Pygmaelion

My "purpose" for going to Origins in the first place was hinged on 3 things (In no particular order).

1) Getting to buy up some Legend of the 5 Rings CCG Celestial Edition on the very day it came out

2) Playing in the Bounty Head Bebop RPG

3) Playing Exodus D20

So, you may find that my review of Exodus D20 is rather positively slanted. In fact, if you don't have a radioactive afterglow from reading this review of the game, you have no place in our horrifyingly radioactive future.

Before I launch into the review, I will say this.

Objective One was sundered mercilessly by AEG not only NOT ATTENDING Origins, but pushing the release date back from the 22nd (Before Origins) to the 29th (after Origins). Maybe they had printing or distribution issues. Maybe they decided that the end of a month is when people have the most free money. Maybe the Snack machine jammed, and the lead logistics officer got stuck in it up to the ribcage... I couldn't tell you.

Objective Two didn't happen until Saturday Night... So you'll have to wait on that one.

I played 2 rounds of Exodus, and had a great time at both. The attendance, however, was sketchy. My Judge in both rounds (2 different guys, both lots of fun, both very into the system) were wearing tags that marked them as part of "The Gathering", which I understand to be some independent group of gaming volunteers (independent meaning, not part of GAMA, RPGA, or any other quazi corporate interest). The players, however, were 2 rabid ticketed players (rabid might be an overstatement, pre-registered?) in each slot. Three players are needed for the event to launch, so we scrabbled up a cute vegan dame, and the Mrs. of one of the other "Gathering" judges, and off we went.

The Background of the game - The Crunchy Dice Stuff:
Exodus d20 uses the Open Gaming License to employ the System Reference Documentation, which gives it a rules framework. This all boils down to "You are playing d20 Modern; Anytime you want to use a skill or fight someone, you roll a 20 sided die and add some modifiers based on your class, ranks in a skill, or circumstances. Higher numbers tend to be more desirable.".

At first, I couldn't tell what the "big difference" was between this game and D20 Modern Apocalypse. Now I remember. In d20 Modern, you're chosing a stat, and basing your character around it. You can be "Strong Guy" or "Fast Chick" or "Doctor Intelligence", but you have to carefully choose your levels to get to the right Advanced class later on.

This game allows you to choose an "Aggressive" or "Defensive" character. You then go on to assign your own values for saves. Your skills and feats are determined by what flavor of character you play (which I pick up a few paragraphs below here).

There is Slavery. This is a bit of a touchy subject, but in a world with no money, and no law, you can bet that this nasty relic of America's Past will return. In fact, as a player, you can own a slave to haul your gear, follow you around, act as a human shield, or make money in "dubious ways". This is a choice your character can make, just like in real life. My character chose against taking the "Slaver" stigma, in favor of doing things himself and keeping his credibility. Your character may choose differently. Since I took the high road with my character and freed slaves instead of purchasing or stealing them, I can't tell you how slaving really works... but know that it's an option. One that you can leave out if you truly find it loathesome in a fictional setting.

Additionally, there are drugs. I am chagrinned to have to now say "NEITHER I NOR GLUTTON CREEPER GAMES ENCOURAGE THE USE OF NON-FDA SANCTIONED PHARMACEUTICALS OF ANY KIND". There you go, Moms, Cops, and DARE Graduates. In this game settings, drugs can be gotten to kill pain, increase speed, increase resistance to damage, and lubricate social situations. They all have percentage chances of addiction, and nasty side effects when they wear off. This means that, like real life, the specter of drugs is always looming, allowing short sighted characters to get a quick boost in exchange for a higher price later. This is a great feature, as it offers some very well balanced "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for some additional accuracy with firearms today" gambit. One, I might add, that some of my D20 modern players are already running with my homebrew rules. My rules for illicit substances have drawbacks that change (somewhat on my whim, but accurate based on my limited knowledge of what happened to Rodney King). I'm pleased to see that someone else forayed out into this area, and that they made up some good rules for it.

The Background of the game - The Nougat Enhanced Flavor:
Once upon a time, there were some humans. These humans lived in the year 2012. These humans apparently didn't do a lot of reading, and completely missed the big signs written in Ancient Mayan that the world was destined to end on December 21, 2012. This lead to the world leaders "Pushing the Button", and turning a lot of the planet into a FALLOUT covered hellhole, which forced people to sit in their Nuclear Proof Vaults and play VIDEO GAMES(Especially in the area right BY BETHESDA, maryland). It's hard to say why this WAS CHOSEN AS THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT FOR THE GAME, BUT I'm certain that no LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS entered into it.

Aww Screw it, I'm not good at sending secret all-caps Messages:
"Once upon a time, again, at a different time, the people who wound up writing Exodus d20 were in talks to make a book and dice RPG based on the FALLOUT franchise. Fallout 3 came out (a game which I enjoy on occasion), and all of a sudden a lot of Intellectual Property Lawyers showed up, and took Glutton Creeper Games on a tour of the legal system". I don't know the specifics, and I'm sure they're keen to put it all behind them, but I think it's important to note that while they've made every effort to separate themselves from all similar post-apocalyptic settings, the fun and joy (and laughable heartache) you experience in Post-Apoc video games is still hugely present, and you'd be hard pressed to find any judge who will allow a company to copyright fun.

Anyhow... So there you are, in the first "Once upon a time", and the world is a blown up parking lot full of twisted metal, mutated beasts, hyper mutable morality, and canned food. There are neigh-immortal necrotic persons who have been irradiated into their sluggish, weak zombie selves. There are Government super soldiers called Trans-Genetic Mutants walking around with 9 foot tall attitudes and weapons to match. There are "normal humans" with various allegiances to Cults, Tribal Organizations, Townships, and "other". Depending on which class (flavor) of character you choose, the skills and feats that are "easy" for your character to excel at change.

The game is largely based in the American Southwest. The games we played were in "San Reno" and "Cripple Creek Township"... There were some basic quests such as "go find so and so" or "figure out what is shaking the hell out of our town".. These are legitimate things to be concerned about when you're a bunch of Non-Player Characters inhabiting a post apocalyptic town... So off we go.

The remnants of a hyper corporatist world-gone-rotten are everywhere in this game. This is not to say that it has the Shadowrun "puppet masters control you at every turn" vibe, but more of an "Everything you see has a corporate logo from a company that no longer exists". I'd imagine it was like ancient Egypt "Buy ~bird~squiggle~eye~cup~snake~ brand papyrus! The only papyrus with ~walklikeanegyptian~!". Anyhow, all the items we encountered were brilliant parodies of things we take for granted today. "Yellow Kitty by the SanReno Corp." or "Toxi-Cola"... The puns and near-puns were brutal.

Our group was confronted by slavers, beaten up by children, force to eat cookies, maced, made to take a really crummy elevator, and met a being who was on the same mission we were, before he was turned into some kind of shy caustic fish beast.

All in all, it's the level of spontaneous fun that one might expect while eeking out a meager living amongst the survivors.


So: What's the the verdict?

By the ultimate yardstick of capitalism?

Yes, I bought the main book, the survivor's guide and the beastiary. All three.

Will I ever play it? Yes, probably... While I do enjoy our current game (which is constantly waylaid due to my own unavailablity), I do long for a day when my players' complete lack of sense and/or morality is a viable decision.

What's the catch?
Who said anything about a catch?
Well, Yes, there is one.
You see, despite their great work in making a well organized, pleasant-to-use book, the Glutton Creeper Games team has run into some printing gremlins on their second and third books. Apparently the final proof went to the printer, and there was no "blank page" inserted at the front of the book. This means that the lovely 2 page spans they created (where you lay the book flat, and a piece of impressive sprawling artwork is there in 30% black underneath the text), are on the front and back of a single page. This isn't a show stopper text-wise.. all the words are there. However, for the person who demands pretty and functional, you may wish to find out exactly what your options for purchasing the PDF are. If you're a "Company Man", just buy 2 copies of the book razor off the bindings, and turn it into a plastic sheet loaded binder with all the pages facing each other in the right way.

The campaign guide (the main book) does not suffer from this, though every now and then you'll catch a tiny slip of editing that reminds you of the games legal history. A word here or there that is reminiscent of some other setting. It makes me smile.

In the end... Should YOU buy this?

Knee Jerk Reaction: Yes... If you play D20 modern, buy this book, it is as cheap as, and better than the d20 modern apocalypse book (which, incidentally, you should also own in conjunction... ). Post apocalypse settings are the ones where people DO expect to die before they kill a fudge coated dragonscale golem to get at it's marshmallowy insides. They do take cinematic risks, and will say things that you can only hear on Jerry Springer outtake videos. In short, it's fun. If you need to escape from the NecroLich Chocolatier for a few nights, let Exodus d20 be your escape. After all, what's a few Roentgens between strangers?

It has occurred to me on my way to work today, that humans can no longer be allowed to be the dominant species on Earth. I understand that this is a departure from my promised regiment of game reviewing, but hear me out.

Reasons that humanity can no longer be allowed to continue.

1) Nuclear Arms Reduction talks with Russia
In general, I like the idea of not being irradiated or blasted out of existence. Sure, it would mean that I wouldn't ever get to see the inside of a bomb shelter for 10 years, or grow some tentacles, or test my theories on re-organizing society with a postal route... But that's a trade off I'm afraid I'll simply have to deal with. Our nation's leader (President Obama of the U.S.A.) has gone to speak with Russian leaders about reducing the number of Nuclear Weapons we keep stockpiled. I'm all for having fewer nukes around, since they are big and scary and I understand them in anecdotal ways only. However, it disturbs me to discover that while we agreed to reduce our holdings of these weapons to 1675 units... we only reduced it FROM 1700... Which means this great progress was all about 2 dozen bombs out of hundreds. I'll take progress, but when someone falls on their face, and we proclaim "He's inspecting the ground... what progress!", it makes me sad.

2) The Death of a Man
Michael Jackson... Just a man.
Maybe he was a talented man
Maybe he was a controversial man for his hermetic existance, his odd visage, his alleged kid-touching...
Maybe he was the "king of pop"
But now he's dead, and that's it. The people he's inspired were merely inspired to buy something he created. This isn't philanthropy, it's commercialism. He sold his soul and now all of Los Angeles is having taxpayer supported lottery ticketed farewell ceremonies. This man is deceased, put him in the ground.

To hear all the radio and television interviews, you'd think that anyone gave a crap about this estranged misanthrope for the past 2 decades, but nobody did. He was tabloid fodder and the butt of more jokes than can be counted. Everything in America boils down to color as well... He was a freak and a wierdo for turning white, but now that he's dead, the black/African American/Jaime Foxx community holds him on a pedestal. He made music. That's all he did. Now he's dead. Don't worry about the could-have-been heroes of the past... Remember your dead by trying to make them proud, not wailing at their tombs. Oh, and no kid touching.

