 |
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I was talking with some fellow roleplayers as I went to see Narnia the other night, while we waited for the rest of the group to show up. Personally, if I didn't see some value in the organization I would, not being partial to joining formal organizations in the past, simple allow my membership to lapse feeling that I would, hopefully, at least have the friends I've made to show for my time. So, besides the friendships I've made, which I consider to be very important to me, the group has a lot going for it. I've enjoyed my time spent playing games in the Camarilla thus far.
I may have mentioned in the past, though, that not all my friends hold the same view. Besides the fact that they already have gaming groups and a healthy social lives/networks*, one of the things I keep hearing generally revolves around exp. I'm asked how experience is handled and how characters interact (and occasionally about system issues), and I generally inform them that there's an MC system plus a series of long-term characters that have been accumulating experience for a few years. Even my mage character, whos sheet is getting a little dusty in its binder, has a substantial amount of experience sitting on it, and I'm one of the weaker characters in the chronicle.
The amount of exp in the setting is a little hard for the gaming vets to swallow. Now, I'm not really sure it's a bad thing, because honestly, even a tough bugger of a character will go down under a hail of enough bullets/teeth/knives/whatever. Generally, I've seen a lot of that exp go to very reasonable things to flesh out character concepts, which is probably how it should be.
It think it's a perceptual hurdle, though. There are a lot of players who don't distinguish between table top and LARP when it comes to rules, for example, and only a long term role-playing session under an exceptionally generous Storyteller is going to aquire the kind of exp that a Cam larper can expect to see on even a year-old character whose player has moderate MC. The proportions between player characters is totally different, too, because NPCs are harder to field, a lot of the smaller or more peripheral characters (though they should have their chances to shine) are just going to come from newer players.
It's the proportions between newer and older players that create the different play experience when it comes to power, though. Not only is exp granted for MC, but it's also the standard reward for good play, for showing up to events, et al. I don't think I have a problem with it (in a lot of ways, because I haven't seen a lot of negative fallout from this effect, meaning I'm not even sure how profound it is), but it's certainly in the mind of certain savvy prospective members.
So, like I said. I'm not sure if it's a problem, and if it is, what the solution would be. It's just come up a lot when I query people I know about joining, or am asked about the organizations play.
*not the same thing, I know.
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| 2008-05-17 14:16 |
| [Schedule] A Little Boring, But... |
| Public |
 apathetic |
| camarilla, work |
|
...practical, anyhow. I discovered that just taking a day off of work flubs things rather badly, because you don't lose a day, you have to make it up. That means since I took one day off, I have to work four in a row, ect. Having one other person to work kind of messes things up like that.
Gaming is today, but it's the day I can't make. Since there arn't any other days this month for gaming, the next game ought to be Requiem on the 6th and Changeling on the 7th. Work interferes with both of those unless the other op calls in sick, unless my schedule changes (it might), and unless I'm not moved to days.
That's a lot of unlesses. My schedule changes about as often as it doesn't. But right now, I'm missing the 6th-8th.
I *am* off Saturday the 27th. That's Mage and Vampire, unless I miss my guess. *If* my schedule holds, I will prioritize that extremely heavily.
One of my problems is that I can get lucky and have lots of games off, or I can get unlucky and have my weekends off never fall on days when I'm not working. It's been the latter a lot, I'll admit, and I'm not keen on it. There's only one other person to ask to work for me, and it always messes things up for future plans, so it takes a lot of work to make that happen. I could try to weasel the 6th in and I might, but because I know I have the 27th off, I'm dubious of doing so. But I'd like to make Cam games again, since I miss playing.
Right now, I work from this evening to Tuesday evening, but I'm free during days.
EDIT: My schedule has changed again, drastically. I'm really not sure what to make of this. After I did all that scheduling work. Stuff like this is why I look for new work.
