Brain-dead Super Rant

So, last night I spent the whole evening with some friends doing several of our RPG campaigns. First there was The Dragon Blood one. Basically, since the last installment online here, we lost our home town, been getting slowly stronger, and finally, we just had our mentor and only real protection in this game die before our very eyes. ( Well, My character didn't, but that's his own fault). In any case, This point has the world starting to hit the proverbial fan. (With included proverbial poop). We are now fleeing southwards with no immediate goals towards finding our lost party member, Though our mentor kinda got better. At least he didn't actually die. Thanks to the healy member of the group.

Moving on. After some o the group had to leave for school the next day, The rest of us moved on to another RPG, Namly Dungeons and Dragons. With a simple hack and slash combat going on, we spent a while making sure we had some fun time to burn down. This game really ended this morning, about a half hour into mindnight.

Which brings me to the brain-dead par of this thingy: Either my face or my brain feels like swiss cheese, I cannot tell which. Luckily, work is kinda slow today so I don't have to worry about much at once. As glas as I am on having friends who enjoy my intrests as much as I do, 5 hours of sleep seems to be mostly grating on me anymore. This whole morning has been spent in zombie vision. I can qualify this as a rant for the simple fact of how I keep draging this thing on with no direction or point. oh, hey. I'm done now. Time to go off to find brains, I mean Mt. Dew.

Serves me right!

Here I am. I just had the most awesome Idea for writing an RGP. System, Universe, everything.

All I need now is free time.

Blasted free time.

I blame the Androids

I'm sitting here at work, thinking of how I want to start this off. My friend gave me a good idea with which I will follow. If only I had a freaken idea to start on.

The idea is a 30 minute story. I think I can do that. I will just have to start tommarow. See, the whole idea and everything comes from within that 30 minute period.

Oh well, Tommarow expect a great short story. Or some other sort of hack writing I'm much more likley to be doing.

Either Way good times.

Dragons Blood part Duex!

So, Were well past the first session, and I haven't even covered anything. Time for recap:

The first session had five students and their teacher trekking out from Cromana (home town) to The Bronze Dragon ancestral home. Their was Ryall (myself), A blue blooded assassin in training ( Our close friend), A bronze Blooded School bully ( Pyros), and a white blooded doctor apprentice of unclear goals, Arrith. Also in the party are Nina, an NPC who is a young girl with no magical abilities (very rare); and Drakean, our NPC teacher who was carrying the purpose of our trip. He found a dragon egg in the sand, dragon eggs are almost never found outside their home. We thought it was a Bronze egg based on their close proximity and we left to return it.

After entering and meeting the ruling dragon (dragon eggs being presented are that rare), the dragons explained that they could tell it was a black egg. They can detect colour from eggs by smell apparently. The bronze dragons being very honourable and respectful of life, also took the time to berate Pryos for his rough ways. The boy promised to be a better person. After that the group left back for town and the next day, the group left for Zwarna, Home of the black dragons.

On the way to the first stopping point, we came across a man named Geb, and his caravan of traders. They were holding a green dragon in a cage and tourturing it. After a quick and relativly painless fight, The group slaughtered the caravan, and released the Dragon. He was young by dragon standards, and his nick name was "Capie." After healing him, we agreed to escort him home, then started conversation, eventually comming to the Seekers. They are a zealous religion focused mainly on dragon worship. Their big concern is finding the creator of the world (a dragon), because this dragon has sealed itself inside a child with no magic. The are currently after Nina, who is quite magicless. Arrith came to a disagrement with Capie, and the dragon flew off, to get away from him.

Then we arived in Falsten's Reach. The city created and controled by the Seekers. It was the only way to Zwarna.

More Later, as I find time.

So be it, Jedi...

This whole getting ready for school thing is beating me senseless. Oh well, I have tons to do already. All I can say, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (or WAR, clever huh?) is way mroe fun and addicting than World of Warcraft (or WOW) ever was. Doesn't help that I've been a GW nut for longer than I can remember (thats a lie, I was in 6th grade). In anycase now I get to play with all the fun things of my childhood and current.

My current favorite character, likley my future main:

Griftoof Da Ribcrusha.

He is one total Badass Black Orc. He has a huge story of background in the Sci-Fi Version of the game. In anycase, If you see him on Iron Rock. Say Hello. Maybe next time I can get a lighter pic.

Nodwick, Ncsoft, and Worlds.com?

The above link was sent to me from keeping up with Nodwick . Go on read it. Also, read Nodwick too.

Good.