3) I came into work today to discover that a half dozen people were standing in a 73 degree room, trying to push buttons on the thermostat to make it colder. They then demanded that I explain why my AC unit worked. Well, mine is a stand alone unit mounted on the wall to keep the PC's cool... so it doesn't operate on a building zone thermostat... Well, why isn't the AC coming on... Now, I pointed out that there were lots of people who do HVAC in this building,and maybe they could lend some insight as to what heating/cooling zone these folks are in. The lead complainer took up bitching at sub-light speed to explain that she has asthma and this is serious and she can't breathe and this needs to be fixed because she can't do her job if she can't breathe and blah blah blah... Jesus... I told her "You sound like you're doing just fine..." and walked out while she was still talking.

So, three strikes humanity, you fail on all counts. Pack your things and leap into the nearest cliff.

The game "Continuum: Roleplaying in the Yet" was a role playing one-off game I decided to play simply based on the idea that it was a time travel game. When I think of time travel, such cinematic bungling as "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", "Back to the Future" (all three of them, thanks ever so much), and whatever flavor of Dr. Who you can stomach.

The players are sure to get stuck into a situation that changes earth forever, get mistaken for a long lost relative / dead ringer future offspring, lose the keys to the delorean/police box/ phone booth in a fight... It's all made for good times right?

No. I'm afraid not... I'm afraid that this time, YOU are the time machine. So, you can't lose you. You are ultimately responsible for your actions, including the ones that you make happen inadvertently in your "Yet". Anything that has already happened to you occurs in your "Age"... As you can tell, there are some very specific words that are used to discuss the "future" and the "past", because depending on where you are, those things change... but that which has YET to happen, is in your Yet, things that have already happened to you, are in your Age.

Got it? Okay then..

As a rookie spanner, your powers can teleport you ANYWHERE within a mile of your current location. This is a "Level Span", so long as you're not moving up or down in time. You can go anyWHEN Up to a year in the Yet, or Down to a Year in Your Age. From there, you can jump yet ANOTHER year...

This terminology is Supermeaningful... so don't screw it up... because you'll be constantly writing down whether you shifted Up, Down, When, what things you will force to occur in your Yet, and what has already happened in your AGE...

Now, if you cause something to have to happen in Your yet, and you willfully don't do that thing when it comes time, you cause "Frag"... Enough points of time fragmentation, and you cease to be, and time fills in your existence like sand in the ocean.


So... now we have a premise... We are time travellers, we have a destiny that we make, and that we are in charge of fulfilling. What's the challenge?

Make Dinner...

Yes, that's the facts, you have to Make Dinner as a time traveller, even if it means travelling to grocery stores that closed 4 years ago, or places that you've already been to (which means you have to make sure that if you didn't already see you, that you don't continue to see you, otherwise, you create problems for yourself, unless the one that sees you is from the yet, in which case... you.... Aww the hell with it.


Here's how this plays out ruleswise.

Your character sheet has 3 stats, Body, Mind, and Chi (again, this info is a week old, so none of this is precise). Your body determines your brawn and the base of your brawny skills, Your brains determines your smarts, and an awful lot of your "Quickness/agility", and your Chi covers your ability to force spans to happen even when you're not ready, too tired, or feeling not so fresh.

The first part of the adventure was good fun... we figured out how to make characters (butt simple, honestly, if you can count backwards from 25. We chose personality quirks (I was a rude Physicist who is not only Right, most of the time, he is always the "Most Correct"). We chose Skills that we were good at, and everything else was a crap shoot.

Bumbling around through time trying to get fresh fish from 4 years ago is fun... trying to find steak sauce when someone bought the last bottle is fun... Having other players trying to get fish from whereever, but just label it incorrectly so that it matches precisely with future events... well, that get dicey... Finding out that some other time traveller is Clock-blocking you wherever you go, trying to get your attention....

Say, that's not cool... That person is a big pain in the butt... we should see who they are, and try to get them to knock it off.

Oh, wait, that person is someone you haven't met yet, but is actually someone you will meet. They've had a psychotic break and will be your major antagonist. Great, let's smoke 'em...

No, you can't... because if you smoke 'em... they're gone, and you can't meet them (Now, this is a little suspect, because I can most certainly meet them in the future, since their current selves are still bumbling around untrained.

No, No you can't... so you have to talk to them about what drove them nuts, and convince them to stop being so goddamn insane.

No, You can't do that either, since they keep telling you it's not possible.


Let me sum up... You see those words that start out the previous three sentences? "No, You can't"... Yeah, I don't ever ever never EVER want to hear those words in a game. Role playing Gaming is all about the possibility that you CAN do something. If I wanted to play a game of can't, I'd spend more time in my real life trying to do things I enjoy and getting shut down.

The system itself was very interesting. You will need a flowchart to figure out all the time anomalies you will create for yourself in your Yet, and you will need a mind like a steel trap for figuring out the logistics of travelling more than your span distance in recursive jumps... but you can do it. The system is again (like Savage worlds) simple, and easy to understand mechanically... But the adventure which started out lighthearted and fun turned into a huge millstone, grinding through 5 hours of a 4 hour slot, forcing us to slog through a heavy handed face-pounding after school special level tale of how time travelers must think of time.

It's no fun to pay 4 bucks for an event only to get frustrated because nothing you do actually works.


All that being said:

The GameMaster, aside from being one of the creators of the game, is a top notch tabletop actor. He's clearly very good at getting into character, and reacting appropriately. He's outstanding at teaching the game. Characters he plays have great, well... character, and each of them has a separate politic that engages your character. If you need someone to be a scholarly old man, a stern Housemaster, a schitzophrenic grad student, and the same grad student in 10 years... well then... He's your guy.

The System itself was good enough for me to purchase On The Spot for 40 bucks (for the main book and the expansion), and it will provide intriguing reading for a few weeks to come. I have no doubt that despite it's light and fast rules, once I finally completely grasp the Age/Yet/Up/Down/Level/Span terminology, it will add greatly to my own games.

The Adventure, however, while it started out fun, does not encourage you to be a completely egotistical wang... Nor does it allow for characters to be weasely schlocks who want to get out of the facts the easy way.... Cleverness is pretty much like peeing yourself in a dark suit. You'll feel a little better, and get a warm feeling for a short time, but nobody will notice, and it fades quickly. Any time you try to outsmart anything, you may as well make a note on your sheet that says "Do this, or I'll kill you" and then write whatever it is.

This is not a game for people who don't like to take notes. This is not a game for someone who philosophizes over his character's next move (well, it is, but that kills the flow, so let's pretend it isn't). This is not a game for people who shoot from the hip.

Who is it for, then? This game is for people who want to know, for a fact that there is a time travel game that can take into account all the things you ever did, will do, and are doing, everyplace. Because it can do that. You may not want to play it , but you will want to see it in action.

I give Continuum a Technical A+, and a Entertainment C-. Speaking straight off the cuff, I am pleased to know it exists, but only as an exercise in "can it be done".

Incidentally, and this may have colored my review a bit, the game was made up as the result of a NYC Subway wager between friends that an accurate time travel game with Zero "Timey-Wimey" factor could be built. It absolutely has been. This is it.

AFTERNOTE: I decided to see if anyone else had reviewed this game... They have : http://www.comnet.ca/~jkahane/cn/cn-intro.html . I'm pleased to say that this person had a much shinier time playing the actual game entertainment-wise, but that the Technical Aspects of time travel still impressed him as well. I suppose that adds a little credence to the notion that this game is spectacular for what it accomplishes, even if it's not the only game you would take with you on a desert island. Incidentally, this guy points out that the game is 10 years old... For all the things the game is... 10 years old is not something I would have guessed it to be.

I may be wrong in thinking that this event happened on Wednesday (In fact, I'm pretty sure it happened thursday morning, which is why I was late...). Either way... let's get on with it.

Savage Worlds is a system I've heard of quite a bit about on Theminiaturespage.com . Self described "Pulp Gamers" seem to love the system for simplicity, storytelling capability, and the fact that the system is flexible without making you memorize a ton of "If and only if" conditions.

So, I'll break this into 2 sections...

The Fun Section (wherein I regale you with tales of the Low Life World)

You see, once upon a time, there were these you-mans... and they blew themselves up... A lot... A really big bunch. And by the time they were done with that, there was only us left... The Woims who lived so far underground that they didn't get radiated (only enough to make them huge and semiintelligent... not dead). The Croaches who lived under the 'frigerators who stood up and took over. The B.O.D.L.s (Beings of Dubious Lineage) who came from crud only knows where. And the Snack Cakes, who don't have lives, so much as they have half lives.

These living things aimed to pick up what was left of society. Luckily, since there's so little society left, this leaves plenty of space to pick up other stuff, like horrible puns, and goofy situations where a leader can lose his regal throne over a matter of sneezing, or scratching without the royal kercheif or backscratcher.

This was the adventure we went on. The king was itchier than a flea trainer, and our little group (2 Croaches, a BODL, and a Woim) were charged with fetching Ye Olde Royal Backscratcher.

The Gamemaster was a ton of fun, and as an added bonus, he was an Engineering Professor at R.I.T. (I like to think that somehow grants one of us some star points, having been to the same place at different times in our lives... but I suspect it doesn't)

The dungeon our characters ventured into had Terms and Conditions of Service we had to agree to... it had dangerous Office Supplies... it had dart traps and bureaucracy. It was reminiscent of the level of fun you have when playing Paranoia, excepting the "you're sure to die, so try to enjoy it" factor... because Savage Worlds is a VERY forgiving system.

~~~~The Rules Section (Wherein I give my crackpot account of how the system works)
Again, this is a week out of touch with when I played the game. This means that I am NOT giving 100% correct information. If you are truly curious about this system, ask someone who knows what they're talking about.

Initiative is dealt out of a standard deck of 52 + 2 jokers. Aces are high, the suits rank in reverse alphabetical order Spades, then Hearts, then Diamons, then Clubs. Jokers add +1 to every roll you make that round, and they allow you to leap in front of another player during the initiative... They are truly a great reward to have.

As I recall (and, as it is with most game systems), there are stats that represent your quickness, your strength, your ability to hit with melee weapons, ranged weapons, and your ability to avoid damage.

These stats come in the form of Dice... A character may have a d4 in strength if they are particularly wussy, and a d12 in quickness if they are exceptionally fast. Higher numbers are better when rolling a test.

The game uses 'Exploding dice" rules, wherein "If the maximum result is rolled on a die, roll the die again and add the first result to it". So, on a D4, you have a 1 in 4 chance of rolling a four. If you do, you roll again, and your result becomes 4 + your second roll. If your second roll is another 4, you roll it YET AGAIN... You see how this can add up if you've got luck (or dice control) on your side.

The game also uses a "Wild Die" which is a standard d6 cube. No matter what your real stat is, you get to roll the wild die as well. This gives hope to those who have abysmally low stats. Even if you can't roll a D4 worth a damn, the 6 sometimes give you just what you need.

All this time you're rolling against a target number. usually the defense of another creature. sometimes that number is much higher than your dice could achieve, but thanks to the providence of the Wild Die and the Exploding rule... you might just hit it. At no time in this system do you feel as if you are completely sunk... and that's something D20 can't say anywhere near as often.

Let's say you make your roll and it exceeds the target number... Good for you. If the target can't somehow Dodge, then they get "Shaken". If you managed to hit the thing with an EXPLODING die... then it's Shaken and Wounded.

The wounds start to stack up. If a character is shaken at the start of the turn, they can attempt to "unshake" (or shake it off), with a dice rolling test. If they succeed, they act normally. If a character is wounded (shaken or otherwise), they take a -1 to all dice rolls (explode as normal). if they are double wounded... it's -2. Triple... -3, Four... Well, you're actually dead. Now, there are a lot of "steps" between "You don't act" and "You aren't going to appear in any of the sequels", so I suspect that's why this system is so popular.

Be it well known that Pulp Gamers are truly classy, and that any villain in a pulp system will tie you to a set of railroad tracks on top of a flimsy basket full of vipers, and release the starving tigers. Then they will cue the credits to roll before the finale.

This system could very easily replace Gurps as my "good for skirmish, good for lighthearted RPG".


