Saturday, December 31, 2016

A bright note as the year winds down

I searched in vain for much of yesterday as I was fighting a bug. I sought to satisfy my craving for Calicraft Oaktown Brown.

Everywhere I went, it was sold out.

While shopping for groceries today, I did a detour past a sketchy liquor store I rarely go in.

And lo: they had it. They had a healthy number of bottles.

I just had a bottle with dinner (ill-advised as I'm still struggling not to succumb to a cold, but whatever).

Now I have to decide if I'm going to tough out the next four hours and toast 2017 with some High West Campfire or call it early with Nyquil.

Decisions, decisions....

Fuck the hell off 2016

2016 was a shit year.

Let's just get that out there.

Personally, the year started with a bang and just kept going.

At this time last year, the first cracks were forming in my workplace. By the end of the first quarter, my office was in chaos. Bad decisions seemed to rule the day and people I worked with were moving on.

And as I attempted to do the same, I learned a bitter truth: that I am not really prepared to shine in a crowded labor market.

That was a goddamn hard lesson. When I used to take karate, we used to have a saying: "I will train with the spirit of humility." Martial arts did a lot to drum humility into parts of my life. As I look back on 2016, I see that the chaos of earlier in the year was simply more of the same. They were lessons in humility. Lessons, I'm sad to say, I haven't yet learned enough from. I know where my weaknesses lie, but have yet to take proper steps to address them.

I guess I have a goal in 2017.

2016 simultaneously hit me with a family crisis. There was a fair chance I was going to lose a parent. The thought of that terrified me.

Still does, honestly.

I realized I'm one day going to lose the people I care most about. And I'm really not ready.

Everything turned out okay. There will be a next time, though. And one of these days I'm going to have to deal with it.

In 2016, a number of my dearest friends lost someone close. I watched how they handled their loss and found myself humbled by how strong they all are. I sure as hell don't think I'll be able to handle it like they have.

2016 was a hellish year politically. Watching Trump get elected was like living through a reading of "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis. I'm glad I don't have kids.

It was a year where I look back and realize a lot of things I thought mattered to me that really don't. It's sort of left me feeling a bit lost, like I'm just going through the motions of my life. I'm not sure what I want. I'm not sure what I want to do next. I'm kind of hearing a Vorlon asking me: "Who are you? What do you want?" and I don't have any answers. (Raise your hand if you got that reference. If you do, put a white star on your geek card.)



2016 wasn't all bad. My office did course-corrections that I have benefitted from.

I've made new friendships. I've read new books. I've enjoyed some travel, both to distant places I know and not-so-distant places that are new to me.

I've attended, and semi-officiated, a quasi-wedding.

It's an indicator of how odd my life is that I can make that last statement.



Earlier today I bought some groceries. I had a chat with the clerk about New Year's resolutions.

"I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore," I said.

I don't. They're a waste of time. Intentions are nice. Actions are better. I'm rubbish at follow-through. My goal for 2017 is to get better at follow-through and get shit actually done.



I'm not sure I'm ready for 2017. I'm not sure anyone is. Still, it's coming and there's not fuck-all anyone can do about it but suck it up and be ready to take it as it comes. Some of it will be good. Some of it will be bad. The only thing I will truly control is how I deal with what comes.

Friday, December 30, 2016

Closing in

Had drinks and Zachary's Pizza with a buddy last night.

I think I'm paying the price today. Not a hangover. No, that would be too appropriate. No, it's sinuses and a scratchy throat. Yeah, I think I'm fighting a cold.

A fluke of luck has the party I was to go to get cancelled due to illness. I'm going to take advantage of this down time to crash early tonight with a Nyquil cocktail.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Four days and counting

Ah 2016. You just can't stop being a rancid pustule of terrible, can you?

Carrie Fisher? Seriously? We've lost Princess Leia all-too-soon.

And we've got four days left. Lovely.

Part of me can't wait for this year to end. The rest of me is terrified what 2017 will bring.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Punchy on Boxing Day

Aaaah... vacation.

What have I done today?

Hm. I've:
  • Re-watched The Return of the Jedi. Again. It really doesn't stand up to repeat-views.
  • Made pasta sauce.
  • Eaten Thai food.
  • Spent far too much time on the Internet.
  • Spent far too much time on laundry.
  • Made pasta noodles.
  • Enjoyed a glass of High West Campfire that was probably a little more full than it ought to be.
Looking back, not a terribly productive day. I meant to go jogging, but it's goddamn cold outside and I'm feeling simultaneously wimpy and whiny. Also I think I'm fighting a cold. I'm sure the whiskey will help with that.

In fairness, I thought the Thai food was going to help with that too. Get some spicy Pad Kee Mau and watch the germs flee in terror from hot peppers.

I'm sure there's valid science there. Then again, I have had a lot of whiskey.

If I have my druthers, I may actually do some housecleaning tomorrow.

WTF are "druthers" anyway? Google says "a person's preference in a matter.". WTF?

English is a goddamn weird language.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Noodly Xmas

Been a nice Xmas. Fun time with the family. Lots of food. Lots of drink. Lots of loot. Spent a chunk of the 23rd watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Spent part of Xmas Eve watching Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back. Just spent part of today watching Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi. God, I hate Ewoks.

Still, I have to credit Rogue One with putting me in the mood to watch all the classics again, albeit remastered.

When not doing that, it's been a relaxing afternoon of sampling whiskey, setting up my new computer monitor, resetting my fussy router, and having more whiskey.

Finished "Good Intentions" by Elliot Kay. I can see a lot of "Poor Man's War" in his more steamy series about everyday Alex who winds up bound to a succubus and an angel. Entertaining reading. Now I'm going to focus on finishing up "Wrath" by John Gwynne before jaunting off to the next book in the pile.

And I think I'm seriously going to look into getting a new bookshelf.

Friday, December 23, 2016

Review: "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Full disclosure: I went into Rogue One expecting to hate it.

I hate prequels, as a rule. They're lazy storytelling. I saw the trailers and teasers and thought "this is just Disney trying to squeeze money from me."

I'm not wrong, but damn was it worth it.

Saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story last night. I walked out of that theater thinking "fucking hell that was enjoyable."

Set just before the events of Star Wars IV: A New Hope (the original, to us old folks), it tells the story of how the rebels got the plans to the Death Star.

This wasn't a story I needed told, truth be told. I never cared how the rebels got the plans. Having seen it, I still don't care all that much.

No, what I took away from Rogue One was an appreciation for the average member of the Rebellion and the effort to widen the Star Wars universe.

The problem George Lucas ran into with his horribly-written prequels was the shrinking of his rich and interesting Star Wars universe. There was no need for Tatooine to figure into Episode 1: the most pointless movie ever, as an example. The prequels suffered horribly from too much self-referential garbage in addition to the bad direction and horrible writing.

Rogue One isn't any kind of repository of Oscar-winning acting, but it does a solid job of expanding the Star Wars universe through the eyes of people who aren't Jedi or similar wonks.

It did a solid job of telling a story of everyday people who tried to fight the power and, ultimately, succeeded despite a horrible price.

There weren't Jedi in it. There was one Sith who was in the film for maybe ten minutes max.

Ten minutes of "holy shit what the fuck!" awesome.

The people I saw the film with had their own favorites among the cast of Rogue One. I'm going to go with "all of them" as my answer. I was down with the heroine, the morally-ambiguous Rebel intelligence agent, the reprogrammed snarky Imperial droid, the defecting Imperial pilot, the blind temple guardian (Donnie Yen!), and the surly dude with the rapid-fire blaster. I never really learned any of their names. I don't really care what their names were. They were entertaining. Their story was no more or less coherent than the main Star Wars movies. There were heroics, space battles, good guys, bad guys, and lots of shit getting blown the hell up.

And there was digital necromancy that creeped me out while making me cheer.

I enjoyed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story despite my best efforts. At the end, the only thing I can really fault it for is the music. Michael Giacchino (or however his name is spelled) is really not the guy to be scoring these flicks. I wish they'd gotten John Williams on-board. But such is life.

That was a fun flick. Hopefully the other spinoffs will be as solid.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

So it's December 20

I don't think I really got what the date was until I had a store clerk tell me.

Fucking hell. It's five days 'till Xmas. It's a bit over two weeks until the year turns and the turd-blossom that is 2016 leaves us for the potential shitstorm that is 2017.

Huh.

So I'm digesting part of a deep-dish pizza and more than a few pints of my favorite beer on draught.

It's a Tuesday. I'm between drunk and buzzed and feeling a bit introspective. I'm impressed I can spell "introspective" right now. And "draught". I know too many Brits.

2016. You've been a remarkably shitty year. Yet I don't give you full credit. Thought I was going to lose a parent earlier this year. Didn't. Grateful for that. Thought some job-related things were going full-on-shitstorm. Turned out I benefited far better than I expected.

Got a few lessons out of 2016 that I'm grateful for, once I get past my bitching.

Still a shitty year, mind you. Not walking away from most of the crap. But it could be worse.

I'm looking forward to down-time for the rest of 2016. I'm looking forward to tucking away from the rest of the crazy. I'm hoping this isn't a cold I'm fighting. I'm wondering if I should open that bottle of High West Campfire I got the other day. I'm debating burning sick leave for the rest of the week.

2017 is going to have to be different in a number of ways. I need to get my shit together. I need to discard hangups that I've had for too long. I need to grow up a bit more.

May as well do it sometime.

I need to buy a new goddamn bookshelf. Christ. I have books stacked on books in my apartment. It's ridiculous.

I guess there's worse problems to have.

Probably ought to cut back on the deep-dish pizza, though. That's not doing me any favors.

So tasty, though...

Friday, December 16, 2016

Review: Lever Gear Toolcard 1.0

This one wasn't a Kickstarter for me. At least not when I got in on it. It was an Indiegogo project when I got involved. The Lever Gear Toolcard 1.0 was a bumpy ride as crowdfunding projects go for me. I wasn't sure it was ever really going to deliver as I opted for a black Toolcard and there were supply issues.

About the same time my Dango wallet arrived, my Toolcard money clip came.

The Toolcard 1.0 does pretty much what my Dango wallet does, only with a less-menacing look to it. I don't think I'd have problems getting the Toolcard on an airplane or into court. It's got the screwdrivers, wrenches, rulers, pry-tips, and the all-important bottle opener. It's also got a clip for the money-clip function that I sought it for.

