Undebtification Part One

My wife and I hit a good financial milestone over the weekend when it comes to my student loans. I had both private and federal loans; the federal loans made up about 20% of the total. And we managed to pay it off, which is most excellent. We had only starting paying up on it in the fall, and before then had mostly been doing the minimum payments. We estimate that, should we be able to continue paying up on the private loans at the same rate (which shouldn't be a problem), that we will be out of debt in less than two years, which is very exciting. Then, of course, soon after would come the much bigger debt of a mortgage, but first things first. And hopefully we can get a house before the housing market improves. :)

I found out a little bit of sad news last week at work. Jay, my boss, is leaving the company in early May. He hired me back in 2005, and was mainly responsible for rehiring me in January after I left and was subsequently let go from Priority Publications after a few months. He has been an excellent boss to work for, and he will be missed around here. I can only hope that his replacement (I believe they're hiring from outside the company) is as good, and doesn't have a completely different management style. Jay is rather laid back, and maintains the type of work environment that I feel comfortable with. But alas, we'll see.

LotD: R2D2 Projector. I may have linked to such a product before, but this link is for a video that really shows it off. It is pretty sweet. :)

Yes, I Am A Nerd

I have gone a couple weeks without working on The Lords of Sargoff. But this will be changing soon. I posted the first chapter on an online fiction critique message board and got some good comments on passive voice versus active voice, which I will be able to apply throughout the story.

In the meantime, I have been doing some thinking about my card game, Reclamation, partially because I am looking forward to some playtesting while in Columbus in May. There have been several changes to gameplay since I last playtested with the Columbus Coopers, and more changes may be in order. Here are some thoughts I have been considering. Those who care not about this game may skip to the bottom for the LotD, which is a double, since I missed yesterday. :)

1. Multiplayer. One of the advantages of having each deck have both Heaven and Hell cards is that having any number of players (even or odd) shouldn't be a problem. At the same time, I see the advantages of designing the game so each player either has a Heaven or a Hell deck. This, however, creates some problems when it comes to odd-numbered multiplayer games.

2. Wounds. I currently have wounds represented by cards placed under the character. I also have the characters arranged in a grid. The problem starts out when the grid is empty, and being able to determine exactly what spot in the grid a character is played to. I have considered having cards under a character to act as placeholders and help define the grid, by it would be messy for the placeholder and wound cards to coexist.

3. I have considering restructuring how the grid works. I designed the grid to emulate a battle formation. However, in the game, non-warriors and animals are in the grid. In theory, I could change it from a grid to a battle line, and have one line of warriors who actually do the fighting, and behind them (in the 'trench', where order or placement doesn't matter). In theory, I could then both do placeholder cards and wound cards for the warriors (wounds underneath, placeholders behind them on the playing surface).

If I do this, then each conflict will be between two characters, instead of a whole row. I see advantages and disadvantages to doing it this way. An advantage is that it makes it harder for an army to be mercilessly better than an opponent's, forcing that opponent to rebuild for a long time (less warriors). A disadvantages is that battle conflicts become limited to one character per side, taking away the fun of full column vs. column. That being said, there may still be other ways to initiate conflicts between larger groups. So, maybe it's not so bad.

It would simplify things, so characters are now simply 'adjacent' to each other, as opposed to also being 'surrounding,' not to mention diagonally, vertically, and horizontally adjacent. If I did this, I would also quite possibly raise the numbers when it comes to might (when most characters are might 2 or 3, a +2 might bonus is massive; if they are usually between 6 and 10, a +2 bonus is not as overpowerful).

That being said, the battle line and numbers change do cause similarities to Lord of the Rings, which I am trying to prevent.

LotD: Programatical Proposal. This guy tweaked a game to propose to his girlfriend.

LotD2: Geekiest Pants Ever. Yeah, that's a keyboard on his pants.

