In my family, the closer you come to death on a vacation, the better the vacation is. Okay, that's not literally true -- but it's a good guideline. Based on that, the vacation I just got back from was pretty good. The original plan was for me to leave for work early the day after Christmas, pack up the wife and kids and head about three hours north for a skiing/snowmobiling vacation. Of course, when I woke up the power was out, and it just went downhill from there.
The reason that the power was out is that about foot of snow had fallen overnight which necessitated me spending an hour shoveling before I could even think about going to work. After carefully picking my way across town and into work, I realized that we needed to leave town as soon as possible if we didn't want to be driving through high mountain canyons well into the night. Still, it took a couple more hours to finish packing, which I spent at work trying to figure out if there was anyway to get to where I was going without driving over two high mountain canyons. There wasn't.
In any case, we finally got on the road. It's hard to describe how bad the weather was. At one point I was going 15 miles an hour on the freeway and I was passing people doing 10 mph. Then just when I thought the worst was over, some kindly motorist pulled up alongside me and pointed out that I had a flat tire. So I pulled off and sure enough I had a nail in one of my tires, I figured that was it was going to take three hours to get the tire fixed and I was going to have to limp back to my cold, dark house and admit defeat. Fortunately I found a tire place, got right in and was back on the road in about a half an hour.
The rest of the drive was scary but mostly uneventful, though my neck just about wouldn't move when I finally arrived; I had accumulated so much stress. The actual vacation was pretty good, though the weather was basically crap the entire time. I did get in one good day of skiing, though being old and fat my legs still haven't recovered. This was compounded by running through the powder behind my kids while they rode the little snowmobile.
In any case, it finally came time for me to try and traverse the snow-packed mountain passes and drive back home. Initially we were going to do it last night, but visibility was poor and it was snowing, so we decided to wait until this morning, of course by then my older son was sick and started throwing up (this is the same child of projectile vomit fame). In the end, he threw up six times in the time it took us to drive home. Driving home today meant taking another day off, but of course I still ended up getting called in anyway. In any case, that's mostly what's happened since I last posted. I may or may not post tomorrow, but whether it's tomorrow or Friday, I promise to whine less.
Happy New Year!
Ross
Generally I don't post on holidays, but I've got a baby asleep on my chest, which has effectively trapped me in front of the computer, so I might as well. In addition, I saw RotK late last night and I have a duty to the world to share my impressions of that, but first I came across this excellent lecture Michael Crichton gave at Caltech on the dangers of science by consensus. Read it. Love it. Live it.
On to my impressions of Return of the King, but first I offer this preface. In my opinion, Fellowship of the Ring was perfect. I cannot imagine how anyone could have made a better adaptation of that book than Peter Jackson did. Unfortunately, this opinion of his infallibility has colored my opinion of the other two movies. Had any other director come out with RotK, I would be singing its praises far and wide. If Episode Three is as good as RotK I'll be bouncing off the walls, I'll be so ecstatic, but (perhaps unfairly) I'm afraid that I hold Peter Jackson to a much higher standard.
With that preface out of the way, let me tell you what I thought of the movie. There were a couple of changes to the way the Frodo/Sam storyline was handled, but none of the changes hurt and a couple of them were improvements for the medium. The other plotline is where I had some issues. I really didn't like how they handled Denethor. He went from being a classical hero (i.e. a hero with one fatal flaw) with real depth to a shallow archetype of blood-thirsty cowardice. There was also lots of pandering to a younger audience (though still severely subdued when compared to what Lucas did with Jar-Jar). Also the way the split the books up they left quite a bit from the second book which still needed to be taken care of in the third movie; as a result, things felt a little rushed. Given the success of the first two movies, if I was New Line I would have let Jackson go crazy on the time, and split RotK into two movies. I think it would have helped.
