Geek of All Trades

On the Subject of Being Unemployed...

2009-08-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

When I was working, I always said to myself "Wouldn't it be nice if I were to win the lottery and never have to work again?" I think that, had I actually won the lottery, the experience of being without work might be quite enjoyable but for myself and the millions like me being unemployed in this economic downturn can be, and often is extremely frustrating and depressing.

I continue to apply for jobs, but with my career field of choice being IT, there is a heavy saturation of the market place from the Y2K surge nine years ago. So much so in fact, that I'm considering switching career fields altogether. I'm even starting to look at the possibility of travelling to a different city where there may be more jobs available.

One thing is for sure: things are tough right now.

On the Subject of Naxxramas...

2009-05-07T13:45:00.006-05:00

This is a World of Warcraft post, so if that sort of thing doesn't interest you then feel free to skip over it.

I started participating in a 25-man Naxxramas group recently and as such, loot has been really good to me! I've managed to get my hands on the following gear: Valorous Redemption Faceguard, Valorous Redemption Shoulderguards, Ablative Chitin Girdle, Bindings of the Hapless Prey and Shadow of the Ghoul. Not to mention the fact that those items are upgrades to items I received either in or because of my Naxxramas runs. I've also completed two achievements that I had been trying to get for some time: Champion of the Frozen Wastes and Heroic: The Fall of Naxxramas.

That said, I'm thinking about switching Naxxramas groups. From what I can gather, this group is fairly new, or at least most of the members are. That's not to say that the leadership hasn't participated in Naxxramas runs with some regularity in the past; just that this particular mix of people is new. The group is governed by two leaders, one of which is the main tank. There's nothing wrong with that at all, except he's let the title of main tank and his status as leader go to his head a bit. In the group's rules document (authored by the main tank), he refers to himself as "one of the best tanks on the server." The few posts he's made to the group's message board have been preceded by "main tank 2 copper pieces" as if his status as the main tank should somehow elevate him to a position above the rest of us. Needless to say, he's pretty pretentious. He even went so far as to ask that every member of his Naxxramas 25-man group avoid grouping with a specific guild because they offended his girlfriend.

Pro Tip: Bravado just looks ridiculous when you hide behind a computer screen.

His ego might be deserved if he was fully geared but his WoW Heroes score is only 60 points above my own at the time of this writing. The one thing that he does have going for him is that he's clearly experienced, or is at least good at passing himself off as being experienced. He's pushing us to do Ulduar now when I know that members of the group aren't geared enough for Ulduar yet. It seems that he's more interested in using the group to get himself better gear than the needs of the group as a whole. He also has a really bad habit of droning on and on whenever someone messes up. State the mistake and move on. No need to drag it out and make yourself into an asshat in an attempt to embarrass the offending party.

I'm torn because, with the exception of the main tank, I really like the group. Since we're not doing Naxxramas this week, I had an opportunity to run with a different group comprised solely of Taint members. I love running in all Taint groups. I can't say that enough. There's something much more comforting about running with guildies. Add to that the fact that this run was amazingly painless. We wiped twice throughout the entire run. Once due to fatigue (it was 2:00 AM in the morning) and once during Sapphiron because we were going for Heroic: The Hundred Club. Another member of my normal Naxxramas group was also attending and he worded it best when he said that there was "no comparison" between that group and ours.

We'll see how things turn out.

Days of Sacrifice: Reimagining Eberron's History Part 1

2009-03-13T10:09:00.000-05:00

In my custom Eberron game, I've adapted a lot of the setting to insert some fairly substantial villains. I'm going to cover the history of my world. Some of this will overlap with canon and other parts will veer wildly off course, but I offer it here for other GMs who are looking for ideas.

Before Eberron

The high elves were masters of the arcane. They had studied the planes and it seemed that no magic was beyond their grasp save one type: divine. For all their ability, the high elves could not conceive of divine magic. They didn't understand it and like most they feared what they did not understand. For this reason, they sought to remove the source of their fear and looked for a way to remove the source of divine magic: the Gods themselves.

Having expended all sources of information that they could find, they decided to see what lay beyond the planes. For this purpose, they constructed the Vast Gate. It is said that when the gate opened, the world shuddered. The first groups of high elves stepped through the gate into the space that lies beyond the planes, the Far Realm. The things that they found there would forever change the world.

Some groups came back with a reduced capacity for magic. Others came back with skin as black as the night sky. They brought with them two beings that they woke. What followed can only be described as calamity. Evil spread across the land from their capital city of Io'lokar. They closed the Vast Gate and bound it shut. Then, they set out to stop the evils that they had unleashed upon the world.