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| 2008-05-16 13:42 |
| Misc. |
| Public |
 worried |
| Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness |
| camarilla, ratties, work |
|
I don't mention them very often, maybe because they're so low maintenance, but I've become the caretaker for a pair of little girl rats. I love 'em, but lately the Momma Rat seems to have acquired a tumor. I'm told that this isn't uncommon and, in fact, I'm pretty sure that Baby Rat needed an operation for a minor one before Vi and I were able to adopt her. I'm increasingly convinced that they need to see a vet though, because I'm starting to suspect Momma might have another one. There's a vet not too far away, and I'll be trying to set up an appointment probably tomorrow, but until then, I'm a little worried. Honestly, I've never been the pet caretaker, so this kind of thing is a little foreign to me. I'm also a little worried about costs. Rats are tiny, but that won't stop the vet bill from being large.
I called work from Edwardsville to let them know I wouldn't be in today. Of course, I'm having trouble getting the other op to pick up, but that's not really unreasonable considering I woke up really early today to get my day started... at 11 AM. There's a good chance she's just sleeping and'll return my call later this afternoon, but it's not something I want to fool around on. So I called my father to let him know I was ill, and let Boss Jr. know, too.
Ended up renewing my Cam membership despite my irritating hours lately. I've noticed a kind of one good month, one bad month cycle to what weekends I have available right now, which is enough to make me think I can handle showing up fairly regularly. I've made what I'd consider a token effort at least to convince Wormtongue to join as long as games didn't interfere with their normal plans. Vampire has never been their favorite game line, though, and time is a real issue for all of us, so while it's possible it could happen in the future, I don't think I'd be able to expect any more cabal members for poor Atol any time soon. I admit my selfish motives! I require more band members! Also, a second Mage game a month would make my heart pitter-patter, but honestly, it's difficult enough to show up right now. So, I'm making a sad face, neow.
My rats really are adorable. If you've never met them, they're really sweet. So, I hope they're ok, but I'd better stop hanging out with them and get a move on if I want to be timely.
EDIT: Update.
I didn't end up going to the spa party for a few reasons, some lesser ones being that it would have ended up a logistical nightmare. I'm tempted to call tonight to ask how it went, but in the event that it ran long or turned into your default slumber party, I've held off. So let me know how it went! =D
Instead of trying to make it the long way to St. Peter's then, today, I opted into the showing of the Chronicles of Narnia. It was supposed to be an event with a group, because a lot of people showed up for it, even in from St. Louis. Sadly, it was kind of lame. The pre-show get together was supper at a bar where we couldn't hear ourselves talk and the beer was too pricy. We were supposed to head out for drinks after, but the movie was longer then a lot of people figured it would be and most people went home. Specifically, I blame the nightlife scene in the area, since I think the closest good places to hang out in the evenings are in St. Louis or maybe Edwardsville. Otherwise, it's houseparties all the way, but nobody really was offering.
How was the movie? Eh. Some good scenes, but overall it felt really shallow. Maybe it was because I missed the first movie, but I suspect it was mostly because it was a big-budget kids movie with some Christian allegory for good measure. It certainly wasn't a bust of an evening, though, but I'm not sure that I'd skip work for it again.
Turns out that anyone taking a day off anywhere will mess up the schedule a little bit. It was already bad, and now it's moved a little again. I'm going to re-check my next few months on Google calender at work tomorrow and see when I'm good to play. I think I get a few available days, and some that I didn't have before.
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| 2008-05-16 01:18 |
| Returning a meme. |
| Public |
| Edwardsville |
 amused |
| Super Smash Bros. in the background. |
|
Sure, meme, right? ^_^
1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
2) What was your dream growing up?
3) What talent do you wish you had?
4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
5) Favorite vegetable?
6) What was the last book you read?
7) What zodiac sign are you?
8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
9) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street, would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a pessimistic or optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) White or red wine?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?
Other feelings to come tomorrow. I'm also nervous, because I have a giant work ethic, but on the other hand, I've been screwed so often by my job that I don't feel I owe them anything. So because my schedule got screwed a while ago, I'm calling off so I can go to something I've had scheduled for months and didn't realize got screwed by my schedule shift. It's just kind of one of those things; I really don't care anymore. Friday is much, much easier then Saturday though, so I picked my Friday date to call off. I'm nervous about that, anxious in general, and a little exhausted. I've been kind of cooped up this weekend.
