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SXSW Rant

Fanboy, Geek Life, Random Thoughts No Responses »

Mar 122013

If you’re within a stone’s throw of Austin TX, you know that South by Southwest is going on. If you live in or around Austin, it’s getting shoved down your throat. I’m not saying that SXSW is a bad thing. The hotels, city and all sorts of businesses in town are raking in the bucks. That is cool but what here’s what’s got me ranting.
SXSW started out as a small event. They were laid back and just informal enough to have that nice and cosy feeling. Now, they’ve grown into megaevents. Now, it’s about armbands, VIP parties and basically a shit load of marketing buzz. It’s not the cute puppy any more. It’s that lumbering dog that knocks everything off the coffee table. Roads are closed. Traffic is horrible. And there’s almost the feeling that locals get put aside.
So ends my little rant. I have to leave three hours early and I hope I can find a parking space for something that has nothing to do with SXSW.

The Year That Was & Now The Year That Will Be

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Jan 012012

There were big plans for 2011 and life did not cooperate. Things were pretty tough for the last half of the year and there’s still plenty of work to get things back to normal. OK, I’ll be honest. It just fucking sucked. But that won’t stop me from trying to move things full steam ahead for 2012.
The first thing that I hope you notice is that I’ve started up a second blog. This little gem is going to be dedicated to just OSR stuff. Yeah, I know that sounds really crazy but when the voices in my head told me to do it, it just sounded like a good idea. So be prepared to see a bunch of stuff over there. There’s still a few little tweaks those should be done very shortly.
As far as this blog goes well you probably see the same kind of stuff and probably a little more crazy rants and an off beat post with pretty much the same schedule. You’ll still RPG rants but also hopefully more non-RPG stuff.
Practically, every single project that I was going to do last year did not get done. I have no one to blame on that one but myself. So the key words for 2012 are focus, discipline and organization. Thanks to the shit storm that was the last half of 2011, it’s a good time to wipe the slate clean and reboot with a clear vision. So stayed tuned for those little surprises.
The last thing I want to rant about social media. Yeah, I got Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. I plan hitting those more and ~~annoying~~ meeting some new interesting folks and hopefully not sound like stalker or total douche bag while doing it.
That’s it. So everybody let’s have a great year.

Ten Things that are OK in MMO’s but not in a table top game.

Electronic Gaming, Random Thoughts, RPG 6 Responses »

Aug 092010

Will electronic games take the place of table games? I dunno. But there plenty of things that are just silly about electronic games that would never fly in a table top game.

1. Run the same adventure over and over until everyone gets the loot they want
2. Have the party wait around because some other party killed the what you needed to kill
3. Go out of the dungeon to grind a few levels so they beat the monsters
4. Do a patch that requires all of the players to rewrite their characters
5. Have strangers show up to your game and offer to sell you gold. Just give them your credit card number.
6. NPC’s with very sense and know how to say only one or two things.
7.Quests that consist of “Talk to the guy standing next to me.”
8. Quests that consist of killing animals for their internal organs. Mysteriously half of the animals don’t have these organs.
9. Sometimes normal animals are carrying magic items for loot that would be impossible for the creature to carry/eat/have on its body in any way.
10. A TPK is just another way of saying “Do Over”.

Art immitates life

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Jul 192010

So taking a little breather this evening and sat down to the old idiot box without much regard for channel or show. But stopped and watched Rules of Engagement which normally I don’t bother to catch. It’s that wasteland between How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. But this episode was one inside joke for the SO and me. I have this little habit dealing with alarm clocks and snooze alarms that drives her crazy. So I slap at the alarm clock for half an hour before dragging my weary carcass out of bed. It’s like bonus sleep. It’s those moments of mental preparation before heading off to the cubicle mines. This episode is a cautionary tale of switching sides of the bed. All I have to say is that I am not responsible for anything I do the first minute after I wake up.

And, in case you wondering, I never hit her while aiming for the alarm clock but I have been forcibly nudged to get my lazy ass out of bed.

My Rules of Blogging

Random Thoughts, Writing Comments Off

May 112010

I just have to say that it has been one of those crazy and unpredictable weeks and my muse and I don’t seem to be on speaking terms right now. So I figured I share a couple of thoughts before going and trying to coax my brain back into cooperation.
Here’s my own personal rules about blogging:
1. Never blog when exhausted. I will write post that don’t even make sense to me. Just don’t it. It’s better to write nothing or just use filler. Like writing about your rules of blogging.
2. Never blog when angry. It’s OK to be fired up and emotional. But if you’re just down right pissed, you’ll say something that you will regret.
3. Never do a “Me too!” post. And in someway this probably hurts my traffic but it’s just something that bugs me. If there’s a hot topic buzzing around the blogosphere and all I have to add is to the discussion is “Yeah, what everybody else is saying!” then I don’t do it. If I feel I can to the discussion or offer and interesting viewpoint. That’s another story.
4. When posting my opinion (and if it’s an unpopular opinion) I will get flamed. I also might have to admit that I am wrong.
Those are my rules and I’m going to stick by them. Another thing you might start to notice around here is that I’m going to try to start posting on a regular topical schedule. Just pay attention and you’ll see the pattern forming. Til then I’m still here and know I have to go hunt down my muse.