I'm quite happy with this acquisition and am interested to see what Lever Gear does in the future.

Review: Dango Wallet

Third of my glut of Kickstarters I backed, I got the Dango Products T1 "Tactical Wallet".

I swear to God, I can't resist these "tactical" thingies. I think it's because they simultaneously appeal to the kid in me who wanted to be James Bond and because they almost-always have a bottle opener and/or screwdriver.

After I got back from my trip last month, the T1 was waiting for me in my held mail.

The Dango wallets come in two flavors: the "Dapper" wallet and the "Tactical" one. The difference really is that the Tactical one has bezels and includes a multi-tool.

The wallet is an aluminum frame with a leather pocket on one side. The entire affair is held together by a silicone band. The frame has an integrated bottle opener on one end and can be used as a glass-breaker. The multi-tool can extend and sort of lock to let someone partially-extend the tool while using the wallet as a handle or to remove the tool altogether for its other functions.

The multi-tool has all sorts of things one might find on a wallet-tool: saw, blade, wrenches, pry-tip, screwdriver, and yet another bottle opener.

Huh. I just realized there's a second bottle opener. And my average goes up again.

The wallet itself is a work of art. It's freakin' gorgeous. It's designed to hold about eight or nine cards with the multi-tool. I've managed to push my T1 a little beyond what it's intended to hold and cram nearly all my cards in, with liberal use of the silicone band. I may get a Dapper wallet as a second or as a backup as I think I've overdone it on how many cards I've got in.

I carry too much crap.

Still, this is a damn fine wallet. Worth the money and I found Dango Products to be an excellent Kickstarter to back. Charlie Carroll, the creator, had excellent communication and seemed to have his act together. I'd back another by him.

Review: The B.A.T.

It's a running gag among my friends to ask me how many bottle openers I have on my person at any given time. The average is five or six.

I backed a Kickstarter: The B.A.T. and now the average went up a bit.

I forgot how the B.A.T. came to my attention, but once I saw it, I decided I had to back it.

I'm a sucker for little multi-tools and the B.A.T. looks like something Bruce Wayne might have in his coin purse.

The Kickstarter delivered about a week ago and I've had a little time with the B.A.T. as I struggle with how to carry it and not lose it.

As billed, the B.A.T. (Bring Anywhere Tool) is a tiny thing. About the size of a quarter. It looks like a Batman tool and covers a variety of functions. It's got a Phillips screwdriver, a flat-head screwdriver, a saw edge, a fire rod scraper, a wire stripper, a scribe tip (whatever that is), a cutter, and - of course - a bottle opener.

The creator, Covert Products Group, wins kudos from me for writing the most entertaining updates I've ever seen on Kickstarter. While infrequent, each update was written like a spy-novel short story. Damn entertaining.

In-all, I'm glad I backed this one. It's a nice little tool and looks cool.

Review: The ZeroHour Apex Tactical Pen

You know how I said I'd never back another Kickstarter again?

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read this mess of a blog that I lied.

ZeroHour is one of those Kickstarters who I really like. They communicate well and consistently. And they deliver in a timely manner. If there's hiccups or delays, they explain what's going on.

In short, they do what other Kickstarters should be doing. And they do it well.

I backed their first two flashlight offerings and have never regretted it. I keep one in my bag at all times and have the other handy. I've even backed their third flashlight offering because I have a terrible problem.

Okay, I'm getting off-track. So the pen. They sent out an announcement that they were doing a pen. A "tactical pen", to be clear. Honestly, I like a nice pen and find "tactical pens" to be an iffy thing to have on one's person. Still, I backed it. Got a titanium one because I do love me titanium. And it delivered on-time.

The ZeroHour Apex Tactical Pen is a clean-looking, small-but-sturdy writing instrument that looks like it comes out of a science fiction film. It has a screw-on cap that can be attached to a key-ring and, to earn the "tactical" moniker, has a tungsten carbide glass-breaker on the opposite end of the pen. The glass-breaker has a small screw-cap of its own so the sharp glass-breaker isn't poking holes in your garments (or skin).

The pen writes well and handles nicely. It takes Fisher Space Pen refills, which is always nice.

The other use for a "tactical pen" is that of an impromptu kubaton, at least in most cases. I can't say the Apex would fill that role very well. It's a tad small in my hand, but I suppose it could work. Certainly the pen doesn't look threatening, which is kind of important as it's a freakin' pen.

My only complaint about the pen is that the rubber rings they provide to help secure the screw tops are disinclined to stay put. I've already lost one. Still, that's a small thing in the grand picture.

I love the Apex pen and credit (or blame) ZeroHour for restoring my faith in Kickstarters enough that I backed a few more.

Just when I thought I was out...

Rambling

I swear to God that 2016 cannot end soon enough.

Now the FBI and CIA are saying the Russians messed with our election to get Trump into office.

I question what the hell Putin is thinking putting an unstable nutjob in a position of getting nuclear codes. They can't be that good of friends.

I distract myself with "Babylon's Ashes", book six of The Expanse series by James. S.A. Corey. I've got a little over a hundred pages left. Not quite four-fifths done. This book is kicking my ass.

After, I think I'll get back to "Good Intentions" by Elliot Kay. Nothing says fun like a story of an everyday guy who winds up with a succubus and an angel as his two girlfriends and lovers.

After that, I've got "Wrath" by John Gwynne, ending his four-part series of pseudo-Celtic insanity. Then either I go to "Natural Consequences" (sequel to "Good Intentions") or flip to "The Plague of Swords" by Miles Cameron (fourth book of the Red Knight series).

I like having so many options after a dry stretch of no reading material.

Rogue One came out today. I'm slated to see it next week sometime. I'm hoping it's good. The intros I've seen don't really give me a strong "Star Wars" feel, so I'm reserving judgment. That said, I was very pleasantly surprised by The Force Awakens, so Rogue One could be good. Hard to say. Unfortunately, it's also a prequel and I generally hate prequels.

Oh well. Nobody's putting a blaster to my head and making me go see it.

I actually just re-watched The Force Awakens. Damn, that flick is entertaining. Gotta say I love it more I watch it, and that's a rare thing. It's not a perfect movie, certainly, but it's entertaining.

Done with my Xmas shopping. Even managed some semi-decent stocking-stuffers. At least that's done.

And now another cold snap settles on the Bay Area. Supposed to dance along freezing temps later. Gotta say I'm liking the winter weather we're getting. Some nice rain storms followed by some proper cold weather. I'd think the world was getting back to sane except for the fact that the world is anything but.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Not quite a month left

Just a few weeks left in the shitstorm that has been 2016. I'm looking forward to this fucking disaster of a year being over but not particularly-enthused as to what 2017 has in store.

One bright note: the next Expanse book comes out today. That, and several other books, should be en route soon for my reading pleasure during my commute. Apparently BART is going to do major maintenance in mid-2016, which will be a tad disruptive to my early work schedule. Whee.

I think I'm going to take some vacation this month and hide away from the madness of the world. In the last week I've had someone try to break into my apartment building and had my credit card compromised. Fun times. Yeah, I'm kinda done with this year.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Review: "Doctor Strange"

Over the Thanksgiving break, I took some time to finally catch a matinee of Doctor Strange.

As origin stories for one of the weirder Marvel superheroes go, it didn't suck. Thoughts:

Pros:
  • Casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange
  • Cool effects
  • Nice settings
  • Avengers tower shot
  • Captain America: Civil War shout-out
  • Casting Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo
  • Benedict Wong as... um... Wong. And making Wong a badass librarian.
  • Entertaining fight scenes
  • Good placement of humor
  • Solid end-credits scenes
Cons:
  • Casting Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. Kinda white-washy.
  • Yawn-inducing villains
  • A bit too... Inception
  • A little heavy on the psychedelic coloring at points
  • Cumberbatch's American accent - it wasn't bad, but I found it a little jarring.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Solidly-entertaining.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Decompression

I spent the last week in the UK on business.

Yes, I escaped Trump-land to go to Brexit-land.

There, everyone asked me what I thought about Trump's winning the election.

I avoided profanity, for the most part. I explained that Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral, and that I'm bitterly disappointed. Every Brit I talked to was sympathetic. Makes me wonder how Brexit really came about.

Other than the hell of traveling to get there, I had a great time. I love British beers and pub food. My co-workers are delightful and hospitable, making my week great fun and my departure bittersweet.

I have to admit I had a few thoughts that linger in my mind as I recover from jetlag and, hopefully, any potential plague caught from flying:
  • I have yet to stay at a place in the UK (or Ireland) with decent water pressure in the shower.
  • UK light switches are weird, but cooler than US lights witches. They have individual power switches for each outlet!
  • UK plugs are ungainly and weird. US plugs are far more compact.
  • The British make delightful savory pies.
  • US craft beers are invading the UK. Lots of hoppy IPAs on tap there.
  • UK money and credit cards are far superior to US currency and credit cards.
  • Apparently there's a vague concept of pedestrian right-of-way in the UK, but if it exists, it's well-hidden.
  • Every bed I've slept on in the UK is harder than a rock. Every hotel room I've stayed in has been sweltering-hot.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Still processing

I'm seeing lots of calls for unity now in media. Lots of "okay, the election is done, let's get back together as a country and get through this" kind of stuff.

You know what? Fuck that.

Alaska, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas (both of you), Nebraska, Kansas, Oaklahoma, fucking Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, fucking Ohio, the whole goddamn South (Texas got special mention), Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Fuck all of you. You are populated by idiots. You put a frothing lunatic into the White House. Into the fucking WHITE HOUSE! This guy has never, ever worked in government. He's been bankrupt God-knows how many times. He is incoherent and has no actual plan beyond making funny noises with his mouth and groping women.

And you elected him.

I don't want to give a hug to any dipshit who voted for Trump. Ever.

This guy now has access to all those lovely, barely-understood, surveillance programs. He's buddy-buddy with Vladimir goddamn Putin.

He is not your friend. He is not going to do any of us any good.

Sinclair Lewis wrote a book called "It Can't Happen Here". Ironic title, given how the story went. And prescient. God damn us all.

Coping with yesterday

Soooo... we've got a mentally-unstable man-child with access to nuclear codes in 2017. With him is a very red House of Representatives and a pretty damn red Senate.

