Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

ZVue Voluntary Recall
February 23, 2004

I got a letter in the mail today from HandHeld entertainment regarding my ZVue video player.  I have spoken about this at length before, but this is the first real bit of new (and unexpected) information I have received about the player in some time.

Apparently, some of the players have had problems with their battery packs shorting out.  I assume this could lead to battery explosions, depending on the severity of the short, although the letter doesn't mention this.  It does mention that the short may cause shortened battery life and possibly toxic chemical leaks from the battery.

New RPG ideas - card mechanic
February 22, 2004

I've always fancied a light mechanic for my games.  I do not enjoy the tedium of linking attributes to skills to feats to adjusted totals and adding certain dice rolls to acheive an equally cryptifying target number.  It's all too mechanical.  As a GM I would rather let players get away with dramatic actions based on their describing of their happening as an element of the story than of rolling a die well, and not just because rolling poorly seems to be a running theme among my game-playing friends.

So I've been trying to assemble a game that we might play (although I admit that we are so far into our 30's and 40's that we'll never stop playing D&D, but I wouldn't mind starting my daughter off right) that lets players drift through trivial obstacles and combats without the tedium and randomness of die rolls.  I posit some of my ideas here for comment, since I'm fairly alone in my development of anything of this nature, as it would stray so far from the well-worn path of my bretheren.

Pepsi, iTunes, and Protractors
February 20, 2004

Ok, I'll admit it.  I downloaded iTunes to see what it was all about.

This was before Christams before I got the iPod for Berta.  I wanted to try it out to see if it would be a good choice for her.  She said she wanted something easy to use, and I knew that the iRiver player that I got for her might be too cryptic.

Blogathon 2004 Ideas
February 19, 2004

Ever since I read about Blogathon last year, I've been impressed with the power of the internet to convey a message and help a cause.

I'm considering (and definitely will, in one shape or form) participating in Blogathon 2004, which is set to take place on Saturday, July 24th this year.  If you're not familiar with the event, it goes like so:  Participating writers of blogs (like me for this site) sign up at the Blogathon site and choose a charity.  They then solicit donations to that charity during a 24-hour event, during which they write a new post at least every 15 minutes.  The event in 2004 will last from 9am local time on Saturday to 9am local time Sunday.  If bloggers abide by the rules, they will have added 96 new entries to their blogs by the end of the event.