Merry Springmas!

It’s that time of year again; we get to all stuff ourselves to the point of gluttony in honor of a religion that labels such as one of its major sins. I can hardly wait. No folks; that’s not sarcasm. I have the privilege of catching two Easter dinners this year around, Lamb and butter tarts for one evening and Turkey with all the fixings backed up by pies (yes, plural) for the day after. Given the sheer quantity of food for both nights it also looks like I’ll be eating left-overs from either the nights for the entire week that follows. If that isn’t just fantastic, I don’t know what is. I don’t know if I’ll be around to post much in the next couple days, but this place hasn’t burnt to the ground in any of the other short breaks I’ve had, so hopefully it won’t this time.

Oh, in and news about posting and whatnot I’ve recently sat down with an old friend who’s currently going through media design and has a deep-set urge to make parody videos on the internet. He goes by the name Skye and apparently that’s a common phenomenon in his course. Anyways; he was looking for a group of people to help out in making said parodies and actually happens to have functioning (even new!) video equipment. I don’t know when we’ll ever collaborate, given our notable lack of success in making stuff just on our own, but hey – it’s another avenue to try stuff out, why not?

By the way, the last time I worked with this guy was High School when we were all bright eyed happy youngsters that positively filled to the brim with pride when we figured out where the record button was on the cameras. Though what we made back then still makes me laugh now, it’s usually out of embarrassment. I have no assurances of quality in what we will produce what so ever. Still, check it out if you want to have some basis for how silly you’ll look if you want to ever try doing this stuff yourself. Expect shenanigans* and terrible, terrible in jokes.

Though when it comes to videos, there’s certainly something out there that is worth watching. Thanks to Josh and his vast network of all knowing family members we’ve recently gotten a hold of a copy of the first show of HBO’s new series a Game of Thrones. Being avid fans of the book series we’ve been anticipating this production for quite some time. I can happily pass on to all three fans that haven’t seen it that it’s off to a good start. Of course, as expected from any fan; yes, I would’ve done things slightly different. They did change the tone of a handful of scenes and introduced at least one major character in a new (though not incorrect) fashion. They made the possibly erroneous attempt of trying to introduce about three or four of the major plot threads of the series in conjunction with presenting about a dozen characters all in one episode. It was a huge frontload of information. Though I suspect it’ll flow well into later episodes as they start to focus on just one group at a time in the future, it must have left viewers that hadn’t read the book series more than a little baffled. Trying to remember names and faces alone would’ve been a task beyond most people. We’ll have to see what the second episode brings, but right now I’m getting the feeling it’d be easier to start this series off by watching one right after another.

In its distinct favour I must note the excellent job done in casting. As expected you’ll inevitably run into a few characters you imagined differently, and the odd hair colour is slightly off; but most of the actors seem to fit what was in the books. Furthermore they nailed what I consider the perfect actors for Tyrion, Eddard and Jamie. Given the weight they’ll have to carry in the series I’m left with high hopes for what’s to come.

* I managed to use shenanigans in an entirely appropriate and non-ironic fashion on the ‘net, do I win a reward?

DnD WoW DM RP 3.0

Acronyms are fun!

It’s that time again. We’ve officially burned through all I had posted last time, and even my most vigorous of padding efforts have left us without any further plot to mull through. Our Band of Heroes has succeeded in surviving thus far with only the smallest of frantic bullshit maneuvers on my part to help. They’ve visited the chapel and graveyard, seen the bizarre effects on the bodies, valiantly fought mages and scampered around packs of werewolves. No one is dead yet and we’ve had a couple interesting nights; a pretty good run thus far.

Ramklin managed to get away with a bit of muddling about on my part. I threw a description of him out when they were fighting him, but given I felt the need to do so for the other characters too I don’t think anyone bothered to remember it. Regardless, since it makes no sense that the characters would’ve forgotten I’ll just toss it at them again come next run. I think I may even need to start it off with that – there aren’t tons of other ins. They still haven’t checked out the basement in the tower, despite the fact one of the players is now certain it’s there. They also know whatever’s going on involves some kind of huge magical input into the people. This means the objectives of the next segment should be:

1. Start the abduction routine of the locals. Have Ramklin bring a few mooks along and steal a few watchmen. Why bother sneaking past the sentries when you can just use them instead?
2. Identify Ramklin as the mage in a purple robe with gold trim. He was at the last fight; all I need to do is have Vhanis ask about the one who got away.
3. Identify, if possible, the direction the abductees are being brought, and where Ramklin might be hiding out.
   1. Suggestion for this, why not head back to said tower basement and put a tunnel in it that leads away a good distance and has a small room to hide in inside. At the end put a channeling station where one could open a portal to another location. Vhanis could do it; it’s up to the party to decide if they want to. For a wrap up at the end I could say Vhanis needs time to prepare, simple and effective.

