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Little Moments [Mar. 16th, 2012|12:26 pm]
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[mood |pleasedpleased]

Sometimes the universe just smiles on you. Bought a couple of books at Joseph-Beth today; it's customer appreciation day, and I had a coupon for 25% off one title. The purchase pushed me past a threshold on my customer rewards account, and I got another coupon for $10 off a future purchase.

I will not lie. I gave thought to taking the new purchases out to the car and going right back in for more books.
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Thick as Mud [Mar. 15th, 2012|10:29 pm]
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[mood |geekygeeky]

Fire Academy continues to be a great experience. This week, we got a look at airpack systems. Obviously, they provide breathable air to firefighters in smoky or otherwise toxic environments. What they also do is alert nearby firefighters to an immobilized firefighter, share air between firefighters, and flat-out keep the wearer alive.

After the airpack overview, we got assigned our own gear - helmet, hood, jacket, pants, boots, and gloves. Heavy stuff - outfit plus airpack comes to about 50, 55 pounds. Whew. Working in this gear... my respect for these men and women is growing by leaps and bounds.

Tonight was the first in what I'm hoping becomes a regular bi-weekly Star Trek Heroclix game night. I went 0-2, losing both a 200- and 400-point battle. I'm figuring out strategies and ship mixes, and picking up new ships now and then. Had lucky picks tonight - got a HMS Bounty and a second USS Prometheus, the latter of which I was able to trade for a USS Excelsior.  Aw, yeah.

Furloughed tomorrow, which is conveniently Customer Appreciation Day at Lexington's fantastic big-ass independent bookstore, so new books are in the very near future. Spycraft game on Saturday, maybe another minis game on Sunday.

I'm reading Distrust That Particular Flavor, a collection of essays and articles by William Gibson. Good stuff, in bite-sized chunks. Gibson's take on technology, culture, language, writing, whatever - it's good reading, thought-provoking and clever. Even his non-fiction shows his gift for putting words together. Check it out.
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Legacy [Mar. 11th, 2012|07:11 pm]
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[mood |cheerfulcheerful]

Basketball bores the everloving hell out of me. Around here, that makes me something of a pariah, as UK basketball is something of a religion. Being utterly disinterested when you're surrounded by a largely fannish population has some occasional advantages, though - like the office emptying out on Friday afternoon. Looks like I'll have that again on Thursday, which is pretty alright, too, since I'm off Friday of the coming week.

Saw John Carter yesterday. It's a darn good movie, enjoyable, fun, beautiful, and full of adventure. And likely to be a commercial flop because of studio infighting and a piss-poor, if I'm being kind, advertising campaign. Go see this while you have the chance.

I've been drawn, briefly, back into World of Warcraft. There's some kind of resurrection promo, giving free Cataclysm content and a boost to 80th level and a few other goodies. I figure I'll run around for a couple of months and hang it up again when the prepaid play time card I bought expires.

I'm currently reading Resurrection Day, by Brendan DuBois. It's a very good read so far, a murder mystery set in an America still suffering the effects of the war brought on by the Cuban Missile Crisis. DuBois is an award-winning mystery writer and his craft really shows in this one. Recommended.

Auditioning a prospective GM for GenCon this week, and I'm ... not hopeful. Still looking to recruit a couple for the show.
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The Very Bad Game Pitch [Mar. 7th, 2012|10:28 pm]
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Posted to the discussion board of a gaming Meetup group I moderate and organize.

-- Begin post --

i am ran many Wod games and played in them too, so i am starting up one since i am new to lexington.

for more info playes text me at [REDACTED] just say hey Wob game and your name and ask for Ronnie, i will get back with you soon

The books aloud are listed and please read all to see details of everything.

BOOKS: World of Darkness core rule book Second Sight Antagonists ,Changeling the Lost, Geist the Sin-Eaters, Hunter the Vigil-Slash, Hunter the Vile (i don't have it but any one that dose please let me no) Mage the Awakening ,Vampire the Requiem, Lancea Sanctum, Bloodlines the hidden, Bloodlines the legendary VII, Vampire requiem ,Night Horrors, Werewolf the forsaken changing breeds ,werewolf the forsaken night horrors.

