• What the Netflix Prize 2 gonna be like?
• Why can’t I get motivated to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo?
• Can I do anything cool with Raphaël?
• When is my copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with the night vision goggles going to arrive?
• Why are the retailers already selling Christmas junk?
• Why does the Lord of the Rings Trilogy make walking seem interesting?
• When am I ever going to catch up on my book list?
• Should I put up Christmas decorations outside before the weather gets colder?
• Could burritos be more awesome?
• Should I go see the Stevie Ray Vaughn tribute show? By myself?
• Why don’t I play guitar more?
• Why is it I forget what I needed when I get to the store?

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Once, you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things. At the end, you choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. I’ve done this meme before (see previous note) but have been tagged a couple more times since I wrote the note. So here goes. Again I’m not tagging anybody even though I love reading friend’s random things.
2. I’m not what you call a morning person.
3. I wish I could play the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn.
4. I wonder what life would be like marooned in space aboard a spaceship with a hologram of my best buddy, a life form evolved from a cat, an android and a hyper-intelligent computer that runs the ship.
5. I took remedial reading in grade school; there I discovered my talent for computers.
6. I once met a guy whose legal name was Tiger Love. He freaked me out.
7. Books that contain over 400 pages intimidate me.
8. My favorite author is Ray Bradbury.
9. I refuse to watch movies in which Bruce Willis stars.
10. I’ve held the Daredevil’s and the Kingpin’s prop canes.
11. I’ve pushed the button at the Milwaukee convention center that reads “Push to play Polka”.
12. I know the secret phrase to enter the Safe House in Milwaukee.
13. Tony Dungy signed my Gen Con Indy badge one year.
14. I have a profile on an online dating website.
15. My father loved “The Screwtape Letters”; it’s on my book list.
16. I have so many unfinished video games that if I completed one a week, I wouldn’t finish until July.
17. I don’t understand the appeal of televised poker.
18. It seems like I spent a majority of my 20s working inside a cubicle.
19. It’s almost 2010. Where’s my rocketpack?
20. I had a high school crush on a couple Facebook friends. Of course if you’re wondering, then yes, it was totally you, darling!
21. I have a propane grill and intend one day to master the art of the BBQ.
22. I like chili esp Cincinnati-style chili.
23. I ask people about the jewelry they wear; there’s always a story there.
24. I’ve been to the Chicago Blues Festival three times; ran into the guys who run the Creepy Crawl in St Louis there one year.
25. My mailbox has 121 Mb worth of messages; just 1% of what Google mail has allocated.

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Digg, YouTube and Myspace are notorious for making their sites inaccessible due to maintenance. How many billions of dollars are these sites worth? Can’t they hire engineers who are smart enough to handle redundancy and fail-over while accomplishing maintenance? *cough* Hey, corporate owners, if you need some assistance, you can always examine my resume.

The movie failed to upload due to an issue with an unsupported codec. So I spent some time on the site reading the help pages. I learned that for best results I should resize the video to 320×240. So, I fired up Microsoft Movie Maker. In addition to resizing the video I added a title screen, credits and some music my brother Kevin gave me sometime last year. I saved it as a WMV file and uploaded it to YouTube.

This time the file was successfully uploaded. Here is the end result. In this video I am clicking on the screen spawning dots. The dots are affected by gravity and fall to the bottom of the screen. I hope you enjoy the cheese factor.

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This year Cpt Squash convinced me to run a Kobolds Ate My Baby (KAMB) Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game. I named it Kobolds on a Plane! I stayed up late Wednesday night writing characters. In addition to the 9th Level Games KAMB books — Kobolds Ate My Baby Super Deluxx Edition and Kobolds the Charades — I drew influence from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Frank Baum’s Ozma of Oz, White Wolf’s Werewolf: The Forsaken and, of course, this summer’s hit movie Snakes on a Plane!

:: THURSDAY

Since I pre-registered for Archon 30 I had a relatively short wait to pick up my badge. While standing in line the topic on most folks mind was next year’s Archon. Convention organizers plan to host the 9th North American Science Fiction Convention (9th NASFiC) in place of Archon. They have also decided to hold it two months earlier than the normal Archon, on August 2-5.

I met up with my buddies Jim and Adam. We decided to to go to Applebees to grab some dinner. Adam showed us a movie of his new girlfriend out with him at dinner. Jim and I launched into talk about politics. We expect things to really interesting with some important elections only a few weeks away.

I decided to run back home to work on the Kobolds on a Plane! I put together a spreadsheet listing every character in the game, another listing all special abilities and finally a list of items in the game. Then I put together three pages of horrible death charts that the player might encounter. I put these in a binder for Cpt Squash to read in preparation for the Saturday game.

Cpt Squash threw a room party this year for his gaming club Atomic Squash. Adam was rocking out on a game called Guitar Hero. He showed off by playing with the guitar behind his head. Several of the Hex Games guys stopped by including Steve Johnson and Colin Thomas. Elonka also stopped by. She told me she had given a talk earlier about Archon’s Wikipedia entry and noticed my picture. I took a picture with her and Colin Thomas, uploaded it to wikipedia and changed the caption to read “Patrons enjoy Archon 30″.

I saw Kelly, formerly of Memphis and now in Seattle. She looked cute. We talked about her weekly game out there. It was funny when she apologized to me for being too geeky. Sorry to say, most of the rest of the year it usually is me apologizing to an uninterested female for gamer dorkiness.

