Arrr.

I never did stop loving this game, you know. I just could never get anyone to even glance at it besides my wife, who tried it for about three days and quit. Not her fault, of course. Just not her cup of tea. The Age of Sail holds a certain romance to me, something I cannot get in any other game I've played thus far. I've often thought of it, that being my retirement: Buy a boat and just sail around.

Actually, Jessica pointed out something key. My brother Christopher played this game too. He must have liked it; he went and joined the Navy. o.o

Anyway, I'm a pirate again. They made some changes to the game I just had to see for myself.

From Randi - A Christmas Meme

Welcome to the CHRISTMAS edition of getting to know your friends . Okay, here's what you're supposed to do, and try not to be a SCROOGE!!! Just copy (not forward) this entire email and paste into a new e-mail (blog post) that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, remember to sent it back to the person who sent it to you! ......Tis the Season to give

1. Wrapping Paper or Gift Bags?
Wrapping Paper, easy. Gift bags are a last resort in all cases. Nothing quite like ripping paper off a gift on Christmas.

2. Real Tree or Artificial?
Artificial, unfortunately. A real tree is always preferable and, believe it or not, safer in your home. However, apartment complex demands using only fake trees, so this is what we do.

3. When do your put up your tree?
It depends on the number of cats we have. We have a new kitten in the home recently and he is unusually destructive for one of his species. Putting the tree up early is what we would normally do, but I have a feeling doing that this year would just invite our coming home to find it on the ground every day.

4. When do you take down your tree?
Usually wait until after New Years, but again, hell cat in the house right now.

5. Do you like/drink eggnog?
I've tried it one time in my life. That was enough.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Oh, easy. The Sword of Omens. It lit up!

7. Hardest person to buy a gift for?
Pretty much everyone, believe it or not. I'm horrible with gifts. Just ask the wife.

8. Easiest person to buy a gift for?
See above, only inverse.

9. Do you own or display a nativity scene?
At the moment no. I always looked forward to my parents assembling theirs when I was a child, though.

10. Do you US Mail or E-Mail Christmas Cards?
We don't usually do Christmas Cards. Nothing against them, we just never have.

11. Worst gift you have ever received?
I think my mother actually had the temerity to gift me with a Green Power Ranger one year... I cannot be sure, it was a long time ago. I remember it though.

12. Favorite Holiday Movie?
A Christmas Story

13. When do you start Holiday Shopping?
Must admit, this usually happens maybe a day or two before anyone is scheduled to get anything. I start forming *ideas* around Thanksgiving, though.

14. Have you ever re-gifted a gift?
No, actually. Never have.

15. Favorite food to eat at Christmas?
Turkey! TurkeyTurkeyTurkeyTurkeyTurkey!

16. Favorite Christmas song?
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

17. Celebrate on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
The celebrations actually tend to span out over the few days before and after, as time and availability of all involved permit.

18. Christmas at Home or Travel?
Does traveling three blocks to get to my mom's house count as traveling?

19. Can you name all the reindeers?
Yep. Off the hip, no thought needed at all. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Rudolph if you're picky.

20. Tree Topper Angel or Star?
Star. I remember when we found it, we thought it was perfect, came back the next day to get it, and it was gone. I took Jessica on a statewide hunt for this thing, finally found it at Target. Christmas Memories +1!

21. Open gifts Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?
Morning. Never been an Eve man.

22. Most annoying thing about the Holiday Season?
Traffic, easily. Around my part of town they cram the roads like caterpillars.

23. What special item do you want this season?
Hmm... Something that would perhaps further enable my passion for writing. I can't think of what that might be though.

24. Who do you think will reply to this?
Maybe Jessica, but I doubt it. I kinda answered most of this for both of us.

25. Gifts or Gift Cards?
Either's fine. Seriously, I appreciate them both in equal measure.

A Fun Game

Wife and I invented this game this morning. It's a pretty good one.

1. Log into Facebook
2. Start the Flair application
3. Leaving the search settings blank, look at all the flair on the screen. Is there something Twilight related? If not, you win. If so, go on to the next page of Flair.
4. Keep going until you find a page of Flair that has not one piece on it that's to do with Twilight.
5. Update your blog with the page number you reached.

Me, I got to page 67.

Useful additions: Feel free to scream NOOOO! at the top of your lungs once you get past page 40 or so and your head still isn't above the murky waters of this crappy franchise. Also, make sure you leave yourself plenty of time. You could be at this a while.

Day of the Dead

If you are going out tonight, I highly advise that you watch where you step as you walk. It is expected that roughly 22% of pedestrians this evening may be injured by tripping over a flailing Twilight fangirl lying on the sidewalk. Visit brownhairbrowneyes.blogspot.com to learn what you can do to protect yourself. (The entry will be up very quickly after that blog owner reads this, I'm sure.)

In other news, visited with my friends for the first time in months last evening. I don't know about them but I personally had a fantastic time. Thanks J & R, you guys are the best.

Weight Loss Project: Week 3

For the sake of continuity, I have posted the photo for Weight Loss Project Week 3. I am, however, ashamed to do so.

