more?"
DM: The boat is currently still plenty seaworthy, and with all of you paddling, it's making a decent pace.
Ander: "I think we would be better off just paddling"
Rockface: "Keep going"
Rockface: *paddle paddle*
Keris: "done"
Ander: "we won't need the boat once we get to the other side"
Keris: "i surely hope not, but we'll have time to make her more seaworthy then"
Reav: "Aye, lets worry more about getting the rest of the way first unless you wish to make a snack for some fish?"
DM: A few hundred feet out, there is about three inches of water in the bottom of the boat. Your boots and packs are now quite wet, and the boat is sitting noticably lower in the water.
Keris: how far are we from the other side?
DM: You're still making decent progress, but as the boat sinks lower into the river, the current is having more of a dragging effect on you.
DM: Keris - It's still at least 500 feet to the other side.
Keris: "i think we have to do something about this now"
Keris: is there any particular source of the leaks?
Keris: or is it just the entire bottom of the boat?
Rockface: We could dump everything except us.
Keris: "can any of you cast any sorts of magics to help us?"
DM: Keris - There are too many leaks to count. Most of them have chalk paste in them, but even there the water is seeping in.
Reav: 'dont look at me, alough praying right about now would probably be in order"
Rockface: *uses whatever item has the highest scoopage factor to get rid of some of the water*
Ander: does anyone have a hat?
Bosbar: "I don't have anything that would help at this moment, unless you think setting the boat on fire would be useful."
Keris: "right, and who here would be a religious type?"
DM: Bosbar has a HUGE, floppy hat.
Keris: "at least for a helpful god"
Keris: "bosbar, you get this water out with that bloody hat of yours"
Keris: "the rest of us will keep rowing
Bosbar looks completely shocked at your suggestion, and clamps a hand down on top of his hat. "No, we'll have to think of something else."
* Keris rolls eyes
Bosbar gets a sheepish look. "Besides, it's not very watertight at all."
Rockface: *is scooping with his helmet*
Keris: "anything helpful then Bosbar? Or the hat will get wet anyways."
Bosbar grabs his backpack and dumps a seemingly endless number of odd and random items into one of his belt pouches. A large spice rack falls into his lap. Bosbar sets it carefully on one of the boat's "seats". "Do NOT let this get wet."
Bosbar then takes the now-empty leather backpack, and begins scooping water with it.
DM: Are the other three still paddling?
* Keris sighs
Keris: yes. I'm paddling, Reav is paddling and Ander is paddling
Reav: "well.... i hate to do this but this should help a little"
* Keris sings a fast paced shanty to keep the pace of the paddling
Rockface: "Bad idea... *scoop* very bad idea... *scoop*"
DM: Between the bailing and the paddling, the rowboat manages to reach the shoreline within about 20 feet of the docks. You're slightly downstream (and downwind) from the main harbor, and breathing (let alone seeing) is pretty difficult.
Keris: I take out a handkerchief and soak it in the water and tye it around my face
Keris: (loosely)

There is a ton of smoke in the air, though there are few burning embers flying, now that most of the roofs have collapsed.

* Reav stops paddiling for a few moments while he reaches over and takes out his rope and hook and does something rather helpful by attempting to hook onto something solid onshore to help get the boat onto the shore
Ander: I'll also try the handkercheif trick
Reav: me too
DM: As Reav drags the boat onto the shore, it skips over a jagged rock and the brittle boards in the bottom crack, exposing quite a large hole.
Rockface: doh!
Keris: oy.
Ander: "I didn't like that boat anyways"
Keris: "it didn't treat us too kindly"
Bosbar grabs his spice rack from the rowboat, tucks it neatly in his backpack, and wets part of his cloak, holding it up to his face.
Reav: "ahh well, we shall give it a proper funeral later on, but for now, let's find teh source of that screaming

Not far up the shoreline, there are several piers with warehouses located very near the docks. There are only two ships in port this night -- one is aflame, with no signs of life apparent. The other is upwind of the fire, and so far seems unscathed.

Keris: "shall we run for it?"
Reav: "Which boat should we search for oh fearless leaderess?"

The Harbormaster's Office is in ruins, and almost all of the other buildings (including a small tavern for sailors) have collapsed or are burning.

Ander: "Seems as good an idea as any"
Keris: does there seem to be anyone still alive?
DM: You can hear a few cries from the inferno, but it's hard to pinpoint where they are without getting closer.
Keris: "augh."
Keris: what's the chance of running ing the building and grabbing people and not dying?
Reav: "Well, we dont have time to make up our minds so lets just do something and try to help!"
DM: Which building? There are four warehouses, the Harbormaster's Office, the tavern, and a couple of small residences.
Keris: Rockface, look in the office, reave, take the residentials, Ander, the tavern and i'll get closer to the warehouses"
Keris: "watch for flying debris"
DM: Three of the four warehouses have collapsed into burning embers. The Harbormaster's Office is virtually a smoking pile of rubble. The tavern and residences are in flames but are mostly intact so far.
Reav: "Gotcha oh fair leader"
Keris: "scratch the office and the warehouses, we'll all check the more intact buildings"
Bosbar narrows his eyes. "I should guard the boat then?", he says sarcastically.
Keris: "bearded chef, come with us if your spice rack is not too endangered"
* Ander listens to see if there is anyone in the tavern
* Reav heads off in the direction of the residences
* Keris looks in the tavern
DM: Okay, I'll get these one at a time.
Keris: "one of you take the dwarf"
Keris: "and keep him away from the tavern"
Reav: uum can i attempt to use the skill detect noises to discern if anyones in either of the residences?
Rockface: *checks the tavern*
DM: Reav - Absolutely. I'll roll for it here.
Ander: "hey rockface wanna help me with the tavern?"
Reav: (oy vy thats the dwarf allright, saving the ale)
Rockface: "Yep"
* Keris glares at Ander.
* Keris looks in the other residences as the tavern is overly crowded
* Reav attempts to hear from outside the two houses to discern which one to explore first
Rockface: How bad is the tavern burning? Can we go in?
Rockface: to, um, check for people.
* Reav notices a cat jumping out the window of one of the resudences so heads off in that direction first
DM: Ander and Rockface approach the tavern. The roof is burning and there is a bit of smoke wafting from the shattered windows, but at the moment it looks structurally sound.
Rockface: I head in
Reav: "Miss leader, go check the other one out"
Keris: "will do Reav"
Reav: "if its no trouble that is"
Keris: "Chef, check the warehouse"
* Reav draws his sword and attempts to use it to shatter the rest of the window so he can get inside
DM: Rockface pushes the tavern door open, which swings limply on a broken hinge. There are a few overturned tables visible from the doorway, but the room and the bar area seem to be abandoned.
Bosbar rolls his eyes and trots down to the warehouse (which is the furthest building upstream)
Rockface: I'll down a drink, if any are standing.
Rockface: And then move back outside.
Ander: I'll scan the tavern for anything useful
Ander: or any people to save
DM: As Keris approaches one of the residences, the front door crashes outward in a flood of flames. The roof caves in, throwing up burning embers in a small cloud surrounding the house.
Keris: "Bloody ashes!"
* Keris backs away
DM: Keris - /roll 1d20
-RPGServ:#pvpdnd- Roll for Keris [1d20]: 20
DM: Keris dives away from the blast, easily rolling behind a small stone wall near the dock area. Burning timber and ash lands all around her, but miraculously, she avoids even the smallest bit of burning debris.
* Keris sighs in relief
DM: Unfortunately, as far as Keris can tell, nobody in the building could possibly have survived the collapse.
Rockface: I guess everyone is either gone or dead.
Keris: there's still the house where Reav is
* Keris looks like she's holding back some emotion
DM: Rockface walks a few feet into the tavern, and trips right over a large backpack lying on the floor. He crashes headlong into a nearby table, which contained the stein of ale he was walking toward.
Rockface: I didn't see the large backpack?
DM: Reav bashes in a window on the second residence, and inside he can faintly hear a male-sounding groan.
DM: Rockface - There's a lot of smoke.
* Keris heads over to the house where Reav is
Ander: er, what about me?
Reav: "HEY! SOME ASSISTANCE HERE!"
* Keris runs to the house where Reav is
Rockface: I'll grab the backpack
Keris: "what did you find?!"
Rockface: Do I hear Reav yelling?
Rockface: If so, I'll head over there.
DM: Ander - You see the pack Rockface tripped over, but other than that, the only things of value are a large ornamental shield on one wall of the tavern, and the alcohol bottles behind the bar.
Reav: "Theres someone in here still alive, but not for long unless somethings done"
DM: Rockface - Not from where you are. The fire is still making quite a roar.
Rockface: Well then I just head out of the tavern
DM: I'll get to Reav and Keris in a moment.
DM: Rockface grabs the large pack and drags it out of the tavern behind him.
Ander: I'll grab several alcholic bottles
Ander: and i'll follow the dwarf out of the tavern
DM: Ander grabs lots of alcohol. The tavern is beginning to fill with some serious smoke now.
Rockface: *hurries out*
DM: Keris approaches the house, which is solidly on fire now, as Reav punches in a window.
Rockface: "Phew, I'm glad noone was hurt."
Ander: "so what's in the bag? I thought you'd be more interested in this" (displays alcohol)
* Keris runs in the house
Rockface: *checks backpack*
Keris: "hurry up Reav"
* Reav enters through the window then
Keris: i listen
DM: Keris - Reav just broke a window (or finished breaking it). How are you getting in? The other windows visible are on the second floor, and there's a front door on the other side.
DM: Reav climbs through the window, and is immediately blinded by hot smoke.
Reav: "GAAH!"
Rockface: "We'll save that for later, Ander."
Keris: I went through the door on the other side after opening it
* Reav drops to the floor in an attempt to avoid as much smoke as possible
DM: Reav - /roll 1d20
Ander: "sounds good"
Ander: "find anything interesting in there?"
-RPGServ:#pvpdnd- Roll for Reav [1d20]: 14
DM: Keris dashes to the other side of the building, and encounters a locked door.
Rockface: "I'm looking!"
Keris: can i kick the door in?
DM: Reav drops to the floor, and manages to wipe his eyes with the wet handkerchief. He can see two dark, human-sized shapes on the floor near the other end of the small room he's in, though the male groaning is coming from upstairs.
DM: Keris - You can try. /roll 1d20
-RPGServ:#pvpdnd- Roll for Keris [1d20]: 10
Ander: maybe we should help. then again we should't leave this bag alone
Keris: i yell "Reav find anyone?!"
* Reav crawls over to the two forms on the floor and attempts to find any signs of life from them while answering
DM: Keris tries to kick and shoulder the door, but it seems to hold fast.
DM: (I'll get to the backpack in a moment)
Rockface: "Maybe we should split some of that drink..."
Reav: "YEAH COUPLE OF *cough* BODIES, DONT KNOW IF THEYRE LIVING OR DEAD YET"
DM: Ander and Rockface - This is happening while you were approaching, entering and leaving the tavern...
Ander: oh
Keris: "augh. forget this door"
Ander: tell us when time catches us up again
Keris: I run around the back
Keris: "see if you can pass me the bodies through the window
DM: Ander - You're walking out of the tavern right now. You faintly hear Keris yelling something about a door.
DM: Upon closer inspection, Reav sees that the shapes are each made up of two large pillows, bound together with rags.
Ander: if she needed help she prolly woulda yelled that instead of door
DM: Rockface and Ander rummage through the backpack. It contains a blanket, what looks like some sort of holy symbol or badge of station, a wooden stick with a string tied around one end, and two small opaque bottles.
* Reav smells something fishy here as he crawls to the stairs, attempting to see if theres anything amiss here other than the fire (find traps)
* DM makes Find Traps roll.
Reav: "I WAS MISTAKEN KERIS, HEADING TO THE SOUND NOW TO SEE WHATS WHAT"
Keris: "OK, I'LL GO SEE WHAT THE BEARDED POOF IS UP TO"
* Reav cant help but smirk at that comment
Rockface: *takes the bottles, dumps the rest*
DM: Keris is heading for the warehouse?
Keris: yes
Rockface: *goes to find the others*
Ander: I'll grab the blanket and tear it into strips and pocket them
* Reav heads up the stairs, staying as low as he can to avoid teh smoke as he tries to hear where the coughings coming from (detect noise)
DM: Rockface grabs the two bottles (which feel to be full of some sort of liquid), and drops the pack on the ground.
Keris: "and I don't trust that floppy hatted git further than i can spit him"

[At this point, Doc returned to take control of Bosbar, but Murdly had to depart, giving the DM control of Rockface.]

DM: Rockface opened the backpack and grabbed a couple of bottles out. There's a blanket, a stick with a string on the end, and the weird badge thing.
DM: Okay, Ander rips up the blanket. Going to leave the other stuff?
Ander: yeah
Ander: you never know what will happen when you mess with holy symbols
Ander: I'll head off towards the others voices
DM: Toward the residence?
Reav: im still trying to detect noises in the house i guess while heading upstairs
DM: Reav - Aye, about to get to you.
* Reav almost trips over a coughing body
DM: Keris is heading toward the warehouse, and will get there when Bosbar is done reading his log
Bosbar: ok
DM: Rockface follows Ander toward the house.
Ander: heh
Reav: "well spit me open and call me wally the slime"
* Reav attemts to throw the man over his shoulders to haul him out of the house
DM: As Ander and Rockface approach the house, a man's body is heaved out the bottom window.
DM: The body his the ground with a grunt, and begins coughing uncontrollably. His face is black with soot and ash.
Ander: I rush over to check his condition
* Reav crawls out the window and tumbles to land away from the fallen man
DM: The man is in serious trouble. He is badly burned, and you can tell that he has inhaled far too much smoke. He gasps for air, and then goes into another coughing fit.
Reav: "Ahh are you two done "saving" the ale yet?"
Ander: "Alas, many noble kegs perished"
Rockface kneels before the man and mutters something about fool humans not knowing how to take care of themselves. He places his hands on the man's chest and begins chanting quietly.
* Reav considers going back in to see if theres anyone else in there
DM: After a moment, the man takes a deep, wracking breath and tries to speak. The sound that issues forth is barely a wheeze.
* Ander offers the man a drink
Reav: "Oh ta heck with it"
Rockface stands up and says "Bah, I'm not sure what else I can do for him. His wounds are too much for my magic."
* Reav gets ready to go back inside
DM: Ander reaches down and offers his canteen to the man, who drinks eagerly. His breathing becomes more even.
DM: The man pushes himself up to a half-sitting position.
Burned man: "Wait... please *cough* help... my children."
Ander: "where are your kids?"
* Reav goes back inside before hearing the mans words to see if anything else needs "saving"
Burned man: "Just... inside. They were where... you must have... passed them."
* Ander yells after Reav
Ander: "THERE ARE SOME KIDS NEAR THE ENTERENCE"
DM: Reav - The flames inside are getting worse. You quickly scout the lower floor (it is not a large house), but see nothing aside from the pillows you saw earlier.
Burned man: "hurry... my girls were... downstairs..."
DM: The man is beseiged by another fit of coughing, and after a few moments, he passes out.
Ander: I check his pulse
* Reav mutters to himself "crazy old man, these must be his kids... least we can do if the dwarf cant heal him is let him die in peace" grabs the dolls and protects them as best he can, heading back to the wiindow
DM: Ander - He's still alive, but lack of oxygen has made him lose consciousness.
DM: Reav climbs back out the window, dragging two pairs of pillows. Each pair is tied together with tattered rags.
Reav: "heres his "kids"... they can at least provide him with some comfort that theyre safe...."
* Reav sets the "childern" down by the man
Rockface pulls out his canteen and splashes some water into the burned man's face.
DM: The man awakes with a weak cough, and glances at Reav.
"My girls... where are... my girls?"
Reav: "there here sir, safe and worried about you"
DM: The man looks at the pillows increduously.
Burned Man: "Are you... mad? Those are just *cough* pillows!"
Burned Man: "Please... They must be... downstairs..."
Keris: (*L*)
Reav: (dangit! i felt for sure i was on the right track)

By now, the roof of the house is beginning to groan, and small bits of timber are dropping down both inside and outside the house.

Reav: "i'm sorry sir, these were all i could find, forgive me for thinking that these may have been your childern
The man coughs weakly a few more times. His voice grows faint... "the... cellar."
Reav: "cellar... i didnt see an entrance to the cellar in the house"
Burned Man: "*cough* outside... trap..."
DM: The man passes out again.
Reav: "ergh outside..."
* Reav gets up and starts running around the house, looking for the cellar door
Rockface kneels by the man and begins chanting again.