Many of the high elves gave their lives to seal the evils but with all of their power, they could not destroy them. It was at this moment that the dragons, the most ancient of enemies to the high elves, seized control of the opportunity presented in their enemies' weakened ranks.

When the high elves were gone, the dragons set about removing every trace of their existence from the world. They wanted no one to know of the existence of the Vast Gate, for knowledge of it would lead only to more calamity.

10,000,000 Years Ago

Thousands of years passed as the dragons ruled over their fallen enemies' capital. The dragons were malcontent though as one of the three progenator wyrms, Eberron, created a sentient magical construct named Chronepses. The son of Syberis, Bahamut and the daughter of Khyber, Tiamat refused to recognize Chronepses as their brother. To them, he was only a magical monstrosity along the lines of the Vast Gate that floated silently above their city. Chronepses grew to hate them for their resentment and began setting plans in motion to ensure his survival and eventual placement among his creator's side as a dragon deity.

The three factions of the dragons moved toward war with one another over the juxtaposition of their ideals. It was only as Bahamut and Tiamat struck the killing blows upon one another that Chronepses revealed himself to them as the orchestrator of the events that lead to their down fall.

But the war had cost the world too much and, just as the deities of the dragons, it was dying. It was then that Eberron broke the seal on the Vast Gate once more and entered. It is unknown what he did there, but the world was reborn through his actions.

In the next part of this post, I'll examine the changes I've made to the rest of the timeline, beginning with the Age of Giants.

I, Rogue

2009-03-12T13:05:00.001-05:00

Following in the footsteps of At Will, apparently I am:

D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium

It's Been a While

2009-03-11T08:59:00.002-05:00

I know that it has been a while since my last update. This is generally the way it's going to be with this blog now that I've discovered Twitter. Often I will want to say something short and witty about a topic, and that's not something that a blog is really designed for. If you don't follow my Twitter feed, and would like to keep current with my more frequent updates, you can do so here.

I lost my job back in August, like a lot of people and times have been a little rough on me in the interim. One thing that I learned about myself is that I don't really need a lot of the things I thought I did. I took stock of what I had and what I could do away with. I cataloged and sold off all of my Magic: The Gathering cards (finally). I sold my Playstation 2 and all of the games that I owned for it. The exception there being the Final Fantasy series. Those I wrapped up and passed the entire collection onto my nephew for Christmas.

I originally used the huge amount of credit I had built up at Gamestop to buy newer games as they were coming out for the Xbox 360 but even that has slowed to a crawl as the games coming out right now don't seem to interest me. I do have to admit that Ghostbusters: The Video Game is looking particularly sexy though.

I used to go see a new movie every weekend with Ben. That's stopped almost completely. I still go see certain movies, but they're few and far between.

I was able to secure a part time job doing market research. It's a paycheck and with the economy the way it is, that's saying something. Also the schedule will work perfectly with school as I'm planning to go back full time this fall.

I've decided to leave the IT market and work toward a career path that is more in line with my real passion. I'm working on an English major and possibly a journalism minor. I'm hoping to leverage this into writing about video games. If I can secure a Bachelor's Degree I may even be able to teach English in Japan for a couple of years, which has been another dream of mine for over a decade.

So things are slow, but progress is being made...

D&D and the Nephew

2008-11-25T18:39:00.000-06:00

I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and I recently introduced my nephew to the game when I ran a demonstration of the new 4th edition for some friends of mine. I regularly run a custom Eberron game, which is full. In addition to that, I play in a 4th edition game, a 3.5e Forgotten Realms game and I have started dipping my toes in the RPGA.

My nephew just called me and asked if he could come to future games--he's been bitten by the gaming bug. My Eberron game is full, so I didn't present that as an option for him and it isn't my place to invite him to the Forgotten Realms or 4th edition games; so I explained the RPGA and that there were kids his age that also played there.

So, if all goes well he may be tagging along with me on December 13th to the RPGA.

iPhone 3G

2008-07-13T20:43:00.005-05:00

I'd like to start this post off by telling you that I'm not a Mac user. In fact, I find the constant Windows-bashing that Apple does to be very annoying mainly because I'm an avid fan of all three dominant operating systems: Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Originally, I was going to go to the AT&T Wireless store to purchase my iPhone 3G but in the end I opted to go to the Apple Store in Village Point. I have to admit that I was really surprised by the pomp and circumstance surrounding the launch (and I have been told that this is par for the course with Apple). They provided those of us in line with coffee, bottled water and at one point even sent someone out to answer questions before the store opened.

