Hartwell Tavern

It was during a period of beautiful weather here in the depths of Massachusetts that the sun shone bright and families went out for a stroll. It had been raining, rather heavily, the past few days and the first signs of spring were upon us. Times like these are meant for adventure. The ice thaws, the temperature rises, and there are mud puddles galore. What a better way to start spring?

My first outdoor activity in shorts spanned three towns. Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord. There resides an old road, now named the Battle Road, and part of the sprawling Minuteman National Park that hosts the first battles of the Revolutionary War. A 5.5 mile long and three bike wide trail follows the path of British Soldiers retreating back to Boston after skirmishes at Lexington Green and Old North Bridge. Historic Markers, preserved 18th Century Farms, and gorgeous scenery make this a pleasant biking (of the off road type) and running experience.

The Walking and Biking Trails at Minuteman

Though the trails are packed in the popular tourist spots, you can make the most of your slowdown by talking to the tourists about the history here rather than simply breezing by with a muffled, “excuse me.” You meet some interesting people, some knowledgable about the 200 or so men that fell here, and some ignorant of much other than the latest Lady Gaga show. After saying your goodbyes and leaving sites like the Visitor’s Center and Paul Revere’s Capture Site, the crowd vanishes and you’re alone with your thoughts.

Paul Revere (and William Dawes) Capture Site

There are plenty of small hills, streams, and challenges along the way to make you appreciate the British plight along this road. If that does not do it, the solemn grave markers will. That is part of the beauty. A few trees on a desolate trail and a small Union Jack stand as testimony to an unknown son of George III who fought and died so far from home for reasons, along with his name, that we will never know. It adds to the atmosphere and keeps me coming back, time and time again, to watch the seasons pass by on the same trail. It never gets old.

I am debating one last hurrah before this website becomes a conversion from the gaming realm to the outdoor realm. An EVE Screenshot contest that will be one last way to say goodbye and toss a few hundred million iskies (perhaps) to the lucky winner. The details of that will come in time and there will not be long to wait. I’ve tossed a few suggestions out there so we’ll see if it takes shape. You can have my iskies, well some of them, but not all my stuff

What you can expect is to see this blog change dramatically in the next few months as I seek to convert it to a real life Misguided Adventurer, complete with mountain biking trails, running routes, and great beer. Basically, what I consider to be the great things in life. It’s been a blast, but I promise you, that minus one last hurrah for a screenshot contest, that is it. If the contest does not come to fruition, I will update this post and advise everyone to update their links. So stay safe in the meantime and live the dream.

That + Loki = Win

The Drunken roam is always a memorable experience. Carriers undocking when they shouldn’t, fittings missing, and tackling asteroids make for a good laugh (and one hell of a headache). Staying awake is, most often, the most difficult of tasks when alcohol and flying are mixed. So to satisfy both cravings I give you the Misguided Adventurer’s Guide to Irish Coffee.

What you need:

Irish Whiskey (select your favorite at Irish Whiskey Notes)

Brown Sugar, preferably a decent quality. The molasses adds to the sweetness.

Heavy or Whipping Cream

Regular Sugar (for the whipping cream)

Coffee Beans (I find Sumatra works best) WHOLE! Those pre ground bags in the grocery store lose flavor quickly! (coffee basics)

A Spoon (because it’s dull you twit, it’ll hurt more)

What you do:

Freeze a bowl and a whisk (if you use an electric mixer, just the whisk attachment please. If I say it, it’s because someone has done the idiotic). Chill for 1 hour. When making whipped cream (superior than store-bought and we are going all out here) everything that comes in contact with it must be cold. So go log in, update EVEMon, buy some Exotic Dancers from Jita, and come back.

Pour 1/4 cup of Heavy/Whipping Cream into the bowl and add some white sugar, usually about 1 tablespoon. Whisk until the cream is lightly whipped. Set aside.

Grind your coffee beans to your favorite size and shape. Coarse grinds for the French Press folks and finer grinds for the average drip coffee maker.  Make the coffee, any way you like it. 2 TBS of ground beans to 1 TBS of water is what I do.

While the brew is brewing, grab your Irish Coffee glass (I take my alcohol seriously) and grab the brown sugar. Put 1 TBS of brown sugar in the bottom. Coat it with Irish Whiskey. Stir.

Now your coffee should be done. Pour it in and leave room for the cream.

Now grab a spoon and heat it under hot tap water.

Turn it upside down and slowly pour your whipped cream over it so it cascades down the spoon and on the coffee, settling on top. Don’t stir it in.

Now when you drink it, you’ll have the perfect blend of hot and cold, heavy and light, booze and caffeine. Enjoy and don’t fly Titans while drunk. You mat get serial crushed by a couch.