~~~The Verdict~

These kinds of things are best solved in the classical way as well... With your wallet. So, did I buy Savage Worlds and Low Life?


No.

And why not? Because I don't need another system, no matter how good, to add to the ones I already have. If I didn't have Gurps, I'd certainly consider it. If I didn't have other miniatures rules that I'm already not playing, I'd certainly consider it. Since it resolves the same problems that my other systems do, I can't say I needed it.

What about the Low Life Theme world? I'd certainly have been interested in this were it designed for a system I already owned or could convince myself I needed. It has lots of fun twists, some completely demented art by Andy Hunt (who, and this is not meant as an offense) looks like Danny DiVito welded to himself, with pointier hair. He's a cool guy with a lot of talent, but you wouldn't want to fight him for the last stabilo in the art store. The material in the book is comedy gold, but without a lot more play, I'm not sure it's more than a couple of One-Offs. Granted, anything can be turned into an epic saga with enough work... but paranoia (or Call of Cthulu, for that matter) is best run as a one off or three parter. Advancement seems secondary to the fun you'll have while you're playing it. "Live like there's no tomorrow" seems to be the phrase that pays in this game.


So, This game got a solid A for fun, but for some reason that wasn't enough to get me to fork over for the very reasonably priced books... A puzzle I'll have to sort out at some other time.

So, the mighty event (Origins game fair in Columbus Ohio) has come and gone, and there is much to tell.

I carried a tape recorder with me through the event to help me recall some of the "Snap responses" to certain games, as well as to recap them when something triggered my memory later.

Let's go to the "Day By Day" game roster

Wednesday:
I arrived in Columbus Ohio at my hotel at around 11, after an arduous 10 hours of driving (with an additional hour of sleeping/resting/fueling up). As a happy coincidence, this hotel had a shuttlebus available that went straight to the convention center. The "Fun Bus" ran every half hour, and ran on-the-hour during certain times of the day (can't remember if it was roughly-lunchtime and roughly-dinnertime, but I guess that sounds close enough).

I made my way to the mostly empty convention center. That is to say "Free of the surge of gamer bodies plying the halls in between rounds". The convention center itself was full of goodies at every turn. The "big halls" contained a wargames room, a boardgames room, and the dealers room (which wouldn't open until thursday, but here was a steady flow of merchants hauling in loot from every available door. My badge was relatively easy to get from the staff (a welcome change from the agony of pre-registering for the event tickets attached to it), though there was some level of consternation at the prospect of buying generic tickets in a timely fashion.

When you don't pre-register for an event, you can get into it one of two ways. You can "register on site", or you can buy "generics". Generics are 2 dollars each, and are large wooden nickels (about the size of a silver dollar) with the Origins logo on one side, and some snappy phrase on the other. It occurred to me that running around asking to photograph people's origins phrase coins might be a fun experiment, but perhaps it might be a little to invasive to ask people to empty their pockets and photograph the contents. The "register on site" method took a bit longer, but was a more surefire way to get into an event. You simply pull out your 80+ page event manual, thumb through until you find the genre of event you want to attend, then thumb through that until you find the time slot it's in, then take an event number, write it on some other piece of paper, and take it to a line where you wait until someone gets to you. This is not, I repeat, NOT a dig on origins convention staff... it is simply "how it was". It took longer than getting generics. The upside of it, was that you could get into an event with priority over generic token holders.