When the store opened, the first of us were taken in and the employees clapped as we entered. It was a little cheesy but very neat to see the level of presentation Apple went to. While I had originally planned only to get the black 8GB model, in the end I decided to go with the 16GB model simply because you can't upgrade the memory on the device and its going to have to last me at least a couple of years.

Interestingly enough, AT&T Wireless doesn't offer any kind of an insurance plan for the iPhone 3G. You're restricted to buying an Apple Care plan. This is provided for free for the first year, and paying the additional money gives you another year beyond that. After asking the sales person, I was assured that I could opt in for the plan at any time during the first year so I didn't spend the money. I may though as I get close to the end of my first year; I'm on the fence about it. Even with Apple Care the phone isn't protected against the owner accidentally dropping the phone which seems like a bit of a rip off to me. I mean, think about it; I believe an iPhone is far more susceptible to failure caused by the owner dropping it than failure due to defect. In the event that a defect were present, I'd think it would manifest itself within the first year...

All in all, I'm very satisfied with my purchase. The first bill is likely to be pretty high due to the activation fee and the fee to move my existing number so I'm expecting to cringe a bit when I see it, these things are all par for the course though when starting service with a new cellular provider so I'm not faulting AT&T for them; I'm just pointing them out.

The only real disappointment I had with the entire experience was the fact that I couldn't get the phone activated in the store because iTunes' servers just couldn't handle the load and died an early death. As a result, I was without phone service for about 11 hours as my phone number had transitioned to the new phone, but I couldn't set up my voice mail on the new phone.

With the iPhone 3G came the 2.0 firmware and the new iTunes App Store. As more and more applications are released onto the App Store, it will mean that there is less of a reason to jail break your iPhone. Apple advertised over 500 applications at the launch of the App Store, however a lot of those applications were just different developers trying to do the same thing. For example, there were three (that I know of) applications to check movie listings and show times. Of them, I preferred BoxOffice although a friend of mine prefers Movies.app. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. BoxOffice is a little buggy and likes to crash randomly, but it displays the Rotten Tomatoes rating for the movie, which I love. Movies.app doesn't display the rating but does allow you to view the trailer. I'd really like to see a blending of these two applications.

What really surprised me about the selection of applications at launch was a distinct lack of an SSH client. The iPhone needs a port of Putty something fierce. As of today they have a VNC client which is rather neat. The ability to manipulate my home PC from my iPhone intrigues me greatly.

I didn't think I would be gaming much on my iPhone. In fact, the only games that I had on my Motorola Razr were two timeless classics: Tetris and Bejeweled. Both of those games were available at the launch of the App Store, but for a drastically inflated price. At $9.99 per game I opted to buy only Bejeweled, although I must admit that it was a very tough choice. In reality though if both games were priced at a more reasonable $4.99 I'd have both on my iPhone right now. They're two great puzzle games and good time wasters when you've got nothing else to do or are stuck waiting somewhere.

All said, I love my new iPhone and as cheesy as it sounds, the experience of being there for the launch was well worth it.

Come Make Fun of Me While I Stand In Line!

2008-07-10T01:21:00.000-05:00

If you go to the AT&T Wireless store on 76th and Dodge (here in Omaha) in the wee hours of Friday morning you'll undoubtedly see me being a total nerd as I wait (im)patiently in line for the 3G iPhone. I'll twitter just before I leave to go there, and then I'll twitter again from my iPhone once I've secured my new toy.

Yes. Finally I'll get to be one of those cool people I've heard so much about.

Designing a Time Travel Game

2008-06-29T21:25:00.003-05:00

Among my various geekdoms is a passion for tabletop gaming. About nine months ago several of my friends roped me into (re)starting a campaign that had ended abruptly due to a work schedule change on my part. The game, set in a modified Eberron Campaign Setting, featured a party of five player characters that were attempting to thwart the efforts of a primary antagonist and his two lackeys.

The truly frustrating thing for me (and my players) was that the schedule change came at a very bad time in the story: right before the final push. All the pieces were in place for a final confrontation with the antagonists in the Ash Cauldrons of Xen'drik. The party had just survived an encounter with one of the two lackeys aboard their airship while en route to Stormreach and were getting set to go into the jungle.

The whole thing was very unfinished. Over a year passed, but the way that the campaign left had been on my mind from time to time and when three of my friends approached me and asked me to restart my game, I sat down to come up with a scenario that would allow them to finish their fight with the antagonist while having them start as new characters.

One of the earliest ideas that I had was the possibility that the old party had simply vanished, as if plucked out of time and space. The events that they would have completed (i.e. killing the antagonist) would never have happened. This became the founding idea for my campaign Eberron: Days of Ruin which is set two years after the events of the previous campaign.