[Ander attempts to make mental contact with anyone who might be inside or under the house.]

-RPGServ:#pvpdnd- Roll for Ander [1d20]: 13
DM: Keris reaches the warehouse and sees that the door is open and the interior is brightly lit.
DM: However, the warehouse is not burning.
Keris: interesting...
* Reav finds the cellar door and attempts to open it, listening
Keris: "bearded one...where are you bearded one?"
DM: There's a small door in the side of the house. When Reav opens it, he sees a rope ladder descending into the darkness.
* Bosbar peers out from behind a crate.
Bosbar: "Oh, it's you."
* Bosbar stands up.
DM: It's getting hard to keep track of both groups... Reav and Ander: Let's pause for a moment and let the warehouse play out
Keris: "what are you doing here?"
Bosbar: "I ought to ask you the same thing."
Keris: "sorting your spices are you?"
* Bosbar leans on his staff.
Keris: "I sent you here to search for survivors..."
Bosbar: "Well there aren't any, girl. You can see that just as plain as day."
Keris: "and now it looks as if there were nothing to survive..."
Keris: "So why are you still here?"
* Bosbar knocks on a crate with his staff.
Bosbar: "I found something interesting."
* Keris looks at crate.
Bosbar: "It's a shipment of weapons, headed for Galeria."
DM: There are about fifteen crates in the warehouse, all waist height, square. Black lettering on the sides.
Keris: I read the lettering
Keris: "what sort of weapons?
DM: The lettering says "Dest: Galaria, Cont: Wpns".
Bosbar: "Don't know yet. You came in before I could have a look."
* Keris looks suspiciously at Bosbar
Bosbar: "And what's THAT look for?"
Keris: "now you be careful now. a man with such a large hat has to be compensating for something else and i don't want to deal with the consequences"
* Bosbar clears his throat.
* Keris smirks
Bosbar: "I'll have you know that I am a great and powerful wizard. This hat is merely part of the ensemble.
Bosbar: I got it in wizard's school."
Keris: "uh huh. great...and powerful."
* Keris looks Bosbar up and down
Keris: "and all ye can do is cast fireballs?"
Keris: "well, enough with this, we've got things to do"
Keris: "let's take a look shall we?"
* Bosbar strokes his beard in thought.
Keris: "well...?"
Keris: "I'm not about to touch this thing until you give some sort of indication of what you think"
Bosbar: "Well, they're just crates. See?"
* Bosbar kicks a crate.
DM: The crate is kicked. Soundly, even.
Keris: "'just' crates sometimes are more than what they seem"
Keris: "don't you read your ballads?"
Keris: "A crate once contained a giant were-rat that ate the one who kicked it thus"
Bosbar: "Girl, I've written ballads. And these crates are just crates."
Bosbar: "Give me a hand, eh?"

There's a crash off in the distance, as another structure collapses. You can't tell which one it was from the warehouse.

* Bosbar pulls on a crate, trying to open it.
* Keris throws Bosbar a knife from seemingly nowhere
Keris: catch
DM: The crates are nailed shut pretty solidly. It would take some serious force or a tool to get them open.
Keris: "we'll use this as a lever"
* Bosbar catches the knife.
* Bosbar fumbles with the knife.
Keris: both of us work from both ends to try to get the nails pried out a little
Bosbar: "This is taking too long."
DM: The lid of the crate pops off, and inside, sure enough, are a collection of weapons, armor, and shields. There are not any distinguishing marks visible, though the shields carry the yellow and blue colors of the Galaria Militia.
Bosbar: "Looks like they're getting ready for something big."
Keris: "indeed"
Keris: is this building at any risk of burning down soon?
DM: This warehouse is the only building not in flames. It's upwind from the rest of the fires.
Keris: "leave it for now, let's see what the others are up to"
* Bosbar looks out the door, to see if anyone's coming.
DM: Nobody's coming.
Bosbar: "Alright."
* Bosbar pockets a dagger from the crate.
* Keris coughs
* Bosbar winks at Keris.
Bosbar: "Just in case."
Keris: "i do want my knife back"
* Bosbar returns Keris's knife.
Bosbar: "Of course."
Keris: "thank you luv"
* Bosbar doffs his hat.
DM: Are you two heading back to the rest of the party?
Bosbar: Yeah.
Keris: yup
* Bosbar extinguishes his light spell.
DM: Meanwhile...
DM: Reav has opened the trapdoor at the side of the house, where a rope ladder descends into the darkness.
DM: Ander seems to be concentrating, his eyes closed and his hands tense.
Reav: "well, here goes nothing"
* Reav climbs down the ladder into the darkness, searching for any sign of the girls
Ander: I'll follow him down
DM: It's pitch black downstairs. There's a bit of smoke in the air, but the fire has not yet spread to the cellar, though the floor inside the house above is now burning. You don't hear anything for a few moments, but suddenly there's a faint whimper, and then a sharp "Shh!"
Ander: I silently look around
Reav: "Hello? is there anyone in here?"
DM: No sound... Ander, you can't really see anything at all...
DM: You bump your toes on a lot of junk lying around the cellar floor.
Ander: "if only we had some fire to light up the place"
Reav: "HELLO? ROCKFACE, ANDER CAN ONE OF YOU BRING DOWN A TORCH?"
Ander: I'll go up stairs and grab a burning peice of wood
Ander: and bring it back down
Rockface yells back down: "Just what ye need down there, more fire!"
* Reav yells back "UNLIKE YOU US POOR HUMANS CANT SEE IN THE DARK YOU ALE DRINKING SHRIMP!"
DM: A lit torch appears at the trapdoor entrance, and Rockface hands it down to Ander. As light floods the tiny cellar, there's a frightened shriek from behind a bookcase.
Ander: I check behind the bookcase
Reav: "Hey now, dont be alarmed, were here to help you but we really need to get out of here"
DM: A small blond-headed girl peers from behind the shelves.
Blond Girl: "Who're you? Where's da?"
DM: Another "Shh!" from behind the bookcase, and the head recedes.
Ander: I am Ander, and this is Reav
Ander: "now we need to get out of here, your father is alreadys afe outside"

There's a crash from above, followed by another shriek from the bookcase.

Reav: "yeah, and your fathers up out there hurt and looking for you, and if we dont get out now, this place is going to colapse and were all gonna be crispy critters
Keris: (you're so good with kids...)
Ander: I extend my hand to the girl
The same voice says: "Get da, he'll bring us out!"

The air in the cellar is starting to get more smoky.

Reav: "we cant get your father, hes lying up there hurt and being attended to by the cleric up there
Another, slightly deeper female voice says, "What kind of cleric?"
Ander: a dwarven cleric
There's a pause, and then: "A dwarf? Here? You're lying! Get out, before da finds you and cleaves your head clean off!"
Reav: "i'm, not sure actually, all i know is hes a dwarf... and hes very nice as long as you give him ale"

A few glowing ashes sink down from the ceiling above.

Reav: "may Selune strike me down if i'm lying, theres a dwarf up there attending to yoru father
Ander: "Come now, you must realise you can't stay here, at least get out of this burning house"
Deeper-voiced Girl: "Selune? He's a Selunite?"
Reav: "and if we DONT get out of here, were all going to be in extremly deep trouble"
Deeper-voiced Girl: "Okay, but if you try to hurt us, I'll kick you RIGHT in the shins, and then da will GET YOU!"
Ander: "sounds good"
Reav: "fairs fair, and if i try to hurt you ill be the first to kick myself in the shins, now come on, lets get out of here to safety ok?"
DM: Two small heads pop up from behind the bookcase. One is a young blond girl of about six years, the other has red hair and looks to be a couple years older.
Redhaired girl: "You go first. We'll follow you."
Reav: "allright"
* Reav turns and heads back up the ladder quickly
* Ander follows, making sure everyone gets out allright
DM: At this point, Keris and Bosbar come walking back to the burning house. Rockface is the only one outside, and he is tending to the unconscious man's wounds.
Keris: "and so THAT's why you carry a spice rack with you everywhere"
Bosbar: "Mostly, yeah."
Keris: "Rockface, oh, you've found one!"

"The girls climb timidly up the ladder after their rescuers. As soon as they're out, some burning timbers fall from the cellar ceiling and ignite a wooden beam.

Keris: "how are things going..."
Ander: "good good"
Ander: "you?"
Reav: "GAAH! EVERYONE BACK!!!"
DM: The girls spot their father, and run to him, embracing his limp form.
Keris: "oh!"
* Reav scrambles to get back to a safe distance from the house
Redhaired girl: "Da!"
Keris: "let's get these guys up to the warehouse!"
DM: The man is looking slightly better under Rockface's care, though he still hasn't woken up.
Keris: "don't worry little ones, the odd little man will take good care of him"
Keris: (under breath: I think)
Reav: "well, were all back together so what have you two been up to fearless leaderess?
Rockface: "I think he's well enough to be moved, if we're careful."
Keris: "we've found a safe place with...a few interesting things"
Ander: "ah"
Keris: "did you guys find anyone else?"
Ander: "we saved some precious lives in the tavern"
Reav: "Ahh, sounds fun fraid not just this man, whoever he is and his daughters and a bit of embaressment over those dolls....."
* Reav looks extremly sheepish at that
Keris: "uh....huh."
Keris: "well, let's get them up to the warehouse then"
Keris: "carefully..."
Reav: "aye"
* Ander picks up the old man's other children and carries them to safety
Ander: (the pillows, not the girls)
* Reav assists uum whoever in moving the injured man down to the warehouse
Reav: (oh geesh will i ever live this down?)
Rockface grabs the man's feet and says "Hey, am I the only one here with a strong back?"
Ander: "I beleive so"
* Keris grabs the man's head gently
Reav: "i'm helping you shrimp so just hang on carefully and lets move"
Reav: "Hmm, mabye i should try some of your ale rockface, it certanly gives you muscles"

As you round the burning residence, you see the dock area in the distance. The one ship that was burning has now gone under, just a few pieces of flaming wreckage on the surface.

Ander: well one less burning object to worry aobut
Keris: is the other ship still there?

The other ship, the one that was intact, has its sails completely unfurled. You don't recall them being deployed when you crossed the river.

Keris: "curious..."
Keris: well, we take the man to the warehouse

DM: As you travel toward the warehouse, you see the ship beginning to move downriver. There's a bright flash from the deck of the ship.

Keris: "oh shoot."
Keris: "everybody down"
Bosbar: !

Within seconds, the remaining warehouse explodes in a HUGE ball of flame. Pieces of debris fly everywhere, and the structure is completely obliterated in a giant fireball.

Reav: GAH!
* Keris looks up in disbelief
* Reav ducks and tries to shield the man from shrapnel from the blown p building and hopes otyhers are shielding the girls
* Keris is shielding a girl
Keris: or rather, the man's head now that i think about it

The party is far enough away to avoid most of the blast effects, though small pieces of debris rain down on you, ripping some of your clothes and inflicting small cuts and bruises.

The ship begins to move at high speed down the river, either oblivious to the explosion, or already having picked up too much wind to turn around.

Reav: "BLAST IT! what were those fools thinking?"
Keris: do i recognize anything about the ship due to my local history skill?
DM: It's already moving faster than a man's sprint, and is quickly moving out of sight.
DM: Keris - Rolling Lore.
Keris: "nothing special about it..."
* Bosbar harumphs.
Keris: "are the girls okay?
Bosbar: "They're probably heading for Galeria."

As you survey the area, you see that the tavern has completely burned itself out. There is no roof and the inside walls are blackened, but the fire is out. The other warehouses are still burning, but they're quickly being reduced to rubble.

* Bosbar strokes his beard thoughtfully.

The ship is almost out of sight now... It is moving extremely fast.

* Bosbar casts dancing lights on the ship in an effort to cause the helmsman to panic and run aground.
Ander: well. there goes that
DM: Bosbar - The ship is way, way out of range for any spells. It was out of range before it even started moving.
* Bosbar harumphs.
* Reav checks on the girls visually
DM: In the distance, you hear some heavy footsteps approaching from the burned-out bridge remains.
* Keris looks around
Keris: what the...
* Keris goes on guard
DM: The girls and the man are fine, and the man has woken up, though he is not moving much.
Ander: I pull out a strip of blanket and a bottle of alcohol
* Bosbar suppresses a fit of coughing.
Keris: "Who goes there?"
* Keris prepares knife in hand.

A contingent of five Errol Home Guards rush around the side of the far warehouse, buckets in hand.

