• Remember Me?

    Posted on by avatarJador

    It has been quite some time since I last wrote in this blog… Not sure why. I have no excuse. Seriously, there is something wrong with me…

    Okay, enough pathos. I write as I wish, and right now I wish to write.

    Lots going on, though not really much. I’ve been doing a variety of things, most of which involve sitting on my ass in some way, shape or form. First of all, I’ve been working on my campaign setting, which some of my readers (plural? Doubtful) may remember. While I haven’t really got a name for the world in which it takes place, the major capital city is Amalthion, and the wiki I’ve been working on can be found here:

    YARPSWIKI.Satiricalrogue.com

    In addition to this, I’ve been working on utilizing a program called Campaign Cartographer 3, which is one of the most powerful map-making programs I have ever seen in my life.

    Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most complex. It’s not user-friendly, doesn’t have much of a user manual and has a counterintuitive interface which requires actions be performed, then a right-click menu selection entitled “do it” must be chosen to finalize the task you just did… I don’t really know why, though I’m sure the programmers had a reason; I just don’t know what it is.

    I’ve managed to make some clumsy, not-very-attractive and not at all professional maps using the software, and though I expect I’ll plod along with the software, probably learning a new thing every once in a while, I’m not going to spend half my life figuring it out…

    Still, all that said, the program is incredibly powerful, and if you know how to use it, the maps you can make are unbelievable. Check out the link above, and look at the Map Gallery selection on the top menu. It’s pretty awesome what the program can do. If you can make it do what you want it to do…

    Finally, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft quite a bit. This is a game I’ve been playing for several years, and so far, I have yet to see a game which has the potential to tear me from the icy grip of WoW’s perfectly implemented snare of progression addiction. Until Now.

    NCsoft’s Wildstar® looks like it’s going to be pretty amazing. The videos I’ve seen make it look like a spacy, WoW-style combat replete with every form of violence imaginable; space cowboys and catgirls, chibi-rodent-things and arrogant humans obsessed with galactic domination.

    I’m strongly thinking of buying this game, just to play it for a month and see if it measures up to the standard set by World of Warcraft. If it does, it might have the ability to drag me kicking and screaming from my blood elf Rogue’s cooking progression and maybe hold my interest long enough to make me suspend my WoW account in favor of an NCsoft account of equal value.

    I don’t know yet. I’ve had high hopes for a lot of games, including Champions Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and such smaller, but extremely well done games like Rift, Neverwinter and Path of Exile, all of which can be found by Googling them. None of these games was able to hold my interest for long, since they were almost entirely about combat. Not much exploration, little to no crafting, and a learning curve that makes my toes curl. WoW has the advantage of a massive subscriber base (and thus lots and lots of money) and eight years of trial and error. For that reason, it’s going to take a lot to get me to leave WoW, even for something as nice looking as Wildstar®.

    Only the future will tell. So I guess I’ll see you all again in eight months or so. Thanks for reading!


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized

  • Nothing Is Ever Easy…

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    Well, after several days of banging my head against my keyboard, producing divine wisdom such as “i8kujmiki,ikk” and “Beware the mmt6l,ji, for it shall ;pplokjilom mkijk,” I have managed to get my wiki up and running… I still have an overwhelming desire to sever my own head with a chainsaw and kick it over the goalpost at Gillette Stadium, but many of the problems I encountered, I solved through a liberal application of persistence and tenacity, with only a few casualties including my sanity and whatever it was I knocked over when I woke up in a cold sweat last night, screaming and flailing, desperately trying to elude a shadowy pursuer who turned out to be the patron saint of run-on sentences.

    Most of the problems I have had were simple ignorance: The help forums kept referencing a file called “style.ini” which I could not find anywhere in my wiki’s directory, mainly because I was recursing through the file system, looking for a file which existed in a different recursion of the wiki’s directory tree. However, the parallel universe in which the file existed, suffered a quantum Schrödinger waveform collapse, dumping the file into this universe in the appropriate location. I have already filed a complaint with the Max Planck Society, though the only response I received was a single telegram reading, fick dich, Arschloch!, scrawled in crayon.