In any case, The article above talks about NCsoft being sued for patent infringement by a company called worlds.com. Ncsoft makes multiple online games like City of Heroes, GuildWars, and Lineage. Worlds.com makes a small online 3d interactive browser. Kind of like Second Life. This looks bad since the Worlds.com patent 6,731,314 is described as:

A client computer program provides instructions for a processor to locate and retrieve rich media and HTML files over a network, such as the internet, an internet or an LAN, for running in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical user interface. The program provides instructions for the processor to generate a 3D graphical user interface on a display. Then, the processor generates a metaphorical user object for navigating and interacting in the three dimensions within the environment via navigational and interactional inputs, respectively, from a user. The processor also integrates an HTML object into the environment, and interacts the user object with the HTML object in response to an interactional input from the user.

So, Worlds is looking for roylties to boot. What would any self-respecting geek do about that? Look in the patent for loopholes. thats one thing!

Worlds.com patent is all about making a 3d mmo equivalent of the Internet. Your "avatar" (not their word) would walk around these worlds, and be able to look at sponsors websites. Which would be 3d structures with rooms. See this:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to a computer program and system for providing a three-dimensional browser for a shared network environment, and particularly to a network-based platform which incorporates integrated markup language and rich media for multi-user interactivity, browsing and e-commerce.

Notice the last 3 terms. Not anywhere in the field of use, or scope, of the invention does this mention itself as a game. This legaliesse seems more like describing an internet browser like Firefox or IE, than anything resembling a game. I suppose I could also decribe an online casino with this set-up. But what about dates? The patent was filled August 16, 1999 and approved on May 4, 2004. That's right, its been here for 4 years and they haven't done anything wit hit yet!

One last point. City of Hero's: out in April of '04. Linneage, out in '98. So, your patent comes out after other products that use it have been on the market for a year? Are you high?

So this is a call to all the nerds out there: lets get worlds.com boycotted for this nonsense. Online games don't need this.

Darths and Droids

If you like eith RPG's or Starwars, Go follow the link on the title.

Its worth it to note that this will give you a much better look into both RPG writing, and how many of the important plot points came up in Starwars! 

Christmas: In Retro-spec

So, Christmas time has come and gone. I' have received many presents and I feel the need to chronicle them and my thoughts on them.

• I got some clothes: Not really a clothes person. They are nice, but eh. not my thing.
• Gokusen (badly spelling mangled): Great anime. I recommended to everyone!
• Death Note: Another Good one, Although I only enjoy the 1st half.
• Lost Season 1: A great show! Yea. Not my favorite season, but its good.
• Spore + parts pack: Now I too can mad scientist up my own creatures!
• Fallout 3: Now roaming the wasteland with guns!
• New Phone! It Rocks Socks!
• Idiocracy! Watch This Movie! Now!
• Books 1 - 11 of Wheel of time...  Thats allot of words.

And their is christmas in a nutshell...

of info!

Dragon's Blood

So, tonight we start a new RPG setting with the BESM (Tri-stat) rules. My wife is GMing it and has been writing this setting for most of a month now... It looks good. I figure I can spend some time going over what I know about it, My character and even chronicle what happens in the game. Lets start with the setting.

The planet/continent is named Orotan, and is a single land mass with a massive interconnected water system with a mountain range on the southern side. The home village starts near the west side. The prominent thing about this setting are the dragons. They are Color Coded by abilities and by physical characteristics. The Nearest neighbors to the village (which I cannot remember the name of) are brown dragons, which have primarily physical enchantments. Think magically induced body building. Anyway, while many of the dragons are coded "normally" (white heals, black is toxins and disease) , several are different. In any case, Magic is passed down through to the "lesser" races by interbreeding the dragons with other races. That happened generally hundreds to thousands of years ago and so the majority (99.5-99.75%) of people ( and PC's) have magic simply by having a dragon in the family at some point in the past.

The PC's are all children in the village. And will likely need to leave for one reason or another. First session is tonight, and everyone will have a character by then.

Mine: Ryall

He is a 12 year old boy who suffers from asthma who studies blue magic. He is unaware of having black dragon blood in his history, He thinks he came from the blue dragons. Both colors are pretty well what you would expect. he is proud of his "heritage" and seeks more mastery of the blue element. I'm hoping for him to have massive psychological trauma when he finds out his true nature. We will see. His main attack spell are summoned water elementals that can self destruct, they aren't happy. He still needs more background and more motivation. but there he is.

Next Dragon's Blood: The first session and the introduction of the other PCs.

It's a Holiday Bonanza!

Its Holiday time, And here's whats up!