Sarah Marshall, Forgotten

I haven't really had a post about movies in a little while. So, here goes - a recap of some recent movies I've seen and a look forward to this year's cinematic offerings. Over the weekend, my wife and I went to see the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was good and funny, though a step below the much funnier and more interesting Knocked Up. That being said, by far, the best new movie I've seen within the past six months, at least, is Juno - while not as uproariously funny as Knocked Up, is still very humorous, more genuine, and better written and acted. It is also quite a bit cleaner, as Knocked Up is one of the biggest fans of the f-word that I've ever seen; Juno is also the only one of these three that does not include someone removing their clothing.

Looking forward, here are nine of the movies that I have interest in that are coming out in 2008, ranked in order (from highest to lowest) of my interest in them. Includes the release date. It is practically guaranteed that I will be seeing at least the first five of these in the theater.

Harry Potter And The Half-blood Prince (11/21)
- Each one has gotten better so far, in my opinion. This will only the third time ever (after Order of the Phoenix and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) that I read the book prior to seeing the movie.
The Dark Knight (7/18)
- Batman Begins was an excellent reboot to the Batman franchise (that being said, I believe I've only seen one other Batman movie - Batman Forever). I am very excited to see this one, especially for the Joker.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (5/16)
- While not up to the same level in fantasy as Lord of the Rings, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was an excellently entertaining film, and has me wanting to go back and reread the books.
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (5/22)
- More Indiana. How can this be a bad thing?
Iron Man (5/2)
- I had never heard of the character of Iron Man before a year or two ago. But the trailers look good.
Wall-E (6/27)
- More from Pixar = Good.
Get Smart (6/20)
- I watched the series a good bit when I was younger.
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (8/1)
- While I haven't really seen all of The Mummy Returns, the first movie was great.
The Incredible Hulk (6/13)
- I thought the first Hulk from a few years ago was rather good, but this is a completely fresh and new reboot of the series. Could be better, could be worse.

Ye Olde Rustbucket

First off, I have submitted my application for TEC 72, and I ordered the teams as Support, Wheat, and Kitchen. I am already excited, though the application deadline isn't for over a month. :)

My automobile is getting old. For those not in "the know" of my car, it is a 2000 Chevy Cavalier that is coming dangerously close to 175,000 miles. While it is still running just fine, at that mileage, who knows how much it has left in it. And a big repair would finish it off, because the car is simply not worth putting any fair amount of money into.

The newest sign of the car's age is a growing rust spot on the side underneath the passenger door (see image), which had me a little concerned, as I didn't know if that was all of the rust. I looked underneath and I didn't see any other big rusting, so that's good. Next time I take it in for an oil change, I may request that they take a quick look and tell me if there's any serious rust anywhere on the undercarriage. Cause that'd be a bummer. It's been a good car (I've had it for 5 1/2 years and thus far put nearly 127,000 miles on it), and it shall be sad when it goes away. But then again, I (we) get to buy another one then. :)

Double LotD: Warcraft Movie, and rumors concerning a possible Everquest movie. Ah, crazy times we live in. :)

Wheated

Well, here I am, back from the wonderful weekend that was TEC 71. Working on the Wheat team was definitely a different experience that working Support, but both are amazing. It was rather interesting, being at a TEC weekend, and yet not doing the normal Support things. This is the part of the blog entry where I make fun of the Kitchen team for not providing plates for Thursday night's meal. And here are a few highlights (of which there were many).

Talks - It was interesting to actually watch the talks, as opposed to only hearing them during the team meetings. I noticed as the weekenders become more and more interested in the talks as the weekend went on. The talks were all very good; the most powerful being (in my opinion) one that described in detail the crucifixion of Christ. It was similar in effect to watching The Passion of the Christ.

The Champion - It had been nine years since I'd seen it last, and being there during practice and the actual performance was amazing. The weekenders cheered and booed as the battle happened. It was perfect.

Table Commissioning - First experience with table commissioning since I was a candidate ten years ago. It was rather interesting to see the differences in the tables, and watch the tables do a little guessing on YTL.

And of course, I always enjoy the activities of Saturday night.

Now, the main question is: What am I going to apply for for the next TEC? Whatever it is, they should have my application by the end of the week.

LotD: Star Wars Urban Photography. Star Wars characters in modern day urban locations. Pretty well done too, but click on the image to get one that's bigger for best results.