More later, though. Meme now!
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| 2008-05-13 04:52 |
| [Food] Breakfast Eggs. |
| Public |
 hungry |
| food, moods |
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It's, like, 5 am at work right now and I'm surprisingly famished. Usually I bring in a Hot Pocket or a sandwich to tide me over until I get home and, well, I'm always hungry when I get home but it's only an issue in the last half hour of work or so. But anyhow, here I am thinking deep thoughts about art, gaming, and experience points when my stomach rumbles. I realize I've read something about pierogi, which I've never heard of until last week and now they're cropping up in all kinds of shit I'm reading, and I'm thinking about how good they sound.
And that's how you know you're hungry, if the pangs in your stomach don't educate you properly.
Normally, there's all kinds of up-for-grabs shit in the fridge that I pass on. I've got this vaguely defined fear of eating stuff left in the fridge at work for reasons that range from 'is this still good?' and 'what if someone else has dibs?' to 'I don't want to wash a dish at work'*. When you're hungry though, it's surprising what you're willing to either rationalize or just blame on someone else. There was lasagna in there yesterday, but nothing today. Just my luck. Looks like I'm waiting until morning.
By the time I get home, I'm willing to eat anything, but lately eggs have been a huge favorite. I'm not sure what's gotten into me, but I guess just regular eggs have gotten boring though, so I've started mixing them with weird things. Two days ago, I wanted nothing more then eggs on steaming rice with japanese mayo and soysasuce. I settled for swapping the rice for bread, but it was surpringly excellent. Last morning, it was leftover salmon and eggs steamed in soysauce on toast.
I realized that since I've started midnights, my breakfasts when I cook have been consistantly odd. Like the time Taco Bell was closed (Because they don't open until 9.**) so I made some kind of weird random taco things, complete with a spontaniously created taco sauce because I refused to eat tacos sans sauce. I was, in fact, so enamored of my taco-creations that I took pictures of them with my camera phone. I haven't posted them on the net, or anything, but I've still got them. I don't know why.
So, food is this weird thing with me. But I really want weird polish dumplings now.
* Which I've learned is my job anyhow for some reason, so whatever.
** Look, I'm just not used to thinking about Taco Bell being closed.
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| 2008-05-13 02:06 |
| Stiff Wrists > Story Time |
| Public |
| discontent |
| work, writing |
|
There are a lot of things this job induces, but a couple of the things I was hoping to avoid were wrist braces or reading glasses. So far, I seem to have escaped the need for the latter, but more then once now have I put off writing something fairly extensive because I have to weigh it against how my wrists will feel when I'm done. Personally, I blame the keyboard/cover/desk combination, which is the perfect trio in regards to messing up my posture and generally making me cranky.
The chairs are really nice, though. Like, seriously high class.
But, because I don't have a problem at home with any of this, there's a fairly decent change that I'll just go back to writing on paper and you'd see a dramatic increase in my post that originate during daylight hours. The upside is that they'll probably even be edited at that point, just because anything to extensive to write during the night (because it's a pain in the ass) automatically gets a second draft. On the other hand, if this remains a problem after I change my habits, I'll probably still end up in braces.
Writing-wise, it's probably going to effect my personal webblog Notepad.txt more then my xanga or LJ. It doesn't matter, though, because that's just where I jot down ideas that are either over-exposed, utter vents, or thoughts that are incomplete. It's not even open to the public anymore, though I might review it and see if closing it was really needed. Some of the thoughts are very personal, but none of them are very antagonistic to others. Between this, and my other journals, though, if you include the blog, I've got 4 online sites I post to regularly, not counting webforums. So even though I'm pretty much unknown on the web, my web footprint keeps getting larger.
I had some thoughts about LARPing exp. again, but I'm not sure if it's a new thought or just a re-hash of an old one, so I think I'll just muse about it until I know.