* Keris puts away knife
* Bosbar coughs heavily.
Keris: "ahem. A little late."
Reav: "boys, you arrived late to the party yet again, so now what are you going to do?"
Keris: "Bosbar, you okay there"
DM: The lead guard walks up and looks at you strangely.
Bosbar: "Ah, yes lass. The smoke and soot is just getting to me, that's all."
Guard Leader: "Aren't you the folks I retrieved from the Cackling Wyvern?"
Keris: "hello"
Keris: "Well, it depends on what you mean by retrieved"
* Ander stashes the alcohol and blanket strip
Keris: "if you mean led to a collapsing bridge then forced to fend for ourselves in getting across"
DM: You recognize this as the same guard who first called you out of the inn to come help...
* Reav considers "retrieving" his hazzard pay from the guard but doesnt
Keris: "then not showing up whilst we save people"
Keris: "yes. you retrieved us"
Bosbar: "Hush, girl. The man's just trying to do his job."
* Bosbar nudges Keris with his staff.
* Keris sighs
Bosbar: "Don't mind her, officer. She's a little testy."
Keris: "how can we help you?"
Guard Leader: "But... how did you get over here before we did? We had to carry rowboats all the way from the guardhouse!"
Ander: "we made a rowboat"
Ander: "from some saplings"
Reav: "we flew across on a mighty dragon while singing songs about bread of course"
Ander: "it sank when we got across though. I suspect treachery"
Guard Leader: "Well... nevermind that. Did you find any survivors? What was the second explosion we saw?"
Keris: "We found this family. A father and his two daughters"
Reav: "found only three survivors.... and that boat shot the warehouse"
Keris: "I saw a Galarian tradeship leaving just before the building exploded"
Ander: "4 survivors you mean"(holds up pillows)
The Guard looks to the man and his daughters. One of the other guards rushes over and pulls a small vial from his belt, pouring it in the man's mouth.
Keris: "A flash of light I saw before they flew off"
Bosbar: "You! What's in that vial, man?"
Bosbar: "Let me see that."
Guard Leader: "A... Galarian tradeship? There were none in port tonight... Only one of ours, bound for the sea and Baldur's Gate."
* Bosbar walks over to the family.
The guard with the potion holds the vial up innocently. "Healing potion from the church of Sune. Nothing to fear, my friends."
Keris: "well, one I've seen bound towards Galaria many a time. The warehouse contained.."
Keris: i break off
DM: The father's burns do seem to be better now, though there is quite a bit of scarring.
* Bosbar smiles.
* Keris nudges Bosbar
Bosbar: "A fellow Sune worshipper, are you? Well met, lad."
Ander: "I say, you wouldn't happend to have any more of those would you?"
Reav: (wait, what happened to the backpack rock and ander found?)
Bosbar: "The warehouse just contained a few boxes, nothing to worry about."
Potion Guard: "Nay, not myself. But the faith is in good standing with the Guardsmen, and they often contribute to our town."
* Bosbar turns back to the Potion Guard.
DM: Reav - The backpack is still lying near the entrance to the tavern.
Bosbar: "Oh, well then. That's certainly nice of them."
Keris: "is there a place in Errol where these people can stay?"
Reav: "and more importantly, a quick and nonwaterlogged way to get back across?"
Bosbar: "Indeed. I wouldn't care for my spices to get wet."
Guard Leader (to his men): "Spread out and look for more survivors. Lyrim--" he points to the potion-carrying guard. "Take the man and his girls across the river and down to the temple's infirmary."
Guard Leader: "Yes, I am certain the temple of Sune will take them in until their house is rebuilt..."
Reav: "dangit someone take these for the girls fcomfort"
Guard Leader: "I'm not sure you can do any more good here... You're heroes for saving that family, and I will make sure the council hears of it."
* Reav picks the pillow "childern up and hands them to some random guard"
Keris: "Nay, not heros."
Ander: "no wait"
The redheaded girl runs over and grabs the pillows.
* Bosbar casts dancing lights for the girls to entertain them.
Ander: "not my children"
Redheaded girl: "You saved our princes!"
* Keris chuckles
Bosbar: -correction: for the younger girl-
* Keris pats the children on the head
Keris: "and quite handsome princes they are"
Reav: (well least i soaved something other than destroying my dignity and credibility -_-)
The girls look at the dancing lights in wonder, batting at the ones that come too near. The potion guard quickly rounds them up and leads them toward the shoreline, as another guard helps the father stumble after them.
Keris: "Careful with that man!"
The redheaded girl smiles warmly at Keris as she's lead away.
* Keris looks at group
Keris: "Now then."
Guard Leader: "Now that we have access to what's left of the docks, there are plenty of rowboats to take you back across the river. You should get some rest, and we will speak tomorrow."
Reav: "and remember girls, always make sure theres some dashingly dippy rogue to save your princes next time when they and you get into trouble"
* Ander laughs
Keris: "dippy?"
The blond girl turns around and sticks her tongue out at Reav before the group walks out of sight.
* Ander laughs
Keris: "just...who are you people?"
Reav: what so i mistook there prines for the girls fathers childern
* Bosbar strokes his beard in thought.
Ander: My name is ander
Keris: "and what...exactly might you be?"
Keris: "pardon my rough tongue, it gets me into far too much trouble"
Ander: "A songwriter, well sorta"
Bosbar: "Ah, of course. We haven't yet been properly introduced. My name is Bosbar Mumberthrax, and I, am the wizard of Errol!"
* Bosbar bows deeply.
Keris: "uh...huh."
Ander: "this adventure reminds me of a song actually"
Guard Leader: "Since we all seem to be doing introductions now, I am Captain Banks of the Errol Home Guard. Please, stop by the guardhouse in the morning, and I will arrange for you to meet with the concil. I may have some questions for you as well."
Keris: "oh really? which one?"
* Bosbar narrows his eyes.
* Ander clears his throat
* Keris glances at guard leader
Bosbar: "It wouldn't be the "Happy Barbarian Song, would it?"
Ander: "join in if you know it"
Ander: "Ohhhh - I'm a barbarian and I'm okay"
* Keris takes out flute
* Bosbar sings
The guard leader coughs awkwardly. "I must be off, there is still much to be done here."
Bosbar: "I sleep at night and I fight all day!"
Ander: "I'll drink my ale til I turn graaaaay!"
Bosbar: "Cuz I'm a barbarian and I'm okay!"
* Keris rolls eyes and considers whacking the both of them over the head with it.
* Keris accompanies on flute
Reav: "well, i seem to have found the only people around dippier than me"
Bosbar: "A wonderful song, Ander!"
* Keris nods at guard leader with flute.
Ander: "Thank you, Thank you"
* Ander bows
Bosbar: "I do so enjoy that melody."
Captain Banks shakes his head, turns, and walks toward a small group of guards near the burning warehouses.
Keris: "Thank you Captain Banks. We shall see you on the morrow"
* Bosbar doffs his hat.
Bosbar: "G'deve to you, Captain."
Keris: "And you small one?"
Keris: "small...gruffy...one"
* Bosbar peers over his glasses.
Bosbar: "He looks like a dwarf, Keris."
Rockface: "I am Rockface Ironhenge, most faithful of Dugmaren the Innovator."
Reav: "Oh wait I forgot myself, I am Reav Invess, aspiring private entrapaneurer and still looking for whatever it is im looking for"
Keris: "well, of course he's a dwarf, anyone can smell that"
Bosbar: "Dugmaren the Innovator? Wasn't he the fellow who invented dresses for men?"
Keris: "and a cleric eh? A most interesting addition"
Rockface glares at Keris, then snorts. He's obviously heard worse in his time.
Reav: "yeah, after all, if you must find a dwarf, just smell the ale nearby"
Ander: "speaking of which"
Keris: "nay, I respect your people completely"
Rockface: "Speaking of ale, this one..." he taps Ander, "isn't sharin'."
* Ander passes an ale to everyone
Rockface eagarly grabs a bottle of mead and begins to inhale it.
* Keris starts juggling knives
Keris: "and I"
Reav: "am tonedeaf"
* Keris attempts a backflip while juggling knives
Keris: "am Keris Delmyre"
Ander: "A toast to Reav's bravery, in rescuing the imperial princes"
* Reav smirks impishly as he finishes her sentence for her"
* Keris throws a knife that barely knicks Reav's ear.
Rockface grins and holds his bottle up in the air. "Aye, I'll drink to that!"
* Bosbar strokes his beard.
* Reav groans, fearing he needs the ale to live this one down
Bosbar: "And already, we are acting like children."
* Keris catches knives and hides returns them to their place.
Keris: "well...yes."
* Keris grabs knife from ground"
* Ander laughs
Keris: "terribly sorry about that"
Keris: "but...I don't take kindly to comments about my singing"
Rockface tosses his now-empty bottle into the rubble of a warehouse. He lets out a huge yawn. "Well, let's be gettin' home. I've had enough excitement for one night."
Bosbar: "I'm sure you're a lovely songbird, lass. Don't take it to heart."
Keris: "thank you dear mage. i'm sorry i ever called you a poof"
Keris: "but your hat's still silly."
* Bosbar peers at Keris over his glasses.
* Keris sticks out her tongue at Bosbar
Bosbar: "When did you call me a poof?"
Keris: "um..."
Keris: "look at that beautiful sky"
* Keris runs off ahead.
Bosbar: "It is lovely, isn't - HEY!"
Reav: "baah, dont mind me fair maiden, its just my way, after all those who take themselves too seriously, usually end up all serious and never have any fun"
Ander: "YOu are wise beyond your years reav"
Keris: "right Rockface."
Rockface clears his throat loudly. "If I'm takin' the last boat home, don't be thinkin' I'll be waiting for you to catch up!"
Keris: "Everyone in a boat!"
Reav: "sides, the best defense against dire situations isa light heart, a sharp wit, and the ability to dodge many angry women extremly rapidly"

There's a row of well-made rowboats at the shore of the river. Some were taken from the dockhouses on this side of the river, while two others bear the symbol of the Errol Home Guard, and were obviously rowed over by the guards.

Bosbar: "Well said, Reav. It sounds as if you've read my books."
Keris: "and you're a...rogue.."
Keris: "interesting."
* Keris traces a scar on her left cheek while thinking
Reav: "I believe i was read a tale or two from your books when i was but a wee lad"
Keris: "I'll race ya back to Errol!"
* Keris grins
* Keris runs to get a rowboat
Bosbar: "That explains your wonderful growth of character. I'm glad to have had an influence on you, son."
* Reav makes a big show of tumbiling and jumping over to another empty boat
* Bosbar claps Reav on the shoulder.
Rockface slaps his forehead and stomps toward Keris' boat.
* Bosbar calmly steps into a rowboat and sits down.
* Ander gets into the boat with bos
DM: As the party gets ready to shove off, Captain Banks comes running up.
Keris: "everyone got a boat?"
Captain Banks: "Wait!"
Keris: "whaahooo!!!"
* Keris pushes off
Bosbar: "What is it, captain?"
* Bosbar stops the boat with his staff.
Reav: "Yes?"
Captain Banks holds up a backpack. "Is this yours? You left it by the tavern..."
Keris: "oh...hello again Captain"
* Keris points to Ander
Keris: "I think it's his"
Captain Banks: "I didn't want you to leave anything behind, after all you've done."
Bosbar: "Very kind of you, sir."
Ander: "Thanks"
Keris: "thank you Captain."
Keris: "I think I got..a little too excited"
Captain Banks tosses the backpack to Ander. "Thank you again, my friends!"
Reav: "aye now, if thats all..."
* Reav grins
* Ander mutters something to himself about it prolly being cursed
* Bosbar harumphs.
DM: Ander catches the backpack. It's empty.
Reav: last one back to the taverns buying!
* Ander pushes off
* Ander rows like mad
* Reav pushes off and rows as fast as he can

The party rows across the river, exhausted but elated by their adventure and the lives they have saved. Upon reaching the shore of Errol proper, the adventurers agree to meet outside the Cackling Wyvern in the morning, two hours before highsun. They bid each other farewell, and depart for their homes.

D&D Campaign - Prologue

2008-07-11T08:53:00.002-05:00

Here's the background and regional information for my PvP Forums AD&D game. Note that the campaign takes place in the Forgotten Realms universe, but the specific region is my own creation.

Roster:
Keris Delmyre - Female Half-Elf Fighter (Target)
Reav Invess - Male Human Thief (X5)
Rockface Ironhenge - Male Dwarf Cleric (Porthos)
Ander Deveron - Male Human Psionicist (King_Hawk)
Bosbar Mumberthrax - Male Human Transmuter (Doc)

Regional Information:
Geography:
Pondis is a large island in the Sea of Fallen Stars, about fifty miles off the coast of Baldur's Gate. The island is roughly oblong-shaped, stretching sixty-five miles east-to-west, and forty miles north-to-south. The weather is cold, like all of the northlands, but temperate tidal forces keep the island from being a desolate, icy wasteland. The northern half of the island consists of the Firehair Mountains, named for the goddess of love and beauty. Indeed, the sun setting over the western peaks and sinking into the sea's horizon is a beautiful sight that many of Sune Firehair's followers make a pilgrimage to see each spring. The Wyvern River descends from Lake Griffonpoint high in the mountains, flowing south into the central plains and then turning abruptly east across the continent to the east. The river forms an elaborate delta as it exits the eastern side of the island, but the land there is far too soft and swampy for settlement. The southern half of the island is a cold, rocky plain, perforated by areas of grassland. There is very little rain in the summer months, so fresh water south of the Wyvern River is found only at the occasional pond or oasis.

History:
Pondis was first discovered centuries ago by an expedition force from a long-dead empire that stretched over the lands where Cormyr now lies. Small settlements appeared over time, three of which eventually evolved into villages and towns. While the land now technically belongs to the Kingdom of Cormyr, the monarchy has seemingly forgotten the area (or does not find Pondis to be of enough strategic or economic value to warrant attention). Seventy-five years ago, the three brothers of the Petham family (Thurston, Tethis, and Lynd) each distinguished themselves as officers in the Cormyrian army, and were granted the island of Pondis as a landhold upon their retirement. Upon reaching the shores of Pondis, the brothers Petham found that the local residents were not particularly interested in being ruled by an outside entity. Rather than risking a coup by forcing their rule upon the people, the brothers abandoned their landhold and returned to Cormyr.

Political State:
Several years after the brothers' departure, prominant citizens from the three human settlements on Pondis gathered to examine the idea of forming a united government. Officially, the towns of Pondis would not renounce their ties to Cormyr, as long as Cormyr did not try to influence their society or way of life. Every five years, each town would elect two council members. One would remain at home as a regional governor, and the other would move to Galaria to serve his or her term on the Council of Pondis. The Council would have authority in dealing with external civilizations, as well as presiding over disputes between entities from differing settlements. The regional governor would have authority over affairs in his or her own town. The proposal was drafted, and ratified by a popular ballot in all three towns. The newly-formed government remains to this day.

Galaria:
Galaria is the largest town on Pondis, and serves as capital of the allied settlements. It is located on the Wyvern River, near the eastern edge of the island. While technically not a seaport city, Galaria has several docks on the river, where shallow-bottomed boats can proceed eastward down the river and into the Sea of Fallen Stars. While Galaria is nowhere near the size of the mainland cities like Luskan or Baldur's Gate, it is perhaps the only settlement on Pondis that can be rightly called a 'city'. Most of the trappings of a modern society can be found there -- temples to several deities, stores, inns, taverns, and even a small mage's guild. There is a standing local militia, but due Pondis' proximity (and political ties) to Baldur's Gate, foreign invasion has never been much of a concern.

Thurston:
Thurston is the newest and smallest human settlement on Pondis. It is a quiet fishing village on the south bank of the island. Despite being a port town, Thurston has very little trade with the outside world. The village relies on caravans from Galaria for most supplies -- most notably fresh water, which is a somewhat rare commodity during the summer months on the southern plain of Pondis. Aside from fishing-related enterprises, the only goods and services available in Thurston are a large inn/tavern, a general store, and temples to Selune and Eldath.

Errol:
Errol is a small town in the western area of Pondis, sitting astride the Wyvern River. It is slightly larger than Thurston, with an industry is more geared toward mining than fishing. Ore is mined from the nearby Firehair Mountains, carted into the town by horse-powered caravans, and sent down the Wyvern River for sale to Galaria or export to the mainland. Errol contains a large number of skilled tradesmen, who make a profit by crafting the newly-mined ore into weapons, armor, or other useful items, which are then sold to the local Merchant's Guild and then distributed abroad. The town has three taverns, two inns, several armor and weapon shops, a horse stable and breeding farm, many livestock and agricultural farms, and a large temple to Chauntea. Errol was originally built to support the walled outpost several miles to the west (simply known as "The Outpost"), meant to be a first line of defense against pirate incursions into the Sea of Fallen Stars in less-civilized days. The wall remains, but the military structure has transformed into a sleepy mining village; a score of soldiers serves as the Errol Home Guard, but they are maintained by tradition more than a need for fighting men and women. Three ancient catapults still sit rusting atop the walls of The Outpost, a lonely reminder of the compound's previous life.

House Rules:
1. My magic system is quite different from AD&D 2nd Edition, and is actually closer to the Sorceror rules for 3rd Edition. A mage gets 'spell points' depending on the total number of spell levels he/she could normally memorize. For example, if you can normally memorize two first-level spells and one second-level spell, you have 4 spell points. The wizard can then cast ANY spell in his/her spellbook for a number of spell points equal to the spell's level. This makes beginning mages a bit more versatile, and helps to balance out some of the weaker spell tiers. Also, mages get bonus spell points depending on their Intelligence stat (I use the Wisdom Bonus Spells chart for Clerics to get the number of bonus spell points). Clerics also use this system, but they will be limited in the number of spells they have available (if you worship the goddess of healing, you will NOT be able to cast Cause Serious Wounds!).

2. I do not use the racial level limits from 2nd Edition. Instead, when a demi-human character hits the level limit, each successive level will cost double the normal experience required.

3. At zero hit points, a character will become incapacitated. That character will lose one hit point per round (from bleeding) until he/she is healed or bandaged by another character. If a character reaches -10 hit points... well... the other party members should probably start looking for a shovel.

4. Gnomes are good eatin'.

Everybody run, it's Venger!

2008-07-10T22:38:00.006-05:00

Way back in my college days, I used to moderate the official forums for the PVP comic strip. Since the fanbase consisted mostly of gamers, I decided to put together an IRC-based Dungeons & Dragons (old-school second edition AD&D) game.

As this sort of thing tends to do, the game trailed off after the first few weeks due to schedule conflicts, but the sessions we did play were some of the best times I've ever had running an RPG. It's odd that I can say this about an online, text-based campaign full of virtual strangers, but the group had a good chemistry and strong characters to work with, and everything just seemed to click.

My D&D-themed post yesterday inspired me to go back and read the logs from this game. After my derisive review of the Wizards of the Coast DM's, I figured I should probably put my own experience on display.

Over the next week I'll be posting the transcripts from our game sessions. They're very lengthy, but there is some great roleplaying by the players and some marginally passable DMing by yours truly. I tend to be terribly self-critical, but going back and reading these logs, even seven years later, I'm generally impressed with what I created.

Hopefully you'll find our adventures entertaining. Maybe you'll even be inspired to try hosting your own game sometime.

I'm gonna cast Magic Missile

2008-07-09T10:54:00.002-05:00

Friend David has started a very cool social media blog, and he recently posted an article about the Penny Arcade Dungeons and Dragons game that Wizards of the Coast hosted as a pre-release promotion for the new 4th Edition D&D set. They recorded the entire session as a series of podcasts, and I just finished listening to the sixth installment.

The recordings are fun to listen to, but this is solely because of the eclectic personalities of the players (Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz from PvP Online). It has little to do with the game itself. Despite using two different "professional" Dungeon Masters who work directly for Wizards of the Coast, the adventure was nothing more than combat-heavy dungeon crawl with virtually nothing in the way of interesting puzzles or anything that would inspire actual role-playing.

It's the standard first-level "you're adventurers, and you go into a dungeon, and here are a bunch of rooms full of goblins and zombies" fare that an first-time (and uncreative) Dungeon Master might come up with. Every time the players tried to go off-script, the DM just laughed it off and kept the adventure going the way he had it planned out.

It has been a while since I've hosted any sort of RPG, but I like to think that I can do a better job than these yahoos (who, don't forget, get paid for this).