The Art of Bowling Badly

Last night, my wife and I went out to eat at The Hunan Restaurant in Bloomington. It was a new place, and we had a coupon. :) It was pretty good, and I did enjoy my shrimp in lobster sauce. Neither of us finished our meals, and took some home as leftovers. From there, we went bowling, which was the first time I'd gone bowling in nearly two years, since the night before the wedding. So, how did I do bowling for the first time as a married man? Not so good. :) We bowled three games, and my scores were 90, 90, and 72 respectively. I started off the first game with four straight gutter balls. Yeah, that's right. I then switched to a different ball - one that was lighter - and went with the spin-the-ball approach, which worked better. But, alas. We both love to bowl, and it is a pity that it has been so long (though Megan beat me in 2 of the games. She has bowled a few times with her crazy kids at work.) :) Good fun anyway. I shall do better next time, assuming we don't wait until 2010. :)

Anywho, I brought my leftover shrimp in lobster sauce to work for lunch. As I was getting out of the car this morning, I evidently tipped the box a little, and proceeded to pour lobster sauce onto my pant leg. It was a good way to start off the morning. :) Ah, well.

Well, here we are. The TEC weekend starts tomorrow, and I am very excited, and of course, a little nervous. We seem to have a great Wheat team, and I look forward to working with them and getting to know them better. And of course, most importantly, to be part of making a difference in the lives of the candidates (errr.... weekenders).

LotD: Robot Sommelier. Can "taste" wines (without opening the bottle) to determine its ingredients and what would go well with it. Since I don't drink, this would be of no use to me, but I think the technology is impressive.

The Big Two-O-O

This is my 200th blog entry. Very exciting. I suppose this should be accompanied by some big celebration, but then again, that would just be silly.

Anyways, my big excitement for the day is all food-related. First off, I get to eat ice cream cake here shortly (thank goodness for other peoples' birthdays). And tomorrow, I'm ordering myself a pizza and, in doing so, am being rather adventurous - the pizza will be half anchovies. I may not like that half, but we shall see. I've never had anchovies before, so this will be interesting.

The second and last TEC meeting is on Sunday, and I am pretty excited. Then I will be off to the weekend itself next Thursday - six days from today. Holy cow. Where does the time fly to? I am excited for the weekend and being a Wheatie. On a side note, I bought some Wheaties the other day in preparation. Yeah, I'm good to go now. :)

And, just to clarify a previous post, I have not lost my job a second time. :)

LotD: Massive 20 Sided Die. In memory of Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, who died in March. This tribute is on the campus of MIT, no less.

Fifty Grand

So, The Lords of Sargoff hit 50,000 words today, which I find to be rather exciting. Through extras and chapter splitting, it now has 20 chapters. And yet, I need more. :) Like, 20-30,000 more words. I need more description, detail, characters, and events. One thing I've noticed (I think this is right, anyway), is that the story is pretty tight, as in, the characters zip around from place to place and there's little room to add other events. But alas, I will see what I can do. :)

LotD: The Star Destroyer Project. I want one.

Version 2

I have uploaded to the LoS site the newest version of The Lords of Sargoff. This version is just over 48,000 words, by my count making it approximately 200 novel pages in length. I would still like to add more. I have fixed several wording errors (thanks to everyone who has given input!), as well as plot holes. This doesn't, of course, mean there are no more errors or plot holes (or that the plot holes I've tried to fix are 100% perfectly fixed). If you happen to read it again (or for the first time, depending on who you are), please feel free to send me any comments or suggestions, or criticisms. I'd love to hear them.

Skip the next paragraph if you don't care about the names of characters in the book. :)

There are some names that will likely be changed. This includes the names Inevidens and Vidricks. I have considered renaming Lord Hamrin and/or Lord Arien, as I'm not sure they are "dark" enough names for dark lords. I had been considering renaming Jothan, but that name has grown on me. His father, Nothan, will certainly be renamed. Then I have the issue of having a character named Vylon and one named Vython; the names are rather close, and one of them will likely be changed. Finally is Cymor, who I like the name, but may change the spelling (Symor, Psymor; can also add an e to the end - Cymore, Symore, Psymore). I kind of like Psymore, maybe.