    Then, I wanted to adjust the width of my wiki to take up the full horizontal capacity of my browser. However, I could not find the necessary function in the wiki until I took a break from it to watch an episode of the Daily Show. I then returned to my work, refreshed by the experience, and spent another hour looking for an answer.

    I found my answer, though I won’t bore you with the details. Turns out it was a fairly simple fix. I adjusted the necessary… Thing… And the whole wiki displayed the way I wanted it to.

    Except the Tables of Contents. I’m still working on that.

    However, I did wind up posting a new entry in my blog… So that’s something…


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Eight Months of Nothing; then BOOM!

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    Argh. Eight months and no update. I am ashamed of myself, and apologize for lack of content. Though in truth, since I’m paying about 10 bucks a month for the webspace, server and security upgrades, I’m the one who’s quite literally paying the price for my apathy.

    In the past eight months, a great deal has happened. I’ve discovered George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, both the books and the HBO series. I’ve acquired a new computer which has the capability of running far more advanced and graphically intensive games than my previous system. I have loaded and played a plethora of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games and I have a new vehicle: A Toyota Camry.

    First thing’s first: The new computer.

    A while ago, I started having odd problems with my then relatively advanced computer, a 3.2Ghz AMD somethingorother with a relatively nice 512Mb graphics card a 1Tb hard drive. It started crashing randomly, performing reboots without authorization and just generally making my life a living Hell. And since I spend far too much time in front of my computer, this was a pretty hellish Hell.

    I took my computer to a wizard named Dave who informed me that it was hosed. This is a technical term which means “broken to the point where even magic won’t fix it.” He then directed me to Newegg, where I was able to purchase the parts for my computer without driving myself into bankruptcy. All in all, it cost me less than $400 to build a computer that can run almost anything at full graphics capability.

    The wizard acquired the parts and cast a spell to combine them into a gainly golem of gaming greatness, which I now use to compose this very text. In addition to all of this, he sold me his 1Gb graphics card for a handful of silver. The resulting machine now sits at my feet, purring like a small, black sabertooth tiger. It has yet to cause me problems, though it does produce a trifle more heat than my previous system did.

    The car, a Toyota Camry, came as the result of not knowing whether or not my truck would pass inspection last November. It had a few minor problems, and so I was able to get a really nice trade-in for it: A Toyota Camry. The Camry is the same age as the truck, and has only a few thousand miles less upon its odometer, but it’s in better shape, and has been used quite carefully. My truck on the other hand, was driven halfway across the state of New Hampshire on a daily basis before I purchased it.

    It’s nice having a sedan, though I’m sure at some point in the future, I’m going to say, “gee, wouldn’t it be nice if I had a truck to haul this furniture away?” Until then however, the car will do quite nicely.

    As far as Game of Thrones is concerned, it’s one of the most epic stories I’ve ever read. Martin does not pull punches when it comes to killing off heroes, and you never know who’s going to die next. Unfortunately, with the HBO special somewhat ahead of where I am in the books, I’ve been unable to avoid some spoilers such as the infamous Red Wedding, and the deaths of some of the more prominent characters. I’ll refrain from saying who, just in case you’re reading the books.

    Martin’s style is pretty gritty and realistic, and he doesn’t throw magic around as a plot device. It’s there, it’s subtle and it’s necessary to the story, but the story doesn’t hinge on the use of magic like many fantasy series. It also depicts medieval life more realisticaly than most fantasy series. Disease isn’t an inconvenience in Westeros. It’s a death sentence.

    And how can I neglect mentioning that I’m involved in the creation of two (yes two) role playing systems. One of my own creation, in which I’m drawing on a large number of sources in order to make a system which is not necessarily better than existing systmes, but which is somewhat different than existing systems, while retaining a familiarity that allows gamers who have played more common and popular systems to leap into it with only a relatively shallow learning curve.