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Did you know there's a 'good' emoticon, but not a 'bad' one? And on this image set, the good one has a little halo - as if it indicated moral or spiritual goodness. The closest they probably have, then, is 'naughty' which really has kind of a different connotation. They also have flirty, horny, and hot, but hot really just seems to indicate that one's temperature is too high.
I think my favorite is probably horny, because it gets tiny little horns. Like, in addition to being sexually aroused, the icon has also genetically mutated. Let this be a warning to you all.
Right now, I'm feeling tired and hungry, but I'm chiefly feeling pretty mellow on account of nothing happening. I don't hear any of the prelude to terror that is represented by howling winds tonight, so with any luck I'll just end up thinking about political blogs and gaming all night.
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| 2008-05-11 16:22 |
| A Very Blustery Day |
| Public |
 tired |
| David Bowie |
|
Last night was fine until about 3 AM, when I'm pretty sure everyone's power in about 5 or 6 counties went out all at once, in several areas each, due to wind, tree limbs, and even uprooted poles. My power rarely goes out for anything but the very worst of storms, so when I started working, I was surprised to find out how even mildly bad weather will almost always result in someone losing electric. I love how a lot of people frame their call ins though. It's often, "We've run out of electric." as if there were a tap somewhere, and their reservoir went dry. Or how some people will ask to be bumped higher on the list, as if we were restoring houses one at a time. But I don't really expect them to know how power companies work, these things truly just tickle me, though I don't tell the callers since I doubt they'd appreciate my mirth. It's not at their expense, or anything, just people's view of the world is unendingly fascinating to me.
But seriously, it was really bad. I left a half hour late, making my shift 10.5 hours without a break since 3 am. I woke up tired, but a cup of coffee set me right. Now I'm just kind of like, "I wonder what I want to do with my day."
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They moved the whole friggin' schedule a single day, which means that even though I thought I was clear for the Cam game on the 24th, now I'm not. This is basically the irritation I knew I'd be packing during the schedule change, so I know that i'm going to be sending another e-mail over to Vi with the heading of, "Pls do my work for me, kthxbai". At the moment, this is super frustrating, because I really intended to be at most of these functions. Luckily, I checked ahead, and I'm pretty sure I don't lose any of the post-May functions I intended to show up at. It could have been a lot worse, since my weekends off alternate, and I could easily have gotten the wrong schedule.
Generally speaking, things are looking up. I'm still considering the logistics of a potential Seattle move, if only because I've wanted to for a long time, and it's a distinct possibility. There are a lot of little issues I'd want to resolve before they ever came up. Like, plane tickets cost in a certain range, I have rats in my care (so I guess the title is a little literal), my host is fully intending to come back to the area for a period in the summer (so I might want to hold off a bit), ect. Even if I don't end up going, planning like this seems like good practice for other potential moves.
Anyhow, I haven't spent a lot of time at Casa de Thanatos lately, since even if I didn't have plans for myself this week, there was a good chance someone else did. Often, I'd come over only to discover a lot of guys sitting around whose plans sounded more like, "Let's buy beer, followed by drinking all of that beer." At first, I kind of thought they were trying the old, "Cheer him up by getting him smashed." routine, but I recently discovered that this is SOP. Frank, because he easily trumps everyone else in the finances department at the moment, is generally the buyer, and they've been drinking in lieu of any better ideas to which I responded that even if they were all already playing another game, we could have spent all this time playing another game. And as much as I like Scrabble, there's nothing like role-playing to make an evening interesting.
That, or clubbing, but it took me a second to remember I didn't know any nearby clubs.
Me: "Anyone know any good clubs around? I know Fairview's shot on that scene. How about Edwardsville?"
Wormtongue Associate: "This isn't such a great town for anything with electronic music."
Me: "Fuck."
