Random Dialogue

Well, another year come and gone. The last post of 2003. Rawk.

Yesterday Katie and I started in on Kingdom hearts. We made it past the Destiny Islands and through Traverse Town, and stopped after getting a good start in Wonderland. That is one tripped out place, yo. Other than that, I made good headway in Masters of Doom. I am finally back in a reading new stuff mood, methinks. I have training on Monday and Tuesday of next week in CSS, so I think I might tackle a book on the subject between now and then. I’d like to be on the same page as the instructor, doncha know.

As always, New Year is a time for reflection.

My 2003 in a Nutshell:

As of today, I’ve had more than 5000 unique visitors to my site since late July of this year.Not bad for a kid just out of college. Next year, at the least, I’ve got: Two conventions, a wedding to best man in, a trip to DisneyWorld, my bro’s graduation, and my girl’s graduation. And that’s just the stuff I know about.

Thanks for reading my site. I don’t know why you keep coming back, but if my writing and logging keeps you entertained, who am I to argue?

Have a good New Year’s Eve. See you next year.

Well, I’m more awake today.

I think.

Yesterday Heather, Jenni, Abby and Joe came over after dinner and we demo’d a game I got for Christmas, Scene It, a board game with a DVD component. It’s a movie trivia game, with movie clips and trailers as part of the game. Kinda neat. I was bushed, so I probably didn’t have as much fun as I otherwise would have.

After folks left last night we hunkered down and got through another episode of Babylon 5. That is one excellent series. While it was airing I never really payed it any attention. I’m very glad to be doing this, though, because it’s well worth it. Kat buys the series sets when the come out, so after we move out this summer Katie and I plan on continuing to watch the show via Netflix. I’d like to do the same for the other space station epic, DS9. I like that show a goodly deal too.

Tonight Kat and Brian are eating with Brian’s folks, so Katie and I are planning on starting to play Kingdom Hearts, which we borrowed from one of my cousins in Illinois. Hooray for Halloween town!

kay…a week’s worth of information in one post. Here we go:

Tuesday -

I arrive at work to find that sometime during the night my host provider has begun the move to a new server. I’m left without email access and my web site down. I have a relatively uneventful day at work, and then head home for presents at the Birdhouse. I get movies from Brian and chocolate from Kat. Katie lavishes upon me a series of intensely cool picture books. She rawks.

Wednesday -

We sleep very late, and then play Sims for a few hours. Dinner is at my mother’s house, followed by presents and hot chocolate at a family friend’s place. I receive flamingo shaped lights, a nice scarf, and other assorted toys. I and Katie retire home quite tired.

Thursday -

I check again with my site and host provider, they are still moving data. Tomorrow things should be up. Katie and I head to our respective family homes for Christmas morning. I snag a new digital camera, a couple of Petroski books, the Indy DVD set, and Bartle’s Designing Virtual World. w0rd. That evening we do the usual switch hit with the parental dinners, punctuated by photography. Much fun is had, though it is tiring. We are both very glad to get home and crash. We watch Finding Nemo, which Katie snagged from her parents.

Friday -

We do absolutely nothing for most of the day, and then hang out at Alan’s in the evening. The site is still down.

Saturday - I call the host a few times, and finally work out what is wrong. The nameservers are moved, the data is moved, but they’v reset all of my passwords. They then helpfully send the passwords to my email account - which they’ve also reset the password for. Doh! The site is up and running again. I have lunch with my mother in the morning, and then spend the evening quietly at home. I was going to head down to Illinois during the evening, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I talked Katie into going with me the next day as a result.

Sunday - Katie and I leave early for Illinois. The plan is to swing down to Joliet to see my father and grandmother, pick up Paul, who is staying with them, and then head out to my aunt’s home. My cousin, you see, graduated from high school. Except for getting rear-ended in Joliet (minor cosmetic damage only) the day goes well. I am very very sorry for Katie, because the rear ending sends her head into a tailspin that results in her being minorly vegetative all day. I arrive home almost 12 hours after I left in the morning, absolutely exhausted. Katie, ironically, is very chipper thanks to the codiene in her medication. I fall unconcious at 11pm.

