Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary

Let The Hunt Begin

2012-01-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

In thirty days the lease on my apartment expires. I have no intention of renewing it because, frankly, I'd rather sleep in a tent under an overpass than continue to live in this piece of shit apartment complex. I could easily turn this into a big rant about how this place is firmly rooted in the Plane of Suck, but there's really no need to raise my blood pressure like that. No, I think I want to talk about the trials and tribulations of house hunting.

Over the last few weeks we have looked at dozens of potential houses and apartments in the Metro-Atlanta area. So many choices, not to mention trying to decide if it's more important to try to stay near where most of our friends are or close to where I work (the commute is going to kill me, I swear). It seems the first trial I house hunting around here is just getting the realtor/landlord to return a damn phone call or email. I know Roxanne called and/or emailed several places last week, but only four actually responded. So, Yesterday, we spent several hours looking at four different places. Now, before I continue I must say that, while Atlanta is not expensive as one would expect, it is still a large metro area, which undoubtedly is going to affect price. That being said, location plays a big factor in the housing market and the decision on making a decision on where to live. For example, one of the houses we looked at (number four of four) was beautiful; it was well maintained, had obviously been recently had a lot work done (new hardwood floors, paint, etc.). We loved the house itself, but it had two very major strikes against it, the first being no driveway. Parking for this house was on the street. If that had been the only thing, we probably would have been ok with it. However, strike two was that the neighborhood it surrounded it was pretty run down looking and, frankly, even in broad daylight, we didn't feel particularly safe being there. It was very unfortunate because the price was very reasonable as well.

The first house we looked at on our house hunt yesterday also failed to impress. The neighborhood was fine, the house itself was ok as far as space and the rent was reasonable. But this place had virtually no closet space. Seriously, in a three bedroom house, only one one bedroom had a closet. The only other closet in the entire house was a small coat closet in the living room. Even thought the washer and dryer were included (a very big bonus for us, since we currently spend $20-30 a week doing laundry at a laundromat), it just wasn't enough. It didn't help that, despite the size of the yard being impressive, it was also very unkempt and was pretty much all pine straw without a blade of grass to be seen.

The two best houses we looked at were the second and third houses we visited, and really out of the four we have viewed so far, are the only two I would consider worth moving into. Number two was quite impressively large, especially for the price. The neighborhood seemed decent enough. The yard was ample, parking wouldn't be problem, even if we wanted to invite people over. It needs some work, but it appeared that the owners were still in the process of fixing up a few things. The problem with having so much space though, is that we don't own enough furniture to fill it, and I really don't want to go have to buy more furniture just so my house doesn't look so empty. That aside, though, the only real problem I had with that house was the fact that it did not have central air conditioning. Really? In the middle of Georgia, there's no central AC? The rent may not be that high, but the cost of trying to cool that place with only window AC units could prove to be pretty high in a region where summer temperatures push close to 100 degrees with very high humidity.

The overall leader after this weekend's viewings is undoubtedly, for me anyway, the third place we looked at. Admittedly, it was the most expensive of the four, but when all things are considered, $900 per month is still pretty good. A very large yard that is in pretty good shape; a nice back deck; three bedrooms (only one of which didn't have a proper closet, because the water heater was in it); new hardwood floors; fresh paint; and it's a corner lot in a fairly quiet/safe neighborhood.

The hunt, of course, is not over. We've only earnestly looked at four places, and all within a few miles of where we are now. We still have a list of places we have seen online to sift through, some of which are considerably closer to where I work. But with only thirty days left to choose, and the fact that I can only look on Saturdays and Sundays because of my work schedule, the decision is going to have to be made pretty soon.

Not to mention that my readers can look forward to an “I hate moving” rant in a few weeks too. *wink*

~ JC

What Possesses People?

2012-01-22T10:56:00.000-05:00

I often wonder, as I'm sure many other do, what exactly possesses a person to act, well, like an asshole. I don't, necessarily, mean the tendency in all of us to say or do something in a moment of anger that is asshole-ish. I am referring to people who tend toward acting that way all seemingly all the time. All those years I worked retail, I experienced this phenomenon quite often – those customers who were always mean and hateful no matter how pleasant and polite you tried to be to them.

That aside, what bothers me the most is when someone suddenly uses vicious name calling when they find themselves in disagreement with another person. What is it, in the mind of someone, that causes them to completely lose sight of the issue and decide that attacking someone's weight or hobbies, etc., instead of debating the topic that caused the argument?

I bring this up because of a recent incident in my own life that ended a friendship that had lasted several years. This friend, we'll call him “Frank”, had been my supervisor at a past job. After we both left that company, we became pretty good friends, occasionally meeting up for coffee. Frank had a tendency to do mass forwards from his email, mostly political in nature. Sometimes these emails were interesting and worth reading, but being someone who is not especially prone to political debate, I mostly deleted these out of hand and didn't object because our friendship was more important to me than getting into political arguments. Recently, Frank's email got hacked and a mass email was sent out from his account. Not knowing, for certain, if it had come from him or someone else on the list, I had clicked on “Reply All” and sent out a general request to be removed from whatever distribution list I had apparently gotten on. At the time, I was unaware that Frank's email had gotten hacked.

This, at first, only lead to him sending me an email asking what was wrong. I told him nothing was wrong, per se, I was just getting to many emails and was trying to limit how much email was hitting my inbox. A few days later he informed everyone that he had gotten hacked. One of the comments he made in that email seemed erroneous to me. He said something about resetting passwords to correct the problem. I took his comment as meaning that resetting one's password would remove them from the distribution list. I probably mistook his meaning, now that I look back on it, but I did reply to everyone to offer some amount of advise on this topic and stated that resetting a password would not remove them for a distribution list, but that, naturally, Frank should reset his since he was the one who's email was hacked.

This is where things went to shit really fast. He sent me an email claiming I had “thrown him under the bus” by replying to all his friends and telling him to reset his password. Now, I would have probably just taken it as he had mistook my intent (which obviously he had) and tried to explain and smooth things over, except that later in the email he told me that the “douche bag part”.. of me.. “was unnecessary” and “Happy New Year Asshole!” Perhaps, I overreacted a bit myself at this point, but I replied explaining that I was not trying to embarrass him but trying to offer some technical advise that I thought everyone would have benefited from, which is why I replied to all instead of just him. However, his decision to be nasty about the whole thing caused me to tell him that I was tired of not getting any emails from him except political bullshit and that he could remove me from his address book entirely.

The whole thing had already gotten out of hand, and the friendship was pretty much done at that point already. I'd dare say that I was probably just as wrong as he was for the way I responded, but this is the part that really tore me up. His next email, instead of simply saying “fine, you're deleted and our friendship is over” and leaving it at that, launched into a tirade of telling me who he hoped that my fat ass ate myslef into type 2 diabetes, and that I lived in a fantasy world of gaming, and that he hoped I got lung cancer from smoking to much.. blah, blah, blah.

Now, I ask you, what the fuck did any of that have to do with our actual disagreement? If he had called me “asshole” or “douche bag” again based on how I had handled our little email string of disagreement, fine. But, really? Someone who's in their 50s resorting to what I have now termed the “Yeah, well you're a doody head” technique of argument and basically wishing my dead because I didn't want to get forwarded a bunch of politically charged emails anymore? Where's the sense in that? And how sad and messed up is this person's life that they would resort to that? Sure, I could have been more diplomatic about the whole thing. I take full responsibility for responding in anger. But, outside of calling him “dick” once, I never made comments about his health, his weight, his hobbies or anything else that was irrelevant to the reason we were now at odds.

I am saddened that such a long standing friendship is over, especially with someone who was older than me (all of my friends are younger than I am) and that I looked up to as somewhat of a mentor. But considering his over the top reaction and the vile things he said in our final communication, I'm probably better off not having “Frank” in my list of friends anymore.

~ JC

Ben Was Right... Mostly

2012-01-15T09:12:00.000-05:00

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” - Benjamin Franklin

Now, I don't know if the above quote is accurate or apocryphal, but I have to agree with it wholeheartedly. Beer has been around for thousands of years, believed to date back to as much as 6000 BCE. I really do like beer. In the past year I've become a bit of a beer snob, even, preferring imports and micro-brews to the more common domestic brands.

Unfortunately, and to my dismay, I've recently discovered that I can no longer drink it. The last few times I've enjoyed a nice cold brew, or two, I've awoken the next day to nausea, headache and just generally feeling like total shit. Now, naturally, I'm sure you're first thought is, “Well, you drank to much is all and had a hang over.” I'd agree with that except that it just happened yesterday after having one beer on Friday night. One, and maybe a half. So, not even two beers, and not even a buzz resulted in me being in bed sick all day the following day. Compare that to my being able to have several mixed drinks (Whiskey and Diet Cola or Rum and Diet Cola being the most common), which I tend to make rather strong without having the same sickness the next day and the conclusion ends up being that it's not the amount of alcohol, but something else within beer that's making me sick.

I hate that beer has become something I can no longer enjoy. It's certainly cheaper than liquor and there are so many different varieties that I was hoping to try. I have no clue what it is about beer that makes me so sick, I just know it makes me a little sad that I can no longer enjoy this blessing from God.

~ JC

Damn it Feels Good to Be a Lannister

2012-01-08T11:23:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen this video, and you're fan of 'Game of Thrones', you totally should do so... go ahead, I'll wait.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60Znn2_jDIc

I read a lot. Maybe not as much as some, and certainly not as much as I'd like to, but I do read a lot. I've read the original Dragonlance Chronicles, The Sword of Truth series, a fair amount of the Star Wars novels and of course I've read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and most of The Chronicles of Narnia, et.,al. But no series of books has gripped me the way George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series has. I'll admit, I'm a late comer to this series, which started in 1996 with A Game of Thrones. And I'll even admit that I wasn't inspired to read them until HBO began producing a series based on them.

The first book, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996. By the time fans of the series were eagerly awaiting book four, A Feast for Crows, to come out, I was working at a Books-A-Million in Fayetteville, NC. The series seemed interesting enough, but I didn't really feel like starting a series that was already three books deep (as a side note, as much as I love sci-fi and fantasy, it has always irked me that no one ever seems to write just one book in that genre; everything always ends up being trilogies or well beyond). Anyway, I had pretty much decided back then that I wasn't going to read this series. I was even a little bit perturbed that HBO was making a series out of them. I mean, that seems to be the status quo in Hollywood anymore – find a popular book series and turn it into a half-assed adaptation for the either TV or the big screen. Still, HBO usually does a pretty good job with this, but seeing as how I didn't have HBO, it really didn't matter.

A few months ago, though, I managed to get my hands on the HBO series. It was very well done, and the plot twists and surprises got my attention. So, I went to my local bookstore and picked up a copy of the first book. I was instantly hooked. Even though I had watched the HBO series, and knew what was going to happen, Martin's writing style (and the subtle differences between the books and TV series) had me turning page after page after page.

I am currently reading the fourth book. It has, admittedly, taken me no less than a month to read each book; they're that long, but also that compelling that I don't want to just rush through them. I'm not that fast of a reader as it is, but I find myself reading just a bit slower with this series because they are so rich with character development and plot twists, that I don't want to miss anything.

HBO is currently working on season two of its adaptation of the series. I've already noted some things that HBO has done regarding casting, and even re-naming characters, to make me worried that they might fuck this up, but I really hope not. So far, they've done a great job at following the books. Regardless of what HBO does, however, the books themselves have definitely made it into my all-time favorites list of literature. Martin has been heralded as “The American Tolkien”, and with good reason. His storytelling ability is that epic! If you haven't read these, you should, in my not-so-humble opinion.

~ JC

First Blog of 2012

2012-01-01T08:58:00.000-05:00

I don't really have a topic for today's blog. But then again, that's why I call the thing “Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary”. It's been a pretty awesome ride over the last twelve months. 2012, for me, sparked a career path into Information Technology (finally). I found a good job, then found an even better job. At the beginning of 2011, I was still working a crappy, minimum wage, retail job. Now I make enough that I can afford an apartment without the assistance of a roommate (not that having someone to split the bills with hasn't been pretty awesome). To that end, I've finally moved my fiancee to Atlanta. We've started making our home look like a home with real furniture, and we've started looking at other places due to the lease expiring at the end of February and the fact that I can afford better now, than I could when I moved into where I'm at.

Everyone always hopes for the new year to be more awesome than the one prior. For me, my awesome 2012 began in the Fall of 2011 when I got hired at my current job and Roxanne moved down from North Carolina. The only thing left is for her to catch that same big break that I did, which I'm confident will happen soon.

And, maybe I'll start blogging more again in 2012. But like my friend Jimmy once pointed out, I tend to blog more when I'm pissed or upset, and I really haven't had much to rant about lately. Maybe I just need to start writing happy blogs? Nah... ;-)

~ JC

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T10:19:00.000-05:00

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

~ Luke 2:1-20 NASB

(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2&version=NASB)

Believe What Thou Will

2011-11-27T09:31:00.002-05:00

The topic of belief comes up from time to time, especially this time of year. With it being the Holiday Season (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Chanukah) the topic of belief is very much hard to avoid. What always gets me is how angry some people can get whenever the topic comes up. Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not just talking about so-called “Fundamentalist Right Wing” Christians here. I've met plenty of Wiccans/Pagans who get their panties in all kinds of a wad whenever anyone tries to talk to them about any other religion but their own. I always find it sad when people get so bent out of shape over someone not believing the exact same as they do. Isn't belief and faith supposed to bring peace and joy to the soul?

I've experienced a lot in my 40 years of life, spiritually speaking. I've been a Pentecostal minister. I've gone into deep meditation and met my animal spirit guides when I practiced Wicca. I've stared into fire seeking visions. I've even been so drunk and full of depression and fear of the future that I've looked up at the North Star and told God he was an asshole before. And through all of it, I have had faith and belief that there is a higher power, even when I was at my lowest.

I once read a definition of religion that, to paraphrase, stated that religion was really just mankind's way of explaining things that they can observe or have experienced that they can't (yet) explain scientifically. Ok. I won't completely disagree with that. I mean, let's face it. Religion is man's creation, not God's. I know, I know. Many will disagree with me on that point, but I still hold to that point of view. I really don't think God invented religion. If He did, there would only be one religion. Man invented religion as a (limited) way of trying to understand God.

Which one is the right one though? Christians would have you believe theirs is. Muslims are quite adamant about theirs being the true path to God, so much so that the really fundamentalist branches of the religion even resort to terrorism to prove it. Wiccans would have you believe that their religion pre-dates Christianity, Islam or Judaism (which isn't really true, but I won't get into how Wicca is actually only a little over a half century old, even though some of their rituals are borrowed from or are resurgences of ancient practices).

What has always struck me as overly ironic about any religion is how it typically can't even entirely agree with itself. Within Christianity there's Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. Then, with Protestantism there are dozens of denominations and even within those there are splinters and splits because of disagreements over theology. Islam too, as mentioned before, has extremists who are warlike, while other branches are much more peaceful. Judaism even has reformed, orthodox and conservative branches. And don't even get me started on how many various and sundry Neo-Pagan traditions there are.

Then, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the Atheists and Agnostics. In some ways I pity them. I mean, I respect their right to not believe, as it were, but having experienced so much, spiritually, I really feel sorry for those who have not.

Ultimately, I don't think God (or the gods, if you prefer) really care what you believe, only that you believe. So, believe what thou will. I know I'm happy. I know I'm on the path I should be on, the one that works for me. We can't all, necessarily, follow the same road. If that were the case, the road wouldn't branch.

~ JC

Phasing in a New Army

2011-11-06T10:12:00.001-05:00

When I moved to Atlanta last October, one of the new hobbies I took up was the game Warhammer 40,000 (also known as 40k, for short). Being of Scottish ancestry, the army I selected to play was called the ‘Space Wolves’, a Space Marine chapter. Yes, I know, Space Wolves fluff and back story is based on Norse mythology, not Celt, but it’s the closest thing to Celt Mythos in the 40k Universe, so that’s what I went with.

Unfortunately, I soon found out that the Space Wolves were also amongst the most popular of Space Marine chapters to play. The upside to that, of course, was always being able to find models for that army at the local gaming store. The downside is, to damn many people were playing that army. The only thing I could really do to make my army stand out was go with a slightly different color scheme when painting them compared to most other players using the color scheme presented in the Space Wolves Codex.

After a few months of playing Space Wolves, I actually started getting a bit bored of them. After all, they’re really just another Space Marine chapter amongst dozens of Space Marine chapters. I wanted to play something different.

The one army I never saw anyone play at Giga-bytes Café was the Necrons. I became intrigued. So I looked through their codex and I very much liked what I saw. I also really liked the look of the models. An army of immortal living robots? Awesome! It would be like playing an entire army of Schwarzenegger-esque terminators. They even had a special rule called “We’ll Be Back”. How awesome was that?

So, I started buying up the little bit of Necrons models that Giga-bytes had in stock with plans to have the owner order more as I decided exactly how I wanted to build my list. Then something happened that made me excited and sad at the same time. I had to post-pone the building of my new army because the models had all become back ordered from Games Workshop. WTF!?

See, Warhammer 40k is currently on the 5^th edition of its rule set, but the Necrons Codex was still from 4^th edition as it had not been updated for 5^th yet. The reason everything had become backordered and unavailable was because GW was finally updating the Necrons for 5^th edition. This was exciting because it mean newer, updated special rules for this army and possibly new models as well. The part that made me sad was that my reason for wanting to play this army was potentially about to be nullified. See, I wanted to play Necrons because no one else at my hobby store did. The typical MO when an army gets updated is that a shit-ton of people all of a sudden starts buying up models for it. It’s like everyone has “ooo shiny!” moment and thinks they just have to have it because it’s the newest thing to hit the shelves.

After a months of waiting for the new codex to come out, the day finally arrived yesterday! GW finally released the new codex for Necrons and also introduced several very new, very sexy models for this army. And the timing on this was even better because my birthday is next week, so I ended up getting an early birthday present from my fiancée.

I am very thankful of the fact that, so far, the only person who actually reserved anything for the new release other than a copy of the new codex was me. And no one can accuse me of being a “band wagon” buyer of this new set of models because I had already started this army and planned on playing it before I even knew that GW was updating it for 5^th edition.

So, I have some models to build and paint now that I’m actually looking forward to. And more importantly, I’m really anxious to get this army built so I can play it. I’d say the odds are pretty good that I’ll end up getting my Necrons army built up to a full 2000 point list well before I get my Space Wolf army completed.

With that said… I’ve got a codex to read and models that need building.

~JC

No Cable, No Problem

2011-10-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

I haven't had cable for over a year now. When I moved to Atlanta, I lived with my best friend for the first five months. He has DirectTV, but a very basic package. When I moved into the apartment this past March, my roommate and I really couldn't afford cable, plus the fact that neither of us is really home enough to justify getting cable. The truth is, I haven't really missed it. Sure, there are shows on cable, like “True Blood” or “Game of Thrones” that I enjoy, but there are other ways of getting to watch TV in this digital age. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not advocating illegal downloads. But the internet is a vast and wonderful place, even with all the trolls.

First of all, there's Hulu. Granted, it doesn't have everything, but it is possible to find a pretty good selection of shows to watch, including old classics. Now, this isn't cable, but it's still my favorite source of TV viewing pleasure – CBS.com. I love that CBS posts all of their shows on their website the day after they air. See, not only do I not have cable, but I don't even have an antenna with which to watch broadcast TV. One of my favorite shows is 'NCIS', so I love the fact that I can watch it on Wednesday night on the website. I've also become a fan of '2 Broke Girls' which I would never have even known existed if not for CBS.com. In fact, I've been watching it as I've been writing this blog. The other networks, ABC and NBC have also followed suit and have their shows available on their websites as well.

Now, if we could only get HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz to follow this same model. Sure, they would charge for it, as where the networks just put play ads like they do anyway, but I'd be willing to bet that people would gladly pony up the dough to watch cable shows on demand via the internet. I know, I know, HBO already does this, but only if you already have a cable subscription through your provider. That idea seems a bit silly to me. Why should I pay for cable just to be able to watch the shows online instead? I'd love to see HBO offer an online only subscription model. I'd be much more likely to pay for that than actual cable at this point.

Anyway, I not only don't miss cable thanks to the other methods by which I can watch my favorite shows (both old and new), but because it has afforded me more time for other pursuits like reading more, or building and painting Warhammer 40k models. It's amazing, now that I think about it, just how much of my free time in the past was wasted just sitting in front of the “idiot box” not really doing anything.

~ JC

I Just Felt Like Writing

2011-10-23T09:26:00.000-04:00

Ever seen 'Forest Gump'? Of course you have... almost everyone has, and extended cable plays it every other weekend. Anyway, there's a segment in the film where Forest decides to go for a run and he runs and runs and runs, so much so that people think he's on some sort of quest, or protest or trying to make a statement of some kind. But all he ever says is, “I just felt like running.” Well, that's pretty much this blog for me. I just felt like writing. No agenda. No political statement. No real point. Just felt like writing, like I used to do every Sunday morning.

Funny thing about feeling like writing though is, thinking of something to write about. I mean, a blog should have a point right? A topic, a theme, a thesis... something. But, not today really. The only point is I wanted to write. The act of writing is rather cathartic for me, so I write, even when I have nothing to say.

The new job goes well. Still learning the ropes, a bit slower than I'd personally like to, but management seems to be cool with what I've accomplished so far. My fiancée is making plans to move down to Atlanta within the next few weeks and continues her job search in the area. The hunt for a house, or better apartment, is underway with a few decent leads. Bills are paid and I still have enough money in the bank to last me until the next pay day. In short, for the first time in a very long time, I'm feeling pretty confident about the future.

~ JC

WiFi Woes and Victories

2011-10-16T11:40:00.001-04:00

Over the last several weeks my roommate and I have experienced a lot of frustrations with th Wi-Fi in our apartment. Between the two of us, we have several devises capapable of connecting to Wi-Fi including my Android phone, his laptop, an HP printer that we share and lately the laptop I received from my new job. The issue was not that these devices couldn't find or connect to the wireless router, but that they wouldn't stay connected. It's quite irritatting to see the devices showing full signal strength right up until you try to actually do something that requires that connection just to see that signal disappear!

Being a tech guy, I tried fiddling around with settings on the devices and the router. My first inclination was that there was something wrong with the router (it was a few years old and so I thought maybe it was slowly dying). So I went out a bought a new router (if nothing else, it was an excuse to update to a newer, faster router than we had). That didn't work. It was suggested by one of the IT people at my office that perhaps we needed to try moving the router lower, but placing it on the floor; she suggested that because she had had a similar issue at her house and moving the router down like that worked for her. Again, that didn't work. We were now pretty convinced that it was just that our apartment was a wireless blackhole. I mean, even our cellphones lacked signal to make and receive phone calls. My roommate has AT&T and I have Verizon, so it was unlikely that it was a carrier issue since we both experience the same issues with lack of signal.

Finally, about a week ago I finally got tired of not being able to print anything or take my laptop anywhere in the apartment or even use some of the apps on my phone while at home, so I went into troubleshooting mode. I logged into the router's GUI through my browser and starting looking at settings to see if maybe there was something there that needed tweaking. That's when I decided to check D-Link's website for any current firmware updates. Low and behold, there was a more current version of the firmware, so I proceeded to make a back up of my router configuration and flash the router. After restoring the configuration and restarting the router, everything worked! The printer, my Android, my roommate's laptop and my laptop (sort of) all were connecting to the Wi-Fi and maintaining that connection.

Now, you may wonder why I put “sort of” in parentheses when I mentioned my laptop. Being that the laptop belongs to the company I work for, I can't completely flatten it and just install Ubuntu. I have to keep the Windows 7 partition that it came with intact. So, when I boot into Windows 7, the Wi-Fi works fine, but when I boot into Ubuntu Linux, the Wi-Fi was continuing to do as it has always done – up, down, up, down. Well, obviously, if this was the only device/system that wasn't keeping the connection with the Wi-Fi, it wasn't the router causing it, so now it was time to go into troubleshooting mode again.

Here's the thing, while I'm not a big fan of Windows, I do have to give Microsoft some credit here. Since Windows is geared toward being used by everyone, not just computer geeks and technical support people, it has a lot of automated programs and scripts built in to fix itself (most of the time). So, in the case of the Wi-Fi situation when using the Windows 7 partition of my laptop, it fixed itself just by me telling it to search for a solution. Linux isn't as forgiving, not even Ubuntu, which is probably the closest thing to a mainstream flavor of Linux there is. With Linux the user is going to have exercise the ability to think and research to find the answers, and even then, have to have the confidence to make changes and tweaks to the system without fear of royally fucking up their computer. So, I exercised my skills in “Google-Fu” and started looking for any updates to Wi-Fi drivers specific to Linux for my Wi-Fi card.

The first step in this project was to try to search for drivers for the laptop model (in my case, a Dell Latitude E6400). I didn't have much luck there, except to find out information about how Ubuntu's default drivers generally wouldn't work with certain chipsets due to licensing constrictions. Great, now all I had to do was figure out which chipset I had for my wireless card. This is where it gets fun. On Dell's website, there were no less than about six different wireless cards possibly used in my model of laptop. That didn't exactly narrow things down for my search.

So, here's how you find out specifics on what's under the hood, so to speak, on a Linux machine. Open a command line terminal (CTRL-ALT-T or click on Applications>Accessories>Terminal). At the prompt type the command, lspci. This will produce output that looks something like this:

:/$ lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07)

00:03.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset MEI Controller (rev 07)

00:03.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PT IDER Controller (rev 07)

00:03.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset AMT SOL Redirection (rev 07)

00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03)

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)

00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03)

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M-E LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 82801 SATA RAID Controller (rev 03)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G98M [Quadro NVS 160M] (rev a1)

03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev ba)

03:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 04)

03:01.2 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 21)

0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100

:/$

Notice the last line in the output that says 0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation WiFi Link 5100 . In my case, that'st the WiFi adapter that is installed. Naturally, your's will most likely be different. Again, this is where Google-Fu skills need to be employed as now we have a specific chipset for which to search online for Linux drivers. My search lead me to http://intellinuxwireless.org/?n=Downloads and to the tar file iwlwifi-5000-ucode-8.83.5.1-1.tgz. The next step here was to download that file, open it, and extract the file iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode and copy that into the /lib/firmware directory on my laptop, then reboot and test. I'm happy to say it worked. Wi-Fi is up and running on everything in the apartment now.

Hopefully writing this blog will help someone else and keep them from having to go through as long of period of searching, re-searching and figuring out exactly what the fuck is wrong. Granted, my examples are specific to my laptop, but the methodology will be the same for anyone. Good luck and happy hunting!

~ JC

Glossary of terms:

Wi-Fi – a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi)

GUI – a graphical user interface (GUI, sometimes pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI)

Linux – a computer operating system which is based on free and open source software. Although many different varieties of Linux exist, all are Unix-like and based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)

Ubuntu – a computer operating system based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu ("humanity towards others") - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(operating_system)

Perseverance Does Pay Off

2011-09-25T11:38:00.000-04:00

On October 3, 2010, I packed as much of my stuff as I could fit into my 2004 Saturn Ion (just the essentials, mind you) and made the trek from Fayetteville, NC to Atlanta, GA. For several years, my best friend, Robert, had been after me to do it, and I always had some piss poor excuse not to. I guess I had finally just gotten to the point that knowing that Fayetteville had nothing to offer me, career wise, except for crappy retail jobs that even the apprehension of leaving my loved ones just wasn't enough to keep me from taking the gamble of heading to a large metro area and trying to stake a claim on having a career and a life.

My first week in Atlanta I found a job, albeit not one any better than I could have found in Fayetteville. For about six months I hammered away working a part time, minimum wage gig at an office supply store for a control freak of a boss while putting my resume on almost every job site I could find. By Thanksgiving I had had one interview with a place that offered the opportunity to have a “real job” but was told my tech skills weren't strong enough yet. By January 2011 I had made a tentative decision to go back to North Carolina if I didn't have anything better than the retail job I had by the end of March. I even told my boss as much – that either by then I'd be shown that I had a future at the office store, have found something better here in the ATL, or I was going home. At that point I had decided that if I was going to be stuck in a crappy, minimum wage, retail job, I might as well go home and do that and at least then I could be with my fiancée everyday and maybe even see my Gramma, Mom, Sister and Niece on a regular basis.

But it's amazing what friendship can do for you. I have been really blessed in that coming to Atlanta has scored a great group of friends even beyond Robert, who already lived here. So my gaming buddy, Jeff, made me an offer. He needed a new roommate, and I needed to move out of Robert's house (that's a long story that I won't get into here, but it had nothing to do with anything bad between Rob and I – he's still my best friend, and lives less than two miles away from me). Anyway, Jeff offered to get an apartment with me – one which he could afford by himself if needs be, and that he was going to rent regardless of me being his roommate or not. The deal was that I could help out with what I could when I could until I found that “real job” I had been hunting. In fact, I was waiting to hear back from a job I had interviewed for that would have meant I could afford half the bills. So, I decided to stay, and even signed a twelve month lease that began March 1, 2011.

So for a month I continued working at the office store, thinking that maybe I had made a mistake in staying. Then one I day I got a phone call that would set in motion flood of career opportunity. The call came from a staffing agency (aka, temp agency, “head hunter”, whatever you want to call them). It was a chance to work, “temp-to-hire”, for $13 per hour, and it was even in the technology field. Finally, after months of rejection, or just plain no replies, I was being offered a “real job”. I started that job on April 26, went through six weeks of training and, at the risk of being a bit arrogant, had become one of the top two or three members of the customer service specialists on my team. I not only had a job that paid a decent wage but at which I knew I was respected, trusted and likely being groomed for advancement at.

Then the damnedest thing happened. I got a message on Facebook from an acquaintance that I knew through Robert, named Keith. He told me his company was hiring for their Technical Support team. I hesitant at first, for a few reasons. First of all, the place I was already working had already started the proceedings of switching me from being a temporary contract employee to permanent employee. Secondly, I knew I had a future where I was working (I had been directly told by my manager that once permanent I was in the running to be promoted to Tier 2 support). And thirdly, I had interviewed with this other company before, back in 2005, before it had been acquired by a larger company and was told my Unix/Linux skills weren't up to par for them to take the gamble on hiring me. Oh yeah, and they had just laid off Robert back in January because his job was duplicated overseas. So, I was a little apprehensive about even trying. I've been running Linux on my personal computer for a few months now, but still, my skills in Unix/Linux are still pretty rudimentary, in my opinion. Robert said I should go for it, so I said “fuck it” and sent my resume to Keith. I got a phone call from an HR Recruiter and had a preliminary “interview” over the phone a few days later. I figured that's that, and went to work that afternoon. Low and behold, I was called by the recruiter again to set up a phone interview one Friday with the team managers/leads here in Atlanta (Alpharetta, actually, but it's still the Metro-Atlanta area).

I honestly thought I had blown that phone interview. I started off pretty strong, but then they started asking about things that I was only vaguely familiar with and really couldn't answer the questions specifically, Again I thought “well, that's that” and went back to work on my next scheduled day. Imagine my surprise when I got a call that following Monday telling me that they wanted to do an on-site interview! Cool. I'll go and let them meet me face-to-face, I thought. I'll show them what I do know and hope it's enough, but I had a feeling they'd, once again, tell me that they needed someone with more Unix knowledge and experience than I had and really didn't have the time and resources to train and teach me. So, on a Friday morning, I got up at 6am, showered, shaved and put on my favorite suit and drove from Decatur to Alpharetta (it was the Friday before Labor Day in fact, so I ended up being way early because I had overestimated how bad traffic would be that morning). I met with four different people, two at at time, for a little over an hour. We talked about basic Unix commands, networking, I was even asked to view a couple of log files to test my ability to read them. Personality wise, I got along great with everyone I spoke with, but again I thought, on the technology portion of the interview I had fumbled. So I drove back to Decatur, changed clothes and proceeded to go about my normal Friday errands and such (Friday being one of my regular days off from the current job). Two hours later, my phone rang – it was the HR Recruiter. Naturally I thought, “Well, if this was good news, they wouldn't be calling me only two hours later.” I was WRONG! She was calling to offer me the job! Holy Shit! I couldn't believe it! It was all I could do to contain myself lest I wreck my car, since I was pulling out of a McDonald's drive through at the time.

So here I am, almost a year after coming down here, preparing to start a job that pays substantially more than I was making tomorrow morning. Leaving the job I was at was bitter-sweat. I really liked and respected my manager. I really got along with my team, and pretty much everyone did their job and we all worked really well together and, as I said before, I knew I was in line for moving up the ladder there. But when you get an offer for a job that's in a field you've been hoping to break into as long as I have, and it pays more per year than you're already making, you don't say “no”.

It's been a crazy twelve months, but it's obviously paid off. I've fallen in love with this city and all the awesome things there are to see and do here. I've found a great core group of friends. And now I finally have landed in the career that I've been hoping for for years. The only thing left is to move my beloved down here with me, and that will happen soon.

So if you're feeling down or like life's dumping on you, just hang in there. It may not be tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even next year, but good things really do happen to those who don't give up.

"Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him." - James 1:12 NASB

"Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." - Winston Churchill, (29 October 1941)

~ JC

The Art of Mastering the Game

2011-08-27T11:32:00.000-04:00

I've been playing role playing games, in one form or another, for about 26+ years (I started playing Dungeons & Dragons ™ when I was 13; I'm now 39 – do the math). Which means, I've been playing these types of games for longer than some of the members of my current gaming group have even been alive (holy shit, I'm old!). There are a couple of things that make these games fun; for me anyway. There's the social interaction, for one, but mostly it's just fun to be able to vent frustrations by portraying a character that can do things that I can't – either because I don't have the skills, or because in the real world, I'd be in jail if I did many of things my characters have done in game. There's also the fact that by participating in a role playing game, I get the feeling that I'm one among a group of authors who are collaborating to “write” an open ended story. I've always wanted to write a novel, but anytime I get an idea and start writing, I realize that I'm just rehashing typical fantasy stories, or my idea is to much like some author's work, and I really don't want to get sued, so I stop writing. Playing an RPG helps to satiate my desire to write.

The balancing act of keeping the game fun and interesting falls squarely in the lap of the Game Master (aka, Dungeon Master, Storyteller, Weaver, referee, etc.). The GM, has the job of coming up with the setting and plot of this open ended story – sometimes using published works specifically written for the game, sometimes coming up with their own (or, in the case of games I have run as GM, a combination of both). The players, portraying various characters within the setting, collaborate with the GM to unfold a dynamic story.

The challenge any GM has is to not only come up with a story arc that is compelling and draws the players in, but to also keep a balance withing the mechanics of the game. Almost every RPG uses statistics and dice to help determine outcomes. It's all well and good for me to announce that my player performs a certain action, but, as in real life, success is not a foregone conclusion, so dice are rolled and compared to the character's abilities and skills versus how difficult the task is, or versus another character's ability to out maneuver or out smart the player's character. For example, a decide that my character wants to climb a wall and he has a climbing skill of, let's say +2. I roll a twenty sided die (d20), and add my +2 climbing skill to the die roll. The GM then has to decide just how difficult this particular wall is to climb; is it smooth, or does it have spots that jut out that could be used for hand and foot holds? He/she sets a target number that the character has to meet to succeed. So, for this example, we'll say that it's not a terribly high wall, and has places to grab, so the GM sets the target number at 10. I roll a 9 on the d20, adding my +2 for my climbing skill for a total of 11. My character succeeds in climbing the wall. The trick is, the GM has keep mechanics like this balanced – and by balanced I mean both fair and challenging. Sometimes, a task is very simple, sometimes it's challenging, and sometimes it's downright heroic or epic in scope. If the GM sets the target numbers to low, the games not challenging enough. If he sets them to high, then players get upset that there's no way to succeed (player characters, for the record, tend to be better than average in certain skills by design – that's kind of the point, the players are portraying characters intended to be heroes in the story). ⁽¹⁾

There are good GM's, there are great GM's, and unfortunately there are also bad GM's. Some people just can't tell a good story. Others have a GM vs the Players attitude. Some give the players to much, others don't give the players enough. As I said, it's a balancing act, and the truth is, not everyone who plays RPGs is capable of being a GM. And that's all I have to say about that.

~ JC

(1) this example happens to be from the d20 System – there are systems that utilize 10-sided dice or 6-sided dice. My example in no way is intended to, necessarily, advocate that the d20 system is any better or worse... blah, blah, blah... disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. :-P

Turning My Tooth Blue Again with an Incredible Droid

2011-08-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

Upgrading from Droid to Droid

Nearly two years ago I obtained my first Android based mobile phone, the Motorola Droid, from Verizon Wireless. Last week, I upgraded to a new device. After a lot of researching and comparison, I finally decided on the HTC Droid Incredible 2, also from Verizon Wireless. It is safe to say that I'm sold on the Android platform and highly doubt that any future devices will be anything but Android. After only a week of having the Incredible 2, I have to say that I love it! There's a noticeable difference in overall performance, and even a slightly better difference in signal strength between the Droid and the Incredible 2. Then again, I suppose going from a 550MHz processor with 256MB of RAM to a device with a 1Ghz processor with 768MB of RAM. So, let's just quickly compare the two with a handy dandy table, shall we?

	Motorola Droid	HTC Droid Incredible 2
Operating System	Android 2.0, upgraded to 2.2.2	Android 2.3.3 (pretty sure it came with 2.2, but it updated the very day I bought it)
Processor	Arm Cortex A8 550 MHz Processor	1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 Snapdragon
RAM	Not listed on Android Central, but I believe it's 256MB	768MB
Dimensions	2.4 x 4.6 x.5 inches	4.7 inches x 2.5 inches x 0.48 inches
Weight	6 ounces	4.8 ounces
Screen Size	3.7-inch WVGA (854x480), 16:9 touchscreen	4-inch WVGA TFT display
Internal Storage	Not listed on Android Central, but I think it's only 256MB	1GB
Removable Storage	Supports up to a 32GB microSD, came with a 16GB microSD	Supports up to a 32GB microSD, came with a 16GB microSD
Camera	5 Mega Pixel w/Flash	8 Mega Pixel w/Flash + 1.3 MP front facing for video conferencing
Source	http://www.androidcentral.com/official-specs-motorola-droid	http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-incredible-2-specs

Additionally, both devices are Wi-Fi capable with the Droid supporting types b/g, while the Incredible 2 supports b/g/n. The larger screen on the HTC is a bonus as I have started experimenting with e-books, plus I'm myopic as hell (that means I'm near sighted and blind as a bat without my glasses).

My personal review of the Incredible 2 is simply that I am very happy with the upgrade. I loved my Moto Droid, but it was finally getting to the point of just being to slow and the memory was getting full. I still use the Droid; it now sits on my desk connected to the Wi-Fi and a set of portable speakers playing Slacker Radio. The decision to go with HTC vs staying with Motorola (I had considered the Droid X2, in fact) is primarily that HTC just gets great reviews on most of, if not all, of their devices. The fact that Apple has sued HTC for patent infringement further endears me to HTC because I really hate Apple, and if Apple feels that threatened by HTC that they have to seek lawsuits against them, then they must be doing something right.

My Tooth is Blue Again

A phone upgrade isn't complete without new accessories, right? Naturally, when I got the Incredible 2, I went with an accessory package from the Verizon store that included a case/clip combo, car charger and screen protectors. Being that I already owned a Bluetooth headset, I figured on continuing to use it, hoping that the connectivity issues it was having with the Droid would be overcome by the Incredible 2. Alas, I was mistaken, and came to find out that the BlueAnt Z9 has known software issues with Android based devices for which there isn't a likely solution since the Z9 isn't really supported any longer by BlueAnt. So, not only did I upgrade to a new phone, but I upgraded to a new Bluetooth headset as well.

Having a device that is practically a complete mobile solution for phone calls, email, internet and entertainment (including books, music and videos), I decided to go with a headset that would support stereo audio as well as standard mono sound. I found the perfect solution in the Samsung Modus 3500. At only $40, it's very impressive for its price range. I am used to paying up to $100 or more for a Bluetooth that has sound quality worth fooling with. The Modus sound really good, and others have reported that they can hear me quite clearly as well. The bonus part of the Modus is that, not only is it the typical ear bug that everyone is used to seeing for Bluetooth devices, but it also comes with a set of stereo ear buds that plug into the main headset's micro USB port to provide stereos quality sound while listening to music.

This is a great solution for me, as I tend to listen to music while sitting in my cubicle at work. With the Modus I can set my phone on my desk and listen to music without having to disturb my coworkers or getting tangled up in a long audio cable. Granted, the sound quality isn't quite as good as my Skull Candy earbuds, but it's damn close! And, the Modus came with an adapter for the micro USB to accommodate standard 3.5mm headphones/earbuds, so I can use my Skull Candy earbuds with it if I so choose. Good job, Samsung!

~ JC

Reference Blogs:

“This is the DROID I've Been Looking For” (http://jecarlisle.blogspot.com/2009/11/this-is-droid-ive-been-looking-for.html) – Sunday, November 9, 2009

“Droid Part 2” (http://jecarlisle.blogspot.com/2009/12/droid-part-2.html) – Sunday, December 20, 2009

All is Well

2011-05-15T08:39:00.002-04:00

My friend, Jimmy was right, I think. He once commented, several years ago, that he knew that everything was going well for me because I hadn't updated my blog in awhile. He observed that I only tended to write when I had something that I needed to vent about. Over the years I've used this blog as my soapbox, my sounding board, my creative outlet. Even when I wasn't necessarily ranting about something but writing about hobbies and interests, the blog as still very cathartic. It has now been exactly one month to the day since I last wrote anything. Some of that is because I was working retail again and didn't have my usual Sunday morning solitude in which to write and drink my coffee. But mostly it has been because I just didn't have anything much to write about. Yep, Jimmy was right – unless I'm stressed, I can't really seem to come up with blog topics, at least not good ones, which is why this one is a bit disjointed and has no real topic. In short, I don't have anything to bitch about anymore since landing a real job making a decent wage (by decent, I mean one I can actually live on). I've got a great group of friends. I have several places to hang out at and play games, shoot pool, throw darts, etc. I really have nothing to complain about. I just hope that doesn't mean that I'm tapped for blog ideas, because frankly, I really love to write.

~ JC

Legend of the Seeker No Sword of Truth

2011-03-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

I've been a fan of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series of novels for a decade or more. I've read them all, even the ones that weren't that interesting or seemed overly preachy with his Randian Objectivist views. Still, they were a great series of novels and I still highly recommend them to everyone. So, imagine my excitement when, a few years ago, it was announced that a syndicated television series based on those books was being produced. “Legend of the Seeker” premiered in November 2008 and ran for two seasons until May of 2010. I caught parts of episodes when it was first released and immediately hated it! I do realize that TV shows and movies never follow a novel precisely, but with “Legend of the Seeker” character's personalities, even main characters, seemed to be changed wholesale, the stories of all of the novels were mashed together, characters that never existed in the novels appeared, etc. etc. I really felt like the TV producers had totally fucked up a great book series and stuck a giant middle finger up at Goodkind's fans. I refused to watch it despite Terry's posting on his website (I think that's where I read it anyway) that fans should let the books be the books and the show be the show and not try to compare them. So, I tried to watch another episode; and failed. I just couldn't watch them destroy what had been my favorite series books for the last several years.

So, I recently discovered that the entire first season of “Legend of the Seeker” is available for viewing for free via Hulu (season two is available to Hulu Plus subscribers). So, I'm giving it another chance. I'm trying to watch it as just a television show based in a fantasy setting. It's difficult, because I loved the books so much and the TV show really fails at following anything resembling the story-lines of the novels. As a stand alone show goes, it's ok, assuming you liked Hercules and Xena (Sam Raimi produced both of those plus “Legend of the Seeker, by the way). I've actually watched the first five episodes of “Legend of the Seeker.” I think if I hadn't read the novels, I'd enjoy it more, but I still find myself picking apart all the things in the show that are blatantly wrong compared to the novels. Richard (the Seeker himself) for example, lacks the reasoning ability in the show that he has in the novels and way to impulsive most the time. Kahlan, the Mother Confessor in the novels, is just another Confessor in the books and not even the last of her kind. She's also more harsh and bit bossy in the TV show. First Wizard Zedd is just as powerful in the show, but lacks the whimsical, playfulness of the Zedd in the books. In the books, he's pretty much the last living wizard, while in the show he's just one of many powerful wizards of The First Order. Also, when the hell did Kahlan become über-awesome at fighting hand-to-hand with a pair of daggers? I don't remember that shit in the books. She was taught, much later in the novels, by Richard to use a sword, but in the TV series she's wicked awesome with knives from the very beginning. At least the fight scenes are well filmed and choreographed.

The casting for those three main characters is also a little bit off. Bridget Regan, asKahlan, is probably the best cast character; Regan is gorgeous, and actually plays the part of Kahlan quite well. I like Bruce Spence as Zedd decently enough, but Craig Horner just isn't a big enough guy to be Richard in my opinion. Richard was always described as rather tall and muscular (he's a woods-guide before being named Seeker, after all). Horner's got a pretty athletic build, but he's not that tall. In fact Spence is taller than Horner, and I always pictured Richard as being taller than Zedd, not the other way around.

Ok, ok. I realize that I'm picking nits here, and enough reviews exist online as it is now that I really don't feel the need to go into tons of details, especially since I'm only five episodes into giving it another chance to grab my attention. I’m' just saying, as a stand alone TV show “Legend of the Seeker” does ok, but as an adaptation of an epic series of fantasy novels, it sucks.

I'll likely finish watching the first season, and if I ever can afford to subscribe to Hulu Plus, I'll even watch the second season. But, The Sword of Truth this show is definitely not! I'm just getting tired of Hollywood's penchant for the last decade or more of not creating anything new or original. Seems like popular book series and classic 80's TV shows being re-imagined or turned into crappy syndicated series or movies is all that Hollywood's so-called writers can come up with anymore. It's why I really don't care that I don't have cable right now, and why I don't feel like spending the money to go to the movies anymore. As long as I have access to websites like Hulu (which has a lot of older, good TV shows) and good bookstore, I'm good.

~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

2011-03-07T07:36:00.002-05:00

Since I didn't write a blog this week, I thought I'd share this link I found this morning. It's definitely in keeping with my last post :-)

Enjoy! ~ JC

How To Care for Your Books: 5 Tips Home Hacks | Apartment Therapy Boston

Of course, if we all switched to e-books, then this becomes a moot point. Then again, I'll always own real books, so this is a great list of tips.

Paper vs Screen (or Real Books vs E-books)

2011-02-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

One needs only look at my collection of books to know that I am a bit of a bibliophile. I'm not just someone who enjoys reading, but I really love the books themselves. I tend to collect anything that I read, and only begrudgingly part with a book, and then only if it was really one I didn't enjoy, I just really need the shelf space to accommodate, you guessed it, more books. So, it shouldn't be any real surprise that one of the first things I downloaded when I got my Motorola Droid over a year ago was an app called Aldiko Book Reader. I've also downloaded quite a few E-books as well, but up until now, haven't read a single one. Recently, while between books (meaning I had just finished one and was deciding what novel to read next), I starting browsing through the list of items I had downloaded to my Droid. I ended up reading the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. It was the first time I had actually used the e-book reader to read more than a page or two of anything.

Reading that classic poem got me to wondering about if I'd actually enjoy reading a full length book on such a small screen.^* So, to accommodate an experiment I decided to download an e-book for which I also own an actual copy of the book. So, when I'm at home, I read from the hard copy, but having the same book in electronic format on my Droid allows me to be able to pick up reading a few pages when I'm out and about even if I've forgotten to take my book with me. So far, I have to admit, reading a book on my phone isn't as bad I thought it would be. The tricky part, so far, with reading a book via two media formats is keeping the bookmarks synchronized. Whenever I read the book, I have make sure I move my bookmark in the e-book and vice versa or I end up reading the same pages/chapters twice.

Now that I've established that I'm perfectly content with reading a book on my smallish phone screen, I now have to decide if that will become the future of how I read books. As I mentioned before, I love books – the way they feel, the way they smell. I can easily spend quite a bit of time (not to mention money) at a bookstore. However, Aldiko has access to quite a large library of free, public domain books as well as more current books, usually for a bit cheaper than buying the hard copy. Then there's also the ability to get e-books via bit torrents.

There are also other concerns to take into account when collecting books. They take up a lot of space, and they can also be quite heavy when packed in boxes (something I have to consider since I'm still have most of my collection in storage in North Carolina and am currently establishing residency in Atlanta, GA). My old college buddy Sam had some interesting insights on this very subject some time ago. Rather than re-listing them all here, I'll suggest you read his blog entries “Digital Dilemma” and “Kobo Impressions”. The only other comment I'll make is that, while Sam bought a dedicated e-book reader, I rather like the fact that my smartphone has the ability to function as an e-book reader using the Aldiko app (or others) as well as access the internet. In other words, I only have to carry one mobile device, where someone with just an e-book reader would need to carry at least two (the reader plus their cellphone).

~ JC

PS. I should be noted that I have only cataloged physical books using LibraryThing. I've yet to catalog my e-books/PDFs save for a few.

* The Motorola Droid has a 3.7” screen

Of Friends Old, New and Forgotten

2011-02-13T08:33:00.001-05:00

I mentioned in last week's blog about my new tribe for friends here in the ATL. Apparently some of my comments were misconstrued by one of my oldest and closest friends back home in North Carolina. So, I want to clarify things about friendships both current and past. Being 39 years old and having lived in NC and GA (twice now), I've had opportunity to meet and make friends with lots of folks. Some are forgotten (like old friends from high school whom I haven't heard from in two decades) or even some from college. Life moves on, and when someone is no longer directly inside one's sphere of influence, it makes it difficult to remain friends unfortunately. One of the hard things about uprooting myself and moving to Atlanta was leaving not only family and my fiancee, but my friends as well. I tend to choose friends carefully (just look up Scorpio in any online zodiac guide and you'll see that we tend to be like that), but once I've befriended someone, I tend to be very loyal to them. Life in Fayetteville was such that even my closest friends and I were rarely able to get together. There's just something about that town that does that; that sucks life right out of people, not to mention it's over-priced cost of living versus the job market there making it hard for anyone to afford to do much more than work-eat-sleep. The friends I've made here in Atlanta have become like soul-mates. In only five months time we've become close; we hang out together usually once a week, or at least call/text just to say hello. That fact doesn't mean that I'm closer, per se, to my Atlanta friends than my North Carolina friends. It's just something about the Metro-Atlanta area that seems to facilitate being able to spend more time with friends than I was able to in Fayetteville, NC. If I could somehow move everyone important to me from back home to Atlanta, I most assuredly would, for then I'd be able to spend time with all of them (not to mention rescue my NC friends from the life-sucking cesspool that is Fayetteville, NC).

Now, no doubt someone from Fayetteville, NC will become offended that I've called that town (yes town, not city no matter what it's “City” Council thinks) a “life-sucking cesspool.” Well, it is. I've left there twice, and returned once. I do not wish to return a second time. Other than the fact that I never would have met the love of my life, and the aforementioned friends I have there (including the one who is now currently my roommate in Atlanta), the biggest mistake I ever made was moving back there in 2000 from when I lived in Athens, GA. Fayetteville offers nothing in terms of career choices, unless one wishes to slough away in minimum wage retail and restaurant jobs the rest of their lives. My beloved has an MBA and has still had no luck finding anything in Fayetteville outside of the crappy non-profit organizations that don't even come close to paying someone with a Masters Degree what they should be making. Even my buddy Andrew, who is a school teacher, is trying to get out of that burg because NC has the worst teacher salary in the entire nation! So before you go getting upset that I ragging on Fayetteville, consider this – the apartment I'm going to be moving into here in Atlanta in a few weeks goes for $650 per month for two bedrooms and two bathrooms; that same apartment in Fayetteville, NC would either be a really bad neighborhood, or cost $100-200 more per month. With the exception of the place I work now (which hopefully won't be much longer), the average employer in Atlanta (including retail) probably pays $8-9 per hour starting out instead of maybe $7.50-8 per hour like in Fayetteville. So, here the income to cost of living ratio is much more favorable than back home. All that being said, where would you rather live? Somewhere where you not only had a decent income and reasonably priced housing plus lots of places to go do things in your free time? Or, somewhere where the apartments are horribly over-priced for the average income level of the populace and where you can't really tell where the ghetto ends and the “nice” neighborhoods begin? I'll take “Places I Can Live Instead of Withering Away and Dieing” for $1000, Alex!

I miss my friends. I miss my family. I most assuredly miss my fiancee. But I absolutely don't miss Fayetteville, NC... not even a little bit.

~ JC

A Long Awaited Blog

2011-02-06T11:19:00.000-05:00

It's been three months or so since my last actual blog post. Not the longest hiatus I've taken from writing, but still, I've missed the Sunday morning routine of sipping my coffee while typing away with whatever chaotic thoughts are running through my brain. Speaking of chaotic commentary, this one proves to be anything but topical since I'm probably going to end up cramming three month's worth of observation, ranting and bullshit into a single post – it's even going to have subsections with their own heading, which is something I don't usually do. So, without further adieu, on with the show.

Welcome to the Tribe

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the first night I arrived in Atlanta, I was introduced to several people as it was gaming night. The game we played that night is called Tribe 8. It's interesting, as I think about it now, how life imitated the game a bit. As my newly rolled character for Tribe 8 had to be introduced to the other player's characters and be accepted, so to was I being introduced and accepted into a new tribe of friends. I've only known these folks for about three months, but it seems like we've been friends for much longer, like I was meant to have this group of friends. Since that night, I've spent a lot of time hanging out with all of them, and not just on gaming night. We've celebrated everything from Thanksgiving, to the return of another person from Officer Candidacy School (who likewise has become a good friend in a very short time), to New Year's Eve together. They've all met my fiancee when she came to visit, and I've come to know that I can call on them for just about anything, as they can call on me as well. I'd hate to ever have to leave Atlanta and these friends behind, which just motivates me even more to move beyond the part time, minimum wage job I have now into a job or career that would allow me remain here beyond just a few months.

In that same vein, not only have I been introduced to Tribe 8, but also a few other rather obscure role playing game systems that I had never heard of (e.g. Unknown Armies and Burning Empires). Now, I've blogged in the past about role playing games and offered my comparison of Dungeons & Dragons vs Palladium Fantasy and Rifts, so I won't go into a long diatribe here trying to compare all these systems. Suffice it to say that, so far, I like these systems much better than the D20 System used by D&D and leave it at that.

They're Just Little Plastic Army Men, right?

I've also mentioned previously, that I have, after several years of saying I'd never do it, started playing Warhammer 40,000. For those that aren't familiar, it involves collecting, building and painting models of little plastic futuristic army guys and then pitting them against another person's little plastic futuristic army guys on a big-ass table that's been adorned with various models of terrain, buildings, ruins, etc. The first time I ever saw Warhammer 40k, or it's older brother Warhammer Fantasy Battles, played, I thought “There's no fuckin' way I'll ever play that. It's to complex, and the pieces cost to much.” I've really got to learn to stop saying “never” when it comes to games I'm willing to try. Years ago I was given a starter set for Warhammer Fantasy, which I was originally going to use the models out of as miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons. When I decided, after overcoming my addiction to World of Warcraft last year, that I wanted to get back into building models to have a hobby to take the place of WoW, I figured I might as well look into both versions of Warhammer, but I still wasn't sure I wanted to play the games themselves. Now I've got a decent, if smallish by comparison to other players, collection of Warhammer 40k models that I'm working on painting and that are built enough to be playable. So far I've played five games of 40k with a record of 0-2-3. I suppose that's a decent battle record for a newbie considering that I'm playing against guys that have played for years and not only know their army's abilities, but mine as well. So, I've made some mistakes tactically because of lack of knowledge of what my enemy can do to counter my plans, but hey, you live your learn right? At any rate, the modeling part of the hobby is a nice way to relax in the evening while listen to music or watching a movie/TV and the game itself is a pretty cool way to kill a few hours at the gaming store on my days off. It's also another motivational factor for wanting to stay in Atlanta, since I know that back home there isn't anyone who plays that I'd actually want to play against (I've seen the guys who play back home, and frankly, they're all kind of douche bags).

Show Me The Money!

All the social interaction aside, what I really came to Atlanta to do was try to find a job that would allow my fiancee of eight years and I to be able to really have a life together without having to live with family. Don't get me wrong, I love my fiancee's family, but really, it makes it really difficult for us to be a couple when having to live under her mom and dad's roof. So far, what I have found is a part time, minimum wage job at an office supply store. I could have stayed in Fayetteville, NC and done that, and had the pleasure of seeing my beloved everyday. I've had two other interviews for “real” jobs since October, one of which flatly told me that they didn't think I'd work out, the other (which was very recently) should lead to a $10 per hour fulltime temp-to-perm posisition. Now, that job is supposedly slated to begin on February 14, which is a week from tomorrow (at the time of this writing) and I still haven't heard one way or the other. Couple that with the fact that I have just about reached a point with my current store manager where I'm ready to tell him to go fuck himself and don't really care that he won't get the traditional two weeks notice, it's all becoming a little frustrating.

I now have a definite time frame that I have to move out of my friend's house by (May). It's not a money thing or a we're not getting along thing. It just simply that by the middle to end of May, there simply won't be a viable place for me to stay. So, while $10 per hour isn't super rich, it is enough, believe it or not, to afford a pretty decent apartment here in the Decatur area of Atlanta (I found one for $650 a month for two bedrooms/two bathrooms or $599 per month for two bedrooms/one bathroom). I really don't want to have to pack up and move back to North Carolina. As hard as it was to leave my fiancee and family to move down here, I think it would be harder to have to leave the friends I have here to go back home. In NC, there just aren't any jobs that are worth a damn, and I really don't have anyone to hang out with or activities I can do. I honestly feel like going back to NC would be like a wounded animal finding a place to lay down and die. Sorry if that sound morose, but honestly, here in GA I feel alive, while in NC I merely existed.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

As I mentioned before, I used to write a blog every Sunday morning. I miss that. There was something really therapeutic and cathartic about being up on a Sunday morning, enjoying a cup of coffee and some music and venting my frustrations or sharing my observations or newly acquired knowledge via the written word while the rest of the household was still asleep. I need to start doing that again. Who knows? Hopefully, I'll get to stay in Atlanta, which will make these blogs more informative and entertaining and less ranting and raving. Either way, I like to write. It's actually one of the things I miss about college. Yeah, I know; weird right? I actually liked writing papers for my classes. I even had one of my uncles, who is a professional journalist, tell me that I should have considered making writing an integral part of my ministry (back when I was actually planning on going into the ministry). That's a good thing right? When a professional writer tells you that you're writing is good enough to do that, it makes you feel pretty good. And so, I write this blog, just to make sure I don't forget how to write.

Until next time (which will hopefully be sooner this time),

~ JC

I Haven't Abandoned The Commentary

2010-12-06T05:16:00.000-05:00

Just realized that it's been a couple of months since I've written anything. I haven't given up on the blog, I just haven't had much time to do any writing. So, soon... very soon, I'll start writing again. Atlanta has plenty of things to spark the creative process. I just need to gather all my ideas into something coherent.

~ JC

First Week in the ATL

2010-10-12T15:40:00.000-04:00

Just so no one thinks I've abandoned Carlisle's Chaotic Corner, I figured I'd bestow on you my adventures thus far since my move from Fayetteville, NC to Atlanta, GA. First of all, I headed out of NC on October 3, arriving in Atlanta around 2pm. Not a bad drive, just long and boring as I-20 West has nothing much to look at but trees for miles and miles.

Upon arriving at my buddy's house where I'll be living for the next several weeks as I procure employment and my own apartment, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Sunday is one of two gaming nights. Thus, that evening I found myself immersed in rolling a new character in the role playing game known as Tribe 8, and being introduced a great bunch of fellow gamers with which I've become fast friends. Now, I had never even heard of Tribe 8 prior to that night, but so far I really enjoy it (I'm sure I'll be blogging more in depth in next couple of weeks).

The remainder of the first week was taken up with unpacking and setting up my computer (Monday), finding a Wachovia to deposit my final paycheck from the job I left in NC (Tuesday) and getting my bearings. Tuesday's trip to the bank also lead to discovering an OfficeDepot which was hiring, so I picked up an application and had interviews on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (they use a three interview process). Monday (October 11) I headed over to a place called Labcorp to do a pre-employment drug screening test, the results of which should be available by Wednesday (October 13). So, just like that, in less than two weeks, I've found a job down here – a process that was meeting with absolutely no headway back home (as in, not even so much as getting an interview from applications submitted). So far it looks like my decision to head into the dirty south was a wise one.

Since being down here I've also had the opportunity to play my first game of Warhammer 40k, start walking one to two miles a day to get my fat ass in shape, and generally just see a lot more opportunity for personal and career growth down here than where I was. All that's left is to find a good coffee shop near by, and I'll be set. The only downside is, I miss my fiancée terribly and wish she was here with me, but all in due time.

So, now that I've started getting a routine established, I'll get back to writing a weekly blog. As usual, it'll remain eclectic and chaotic in its very broad span of topics that never really seem to go together, but hey, I like writing and sometimes the process helps keep me sane.

Until next time,

~ JC

Leap of Faith

2010-09-26T10:28:00.000-04:00

We've all heard the phrase, “Shit or get off the pot.” It refers to either doing what you need to do, or moving on. Well, it's time for me to “shit or get off the pot.” A week from today I'm moving to Atlanta, GA. No, I don't have a job lined up (yet). Yes, I'll be leaving the job I have now (my last day is Thursday). It's a leap of faith; faith that I'll find a job in Atlanta fairly quickly, and a good paying job at that. I like my current job working for my uncle-in-law as a leather-worker making gun holsters and belts, but, I also commute 132 miles round trip everyday to do it. Considering where I live is mostly minimum wage retail jobs, I don't have any confidence in ever really getting ahead by staying where I'm at. You might say, where I live doesn't even really have a proverbial pot to shit in anyway. So, I'm banking on Atlanta's job market being more stable and the fact that it's a metropolitan area in which even crappy retail jobs pay better or at least close to the same as “professional” jobs would here in Fayetteville, NC. I also have to have faith that the recession hasn't really affected such a large area as Atlanta as it has other places. Fayetteville, being a military town (it's adjacent to Fort Bragg), typically isn't as affected by recessions, but it still means that most of the jobs around here are pretty low paying. And so I take a leap of faith, hop off the pot and try my luck in (hopefully) greener pastures.

~ JC

Culling The Stacks

2010-09-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

I am a bibliophile (that means I love books, before any of you pervs out there think otherwise). I don't just love to read books, but to collect them as well. In fact, though it's been ten years, I still have a good bit of my college text books. I hate to part with books, especially if I've actually read them. I also once worked for a bookstore. So, you can imagine that with my employee discount and the fact that bookstores have clearance tables and sales all the time, that I've managed to build up quite the stack of books to go along with all my college text books that I never parted with. Well, you'd be correct. In fact, I quit working at said bookstore about six years ago, and I still have books purchased from there that I've not read yet. The problem I now face is, I must cull my collection of books. As I said before, I hate to part with books, but it's become necessary for a number of reasons, not the least of which is space to keep them all.

Reason the first – I just plain have to many damn books. As of the moment of this writing, my collection stands at 277 books. That's not counting books that I've lost, given away or long since traded to local used bookstores over the last twenty or so years. Nor is it counting the various gaming manuals that I've obtained in PDF format rather than hard copy (although, I do plan to catalog those into my LibaryThing listing as well). Truth be told, I really have to reason to keep all those college text books anymore, and I've also manged to collect some series of novels that I've lost interest in and probably won't ever get around to reading. So, why not get rid of that stuff and make room for books that I will read? Makes sense, doesn't it?

Reason the second – most of my collection is all in boxes in a storage building. A couple of years ago, and argument between my uncle and I (which has since been forgiven and forgotten) caused me to move out of my Grandmother's house and move in with my fiancee and her family. The result was that I had even more limited space for my belongings than before. So, all of my books that I had already read or were reference materials (those damn text books again), were boxed up and put in the storage building in the back yard. Thank God I have the aforementioned LibraryThing account, else I'd never know what I have down in that building. So, there you go – I have a bunch of stuff I'm not reading or referencing and it's taking up space in my in-law-to-be's storage unit collecting dust and generally being in the way whenever we have to dig out the Christmas decorations or anything else from storage.

Reason the third (don't ask me why I've been tagging my blog sections as though I were Lemony Snicket) – I'm moving. Not just to another house or apartment, but completely out of the state of North Carolina. The job market here's gotten pretty crappy, so after years of goading by my best friend and his constant offers of a place to stay, I'm heading to Atlanta to try my luck in the job market down there. So, I really don't need to drag along a bunch of books. I also could use all the extra cash I can get to pad the bank account until I find a job down there. So, I'll be selling off as much of my book collection as I can (or am willing to part with), hopefully before I leave for Georgia at the end of September. Incidentally, I've listed the items I've already had my fiancee list for me on Ebay at the bottom of this blog, in case you're interested (wink, wink).

So, as I cull through the stacks, the hard part will be deciding what stays and what goes. I'm also hoping that I can manage to actually sell the ones I decide to get rid of on Ebay rather than taking them to a used bookstore. The used bookstores where I live typically don't pay cash, they give trade credit. Of course, trade credit does me no good because, first of all, I'm trying to get rid of books, not collect more, and secondly, trade credit at a used bookstore in Fayetteville, NC does me absolutely no good if I'm going to be moving to Atlanta, GA. Most, if not all, of the old theology books from college will go for sure. After that, quite a few of the books on Paganism and Wicca will likely go (most books on that topic manage to be redundant anyway). I've already posted all of the Magic: the Gathering series of books I'm willing to part with on Ebay (again, see the list below). I'm just really not looking forward to foraging around in that stuffy storage building, let alone the thought of removing books from a collection that has taken me the better part of a decade to gather. *Sigh*

~ JC

PS – I probably should also mention that I'm just not yet ready to jump on the ebook bandwagon. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, an ebook reader would allow me to carry several books with me at one time without the added weight. As much as a technology and gadget geek as I am, books are one of those things that I'd just rather have the real thing. An ebook reader can never replace the feel and smell of a real book. I actually have an ebook reader app on my Droid device and have downloaded several public domain classics for it. I've yet to read any of them because of the small size of the screen and the fact that I don't feel like I'm actually reading a book.

Ebay Sales (note, theses are all scheduled to end on Monday, September 13, but whatever doesn't sell, I will have my fiancee re-list)

The Moons of Mirrodin (Mirrodin Cycle book 1)

Rath and Storm (Anthology)

The Colors of Magic (Anthology)

The Dragons of Magic (Anthology)

Time Spiral Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Ice Age Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Ravnica Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Odyssey Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Masquerade Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Invasion Cycle (books 1-3 as a set)

Just a quick note here: I at one time was attempting to collect and read all of the Magic: the Gathering novels. As you can see, I collected quite a few. I've only managed to read the first two books of the Artifact Cycle, however, and now that I no longer play the game, I'm really not as interested in reading the novels as I once was. So, in my efforts to reduce the number of books I own, particularly ones that have become of no interest to me, these were the first (of probably many) to make it onto Ebay.

Role Play vs Roll Play

2010-09-05T11:12:00.000-04:00

For several weeks (or has it been months?) now I've been watching a web series called “I Hit It With My Axe.” It follows the adventures of a group of friends playing a hybrid-home brew style of D&D (I think they blend a bit of 1^st edition AD&D with some 2^nd edition and 3^rd edition elements). Oh, did I mention that this group of friends is made up mostly of porn stars and strippers? The whole concept began with a blog by their DM, Zak Smith (aka Zak Sabbath), called “Playing D&D With Porn Stars”. But I digress. What I love about watching this series is how the storyline of their D&D game keeps unfolding or going in different directions. Zak's pretty awesome at coming up with different personalities and voices for the various NPC characters. For the most part the girls do role play their characters, but like a lot of groups I've been involved with, the action gets more descriptive than actually acted out – e.g., “Umm, I tell the mayor about what we saw in the cave he asked us to check out” rather than “Mr. Mayor, we investigated the cave and, alas, found no signs of the goblins there, however we did manage to find evidence that they may have moved on to the east...” You get the idea. But again, lots of gaming groups get like that. Long session, it's going on 2 a.m., everyone's tired. Yeah, you get to a point where you just want to get to a good stopping point for that session and call it night. But even if you're just describing you actions, in some way you're still contributing to the narrative and the concept that a role playing game is about a group of people essentially group writing a story together and the social interaction than it is about winning or losing a game.

Now, here's the thing. It seems to me that some of the more modern RPGs have lost touch the concept of role playing. They've become more about moving miniatures around a grid and rolling dice (what I call Roll Playing). It started, frankly, with D&D 3.0/3.5. When I first started playing AD&D, miniatures were just a tool for helping show where everyone was standing, in case there were traps or when combat broke out. With the advent of the 3^rd and 4^th editions of Dungeons & Dragons, there are specific rules for using the miniatures that pretty much make it so you have to use them anytime combat happens, basically turning the game from role playing to just another board game. This is another part of why I love watching IHIWMA; although they use miniatures, there's no grid on their table. The mini's are just there for reference and visualization. My own group finally gave up on D&D and the “d20 System” and went back to using the Palladium system (Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game and Rifts) because we were getting weary of having to use minis all the time. And the dice? Well, saying “I hit with my axe” and actually hitting it with your axe are two different things now aren't they? There has to be some way of determining if a character's announced and intended action is successful or not, and dice are really the only way to accomplish that (along with other mechanics that determine what those dice rolls really mean, but I'm not going to get into all of that here). However, the main focus of a role playing game should be role playing and storytelling. When it becomes to much about the dice rolls, then really it's just become another table top wargame with miniatures and models.

Don't get me wrong. At some point all RPG systems have weaknesses and flaws, most notably in their combat and skills systems. I just feel that the developers of D&D have lost the vision of true role playing, and turned the game into a set of mechanics to mimic online games like World of Warcraft. And truthfully, I can't blame them. They had to do something to compete with all the big computer RPGs (which aren't really RPGs frankly, because nobody actually ever role plays in those games). But, in my not so humble opinion, if you're going to say your playing a role playing game, then freakin' role play. Yes, you will have to roll dice at some point, but when the game becomes more about the dice and the position of your miniatures than the characters being portrayed by the players, it's really ceased to be a role playing game, and become just a roll playing game.

~ JC

NOTE: There are dozens of role playing games and systems out there. I realize I only referenced D&D and briefly mentioned two of Palladium Books' games, but let's be honest – D&D is the most recognizable name out there when it comes to RPGs. So please, no snide or smart-assed commentary on how other games work, interact, etc. (honest, and polite discussion and sharing of ideas, however is OK). And yes, I do realize there are some RPG systems that don't use dice at all. Frankly, I think that concept is a bit ridiculous – how else are you to resolve random encounters/actions be it combat or simply whether or not you succeed or fail at a particular action if not by dice rolls? Simple narrative stacks the deck to much in favor of everything being a success with no consequence of failure. But, that's possibly another topic for another blog sometime.

Basic Gamer Glossary (in case you were confused by my abbreviations up top)

DM – Dungeon Master: responsible for playing NPC characters, writing adventures the players act out their characters in, and also to be a referee/judge of the rules. The term Dungeon Master specifically refers to the referee in D&D. Other game systems simply refer to this person as the Game Master (GM) or Storyteller.
NPC – Non-Player Character : basically, any character not controlled/played by a player, but rather by the DM that the players' characters interact with.
D&D/AD&D – D&D has long since been the colloquialism used by players of Dungeons & Dragons in all its various forms and editions. In the earlier days of the game there was a basic version of the game simply called Dungeons & Dragons, and a more complex version called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. When the 3^rd edition was released, the “Advanced” part was dropped from the title. Sometimes you will see gamer blogs and chat boards distinguish older versions of the game as either AD&D 1e, or AD&D 2e from the 3^rd and 4^th editions, which may be referenced as D&D 3.0/3.5 (or D&D 3e) and D&D 4e.
RPG – Role Playing Game. Some online games, such as Everquest, World of Warcraft, D&D Online, etc. are known as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game or MMORPG. While some of these games feature what are known as “Role Playing Servers” for those that wish to act out their characters, most of the time the concept of actually role playing in these types of games is totally lost and so, in my opinion, calling them a RPG is a bit of a misnomer.

I've Forgotten the Milk To Become a Producteev Todoist

2010-08-29T08:57:00.001-04:00

A few years ago, like so many others, I discovered an online to-do-list/task manager called 'Remember the Milk'. At the time, it was one of the best I had ever seen as it offered more features than Google Tasks. A short time later, I discovered another one called Todoist. Instantly, I found Todoist much more to my personal liking as it allowed sub-tasks and generally just had a more attractive user interface to me. I promptly deleted my RTM account and began using Todoist exclusively (despite the fact that it did not offer reminders without paying for the premium version). Fast forward a few years to my becoming an Android based mobile device user. At the time I got my Motorola Droid, there was no app for Todoist. However, there was a pretty decent free app called Astrid that had the ability to sync with Remember the Milk. So, I again became a RTM user. As the Astrid developers continue to make improvements on the app, the more I like. One of the more recent updates to Astrid included the ability to not only sync with RTM but another online task manager called Producteev. I had never heard of Producteev, so I decided to check it out. I instantly liked it more than either RTM or Todoist. Using Astrid's ability to sync with both RTM and Producteev, I was able to quickly import all of my tasks and from there tweak them to my liking in Producteev. The UI in Producteev is more attractive than in RTM, and it also has the ability to sync with Google Calendar, which I'm still deciding if I like or not as it seems to have some odd quirks and bugs. At this point, the only advantage that Todoist has over either of the other two is the ability to create sub-task, which, for me, is useful for breaking down my Reading List as some of the books I own are omnibus editions or collections of short stories (see screen shots below for examples). Where Producteev really wins is the fact that it is in constant development and that the developers have created a forum for user feedback that they actually take into account when fixing existing features or coming up with new ones. As some of the features they have planned come about, there's little doubt that Producteev will become my exclusive task list tool (examples include sub-tasks and its own Android App). Below are screen shots of Producteev and Todoist featuring my Reading List to demonstrate the sub-task ability that I love about Todoist and am looking forward to in Producteev. Alas, I deleted all of my tasks from RTM before thinking to get a screen shot, but suffice it to say, it looked pretty much like Producteev except not as colorful.

So, as you can see from these photos, Todoist offers me the ability to take a single task (such as reading The Space Wolf Omnibus, which contains three separate novels) and break it down into its separate components. Producteev does not, at least not yet, but it is a feature that is planned for development. Notice also, that two other books in the list are actually compilations of short stories, so again, the ability to break those down into separate stories so I can keep track of my progress is very helpful.¹ Other than that, Todoist's lack of reminders or calendar integration gives the edge to Producteev.

Another great feature in Producteev is the ability to create and manage tasks directly from my email inbox. For example, I use paperless online billing for everything these days. Instead of receiving a bill in the mail, I receive an email alerting me that my bill is available for viewing online. In order to create an action item in my Producteev To Do list, all I have to do is forward that email to tasks@producteev.com and voila, the task is created in Producteev complete with the body of the email as an embedded note (the subject line of the email is what appears in the task list). I can also include things like 5*, ##Bills, etc to set the priority and tags in Producteev automatically as well as including the due date without necessarily having to log into Producteev to do so. So for now, I'll be using Producteev as my default task manager, with Todoist as a back up for breaking down larger tasks into smaller components. Remember the Milk will be, once again, forgotten.

Before I go, here's a quick comparison chart of some of the features of all three services. Please note that the features I'm listing here are probably not comprehensive and are ones that I personally am interested in, so don't be surprised if I've left something off.

Feature	Remember the Milk	Producteev	Todoist
Create Tasks Via Email	Yes (RTM assigns a unique email address to each account)	Yes (tasks@producteev.com)	Not that I can tell
Prioritize Tasks	1-3 or None (1 being the highest)	1-5 Stars or None (5 is highest, 1 is lowest in this case)	1-4 (1 = highest 4 = same as setting none)
Reminders via Email	Yes	Yes	available in paid version only
Custom Tags	Yes	Yes	Yes
Android App	Yes, but only usable if you pay for Pro version	Not Yet, but is being developed	No, but there are some 3^rd party ones
Astrid sync	Yes (free)	Yes (free)	No
Sub-Tasks	No	No, but is planned for the future	Yes
Multiple To Do/Project Lists (To Do, Reading List, etc.)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Task Sorting	By due date, priority or task name	By Deadline, Label, Last Changed, Manager², or Priority	Manual sorting using drag and drop³

And, that's about all I can think of. I'll probably think of a ton of things I would've liked to have compared or commented on ten minutes after I post this (which I almost always do) but this will have to do for now.

~ JC

1: I also like to set reading goals, such as completing Chapters 1-3 on a particular day then 4-6 the next day, etc.,etc., so that's another example of how sub-tasks can be very helpful. Also, if you were to be writing a major paper for school, sub-tasks could be a great way of setting up your outline and tracking your progress. In other words, sometimes breaking up larger task into smaller parts can help keep you on track and make it not feel so daunting.

2: Another awesome feature of Producteev is that in the paid versions you can have multiple users per account. It's designed to allow groups or teams to assign different tasks and coordinate tasks when working on a project together. The ability to sort by who the Manager of a tasks is could be very useful if you need to see who's working on what at a glance.

3: I actually kind of like this feature as it allows me to move tasks that I've yet to give a due date to into the order I'd like to complete them. It's actually been suggested on the Producteev forums that it be added to their service as well in addition to quick sorting by whatever field.

Android 2.2 Froyo – First Impressions

2010-08-22T09:31:00.001-04:00

On August 14, I finally received my over-the-air update to Android 2.2 on my Motorola Droid. Putting aside that it's been a couple of months or more since it was announced, or that it was rumored to drop weeks ago. I won't even go on about how it arrived on my phone almost two weeks after Verizon's official announcement of its release. Let's just talk about the operating system itself. My first impressions of it are not horrible, but I am a bit disappointed overall. I mean, it's a good update, but it's not worth the hype and not worth the long wait we've had to get it. Yes, it's faster and snappier for the most part. I also love that there are now five home screens instead of just three (ironically, I got the update and more home screens after installing an app called “Power Strip” which acts a bit like the Quick Launch bar in Windows, thereby eliminating the need for extra home screens on which to place shortcuts). But there's one thing I'm really disappointed about; one thing that I was looking forward to seeing with Android 2.2 Froyo, and it's missing! FLASH! Where the hell is Flash? So many websites still use Adobe Flash for animations and videos that it has been the one thing on the Droid that has been sorely lacking in terms of being able to surf the web.

Since Android 2.2's release was announced I've been anticipating being able to view websites with Flash videos or even Hulu on my Droid. Alas, I still can't. I'm not a hardcore smartphone user. I don't care about WiFi tethering and such as that. I just want the device to do what I need/want it to do. For the most part it does, but the fact that I've waited all this time for Froyo to launch, and now I'm still waiting on Adobe to release the mobile flash player is quite irritating. I mean, if they've known for all this time that Android 2.2 would support Flash 10.1, then why the hell hasn't the development team at Adobe been on top of this? (See, I'm willing spread the blame here. Google put 2.2 out weeks ago. Verizon took to long to release it via Over-The-Air updates, and Adobe has had plenty of time to develop Flash for it, and has totally dropped the ball here, in my opinion).

As for Froyo itself, I do like it. I like the new user interface; the inclusion of permanent links to the phone and web functions at the bottom of the screen are helpful. As I mentioned, I like having five home screens to put shortcuts on. And, overall, the device seems to be faster. There is no doubt in my mind that going forward, I'll continue to be an Android smartphone user every time I'm eligible for my “new every two” upgrade from Verizon.

~ JC

Post Script - August 25, 2010 -- Yesterday I discovered that, thanks to the update to Froyo, I can actually answer a phone call using the multi-function button on my Bluetooth headset. Previously, I had to answer from the phone itself. So, Bluetooth functionality was obviously improved in Android 2.2.

“Bank On Me Going Green(dot)

2010-08-08T11:45:00.000-04:00

Banks suck. Few would argue that banks, and the corporate greed of high ranking banking officials is a large part of why our economy is so fucked right now. I'm not here to argue a political point. My beef with banks, and banking, is of a more personal nature. Namely, the policies under which personal deposits to checking accounts are governed. Bank deposit policies are bullshit (sorry if it seems I'm channeling Penn Jillette). In recent weeks I've had issues with deposits I've made not showing as available when checking my account online. Who the fuck, and at which bank, decided that the business day ends at 2PM? Furthermore, what's the point of having drop boxes to create the “convenience” of not having to stand in line, if the damn thing isn't checked regularly enough and therefore creates an inconvenience when it comes to a person's hard earned money being available to them? I'll explain.

I work for a small business. As such, I don't have access to services such as direct deposit. I have to physically take my paycheck to the bank, fill out the deposit slip and stand in line to have a teller process my deposit. For decades banks have decided that 2pm is actually the next business day. That is to say, if you make a deposit after 2pm on Monday, it's actually not deposited until Tuesday. What makes this a bullshit concept is, if it's a Friday afternoon, your deposit won't be credited until Monday because Saturday and Sunday aren't “business days”. Now, to top all that off, in the past couple of weeks I've made deposits late in the afternoon on a Thursday only to not have them show as available until after midnight on Friday (so basically, not until Saturday). This past Friday really took the cake though. It was around 4:15pm. I was hot, tired and just wanted to get home (a commute of about an hour or more depending on traffic, for me). So, when I saw how long the line was in the bank, I decided to use their “convenient” drop box since I was only depositing and not getting any cash back this time. I filled out the deposit slip and the envelope, endorsed the back of the check, put everything in the envelope and dropped it in the box and went on my merry way home for the weekend. Saturday morning, my balance still showed $26. I kept checking every so often, and still no sign of my deposit. Now, here's the kicker – the branch I went to is actually open half a day on Saturdays, so I gave them a call. I figured, since they were open on Saturday, someone would have taken anything in the drop box out and processed it. Evidently, that's not the case. Since I put it in the box so late on a Friday, and because it was a check drawn on a different bank instead of cash, that money won't be available until Tuesday! Tuesday?! Fucking really? You mean I have to survive the weekend, plus put gas in my car to get to work on Monday with only the $15 in my wallet, the $40 I have squirreled away in my change jar and the measly $26 I still have available in my checking account? WTF? Normally I'd only be annoyed, but this is a special weekend. I had planned on taking my beautiful, wonderful fiancee out to a nice dinner at one of our favorite restaurants since Thursday was her birthday, and Friday was the anniversary of our engagement.¹ Now, not only can I not do that, but I can't even go get any of the hobby supplies I wanted to get so I can enjoy a weekend of painting Warhammer models.² “Well, switch banks”, you may say. To what end? They all do stupid shit like this. No, I think I have a better plan.

With all this bullshit with banks I'm seriously considering becoming an almost straight cash person. Frankly, I've always hated carrying cash and preferred to use my check card, because 1) it's convenient, 2) it makes me more responsible about impulse and large purchases because I have to bear in mind how much is actually in the bank and 3) if I lose my card, it can be replaced; if I lose my cash, I'm just shit-out-of-luck and broke. Enter GreenDot. GreenDot is a prepaid credit card. Here's they way this thing works. I can go get a GreenDot credit card with either a Visa or MasterCard logo on it so it's accepted wherever either of those cards are accepted. If it's lost, I can have it replaced and I don't lose my balance. I can control how much is on it at any given time because it's prepaid, meaning the balance on the card is just like the balance in my checking account; whatever I put on it, is what is available for use. So, I could keep the majority of my cash, and just load up a GreenDot card with as much as I need to still be able to do online purchases and bill paying. I know for a fact (since I used to work at one) that I can go into any RadioShack and re-load it, and whatever I put on it is immediately available for use (no bullshit next business day before the funds are available crap). Now, I do understand that this plan isn't perfect. For starters, despite that fact that I'm really pissed at my bank right now, I do have to admit that I get free checking and I can use my debit card all I need/want to with no fees (save for, of course, overdraft fees if I spend more than my balance). With GreenDot there will be a start-up fee and there will be a reload fee when I load it with cash and probably a monthly maintenance fee depending on my balance or how much I've used it (however, there is no fee for direct depositing funds to a GreenDot card should I ever find a job that offers that). The plan isn't ideal, and honestly I may very well keep the bank account open with a nominal balance, depositing cash when/if needs be. I'm just tired of going through entire weekends with very limited funds available to me because of banks' dubious deposit procedures and policies. It's just nice knowing that I at least have the option of a prepaid credit/debit card without having to deal with a bank's bullshit while still being able to pay my bills or make purchases online.

~ JC

----------------------

1. Seven years... yes, I know that's a long time to be engaged, but it works for us, so :-P

2. I really wanted to get an inexpensive airbrush so I could batch paint the base coats on several at one time and quickly. Good thing I already have some prepped – not to mention I have tons of reading to catch up on. But still, it's really annoying when you make plans for your weekend and they get fucked up because of banking issues that you can't control. Also, for the record, my fiancee paid for dinner and I'll reimburse her once my deposit posts – it's just pretty shitty that she had to pay for her own birthday dinner that was supposed to be my gift to her.

More Apps For That

2010-08-01T10:28:00.001-04:00

(part 3 in an ever continuing saga of Apps for Android based mobile devices)

Back in November 2009 I upgraded my phone to a MotoDroid. Of course, I immediately started downloading and installing all the free apps that seemed fun or useful at the time. A month after that I wrote another blog about the device and updated my list of recommended apps. Here we are in August 2010 and once again I find the need to give an update on the apps I use. The list has changed a lot of the past eight months, and will undoubtedly continue to do so as new apps are developed and as I drop ones that I no longer use to make room in my mobile's memory for the newer more useful apps coming down the pike. With new and more powerful Android based phones coming out and my anticipation of Android 2.2 (aka “Froyo”) pushing out to my current Droid (which supposedly is happening this week), my continued use of this type of smartphone is pretty much guaranteed. I've even read that a German company is soon going to be releasing a tablet which will run an enhanced version of the Android OS to directly compete with Apple's iPad. So, here's my latest update and review of apps, all of which are available from the Android Market.

We'll begin with apps which are mentioned on m previous two lists that I've deleted and why:

Barcode Scanner – this app utilizes the device's camera as a bar-code scanner and links with Google Product Search to allow you to comparison shop while still in the store. I deleted it because, honestly, I just didn't use it. It's not that it didn't work, I simply just forgot I had it and since I wasn't using it, I deleted to make room in the phone's memory
Key Ring – this one was good in theory but not so much in practice. For those of you tired of having a bundle of little value and discount cards on your key ring you may like this. Simply scan the bar-codes from all those cards into this app and save them on your phone. The problem with it is, in the case of the MotoDroid anyway, is that the screen's reflective surface causes the bar-codes to be unreadable by pretty much every store's scanner I went to, so I gave up on it.
MySpace Mobile – as the name implies; who still uses MySpace though? I mean, I haven't logged into MySpace in close to a year anyway, so why have an app for it?
Twidroid – one of dozens of Twitter clients available in the Market. I dropped it because Twitter came out with its own official client that I personally like a little better.
SportsTab – a sports score app. I simply just didn't use it. The phone has full internet capability, so I just use that. Plus, I really only care about hockey, and there is a dedicated NHL app I use for that.

There are probably others that I've downloaded and deleted between then and now that I don't even remember. From the list above, I probably had more questions from people wondering how welly Key Ring worked than any of the others though. Anyway, here is a list of the apps I currently have installed.

Lookout – I can't believe I didn't get this sooner. A really nice rep at my local Verizon store suggested this one. It's a virus scan and data back up app. I mean, DUH!, phones can get viruses too; they are, after all, mini-computers right? Keep in mind that Android is in fact a mobile flavor of the Linux family of operating systems. If you have an Android device, having a virus scan app should be a no-brainer, and Lookout is free. It also will backup your contacts, call log and pictures to a remote server. You'll notice that, while all the others are in alphabetical order, I listed this one first because it's really that important!
AK Notepad – thanks to my Grandfather's influence, I've always found it useful to carry a pen and notepad in my pocket at all times. This app give me a notepad on my phone without having to worry about annoyance like pages getting torn, or my pen getting lost or running out of ink right when I need to write something down.
Assistant Free – if you use Pageonce and you have an Android device, you'll want this app.
Astrid – a very simple, but good, to-do list app. The best part is that it syncs with Remember the Milk without having to pay for RTM's premium service (which is required if you want to use the official RTM app).
Astro – I've mentioned this one before, but I'll list it again because it's one that I've continued to use extensively. Android does not have a built in file manager. In order to view and manipulate folders and files as you would on your desktop computer, you have to attach the device to your computer via a USB cable. Astro allows you to do see all your folders and files without having to connect to your PC. It also has tools for viewing how much memory on you micro-SD card is being used and by what, and has a built in app for backing up all your other apps so, should you ever have to replace your phone you don't have to go re-download them all from the Market, which can be quite time consuming if you have a ton of apps.
Bible – again, I've mentioned this one before. There are tons of Bible apps in the Android Market. The one I chose appears to have all of the various English translations as well as several foreign language translations and several Reading Plan options to help guide you through your Scripture readings.
ChompSMS – a client to replace the stock Text Messaging app that the phone comes with.
Compass – an electronic compass
Congress – this app will use the phone's built in GPS to find your location and then list all your congressional reps. You can see what bills they've sponsored, how they've voted on different bills and look up their official contact information. The app also lists recently passed bills and bills that are currently up for debate/vote in both houses.
ConvertPad – I got this one for fun, but if you find that you need to do a lot of conversions, such as Standard to Metric, this is a useful app
Dice Bag – if you're a gaming geek, you'll love this. It's a dice roller that covers everything from d4 to d20, including percentile dice. It even keeps a log of all your rolls for you.
Dictionary.com – a handy app for when you need a dictionary
Documents to Go – available in a free (reader only) version and a full version (that allows you to create and edit). Includes the ability to read, create and edit Word, Excell and PowerPoint documents and has a PDF reader (which is much supperior to Adobe's official Reader app in my opinion).
Dolphin Browser HD – a much better internet browser than the one built into the phone, in my opinion. This app utilized pinch zooming before the Android 2.1 update fixed that limitation in the stock browser. It also has tabbed browsing, which the stock browser still doesn't have.
Droid Light – utilizes the cameras LED flash bulb as a flashlight. I've actually had to use this a couple of times and it's quite handy to have.
Ebook Readers – I currently have four different ebook readers installed on my Droid – Aldiko (free, and has a pretty good library of public domain books as well as access to the O'Reilly library of tech manuals, which, alas, are not free), Kindle (the app is free, but the books aren't – gives me access to Amazon.com's selection of ebooks), Kobo (free app and a combination of both free and paid ebooks; I think this is Border's ebook reader, but I'm not sure), and Nook (Barnes and Noble's ebook library). So, why buy a ridiculously overpriced ebook reader when I can download a free app to my phone that gives me access to pretty much all of the major book sellers' libraries of ebooks? Personally, I'd rather read a real book, but I like the concept of ebooks enough to keep these apps around, especially if the above mentioned Android based tablet ever becomes something my budget allows me to buy. My old college friend, Sam, wrote an interesting little blog about this topic not to long ago.
Ebay- ok, I'll admit it; I've become a bit of an eBay junky lately and having this app allows me to keep an eye on all the stuff I'm watching or bidding on.
Fandango – an app for the popular movie site. I've not tried to actually buy my tickets through this yet (not sure if I can actually), but it's helpful for when I'm out and about and thinking of heading to a movie to check on show times.
Gdocs – view and edit anything I've uploaded to Google Documents
GolfLogix – ok, Golf GPS devices (such as SkyCaddy) are expensive as hell! This, and other apps like it, turn your Android device into a Golf GPS so you can get accurate yardages. Admitadly, I've not used it yet because it's been just to damn hot here in North Carolina for me to want to get out there and play. Plus, while I've downloaded the app, I've not paid to actually use the service yet (one of the very few non-free apps I've downloaded).
iheartradio – an app for listening to you favorite radio stations via streaming audio (assuming that they have made their broadcast available to this service).
Meridian – a UI for listening to your tunes. I like this one a little better than the stock music player as it also allows me to watch videos without having to switch apps. It's just a cleaner UI in my opinion. There are several such apps available, so go with what you like.
Newspapers – this app allows you to browse dozens of newspapers from around the world, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, etc.
NHL – an app for keeping up with National Hockey League news and scores.
OI Shopping List – allows me to create multiple lists which use check boxes next to each item as I complete them. Like AK Notepad, this is helping me become more green and waste less paper.
Pandora – if you've ever used the Pandora website to stream music on your computer, then you'll probably want their app as well. I use it for finding bands I've never heard of that are similar to bands that I already like.
Power Strip – this is my most recent acquisition. It's not a free app; I got it for 99cents and I think it was on sale at the time. I've always hated having icons all over my desktop, and even in Windows 7 I use the Quick Launch toolbar for my most used programs. Power Strip basically gives me similar functionality on my Droid by allowing me to have just one icon on my home screen which, whien tapped, pulls up a list of the apps I would normally have put on my home screen(s) and also gives me access to several widgets without having to leave those widgets running constantly and using up my battery if I don't need them at the time.
QuickTip Calculator – as the title implies, and quick calculator for figuring how much to tip. I don't use this very often, because I don't want to be “that guy” that has to do math to decide how much his server deserves for a tip, but it does come in handy at times if you're splitting the check amongst several people.
Stopwatch – what it sound like. A Stopwatch, with a Lap button.
Weather Channel – I actually use this app's widget quite often
Twitter – the official Android client app from Twitter. It is what it is. I've still yet to find a Twitter app that I really love. If only the developers at TweetDeck would get off their asses and come out with an Android app like they've been promising for months!
United States Constitution – in these very heated political times, I believe everyone should have a copy of the the most important document in United States history at their disposal. There are several to choose from in the Market; the one I chose also includes The Declaration of Independence, The Star-Spangled Banner, The Miranda Warning, The Pledge of Allegiance, and several other historical documents.
Voice Recorder – why buy an expensive digital voice recorder when you can download a free app that turns your phone into one? The one I have also has built in features to set your recording as a ringtone or send to others via either Bluetooth or Gmail.
Warhammer 40k/Combat Assistant – a dice roller app specifically for the game Warhammer 40,000. Includes a scatter dice roller. Available as a free version and a paid version with additional features.
Wikidroid – an app for looking up things on Wikipedia.org
Zedge – if you're into customizing your phone with different wallpaper and ringtones, then this is a must have app. All the wallpapers and ringtones via this app are free!

And that does it for now. As I mentioned, new apps come out all the time. Some of the above will undoubtedly be replaced when/if a better app is found, some will be deleted as their usefulness declines. I love having an Android device! Not just because I'm a gadget geek, but also because it's really made life easier having access to so many apps in the palm of hand and just a finger tap away.

~ JC

The 20 Yard Commute

2010-07-18T08:26:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed I didn't post a blog last Sunday. For those three or four of you who actually read this blog, I apologize for that, but I was out of town and really didn't want to use the computer I had access to to write my blog since it wasn't mine. My reason for being out of town is actually more or less what I want to write about today. I spent, along with my beloved fiancée, house and dog sitting for my aunt and her husband (who is also my employer) the entire week from July 5 through July 11. It's sad that that was the closest thing to a vacation that Roxanne and I will likely have this year, but we got paid for it and it was nice to be out of Fayetteville for an entire week. But I digress.

House sitting for my boss did allow me to experience, albeit for only four days, what it is like to work from home. Since the shop is in the backyard of the house, I only had to walk out of the side door of the house, through the gate into the backyard and voila! I was at work. I whopping twenty yards or so. Compared to my normal 65ish miles that takes around an hour from Fayetteville to Garner¹, it was a nice change of pace. The only bad thing, and it really wasn't all that bad of a thing, is that I found myself still waking up when I normally would have when at home. Considering that I was also watching two pit bull-terriers, it was helpful to have that extra time, but I still ended up getting tired of watching the same news stories loop on 'Morning Express with Robin Meade' and would end up getting dressed and heading out the shop at 9:30 instead of 10:00. Like I said, not really a bad thing, just a slightly annoying thing I guess.

So, this is what that experience showed me. Working from home is pretty awesome, but it can also be distracting. You would think I would have worked more hours since I was just right there and was not as anxious about having to drive home on I-40 and I-95. Interesting thing is, it's much easier to end up taking an hour for lunch instead of only thirty minutes when all you have to do is walk from the shop to the kitchen in the house and sit with your fiancee. You also end up realizing, hey, the TV, computer, whatever-book-I'm-reading, et cetera is just right there in the house and not an hour away and I'd much rather watch TV, read a book or play on the computer than make belts or dye, finish and wax holsters. So, in that respect, working from home can be a bit of a distraction too. Having pets and working from home is also a distraction because you find yourself thinking more about if they need to go outside or if they're tearing up stuff inside more when you're right there where you can take care of it.

Sure, it saved on gas and I really didn't have to get up as early (I did manage to sleep in a whole thirty minutes extra a couple of mornings), but I'm not sure I could pull off working from home everyday. I think I'd be to likely to constantly think of things that needed to be done like laundry or painting all of those pesky Warhammer models to be very productive with my work if I did work from home; out of sight, out of mind so they say. At any rate, while I certainly would not mind having a job that allowed me to work from home (aka, telecommute), I cannot guarantee I'd be as productive doing so as I would in a shop or office away from all the hobbies and things at home that could distract me from working.²

~ JC

1. That would be Fayetteville, NC USA to Garner, NC USA in case anyone was wondering or confused. Sometimes I do actually get the random reader who doesn't know me grin.

2. Now that I think about it, the fact that I wasn't actually working from home, but someone else's home is probably why I still got my work done that week. I didn't have all my stuff with me to distract me as much. LOL

Flu Bugs, Painting Models, eBay, Smoke Juice, and General Mayhem

2010-07-04T11:57:00.001-04:00

This week's blog is a pretty mixed up pile of commentary. It fits well the overall title of the blog actually. I've spent this entire past work week (Monday – Friday) at home with a lovely case of the Flu. Of course, this went over like a big lead balloon at work I'm sure. Not that there was a ton of stuff going on at work this week, what with the Independence Day weekend coming up and no shows going out, but there is/was a very large dealer order to be filled and I wasn't there to help with it. I spent the bulk of the week taking TheraFlu or NyQuil and sleeping. In between naps, I tried to keep folks abreast of my illness via Facebook and Twitter.

Prior to the week of sickness, I had attempted to start painting again in the form of Warhammer models. Being as that I could feel the sickness coming on even as early as Friday (6/26) and my nose kept running, it made painting rather challenging. I mean, try painting a 28mm detailed miniature while having to stop every few seconds to grab a Kleenex. To the left is an unpainted model next to the one I painted (a task that took me several days to complete because I didn't feel well enough until late Wednesday (6/30) to finish some of the details, hence the reason only one out of a few dozen has been painted). As you can see, I suck at painting. To give myself some credit, it's the first time I've painted anything like that in over ten years, so I actually did pretty good. Now I just have to nut up the gumption to try things like washes and dry brushing to bring out the minute details in the model. I never was all that good at either of those techniques, probably because when I was a thirteen year old D&D geek, I didn't even know those techniques existed. I always liked to look at pictures of completed models and miniatures and always wondered how they got them to look so vibrant. Well, now I know, I just need to learn how to do it myself. So, the one model I've painted is technically incomplete from a certain point of view – but I had fun painting it and I've got plenty more models in the one Warhammer boxed set I own to keep practicing on (it's not like I can't strip it and repaint it later after I get good at it).

Speaking of Warhammer, I'm afraid to admit that it's causing me to become somewhat of an eBay junkie. I'm not going overboard buying and bidding, but I do have about a dozen or more things that I'm watching at any given time. I've logged into my eBay account more in the last two weeks than in the last two years I think. Previously I was looking to rebuild my collection of role playing game books. Now I'm searching for deals on Warhammer 40,000 models. It's a good thing too, because I have to admit, the prices on eBay are tons less expensive than actually going through Games Workshop itself. Case in point, the “Space Wolves Battleforce” retails for $90 on GW's website, but I've found it for as little as $64 (or less) on eBay! Of course, I have to keep an eye on how much folks are charging for shipping else I'm right back to paying as much as I would from GW.

In other online ordering news, I finally decided to order some Johnson Creek Smoke Juice to try to refill my spent e-cigarette cartridges myself. Being as how most of my empties are menthol, and I really didn't want to find out what it would be like to mix flavors, I ordered a half ounce bottle of their Arctic Menthol smoke juice. At only about $10 (plus shipping) for a half ounce bottle, it's actually way cheaper than ordering the actual cartridges from Red Dragon which would run around $12 for four cartridges. The trick now is to figure out just how much to drip into the cartridges. To much, and it'll leak (and I'm sure that would taste just nasty) and to little would be like I never put anything in them at all. Of course, everyone else's opinion is that I should just quit smoking altogether. Naturally, that would be ideal, but until I can work on overcoming the nicotine addiction completely, I'll keep using the e-cigarettes as a way to reduce my actual smoking. Incidentally, for those of you who smoke – who do you find to be more obnoxious, those who have never smoked, and therefore have no idea how hard it is to quit, or those who have managed to quit and act all superior because they were able to and you haven't yet? Just curious.

In the general mayhem department, well, the flu causes just that. Being sick always sucks, but when it causes you to miss work when you get paid by the hour, it really sucks. When sickness means not even being able to read or write or paint or whatever else you enjoy doing, then it just makes the days you are sick seem that much longer because all you can do to pass the day is either sleep, or watch TV in a cold-medicine haze. Eating isn't enjoyable because you can't taste anything, and you feel like if you see another can of chicken noodle soup you're going to scream (which, of course, would hurt like hell because of the sore throat).

The other thing being sick slows me down on is job searching. I like my job – there's something about taking a shoulder of bull-hide and turning it into a bunch of quality belts or seeing it become a batch of gun holsters that's pretty cool. But it's not a career. With my fiancee actively searching for work in her field, now that she has her Master's degree, I also sort of need to have a job that would allow me to easily transfer. I've hesitated about filling out applications with places, like BestBuy for example, because of a slight sense of loyalty to my current employer (who's also my uncle by marriage) and also because of things coming up like Jury Duty that could interfere with things. Not to mention, I'm not really sure I want to go back into working retail again, but hey, that's what I know and what I'm good at; plus someplace like BestBuy could lead to experience in actual computer technician work while working on a degree and/or certifications in the Information Technology (IT) field at the same time. Anyway, I need to sort that out soon... very soon.

~ JC

The Hammer of War

2010-06-27T10:05:00.002-04:00

I really have to stop saying “never.” I said I'd never write a blog – yet here I am, as I am almost every Sunday morning writing a blog. I said I'd never play World of Warcraft – I ended up addicted to it for a year and a half. And, of course, I said I'd never have a MySpace, Facebook or Twitter account, and yet I have all three! So, here's my latest never that's about to be trumped – I'll never play Warhammer. Yeah, right.

Now, I have good reasons to say that I'll never play Warhammer, or it's Sci-Fi cousin Warhammer 40,000 (or 40k for short). First of all, it's expensive as hell! Have you ever priced any of this stuff? The starter kit is $90! $90!? Really? For a friggin' tabletop game, that you have to put the damn pieces together yourself!? Fuck that! Then there's that – the having to put them together yourself. I mean, Axis & Allies was a fairly expensive board game at around $50, but at least the pieces were already together – we opened the box, read the rules and started playing right away. But not Warhammer; oh hell no. You have have put the models together and paint them first. WTF? Several years ago a friend of mine actually gave me a starter set for Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles. He had won it or something. It seemed intriguing at the time, but then I found a hobby shop that sold the extra pieces for it and noticed the price of the stuff. It's like one part model building/painting mixed with one part collectible card game/deck building. You keep building and expanding your army. You buy more models, put them together, paint them, then find other people who've done the same and have table top battles.(1) I like the concept to be honest. Strategy, luck of the dice – I even like the model building and painting thing. But why in the hell do these things cost so much? I'm sorry, but no one is ever going to convince me these things are fairly priced. $90 for a box of little plastic models I have to paint and put together myself is pretty ridiculous. And yet, yesterday I went out and got paints and brushes so I could start painting the models I was given years ago.(2) I'm watching eBay for deals on 40k models so I can start building an army of Space Wolves. I've obtained the rulebook and codex for the 40k army I want to build so I can learn how to play. Truth be told, I'm more interested in the modeling part of the process than I am the game at this point, mainly because the only people I know who could teach me to play live hundreds of miles away, and one of them is even in a different time zone. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the relaxing hobby of building and painting models like I used to when I was a kid. And if I'm going to start building models, I might as well let it tie in to my normal gaming-geek nature and let those be war gaming models, I suppose.

~ JC

(1) To explain, in brief, for those to lazy to click on all the links I've provided and go read up on it for yourself – the starter kits are plenty for you to be able to play the game. But most people get into the hobby as a whole, that being the collecting, building and painting of the models and thereby being able to improve and expand one's army. The game uses a point system to keep things fair, so some guy who only owns, say 410 points worth of models (which is about what the starter box for the Space Wolves I plan to play is) isn't going to get crushed by the guy who owns 2000 points worth of models (like my best friend's Blood Angels army that he's built over several months). The guy with the 2000 would have to reduce his force proportionately so the match is fair.

(2) I don't really plan to play either of the armies that came in the Warhammer Fantasy set I have. I'm just going to paint them so I can practice painting miniatures. I haven't painted miniatures in almost a decade and a half (back then minis were just something we used as a visual aid for D&D and not an essential part of role playing – but that's another rant for another time)

Keep Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

2010-06-20T09:21:00.002-04:00

Anyone who's read my blog regularly knows I'm a bit of a gamer. My roots go back to 1^st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and I even dabbled a bit in Star Frontiers and Top Secret. More recently I've been playing Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game™ and Rifts^®with plans to possibly start playing in the World of Darkness system. The one thing all of these games, and others like them, have in common is dice. Even though the main premise is to create a character and develop a persona for that character, there are situations that just can't be role-played. Combat is the most typical situation (roll to see if you hit your target, roll to see how much damage you did to the target, etc.), but there are others – e.g., you can't just tell the Game Master, “I kick down this door” and that's that; dice are rolled to determine if you were successful or if the door was just to solid for you to kick down. Anyone who has ever played, or seen played, a typical role playing game knows that the dice used are not (necessarily) the typical 6-sided cubes found on a Vegas craps table. Pictured below is my current collection of dice:

As you can see from the photo, the aforementioned cubes are present, but there are several others ranging from 4-sides to the famous D20 (20-sided die). During my off-again-on-again “career” in D&D et.,al. I've owned several sets of dice. Hell, I practically used to collect them* and at one time I even owned a couple of 30-sided dice, although I'm not quite sure why I bought those other than the novelty of them. The interesting thing is, the above set of dice never come out of the bag anymore. With my group being flung from North Carolina to Texas and even all the way up to Michigan and our getting together using online tools such as OpenRPG and Ventrilo, we use virtual dice these days. The dice buttons in OpenRPG that allow us to “roll” for combat attacks and damage serve their purpose I suppose, but sometimes it just doesn't quite feel the same, you know? I love that my buddies and I found a way to continue playing even though we live hundreds of miles apart from each other, but I still miss breaking out my dice bag every week. It also has me wondering about the accuracy of the virtual dice versus the real thing. Now, it's been fifteen years or more since I took that class on Finite Mathematics (and for that matter, I withdrew from it), so I'm not going to attempt to calculate probabilities of rolling a 20 on a D20, blah, blah, blah. But what I did do was roll my favorite real D20 (that would be the purple one in the picture above), the virtual D20 in OpenRPG and a virtual D20 in an app called Dice Bag on my MotoDroid ten times each just to see what kind of results I'd get:

Real D20: 11, 17, 5, 10, 2, 4, 10, 9, 1, 10
OpenRPG D20: 3, 15, 20, 11, 1, 7, 19, 2, 4, 17
Dice Bag App: 19, 19, 6, 16, 1, 11, 8, 14, 20, 4

Ok, so I really don't know what any of that means, but it was a fun experiment to do. Seems like the OpenRPG rolls seemed the most balanced ranging from low to high, while the Dice Bag rolls were a bit overpowered and the real D20 stayed pretty average. Interesting how all three gave me a 1 once while the real D20 was the only one not to come up with a natural-20. Either way, be it plastic, metal, or virtual, I'll keep rolling the dice.

Huzzah!

~ JC

*NOTE: I used to own a lot more dice sets than I currently do. During my fundamentalist-right-wing-Christian phase of life, I probably trashed or burned them. Sad, eh? That I'd allow a religious group to so influence me that I'd believe a game could do me spritiual and mental harm? But that's a whole separate issue (hmmm.... maybe another blog topic for the future? We shall see).

Color Me Purple

2010-06-13T10:19:00.002-04:00

I have never particularly felt the need to wax political in my blog. Today is a little different, mainly because I have reached a point where I am just sick and tired of all the political rigmarole currently in the news. The frank fact of the matter is, both political parties can suck it! For the record, yes, I am registered as a Republican – but I am seriously considering changing that to Independent. Notice I said Independent and not Democrat. As I implied with my “both political parties can suck it” comment, I have no use for either of the two. The political scene in the United States has become so partisan and divisive that it is a wonder that anything gets done. The two parties spend more time arguing with each other and trying to prove how evil the other is to pay any attention to what the citizens of this country want. Don't get me wrong, I am quite aware that the United States is not a pure democracy – it is a republic (i.e., the people don't vote on every issue; we elect other people to represent us who then vote on said issues ostensibly on our behalf). But that still does not change the fact that the people do get to vote for who represents them in said republic, and those representatives simply have come to a point where they are so concerned with their own agendas that they are failing to do their jobs, namely representing the people.

I will be the first to admit that I am really no expert on politics, but it just seems to me that most people I talk to are more likely to take each issue on its own merits while the pundits and politicians vote on party lines or automatically jump to the conservative or liberal side of every argument. They don't weigh each issue, they just go with whatever their political party's stance is like lemmings over a cliff. I don't subscribe to that point of view – I believe each issue needs to be weighed individually. Our so called leaders have demonstrated that they either don't have the ability to think for themselves, or they just don't give a shit what the opinion of their constituents is on the issue at hand. For example, the health care issue. Now, I'm not trying to debate this issue here, but it is very much a hot button issue so I'll use it as an example of how our government doesn't care about us as much as it claims to. The health care bill was largely unpopular (at least, the way it was written). Even people who voted as they did in the 2008 election because they wanted the health care that Obama promised largely disagreed with how it was being handled by Congress. Yet, it passed anyway! Approval ratings of those involved in passing it dropped virtually over night. Some states even threatened law suits against the federal government. As I said, I'm not here to debate health care, but it is a prime example of how the political machine has started to break down and fail, if for no other reason than that our leaders have decided we're all children to be seen and not heard. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off of the Louisiana coast is another prime example of a government that does nothing. They had weeks to formulate a plan to keep that oil from reaching the coast, and several ideas were given. Alas, the government again sat their holding its dick, and now we have oil in the marshlands and making its way to every beach that touches the gulf.

So, without going into an overly long diatribe, here's my (very brief) take on both parties:

Democrats – claim to be for the poor and working class, but clearly don't get the fact that over regulation of big corporations stagnates the free market and eventually costs jobs because the companies that employ the poor and working class will eventually lay them off or fire them to keep their profit margin (not saying I believe in big corporations, just saying, those companies will fire the little guys before the executives give up their large salaries). The Democrats, in my not so humble opinion, really are leading us down a path toward Communism by their seeming desire to make the Federal Government have its hand in every cookie jar in the country and having a say in everything. They are flaming hypocrites who are themselves millionaires but like to criticize the rich. They come up with social agendas, not out of a sense of wanting to help those less fortunate, but because they feel guilty for having more or feel superior and think only they know what's best for those with less.

Republicans – their claim of wanting smaller government and less government control is total bullshit. Example, how can you say you want more civil liberties and less government control, but then deny civil liberties such as marriage between same-sex couples? Explain that? How can you claim separation of church and state when you perceive that a church's rights are being denied, but still insist that there be prayer in public schools? The Republican party has allowed itself to become entirely to inundated with fundamentalist Christians who want the US to become a theocracy. They've also adopted the attitude of opposing anything the Democrats put on the table just because it was proposed by a Democrat – an “us versus them” attitude that exacerbates an already torrid working relationship.

Yes, I realize that opinions are like assholes – everyone has one and it almost always smells like shit. These are my opinions. Don't like them? Great, that's your right. Now, ask yourself why you don't like my opinion – is it because you sincerely and thoughtfully disagree with my conclusion? Or is it because I prefer to combine Red and Blue to make Purple? As I said, I didn't write this to express my opinions on all the issues and topics ranted about in the news everyday. In general, I don't even really like talking about politics, especially recently, because all it does is lead to arguments. We have become so polarized over the last few years in this nation that it's a wonder our government still functions at all. And with the so called mid-term elections coming up, things are already getting heated even among candidates are in the same party! There are run off elections going on because so many people are vying for the same seat that no one can get a clear majority of votes. Hell, maybe I should have put my name in for consideration; I doubt I would have won, but hey, maybe it would have gotten me a book deal and a chance to be on TV. I mean, that's why these other assholes run for office right? At least, that's how it seems to me.

Until next time kids,
~ JC

Simply Simple

2010-06-06T09:07:00.004-04:00

Ah, Sunday mornings. My blogging day. Roxanne's still asleep. The house is quiet. I've got my music going (softly-ish so it doesn't wake Roxanne). I am on my second cup of coffee. I have my e-cigarette so I can smoke at my desk instead of going outside. In the words of Ron White, “It's gonna be a good day, Tater.” Lately I have been thinking about all the technology we have access to, and more importantly the technology that I personally own. In fact, I was originally going to write a bit this morning about things like extensions for Google Chrome and apps for my Droid. But I think today is a better day to sit back and ponder the simpler things in life. I am definitely a techno-geek; I own gadgets, I read about gadgets I want to own and things that can make the ones I do run even better. The interesting thing is, sometimes I would rather put all that crap aside and just listen to some good music and read a book – a real book not an e-book. It just seems these days that everywhere you look something has an “e” or an “i” in front of its name. As much as I love my gadgets and having access to video games and digital music, sometimes you have to wonder if we've become to dependent upon it. I used to know how to spell, until spell checker. I used to be able to memorize phone numbers, until we had cellphones that could store hundreds of them for us. I actually have an e-book reader app on my MotoDroid, but I still can't bring myself to read a book using it – I guess I just love the feel and smell of the real thing to much. I keep saying that I need to spend more time at my favorite coffee-shop. That's an activity that used to occur a few times a week. Now, it's weeks between trips. I keep saying I want to start reading again like I used to (maybe a book a week but now it's more like a book a month or longer). It's technology's fault I say! The shiny, sparkly lights, the allure of the 3D images on the screen, the having to know what everyone is Facebooking or Twittering all the time lest I miss something [not really] important. We all just need to slow down. Enjoy simpler things, like a glass of sweet iced-tea, a cold beer, a good book, or sometimes just sitting in silence without all the beeping and blinking and flashing distracting us. So, today, I think that's what I'll do. A good book and a lovely beverage, maybe some music (ok, so music will mean I have to use a gadget, but in moderation) and make my Sunday the day of rest it is supposed to be.

~ JC

PS. In way of a disclaimer, I already know I have to potentially go do some errands/shopping later which will totally mess up my whole “day of rest” motif for the day. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do ;-)

Do Replicants Dream of Electric Blade Runners

2010-05-30T11:45:00.003-04:00

I am usually pretty apprehensive about movies or television shows being based off of books. I mean, I understand that for the sake of time things need to be condensed and edited, but sometimes stories are just completely changed, using only characters' names and locations from the book (e.g., every version of The Three Musketeers I've ever seen or that horrible piece of shit “Legend of the Seeker” which destroyed Terry Goodkind's masterful Sword of Truth series). There have been some notable exceptions, such as Peter Jackson's rendition of The Lord of the Rings and the more recent Chronicles of Narnia movie adaptations which actually seem to follow the books fairly closely. Typically, I've found that seeing the movie before reading the book is the better way to go, as it makes the book that much better (and also helps with visualization at times). However, years ago I watched the movie “Blade Runner” and until recently had been unable to find a copy of the book it was based upon due to it apparently being out of print. Thankfully, the folks at The Science-Fiction Book Club, along with Dell Publishing, have re-released Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. After reading the book, I found a desire to dust off my DVD of “Blade Runner” and compare the two as I remembered the movie seeming to have more action than the novel, which seemed a more cerebral endeavor.

Upon actually sitting down and watching the movie again this morning, I realized how very different “Blade Runner” is from the novel that inspired it. I sat down with pen and pad in hand to make notes, but five minutes in abandoned that notion and just sat back and enjoyed the movie. The differences were that vast. The “replicants” in the film were completely different and much more sinister than the androids, or “andys” in the book. The protagonist is single in the film, but married in the book – although he does fall in love/have an affair with one of the replicants/andys in both. There are entire characters and scenes in the movie that the book never even implies, and the population in the movie is much more vast than the post-apocalyptic society presented in the novel. I could go on and on.

The point is, why does Hollywood always manage to take a perfectly good story and muck it up? Granted, in this case, if Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was produced word-for-word as a movie, it would be pretty boring (the book is less action and more written to make you think). However, it always seems that films based on books or short stories regularly make over arching changes that are unnecessary. There are a few exceptions (as I mentioned above) but even in those exceptions there are still scenes left out or even inserted.

I love a good movie, but honestly, a good book is infinitely better. When a good book is made into a good movie, that's awesome. When a good book is made into a mediocre movie, it makes me sad. So, I'm not really sure how I feel about the “Blade Runner” versus Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep dynamic because I liked both of them, even though saying the movie is based on the book is a bit of a stretch; inspired by would be a better description. At any rate, it does reenforce my convictions that Hollywood is running out of ideas for movies and television and justifies my love of books.

~ JC

Puff The Magic Dragon

2010-05-23T10:56:00.003-04:00

I doubt anyone reading this would disagree that smoking is bad, MmKay? Well, quitting smoking really sucks! In the last ten years or so, I've attempted to quit smoking with mostly failed attempts. The last time I tried to quit “cold turkey” I became such a grumpy ass that I actually had co-workers begging me to start again. I wish I could go back in time and try to convince that fourteen year old kid not to even start, but I can't. I have, however, finally found a device that may just finally be the ticket to quitting smoking for good. A few weeks ago a couple of people I work with found an electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette, while attending a gun show. It is called Red Dragon (hence the catchy title of this blog). After taking a couple of puffs off of one of their Red Dragon e-cigarette, I decided to order one for myself once I received my income tax refund. Now, I have to admit that the initial investment in a Red Dragon e-cigarette isn't cheap; I ordered the eight piece starter kit, four extra cartridges and a carrying case the total cost of which came to around $120 with express shipping. But, after only a couple of weeks I have managed to reduce the amount that I actually smoke real cigarettes my half or more. The e-cigarette emits vaporized liquid nicotine rather than smoke, so there is no tar, carbon monoxide or other harmful chemicals. So, it may not be a “safe cigarette” but it is safer. There is also no foul odor or second hand smoke, so I can use this indoors and in the car without having to roll down the windows. Because the Red Dragon looks and feels like a real cigarette, I feel like I'm getting smoking satisfaction, and because it does contain nicotine (unlike some other electronic cigarettes I've seen) it actually helps with the cravings. I really like that the cartridges are available in four strengths of nicotine, ranging from high to none so that I can step-down how much nicotine I'm getting over time to eventually break the addiction.

Not only is the Red Dragon e-cigarette less harmful, but it is also more cost effective, at least in the long term. Now I know what you're thinking; you're thinking that I said it cost me $120. That's true. The initial cost is kind of high, but the cost of the cartridges themselves actually ends up potentially being less than buying regular cigarettes. One cartridge is roughly the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes. So, if I buy a pack of four cartridges at $12, that is like buying four packs of cigarettes. I don't know about you, but I can't buy regular cigarettes for that price, unless I buy the super cheap, super disgusting off brands, which frankly I refuse to do. I mean, if I'm going to smoke, it's going to be Marlboro or Camel. Those cheap brands burn my throat, and they burn up so much faster than the name brands that I don't really feel like I've saved anything in terms of money. Not only are the e-cigarette cartridges mathematically more cost effective, but I have also found a site called Johnson Creek Original Smoke Juice, which sells liquid nicotine. So, even though Red Dragon doesn't really recommend it, I can refill my used cartridges myself for an even bigger cost savings.

Cons
- Initial Cost is rather expensive depending on the kit ordered
- Currently no retail outlets where I live, which means I have to pay for shipping plus have to order well in advance to insure I don't run out
- Battery could go dead while away from home or cartridge could run out without a way to obtain a fresh one if I didn't remember to bring an extra

Pros
- No tar or carbon monoxide poisoning
- No odor or second hand smoke means I can smoke in the house and inside my favorite coffee shop again instead of outside in the heat, cold or rain
- Cartridges and smoke juice for DIY refills actually much less expensive than real cigarettes (comparatively speaking)
- Red Dragon boasts 25 different flavors (such as Regular, Menthol, Vanilla, Cherry, etc)
- Ability to vary the amount of nicotine even all the way down to none to help step-down the addiction
- It looks and feels like a real cigarette, which helps with the psychosomatic aspect of smoking addiction

~ JC

Happy Day All You Mothers!

2010-05-09T11:29:00.004-04:00

Today is Mother's Day in the U.S. That special day invented by the Hallmark company to buy cards and flowers for Mom. All tongue in cheek comments aside, to everyone out there who's a Mom, Happy Mother's Day. To everyone who has a Mom - call/text/email/carrier pigeon your Mom to tell her how much you love her and how much she means to you. My Mom got her gift early because (I hate to admit this) I might not have time today to see her. I'll be heading to my Gramma's a little later today, and at some point will be taking my Mother-in-law-to-be out for dinner and trying to find a moment to see my sister and niece too. And all while recovering from a slight hangover from going out for beers with my best friend last night.

See ya next week!

~ JC

Topics in the works: my political views, RPG dice and how they're used, enjoying the simple things in life, and many more... so stay tuned.

WoW, I Really Like RoM

2010-04-25T12:00:00.002-04:00

Anyone who has ever read my blog knows that, at one time, I was quite obsessed with playing World of Warcraft. I played it daily, for hours at a time for just shy of a year and half. This past January I finally got bored with it and broke my WoW addiction. I found myself months later, kind of jonesing for a MMO fix, but really not wanting to shell out the $15 per month fee to start my WoW account back up. I just wanted to play a couple of nights a week, not get sucked back into the pecking order for raids and heroic dungeons. So, I started searching the internet for free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online games. My thinking was, if it is free-to-play, then I won't care so much if I don't get to play every day. I mean, part of my WoW addiction was fueled by the thought that I was paying $15 per month (and I usually paid in six month blocks), so I needed to play as much as possible to get my money's worth. Shortly before quitting WoW, I had dabbled a bit in Dungeons & Dragons Online, which had become free-to-play. I really didn't care very much for DDO, mainly because of the leveling limitations for free-to-play subscribers (the level cap was only 4 unless you paid real money to increase it). So, I began searching and found hundreds of free-to-play MMOs, most of which really didn't appeal to me because I've never particularly been a fan of Manga style artwork. One day, while reading one of my favorite webcomics I spotted a banner ad for a game called Runes of Magic, so I clicked the ad. The game looked fairly promsiing, and the most like WoW I had come across, so I decided to give it a try. I have now been playing RoM for a couple of weeks, and while I'll admit that I'm still learning the finer points of certain aspects, I really like it; in fact, I think I like it a bit more than I did WoW. So, here is my somewhat limited comparison of WoW vs. RoM and what I think each does better or worse than the other.

Similarities & Differences

First of all, let me just say that all MMOs have the same basic concept, that being rolling (1) a character and the leveling that character via questing and fighting monsters and other “bad guys”. In this aspect, RoM is no different than WoW. First level characters begin in a “starting zone” where they can accept a battery of quests that will get them to roughly level 10 before being given a final quest that usually involves taking a message to someone in a village or city near by that has another battery of quests available that will take the character to probably around level 20, and so on and so forth until the character reaches the highest level the game offers (called the “level cap”). For example, the current level cap for WoW while RoM's level cap was recently increased to 60 (it had previously been 55).

Many MMOs also allow the character to learn “secondary skills” or “professions” such as blacksmithing or tailoring, to name only two. RoM is no different from WoW in that it offers this aspect, but it differs greatly in that it allows a character to learn all of the various gathering and crafting skills, while WoW limits the character to only two professions (2). By allowing players to learn all of the gathering and crafting skills, RoM allows them to experiment with each before making the decision of which one to gain levels in beyond apprentice.(3)

Like WoW (and pretty much any other MMO), RoM does have Guilds. Guilds are basically groups of players that have banded together for mutual assistance. This assistance can take many forms, from sharing materials from the gathering skills to helping each other with quests, having a ready made group for doing dungeons that require five or more characters to survive, etc. What differs here is that RoM handles guilds more like Guild Wars with the entire guild having a level as group, being able to build a guild castle and being able to enter player-vs-player combat via guild castle sieges. This isn't really my cup of tea, to be honest, so I'm not going to lie to you – I've not researched this at all. I could be totally wrong in my comparison to Guild Wars. I played WoW on a PvP server, which was kind of fun, but I'm really not into the PvP thing anymore. So, you're just going to have to do some Googling on your own for how guilds and guild sieges work in RoM. Sorry.

Where RoM really stands out from WoW, in my opinion, is in item enhancements. Just like in WoW, as a character advances in RoM, he/she is able to equip better and better gear, and also has the chance to enhance that gear through other means. In WoW, item enhancement is done through either enchantments (which requires the abilities of someone who has taken the enchanting profession) or through attaching gems to equipment that has gem slots (but this typically isn't available until level 60 or above). In RoM, items that have rune slots can be enhanced using runes; the nice thing here is, even as low as level 5 I was able to begin finding gear with rune slots and runes to use in those slots. RoM also has other means of equipment enhancement, most notably the Arcane Transmutor, which allows the combining of several runes' statistic bonuses into a single stone. This is available to all characters beginning at level 10. I have to admit, I have yet to use the Transmutor as I'm still trying to figure out how to do so (if RoM fails anywhere, it is in a lack of online guides/documentation to assist new players with figuring out some of the finer points of the game like the Arcane Transmutor). Even though I'm still iffy on how to use this feature in RoM, I still love that it makes the game seem less like a “gear grind”; in WoW it seemed like that's all I ever did was constantly try to find new gear with better stats, and in fact there were add-ons for WoW to determine characters' “gear score” which could affect whether or not you got invited to participate in certain dungeons and raids since only those with the “best” gear had a chance of being successful.

Another aspect of RoM I like over WoW is the ability to use a mount as early as level 1! In WoW, characters are not able to utilize mounts until level 20 (when I first began playing, it was level 30). At level 20, a WoW character has to find a riding trainer, spend gold to learn how to ride, then spend more gold on the mount itself. At higher levels (level 40 I think) the WoW character can learn to ride faster mounts, and eventually even learn to ride flying mounts – but all of these abilities require large amounts of gold (the game's currency) to learn. In RoM, no training is required to ride a mount, you just have to pay the gold to rent the mount. Yes, I said “rent.” That's the one thing about RoM I don't like is that mounts are only rent-able with gold usually for either 15 minutes or 2 hours at a time. There are ways to get mounts that last 7 days, 30 days, or are permanent, but those require the expenditure of RoM's other currency, diamonds. Diamonds are obtained by spending real money (I'll have more to say on that in the pros & cons section).

Pros & Cons

RoM doesn't have nearly as much supporting documentation for new players as WoW did/does – lack of fan sites that help in this area as well. I have found two different Wikis for RoM, but wikis tend to have a lot of missing or inaccurate information. WoW, on the other hand has hundreds and hundreds of fansites and guides available just a Google away. Advantage = WoW.
RoM has a free client via download and is free-to-play unlimited. WoW costs $20 (WoW) + $30 (Burning Crusade expansion) + $40 (Wrath of the Lich King) + $15/month subscription fee. Advantage = RoM
RoM, however, can cost real money, and a lot of it if you're not careful, via gift a card system to buy in game diamonds to be able to purchase special items such as mounts, house furniture, gear enhancements, etc. I still think RoM has an advantage over WoW here though. Most free-to-play MMOs have some type of mini-store system like this. It costs money for them to keep those game servers up and running, and they have to generate that revenue somehow. I mean, hell, look at how many people have gone into real world debt buying crap for Farmville on Facebook for crying out loud. The thing to look for in obtaining RoM diamonds is special offers. For example, last week (April 16-18, 2010), a special promotion was run to give 100% extra diamonds – in short, my $25 gift card that normally would have been worth 600 diamonds, netting me 1200 diamonds. Plus, there are companies that have partnered with RoM to give away free diamonds for doing online surveys or trying their products. So, while it seems scam-ish at first, it's actually not a bad system overall. Just be careful and don't go overboard, else you'd be better off paying that $15 a month to play WoW again. Advantage = neutral.
Multi-classing – WoW does not offer multi-classing at all. If you roll a Rogue, then you are a Rogue, period. In RoM, beginning at level 10, a player can multi-class his/her character. Did you roll a Knight, but wish you had access to a Priest's healing spells? No problem, just go to a Priest trainer after you've reached level 10 (or higher) and you can become a level 1 priest, without having to lose you levels in Knight and without having to completely re-roll an entirely new character. While it is true that other MMOs (D&D Online for example) offer multi-classing, I like the way RoM does it better. I like that I can have a character that is Level 60 in both of his classes, as opposed to say, Level 19/Level 1 or some other odd combination (using D&D as an example here – character levl cap is 20 and each time you level you have to decide which class to increase. RoM on the other hand allows to flip-flop which class is primary or secondary so you can level them separately from each other as though they are different characters).

Final Thoughts and Opinions

Ok, so this may not be a complete comparison, mainly because I've been playing RoM for only a couple of weeks versus the year and a half I played WoW. I'm still learning the game. There a lot of in game aspects in RoM that I like much better than in WoW. Basically, RoM's developers seem to have made it easier to level and get around and have included some tools in the base user interface that WoW players have historically had to go install third party add-ons to get.(4) All in all, RoM seems to do more right than wrong compared to WoW. The developers of Runes of Magic obviously did their homework in terms of paying attention to what MMO gamers liked and disliked about various MMOs like World of Warcraft, Everquest and Guild Wars, and tried to incorporate as much as they could of the most popular aspects of those games. The free-to-play aspect makes it much easier to not feel like I have to play everyday. The quick leveling and multi-class system make me want to play often because it keeps the game interesting and moving forward; I don't feel as stuck in one zone or quest chain as much as I did in WoW. The portal ability helps with this as well – bascially, when you learn your secondary class, you are taught two transport spells so that you can go back to one of the starting zones to begin leveling your new class. Being able to transport across the map like that makes it less monotonous when questing because I can easily jump from one side of the world to the other if I'm getting bored with the zone I'm questing in.

No MMO is perfect. RoM has a lot of growing room (how about some flying mounts, eh!) but seems to be trucking along much faster than most MMOs in terms of new content (the game launched March 2009, relased its second expansion September 2009 and its third expansion is due out in May 2010, and in fact is already beginning to be introduced in patches(5)). In short, if I'm going to continue to play an MMO, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be very difficult for anyone to convince me to start paying for WoW again, when RoM is such a superb MMO and is free-to-play. Most free-to-play MMOs look like their free-to-play. RoM looks professional and clean, it plays well and I've actually had less issues with server lag than I ever did playing WoW. Considering that RoM boasts a subscriber base of over 2 million (announced a mere six months after its initial release), I'd say it's a safe bet that it will be around for pretty good while.

Recommended Reading & Resources for Runes of Magic

“Top Six Reasons to Play Runes of Magic” – http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/68765
The Runes of Magic Wiki - http://rom.wikia.com/wiki/Runes_of_Magic_Wiki
Runes of Magic Wiki - http://www.theromwiki.com/Main_Page (this one is the better of the two wikis in my opinion)
Runes of Magic Wikipedia Article (for a quick overview of the game) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes_of_magic
Runes of Magic Official Homepage (U.S.) - http://us.runesofmagic.com/us/index.html
For Wow Resources, just use Google; there are tons of sites for it, so I'm not about to try to start listing them all here. - http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS373US373&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=World+of+Warcraft

End Notes

The term “roll a new toon” or “roll a(n) [insert character class]” refers to creating a new character. If I'm not mistaken, referring to it as “rolling” is a nod to tabletop role playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons or Palladium Fantasy RPG, which requires the rolling of dice to determine a character's beginning abilities and health at level 1. In an MMO, these statistics are pre-determined based on the race and class chosen by the player and increase as the character gains additional levels beyond the first. “Toon” is a slang term for an MMO character due to most MMO graphics having a cartoonish look; toon, being short for cartoon.
WoW has three gathering professions (mining, herbalism and skinning) and six crafting professions (blacksmithing, alchemy, leatherworking, tailoring, enchanting and engineering). Since WoW limits characters to only two professions, most players choose one crafting profession and one of the gathering professions that most compliments their creation skill (e.g., a blacksmith would need mining to gather ore). The other option is to select two gathering skills and sell all the materials (“mats”) one gathers to other players either directly or through the Auction House. There are also three secondary skills that all characters can learn in addition to their two professions; they are first aid, cooking and fishing.
The gathering professions in RoM are woodcutting, herbalism, and mining. The crafting professions are blacksmithing, armor crafting, weapon crafting, alchemy, carpentry, cooking and tailoring. Like WoW, you need the gathering skills to get the materials for the crafting skills, but unlike WoW, characters can learn all of these if they so choose, but they can only master one. Go to http://rom.wikia.com/wiki/Professions for more information about how RoM professions are leveled.
Some examples include, a quest log and tracking similar to the WoW add-on “Quest Helper”, transport portals in major cities to make it faster to get from one side of the city to the other quickly, an auto-run feature that allows a player to click on a name or item in the quest log and begin automatically running towards it and I'm sure there are other things I'll uncover as I play more.
When MMOs need to fix bugs or add new content, those changes are downloaded when the game client is started. This is called “patching” and is usually a very small download that introduces new content in stages until the full expansion is released.

Today's Blog Is Brought To You By The Letter W and the Number 7

2010-04-18T08:59:00.002-04:00

So, a few weeks ago I finally made the decision that it was time to break away from using Windows XP. I had never really heard anything good about Vista, so I never made the switch to that. My fiancee's laptop has Vista (because that's what it came with) but I never really get to use it, so I really have no comment about Vista. But I knew it was time to update my OS. I'm not a developer nor a programmer, and my computer is used mainly for entertainment in the form of games, so I really didn't want to go with a flavor of Linux. So, I thought about getting Windows 7; thought about it for a long time actually. I was reading good things about Windows 7 online, which was interesting considering how much bad I had heard about Vista when it came out. What finally sold me on it was when a buddy of mine from college posted on Facebook about how much he actually liked Windows 7 and how easy the install process was. To put this in perspective, when I was in college, you had basically two choices for browser – Internet Explorer and Netscape; FireFox, Opera, Chrome, etc. didn't exist yet. Sam used Netscape because he hated Microsoft that much; so, to hear him praise Windows 7 kind of sold me the idea that maybe it was a good, stable operating system.

Being a little smarter than the average bear when it comes to computers (I built my last two computers myself, as well as my fiancee's desktop computer), I usually don't buy full copies of an OS if I don't have to. My copy of XP was what is called an OEM edition. When I found that TigerDirect had Windows 7 in OEM, I was very pleased. So you understand – at BestBuy, for example, or anywhere else that sells the retail version of Windows 7 Professional you are going to pay $300. By ordering an OEM edition, I paid half that. OEM stands for Other Equipment Manufacturer. What it means in a nutshell is, I bought the version of Windows that normally is sold to companies like HP, Dell or Compaq. It's the exact same Windows as the retail version except the key code you get doesn't entitle you to any tech support from Microsoft – you're supposed to call whoever built your computer for that. So, in my case, I'm my own tech support since I built the thing myself, but it's worth not having MS's tech support available to me to be able to have paid half what I would have if I had gone to the box store up the street. Besides, support.microsoft.com is actually pretty good if I get a cryptic error code or something happens I don't quite understand and I need a reference source to tell me how to fix it.

Now, as far as my review, I'm not going to get all techie/geeky on you here. There's enough on the internet already written about Windows 7 vs Vista vs XP vs whatever to keep you busy and entertained for days if you so choose to Google it for yourself. Suffice it to say that I'm very pleased I made the switch. I'm finally able to take advantage of the 64-bit dual core processor, the 3GB of RAM and the 1GB 3D Video Card I put in this thing when I built it. I can notice a difference in speed in terms of how quickly applications load, and to be honest, I didn't find my computer to be all that slow when I was running XP. The graphics are pretty crisp, although at this point I've not had the chance to re-install all my games to get a full comparison going.
Don't get me wrong, I have had a few trip-ups with some older software not wanting to run or install correctly. The interesting thing is, Win7 has a lot of built in help when it detects a compatibility issue. If you've got Professional or Ultimate, you have the option to run things in Vista or XP mode if necessary. I've only had to do that with one application, and it turned out that that wasn't even really the issue (I missed a setting involving telling Ventrilo that I was using a 5.1 surround sound card... oops). When installing drivers, anytime there was a compatibility issue, Windows 7 managed to find the fix on its own (a feat I never had any previous version of Windows accomplish even though it supposedly had the ability to do so). I did have one piece of hardware that Windows 7 just would not recognize because it is to old (a very old NIC card), but I can let that slide as even I have to admit that it's to old to still be trying to use.

So, aside from some very minor issues, and just trying to get used to the new interface, I have to admit that I really dig Windows 7 so far. It gets a thumbs up from me (like my opinion means shit to you). My only real regret is that I probably should have gone ahead and paid the extra $50 to get the Ultimate Edition instead of just Professional.

Until next time,
~ JC

Next week's planned blog: a comparison of Runes of Magic to World of Warcraft and some commentary on overcoming MMO addiction and my subsequent partial relapse.

All In My Head

2010-04-11T09:40:00.002-04:00

This week's blog is kind of a part two to last week's. I am again going to regale you with information and opinions on the world of role playing games (RPGs). Last week I did a very vague comparison of two similar table top gaming systems. It dawned me though, as often as I talk about role playing games and my love for them, I've never really gone into the hows and whys of me playing them.

I think I bought my first role playing game when I was around 12 or 13 years old. It was called “Star Frontiers” and came in a purple box with two rulebooks; one was a 'quick-start' guide, the other was the full game. It also came with a big poster size map and little cardboard pieces with various things on them for use on the map. It also came with two of the oddest dice I had ever seen – the had ten sides instead of the traditional six. Truth be told, I never really got a chance to play “Star Frontiers”. When I mentioned it to my friends, they were like “Oh, it kind of sounds like a science-fiction version of D&D.” “What's D&D?” I asked. And the next thing I knew I was out looking for and buying the 'Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set'. We spent many an after school afternoon, not to mention summer vacations, playing D&D as often as we were able. I pretty much was always playing the fighter, and had a hack-and-slash sort of style of play. As we matured (both in age and as players) we moved to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, with its larger selection of race and class combinations, weapons, armor, spells, etc. Over the past 25 or so years, I've been both a rabid player/Dungeon Master and a vehement opponent of D&D and role playing games. I'm happy to say that now, at 38, I've found a balance in gaming and real life responsibilities. But, that's just a brief history of how I started playing. It doesn't explain much about why I keep playing these games even though I'm almost 40.

So, as I've mentioned before in previous blogs, there are those that do not quite understand RPGs, and there are those that just plain make up a bunch of bullshit about RPGs and call them evil and satanic. I have actually had someone look me in the eye and seriously tell me “You know, the spells in D&D are real, actual spells.” Really? Are people really that frakkin' stupid? Because, yeah, every book on Wicca I ever read contains the spell “Magic Missile” right? Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and the father of all role playing games, said he just made those up off the top of his head. But, I digress. You see, the first reason I play these games is simple; they're fun. If you don't think so, that's fine. I personally don't have the patience to play Xbox and PS3, etc. I'd rather delve into a RPG in which the game master has developed a good story to go with the action and it's not all “kill everything that moves, kill some more, loot that box, then go back to shooting.” Fun for you and fun for me can be two separate things – that's fine. It's call diversity. So, I play RPGs because I personally find them to be fun. Period. End of discussion.

Now, for a second reason I continue to play D&D and the like? Easy – it feeds my creative vent. I've always wanted to write a novel. Alas, I'm not that great at it. I've made a couple of attempts and either only manged to write a few scenes or just plain realized that what I was writing was entirely to much like a combination of several other books I've read (and I really don't want to be sued). By playing a role playing game, I can participate in a sort of consortium of writers all contributing to the same story. We each have a part to play, and therefore a part of the story we are filling in the details about. Other times, when I've been the game master, I've gotten to create a plot and other devices to get the players involved in the story, letting them write the dialogue and actions for their characters. The other half of the creative aspect is making maps. I know, it sounds weird, but I've always had a thing for looking at maps, so in D&D I get to make my own maps. I'm not an artist, so making D&D maps is as close as I've ever gotten to creating a masterpiece work of art.

And finally, I would be remiss if I left out another large portion of what playing role playing games has done for me. This isn't so much a why I play as it is an I'm glad I play because it's helped me in this area. Growing up, I was an A-B student for the most part. The thing is, I hated to read. Getting me to sit and read a book was like trying to get a cat to take a bath. When I started playing D&D, suddenly I began to want to read more – mostly fantasy novels at first, but eventually history, religion and philosophy as well. To be totally honest, my original reasons for reading more was so I could get ideas for the game. The more I read though, the more I gained interest in the subjects I was reading. Role playing games also require a certain amount of math skills (at least basic math) as well cognitive reasoning abilities. Frankly, I feel like if I had not started playing these games, I probably would not have had as much of a love of reading as I do now, nor would I have had any use for wanting to learn about history, philosophy and religion. These games helped me learn how to think. Sorry, but no console based first person shooter that requires nothing more than pushing buttons is going to do that. Sure, today's high tech video games may develop a certain amount of hand-eye coordination, but I've also seen a lot of mindless zombies with no attention span for anything else result in them as well. Sometimes, it's nice to kick it old-school with D&D, or RIFTS or any other table top role playing game. It sort of goes toward showing that I don't need a computer monitor to paint the picture for me; I can use my imagination and let it all be in my head.

~ JC

Potential future topics here at Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary

“Lucky 7” (my review/feelings about my switch from Windows XP to Windows 7)
“I Need A New Drug” (overcoming my WoW addiction, but still wanting to play an MMORPG)

This is How I Roll

2010-04-04T14:51:00.005-04:00

I've been playing role playing games, of and on, since I was about 13 years old. In that time I've dabbled in a few different gaming systems, the most prevalent of which is the various versions of the classic, and most well known RPG, Dungeons & Dragons. There are still some (mainly fundamentalist, right wing Christians) who think these games, especially those in the fantasy genre, are evil and “of Satan.” The truth is that there is really nothing in any of these games that has every influenced any of my religious beliefs. While it is true that these games, like any fantasy novel, do borrow concepts from many myths and philosophies both ancient and modern, those ideas/beliefs get muddled into a completely fictional setting. Playing D&D and the like, for me, actually caused a development of a love for reading, history, philosophy, et cetera. But today's blog is not about me espousing the virtues or reasons for indulging in role playing games; it is about comparing two such systems, namely Dungeons & Dragons (aka, the D20 System) and Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game.

Several months ago, as we were weaning ourselves off of our World of Warcraft addiction, my best friend and I were discussion how much we missed the old school table top role playing games. The idea of a group of friends sitting around a table, rolling dice and actually immersing ourselves into playing a character versus sitting in front of computer mindlessly pushing buttons sounded pretty good to us. One of the things we had done to try to stop playing WoW was to try out Dungeons & Dragons Online, because it was free to play. It was playing DDO that got us to talking about wanting to play D&D again. The problem was, I live in North Carolina, he lives in Georgia and the rest of the guys we thought might be interested in playing D&D again were spread out across other parts of NC, Texas and Michigan. We were already used to using a program called Ventrilo (“Vent” for short) while playing WoW, which would allow us to speak to each other, but we still needed to be able to see each others' dice rolls, the map and miniatures. That's when we discovered OpenRPG, which is a virtual tabletop program allowing for all that. And so, with a little recruiting and instruction on how to download, install and setup Vent and OpenRPG we were able to begin our project of once again enjoying D&D without having to all be in the same physical place. Not long after we added the game RIFTS to our repertoire of games to play on Saturday nights. Rifts, being a Palladium system game, is what has led us to where we are now; converting our D&D characters to Palladium Fantasy RPG characters.

RIFTS was my first introduction into the Palladium Books system of games. Other than a few other, smaller games (such as Star Frontiers and Top Secret) I had pretty much played D&D exclusively my entire gaming life. There were a lot of similarities between D20 and Palladium, but there are a lot of differences too. As to which is the superior system, well I guess that's subjective but I'm starting to find that the D20 system is to limiting and basic for our tastes. Hence, the decision to convert from D&D to PFRPG for our fantasy genre game. There are, of course, pros and cons to both, and no RPG system is perfect. Our group simply prefers Palladium for it's more realistic combat style and the ability to have a more customized character than is possible in D&D/D20.

I've found forums on which people have complained that Palladium is an archaic gaming system (it was first introduced in the early 1980's). Maybe, but there's an old saying, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” D&D wasn't broken, in my opinion, yet TSR, Inc. decided to launch 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in 1989. AD&D 2e was horrible! It took all the flavor out of D&D (certain races and classes were taken out) and introduced “THAC0” as a game mechanic which made the combat rolls more difficult to calculate than simply using the various charts found in the original AD&D. Not long after, TSR, Inc. was bought by Wizards of the Coast, who rescued D&D from oblivion since TSR was on the verge of bankruptcy. Uncer WoTC, D&D was reborn under a 3rd Edition which introduced the “D20 System” and the “Open Gaming License.” This was actually quite brilliant as it opened up the market to development of materials for the game from multiple sources. It remains, in my opinion, the best version of D&D to ever come down the pike (sorry, I'm not interested in 4th edition D&D as I feel it has digressed into being to much of an amalgamation of miniatures and MMO-type combat mechanics). So, while D&D has introduced various editions and changes over the years while Palladium has stuck with its tried and true system since 1983, I still contend that Palladium's system still works just fine.

In both games it is necessary to create, or “roll”, a character before you can begin play. While I'll admit here that D&D has the edge over Palladium on time consumption and simplicity in the character creation process, Palladium seems to allow for more well rounded and unique/customized player characters (Note: since I currently play a Wizard in my group's D&D campaign (and forthcoming conversion to PFRPG) I'll be using that character class as my example later in this blog). The basic process in D&D goes something like this:

Choose a race (human, elf, dwarf, etc.) and class (fighter, wizard, rogue, etc.)
Roll dice to determine ability scores (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma)
Select Skills & Feats
Select Spells (if your class uses them)
Roll dice to determine how much money (gold pieces) the character begins with and buy equipment (armor, weapons, etc.)

The process in Palladium is almost identical (roll for ability scores*, pick skills), but the difference comes in selecting skills (Palladium doesn't use “feats”). In D&D, each class has a set of “class skills” which they can use their skill points on at full value (1 point for 1 rank ratio) and the rest are considered “cross-class skills” which are taken at half value (in order to gain 1 rank, you have to “spend” 2 points). In Palladium, you can pretty much take any skill you want (with some restrictions), but your class gets bonuses for certain categories of skills. What this means is, in D&D a Wizard is pretty much a Wizard, while in Palladium, a Wizard can take weapon proficiencies or other skills that could allow him to have rogue like abilities or even be highly skilled with a sword and become a “War Wizard” if he wants. In short, Palladium isn't as limiting in what the various classes can or cannot do as D&D seems to be. Palladium also assumes a certain amount of starting gear the character already owns, which makes more sense to me than having to go buy it. Admittedly, I can create a D&D character is less than half the time it takes me to create a Palladium character, but part of that is the fact that I'm still learning the Palladium system.

The combat system is probably where I've seen the most criticism of the Palladium system, with claims that it “takes to long” and causes the game to “bog down.” I have to laugh at that, because that's pretty much how my group feels about the D20 combat system, and we find the Palladium system to be both faster and more realistic. This is due to the fact that D&D (especially the 3rd and 4th editions) essentially requires the use of miniatures and a map-grid when engaging in combat. The D20 System of combat (without going into a lot of overt detail) works something like this:

Attacker rolls a 20-sided die, add/subtract any bonuses/penalties to that roll;if the result matches/exceeds the target's “Armor Class, the attack hits; roll
to see how much damage you do based on the weapon you were using; defender
subtracts damage from their “Hit Points”; repeat until until someone quits or is
dead/unconscious (hit points at zero or less).

Sounds simple enough right? Well, it is, but where it fails for me is that because of the whole Armor Class thing, you basically have to stand there and take it when someone rolls a successful hit. Where D20 bogs down in combat is the having to move around miniatures, which becomes tricky with rules like “Attack of Opportunity”, which is a sort of ridiculous rule in my opinion (I won't go into detail about it because it would take to long, but you can click on the link to find out more if you'd like). By comparison, Palladium combat becomes a bit more realistic:

Attacker rolls a 20-sided die adding/subtracting any bonuses/penalties to the
roll; a result greater than 4 is a potential hit; defender can either attempt to
parry or dodge the attack by also rolling a 20-sided die and adding/subtracting
bonuses/penalties; if the Defenders roll matches/exceeds the attacker's roll,
then the attack fails; if the defenders dodge or parry roll fails, then the
attack is successful and attacker rolls for damage; if the damage roll does not
exceed the Armor Rating of the defender's armor, then the defender, nor the
armor take any damage; if the damage roll exceeds the Armor Rating, the the
remainder deals damage to the “SDC” of the armor first until it is destroyed;
once the armor has been broken through, then the defender begins subtracting
damage directly from his hit points; rinse and repeat until someone quits or is
dead/unconscious (hit points at zero or less).

Ok, so Palladium's combat sounds more complex, and it is. But the point is, it's more realistic. The player has the choice to either stand there and take it or try to dodge or parry an attack, while in D&D, your hands are tied – all your abilities to parry or dodge are automatically built in to your Armor Class. If you have a low AC, you are pretty much screwed, but in Palladium, even an unarmored, non-man at arms, character has a chance to either parry or just plain get the hell out of the way. I also like how Palladium uses a combination of damage mitigation (Armor Rating) and the concept that the Armor itself absorbs damage (SDC) before the person does until the armor is destroyed. It also adds the realism that the character will, eventually, have to have his armor repaired or replaced. I can see where some think that Palladium combat can bog down and take to long, but I prefer its realism and flexibility versus D&D's use of miniatures and basically reverting to board game when combat breaks out. Also, D&D combat can bog down much worse than Palladium's when non-standard actions (actions other than simple attacks) such as grappling and tripping are attempted (again, there's just to much information to even attempt to explain it all here).

Where Palladium really shines over the D20 System is the use of magical abilities and spells. Palladium magic works more like the magic seen in movies and fantasy novels. While in D&D, a Wizard for example, has to carry around a spellbook and spend time each morning memorizing the spells he wants to have access to that day. The D&D Wizard is also limited in which spells he is allowed to learn (my Wizard is 5th level, but only has access to spells up to 3rd level in power) and how many of each level he can memorize and cast per day. Palladium, on the other hand, uses an ability called “Potential Psychic Energy” (PPE) which is indicative of how much magical power the Wizard possesses. The Palladium Wizard can also learn spells of any level at any level of experience (e.g., a 1st level Wizard can learn and cast a 9th level spell). Each spell has a PPE cost; as long as the Wizard has enough PPE in reserve and knows the spell, he can cast it at anytime. Rest, sleep or Meditation allows the Wizard to replenish his spent PPE, and as the Wizard gains levels he gains more PPE and therefore becomes more powerful. I love the fact that my Palladium Wizard will never have to say, “Wow, I know a great spell that would be helpful in this situation, but I didn't memorize it today so I can't use it.” versus the D&D Wizard suddenly becoming useless in such a situation because he didn't prepare the “correct” list of spells that day.**

Don't get me wrong – I'm not shitting on D&D. I still think it's a good (if somewhat rudimentary/introductory) role playing system. I just like the Palladium system better, particularly when it comes to skill selection and use of spells and magical abilities. Both systems have strong and weak points. D&D defiantly has the advantage on resources of materials and tools since it allows its fan base to produce and share materials via the internet and other sources. Palladium, without a doubt, needs to ease up on its stance on copyrights and intellectual properties (they've actually gone as far as suing or threatening to sue people for doing fan-sites on the internet). So, in a nut shell, I hate how Palladium the company (particularly the CEO) does business, but I love the gaming system itself. Comparatively, I really love the way Wizards of the Coast markets D&D and allows fan-sites and other publishers to produce materials, but find the system itself to be a little lacking in areas such as realistic combat and character customization.

Whichever system you choose, enjoy and keep those dice rolling!

~ JC

* Note: the ability scores in Palladium (and their approximate D&D equivalent) are Intelligence Quotient (Intelligence), Physical Strength (Strength), Mental Endurance (Wisdom), Mental Affinity (Charisma), Physcial Prowess (Dexterity), Physcal Endurance (Constitution), Physical Beauty (no specific equivalent but Charisma basically covers it), and Speed (no D&D equivalent).

** This is only a small sampling of how the magic systems work in both D&D and Palladium as both systems have several classes that can cast spells, and have different types of spells, not to mention how the two systems handle psychic ability.

Nothing Much To Say – Plenty to Think About

2010-03-28T08:41:00.000-04:00

I don't know what I want to write about today. I have two topics all picked out, but I can't decide which one to write about first, plus both topics require a tidbit more research on my part before I start commenting all willy-nilly and looking foolish. So, this morning I'm just typing. Yep, just typing away until the writing gods strike me with a topic or topics to rant about, or comment on, or poke fun at or what have you.

This whole writing a blog a week thing is tougher than some of you might think, by the way. Especially for someone who's brain never seems to shut off. I think all the time; I can be working on one thing while having ideas for several other projects going on in my head. My fiancee tells me I need to stop “thinking so hard”, but it's not that easy really. I've had friends think I was upset or angry about something when in fact I was in a great mood; I was just thinking about something else that may have pissed me off in the past, and so my expression ends up showing it even if I'm not really feeling it. My fiancee also tells me that my lips move when I'm “thinking to hard”. I don't even notice it, but she can see it. All this is probably why I have two topics on hold for this blog and can't pick one – both of them are swimming in my head to the point that they're bumping into each other rather than making it to my fingers and therefore the computer screen.

The real problem with the thinking about several things at once issue is at night. I don't think I have sleep apnea, I have “sleep thinkea” - the inability to shut off all the ideas in my head so I can sleep. Interestingly, I never remember my dreams, probably because I thought about all of it while I was awake. In fact, I'll bet I don't dream when I'm asleep, because I've thought it all out already. You know, it just dawned on me that my teachers used to tell me to stop day dreaming when I was in grade school.

So, anyway, those blogs on role playing games and Windows 7 will have to wait until next week and the week after. My copy of Windows 7 has been ordered so once I get that installed and have experience with it, I'll shoot you guys a review. The gaming group is about to convert our D&D characters to Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game characters, so I'll be writing a blog about that process and my feelings on the “D20 System” versus the “Palladium System”. Until then, have fun, be young and drink Pepsi!

~ JC

To Do Lists, Reading, and Deadlines... Oh My!

2010-03-14T09:26:00.000-04:00

I tend to be a very tedious person. So much so that I get picked on by my friends for being more than just a little be OCD.(1) Like many people, I do maintain a 'to do list' (in fact, I subscribe to two different online to do list managers; 'Remember the Milk' and 'Todoist'). Have you ever wondered, or thought to yourself, if maybe, just maybe, there's to much crap on your to do list? I list all kinds of things on mine. In fact, the reason I have two online to do lists, is because one is used as an actually daily/weekly to do list and the other is used as a sort of project outline tool. Here's the thing. I actually set deadlines, or hard due dates and times, on just about everything. Don't get me wrong, there are some things that absolutely have to have those, like paying the bills or what have you. But, I set hard due dates on things like when whatever book I'm reading should be completed. I guess if it were a library book and had to be returned, that would be a good idea, but I buy my books.(2) Now, if I own the thing then I should be able to read it when I want and take as long as I want right? That's just not how my brain thinks or processes things. You see, as I mentioned, I buy my books and since I am a bit of a bibliophile, I tend to buy them even when I already have several on the “to be read pile.” What this leads to is a tendency to already be thinking about which book I want to read next before I've even finished the one I'm currently on. So, I end up setting due dates to finish a book so I can get caught up on the ever growing reading list, self-imposed as it may be. Now, I suppose it's perfectly okay to set a date that I'd like to be finished by since it sort of helps set a goal. But, what actually happens is, I see the due date looming and notice that I've not been reading x pages per day as planned and so now I'm behind. So, I move the due date; then it gets pushed back again and again... you get the idea. What I end up doing is taking something that should give me pleasure and joy (reading a good book) and turning it into just another chore with a due date silently harassing me and making me feel guilty for not completing it on time.

I'll admit, I should probably set aside time each day to read, not necessarily set a number of pages per day, but that's not really the point I'm making. What I'm saying is, with this fast paced, rat-raced, fast food mentality world we live in, why do we hem ourselves in so much with due dates and to do lists in the first place? We have enough tasks and chores and lists to deal with at work, so why bring that stress home? Sure, there are some household related things that will always need a list (like the shopping list for example – forget my coffee, and I'll have to hurt somebody *grin*), but setting due dates on leisure reading or hobbies? That may be a bit much.

Slow down, relax, take a breath – pour yourself a cup of coffee (or whatever your favorite beverage may be) and read that book (or whatever) as slow as you damn well please ;-)

~ JC

(1) I get told I'm OCD because of my tendency to be overly organized so much so that I actually keep track of how much cash I have on me using Quicken in addition to balancing my checkbook. Hell, I even reconcile my change jar from time to time. I also get picked on at work because I get so irritated if my tools are not only put back, but put back in a specific spot.
(2) The fact that I buy books rather than borrow them or check them out of the library could probably be a blog in and of itself – and most likely will be soon.

Uhnk Sheds a Tear And Says Goodbye

2010-03-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

Thursday I went to my friend's wake; Friday I went to her funeral. The two days prior I did my normal routine, like it hadn't happened, like Tammy was still alive – I had to in order to keep from thinking about it. I hadn't really cried before Thursday. Not because of some macho “men don't cry” bullshit attitude, but because I think I was still in denial and shock. It didn't hit me that she was gone until I saw her body in the casket; then I teared up. I went outside claiming I needed a cigarette, but what I really wanted to do was be alone for about ten minutes. When I got home is when I really lost it and wept.

I met Tammy around 2000, shortly after having moved back home to Fayetteville, NC from having been in the Athens, GA area for four years while attending college. She was amongst my core group of friends for three years. Out motley little group did almost everything together – concerts, wrestling events (as in WWE), dinner out, movies, not to mention the hours we spent playing D&D and/or video games at Tammy's house. We kind of disbanded around 2003, I had a new girlfriend who would eventually become my fiancee, Tammy was starting a new job/career in law enforcement while still working on her degree – in other words, life caused us to lose touch a bit over the years.

I truly wish I could write about her accomplishments in detail, but as I said, over the last six or seven years we lost touch a bit. I do know she finally finished her degree and eventually earned the right to carry a badge and gun as part of her law enforcement career. I do know that Tammy was the kind of person that would do whatever she set her mind to, and she accomplished much of what she set out to do.

It's been said that one of the stages of coping with something like this is anger. Well, I'm angry. She was only 33. WTF! 33?! Really?! They said it was her diabetes – something about her blood sugar dropping to low and her heart stopping in her sleep. I don't care what it was, 33 is to young to die from some silly ass disease! It's things like this that makes people question God.

Mourning over my friend's death has also been a wake up call of sorts. I hate to sound cliché, but life really is short. I hate that I lost touch with her, and so many other people, over the past few years. Thanks to things like MySpace and Facebook, keeping up with friends has become easier, but it's really not the same as getting together, even if it's just over coffee once in awhile. We get so caught up in our daily routines that sometimes we forget that there is more to life than just work-eat-sleep-rinse-repeat. God gives us friends for a reason – so that we may enjoy life, and therefor live rather than merely exist, when one of those friends ceases to be in our lives (for any reason), it leaves a hole. In the case of Tammy's passing, there's now a hole in my life that is permanent. I'm a better person for having known her, but she was a unique person and a good friend that can never be replaced, only remembered. Tammy, I miss you – I'll see you in Heaven.

~ JC

This Blog is going to Suck

2010-02-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

This one's going to suck. Yep, I'll admit it. Today I'm writing for “shits & giggles” with no topic, no direction, no plan. Just typing away for really no good reason. I started blogging a few years ago, eventually moving into a weekly format, then back to sporadic, and now trying to get back into a weekly format. The problem with trying to do a weekly format, especially when your blog has no central theme (it is called Chaotic Commentary after all), is picking a subject every week. There are thousands of blogs on the Internet. There are gaming blogs, technical blogs, political blogs, religious blogs, etc. I never wanted mine to become that specific. Ergo, I have tried to write about different things every week. Now, though, it seems like I am at a point where I may have to start repeating topics. I really did not want to end up doing that, but I suppose there are only so many topics out there that I am familiar enough with to be able to write about. I guess repeating subjects is not really a bad thing, I just do not want this to become stale. So for today, this blog sucks because it's about absolutely nothing. But I figure, if I do not write something, even something that sucks, I could lose the rhythm of writing and that would be worse than the risk of repeating myself. See you next week.

~ JC

The Truth Is Out There

2010-02-21T11:11:00.002-05:00

We've all gotten them and probably still get them; the dreaded email with a subject line that begins with “FWD.” We look to see who sent it, and sure enough, it's “that person”; the one who always sends forwards of LoLCats, promises of receiving $1 for everyone we forward it to ourselves, and various other supposed “I swear to God this is true” nonsense. The question is, why? Most of this crap is just that, crap! It has been floating around the Internet for as long as the Internet has existed. In fact, I've gotten emails from people as little as a few months ago that I had also previously gotten as much as five years ago! Are people really that stupid? I have to ask. It's not like there's no way to find definitive proof of whether or not the myriad of garbage that hits our in-boxes is true or not. By now I would hope that just about everyone has at least heard of Snopes. So my question would be, if you've heard of Snopes, and you get an email like that, why the hell wouldn't you go look it up on Snopes before forwarding it to the ten people in less than .5 seconds it asks you to? I mean really folks, the old saying “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is” applies. What's more is, Snopes is not even the only source of finding out if that “FWD: DON'T DELETE THIS! I SWEAR IT'S TRUE” email really is true or not (and trust me, 99% plus of them are bogus). There is also Hoax Busters (which I had been using before discovering Snopes), and About.com's “Current Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors & Urban Legends” page, to name only two.

My general rule of thumb is, if the email subject line starts with FWD and is from a particular person who's notorious for sending forwards of this type, I just delete it without reading it. I will, however, on occasion read it to see which bullshit legend the person is perpetrating this time, look it up on one (or more) of the afore mentioned debunking sites, then hit 'reply to all' and send everyone that received the forward the link (or links) to prove it's bullshit in the hopes that the spreading of the bullshit will cease. For the most part, it's worked. At least, the friends and family members who used to send that sort of thing have stopped sending it to me. I don't know if that means they finally wised up, or just got tired of me sending them links to Snopes articles, thereby making them feel stupid, but either way, I don't have to deal with the “FWD: OMG [fill in whatever varied hoax bullshit here]” emails very often anymore.

So, before you hit that forward button next time, or reply to that prince from some far off African nation, take a moment to look that subject line up on Snopes or a similar site. You just might be thankful you did. The truth is out there; you just have to take the time to search for it.

~JC

Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors and Urban Legends Debunking Sites:

Snopes [http://www.snopes.com/]

Hoax Busters [http://www.hoaxbusters.org/]

About.com Current Internet Hoaxes, Email Rumors & Urban Legends [http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/current_netlore.htm]

and don't forget to Google for other sites like these as well.

To My Beloved

2010-02-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

It's Valentine's Day morning. You lay sleeping while I sit typing. As verbose as I am capable of being, words escape me now to express my love for you. The best I can manage is a poem stolen from another website.

You've Touched My Heart

You've given me a reason
For smiling once again,
You've filled my life with peaceful dreams
and you've become my closest friend.

You've shared your heartfelt secrets
And your trust you've given me,
You showed me how to feel again
To laugh, and love, and see.

If life should end tomorrow
And from this world I should part,
I shall be forever young
For you have touched my heart

I love you!
~ JC

Three shots to the gut...

2010-02-07T12:00:00.003-05:00

That's what it felt like. It hurt even to walk. I felt like I was carrying a solid gold brick in my belly. So what'd I do? I went home early from work, and drank Milk of Magnesia thinking it was just severe constipation. Not having health insurance, and having a general hatred of the kind of inefficient bullshit that usually happens in hospital ER's, I waited a day and a half, still drinking laxatives, before finally going to see a doctor. After being poked, x-rayed and having blood taken, I waited (still in pain mind you, because I've never been to the doctor in pain and they actually offer my anything for it). A half-hour later I was told, very matter-of-factly by the express care doctor on duty that I was not constipated, but I have diverticulitis. He actually asked me if I wanted to be admitted or be treated as an out patient. Of course, I chose outpatient and I'm sure I missed out on a wonderful (not to mention overpriced) stay with Cumberland County Health “Care” Systems (yes, I put care in quotes on purpose, but that's another rant altogether). So, after another wonderful wait at Walgreen's for about an hour and a half for my meds that we were told would take thirty minutes and cost almost $150, I headed home where I've been for close to two weeks developing cabin fever, muscle atrophy, and a pretty fucked up sleeping pattern.

I can't believe I'm only 38 and I've developed an “old man” disease already. I mean really? Diverticulitis? I know I'm fat, but damn. And I'm not getting any younger, but what the hell? For those of you who don't know, and are to lazy to look it up, diverticulitis is a disease that effects the lower large intestines (aka, the colon). Little pockets, called diverticula, form along the wall of the colon. Sometimes things get stuck in those pockets and they can become infected, causing diverticulitis. It hurts like a mother frakker. Now, here's the fun part; it can cause both constipation or diarrhea – WTF? How can the same disease have two totally opposite symptoms? Anyway, suffice it to say that I now get to eat a wonderful “old-man”, high-fiber diet to help keep this from happening again. And for the record, Metamucil decidedly does not taste like Tang, don't let anyone fool you!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the medicine and what a joy that's been to take. Now, the pain killer prescribed was Vicodin; I'm down with that. Vicodin's some good stuff with a wonderful penchant for making me sleep, and I like sleep. The antibiotic however, was one I'd never heard of; a little $14+ per pill number called Levaquin (conveniently not available in a less expensive, generic form). I looked it up. It's used for treating venereal diseases! WTF? Oh, and it “may cause dizziness.” Said so right on the bottle. So, I have an antibiotic that causes dizziness and a pain killer that does the same. Oh, yay! I get to be loopy as hell for a week! But that's not all. Seems the Levaquin also has some other side effects like muscle soreness and muscle spasms, which I directly got to experience. Boy it sure was fun having my whole torso cramp at one time to the point that I couldn't catch a breath and was almost bucked out of my chair for a full 20 minutes. Oh, and then there was the not being able to lay down at all for several days after and having to sleep in a recliner, because going prone caused the spasms to make an encore. Yep, if the disease doesn't get you, the meds will, eh?

So, this whole adventure started about eleven days ago. I can tell the infection's gone (never mind how), but things still hurt inside and I'm still having cramps. My BM's are not normal. I can almost sleep laying down (so far the couch on my back works better than on the bed one my stomach which I would prefer). I'm afraid to eat for fear of the pain it will cause coming out the other end. When I do eat, I'm eating high fiber muffins and drinking Metamucil in the morning as though I'm 70 years old. I'm almost broke because I've not even been able to go in to pick up paycheks from the hours I worked before this happened, plus the fact that I've missed a week and a half of work already and I'm not really sure if I should try to go back to work tomorrow or not.

This has been a cautionary tale. Don't let this happen to you. It sucks and it hurts. And I have no frakkin' idea how it happened to me.

~ JC

Sometimes It's the Simple Things

2010-01-17T09:55:00.001-05:00

We live in a fast food, video game society. We want what we want, and we want it they way we want it, and we want it right now. I, too, have succumbed to the world of Massively Multi-player Online games, only recently overcoming that addiction. As I get older, though, I find myself wanting to do nothing more than relax in my favorite chair and either read or watch TV. In fact, now that I've overcome my overwhelming need to play World of Warcraft (or should I say “Warcrack”), I'm rediscovering the joy of reading and actual role-playing games (let's be honest, WoW and the like call themselves RPG's, but they really aren't).

At the end of November my friends and I figured out a way to play Dungeons & Dragons despite being hundreds of miles apart from each other. Last night, we expanded that experience to include the game RIFTS. We also have plans to begin delving into the World of Darkness eventually as well. Now, it may seem strange to most that at the age of thirty-eight I still find enjoyment in this kind of entertainment, but as they say, sometimes it's the simple things in life that give us the most pleasure. Just like I enjoy losing myself in a good book, role-playing games are a way to lose myself in a living novel that I get to help write on the fly.

Anyway, all I'm saying is, don't get caught up in the fast paced bullshit that plagues us in the 21^st century. Slow down, enjoy some simple pleasures. Yep, the life long geek is telling you to back off the technology for a bit – go figure.

~ JC

A Note of Thanks

2010-01-01T12:04:00.001-05:00

I started this blog in September of 2006. Alas, I didn't discover Google Analytics with which to track visits to the site until almost exactly two years later, in September 2008. However, from September 27, 2008 to December 31, 2009, Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary has had 964 visits from 885 people in 56 countries and territories. Sure, based on the bounce rate, a lot of those visits were very brief and probably accidental, but still, I never in my wildest dreams thought that my little blog would attract that many readers (or potential readers). I only started a blog to have a creative outlet to vent frustrations or to write about ideas. In fact, it wasn't until March 2008 that I attempted to write a blog at least once a week (a feat that lasted almost a year before I took a break for a few months as I was running out of ideas). Recently, I've tried to start writing more often, hopefully moving back into the weekly format of posting every Sunday (but I make no guarantees – I'm not going to write for writing's sake if I know I don't really have anything to say).

I would like to take a moment, now, however to thank everyone who has ever read Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary, and to especially thank those who have actually taken the time to leave their own comments. I suppose that's why writers write; so that someone will read it. Even though I never set out to have a blog that anyone other than myself and few friends might occasionally glance at, I've somehow manged to attract almost 1,000 readers from all around the world. So, I'll keep writing (when the mood hits or the topic really grinds my gears), you keep reading (if it's interesting enough) and we'll all be able to enjoy our Sunday morning coffee together.

~ JC

2009 Christmas Booty (and thoughts)

2009-12-25T12:15:00.000-05:00

So, here's my haul for 2009

As tradition dictates, a pint of Jack Daniel's from my Mom

a replica of the infamous leg lamp from “A Christmas Story”

Old Spice gift set

“Casino” on DVD

“Tropic Thunder” on DVD

“Echoes of War: The Music of Blizzard Entertainment” CD boxed set

Hershey's Extra Dark Chocolate Assortment

Picture frame with a picture of my niece and Santa

A fancy picture frame

GreenAir Scented Reed Diffuser

Tankard O' Terror replica stein

$35 worth of BestBuy gift cards

Jelly Belly jelly beans

a pack of Handkerchiefs

a 4-Seasonings Sampler Pack (popcorn seasonings)

Heel Tastic (because I have very dry, crusty skin on my heels)

(note: some of the above were tagged as being to both my wife and myself)

Now, every year I post the list of what I got for Christmas on my blog. I don't do it so much so say “Hey, look at what I got!” but more to help me remember what I received and to remember to be thankful for it. I have to admit, this year I wasn't in a very Christmas-sy mood. At the beginning of Christmas week, I was really just ready for it to be over with so I could go back to my regularly scheduled routine. After last night's annual family gathering, and watching all the kids get excited about Christmas and Santa Clause, I have to admit, I'm very glad I overcame my Grinchy outlook. But let us not forget what Christmas, and the holiday season is about. For Christians it is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. For Pagans, it's the Winter Solstice. For Jews it is the commemoration of the re rededication of the Holy Temple. But, whatever your religious persuasion (or even lack thereof), the season itself is about peace, goodwill, generosity – in other words, all that is good about humanity. Instead, what we get is rudeness, selfishness and greed as everyone clamors for gifts and the retailers gladly take your hard earned money without a care. I guess that's why I wanted Christmas to be over this year – it just wasn't seeming very jolly with all the stress. Why have we let what is supposed to be the best time of the year become one of the worst? Think about that for the next 365 days, and maybe next year Christmas can be a lot less stressful and a whole lot more peaceful!

Merry Christmas!

~ JC

Droid Part 2

2009-12-20T16:42:00.000-05:00

About a month ago I wrote a blog about my new Motorola Droid, which I had only had for a day. I've now had it for about thirty days, so I'm here to give you an update on how it's performed. Hope you find it helpful. If nothing else, I've updated my blog as promised :-) (again, sorry this is a week late).

Battery Life

I'll begin with the battery life, because that's usually a sticking point for a lot of people on their mobile devices. Let's just call it like it is: the battery life could be much better. However, this is true of all modern mobile devices and cellphones, most especially with smartphones. To put it simply, my take is that the technology available for mobile phones has reached a point that they are surpassing the battery technology available to them. The first couple of days I had the Droid, the battery life just plain sucked. The device would be down to 20% of battery life by the end of the day, almost without exception. Keep in mind, though, that I was spending a lot more time using and playing with the phone that first few days than would be considered normal usage for me as I familiarized myself with how it worked and downloaded various apps for it. By the end of the second week my usage had become a bit more normal, and now the battery is down to only about 50% by the end of the day (by end of the day, I mean by the time I'm plugging it in to charge and heading to bed).

Smartphones in general have shorter battery lives than the average, standard cellphone mainly due to the fact that they are performing lots of tasks in the background even when they are not actively in use for a phone call, surfing the web or text messaging, etc. So, the lesser battery life isn't a deal breaker, it just means you'll want to make sure you have a way to charge it often (vehicle charger for example) even if you are away from home.

Bluetooth Functionality

I've been using Bluetooth enabled headsets for years. I've always used a headset while driving, and I loved when Bluetooth came out so I could have a wireless headset and not have to worry about getting things tangled up while in the car. The Bluetooth functionality on the Droid leaves a little be desired, however. The sound quality is just fine; it's really neither any better nor worse than the sound quality I've had with other phones. The issue I have with Bluetooth on the Droid is that there appears to be no support for the headsets multifunction button. I cannot answer a call with the headset, control call waiting with the headset, or activate voice dial with the headset. This is rather annoying to be honest. One of the things I've always loved about Bluetooth is being able to tap the button on the headset and say something like “Call Rob” and the phone would call my friend Rob without me having to touch the phone itself. With the Droid, I have to tap the voice dial icon on the touchscreen, then say “Call Rob” then select it from the list of items the Droid thinks I meant. Not really very safe if you're driving at 75mph on the interstate, y'know? So, I'd like to see Google fix that in future patches of the Android OS. Those of you who don't use Bluetooth, of course, probably won't care about this though.

Music Player

This is the one where I take some umbrage with some of the reviews I read about the Droid prior to buying it. The music player works exactly as it should; it plays music. What else do you want? Some reviews panned how the music player's UI looked or functioned. I see no issue with it. It lists your music by artist, song, album or by playlists. I fail to see how a music player could really do anymore than that. Do you want it to display album covers too? Why? You're not really going to be looking down at the thing while lisetnig to music, it's going to be in your pocket or holster. In short, it functions as a music player and that's all that is really needed – moving on.

Volume

Without going into a long diatribe on this, I'll just say that the volume on the Droid is beyond impressive. I actually have to turn the volume down when I'm at home and the phone is sitting on my desk. At full volume (actually, not even quite full volume) I can hear my phone ring when I'm at work, and I work in a leather shop where we have some pretty loud equipment running at times (air compressor, belt sanders). I even was able to use the music player in my car one day when I was unable to find a suitable radio station and the generic cradle I have basically covers up the phone's external speaker.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is very responsive and very easy to see, even when standing outdoors. In fact, it's almost to good. I've found myself tapping icons by just hovering my finger over the screen to close. My only real beef with the screen is that it is very prone to smudges and I have to clean it fairly often.

Apps

Ok, let's get down to the nitty gritty here, the Apps for Android. The real reason anyone would get a smartphone like the Droid (or the iPhone) is the ability to customize it with apps, right? Ok, maybe that's not the driving reason for getting a phone like this, but it's definitely a big factor in how this phone functions for its individual owners. When I got the phone, there were an estimated 10,000 apps available in the Android Market; there are now around 20,000. So, there are lots of things to choose from, some bad, some good, some great, and some just downright stupid/useless. In the last thirty or so days, I've downloaded dozens of apps. Some I still use, but I've also deleted several. In fact, I'd say I've deleted more apps than I've kept. I don't want to drag this out, because I realize that I've probably lost a few readers by now, and, let's be honest, I've already written one blog on this topic, and this one is getting a little long winded itself. So, I'll give you my list of what I'm currently using and let you deicide for yourself.

Dolphin Browser – the stock Android browser appears to be Safari Mobile. It works, but I really like Dolphin better since it has tabbed browsing and supports the ability to use dual touch for zooming in and out like the iPhone does. It also has shortcuts to various Google services built into it.
Documents to Go – available in both a free and paid version. The free version allows you to view Word and Excel documents. The paid version allows you to not only view, but also edit Word, Excel and Power Point documents as well as view PDF documents. It normally sells for $29.99 USD, but I managed to catch it on sale for only $9.99 so I bought the full version.
Astro – this is almost a must have app. The one thing about the Android OS that falls short is that it has no built in way to manage files on either the device or the micro-SD card without plugging it into you computer via the USB cable. Astro gives you that ability.
Astrid – simply put, it's a to do list app, but the reason I chose this one over others is because it has built in sync capabilities with the very popular Remember the Milk web based to do list without having to subscribe to the full version of RtM in order to use RtM's own app (if you subscribe to RtM, then you'll probably want to use their app as I would think the sync and integration would be better).
MySpace Mobile – self explanatory I think. I actually almost like using this better than the actual MySpace (to bad Facebook mobile isn't as well done).
Yellowbook – basically an app for using Yellowbook.com
Assistant Free – for those of you who use Page Once, you'll want this one as it is there mobile app for Android. It is also available in a paid version. I went with the free version because, while I like Page Once, I don't use it extensively.
Pandora – free Internet radio. You do have to create an account, but then you can log into at home or work via any web browser in addition to on your phone (caution, this is one of those apps that will drain the battery over time because it is streaming music over either a 3G or Wi-Fi Internet connection)
Aldiko – one of dozens of eBook readers available in the Android Market – if you especially love classic literature, this a good thing to have.
Bible – there are tons of Bible apps in the Marketplace. The one I chose simply calls itself “Bible” and contains pretty much every English translation of the Bible that I've ever heard of, plus I few I didn't know about. Has a daily reading feature for those of you who try to read through the entire Bible in a year, bookmarks, and adjustable font size. For those of you who are Catholic, however, it does not include the Apocryphal Old Testament Books. In fact, I'm not sure if I remembered seeing one that did.
Games – I've downloaded three games; two different chess apps and one solitaire app that has four different versions of solitaire (standard, spider, free cell and one called “forty thieves”)
Barcode Scanner – allows you to scan a barcode on an item and then searches Google for the items so you can do price comparison shopping while standing in the store
Zedge – a great app for free wallpapers and ringtones to customize your phone
Key Ring – eliminates all those little cards on your keyring by allowing you to scan them and store them in your phone instead.
Twidroid – syncs with Twitter for those of you who like to Tweet
Weather Channel – an app by The Weather Channel – need I say more? (it will use the phone's built in GPS to give you weather for your current location, or you can manually enter a city or zip code)
Quick Tip Calculator – enter the amount of your restaurant/bar bill, the percentage of tip you want to leave, and how many ways to split it, and voila! It tells you how much each person needs to leave to cover the tab and tip
United States Constitution – like the Bible app, there are dozens. The one I have also includes The Declaration of Independence as well as other historical documents (I just think everyone should have a copy of the US Constitution)
NFL and NHL – both of these “apps” basically are shortcuts to those league's respective mobile sites for scores, standings and news

And that pretty much covers what I'm currently using. Note, this is just the list of apps I've downloaded; it does not include the apps that came pre-installed in the device. If you compare this list to the list in part one of this series, then you'll see that there were some that I no longer have listed. As I mentioned above, I've had a lot of apps that didn't make the cut, some didn't even stay on my phone more than five or ten mintues (like the virtual bubble wrap – fun for a minute or two, but then just useless).

So, there it is, the final in my two part series on the Motorola Droid. I hope you enjoyed it and that it helps you make your own informed decision on next cellphone upgrade.

~ JC

My Appologies

2009-12-13T20:06:00.001-05:00

I realize I had promised a detailed review of the Motorola Droid for this week's blog. Alas, I was quite overcome by an extreme feeling of fatigue and spent the entire day in bed. In fact, I'm still feeling pretty icky. So, I will try to either have that for you next week, or I'll work on it throughout the week and get it posted asap.

~ JC

Goin' Old School

2009-12-06T12:05:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it is the simpler things in life that give the most enjoyment. I have often blogged about my experiences with playing Massively Multilayer Online (MMO) Role Playing Games (RPGs), namely World of Warcraft (WoW). Within the last two to three weeks, however, I have logged into WoW only a few times, finding myself getting very bored, very fast. I started playing WoW over a year ago as a way of being able to game with my friends who are now scattered all over the U.S. with whom I would have been playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) or some other similar “paper & ink” RPG. The problem with computer based games, whether online or not, is that once maximum level is obtained, there generally becomes a limited amount of content to experience, at least until the next patch or expansion is released. It is this fact that lead my best friend and I to seek a way to play D&D despite the fact that he lives in Atlanta, GA, and I live in Fayetteville, NC (to spare you having to find a map, that's roughly a 6-8 hour drive or about 370 miles; not exactly conducive to being able to sit at each other's kitchen tables once a week. To further exacerbate the situation, everyone else in our gaming group was just as far away or farther from both of us (one in Charlotte, NC and another in Michigan!). So, this is about how we found a way to go old school RPG in the information super-highway age.

Goin' Old School in New Ways

As I mentioned before, we were beginning to get bored with WoW; no new content had been added in a couple of months nor was scheduled to be released until weeks later. We also found ourselves in a guild that seemed to be unable to move forward on high level raiding content due to scheduling conflicts, and our efforts to find a guild to raid resulted in basically finding people who were, shall we say, less than friendly (i.e., they were douche bags). So, we decided to check out Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO), mainly because it had just changed to being a “free to play” MMORPG. Playing DDO made me feel nostalgic for the old days, and I began mentioning to both Rob and Jere that I wished we could find a way to play D&D via a chat room or something (yeah, I know, chat rooms are so 90s). Our search netted us to pieces of software to aid us, Ventrilo (which we had been using with WoW anyway) and OpenRPG. “Vent” would give us the ability to talk to each other, while OpenRPG would give us a virtual table top on which to place (digital) miniatures and roll our dice. Perfect! Some additional hunting on my part turned up a program called Redblade, that not only is a D&D character creation program, but allows for export to a standard HTML document, making it very easy to share character sheets via email. Now we just had to get the group together.

We're Rollin' Now

I'm not going to drag out all the details of the few weeks it took us to put it all together learning how to use Redblade and OpenRPG to our satisfaction, Rob getting his server setup for us to be able to use Ventrilo without having to buy server space, relearning the 3.5 edition D&D rules, finding people to play, etc., etc. Suffice it to say, it eventually went off without a much of a hitch. Last night was the first time in years I've been able to play D&D or anything else like it, and I have to say, it was pretty awesome. Sure, it lacked some of the nuance of sitting around a kitchen table in someone's house where we could all drink beer, eat mass quantities of chips and just enjoy each others company as we enjoyed the game, but still, being able to get together with old friends who share the hobby of gaming is fun no matter how it's accomplished. We figure from here the sky's the limit. OpenRPG isn't D&D specific; it's just a virtual table top with virtual dice rollers. There are a plethora of RPGs out there that we used to play. It's just a matter of pulling them all out of storage and refreshing our memories and our imaginations. It's not high tech. It's not all noise and lights and endless questing for better gear. It's simple, old school gaming like we used to do before there was Internet and gaming consoles. And you know what? I love it!

~ JC

Next week: My second review of the Motorola Droid; it will have been almost a month since I bought, so I'll let you know how it's performing and what apps I like and don't like.

This is the DROID I've Been Looking For

2009-11-22T15:31:00.003-05:00

Like most people, every two years I get a new cellphone whether I really need to or not. My last phone, the LG Voyager, turned out to be a bit of a let down in terms of its ability to access the Internet. So, for the last two years I've bided my time until my next upgrade date and read reviews of various smartphones. Until recently the choices for smartphone operating system were Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Blackberry. None of these particularly appealed to me. When the iPhone hit the market, it seemed to have set the mobile device world on its ear and showed that a hand held device really could be both a phone and a solid device for accessing the Internet. The problem with the iPhone was (and in my opinion still is) the fact that it is exclusively on the AT&T network. I remember reading a lot of reviews of the iPhone complaining about this fact and that Apple had signed a five year exclusivity deal with AT&T. So, when I found out that Verizon had launched a new smartphone a few weeks ago that utilized the Android Mobile OS developed by Google, I became quite excited. No other smartphone in the VZW catalog has appealed to me as much as the Motorola DROID, so I embarked on doing a lot of research on this new device. I read reviews, watched YouTube videos, weighed all the pros and cons and finally made my way to the nearest Verizon Store to check it out for myself (which means, I went to go play with it *grin*). It didn't take long for me to be hooked and within a few minutes I had made up my mind that I wanted to use my upgrade eligibility to get the DROID. I've had it now less than twenty-four hours, but I want to share my first impressions.

First of all, I love the size of the phone. I've heard a few people say that think the phone is to big. I love the fact that this device is not the tiny, small-buttoned phone that seems to permeate the market. I'm a big guy, with fat thumbs; I need the keyboard (be it virtual or real) to be large lest I hit the wrong keys. The DROID has, essentially, three keyboards; one physical, slide-out keyboard and two virtual on-screen keyboards (I say two, because the virtual keyboard can be used when the phone is either vertical or horizontal). The dimensions of the phone aren't really that large; it's essentially the same size as my Voyager (perhaps slightly wider, but also a bit thinner). It just appears larger because of the generously sized 3.7 inch screen (to put that in perspective, my Garmin Nuvi 255W GPS has a 4.3” screen, so it's not much bigger). The phone also has some heft. That's not to say it's heavy, but it's not feather-light either; personally, I like that too. I would prefer that the physical keyboard's keys were a bit larger as I have hit a few wrong keys (again, fat-thumb syndrome), but I'm sure I'll get used to the layout soon. Overall, the phone feels very solid and is very easy to handle and see. In fact, most of the reviews I've read seem to point out how easy the screen is to see both in terms of it's size and it's very vivid resolution.

Ok, enough about how the phone looks, let's move on to function. I'll start with the phone functionality itself, since that's probably what it will be used for the most. I have to say, it's very different not having a send or end key (even the Voyager had that even though it is also a touch screen device). Other than that it is pretty straight forward to use the phone on the DROID. Simply press the phone icon and up comes the dial pad. Dial the number, press the green phone receiver icon, and there you go. When you're done, tap the red phone receiver icon and the call is ended. It's just that simple. The contact list is very impressive thus far. It automatically integrates and syncs with my Google Contacts, which means I didn't have to spend an hour manually transferring my phonebook from the Voyager to the DROID or trying to use the wireless backup service from VZW (which doesn't work the same with the smartphones as it does other phones). Of course, the fact that I had put everyone's email addresses and phone numbers into Google some time ago helped, but it's still pretty cool that the sync feature works so smoothly. Dialing a number from the contacts list is pretty easy, even it does require more screen taps to pull off. I also like the fact that I can set Favorites in my contact list so that the people I call most are placed in a shorter list rather than having to scroll through all of my contacts looking for them. The only cons I can think of here are the lack of a speed dial list (at least, I haven't found one yet) and that the phone does not support one touch voice dialing via my Bluetooth headset. The phone does have a voice dial app already built in, however. You just have to tap it first, so I've put it in a very easy to find spot on the home screen should I need it while driving. So far, I've really only made one phone call with the DROID, but the sound quality was superb. I switched from the Bluetooth to the speakerphone seamlessly with the controls on the screen that come up while in a call and the I have to say, the speakerphone on this thing is loud and clear (on the Voyager, the sound was muffled unless you opened the flip to expose the speakers).

Now for the fun stuff (the Android OS, the Browser and the Apps) that make this a smartphone instead of just another cellphone. I won't lie, I immediately starting playing with these features before I made my first phone call or sent my first text message. In fact, the salesperson had me enter my Gmail account information in the store before I even left as part of the phone's initial setup. The touch screen is very responsive (in fact, I may need to see if I can adjust the sensitivity in the settings). I love that I can customize the home screen, not only in terms of what applications are there, but also in how the icons are laid out. Naturally, being a Google Android based device, Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube are preloaded as applications. Being that I've used Gmail as my primary email for several years as well as using Google Calendar for keeping track of birthdays and appointments, this was a big plus. Facebook mobile is also preloaded, which is a nice touch (although, I'm sure I would've downloaded it anyway). One of the features of Android that I love is how it notifies me of when I get an email or text message. Rather than popping up on screen automatically (which I've always found annoying, especially if I'm already trying to read a previous message or compose one) it uses the status bar at the top of the screen. When I'm ready to view the message(s), all I have to do is expand the status bar to full screen. This has the added benefit of allowing me to read messages in any order I want instead of having to read them in the reverse order they arrived in.

The browser on the DROID is awesome! Unlike the Voyager, it's not limited to WAP versions of websites or simple HTML. So far, every site I've pulled up has loaded just as it would on my computer. Of course, it's much smaller, so I do usually have to zoom in to read the text, but the fact that I can even view sites with dynamic elements like Fash and Java is great. On the Voyager, I eventually dropped the unlimited mobile web feature from my plan because I just wasn't using it. On the DROID, I'm almost glad to start paying an extra $30 a month again since I can actually see my favorite Internet sites as they are intended to be viewed. Again, this is why I love the size of this phone, because if the screen were any smaller, it would be useless for web browsing (of course, any larger, and it would become to cumbersome to carry around).

Let's talk about Apps! The Android Market (which is the equivalent to the iPhone's “App Store”) has been criticized for only having around 10,000 apps compared to the over 100,000 available to iPhone users. So what? 10K applications to choose from is plenty, especially when you consider that both the DROID's and iPhone's users aren't going to come close to using all of those. For every useful app I've found, I've found dozens that have no appreciable use (at least, not to me). Either way, the fact that I can download applications to customize my DROID to suit my needs versus not being able to do that with my Voyager, is just plain awesome. So far, I've found several apps to make life a little easier or fun, especially when I'm away from my computer (like when I have to sit for an hour getting my oil changed or if I decide to go sit at a coffee shop to just get out of the house for a bit). Here's a list of some of the apps I've downloaded so far:

Aldiko – an eBook reader; came preloaded with The Art of War and The Invisible Man, and has a pretty big library of free, public domain books available. There are serveral eBook readers to choose from in the Market, some free, some that you have to pay for.
Pandora – a free streaming Internet radio application that is customizable. The fact that the DROID (unlike the iPhone) can run multiple apps at once makes this a very usable music app since I can continue doing other things while still listening to music.
Barcode Scanner – this turns your DROID's camera into a barcode scanner and links with Google Product Search so you can shop online for the best price on an item while you are still standing in the store.
Key Ring – this one seems pretty cool, but has gotten mixed reviews, so I'll have to test it out to see if it's worth keeping. What it does is, allows you to scan and save all those little discount club cards you keep on your key ring into your DROID so you can clear your key ring of all the clutter.
United States Constitution – there are several apps like this available. The one I selected includes not only the Constitution but also the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, et.,al.
Twidroid – a Twitter app available in both free version and a paid version if you need more features.
SportsTap – a sports score app that can be configured to send you updates on your favorite team(s) for when you can't watch the game yourself.

There are also a few other apps I'm considering such as “Open Home” which allows for more home screen customization and “Locale” which allows you to use the DROID's built in GPS to set profiles for your device based on where you are located (like automatically going into silent mode when you are at your favorite movie theater). Visual Voicemail is also available on the Android platform and while the app itself is free, to use it I'd have to pay an extra $2.99 a month on my monthly bill, so I'm still debating if that's really worth it or not.

All-in-all, I love the DROID. I finally am able to have an iPhone-like experience without having to deal with AT&T's questionable 3G coverage or Apple's proprietary nonsense. I'm very pleased that Verizon chose to let the Android OS do it's job as intended without imposing their standard VZW UI as they usually do giving me the freedom to do what I want with the device, while still having access to Verizon's superior (in my opinion) 3G coverage and speed. As I said though, it has not even been twenty-four hours, so I'll have to let you know about other things (like battery life, which so far seems low, but I've also been using it rather heavily downloading apps and getting used to the UI, so once I start using it “normally” I'll have to see how the battery does). For now, I have to give the Motorola DROID 5-out-of-5 stars.

~ JC

Your Hobby Sucks... but then again, so does mine

2009-11-08T12:15:00.000-05:00

Everyone has a hobby, or at least something they enjoy doing when they are not working or sleeping. What is a hobby or pastime if not just a big time sink? I mean, let's think about this for a moment. There are twenty-four hours in day. Most of us work six to eight of those hours and sleep six-to-eight as well (for the sake of argument, we will go with the “normal” eight hour work day and eight hours of sleep per day). That leaves an extra eight hours to kill everyday. You have to fill that time with something (hopefully, bathing and eating are amongst those activities). So, the question remains, what to do with all that free time? Housework? Yardwork? Sure, those are things that need to be done, and on days that one doesn't have to be at work, there are even eight extra hours to be filled beyond the normal eight the other five days. So, people find ways to keep themselves busy or entertained to fill the void, right? The point is, no one really has the correct answer to this equation, but I would be willing to bet they think they do. Why? Because so many of us love to put down or criticize others who fill their free time with activities that we would not or do not enjoy, so therefore, their hobby must suck.

As a lifelong gaming geek who has enjoyed playing role playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and the like for over twenty years, I have always had to catch hell from others who do not understand why I play/played such games. Now that we have moved into the age of the Internet and World Wide Web, those interests in RPGs has moved to into the realm of playing MMORGPs such as World of Warcraft and D&D Online. Now, I freely admit that I am a bit OCD at times and when I take up a hobby, be it a game or other activity, I tend to become immersed in it to the point of being almost evangelistic when speaking of it. So, I can kind of see where I would get on someone's nerves who is not interested in those activities. However, that does not mean that I am wrong for enjoying them does it? I ask because sometimes I find people that seem to think I am. I hear questions all the time like, “Why do you play [insert name of game here]? That game is stupid!” or “That is such a waste of time.” To the first statement I'll say, it is a free country and your are entitled to you opinion. To the second statement, yes, it is a waste of time; that's the point! I have eight extra hours to fill everyday, and anything I do outside of work or sleep can be categorized as a waste of time (you know, except for household chores and the aforementioned bathing and eating). I want to be clear on this so I'll use all caps, ALL HOBBIES ARE A WASTE OF TIME! Yep, I said it. I don't care what you choose as a hobby, it is nothing but a waste of time. That's the point. If we aren't working, sleeping or doing chores, we want, (dare I say, need) our other time to be wasted doing something other than staring at a wall being bored.

I guess what I'm getting at is this. In the gaming world, geeks can become quite vicious when talking about or defending their particular game. People who play WoW think that people who play other MMORPGs are stupid. People who used to play WoW and quit talk trash to and put down those who still play, and it goes on and on an on; just find any message board on gaming if you don't believe me. But even outside of the gaming community people can become quite petty about things. Persons A and B both like to read, for example. Person A likes to read trashy romance novels, while Person B prefers Science-Fiction. Now, neither of these genres serve any purpose other than to be entertaining. They aren't scholarly books that might teach the reader something about history or politics or science or any of hundreds of other topics. So they both want to know why the other one reads “that crap.” And of course, Person C comes along and wants to know why either of them waste their time reading “that crap” since he “doesn't waste my time reading fiction.” Then there are the people who do not even enjoy reading at all and wonder why all the “nerds” are reading when they could just be watching TV or going to a movie instead.

Maybe I'm just over sensitive because it seems that gaming geeks like me seem to catch the most shit from people who don't get why we play games. But the real point to this whole diatribe is, no one truly has the right to question anyone else's hobby or pastime. Just because you don't enjoy, doesn't make it invalid and just because you do enjoy it doesn't make it “better” than mine or anyone else's. So, STFU and go play your games, read your trashy romance novel, watch you reality TV shows, pimp your rides, or whatever else cremes your Twinkie. Just remember to eat and bathe (especially bathe; that one is a non-negotiable).

~ JC

D&D Online - 1st Impressions

2009-11-01T09:28:00.000-05:00

As everyone who knows me or regularly checks out my blog knows, I'm a World of Warcraft fanatic. I've been playing it since August of 2008, I've gotten two characters to the level of cap (currently 80) and I still play almost everyday (the number of hours per day varies based on what's on TV that night or if I have other real life things to do). Lately, however, the game has become, well, a bit tedious and even frustrating. Once a “toon” hits 80 in WoW, there's little else to do except run the same daily quests (everyday – hence the “daily” part) to make gold and grind out reputation with different factions and try to earn or find the best gear available in the game. All this is done in order to experience the “end game” content – this is content meant for max level characters wearing the best gear. But what happens when there is no one on to play that content with? Raids require either 10 or 25 toons in the party to even have a chance of completing, so when there's only eight guildmates online, and half of those either aren't level 80 or or just turned 80 and don't have the gear to survive the end game raids yet, what is one to do? Hmmm.... level up an “alt” or go do more dailies? Ok, but even that gets boring after awhile – I mean, leveling an alternate character means going back and doing all the same quests you did with your main character months ago and gets really bland really fast. So, in order to keep things fresh, a couple of us have decided that when we're feeling burned out on WoW we'd try something different lest we end up quitting WoW entirely to keep from going mad. That something, for now anyway, is Dungeons & Dragons Online.

The first thing of note about Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) is that it's advertised as Free to Play. This sounds like a great thing since I'm already paying $15 per month to play WoW; I can play DDO for free and not have to maintain subscriptions to two different games. The problem with the Free to Play concept, however, is the limitation of only being allowed a maximum of two characters in contrast to the up to fifty I could have on WoW. It is the Free to Play option of DDO that made me willing to give it a try though, so I'll gladly deal with the limitations in race and class selections that are also imposed for free players. The game client itself for DDO is also a free download and generally takes only a few mintues to download and setup (I had some issues that caused it to take over an hour, but the two friends who are trying this out with me said it only took them about five minutes). WoW's client is technically a free download, but the license keys to actually get beyond the 10-day trial do have costs ($19.99 for the Basic Game, plus $29.99 for the “Burning Crusade” expansion and another $39.99 for the “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion – the expansions aren't necessary to play the game, but they are necessary if you want to advance beyond level 60, but I digress). WoW's client typically takes up to two hours to completely install regardless of using the download option or actually obtaining the DVD discs due to all of the patches and updates that will have to download (WoW is currently on version 3.2 with 3.3 due out soon, so even if you're only planning on doing the basic game, you still have to get all the patches). So, as far as the client and costs are concerned, DDO gets the advantage (at least at first glance; however, DDO can cost real life money if you want to do anything beyond the basics).

My initial reaction to DDO's user interface was that it was just plain bad in my opinion. It's was confusing. Most other MMORPGs use similar controls such as right clicking to attack a target while using left click to simply target something without necessarily attacking it. Now that I've spent some time playing (I've made it to level 2 *grin*) and gotten used to it, it's not so bad. It is more interactive in combat than WoW's UI. In WoW, a target is picked, and buttons are pushed depending on which ability you wish to attack with. In DDO, you keep left clicking on your target, which may or may not move around, to keep attacking and your hits and damage are determined by a d20 die roll just like in the table top version of D&D. There are special abilities in DDO as in WoW, and the player still activates those abilities the same way, by clicking them on their action bar, but in DDO there are no macros to string abilities into a single button push. So, I like DDO's combat a little better than WoW's since in WoW it's not very engaging to simply click buttons over and over. In DDO I have to pay attention to the fight, move around, and try to keep clicking my target(s).

Game play in DDO seems to be a lot less grind oriented than does WoW. There is no race to get better gear, no mindless running around on quests that require you to kill 50 of something or collect 25 this-or-that. DDO is all quest and dungeon crawl driven in it's leveling methods. You get the quest from the quest giver, you find the entrance to the dungeon (usually not far from the quest giver), you go inside the dungeon, you complete the quest-line (complete with a check list on screen to help guide you) and then turn in the quest at the end for your reward – VOILA! In WoW, you pick up the quest, run around trying to find whatever/whoever/whichever it is you need to kill/gather, usually well away from the quest giver, and grind until you get bored or complete the quest. Assuming you diddn't give up and abandon the quest, you go turn it in for a reward that you may or may not be able to use. Which brings up another point – quest rewards. DDO has a feature built in that causes all quest reward selections from the quest giver to be class appropriate. I like that. In WoW, playing a leather armor wearing rogue, it was very frustrating for the quest rewards to be selections of caster-class cloth, or plate armor for the warriors and paladins – all I could do was select the most expensive one, and sell it. In DDO, my Dwarf Barbarian is given a selection of items, all of which he could use, it's just a matter of deciding, based on how I want to play him, which one would be the most useful. Oh, and all the dungeons in DDO have the option to do them on normal mode, hard mode, epic mode or simply solo mode, so you don't have to go hunting for a group or waiting for guildies to log on if you don't want to.

In terms of content, the content in DDO hasn't really drawn me in yet. There doesn't seem to be much of a storyline, but truthfully, very few people who play MMORPG's even pay attention to that anyway; they read enough of the quest text to know what they need to do to complete it, and that's it. So as far as that goes, WoW may appear to have a more detailed and elaborate back-story than DDO, but in the end, that doesn't really matter. I'm playing the game, if I really want to become that immersed in a great story, I'll turn off the computer and go read a book.

Now, let's bear in mind here that I've only been playing DDO for a few hours total since I downloaded it on Friday night and I've been playing WoW for over a year. I'm certainly not saying that I'm about to quit WoW (for which my subscription is paid for through mid-January) and start playing a free MMO entirely. There are things that I think DDO does better than WoW such as better graphics, a better questing system, and more interactive combat, but there are things that they fall short on as well, such a UI that may be almost to simplistic and doesn't allow for much customization (WoW allows others to write addons so players can fully customize the UI if they want to). All I'm saying is, I love gaming, and I want to continue to play an MMO (let's face it, there's nothing on TV worth watching anymore), so DDO is a nice substitute for when WoW starts getting boring because I've done it over and over to many times.

Until next time – PEACE!

~ JC