Of course, I could just be in the dark. But anyhow, that discussion pretty much lead to the rapid appropriation of cheap, OOP gaming suppliments. As much as I love NWoD mechanics and settings, I think Wormtongue as a gaming organization is strongly supportive of the older edition based purely on how many books they can pick up for under 5 dollars, basically turning such excellent licences as Hunter and Wraith into the gaming equivilent of Value Meals. I had a friend who didn't like Hunter based purely on the fact that, on the meta-plot level, it functionally ended Wraith, which was his all time favorite line. Considering that they pretty much exist on a continuity, though, I like to think of them as two different sides of the same game. Both of them really had everything they needed to be harrowing and potent gaming experiance, and even though I typically had the most fun with Mage, it's hard to say that Mage is better then either of these two lines.
So, I'm not sure if I'll be playing Hunter soon, but I may, which is enough to get me stoked. But I remember having problems with playing it with others in the past, so I'm not sure if that'll come up again.
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| 2008-05-08 13:17 |
| This Morning |
| Public |
| home |
 calm |
|
Rice is in the cooker, and I let the rats out to play.
They're sweet girls, and I gave them each a cranberry while I watched the rain fall outside, light drops compared to the early morning storm.
Soon I'll put the water on for tea and miso.
Spring had come. I think in all the excitement recently, I've forgotten to give its due, because I see the leaves and smell the lilac and honeysuckle.
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| 2008-05-07 04:15 |
| I Love My Icon, But... |
| Public |
| amused |
|
...I don't really think it's fair. I mean, I think it's kind of a double standard because I've got this thing where when I see someone on the internet posting something I'm interested in, I always wonder what they look like. I don't really care how they appear, I just want to associate a face with what I'm reading. I'll even Google famous writers, sometimes, if I associate their works with their person.
Like, I find it really interesting to think of William Gibson, this kinda gaunt, aging dude rattling away on a typewriter* writing about today's cool cyberpunk world.
And all I've got is this cool gear thingy. I might retire it. It's been there for a long time.
But it's not like people are really missing out. Just on kind of a thing dude with eyeliner stains and maybe too much wax in his hair. =D
Honestly, there arn't many pictures of me online because I'm hellah lazy. On therpgsite, I still don't think I even have an icon, and I'm reading on there all the time. I mean, I've even got it resized and ready to go. Laaazzy.
* Even though I know he works with a word processor now.
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Before I became disillusioned with much of the process, I was something of a political junkie. According to the late Hunter S. Thompson, politics can be a seasonal thing. It's exhausting, and can easily become a cause in itself. This is where all those evil cynical old politicians come from, of course. They sell out to the greedheads and Swine and leave the rest of us wondering how things could get so bad. I was pretty cynical myself, during the Clinton administration, but honestly, nothing could prepair me for what was coming next.
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| 2008-05-05 14:55 |
| Work Habits, also, Iron Man |
| Public |
 drained |
|
I've got work tonight, and my schedule lately has been pretty odd, which is a hiccup that goes all the way back to sometime early two weeks ago when I worked four nights in a row instead of three. Because of how the other night worker managed her time, and because of a no-call, no-show, I eventually ended up getting four days off instead of my usual three to make up for it, plus a bonus day which I have no idea where it came from, but I didn't need to show up last night according to the boss, and that's typically good enough for me.
Because I'm not expected to make that up, I get what looks a lot like a vacation. Five days off, one day one, and another three days off as I hit a regular schedule again.
Truth be told, I haven't really used my time wisely as much as I've been running about the local area. I helped a friend get moved in, and spent a lot of time in Edwardsville sitting on their new couch or sitting in a bar talking about politics. In one case, I ended up sitting in what I could only call a two-story shack, brought over by a friend, where I basically just fell asleep. In any case, when I'm off work, I try to limit my time on the computer somewhat, because I rely a bit on backlogs to catch up on as part of my time spent at work. This means you can probably expect another entry fairly soon (tonight or tomorrow) on stuff I picked up while I was off, or just stuff that's been on my mind.