Bad time to be in the United States as a woman or have any color to your skin.

On the plus side: California has legalized recreational marijuana. That ought to take the edge off. I certainly plan to work on my alcohol-abuse skills in the coming months and years.

If we're really lucky, SMOD could come along any day and make it quick.

And there's always Cthulhu. Surely the stars are right already. At this point, Lovecraftian horror is looking pretty goddamn good.

...

Congratulations, 'Merica!

Specifically I'm talking to the inbred, knuckle-dragging fuckwits in the red states.

Apparently there's a lot of you.

You made the film Idiocracy a reality. Thanks for making me glad I don't have kids.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Electoral Madness and feeling some Luddite Love

So yeah. It's the U.S. Presidential election.

I voted a few weeks back. The day I got my absentee ballot, truth-be-told. As a California resident, my vote counts for jack shit in the presidential election, but I wasn't leaving anything to chance. Besides, California ballots have tons of other matters on them (*cough*marijuana legalization*cough*).

I won't lie. This election has had me stressed like mad. Fucking 2016 has not been a great year and all the bullshit in this election has not helped me sleep at night.

In a weird way, I have the demons of technology to thank for my not refreshing FiveThirtyEight every ten seconds. You see, yesterday, my Internet access crashed out. I figured it was my modem, but wasn't sure. Today, my ISP sent techs who swapped out my modem and felt they'd finished the job. They had some doubts based on their own tests on my line, but thought the modem ought to handle my issues.

Turns out my modem is only part of the problem. My Internet access is more than a bit unreliable and, at times, slower than frozen molasses. I am not happy.

Still, it's distracting me from watching how much of my country has opted to back a misogynistic, racist, irrational, incoherent, bankruptcy-addicted coke fiend as candidate for the highest office in the country.

Silver linings.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

That was a first

It's almost a cliche. When a stranger walks up to you on or around public transportation to strike up conversation, that person is almost always either asking for money or preaching religion. Every now and again you get someone who is lost, but that's rare. It's almost always the first two categories.

And when I say "preaching religion", I generally mean Bible-thumpers. You know the sort. "Have you heard the word of Jesus?" "Have you found Jesus?" (I once pointed someone to the BART agent for directions to lost-and-found). And so on.

So the other day I'm walking from a BART station and an older couple approach me. They're too well-dressed to hit me up for cash (though that's not always an indicator). They don't look lost.

They ask me if I want to hear about Buddhism.

Seriously. I had proselytizers approach me for Buddhism. I didn't even know there was such thing as Buddhist missionaries in the area!

Okay, I guess it's not all that odd, but that particular approach isn't one I tend to associate with Buddhists.

What the hell do I even call someone like that? A Buddha-thumper? I swear 2016 is just trying to out-weird itself.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Situational Awareness and the Gods of Paranoia

Last night I think I was targeted for robbery.

Normally, I'd chalk thoughts like that up to being a paranoiac, but in the cold light of morning memory, I'm actually pretty sure I dodged a metaphorical bullet.

So I was getting home later than usual last night, having met former co-workers for drinks. It's dark. I exit my local BART station and slip my transit card into my wallet as I start to walk in the direction that will take me home.

There's a guy lingering beyond the turnstile. That's not all that unusual. Lots of people linger, waiting for friends or whatever.

This guy, however, is a bit off. His eyes were lingering on my wallet and I noticed that. And he's also noting my backpack (which has my work laptop and stuff in it). He starts walking in the same direction I'm going.

I'm not cool with this so I stop and adjust my pockets. The guy also stops, ostensibly waiting for the nearby bus.

Again, this isn't unusual, but there's something a bit off that makes me nervous about him.

I continue on. My path, if I keep going as I anticipate, will take me into a poorly-lit area in a minute or so.

The guy starts walking in the same direction again.

I stop and "check my phone", paying more attention to him. He's furtively looking at me now. I'm still in a lit area with people around. I put my phone away and make eye contact with him. He doesn't quite look away, but breaks eye contact. Dude couldn't possibly look more guilty and I realize I'm being sized up for possible robbery. He's got loose clothes and may have a weapon under his coat or in a pocket.

Still watching him, I change course to cut through a populated, well-lit parking lot and pointedly watch him. He doesn't keep pace with me and when I cross a street, I lose track of him. I cut through a busy area, constantly noting anyone behind or around me. I'm clear, as far as I'm aware. I take a longer route home, keeping in a lit area and pausing from time to time to see if anyone odd is around me.

I get home without incident.

I've taken a lot of martial arts over the years. I'm out of practice in a bad way. I would fare poorly in an actual fight. I'm out-of-shape and it's just been too long. But some lessons really linger. The last style I studied put heavy emphasis on self-defense, which had a strong component of situational awareness. In a nutshell, the lesson is that you should always be aware of your surroundings and if something feels odd, pay attention to it.

It's quite possible I misread the situation last night. It's possible there was no threat there and nothing going on.

It's possible I was paranoid.

I don't think that was the case. I'm confident some asshole thought I was an easy mark and wanted, at bare minimum, my backpack and possibly my wallet and phone. I think someone sized me up for a mugging. I think I avoided a confrontation that could have gotten me robbed and possibly hurt.

Now I want to track down my teacher and thank him. And I'm kinda freaked out.

Monday, October 10, 2016

Well, that's one argument...

Despite the compelling argument... just... no. Please no.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Review: "The Wind and the Void" by Ryan Kirk

The third book in Ryan Kirk's Nighblades saga concludes the stories of Ryuu and Moriko, the ninjas-in-all-but-name badasses from the Kingdom as they face the dreaded Azarians, the foes from "World's Edge".

So... yeah. I have to admit I was a bit torn reading this book. On the one hand, I genuinely enjoy Kirk's characters and the world he created. I always get a bit of satisfaction in reading badass wuxia/ninja stories.

That said, I have to admit that "The Wind and the Void" finally got me tired of the whole "(s)he was amazed at how strong (s)he has gotten!" trope that was pretty much endlessly parroted throughout the book.

Kirk's story was pretty brutal and vicious, as the previous books were, and that doesn't bother me. What wore on me was how clear it was that the supernaturally-gifted protagonists were so far and beyond the mere mortal protagonists that it just started to get silly after a while.

The ending was abrupt and, frankly, some of the larger, overarching plots felt rushed and hollow. For all that, I still liked the series. Now on to some sci-fi for a while.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Big damn rock

I was in Boulder, Colorado this weekend. My first time in Colorado, truth be told.

A few things I observed:
  • That's beer country there. Lots of breweries and good ones at that.
  • The altitude kicked my ass in a bad way. Not just in drinking (a couple of beers knocked me on my ass), but in breathing at some points.
  • Boulder's got a lot of very attractive folk walking its streets.
  • It's interesting wandering about a place where pot's legal. Interesting in a good way.
Overall, I really liked Boulder. If I'd stayed longer, I expect I would have adapted to the altitude. By the second day, I was measurably better than the first so there's that. And Denver airport was nice and well run. I found it surreal that the restrooms were tornado shelters, but I suppose someplace had to be...

I also officiated a wedding. My first. It was... odd.

Fun, though.

Friday, September 23, 2016

Windows 10 and other observations

Deciding to take a long weekend, I've been noticing my PC has been trying to complete the latest Windows 10 update, an actual upgrade to the much-maligned "anniversary" version.

Windows 10 doesn't let one completely stop updates, alas. So I let it run. For hours.

In truth, it started earlier this week, botched out, and then restarted last night. It completed an hour and a half ago and then took another hour to install all the new crap and then finally boot up.

So far, so good, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And really tired of these ginormous updates from Microsoft.

I get enough of that every time I boot up my Ubuntu box.


Had a biergarten lunch in honor of the Oktoberfest season and autumn. The only other people around were parents looking to chat and have a pint while their kids ran around like maniacs.

Of course a pair of rugrats had to play a few feet from me. The kids were weirdly-fascinated by me while simultaneously being a bit shy (which is fine with me). Kids make me nervous. I hate the piercing sound of a child's crying, so I'm always a bit on-edge when kids are around. Inevitably, one will fall and get a little scrape or bump and then the banshee wail will cut right through my nice buzz from my beer and damage my calm.

So when I see kids doing dumb things, sometimes I'll say something. The mothers of the kids were paying some heed, but also distracted by the rare opportunity for grown-up conversation. One mother called out for the kids to stop climbing on rocks near me. The kids ignored her. After a moment, I noticed one rugrat was making headway on an unstable climb, so I called out that the kid should stop. Wide-eyed, the wee bairn stopped, stepped down and exchanged an uneasy glance with the other anklebiter. The mother, a bit bemused, thanked me and noted that the kids will probably listen as I said something.

Perhaps I look properly scary. That thought pleases me.

I'm burning through "The World of Ice & Fire" by George R.R. Martin. A gorgeously-illustrated history of Westeros, it's proven to be entertaining reading. Martin is a prolific madman, I'll grant him that. Just wish he'd finish up the damn series...

Monday, September 19, 2016

Vegas Baby

Just got back from a weekend in Las Vegas.

No, I'm not going to talk about what I did there. What goes on in Vegas... well, you know.

Still, I came back with some observations I feel like blogging about.
  • It's hot as fucking hell in Las Vegas in September.
  • There's a lot of douchebags in Vegas.
  • There's some excellent restaurants in Vegas.
  • There's a shocking shortage of good beer in Vegas. Oh, it's there, but hard-to-find.
  • It's impressive to think of the sort of engineering and planning that went into making a speck of desert into a playground.
  • It's hot as fucking hell in Las Vegas in September.

Friday, September 9, 2016

Book: "Nightblade" by Ryan Kirk

I'm not going to lie to you. "Nightblade" by Ryan Kirk is about ninjas. Except that the 'N' word is never uttered in the book.

So I finished "Nightblade" the other day. Today I started on book two (which tells you a bit of what I thought of book one). I've been trying to figure out why I loved "Nightblade" so much but disliked "Keeper of the Eye" so much.

Both have a protagonist who is a born badass. I guess I just liked the point-of-view scenes offered in "Nightblade" that made the hero's journey less-obnoxious.