I’d also like to foster some sort of brainstorming about what’s actually going on, but I’m not entirely certain how to go about it. The group can be talkative, but boy do they have mood swings when it comes to that. I’ve thrown out enough information that they could conceivably guess what Ramklin is doing, but since I haven’t really given any visible motivation yet I don’t think they’ll get it quite right. That’s something I’ll have to handle after they go through the portal. Through the portal will be Kharazhan. For those not in the know; it’s the old home of an incredibly powerful mage that’s now rife with ghosts, goblins, ghouls, ghasts and other assorted denizens of the ether. Fun place. The group has fond memories of it. Anyways; it’s going to be the blatantly obvious ‘OH GEE, MAYBE THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC IS COMING FROM’ icon to solve that little non-mystery.

They won’t actually be inside the tower when they pop out of the portal, in fact they won’t even see it. They’ll be in the crypts down below, but honestly all the description they’re going to get is a series of stone rooms with an ominously large quantity of bones strewn about. It’s a very messy crypt, and adding to the fact will be the odd shredded corpse with the blue vein thing going on. This is where the mage will be invoking his imbuement ritual. If I can gage things right they won’t be trailing immediately after Ramklin as he goes through the portal, so he’ll be unaware the Band Of Heroes even knows it’s there, and thus wont have logically moved on.

The ritual will be going on at the bottom of the crypt but I actually want them to find the top first so they have some idea where they are. I’ll use a simple locked door to see if I can get them to bum upwards first.

I think I may have to plan the actual crypts out separately later on. I’ll whip up a map for them and plan it out. All I have concrete right now is that Ramklin can’t just shoot fireballs at them once they start, I want him to be able to talk for a bit. Let him become unreasonable through conversation, not insanely aggressive right off the bat.

Ah well, that’s all for now; time to see how it goes.

An Open Mind

Do you have any idea how hard it is to try and get one of those? Really, I mean it; consider the notion logically here. Typically we associate opens minds with people who either have it or don’t. It seems to be apart of the more basic nature of people rather than any learned skill. Failing that, it’s at least a sentiment that’s so solidly built into people over the course of their lives that it’s not liable to change in any great hurry. So what do you do when you realize you have something of a closed mind and want to change it?

Well, swear a bunch, because if my experience is anything to go by it’ll take a damn long time.

(Story time!)

Once upon a time there was a young Andrew, this young man didn’t understand much about the world and seemed to care even less. Other cultures seemed at best bizarre and left him wondering why anyone would like them, let alone want to learn more. The food was even worse; if it wasn’t dead cow between two buns it wasn’t worth eating. He saw shows, movies and games and dismissed then on the basis for being too weird and different. In short, Andrew was a bit of an ignorant little shit in his younger years.

My sole defense usually comes with the phrase “weren’t we all?” and a brief hopeful chuckle that some one, any one will empathize and laugh as well. Luckily most kids are horrible creatures and few of us are too proud to admit we had failings, so I’m not entirely alone in the world. However, this does mean there needed to be a change, and so one began. I’m not entirely certain when it started to be honest, but my closest guess is sometime three or four years back.

It started with food; foreign and otherwise. One of the first things I remember is looking at some curry and wondering well, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s moved through to movies and games since, and they’ve showed me ideas and designs I don’t think I would have ever come across with my previous rather exclusive tastes. It’s something I even now try and work on; if I can ever find the chance to try something new or check out something bizarre I’ll go for it. But I always have to keep pressing myself if I consider not; just to make sure it’s not being dismissed without any real reason.

However, every time I go through the process though I’m left a bit more mystified by it. Why do I need to sit back and consciously think that this new food could be good - I have no bearing to assuming otherwise. This movie might actually be great – it’s certainly highly recommended, even if it not seen many like it before. This game style could have merit - it’s insanely popular and sells millions; surely they’re doing something right. It makes me angry to think back on the number of things I might have seen or done had I not assumed it was all crap. Usually on the basis that I’ve seen or heard about something that sounds similar and I didn’t think would be ‘my sort of thing’. It’s perplexing to think I could even take that sentiment seriously when I’ve not seen the product; how could I possibly know it’s not my sort of thing? I have no direct experience in the matter! First impressions are handed out before the item in question even gets a glance.

What I think distresses me the most isn’t that I used to ignore so much, but that the rational is oddly common. Watching people dismiss things without really giving them a chance isn’t something many are going to be unfamiliar with, even if they never remember doing it themselves. I’ve even seen this type of thinking compound in odd ways with pride. I’m not talking about people boastfully telling everyone how much foreign crap they hate, but rather the people who think of themselves as just very patriotic about their tastes. It’s a more subtle way of sneaking the feeling in and accepting it. You just like local stuff so much that everything else doesn’t compare. I get the odd suspicion every time I hear that explanation that they’ve not really ever seen anything but the local stuff. Furthermore even if they do I get the feeling that they wouldn’t want to admit something else might be good, maybe feeling some sort of betrayal of their own culture should they do so.

Of course I don’t have anything like concrete evidence that such a thing is happening, they’re just minor observations and conclusions drawn on my own. I wouldn’t know how you could even begin testing this on a larger scale. Most importantly is I don’t think it’d change anything regardless; it’s a way we function and telling people they’re fundamentally broken rarely gets a positive response. It could be a source behind why things like racism and cultural hatreds take so long to go away – or even get worse with time.  