Like many other people, I had gone to see Iron Man, and I had enjoyed it. I enjoyed a lot of the subtle and overt character flaws of Tony Stark, and everyone I talk to agrees that Robert Downey Jr. was the right person to cast for obvious reasons. I was seriously considering reviewing it here, but blogger Lisa Kansas over on PunkAssBlog.com already did. I mention it because the writer does something I frequently do when I read or find myself at the movies, which is that I inevitably end up having a mental fight between the part of my brain that just enjoys stuff that explodes or flies, or something and the part of my brain that can't help but point out a cliche, something sexist, racist, ect.
One of the things that comes up as a major issue is the medias depiction of the military. The military is a popular, well, I almost want to say 'bogyman' among some groups because of its strong patriarchal bias, and because it's basically the wing of our government we pay to go around soldiering. Anyhow, Tomgram has an article on why media is typically going to portray the military wings in a good light anytime we see a lot of their stuff in our movies.
Normally, I don't give number ratings to films, so I'll just say that I enjoyed Iron Man, and it was worth watching. I think some of the sexism in the film is mostly the latent sexism you'll find in almost any media piece today, while the really obvious stuff stems from the fact that Tony Stark, among his many other flaws, is also really sexist, and that translates into misogyny. I don't think that's much more telling then his alcoholism, but when misogyny is your hot-button issue, it does kind of stand out.
But the pacing was really excellent. I never really wished it would hurry up, and it spaced out its character development and pure actions scenes just right.
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| 2008-05-01 03:09 |
| Old Journal and [OWoD LARP] - Why I'd Play |
| Public |
 pleased |
|
First, I spent some time after I got into work kind of interested in my old musings. Like I said, my old LJ is actually still around, possessing records from back to early '03, after I had switched from freeonlinediary.com, which might be defunct. At least it has been tonight. I had switched from LiveJournal to Xanga after a bunch of my friends collectively went 'afk' and I met an active Xanga community on SIUE campus. When I re-started an LJ, I tried half-heartedly to get my old journal back - after all, it had my friggin' name! But I really felt like a different person, writing to a different audience, so I didn't really feel like working too hard.
Still, I was curious. In my first days rooming at SIUE, I wrote my eulogy to Hunter S. Thompson and exhorted people to vote. Back in '03, my writing was bleak, rambling, and terribly depressing. I spoke to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) duc_de_duras about the dynamic of friending someone, then reading significant portions of their archives (in my case, basically all available posts because of the nature of this gig), he mentioned he read all mine 'cause I only had around two. Well, actually, I have a few more at thanatos02 if people are interested in maudlin whining. I'm probably going to try to track down all my old journals and archive them for personal interest, and I'm severly tempted to go to my old LJ and comment a bunch of those posts. It's so weird to see stuff I used to write.
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Got called in on my night off.
Was seriously trying to relax from all the things currently happening in my life.
I'm not quite sure how I'm going to spend tomorrow, but I'm going to do my best to make up for today.
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| 2008-04-30 01:24 |
| The Philosophy of Boredom |
| Public |
 sore |
|
Title taken from a book I'm currently reading. Actually, it's great. I was in a Borders the other day, and I saw it.
"This seems relevant to my interests." I said to myself, and began to page through it. When the first page mentioned a Depeche Mode song, I decided I'd take the risk.
Philosophy books are frustratingly pricy, but this one had a paper airplane on the front, so you know it's good. Anyhow, I was right. The book is directly relevant to my experiances, to the point that I might elaborate on it later.
But only if it's interesting.
There's been a little frustration lately, as I find myself in the middle of a few different conflicting interests. I find myself a combination of frazzled and worried. Vi isn't going to be around on any of my days off, which is a drag, because I don't really have to do anything in particular to enjoy the time I spend around her. Even running errands is enjoyable with her. So, providing she takes off after she picks up the Jelly and her things on Wednesday, there's a chance that I'll just end up turning in early.
Frank said Wormtongue was getting together as a group as a kind of Event, starting off with helping him move, and cumulating in dinner and everyone going to see Iron Man. I thought I'd be able to make it, but checking the calander proves otherwise. I'll still probably be able to help him move, though, because the Requiem LARP check-in doesn't start till 7:30. I guess the only problem is that they've been trying to snag me on non-work time for a couple of weeks now. Things would be easier if they just gave into peer pressure and joined the Cam. Heh.