I guess I should rewind a bit. "Nightblade" is about three people in a not-quite-pseudo-Japan land known as the Southern Kingdom. Ryuu is a boy orphaned at an early age and adopted by Shigeru, a badass who saves Ryuu and trains him to be an utter and complete badass of all badasses in a land with a fair number of badasses. Moriko is born with a similar badass ability (they call it "the sense" in the books) and becomes a different kind of badass. And poor Takao, a beautiful girl sold into prostitution for her father's debts. Yeah, you see how that's going to go.

"Nightblade" is a solid, entertaining tale of three young people caught up in a seriously fucked-up life situation due to circumstances beyond their control. Turns out two of them have superpowers. And bad stuff happens.

I'm not inclined to get more detailed. Honestly, if you've watched any kind of ninja story about the protagonist being a gifted badass who lays waste to all other badasses, you know this tale.

For all that, Ryan Kirk does a fantastic job with both his characters and his narrative. Amazon's recommendations have almost redeemed themselves by how much I enjoyed "Nightblade". I didn't even hesitate to get the other two books in the series.

I'm just praying he doesn't go Anthony Ryan on me and flame out after book one, but I'm into book two ("World's End") and it seems solid thus far.

There's parts of "Nightblade" I did not enjoy, truth be told. There's some horrific stuff that happens to characters who do not deserve it. I found some scenes a bit stomach-wrenching for my tastes. Still, overall I enjoyed the series enough that I'll read the other two books. I'm invested now.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Book: "Dark Run" by Mike Brooks

I switched gears in my reading material and went sci-fi to read "Dark Run", book one of the "Keiko" series by Mike Brooks.

I wasn't disappointed.

"Dark Run" tells the tale of the crew of the freighter Keiko, a home for all sorts of dangerous misfits who are led by the fast-talking Ichabod Drift. When Drift's past comes back to haunt him, the crew of the Keiko find themselves enmeshed in politics and having to figure out how to get revenge and stay alive.

"Dark Run" reads like a mix of "Firefly" and Ocean's Eleven. The protagonists are your classic mix of misfits: the grifter, the hacker ("slicer" in this world), the assassin, the tough guy, the merc, the hotshot pilot, the brilliant engineer. You know the selection.

While the cast and plot are familiar staples, Brooks does a great job of telling a fairly fresh story that I found entertaining and engaging. Caper science fiction. Hard to go wrong with that. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Way to introduce buzzkill

I'm a moderate fan of "Star Trek". I'm not a raging Trekkie (sorry, Trekker) but I enjoy the show. I'm partial to the original series from 1966, myself ("TOS" to purists) though I've enjoyed the mid-seasons of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and even a bit of "Deep Space 9".

I have opinions on "Voyager" and "Enterprise" that are not entirely (or even remotely) complimentary.

That said, I found myself momentarily jazzed to hear that there was a new TV series in the works. I even watched the teaser for "Star Trek: Discovery" and found myself a bit excited.

Then I found out it's a prequel. Not just a prequel, but a prequel to TOS.

And now the buzz is gone. The interest faded to naught. I find it hard to imagine how I could give less of a shit about this show.

Why? Prequel.

Prequels are generally lazy crap to try to milk money out of tried-and-true stories. If I were to be totally honest, I'd have to say I have the same utter lack-of-interest for the upcoming Star Wars spinoff, Rogue One. I don't really care about filling in the blanks in past narratives. Not to the degree that I'm going to see some huge dramatic presentation.

Prequels suffer from one major flaw: they lack dramatic tension. In "Discovery", we know the Federation is going to come out on top of any conflict because we've seen Kirk and company do his thing. If they don't, it's an alternate timeline and that means time-travel lazy sci-fi writing. Yawn. Been there.

For Rogue One we already know the rebels get the plans to the Death Star. I don't give two shits about new alphabet-spaceships used by the Rebellion in an effort to sell more toys. I don't care that they have some rag-tag band of cliches to stand in the Empire's path. I already know the Death Star gets built, blows up Alderran, and gets a proton torpedo enema courtesy of Luke Skywalker.

It's depressing to see so much time and energy dedicated to playing in safe sandboxes when there's so much interesting storytelling out there. Sigh.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Knuckle-dusting and box-cutting: the JHO Knives NUG

While perusing my usual morning assortment of random websites, I came across mention of the NUG by JHO Knives. I availed myself of purchasing the satin version because... shiny.

It arrived today.

I really, really like this.

The NUG is a solid, fun little combination tool and self-defence accessory. As a knife (as in something you'd use in a knife fight), it's not really much. It's more an impact tool to help deliver a punch (to break a window or a jaw or whatever). I suppose one could pop the tiny knife out to supplement that, but I'm not convinced it would be worth the effort in a fight. Seems to me I'd be lucky if I had time to get the damn thing around a finger in a fight. Deploying a tiny knife... yeah, probably not the sort of escalation I'd opt for.

That said, the knife is a handy, tough little blade. The site claims you can cut nearly anything with it. I wouldn't be surprised. With the knuckle-grip ring, it's pretty easy to deliver force without the knife slipping.

The opening action of the blade is surprisingly-smooth and the blade itself is tiny and discrete enough that it probably wouldn't freak people out when it's deployed to open a box or cut a string.

I have to say I really liked the packaging the NUG came in. Classier than most knives.

It's not going to replace my DPX HEST, but it's certainly going to have a place in my pockets.

My very heavily-burdened pockets... hm...

Anyway, I'm very pleased with this purchase. I'll be keeping an eye on JHO Knives in the future.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Book: "Keeper of the Eye" by Mark Shane

The third of my latest batch of "BART books", I just finished "Keeper of the Eye" by Mark Shane.

I'm starting to question Amazon's recommendation system and the sorts of people who leave five-star reviews.

"Keeper of the Eye" appears to be the freshman novel of Mark Shane, based on a quick Google search.

It tells the story of Michael, a handsome carpenter who is secretly a super-powerful magic user, instinctively-brilliant swordsman, and heir to the throne of some land with a forgettable name and of Falon, a beautiful (of course) super-efficient assassin who can drain a magic user of his or her power and/or life.

And there's a wizard named Max and a bunch of other utterly-forgettable side characters.

There's also a LORD OF DARKNESS trapped behind some magical barrier, evil warlocks who want to free said evil being, and gloating villains.

Oh, and there's a magic sword. Because fantasy.

I'm being snarky, of course. Many fantasy novels have some or all of these tropes. It's fine. Fantasy is escapist. Nothing wrong with having the tropes.

Done well.

So that brings me to "Keeper of the Eye". Imagine if you took "Once and Future King", "Wizard's First Rule", a bit of "Blood Song", and a sampling of pretty much every other fantasy novel you can imagine, then put them all together in a blender. Then you overdid it on the trite dialog and tropes.

There you have it.

"Keeper of the Eye" isn't really bad. It's an okay read. Fun in parts, with its overly-competent hero who is humble and self-doubting to the point of being ridiculous.

Then it starts to steer into really bad. Falon, the heroine, appears early on and is attached to the obligatory quest. Then she essentially merits the odd mention for about a third of the book, mainly screaming or glaring. The next thing you know, Michael and Falon are suddenly, jarringly, inexplicably from sniping at each other to in love.

Again, you read and see these tropes a lot, but normally they're done a bit better. This was just painful.

From there... yeah. I have to admit I was disappointed in this book. It was an okay read interspersed with just ridiculously-awful tropes and cliches.

I have time slated later to use whiskey to kill some brain cells.

Next up is either "The Waking Fire" by Anthony Ryan (as I try to see if he redeems himself after the awful sequels to "Blood Song") and then switching to sci-fi for a bit.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Game Thoughts:

Last Saturday was our monthly game. Possibly the last time this year the entire gang will get together around the table, thanks to real life and all that.

It wasn't my best game.

When the group last left off, several of their number were captive of a foe I'd been building up over several sessions. More of this foe's targets were still among the group. So the group set out to get to safer ground, with some undercover and disguised.

As I like complexity to my plots, I decided to see if the captives could manage an escape from my villains. Essentially, I played a side game with myself before we got together. Things got to a certain point and I decided I'd see where the tabletop game would go from there.

And that's where I fell down a bit. I let the party split (usually a no-no in role-playing games) but I'd intended to force things so everyone was present for any big bad encounters.

I lost control of the plot for a bit and had two players pretty much just sitting around bored for a couple of hours.

Yeah. I done a bad thing.

After our heroes delivered a bit of righteous smiting against bad guys, I got everyone together and threw even more bad guys (of a different sort) at them in a totally contrived fight. Only this time, I sort of forced things so everyone had to cooperate.

I thought I'd thrown some challenging bad guys at them. Fucking hell, they walked through my bad guys like they were paper dolls. It was a little embarrassing, all said.

I'm almost done with this story arc. Maybe I'm just running out of steam for this one. Hm. I must ponder.

Books: "The Path of Flames" and "Kingdom of Denall: The Troven"

As I wait for any of my favorite fantasy authors to find it in their schedules to release another book, I've had to turn to other avenues for my entertainment.

Yes, I've let Amazon guide me with their suggestions.

Two of the suggestions I have burned through were: "The Path of Flames" by Phil Tucker and "Kingdom of Denall: The Troven" by Eric Buffington.

The Path of Flames

Set in a strange, magical empire led by some kind of holy supermen called "Virtues", Tucker's "The Path of Flames" tells the stories of Asho the slave-turned-squire-turned-knight and Lady Kethe, the daughter of a great knight of the Ascendant Empire.

The story starts off interestingly-enough. Asho, a member of the slave-class Bythians, has been elevated to be a squire in defiance of tradition. For all that, the man who elevated Asho is an utter and complete asshole who wants Asho to fail horribly.

Then there's a battle in which dark, heretical magic is used to slaughter the army Asho stands with, leaving Asho one of the few survivors. For his part in the battle, Asho is knighted by one of the Virtues then returns to his lord's keep to tell of his lord's death and try to become a knight.

Then things get worse.

Meanwhile, Lady Kethe has decided she's not really into dresses, knitting, and "lady-like" endeavors. She wants to become a knight herself. So she's gotten a sword made and is learning to use it.

And she's kind of a badass. Oh, and apparently has some kind of ancestral magic.

So, yeah. Things got worse as things do. Villains do schemes and the next thing you know, our heroes and various associated heroes wind up in some ready-to-collapse keep in the middle of nowhere through one of the magic Gates that the Ascendant Empire uses.