I’ve always been opposed to combat-heavy adventures, because the mechanics of dice-rolling and chart-referencing aren't nearly as interesting as thinking creatively and role-playing your character. Combat should add an element of danger and a sense of mortality to a game, but this only works when players are already attached to their characters. When your game consists solely of wading through room after room of basic "kill them until they are dead" encounters, you cheapen the tension that combat can introduce and take valuable time away from character development and player interaction.

So, it seems that I have some pretty strong opinions on running a D&D game. Why don't I run one, then? Well, the main reason is that trying to get any of our friends in one place on even a semi-regular basis is like herding squirrels. I’d love to host an old-school RPG group, but I just don’t think anyone else would be willing to commit to playing regularly.

Wizards of the Coast may have a solution to this problem in the near future. They’re working on the D&D Game Table software, which allows users to host their own D&D game, complete with maps, dice rolling, and real-time chat (both voice and text). The software doesn't do any of the game mechanics for you -- combat and skill checks are still up to the DM and players to work out -- but it provides tools for communication and visualization that you normally wouldn't have when trying to play an RPG online.

I'll definitely give this thing a shot when it's released. Of course, it'll never be a substitute for sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, dice, and empty pizza boxes.

NO CARRIER Episode 6

2008-07-02T10:33:00.003-05:00

I had hosting duties again on this week's podcast, entitled "Legends, Failures and Legendary Failures".

We've got a gaming-centric show this week, in which Alex and I talk about future classics Diablo 3, Spore, and a certain other game that might miss just short of the Gaming Hall of Fame. Also, we discuss some guy we've never heard of retiring from some obscure company.

You can check out the new episode at the NO CARRIER website.

My Dinner With Ahboo

2008-06-25T13:37:00.004-05:00

One of the major perks of the new house is the huge brick barbecue grill that was built by the previous owner.

It took some research to figure out exactly what was going on with this thing, but once I worked it out, I decided to fire it up and cook the crap out of some dead animal carcass.

The previous owner left a stack of hickory logs in the storage shed out back, so I decided I was going to attempt a nice slow cook. I started a roaring fire in the left hearth area and let it burn until it produced some nice coals, then transferred them into the bottom right compartment.

In went the deceased mammal. I was not at all confident that my first attempt using the new grill was going to result in anything edible, so I picked up a rack of spareribs that were on super-sale at the grocery store.

Three and a half hours (and nearly five logs) later, the ribs were ready. The interior temperature had reached a safe level, so I decided to declare them fit for consumption.

Things I learned:

Logs are really hard to light, even when you toss them on top of blazing charcoal. It took a liberal application of cooking oil to get them burning initially.

It's possible to be way too liberal with the airflow. I didn't have any way to measure the air temperature at meat level, and I'm pretty sure I had it a lot higher than the recommended 225 degrees. Next time I'll definitely have a thermometer ready so I can regulate the temperature much better.

I shouldn't stop at the minimum "safe" temperature when slow-cooking. It needs a lot of time for the collagen to break down, and the ribs probably could have gone another couple of hours to get them nice and tender.

For my first attempt, I have to call it a success. The ribs were nowhere near as tender as I'd hoped (it took a good bit of gnawing to get the meat off the bone), but they were incredibly flavorful. We could taste the smoke in every bite, and the barbecue sauce we added after the fact was a nice complement but really unnecessary.

Even Ahboo approves!

The path is cake. The cake is grey.

2008-06-23T07:58:00.011-05:00

Over the weekend, friends Adam and Brandy had a joint birthday party. I decided to take advantage of my new kitchen and bake them a cake.

Frosted and decorated:

Adam says "Mess with my cake and I'll cut ya!"

Wait, what's this?

Oh wow, the colors, man. It's like a unicorn barfed!

I didn't want to make just any cake -- I was going for the fabled rainbow cake (of doom). And now, the "making of" pictures...

The hardware and ingredients:

Batter in the pan:

Just out of the oven:

Overall, it was a huge success for my first attempt at a rainbow cake. The colors turned out exactly how I'd hoped.

The rainbow effect was achieved by pouring each consecutive color into the middle of the cake pan -- red first, going through the rainbow. Each color would compress and displace the previous colors, making the cool banding effect. I stepped down the amount of batter for each color after the first; there was about twice as much red batter as violet.

Mission successful. Now if only I could master the barbecue grill -- I'll give an update in an upcoming blog post.

Angus taught me everything I know

2008-06-20T09:42:00.003-05:00

One of the many joys of new home ownership is discovering all of the little quirks and poor design decisions that were introduced when building the house.

One such annoyance is the placement of the downstairs air conditioner intake vent. It is nestled precariously over the middle of the staircase, about seven feet above the nearest step. There's no way to access it with a chair or stepladder, and it would take one of those "As Seen On TV" flexible ladders to even get in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, the previous owners of the house hadn't changed their filters in a while. A long while. I set out to accomplish this task this morning while I was waiting for a maintenance guy to show up to charge the freon.

The upstairs filter was easy enough to change, but accessing the panel above the stairs seemed relatively impossible. No matter how high or low I went up the steps, the panel was firmly out of my reach. Not one to surrender after an initial setback, I went back downstairs and surveyed the utility closet. Broom? Check. Hammer? Check. Duct tape? Hmm...

By duct taping the hammer to the end of the broom, I had an extendable tool that was strong enough to pry open the latches. Getting the filter out was no big deal. Getting it back in, however, required the additional use of a mop and a fireplace poker. I'll leave the specifics to the reader's imagination.

NO CARRIER Episode 5

2008-06-17T09:03:00.004-05:00

It's here already!

NO CARRIER Episode 5

This week's episode is called "Multifarious Mélange", in which we cover a bunch of random, non-related crap, along with the normal healthy amount of Microsoft-bashing. You might recognize my "Site of the Unspecified Time Period" if you've been reading this blog for a while.

Be sure to listen past the closing music for an insight into how our recording sessions usually go.

I've been hypnotized by the TV

2008-06-11T10:49:00.004-05:00

It’s funny, now that we don’t have cable anymore, we’ve been watching more television than ever. Thank you, Usenet!

Here’s what we’ve been enjoying lately. A couple of the items are somewhat spoileriffic, so avert your eyes if you’re behind on anything (especially Lost or BSG).

Lost - Wow, what a season. It’s not often that a show keeps continually topping itself, but season 4 was a crazy-ass roller coaster ride. The finale was absolutely perfect – it was a great balance of new unanswered questions and tied-up plot elements. I’d also like to note that I totally called the occupant of the casket after last season’s finale. Sure, my details were way off the mark, but I was still right! Can’t wait for season 5 (acknowledged by the producers as “the zombie season” – or perhaps “the monkey season”).

Battlestar Galactica - This was one of my favorite shows throughout the first two and a half seasons. Then something happened – the show lost its bite. It went from a gritty, post-apocalyptic struggle for survival to… I don’t even know what it is now. It’s almost more like Star Trek – gallivanting around the galaxy without a care. There’s no sense of tension or urgency, like the Cylons could show up at any moment and finish off humanity. Heck, we’re allied with half of them now! Even though I don’t care for the turn the series has taken, we’re getting right up to the end and I have faith that Ron Moore will pull something out. This past week’s episode, “The Hub” was the best in recent memory, so hopefully we’re ramping up for a worthy finish to its final season.

Deadliest Catch - I normally hate reality shows, but this is more of a documentary than a reality show. There’s a very real air of danger to the life of a crab boat fisherman, and you know that it’s only a matter of time before someone we’ve gotten to know throughout the series dies or is severely injured (just this last week we learned that one of the North American’s deckhands lost a brother who was working on another boat). Not that I wish to see that, but it definitely keeps the reality of the situation foremost in the viewer’s mind.

Flight of the Conchords - My first thought when I heard about this series was “oh, so they made a Tenacious D series but without Jack Black”. It’s actually really funny and well-written, though, and the music is great. From the Hiphopasaurus rap to the parody of every David Bowie song ever recorded, the show keeps delivering.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve got the first disc of Freaks and Geeks sitting in my mailbox, and typing this blog post is wasting valuable viewing time.

NO CARRIER Episode 4

2008-06-10T16:31:00.002-05:00

The new episode of NO CARRIER is now available.

This week, Alex and I talked about the WWDC keynote speech, and what it means for Apple, enterprises, and you. It's short and sweet, clocking in at under an hour (we're going to try to keep them between 30-60 minutes from now on). Check it out and pass it on!

I'm enjoying doing the quasi-weekly podcasts, and I think each one has improved over the previous episodes. I need to stop babbling about something when I don't have my thoughts straight (that's what editing is for!), and really have to work to stop relying on verbal crutches. When I go back and listen to the rough edits, I cringe every time I hear myself say "uh" or "you know".

Still, we're having a blast, and hopefully it's as entertaining to listen to as it is for us to record.

NO CARRIER Episode 3

2008-06-03T18:41:00.004-05:00

Wow, two posts in one day!

Just wanted to let everybody know that NO CARRIER episode 3 is now available. In this podcast, we talk about ultra-portable PC's, the "switch" to Mac, and the lifestyle side of the gaming console war. There's also a guest appearance by Vo0.

Check it out at your leisure!

I'm sorry, I can't hear you -- I've cut off my ears

2008-06-03T09:54:00.001-05:00

They put Jimmy Buffett in Rock Band.

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck either.

Crystal Dull

2008-05-28T11:25:00.003-05:00

Okay, I've never been a huge fanboy of the series, but I enjoyed the previous Indiana Jones movies. I have no problem summoning the level of suspension of disbelief required to enjoy watching a guy swing around on a whip, evading Nazis, and even recovering supernatural artifacts that occasionally melt the faces off the aforementioned Nazis.

Unfortunately, the stunts and chase scenes in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" are so completely unbelievable and obviously CGI-based that it completely takes the viewer out of the movie. The dialogue -- never a strong point of Indy films anyway -- is laughably bad at times, especially early on in the movie. Even Harrison Ford's natural charisma can't save most of the awful one-liners he's spouting.

The story itself has potential, but you can see most of the "twists" coming from miles away, and there are several scenes where it seems obvious that the producers added plot points to complement the stunt sequences, rather than the other way around. Need another escape scene? Let's just have Indy get captured for the fifth time. Fight scene? Let's have these weird half-human natives jump out of the walls with absolutely no explanation given for their existence (and nobody in the film has the presence of mind to be particularly surprised about the attack).

Honestly, if I'd been in the theater alone rather than with a bunch of friends, I would have walked out about twenty minutes in. Even the ending made me roll my eyes, but I won't spoil it for the rest of you who haven't learned the "don't give any more money to George Lucas" lesson yet (damn it, I knew better!).

It's a rare movie that actually makes me feel embarrassed to be sitting in the theater watching it, but that's the one stunt "Crystal Skull" executes flawlessly.

A thousand points of white

2008-05-27T13:27:00.005-05:00

Over the weekend, we got together with some friends and played several sessions of 1,000 Blank White Cards.

If you've never played before, it's a pretty simple concept. Each player makes up some cards with a subject, a point value, and (optionally) extra rules. These get shuffled in with the rest of the blank cards. You go around the table, playing cards on yourself and/or others. As you get new blank cards in your hand, you can make up new cards (and, thus, rules) on the fly.

A few of my personal favorite creations from the most recent game:

Don't Lick That! - Ahboo destroys one in-play food item of your choice each turn.

Fudgement Day - Each player destroys one in-play card. +100 points (mmmmm fudge). Destroys all other Day cards in play.

Oh No! Squirrels! - Cancel any card that is played on you and play it on someone else instead. Can be played at any time.

George Lucas - ("I want my eight bucks back!") No movie references can be played while George Lucas is in play.

Test Your Might - All players throw a card from their hand. The player owning the one that lands furthest from the table gets this card. +200 points (Note that I abused the hell out of this one by crumpling one of my cards into a ball and chucking it across the room).

At this point, I don't even remember who won, but that's just an incidental detail with this sort of game.

I got a trunk fulla amps

2008-05-19T09:57:00.003-05:00

I'm still listening to TheSixtyOne daily, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

If you want to check out some of the great music that I've discovered there (and liked enough to add to my subscription list), just click on the big "Play" button below. You don't even need a T61 account to listen.

There are Xbox-like achievements for radio listeners, so while you're discovering new music, you're also giving me points! Eventually I'll integrate the controls right into my blog navigation, but for now you can clicky the link above.

Cast your pod to the wind

2008-05-13T09:27:00.003-05:00

My friend Alex and I have published the first two episodes of our technology podcast, NO CARRIER.

It's a non-specific technology-themed podcast that we're going to try to do on a semi-regular basis (hopefully weekly, once we get into the swing of it). We've kept the podcast kind of dry so far, but we're hoping to get into more accessible and entertaining topics in the weeks to come. There may be a few rough spots, since we're still learning what the hell we're doing with all of this, but I think the first two podcasts turned out pretty well.

You can check out both episodes over at the NO CARRIER page.

Note that I didn't talk very much on the second episode -- because of the nasty storms in Alabama over the weekend, I actually couldn't hear much of what Alex or our guest were saying. Oh well, it still turned out okay. I'll be hosting the next episode, so expect either brilliance or a train wreck. Or a brilliant train wreck.

At least there weren't any pirates or ninjas

2008-05-11T22:00:00.003-05:00

You might remember my experiment with using team mascots as the sole criteria for picking winners in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Well, my cunningly conceived system failed miserably. I finished dead last, behind someone who seemingly flipped a coin to determine the game outcomes.

A bulldog beating up a jaguar? Not bloody likely. You know, if nature worked this way, we'd all still be protozoa floating around in the primordial ooze.

Hypothesis disproven; back to the drawing board.

Fresh from the Tel Aviv club scene

2008-05-10T07:58:00.003-05:00

Here's a crazy-awesome band I found over at TheSixtyOne:

Eatliz

They're an Israeli group, but all of their songs are in English. The singer's voice is amazing -- it goes from cute and poppy to powerful and angry in the same song. The music is incredibly well-arranged and very complicated. It reminds me a bit of later Oingo Boingo: lots of layering, horns, tempo changes, etc.

I just ordered their album from CDBaby, and I figure a lot of my friends might enjoy them too. "Hey" is probably my favorite, but they're all good. Please go check them out (there are four songs available to stream from the link above) and give them a bump if you dig their stuff.

Mankind's greatest accomplishment

2008-05-08T10:28:00.004-05:00

At rare points throughout the history of human civilization, a new concept has been introduced that is so groundbreaking and innovative that it has changed the world as we know it.

The wheel.
The printing press.
Electricity.

The Emergency Party Button.

Oh, yes. Watch the video and be awed.

Things I've learned from Grand Theft Auto IV

2008-05-05T08:52:00.005-05:00

1. Stepping one foot across a police roadblock is a much more heinous crime than stealing cars, running over old ladies, or blowing up a cop car full of officers with a rocket launcher.

2. Television in Liberty City is a lot better than real television. There are two complete TV networks in the game, which both have hours of content. So far I've watched a poker tournament, an Adult Swim-esque cartoon, and a talk show with a 'roided-out host (featuring the voices of Opie & Anthony staffers).

3. Rastafari dialect is incredibly hard to understand, even with subtitles on. Fortunately, my character is as clueless about it as I am, so at least we're on the same level of comprehension.

4. Don't ever, EVER listen to SomethingAwful goons in a multiplayer game. While playing Cops and Robbers online, I was on the criminal team. We got to the escape helicopter, and I climbed into the pilot seat. As I took us up to about a thousand feet, I mentioned that I didn't really know how to fly a chopper. One of my teammates said "Just hit Y". I hit Y. My character climbed out of the helicopter and fell a thousand feet to his death. We all laughed our asses off -- lesson learned.

Le Soixante et Un

2008-04-24T10:37:00.002-05:00

When people ask me where I find out about new music, I've always referred them to "XMU", the unsigned/indie channel on XM satellite radio.

I think I'm going to have to change my standard response. A couple of ex-Electronic Arts guys have created TheSixtyOne, an odd but well-conceived (and, more importantly, free) online music site. Artists upload their songs, and listeners can rate them by "bumping" songs that they enjoy. Higher-ranked songs make it onto the "Playlist of Democracy", where they get exposure to thousands of new listeners.

Internet music sites for unknown artists are nothing new or special, so here’s the hook: Listeners can gain experience and level up. You can earn points by listening to new and underrated music in "The Rack", and then spend those points to bump songs. From then on, you’ll get points every time someone else bumps the same song. The less total bumps a song has, the more it costs to bump it, so there is a bit of risk involved. However, if you get in early on a popular song, you can make a ton of points from your initial investment.