However, far and away my biggest beef with the movie is probably something that most people didn't even care about, but for me it really created a hole in the movie. My favorite scene in the entire trilogy, in all of fantasy literature, perhaps in any book I have ever read was changed. It's right at the end of the Seige of Gondor and goes something like this:
Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts, like moving houses in the red and fitful light, the mumakil of the Harad dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places. It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall.
The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.
But about the Gate resistance still was stout, and there the knights of Dol Amroth and the hardiest of the garrison stood at bay. Shot and dart fell thick; siege-towers crashed or blazed suddenly like torches. All before the walls on wither side of the Gate the ground was choked with wreck and with bodies of the slain; yet still driven as by a madness more and more came up.
Grond crawled on. Upon its housing no fire would catch; and though now and again some great beast that hauled it would go mad and spread stamping ruin among the orcs innumerable that guarded it, their bodies were cast aside from its path and others took their place.
Grond crawled on. The drums rolled wildly. Over the hills of slain a hideous shape appeared: a horseman, tall, hooded, cloaked in black. Slowly, trampling the fallen, he rode forth, heeding no longer any dart. And as he did so a great fear fell on all, defender and foe alike; and the hands of men drooped to their sides, and no bow sang. For a moment all was still.
The drums rolled and rattled. With a vast rush Grond was hurled forward by huge hands. It reached the Gate. It swung. A deep boom rumbled through the city like thunder running in the clouds. But the doors of iron and posts of steel withstood the stroke.
Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.
Thrice he cried. Thrice the great ram boomed. And suddenly upon the last stroke the Gate of Gondor broke. As if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder: there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground.
In rode the Lord of the Nazgul. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgul, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.
All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dinen.
"You cannot enter here," said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. "Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!"
The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.
"Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.
Gandalf did not move. And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of wizardry and war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.
I apologize for the length but hopefully you can see why I love this scene. In the movie they kept the battering ram, but rather than having the Lord of the Nazgul ride in alone some big trolls came through and there's a big melee, and yadda, yadda, yadda...
Despite all the negative things I had to say about RotK, I would still tell anyone who asks to go see it once, if not twice. Well, in any event, this entry has gone on much longer than I planned so I better end here.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Ross
With Christmas fast approaching, my entries will be pretty sporadic (more so...) Tonight was one of many family parties and I, after getting home at ten, I feel like I've been hiking or mountaineering, that or maybe just returned from a rock concert -- the gift exchange was positively cacophonous. Starting Friday, I'll be on our annual skiing/snowmobiling vacation up at Bear Lake, returning late the following Tuesday.
But after the smoke of Christmas and New Year's clears, I'll be starting on Wil Upchurch's latest Anayaka adventure. This adventure is his longest yet, and I couldn't be more excited. So that's definitely something to look forward to. In any case, I wasn't kidding when I said I'm hammered so I'll sign off early. Though before I do, I thought I'd include a link to a BBC article where the Second Law of Thermodynamics is proven untrue.
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Ross
Every year at this time, we have my work Christmas party. Traditionally, a gift exchange is a big part of the proceedings. In the past everyone has drawn numbers and then selected gifts in that order, with everyone higher up the line getting a chance to swipe one of the presents which had already been selected (as long as the gift had not already changed hands twice) or select one of the unopened gifts. Like democracy, it was the absolute worst way to distribute gifts save all others.
This year there were once again numbers, but they were attached to the presents and to candy canes. The entire IT department then stood in a circle while a story was read containing multiple instances of the word 'left' and 'right.' Which of course meant that every time the word was said you passed the candy cane to the right or to the left. So now free will is completely removed from the equation and there's no chance if you get stuck with a lousy gift. Which is precisely what happened to me again this year.
My boss walked off with five pocket knives, someone else got a CD-Burner and a stack of CD's, and yet another person got enough Pyrex cooking ware to start his own restaurant. I got some chocolates, 10 of them to be exact. Gourmet chocolates are not bad, but there is already such an excess of candy and chocolate this time of the year that I'm really not interested in more. In any case, I'm sure there are emaciated refugees in some 3rd world country who, among their many problems, are glad that they don't have this one... Yes, I'm whining...