So, with my 14 bucks worth of Generics on hand, I strode proudly to the artists learning room (no, the name of the room wasn't that lame, I just can't recall it offhand). I signed up for:


~~~How to Paint Miniatures Fast~~~ 2 hrs, $14

Already I'm kicking myself for not having the handbook on my desk while I write this, because I can't remember the instructor's name. Suffice it to say that the man "knew his stuff". He paints armies professionally (or at least, professionally enough to make some scratch on ebay). and his wife was one of the painters for Confrontation (by Rackham [see: Kickass French Miniatures companies that are not fenryll]). She's the one that painted all that Non-metal/Metal, where instead of using metallic paints and shading them with inks like we amateurs do, she paints on shades of grey, adding highlights where the reflective parts of the weapon would be. A sharp white line for an edge here, a little lens flare painted on there... awesome. Of course, when I was trying to do it some 3 years back, it was a disaster. It looked like a monochrome crime scene where someone was hit with a a hammer edged sword.

Anywho... onto the class. The idea here was to take 2 groups of people, and make their painting more time-effective. You have your perfectionists, who hand paint every stud, rivet, spike, hair, eyelash... they generally have a figure that looks incredible at the end... of the month. They don't seem to amass armies in anything short of a geological timescale, because each piece is too meticulous to compromise on. The second group are the people who know which end of a brush to hold, but don't seem to get the results they want when they're banging through 30 figures that they need painted in 3 hours.

Generally speaking, most folks fall somewhere in between these two extremes. I'm sure most other people do as well. Without giving the class myself, I can tell you it went a little like this.

1) Don't get picky
Don't worry if you missed a spot, or if you over ran the creamy white of the face with a shock of red from the hairdo. You aren't going for perfection, you just want it to look good enough from arms distance. Besides, you can go back over it later

2) Neatness counts in the end
If you can avoid making a tremendous blunder by taking an extra second, do so. The seconds you spend up front will save you from going back and nitpicking all your work "at the end". Keep your brush tip formed up sharply, don't overload your brush with paint. Better to have to dip in a second time and go back than to murder your brush with paint in the ferrule, splaying your bristles all over

3) Inside Out
When you start the figure, spend a little time discovering where the skin is, where the underlayer of armor is, where the armor is, and where the "various crap the figure is carrying" is. You want to paint the figure in the way it notionally got dressed that morning. Skin, then hair (let's pretend it wears a wig, and a fake beard. If it's a hobbit, it has a foot toupee.), then move on to underarmor, overarmor, and belts/straps/fannypacks/tankards, then to weapons. If you neatly block out all these things with their associated colors of paint, you will be able to avoid painting a section you'll have to reach over later to get to a deeper part. There's nothing worse than painting someone's fancy jerkin, only to ruin it when you try to paint the figure's adams apple and blast it with dwarf flesh paint.

4) Limit your colors
Now, I'll admit that this one was my interjection to the event. I like to think it was a valuable addition, so I'll list it here. When you paint fast, pull out the black paint, the white paint, your skin tone, a metallic (gold, silver, brass, your pick) and 3 other colors. Yes, 7 colors is what you will need. You may even get it down to 6 colors. If you can, the "3 colors you picked" can be starkly contrasting, or awesomely complimentary. I'm sure some color theorist out there is shaking their heads at this description of "Stark Vs Awesome" and crying into their color wheel. Grab a tissue, everything will be fine. You see, since you are painting quick, you want to grab some attention on the figure so that it doesn't turn into a brown glob in step 5 (no sneaking ahead!). Therefore, if you have a Generic fighter figure with a black shirt and brown pants, he will neither be stark nor awesome if you do step 5. On the other hand, if you have a fighter with a purple shirt and green pants, he can be part of the eggplant legion. Clearly, this isn't a rule you want to use all the time, but limiting your colors keeps you from fussing around later with "which pink goes with this red, and does this orange make my ass look big?" Pick, and stick. You can mix highlight colors by adding a little white to the base color, but we won't get to that until step 6.

5) A Wash is as good as a wish
There are various products out there that will shade your miniature for you, without you poking your brush into the deepest recesses of the figure for 5 hours trying to get the armpit or chainmail bikini cleavage just right (though, practice makes perfect!). They are either washes, inks, or "dips" depending on who you ask. I'll grant that there are some subtle differences in the three terms, but each of them amounts to this.
a) Take a finely ground pigment
b) suspend it in a medium that does not have any color of it's own. The medium is clear, and has a skim milk constancy (just enough to grip the figure, not enough to coat it).
c) the medium will dry, leaving the pigment in the spots it took the longest to dry in (generally the cracks, crevasses, crannies, armpits, and cleavage)

So, if your pigment is a brownish/blackish/shadowy color, you get all your shading in dark places done for you. This means that whatever colors you used in step 4 are ~slightly~ darker than they were a second ago (before you evenly coated the figure with your wash), but as long as you picked bright enough colors, this isn't a problem.

6)The missing step - Drybrushing for the win.
The wash takes a while to dry, so this is your chance to go read some better painting article than this one, to figure out what the hell is going on.

Drybrushing is the practice of leaving only a trace amount of paint on the brush (enough that you get paint only on the highest parts of whatever you're dragging it across, but not so much that you're painting over the whole area). Just take the tip of your brush, and dab it with paint. If your brush IS, in fact, lacking moisture, that's a good thing (water will make the paint run to wierd places). Now take the brush, and paint a paper towel (or the back of your thumb, if you're me) until you barely have any pigment left on the brush at all. Drag the brush across the area of the mini where you want the high spots to be a different color.

Ideally, you've picked a dark spot, and highlighted it with a lighter color (that's the point of this type of thing... you want to make high spots ligher, and low cracks darker). The paint will only stick to the high spots, like chainmail, fur, individual strands of hair. This prevents you from having to have the hands of a concert pianist/surgeon. Besides, if you had hands like that you'd have to paint miniatures while removing someone's appendix and playing a baby grand with your toes. Roll over, Beethoven!

So, with that, I give you the advice passed onto me in the Painting miniatures fast class. I give the class a solid 'B' grade. I knew how to do most of the things the instructor was telling us about, so I suppose it really was a B+ to A- class. I'm new at this "Letter grades for reviewing", so I'm holding back the "A" stamp for an event that truly was spectacular. The instructor was very good at showing the techniques, and asking the students for their personal experiences... he could then help the student understand how what he just taught could help them next time they paint. I suspect that given the amount of work and prep that went into the class, that the $14 price tag was about right, but when you take 2 hours to paint a figure with instruction, somehow the "fast" part gets lost from the equation. If perhaps there were a "Bring your paints, and your squad of 5 figures (primed), and I'll teach you how to bang through them in 2 hours... They'll even look good!", then I'd say this class gets the Solid Gold Alpha. I have no complaints whatsoever with what was presented. It was all real, and good information. I probably should have tried one of the more advanced classes, but there's always next year.


Next up...
A review of Low Life (a very very post-post-apocalyptic setting for Savage Worlds).

As is mandated by local and national legal statutes... anyone with a blog of any kind must drop off the face of the planet for a couple weeks now and again. Then they must return with a big "summary" post doing no justice to the events themselves.

This keeps the quality of most blogs from getting "Too High" and gaining "credibility".

So, What's making news?

1) Cal-Killer Arrested
It's become increasingly difficult to find time to get my ass up on the exercise bike as of late. Between trips to visit family and family-in-law, entertainment (playing board games), household projects (making shades for gameroom), general household work (which I don't actually do the lion's share of), and 'other'... Exercise fell off the "must-do" list right before "sleeping" and "eating". It's a damned shame, I could save a lot of time on any given day by not eating (I already lose plenty of sleep), and I could get a secondary time boost by not pooping afterwards.

2) Hitler and Poop win arguements.
Here's a topic of much one-sided discussion these days. It orbits around me like a cartoon star, whirling over my crainium with goofy noises. The In-laws own some lake front property. The Dept. of Environmental Conservation has decided that their beach is "Public accessable property". I'll spare you the gory details, but my lovely wife was watching the internet viewable video of the "Town Meeting" that took place concerning the issue... Sure enough, not 30 minutes in, a man started talking about Hitler. How our Moustachio'd Malcontent followed Napoleon's plan to invade Russia in Winter... and how historical mistakes must be learned from or repeated. He then went on to say that they tried this kind of public use law in the 30's and "city folk" came up and destroyed the beaches, which is why they were transferred to public ownership in the first place. He went on to discuss how "Sand Island Beach" (one of the currently publicly accessible beaches) is loaded with fecal material and broken glass. If that jab-haymaker combo doesn't win the fight, I don't know what will.

3) Wherein Pyg decides to play fantasy football
Those of you who know me (and why would you even read this if you didn't...) will recall on one or more occasion my disdain for millionaires playing organized sports. If you caught me on a "going soft" day, I may have confessed that I don't mind football, but only because I enjoy the strategy of the plays. I don't go in for the after game interview of a 400 pound brain damaged hulk slobbering into a microphone, nor the comments of a concussed quarterback who abuses vocabulary worse than his spouse. Team loyalty is roughly equivalent to religious consumerism. All of that being said... I seriously enjoyed the 2 games of "Blood Bowl" I played with Mr. Dague as of late. For those not familiar, you put 22 miniature monsters (11 per side) on a 25 by 15 grid, with the actions Move, Pass, Block, Blitz (move and block), Dodge (move away from another player), Hand-Off, Throw, Catch, Foul, Eat-Other-Player, and "Stand there and be stupid".

The reason this came to light, is that I mentioned having the game to Mr. Dague, who had played it 'once upon a time in high school'. I happened to pick up a copy of the game in my days of game store employment, and probably had played it a half dozen times. We resolved to have a game or two. The usual "Pygrules" applied, with us getting blocking, turnovers, throw ins, hand offs, injuries, and pre/post game actions completely wrong. After 2 matches, we've straightened most of this stuff out.

The game is made by "Games Workshop", and is part of their "Specialist Games" line. Without getting too deeply into European Union Economic concerns, company history, of fanboy ranting, these are the folks that make Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and a bunch of other games that require a serious financial investment in little inch tall men who cost $7 bucks each. My lonely post college years saw me buying and handling a fair amount of this sort of paraphernalia, back when they were only about 2 bucks a figure. This means I have a large reservoir to draw from when assembling pieces for the game. I'm only too happy to go through my boxes and turn this stored treasure into 2 hours of enjoyable gaming. The rules are available "free to use" from games workshop themselves, but some kind soul has taken it upon themselves to make a superior version of the rulebook at http://www.tybbl.org.uk/library/turfrulebook.pdf and put it out for folks to use. Additionally there are lots of freebie strategy articles at http://fumbbl.com/ , and it's just good fun.

As icing on the cake, you don't need to spend a fortune to play the game, as evidenced at http://yearoffrugalgaming.blogspot.com/search/label/Blood%20Bowl . This fellow made his own game board.... Chances are if you were determined enough you could use something other than $7 each miniatures (In my case, I'm re-purposing $3 each minis... but you could build it out of beer caps and clippings from your sports illustrated magazine).