Oh, and the keep is cursed. Anyone who is there for too long vanishes.

But our heroes have worse problems.

Yeah, I think I'll stop there on the plot specifics. Phil Tucker's story is certainly interesting. The world he's created for his Ascendant Empire is fascinating. He's got a very clear caste-system in place, an interesting religious structure, and an intriguing magic system. As the heroes stumble across ancient records, you can quickly see where the lies are set to prop up the power structure of the Ascendant Empire.

That's the good stuff.

From there, I have to say I wasn't especially taken-in by any of the characters in "The Path of Flames". Kethe was probably the most interesting, followed by one of the other knights. Everyone else was pretty cliche and cardboard-cutout. The villains were over-the-top. The heroes were largely hard to sympathize with. I especially found Asho to be disappointingly-whiny. When he starts to come into his own, the other problem emerges in the story. The magic used in the world is really not described very well. I had a hard time tracking WTF was going on at the end there. Or maybe my eyes just glazed over. Hard to say.

Overall, "Path of Flames" was okay. I'm not sure I'll hunt down the sequel. I'll have to think on it. I'm really intrigued to learn more of his world history but I really can't find myself giving two shits about the main characters at all.

Kingdom of Denall: The Troven


Yeah. Try saying that title three times fast.

Eric Buffington's coming-of-age story tells of four boys who undergo a rite of passage from their village known as "the Troven". When undertaking the Troven, boys of 18 or so (apparently women don't have to do this) have to live a year out in the world before they can come home and be considered men.

"The Troven" tells the story of four of these boys: Kaz, Garin, Farin, and Bendar as they set out on their Troven.

Let me back up a bit. It seems people who are born in the Kingdom of Denall (where these lads are from) are all born with some kind of magical gift. Exceptional sight, exceptional hearing, exceptional sense of smell, exceptional strength, super magic casting powers, you get the picture. These gifts get "levels". Level one is weak and barely worth nothing. Level four is impressive. Level five is seriously badass.

Young Kaz is born with the gift of sight, which manifests as four little dots around his eyes when he employs his magical ability. He's also an archer of uncommon skill. Like Robin Hood good.

Yes. When you use your ability, little dots appear indicating how strong you are (your "level") and what you can do.

Garin and his twin brother Farin have the gift of hearing, at a lesser strength than Kaz. Garin is a farm boy who just wants to finish his Troven then go home and marry his sweetheart. Farin wants to learn the sword and become a soldier for the king.
Bendar has the gift of intellect and is a bit "on the spectrum" in his interpersonal skills. He wants to go off to a university and learn all the things involving a terrible prophesy known as "The Changing" (dun-dun-DUN!!!!).

Our four lads decide to collaborate to survive their Troven.

Then things go wrong. Bandits. Wild animals. Crazed magic-hunters. You-name-it.

You see, while our hapless lads are wandering about, the magician Dune is trying to stop the mysterious Stone Seekers from finding the Stones of Power.

Yes, these magical MacGuffins can do things. There's a Stone of Sight, a Stone of Hearing, a Stone of Magic, and so on. And they call to people because maaaaaagic. That's what these things do, y'know.

Next thing you know, our four boys find themselves inadvertently caught up in schemes around the Stones of Power.

Because, of course, one of these lads is "chosen" and falls into possession of one of the Stones.

Yeah. Enough plot summary.

So, my thoughts: Buffington's story reads like a young adult novel in many ways. I really ought to go back and look if it's rated as such. I found the writing a bit uneven in parts. There was a lot of "the four boys on their Troven have gone here, done this minutae, and this happened" sort of stuff. Jarringly, he suddenly shifts in the next chapter to completely different characters who are doing completely different things that, I assume, will all come together in some future book.

Characters that appear important drop in seemingly at random with jarring introductions, then vanish again. The villains were largely cliche and fairly uninteresting. Some of the plot threads seemed to go off in really weird directions that make me wonder if this entire book was based on a role-playing campaign of some sort.

It's certainly got a role-playing feel to it.

For all that, I have to say I enjoyed the book. The main character, Kaz, was likeable-enough.

I assume this is Buffington's first offering and he'll only improve from here.

I think I'll pick up the sequel when it comes out, if only to see where he's going with this.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Science proves a "Duh" moment

Per Mental Floss, open offices are bad for productivity (and morale).

As someone who works in an open office environment, I have to say this one is a no-brainer. This conclusion has actually been around for a while now. Still, companies seem enamored with the whole "open office" design.

I imagine it must be cheaper or something. I can't, for the life of me, grasp any other reason why such a layout would be embraced.

I'm glad I like my co-workers.

I'm also glad we have a good work-from-home policy.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Books, Brownies, and Notes

I finished "Of Dawn & Darkness: Second Sea" by Will Wight. The alternate novel of the second set of books in his "Elder Empire" series that's essentially ninjas vs pirates in a world with Lovecraftian horrors, it's the second book telling the story of ship captain Calder Marten as he struggles through murky politics, maneuverings of Elder Gods, and a dance around his counterpart, the Consultant Shera (from "Of Dawn & Darkness: Second Shadow"... yes, I know I said it was called "Of Darkness & Dawn" before. I drink before I write blog posts, okay?).

It was a short, but thoroughly-enjoyable story of Marten, his dangerous wife, Jerri, and his madcap crew of misfits as he strives to become the next Emperor of the Empire.

You just have to love a sea captain with a mini-Cthulhu on ship instead of a parrot.

Wight does a creative job splitting his stories between the two main point-of-view protagonists: Calder Marten and Shera. His world is clever and quite disturbing.

Of the two books, I have to say I probably lean more towards enjoying Shera's stories than Calder's. My college roommate read the first pair of books and had the opposite reaction. Not terribly surprising. I've always been more of a ninja-leaning sort.

Now I'm briefly on to four Amazon suggestions. The first is "The Path of Flames" by Phil Tucker. The opening is a bit weird, but doesn't suck. Good BART fodder.

After that, I've got "Dark Run" by Mike Brooks (sci-fi), then "The Troven" by Eric Buffington (fantasy), and finally "Keeper of the Eye" by Mark Shane (again, fantasy).

I may burn through the fantasy novels before switching to sci-fi.



Made brownies. Not sure why I made brownies. One moment, I had no dessert in my house. The next, I had a batch of Scharffenberger-chocolate brownies.

I've already eaten four.

I need to get these goddamn things out of my apartment.



I'm back to pouring through Java. I took this evening to give myself a little refresher and clean up my notes before I tackle Inheritance. Already some things are clearer now.

Of course, I took a break and had a little whiskey. That's kind of finished me off for the night. Oh well, it's all good.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Why? WHYYYYY???

I... I just... whyyyyyyy? WHYYYYYYY????

IT HURTS THE BRAIN!!!

Classy

Trying to self-study Java has really driven home to me a few things:
  • Trying to self-study something you're learning for reasons other than personal interest is not a great way to learn a new skill.
  • I have a serious love-hate relationship with coding. Right now there's a bit more hate than love.
  • I can read Java code... more or less... but writing programs from scratch is a bit beyond me. Case in point: I have an exercise to write a class to create a stack class (processing first-in, last-out). I get the logic on a high level and how it differs from a queue (first-in, first-out), but writing a class to do that still escapes me after having read the referring chapter on methods and classes three times.

    That's not boding well for the rest of the book.
My conclusion is that I really ought to try to schedule a proper class for learning Java. The irony of needing a class (for instruction) to learn to write a class (something used in Java) amuses me. Plus, kinda punny.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Mr. Garibaldi

Jerry Doyle died yesterday.

As a (somewhat rabid) fan of "Babylon-5" it nearly broke my heart to read that the actor who played "Michael Garibaldi", the hard-bitten, alcoholic security chief of the Babylon-5 space station, had died.

I think I made it clear in past incoherent posts that I loved the series. When Andreas Katsulas died, it was a serious kick to the head. Then Richard Biggs, Michael O'Hare, and Jeff Conaway followed.

Each time, I would sit down and re-watch the series, focusing on episodes in which the actors starred that I felt made them shine. It was pretty hard with Katsulas, who made the alien G'Kar go from the hated, scheming villain to the Christ-like heroic warrior-philosopher at the end of the series. I expect it'll be the same with Doyle's Michael Garibaldi.

It wasn't until "Babylon-5" had ended that I learned about Jerry Doyle as a person. I can's say I would have liked the man, had I ever met him. I find his politics extremely disagreeable, but for all that, I find the world is a lesser place for his passing. He was a very entertaining actor, and I think I'll always admire that.

While searching for more information on Doyle's death, I found a eulogy written by the series creator, J. Michael Straczynsky at Epic Times. It's pretty goddamn awesome.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Random thoughts

One of the major candidates for President of the United States is calling upon a foreign power to conduct cyber-espionage.

This is a thing.

Not surprising that North Korea considers said candidate to be a "wise choice" for President.

I'm now reading Will Wight's "OF Darkness & Dawn". God I love this series. Cthulhu-parrots. Just sayin'.


I'm about a third of the way through Java: A Beginner's Guide, Sixth Edition. I'd be lying if I said most of this is sticking in my head. I'm going to need to re-read several chapters a few times, but certain concepts are making sense now. When I look at code on my job (Apex, not Java, but similar syntax) things make a bit more sense. I just need to get my druthers and read up on Inheritance.



So now is a bad time for me to be developing carpal tunnel. Yee-haw.



2016 is mellowing a bit in its constant string of moderate to severe crap, but I'm still finding the odd hiccup coming my way. Case in point: I really only have one event I'm aiming to take vacation time for during what's left of 2016. I'm going to celebrations for a friend's wedding. So when does my company ask to fly me out to one of the other offices? Of course during that time. Fortunately, I persuaded them to reschedule. Still, it just figures.

Thoughts on "A Song of Ice and Fire" vs "Game of Thrones"

I'm just about done re-reading "A Dance with Dragons", bringing me up-to-date on the books of "A Song of Ice and Fire". I'm also up-to-date on the latest season of "Game of Thrones".

