Ha ha! Beat ya, Martin! I’m MT 2.64 first this time!

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So i seriously populated week before last, now didn’t i? Last week is another story. I suppose i can spend some time and knock that out later today, assuming i get some free time between leaving work and helping the girl with her “Finding Nemo” promo. I’m always hazy on how to punctuate movie titles; if i quote, underline, or italicize them. Ah well, moving on.

I got a surprising amount done yesterday. I cleaned my brother’s hard drive of pernicious spyware and left Adaware 6.0 installed, in case he wants to run it himself. I’m not really happy with the changes between versions 5 and 6 of that software. I love the program itself, i just think that the lack of a progress bar in the newest version is indicative of the hippy-dippy caring about your feelings version of programming that seems to be ascendant. When i’m running something i damn well want to see a bar that indicates with a fair degree of accuracy that something is running, that it accomplished something, and that it is nearing the end of its task.

I also dropped a Netgear double-speed hub over in his room as well, in preparation for moving his printer over to a print server and then making the room wireless. Now if i can get my hands on the hundred dollars needed for a decent access point then we are all set. Yes, i could buy the $40 device from TigerDirect, but i’d rather not have two routers on the same network. That would be needlessly complicated and overall stupid.

Windows made its smarmy return to my main desktop as well. I noticed that i laptop was the only computer that i used for over two weeks, and that i had not booted the Linux desktop for that same time period. So back to Windows i go, it was a grand experiment but not to be. The servers will remain Linux boxes, as they should be. I just couldn’t get my game on with such machines, and i have Crimson Skies to play. Hopefully i can play CS with my gamepad, because i have no want to purchase a Joystick until they have the Logitech Cordless Freedom in Bluetooth. Or until a large amount of money falls in my lap and i talk myself into one of those huge two-stick flight ma-jobbies.

And you’d be surprised what a difference a gig of ram makes. And now cheap said gig is on eBay. Now to get another 512 and we rock this party.

Lileks has some Matrix-related concerns, but that is for a later post. Lets just say that i unabashedly enjoyed the movie, and completely missed the things he had concerns about. I’ll try not to be snippy, because i do like the rest of the man’s writing. And hell, he is a published writer with a fanbase and a carreer. I’m a hack with a ten-person readership, and no ability to get rid of the passive voice in his posts.

And no, i’m not doing the “bait a person with actual traffic” thing to try to get hits. To be honest i think i’m read by about as many people as i need to be.

Update: I’ve added an entry for Sunday. Its about D&D as promiced. I think i’ll add another one for monday about my thoughts on multi-classing sometime later today. Then tomorrow i’ll talk about the Matrix. Oh and the next person who comments gets to be the 200th. I’d give you a prize but i’m saving up to make this server that i’m working on absolutely kickass.

Update Update: I’ve added that Monday entry i was talking about and damn but its a doozy. I just go on and on about my misconceptions of the 3rd edition rules. I fully expect somebody to set me straight and crush my fragile dreams. I think i can now go about my day with a clean concience and not worry about writing until tomorrow or thursday.

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So this was prompted by a discussion started by the party’s Druid. Why the hell wouldn’t i want to take some levels of Paladin, he asks. I mean if i have the stats, what would stop me from jumping on the high horse for a few levels then multi-classing back to rogue or whatever. I mean i’d get the mad silly feats, hit dice, and some badass class powers to take back with me. I think that would just probably be pushing my DM a bit far though, and i don’t think i could really role-play a decent reason why my Unnamed Rogue would suddenly be tapped by the one-and-only God of Good (who also needs a name DM o’ mine) then go right back to being a thief with no drawbacks.

First off there are the scenario difficulties. Lets keep the paladin example for a bit. See i’ve always seen character classes as more than just a job. I mean i’m a network technician, but to be a Network Technician as a Fighter is to someone who fights i would have to be a truly gifted Tech. I would have to be the kind of guy who passes a level 3 Cisco cert test with my eyes closed. I’m sure armies are full of guys who fight, but i bet that only about one in ten or twenty would be considered Fighters as such (back to in-game. That was a clumsy segue). If that many. There are hundreds of priests running around, but i bet that not every one has the ability to call down holy lightning. Then paladins are the epitome of holiness. They not only have met God, but they have his home phone number, and he calls them. Especially in the scenario that we are currently playing with only one solitary good diety. I don’t think he, beset by hordes of evil dieties would look kindly on one of His holy warriors deciding to persue another job path.

Second off there is the character aspect. If i talked to Jason and said i wanted to become a Paladin for a while, i would expect him to say “Brooks, i want a detailed account of why your rogue would suddenly decide to go from Neutral Good to Lawful Good, and why you’d want to be a Paladin.” LG is almost as diametrically opposed to my personality and how i play my character as evil would be. I would expect my DM to not only ask me to role play the alignment shift, but to play some kind of lengthy, solo quest to prove my worth to my God-of-Choice. Even then i would still expect him to allow for failure.

Third off there is the rule thing. Say i want to grab some Monk levels. I mean that would make more sense to me, as a character to go Monk than Paladin. Even so i would have to change my alignment significantly (see last paragraph). If i do, and i convince my DM that not only is a rogue who kicks things suitably qualified to pass the previous two tests (am i able to be actually called a Monk rather than a Rogue with some monk-ish skills/feats, and is my rogue actually the kind of character who would undertake such a path) then i would expect my DM to hold me to the Lawful alignment restriction to keep my Monk powers restriction with incredible strictness. I mean if i missed a daily meditation for a period of time, or started to behave in a non-lawful manner i would expect nigh-instant revocation of my Monk abilities. There wouldn’t be any warning either, because as someone who decided to stop thinking about Monk advancement i don’t think that i’d be afforded the alignment-change warning that would be afforded active monks.

I am seriously considering a short mult-class to Wizard. My 16 int gives me one extra first, second, and third level spell. So i could rock Wiz for five levels or so then go back to being a Rogue like i know i should. There isn’t much restriction on who can be a Wizard, only int. I have the requisite int in spades so i’m well qualified to make the change stat-wise. As a player i’m always tinkering with this and that so i’m well suited role-play wise for a dabbler in the arcane arts. I mean no Alienist prestige class or anything; nothing driven to perform or discover the arcane, just some class that would learn some magic then feel very comfortable either working on stuff informally or putting it on the back burner.

So i’ve got one and two. As for three i think that we’d just be thinking my character would have some tribulations getting to wizard status.

To just come out and say it, i’ve always been interested in playing a Mechanician. They were a class kit that was about the coolest thing to come out of the Al’qadim setting. They were wizards that didn’t cast spells directly but built little clockwork machines that have certain functions (lock picking, net launching, etc) and can store spells in vessels carried on board. All in all they were a complex little kit, fairly well balanced and not overpowered. Especially when you take into account the fact that their clockwork contraptions were very rarely the size of a large dog. Not exactly combat monsters, but perfectly suited for a rogue who not only is fascinated by magical devices but could also use a climbing spider who acts as an intelligent grapnel, can unlock doors, or cast a telekinesis or clairvoyance spell to eavesdrop or pilfer.

Now, is this suitable for the setting? God knows. I mean we have ruins of an advanced society that we have just explored, so who knows, they may have records of something like this, or some crackpot may have been waylaid by a certain ogre and had his journal partially used as toilet paper. So there are possibilities for me to find something that could open the path up. Then there are more than a few int checks. One to read the damn thing in the beginning, another to actually make sense of it in the context of using it, and a third to actually recognize it from a work of fiction. I’ve always thought it would be hilarious to have some Wizard locate a musty tome full of magical secrets and to undertake mastering it, wasting months and hundreds of Gp’s only to give up and find out that they have been wasting their time on some bard’s magnum opus: a fanciful tale of swords and sorcery concerning a spell that couldn’t actually work.

No, you don’t want me DM’ing any time soon. Thankfully i enjoy playing a character more than i enjoy being a complete bastard to characters.

Anyhow, say i succeed all those int checks. I can read the words, understand the schematics and how-tos, and i know that it could actually work rather than just thinking that maybe it is possible. Well, then i think i would just gain access to the Craft Clockwork Device skill. Rather like bridge building in ADOM. As long as i have that book i can advance the Craft skill. And after i gain a few Rogue levels and have some ranks in Craft Clockwork Device and in Use Magic Device i imagine that i would then undertake actually building one of these things. They class says that the character begins with a mechanical, but i think that would be rather silly. I’d rather hold that actually building the thing would serve as the final test to multi over to Mechanician.

Its a very real possibility that i would either never find the book in question or that if i found it i wouldn’t be able to rock hard enough to even become a Clockwork Mage. But hell if i could that would be damn near awesome, right? I just think that multiclassing should be more than just saying “Hey Jason, i think i’ll take a few levels in barbarian now, then i’ll grab a few in ranger.” At the very least i would expect my DM to say “So Brooks, just why would you want to become a Barbarian, as you are a Rogue with an emphasis in dungeon crawling, and role-play how you would go about either learning to rage or uncovering said rage already inside you.”

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I had a hell of a time playing D&D this weekend. I’m still working on deciding on the new feat and skill advancements for my rogue, but then i’m still deciding on his damn name, so that’s something.

