iDiD

I watch in amazment as people line up for an iPhone. I like the way it looks. I like the ideas. I like the direction it's going. But c'mon... it's a phone. It'll be there next week... it'll be there next month. Hell, next year, they'll even revise it and fix all the bugs from the first go'round.

If Rob was here... and if he were going to buy an iPhone... the lady in front of him would pay in cash. Two $50's, a $20 and the rest in wadded up $5's and $1's. She would meticulously uncrinkle each of them... only to follow up with the change purse for the 87 cents.

Status update

Yeah Steve, glad to hear things are working out. Have fun in Chicago guys.

...

Just a reminder that in a few days (Sunday June 24), I go off-line for about three weeks. Japan travel. Feel free to post stuff in the meantime, but you might want to get some posts in by the weekend. DiD will, of course, resume as usual in mid-July.

Yeah give me a call mark

i would definitely like you see you guys. you can meet my new girlfriend too, this one has potential to be really serious. kinda like cure srs wooonds, only MORE srs.

Like a hurricane.

That's awesome news, Steve. -Can't keep a good man down.

Are you free Saturday night? Gao Qi has a test in Chicago Saturday. We are staying at our friends Elana's and David's, but want to meet.

DTD is featured in the Wall Street Journal.

Drinks All Around!

Let me be the first to raise my glass (even if it is just coke) to the King Tut. A man rising like a phoenix from the ashes. That is all great news. More money, fewer hours, and good environment.

Cheers!

Here and back again

Hi everyone, we had a little hiatus when I went home for a visit. Got four days now to play, then we'll be on a three week break...

Update from Ancient Egypt...

You hear static crackle over the radio.

Your ears perk up.

You adjust the knob (on the radio, dickhead).

You hear a voice come over the radio waves. It's thin and haunting, yet somehow strong, deep, and powerful, as if it were liquid lavender oil wrapped in molten steel that had cooled so that it was no longer molten, but steel, while at the same time echoing wtih an odd dissonance, as if it were being relayed from thousands of miles away.

You listen to the words.

So, I know I have been laying low for awhile. Frankly, I was depressed with the job situation. But, I just learned that I got a job. It's a great one too. Corporate tax, 15% raise from my previous job (plus less hours! 40 per week!), the building is beautiful, and it's perfect. So, all is well back in the land of Egypt.

This has been percolating for a little while, but I kept it on the down low because I didn't want to bring good news only to have it fall through.

So, have a drink for ol' KT, because he's happy again.

My quest

At first I feared the flying spaghetti monster...

I now also fear the giant bird that shits fire and gives birth to the flying spaghetti monster...



I'll never sleep again.

the horror.... the horror...........

A miracle.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster does exist!!!!

Cold.

Pocketfull of gold
The dead are soon forgotten
And now I must leave

True Love

So funny.

Most of them are pretty good.

Detroit's Real Estate Boom

The only thing better than buying a luxury condo in Detroit...

Is getting a free Land Rover when you do!

Tote bag

So I'm in line at the cafeteria again yesterday. The lady ahead of me has a big ass tote bag. The cashier rings her up while she just stands there, and her bill comes to like $3.79 or something.

Then she begins rummaging around in her tote bag, looking for... guess what? Her goddamn change purse. Like she was suddenly surprised she had to pay for her damn food? I don't know why she didn't start looking for it while her food was rung up. (No, I do know why- it's cause ladies are, as a lot, passively rude and thoughtless... see post below for further analysis.)

So she digs through her tote bag for a while. I would've thought it'd be easy to find a change purse, like at the bottom of the bag, but I dunno. It took a while.

She finds it. Then, of course, she starts rummaging around her fucking cute little change purse to pay with exact change. I knew it, I just knew it, and I start smirking. She's starting to become aware of how annoying she is, and sees me smirking. I don't really mean to be a dick, you know, so I look away to hide my grin and basic contempt.

She can't seem to figure it out, so she ends up dumping all her change on the counter. She then counts it all, and of course, it turns out she doesn't have enough to pay with exact change.

She then whips four bucks out of her pocket like she's got fucking Quick Strike and pays for her food.

The irony of the situation is that, in paying with $4.00, she got some more change, two dimes and a penny, just encouraging her to try again to pay with even more exact change the next time.