Rules:
If you are human most be between the ages of 18-21, this go for second sight and hunters and mages too, and werewolfs, changing breeds too.

Geist look 18-21 vampire are 50yrs or younger by age and 18-21 in looks of ages ghouls same way.

the year setting 2062, 50 years from now, things have changed, if you play a vampire you have just been woked up, been a sleep for 50 years all you remember is the year 2012. If you play a changeling same to you you been gone 50yrs past what you remember of the human world, you just found your way home.

Things have change in this world, the church Catholic church has took power of government and military too. All police, navy, armed forces are now cleric of the all might Power of the lord. All cleric now were body armor that look like a storm trooper armor now, plus the mighty pope is a female: Saraha lee Whicker, head of The Church.
A cleric can now judge the sins of the people when he fill the lord commands he/she."the seating is set like Priest world is set you most confess to the church daily."All this knowledge of this world is only to Humans,Werewolfs, Mages,psions, Geist, since they where born in to this time line of the world.

"P.S to all mages any sign of Magic can get you Killed by A cleric of the Church something they hate. from what any no, all is good in this city, " thing to no its set 50 yrs in the future of UUA American " all the site are still around with the same name, only now when you call some one its with a hologram not a cellphone, think starwars. I ask for a back story please so we no more about your character, 1 paragraph long or more please.

-- End Post --

Ouch.
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Citizen X [Mar. 7th, 2012|10:17 pm]
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[mood |sleepysleepy]

Friday, March 2, my fair Commonwealth was hit with an outbreak of severe weather. Heavy thunderstorms, high winds, and tornadoes. The town of West Liberty was hit very hard; a more appropriate description may be "devastated." Most of the buildings in the town's central area were badly damaged or destroyed, and another small burg in the eastern end of the state, Salyersville, took a bad hit, too. As of this afternoon, 23 people are confirmed dead from the storms, with a fairly large number of injuries of varying severity.

Here in Lexington, we had a brief tornado warning, brought on by a fast-moving cell. It blew through quickly, spawning some damaging winds in a couple of counties to the south and east of here. Another bullet dodged.

The good news out of all of this, on a local scale at least, was the seriousness with which local businesses, agencies, and organizations took the warnings. The city/county government offices closed up shop ahead of the storm, schools dismissed early, and even my own alleged employer sent non-essential staff home. We got lucky here, and to some degree, that helped the smaller cities that were damaged, as rescue and recovery personnel from Lexington were able to deploy to the outlying areas.

On the night of Sunday the 4th, we had our first real snowfall of the season - 3.5" - 4". It mostly melted off by Tuesday, when the day's high temperature blew past 55F in the afternoon.

In trivial news, I've started playing WizKids' new Star Trek Heroclix game. It's fun, the ships look good, and it's as close to a miniatures game as I want to get ever again.

Citizen's Fire Academy continues, and I like this course a lot. This week's class was on EMS activity, and included hands-on training with intubation and intraosseal (sp?) fluid delivery. I did not know that fluids and medications can be delivered straight into the marrow of the long bones if an intravenous feed can't be established.

Tomorrow night is the finale of the first adventure in my All For One game. I think this one's going to continue on for a while; my players and I are having a great time with it. Honestly, I don't see how a person couldn't enjoy this - Musketeers hunting monsters and witches and other bad things in 17th Century France. Heck yeah.
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Survivors [Feb. 27th, 2012|10:29 pm]
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[mood |excitedexcited]

Tonight was the second class of my Citizen's Fire Academy course. History of the LFD, fire prevention, chaplaincy, and arson investigation.

LFD's chaplain is a former 10th Mountain soldier. His unit participated in the Blackhawk Down rescue.