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Ross
Imagine my surprise that one of the comments on yesterday's blog declared it the "most tedious post" ever. Considering that it was mostly an excerpt from one of the 20th Century's greatest authors, I'm not sure what to make of that comment. Either my writing is better than I thought, or Tolkien's writing is truly abysmal. I can only assume that Tolkien's writing isn't that bad, thus mine must be better than I thought.
That being said, I don't really have much to say. My long search for a second car is over (I bought a '91 Nissan Sentra with 94,000 miles for $1000) and my hasty search for Christmas gifts for my wife and my friends has begun.
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Ross
As a clarification to yesterday's blog, I did not roll down the hill with the snowmobile -- I watched it from the top, filling the air with profanities. Speaking of filling the air with profanities, thousands, if not millions of people saw Return of the King today; I was not among them. That is, of course, the bad news (for me at least, but also possibly for you because it leaves you unable to benefit from my wisdom). The good news is that it's put me in such a foul mood that the rest of the blog will be occupied with a link and an excerpt from The Silmarillion, lest it be forgotten in the crush of the trilogy.
First the link: Everything you ever wanted to know about Elf Sex.
Secondly, the death of Fingolfin from The Silmarillion:
Now news came to Hithlum that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown, and the sons of Feanor were driven from their lands. Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Orome himself was come; for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.
That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was the greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. But he could not now deny the challenge before the face of all of his captains; for the rocks rang with the shrill music of Fingolfin's horn, and his voice came keen and clear down into the depths of Angband; and Fingolfin named Morgoth craven, and lord of slaves. Therefore Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armour; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowned, and his vast shield, sable unblazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud. But Fingolfin gleamed beneath like a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew forth his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.
Then Morgoth hurled aloft Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and swung it down like a bolt of thunder. But Fingolfin sprang aside, and Grond rent a mighty pit in the earth, whence smoke and fire darted. Many times Morgoth essayed to smite him, and each time Fingolfin leaped away, as a lightning shoots from under a dark cloud; and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds, and seven times Morgoth gave a cry of anguish, whereat the hosts of Angband fell upon their faces in dismay, and the cries echoed in the Northlands.
But at last the King grew weary, and Morgoth bore down his shield upon him. Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice rose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill. Yet with his last and desperate stroke Fingolfin hewed the foot with Ringil and the blood gushed forth black and smoking and filled the pits of Grond.
Thus died Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor, most proud and valiant of the Elven-kings of old. The Orcs made no boast of that duel at the gate; neither do the Elves sing of it, for their sorrow is too deep.
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Ross
Every year between Christmas and New Year's Day, my family heads north to go snowmobiling. Since that vacation is fast approaching, I thought it might be appropriate to share one of the many, many snowmobiling stories I have. It took place four years ago on a massive mountain rising thousands of feet from the floor of the valley below, that the locals called merely, "Competition Hill." I had climbed it several times before, but this year was different -- this year was suppossed to be easier, and it was precisely because of that that it happened.
I started up the hill, confident in my ability to climb it... too confident. Rather than flying up it with all the speed I could handle, I putted up it at the very lowest speed necessary to maintain my forward momentum (which actually was still pretty fast). One of the tricky things about Competition Hill is that it gets really steep right at the top, but that was okay; I had enough speed to get over the top, but not an ounce more, so when I lost the track I was following, I had to let off the gas a bit and turn. It was only for a split second and I immediately floored it but too late. And so it was that five feet from the top I lost control of the snowmobile and it started to roll back down the hill.
As it rolled, the hood popped open, the windshield was torn off, and a trail of snowmobile parts like a comet's tail littered the mountain. And then, when it had caused as much damage as it could through rolling, it righted itself, pointing downhill. The belt whined as it picked up speed. I briefly stopped my string of profanity to entertain the hope that it might actually miss all of the trees, as it went past grove after grove. But displaying evil uncommon in something not made by Microsoft, after having gained as much speed as possible it slammed into the very last tree on the hill, wrapping its skis around the trunk and finally coming to rest.