I have accumulated quite a list of link of the days. You get an extra one today because I didn't include one in my last post.

LotD: Flying Saucer House. It's certainly unique.

LotD2: Starfleet Bridge Illustrations. See into the bridge of a wide variety of ships from the Star Trek universe.

Verbally Speaking

I just got home from the first full-team meeting for TEC 71, and it went just fine. I am rather looking forward to the next meeting and the weekend itself, but today's meeting reminded me of one of my major weaknesses that I deal with on almost a daily basis.

I am incredibly bad at talking. It's amazing that I can still get rather nervous over simple conversation. While meeting as a Wheat team, the youth leadership would ask questions, and despite the fact that I usually think of perfectly good and interesting things to say, my shyness and nervousness kicks in, and I have a hard time transferring that from my brain to my mouth. I often end up dismissing my thoughts and instead saying something stupidly sarcastic (see my old blog entry - written two years ago today, oddly enough - The Shell, for more insight on that).

It's really rather obnoxious. I'm actually pretty good with words. I rather enjoy them. I am writing a novel that currently has nearly 50,000 words. I've been writing stories and poetry for nearly 15 years. And yet, a simple verbal sentence is often difficult, depending on the situation. If I'm with people I don't know very well, or in a situation I am otherwise uncomfortable with, I clam up and can barely spout anything meaningful. It's silly, but most of my deeper and more serious conversations have occurred online over email or chat. On a similar note, in high school and college, I would always rather write a five page paper than give a very short speech. Goofy.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I know this little issue of mine keeps me from getting as close to people as I'd like to, since it's hard for me to have real discussions with people. I know my mind is full of good things to share, but getting them from point A to point B in a verbal form is the trick. That being said, I am better at it than I used to be (sounds crazy), and this is one of the (many) reasons I'm looking forward to the rest of the TEC 71 experience. I think it will be good for me as I continue to grow as a person, into the man that God made me to be.

I may have another semi-serious entry in another few days, about that whole losing-my-job thing.

A Few Unrelated Tidbits

At some point, I'm considering posting to the Lords of Sargoff page a list of the issues I'm currently dealing with when it comes to plot holes, to see if anyone has thoughts on how a certain thing should happen. I may throw that together over the next couple weeks.

I have purchased plane tickets for going to Ohio in May. I will be there from approximately the 17th - 22nd. It should be good fun. Sadly, my wife is not able to join me, as she doesn't have enough vacation days. But alas.

I am rather looking forward to this weekend - card and computer day on Saturday, and the first full team TEC meeting on Sunday. It'll be pretty much wonderful.

LotD: Life in 2008. An article written in 1968, predicting what life will be like in 2008. A few things I thought were interesting - though it predicts technologies and other changes that are nowhere near being in place (cities encapsulated in domes for climate control, automatically controlled cars that safely drive up to 250 MPH, no physical money, average work day of 4 hours, rocket rides to a hotel in space, the "intelligence pill"), it still refers to the concept of the "housewife" being responsible for cooking, and that "not every family has its private computer." Granted, I wouldn't do any better predicting what life will be like in 2048.

Publishing

I'm rather enjoying the continuing work on Lords of Sargoff. Right in the middle of a few bigger plothole-fixing changes right now. Then I'll put together the notes I've received from those who have read through it and fix any errors they pointed out. Then its time for a thorough read-through and edit session, adding detail and further description.

I would absolutely love it if I could publish the book (or anything else I've written or will write). It'll be interesting when I get to the point where I may actually be submitting in places. I've done some basic research, and have this understanding of my options. I have considered Tate Publishing, a company that (if they accept your manuscript) will do everything in-house (editing, illustrations, selling, and will market it). Would cost a good $4000 to get started, but after that investment, everything is covered. And if the book sells a certain amount of copies, you get your investment back.

One of the cool things about Tate, I think, is that they accept unsolicited manuscripts. A lot of the big traditional publishing houses (Random House, Tyndale, for example) only accept manuscripts that are solicited by literary agents (and that costs an extra chunk of change). So who knows. There is also self publishing, but that may be a little crazy, not sure. Tate is also a Christian-based company, which is good.

Still a lot of work to do on the story, of course, before I get to that point (though Tate does allow you to submit unfinished manuscripts, so they can get an idea of your story and your writing style).

LotD: Fear the Gnome. Just read it.

Happy Pi Day

Yes, today is March 14th: Pi Day. I wish I could celebrate this day by partaking in a large piece of pie, but alas. Whatever you do today, make sure to do it 3.14159265358979323846 times. I seem to remember my sister (unless it was a brother) having to memorize the first 100 digits of pi in high school. My two thoughts from that are: Wow, that's impressive; and, Why in the world would a teacher make you do that? :)

Megan's cousin will be up for the weekend, which is always fun. I have my first TEC meeting on Sunday - the initial leadership meeting. Thus begins the TEC 71 experience, and my induction into the Wheatie fraternity. Well, maybe not quite like that, but it'll be good fun.

LotD: Pi Day. Schedule your Pi Day celebration, and memorize pi to a trillion digits.

Slimer

I've had lots of excellent comments and suggestions from both Tim and my wife. As expected, there are definitely some storyline issues that need to be fixed. Some of them have been already, others will require more thinking on how to make things fit together. It's good fun.

We had a geekday on Saturday which was good fun. Lots of cards, computer games, and unhealthy food. It was wonderful. I did not get to test out Reclamation, but we may be having another such geekday in a couple weeks. Whooahh!

My 30 day trial at FLS is over, and I am now on board permanently. In another couple weeks to a month, I may be able to get a raise. Which would be neato.

LotD: Real-life Ghostbusters. Who you gonna call?

So Long, Cheesehead

I always find it a little sad when the great players in sports retire. Today, the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Brett Favre, announced his retirement. He has been one of the best players in the league for many, many years, and I have always thought he was one of the more exciting and fun players to watch, even though I will never understand how a last name spelled "F-a-v-r-e" can result in the pronunciation of "Farve." Alas. It's been good fun, and next year, the Packers will have their first new starting quarterback in who-knows-how-long. Ah well.

Go Niners.

LotD: 122 Foot Tall Snowman. And in my native land of Maine, no less. :)

Whole Grain Goodness

First, some card-related things. Below are links to updated versions of the Reclamation rules (including blessings), and a PDF printout of the entire 359 card Genesis set. It doesn't include images - just text - but will suffice for playtesting purposes.

http://www.geocities.com/sdpsc/reclamation_ccg_rules.doc
http://www.geocities.com/sdpsc/genesisform.pdf

I have been accepted to work on the next TEC team! And now comes the funky part. This will be my seventh time on team, but my first as a non-Supportite. That's right, I will be a Wheatie. Which has me both rather excited and a little nervous, but I am sure that it will be all good. For those not in "the know," Support is a team that does a lot of the behind-the-scenes setup and cleaning for a TEC weekend. It has been a good fit for me. Wheat is a team whose main purpose is to pray for the weekend, and will include a lot more human interaction and discussion. And I am shy. :) But, I think it will go well. God must have me on that team for a purpose. And he's pretty smart.

LotD: Giant Swiss Army Knife. Thanks Dan. I don't think it'd be a wise choice to put on my keychain.

Thoughts on Reclamation

I'm not sure I've ever had multiple blog posts in one day. That's just crazy. But, alas.

I have been doing some Reclamation: CCG brainstorming. This post will undoubtedly bore and confuse anyone not familiar with the game. If that's you, I won't be hurt if you don't read it. :)

As I've mentioned previously, I was trying to figure out a way to add a certain amount of randomness to the game; or, more exactly, a certain amount of the unknown. Sometimes, in some games, when you attack an opponent, you already know the result of that battle, because there are no unknown effects. I am playing around with the idea of adding something called a blessings pile (name subject to change). This is a quick explanation of how it could work.

In addition to the normal game deck and area pile, each deck includes a blessings pile. This pile includes only cards of the blessings card type (and blessings cards can not be included in any other deck or pile). Blessings cards are used to affect conflicts throughout the game.