The IPad 2 Journal Entries

Well I've finally run across a quiet enough day to talk about the IPad. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm currently sitting in Starbucks with the damn thing. Mentioning this hidey-hole yesterday made me want to make a visit, and it only seemed appropriate to abuse both the convenience of free wifi and the iPad to finish this post. Though I must warn you; this isn't a review in the practical sense. Most features aren't touched upon more than briefly, and quite a few not at all. It's written in a entry format because it was put together on the iPad itself periodically across the last week and a bit. It's fairly garbled but I've grown oddly enamored with the hectic note style, so I'm leaving it with only the most minor of edits. Anyways, here's my impressions as time went on: 



Entry One

I have no real need for notes right now, which is leavings me in the slightly awkward position of trying to practice typing without really having anything to say. The goal later today is to type up a blog post with this thing, but frankly I don't know if I'm going to have enough to really say about it.

I suspect having a stylus would fix my primary issue - selection. I don't believe I have fat fingers, but the type on the screen is still quite small which can make navigating previous sentences for editing a chore.

Entry two

Extrapolation shows battery life to be about 10 hours when only using Internet searches, possibly even as high as 12 should no other functions be used during the time. Games lower it by about 30% from current estimates, possibly as high as 50%. Uncertain how much of a drain simple word processing will have on the batteries. It's possible they won't have much effect, though I suspect I'll see something like a 10-20% drop. Combining word processing with Internet usage could have a larger drain, though past experience with laptops dictates it shouldn't reach - let alone exceed - the gaming impact. Worse case scenario is 5 hours research, 7 hours pure note taking. Both are well within requirements for university use, though if the former should prove true chargers will need to brought along on a daily basis. Future tests will include ipod use as well.

Entry Three

Note taking improves with experience, so a stylus may not be needed after all. Will have to check prices to make the call. How much could a tiny stick of plastic be? 

Entry Four

After the basics are learned navigation of the menu systems improves notably. The distinction between a full screen user interface and a standard laptop touch pad should not go without mention. It might not quite compare to a mouse in terms of selection accuracy, but no longer needing to carry a secondary device with me isn't without benefits of it's own.

Entry five

It appears some one decided to make choosing a word processor for this damnable thing nigh impossible. I have my current app that is largely serviceable for typing alone, but less good for working with formatting. On the plus side it has an easy to navigate folder system to organize your notes. Another app named "pages" is apparently better for handling typing errors and formatting, but it saves all your documents to one giant list. Updates for either are irregular, their only consistency being their rarity. I don't think I've ever used the word vexing without at least joking a little bit, but it's pretty damn accurate here.

Further work with the typing systems has led me to revise my opinion on the controls. The learning curve isn't so much substantial as invisible. I've discovered a number of new ways to select, copy, and edit my work recently that go a bit beyond what I would've considered strictly intuitive. This may be because I'm a new user of Mac product; never owned an iPhone before and such. They could be anticipating a better informed user base than I represent.

Entry Six

It appears I wont be buying a stylus after all. Little pieces of plastic can run as high as $20. I'll look into substitutes in the future, but the need is lessening every day. Once you've mastered the controls of the device you begin to realize the developers had ideas for all of my initial problems and implemented solutions accordingly. They just never included a manual for them. I suppose a manual wouldn't have fit nicely into the little case it came in, it wouldn't be stylish enough. Either way, dicking about with it yourself or checking into Internet guides leaves you with a truly extensive list of commands and tools at your disposal. For research, note taking and videos the iPad performs admirably. It seems to be the pinnacle of casual pc use. I could never recommend it for intensive programs or serious writing, but it fills its niche perfectly.

The only real fault I've run across thus far is the camera. It's essentially a cell phone camera. A very *good* cell phone camera, but not near the quality you'd want for lasting photographs. Its one of the first things they intend to improve in the ipad3. Honestly though I didn't buy this for the camera - it's a purely secondary device in my eyes. Besides using the thing as a giant flat camera makes you feel like a bit of an idiot.

Apps are precisely what you'd expect from a host of third party developers. As varied in design as they are in practical usefulness. Some are little brilliant jewels of creativity, most are rip offs or so niche based as to be worthless for most users. On the plus side they're all universally cheap or free and entirely optional. The better ones tend to provide free demos too, so you rarely need to make a leap of faith in your purchases.

Final Entry

After extensive use I've come to the happy conclusion that my money was well spent. The iPad does what it's designed for great, but runs into problems when you demand more from it. It suits my needs perfectly and I suspect I'll get a great deal of use out of it in the years to come. I'm frankly terrible at using ranking systems though, so I'll just give it a thumbs up for any inquiring minds.

My only caution is to do your research before you make a purchase. Go to a best buy and play around with the keyboard, fiddle with the interface. Make sure it can do what you want it to do, and never make assumptions. This is common sense people; it applies here just as much as anywhere else.