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Ross
Well, unless you've been living in a hole in the ground, you've heard that Saddam was found in, ironically enough, a hole in the ground. It's interesting, because when I saw Uday and Qusay, I thought those two could have been anyone. Of course, they had been shot up and their faces weren't nearly as ubiquitious as their father's, but I expected the same thing when they finally got Saddam, that I would look at him and think to myself, "Ok if you say so." But even with the beard and the scraggly hair and everything else, I could tell just by looking at the eyes that it was Saddam. Perhaps I was helped by seeing my own crazy eyes every morning in the bathroom mirror.
There are lots of predictions about what will happen with the bombings and the insurgency now that Saddam has been captured, and they seem to be all over the map, with nearly as many people saying that the capture would break the back of the insurgents or that it would spur them to even greater acts of violence. My own prediction is that there will be a temporary upsurge but that the capture will still mark the beginning of the end. The more I hear, the more I think capturing him alive was for the best. Not only does it deprive the Saddam loyalists of a martyr, but it gives them the opposite -- a pathetic figure who urged his own people to give their lives but ended up surrendering without firing a shot. This is particular important in the Arab world, where I think many expected a lot more out of Saddam.
I think regardless of your political affiliation and regardless of your feelings about the war, it's nice when the home team wins one. I think the reaction of Iraqi journalists to the news of the capture was particularly telling. While the Western journalists set in the practiced "I'm objective" pose, the Iraqis stood up and shouted "Death to Saddam" (at least I think that's what they were shouting, it was in Arabic) for several minutes. In any case, it was cool.
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Ross
On occasion in the comments, people have asked me where I get the links I post in my blog. In the past I've been somewhat reluctant to mention one of my primary news sources because, for one, then there would be one less reason for people to read my blog, and lord knows I don't need that, and two, because frequently this particular source tosses in links which are euphemistically described as "NSFW" or Not Safe For Work. And while I realize that the chances of my blind 92 year old grandmother reading this (or anything for that matter) are pretty slim, but 90% of the time that something bad happens to me, it is precisely because three unlikely events all come together at the same incredibly bad moment.
That being said, I will go ahead and point you at Fark as the source of many of my links, including yesterday's link, which is why I felt compelled to reveal my source now. One of the comments mentioned that the site I linked to yesterday was unaccessible, which reveals something that happens quite frequently with Fark. See, Fark is a pretty popular website -- orders of magnitude more popular than some of the sites they link to, so when Fark links to a site and in effect redirects a huge portion of its traffic to a site with much less bandwidth, it often takes the site down completely, which I'm sure is what happened with yesterday's link.
To continue with the theme, here is a link I found today on Fark. It's about some nanotech researchers at MIT who are trying to develop a fabric that's soft and wearable, but when a magnetic field is applied, turns into a bullet proof vest. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.
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Ross
Since high school, I've been fascinated with pen tricks and similar feats of manual dexterity. As with is so often the case (think gorgeous blonde cheerleaders), my high school "fascinations" often meshed very poorly with my talents, and by extension, reality. I'm sure that everyone is hoping to hear about the blonde cheerleaders. Unfortunately, what I've decided to talk about is pen tricks. Despite my decade and a half long fascination, I have only mastered two, and one of them isn't even a pen trick. I can spin a pen through my fingers and I can cascade a coin through my fingers (think Val Kilmer in Top Gun). My lack of proficiency goes back to the aforementioned lack of talents. Basically, I have the manual dexterity of someone in the midst of an epileptic seizure.
Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad, but it did take me an awful long time just to learn to do the two things I can do. Recently I've been trying to pick up the whole snapping spin thing where you rest the pen on the top of your hand and then with a sort of snap like motion you spin it. I've done it a couple of times, but mostly I just drop the pen and have to spend five minutes looking for it. I guess I should stop practicing in deep underbrush...