I made ribbons for the badges that say “I Hugged Gazpacho”. I gave out a bunch during the convention to the brave who actually hugged me. I have lots left over. Oh well, I guess I have some for Gen Con next year.

When I left the Atomic Squash Party about 4 AM, Britt was laying on the bed in there asking why the ceiling was moving. Uhm, he was drunk.

:: FRIDAY

I slept through the Fury of Dracula game but made it for the Elasund game at 2 PM. It was my second time playing the game and the first time I actually finished one. I won! I think I’ll have to play it again.

After running out to try a Mexican place with Adam, I found my way to the Mississippian Room for the SLUGS Vampire LARP briefing. They gave me character by the name of Michael Collins. There was a Father Collins in the game a few years ago. This character was an excommunicated priest. My goal was to protect a character named Rev Teddy and see the end-times Apocalypse happened. The most serious problem I had with the game was the negativity I got from a player (name isn’t important). I had my holy symbol out Friday night. “Do you have that holy symbol out?!”, she asked. “Yeah. You can see my holy symbol.”, I responded. “Is this your first year or something?”, she had a look of contempt. In fact it is my ninth year playing the game.”No, this isn’t my first year.”, I responded. I secretly hoped she didn’t treat any first year player this way. She was not friendly. I did not care for her role playing at all. I role played away from her group. I didn’t want the confrontation on the first night.

Before the LARP began I wandered into the Monroe Room where the Visioncon group were holding their Mojo Tasting Party. They had samples of their namesake drink which that drink after saying this salute: “Quick! Before it eats through the cup!”

Seanta Claus was DJing the dance hall again this year. He and his crew decorated two conference rooms like the Carousel scene from Logan’s Run. It was quite remarkable.

I left the convention around midnight to go back home and do more work on Kobolds LARP. I printed out character badges and item cards. I put together the booklets and printed out copies of the character sheets. I wrapped up around 4 AM and managed to get some sleep before I had to get up to get to the game.

:: SATURDAY

I had about 12 players for the Kobolds on a Plane! LARP. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I was blow away by how enthusiastic and creative all of the players were at 10 AM on a Saturday. There was a good mix of new players and veterans. In the game you could save a hit point by barking like a Kobold. The bark, though, had to be better than the last player’s bark. I will never forget the attractive purple-haired werechicken hunter. She let out a high pitched bark that I think broke glass! There were also some great one liners. For example when asked where a Kobold had put his dead snake, he responded by pulling out the folded item and saying: “My snake is right here! in my pants!” Vux, the elderly Kobold, had a spell which would summon water from cupped hands. I had no idea how hilarious that would look when he held his cupped hands just below waist level. The Kobold that jumped from the plane actually got the “Undesirable High-Speed Air-Ground Interface!” from the Random Horrible Death Chart!

Here is some news. I plan to release PDF versions of the game files on koboldslarp.com as soon as I proofread them. I can’t release the horrible death charts because I borrowed them from the Kobolds the Charades book. I will make my own charts if I write and run another game the year after NASFiC.

At 2 PM Ed of BYOV ran Ill Met by Moonlight, a Fey LARP. It was a beautiful game. There was a ton of background information. Even though we were short players the game turned out great. I had a great time playing it. I am looking forward to more playing more BYOV LARPs at Gen Con next year.

The second night of the Vampire LARP was a wreck. The character playing Rev Teddy did not show up. I was a little surprised to find out that a new player was playing him. The refs did not let me know. I had spent three hours pestering any judge I could find if Rev Teddy had made it back into the game. Eventually I found the character and played the rest of the night. The game ended with my character living; only the second time I’ve managed to do that.

The Zombie Squad crew was back with a room party. I had traded emails with one of the hosts on MySpace. He promised that this year’s party would be bigger and better. They delivered! They had three hotel rooms converted into an entrance area, a dance hall and a refreshment room. It was awesome. I wish I had more time to enjoy it.

The Party Hard Corps was out in force. They were playing their games, roaming the halls and patronizing the various room parties. Babypants was giving out Jelly Bellys. I wish she had warned me about the popcorn ones. It was great to see General Dissent again and have the opportunity to social with him for a bit.

I talked with Tom J about Hogwarts LARP. He assured me that this year’s game will be different. He also told me that the player with whom I had an issue was actually a decent fellow. I trust his opinion and agreed to try the Gen Con Hogwarts LARP again next year.

:: SUNDAY

Well, three days of sleep deprivation caught up with me. I slept through the SLUGS Vampire LARP debriefing and awards ceremony.

Sunday is also the day I usually register for the next year’s Archon. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $90 for a convention which is a week before Gen Con and is probably not going to be attended by the regular group.

My only regret is that I did not make it to the dealer hall this year. Perhaps that is a good thing. I didn’t spend any money on new games. I wanted to pick up QAGS 2nd Edition and Munchkin Impossible. Perhaps I’ll ask for them for Christmas.

Click on an image for a larger version

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Proog is tenacious, guiding curious Emo through the depths of a surreal mechanical landscape that forms his world. The pair are heading to the safest place in the machine, hidden behind uncanny traps so deadly that nothing else could ever reach them.

Huh? A movie does not need boobs, babes and bad guys to be good. But this story fails to impress me. At least the open source community benefited from the new technology the team developed for the project. The team also showed that open source tools are adequate for professional level projects.

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