Thoughts:

  • I get why HBO cut back on the magic. SFX are expensive and all that. Still, I would have liked to see a bit more magic than the TV series currently shows.
  • Along that vein, I'm disappointed the TV series has not seen fit to show Arya Stark and Jon Snow as wargs, similar to Brandon Stark (and, it's implied, Rickon Stark). Of course, Arya being a warg makes her whole training by the Faceless Men completely different, but it makes her even more badass. And Jon... well, if it turns out his parentage is the same in the books as in the TV series, then just imagine the possibilities!
  • It's a nitpick, but I kind of wish the TV series had gone with making the White Walkers (known as "The Others" in the books) look inhumanly-beautiful instead of just creepy.
  • I'm still not cool on the whole Ramsay Bolton and Sansa Stark storyline, but I have to admit that the conclusion in the TV series was very satisfying!
  • I think the series cheated itself a bit by not introducing Lady Stoneheart.
  • I like Kit Harrington fine as Jon Snow, but I have to admit, I still think the character of Jon Snow in the TV series is kind of a vacuous dork. At least in the books he learns a certain wisdom. And he proves smart and fairly politically-canny. I get why the TV series went that route, but it lessens the character and disappoints me.
  • I hope the books do as well with Tyrion and Danerys as the TV series has done.
  • I have no idea what crack HBO's writers were smoking when they did their Dorne sub-plots.
At this point, the TV series is so far off-the-rails from the books, they're essentially different experiences altogether, but I have to say I'm enjoying them. I'm even getting some new respect for "A Feast of Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons" as books. I wasn't keen on them the first couple of times, but now I have to say I appreciate most of the content and understand how Martin is getting lost in his incredibly complex and compelling world.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Things you can't unsee

I hate rats.

I really, really hate rats.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, I just popped out to get my mail. My neighbor was out there and pointed out a dead rat in a tree near my apartment building.

Not just any kind of dead rat, mind you. The head was torn off and flies are having a field day with what's left dangling from the branches.

Now we're both wondering how the hell it got up there and where's the head???

My theory: a hawk or condor got it, bit off the head, and dropped the body, which got stuck in the branches.

Of course, I probably would never have noticed this if my neighbor hadn't pointed it out. Until I saw the flies, I thought the body was a dead leaf. Now... ugh.

That image is sticking with me for a good, long time. Yuck.

The Asylum Doors Open

It's official: Drumpf is the Repugnican candidate.

Given what an incoherent, babbling huckster he is, this election should be the Dems to lose.

I really hope they pull out their A-Game material and don't fuck this up.

Saturday, July 16, 2016

A year of change and turmoil

So Turkey had an attempted military coup yesterday.

Fucking hell.

Not sure where I would stand on that, really. As I've been told, Turkey's president is a bit of a reactionary, fundamentalist douchebag. That said, military coups have never really been a good thing.

Hm. Hard call there. Glad I don't live in Turkey.

It's been a hell of a year, hasn't it? Change everywhere, from what I can see.

My office is going through insane change with "reorganizations" that have been... well... trying.

Two of my friends lost close family members in the last six months. I saw my own dad undergo fairly serious surgery that had me a worried basket case for a good six weeks of the year.

We've got our own domestic politics in a crazy place. At this point, it's come down to picking Clinton (a dubious choice) or Trump (a crzy-ass fuckwit) as our next president of the United States.

Some scientists say we're past the point of no return on global warming. The TPP is looking like it may actually become a thing, which will fuck anyone not part of the 1%. Everything is looking a mite grim.

There's not much escape in fiction. Most fiction is pretty dystopian or nihilistic. *cough*Game of Thrones*cough*

Hell, even my local brewery is going through changes. WTF is it with 2016?

Monday, July 11, 2016

Game Thoughts:

We had our monthly GURPS game on Saturday.

Set a day after we did a marathon viewing of the last three episodes of "Game of Thrones", it made for an intense, nerd-heavy, weekend.

Was kind of bad timing as well.

As I've probably indicated before, I run most of the games my group participates in. The masochists I game with seem to be fine with that and I really enjoy the opportunity to engage in world-building and story telling.

Unfortunately, I do tend to be inspired by some pretty fucked-up stuff. "A Song of Ice and Fire" is only one of myriad horribly messed-up stories that tickle my demented imagination.

If you've seen the last season of "Game of Thrones", you know (to nobody's surprise) that some really fucked-up shit goes down.

And, unfortunately for my players, I do like introducing fucked-up shit in my games. And this weekend, the two met in a whirlpool of wrong.

The current campaign I run is set in a generic, home-grown, Tolkien-inspired, fantasy world. You've got your Elves, your Dwarves, your Orcs, and various other fairy tale-inspired non-human races among the various cliche human cultures. We've got a terrible "evil empire" and various "evil kingdoms" dotted about the world and all sorts of terrible things inspired from sources ranging from Lovecraft to Tolkien to more obscure sources.

The world was created by four of us collaborating in the beginning to build a world from scratch.

We ran a 15 year campaign set in the world in which epic heroes rose from humble(ish) beginnings to a climactic showdown with the main Evil Empire, resulting in its defeat and a chaotic mess of a world left behind.

The campaign I'm now running overlaps with those events a bit. It's a humble group of misfit mercenaries under a tired, crippled, old mercenary commander with a checkered past. The PCs have more in-depth character stories and harder limitations in place to keep the campaign's power level from getting too insane.

I'm using this campaign to toy with storytelling techniques and ideas I've been thinking about. I've got a larger story arc in mind for the hapless mercenaries that I'm breaking up into "books".

Book One ("The Refugees") involved the mercenary company forming and meeting one another as well as the introduction of the various side-characters (NPCs) that I'm notorious for. I do like lots of background color. My dramatis personae list is absolutely insane. The story arc involved escorting hapless refugees from a besieged city to relative safety. In it, villains were introduced and plots teased.

We finished "The Refugees" a year or two back and are now almost done with my tentative Book Two ("The Journeyman Quest"). The story arc has the mercenary company escorting a wizard and her assistant/bodyguard as they try to take a book (another wizard's journal) back to their home island, hundreds of miles to the west across very hostile territory. Other people (some more hostile than others) seek the book and, as the plot has progressed, it's become clear that the book and this guard-job is only a tiny part of what's going on. Backstories of player characters and NPCs have tied together and both old and new threats have crossed the company's path.

That was more background than I'd intended to write, but whatever. I guess it offers context.

So the games I run tend to be cyclical. Some are expository. Some are low-key. Some are the heroes kicking all kinds of ass. And some are "hose jobs".

Saturday was a hose job.

I've been teasing a threat for many sessions now. A rival group of mercenaries who have been hired to capture several of the company's membership (PCs and NPCs alike).

I had the first real encounter happen last night. And it was a clusterfuck of wrong. By the end, I'd left one PC half-blinded while another had actually rung the doorbell on Death's door.

Some were captured and some just left for dead.

Wasn't exactly where I wanted to leave things, especially after the psychotic insanity of "Game of Thrones" in our minds, but it was what it was.

I'll admit to a nagging feeling of guilt. Maybe I should have softened things. But then, I think, it makes the threats I have been building up just wuss out. Messes up my narrative.

It's a hard balance to find in games.

Gives me something to ponder for the next month, anyway.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Nice

I'm glad I don't have kids (so far as I'm aware). Especially when I read news like this



My wireless router just crapped out on me today. A Medialink router, it decided to abruptly cease doing what it does in a narrow 20 minute window while I was on the phone. I got back and five minutes before I'm to dial in for a meeting, I have no Internet access at all.

If I believed in God, I'd think that was a sign.

I fortunately kept my old, hard-wired D-Link router and have restored access. I don't have wireless in my apartment anymore, but... meh. It's a small apartment. I can make due for a while.



After some bad news, I opted to hit a brewery for dinner. They had a barrel-aged red on draft. Tomorrow's going to be rough-going. Just sayin'.



I'm almost done re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reading "A Game of Thrones". It's a bit painful to read all the little branch points and bad decisions that lead up to the tragic moment in the book.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

To Gym or Not to Gym?

I'm out-of-shape.

It's gotten pretty sad, truth-be-told. I used to be able to run four or five miles without too much trouble. Now if I make one or two miles, I consider it fairly miraculous.

Don't get me started over stairs.

I'd like to blame my job, my work hours, the fates, the alignment of the stars, the gods, etc., but the fact of the matter is that I'm paying the price for a period I spent wallowing in self-pity at the bottom of too many pint glasses, either in a bar or in front of my PC.

I've been trying to overcome the inertia I'm set on. I've done it before. Last time I lost a good thirty pounds in just a few months by changing my diet and exercising like a madman.

Of course, last time, I could bicycle to work. And last time I wasn't quite so tempted with so many food options in my work area.

Those are excuses, of course.

I'm trying not to eat high-calorie meals so much anymore or snack at work, but... yeah. That's a struggle.

I run, or try to, and attempt to fold in some calisthenics when I get home, but frankly, it's really not enough. I find too many excuses to skip or shorten my routines. I have to study. I have to figure out job stuff. I have to decompress. Blah-blah-blah.

So at lunch today with friends, one of my buddies who experiences similar issues suggested joining a gym.

I'll admit, I've considered the idea. My office will pay a subsidy to help with a gym membership. There's advantages to a gym, but they're ultimately overcome by the flaw in the premise: if I can't find the willpower to exercise on my own, what makes me think I'll do it in a gym?

Oh, there's the argument that if you pay for it, it inspires you to go. That's frankly bullshit. All that will happen is I'll burn money and be mad at myself.

So a gym... hm. Probably not.

I should get back into martial arts. I've considered it. I do enjoy it and it's an excellent workout. The issues (aside from willpower) really fall down to time constraints (working out class times with my work) and the fact that martial arts classes attract a fair number of assholes.

And, trust me. You don't want to deal with an asshole in a martial arts class. I almost lost an ear to one in the last style I studied.

In any event, it's certainly something I need to work out soon. Ugh.

Person of Interest

Last night was the conclusion to "Person of Interest", pretty much the only TV show I watch (well, watched) that wasn't what passes for news on TV.

I'm sad now.

I truly enjoyed POI. The premise was a fun procedural (billionaire recruits CIA badass to help him save lives) that mutated into some cool, subversive sci-fi(?). Topics such as mass surveillance, the good of the many vs the good of the few, and artificial intelligence were all introduced as the show expanded to a fascinating cast of characters.

The last two seasons revolved around the AI used by the good guys (known as "The Machine") in its battle against the seemingly-malign and totalitarian AI known as "Samaritan".