The reason I choose this topic is because my prayers have been answered. I recently stumbled across a site completely devoted to pen spinning. Of particular use is their learning order chart. Not only does it give you a whole flowchart of tricks (far more than I could have imagined), but it has videos showing how to do the tricks. Just when you start to get a little blase about the web, something like this comes along and reaffirms the idea that the Internet may really be the greatest invention ever.
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Ross
I was reading an article in Newsweek the other day and it was all about figuring out what was going to be cool. As you can well imagine, lots of corporations, in particular ones with a reputation for being hip, have a huge interest in trying to spot and take advantage of trends. At some point, someone (I forget who), came up with the concept of Alpha Consumers: these are the people who set the trends, the people who decide what is cool. Of course, I guess what that means is that I must be like a Zeta Consumer.
Yes, I am not cool -- there, I said it. Of course, you shouldn't mourn me; the damage from my tragic unhipness has already run its course in my life. It's my children who must now bear the brunt of my lack of style. Having admitted my complete lack of anything resembling style, I think there is one thing I am an Alpha Consumer of: comedy. This is not to say that I am very funny -- clearly, long-time readers of this blog can attest to that fact. What I am saying is that I'm a leading indicator of humor. I was led to the combination of these two ideas by an article I saw on CNN.com about Monty Python.
In any case, having established all of this, we finally have enough information to draw the post to a conclusion: My kids are going to look like war-refugees from some country that no one has every heard of, but they'll have a mordant and trenchant sense of humor about all of it.
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Ross
As was pointed out in one of the comments, I've been sick on and off for quite a while. I think one of the problems is that, where I work, we have all purpose paid time off (PTO). Which means that rather than having sick days, you just have days off and you can use all of them as sick days or none of them as sick days; as a consequence, unless I am physically unable to walk, I generally refuse to use any of my precious PTO to lie at home and be miserable. Of course, this means that I'm sick/miserable for a much longer time.
However, after going into work on Sunday, spending nine hours getting a server back up and healthy yesterday, and coming in a 7 am this morning, the powers that be graciously offered to let me go home at noon, so hopefully through judicious napping this afternoon I'll finally turn a corner, but enough about illness. At work, we've been interviewing for an IT position, and it's been interesting whom we've seen. For example, today...
The guy was 15 minutes late, which arguably isn't as bad as it sounds, but it really puts everyone conducting the interview into a foul mood. Then five minutes into the interview, when asked about his recent experience as a consultant, he says "well when I applied for this job the economy was pretty soft, but now it's starting to pick up...I prefer consulting." After that, I don't think anyone in the room was listening, because at that point the interview was over. The moral of the story being, of course, even if you do prefer something else, you should never say that.
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Ross
Well, I found out after I posted on Friday that my wife had strep, so the weekend got off to a great start. I guess most people think of strep as a really contagious, ultra-painful version of the common cold. But I guess it can also cause headaches coupled with nausea, which is what happened with my wife around one am on Friday night. Once again, I was thrust into the role of nursing my wife back to health, and as any one can tell you, I'm probably the least nurturing person around, so it comes to me with some difficulty. Then of course, there's the problem of being completely outnumbered by the children. You end up going from a "zone" defense to a "minimize casualties" defense.
I'm not sure if I also have strep. Certainly, I have many of the same symptoms, though in general I fared somewhat better, though after not getting much sleep Friday, I was pretty much useless on Saturday, but then that's nothing new. On Sunday, my wife was starting to turn the corner and I was hoping to get ahead of my own illness when I was called into work. It turns out that, once again, we had lost power to the server room, and just like before, it was all about the air-conditioning.
