Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Dish Replacement
August 26, 2008

I know that many people are looking forward to my telling of my vacation, especially about the part where I was dead, but as I was writing it last night (actually, dictating it to the computer, just like this entry) I had gotten 45 paragraphs in thought, “Gee, I ought to save this at some point,” and at that very moment, my text editor decided to completely crash on me. So the end result is that you won’t be hearing about my trip for a little while longer yet. Suffice to say that I have enough to say about it that I will definitely need to write about it.

In the meantime, allow me to complain about my satellite dish receiver. I’ve been a longtime Dish Network customer, and when we moved to the new house we renewed our subscription to the service and got all brand-new equipment. One of the weird things about the new equipment is that it’s all rental. We previously owned our equipment, now we rent it for a small fee every month just like other people do from their cable companies. It’s not a big deal, but if I think about it too much it really gets on my nerves. Fortunately, there is an upside.

Rock!
August 10, 2008

I’m a subscriber to Pyramid magazine, and some days I think the only reason I have to do so is because it’s an inexpensive, consistent flow of game news. It’s because of articles like the one I read today that I fail to fathom why I continue to pay them at all when less expensive tripe can be obtained more abundantly from many other sources.

The article in question is available only to subscribers (sorry), but involves a game that I discovered while meandering around the exhibit floor at Origins. The game is Rock! by Out of the Box Publishing, and is one of the more interesting new card games I saw while at the game fair.

Here is the summary of what the article said about the game, Rock!, besides ranting for several paragraphs about the quality of the materials from which the game was built:

Sadly, the artwork and the tin are the best features this item has to offer. … Alas, Rock! doesn't really rise above its "source material," and the underlying game is an inexpensive way to pay too much for what amounts to a gimmick.

Not only does that make no sense (“inexpensive way to pay too much”?), but it’s outright wrong. Let me explain what Pyramid completely overlooked about this game.

Master of my domains
August 01, 2008

When I looked at my GoDaddy account last night, I was sure I’ve been on crack for the past year - 39 domains. And those are just the ones at GoDaddy. Surely there must be some projects I’m “working on” that people don’t know about. Let’s see what I can share.

Before I go on let me say this: Will someone please redesign GoDaddy’s site? kthxbye

RPG Top Four
July 30, 2008

I’ve been playing tabletop pen-and-paper roleplaying games since fourth grade. Since then, I’ve been kind of a junkie, collecting whatever RPG that looks interesting that I can lay my hands on.

I think it was in high school that I realized that not all RPGs were created equal, after trying to play a game of Cyberpunk with my friends. The game talked a lot about skills and character attributes, but didn’t say anything good about the actual gameplay. After we were done creating our characters, we didn’t really know what to do. I suppose that epiphany led to being a bit more picky about the games I bought and played - although never too picky.