    On the other side, I’m assisting Tim in the creation of a system which utilizes six-sided dice. Unlike other d6-based systems, this one utilizes a kind of matter-and-antimatter die annihilation system which is a refreshing method of rolling. I don’t know how successful it will be, because Tim and his wife Felicia are about to have a child, who will probably either take up most of their time, or will want to play in the game, requiring us to translate the system into baby-talk. Anybody know the baby-talk phrase for “save vs. diaper rash?”

    I’m also working on a wiki for my system, which will be up pretty soon. It’s a Doku Wiki, though I don’t know why it’s called that. Doku in Japanese means “poison,” though since it was created by a guy from Germany named Andreas Gohr, I doubt that’s what it means.

    Once the wiki’s up, I’ll either announce it here or on Facebook. Or both. Probably both.

    So this is only a few of the things that have happened to me over the last eight months. I hope I’ll have the drive and tenacity to update my blog more often, though I’m far too fickle to be able to know for certain.

    So until then, je mata ne.


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Almost There

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    In the eternal conflict of the United States against the Tyrannical Heirarchy of Evil Masterminds, it really is U.S. vs. T.H.E.M….

    Today was my first day back to work after two weeks of allowing my muscles to atrophy. Thankfully, the work getting my apartment ready for the new floors kept me relatively in shape–though the shape was round–and kept me from atrophying completely.

    I have almost everything the way I want it, except for the damn bathroom sink, which is too complex to install myself. Oh, I suppose I could try to man up and grab my wrench and just git’er’done, but honestly, I think I’d rather wait for someone competent to install the piping rather than risking showering my neighbors downstairs with water damage.

    I could have Shishou install it, but his rates are anything but fair, and lacking opposable thumbs, he would have to contract the job out to a plumber anyway. Cthulu could probably do it, but I don’t trust her with my tools. Especially after the fiasco with the radioactive hairball bomb she dropped on my computer room floor the other day.

    The one thing I kind of miss having had rugs is the sound-dampening quality of the carpet. Now, the echoes of my footfalls reverberate throughout my apartment, making me feel as though I am not walking softly upon the earth, but instead tromping along my floors like a territorial elephant.

    Unless elephants don’t get territorial. I figure they would, since they travel in herds and take up a lot of space.

    Well, that’s it for today. I have to go back to my mother’s place and clean up the mess my cats made over the two weeks I was there.

    Anybody have a lead-lined canister capable of holding 11 tons of spent nuclear fuel? No? Maybe I can use tin…


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Still Sore

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    Physical labor is not my forte. I am comparatively weak for my size, and my joints do not enjoy physical activity. Thus after a week of moving furniture, installing new blinds and affixing shelves to walls, I am quite sore throughout my back and legs.

    This is actually somewhat odd since I do physical labor for work. Not the high impact work of construction work or the heavy lifting of appliance delivery, but moving large, heavy bins full of books, each bin ranging from 5 to 50 pounds. You would expect that I would have been prepared for the moving of a few items of furniture from one room to another.

    This was not the case this week.

    Part of the problem is that I haven’t spent anywhere near enough time stretching before and after heavy lifting, combined with my bizarre and oh-so-not-healthy diet. My body doesn’t have the self-repair capacity of someone like Chuck Norris, whose body can probably restore itself like a Borg cube.. Or Royce Gracie, the son of Brazillian jiu-jitsu founder Hélio Gracie, who can probably regenerate wounds as quickly as Deadpool, albeit without the scar tissue.

    I, on the other hand, take a long time to recover from the most minor wounds. Days to heal cut fingers–and that’s with Neosporin; weeks to heal from sprains; months to heal from minor fractures and years to heal from more serious wounds such as severe breaks, severed arteries or decapitation.

    Of course, healing back from decapitation is quite an ordeal, and I really don’t want to have to go through that again.

    Still, now that my apartment is in a more orderly condition, I should be able to get back to life as usual, with the possible exception that I will have to mop my floors now and again, rather than simply vacuuming them and hoping that gravity prevents germs from climbing up the rug fibers.