...

This wasn't like some crazy cat lady or anything, just a normal chick, maybe one of the nurses or doctors. Probably a nice person, intelligent and professional and stuff.

But Jesus H Mother of Fucking Christ. It's always the same. Why do chicks do this shit? She had the four goddamn dollars super-handy in her pocket, it's some sort of brain thing, I know it.

Fun.

Cat Golf rocks.

I guess the DTD guy quit his day job. New stuff should be on its way.

Updaters

Heh heh... nice games.

...

Will make a little Microsoft Paint map of the GMI and post it to mop up the confusion. That happens in the night time. Stay tuned for more exciting DiD updates!

And today was the first- no, second- time I'd looked at kottke.org. Huh. I think his blog would be more exciting if every now and then, not too frequent, maybe a couple times a week? Anyway, it'd be more interesting if every now and then a random person would log on and blog about the damage they've done to a bugbear or what treasure they want or something.

Several Ways to Waste Time

Let's see here...

there's Contra

or Orbit

or Mercedes Drifting

or my current favorite Cat Golf

But if you want some fun in the real world... you could always walk into a Russian McDonalds and hurl a cat behind the counter:

Per the Pepper.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?

Dr. Pepper's Wild Ride

(Courtesy of Metafilter. More Michigan weirdness...)

Antipopes and NPC slaughter

Inspired by the 300, here's a little known fact about my campaigns.

In every game (meaning, every campaign), I'd try to ratchet up the body count. One, because I was always interested in PC morality or lack thereof, and two, because it's fun to mow down a bunch of dudes.

Tony Tanona's half-orc "Mr. Bolar" had the record for a while, taking out 50 villagers by himself in the first Narbohring game.

In my last game, Sarpagal IV, the PCs took out a whole fortress full of guys, numbering probably around 200, including a great fight against twelve 5th level mages. Of course, most of the body count there was from an explosion, so maybe it doesn't count.

In terms of raw dice rolling, though, Narbohring 9K was the champ of PC murder: four ships of sailors. Something like 75 individual NPCs, butchered.

They all had names too.

...

EDIT: Did you know that, right now, there are four antipopes? Honest to god, Catholic Antipopes. Four of 'em. I love wikipedia.

??!??!?

on that note

the funny thing is that I swear I read that book a long time ago, well 5 or 6 years.
I don't really remember what it was about. huh.

for those of you who read picture books, I think Y the Last Man is a pretty good series.

and fell is one of the prettiest comics ever done, even if it was mostly rendered on a computer.

the fountain was a movie really surprised me. but, it is my kind of thing. It seemed to have all of the things Rob wishes for in stories.

I'm not playing thak btw, I think you (Rob) and I have different ideas about gaming. that works ok on table top, but not here. Here it just makes me mad. Huh, the right side shift button doesn't work on this computer. that's why that isn't capitalized, while St. Peters cathedral ends up weird. Is it strange to use my left pinky to capitalize S's?

Bye.

It's in the cue.

Got me interested.

My book report

I read a lot of books these days. That means by definition, I read a lot of horrible books. Maybe someday I'll make a little blog post about the awful books I've read, but not today.

Instead, I'm 'blogging' to say that I just finished one of the best books I've ever read: "An Instance of the Fingerpost" by Iain Pears.

I won't describe it much, except to say that it's similar to "Name of the Rose", but much more readable and more interesting. Check it out on amazon.com or whatever if you want. Although I'll say that the amazon.com reviewers seem mostly to have missed what makes this book so special.

Reviews here if you're bored.

But I want to say that I think that books and stories are, or should aspire to be, five things:

1) fairy tales
2) mysteries
3) love stories
4) grand epics
5) the pilgrim's progress

I don't mean that some books should be one and some the other. That's true, alas, but sucks and is terribly myopic, and is partially responsible for my having read a ton of bad books.

What I mean that every story should be all of those five things. That goes for D&D campaigns too, even DiD.

I don't care much for plot and characters, as they're all sort of the same, averaged over stories. I'm more interested in structural elements and the way in which those five qualities above relate to each other. "Instance of the Fingerpost" is masterfully crafted, and basically perfect in each of those five ways. One of those rare books that was a joy to read and appreciate.