Anyone who has attempted to run a game that involved both time travel and a sense of realism has run into several challenges. I wanted to give the players the ability to traverse back in time and correct events in the past that would lead to the antagonist's defeat in the present. I also wanted to allow the players to see what would have become of their previous characters had the campaign not ended.

The first of the questions that I needed to answer from a storyline perspective was, "Why did the party vanish in the first place?"

The answer to that one came in the form of a new antagonist which will take the role as the staring villain in the next campaign. His name is Malice, he has a connection to the current party and for whatever reason he seems intent on altering the events of the timeline to attain a specific goal.

This also solved a serious challenge that I had to overcome in that I didn't want the players to simply go back in time and kill the parents of the current villain or [insert other paradox here]. That would have created a serious headache for me, but if Malice needed the current villain to remain alive for his purposes then Malice would serve as my watch dog to prevent the party from taking the cheap route. If the party hops somewhere in the past with the intent of skewing history off its rails (horribly in their favor) Malice would show up and make them regret the attempt.

The second question that I needed to answer was pretty clear cut: What exactly was the current villain doing that Malice needed him around for? This was not an easy question to answer. It would both be the event that the players were trying to stop and the reason that history had been altered in the first place. As I tried to come up with the answer to this, I fell back to two story telling tenets that I dearly love:

Everything happens for a reason.
"All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again." as made popular by Battlestar Galactica.

I looked at the briefe history of Eberron as presented in the books and found a recurring theme. Every time a race rose to considerable power, they were wiped out. First the dragons, then the demons, followed by the giants and now here we are in the current age. Since the book doesn't get into the specifics of why each race was destroyed, it left me with a lot of room to insert my own details as to the how and why.

So why were the dragons destroyed? Well, the book states that Khyber and Syberis made war between themselves and that Eberron ultimately sealed Khyber away and reshaped the world. This was over ten million years ago. I forget exactly why the demons were wiped out, but the giants rose to power and eventually severed Dal Quor, the plane of dreams from the rest of the world to prevent invasion from the Quori. The dragons saw their level of power and then wiped them out.

Dragons were the repeating theme throughout history. So with that in mind, I set Malice as a follower of Chronepsis. Bahamut is the son of Syberis and Tiamat is the daughter of Khyber so that really left only one choice for Chronepsis: the son of Eberron. But that wasn't enough for me. I have never believed in true neutrality as the books imply Chronepsis to be. In my world, I wanted the gods to be flawed as well. So I changed Chronepsis to better fit in.

In my world, Chronepsis is the first living construct, created by Eberron. The cause of the first great war was Chronepsis himself. He sought the death of his peers, Tiamat and Bahamut and was partially successful but as the world died around them, the lesser dragons bound the soul of Tiamat into an obsidian altar and the sould of Bahamut into a gleaming sword. With both gods severely weakened, my piece was added to the creation legend.

Malice is helping the villain resurrect the soul of Tiamat for the purposes of the villain's ascendancy. That was cast as the event that the players need to stop. I know why Malice is doing this, but since my players don't know yet I can't go into that topic now. With that in mind, I sat down and began to develope not one, but four seperate time lines with the differences clearly marked and the events that could cause the party to jump from one timeline to another.

...but what of Bahamut? Surely Bahamut wouldn't just sit idly by while his arch enemy was resurrected. Enter Bane: Malice's rival and the wielder of the Sword of Bahamut. He is an NPC that would serve as a guide for the party, giving them hints as to where they could go next. In essence, he was the GM personified. To keep Bane from out-shining the party, I only pull him out at times when I want to reveal story elements to the party. I have yet to put him in actual combat and it will be unlikely that I do so. The party members are the heroes, not an overpowered NPC.

This formula has, for the most part, worked really well. Whenever I need to add something to the game to make the campaign more interesting, I try to adhere to the two tenets mentioned above. I remain consistent in my decisions and while the campaign is at times very difficult for the players, I continue to receive positive feedback from most of my players who have just entered into the fifth chapter of the story.

Van Repairs

2008-06-27T03:51:00.001-05:00

As the like ten people who read my blog know, I'm a fairly large guy. When I bought my 1994 Chrysler Town and Country, I was told that there was no way to move the driver's seat back and that caused a bit of a problem for me. After a year or so, the back of the driver's seat had bent down to the point that it laid as far back as it could.

Enter Kevin, geek of the mechanical arts, who came up with a plan to replace the broken driver's seat with the seat directly behind it--an interesting and cheap solution. We then started discussing how best to avoid the same thing from happening to the new seat to which Kevin proposed fabricating a set of rails to move the seat back several inches.