Throughout the five years, I found myself truly invested in the characters. I loved the many layers of the morally-tormented Harold Finch as he wrestled with being the creator of one of the ASIs ("artificial super-intelligences"). I enjoyed the wry tough-guy humor of John Reese, the former CIA killer. I fell more than a little in love with the emotionally-stunted badass killer, Samine Shaw. I loved how the ever-awesome Amy Acker went from psychotic villain to psychotic hero. I fell a little in love with Detective Joss Carter and was pissed the hell off when she died in one of the more ridiculous deaths in a show full of weird deaths. And I have to say I grew to consider Lionel Fusco, the bad cop turned good, as my favorite. I still consider him the most heroic character in the show.

I loved the slow-burning intensity of the five seasons of the show and the sinister growth of Samaritan's power into this season.

If I have a complaint at all, it's that the last two episodes felt waaaaaay too rushed. After such a slow build-up, there were some jarring reversals and hand-waving to get the story to its otherwise satisfying conclusion.

I'm going to miss you, POI. You were a fairly intelligently-written show, overall.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

This, that, and other stuff

I'm re-re-re-re-re-re-reading "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin. I'm starting again with "A Game of Thrones" with the intention of hacking my way through the written series.

Again.

I'm of mixed feeling on this. I'm out of interesting reading material, and want to re-familiarize myself with the written series. But frankly, the last two books of the series ("A Feast for Crows" and "A Dance with Dragons") were kinda shit. Especially "A Dance with Dragons". Given how long it's taking to get the next book out (five years, I think is the current count), I don't expect to see the written series conclude.

The TV series doesn't really count, given it's completely off-the-rails now.

Still, I need something to entertain me on BART.


Re-stocked on my supply of High West Campfire. Damn that's good booze.



Went shopping for shoes today. Yes. Shoes shopping.

One can shop for shoes online (via Zappos or what-not), but I find shoes shopping to be very much a brick-and-mortar sort of activity. It really helps to try on different shoes and get a proper feel for them.

I must have gone through fifteen different pairs before settling on what I wound up getting. It's amazing how different brands of shoes can offer the same size, but feel completely different.

One pair dug into the arch of my foot so badly, I was limping for a part of my afternoon.

Oh well. Hopefully these shoes will survive for a while.

I hate shopping for shoes.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Crosseyed Code

I'm not really all that far into my studies in Java and it's already doing something to my brain.

I'm dreaming of setting classes and arranging for loops. I think I've typed "public static void main(String args[]) {" enough that it may be etched on my frontal lobes. I'm dreaming of "System.out.print" statements.

WTF is this going to do to me in a few more weeks? Sweet FSM I'm only three chapters in.

The Twin Foundations

This post title refers to a basic philosophy I hold about the Universe. The twin foundations of the Universe are perversity and irony. Out of those, we get the weirdness of our reality.

When I can't see evidence of that, I know I'm just not looking hard enough.

The latest evidence I find is in my office. We've suffered horrific attrition this year. As a result, some of us have shuffled our duties a bit to help keep things going.

My role in my office is pretty much supporting. I work on multiple teams at the tail end of a process. I don't call the shots. I provide input in certain matters, but I'm largely a peripheral character.

If my office were a TV show, I'd be the comic relief.

On top of all that, I hate meetings. I hate them with an unholy passion. I tolerate meetings that are relevant and provide useful information, but anyone who works in any kind of office knows such things are impossibly rare.

I work in software, and my company attempts to practice the Scrum method of Agile development.

Look it up if you're confused. I really don't want to get into that in this post.

In a nutshell, Scrum pretty much means that every day, you can look forward to a meeting called a "standup", which is - in theory - no more than 15 minutes long and pretty much just gets a team in-sync with what's going on with one another and calls out any problems (called "blockers" in the parlance).

Standups can very easily go off the rails. They are supposed to be overseen by someone known as a "Scrum master".

No, that's not a supervillain name, though that idea has promise. It is, in theory, a role that rotates among team members. Run the standup. If someone's got something keeping the lucky soul from getting his or her job done, the "Scrum master" tries to escalate the issue to fix it.

Pretty simple, in theory, but it's not really an easy task. Meetings have a tendency to spin out of control and get quickly off-topic. As soon as that happens, your meeting is an utter waste of time, costing the company money and the staff sanity.

What the hell does that have to do with Perversity and Irony, you ask?

Good question. I got off the rails there, didn't I? Good thing this isn't a standup.

So I've been stepping into the role of "Scrum master" for my teams of late. Why? I don't know. Impatience, I guess. The funny bit is that people are telling me I'm doing a great job keeping things on-track. It's not due to any innate leadership skills on my part. No, most certainly that. It's pure, stubborn, impatience and a heartfelt loathing of meetings.

Figures one of the few things I'm apparently good at pertains to something I hate.

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

I'll have a cuppa...

So I'm trying to learn Java.

More accurately, I'm working my way through Java: A Beginner's Guide, Sixth Edition by Herbert Schildt.

Why? Reasons.

It's really driving home how I really am not a programmer.

I've dabbled before.

When I was a kid, Basic was a big thing. Of course, the Pyramids were new and we'd just come out of the last ice age, so... yeah.

It never really stuck, though. I didn't really have the head for programming as a kid. In fairness, I didn't have a head for anything that wasn't sci-fi pop culture. So it goes.

Fast-forward a chunk of time and I'm learning the basics of UNIX (oh god, vi...) and I take a class on Perl scripting.

Sweet FSM what a hellscape that became.

I can remember bits and pieces of Perl, but never really needed it on my job so the knowledge faded. I still have my O'Reilly book on Learning Perl, but it's got a layer of dust on it.

A few years back, I decided to familiarize myself with JavaScript. I picked up A Smarter Way to Learn JavaScript by Mark Myers. Myers has very digestible lessons with short exercises to test one's knowledge.

I was actually doing pretty well with it. I got about halfway through, then life kicked me in the balls and I focused all my energies on getting a new job.

Then I had to learn the new job stuff, which mainly meant studying a lot of Salesforce platform stuff. Not Apex, their JavaScript knock-off, but their clicks-not-code bits.

I got my 401 certification from them and let my brain coast for the last year.

Then life came along and kicked me in the balls again.

Now I'm trying to learn Java.

Not so much to program. I mostly want to be able to read code in a fairly-common object-oriented language and understand WTF is going on.

It's not a painless process, but damn me if I'm not having a bit of fun. Once I got my first crappy little Java program to compile, it was immensely satisfying. Running it and seeing the corny message, was a warm-and-fuzzy feeling.

I'm determined to put in at least an hour every day to get through this nearly 700 page behemoth and understand this damn language.

Then, who knows? I think I'll revisit JavaScript. Maybe even look at Perl again.

Assuming my brain hasn't exploded.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Review: "Deadpool"

I took today off from work. Chilled out. Ate a nice, fattening breakfast. Hit a biergarten for lunch. Chill day.

Oh wait, I said I was going to review Deadpool, didn't I?

Yeah, so I finally saw Deadpool. Dunno why or how I missed it in theaters.

No, wait. That's a lie. I know why and how. By the time life calmed down enough for me to even consider hitting a film in theaters, it was too much of a pain in the ass to find one in which Deadpool was still playing.

Fast forward to today. So... yeah.

Reactions: Goddamn brilliant!

Nice opening with the ultra-violence. Fun dose of carnage. Morena Baccarin. Mmmm... Sorry, where was I?

I'm lukewarm on Deadpool in comics. The character concept is campy, but fun. I didn't think they could possibly do a proper Deadpool film. When I heard Ryan Reynolds (who once played Green Lantern) was cast, I was... well, I wasn't super-excited. Reynolds also played Wade Wilson in Wolverine: Origins, which was not a good movie, so... yeah.

I was gratified to find my fears were unfounded. This movie was fantastic. Breaking the fourth wall. Ridiculous villains. X-Men cameos. Guns. It had it all.

And Morena Baccarin.

I cannot wait for the sequel.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Drama and Gaming

When preparing to run a table-top role-playing game, I learned long ago that it's an exercise in futility to write out too many details.

Players are just impossible to predict. They do shit you never thought of. They do shit you really wish they hadn't thought of. They just do shit sometimes.

So I don't get into the details too much. I write myself up a nice outline. I prepare my list of non-player characters (NPCs) and then improvise.

I've described table-top role-playing as a sort of improv theater. I think the description has merit.

Sometimes I slip up and go nuts defining things. It's always tempting to go for some grand prophesy or achieve some Tolkien-esque level of epic.

Invariably, it's a bad idea. True drama needs to grow organically from the party.

Oh, you can drop all the hints, conspiracies, clues, and teasers in until SMOD comes to finish everything off in a fiery crash of doom, but the fact of the matter is that players hate being railroaded. They only appreciate drama if it comes from their choices and actions.

Usually.

I've been running games for... well, let's just say a long time and leave it at that. Inevitably, there are times when player characters just run out of luck and get killed off.

Oddly enough, it's a fairly rare thing in my games. It's sort of a joke in my games that any NPC I have that has a full name and backstory has a life expectancy measured in minutes.

A cruel jibe, but not an incorrect one.

Anyway, I don't generally kill off people's characters, even if I don't like them. There's always a way to tweak even the most odorous of character concepts around to mesh in a campaign. If not, there's always subtle ways to encourage players to change characters. It's gauche and barbaric to up and kill them off.

It's too quick, too. I'm a sadist. I usually want them to twist a bit.

Why am I talking about this? Well, last Saturday was my group's monthly sit-down game.

And one of the PCs didn't survive the game.

In fairness, I didn't plan on things going the way they went.

I started the game by arriving in a foul mood. I'd been depressed and not really in a gaming mood. I had an outline that required the heroes to get rid of a BAD THING. I'd intended to get rid of an NPC who was a traveling monk who was with the party and leave some kind of lasting mark on those who were last with him. I was running a very dark game (even by my standards) and I had an idea in mind that would lead to something suitably horrible later.

I did say I was depressed.

Then along comes that whole Player Uncertainty Principle. One of the PCs, whom I'd recently messed with to make the character have more of a dramatic path, took a more heroic course than I'd intended.

Fascinated by the turn of events, I fell back into my habit of letting things run their course and I altered my plans.

By the end of the night's session, a character who had been something of a clownish joke was sacrificing his life to save people he'd never seen or met. If I'm not wrong, there were a few tears at the table as all this went down.