    I still have the sink that needs to be installed, and I’ve been using the kitchen sink to brush my teeth and wash my hands. This feels so wrong somehow, as though I am risking the infection of the kitchen sink with toothpaste germs or something. I know it’s a conditioned response. Brushing my teeth and spitting into any reusable container other than the bathroom sink seems filthy. Perhaps I could spit into the toilet and drink from the bathtub faucet, but that seems… Kind of redneckish.

    To quote Atrus from the Myst series of games, “I realize my apprehensions might never be allayed and so I close, realizing that the end has not yet been written.”


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Back at Home

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    Ha!

    As of last night, I am now completely moved back into my apartment. The floors are done and I have a new toilet installed and a new sink to go into the bathroom.

    I will have to get used to the hard floors, and I will likely need to mop often to maintain a level of cleanliness, but without carpets, the ninjas have no place to hide except for the places that the cats have already claimed.

    I still have a lot of work to do. There are several pieces of furniture which need to be moved back into place along the wall; I need to finish organizing a few things and Shishou’s fusion reactor needs to be cleaned. All in all, it’s been a crazy two weeks, much of which I was staying at my mother’s place along with my cats in a small bedroom not much larger than an oversized closet.

    Thankfully, my mother, stepfather and sister had the patience of saints, and put up with my bizarre antics for almost two weeks. Aside from my neurotic dietary habits, outdated computer hardware (no wireless internet) and my need to sleep with a fan on so the stagnant air monsters can’t get me, I have a few minor quirks that can cause problems, even with family. For instance, my need to be completely clothed in the shower just in case my mother peeks in; the fact that using a bathroom in complete silence allows you to hear your digestive system’s final expulsion of yesterday’s lunch; that my cats failed to come to any bipartisan territory agreements with the dogs; that the cars driving past my mother’s house at night beam strange, haunting patterns which ghost nightmarishly across the ceiling and that a pair of cats locked up in a bedroom at night have nothing to do except chase each other across the bed, carefully planting their feet directly into my groin with each step.

    But all that is over now, and the only problems I have at this point are that I have to wash my hands in the kitchen sink instead of the bathroom and that I really need to mop my new floor. I mean, it is filthy.

    Oh yeah, and my truck needs a new ball joint, so there’s that too.


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized 📎and tagged

  • Day 4.

    Posted on by avatarJador Comment

    Day 4: The cats have dismantled all available technology except this computer in order to create a functioning wormhole generator into subspace. What their ultimate plan might be is unknown at this time, but it may have something to do with the signals they have been receiving with the subspace transceiver they built yesterday out of the large-screen TV.

    Still stuck at the parents’ house while my flooring is finished up. We haven’t heard from the flooring people, but the last time we spoke to them, they were sure they would be done by today. Personally, I can’t imagine they’ll take more than another few hours, but Murphy’s Law explicitly states that any given job will consume all available resources, money and time. And as i have a two-week vacation, they have approximately 168 hours to blow…

    I managed to set up my desktop computer over here, and with it I’ve been keeping up somewhat with my World of Warcraft goings on. It’s not easy playing with a pair of folding tables and a sofa-tray to hold all my peripherals, but again, I’m surviving the inconvenience. It’s probably a whole lot worse for the others in the house, since there’s an extra mouth to feed (though I brought my own bagels and cream cheese) and an extra body to shower. I’ve also been taking up valuable oxygen and producing lethal carbon dioxide gas at all hours of the day. This shouldn’t be as much of a problem since my mother keeps a lot of plants in the house, all converting CO2 to O2 24 hours a day.

    I also got my truck registered and inspected this week. Thankfully, there were no major problems, just a small hole in the fender that I patched with Bondo®. It looks awful, but it’s effective, and I think this will be the last year I keep the truck. Though I hate to get rid of it. It’s served me so well over the last few years that I feel a pang of guilt over dissmisively casting it aside for a newer and more modern vehicle. Still, it’s lived longer than I expected when I bought it all those years ago.

    I suppose I’ll be stuck at the parents’ for a few more days, so I guess I’ll just say that if you’re ever over to visit, use the Keurig® to make coffee… Their regular coffee is awful… 😛


    📂This entry was posted in Uncategorized