Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Slept early and extra, but not terribly well. I had a somewhat disturbing dream that woke me up. Not really a nightmare, but it made me decidedly uncomfortable. I was playing Magic with a couple friends in a suitably unreal real - one of my perfectly-accepted cards was a piece of bacon, go figure. My deck was unfamiliar and looking less than great. The first main attack hit me pretty hard, causing me to lose most of my hand, most of my defenses, and maybe 5 life. And I got up and stormed away in a huff. When it was pointed out I was still in the game, I replied, "I'm dead. My mage jumps off a cliff or something." The whole screw-this-I'm-done attitude left me really uncomfortable. In the meantime, it's time to gather myself and get in to work to cover another morning meeting. The day at work yesterday wasn't bad, it was the two hours afterward at home trying to get a laptop working with remote desktop through the VPN and utterly failing that sapped me of e

Recurring injuries suck. I first remember this one several years back when leaning over the center console in my car and feeling a "pop" at one of the ribs on my right side. It hurt for a while, and was uncomfortable when moving certain ways for... weeks, I think. Since then, I seem to have managed to do the exact same thing a few times when applying pressure to my rib cage - again, usually leaning over something. Blargh.

Whee. My co-tech is out until Tuesday next week. My manager is out until sometime this Wednesday. I'd normally be working nights this week, but that isn't going to fly. There are meetings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday morning which (as is increasingly the case) will need to be set up with remote conferencing access - so I sorta need to be here to make sure that's working. It does mean I won't need to stay as late at night, but it still throws my schedule out of whack and I'll be the only one really on call even when not in the office. This after a weekend that was frustratingly unproductive. I didn't even get out for a hike, being worried about rain Saturday and then having actual rain through most of Sunday. I think I definitely need to take a week off in September, but it doesn't look like I'll be going anywhere with it. I've got plenty of other ways to spend money, ranging from replacing some clothing to the likely-necessary dishwasher

Shadowrun Returns Not really much more to add, in spite of questions. I've played a few user-created stories and they vary from short, boring, and repetitive, to pretty good - but still short. Borderlands 2 Late to the party, but I picked this up. Random-gear-focused FPS. The cell shading is not my favorite, but doesn't detract too much. The humor of the game is a plus. Handsome Jack is a jerk, but he feels so distant that I find it hard to call him the awesome villain that others seem to think he is. Angel's motivations at the point I'm at really don't make much sense. Overall, it seems fine so far, but isn't going on any "best games ever" list of mine. I may have more to say later on. Guild Wars 2 Urgh. My annoyance with the direction of the game grows. Not only do I dislike the pressures of constant involvement, but the most recent additions/edits to the game (addition of champion rewards, zones in the Queen's Pavilion, and the watchwork

I needed that. So last night most of our offline gaming group got together and had a little one-off adventure with our Aeranos characters. Heroes after preventing a disaster among the royals and then saving the princess, they're in a pretty good spot. This was also a chance to me to catch up on the XP spending I'd put off (around 35% of the campaign's XP was sitting unspent), leading to some improved spellcasting. I got to put the basic scrying spell to use early on, as a farmer from a nearby town reported three children having gone missing recently, and a local night and his men-at-arms having gone down the town well to likewise not return. This started reminding me of the well incident in the Prequel Adventure comic, especially when we ran into vicious (demonic even) fish in an adjoining underground lake. The party fought through a couple of those fish, the animated remains of the warriors, and passed through a couple portals into a demon's little home realm (w

I don't want to up and cancel. I don't want to be the stick in the mud. I... don't want to always be the "sensible and cautious" one. But fuck. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the hassle and expense of car or plane being worthwhile for what would essentially be a weekend visiting distant friends. And while train travel gets bonus points for novelty, the only way it starts to sound appealing is at a price point that is getting uncomfortable. And... I feel like I'm a bad person/friend for saying it, but frankly... I might consider the experience worth the stress of paying half of such a trip, but footing more than that, even with promise of repayment, is something I don't think I'm comfortable with. I don't really like being owed by friends, and even in the short term I don't want to see my bank accounts take that much of a hit. I haven't yet replenished my savings account from my computer purchase this year, like I should, and