It had been a long time since I'd worked in a garage... and by "long time," I mean a decade or so. This project seemed interesting and as I have been more and more active lately, I took him up on his offer.

We took pictures throughout the process, which he'll be posting as part of an article on his site. I'll link do that once he finishes the write up.

It took us four hours and a single strip of 36"x1.5"x.25" steel to get the job done and now I'm riding in comfort again for the first time in months.

Unfortunately we also discovered that I have a transmission fluid leak so now I need to get that fixed along with a vaccuum leak and a strange anti-lock brake light that randomly comes on... :(

Edit: Here's Kevin's article.

Flat Tire

2008-06-19T00:45:00.002-05:00

As I was driving to work today, my left front tire blew out. No problem, right? I pulled off to a side street, pulled out the four-way and my floor jack and went to work. Got the van up in the air and the tire off. Everything was going smooth as I started to put the full-size spare tire on and then the van lurched and the jack went up on two wheels.

With the van now sitting on the tire (which was not yet on the wheel) and the jack looking like it could slip the remainder of the way at any moment I called Kevin to see if he could bring his jack. He came, and we were able to save the situation and get the spare on so I could get to work.

Kevin's awesome. He's definitely one of my more reliable friends and I appreciate that a lot. Its not often that you find stand up friends like that.

Update on Dad

2008-06-18T06:03:00.003-05:00

Dad's coming home today, so hopefully my life will return to some sense of normality.

Stormy Nights

2008-06-12T02:41:00.005-05:00

I live in a basement. Literally. So when I first wake up I'm usually pretty oblivious to the outside world at first. Today was no different. I woke up, got online and started cruising... and then I notice that I have a voice mail from my sister.

Dad's in the emergency room.

...shit.

I was having a bit of a connection problem with my cell, so I went upstairs to use the house phone and called my sister. It was shortly after I dialed that I heard the civil defense sirens blaring.

...double shit.

Well that explained why there weren't many guys online tonight...

I spoke with my sister who told me to take shelter in the basement and assured me that there was nothing I could do even if I were to go to the hospital. She was right, but being reminded that I'd have to basically wait out the storm didn't do anything to calm my aggravation.

So I went back downstairs and turned on the television to the local news (which I hate). The Little Sioux cub scout camp south of us got hit pretty bad, four confirmed dead with 30+ injured. I have such fond memories of camping there when I was a scout. My nephew has camped there too.

So I sat in the basement and watched impatiently as tornadoes rolled down my sister's street and worried when I could get in touch with her after the fact. She's fine though and there was no damage to her home.

Following the storm I was no longer able to contact my sister. The phone just kept ringing. That worried me a bit, but getting the fact that it was ringing meant that they still had a phone connected to the other end.

I decided to get ready so that when the storm did break, I could get over to the hospital. During my shower though, mom came home. Due to the storm and the crisis down at Little Sioux it was several hours before Dad was able to get a hospital room.

I wish I could provide more of a closing to this post, but there's no real closing to be had. People died. Sister's okay. Dad isn't.

...the world continues to turn.

Another Weird Weekend

2008-06-08T02:27:00.003-05:00

Friday was spent playing World of Warcraft. I know, you're shocked. Anyway. Had to go into work on Saturday to roll out a new version of an application I work out which meant altering my sleep schedule temporarily.

I was a day-person on Saturday! Weird, huh?

While waiting for the prerequisite work to get done, Ben and I went out to lunch and then saw Sex and the City. As I expected, it was a two hour episode of the show but it was done very well. And it's currently sitting at a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes [at the time of this writing] which is better than most movies ever see, so apparently the internet trolls don't hate it either. Personally, I loved it. But then, I'm a gay guy so I guess that's expected. The new addition to the cast, the character "St. Louise" (Jennifer Hudson) was very fun and heart-felt.

Of course, being a gay guy I have always identified the most with Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) and I was very pleased to see that she was still up to her old ways (although I really would have liked to have seen her bang the neighbor, the cock shot was well worth seeing).

Then I went to work, then we went out and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Despite a very predictable plot, I had a very fun time watching this movie. I was surprised how well they worked a lot of the themes that were prevalent in the 1950's into the movie. The greasers vs. the socs was pretty funny... although I do believe the term "greaser" gets used in the movie and that's a historical inaccuracy since the term didn't originate until the 70's.

Of all the over the top things in the movie though, only that single term stuck out in my mind as being out of place meaning the movie was well thought out. It seemed like Harrison Ford was slipping back into a pair of old, well-worn shoes. As the movie progressed though, the ending kind of lost it for me. I guess it was a little too sci-fi and not enough fantasy.