I guess the power was restored without too much fanfare, but when it came back up, the air conditioning did not come back with it, so were were left with plenty of electricity, rack after rack of devices for changing that electricity into heat, and no air conditioning. I didn't have to come in for too long, but there's a definite art to having a truly idle day -- you have to really avoid anything that seems productive; generally you can get away with a shower and consuming enough food to keep the hunger pains away, but any activity beyond that and you've lost it. Your brain has to wake up, thoughts start percolating, and even TV is often powerless to re-zombiefy you.
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Ross
Well, I have about 20 minutes before my lunch is over, so I thought I'd try and get a quick VFB out the door. I read this very amusing story today that I thought I would share. Some guy with more money than time hired a couple of acquaintances of his to pack up his apartment into a moving van and then unpack it at his new house. So he hands them the key to his apartment and off they go. Later that day the two met their friend and return his key. "The only thing we didn't get was your cat," they report. The guy doesn't have a cat (cue Twilight Zone theme).
Okay it wasn't that weird, as it turns out the key not only opened the correct apartment it also opened the neighbor's. As such it was the neighbor's furnishings which were moved to the new house. Fortunately the neighbor was single and works out of town, as such they were able to put everything back, though one imagines it's unlikely that they'll get everything back exactly the way it was -- that's when the Twilight Zone theme kicks in, when you return from a long trip and everything is still in you apartment, but slightly out of place. In any case, you can read the whole story.
Other than that, I'm hoping for a slow weekend. Ideally, I should have enough time to post another Xenogenic NPC, but the way things have been going, I wouldn't count on it, however maybe it's time for me to pleasantly surprise people by exceeding their expectations. I do have one of the colds that refuses to die, so at a minimum I'm going to try to sleep in or take a nap, though with four kids it could end up that I do neither.
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Ross
Well, I fixed the caching problem with the NPC, so the treasure percentage should now work correctly, which is good, since by most accounts it's the feature that people appreciate the most. I personally think it's one of the coolest things we did with the Xenogenic System. Certainly it was one of the most difficult, but often there isn't a direct correlation between coolness and difficulty. In fact, to the frustration of many a programmer, there is more often than not an inverse correlation between how much a feature is appreciated and how difficult it was to implement.
I went to a play last night, though it wasn't technically a play, it was actually a musical revue featuring the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller called Smokey Joe's Cafe. It was quite entertaining, unlike the last time we went, lots of really good songs, but what stuck with me the most from last night was hearing that Robert Peterson had died. Not so much that he had died, but the body of work he accumulated, the enormous outpouring of sympathy and the scheduling of a special memorial service at the theater. It would be nice to have such an impact.
One of the things occupying my time right now is the search for a second car. For quite a while I've gotten by with only one, but it's quickly becoming apparent that that's not going to work much longer. So far I've looked at two cars, and both of them had fairly serious mechanical problems. Today I had my mechanic look at an '86 VW Jetta (which I wouldn't have been considering at all if I hadn't talked the guy down $300). It had split boots on the front axle, a radiator leak and needed a new timing belt. In any case, the search continues; I'll keep you posted.
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Ross
I have a play tonight, so I'm not going to have any time to write this evening, so I thought I'd dash off a quick blog entry during lunch. To update you on the treasure issue with the NPC: I believe I mentioned that I had tracked it down to an issue with the caching. Well, I am using the caching library of a friend of mine so I am going to have him take a look at it, but hopefully it will be fixed later today. Other than that, it's pretty slow in my neck of the woods. I may have to hurt someone to liven things up a bit.
I guess anytime it's slow is a good time to have a meta-post. One of the purposes of this blog, or any for that matter, is to create a dialogue, get feedback and engender some kind of a response, particularly in cases where the blog is attached to some kind of product. Which leads us to a long-standing debate in the gaming community over how important gamer feedback is. I was reminded of this by a recent spy/counter-spy article over at GameSpy.com. Just like every issue that comes up, I'm going to take the pusillanimous stance that a balance needs to be struck.