As you gain points, you advance to the next level, which gives you the ability to bump multiple times per song. Eventually, higher levels will give you other perks (built-in games and such), but the site is still in beta testing, so a lot of the upcoming features are still on the drawing board.

Since all songs are artist-uploaded, and since anyone can make an artist account, you do get a fair mix of crap. However, there’s a decent number of underground and indie bands that have taken up residence on the site – I’ve already heard My Morning Jacket and The Good Wolves on the site, two bands that are fairly popular on the college music scene. Fortunately, the "Never play this song again" button is always within easy reach, so you can keep the "badly-played guitar recorded in the bathroom" listening to a minimum.

I’ve already discovered quite a few artists through the site that I’ll probably start following. A new favorite is The Callen Sisters, whose hauntingly beautiful album I’m probably going to have to pick up very soon. Most artists on the site have links to their songs on the Amazon Music Store (DRM-free MP3’s – hooray!).

I definitely recommend TheSixtyOne to anyone who likes checking out new music. Oh, and did I mention that another good way to get points is through new listener referrals? When you sign up, be sure to put "WhiteHowler" in the referral box. I’ll try to throw back some of those extra points by bumping your favorite songs.

Or, as I call it, Beardodging

2008-04-07T16:33:00.004-05:00

I was bit by the Geocaching bug again over the weekend, so we went out and hunted for a few caches that were close to home.

What follows is my log of the first "find" of the day:

Vo0 and I found this one today. There were a few people out fishing, but we decided to search it out anyway. After several minutes of looking, we were coming up empty, despite knowing pretty much where it had to be hiding.

As I started to dig through my pockets for the printout to decode the hint, one of the fishermen walked over and asked "What are you looking for?"

I froze. "Uh, well, see, there should be this..." I pointed feebly at my Geocache printout. "It's a container with a log that we're going to sign, and..."

"Oh, so it's like a scavenger hunt?"

Eureka! "Er, ye- I mean..."

"With your GPS there?"

"Yes, that!", I cried.

The fisherman thought for a second and then pointed at a guardrail. "Well, it's probably stuck under there." Within seconds, he had spotted the cache that we'd been blindly overlooking.

What a humbling experience -- beaten to the cache we were hunting by a complete stranger who had no clue what we were doing (I swear, we looked in that exact spot!). Fortunately, the fisherman turned out to be very nice. We explained Geocaching, and he thought it was a very cool idea. More importantly, he promised not to disturb the cache.

We thanked him, signed the log, replaced the cache, and slunk back to the car with our tails between our legs. It was still a fun hunt, if not quite what we were expecting.

The other cache we found was housed in an old Millennium Falcon action figure case. It's part of a series of Star Wars-themed caches located along the highway, so I think we're going to have to seek out the others soon.

This blog post could save your life someday

2008-04-02T16:51:00.004-05:00

I usually hate stupid Internet quizzes, but I feel that this is vital information for any red-blooded American (and some Canadians -- Quebecers need not apply).

How many five-year-olds could you beat up?

25

Respectable, huh? Complete ruthlessness plus a bit of martial arts training equals the ability to take out a small classroom. Rock.

Ron and Fez had an in-depth discussion of this very topic on their XM show a while back, going so far as to bring in a professional martial arts trainer to get his analysis. You can check out a recording the bit here. It's one of the funner bits in the history of radio.

Is a golden eagle tougher than a regular one?

2008-03-17T10:36:00.004-05:00

Here it is, Monday morning, and I find myself filling out the brackets on my company's NCAA basketball pool.

Since I know less than nothing about basketball, I have devised an ingenious system for determining the winner of each game. I take the mascot for each school, and decide who would win in a battle to the death.

Portland State versus Kansas? Well, the latter may be a "no-brainer" favorite, but let me tell you: a Viking will kick the shit out of a Jayhawk any day of the week. Xavier against Georgia? You have to go with a well-trained Musketeer over the unwieldy Bulldog.

There are a few schools that seemingly chose intentionally ambiguous names just to throw me off. For example, Stanford's team is apparently known as "The Cardinal" (referring to the color, not the bird or the Catholic posting). And they're playing the "Big Red" of Cornell. Since it's hard to figure out who would win in an epic clash between two shades of red, I went with Cornell because they at least have a cool-ass bear on their logo.

Despite this, I anticipate a 97% accuracy rate.

Soul Coughing it ain't

2008-03-11T15:13:00.003-05:00

The new Mike Doughty album is absolutely terrible and should never be listened to by anyone, ever, for any reason. I heard it this morning, and I'm now hastily trying to invent time travel so I can go back to yesterday and hit myself with a shovel before I can listen to the album.

I apologize for this post's accompanying picture, but it was the first thing that came up when I searched for "crappy music" on Google image search.

The best TV show you're not watching

2008-03-07T10:29:00.002-06:00

Were it not for the amazing premiere of Pushing Daisies in the fall, I'd assert that Breaking Bad is without a doubt the best new television series of the 2007/2008 season.

Don't worry. You're not the only one who hasn't heard of the show, or brushed it off because it was some un-hyped new series with an ambiguous name running at an odd hour on AMC of all places.

But you've definitely missed out. If you don't know anything about Breaking Bad, I'll break it down for you, here's a quick overview of the premise: The main character is Walter White, a brilliant chemist who, due to a nearly paralyzing fear of failure (and a few other reasons that we find out later in the series), throws away a rewarding career as a research scientist to teach high school Chemistry. Between his wife's unsuccessful attempts to publish a novel, a teenage son with a physical disability, and another baby on the way, he is barely able to make ends meet on his teacher's salary. When Walter is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he struggles to find a way to ensure his family's stability after he's gone.

After going on a drug bust "ride-along" with his DEA officer brother-in-law, Walter realizes that he can potentially use his knowledge of chemistry to create his own crystal meth lab and bring in enough money to leave behind for his family. Unfortunately, he has absolutely no knowledge of the drug game at all -- or, really, anything even remotely resembling "street smarts". Through a series of coincidences, Walter teams up with a former student (who narrowly avoided the aforementioned drug bust by being next door having sex with the neighbor's daughter at the time) and goes into business as a narcotics producer and distributor.

When I mention that Bryan Cranston -- the father from Malcolm in the Middle -- is playing Walter White, you might get the wrong idea. There aren't any sight gags or slapstick moments in Breaking Bad; the underlying sense of humor is morbidly dark, and would be right at home in a Coen Brothers movie. The fact is, in the six short episodes that have aired so far, Cranston has established himself as a truly amazing actor. Walter White is an eminently believeable character, and you find yourself empathizing with his plight and wishing he'd make some better decisions for himself. The acting throughout the cast is nearly on par with the lead character's, avoiding the whole "wow, I wish they'd stop showing this character's subplot" scenario (see also: Lost).

The writing is also incredible throughout the series. The dialogue is almost perfect, and the producers made a conscious choice not to censor anything out just to shoehorn the show onto basic cable. AMC dumps out of curse words occasionally, but they leave as many in as they cut out. During a recent interview on the Ron & Fez show, Bryan Cranston joked that they only get two "shits" and five "goddammits" per episode. After watching the series, I've found that he wasn't too off the mark. There are also several dark moments in the show's plotline that range from uncomfortable (feeding the habit of a bunch of deteriorating, self-destructive meth-heads) to downright disturbing (disposing of a dead body in a way that the authorities will never discover it). The fact that AMC has the balls to show all of this, more or less uncut, gives me a lot of respect for a network that I'd long ago written off as only good for watching old Steve McQueen movies.

Sadly, the first season of Breaking Bad was cut short by the writer's strike. If they don't get a second season, it will be a travesty on the level of Fox's cancellation of Wonderfalls. And Firefly. And Futurama. And Family Guy. Hey, fuck you, Fox!

Wait, where was I?

Oh, yes. By posting this blog entry, I'm hopefully doing my part to ensure another season of this amazing series. If you can catch it in reruns, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Otherwise, be sure to grab the inevitable DVD release. Breaking Bad is an absolutely stellar program, and I can't think of anyone who would be reading this blog who wouldn't enjoy every second of it.

I just want to bang on the drum(s) all day

2008-03-05T10:33:00.003-06:00

When I first tried a pre-release demo of Rock Band at the local Wal-Mart, it was the drums that really drew me to the game. After all, I'd already been through two-and-a-half Guitar Hero games, so the guitar and bass, while highly anticipated, were nothing new. And since my previous spirited attempts at singing have been classified under the Geneva Conventions as a "war crime", it left only the percussion role to get excited about. Pounding out the beats on Faith No More's "Epic" for the first time convinced me that I would buy this game at any price, and probably pour an obscene amount of money into buying all of the downloadable add-on songs for it.

Months have passed since that fateful day in the Garden Section, and I've worked my way up to the "hard" difficulty on Rock Band's drum tour. As fun as playing pseudo-guitar is, nothing makes one feel like a rock god nearly so much as nailing a tough drum sequence on Radiohead's "My Iron Lung" or Smashing Pumpkins' "Cherub Rock". The similarity between hitting Rock Band's grey rubber pads and playing on a real drum kit is worlds closer than what you'd experience trying to go from a plastic guitar to a real six-string. The fact that there's a correlation (if somewhat tenuous) between playing a video game and making real, actual music makes drumming a unique and engrossing experience.

For you other fake-drummers out there, there's a great article on sticking over at ScoreHero. Aside from (hopefully) helping me improve my game a little, it's also reinforcing the fact that I'd be nowhere near the "knowing what the hell I'm doing" level if I were to play real drums.

But it's still okay to pretend, right?

NIN from the great beyond

2008-03-03T14:16:00.003-06:00

I was extremely surprised to wake up this morning and see the following thread title on the Something Awful forums: "New Nine Inch Nails album materializes out of the aether".

In case you haven't heard: Over the weekend, Trent Reznor dropped a two-disc Nine Inch Nails album completely without warning. Entitled "Ghosts I-IV", it's a four-volume, two-CD set of instrumental-only tracks. The entire first volume, "Ghosts I", was uploaded to popular BitTorrent sites accompanied by request that filesharers buy the other three volumes if they enjoy the first one. $5 entitles you to a DRM-free download of all four volumes, while $10 scores you a physical copy (there are also $70 and $300 signed special editions for die-hard fans).

In my opinion, it's a fucking genius move. A big-name band ditches its record company, releases a new album completely out of the blue, shares a sizeable portion for free on the Internet, and doesn't attempt to gouge buyers with ridiculous record company prices. Granted, it's not an entirely original concept -- Radiohead released "In Rainbows" for the ambiguous price of "it's up to you" late last year -- but to do it with no advance warning and no record company support at all ("In Rainbows" was released through normal retail channels two months after its Internet debut) is extremely ballsy.

My main worry is that even considering the band's openness toward the filesharing community, the album is going to be pirated. A lot. Given Reznor's disappointment with the treatment that his Saul Williams collaboration, "Niggy Tardust" received, I hope that he continues to forge ahead with his industry-independent business strategy.

I'll definitely be dropping $10 on the new album. If enough fans purchase "Ghosts I-IV", other artists will take notice -- and hopefully recognize this as a new and viable way to distribute their music.

A Rollins in the Wry

2008-02-20T15:41:00.001-06:00

Last night Hillary and I went to see Henry Rollins speak in beautiful (heh) downtown Birmingham.

I should point out that while he talked for just over three hours without a break, I didn’t look at my watch once. He’s one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever listened to, and his stories are entertaining and well-delivered.

Henry spent most of the session telling us about his travels abroad last year, from his visits in Johannesburg, Damascus, and Beirut to his Christmas vacation in Islamabad, Pakistan. Yeah, odd places to go sightseeing, but he’s been pretty much everywhere else, and he never seems to tire of being exposed to new people and their cultures.

Rollins is a master of the story-within-a-story tangent, so his travel stories were interspersed with tales of meeting a young "Diamond" David Lee Roth and having the honor of singing at the final performance of The Ruts – ever… since the guitarist was rapidly deteriorating from terminal lung cancer.

We had a great time, and it made me realize it’s kind of a shame that there aren’t more real storytellers out there. Sure, there are lecturers and artists that do speaking tours, but they almost always have a political or social agenda of some sort. Henry’s brand of storytelling is "hey, this crazy shit happened to me, and I thought you’d get a kick out of it".

I’d definitely recommend making every effort to see Henry Rollins whenever he floats into your neck of the woods. After three hours of verbal shellacking, I’d happily go back tonight if Hank were still in Birmingham.

Mega-thanks to friends Bill and Dawn for giving us the tickets as one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever gotten.

Zanthue is coming!

2008-02-06T14:22:00.001-06:00

I apologize for making two short posts in a row, but this may be the best trailer I've seen for anything, ever.

Speechless

2008-01-23T17:52:00.000-06:00

Oh, Birmingham...

Doctor, doctor, give me the news... Oh wait, you're gone.

2007-12-21T09:24:00.001-06:00

I started coming down with a sore throat on Wednesday morning, and by yesterday, it was paired with some pretty nasty sinus problems. Not having a primary doctor in the area yet (I know, I know), I called one of those doc-in-a-box walk-in clinics.

I told the receptionist that I didn't have a whole lot of time that I could take off work, and asked how busy they were. She said "Oh, there's only one person in the waiting room -- come on down and we'll get you right in to see the doctor."

Down to Pelham I drove. It's a bit of a trip from my office, but Hillary had been there before so I figured they had our paperwork on file already.

As I walked in, there were four people waiting. Okay, understandable. People do tend to walk into walk-in clinics. After filling out some paperwork (none of which they could retrieve from my wife's account), I waited about twenty minutes to get called into the back. Hooray, I'll be back to work before lunch!

Into the exam room I went. And waited. And waited. After twenty minutes, I was lamenting the fact that I hadn't brought a book with me. After the forty-five minutes, I decided that maybe I hadn't made the best choice in medical care. Another half-hour went by, and I was getting ready to walk out.

Finally, the doctor breezed in. He didn't introduce himself, or even say hello. He asked what the problem was.

"Uh, sore throat and--"

"Open your mouth."

"Okay... Aaaaaahhhhhhh."

He poked weakly at the glands on my neck. "Any colored mucus coming out of your nose?"

"No, but..."

"A nurse will be in here to collect a blood sample."

"Er, okay, but I was wondering if you could tell me..."

And he was gone. An hour and twenty minutes of waiting to get a half-assed exam and blood work done. Not to mention that he didn't even tell me what he thought the problem might be (here's a hint, Doctor House: I think I have a strep infection).

Really disgusted with this place, I turned down the blood work, assuming that they just wanted to do as much as possible that they could charge me for (seriously, I have NEVER had blood taken in the ten or so times I've visited a clinic for a sore throat). I probably would have let them if the doctor had spent more than ninety seconds in the room with me, or given me any earthly (or, hell, unearthly) reason for ordering blood work.

On the way out, I bitched at the front desk for lying to me about the wait time, and the fact that the doctor was an asshole (not in those words -- I was polite at first). The desk personnel obviously didn't give three flying shits in a V-formation, so I just said "Whatever, I'm done with this place." and walked out.

I called the corporate office for this place (which is Birmingham-based) and told them everything that had happened. I doubt it will do any good, but I've seen dozens of doctors over the years, and I've never had one who could so rudely give me a non-diagnosis in under two minutes. Maybe at least a little bit of oversight will trickle down from this.

So now I've got another appointment with a different clinic (fortunately, much closer home) later today. I've only talked to the front desk and billing people on the phone, but they've already been five times more helpful than the place I went yesterday.

Lesson for the day: Find a good family doctor, and for the love of Cthulhu don't go anywhere else.

I can has star power?

2007-12-03T08:58:00.000-06:00

Highlights of last night’s four-player Rock Band session:

1. Standing back-to-back and shouting the “HEY-HO, LET’S GO!” into the mic during Blitzkrieg Bop. Y’know, just like the Ramones, but with not nearly as much hair.

2. Everyone spontaneously deciding to attempt My Sharona on a difficulty level higher than what they’d been playing. We got maybe twenty seconds into the song before failing spectacularly.

3. Hillary getting a much-needed vocal assist on Jukebox Hero, with the rest of the band screeching “JUST ONE GUITAR!”.

4. The creation of Todd and the Harem, consisting of… well… Todd, and his harem of elfish waifs and one Amazonian giantess bass player.

5. David’s adaptation of the “Wanted Dead or Alive” lyrics: “I’ve seen a million faces, and I FUCKED THEM ALL!”.

Mr. Show has a successor

2007-11-21T11:42:00.000-06:00

Lowtax over at Something Awful announced a new advertising campaign for IFC's sketch comedy show "The Whitest Kids U Know". I was a bit skeptical about the quality of a sketch show I've never heard of, but I started watching one of the clips. And then another one. And then I had to stop, because I was laughing too loudly and risked disturbing my office-mates.