The wife and I were out sick from work three days last week. During this time we ate too much junk food and drank too much sugary stuff. Obviously the gym was out of the question. Looking at the comparison photos I'm almost positive I've gained from the previous week. I will need to seriously examine my weight loss strategy to repair this trainwreck.

On the good side, I have scheduled time with my new doctor's office to have a physical and get some information on how to improve my overall health. I should have more information to work with after the first week of December.

Weight Loss Project: Week 2

Next photo in the Weight Loss Project is up. Unfortunately comparing the previous week to this week is very difficult; you see, I made the mistake in Week 1 of assuming that for my purposes, a hand-held shot from the camera would be sufficient for my purposes.

Oh how wrong I was. It was next to impossible to achieve anywhere near the same parameters from the previous week for this week's photographs.

So, for the rest of this project, I will be making use of a tripod set in very easy-to-replicate situation and will be standing on a specific mark for the shots. Therefore, the next 50 weeks should give us a much more clear picture of any progress achieved as a result of this thing.

Week 3 promises to be interesting.

Musical Meme

How deeply involved are you with music? Are you a listener? A performer? A composer?

I'm a listener primarily. I tried my hand at a couple of brass instruments as a child, but could not get the hang of it really. I prefer reflecting while others make the music these days.

What is your favorite sound in music?

There are a variety of musicians who can make a harmonica sound downright mournful. I have to say that's probably my favorite individual sound.

You've been given the access, funds, and time to arrange a private concert. You can go alone or invite a small party. Who do you book?

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and I bring myself, my wife, Josh, and Randi.

Are lyrics important to you? If so, what themes do you look for?

Not so much, actually. My mind's usually elsewhere. The sound of the person's voice becomes an instrument itself, the words generally slip into non-meaning.

Have you ever circled the block or sat in your parked vehicle for the benefit of a song?

Occasionally. I cannot cite specific songs here, but I've done that before.

And finally, has your taste in music changed at all over the years? If so, where did you begin, where have you gone, and where are you now?

I've ranged all over throughout my life. There was a time I was into very emo music, believe it or not. I was into Country when I was younger. Hard rock and death metal were in there too, somewhere. These days I'll listen to about anything, modern, old-school, doesn't matter.

Like a nail in a board, waiting for the hammer...

It is amazing how constant and unrelenting ire, argument, bickering, mud-slinging, misinformation, and dirty pool can make a person honestly uncaring. Months ago I was excited about the Obama campaign, I felt that the focus upon middle-to-lower income families as the stable foundation of sound economic policy was the right approach. Now that he's won, I honestly don't care. I'm more happy that it's finally over and everyone will be shutting up about it soon.

It's abnormally quiet in the office this morning. It's like everyone *knows* what the topic is, they all want to talk about it, but no one wants to be the first to speak. It's like two armies across a battlefield pointing muskets at one another. Every soldier on both sides knows that if he is the first to fire, he will be the one to signal the commencement of death and destruction. What is more, the *tension* is just that thick in here.

God, give me strength for today. It's going to be a long one.

The Great Weight Loss Project

I have about 80 pounds of fat to lose in order to achieve what is classically known as the "Greek Ideal". That is my goal. Trim body, honed muscle, excellent health. I am setting myself the goal of precisely one year from today to accomplish this.

To this end, I will be posting, in a dedicated Facebook photo album, a torso picture of myself every Monday to catalog my efforts. Every time I update this thing, I will be essentially begging for comments on said photos. Let me be blunt: I am counting on the support of those in my friends list to give me willpower. I seriously have none of my own. It will need to be borrowed, at least initially. I have a feeling once I'm off and running, seeing results, my willpower will improve greatly.

The first picture is now up. The project has begun.

The WoW Experience

As you all know, I have an on-again, off-again relationship with World of Warcraft. I play on a roleplay server because, to me, MMORPGs have always been somewhat on the dry side gameplay-wise. To me it is always the people who make an online game great, and you tend to find more tolerable people (and by tolerable I mean people who do fewer stupid things and have at least a basic grip on the English language) on an RP server. I also love to roleplay, but the times when I actually get to do that with anyone besides my wife are so rare that I've largely given up on the hobby.

I normally play alone, or just with people I know personally, in real life or via the web somehow. Last night, however, while Jessica chatted with her friends and did homework, I fully embraced the WoW experience for the first time. For those unfamiliar with it, let me outline the WoW Experience. This is the game as the developers have set it up to be played, and how most people play it:

1. Pick a dungeon to run.
2. Use the /LFG function to locate a sufficient number of random people of appropriate class.
3. Storm the dungeon, killing everything you see and rolling dice for the loot
4. (optional) Attempt to roleplay, if on an RP server

I like to start with the pros of any given critique, so here we go:

The action was very fast-paced. It didn't feel like a normal MMORPG to me; there was a lot going on, the game demanded your attention, focus, concentration, and actual gaming skill the entire time. As an added bonus, I was being the primary healer of the group while playing a class not really suited for that role, so I had an additional under thrum of adrenaline the entire time. I was "the man". As in, "the man who makes the group work, who gets all the praise when things are awesome and who gets strung up by his thumbs when the party gets wiped." We had a somewhat flaky tank, and he died a couple times because he apparently didn't understand that I couldn't heal him fast enough when he engaged five people at once, but otherwise it was a successful dungeon run and everyone had a great time because I did my job right. It was a real rush; like all of cyberspace giving you a nice warm pat on the back while at the same time pouring 5 Alarm Chili down your throat.

