Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 October 2005 - Monday
First day in the new building! Naturally, the network didn't for the
first part of the day, but it was restored to functionality in time for
me to take all the tickets and answer them before going home, which is
the most one can reasonably ask.
Some cube rearrangement needed to happen so that I didn't have to see
the view out the huge window reflected in my monitor, but that's
okay.
* * *
I got home just in time to gather up some Halloween-themed games and
scuttle over to Ayse & Ken's for the Party-Like Halloween Fun!
The first stage of Fun was dinner! Ayse made a delicious pot roast with
vegetables in the slow cooker, and we also had roasted garlic to spread
on walnut bread with Gruyere cheese. There may have been swooning.
Because I had the clever idea of cooking the pumpkin some to soften
it up, Ayse was able to make Afghan-like pumpkin-tomato-yogurt stuff,
which I liked a lot. I don't know if anyone else got any, but I have the
leftovers, so maybe I'll share if people are nice to me.
The second stage of Fun was discussing which of the many
Halloween-themed games to play.
The third stage of Fun was playing Mythos, for the first time in
years! We were a bit fuzzy on the rules, but Ken, who felt most
oppressed, crushed us anyway.
The Dreamlands deck I played needs at least one more subtype of monster,
maybe two, and possibly some Surprise Meetings instead of the inter-region
travel to get Hesper Payne. Also, more green pentagons! The Prop-Setters
(which Dave played) needs more inter-region travel, or at least a
more accepting attitude toward byakhee.
There obviously needs to be more Mythos, preceded by a deck-building
party.
By this point, it was after 23:00 on a work-night, so we exploded to
our own lairs.
* * *
Writing: check, although just barely.
Make a comment!
30 October 2005 - Sunday
This morning's in-bed reading was Across the Wall, a
collection of short fiction by Garth Nix, who wrote the Abhorsen trilogy
and is writing the Keys to the Kingdom septology. It's all pretty good,
although I think overall the shorter pieces are strong. (Maybe fiction is
like hair, which is most appealing when it's either quite short or quite
long?)
"Hope Chest" reminded me a lot of something Carl would run, or
threaten to run. "Hansel's Eyes" was particularly good too.
* * *
I peeked into the bookstore and it dragged me in and sold me some
books! The horror! (Two Elizabeth Bear, one Ken Macleod, a couple of
random others.)
* * *
Special Halloween episode of Adventures of Jehanne & Alazaïs!
Mind control! Spell-casting wolves! Six-legged wolves! The party turned
against each other! Wolves that turn into ravens!
Fortunately those who weren't mind-controlled managed to talk the
others down without any PC-on-PC bloodshed. Father William got severely
wolfed, however.
We have no idea how our poorly-optimized 8th-level characters are
going to deal with something that has dimension door, great
powers of illusion, and a shapeshifting druid buddy.
* * *
Greencine has delivered to me the complete first disc of
Samurai 7, so I was able to watch episodes 3 and 4. No
sudden left turns at Albuquerque so far.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
29 October 2005 - Saturday
I stayed in bed reading a long time, but most of the things I read
were not that great.
* * *
Grocery shopping. Yummy Thai dinner. Bleach.
Samurai 7.
* * *
Writing: check.
Clocks set back for Daylight Spending Time: check.
Make a comment!
28 October 2005 - Friday
A random Googler named Enrique gave me a lift to work this morning,
so I got in half an hour earlier than usual. That is like being able to
go home half an hour earlier than usual! And I still have time from
Tuesday!
* * *
Fortunately, today did not have all the ticket like yesterday did, so
I was able to clean things out pretty well. Whew!
* * *
All our crap will be moved to a new building over the weekend, so I
had to stop working fifteen minutes before leaving time to pack up the
very few things I had in my office. Whee.
I wonder if I will remember to go to the new building as I stumble
blearily to work Monday morning.
* * *
On the bus home from work, I finished reading Polaris (Ben Lehman), a
very narrative RPG of chivalric tragedy set in the ruins of a dead polar
empire who long ago broke their world, letting in demons and causing the
Sun to rise above the horizon for part of the year.
Polaris has no GM. Rather, a play group is made up of four people
(ideally; there are variants for 3 and 5-6 but they seem to lose coolness).
When one person's PC is the protagonist of a scene, the other three players
have specific roles defined by where they sit around the table. The person
across from the protagonist's player, the Mistaken, plays the demons and
generally tries to make the protagonist suffer. The two people to each side
are the Full Moon and New Moon, one of whom plays all NPCs heirarchically
related to the protagonist and all minor male NPCs, the other of whom plays
NPCs who are socially related to the protagonist and all minor female NPCs.
The Moons get to make suggestions, but all actual narration is produced
by the Heart (protagonist's player) and Mistaken. Since each player's PC
will get scenes, everybody gets to fill all four roles at various
times.
The character sheet has four sections, so if the Heart puts it on the
table, it tells everyone who they are for the scene, and there are also
places to write free-from attributes (skills, offices, possessions,
relationships, backstory, etc) so that it's obvious who is in charge of
them.