And I think a couple of players were pissed at me for letting things go the way they did.

I have to say, it was a beautiful moment. Bittersweet, heroic, and dramatic. Probably one of the best moments of drama I've ever had in a game, truth be told.

I wish we'd recorded it. Goddamn that was awesome.

Friday, May 6, 2016

Review: "Captain America: Civil War"

Took the day off to unwind and get my head back together.

Also deal with a sinus infection. That's been great fun.

Part of today's activities involved hitting a matinee of Captain America: Civil War.

GodDAMN that was an awesome movie!

I've enjoyed all the Captain America offerings as well as the Avengers flicks. Hell, I even liked The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

So Civil War would be better described as an Avengers movie, save for the central role that Captain America and Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier) take in it.

It was a solid and entertaining story in which the world's nations are getting a mite skittish over all the super-powered people. So there's laws they're putting in-place to get everyone in a nice, safe box. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is all on-board. Steve Rogers is having none of it. So when bad things happen and the blame lies at the feet of the fugitive James Buchannan "Bucky" Barnes, the super-team of the Avengers splits down the middle. A few new players come on board as well. We get Scott Lang's Ant Man as well as goddamn Spider Man, but the best addition is T'Challa, known better in comics as the badass known as Black Panther.

Of course there's more to the story than all that, but I'm just going to suggest you go watch the movie. It's a great mix of action, humor, and bits of comic-book awesome.

I need to see it again.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

The rule of the Dark Side

Two there are: the Donald and the Apprentice.

Monday, May 2, 2016

A prolific sign of a problem

It hit me the other day. I was taking a long, hard look at my life and career and finding myself falling short of where I feel I should be.

It's depressing to realize you're not as good as you should be at what you do for a living.

So it made me think: what the hell am I doing with my spare time that's taking me away from my life? What's distracting me so?

Then I took a good, long look at a single website.

It's not what you think. For many years now, I've been running a table-top role-playing game. I've mentioned it before more than a few times. Hell, a campaign of some 15 years wrapped up a few years back.

I decided to go through the Google Group we use to store most of our game background.

I stopped counting after I hit 300 pages. I estimate there's over 500 pages of material on the site. About 90% of that, I've authored.

And that's just for the one Fantasy campaign.

This doesn't count the content defunct Yahoo Group we used to use for storing this info. I still haven't ported over a lot of those pages.

This also doesn't take into account the "secret super powers" modern-day campaign I had as an alternate.

I figure if I ever get my druthers and clean some content up, I would be able to compile a novel of our gaming campaign with a word count that may well rival Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin's works.

Wouldn't be anywhere near as good, mind you. It would be derivative as hell of myriad fantasy writers, but it would be a verbose as all hell story.

So that's where I've sunk a ton of my life.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, but at least now I don't feel I should be burning my geek card over May the Fourth.

I'll probably just singe it a bit. Set phasers to "cook".

The Force is not with me

That's it. It's time for me to burn my geek card.

While ribbing some British co-workers over their good fortune of having May Day as a paid holiday, I was reminded that I should be looking forward to the fourth here.

Silly me, I corrected said worthy soul and said "Oh no, you're thinking of Cinco de Mayo. That's the fifth."

Never have I been so ashamed to be so terribly, terribly wrong.

I find my lack of faith disturbing.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Belated Review: "The Expanse" (TV series)

A ridiculously-horrible head cold, likely derived from a sinus infection coming from my hellish week of allergies had me laid up most of yesterday and all of today.

So what to do?

Well, I have a DVD set of the SyFy Channel's "The Expanse" series, so that takes care of that question.

I'll be honest with you: after the train wreck that was the last season and a half of "Battlestar Galactica" and the ridiculous downward spiral of SciFi Channel turned SyFy Channel (what a stupid name), I was loathe to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I read the first four books of the series by James S.A. Corey and loved it. I wasn't super-interested in letting the TV series poison what I enjoyed.

Then I watched the first episode on YouTube.

I ate my words a bit and eventually got the series on DVD to gorge on at my leisure.

When your head is pounding from sinuses, you pretty much don't want to move, and kind of want to die, there's nothing better than some space opera.

And I have to admit, the TV series delivers.

I'm pretty happy with the casting and the continuity tweaks, overall.

Steven Strait is a solid James Holden. I have to say that Thomas Jane does a pretty good job as Miller. Dominique Tipper is pretty much dead-on as how I envisioned Naomi Nagata. Cas Anvar is an excellent Alex and Wes Chatham is growing on me as Amos. Shohreh Aghdashloo is a little warm-and-fuzzy for how I picture Chrisjen Avasarala (who doesn't even appear in the books until "Caliban's War"), but I get there are certain realities of having profanity-using characters on television.

There were surprisingly-mild changes to the story of "Leviathan Wakes", but I can't say they damaged the overall story at all.

And I love the Rocinante. I just love it with an unhealthy passion.

I can't wait for season two. Assuming these goddamn allergies don't kill me first.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

An outrage

Did you know that the United States, home to the founding of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (aka Pastafarianism) does not officially recognize our creed as a true religion?

According to Atlas Obscura, a U.S. judge ruled our faith to not qualify for Constitutional protection.

Given some of the bullshit out there that's managed to get protections in this country, I consider this to be an unforgivable outrage.

Seriously. What do we have to do to overcome this persecution and lack of recognition? I ask for your guidance, oh Great FSM! May we be touched by Your Noodly Appendage. RAmen!

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Huh

My stats say, as of writing this post, this blog has had 109,109 page views since it started back when the whim struck me.

What an odd number.

Review: "The Far Stars" trilogy by Jay Allan

I saw a review on io9 recommending a space opera series by Jay Allan. The series consists of three books: Enemy in the Dark, Shadow of Empire, and Funeral Games.

Starving for reading material amidst the shit-storm that has been the first three months of 2016, I rolled the dice and got all three books from Amazon.

Good lord.

So the review (linked above) does this series justice. The hero's name is "Arkarin Blackhawk". In the first chapter, he's wearing a loincloth on an alien planet and fighting a guy in a dinosaur. Blackhawk, a genetically-engineered superman who - the author will repeatedly tell you - is haunted by a dark past. Blackhawk is pretty much what you'd get if you took Doc Savage, Han Solo, and Aragorn, then put them in a blender and poured the result into a spaceship.

Blackhawk's crew are all similar cliches: the loud-mouthed second-in-command, the beautiful assassin, the lumbering ass-kickers, the hyper-skilled mechanic, the hyper-skilled pilot, etc. etc.

These misfits are united only in their love for Blackhawk and vice-versa as they blow up everything and everyone they come across. Blackhawk has a love interest in the form of Astra Lucerne, who is beautiful, spunky, stubborn, blah-blah-blah and loves Blackhawk despite his terrible darkness.

Seriously. This is repeated nearly every chapter in all three books.

So, I'm snarking on this series a bit, but I have to say it's a fun read. It's classic, trashy pulp story with evil, scheming villains, an evil empire, and tropes galore. Jay Allan does a great job writing up cheese while making it engaging and fun.

It's been a welcome distraction on BART and good, clean fun.

If you're looking for a "Battlestar Galactica"-meets-Star Wars story, I'd suggest giving the series a try.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

An open letter to Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,

Please take your plant bukakke and stick it somewhere. Somewhere else! I'm getting a bit tired of your plant sperm making me feel as though I've got a recurring case of the flu.

Yes, I realize the human race is doing terrible things to heat up the planet and all that.

That's no excuse for letting your plant life get all orgy-porno.

Miserably yours,

Me

Monday, March 28, 2016

Never rains, it pours

  • Family drama/crisis. Still ongoing. Decidedly un-fun.
  • Work drama bordering on crisis. Concurrent with the family crisis, making everything just so much fun.
  • BART drama. Because BART.
  • A goddamn recall on my car's airbags.
  • Notification from the dealer that the replacement parts for said recall won't be in for another month. At least.
  • Allergies. So. Many. Fucking. Allergies.
  • The joy of realizing I still have so far yet to go in so many parts of my life.
  • And finally, ants. Goddamn. Fucking. Ants.
That's been my last couple of weeks. I figure if I can get through the next two weeks with my health and sanity intact, I stand a 50-50 chance of making it through the month without completely losing my mind. This year is a clusterfuck and I'm barely through the first quarter.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Review: Baubax Travel Jacket(s)

Another of my waning list of outstanding Kickstarters delivered on Saturday. I think the remaining four or five Kickstarters will never actually come up with anything for the investment, but that's a topic I've whined enough about.

Where was I? Oh yes, Baubax.

So I backed their Kickstarter some time back. They offer a "travel jacket" complete with a crap-ton of pockets of varying sizes, an inflatable neck pillow, gloves, a pen/stylus attached to the zipper, a glasses cleaning cloth, a blindfold on the built-in hood, and... um... I think that about covers it. Lots of pockets.

So they offer four "styles" of jacket: a bomber jacket, a windbreaker, a hoodie, and a blazer. I've got no shortage of jackets in my possession, and I found choosing to be a bit tough. I wound up going with the hoodie (I can always use an extra hoodie) and with a blazer (as my attire tends to run very... um... casual).

First reactions: damn good. They both fit well. I wound up going a bit larger than I usually order and it turned out I guessed correctly.

Or I've grown. Either way...

The material seems well-constructed. The blazer has removable thumb-hole hand-covers as well as a removable hood and zipper-lining. The hoodie's got the thumb-hole hand-covers, but they're not removable. Nor is the hood, though I wouldn't be inclined to remove that from a hoodie. Just sayin'.

The pockets are well-constructed and well-placed. Both are comfortable enough. The hoodie's not too heavy, but is nice on a cool, rainy day (like today). The blazer is lighter (thank the FSM) and should be a nice go-to-work or out-on-the-town jacket.

The neck pillows are removable (and are now dwelling on a shelf in my apartment, as I won't need them unless I travel) and seem well-made. I haven't tried to inflate them as neck pillows rarely work well for me.

The little pen/stylus tool on the zipper is a nice touch. I'm a sucker for little things like that.

Overall, I'm pleased with the end-product. These were worth the wait. I may, one day, be curious enough to try to pick up a windbreaker or bomber jacket but with summer coming, I'm disinclined to add to the wardrobe in that way.