Quite often the gamers/customers offer completely contradictory suggestions: "more role-playing and dialogue," "more combat less dialogue." But at the same time, there are occasions when the users seem to speak with a single voice, or are completely silent on an issue that the developers decide to mess with, just because they can. Paying too much attention to the most vocal (read hardcore) gamers can end up producing a game that only the most dedicated 10% enjoy. But not listening at all can frequently result in mis-steps which would be comedic, if not so tragic. As proof I refer you outside the world of games to a little movie called, The Phantom Menace.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Well, as pointed out to me by a faithful DireKobold subscriber, the treasure is screwed up on the NPC. My apologies, the plague I was dealing with over the weekend prevented me from doing the validation I would have liked. I have spent about an hour looking into it, and it turns out that the first time an adventure is generated, it generates the treasure correctly, but any time it's generated after that it goes back to the value it used the very first time around. So it's obviously a caching issue, something I did differently with the NPC that I didn't do in a normal adventure, but I've yet to figure out what, but I'll keep you posted.
Having given myself a headache trying to figure out the caching issue, I'm not exactly in a great condition to finish the rest of the blog, but I'll soldier on regardless. In the news it appears that the man who challanged the phrase 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegience has no lack of things to complain about. Apparently, his custody of the daughter, on whose behalf he has standing to sue, is tenuous at best. His opinion of the subject is:
...that the entire family law system is wrongly premised on "the best interests of the child," when what should really count is what he says is the parents' constitutional right to equal time.
Sounds like a great guy. For my part, I'm of the opinion that the world in general and the U.S. in particular would be a lot better off if people were just a little more flexible. So you're an atheist who doesn't like any reference to God? Fine, is it really going to kill you if the word is said in your presence? Probably not, so just let it slide...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross
Hopefully I will be better about posting in December than I was in November. I admit that there at the end I really dropped the ball, but what with Thanksgiving and being sick and my general laziness... The fact that I went four days without posting anything (though I would have normally only posted on two of those days anyway) was the bad news. The good news is that the NPC I've been promising for the last week is available. It's a halfling rogue, named Tasu the Veiled, he's only available to subscribers, but that includes the demo subscribers and that's free so no whining.
Before I talk about the NPC I'll bring you up to speed with what's happened to me since the last time I posted in my blog, though I warn you in advance it isn't pretty. I finally cleared myself of all of my Thanksgiving obligations I was feeling better and things looked rosy. I had gone to my parents house (about an hours drive) and when we arrived my oldest son (who's all but 5) was looking pretty pale. I figured he was just recovering from the nap he took on the way up with maybe a dash of car-sickness thrown in. So I carried him into house; just as I reached the entryway he began to projectile vomit.
Normally I wouldn't write about vomit, but this was something special. Had my son been a full grown adult, assuming that things stayed proportional, he would have easily cleared cleared the 40 foot mark. In any case it wasn't pretty and the clean up took at least another 30 or 45 minutes, that was the beginning of the "troubles". This morning my wife woke up with the same affliction, so I took the day off so that I could minister to the sick and the dying. Or at least the people who wished they were dying. Fortunately in between tending to the wounded I was able to get the last little bit done on the NPC. Speaking of which...
Since this is the first one I'll give you a little overview of what's cool about a Xenogenic NPC. I'll start by saying what I don't like about other NPC generators. First it's rare to find one that equips the characters. Secondly they're much to random, assigning stats with no regard to the class of the character or worse dumping tons of ranks into completely useless skills while disregarding essential skills. Obviously since these are the things that bug me my NPC's are both equipped and non-random. Also taking a sheet from the adventures you can choose the stat level, the percentage of treasure you want and the level of the NPC.
I think the biggest benefit of this sort of thing is if you have a recurring NPC. This way rather than having to update the NPC everytime he reappears you can punch in a new level and spit out a new version with new equipment, the whole nine yards. Ideally I'll put one of these out about every week, with the holidays coming up we'll have to see what my schedule is like and more especially if I come down with the same "Fiji Flu" the rest of the family has.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross