This post is half baked, for that, I apologize. Surely you've had something spring suddenly and randomly into your mind, and then posted a long rambling post to the internet about it, right?
I love me some conspiracy theory. Sorta.
See, conspiracy theories seem to swim around in two ponds, like a venn diagram. The ponds are connected, and some conspiracy theories are in the "plausible" pond, and others are in the "okay, I'm not really that crazy" pond.
Aliens at Rosewell New Mexico in the 50's [edit: 40's, get it right. duh.]? Sure, I'm in. Something Bigger at play in JFK's assassination? I'll bite. We never landed on the moon? Wait a second, slow down there. The Illuminati move quietly and powerfully through the world, moving nations like pawns? Nah, I wasn't too crazy about DaVinci Code. (BTW, that's another gripe I've got, which I'll get to later, or another time).
See, conspiracy theories are really just alternate theories about what really happened. And we all know, or at least can assume, that perhaps during a few points in human history, something happened other than what we've read about in history books or in the news or on wikipedia. Because.... big shocker here... sometimes we lie about stuff.
There's a certain stigma associated with conspiracy theories. Coming right out and saying "Hey, I don't believe everything that I read in the news and in the history books." can really get you labeled a weirdo, depending on the kind of people that you hang with.
But how much "alternative theory" can you buy? A little or a lot? I'll buy that Lee Harvey Oswald was not alone in the shooting of JFK. I'll buy that there were aliens, or something other than a weather balloon at Roswell. But faked moon landings? I guess conspiracy theory is subjective. I'm sure it plays into each persons understanding of the world, science, religion, philosophy, etc. While I'll buy some things and not others, someone else will pick a whole different set to believe in. If I had way more time and such, I'd create some sort of poll, or, I dunno, maybe research it with google or something, because surely someone's already done this - take 10 or 20 fairly common conspiracy theories, and go around and poll a few thousand people and see if they believe it is real or nutty. I expect that some would get high buy in, like JFK's assassination, while others would get somewhat lower buy in, like - I assume - fake moon landings.
Is the idea of he US being aware of an impending attack on Pearl Harbor a conspiracy theory? /random
One of my favorite conspiracy books, and aptly named, is Conspiranoia, you're welcome to read it if you ever come to my house and use the bathroom.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Cues
Y'know who bugs the crap out of me?
People who do not pick up on subtle, or sometimes not-so-subtle cues on the telephone. Especially on work related calls.
I'm a busy guy, and I assume that you are too. That's why when I talk to you, I'll usually ask you if this is a good time, or if I've caught you in the middle of something.
Its also why I try to pick up on subtle cues during the call. Are you talking to other people in the background about a problem with a server? Sound generally rushed and hurried? These are easy examples of cues that signal that this is a bad time for a long phone call.
If you have some information to share with me, great. If it takes you more than two or three minutes to share that information with me, we probably need to arrange a phone call, or you need to send me a long email.
People who do not pick up on subtle, or sometimes not-so-subtle cues on the telephone. Especially on work related calls.
I'm a busy guy, and I assume that you are too. That's why when I talk to you, I'll usually ask you if this is a good time, or if I've caught you in the middle of something.
Its also why I try to pick up on subtle cues during the call. Are you talking to other people in the background about a problem with a server? Sound generally rushed and hurried? These are easy examples of cues that signal that this is a bad time for a long phone call.
If you have some information to share with me, great. If it takes you more than two or three minutes to share that information with me, we probably need to arrange a phone call, or you need to send me a long email.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Freedom of Speech
In your opinion, should Freedom of Speech in the US be uncompromising and absolute, much as it is today? Or should there be fast, hard limits on it?
In the same way that you cannot go into a crowded theater and yell "fire", isn't hate speech similarly endangering to the safety and health of others?
I'm aware that putting limits on Freedom of Speech can be said to be a slippery slope, and I'm certainly all for protecting my civil liberties. But I'm not happy with Freedom of Speech encompassing Freedom of Hate.
In the same way that you cannot go into a crowded theater and yell "fire", isn't hate speech similarly endangering to the safety and health of others?
I'm aware that putting limits on Freedom of Speech can be said to be a slippery slope, and I'm certainly all for protecting my civil liberties. But I'm not happy with Freedom of Speech encompassing Freedom of Hate.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
D&D 4e, a year later.
Some of my fellow RPG nerds have been doing these 'D&D 4e, a year later' posts, and I figured, "Hey! I like posting about nerdy gaming stuff. Why don't I hop on this?" And so I am.
About this time last year, D&D 4 was on the shelves, and gamer nerds were still split on whether it was the most awesomest [sic] ever, or whether it was bringing death and ruin (and not the cool kind) to gaming. Ohhh, the D&D4 = MMORPG/WoW threads were so long. sigh. Good times.
Before 4e came out, I'd sworn off D&D. I'd gotten fed up with 3.x, and had gotten somewhat heavily into the indie gaming scene. I had a blast with some of these games, and as I've mentioned before, it was a great run for me, because it really opened my eyes up to a lot of neat stuff about the deeper theory and mechanics of gaming. As a total aside - posting sentences like that always makes me cringe just a little. But hey, nerds get into whatever they're nerding out about. I'm sure that somewhere, right now, someone is posting about the minute differences in two brands of fishing rods. /nerdtastic
Back on track: I followed the pending release of D&D4 like a stalker. You ever sit on a forum and hit 'refresh' like you're pushing the trigger on a morphine drip? That was me. I was stoked. Finally, I thought, a D&D that I can get back into.
So it came out, and I got my gamer buds together, and we ran some D&D. It was pretty awesome. Games were easy to prep for, mechanically speaking. "Powers", both for player-characters, and for monsters and bad guys were cool and fun. The players had a good time, and I had a good time. In the end, the arrival of babies in our lives put a nix on the game, but to be honest, after running the game for a little over six months, I'd begun to get burned out, mostly with the game system itself. So yeah, I'd gone from "D&D4 may be one of the most awesomest [sic] things ever", to "Eh, its fun." in six months.
Part of what turned me off was the combat system. I'm not trying to say that it was not fun or cool, just that after six months, the time it took to run even a simple combat had begun to outweigh the cool and fun. As a high fantasy tactical combat game that borrowed from action movies and games like final fantasy and world of warcraft, it excelled. But the fights were the focus of the sessions.
I'll pause here and concede that this has as much to do with system as it was the way I was running the game, but this quickly devolves into the System Does Matter argument. I was running the game, mechanically, as it was intended. We had time, in our game sessions, for about two fights, and some exposition and story before, between, and after the fights.
Anyway, my objective was not to rag on D&D4e. I suppose, instead, my goal was to compare Then And Now.
As I've posted here, I've begun to run some Labyrinth Lord games, which is a reworking of "old school" D&D, and have thought some about games like Shadowrun, and even Vampire the Masquerade (not Requiem, but that's for another post). D&D4 was fun, and I know a couple of folks who are still playing in other 4e games.
And that's all I've got.
About this time last year, D&D 4 was on the shelves, and gamer nerds were still split on whether it was the most awesomest [sic] ever, or whether it was bringing death and ruin (and not the cool kind) to gaming. Ohhh, the D&D4 = MMORPG/WoW threads were so long. sigh. Good times.
Before 4e came out, I'd sworn off D&D. I'd gotten fed up with 3.x, and had gotten somewhat heavily into the indie gaming scene. I had a blast with some of these games, and as I've mentioned before, it was a great run for me, because it really opened my eyes up to a lot of neat stuff about the deeper theory and mechanics of gaming. As a total aside - posting sentences like that always makes me cringe just a little. But hey, nerds get into whatever they're nerding out about. I'm sure that somewhere, right now, someone is posting about the minute differences in two brands of fishing rods. /nerdtastic
Back on track: I followed the pending release of D&D4 like a stalker. You ever sit on a forum and hit 'refresh' like you're pushing the trigger on a morphine drip? That was me. I was stoked. Finally, I thought, a D&D that I can get back into.
So it came out, and I got my gamer buds together, and we ran some D&D. It was pretty awesome. Games were easy to prep for, mechanically speaking. "Powers", both for player-characters, and for monsters and bad guys were cool and fun. The players had a good time, and I had a good time. In the end, the arrival of babies in our lives put a nix on the game, but to be honest, after running the game for a little over six months, I'd begun to get burned out, mostly with the game system itself. So yeah, I'd gone from "D&D4 may be one of the most awesomest [sic] things ever", to "Eh, its fun." in six months.
Part of what turned me off was the combat system. I'm not trying to say that it was not fun or cool, just that after six months, the time it took to run even a simple combat had begun to outweigh the cool and fun. As a high fantasy tactical combat game that borrowed from action movies and games like final fantasy and world of warcraft, it excelled. But the fights were the focus of the sessions.
I'll pause here and concede that this has as much to do with system as it was the way I was running the game, but this quickly devolves into the System Does Matter argument. I was running the game, mechanically, as it was intended. We had time, in our game sessions, for about two fights, and some exposition and story before, between, and after the fights.
Anyway, my objective was not to rag on D&D4e. I suppose, instead, my goal was to compare Then And Now.
As I've posted here, I've begun to run some Labyrinth Lord games, which is a reworking of "old school" D&D, and have thought some about games like Shadowrun, and even Vampire the Masquerade (not Requiem, but that's for another post). D&D4 was fun, and I know a couple of folks who are still playing in other 4e games.
And that's all I've got.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Left 4 Dead 2 Brouhaha
Chalk this up to me ranting into the void of the internet. I don't think any of you are big into Left 4 Dead.
So Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2, a sequel to their incredibly well selling team based zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. How's that for a gob of descriptors?
The internet has its panties in a wad, apparently. Masses of unwashed and rebellious nerds are screaming angry that Valve would have the audacity to be working on a sequel, a mere year after the release of the first one.
This is my note to those screaming masses. Get over it. You're just pissed because you think its "too soon". Don't be a dumbass. You know you'll end up rushing out and buying the damn thing. (Because it will, in all likelihood, be awesome, which is kinda the entire point of Valve creating a sequel. Doing it again, just better.)
That is all.
So Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2, a sequel to their incredibly well selling team based zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. How's that for a gob of descriptors?
The internet has its panties in a wad, apparently. Masses of unwashed and rebellious nerds are screaming angry that Valve would have the audacity to be working on a sequel, a mere year after the release of the first one.
This is my note to those screaming masses. Get over it. You're just pissed because you think its "too soon". Don't be a dumbass. You know you'll end up rushing out and buying the damn thing. (Because it will, in all likelihood, be awesome, which is kinda the entire point of Valve creating a sequel. Doing it again, just better.)
That is all.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Labyrinth Lord
Ran another game of Labyrinth Lord this past weekend. I'd initially hoped to have as many as five people attend, but only Jerry and Jason were able to make it. Still, we played, and had a good time.
My two players each took two characters into the dungeon, plus two retainers that one of Jason's characters had hired, giving us six warm bodies.
In brief format, they went back into the temple, did some more exploring, fought a room full of skeletons, very successfully, I might add, fought some goblins, then fought more goblins, and actually managed to force a bunch of the goblins to drop their weapons and flee, leaving their treasure behind. So there was a goodly bit of treasure and a goodly bit of XP to be had.
The party continued exploring, finding a room with concentric iron circles in the floor, and through an accident later, discovered that it produced a vision in one of the characters, sending that character on a quest for the Iron God to cleanse his temple. Further in the temple, they found an area that produced bazaar illusions and hallucinations. After a bit, they retreated from that section of the temple.
After running a game two weekends in a row, I'm going to have to revert to something a little less frequent. I'm hoping perhaps every other weekend, but we'll see how it goes.
My two players each took two characters into the dungeon, plus two retainers that one of Jason's characters had hired, giving us six warm bodies.
In brief format, they went back into the temple, did some more exploring, fought a room full of skeletons, very successfully, I might add, fought some goblins, then fought more goblins, and actually managed to force a bunch of the goblins to drop their weapons and flee, leaving their treasure behind. So there was a goodly bit of treasure and a goodly bit of XP to be had.
The party continued exploring, finding a room with concentric iron circles in the floor, and through an accident later, discovered that it produced a vision in one of the characters, sending that character on a quest for the Iron God to cleanse his temple. Further in the temple, they found an area that produced bazaar illusions and hallucinations. After a bit, they retreated from that section of the temple.
After running a game two weekends in a row, I'm going to have to revert to something a little less frequent. I'm hoping perhaps every other weekend, but we'll see how it goes.
Oh, Sims 3.
Between changing diapers and playing with Piper and catching season one of The Tudors on DVD with Krissi (its FANTASTIC, btw), and trying to keep up with dishes and such things, and running the occasional Labyrinth Lord game (which I did Sunday, and I'll get a recap up for you soonish), and playing Ogre Battles on the Wii, I try to squeeze in time to play the occasional computer game.
So, Sims 3.
I've been a mild fan of each iteration of The Sims. When the first one came out a bajillion years ago, my brother and I sat on computers side by side and played for like 36 hours. Then, having wrung everything we could from the game, neither of us touched it again. Sims 2 came along and had a bunch more cool features. Krissi and I, and some of our friends played it some, off and on. But again, it was a pretty mild commitment. Now Sims 3 has come out, and I've been playing around with it a little.
Its super neat. Nice graphics. Nice features. There's a laundry list of cool new stuff that you can do in this one, that you could not do in the previous ones. I entertained myself yesterday by starting a game based on a twisted MTV Real World - I made sim people based on Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart, David Beckham, and Jeffrey Dahmer. "Why?", you ask? "Why not!", I answer.
I won't make this into a full review. There's other, better places you could go if you were that interested. But its a lot of fun.
So, Sims 3.
I've been a mild fan of each iteration of The Sims. When the first one came out a bajillion years ago, my brother and I sat on computers side by side and played for like 36 hours. Then, having wrung everything we could from the game, neither of us touched it again. Sims 2 came along and had a bunch more cool features. Krissi and I, and some of our friends played it some, off and on. But again, it was a pretty mild commitment. Now Sims 3 has come out, and I've been playing around with it a little.
Its super neat. Nice graphics. Nice features. There's a laundry list of cool new stuff that you can do in this one, that you could not do in the previous ones. I entertained myself yesterday by starting a game based on a twisted MTV Real World - I made sim people based on Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart, David Beckham, and Jeffrey Dahmer. "Why?", you ask? "Why not!", I answer.
I won't make this into a full review. There's other, better places you could go if you were that interested. But its a lot of fun.
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