Seriously, as a party our overall incompetance is only really equalled by our astounding ability to pull tactically amazing feats of derring do out of our asses. That is i assure you an unintentional pun. Take for instance this situation: we as a party are chasing a kobold which has stolen something of ours. The thing drinks some unknown potion and leaps up a wall. I manage to shimmy 15 feet up a wall, grab the thing’s foot and leap backwards, yanking it down with me. I then tumble properly and take no damage from the fall. After doing all this you would think either i or the party could incapacitate the damn thing. I mean it can’t have that many hit dice, right? Nope. Of course this could be a plot thing so he can get to the warehouse that he sets on fire.

We even outran the fireball. And by we i mean the druid and the sorceress. Myself and the fighter ran into a room full of burning alchemical solutions, took a deep breath, and passed out.

The way i see it we have at least two direct threats right now. The ogre that got away and whoever is sending the undead against the town. I agree wholeheartedly with the druid that the ogre is order of business number one. I think we can take him, and our repeated trouncing of his lackeys indicates that we can take them too.

Lord i hope our DM doesn’t read that and ratchet the difficulty up a notch. Seriously.

I think that we could be fairly well served by actually seeing what the town has to offer before we go off all half cocked. That’s my number one problem. I see a theif making off with our Big Red Rock and the first thing i do is leap out of a second story window (no damage!) in my underwear. I bring my blade boots, but that’s about it. Nevermind that i have a bandoleer with most of my gear and a potion belt with a Potion of Cat’s Grace by my bed. I think the latter could have been very helpful with all the damn Dex checks i was flubbing while trying to jump from rooftop to rooftop. I mean one point of Dex would raise me to 18 and give me a +4 rather than +3 on the check. And another point was about all i needed most times.

My point being that if the town had an alchemical warehouse (small, but there) then the place would have to have something in the way of an alchemist shop. We need Potions of Healing (or Extra Healing), some Alchemical Arrows, and whatever acid the guy’s got on hand. Anything to help seeing in the dark would be nice too. I think we can go school this ogre in the dark. Then we can worry about whatever necromancer wants this holy symbol. Unless he decimates the town while we are gone for a few days. That’s what worries me: we take this ogre down, then come back to work on this sorceror and find out that he’s worked on the town in our absence.

And speaking of sorcerers: Our sorceress can take Alarm as a spell right? I don’t understand how these Sorcs work anyhow, i’m still thinking about Wizards, so there’s the very real possibility that she can’t. If so that’s cool, i’m sure i can rig up a decent alarm with some bells and string.

Speaking of Wizards though, i may want to multiclass one of these days. Wizards get too many spells that could be entirely too useful to a rogue like myself. Jump, Spider Climb, Featherfall, Web, Knock, that sort of thing. More on that later.

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So i’m still working on the site’s code in the background, and i’ve added entries for last wednesday and thursday. I may add more in later either on tomorrow or fictitiously last week. You never know.

Also i added my site’s titlebar to Deviant Art. Its over here. Who knows, i may keep pixelling and actually get DA pageviews from people looking for my art. That would be a change of pace.

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Sorry, caught a bit of the burnout last week (its been gestating for the last month or so). I’m not really all that busy or boring, i just didn’t feel the need to post that often. I had one hell of a week though, so i should be able to pull a Time Travel Week out of my ass as make something decent out of it. Just to let everybody know that i’m still here, still thinking about writing, and working up about four or five postdated posts to add up in here. So keep the faith and all that. I should be able to launch something over here after work.

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And i’m vaguely aware of their function. Long story short i bought shorts yesterday and i rocked the whole “pants that don’t reach my boots” thing at the Matrix.

Also, the movie rocked. I stared into the very face of God not once but several times. The chateu fight scene was pretty damn amazing, and the way it dovetailed with the car chase made me feel happy in a very inappropriate way. The only issue i could have possibly had with the movie is that i was promiced five minutes of Revolutions footage at the end but that didn’t happen at all. It was about 40 seconds at best.

Seriously though i think that Reloaded is vastly superiour to the first Matrix in terms of story and moviemaking, not to mention the fact that it basically rewrote the book completely on fight scenes. Agent Elrond is obviously having more fun than should be legal with the whole dour angry computer program thing. The Kotobukiya vinyl statue may have to come home with me.

And we all know how much i like battles with factions on factions, and this doesn’t dissapoint. You’ve got renegade programs on the human side, renegade programs just hiding out, and Agent Smith in addition to the vanilla humans and machines. I will be seeing this movie several times more.

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All right. I’m back. I spent most of the weekend being a lazy bastard, so i’ll be backdating this week of posts in order to make up for it. Expect to see posting more frequently over next week. Temporally this will be confusing as i’ll be pretending that this is “last week:” a la i have not yet seen the Matrix.

So to start off, comics.

Batman: Nevermore #2: Guy Davis pens a Batman/Poe crossover, and it feels a whole lot like “The Marquis.” Batman looks like the titular character from Davis’s other series, and the writing shares the baroque feel of Marquis. I’ll hunt down the first and wait for the later issues, in the vacuum of no Marquis i’m enjoying this one.