(Randi, I know, knows what this feels like. She plays healers in EQ all the time. It's a super nice feeling, being the person who enables other players in the game to not be so frustrated, to be able to go back to having fun in short order.)

What's strange about WoW, though, is that many of the pros are also the cons. As I said, it was very fast-paced. There were other things I would have liked to have done; for instance, when the action was getting thickest, I got a message from both Josh and Randi out in AIM that they wanted to chat. Well, I wanted to chat with them too! The problem was, in the dungeon we were in, if I even *blinked* it meant death for everyone. So, I hastily informed them during a very brief lull that I was right in the middle of something, and went back to it. On that same token, it's a roleplay server and people occasionally do make an attempt at roleplaying. I was fortunate enough to be in a group with three people who had a story going. I would have loved to have jumped in, but again, blink=death.

Also, WoW's dungeons are very unique, very hand-sculpted affairs with amazing visuals. That was great, except I didn't get to enjoy any of them for all the chaos going on that I had to manage. There was no time to stop and smell the flowers, take screenshots, make notes, or comment on anything. The creative in me wept in frustration even as the gamer in me thrilled to the experience.

In summary: Dungeon running in WoW is a lot of fun. Just don't expect to be able to multitask. Do it in a time when what you want is a thrill, and in a time when your friends are not likely to be hitting you up for conversation.

Karma

Well... I was something of a dork earlier this week, so I guess I had this one coming.

Walking through Target, doing our normal shopping routine, we encountered Erin Sweeney and her fiance in the checkout line. She sighted me coming and hailed me. What can one do at that point? I looked right at her, it wasn't like I could pretend I didn't see her. So we stopped and had a conversation that lasted about one minute.

Longest minute of my life.

Let me outline it for you: There is Erin. She looks like she's had nothing but hard living since the last time I saw her, standing there with her fiance, and here I am with my wife. Awkward doesn't begin to describe this. It's the kind of meeting you pray will never happen but you know it eventually will; the Law of Averages outlines how the odds crop up the longer you go without it happening.

For the last five (almost six) years of knowing Jessica, I've done nothing but verbally flail this woman at every opportunity. She is, centrally, the reason my life took such a long time to fix. She put me into a debt that nearly lasted me a decade. She stole my identity and wrecked my credit. She caused tension between my friends and caused my parents to send me to counseling. And here she was flagging me down in the middle of Target.

My stress level is now unbelievably as a result. I feel like someone's been pounding me in the gut for an hour.

Ten Minutes of Blasphemy

Legend of the Seeker. Let's talk about that for a minute.

I saw only the first ten minutes on the website, but that was enough. Within the *first minute* I could tell they'd already badly mangled the core of the story. The series opens in a strange place; in the book it opens with Richard being stung by a thing called a Snake Vine. Snake Vines grow only in very specific circumstances which I will not spoil, but the fact that they skipped this detail is telling. Things like core story structure apparently don't matter at all to whoever wrote the screenplay.

Anyway, we open with Kahlan fleeing from five men, not four; D'hara employs groups of assassins known as Quads in the books. As their name implies, there are four men to a Quad. Apparently that little piece of lore got chucked for some reason. But that was a comparatively minor detail to what they did next; we see Kahlan entrusted with the Book of Counted Shadows after a few seconds of cheesy fleeing scenes.

Err... that book was supposed to have been memorized, and then burned, by the story's protagonist, Richard. Was supposed to have been done years before the story opens. As a matter of fact, the fact that Richard has this important book memorized is key to the *entire series of books*, not just this first one.

I could go on. There were several other bastardizations of the original source material within this first ten minutes of show. I could take longer than ten minutes just listing all of the places they've gone wrong! Their casting was awful; we got to meet Richard and Kahlan in these first few minutes and neither one of the look or act anything like they should, the acting was very sub-par, the D'haran extra who dies before the end of the scene did a better job than our leading cast members... But, I want to deviate for a moment because there are a few things they did do right.

One would be their special effects. Their rendition of the boundary looks excellent, for instance. Very nice work, art team. Another strong point is the costuming. The appearance of the armor and clothes is very setting-appropriate. It looked different in my head, I might have done it all differently, but not bad there. (Not sure why Kahlan appears to be wearing a black dress under her white dress, but whatev.) Third is their cinematography; Sam Raimi again pleases us with rich colors, drastic camera angles and various other bits of film-shooting goodness.

It just feels like the good thing that almost was. With a different screenwriter and some better casting, we, the fans, may well have had gold on our hands. As it sits, the only people who I predict might enjoy this thing are people who aren't familiar at all with the books, which unfortunately leaves me and my friends completely out.

Good try, Mr. Raimi. Can't win 'em all I guess, better luck next time.