Check this out (it's safe for work -- if you have headphones):

They're putting up new clips on the site all the time, and of course you can watch the series on IFC (presumably DVD in the near future). It's like they cross-bred elements of The State, Mr. Show, and the Kids in the Hall to create a wonderful abomination of sketch comedy.

Abra Cadaver lives!

2007-11-21T08:32:00.000-06:00

This is going to be yet another Rock Band post, so if you're not interested in the game (and really, what's wrong with you?), feel free to skip it.

Hillary and I finally got to try everything out last night. After anticipating the game for so long, I figured that it would almost have to be disappointing in some way.

Fortunately, I couldn't have been more wrong. The game is an absolute blast to play, and we kept on rocking for three hours straight (skipping dinner), despite sore wrists and ankles from the non-stop performing.

It's probably easier to just go over the highlights of the game and give my first impressions.

- The Fender Stratocaster is really nice, and it feels frighteningly like a real guitar. The fret buttons have a small learning curve, but I think they're easier to use than Guitar Hero's. The strum bar isn't clicky at all, but this doesn't bother me because I alt-strum (up-down-up-down) everything anyway. For you downstrum-only thumb players, it might be harder to get used to.

- The drums are amazingly fun, but extremely difficult with the kick pedal. It's hard enough to keep a rhythm with two hands, but just try throwing a foot into the mix. I mostly played on Medium, and while I didn't fail anything, I came dangerously close a few times. It's going to be months (or years) before I'm playing Metallica songs on Expert.

- Singing is much more satisfying than I'd expected. I'm not a good singer by any stretch of the imagination, but I nailed "Black Hole Sun" (mostly by virtue of already knowing all the words), and scraped by on the Stones' "Gimme Shelter". Hillary belted out a great version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps", and she seemed to really take to the vocal section of the game.

- The notecharts are very well-designed. There are very few random three-note chords even on Expert, and the solos can get pretty hard without throwing in a bunch of bullshit notes that don't even exist in the audio track (Guitar Hero 3, I'm looking at you). The aforementioned "Gimme Shelter" is possibly the best guitar chart I've played in any of the Harmonix music games thus far.

- The character customization is extremely deep. When you start, your entire band is wearing cheap T-shirts and ratty jeans. There are literally hundreds of outfits and accessories to buy, as well as several dozen hairstyles, make-up schemes, and facial hair options (even the Lemmy-stache is included!). There's even a custom tattoo designer. As your band gains fame and money, the members develop new looks and become unique. It's a really cool way to do customization.

- The backgrounds and band animations are incredible. The problem with a music game is that you're generally looking at your note chart or lyrics. If you take a minute to look at the band on-stage and how the crowd is reacting, you really get a sense of the level of detail Harmonix put into the game. If you're really kicking ass, your singer might stage-dive into the crowd during a vocal break. The audience may even sing along with the chorus. The venue design really gives you a sense of being in a smoky, seedy bar that smells like ass (and, presumably, will scale up once you're playing 30,000-seat arenas).

There have to be a few tiny blemishes on the otherwise perfect experience, of course.

- The Band World Tour mode requires that the band leader is present. The resulting problem is that the band leader is a character, not a player, and each character in BWT mode is locked into an instrument. Hillary's guitarist was chosen as the leader (we're not sure why/how; she wasn't player 1, nor was she the one navigating the menus), which means we always have to have a guitar or bass player. No drums/vocals combination. This also means that when Hillary wants to sing or play drums, I have to play guitar or bass -- on her character. It's not a huge deal, but it makes switching instruments a pain in the ass if you have less than three people.

- The guitar note charts are a lot easier than Guitar Hero's, at least for the first half of the game. In GH2, I can play most songs on Expert but rarely have a good score. I breezed through most songs on Rock Band's Expert setting. I know it gets harder (and the downloadable tracks are way more difficult) , but playing through "Creep" or "Here It Goes" multiple times on Expert isn't much of a challenge.

- The downloadable charts don't seem to be as good as the ones included on the disc. Obviously, stuff like Metallica is going to be more difficult, but I was really disappointed at the note charts for the Queens of the Stone Age songs we tried -- songs that should be a lot more fun.

- No online Band World Tour mode. I know that Harmonix never promised one, but it seems like a no-brainer. In fact, this is the one scenario where I'd be okay with the game requiring the band leader to be present.

Still, these are extremely minor complaints. The game is the most fun I've had with a music game in, well, ever, and we still haven't unlocked 70% of the songs.

Retail adventures at half-past-goddammit in the morning

2007-11-20T01:46:00.000-06:00

It is 1:45am.

I have Rock Band.

The enormous behemoth of a package shall lurk in a lonely corner of the computer room, neglected and unopened, while I regretfully attempt to salvage a half-night's sleep.

That is all.

My fake band > your fake band

2007-11-15T17:29:00.000-06:00

With the imminent release of Rock Band, many of us are faced with what may be the most difficult decision of our lives:

What do we call our new band?

I've come up with a few suggestions for the nomenclature-deficient:

Hamster Furnace
Abra Cadaver
Five-Alarm Moustache
Kawaii Five-Oh
The Burning Sensations
Catchphrase
Monkey Day

Me? I may stick with my old standby of Rape Van Winkle.

I've kissed mermaids, rode the El Nino

2007-11-11T09:54:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the delay. Every time I get back in the groove of writing regular updates, I get really busy with something and before I know it, another month has gone by with no blog posts.

I'm still loving the new job, although it's far more hectic than anyplace I've worked in recent years. I'll start working on a list of tasks for our test environment, and suddenly I'll realize than nine hours have gone by. Things should calm down as the holidays approach, but right now we're in "we needed this released yesterday" mode.

Hillary's up in New York on her drunken slosh-tour, so it's just been me and Ahboo this weekend. It's taking an epic amount of willpower to remember that some french fries and a bag of pretzels does not constitute a nutritious dinner.

This morning I ventured out to Wal-Mart at around 6:30am to get some donuts. I noticed that they had set up a Rock Band demo kiosk in the Home and Garden section (which has already been converted for Christmas). I reverently picked up the replica Fender Stratocaster and began to play.

It didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. The strum bar on the Strat was screwy, with the down-stroke either not registering, or registering twice. I managed to get most of the way through Suffragette City and Wanted Dead or Alive on Hard mode, until I found that the yellow fret had been sticking (thus explaining why I was missing so many notes).

Not to be set back by a wonky guitar, I decided to try out the drums. And let me tell you, they are an absolute blast to play. I tried Faith No More's "Epic" on Hard mode and five-starred it on my first try. Of course, the demo units have no kick drum pedal, which probably makes songs about ten times more difficult. Still, it was the most fun I've ever had in a Wal-Mart at 6:30am, restraining order notwithstanding.

The full game comes out on the 20th, and I absolutely can't wait. I haven't been this excited about a game since the original Baldur's Gate came out. Since up to four people can play, I fully expect all of our Birmingham friends to come over and rock out this holiday season. I promise I won't sing.

Rocket, meet face. Face, meet oblivion.

2007-10-10T09:35:00.001-05:00

This blog entry is just more babbling about Halo 3, so if you're not at all interested in the game, you might be in for some disappointment.

Last night I got to try out a few custom gametypes with some friends and SA goons. Overall the night was a success and everyone had fun, but I definitely have some ideas in mind to make custom games more fun in the future. Here's an overview of what we played...

Mongoose Jousting - Teams of two, unlimited rocket launcher ammo, and a huge vehicle yard full of Mongooses (Mongeese?). We played a few rounds last night, and it was a high-speed carnage extravaganza. However, there are a few problems right now:

- The Mongoose respawn timer doesn't start until the previous vehicle's wreck disappears from the map. It can take up to 30 seconds for a Mongoose to respawn after it has been killed. This can probably be remedied by simply adding a few more spawn points on the map. The only problem is a limited amount of space that doesn’t interfere with the main driving paths.

- People cheat like crazy. They'll camp the Mongoose yard and nail a team right as they mount up, or even fire at passing vehicles while still on foot. Not much we can do about this one, other than clarify the rules before each game. It would be nice if the editor had a way to simply spawn teams with (or on) a vehicle. Another idea is to make teams invulnerable for a few seconds after spawning, but we'll have to see how abusable this is.

- There isn't really a great map for the gametype. You need a large open area where teams can get up to speed, with enough terrain that you're not always in the open. Sandtrap is okay, but there are so many dunes and ramps that the vehicles flip over a lot more than I'd like. It would be nice if you could remove the huge-ass Elephant transports from the map, but they seem to be a permanent fixture.

Super Rocketball - A lot like standard RocketBall, in which there's a "ball" (skull) that a player can pick up and score points while carrying it. The differences are lower gravity and automatic skull pickup. I'm going to modify this to remove the low gravity -- on open maps, players can just bounce around and easily avoid rockets (on Isolation, I ran around with the skull for about forty seconds with seven other people chasing me). Normal gravity would fix this. I'm also toying with the idea of making it so the skull-carrier does no damage with melee attacks, to make ball-handling a bit more frantic and desperate. An interesting addition would be the ability to score a point for killing other players, and maybe three points for killing the skull-carrier. It wouldn't be enough to win, but it'd make the game even more violent and reward good rocket skills.

Instagib Last Man Standing - It's a good idea in theory: a free-for-all with one-shot kills, where players only get limited lives. The problem is that the idea of Instagib matches is to promote aggressive play, where Last Man Standing games promote hiding/camping so you don't lose lives while there are still a lot of players on the map. The two rulesets conflict and make for a boring gametype. I think we're going to have to convert it to straight Slayer Instagib and see how things go. Also, the best weapon for this gametype (the Covenant Carbine) can't be selected as the default weapon. I'm not sure why -- you can choose almost anything else. We'll have to experiment with other weapons to see what works (obviously, an automatic weapon like the assault rifle is just ridiculous for one-shot-kill rules).

If there’s anyone reading this who has Halo 3 and wants to try out some of these custom games, please feel free to add me to your friends list (and mention who you are – I get a lot of random invites from people I’ve been in public games with). My gamertag is WhiteH0wler (with a zero) and I’m online most nights, if only for a quick round of Hexic 2 before bed.

I lo, you lo, we all lo for Halo

2007-10-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not usually one to buy into video game hype. If I can't play a demo and haven't played a previous game in the series, I tend to shy away from dropping $60 on a new title, even if it's hailed as the second coming of Zombie Jesus.

I'm even less inclined toward buying an upcoming game where the primary focus is online multiplayer. Online communities tend to die out quickly; for example, Chromehounds: an incredible Mech game which unfortunately has little offline content and an extremely cumbersome multiplayer system that requires you to permanently join a specific team of players (who are destined to stop playing a week later) to even be able to play online. Add into this the fact that, like the guy from Zero Punctuation, I generally don't give a flying pair of elephant testicles about online play. Especially in first-person shooters, and especially with the general population of Xbox Live, which seems to consist mostly of eleven-year-olds who are constantly impressing me with their ability to string together curse words and racial epithets.

Enter Halo 3. We obviously know that the online community won't be going anywhere, at least until Halo 4 comes along (which probably won't be happening). I figured the single-player would be disappointing, much like other multiplayer-centric games (Gears of War, I'm looking at you). Then I heard that you can play through the campaign with up to three other players in co-op mode. Including any combination of people on the local Xbox and on Live. That sold me, because even a mediocre shooter is more fun as you add more players.

Over the weekend, I finally got to play online a bit. It's a lot more fun than I expected. There's a huge variety of game types other than your normal free-for-all "kill everything" mode. Capture the Flag, Assault, Territories, VIP, Infected, Oddball, Juggernaut. You can also customize virtually every aspect of a mode. Want everyone to spawn with rocket launchers, invisible, and with low gravity? No problem. You can even change the spawns on the maps around to fit your gametype.

As an example, yesterday we tried a variant of team play called "Mongoose Rocket Jousting". Four teams of two, each with a Mongoose (a small ATV with a back seat and no built-in weaponry). Players spawn with a rocket launcher containing unlimited ammo. Everyone drives very quickly while their passenger tries to splatter the other teams with a well-placed rocket. It's a blast, and it's easy to set up with a few map and ruleset tweaks.

The final selling point for me is that virtually every Something Awful goon with a 360 is playing the game, so I rarely have to plunge myself into the cesspool of random Xbox Live games.

It makes for a solid play experience, and I definitely don't regret dropping $60 for the game, sight unseen.

Parking Lot + Daystar = Sadness

2007-09-17T10:15:00.001-05:00

We attended the "Taste of the Summit" event over the weekend, wherein the various restaurants around the local shopping megaplex set up tents and let us sample their delicious wares for $10 a person.

I tend to avoid the large area most people refer to as "outdoors" for various reasons, not the least of which is that it is the natural habitat for bears, tree pollen, and Jehovah's Witnesses. However, some of our friends were going, so we braved the suburban wilderness of southeastern Birmingham and headed to the Summit.

The crowd was huge, and the lines were long. The food was every bit as good as I've come to expect from the restaurants around there, but waiting in line for up to twenty minutes for a couple of spoonfuls of pasta was a bit disappointing. Sure, it's only $10 to sample ten different restaurants, but I doubt they would have lost much money (and probably gained more future customers) by being a bit more generous with the portions. Still, the cuisine was excellent and we got to hang out with our friends and listen to live music, so overall the day a success.

Except for one thing.

One critical fact about the outdoors that I had overlooked: there's a really bright, hot ball of fire that sears the flesh of fish-belly-white nerds like me. I woke up this morning looking like I'd run a marathon through a slaughterhouse. I'm also pretty sure that sometime during the night, small gnomes replaced the water pipes leading to my shower with similar pipes carrying sulfuric acid. I figure shaving is completely out of the question, so I'll be going with my unpopular but far more comfortable "mountain man" look for the next couple of days.

Ouch.

Well, do you have any Frank Black?

2007-09-13T13:53:00.000-05:00

Through a comedy of unexpected circumstances, Hillary and I found ourselves at a karaoke lounge on Tuesday night. Originally, we were just going to meet up with friend Adam borrow a couple of old games, but we ended up sticking around and watching him and his wife sing to the (as yet) empty building.

I never thought I'd enjoy hanging out in a karaoke bar (since I don't drink and I can't sing), but it was actually kind of fun to watch the free entertainment. In an uncharacteristically extroverted move, Hillary decided to get up and try a couple of songs, since there wasn't yet a sea of strangers inhabiting the place. She did a believable "House of the Rising Sun", and then kicked it up a notch (bam!) to do a great cover of Tori Amos' rather difficult "Silent All These Years".

Me? Nope. There are only two professional singers that I feel confident I can do justice, and there are no Pixies songs in the karaoke catalog. Although right before we left, I noticed that my other choice, "Punk Rock Girl" by the Dead Milkmen, is indeed available. So maybe one day...

With apologies to CliffyB

2007-09-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

I'll get right to the point.

I finally got around to playing through Gears of War this afternoon. I have concluded that it is an overhyped, overrated, poorly-designed piece of shit.

There, I said it. I just trash-talked the most popular game on the Xbox 360. In fact, I beat the final boss not two minutes ago, and I am typing this entry as the ending cutscene plays. The game left me so unfulfilled that I didn't draw any satisfaction from beating it, other than that I won't have to play it again. It embodies virtually everything I hate about "twitch" shooters.

For starters, there are several insta-kill encounters that give you very little hint about how to beat them, so they turn into trial and error. Nothing breaks game immersion nearly as much as having to reload every time you make a single misstep. And the save system is non-existant; Gears uses a checkpoint system, so there's absolutely no way to backtrack or save right before a difficult encounter if the Console Gods didn't decide to put a checkpoint where you'd like.

Take, for example, my second encounter with a Berserker. There's no clue about what you're supposed to do, but through trial and error (and a few reloads), I figure out that I'm supposed to get him to charge at me, destroying columns and making the roof collapse. Okay, the problem is that the movement/cover system is so badly designed that half the time when you try to roll out of the way, your character takes cover on a nearby obstacle instead. Which results in getting trampled, which is insta-death, which makes you reload. Again. And again.

After several tries, I finally kill the Berserker, and I notice that there's no obvious way out of the room. I scout around for a few seconds, and I get a helpful little hint that there's a way out -- I hit the Y button, and my view focuses on a flaming hole in one of the walls. Well, fire is bad, but after all, the game told me that this is the way out. Besides, it's not much fire, so I can probably roll through it if I move quickly. Right? No. Insta-death. And what's even more fun is that the previous checkpoint is before the infuriatingly annoying boss fight.