Powers #31: I always thought that Powers needed more naked monkey people. Thankfully Bendis took my concerns to heart and did an entire issue with just monkey man grunting and lots of naked neanderthals. Seriously though he and Oeming have either gone completely insane and destroyed the series or they’ve started a ball rolling that will revolutionize comics as we know them.

The thing is they may have actually done both. In the short term this issue doesn’t stand on its own very well. On the other hand, it serves as a bellweather for increased future rocking. See it concerns the very beginning of time. There’s this tribe of monkey people and they do monkey people things. Foraging, avoinding lions, doggy style monkey whatnot and all that. However, these neanderthals have superpowers. That woud be the novel twist part. The next issues proport to be a further history of a human society that grew up completely side by side with powers. I think this could be interesting, as far as i remember we’ve got powers suddenly appearing around WWII and then exploding all over the place. At least in the Marvel-verse and all that. This could just be me not seeing things though.

Wolverine: Snikt!: Tsutomu Nihei’s style is perfect for this sort of thing. I really enjoyed it, but then its Wolverine vs. a billion skeletal robots, and what’s not to love. There’s very little dialogue, but that fits the story. I’ve always liked that “Man with No Name” thing so this works out really well. I’ll be buying it issue by issue and probably later when it gets collected.

Randy: Welfare Problems: As much as i hate to say it i think this isn’t a very good album. I’ve been listening to it for a while and it just does less and less for me each time i hear it. The first problem is that its a $15 album with only 12 songs on it. Second problem is that they just seem to be off. Something’s just different about their music. The guitars aren’t as lound, the vocals are subdued, and the message is off. They aren’t really singing about much in general, and its all way too similar. I still hate to say it, but i may not end up buying the next CD. Which sucks, as i’ve really enjoyed almost all of their other stuff.

Luckily there’s a Dropkick Murphies CD coming out soon, and apparently the new Live disc isn’t half bad.

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So yeah. I saw TechTV’s Inside the Matrix special, and damn. I don’t mean to sound like a fanboy, but hell, i’m so damn excited about Reloaded that i just can’t wait for tomorrow when i go watch it. 10 o’ clock!

But seriously. That car chase looks incredible. The Big Robot looks even cooler. The fu is awesome, beyond awesome really. I do sound like a fanboy, but that’s ok, i think. I’m even thinking about buying either the AniMatrix or the game. Possibly both. My brother will be gone this weekend, so i could probably take over the PS2 for the duration.

Speaking of the PS2, i hear that there is a way to connect a USB Zip drive to the USB port and use that as a memory card. That would be incredible, as a single Zip disk would hold much more than a pile of memory cards. Never having to spend $50 on two cards again would make me more than happy, it would make me content with all life until Silent Hill 3 comes out.

Speaking of drive connections, why isn’t there a wireless floppy drive? I mean you could use Bluetooth, and i doubt there would be any slowdown at all. You could make them rechargable and have them charge when plugged in to a laptop dock or a wall carger, and then it could connect to any nearby computer wirelessly. I mean hell: why not go crazy? I see no reason not to use bluetooth for almost any peripheral. Webcams, keyboards, mice, joysticks, gamepads, anything that doesn’t need a “high speed” connection. We can reserve 802.11b/a/g/x for computers, and let PDA’s use Bluetooth. Just about any USB 1.1 capable device should have a wireless variant. Firewire and USB 2.0 could be reserved for portable hard drive enclosures and so forth. I would like to see a bluetooth capable USB 1.1 hub. It couldn’t be Bus Powered which would be the only annoying bit, untless you want to put batteries in there or something.

I guess you just didn’t look all that hard then, Chris. I typed “aria of sorrow” gba rom into google and guess what was link #1. A Japanese ROM site. In addition to two english versions of AoS, there is the Japanese version, Megaman Zero 2, Splinter Cell, Medal of Honor: GBA, and a whole bunch of Japanese only wierd little games. Go nuts, i’ve already downloaded the ones i really care about. I’ll be burning a CD later. I haven’t tested them yet, so they might not work and make me look stupid. If they do i’ll have to make a list of people to punch in the eye and reasons for punching when i finally get to Japan.

There’s more to talk about, of course, but i’ll leave that for later. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps just later. I have alot of comics to babble about, and that may have to wait for wednesday, as well as the Matrix.

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I hope my GM doesn’t read 3d Edition.org or the party’s incessant prattling might get mixed up in my Skill rolls. Well, it would certainly silence the OOC chattering if that added a penalty to my “disarm device” rolls.

Hmmm, mayhaps if he reads that article it could add something to the campaign. Wait, i do loads of the prattling. I bet talking would wreck my own attempts to locate traps.

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