This week are final preparations for Di and I to get a new RP setting off the ground. She's running it, and I'm just doing the PC thing. We have a party of three right now and it seems to be the perfect size. My character is magical (dragon-blooded, in the setting), and hopefully won't go crazy or anything. Of course, it doesn't help I'm setting him up for failing. Oh, and it is a BESM 2.0 Tri-stat rules grounding, so it should ground out fine. On an (un)related note, I need to get a hold of Chadd again. Punk keeps having to work when I'm not and vice-versa.

We are going to start a new holiday tradition... (mind the oxymoron), Watching 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martins.' As presented by MST3K. Sadly, that title is accurate.

This week is "get ready for the office party at work" week. I get to spend my time being office Goomba (read that: bitch) to get all the supplies. Which really isn't any different from any other day I suppose... Moving on before I realize my job description.

World of Warcraft "Winter's Veil" event is on. Yay! Its more work than I care to put into it for the title, since I have the ambassador title. So, we will se how much I do on it... Still its good to see that the online world is not a static place.

More haikus soon. I promise. No Promise is guarantied or implied. Please call your doctor for promises lasting more than 4 hours. Do not take promise unless advised by a doctor. This gag would be funnier if I could get the text smaller.

Testing Post!!!!?

I want to find out if this post gets moved around the internet enough to make it scary!

Lets wait and see...

Twitter!

So, I am twitting now. I am not sure where it gets to go on what I do here, Namly Randomness. I approve so far anyway. Now, to get up to speed.

• I Voted. Yay! I was going to spam lecture about it, but that is not important any more. since it was a while ago. Thats all on that for a while I think.
• We are getting the house clean like no buddies buisness. I think it's way past due.
• Di is putting an epic BESM RPG together for us to run. It should be most awesome.
• This Bullet intentionally left blank.

Lets see what happens now...

Huh?

I find it odd that I am crafting elaborate song/dance numbers for any given location I'm in.

Example(crossing a street):

Burst out the door, run to the street!

Go into a tight spin while checking for on coming traffic.

Do repeated back flips across street.
All of this is done in sync with whatever song I'm thinking of....

I have no idea what this means either...

Super-Mount and such

Ive been practicing my tanking on the headless horseman's event in WOW right now. As of this writing, the group has farmed him 17 times. We have had all of the rings drop for everyone. We have had magic brooms drop for everyone. twice. We got one pet (the sinister squashling) and 2 hats. One of the horseman's Mount has dropped. It looks like at these rates we will have 12 more days of the event. Which makes it a total of 48 more kills on the horseman. If my math works and the rate We have seen so far remains true:

Both the Squashling and the mount will drop 2.8 more times.
So one or none of us will not have it.
The hat has a doubled that: it will drop 5.6 more times.
We should all get that one.

I would hope that all four of us get:
The Mount
The Pet
The Hat

Everyone has everything else that they can possibly use. So all that is left are those... If my maths right and the drop rates are as I written them down.

I doubt I will get a horse /cry

Supermajority???

So, My boss linked the above opinion article, for all his workers to read. It relates all of the various things a democratic majority government (aside from Supreme Court) will try (and likely accomplish) to pass. I can find the party affiliation of the writer within 2 sentences, 4 at most. Lets look at all these issues, and see if any problems can be found.

Medicare of all - The rest of the world handles this without destroying their economy or their citizens. Why can't the US do that also?
Regulate everything! (The Business climate) - Claiming that regulating industries will slow the economy is kinda silly. Deregulation has led directly to both the Enron collapse and the Wallstreet face-plant.

Union Supremacy - This is a bad idea, agreed. Here in Colorado, however, that has to be voted in by a majority of voters. In any case, people can still write to their senators (regardless of party) and demand that they don't support bill "x." Just because the opposite parties politicians are in office doesn't mean they can't be written to. Write a letter, make a difference.

Taxes - Okay, more taxes. The governments income has to come from somewhere, and taxing the mid-to lowest section of the population is the akin to being anti-Robin Hood. Take from the poor, and leave the rich alone. Not a perfect analogy, But it points out the absurdity of the "trickle down" theory. When the economy needs money, the rich keep their money in savings like everyone else. Taking less from them so they can save more does not make sense. I propose a new idea: Upwelling. It's not about standing under a tree and getting one or two drops of extra, its about the level rising from the base.

Green revolution - Is it really so bad that we try to keep the planet livable for us and future generations? I think so.

Free Speech and Voter Rights - You would deny the District of Columbia the right to vote at congress? They would get one vote in the House at most, plus two more in the senate. You would keep general people from the vote on the day of the election if they still needed to register? You keep people from voting! If the population does not get a vote, then the country is not a democracy. Period. The End.
Special Interest Potpourri - This happened in the last 8 years plenty, so its no a democrat only thing. Also, No Child Left Behind was a failure. I was in my last years of high school when that program started, and it was already called "No Child Gets Ahead" by students. Better we have our education system watered down, and overhauled entirely than have it stay as it is.