So I spent most of the day with my dad and stepmom. We chatted, hiked a little, and had a nice steak dinner. Good all around, though a little strange being over there with no dog. The more I think about the possibility of taking a train for the potential trip next month, the more I like it. Definite points for uniqueness, and a certain level of comparative luxury and low stress. Of course, having the luxury of a private room makes it really the most expensive of the options, so it's not all roses. On my drive over, I was flipping through radio stations and stopped for a bit on one where someone was giving some sort of sermon. He said something that made me stop. And fume a bit. "There is no good without God." Y'know, the meaning of a statement like that could depend greatly on context, so I listened more. As I did, however, I only really became more annoyed. This sounded a lot like some AA pitch, where the speaker (reverend? priest? whatever...) went on about

I would so watch the heck out of this .

So I'm taking a couple days off this week just because I'm back at the cap for paid time off at work. Whee! And then there's a possible trip to out to Binghamton, NY at the end of September. The logistics are somewhat daunting, though it would be nice to have an excuse to take a "real" vacation. There's some appeal in making this a road trip with gabefinder , though it's almost as long as my drive back from southern Florida. That may not be practical, though. Plus, she may not be able to go at all. Flying there from Durango is about $500 a person. Depending on transporation options there, a rental car may be all but required as well (for about $100 Fri-Mon). Plus food and lodging (I'm not relying on crash space at this point), and you get... well, a good amount. Driving... well, let's see. It's a little over 2000 miles each way. With gas at $3.50-ish average and maybe an estimated 20 mpg efficiency (my car usually shows 19.5 or so, but g

Between some various reading and some office talk peripheral to the new company CEO, a particular bias has crystallized in my mind. I find I really don't like the way information, especially "news" is propagating online these days. And it's only going to get worse. Cracked is an entertainment site. Everything there should be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes, however, their flash #-of-whatever articles make some very good points . Now, I've worked at a newspaper for years, and my father did before that. And yet, I've never been a big newspaper reader. Really, I'm not much of a news reader, and I'll admit most of that which I do is now online. But even with the intermediary step of TV, you can see the progression toward "news" that is flashy and fast over news that is researched and corrected. On the internet, it's so much worse. News bits get attention by being provocative, not by being accurate. People pass along angry little sou

I'm not sure I have anything particularly useful to actually say. This might just be venting. The trials of maintaining an active, healthy guild are a bit on my mind at the moment, though. In WoW... Well, I don't want to say "the guild is dead," but that may be applicable. Fallen below thresholds required for more challenging play, even our more "dedicated" players seem to have found less and less to do. There is a sadness to it, but what can you do? I understand even our guild leader is not resubscribing at this point. Things could always pick up at a later patch or expansion, but it could be an ending as well. In GW2... The picture isn't much prettier as far as the initial friends guild I joined, carried over from GW. With a guild leader who saw it more as a social forum (far as I can tell), and yet benefits available to active players in active, larger guilds, there was really nothing to hold this one together and make it grow. So people have drif

Okay, some of the ideas sound interesting , but I also have to say the whole "it's a constantly-evolving and changing world based on how players react to events" sounds remarkably like the hype around GW2 dynamic events. In practice, those "dynamic" events really don't change much as the world pretty much resets to a default state over a period of minutes or hours. The GW2 world will see more change via the living story teams' intervention than any of the events. Now, mention of destructible terrain sounds like EQ Next is pushing more in the direction of sandbox, which would probably handle player-driven changes better, but whether that leads to "awesome and interesting" over "ephemeral and bland" remains to be seen. I'll stay skeptical at this early a stage, thanks.