If you decide dice, charts, little figures, and using your brain to be 'too hard', you can wait until Blood Bowl comes out for Xbox 360, psp, pc, and Nintendo DS. There's no firm release date, only a lot of halfhearted spectulation. Rumors say that the game releases in Europe on the 16th of this month, and that U.S. and Aus. customers get to wait until September. That's all very well, I suppose, since I can see about half the people I could interest in a face to face go at this game saying "What? I can stay at home and play this in my underpants? I Lurve VidjaGames!". I don't mind this, since I don't want them at my house in their underpants, and in fact will probably do something similar myself. It does buy me time to play the real version for a while before hand.

4) Origins is just a shout away
The real reason I wanted to make a post, is so that I could make myself a list of "Stuff to buy at Origins". I've been trying to pinch pennies as of late so that I have a dealer's room budget to work with when I get to Ohio. Despite some misgivings about driving 9.75 hours all by my lonesome... I'm eager to take the time off and truck out there. Things to be on the lookout for

a) Some new dice
At least a couple of clean poly-sets. My sets still roll random numbers, but I want dice I can read from clear across an 8 foot table. I want a bunch of Michigan Red Eyes in case I ever want a color coded sub game.

b) Studio bergstrom BSG Ships
I plan to have a full day of killing cylons (or Colonial pilots... whichever). I'll probably have buy-itis for some kind of extremely small sized, large scale ruleset

c) Starmada Admiralty Edition
Goes with the immediately preceeding
d) Blood Bowl Dwarf team
Some things I just didn't stock up on, and miniatures of walking beards with axes was one of them.
e) A copy of "Ticket to Ride" card game
Played this at Bren & Joni's, and it was deeee-lightful

That's all I've got time for right now.... but stay tuned (in another couple weeks) for more "TALES OF THE EASILY SIDETRACKED

Tuesday night's calkiller report:
500 cals (by the watch)
768 cals (by the bike)

This was done while playing Left 4 Dead on the Xbox360 for about 45 minutes.

It's certainly odd to be pedaling like a mad person while you're trying to survive the zombie apocalypse closes in around you. Then again, getting the blood pumping may have led to some quicker reactions on my part. Any way you slice it, I'm lagging Physwar by about 100 and change calories per day.

I decided against the Kamikaze 1000 calorie death ride, since it takes so damned long to achieve.

I've already neglected my Ikea home hobby kit bookshelf since saturday, with it's carefully counted and laid out pieces strewn lovingly across 3 rooms. Additionally work (which I should be doing now, but couldn't resist posting the tubbo-numbers) has been my bane for the past couple days, with one screw up which was allowed to persist for several months is now worth 7 figures or more in fuggups.

yeah, seven figures... we're talking about Millions plural here.

So, I've got 4 more hours to figure out how to separate the "Column A's" from the "Column B's", or I'll be looking for new and gainful employment.

So. there you have it. it's a short one with little punctuation and even less grammar.

Here are today's top news items.

1) Tubbo's Back on the Wagon
Today's workout
670 cals (according to the bike)
468 cals (according to the watch)

Sadly, before I could write down the time (one episode of fawlty towers, and a little more, the phone rang

2) Pyg's Getting Fios
It's the chibi fios package, 10 Megs Down, 2 Up.

I've also just received word of some "phrases that pay" when the tech comes to install said service and it's accompanying equipment on Saturday. Namely, make sure to ask that the ONT gets set up with a CAT5 output instead of a Coaxial output. This ensures that I can scrap their router out of the solution, and put my equipment in it's place, without having to use their router as a bridge, then set up my gear as a NATting machine in the middle. Huzzah!

3) The game is afoot, release the hounds!
The neighbors dogs had their favorite canine playmates over today (the neighbor's adult children's dogs), and they delighted in barking their furry asses off at the people behind our adjacent lots. The people behind us, though I barely can say I'd recognise them if I had to pick them from a lineup. Now they've rented a dumpster. They're hauling "something" out of that run down garage that decorates my western facing property border (with scrap metal and anything with wheels). Now they're bothering to clean it up in some fashion, and the 5 heads of evil Cerberus are back there barking ferociously at the poor crap hauling bastards. After a couple of glass door thumpings, and some sour mumblings to myself, I finally went out on the back deck to say "Hey, those garbage hoarders behind us are finally cleaning something up after 3 years of piling it in, any chance you could get the hellhounds to knock off the barking?". I got a half dozen "sorrys"... but honestly, I'm not interested in sorry anymore... I'm more interested in "won't happen again"... which I'm unlikely to get.

And so, that's the short report.

Subheadlines:
- No call No show from the usual suspects at work today.
- a trip to Ikea on Saturday has lead to the purchase of a bookcase
-a d20 modern game went off stunningly, with the usual amount of miscommunications leading to the leveling of the western half of a fictional hotel.

In direct contrast to the last post

http://www.associatedcontent.com/video/7208/how_to_turn_your_wife_into_a_sex_goddess.html

There's our answer.

Everyone will nod in agreement, or spit in feminist rage at this.

http://welations.com/list/10-ways-lose-girl

I didn't make it up myself, but now that I've seen it, I'm a believer.

I wasn't going to use this LJ as a water cooler to bitch around.

I wasn't going to...

But times change.

Things to be pissed about -

1) No showing co-workers who manage to completely screw the rest of their team, but draw no ire, because it's perfectly acceptable to tell NOBODY WHATSOEVER that they won't be in. Christ, y'know, it's not the end of the world for you to fire off a mail and say "If anyone asks for me, tell them I'm out sick". If you're going to be sick (or pretend to be sick so you don't have to come in and face the horde of drooling mongoloids) then you damn well best tell everyone who did show up.

2) If it weren't for the fact that I already booked a rather expensive hotel... I wouldn't be going to Origins. Their online pre-registration system was a complete chainsaw aided abortion on tuesday. I'll grant you that they'd been having problems with it for a whole week... and that people were getting edgy about it, but they still opened it up. Not only was it rife with problems still, it was slower than a constipated sloth. I kept at it for about 5 hours in between work tasks, trying to load up my badge with the events I absolutely wanted to attend... Only to see that I couldn't check out due to some stupid ass loop in the "Select a shipping address". In the end, I faxed it in. I see today that they happily took my 50 bucks worth of event tickets, but my events haven't posted to my badge. All I see on my badge are the items I abandoned in my shopping cart. They'd have been better off just doing mail-in/fax-in registration, because they're clearly not ready for prime time with their webapp... Now, I don't want to get lynched as soon as I go pick up my badge for being a spoilsport, but I'm spitting mad about this. All day long I get shouted at by people who just want shit done right, and I expect that if GAMA is going to drop off this skip load of fecal extract on our browser doorstep, they should expect some venom in kind.

3) Passing out... I shouldn't mind passing out when I get home from work. I got home yesterday early, and upon finding nothing but chips and cookies available to stuff my face with, I opted to lie down on the couch. That's great, unless of course I wake up at 7 am, and go "Awww Fuck". An entire night lost, and what's waiting for me? Another day at work where I have no idea who will show up or when. I suppose that's safe harbor for typing this sort of noxious drivel, but it's certianly not part of the 1950's utopia I hope for every day.


So, for the week's "Fatso Alert"

Monday - 570 calories over 1.25 hours (walking at vassar)

Tuesday - 0 countable calories

Wednesday - Does Sleeping Count?



So, we know I was asleep on Wednesday, but what happened tuesday? I rushed home from work and got together with the d20 modern group. We leveled up to 4th... Sadly, this peaked the hopes of 3 players, all hoping that they could take on an advanced class... Then dashed them on the jagged spires of reality that they would spend yet another level at their base class. My "Smart character" player did manage to branch off into "TechnoMage", allowing him all manner of spellcraft trickery so long as he has a pda/smartphone/Apple Newton available.

We then made characters for Steve's "D20 Urban Arcana" game. Ben's a Bugbear named "Cuddlesdorf", Cora is playing an 8 year old Aasimar (think nephilim... half angel), Rob is playing a teifling who sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads in georgia, and can now play music that sounds incredible to him, and lousy to everyone else. And I... I am playing Parker Boland... aka The P.B. Goblin...

So far my backstory is that P.B. lives and works in Grand Central Station as a janitor/maintenance engineer/repairman. Generally he just hangs around the station and offers to do jobs for the actual employees. He will then do them to the best (worst) of his ability and take whatever baubles, spare change, or beer they can give him. Most nights he'll sleep under a platform, but occasionally he'll be on a train ("fixin' it") when it starts rolling, so he goes along for the ride.

So, it's time to do some work.

Fuck this waking day, all the way to it's dying end.

Good Greif, Your Honor...

This was quite the weekend.
It will be a rerun for one sixth of my readership, since they were there, but nonetheless it must be chronicled with minimal excellence.

Friday: Bounced out of work at 11:30am. I do believe this chagrinned my manager to some extent, as a pile of Networking tasks had just been toppled over on him, leaving him helpless against the tide of "Is it ready? What about now... Do it now"... but seeing as I had no choice but to get to BingoTown by 3 PM, sacrifices had to be made.

I got on the road, and started a "great big convoy" of competent drivers, consisting of myself, and a Black Honda Pilot. We alternated being the 'Leader', we opened up passing lanes, helped each other out. It was that kind of driving you like to think that everyone is capable of. But somewhere around Windsor, having luckily dodged at least 5 police patrols due to sharp eyes and prudent "There's probably a speed trap here", With the Pilot out in front, I was the trolled bait that got bit.

I saw the cop pull out, an decided to "play it cool", get myself down to the speed limit, and see if maybe he didn't want the Honda more than me. This strategy doesn't work on the Discovery Channel (ask an antelope) and it didn't work for me. The Honda blew by remorselessly, and I waved as Johnny law showed me his pretty flashing lightbar.

As soon as I got my car to a stop, I pulled out my license and registration. When he got up to the window, I immediately said "I'm going to save you the trouble, and tell you right up front that I was going too quickly".

"Any idea how fast you were going?"
"Somewhere in the 70's.. the very high 70's"
"I clocked you coming over the top of the hill at 83... Where are you headed?"
"Just visiting some friends in Binghamton for the weekend"
"Have any unpaid parking tickets or moving violations or warrants outstanding?"
"No, sir, none that I'm aware of"

And that was it, license, registration, ticket. Easy Peasy.
Now, I know it's too much to ask for that I get away with every indiscretion I may commit on the asphalt, but I served this Trooper a pleasant and easy ticket. The worst thing I did to him was make him drive 2 miles at 65 to catch me... Had he been a little quicker off the line, he could've cut that time down.

I can't help but wonder, if I'd just gotten over a little rise and gunned it, could I have gotten away? I'll grant you that doubling the speed limit in a 65 mph zone would be pretty well deadly, but I'm curious if it could be done... that's all. Will he give up if I go far enough? He's a state trooper, so argueably I'd have to make it to Pennsylvania before he would be out of his jurisdiction... And that wasn't gonna happen.


So, with my ticket in hand, let's cut to the meat of the story.

1) Physwar's Ink Extravaganza
Physwar and I went to the tattoo parlor, it was clean, and full of 20something men who's arms and legs were a testament to their career choice. You can learn a lot in a tattoo parlor... LIke
a) The definition of a "Danza Slap"
b) That anyplace you'd want to get licked, is not somewhere you'd want to get tattooed.
c) That when 10 girls show up in black stretchpants with red tops and a side ponytail, it's a skank army, and you'd better run for the hills.

In the end, all this knowledge, and a cool tattoo was imparted upon Physwar.

2) Rock Band may be habit forming.
We fired up rock band 2 and played to exhaustion friday night. I played the microphone, as I completely lacked any talent with the drums... I would see the little line that means "Hit the Bass Pedal". My brain would say "Hey, Foot, do the thing", and foot would say "You shut up, I'm not gonna do it". Failboat.
I resigned myself to play the microphone, and then proceeded to whinge about songs I didn't know. After all was sung and done, a good time was had, then it was bedtime.

3) Saturday Morning Cartoons
Woke up saturday morning, and got ready for a cavalcade of activity.

- Mowed half of Bren's Mom's lawn with a lawn mower which alternated between being 'Venerably Olde' and "In terminal condition"