Actually, if Frank ever had time free, he had said he'd try to make games. But since he's a restauraunt manager, he never really has weekends free except in really rare occasions. I think if one or two more joined, they'd all fall into line. /devious
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| 2008-04-29 18:39 |
| [Vaugely Related News] Gmail. |
| Public |
| pleased |
|
I have a gmail account.
There's really no excuse, but I was bitching to one of my friends, and he was like:
"Dude, google docs. Also, google calender."
To be fair, I already knew about google calender.
But still. Neat.
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Re: Gaming: MMORPG: FFXI
I play Final Fantasy Online, where most peeps play WoW, and that's ok. If you talk to someone who's played both, they'll usually explain that they like one or the other, but they're very different experiances. Our FFXI group is very social and friendly, and if nobody really gets into character, it's still fun since there's a jargon, no, kind of a seperate physic that permeates the world. While I can talk about this for a long time, this is basically what I think is awesome:
ffxiah.com
I play with this thing all the time. I'm a total Auction House whore.
For those that don't know, here's how the auction house works. You have an item. You put it up for sale at a price you're willing to sell it for. This price isn't listed anywhere. Instead, there's a bidding history. You can gauge what the going price for an item is by checking the previous sales.
FFXIAH.com allows you to check any server and any player on that server, plus check the previous sales prices of any item. It provides a link to relevent wikis and tells you how to make that item, plus any other crafts that use that item, and the estimated cost to produce or profit from sales of said item. It also checks the health of your servers market.
It's pretty invasive, but it's also fun as hell. I use it to project all my long term crafting projects as well as determining how I'm going to craft for profit. It has too many holes to be used as your only projection tool, but it's more useful then maybe it should be.
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| 2008-04-29 01:04 |
| [Vampire] Predator Vampires. |
| Public |
| Work. |
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While I'm here, I'd like to ask you to consider at least looking at all of the mail you recieve. I know a lot of it is junk, and I sympathize. Especially someone who's bought into all of the technological progaganda of our modern age. But, even so, please check it. I know my mother had thrown away a lot of important notes that she should have read, thinking they were junk, and almost had to go to court over it. Tonight, I reap the reprecussions of a dozen people not reading their mail when Tri-County Electric passed everyone in certain areas a card in the mail telling them their power would be out. Despite this, the number of outage calls has risen into double digits, and power calls are the most awkward and painful to handle on both ends.
It's not that bad and, hey, it keeps me busy. All I'm saying is that you can save a lot of headaches by making sure your lame snail-mail isn't even lamer spam mail.
In other, more non-public-service-announcement news, I was spending time on I Blame the Patriarchy again. IBtP is actually one of my very favorite sites on the web, because a lot of really terrific stuff gets said. I could go on and on about where I disagree with the site founders brand of philosophy and where I agree, because there's an awful lot of both, but I generally think Twisty Faster and the whole damn site is excellent and I hope blaming is done for a long time.
But, I'm kind of a geek, and there's plenty of geek-slamming, and I play Vampire (sometimes, but it's been getting more frequent) and that got slammed a few days ago, too. The crux of the matter is, I think there's something to the argument that a vampire is something of a sexual predator. First of all, because you can (and people will) find the sexual metaphor in any kind of text, but also because the predator metaphor is a particularly violent as well as heavily-romantisized one.
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| 2008-04-25 00:21 |
| [Mechanics] Dice v. Cards |
| Public |
| lethargic |
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Tonight's my last night on-shift, and only because I volunteered to take someone else's due to family emergency. I'm happy I can help, and it doesn't honestly work out badly for me, but I'm still feeling it. I come onto my shift starting at 10, and I've already polished off my Blue Raspberry Jolt and the first of my Red Bulls, and well on my way through the second. I tend to drink all four before 5 am, though, so that's not too unusual, but I am worried because even though I'm managing a little better lately, my caffine consumption has continued to climb and my chances of getting moved off nights continue to drop since they've canned my would-be replacement.