Ritual phrases play a major part in Polaris. There's one to start the
game and one to end the game, but also several used in negotiation of
the narrative. The Mistaken or Heart will describe what happens and the
other can, by using the proper phrase, assent, impose a condition, tack
something on, refuse to accept the narration, ask for a die roll to
settle the matter, etc. (Some of these require tapping one of the
attributes, so can't be done often.)
Protagonists improve their two numeric stats when the Heart wins a
die roll, but when the Heart loses, they progress one step along the
track to inevitable cynicism, misery, and (if the Heart doesn't propose
the protagonist dying first) demonhood. Acts that everyone agrees are
heartless also move the protagonist along the track. This is not a game
in which you should get attached to your character!
I think it would be interesting to play Polaris at least once, but Ayse
and I are only two people, and I'm not sure who else would be up for it.
(Well, Earl and Carl, but they're scary.) It's a lot different than most
games we play around these parts.
* * *
Yay! KoL is back! And there's a little new content to poke at!
* * *
YAY MARITH! Marith has an offer letter for full-time regular
employment in the job she's been contracting in! She will make more
money than me! And get great Stanford benefits!
* * *
YAY AYSE! Ayse has been accepted to UCSF SFSU as a real
student! She will become terrifically brilliant!
* * *
Yay Sailor Moon! And hugs!
* * *
Writing: check.
Tud.
meer! by Ayse (Sat Oct 29 20:44:49 2005)
Not UCSF, which doesn't have many useful undergrad programs, but SFSU!
Now I must get back to my homework so that this can eventually become a reality & I can have even more homework!
Re: meer! by Trip (Sat Oct 29 22:04:19 2005)
I knew it had an SF in it!
Do not die from an excess of homework!
Make a comment!
27 October 2005 - Thursday
Today, there are even more annoying issues that drag on and on. Bah!
* * *
Wow. For the first time since I started doing this job (that is, not
counting the few days at the start when I didn't actually do anything),
I have not completely emptied both my queue and the incoming queue.
Stupid issues. Stupid computers.
* * *
Tonight, I watched the second disc of Madlax, which tries
to imply that it is all going to make sense, or at least come together. I
don't trust it, but on the other hand, Necronomicon!
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
26 October 2005 - Wednesday
I hate mysterious problems that drag on and on.
* * *
Apparently the cellular merger trick that brought us mitochondria and
chloroplasts isn't
that unusual...
* * *
No Dragonblooded, no Utena... time to lie in a slimy heap! And do
laundry.
* * *
Sniff, Kingdom of Loathing is all broken!
* * *
Three action-packed episodes of Bleach and four(!) recap
episodes of Wolf's Rain later, I fall over splut.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
25 October 2005 - Tuesday
Maybe three was the wrong number of Farscape episodes to
watch last night, because I have the Very Big Sleepies again.
* * *
Wow, I actually have a significant amount of work today. Probably it
would be less significant if I were better rested, of course.
* * *
And surprise extra work to keep me at work later, because stuff like
this never happens on days when I don't have stuff scheduled in the
evening. Bah.
But it did have to be done.
* * *
New webcomic stolen from Dave: Count Your
Sheep. I think I like the earlier strips better, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, sheep!
* * *
Fruits Basket, now with extra sign-waving onigiri!
Earth Maiden Arjuna slams on mass production! Full Metal
Alchemist I haven't already seen! Noir draws toward its
inevitable climax of doom!
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
24 October 2005 - Monday
Maybe I should have watched only one episode of Samurai 7
last night, because now I have the Very Large Sleepies (tm Kit).
Fortunately there is not much work to do this morning.
* * *
Jo Walton has
written a fine secular
humanist hymn. This is because she is a genius.
* * *
Blorg.
* * *
Tonight I watched three episodes of Farscape. The [MILD
SPOILER] device raises all sorts of ethical questions that were
completely unexplored, because this is TV.
Make a comment!
23 October 2005 - Sunday
HAPPY HAPPY AYSEDAY!!
* * *
The first phase of the Ayseday celebration was dim sum, which we
(meaning Ayse) haven't had in ages and ages. By some recommendation or
other, we (meaning Ayse, Ken, Earl, Cat, Marith, Dave, Carl, and me) ended
up at Bamboo Garden, in Sunnyvale, and
it worked out pretty well. There were carts, and pastry things with
barbecue pork in, and sesame balls, and no exorbitant bills!
Upon declaring ourselves stuffed, we repaired to Earl & Cat's for
light gaming and also chocolate-ginger cake (except Marith, who went
home and fell asleep. Hopefully soon she will have a job, so she will
have health insurance, so we can make her go to a doctor.)
Dave crushed us at Courtesans[sic] of Versailles,
although he probably didn't really mean to only read important rules
after it was too late to help us.
Munchkin Bites combined with Munchkin Fu and its expansion was
amusing, but perhaps not as good as a game with fewer cards might have
been. You can tell, because I won.
Cat's ginger-chocolate cake was pretty darn swell. More to the point,
Ayse liked it very much!
* * *
In between turns or games, I flipped through a couple of indie games
Carl had brought to lend to Earl,
Death's Door, and
The
Big Night.
Death's Door is one of those new high-concept indie games that reminds
me that there is actually no point in my pretending to be a gamer, never
mind trying to design games, so I'll just go hide under a bed for
the rest of my life.