This is pretty much par for the course throughout the game. Almost every boss fight is a stupid gimmick encounter, often where the enemies are magically immune to all of your weapons.

The final boss (and I hope I'm not ruining this for anyone, but it's not much of a spoiler) is a mean-looking guy with a swarm of bats swarming around him. He's completely immune to weapons when the bats are with him. They can be dispersed with explosives, but you have a very limited amount of explosive ammo. I have no idea how you'd even beat him if you didn't hoard your explosives during the level leading up to the fight. Occasionally he'll throw his bats at you, and if you're in the wrong spot, you're insta-killed and get to start all over. Fun.

I'm not opposed to creative boss fights. I loved Shadow of the Colossus, which consisted of a variety of encounters with giant golem-like creatures. Each fight was completely different, and you often had to figure out how to use your surroundings to win. The problem with Gears is that the sudden change from "shoot hordes of identical enemies" to "figure out how to defeat this giant oops you're dead" was too jarring and just didn't flow well. If you give me a small arsenal of destructive weaponry, let me use some of it to defeat the big nasty guys, okay?

I'm sure you've heard the stupid joke about the man eating at a restaurant who responds to his companion's complaints that the food is poor: "Yes, and the portions are so small, too!". So I'm hesitant to complain about the game's length. However, it took under four hours to complete the entire campaign, even with frequent reloading. To clarify: this $60 game can be completed in an evening, with time to spare for dinner.

I guess most people are drawn to its "hardcore" multiplayer mode, but given that the sum of my experiences with the Xbox Live population consists of being called racial slurs and/or a homosexual (and often both at once!) by hormonally-challenged thirteen-year-olds, the multiplayer aspect doesn't seem too attractive to me. So, instead, I'm putting it up for sale on Half.com and chalking it up as a reminder on why my normal policy is not to buy games without playing a demo first.

You been here four hour!

2007-09-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hillary and I had the misfortune to eat at the Worst Chinese Buffet in Birmingham and Quite Possibly the Known Universe last night.

The food was cold. The food was disgusting. The waitress only spoke two words of English, and yet somehow still managed to come off as rude and borderline hostile. My water showed up with a small bug of some sort at the bottom of the glass. When I pointed it out, the waitress almost appeared angry at me for daring to notice such a minor inconvenience. We finally walked out and went to the slightly less nausea-inducing Cici's Pizza across the parking lot.

When we got home, Hillary looked up the Chinese buffet's health rating online. They received an 81 -- this is a terrible score, especially in Birmingham, which tends to average much higher scores than other areas around the state.

More interestingly, there were three "critical" items on the list. My favorite:

"Using a wiffle ball bat to stir tea. The end of the bat has been cut off. Provide a smooth easily cleanable FCS in good repair for stirring tea."

Now, my initial (and second, and third) reaction was to be absolutely disgusted by this. However, I love the show Good Eats. Alton Brown always says that you should never have a unitasker in the kitchen, other than your trusty fire extinguisher. Can you really fault these purveyors of fine Asian cuisine for getting dual functionality out of such a mundane children's toy?

Excuse me, I need to go throw up now.

Big money, no babies... STOP!

2007-07-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

Like a sea turtle returning to the same beach year after year, it's time to make another timely blog update.

I'm terrible at analogies.

With one set of friends having a new baby (congrats, Taylors!) and another couple having recently initiated the process of mitosis (or is that meiosis? anyway, congrats, Griners!), I'm reminded of a conversation with my mother back when Hillary and I were in the late planning stages of our wedding.

I've known for ages that I don't want any kids. While I'm not actually made physicially nauseous by the thought like some of our friends, the notion of ever raising children seems is as alien to me as a trampoline would be to a hedgehog.

Again, analogies fail me.

When I casually mentioned this (and the fact that my soon-to-be-wife felt the same way) to my mother, it came as an unexpected shock. I'm pretty sure I saw the entire five stages of grief cross her face within the span of a few seconds. Well, except for Acceptance.

"Well, you've got plenty of time left to make up your minds, right?" Uhh, sure, Mom. To this day, I believe she's still convinced that we'll "come around" and decided to have kids. Lots of kids. A barrel full of them, even. She looks at it as Something People Do. Capitalization and all.

Now, it's not that I don't like kids.

Okay, let me start again. It is that I don't like kids. Or, rather, my tolerance hinges upon them being other peoples' kids. You know, the kind I can hand back to Mommy if there's an excretion malfunction. The kind that go back home with their parents at the end of the day. Those kinds are great. In small doses. When they're quiet.

Which is not to say that I'm not ecstatically happy for our friends. I can definitely see how having children would be a rewarding and fulfilling experience for some people. Other people.

I've already ridden the yodeling Price Is Right mountain climber over the precipice of "30 years old", and I'm not anywhere near being ready to give up the phase of my life that largely consists of "not introducing a new drain on my time, paycheck, and available attention". Ahboo already fits that role quite nicely, but at least he can be occupied with a chew toy for hours at a time.

The idea of us ever having kids? It's... it's like a midget in a sailboat factory.

Braaaaaains

2007-06-28T09:37:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty zombie-tastic couple of weeks.

Two Fridays ago, we went over to friend David's house for games. He busted out Mall of Horror, in which the players control teams of (soon to be ex-) survivors in a zombie-infested mall. I'd never heard of it before, but it was a blast. I have great respect for any game where the accepted strategy is to betray your friends, but just a little bit. It explains my love for Citadels, I guess.

Before leaving, we mentioned that we hadn't seen the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which is apparently blasphemy in survival-horror fan circles. David loaned us his DVD copy after removing it from its locked, reinforced, booby-trapped titanium case, and we absolutely loved it. It's pretty grizzly, but they didn't go over the top with the seriousness; there's just enough camp to keep things fun.

Hillary heard that Shaun of the Dead was quality cinema, so we grabbed it from Netflix a few days later. I was very impressed; I expected a Scary Movie-style spoof of horror movies, but it really was a quality zombie flick with just enough humor to keep it fun. When I saw the previews for the recent "Hot Fuzz" (made by the same guys as Shaun of the Dead), I wrote it off as being another terrible spoof movie. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the DVD release.

With all the zombie action, I was inspired to pick up Dead Rising for the Xbox 360. At first, the game was horribly frustrating. Weapons and health items are few and far between, and you can take very few hits from the horde of zombies shambling around the mall. After failing the first couple of storyline missions a few times, I was ready to put it on the shelf forever. I'm very happy I stuck with it, because once you learn some weapon locations and "level up" a few times, it's a hell of a lot of fun. The number of ways you can destroy zombies is just stupid, and other than the aforementioned first couple of boss fights, the "psychopath" encounters are all really fun.

The initial problem I had with Dead Rising (aside than its admittedly terrible savepoint system) stemmed from the manner in which I normally play games. I'm a die-hard completionist, so when I dive into a new game, I try to see and do everything.

Dead Rising is different. This is a zombie apocalypse. Not everyone is going to make it. In fact, if you're trying to finish the main storyline, it's virtually impossible to save everybody. While leading a band of survivors toward safety, I came across a woman who had holed up in a jewelry store and was suffering from a broken leg. Being low on health and almost out of ammo, I left her to her fate. If I had babysat (or even carried) her all the way back to the security station, all of us probably would have died. Once I became comfortable with making these kind of sacrifices, the game really "clicked" for me.

After these two weeks of "cultural immersion", I now feel sufficiently prepared for a zombie holocaust. When the walking dead come for me, I'll be ready to rock.

Through the Looking Glass

2007-05-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

*** WARNING: If you didn’t see this week’s episode of Lost, STOP READING NOW (and go watch it) ***

Oh, Lost. Now that was one hell of a season finale. After having several hours to think it over, I’ve got a pretty good theory on what happened and where the story will go from here.

Flash-forward – whaaaat?

We’re not seeing the “present” in Jack’s flashes. We’re seeing a possible future, the one that will occur if events on the island continue down their current path.

In the Lost universe, we know that life has a tendency to “course-correct” – the survivors are supposed to be on the island for whatever reason, and if they’re rescued, fate/destiny/whatever will cause their lives to fall apart. Jack becomes a suicidal drug addict. Kate and Sawyer become fugitives (or worse?). Sun loses her baby. Rose’s cancer comes back. Locke is paralyzed again. Someone even dies.

Who’s in the casket?

Locke. After getting off the island, he became paralyzed again. Depression set in, his life went to crap, and he either became suicidal or succumbed to the gunshot wound he sustained at the DHARMA grave. Jack became obsessed when he read the newspaper obituary, because Locke would have been the only other survivor who wanted to get back to the island.

However, I’ve seen it pointed out that the funeral parlor was in a black neighborhood. This certainly doesn’t prove that it isn’t Locke, but it gives us a clue that it could be Michael. He betrayed the survivors, and none of them would have any reason to attend his funeral. Then again, Walt would have been there, unless something happened to him. I’m going to stick to my Locke theory, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

Who really sent Naomi?

I’ve seen a lot of speculation about this, and I’m surprised because I thought it was one of the more obvious answers. Penelope’s father, Charles Widmore, sent Naomi’s search party. He’s the only person we’ve met so far who would have access to the picture of Desmond and Penny. Widmore Industries definitely has some kind of ties to DHARMA, as evidenced in the Lost alternate reality game last year, so Mr. Widmore would definitely have knowledge of the island and a possible motivation to search for it (aside from hating Desmond).

Is Jack’s father alive in the present/future?

No. Jack mentioned his father twice: The first was when he was drunk and/or stoned out of his mind, and the reference to his father got a very surprised look from the head of surgery. The other time was when Jack was trying to scam drugs at the pharmacy, and he quickly changed his mind when the pharmacist wanted to call his father’s office and verify the prescription.

Why didn’t Charlie step outside the control room door, or swim out the (big) porthole?

He figured he had to die to save Claire, Aaron, and everyone else.

So what happens next?

I believe that season four will begin precisely where we left off – Jack has just made the phone call, the rescuers are coming, and Desmond is down in the Looking Glass. I have a feeling that the flash-forwards will be a recurring theme next season (or at least in the first few episodes). We’ll see what happens to the survivors if they make it off the island, and it’s not going to be pretty.

Because of Desmond’s unique relationship with time-space, he’ll probably be the catalyst for changing events so the survivors don’t get rescued. Maybe he starts seeing flashes of terrible events to come. Just the fact that Penelope didn’t send the rescue party (maybe he’ll see a flash of himself murdered by one of the “rescuers”?) could be enough to cause him to try to change things.

Of course, events are already set into motion. The phone call has been made, and the rescue boat knows their position. Unless something happens to the rescuers, I’m not sure how this is going to be resolved. We know the remaining Others are going to “the temple”; maybe they’ll intervene somehow. And certainly Ben and Locke still have roles to play.

I think next season will show us the origins of DHARMA, the Others, and possibly Jacob. We’ll also find out more about the Widmore Corporation and how it ties into what’s happening.

Do we really have to wait until January to find out? I don't think I'm going to make it.

Welcome to the United States of Smile and Act Nice

2007-05-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

So, once again... A couple of radio shock jocks got in trouble for being (*gasp*) shocking.

One of the key reasons I subscribed to XM was because I enjoyed the Opie & Anthony show when I was evaluating the free online trial. Now they're suspended for an entire month (and I think we all know by now how most radio "suspensions" end) because of something crude a homeless man said on their show about a few prominent public figures.

Wonderful.

The entire point of XM is that it offers uncensored content. Not only is it a pay service, but disclaimers run regularly throughout the O&A show, saying that the channel was uncensored and that one could call customer service to have it blocked if desired. The consumer was left with the ultimate power: the ability to not listen to anything he or she doesn't want to. Apparently, that's not enough anymore.

Just minutes after the suspension announcement yesterday, I called and cancelled both of my XM receiver subscriptions. It's not even because I'm a die-hard Opie & Anthony fan -- I'm not. I actually prefer Ron & Fez (which happens to be on the same channel), and I rarely listen to O&A's show in its entirety anymore. It's because I'm tired of spineless companies getting on their knees and fellating any tiny special-interest group that claims "outrage" over some stupid radio bit.

Aside from the whole "crusading for free speech" thing, there's a more practical reason for being upset. Let's say Opie & Anthony screwed up. Let's say their bosses decided to punish them, as they have a right to do in a corporate atmosphere. So they're taken off the air for a month -- who really suffers? O&A have said several times that they have "walking away money", and that they do the show because they still enjoy it. A 30-day vacation, even without pay, isn't really going to hurt them much, especially in an environment where ratings mean absolutely nothing. Who's being punished, then? Oh, that's right: the paying customers, many of whom explicitly signed up for XM because that's the service O&A are on.

When CBS killed Imus and JV & Elvis, there wasn't much I could do other than write a letter. I don't have an Arbitron book, and I don't even live in one of their radio markets. With XM, it's different. Fans of free speech and uncensored content have a voice, and it starts and ends with the wallet. The company's poor decision has directly cost them money, and by all accounts, it's costing them a LOT of money.

Since the suspension, thousands of people have called to cancel their subscriptions. As of this afternoon, over a day since the announcement, hold times on XM's customer service lines are well over an hour. Their phone system has crashed several times, their computer system went down last night, and CSR's are now being instructed to offer up to five months of free service to keep people from cancelling.

The backlash is being felt. Let's hope it sets a precedent.

Major spoiler

2007-05-14T15:34:00.000-05:00

According to the latest podcast from the "Lost" producers, the official name of the DHARMA shark (as seen in the underwater sequences in early season 2) is...

[drumroll]

Ezra James Sharkington.

Good thing we didn't call them "The Happy Fun-Time Rainbow Fuzzlebunnies"

2007-05-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

Following a tip from the SA forums, I picked up Earth Defense Force 2017 for the Xbox 360. It's a Japanese "budget" title, but don't let that fool you. Behind the mediocre graphics, horrible dialog, and laughable translation work, there's a damned solid game under it all.

The premise isn't anything new: Aliens have arrived. They're not nice. Their advance army consists of swarms upon swarms of giant insects. Then they break out the giant robots, hunter-killer drones, and fucking mecha-godzilla. You're a commando in the Earth Defense Force (how original!), and it's up to you to save the world.

Cheesy, yup. In fact, one of the first lines of dialog in the game is from a news update: "Alien UFO's have appeared all over the world. The government is referring to the aliens as 'The Ravagers'. We do not yet know their intent, and we hope that we can form a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship with them." Hmm...

The gameplay is simple. You fight a mind-boggling number of aliens with an absolutely stupid variety of weapons. The range of weapons is insane: assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, guided missiles, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, flamethrowers, acid cannons, autonomous turrets, land mines. It already sounds like a lot, but consider that each category has up to three dozen variants. Do you want the huge, slow-firing rocket launcher? The rocket launcher that fires a spread of three rockets that each split into four more rockets? The rocket launcher that fires a stream of smaller rocket launchers that fire swarms of bees? Okay, I made the last one up, but you get the idea.

Did I mention that there's split-screen co-op play? The only thing better than splattering countless thousands of giant bugs with huge explosives is doing it with a friend. The last co-op game I enjoyed this much was the original Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the PS2.

I apologize if I sound like an unapologetic fanboy, but I am absolutely in love with this game. It's flawed, but in an absolutely perfect way. Back when Serious Sam first came out, it captured the essence of the shooter. The graphics and sound effects were passable, the levels were uninspired, and the main character was a direct rip-off of Duke Nukem (or Bruce Campbell, if you'd prefer). There weren't any keycards, jumping puzzles, escort missions, or any of that garbage. It was you, a bunch of guns, and a flood of enemies. EDF2017 captures that adrenaline-rushed feel perfectly, and I can't recommend it highly enough -- especially for those of you who enjoy local co-op games.

I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon

2007-05-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

Hey, friends with Netflix... Add me to your Netflix friends list.

I've found some pretty good indie films by browsing other peoples' ratings, so I'd love to see what you guys are watching.

Oh... Canada.

2007-05-02T15:10:00.000-05:00

Hockey Canada officials to appear before parliament to explain team captaincy choice.

For a moment, this article caused me to lament the fact that Canada's got it all over us in their devotion to ice hockey, until I realized that all the fuss was caused by whether the player in question may or may not have uttered an ethnic slur about a French-Canadian referee.