But! I'm glad I was able to inspire viski to think about character musical tastes. It's a fun mini-game I like to play, along with some other characterization things (What's their favorite TV show? Who where their heros when they were children? are two other questions I'll occasionally ask). I remember I did one D20 Modern Persona character as an organizational report from a government invested in tracking arcana users, while another one had a character sheet that looked like school records. Man, I loved playing those games and doing shit like that. It's one of the thing I loved about playing with smaller groups - principally, you can pull more weird shit more often.
Actually, I was thinking about the difference between card pulls and dice rolls in LARP compared to table-top NWoD this afternoon. The pulls, I think I worked out once with the aid of some math-wonk friends, are generally more favorable for PC actions on the whole, but you lose the 1-100 chance that you could pull off a really spectacular roll. I forget how it works mathmatically now, but when pulling, I think you have a 30% base chance of one success via pull, and for every 5 dots/specialties/spent will, you can rely on 1 success.
While I'm not a math expert, what I've seen happen to people is that they see the reliability of the results and figure that if they're going to be good at something on a moments notice, they won't be able to rely on the dice. They'll need to make sure their traits can at least hit a 10 reliably (usually +5, skills+stats to hit 50%) and if they want to be able to hit 50% on two successes, without counting 10-again (which messes up my shitty math) they'd require +10 (5-pull, +5 for one, +5 to hit 15 and two successes). On your average everyday non-superpower pull, you're pulling Stat+Skill+specialty, so you'd need what amounts to Olympic-level capabilities since that 10-again is generally in the relm of 'was gonna have a success anyhow'.
So, one success is easy for almost anyone to get. You're going to have people walking around with exp to spare though, so 2 successes is basically the bottom line for 'competance' in inter-PC play. Looking at dicepools for special abilities (rotes or disciplines?) on supernatural characters, you're going to start hitting people who can get between 3-4 successes, and once you can hit that threshold, I'm pretty sure you can do it routinely and anyone who can do it routinely is only going to have to worry about a usurper in the bracket below them 10% of the time (and they have 10% to break into a higher success bracket anyhow).
I don't think this would be quite an issue except that there are people who have just tons of exp. to put into their power catagories, and the exp. to go up in a level's ranks is in multiples so a beginning player without MC exp and a character with the MC to invest, who invest the same percentage of exp into roughly the same area are going to be way out of each others league. I'm not talking about just a few dots behind but what amounts to a magnitude.
I'm not totally convinced this is a problem, but it is an issue I've run into. I'll show up to Mage with a character I'm pretty fond of and run into double masters with substantial gnosis, and I discover that putting ranks into multiple Skills doesn't really help me unless I doulble-check to make sure said skills segue into Rotes that are in the magic catagories I've put ranks into, because some dude or lady made sure their key skills are all sitting at 5+specialty with appropriatly high stats, and they're sitting on a Mastery level.
Me: "Maybe we should talk to them?"
Someone else: "Why, when we can just Magic the crap out of it?"
*pull*
Else: "Bam! 4 successes! Let's move on."
I guess part of the problem is that magic can be such an 'I win' card (heh) and that the Mage venue is small enough that having just one or two really big guns pretty much colors the area. The person I was principally think of was the character Munin, who's an utter bad-ass and bascially sitting in the same relms as my character is - Mind, with some Prime. Space doesn't really suit me, so I think I'll see Atol branching out into Forces as he becomes more comfortable with the raw sound he works with and the technology he uses. I feel Mind is his 'ideological' relm, where Prime and Forces are skills that come to him because they're practical outgrowths of his practice.
Space is... I dunno. Helpful, but not really his 'thing', and less so since the Space Mastah has shown up. ^_^;
So, anyhow, I was feeling like card-pulls really sets things up in tiers based on how many successes you can typically expect to pull, and those successes feed on themselves - especially in Mage, where expertise in an Arcana not only opens you up to more abilities, and more powerful abilities, but acts at a pull-adder in addition to relevant skills.
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curious
mischievous
+ tired