- Went over to Vardaen's place for a game of L5r CCG wherein Toturi's army fearsomely trounced the forces of the Brotherhood of the crow, and the Shadow tainted lion clan.

- Discovered that Vardaen's son "The Peanut Butter Goblin" was able to do advanced quantum physics using only a fist full of choking hazard dice, and whatever rectangular shaped cards were on hand. We, of course, could not decipher his brilliant numerical system, but we're pretty sure there is one, and it would blow our minds.

- The Clouds have ears... Those ears are so good, that they can hear the "Fwoosh" of a propane grill starting, and immediately open the taps on a rainstorm. We grilled Sausages and spedies under the semi protective stairway at Bren's place. Delicious and dilectable meats were had, along with some kick-pants potato salad, fruit trays, and further scrumptiousness.

- The evening finished up with over a dozen people stitting on a vast sectional, trading off playing rock band, and with the "Wonder Twins" hitting on "The Straight Man". You see, Physwar hangs out with The Wonder Twins. One of whom is a bubbly giggly sort, the other of whom occasionally shoots a death-glance out of her eye-holes. Apparently they're both interested in the sole older, unmarried pharmacist that runs in that pack. He's the guy they use to make sure rulers are straight, This is how stiff this dude is. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, just as a very accurate descriptor. This is probably a desirable trait in a pharmacist, as opposed to "Acting like Jokey Smurf" or something. It's just odd to see someone acting more like 'The parent of us all' than me.

- A Jeff Dunham video appeared on the television, and Bubbly Twin (the giggly wonder twin) was trying her best not to shout out the punchline to everything on the screen... Sadly she had a half dozen wine-cooler equivalents working against her, and they shouted it out for her. At that point, after moving furniture, grilling, herding the peanut butter goblin, and mowing a lawn, the day caught up with me, so I deftly snuck off to my bed on the other side of the house to sleep a while.


SUNDAY MORNING - or "I'll be home by noon"

- Got up and had some pizza, garlic knots, cupcakes, soda, and potato salad (God I love "After-Picnic" breakfast). Since Vardaen had to take off before we could play a second round of L5r cards at the picnic, I gave him a quick call, and headed over to his place. The peanut butter goblin was teeth-first disassembling an english muffin loaded with Skippy (thus earning him his moniker in this post). He rapidly divested me of victory with his Goblin Scouts deck, handily defeating my Celestial Crab deck. I'm not a sore lose, since each time I play, I learn something new about the rules. At that point, Amaris (Vardaen's Mrs., Martiarch of the Peanut Butter Goblin Clan) arrived, and we rapidly pounded out 2 games of "Battle of the Bands". I was contemplating going home at that point, but the offer to catch some lunch was too great to pass up.

- To Applebees! We sat in "The booth" of some bikers. Luckily they were Caucasian gentrified bikers with wives, so we didn't get too much more than a dissappointed look. And since we came in cars, if they wanted to rumble, they'd have had to kick over PBGobbo's stroller. We compared notes on the elation that home upgrade projects provide, and the uncanny resemblances that our jobs had. I was fed, but the wind and the offer to go to the park and fly kites was too great...

- To the Park!
My stable of kites were unleashed, and while the $10 sled kite was having a hard time staying aloft, and the Blue uberquick stunt kite couldn't get off the ground with it's control tail on... the $2 plastic kite was doing great... We took the tail off the blue stunt kite, and zigged that around the sky for a while... I handed over the reighns to Bren's little sis Lybra... who was kicking the sky's ass... until a tree lept into the path of her glory and grabbed the kite. What followed was a hilarious series of attempts to launch pre-teens into trees, to pull a string over and over again... Eventually 2 IT guys, an engineer, and a series of amused onlookers managed to yank the strings in the right direction to get it down.
The power kite came out, and once we got a couple of wind angles figured out, it spent it's afternoon hauling people around the park, occasionally going nose first into the grass with all the fury of a drunken air mattress.

- Home again.
With my cruise control set at a boring 68, I plodded home... and now I'm at work.




So, I'm wearing the calorie counting watch that Physwar got for me... I'm going to see how many calories I burn while I'm sitting on my duff at work. This will not count toward the competition, but I'm just curious as to how much energy this sort of rigorous typing and sighing costs me. Apparently this is fairly exciting, because my pulse rate is 90 just sitting here typing and bouncing my legs, and I've burned 447 calories since 8 this morning since walking out the door.

And thus ends another post of mundane existance. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you again soon.

Today is going to be a good day. I can just tell.
How am I so sure? Follow this scenario

1) I managed to put together my Origins Schedule, and figure out which events I'll need to pre-buy tickets for (and which ones I'll get into with Generic Tix).

2) I read up on some of the games I'll be playing, and discovered that there's a LOT of free material out on the web in PDF format. Enough to help out my current d20 modern group. This is a very timely revelation, since Steve is considering running his own "Odd Weeks" d20 modern game (to take some of the "make a cool plot" pressure off me), but doesn't have the books themselves. I end up referencing my collection at really odd hours, so as much as it'd be a "swell fella" thing for me to do, I can't just leave my crate O books at his place.

3) I got up this morning, packed and was out the door in a decently low amount of time. This is usually not the case, as I'm wandering around the house trying to find my pants or a set of keys. In this way, I am qualified to be senator of Massachussetts.

4) As I was driving to work, I got behind an audi A3, proudly emblazoned with the 2.0T logo on the back. We made the turn onto a road that goes "Deep bend right, deep bend left, straight as an arrow". The speed limit on this road is 40, but being playful scamps with our toys, we managed to do that before that left hand turn. I won't tell you the top speed of the event, but suffice it to say that when I pulled up at the light, and he was next to me, I laughed out loud and said "Nice Ride, man", and the reply was "I hit [censored] mph back there, and I knew you couldn't resist". Awww yeah.

5) Stopped at Stewarts to fill up on Gasoline. Success.

6) And now I'm at work. nobody else is in my office, and I get to bounce outta here in (looks at clock) 2 hours to go to Bingotown.


Other Stuff:

Looks like Origins wisely postponed their Pre-Registration until tuesday, which means I won't have to pull over to some wifi equipped truck stop and try to bang out my picks at noon today.

I did happen to get a little more serious about the actual driving portion of the Origins trip. 9.5 hours. I'm trying to figure out the best way to bust up that trip... Do I leave straight from work on tuesday, sleep at a roadside pull-off. and try to bang it out in 2 5-hour bricks? Or do I go home,go to sleep immediately, and then wake up at 2 am and banzai it all in a straight go?

I suppose I'll have some time to ponder that, but since I am flying completely solo on this trip... It'll be my call and mine alone in the end.

That's the A.M. update, stay tuned for reports throughout the weekend from my lovely Binghamton Location!

What with the late breaking news of the pre-registerable events at Origins, and the "You called it" event of the back end failure of the online pre-registration system, I've been able to finalize my list of games which I'll be playing (hopefully) at this years "Shut up about it, already" convention.

And here we go!


*WEDNESDAY
2pm - 4pm Painting Miniatures Fast (702)

4pm - 6pm Basing your miniatures (719)

6pm - 10pm CONTINUUM - Role Playing in the Yet
The roleplaying game of genuine time travel celebrates its 10th anniversary! Try it out this year, because with time travel you're never too late. "Run Grocery Run" Introductory time travel scenario that has stunned players with its twists and bittersweet surprise.

**THURSDAY
8am to Noon 6243 The Royal Itch (Savage words)
The King desperately needs your help. An ancient relic must be recovered from a secret vault in the nearby mountains. And time is of the greatest importance. It's getting harder and harder not to scratch. This is a light-hearted adventure. Players are encouraged to be creative and enjoy themselves. Not for power-gamers

1:30pm - 6:30 pm 6364 Exodus OPS: 2-02 Children of the Sand
Through the Southwest wasteland, children have been disappearing from settlements  Many believe that the Mutant Army or Slavers are behind the disappearance, but one man believes different and is looking to hire a group of wasteland adventurers to explore his theory  Dare you have the guts to undertake the mission of the missing Children  An Exodus OPS campaign adventure for 4 to 6 characters of 1st to 5th levels.

If the Exodus OPS event lets out "early", I'll go play

6pm to 10 pm 3502 Blasphemy - Rules Taught
"Help me Jesus!" Or is that "Help me Jebus!" Who is the real Messiah? Can you convert enough followers while discrediting the other messiahs and be the first to give his life on the cross?. Irreverent subject matter, mature players only. Generics welcome.

If not, back to the olde standby

7pm to 11 pm 8243 MTG - Ravnica Remembered Sealed Deck -
Ravnica block sets to top finishers! Ravnica block sealed deck format. Winner and runner-up receive Ravnica: City of Guilds sets! 3rd receives choice of either set of Guildpact or Dissension; 4th receives the remaining set. Pack prizes to other top finishers. Swiss Rounds based on attendance. Sanctioned, no finals. product provided. Event offers two qualifications to play in Sunday's Uncut Sheet event for a chance at a Uncut foil Alara Reborn sheet!



***FRIDAY
10 am to NOON 3761 Cutthroat Caverns - Rules Taught
You'll need to start by cooperating with your party members, to kill strange and scary monsters. But it's not necessarily the one with the most prestige who wins; it is the one who survives. Plot to deal the deathblow to the monsters and attack your friends to be the winner. (Honestly, I want to play this because it's a SMIRK AND DAGGER game. I've really enjoyed all their stuff so far. I don't need another 'twice a month' card game, but S&D always does some very interesting "Player Screw" stuff in their games, so I'll give it a shot)

1:30pm to 6:30 pm 6779 Exodus OPS: 2-03 Tremors
The town of Cripple Creek (DS 3) is suffering from small quakes or tremors  Sheriff Bruno O'€™Malley is looking for a stout group of wastelanders to go and investigate the disturbances, which he believes is from the old mines of the Nevada Mountains that overshadow the town  An Exodus OPS campaign adventure for 4 to 6 characters of 3rdto 5th levels.

8pm to 11:30 pm Battlestar Galactica: Boardgame - Rules Taught
After the colonies fell what's the greater threat to humanity, Cylons or the Humans themselves? Can you find figure out who the hidden Cylon is and save humanity? Try this fun new game of intrigue and treachery from Fantasy Flight Games. Generics welcome.

****SATURDAY

I WAS GOING TO TAKE THE MENSA TEST AT 9 AM, BUT NOW I'M NOT!
Why am I shouting?
IT COSTS 40 BUCKS TO TAKE!
That's why... Forget it.... I'll go find something that's fun. I'd love to be able to succeed a their test and get my little "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius" pin, but it's really only so I can start ordering things from the ACME catalog. I'm not smart enough to join this crew, but I'm not dumb enough to blow the bucks to blow the test.

INSTEAD!

9am to 1 pm 1633 Starmada - BSG
This battle is one of the untold attacks of the Colonial fleet by the Cylons. Take control of a Cylon baseship or a Colonial battlestar and their fighter wings using the Starmada ruleset. Can the Cylons finally destroy humanity or are they destined to fail?

1pm to 5 pm 1704 Battlestar Galactica: Action Stations!
Take command of a Colonial battlestar group or a Cylon strike force in this exciting game based on the new series. Rules will be taught. Prizes awarded. This is an M Collective event.

6pm to 10 am 7236 Velociraptor Rhapsody
When the Bounty Head is a mad Geneticist known for his work in cloning reptiles - you know things won't be boring. Come play Bounty Head Bebop with its Creator and experience the fast-paced solar system spanning game of anime-style bounty hunting in space.


Then... it's time for the All Nighter!

*****SUNDAY
MIDNIGHT TO 4 AM! 2800 Mega Paranoia
Mega Paranoia has become one on the most popular, late night events at Origins. This staple of the past several years occurs at midnight on Saturday night. The huge number of players that we have each year is testament to the fun that can be had. Sign up now and see off the end of the convention with a heck of a bang. If you have never player Paranoia before, don't let that bother you. The rules are simple and the fun is all in playing the game. Try to survive in this confused world of paranoid computers, murderous robots and treacherous fellow players. Don't miss this opportunity to play this exciting and fun game. No experience necessary. Paranoia rules modified for live action play.

Then, from about 5 am, to about 10 am, I'm going back to my hotel to sleep.

I'll roll back to the con when I'm feeling more able. From that point, it's all dealers room and pick-up events, perhaps consisting of:

11:00 am to 2:00 AM Testament CCG
Construct your deck according to tourney rules. This is a battle for the souls of followers. Moses, Cain, Israelites, and all. If you don't have a deck or new to Testament TCG? No problem. Stop by anyway for a quick demo.
### UNLESS I MISS MY GUESS... This is similar to the card game redemption.. which was the New Testament's answer to the game Magic. Seeing as it's sunday morning and all, and since I may have played BLASPHEMY earlier in the week, I'm curious to see what this game has goin' on... I mean, if I can crack a Judas, or a Pontius Pilate, or even a playset of Barrabus, I'm down###

Or maybe....
1PM to 3PM 1948 Infinity Demo
Learn the basics of the skirmish scale science fiction miniatures game, Infinity

Or possibly even
3pm to 5 pm 1949 Aeronautic Imperialis
Aeronautica Imperialis is a tabletop miniature wargame set within the same fictional background as Warhammer 40K. Focus is on aerial combat between the different races of the Warhammer 40K universe. AI operates on the same scale as epic 40K, meaning all the models are much smaller than those used in WH40K. If you enjoy WH40K, air combat in general, and or are just looking for a fun, fast-playing game, Aeronautica Imperialis is well worth checking out. Scenarios will be a mix of Dog Fights and Special Missions.





Failing all of that, I'm sure that I can find something to do on Sunday around the con center, even if it's "Pass out and get drawn on by other nerds".




Still with me? Wow, you've got stamina.

I do recall that the last time I went to Origins, I really wished I'd lightened up my event load to go and scrounge the dealer's room. I also recall that the food offerings there were not exactly inexpensive or brilliant. This leads me to the finest nutrition plan ever. It worked in Korea (though, the fact that I stopped posting this LJ WHILE I was there might have led you to think differently... Trust me, I've been alive during most of that time, in fact)... Bottled Water and Meal Replacement Bars. I'll tote a bandolier of meal replacement bars, and maybe even buy new socks and a pair of double bouyant sneakers to take the pounding of my nonstop trucking around.

"Yes, Lord Snackypants... but how does this solve the "No time for Dealer's Room problem, Dummah?" issue". Follow me on this one. Since I was last at Origins, Wizards of the Coast has stopped showing up; Wizkids is stone cold in the grave; and As far as I can tell, No other games manufacturer has the budget this year to really dominate the Dealer's room. The desirable side effects to all these things are (A) A less packed dealer's room with fewer events that will suck me under for 20 minutes at a time... and (B) less swag in general, which would otherwise keep me in that room eternally. Granted, this is kind of the opposite of what one wants to do when they pay for a con (allaying freebie goodies), but since I won't get a chance to roll Foam Rubber D20 the size of a Hyundai and win a stack of books the size of a Yugo... I'm okay with my picks. Besides, as I learned last time, you never know when a schedule F* up will cause you to suddenly have 4 hours on your hands with nothing better to do.

So, with that, I'll be stalking the Origins Website like a Berry Stuffed Dove over a freshly washed black Porche.

~that reminds me... I've gotta feed those pigeons at work... A convertible took my parking spot at work today ;P~

Physwar is sure to win this week, since I've managed to rack up a great goose egg of cals burned. What's with the laziness? Let's take this one by the numbers

Monday: After staying up way too late, and managing to flail my way through a day at work, I went home and flopped lifeless on the couch. The only activity other than sleeping was to turn on a couple episodes of Mythbusters when I stirred to half conciousness. "Isn't that a complete waste of electricity?" Well, yes, but apparently I'm not very reasonable when I'm half asleep

Tuesday: Cinco De Mayo was upon us, and after the company web site got compromised for the second day in a row, and that meant staying later than was preferable in support of it's repair... I was ready to get out of work and get "Stuck In" to some innebriative agents.
I won't regale you with my tales of cocktail heroism, save to say that Jaeger and Red Bull is delicious, Steak is not an efficient way to soak up alcohol (nor are popsicles), Hypnotiq is blue and is spelled funny (but you'd be better off with a flavored brandy), and the taste of salt makes it easier to draw in tequila and drown out that Margarita-Taste.
With this boozing sucessfully having numbed my extremities (including my entire head), we settle down into a game of Sp.A.N.C.. The gamers amongst you will recognise this as a Steve Jackson Game, illustrated by the legendary Phil Foglio (which means more of "teh boobahs" than a Lara Croft montage), and playing with certain similar mechanics to "Ninja Burger". A simplified version of game play is as such.

Everyone starts with 2 loot, your goal is to get to 10 loot. Pool boys count as loot.

You get 4 SpacePirateAmazonNinjaCatgirls (See, the title is an acronym after all... clever clever). Each of these may equip one "Toy". You name one of your Catgirls as "Team captain". This allows that catgirl to have 2 "Toys". She also gets a re-roll once per mission.

Each catgirl has a number between 2 and 12 (though most values fall in the middle), which represents her "-ness" in each category. A 9 in Space Pirate-ness generally means that this character is pretty good at being a Space Pirate, since it's statistically likely you'll roll 9 or less on 2d6. a 3 in "Cat Girl-ness" means that when it comes to being kitten like or smutty, your cat girl is not very adept (since rolling a 3 or less on 2d6 is statistically less likely).

At the start of a turn, 4 Mission cards are laid out face down. first player is randomly determined by a die roll. That player picks a single cat girl from his stable, and sends them on the first mission (revealing it to all players). The mission will have a "test" with modifiers, and a reward (generally a loot, or a toy). The Test conditions can be "Amazon". Look at the Amazon number of the Catgirl you've selected, roll 2d6 and come up at or under that value, and collect the reward for the mission. If you fail (and can't come up with a way to reroll), then your cat girl is "tapped out", and can not be used again. The next player then repeats this process... Success is rewarded by moving onto the next mission. If you complete the 4th mission, your team has made it to the end, and are waiting in ambush for any others who finish the series.

There are modifiers to dice rolls based on your team status. If you fail on a mission, your next catgirl who makes the attempt has learned something from the failure of her teammate, and gets a +2 to die rolls against that mission only. If your captain manages to be tapped out due to failure or other conditions, your entire team is at -1 to all rolls, since they are operating leaderless.

At the end of a turn, any player who completed all the missions can start a "Cat Fight" with another player who completed all the missions. This is a "Cat-Fight". Depending on the stat you choose to battle (generally you'll pick your best stat, and your opponent's worst stat in the same category), you can steal loot, toys, punt catgirls off the opposing team (they get replaced before next round, so it's really just a rotation), or... something else we didn't do, I don't remember.

This provides a chance for players to stop the "Runaway Train" effect that can happen if one person completes all the missions, gaining loot and toys, while everyone else languishes in dice-rolling-hades.

Toys add modifiers to your catgirl's stats, and can be equipped and switched around. Poolboys count as toys, fitting nicely with the whole "Amazon" part of the theme.


THE UPSHOT:
Let's cut to the chase. This game is amusing.
If you like Ninjas, Catgirls, Meddling with opponents plans, and excitedly shouting when the dice do their job (or don't)... This is a good way to pass 30 minutes.

Additionally, if you are a hetero male who likes illustrated porn, or a lesbian with good taste (or a Furry....), you can enjoy the fine "Peek-A-Boo" Foglio style art on these cards as well.

I can't say that this game is something I'd play every night for a year, but it qualifies as a twice a month pick for ages 15 and up (It's the age of the internet... if you're 15 and haven't seen worse than these cards, you're Amish).


Wednesday night (You thought I'd completely forgot about the explanation of the week, didn't you?)
Got up, went to work, battled through another day there... Got home, mowed the lawn with the mighty-fine push mower. Saved the life of a frog who decided to take up refuge in my overwrought grass-hedge. I suppose if I saved him from myself, I don't gain any karma points, but the gist here is that he didn't accidentally "get harmed during the making of this picture". I then went into the house and started grinding through the 4000+ events for Origins this year.

The Origins roster is a case of "Be careful what you wish for". There's way more going on at this convention than I can sort through, so I do my best to figure out what I "really" want to play, and what's just a passing curiosity. I'm trying to be realistic about the whole thing. I can't make a "wall of events" with no time to eat or sleep, because I'll fall down dead, and come monday someone might notice. Nor do I want to be loitering in the convention center for 3 days, having bothered to make the trip so I can count my shoes over and over again.

I'm sure you'll be reading more on this topic again very shortly. By the time the end of June rolls around, everyone will be ready to choke me with a shoelace to shut me up about this convention.

And with that, my 'splaining is through... I am fatter and lazier for it all.

Thank you. You've been a great audience...

Friday night Cal Killer
76+ minutes
1200 cals
some large number of miles exceeding 20

Didn't actually do any "exercising" per se on Saturday or Sunday. What DID I do?

Saturday: There's a wall in my "game room" (More of a "can't actually do anything but paint in this" room) which is now the prescribed shade of red. After only one coat (meticulously applied by brush and roller), It's looking very good... nice and shiny and such.

Grilled with Kershaw. Steaks, Artichokes, and carmelized onions. As could have been guessed, the onion and steak, being the simplest, turned out to be incredible... and the artichokes were delicious, but since our cooking philosophy on them involved a lot of shrugging and guessing, I'm willing to concede that they might not have reached culinary perfection.

Sunday Morning: A little more paint, and off to brunch (late). Another uninspired plate of corned beef hash with the underfried potatoes which the Daily Planet is famous for, and a 3 pack of buttered english muffin halves, and brunch was resolved. A suggestion was made over the course of brunch that Page Hardware might have the "goo" I need to do my yearly mower maintenance.

Mower Sidebar:
A couple of years back, the lawn mower I bought as part of the house decided that it was going to stop slowly ruining itself and pick up the pace on the whole thing. With my lawn half mowed, it flung it's oily effluvium around it's grassy prey, and I shut it off. I then went to my handy hardware mega mart and purchased a reel mower. This is the Olde-Schoole style mower where you walk behind it, and the power of the spinning wheels causes the 5 blades (fixed in place on a spindle) to shear grass against a stationary blade on the bottom, thus making grass so cut and level you could set your watch by it.

After a year of sitting in the cold harsh under-deck elements, the mower needed some care as described in the manual. To paraphrase, take off the drive wheels, attach a drill, coat the blades with "Lapping compound" and spin the drill counter clockwise until the blade is sharp.

Great, I have a drill, I can take off wheels... but, lapping compound... Does Home Depot have it? No, Lowes? No, Page lumber? They can't even understand what kind of mower I'm talking about.

Let's cut to the chase. new weedwacker head, sharpened the lawnmower blades the best I could WITHOUT this magical goo they prescribe...

Then, Gaming:

d20 modern went off relatively well, As is standard, it takes a bit to actually get the thing rolling, but with my cadre of 4 fascinating and occasionally mentally imbalanced players, plus my guest player, the evening went off so well, we stayed up until 1 am.

As if that wasn't enough to make my arse drag, I then accompanied my guest player and her cohort to the Palace until 3 am. My throat will explode and kill me if I pour coffee down it, but staying awake on straight water isn't working either. Mind you, this is just from a cup of coffee and a piece of blueberry pie at 2:30 am... This isn't a night of binge drinking and fine cigars or anything.

I'm looking forward to getting home, and doing a faceplant into the couch while the world falls apart around me.

Last Night's Calorie-Killer report:
Session 1: Stationary bikeI(nterrupted by a trip to the loo)
18:21 min/sec
7.31 miles
200 cals

Session 2: Stationary bike
77:09 mins:sec
26.61 miles
1100 cals

Session 3: Stationary bike
63:47 mins:sec
22.92 miles
1000 cals

Grand total for Wednesday
2300 cals


More intrigue and suspense to follow.

Tuesday's Race Info
None Anything Done

A shocked gasp escapes you, as you realize I didn't stick to my normal competitive behavior pattern. Rest assured, citizen, that due to the stupidity of yesterday (see yesterday's post), coupled with a longer-than-I'd-like evening, I didn't get home until Sidondas o'clock.

Sidondas? Yes, the time when you realize that all you'll be doing is Sittin'OnDaAzz and playing XboxLIVE demo games. Here, in no particular order, are my conquests for the evening.