War reporting is never easy

EVE Online is entering yet another phase of perpetual conflict. Goon is on the move, the major alliances are declaring war, and the world is as it should be. We are living in interesting times, when there are targets aplenty and chaos on every front. In such chaos, when many bloggers and commentators are bound to be a contributing member to the war effort, getting accurate and neutral reporting is problematic. This struggle plagues modern reporters and media outlets too and the question those of us fighting or observing often ask is, who do we trust?

A respectable blogger for many years, Ninveah, has been a presence both on the battlefield and within the blogging community. He has begun offering us his thoughts on the subject and has done a magnificent job reporting the situation from a neutral point of view. Though the artful propaganda reports of Goonswarm and other alliances are entertaining, discerning the facts is like trying to navigate Times Square blind at rush hour. “Its hard blogging about a war you are directly involved in, ” he offers, “you don’t want to be a fount of inspiration and intelligence to your enemies, nor discouragement to your allies. So I try and stick to publicly available facts and avoid inserting too much opinion. It tends to lead to dry blogging as a result.”

Dry blogging is not something I would describe his publication as. War reports are a welcome addition to the community especially when coming from a respectable and well versed source such as the Inner Sanctum. I look forward to his commentary and the views of many others that are bound to be sucked into this deadly test of human endeavor.

Jagged Edges Drive Me Nuts

Ever since Dominion has graced my screen, EVE Online has taken on the role of competing for graphics quality with such classic games as Castle Wolfenstein and Missile Command. Honestly, Missile Command looks better. I am offering 25 million isk to the first person who is able to figure out what the hell is going on. I am using:

196.21 nVidia Drivers on a GTX 260.

Windows Vista 32.

Nhancer 2.57

Anti-Aliasing is my biggest issue, hence the comparisons to block graphics.

That guy plays EVE when he's not PvPing

MMOs are all the rage in these tumultuous times. You can’t flip through a website without being blasted by philosophical discussion about World of Warcraft, learning that kids spend an average of seven hours a day in front of the screen, and that video games, in some places, have eclipsed movies in sales revenue. There are more internet spaceships on the horizon to distract us and add time to our gaming lives and EVE Online will face a threat from phasers and black prophecies. Those threats are weaker than the latest attempt to resurrect Star Trek on your TV.

No other game even scratches the surface of the anarchical, scammer infested, corporate nightmare that is New Eden, so why the hell are people (I assume they are from outside of the community) saying EVE is threatened? Rumors abound that the sci-fi drama that is CCP’s forte is threatened by the WoW Crushing Star Trek Online, SWTOR, and even Black Prophecy! I beg to differ. Who the hell cares about Klingons, auto-tuned “music video’s” stroking our virtual joysticks, voice-over treats, and new friends to be made praying to a demented Japanese kitty cat? Swatting a guys face with a light saber made by the respectable RPG King that is Bioware may be awesome, but it’s not the freedom loving arena of destruction EVE offers. We have fast and intense combat, market wars, good times, bad times, and explosions, the few, the proud, the scourge missiles, the exotic dancers in a can, and the MINING LASERS. So why will EVE stand the test of time and the threats of powerful and sci-fi oriented MMOs? Probably because EVE is not easy, not for the faint of heart, and even the devs tell you to Harden The Fuck Up.

EVE players, in my experience, are notoriously vulgar, corrupt, untrustworthy, vile, and cutthroat. They’ll haul your goods for months until, one day, it’s all gone and the Soviet Anthem is blasted over your ventrilo as your FC dies and your corporate hangar has one unit of livestock crapping all over your legacy. We find new and interesting ways to kill ourselves, supply the goods to continue the glorious revolution, and plant the glorious flag of triumph right through the beating hearts of our enemies.

On the flip side, we all respect each other as survivors of the most unique gaming experience in the virtual world. We’re capsuleers, piloting our internet spaceships straight down the throats of other MMOs. Scamming? We got that. Hacking? Yep. Treason? Betrayal? War? Destruction? Assassination? Yep. We even go so far as to plan a power outage to cut off enemy game time. That, my friends, is an experience, something we survive. You don’t play EVE, you survive EVE. You can have your Flaming Skull Axe of Thrall or Captain Kirk’s Personal Phaser, set to kill. I’ll take my size of a city block metallic bat that packs 1100 dps and causes some guy, on the other side of the world, to put his fist through his monitor as his orca becomes a cloud of space dust.

In Soviet Russia, prey hunts you!

After a short few weeks of accomplishing nothing but loosing nearly 6 billion isk in assets, EXM has retracted their war on Agony Unleashed.  We’re not really sure what a lowsec pirate gate camping corporation was aiming to accomplish attacking a nomadic 0.0 alliance. We didn’t really care. Blinky red targets are just as good as any other target:

Name: EXM War
Start date: 2009-12-28
Kills: 41 (5.19B ISK)
Losses: 14 (0.26B ISK)
Efficiency: 95.32%

I’d call that a pretty nice little training session for the new guys.

