Random Dialogue

Because, if you can’t rant ineffectully on your blog, where can you rant?

My FLGS just reopened after a week of closed-ness. The reason for the week off was apparently to remodel. I’ve had the chance to visit the store twice now, and I’m not very happy.

Pegasus Games used to have a setup where the front area was something of sideways “L” shape. You entered the store at the bottom of the lower part, and the front counter was behind the bend. In front of that area there was a set of shelves with gaming books. There was a little nook on the right hand side set aside with card and board games. Behind that nook there was a series of tables for gaming, and storage in the back.

The intent of the remodeling was to increase the playspace for the customers. I guess. See…right there I have a lot of confusion about the issue. I’ve read some of the columns on Pyramid by game store owners, and what tehy said seemed to make a lot of sense. Their points always seemed to be that it was more important to set up the store as a store than a place where fat dorks and 12 year olds could meet to play card games.

They’ve definately succeeded in increasing the play space. Instead of a nook for board games and card games, they’re spread out all along the right hand wall. They’ve filled up the extra space with more tables, and opened up the back room for even more gaming. Which is nice, for the 12 year olds. As someone who will never play a game at Pegasus, it kind of sucks. On busy nights the twelve year olds are all over the place, meaning that you’d literally have to push your way through people to get to a board game. Likewise, they’re somewhat in the way of the roleplaying books.

The real question I have here is why they’ve decided to abandon their casual gaming customers so badly? If I came in there on a weekday night after work to pick up a board game for my kid or for a grandkid and saw the mass of coke swilling nerddom swarming between me and the board games, I’d turn around and leave.

It’s nice that they’re trying to make a community space for their regular card and warhammer gamers, but I’d much rather be visiting Pegasus Games years from now because they’re a viable business.

I’ve been taking time away from the lush forests of Northern Kalimdor to explore the dusty confines of The Barrens and the Stonetalon Mountains. The neutral goblin city of Ratchet is an interesting place for a late teens level character to quest. Very different stuff from what you get in most of the Alliance lands, almost a touch of the Horde-style quests.

For example, one great quest sent me to the Northnermost area of The Barrens (the large savannah-like plains that connects most of the Horde zones) to futz with a machine operated by the Venture Co. Mining Company. Venture Co. is a neutrally aligned antagonistic organization that incorporates individuals from every race for the purpose of stripping profit from the natural lands in Kalimdor. The conservationistic bent to the quests you run against the Mining company is really interesting, and there aren’t any similar quests of that type in the Eastern Kingdoms.

It’s really amazing how many different themes they manage to pick up in WoW Quests. I’ve only played as high as level 37, and with more than 20 levels to go I’ve already experienced humor, heartbreak, spycraft, conspiracy, theft, and umm…beer.

I’ve also had the pleasure of checking out a new Instance. Wailing Caverns is a beautiful setting, a lush cavern in the center of the aridity of The Barrens. The quests involved in the Cavern are obtained right at the entrance to the subterranean area, making it an extremely convenient place to adventure. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to complete the thing yet. I still have the quests, though.

My time in the south finished, I’ve returned to Darkshore to finish up some loose ends before moving on to Ashenvale. I’ve also got quests waiting for me in the Wetlands, Duskwood, and the RedRidge Mountains. Of those, I think I’m going to pass on RR as it’s my least favorite of the third tier zones. I’m really enjoying this time through with Grodin, more than any other time I’ve leveled up a character. Hopefully this broad approach to questing (and my willingness to travel) will ensure that I don’t get bored in my 30s again.

Moving furniture on Wednesday ended up not being quite as successful as we would have hoped. The limitations of time and space meant that the couch in question couldn’t fit through the door we had in mind. I really must learn how to bend reality.

Thursday’s Eberron game, it turns out, will be the second to last in this run of the game. I really hope we have the chance at some point to come back to the campaign and finish up the final module.

Earlier this week Katie’s mom had fairly major surgery, and as a result Katie has been running things pretty hard all week. Friday night (besides being on duty) we kept things quiet, watching a few movies.

It was good that we did, because Saturday night we were enmasqued at Eva’s Masquerade Party, held at the lovely Union South on the UW campus. A projection screened Karaoke Revolution, some lovely games (such as Unexploded Cow and Dos Rios), and a nummy nosh made up the high points of the evening.

A good week coming up. Tuesday we’ve got our first session of Aaron’s DnD game, followed by some poker on Wednesday, and the last Eberron session on Thursday.

Then I’m pretty much getting ready for my trip to SF. Yee. Thankfully timothy was kind enough to switch shifts with me for that weekend. So, I’ll be working next weekend as well as this one but then I’ll have two weekends off.

As promised, a rundown of the Uematsu concert is up on Slashdot.

Last Saturday evening Katie and I went southward to the city of Rosemont, a suburb of Chicago. Our destination was the Rosemont Theatre, where the Chicagoland Pops would be sallying forth with the first US “Dear Friends” concert. The music of Final Fantasy, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, is phenomenal and has become quite popular here in the states.