Then we went to dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. I had a bacon cheeseburger that was to die for, and unlike most places they actually understand what medium rare means. Also, there was plenty of eye-candy walking back in forth as almost every waitor in that place is a hot twink. They're not typically my type, but it's been a few days since I last got laid due to an injury from last Saturday... so exceptions might have been made. There was this latino guy that really had the whole cholo look really working for him. I thought about giving him my number but didn't.

The gym went well this week. "Dan the trainer" (as my cardio buddy Niki calls him) realized that these workouts are the means to an end to me and (I think) that he can push me a little harder and I will embrace it as a way to get rid of the fat. I'm making definite progress. My clothes are getting looser, and I seem to have more energy. Dan did tell me to go home last Tuesday though instead of doing my follow-up cardio because I was all fucked out from the evening before hand... and it wasn't even that good of a lay.

One side effect of my new found love of the gym is that my sex drive has shot through the roof. I know it's partially a result of my added self-esteem but Dan says it's also due to the fact that my testosterone level has been increased. I did see Kat and her boyfriend at the gym last week which kind of surprised me (I think they live an hour away, in Lincoln?). I don't know that she entirely recognized me though.

There's a new guy at the gym. He's got kind of this Orlando Bloom look to him. I decided to stop by and uh... welcome him to the gym. Niki called me a whore which I object to; I never charge money. I think I might pursue him a little more aggressively once my injury is healed...

Also, I'll be in Iowa City in August for Anime Iowa 2008... and after talking it over with Ben it looks like he and I are going to make a trip to Las Vegas in October. I think it's time I met some of the fine gentlemen that city has to offer.

Farewell, LiveJournal

2008-06-06T02:21:00.002-05:00

I decided to go ahead and delete my LiveJournal today. I have thirty days to reverse my decision, but I'm pretty sure that I won't. I originally started using it because the majority of my friends were, but as time progressed I became more and more dissatisfied with the service.

The only thing that I will miss will be the mood icons.

Politics, anyone? - Bakersfield.com - More than before.

2008-06-05T22:20:00.001-05:00

Politics, anyone? - Bakersfield.com - More than before.

For the first time in history, I'm going to ask the 10 people that read my blog to boycott something. Bolthouse Farms (no that's not a porn studio) donated $100,000 USD to help stifle the gay marriage movement in California.

It's a shame too... I really liked their juice products. But never the less! I shall endure without them! ...and I would appreciate it if you did the same.

Florida Bar Wants Jack Thompson Disbarred For 10 Years; Thompson Storms Out of Hearing | GamePolitics

2008-06-05T03:02:00.002-05:00

Florida Bar Wants Jack Thompson Disbarred For 10 Years; Thompson Storms Out of Hearing | GamePolitics

This has been a long time coming, but sadly it didn't happen soon enough. I'm sorry to see him go, really. I mean he's brought so much merriment to my life. Like the time he offered 10,000 USD to the charity of Paul Eibeler's choice if a game developer stepped up and made the video game he outlined in his modest proposal:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule

This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games can be "murder simulators" that incite as well as train some obsessive teen players to be violent.

I've been on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest this year explaining how an Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a dispatcher in their heads and fled in a police car--a scenario he rehearsed for hundreds of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto video games.

I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed innocents while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan: "The killing was like an extension of the game."

The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its head lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped into a kid's head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch, hack, bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors, notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association, published in August 2005.

The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:

Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.

Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.

O.K. is provided in his virtual reality playpen a panoply of weapons: machetes, Uzis, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles, Molotov cocktails, you name it. Even baseball bats. Especially baseball bats.

O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an eye," says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2 [sic].

O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. "So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring.

With the FBI now after him, O.K. keeps moving westward, shooting up high-tech video arcades called GameWerks. "Game over," O.K. laughs.

Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You should have checked kids' IDs!"

O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.

How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got the tech. It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.

Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has for 18 years been involved in efforts to stop the marketing of adult entertainment to minors.

Then, after someone made his game he claimed it was all meant as satire! Hilarious. Sadly the internet didn't find it very funny at all. What a douche bag. After Penny Arcade paid the 10,000 USD for him Thompson made the biggest mistake, the same mistake that lead to the end of his career--he accused Penny Arcade of attempting to extort the funds from him. While never actually filing charges against them, the fans of Penny Arcade responded by sending letters en mass to the Florida Bar Association.

Who says letter writing campaigns can't have a solid effect?