I met a BATFE-trained and -certified arson investigation dog, a madly friendly black Lab named Garvey. Got to see him run through a mock fire scene, seeking and pointing out accelerants. He can identify about two dozen accelerants,with specific body language to show his handler exactly where the material is on a scene.

This is already a heck of a great experience, and there are still 8 classes to go.
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Nothing Compares [Feb. 2nd, 2012|10:41 pm]
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[mood |sleepysleepy]

I had a brief e-mail conversation with the Pathfinder GM today. Explained my reasons and quit the game. As expected, no drama. He's going to finish up the set of modules comprising the story arc and then put the game aside for a while. Everything's cool.

Said GM is playing in my upcoming All For One game. Last week was our character creation session, with the first play session a week from tonight. I am hopeful for high adventure and daring feats among other things.
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Gold Dust Woman [Jan. 2nd, 2012|09:34 pm]
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[mood |boredbored]

Futzed around all day. Finished reading (again) Spook Country, which still entertains and has one of my favorite bits of writing - the description of United States $100 bills as "the universal currency of bad shit." Started (re-)reading The List of 7, a fantastic adventure story with creepy supernatural elements throughout. And read a couple of old CP2020 sourcebooks. I've batted around the idea of a CP2020 game at an upcoming convention, and ... I don't know. It's still got a lot of charm, for certain definitions of that word, but it does show its age.
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Just venting. [May. 5th, 2011|08:46 pm]
[Tags|]
[mood |crankycranky]

Look, Chumpzilla, here's how it is.

The supervisors and administrators and your advisors and instructors aren't out to get you, so belay that shit right now. The problems you're having to deal with are entirely your own fault, and I'm going to break things down for you.

You're petty and whiny, and argumentative for its own sake. Given how much you argue over anything, you should be good at it, but you're not. You're either incapable or utterly unwilling to support your own statements with, well, anything, and at the same time, you demand nothing less than complete documentation from anyone opposing your precious – and often wildly incorrect – viewpoint. When this is pointed out to you, and it happens often, your only response is a ridiculously wordy answer that boils down to “That's not true.”

Your great and mighty thesis project wasn't rejected because the review committee doesn't like you. It's because your subject selection and initial argument (and there's that word again) was either so broad as to be utterly meaningless and indefensible, or so narrow as to produce nothing of any use whatsoever. This was explained to you time and again, and in language ranging from the incredibly technical and verbose terms that you so dearly love to pull out and use (or misuse, as often as not) to statements that a fifth-grader with average comprehension abilities could get. In no case, however, was the intent unclear. The failure is not in a critic's or reviewer's or advisor's ability to communicate – it's in your ability to comprehend what's being laid before you. Your poorly-deserved ego blinds you to the simple fact that you're just not paying attention to the extremely good advice being offered.

And, since I'm unloading here, let's talk about the writing itself. As I told someone in a long-ago ENG507 course, “I grew up on a farm. I've seen plenty of shit. I know from shit. This? This is shit.” You. Can. Not. Write. You throw words together, and you seem to think that by throwing lots of them, and making as many of them as possible as obscure and specialized as you can manage, that you'll sound clever and well-versed. All it does is make you unreadable, and frankly, it's the academic and intellectual equivalent of some kid putting a thousand dollars in vinyl decals, bodywork, and exhaust modifications on his poorly-maintained subcompact. It's all show and no go, all hat and no cattle, sizzle without steak.

You are academically and intellectually dishonest, and every time I read or hear your work, I become more and more certain that you are educated beyond your intelligence. You're a detriment to your field, in no part because you attempt to defend it so viciously yet do it so incompetently. Come down off of the cross that you so sanctimoniously cling to and take an honest look at yourself and your behavior. The world is not out to get you, but you're certainly giving it reason to be completely uninterested in supporting and recognizing you.

No love. At all.

T7

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Fear in a Handful of Dust [Nov. 21st, 2010|11:34 am]
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[mood |busybusy]

Hey, folks - recommend me some good horror-fantasy.
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