A note before I get to that, though. While I was born in Illinois, I’ve considered myself a Wisconsinite for so long that I’ve developed the dairy state distaste for the flatland of below. It is my considered opinion that the sign at the Wisconsin - Illinois border should read “Welcome to Illinois. Fuck you! - The Illinois Tollway Authority”.

The Tollway is the most fiendish of modern ideas. Paying for driving on a roadway makes sense from a financial perspective. I’m sure. To someone. To me, it’s highway robbery. Even at only 40 cents a toll (with about 5 tolls or so to pass through) it was galling. Now the bastards have raised the toll fee to 80 cents! It cost me almost ten bucks to drive down and back on the Illinois tollway. Because they’re bastards.

We reached Rosemont at 6:30 to have dinner at a nearby restaurant named Carlucci. The restaurant was inside a corporate office building. If I’d known this, we probably would have eaten at a MacDonalds or something. It was a nice enough place as the decor went. We had an ice antipasta, too. Well toasted bread, goat cheese, and halved grape tomatoes went very well together. The entrees were underwhelming, though. Katie’s was an okay enough radiator pasta with a white sauce, chicken, and veggies. It just wasn’t interesting. I, on the other hand, attempted a three-mushroom pasta. The pasta itself was like lasagna noodles, only long. It was very al dente. The sauce tasted like a polymer. meh.

We arrived at the Theatre about 15 minutes before the concert is set to begin. Heading inside, we ran into the first part of the massive geek herd that we will be running with for the evening. I get the first of the many compliments I’ll recieve during the course of the evening on my shirt, and we find our seats.

I ordered our tickets just moments after they put out the press release for the event, so for the price I paid we got amazing seats. The photos I took should give you a good idea of what our view of the evening was like.

The evening was entirely kickass. I’m going to have a piece about the concert on Slashdot by the end of the week, so more details will be available then.

After the concert the Rosemont police force acquitted itself as intelligent lads. We were shunted directly to the freeway, where we made our way back to I-90 and northward.

All in all a long Saturday, but a lot of fun.

Sephiroth!

Sunday night we had a lovely dinner at Wasabi in downtown Madison. Sushi, Teriyaki and Saki made for a lovely late meal. Afterwards we retired to Alan’s apartment for cake and several rounds of Karaoke Revolution. The X-Play reviews did adequate justice to the game. It’s braindead in some ways, but extremely fun in large groups. With eight of us, each pass took quite some time and we only managed two, with some of us getting in an additional song while others were finishing cake. I rocked it pretty hard with “It’s the End of the World as we Know It”, “New York, New York”, and “Beat It” sung almost entirely fallsetto. An unexpected and entertaining evening out.

I reconveined with the Eberron players for one of our last times on Monday, continuing the madcap pursuit that punctuates the end of the second module. I am completely confident that we’re going to finish the game in a timely fashion, with the climax likely to occur either Thursday or next week.

More gaming occured yesterday, as a bunch of us got together to roll up characters and begin to create a setting for another Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Aaron’s at the helm, and I rolled stats worthy of a follower of the Monkish path. As a result of the close of my games I’ve moved my game blog over to the characters page, where I’ll be keeping notes from Aaron’s game.

Tonight I’m probably going to help Pete with moving some furniture, and tomorrow after my pants shift is the second Eberron game of the week. This weekend we’ll be Masquerading it up at one of the UW unions. Umm…hooray for wearing masks?

Review up on Slashdot for Halo 2 and an Xbox peripheral.

Can you explain to me why people are saying my XFPS review is an ad? Cuz umm…I said it wasn’t very good. That seems like anti-marketing to me. /shrug

Brain burn is something I haven’t had to deal with since college, and I’m not dealing with it quite as well as I would have liked. I’ve yet to have a “normal” week of slashdot editorship, as I filled in on Wednesday morning for CmdrTaco (who was at LinuxWorld this week). Thus, three mornings of 6:45am wakeups, punctuated by over 10 hours of working today. Merph.

I’ve got a half dozen reviews in various stages of completion, but I haven’t had the capacity to complete any of them of late. This weekend I’m off, and have a normal schedule for the week, so I’m not on as pants editor until Tuesday afternoon. Sleeping in and mental recharging will leave me a more functional person next week.

Which is a good thing, actually, because I’m going to be fun-busy next week. Tomorrow we’re going to be going to Chicago for (squee!) the Final Fantasy “Dear Friends” concert in Rosemont, IL. I’m going to bring my camera and try to get photos of the environment. I have very specifically not been thinking about it since I purchased the tickets, but now that we’re only hours away I’m quite atwitter.

Next week will be gaming-tacular. Eberron on Monday and Thursday, as we’re going to be working to finish up the module as soon as possible. Alan’s site has details, as always. Tuesday Aaron is having chargen for a game he’s going to be running, so there’s more of that.

Next Saturday evening I’m apparently going to a masquerade party. Oh my.

We’re watching the commentary on LOTR: ROTK. Why are those people allowed out in public?