Weird Weekend

2008-06-01T23:42:00.007-05:00

I'm tired. Like drop dead, deep in your soul tired. Friday was the only day that I really had to myself. It was also the only day that had any amount of normality to it.

I went to the gym after I got off work and did an hour of cardio. After about ten minutes, my cardio buddy showed up (which is good, because doing an hour on the treadmill without anyone to talk to is incredibly boring). Following this, I went home had a bite to eat and then crashed after watching the latest episode of Naruto Shippuuden.

I woke up at 7 PM and logged into World of Warcraft as is my norm. Ran around with Moorc for a while and managed to get my blood elf paladin up to level 60. I started the quest chain that grants a paladin the ability to cast Summon Charger. This quest chain is a mixed blessing; other classes have to spend 600 gold to get their epic mount where as paladins (and warlocks) have to complete a quest chain to get theirs. Considering that Paladins get Summon Warhorse for 42 silver while other classes have to pay 100 gold for their basic mount it's a little slanted in the beginning. However, getting Summon Charger ends up costing more time, effort and gold than the other classes are required to spend... So I'll be farming some thorium ore for the next few days to buy the items I need to move on with the quest. If you see me in Un'Goro Crater, Silithus or the Eastern Plaguelands on Proudmoore stop by and say "hello."

I also watched Battlestar Galactica while I played. That show has been continually impressive this season. Richard wasn't too keen on Friday's episode, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. If anything we got to see a more human side of Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos).

That took me up to about 6 AM on Saturday morning. I had to be at my sister's place by 3 PM to pose for family photos prior to her wedding. I tried to sleep before hand, but I couldn't so it resulted in about 24 hours without sleep. I stayed for the wedding and ate before heading out to crash for four hours. I'd be lying if I said that being tired was the only reason I booked from the wedding. There are a myriad of reasons really.

My sister is probably one of my favorite people, as is my nephew. I'm incredibly happy for her but I just don't do crowds well. I've got a bit of a social anxiety about them that I can't seem to conquer. I did get to tease my nephew though and seeing Tony again was really good. They had a huge turn out and beyond my immediate family and a few others, I knew no one there.

Also, I had a fuck date.

More on that later, when I'm not at work.

I didn't get home until 2 AM after which I went back to sleep and didn't wake up for another four hours. Once I woke up, I surfed the web a bit and played some more World of Warcraft before crashing again. That was pretty much my weekend. I'm kind of looking forward to the gym today... I enjoy my cardio/gossip time.

Republican Ridiculousness

2008-05-30T01:02:00.003-05:00

Think Progress » Fox and Friends’ Carlson warns McClellan: He ‘better not have any skeletons in his closet.’

First of all, take a moment to read that article. I am getting really sick of the "party loyalty before country loyalty" mentality that the republicans' current modus operandi. We should be patriots, all of us. Being a patriot does not mean supporting a bad president, it means supporting our country. The president is not the country; he is the ultimate extension of the people--a fact that the current president has disregarded time and time again.

In his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, Scott McClellan is revealing some truths that the White House would prefer he didn't. The truth of the matter is that McClellan is doing what any true patriot should do. He has knowledge and is using it in an attempt to educate the people--to make them aware of just how much of a fraud the current regime is. The beauty of the situation is that there are stories coming out now that back him up.

It seems like the further we progress, the less we accomplish as a whole. In case you hadn't figured it out by now, I'm a democrat. That isn't to say that I don't have issues with the democratic party as well but I could never be a republican. Prior to the start of the election, I honestly believed that it would be a cut and dried win for the democratic party. Now, I'm not so sure. A lot of the problem has to do with the fact that Hillary Clinton is hurting the party as whole by refusing to concede. When the democratic party took over the majority in congress, they hurt the party by not having the balls to keep a tighter leash on the president. Add to this the fact that McCain has enjoyed a relatively easy relationship with the press and suddenly our "assured" victory doesn't seem as concrete as one would like.

But then again, I'm just some asshole on the internet bitching... blah blah... republicans are evil, etc.

Hitting the Gym

2008-05-28T03:05:00.003-05:00

I'm a pretty heavy set guy. I've been overweight most of my life actually, but it really got worse in college after a bad breakup. Anyhow, I recently decided to start hitting the gym in an attempt to lose the weight.

I was partially inspired by my friends Jay, Richard, Jeff and Tonk all of whom workout regularly. Since then I've learned that Kevin and his wife also work out; but I wasn't aware of this before hand.

Gold's Gym recently introduced a membership level that's only $10 per month so my final excuse was stripped away. But I decided to do a little research first and priced out the other major gym in Omaha and found that even at their most expensive membership level, Gold's Gym is cheaper. I ended up opting for the more expensive membership because it comes with some other features that I felt I might use.