1) Crystal Tactics:
From the fine folks at Square Enix who have brought us every single Final Fantasy game, plus some games based on final fantasy style art have brought us another of the later. Much like PixelJunk Monsters, you deploy various Final Fantasy archetypes along a winding path. This path is then beset by monsters. Depending on the type,order,strength and position of your deployed "dudes", the monsters either meet an untimely pacifist demise (since all they do is wander along unspectacularly), or escape from the end of the path having stolen some of your 20 crystals. While the sprites are as typically pretty as Square's usual offerings, I can't help but feel that the whole game parks its pedigree styling into a trailer park beautician's lawn chair, and proceeds to get hairspayed into a flammable bouffant of untennable boredom. I grant you that the desktop defense genre has never been a real "Edge of the seat" kind of game, but at least in the Pixeljunk Monsters incarnation I felt like I had something to DO while the trundling crystal thieving monsterous menace is utterly destroyed by my army of sword clanging, arrow shooting, magic wielding meat grinder.


2)Eternal Sonata
I'll admit to being a bit biased about this game from the onset, thanks to some other internet reviewer who pointed out that a current generation Japan-O-RPG should no longer suffer the slings and arrow of jerky movement, odd feeling screen shifts as you walk from one section of the blissfully green map to another. Eternal Sonata is very nicely cell shaded, the motions in battle are smooth, and there's even a neato little mechanism where you configure your attacks (one set for when you're standing in the sun, one when you're fighting in the shade).

Here's the breakdown: Xbox360 needs (NEEDS!) a good RPG that is not a first person shooter. This makes ANY offering superimportant. Like an urban school that needs a smart kid, there's a lot riding on this game.
Pros: It looks nice, it is shiny like a youngster's first trip to F.A.O. Schwartz. The few monsters you get to face are well rendered (vectored?) and the in combat system is "good". The choices of attacks are easily understood, moving in and out of shady spots on the battlefield switches your attack pallate between light and dark, and it always feels good to run through a series of standard attacks, then at the very last .0001 of a second on the timer, hammer the Special attack, and sneak in some damage. Additionally, when an opponent attacks, you have a chance to shunt off some of the damage by pressing B at the right time. There's some thematic element to this, such that enemy attacks come in some form of "Rhythm", but if there was one, I couldn't find it. This may actually work against it, since it's a feature that is frustratingly twitchy to use... Sounds like it's time to move onto the CONS

Cons: I say the combat system is good... BUT, when ever you start a fight, it's hard to tell where on the battlefield the enemy actually is. Since the combat has a Countdown Measure as soon as you start moving, you'd better hope you get within visual distance of the opponent before time runs out. Secondly, there's a whole theme running through this game concerning musical terminology and scales and set pieces. Perhaps if I had more than the demo to go on, or if I hadn't given up completely on music after having been stuck playing clarinet in third grade, I'd give a flying clef about this thematic spackle. But I didn't... Instead I find myself wondering if this struggle (apparently going on in the mind of Chopin as he lays dying?) wouldn't be better with a little LESS theme. I want to wander around and fight monsters on a big map, and make choices about how I level up... which leads me to the last 2 Blue Notes in this Symphony of Mediocrity...

~And-A-One~
Running around the map, while pretty, makes me feel like I'm thumping into walls in 1999. I can run off into a field of flowers, slowly getting smaller as I run away. Then I thump into the wall of the jar in which the field is so beautifully drawn at a full on sprint, the magic is ruined. Likewise when I run off some side of the screen which looks like I'll be scrolling through, the camera jerks over into another backdrop, and I'm disoriented. It's like sipping a fine wine, and suddenly finding a toenail stuck between your teeth.

~And~A~Two~
Sometimes you get into an RPG, and you customize your force to be "Optimal" from the buttons on their hat, to the way your wizard dials in the exact temperature on the fireball spell... This RPG lets you dress up your people, beat on stuff, figure out what attacks they use... and that's it. When you level up, you don't get to choose if you get better at attacking, defending, using items, shoveling coal... Nothin'

~Cue the Tuba~
So, I guess what I'm saying here is... I want someone to remake final fantasy Tactics with some of the characters from Shining force, then do all the battles the same way as Knights of the Old Republic, with the smoothness and quality of landscape that you see in Fallout 3... all with a managable camera.

Sorry, Eternal Sonata, you're not the RPG we've been hoping for... Here's your tambourine, go stand in the back.



AAAAAnd with that, it's time to actually do some work instead of rambling fantastic. Remind me to tell you sometime about the Capcom Pirate Game, and Penny Arcade's outstanding offering.

Monday's results: 2 sessions

43:28 mins:seconds
500 cals
12.38 miles

38:12 mins:seconds
500 cals
10.84 miles

Don't ask me how that works, I'm not sure my own self.

I can say this, however, concerning tuesday.

F* this day. Right in the ear.
For 6 weeks I've had a thorn in my paw over a certain outpost office at work which has been out of commission in an odd way. With no explanation (read as: the one person in this office is not apt to screw with stuff, and we "I swear on your mother" didn't change anything), certain network shares, Outlook/exchange traffic, and some parts of jabber simply stopped working. I sent up rebuilt systems (three times), I wiresharked the packets (poorly, since I could just barely keep a vnc connection running) and I pored over the network config... What the heck.

Having spent from 11 to 3 there today, I discovered that somewhere in the ISP's infrastructure, they were improperly fragmenting packets out bound from our site. Therefore they would show up hunky-dorey on wireshark when they left, then we'd get a whole lot of "Uh, your request sucks... try again" from the other side, but only on certain things.

Pinging (ICMP) with a full sized packet did not return this result (probably because fast pings make owners happy).

In the end:
config t
interface fastethernet 1
ip tcp adjust-mss 1325
exit
wri mem

was the answer.

Six weeks of my life spent nursing this spear in my side, and I finally whupped it... Why does it not feel like a victory.

First Things first:
Exercise for Friday:
None.

So, yeah, that leaves PhysWar way out front somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 + calories.

Let's see if I can't make up some real quick categories here

1) Most Calories Burned: Physwar (A brazillion)
2) Highest Calories per single Session: Pyg (1002)
3) Highest Calories per minute total: Physwar (She can pull 800 cals in 45 mins... win)
4) Most time spent: Pyg

So, if we count "Most Calories Burned" as 2 points (since it really is the whole ball of wax), and the other three as one point each, Physwar is clearly the winner of week one. I tip my hat to ye.

Now onto week 2 starting tonight... we shall see what effect the sticky warm heat and torn up DDR room has on me.

What's that? "How did the DDR room get torn up?" I'll tell you.

You see, there was a very loud discussion in our home earlier this week, which lead to a bluff calling, which lead to me waking up saturday morning, and moving piles of stuff out of the game room, and into other rooms.

This was followed by going out to some local furniture stores and flummoxing the local purveyors of pine with my strange request for a table that starts out no greater than a 36"x36" sqare, and becomes a 3 foot by 5 foot table. You might think that sounds pretty reasonable, but you'd be wrong.. You see, they make 3x5 tables that turn into 5x5 tables. They make 48x48 tables that turn into 4x6 tables... but my spec? No way, who would want that?

I came to these odd dimensions through my skills as a kindergarten genius. With a few snaps of the tape measure, some one inch mega-hyooj graph paper, and some safety scissors, I made myself a paper doll play set of my (roughly) 12x13 foot room. Then I set about making a paper dolly of my arcade (which, while predictably unfinished, is scaled up to look to a 6 foot tall 30+year old , the way it did to him when he was 4 feet tall at age 10). It does take up a lot of space in the room.

There needed to be room for a bar. We are sorely in need of a liquor cabinet, and there's something about having a drink in my kitchen, or even in the living room that seems... incorrect. It's all fine and good to have a glass of wine with dinner, or curl up on the sofa with a warm brandy in winter... but for a pint and some pretzels, you simply need a different motif (Too much HGTV? Yeah... Probably). I futzed around trying to make the bar work as a permanent stand-behind unit where I could alternately serve drinks like the only African American on 'The Love Boat', or sling cards over it while sitting on a barstool. This ultimately proved to be futile, as I'd have the ability to stand behind it, so long as nobody else in the room had to move, at all.

This level of claustrophobia has already been acheived in pre-arcade days by the 8x4 foot table designed for huge multiplayer games of cards and or miniatures games I hoped to one day play (but never did, sadly). If you give someone 2 feet in which to shuffle in, sit down, and hunch over the table, they will feel hot, sweaty, irritated, and double irritated when the discover the guy on their left needs to get out via their space. I don't like anything less than the handi-accessable 3 foot rule, which allows folks to move in and out without having to rub any of their parts against the human next to them.

So, a 36 x 36 inch table would do just fine if I put the bar up against the wall and made it a self-serve unit.

Following this, It was decided that a bigger bookshelf would not go amiss, and since we were ripping everything out anyway...we should paint.

Now, I'm not a big painter. I'll paint minis with acrylics for fun, or occasionally pull out a rattle can and give something a once over, but brush and roller ain't my scene. Until it is.

Saturday night, paint supplies were acheived with the assistance of the Home Depot Paint Guy, who recognised me as "That guy who used to work at the den". With this established, he informed me that he was a 12th level Nerd in recover, and that his co-worker looked like Captain Kangaroo who was burned out on heroin. He did however mix up some lovely sepia/red toned paint, and got us a battleship grey primer (lest my red paint come out pinkish... I don't own the Strawberry ShortCake RPG, so that wouldn't really work in the room).

Sunday turned out to be a busy little day.
Wake up, start taping and painting.
The room is Half Battleship Grey by the time I go to brunch.
We sat outside, Bees were attempting to build a nest in one of the pre-drilled support pin holes. Apparently they are excellent excavators, and can dig through simulated laminated hardwood.
I was invited to... A KICKBALL GAME!
So, went home, finished painting, and hauled be-hind to the kickball game.

At this point, your eyes are starting to get tired of waving back and forth across the screen like watching a PONG game between 2 completely perfect computer opponents. I hear your pain.

I'm gonna sum up.

Kickball is awesome. It always has been... If you hate it, it's because whoever you were playing with sucked (not at kickball, neccesarily, but as people). A fan-tastic time can be had when you have 2 women who won't stop shaking their behinds at one another, a bunch of people who are old enough to have bad knees/ankles (so sad), and a gorgeous sunny day in which to run around like fools.

In between kickball sessions (we took breaks, they could have been sponsored by Geritol and Poland Spring), there was time to fail at kite flying, find shade some 100 yards away, and generally goof off.

This rousing session was followed by 'Let's play softball', which roughly translates as "Go stand in the outfield until it's your turn to hit." Now... this is not a complaint, but we did see a good stretch there in the outfield where you could have sat down, and waited to hear the PLONK of the aluminum bat. In fact, some of our wiser players did just that. I'm pleased to say that while my first at-bat consisted of hitting the ball REALLY HARD at a completely useless angle (as to make it rocket into the backstop behind me, ot the dirt next to me), my second attempt to slice the ball in half with my sword of bluntness was a resounding success. This is a pleasant surprise, as I do not excel in team sports, and this is a major component of the one I do not excel at.

There is something satisfying about wonking the b'jesus out of a softball so thoroughly that it's owner holds it up a the end, and comments that it now resembles Mr. Potato Head. I can't claim all the credit for that starchy entertainment transmogrification, But I can be proud to have been a part of it.

So, with ALL of that said... The exercise game resumes tonight, we still have set no limits (I suspect for fear of being called a pansy arse on both our parts). The painting of the game room continues thereafter, and all is well in the world, so long as there's still a round wibbly part of it that needs to be given the boot.