This, of course, prompted me to search Google for some good French-Canadian ethnic slurs. I honestly wasn't aware that any existed. The best I could find after my grueling fifteen seconds of searching was "dirty French-Canadians", which seems a little impotent against all but the most emotionally fragile of our Francophonic neighbors. I was hoping for something with a little more vitriol.

C'est la vie.

I'm a knife. Knifin' around. Cut cut cut cut...

2007-04-30T14:37:00.000-05:00

Hillary and I got to hang out with friends Adam and Brandi over the weekend, checking out the Mt. Laurel Spring Festival. We had a great time, even though we managed to come away without buying anything from the dozen or so vendor tents that were set up. The weather was spectacular, and there was even a live band playing in the park, which, if not necessarily good, compensated admirably with pure enthusiasm. I think our respective womenfolk are considering renting some vendor space for upcoming weekends.

Mt. Laurel is a neat little town; it kind of reminded me of Sandpoint. Except twice as expensive (and that's saying a lot). We had an excellent lunch at the little bistro right off the town square, which had a fairly eclectic menu. I had the most unusual (but delicious) bowl of chicken and dumplings I've ever eaten, though the "shrimp and grits" dish was strangely appealing and may require a future visit.

Lately, Hillary and I have been playing the hell out of Guitar Hero 2 on the Xbox 360, which becomes an entirely new dimension of fun when you go multiplayer. Few joys in life approach blasting through Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name" (with the volume cranked and yelling the uncensored version of the lyrics back at the screen, of course). Settlers of Catan is apparently due on Live Arcade this week, so I predict some overtime hours for the Xbox.

We were a bit disappointed, if not surprised, at Fox's quick cancellation of "Drive". It wasn't a quality show, but it was good, dumb fun. Captain Malcolm Reynolds as an everyman with a dark past forced into an illegal cross-country race by a shadowy, seemingly omnipotent underground organization? Yes, please. And it didn't hurt that the series co-starred the very definition of "oddly hot" that is Melanie Lynskey. Oh well, I guess they needed that extra hour of network time every week for such masterworks as "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and "The War at Home" (quite possibly the worst sitcom ever created, now enjoying its second season). I almost wish they'd go ahead and cancel "House, M.D.", just so I'd have an excuse to never watch Fox again.

Okay, I'll admit that "American Idol" is a guilty pleasure. Which I'd be somewhat ashamed of, except that I know most of the people reading this watch "America's Next Top Model" religiously. To each their own. =)

The PC police claim another victim

2007-04-13T09:43:00.000-05:00

It's rare that anything in the news gets me fired up, but the whole debacle over Don Imus this week (and his subsequent firing) has angered me more than anything I can remember in recent years.

I didn't watch or listen to Imus' show. The (very) few times I'd seen it on MSNBC, it was like watching paint dry. So I'm not making this post from a standpoint of a fan whose hero has been taken down. However, the way he has been crucified over an offhanded (and forgettable) remark greatly pisses me off.

This is a guy who has donated millions of dollars to charity and has set up a "getaway" ranch for kids with cancer who have very little to look forward to other than an early death. This is a guy who does a "radiothon" every year to raise even more millions of dollars to help sick kids and the families of babies who have died of SIDS. To have his forty-year radio career destroyed by a bunch of politically-correct thugs because of a two-second (admittedly rude) comment that had no hatred or malice behind it isn't just wrong -- it's insane.

Slimeballs like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do nothing but sit around and look for things to get offended about, and then call for the cameras and raise a gigantic fuss until they get what they want (and more often than not, any concessions that their target du jour makes are never enough to satisfy them). If there's such a thing as a non-violent terrorist, they fit the bill: "Do what we want or we will do bad things to you." For all their crowing about trying to represent the African-American community, Sharpton and Jackson have done more to damage race relations than any racist or bigot organization in history.

It's not so much Imus I'm concerned for (he's got plenty of money and will be fine whether he tries to resurrect his career or not), but the bigger picture when it comes to the suppression of free speech. MSNBC and CBS both caved to pressure from the relatively tiny portion of their viewer/listenership that made the most noise about Imus' comment. Corporations are terrified of being portrayed as supporting racism, or even the perception of racism.

Now that Imus has been successfully destroyed, Sharpton and company will move to their next target. The next offhanded comment or slip of the tongue he latches onto will be even less offensive than "nappy headed hoes" (is that even racist?). And now that the first battle has been won, companies will jump even faster at the chance to distance themselves from the perception of any wrongdoing. Saving face is more important than sticking up for your guy, or even doing what's right. That's sad. And cowardly.

So what's the solution? Well, you can certainly write to both MSNBC and CBS Radio and let them know what you think about the firing. I know that personally I'm done with MSNBC altogether, and I've already told them so. Will it do any good? Probably not -- I don't have the resources or media coverage of a Reverend Al. But I do what I can.

This may well be the final year of Imus' "radiothon" charity drive (the radio firing actually happened DURING this year's event -- classy, CBS). I called and made a donation this morning, both because it's a good cause and because I want to help make the point that this is a good man who does good things, regardless of the occasional verbal slip he may have made on the radio. Every dollar the drive raises this year is not only helping sick children, but it's a slap in the face to the self-aggrandizing dickbags who would destroy a man's career over a couple of badly-chosen words.

I strongly encourage anyone reading this to consider donating to the charity drive. It's almost over, but there's still a little time left. You can call 877-877-6464 or go to the Radiothon website (note that they've already taken his name off the site, but it's the correct one). When they ask for comments, tell them you support Imus and free speech.

One more thing...

2007-04-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

My favorite band, Silversun Pickups, were on Last Call with Carson Daly (who I can't stand, but that's another story) not long ago. You can see the videos online over at LiveDaily. Be sure to watch the ones for "Kissing Families" and (especially) "Lazy Eye". The live performances are amazing.

tap tap Is this thing on?

2007-04-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

Apologies. I knew blog updates might be a little scarce while we performed the Big Move, but I didn't mean to go quite this long without updating.

We're back in Birmingham, for better or worse. As much as I missed our friends and the city life (well, parts of it), our time in Huntsville sort of made us realize that our "hometown" had grown a little culture of its own. After living in rural Idaho for a year and a half, it's taking some time to re-adjust to actual traffic and having (gasp) things to do.

Our distractions haven't changed much in the last few months. We're still enjoying the hell out of Lost (which was slow at the beginning of the season, but it's starting to get nice and creepy again), and we're slowly catching up on the second half of the Battlestar Galactica season.

The World of Warcraft expansion turned out to be pretty good, so I've been playing again with a passion. Dungeon raiding is a lot more intimate now (at most, 25-person groups rather than the old 40-person affairs), and individual effort counts for a lot more than it used to. That's how it should be, really -- before, it was possible for a few people to not pay attention and "slide by" because the rest of us were picking up the slack. Now? If you decide to look away from the screen during a boss encounter, expect to be walking back to your corpse shortly.

I'm also loving Guitar Hero 2, which I passed over on the PS2 in favor of waiting to play it in full HDTV widescreen glory. I wasn't disappointed. By the game, that is -- our TV turns out to have a fair amount of input lag even with component video, so I had to tweak the game quite a bit to get it playable (close enough for me to five-star Freebird -- Ronnie Van Zant is rolling in his grave). Supposedly there are going to be frequent downloadable songs (possibly weekly?), so I'm really looking forward to that. I miss a lot of the old GH1 songs, especially SRV's "Texas Flood", which I could play nonstop for hours. You just can't go wrong with a tune where the entire thing is a guitar solo.

Anyway, we're getting settled in, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of our Birmingham friends again. I promise I'll update more. =)

Bwaaaaggghh

2007-01-19T10:42:00.000-06:00

I've got either some sort of stomach bug or I picked up happy fun food poisoning someplace. We won't go into details, but for the past day or so my stomach has insisted on a lot of "alone time".

Hopefully I'll feel well enough to make the trip to Atlanta tomorrow, but at the moment it's not looking so good. =(

One stick, two stick, red stick... uh...

2007-01-17T12:31:00.000-06:00

I just got back from Baton Rouge late last night. I had what I think was a very good interview down there, and I expect to hear either an offer or a "fuck off" sometime in the next day or two.

During the trip, I remembered once again why I hate flying. The security checkpoints are still a colossal pain in the ass -- especially when they had to run my backpack (which had absolutely nothing in it other than a day's worth of clothes) through the X-ray machine three times. Three out of four of my flights were delayed. The other was eventually cancelled, but not before I transferred my flight to another airline.

Of course, I know a little less than nothing about Baton Rouge. It probably wouldn't have been near the top of my list of "Places I want to live" a month or two ago. One of the main reasons I wanted to move back from Idaho was that we wanted to be closer to friends and family. So even though Baton Rouge isn't that far (7 hours to Huntsville, 5 or so to Birmingham), it still defeats one of the primary reasons to move to Alabama.

Unfortunately, I had very little time to experience local flavor while I was in Louisiana. I spent less than 24 hours between airport visits, and the weather was so nasty that I wasn't inspired to do a large amount of driving. I did get food delivered to my hotel room from a local seafood place called Ralph & Kacoo's -- their menu included such delicacies as fried alligator and seven different crawfish dishes. Tasty. I guess. I don't know; I got the shrimp.

Anyway, I'll keep the blog updated as I know more. If the company comes through with an offer, Hillary and I may drive down so we can see the area and what housing prices are like. Can't be any worse than Sandpoint, eh?

Hoopy Noo Yoor

2007-01-02T09:20:00.000-06:00

Hopefully 2007 is treating everyone well so far.

We had a pretty great weekend. We met up with Alex and family at Cheeburger Cheeburger (nevermind the gimmick, their shakes kick ass) and gorged ourselves. It was good getting to see the kids -- Caitbug (who I still remember as the tiny infant at our infamous Monte Sano Easter Egg Hunt) is solidly into the "young adult" category, and little Bunbun is walking and talking and doing all the things that munchkins do. I'm very happy we're back in Alabama so we can see them once in a while. We also exchanged slightly belated Christmas presents; the gift card we recived put us over the top, should we be Wii-inclined in the next few weeks.

I'm still trying to decide -- the Wii is a fun console by all accounts, but I'm not sure how well it'll work on my HDTV (which has a bit of display lag when using non-HD signals). If nothing else, we still have the old Sony downstairs and I'm willing to sacrifice a few back muscles lugging it up the stairs into the computer room.

Last night we had a Battlestar Galactica mini-marathon with Bill and Dawn. Hillary and I had seen the first half of the season already, but they're some of the best of the entire series, so we had a good time. The Adama Maneuver (as it has come to be called) is quite possibly the coolest and most insane combat strategy ever depicted in film or television. Hopefully we can all get back together and watch the rest of the episodes before the new ones start up again.

Hillary and I spent the last couple of weeks catching up on our Netflix and DVD collection. A few micro-reviews:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Not bad. I don't read the books, so the storyline was "new" to me. They need to pick up the pace on the films, though -- pretty soon those kids are going to be thirty and still in high school.

Serenity - Pretty much the best film that could possibly be made for Firefly fans. I also understand why it didn't do too well in theaters: there aren't that many Firefly fans. A casual viewer wouldn't really understand the backstory of any of the characters, and all of the development that went on throughout the TV series would be lost on someone who hadn't seen it. It was a hell of a way to end the series, though; too bad it fell so soon into the Fox Wrecking Machine for Good but Misunderstood Shows. See also: Wonderfalls.

X-Men III: The Last Stand - Bad movies make me a little bit sad that I wasted my time watching them. This movie pissed me off. They basically ruined the entire X-Men storyline (such that it was, given the liberties taken in the first two movies), inserted a stupid plot full of people doing stupid things for no good reason, and somehow managed to make the Dark Phoenix storyline (arguably one of the best in comic book history) retarded and boring. Beyond that, they more or less killed any chance for a sequel that [i]doesn't[/i] suck. So, uh, save your two hours and just pretend X-Men III never happened.

Kind of like Star Control 3.

Merry f'ing Christmas

2006-12-22T11:00:00.000-06:00

Well, Christmas got here quick this year. We've been back in Alabama for a little over six weeks now, and we still haven't seen the majority of our friends. So if you're awaiting a present or just our smiling faces, it might have to wait a few extra days. Doh, sorry.

I don't think I've mentioned it in the blog before, but I've become a die-hard fan of the Ron and Fez Show. They're very different from all of the "shock jock" DJ's out there -- it's just a couple of buddies hanging out in the studio, talking about the same kind of shit I talk about with my friends, and occasionally torturing their dumbass producer. It's definitely something that takes some getting used to (I actually hated them the first few weeks they debuted on XM), but I'd recommend checking it out. Their sense of humor is morbidly sarcastic, and it's a more intelligent show than anything else I've ever heard on the radio. If you don't get XM (and what's wrong with you?), they're also on FreeFM nightly at 6pm Eastern. There's a live stream over here.

Hooray for Patrick Swayze!

2006-12-18T09:40:00.000-06:00

I had a rockin' birthday yesterday.

Hillary and I finally kicked enough of our respective illnesses to venture out and see our friends Bill and Dawn in the evening. Bill made a delicious butternut squash bisque, and we had some homemade... well, let's just call them beef stew Hot Pockets. Very, very tasty.

After dinner, we watched the MST3k version of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (our new holiday tradition) and ate birthday cake. Hillary discovered the joys of the "lovesleep", drifting off a few times during the movie. I also got to reexamine the Venture Brothers, which I had written off after the first episode -- it wasn't too bad, and is probably funnier if you know the characters. I may give it another try.

Booty for the day included a copy of Viva Pinata, the Jones Soda dessert pack (not to be confused with the stomach-churning Holiday Pack), the new John Grisham book (shut up, sometimes I like dumb mass-fiction, okay?), and a cool puzzle-a-day calendar.

Somehow I've wrangled a bunch of phone interviews and stuff this week. I'm supposed to drive down to Birmingham to meet with a recruiter about a position there, and I've had people as far away as Mobile and Sarasota, Florida calling me about jobs. Kind of surprising since it's the week before Christmas, but it's a very good sign that my resume is out there. Hopefully we'll be able to get out of here (the house, maybe not the area) in January.

So... sick....

2006-12-10T08:45:00.000-06:00

Everyone in the house has a cold. I think I got it worst of all. I could barely sleep last night, and I've been terribly achy for about a day now.

I'm just going to stay indoors and try not to let it become the wonderful, ribcage cartilige-snapping bronchitis that my cold last winter turned into. Shouldn't be hard, given that I won't be walking around in six inches of snow or flying to fucking Cleveland this year.

Sorry to anyone I had mentioned getting together with this weekend. No hockey games for me, either. That makes Whitey a sad panda.

Oh well, time to go drown my pains in a huge flood of NyQuil. See you next Thursday.

Go go driving mode

2006-12-01T00:02:00.000-06:00

I flipped open my cellphone, and somehow it got into driving mode. I was greeted with the cold, robotic female voice of Verizon:

"Please say a command."
"Fuck off."
"Please say a name."
"Shit."
"Would you like to call... RI-CHARD?"
"Uh... "

My sincerest regrets if you got a mysterious one-ring call at midnight, Richard.

Reports of my death have been blah blah blah

2006-11-30T23:59:00.000-06:00

Apologies for the lack of updates. We're (thankfully) back in Alabama now, although we're not quite sure where we're going next. The job market is pretty dead between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I'm just going to enjoy the holidays and sort everything out come January.

I'll post more later; just wanted to let everyone know I haven't fallen in a well.

Whee!

2006-09-21T18:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess I can post about this now. I told my boss today that the company basically has a week to make good on the promises it has made to me, or I'm leaving.

Honestly, I expect to put in my notice next week, but we'll see what happens. I have an opportunity developing back home in Alabama that I want to jump on, and it needs to happen very quickly -- I can't imagine that my current company is going to come through with anything near what it would take to make me stay.

Blah, moving again. I hate moving. But I hate Idaho even more, so there you go.

The Ahboo Files: Vol. 4

2006-09-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

This note was waiting for us when we got home. It has a few pictures of Ahboo on it, which I'll try to get digital copies of so I can post them here.

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The Week in Pictures

Ahboo was the perfect host and always did as I asked (well, except for crossing the linoleum floor the first few times!). He met a great playmate at Dog Park. I didn't get photos of them playing together -- the night I brought my camera, "Sammie" didn't show up. But Sammie's parents hope you'll call them and set up future evening get-togethers at the park. Take Ahboo's rope -- I think Sammie and Ahboo would probably really like a game of tug-of-war.

--The Pet Nanny

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There's one more chapter left in this gripping saga... But you'll have to wait a bit longer for it to come to its thrilling conclusion.