At the beginning of each conflict, each player draws the top card of his or her blessings pile and follows what it says. Each player only has one blessings pile, and thus all battles he or she participates in (whether playing Hell or Heaven at the time) use the same blessings pile. Each blessing card, in addition to game text, will contain a number (possibly referred to as the devotion number) that will be referred to on some cards.

Most of the blessings cards do not affect a particular player; instead, they usually affect characters that match certain criteria. For instance:

Each fighting character of mind > 3 is might +1.
Each fighting character carrying a weapon is might +1.
Each fighting character carrying a card of the opposite allegiance is might -1.
Each Hell character is might +1.

Other blessings cards will take effect at the end of that conflict:

The winner of this conflict may immediately draw 4 cards.
The loser of this conflict must immediately discard his or her hand.
The winner of this conflict may immediately discard an act from play.

And there will certainly be some unique blessings cards:

Reveal the next blessings card; X = that card's devotion number. Each fighting character with mind > X is might +X.
Wound each character in a front row.
Suspend the row penalty for this conflict.
Double the row penalty for this conflict.
Heal each character in a front row.

There will certainly be cards to manipulate the blessings pile. Some of the strategy with this pile will be trying to build a blessings pile that mostly helps both your Hell and Heaven sides. There will always be the potential for your blessings cards to help your opponent's characters more than your own in a particular conflict. In a battle (which is made up of multiple conflicts), each individual conflict would have blessings cards drawn that (usually) affect only those characters fighting in the current conflict.

In my head, this idea has already gone through a few phases. Originally, I had contemplated using "place holder" cards - cards that go face down in each spot in both of a player's character grids. So, every character in play would have a place holder card underneath it that may affect that character in some way. (Could kind of be looked at like that character's hidden issues or something... who knows.) The main problem with that, though, is that I current have wound cards going underneath each character. And that would just get too crowded.

Does this seem like a good or a bad idea? It may take playtesting to truly determine its playability, but I am curious if any of you have initial thoughts on this concept.

Less is More

So, we had another good fun week of volleyball last night. We had only four players, but decided to try and play anyway against a full team (they even had extras and were rotating in and out). It was a larger court than we normally played on, so the four of us had a lot of ground to cover. That being said, we came out, fell behind by like 5 points (in a game to 21), and then rallied and won the first game. Then, we made a similar comeback in the second game, and had an excellently close finish, winning that game like, 24-22 I think. The last game, though, we fell behind again and couldn't quite make the comeback. But, being 2 people short and winning 2 of the 3 games, I can't complain too much. It was a darn good workout. :)

I had posted previously about my web host's issues. It had not been displaying my site properly, then was down entirely. It was back up and fully functioning again for a little while, but now is completely down again. It seems the web host is not too dependable. Darn them!

I have some screen shots from Everquest and other such computer related things that I may be posting here. Why, you say? Cause, well, I dunno. But I think some of them are amusing or cool. So, haha. :)


LotD: E*Trade Commercial. I think it's pretty funny.

Version 1.1

I have had an initial read-through of The Lords of Sargoff, and have fixed some basic errors (though I am sure there are more) and added a little bit here and there (with the biggest addition being in chapter nine). The novel's page is updated with these new versions (I think each chapter had at least one minor change). (Have I gone over the legal limit for parentheses in one paragraph?)

LotD: Han in Carbonite Desk. I think that's pretty cool, but don't think my wife (or my checkbook) would allow it.

Reclaiming Randomization

I've looked over my Reclamation card game rules and have fixed a few things here and there. One thing I've always wanted to add is some kind of randomness factor, beyond the normal random order that you draw the cards. I think I've come up with one decent way to do it, but it kind of gets in the way of another part of the game (wounds). Who knows. The rules have already been rather tweaked and updated since the last time the game was playtested, but I hope to finish the tweaking, create a couple more decks and playtest it some more, with my Minnesota card players and possibly my brothers in Ohio, should I visit the region during the summer.

LotD: Read LotR online. The entire book texts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.