I have to admit that it was very intimidating going to the gym the first time. I kept thinking that I should just turn the van around and head home but I forced myself to go in. After the sign up, I decided to just do some cardio and hit the elliptical machine. That was a mistake. I murdered my legs that first day, although I didn't feel it until two days later when I sat at home in an effort not to move.

That was a Friday, and I recovered over the weekend only to go back the following Monday. Again I did cardio, treadmill this time. I was biding my time until I could get my free session with the private trainer. That was just over a week ago (I've been going for about two weeks total) and today when I go in, the trainer and I are going to sit down and go over diet and then he'll present me with my routine.

I'm really looking forward to it.

MySpace Analogy

2008-05-22T09:55:00.003-05:00

So, while I was driving home from the gym today I was thinking about MySpace. Don't ask me why because honest I have no idea how I got there. Anyway... I thought of the easiest way to explain why I detest MySpace so much:

If I wanted to see poorly designed web pages with horrible music that automatically plays and a bad picture that's tiled across the page I'd just dig into my memories of Geocities when it first started. Welcome to 1994, assholes.

Several Quotes

2008-05-22T03:32:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine, Richard, is currently reading The God Delusion and found a really good quote:

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal

I have only recently been turned onto the works of Richard Dawkins, and I have to say that the man is brilliant in his fight against organized religion. Another quote that I'm fond of, from his documentary The Root of All Evil:

"There must come a time when the educated stand up and say, 'Enough is enough.'"
-Richard Dawkins

And finally, there is another quote from Seneca the Younger, also discovered via The God Delusion:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-Seneca the Younger

These quotes highlight some of the fundamental flaws with organized religion as a whole--and just to be clear, I'm not strictly anti-christian. I believe that all religions should be done away with.

Reshaping My Digital Life

2008-05-21T12:22:00.008-05:00

I've been using LiveJournal for several years now, and while I appreciate a number of its community features I am in the midst of changing several things about my life (both my online life and my real life). For that reason, I am attempting to consolidate as many of the online services that I use under a single provider: Google. "Why?" you ask? Well, it really comes down to making things simple on myself. I dislike the majority of "Web 2.0" sites out there--I have a Facebook and MySpace page only due to a persistent nagging from several of my friends. I have to think really hard to remember all of the email addresses that I've had over the years and I've finally said "enough is enough."

Why should I clutter my online life with a myriad of accounts that I will probably never use more than once? So I'm trimming the fat. My Wordpress account is gone and my LiveJournal is soon to follow. If I can figure out a way to convert my old LiveJournal posts to this new Blogger account, then all the better... if not... well, I'll have to think about that. Maybe I'll leave them for posterity and maybe I won't.

I've been blogging off and on for well over six years now. Originally, I was one of a number of authors on a blog called The Trick To It. It's long since gone, but the Way Back Machine has kindly archived it for me. That first blog represented an interesting time in my life; I had just accepted the fact that I was gay and for the first time I had found friends that were willing to look past my flaws.

The software we used for that first site was Movable Type. At the time, MT was the "in" thing in terms of content management systems (blogging software). To that end, it served it's purpose. Those of us on Trick eventually went on to found our own blogs and in the beginning I called mine Shades of Dave. This too was originally run on MT; I was a little more adventurous then and I moved my blog several different times trying to find the right software.

So why did I choose Blogger now? Well, since Google bought the service it's seen a number of changes that (in my opinion) have been good. Additionally, I don't have to worry about having server space to run my own Wordpress or Movable Type. It's simple: It just works and the interface isn't too cluttered.

Taking a Break

2008-04-03T00:45:00.000-05:00

So after over a month of lackadaisical attention to Final Fantasy XI, I decided (officially) that I'm going to take an extended holiday from the game. None of my real life friends play it any more, and while I do like many of the people in the linkshell that I'm in, the ones that I want to keep in touch with have my instant messenger information.

So what have I been doing with my time since I obviously have no life? Well I've been devoting a lot of time to the Dungeons and Dragons game that I'm running. Also, I've started playing World of Warcraft again... >.>

Cat Pants

2008-03-22T11:30:00.000-05:00

Fucking finally.

I've been trying to get my hands on a pair of cat pants for well over a year now. On Gilgamesh I was booted from my first serious Sky linkshell simply for being associated with Rugall when he left. Then when I was at the top of the list for them in my next linkshell, the linkshell promptly broke apart. Now, after moving to Hades and joining lolSky i've attained them.

Boxer's Mantle and a pair of Dusk Gloves and I should be pretty well geared for a Ninja.