And today has been a pretty typical day. Trying to get back into the swing of things without much success. Dropping off some Christmas money at the bank and having lunch has been my most productive move all day. I’m working on what to do this evening…

New MMORPGDot editorial up. It’s not that great, because I had to toss it out pretty quickly.

Anyway, check it out, and decide what you think.

Morning, folks.

I’ve added a few blogs to my Bookmarks page (thanks, Alan). I’d like to specifically point out GameDevLeague, Jamie Fristrom’s blog. It is par excellent. I know what I’ll be doing during lunch today.

I had a really amazing weekend. Just incredibly nice, full of time spent with friends and having a good time.

Friday we had chinese and gamed. Got them through the first part of their latest run, and then left them on a cliff-hanger (because I then had Sunday to finish things up). More on the game in a second.

Saturday was just frickin’ lazy. I don’t even remember if I went anywhere. Read a bunch, slept in. All kinds of good.

Sunday we had dessert for dinner (My tummy still hurts), and finished up the run they started on Friday. My players are cool. They were thrust into a stressful situation, didn’t panic, thought things through, and got out safely because they went with the flow. They learned valuable lessons on this run.

Psst: Here’s a tip that Alan touches on in his GM Tips page, but that I think I’ve finally gotten down. The early sessions of a long term campaign teach your players what to expect out of the game world. If you show them what are and are not valid tactics and strategies, they’ll be able to anticipate problems in their own planning stages much sooner. Giving them an understanding of what works and what doesn’t without killing their characters in the process is a very good thing(tm).

I love Christmas. This is going to be a great week. Tonight we’re seeing Return of the King, and tomorrow we’re going to be doing something of a gift exchange thingie amongst my room-mates. Wednesday through Sunday I’m off of work, so that will rawk. I’m going to try and make an effort to post even on my days off so that I can get some Christmas bloggy goodness going.

ooof.

Work buffets. Gloop.

Also, grab bags. I now have a candy dish(tm).

Anyway, the day is good because in about two hours or so we’ll be gaming. I’ve been jonesing sooo hard! It is going to be truly excellent.

This weekend is probably going to go by quickly. Gaming tonight (hopefully until late) followed by my favorite kind of Saturday: The lazy kind. The sunday Jenno’s Graduation Party and “more” gaming!

Next week I only have two days of work.

Squee!

Have a weekend, if I don’t talk to you until Monday.

This makes me sad. Courtesy of Pseudo_Intellectual’s HomeNode:

Why they are pissed off is because this represents the final door-closing of e2 as an electronic frontier: the IRS man has come to town to collect from Jesse James. It has cut its hair, put on a tie, and fallen in line with the status quo. Policy changes may have resulted in the site’s contents becoming more interesting (or at least, accurately informative) but by alienating and shucking off its loose cannons and wildmen (and saying good riddance to them and the indulgent, criminal deviant tendencies they embody) the site itself becomes unexciting; we have laid to rest our Supermen in favor of an army of mild-mannered Clark Kents who always behave but never get the girl. (If you prefer, Lex Luthor is no more interesting without his sinister streak.) There was lots of room on the internet to establish the site they wanted e2 to be; I just don’t see why they had to build it on top of the e2 we cultivated, smothering it. Variantly; if this was apparently a den of buccaneers when first sailed into, whatever would possess visitors to stay among these odious beings, getting them to shave their moustaches, gag their foul-mouthed parrots and learn to speak corporatese? Reforming a pirate is tantamount to executing one: either way, the world contains one less pirate. One runs the risk of finding, once the fraction who ultimately remains has been fully converted into lawyers and chartered accountants, that what remains is on a somewhat more mundane scale than grand adventure on the high seas.

What it boils down to is that the management has decided E2 and all its contents will meet international copyright rules. There is no option here. the only option is whether you choose to continue visiting this site or not.

this site is gone. The only option is whether we decide that the new site that will take its place will be as interesting as the old site was 8) That depends on whether or not its users are as eloquent, skilled and expressive as the armies of poets, novelists, lyricists and translators the previous site borrowed from. E2 user poetry and short fiction leads me to believe that, by and large, that will not be the case: which is (one must assume) why they were going to the source and drinking draughts from the greats in the first place 8)

RIP, E2. You and I had some fun together. I’ll never forgetcha.