Basically, it's four different versions of the same story, a murder mystery set in 17th century Oxford, told in first person, although the main character is neither of those four characters. Sounds like a yawn, although it's a fucking great read as it is.

But I don't care about 'murder mysteries'. It's just a device. It's the structure, which, my god, is genius. The evolution of the main character throughout the novel occurs not chronologically, but in the repeated telling of the story. Brilliantly, the title makes sense only 90% of the way through the book, is the solution to the murder, and is itself a double entendre, who's second meaning I think is what the book is truly about. Although the solution to the crime then leaves about 50 pages of text, two other puzzles are satisfactorily answered- the final one, in the last three pages, gaining significance only in terms of the very first sentence of the novel (which, at first read, is completely innocuous- more or less "Hi, this is me, I'm going to tell you a story.").

...

Not bad for a guy whose other claim to fame is writing a series of books unfortunately named 'Art History Mysteries'. Although I might actually read those dimestore-lookin' books given that Instance of the Fingerpost is essentially literary perfection, on the order of Foucault's Pendulum and Pale Fire. In a way, it's sort of a cross between Eco and Nabokov, which is exactly what I read tons of awful books trying to find.

I Love Negative Ten

I suppose this is as good a time as any to show my ignorance [again] on the rules.

-Thanks for the update on the -10 thing. I like playing Dag.
-Spells: I didn't realize clerics had to pre-memorize spells each day. If this is the case, I will begin letting you know what spells I choose to memorize.

411

I broke my one-post-a-day rule just to provide some meat to the new module, and allow you guys to start doing stuff.

And if you want Paul, go ahead and take over Thaka 3. Otherwise, she's NPC'd.

Doom Lounge is the best.

I am inspired. My next character is going to be named Hindu Schemer.

-10

This is 1E, death is at -10. Anyone at any time is welcome to die and/or roll up a new dude.

You ain't dead yo, anyway almost all of that damage was illusionary, and thus subdual.

...

Enjoy the start of a new module cycle on the main page...

...

EDIT. I guess we're sort of like this:
http://www.doomlounge.org/pc_christian.html

I mean, Doom Lounge in general. I don't think I could name an NPC 'Christian Sinner' for Christ's sake. Of course, linking this here has nothing to do with the title of this blog entry.

Rollin

Let me know when to roll... Unless Odin smiles down on me, I'm ready to draft up a new character... maybe Paul will join back in with me.

God speed Paris Hilton

To thee, I raise my pint glass.

(Oh, and dude- you fuckin' NPC-suicided. Not much I could do about that. Hell, I even brought you back.)

ok.

Huh, maybe you shouldn't have killed me Rob.

Ok, Dell is out. I'm glad you like yours, and they have gotten better, but they still aren't where it's at. That's why I said they were on the out list.

I think it's funny that people think that there are multi-media computers, and that there are gaming computers, and school computers. A good computer should do it all. I personally want to buy a Tablet PC with Tablet 2005 on it with an onboard optical drive, and 12 inch widescreen, but I have to buy a house first.

all laptops bought today that cost over a grand should have dedicated video memory. 256 megs please. They should have wireless N networking, they should have bluetooth. IF they have a TV tuner card it should do digital in addition to the analog abilities, especially if you pay another 150 bucks, because it will be WORTHLESS in 2 years. All this shit should be on the inside of the laptop, not a card, a usb thing, blah. I don't believe how hard it is to even get an s-video out. It's a lot better than it was a year ago, but come on. And for fucks sake, how hard is it to get an HDMI port and HD capabilities. I understand the format fight and the reluctance to pick a disc, but people will buy it. xps dell for $2300 sucks. It doesn't have very good Processors, video, it doesn't come in a 15 inch wide screen. You pay extra for XP instead of Vista crap.

So anyway, that's how I feel about computers, well some of how I feel. Sure low end laptops are great. It's amazing what you can get for 400 bucks now, new. It's real revolution. The problem is if you spend another 1000, you don't usually get much at all for it, unless you do some serious research. I'm reminded of Cars, most people buy for color, or power as an accesory, a statement about themselves. Mac's dont even come with a word program, WTF?

Directors cut all the way. Sean Young was actually very young. if I remember right.