She lets me do this now!

Ah yes marriage. The fine art of sacrificing 50% of your life to cater to the needs of another. Marriages succeed, fail, see 14 women enter the arena to mix things up a bit, and also put a serious damper on your gaming experiences. Having been married for the better part of a year, I confess, gaming is near impossible with a wife who never played Mario Brothers in all of its 8 bit glory. So how do I avoid the constant badgering, get the laundry quests, and hints that she wants to watch Titanic tonight?

When finished working hard at a job that feels threatened by my presence (oh government employees) I am answering silly questions such as, “When should we go snow shoeing?” or “Do you want to play Wii?” Wii…don’t get my started. When such things badger me after a hard day, there is a simple solution we married folks need to consider. Compromise. That magic word that marriage counselors hammer home and your parents (well maybe grand parents) swear worked for them. That and a good old Law & Order marathon keep me gaming into the wee hours a few times a week.

Though I joke about her presence constantly with my corp mates, we have come to a middle ground. Her early nights to bed are my gaming nights. Saturdays, unless there’s a special event in town, are my days to stay in my robe, eat chips, and chug away at beer as I pilot happily into a disaster. It amounts to about 2 full days of electronic glory. Honestly, it’s just enough and has cured a self diagnosed addiction with all things EVE. With the art of compromise I even am able to resurrect this blog from the disaster that befell it when marriage, a new job, and a dog that made the second floor of our home his toilet threatened to destroy all that was good and well in the world. Things are getting back to normal and life is starting to become wonderful. If only compromise was a word that my job would understand. Oh the government, how I loathe thee.

One less Thanatos

War has befallen the capsuleers of Agony Unleashed, as it has on many occasions throughout its long history. Be it from the depths of 0.0’s most powerful alliances or the ignorant declarations of mercenary pilots, it is an event that focuses the best of our numbers on nothing but total defeat and ultimate victory. The crowds of pilots have erupted in cheers and volunteered in numbers reminiscent of throngs of crowds that lined the streets of 1914. The opening campaign has swept aside any notable resistance and engulfed corporations from high, low, and null sec. It is with great joy and excitement that I am able to partake in the festivities.

War is one of those rare events in human history that forces an entire people to shift its focus, alter its life, and put forth it’s efforts to the survival of their society. The very nature of what we call humanity changes, some for the better, some for the worse. The benefits of partaking in what Herodotus called the “great calamity” in a virtual setting are obvious. Though, in a game like EVE, the results of failure are irreversible. Your territory is lost, your assets are destroyed, and your society crumbles. Alliances fall just as hard and fast as country’s do, be it to ploy or direct assault. There is much at stake and much to lose. It is thus the object of every Agony member, as it should be for any serious corporation involved in war, to dedicate our efforts on obliterating any enemy.

Sliding at 2800 meters, check.

As many of you know, I voluntarily left the Blog Pack due to real life issues preventing me from offering quality and consistent posts. Finally, things have begun to turn in the right direction for me. I have a job, a lovely new home, and am working on painting the white picket fence. Naturally, the Adventurer isn’t happy with a Cleaver’s lifestyle. An expedition into Nepal is being planned. A hike along the “scenic route” to Machu Picchu is in the works. Mountain Biking in British Columbia is next. In the virtual world, Dominion, BC roams, and Velators of Doom are causing extreme amounts of elation.

Expansions always increase my interest in a game. After spending countless hours tucked away behind the lense of a K98 in Day of Defeat, the call of the fleet, the adrenaline of the unknown, and the excitement to be had when the bullet hits the bone have me craving for the good old days in EVE. My skills are, as of late, less than adequate. I fear I am doing no justice to my current corporation as I make the mistakes common to a new player. Rusty, unmotivated, and whipped by what is an unexciting position in the world, drastic changes are needed.

Not only will I be flying more, but the blog will reopen soon. As such, I need a few hearty souls to aid me in a quest to return this blog to an informative and quality driven medium for EVE players. If you are interested in writing for the Adventurer I can offer no iskies, no benefits, but can certainly promise you a good time. I’m no professional, and don’t pretend to be, so all resumes are welcome. Just don’t send me you’re science fiction novels

What I need:

1. A 250-500 word article about a topic important to the EVE Community
2. If you’ve ever written or blogged before, a link to that blog
3. Foreign Affairs/Diplomatic experience (virtual or real) a plus

If you are interested, send your emails to xiphos.victrix[@]gmail.com and we’ll take it from there.