The final thought: You have had 8 years with your party in charge of the government to get these things set up right. They failed pretty badly in my eyes. Looks like its another's turn now.

Fantastic Contraptions!

I've been spending some of my lunch time build these gizmos instead of doing my homework. Shame on me. Still, this is a pretty fun game! Woo!

Walkies!

Conve-o-Tank!

Saturn V!

Tank-a-Mat!

Mole-a-mat!

Dispose-a-Mat!

Odd!

Pull-a-Mat!
>I didn't do this one, But man do I wish I had!

Awesome!


edit: I think I am going to make this post an exhaustive list of my contraptions, though I will add new ones in their own post when I want to show them off.

Warcraft time - The Great Tank Debate!*

So, Ive respeced to feral, specifically Dire Bear, when the new patch came out. Since I am planning on doing this throughout the leveling stages of Wrath, now was my first opportunity to try out how druids tank, and to a lesser extent, how tank has changed all of a sudden. One big talent change for bears is how they gain rage. They still gain rage as normal, however they also gain rage by dodging. So it works out to if you hit me, I get angry and smack you. If you try to hit me I also get angry and smack you anyway. It really lets druids tank things with a greater disregard for others gear level.

My friends and I were doing a 3-man instance in ramparts, one of the easier instances. The healer was Tier 6 and the DPS was halfway between tiers 5 and 6 as far as gear goes. My tanking gear is mostly blue quality, with some greens. In Burning Crusade, If I had attempted to tank this same instance with the same group,we would have lost people, wiped out, and generally taken allot of repair bill damage - to our banks. It would not matter how good or bad I am, The difference in gear level is high enough that there is way for me to hold threat from those two. In wrath, or at least the in game patch to ready the game for the expansion. I was holding aggro. From a Warlock and a Shaman healer, both at black temple raids in gear level. My gear level for feral is still early Karazhan. Some might say, well that's their job to let you hold aggro.

Not this warlock. His personal victory is being second highest on the threat meters. And stealing aggro from tanks. I have play DPS throughout most of my Burning Crusade experience, and let me say this: DPS's are not supposed to be doing this. So all you clothie DPS out there: Aggro equals bad, really bad, worse than anything else that could happen. Its a DPS'ers responsibility to keep their aggro under the tanks. When the tank is under geared, you need to lower your DPS itself to follow that, but it is rule #1. Period. The End. and for recap.

DPS Rules:

1. Don't grab aggro from tanks.
2. Don't grab aggro from tanks.

There are more but that is for another time. Suffice to say, I still kept aggro from the Aggro lovin' 'lock and I am amazed at the AOE tanking that Druids get now. Which I hear everyone gets now. Which makes me think that the tanks will be hit by wave after wave of lots of elites in the next patch. Give all classes more opportunity for CC, give all tanks the ability to AOE tank.

I smell being outnumbered 10 to one in wrath. And I'm still excited... Somehow?

*Greatness neither required nor guaranteed. Debating also not promised at this time. Tanking not necessarily mentioned.

All Hail Darwin!

So I was surfing around the internebs, and I found the above article...

I can't quite express how funny this article is. The idea of reversing normal roles and sides of an issue, with the evolutionists at the "this looks like a person stain" and the Religious folks at "its just a stain!" I think this shows the absurdity of both sides. Its not that it is a stain or not, its that people are fighting over a stain, or a sandwich, or what have you.

I just think that if I had a stain of some sort that looked like Darwin or Jesus in my bathroom... I would just think they were stalking me anyway. So there! (insert emoticon sticking out tongue here)

Epic Flyign Mounts!

So on wow, Di, KC and I are all trying to get our epic flying mounts before the expansion hits. We have until November 13th to get it done, and we are hoping it will be sooner than that. First we set up a joint bank for all of us to use. Next, we threw all of our money together to see how much we had as a group. Now, we have enough for Di's mount. She has it and loves it. And we are half-way towards getting Kacey's. Last is mine, by my own suggestion. We need right now about 7000 Gold pieces to get the last of them. So we should have Kacey's by the end of next week and Mine hopefully before Halloween. It looks like the people who have already gotten theirs are acquiring gold faster than the others already. It might not even take that long

I can hope. - Oh and one last Haiku:

For five thousand gold,
I would get an epic flight form.
This is expensive.

Lizards

I think its pretty awesome t osee my lizards exuviate its skin.

Yay! New words that sound awesome!