The Big Night is an RPG for small kids which I want to make Al try on
his spawn or their friends, 'cause they aren't hiding under
their beds. Yet.
* * *
No additional fun occured during the evening, as Ayse must rest up
for school. Instead, I ate Fresh Choice while reading the first part of
The Last Guardian of Everness (John C Wright). Dreamlands
lore, woot!
Also there was a lot of KoL, because it's extra-Mysticality-gain
night. Sadly, this was much less productive than the Moxie-grubbing a
few nights ago.
* * *
I seem to be able to read all the DVDs of digisubs that Carl gave me
on spore, but there was a weird bit where the first 1-3 times I put in a
DVD-RW disc, spore's Superdrive recognized the format but thought it was
blank. Any Mac people seen this before?
* * *
Among the things Carl sent me was a preview disc of Samurai
7, with the first 2 episodes. It is strange, but possibly not as
strange as the first few scenes with freaky mecha and giant hovering
laser-scanning banditborg(?)s imply.
I think I will probably watch more of it.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
22 October 2005 - Saturday
Grocery shopping, coffeehouse with Marith, lying around in a heap,
the usual.
While at the coffeehouse, I read Night Train to Rigel
(Timothy Zahn), which was an okay SF action story, and solved a sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. It turns
out that sudoku is much like PictureLogic, but slightly more constrained. On this one, at
least, I didn't have to make any guesses, as I so often do in
PictureLogic. It was not all that exciting, though, so I probably won't
take it up as a hobby.
In fact, it would be more fun to write a program to solve sudokus
than to solve them myself. This makes me a freak, doesn't it?
* * *
Marith came over to watch stuff, but ended up just catching up on
Tuesday Night Anime she had missed while I splooted at KoL and writing
in the other room.
* * *
Stayed up only moderately too late watching episodes 24 & 25 of
Bleach. That's a crazed plan!
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
21 October 2005 - Friday
Yay Friday!
* * *
I finally made up the rest of the time for Monday, but now it turns
out that nViDiA scorns me. Oh well.
* * *
All the fun is being reserved for Sunday, so nothing exciting is
happening tonight. I watched Cool World, which I had never
seen before; it was okay.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
20 October 2005 - Thursday
Hey, look, it's an evening when I'm not scheduled to do anything!
For some reason I did not use this to make up the remaining time from
having cut out early to embarrass myself in front of nViDiA. Probably
the reason is that I'm a bozo. Oh well, there are plenty of days left in
the pay period.
* * *
Indeed, Ronald and Grimace do not have the same phase tonight, so I
do not feel compelled to scrounge madly for Moxie. As an added bonus, I
finally figured out the very simple trick to completing the Giant Castle
Map quest, so now I can collect constellations.
* * *
In between finishing the last disc of Wandaba Style
(which Greencine sent to me because I didn't change my mind fast
enough), I finished up It Must've Been Something I Ate
(Jeffrey Steingarten). It doesn't have as much ranting about diet fads
and food phobias as The Man Who Ate Everything, and the
recipes are brought back from less exotic places, so it was not as much
fun to read. I should not be surprised, since presumably the best of
Steingarten's articles were used for his first book.
The last chapter makes up for it all though. "Here! These recipes have
been published in cookbooks! I am publishing them again! There is no longer
any possible excuse for making bad chocolate chip cookies, tuiles,
or tart pastry, so stop it!"
* * *
Of the random comics I picked up yesterday, I like
Unearthly quite a bit. Not too surprising, since the writer
is Ted Naifeh, who did Courtney Crumrin, which I also like.
Shoujo manga in space!
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
19 October 2005 - Wednesday
Wow, no new tickets when I got in. Of course, there were several old
tickets from people who didn't understand how I had actually solved
their problem ealier, so it's not like I got to take a nap.
* * *
Lots of random new comics this week. I will report if any of them are
actually good.
* * *
Marith and That Other Chris didn't show up for Dragonblooded again.
This is sad, but becoming fairly predictable. Maybe we should eat their
brains.
The characters of people who did show up got to talk to old gods,
find a wrecked First Age airship, chase down (up) and board an elevator
full of hobgoblins, and get insulted by a faerie. Next session, the
Immaculate monk engages the faerie in ritual combat, and it'll be all
downhill from there.
* * *
This is also a +50% Moxie day, so I again stayed up too late pillaging
the Castle in the Clouds in the Sky for Moxiousness. I'm pretty sure
tomorrow the moons will not be in phase, though.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
18 October 2005 - Tuesday
This week, I wasn't late to my own anime gathering!
Earth Maiden Arjuna is supposed to be thought-provoking,
and it was, or at least discussion-provoking. Mostly what we thought was
things like "Food crops can't survive and maintain their tastiness without
human assistance" and "In what way is making food 10 times more expensive a
good thing?", but Dave was a pretty good Devil's advocate, and there was
certainly no love for Monsanto.
* * *
I seem to have spent my whole evening scrambling for adventures
(turns) in KoL to adventure in the Castle in the Clouds in the Sky,
because it's 50% Extra Moxie Gain day, and the big wheel is set to have
the random event be 250 moxiousness points! 375 points is about
1½ Moxie, and Moxie is my lowest stat, so how can I not take
advantage of this?
(That was a rhetorical question, because the obvious answer is "Go to
bed on time, you dork". But now I have much bigger piles of Moxie!)
* * *
Writing: check.
Playing Late by Dave (Thu Oct 20 10:26:08 2005)
You know, that sounds like something that should give a chutzpah boost, rather than a moxie boost.
Re: Playing Late by Trip (Thu Oct 20 11:04:18 2005)
It's complicated. The stat is called Moxie, but I think chutzpah is one of the terms applied to what are essentially experience points toward raising your moxie.
Re: Playing Late by Dave (Fri Oct 21 12:08:20 2005)
Well, that's okay, then.
Make a comment!
17 October 2005 - Monday
Even though it is Monday, I got up and went into work half an hour
earlier than my usual time. Aside from today's special schedule (see
below), I think this may be a good thing in general.
* * *
I scarpered from work early to traverse the maze of public transit (bus!
train! different bus!) to Santa Clara, where I interviewed/was interviewed
by Al's boss. I don't think Al will actually be fired for having
recommended me for interviewification. He might not even be asked to
resign.
Then I took a shortcut (in complexity, though probably not in time)
back through the maze to buy more blank DVD-Rs to store my collection of
ill-gotten digisubs on. Spore only has an 80GB disk, after all.
* * *
I seem to have spent my entire evening looking for pictures of Makoto
and Orihime (see yesterday's entry), and mostly failing except when I
conned Marith into doing it for me. I am disappointed in this Internet
which does not immediately and conveniently bring me the pictures of
red-headed anime babes that I desire!
Okay, that and finishing up the Scary Go Round archives.
Blorg.
* * *
Writing: check.
Internet Anime Babes by Dave (Wed Oct 19 09:43:55 2005)
I dunno. Google images seemed to find plenty of each of those two, with straightforward incantations. I couldn't come up with a way to specify "generic redheaded anime female", though.
Re: Internet Anime Babes by Trip (Wed Oct 19 12:02:39 2005)
But I wanted the right pictures!
Orihime Desires by Carl (Thu Oct 20 19:02:39 2005)
But couldn't you make your own Orihime snapshots from Bleach anime via some kind of Mac software? Which is not to say that checking Google first to fulfill any desire is not a laudable virtue. Go Go Google! (Which reported it's quarter today, yay them!)
Re: Orihime Desires by Trip (Thu Oct 20 19:13:29 2005)
Screencaps are usually pretty cheesy. I was hoping for a scan of a poster or trading card or something like that.
Make a comment!
16 October 2005 - Sunday
Today's not-getting-up reading: It Must Have Been Something I
ate, a subsequent book (I don't think you can say "sequel" for
non-fiction, but I might be wrong) by Jeffrey Steingarten, author of The
Man Who Ate Everything. So far, less travel and less mockery of
diet fads and nutritionists, but equally many recipes and just as much
description.
* * *
Marith, Air, and I went to see the new Wallace & Gromit movie. It was
very very silly. Maybe sillier than that. Gromit doesn't get nearly
enough appreciation.
* * *
Yay ratatouille of eggplant!
After the feeding frenzy quieted, we played some of that D&D stuff.
Jehanne, Alazaïs, and their entourage took delivery of their Items
of Twinkiness, returned to human "civilization", and set off to make one
last sweep of their assigned territory before winter shuts things down.
Unfortunately, in their absence, giant scary clever wolves have started
terrorizing the villagers, and must be dealt with. Also, the glade once
occupied by the evil nature spirit that was turning the people of
Thrushton into thrushes has acquired an aura of evil which sometimes
creeps outside the glade as a single concentrated Evil Entity. This must
be dealt with too, if it is separate.
Plus, Jehanne has a sweetie in Thruston, so Alazaïs is
sullen.
I need to figure out what Alazaïs's mithral chain shirt looks
like. After much searching, I found the cool elven chain picture in the
DMG3.5, but it's for full chain mail, not just a chain
suit. Plus, it's not chameleony.
Swapping Alazaïs's character design from
Sailor
Jupiter
to
Orihime (from Bleach) would be wrong.
Orihime isn't particularly tall or cool! But I think about it anyway.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
15 October 2005 - Saturday
Because I actually did work during the week, I can be useless on
Saturday with only a small amount of guilt!
Anyway, reading isn't useless! Well, not very useless. I stayed in
bed finishing The Big Over Easy (Jaspter Fforde), which was
very silly but had some good plot twists. I think mony should read
it.
Spent the afternoon playing nethack, watching Bleach, and
reading Scary Go Round, which
people have been recommending to me for ages, but I only just got around to
reading. The dialog reminds me a lot of Questionable Content, to the
point where I suspect a causal connection.
Ayse and Ken apparently returned safely from Santa Cruz, but remain
hidden in their monkeycat lair, so I went all by myself to Chef Chu's
and fed upon the food of the other side of the planet while reading
Woken Furies (Richard K Morgan). Aside from a short break
for Kingdom of Loathing, in fact, I kept reading Woken
Furies until I finished it, well past my bedtime.
Splut.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
14 October 2005 - Friday
Al has finally persuaded me that nViDiA does not practice human
sacrifice, so I suppose I will interview them.
* * *
New webcomics discovered recently, thanks to Dave:
- The Devil's Panties,
which has very little underwear and only occasional appearences by the
devil, may be semi-autobiographical, and reminds me of Questionable Content.
- Angel
Moxie, magical girls with brains!
A positive number of tentacles up.
* * *
Ayse and Ken have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning, which means Ken is
not so into the staying out until 3, which in turn means no Sailor
Moon. However, there is lying around floppily and watching Marith
demo I <heart> Katamari, which is also nice.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
13 October 2005 - Thursday
Fortunately the customer I failed most egregiously today wasn't
upset.
* * *
Bah. Having to pay bills sucks.
* * *
Suddenly, more Bleach appears! I must download it!
(Thanks, Chris!)
Of course, I've only watched up through 17, so it's not like I'm in a
hurry.
* * *
Huh, pizza. That worked okay, although it might have been better if
the circular bread thing and the mushrooms were fresher. Still,
mozerella and tomato glop cover a multitude of something.
This does not count as cooking.
* * *
Ah, the Oyster Eggs make yeti hunting even more profitable!
Whee!
* * *
Finally I have finished the disc of Bullshit!. The last two
episodes: apocalypse/survivalist bullshit, and second-hand smoke bullshit
plus baby Mozart bullshit. I hadn't realized the evidence for health risks
from second-hand smoke was so weak (this information subject to the usual
reliability penalty for having been on TV, even though Penn & Teller seem
to be pretty competent). When I conquer the world, I guess I'll just have
to use aesthetics as my excuse for making smokers wear plastic bags over
their heads.
* * *
Writing: check.
Bullshit! by eyelessgame (Mon Oct 17 11:21:16 2005)
There's always someone's ox being gored by reality.
They take on (I think) repressed memories too -- which are sacred cows to some people I know.
Secondhand smoke is another one. Given how evil tobacco companies are, and given how much it tears the human body apart to smoke, there is strong visceral desire to want secondhand smoke -- a product of those twin evils -- itself to be just as evil (especially since smoky air sucks the PMW, especially for allergy/asthma-prone folk), and that it may not be nearly so bad as tobacco companies themselves or as bad as smoking itself offends one's sense of the justice of the universe. Godwin's Bane should have been a child molestor, and all that.
But there's as much sensory offense, and thus aesthetic reason to prohibit it, as there is to prohibit public nudity or loud cursing, which should be good enough to keep it out of restaurants and other places normal humans go.
Re: Bullshit! by Trip (Mon Oct 17 11:56:27 2005)
"Repressed" "memories" "uncovered" by hypnotherapy got some mention in the alien abduction episode. It may get its own episode later, for all I know.
It did occur to me to wonder if second-hand smoke is such a small health risk because it's a negligible amount of additional crud compared to what people breathe anyway.
Recovery, not repression by eyelessgame (Wed Oct 19 17:12:08 2005)
I should emphasize that I was talking about, as Trip puts it, "'repressed' 'memories' 'uncovered' by hypnotherapy" and was in no way expressing skepticism that people can forget traumatic events -- sometimes specifically because they are traumatic -- and then remember them later.
Thank you! by Ayse (Wed Oct 19 17:24:39 2005)
Your clarity is definitely appreciated!
Make a comment!
12 October 2005 - Wednesday
All the Bleach that is available as digisubs (at least
from this one site) is now mine! Muahahaha!
* * *
No Dragonblooded and no Utena tonight, which is sad, but
on the other hand means I can stay at work late to make up for yesterday
and still get comics without exploding any evening plans. Parasitic
laziness powers... ENGAGE!
* * *
I seem to have spent most of the evening playing Kingdom of Loathing,
having been sucked in by the Oyster Egg Hunt. Oh well.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
11 October 2005 - Tuesday
I seem to have failed to alarm myself. Only an hour late to work, but
since I need to scarper expediently to clean up before people come over
for anime, this was not the correct day to spaz in that fashion. Bah.
* * *
Not only am I personally lame, but the VTA is conspiring to increase
my lameness by not sending a bus at the appointed hour! Thus, my
apartment remained smelly for anime, even though I took out the trash as
soon as I got home and let people in. Double bah.
* * *
I came across these writeups of gaming
with kids on
RPGnet, which were pretty interesting in themselves, but also spawned a
thread on mechanics for non-combat, and why all games have either no rules
or endless pages of rules for combat.
After considering non-combat conflicts, I think the reason game
designers tend to focus on combat is that it's a lot less complex! Even
bugs can engage in physical combat, but only higher mammals can even try to
use language or social constructs against their enemies. Physical combat is
also reasonably concrete (you're in position X on the map, you're wounded
this badly, etc) and, armchair Green Berets not withstanding, sufficiently
unfamiliar to most gamers that it can be glossed over with a relatively
simple set of rules. Finally, it doesn't dictate character choices,
something that many players are loathe to cede to mechanics.
I'm not sure what this means in terms of mechanics for social conflicts,
especially in light of the recent research showing that
people not only don't change their minds, they don't even realize that they
don't change their minds.
Maybe I'm just cynical after reading Pharyngula and The Panda's Thumb and seeing the
unbudgeability of creationists. The human aversion to admitting to having
been wrong and (on a lower level) to admitting the world is uncertain are
awfully powerful. In fact, that motivations can have multiple levels makes
modelling difficult.
* * *
After missing two weeks (one my fault, one not my fault), Tuesday
Night is once again Anime!
Sadly, rewatching Earth Maiden Arjuna is bringing more
factual errors to light, so that I am forced to respect it less and
less. Oh well. (Episode 3, where Chris/Cindy harsh on Juna for being a
failure as an organism for not knowing what to eat. Essentially all
mammals, and I suspect all vertebrates with any degree of parental care
after birth/hatching, learn what to eat and how to eat it from their
mother. Juna's mother taught her how to find food just fine-- in her
native environment, which is not the middle of nowhere.)
On the other tentacle, Noir has entered the Death
Spiral!
* * *
All the available episodes of Bleach (1-51) have
downloaded! The random special thing will be done by tomorrow morning!
* * *
Writing: check.
"Choice blindness" by Dave (Thu Oct 13 08:53:35 2005)
I think this would be more accurately characterized as people not noticing scene changes, linked to the fact that people are rationalizing, rather than rational, creatures.
A better study might look at, say, giving people different groceries than they ask for, and seeing what they think when they get home and unpack their bags.
Re: "Choice blindness" by Trip (Thu Oct 13 11:24:35 2005)
On the other tentacle, this study used human faces, which you'd think humans would be good at dealing with.
Re: "Choice blindness" by Dave (Thu Oct 13 14:30:04 2005)
Recognition is very different from memory. Visual memory has this very obvious optimization - it's okay to forget anything you happen to be looking at, because you can just look at it again to refresh your memory. In one study, people had trouble noticing major scene changes, like if a picture of sky had a plane in it. And, dealing with people, if you briefly distracted someone and replaced the stranger they were talking to with another stranger, most people didn't notice.
Make a comment!
10 October 2005 - Monday
HAPPY HAPPY MARITHDAY!!!
* * *
Sadly, the tickets I left when I went home on Friday have not
mysteriously vanished.
* * *
I seethe with hatred and rage at the Wells Fargo on El Camino near
San Antonio! How can they be lame enough to not have any
ATM deposit envelopes?
Stupid, stupid bank creatures.
* * *
I successfully gave Marith a birthday present, ha hah!
* * *
Tonight, more Bullshit!. This time, alternative
"medicine" (specifically reflexology, magnet therapy, and the
chiropracters who claim everything can be cured by cracking your back),
and alien abductions. Again in both cases they harsh on the con artists
who take advantage of people are sick and broken for a buck, not on the
sick/broken people.
The alternative "medicine" episode had some pretty funny episodes
with a fake doctor in a mall persuading people to wear the most
ridiculous things in the name of magnet therapy (using demagnetized
magnets, of course), chiropracty, or snail facials. Of course the
victims went on and on about how much better they felt/looked, because
humans are more social than intelligent.
* * *
Writing: check.
writing by kit (Tue Oct 11 17:14:53 2005)
It makes me smile to see your writing: check! every day!
Re: writing by Trip (Tue Oct 11 17:35:08 2005)
Yay! Smiling Kits are the best kind!
Make a comment!
9 October 2005 - Sunday
I finished reading Peeps (Scott Westerfeld) this morning.
It was overall pretty good -- I mean, teenage vampires ×
Parasite Rex! -- but the ending did seem a little sudden.
* * *
Jeremy wimped out on us, so we played Red Room at Earl's, but because
Adam and I both brought battle maps, Earl found his, so we were not
reduced to using a tape measure and a coffee table for tactical combat.
We modern gamers are so spoiled.
In this session, Our Evil Government Agents Heroes
invaded Hungary, suborned someone who thinks the disembodied brains of
the Hungarian Freedom Fighters have lost their moral compass, learned
about the secret cabal of disembodied brains who plan to rule the world
forever from their Secret Brain Pyramid in Salt Lake City, and beat the
snot out of Cuban Liberation mutants, thus exposing the disembodied
brains they work for to attack, as part of the plan to push the brain
cabal into fleeing to the facility in Hungary.
Next session will be the assault on the hospital where the Cuban
Liberation Brains have their lair, and the one after that will be Salt
Lake City (unless the PCs learn something in Miami that sends them
haring off in a completely different direction).
Perhaps after that, Space Pirate Zeta!
* * *
Whee, laundry. Whee, grocery shopping.
* * *
No anime tonight, but the first episode of Penn & Teller's
Bullshit!. In this one, they harsh on mediums. I knew all this
stuff (in general, not specific scumbags), but the harshing was so very
very deserved. I think the swearing was justified, too, since there aren't
many non-swear words that properly express what slimeballs these con
artists are.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
8 October 2005 - Saturday
I stayed up too late reading Cowl (Neal Asher), which
was a pretty good time-travel book, although kind of over-the-top in
some places.
I also forgot to set my alarm, which lead to my not making it to
Marith's by noon, but apparently no one else did either, so it was all
okay.
Once everyone was there, we cleaned Marith's apartment! That is what
she said she wanted to for her birthday, so that's what we gave her! I
mostly carried stuff around, and assembled Ikea furniture, Ken mostly
scrubbed, and Ayse sorted and directed.
* * *
Victory!
We didn't do anything to the bedroom, but the kitchen, livingroom,
and bathroom are all cleaned up and cleaned out! The floors are mopped
and vacuumed! Many bags of trash have been carted away!
* * *
It's a good thing our reservation at Le Petit Bistro were the earliest
possible, or we would have missed out on some things! For appetizers, we
had crab tartalettes, escargot, something involving abalone and scallop
combined into flat fried things, and French onion soup. I think I must
conclude that escargot is just not exciting, but the crab tartalettes were
good, and apparently ran out while we were still there.
Marith and Ayse had chicken in some kind of red wine sauce, and Ken
had sole, but my duck with orangeness was clearly the best, even if you
omit the pear poached in red wine and spices. Swooning now.
I had tarte tatin ("carmelized apple pie") for dessert, even if I
shouldn't have, and it was so worth it. Ken had crepes with strawberries
and peaches, and Marith and Ayse had mousse-free (and also moose-free)
chocolate mousse. It is rare to see Marith defeated by chocolate dessert,
but this was enough chocolate to do it. More swooning now.
On the way home, Ayse and I talked about this very paragraph that you
are now reading.
* * *
Wandaba Style gets the [INSUFFICIENTLY INTERESTING]
stamp.
* * *
Writing: check.
best birthday ever! by marith (Sat Oct 8 23:16:18 2005)
In large part thanks to the best brother ever!
Re: best birthday ever! by Trip (Mon Oct 10 10:42:08 2005)
Pish tosh! Just a parasite!
Make a comment!
7 October 2005 - Friday
Yay Friday!
* * *
Upon reaching home, I joined up with Marith and we zoomed through the
traffic to downtown Palo Alto, to watch Mirrormask with
Carl (who has seen it several times now) and Ayse and Ken (who hadn't
seen it). It is still good! I even noticed a couple of things that I
hadn't before.
Ayse and Ken also thought it was swell, so we were smug and repaired
to The Prolific Oven to consume warm beverages and discuss cinema.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
6 October 2005 - Thursday
Helped some customers. Disappointed some customers. Pretty standard
for a day in support.
* * *
In a failure of laziness, I put some stuff in a pan and heated it. In
a failure of cuisine, it's only so-so, even though I put Trader Joe's
red curry Thai sauce. Maybe I am feeling extra-inadequate from reading
The Man Who Ate Everything (Jeffrey Steingarten), which is
about a food writer who goes to so many places and eats so many things
and describes them in so much detail and brings back so many recipes.
* * *
Tonight's anime: Witch Nurse Komugi, post-modern magical
girl something. I think it may be in the same genre as Magical
Project S.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
5 October 2005 - Wednesday
One of my cow orkers sat on the phone with yesterday's customer and
determined that yes, their firewall is misconfigured, just like I told
them Monday. And yesterday. And this morning.
Bah.
* * *
Not much in the way of comics this week.
* * *
Today's webcomic discovery: Questionable
Content.
Well, I like it.
* * *
This week in Ken's Dragonblooded game: the conclusion of the fight with
the phasing crocodile mutants and their semi-sapient leader, Viraine
reveals his plasma blaster, tracks of the fabled twenty-foot leech are
found, a member of the other Realm group is discovered severely out of
bounds (but not punished at this juncture), and the First Age
planetarium/ultimate destiny prognostication engine is finally reached!
Sadly, it will be a multi-year (at best) task to repair the
prognostication engine, but if it works...
* * *
I meant to watch anime or something, but mostly I flopped around
playing KoL (badly) until it was time to crawl off to my
parasite-nest.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
4 October 2005 - Tuesday
I really want to tell this customer that his problem is that he has
no one in his organization who is even remotely qualified to configure
or troubleshoot a network. But that would not be professional, or so I
am told.
* * *
Neil and Marith have both blown off Tuesday Night Anime, so there
will be no anime this week. You know who to blame.
* * *
Lethargic parasite. But I did some writing, and a little KoL, before
flopping in front of the TV to watch Midori Days.
Weird.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
3 October 2005 - Monday
As so often seems to happen, I was lazy for an extra half hour this
morning. On the other hand, nothing important happens on Mondays, so no
one is discommoded if I stay half an hour later at work.
* * *
I guess Ben must have done all the tickets while he was working unpaid
overtime from home this weekend, because there sure aren't many in the
queue.
Lethargy powers: activate!
* * *
Apparently Ayse, Christy, and I are the only three people in the
entire world who don't think that Serenity was the best
thing since sliced megatherium.
* * *
Walking home from the drug store should have made me more
awake, but actually I feel kind of blearghy and will just finish this
disc of Tokyo Underground and fall over.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
2 October 2005 - Sunday
HAPPY HAPPY LIRALENDAY!!!
* * *
Ayse and I went out to run errands and discuss Amber×Utena and
narrativism and gaming theory in general, and were successful on all
counts. Go us!
I also gave her a disc of Bleach 1-25 to give to Carl,
since they lunch together pretty regularly.
* * *
I went to the coffeehouse with Marith and started reading The
Man Who Ate Everything (Jeffrey Steingarten), an entertaining
book about food and the evils of diet fads.
* * *
Since last fortnight was the Liralenvisit, this is the first
Adventures of Jehanne & Alazaïs in a month. Fortunately we were at
a good breakpoint anyway.
This session: Our Heroines and their entourage travel to the great
dwarf city to dispose of the lich-bits and swap their collection
of ancient dwarven war-axes for more useful ph4t l3wts.
Dwarves are scary, and there are lots of them. And their cities are
unnaturally clean. On the other hand, they make really cool stuff, and
seemed glad to have their lich-bits and their axes back.
In fact, they were so pleased that each of the PCs got to request an
item from the Dwarf King's Smith, and that dragged gaming to a halt for
two hours while we tried to decide what to write on our cartes blanc.
(Okay, they weren't entirely blank: Illustrious GM Ken imposed a limit
of 20k value on any one item, but he relaxed the rules on multifunction
items to a flat +1k for each additional function.)
Eventually, Alazaïs ended up with a +3 mithral shirt that
gives +7 to Hide and Move Silently, spider climb, and stores an
item like gloves of storing. Father William got a gem that gives
him continuous detect magic and lets him spend a round
scrutinizing someone to get a reading of their spell-casting power. Tobias
has a sword which lets him counterspell as a free action once per round
instead of having to hold his action, and may have other abilities as well;
I'm not sure. Jehanne has a magic book that gives her +4 to her bardic lore
roll and +2 Int, which seems kind of underpowered to me, but of course
there is no guidance in the book for pricing bonuses to class abilities.
Fantasy Hero really is our friend and we should give it more attention.
* * *
Downloading more Bleach goes well. However, instead of
watching Bleach, I watched some Tokyo
Underground, which is sadly becoming less interesting the longer it
goes on.
* * *
Oh, crap, did I do any writing today? I think I just thought about
it. :(
Writing: FAILURE.
The book! by Ayse (Mon Oct 3 12:09:00 2005)
I thought it gave me a +2 int _bonus_ on a bunch of stuff, which means a +4 actual int? I will ask Illustrious GM Ken. Of course maybe that's still underpowered, but having an 18 effective int when doing all the intly things I actually care about seems happy.
Re: The book! by Trip (Mon Oct 3 12:46:45 2005)
Oh, maybe that was it. I thought it was a straight +4 for bardic knowledge, but maybe he changed his mind. You should definitely ask him!
Father William's l4wt by Dave (Mon Oct 3 13:32:00 2005)
Actually, he got it without the scrutinize, with +10 on spellcraft rolls related to the detect, and it also functions as a bead of karma for followers of the candleflame.
The book by Ken (Sun Oct 9 11:04:38 2005)
It's +4 Bardic Knowledge, +2 on all int based skills. I'm currently debating about throwing on the powers of one of the rods of metamagic, no charge.
Re: The book by Trip (Sun Oct 9 18:12:12 2005)
Read your email! +4 to bardic knowledge rolls isn't worth all that much. +4 Int is, admittedly, although I don't know that +2 to Int-based skills is. On the other hand, doesn't require a slot...
Re: The book by Dave (Mon Oct 10 09:06:30 2005)
Actually, it probably does, since I bet you need to have it open to use it, and that usually takes a hand that could otherwise be holding a weapon or shield. Or, I suppose, you could make it head-mounted, but that would probably take the helmet or necklace slot for the supporting struts.
Re: The book by Trip (Mon Oct 10 09:35:11 2005)
You're probably right. Anyway, under the new regime, not needing a slot would only be +1k to the cost, which is pretty minor.
Make a comment!
1 October 2005 - Saturday
I stayed in bed reading manga all morning, but none of it really
deserves mention.
* * *
Marith and I went to see Mirrormask, and it rocked!
A few days ago, someone on LiveJournal was complaining that a lot of
modern fantasy suffers from over-explanation, as though the author is
trying to reassure the reader that she isn't just making stuff up.
Mirrormask does not have this problem. It starts out
with eccentric Dave McKean visuals, and then takes a sharp left turn
through the fourth dimension into phantasmagoria. Describing it would be
just as much of a spoiler as outlining the plot, so I won't, except to
say that it really is Dave McKean's art in three dimensions.
It is a very very fine movie. Go see it now!
Carl was there, as expected, but we did not expect Ambar, her boy
(Richard?), Angie, Ellie, Jim, Chrisber, Christy, and Gretchen to be
there too! There was no talking during the movie, though, because we
were too busy staring at the screen in amazement.
After the movie, all of us except Ambar and her boy scuttled across the
street to Jing Jing, where we ate dan dan mein and some other stuff and
caught up on recent events or at least glibbered madly.
Angie gave me a Parasite Pals poster, to go with my plush tapeworm. I
guess that's good...
I usually prefer hair to be either pretty short or pretty long, but
aparently this isn't a firm rule, because Gretchen's hair is just past
shoulder-length, and it looks amazing.
* * *
Now I am home and doing laundry and bibbling.
* * *
I had vague intentions of watching anime this evening, but instead I
stayed up playing KoL and talking to Ayse about Amber×Utena until
it was time to fall over kersplut.
* * *
Writing: check.
Make a comment!
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