Well that's all I can say quickly.

I hope dell enjoys the hate mail they will get if they put Ubuntu on their computers, it's not ready for most home users. I won't get any Linux machine for a while.

my computer is a 600 mhz IBM running Linux. It works fine for me most of the time, but realplayer, java, flash all that shit is a bitch to install. Open office rocks though, but I don't use it.

ok really good night and good luck.

Blade Runner

Usually I'd think that the Director's Cut is the better version, especially as I have deep respect for Ridley Scott and David Peoples.

However, I prefer the original release of Blade Runner, as I find it more ambiguous. Even the 'happy ending' is somewhat ambiguous, as Rachael might not necessarily get to live longer despite what Deckard was told, and I like the stock footage they use as they escape from the city... it's a great contrast to the opening footage that basically defines all of cyberpunk. Removing the voice-over from the ending though wouldn't be bad and leave Rachael's demise an open issue. In the Director's Cut, them simply leaving the apartment feels like a non-ending, rather than a nice ambiguous open ending. Important difference to me.

I like the voice-over in the beginning, as it has this 'hard-boiled' film noir 'dame walks into my office' thing that I think helps a lot in setting the tone of the movie.

But, the unicorn dream thing is retarded. Scott never should have come out and said that Deckard is a replicant (as he did in interviews). It's a lame idea- it's okay if vaguely alluded to, but the Director's Cut heavy-handed approach leaves me cold. It also means that Gaff's origami isn't just a personality quirk but an Important Plot Device. Not everything in movies has to mean stuff, folks.

I don't remember, but I think that part of the unicorn dream (maybe sans origami?) was in the original version too... my reading of that was Deckard's view of Rachael as a lovely Thing That Shouldn't Be or Thing That Will Never Be Again.

It's still a fucking great movie in any case. Perfect meld of film noir and sci-fi.

...

I just learned that 'Soldier', a Kurt Russell movie, is sort of a sequel to Blade Runner. Huh, no shit.

Blade Runner

I just watched the "Director's Cut" of Blade Runner for the first time in like 8-10 years... It is even better than I remembered it being. I'm not sure I even remember the studio version. Anyone care to weigh in on which they think is better?

What you say?!

Laptops and bitching- a post in two parts

Depends what the laptop is for. Business or fun? I've got a Dell (Latitude D800), and it's been great. Going on four years now.

My understanding was that Alienware designed gaming rigs. If gaming and entertainment is a priority, you'll want a big-ass screen. Mine is 17" because I do a lot of graphic design (and have gamed) with it. Haven't suffered due to the size, if anything I could go just a tad larger.

If it's for fun, buy the biggest and best possible- money saved in the long run, as fun (i.e., video games) tend to ride the cutting edge of software and hardware tech. Meaning that the worse your PC is, the sooner it'll be obsolete, meaning the sooner you have to cough up another $1000 (+/-) for a brand new system.

If it's mainly for school and word processing, might as well go small and cheap.

...

Dude, our traffic problem won't be solved with more eagle pictures. It'll be solved with more action in the game. I try not to bitch about lack of posting, so I'll take this opportunity to do so. Post, damn it. I fail to believe that all y'all use the damn internet only once or twice a week. Don't tell me you all get the newspaper, read books, and still write letters, and only grudgingly fire up the ol' Vic 20 every now and then.

Dude, I got a Dell.

I like my Dell. I got a 300 rebate if I spent 1000 or more. Thus, I got a $700 laptop, and upgraded it w/ $300 worth of stuff. -Got the $300 back.

Look for deals and order online. Lots of deals can save Chris 100's or get more for his money.

public cry for help

anyone got any advice on laptops for Chris to buy?

he seems to be thinking alienware or lenovo. compaq and hp are out, as I believe dell is. maybe an acer? or one of them foriegn things..

he seems likely to buy one today and has enlisted my help... I back up lenovo and alienware, but it seems alienware gets some bad press from owners at times.

he wants a pc. Sony? Toshiba? anyone hear anything post quick...I don't think he can wait.

time to do some research. I'm pushing for a dedicated 256 video, hdmi out, tv tuner with digital and analog capabilities, bluetooth, what do you think of HDDVD? 17 inch would prolly be a bit big.