Some days … it’s good to be a geek.

This very night my 12 level gully dwarf laid some serious smack down! Took on, and almost single handedly defeated, 15 Draconians. One of them I really wasn’t supposed to kill. Well technically shouldn’t have been able to kill.

I about 5 hit points from absolute death. The Draconian was a Sivak, leveled up to be even more dangerous. It was an all or nothing situation. If I could deal out enough damage first I could end him, but he was a full health and was a magic user. This lead to his arrogance and his downfall.

I moved in, power attack set to 5, roll for first attack – possible critical. Roll to confirm – a 1, no critical hit. Damage 10. With movement no extra attacks for me. The Sivak surprised that I hit him at all, but still feeling superior, decided to use a spell. This opened up another opportunity to attack, still with power attack at 5, roll a possible critical. Critical confirmed. Rolled a 5 for damage, +5 from Power Attack, +1 for using my scythe two handed, +3 from my strength bonus, +1 from an enchanted weapon, times 5 for critical, from a serrated blade = A wholelotta hurt! Took him out! w00t!

Then, I picked up the treasure the Emperor had sent my colleague in for, picked up the incapacitated body of my colleague, and just for flavor un-barricaded the main doors of the warehouse and walked out to the astonishment of all the guards that had been holding the building under siege.

I got a treasure from the Emperor, a +3 ring of protection, 15,000 steel (it’s the local currency), and another level! (okay so technically I didn’t get ‘a level’ from the Emperor, but still it was a result of the adventure)

For those who may not speak DnD geek, I got bragging rights among my fellow players. And I had fun. This character has to be the most bad a– character I’ve ever had. It’s fun to be the one who brings the pain once in a while.

A friend of mine called me rather distraught the other day. She had just had a fight with her boyfriend and was feeling hurt and alone. i did what I could to console her. i think I did get her to calm down some. While we talked about the anatonmy of a lovers qurrel the subject, inevitably, came up about Elaine and I.

This is where I’m either strange, bad , or good. Well I guess technically this is where we are the aforementioned. Because as far as i can tell … Elaine and I have never had a ‘fight’. Am I too easy going? Are we really that compatable? (I’m hoping for this one) Is she too easy going? Are we too afraid of confrontation? Am I too afraid?

It is not as if we have not had our own differences of opinion. There are several areas of our personal philosophies that separate. For instance politically she leans to a more liberal/democractic way, and I tend toward the conservative/republican. But neither of us is stanch on either side. I have no qualms voting democrat, if I think the person is truly qualified and will represent my views, and I’m fairly sure that if Elaine feels the same way, but going the opposite way … err the … no … another way. In this like so many other aspects of life on earth … it is too important to make the discussion a simple us and them. But I digress.

I guess this is what I get for thinking so much. Meh.

::sigh:: It’s almost 5 am … I’m still awake … damn it. Stupid Samurai Champloo. Oh well.

I had an odd thought today. What if … what it I really don’t like art? What if I don’t really enjoy making it. What if I picked it because it was less troublesome than Computer Science? [::shudder:: So …. much math …. ::shudder::] I mean seriously … I am more excited about other people doing art than I am about myself doing art. I guess I am still not sure what the point of my doing art is. I mean if I were to stop … would it really make a difference. Would anyone besides the people who know I ever did it, even notice that I ever held a pencil for something other than taking memos? Would they even care? Would I even care? Am I being down on myself … eh … maybe. But that doesn’t make this an invalid line of questioning.

Do any of us actually know … well no … thats me being an egotistical ass, thinking that the world is anything like me. Life path … destiny … the future … what ever. It’s always out there … it’s never here or now. It is like a dangling carrot … ever out of reach. Yeah yeah … shoot for the moon … you’ll always end up among the stars … yadda yadda. I donno. Maybe I’m just putting things off again. It’s a bad habit of mine … get excited leap into the air only to turn around and land back on the platform I just left, like Samus or Mario or Sonic or MegaMan. Or in my case Mega Dork. I can’t move forward … and the screen has shifted so I couldn’t go backward if I tried.

I donno what I’m saying … I’m just running off at the mouth. Don’t mind me. Stupid 5 am ranting. Blah.

Hello all! This is the first post from my bright shiny new mac mini. Yep. I’m back in the Apple saddle again. It’s rather nice. I still have a few tweeks left, like transferring my music collection to the new mac … and getting my iPod to sync to my mac. But then all will be better. Then I’ll get cracking on all this server business. I give myself a month to be a basic web master. Which in my case will be a bit of an oxymoron … but that will change. Hopefully I can pick up enough basic skills to get this stuff off the ground. I know I could just turn on web sharing … but that’s too easy. Not to mention a security risk. Hmmm ::thinking:: Maybe this will take a little longer than I thought. Well anyway I will get the web server going as soon as possible. I need to scan/photograph my portfolio drawings. I need to make some new portfolio drawings. Bah … stuff to do … blah. I also have tons o reading to catch up on. Well that’ll have to wait till I get the free time. Job opportunities come first … then server … then story and comic.

In other random er … well just other news. One of my old friends Barbra and I are going to be collaborating on a story together. She’s gonna write, I’m gonna draw. Hopefully that will turn out well. She has some interesting ideas and some possibility for artistic exploration. Anyway I’ll try to keep you all posted on all that.

Who says geeks don’t know how to have fun. The folks down at Google Labs seem to have a few ideas. I would have liked to have been in on this on. [link]

I found two fascinating articles. One is an interview with Rick Warren, the author of the powerful Purpose Driven Life book, and an article about how Pixar is more literary than literature.

Rick Warren is about to take on the world. Literally. In the article at Newsweek’s web site, found here, he is interviewed about what exactly he plans to do to make the world a better place. The short version is … he is trying to get the church to stop being a church and start becoming the hands, feet, voice, and heart of God that we were supposed to be. He say it a bit better and with more detail. Plus he give us a small peek into how his life hasn’t changed since he became a best selling author. It’s really fascinating and encouraging to see his enthusiasm plus it’s infectious.

While over at Slate Lee Siegel gets a little philosophical about the impact of Pixar on imagery and culture (article here). In short he feels that the written word is beginning to wane in it’s power. The new focus is the image. The image become the literature. He cites Finding Nemo and The Incredibles as the highlights.

As some of you may know … I’m supposed to be graduated. I say “supposed to” because with our school … God only knows what actually happens. So God willing and the creek don’t rise … I’m now officially out of school.

This brings up whole new realms of OMGWTFDIDN! Although I do have some ideas. Here’s a smattering of my ideas.

• Start a webpage w/ Elaine. We’re looking into a Mac Mini CoLo solution. Check them out here [macminicolo.net].
• Start a Webcomic. I know … I’ve been promising that for years now. But this time it may actually happen.
• Get a better job. My coffee job … just isn’t cutting it. I can’t make rent … let alone save anything. ::sigh::

Yes I am thinking of getting a comic going … now I just need to suck it up and do it. I’ve been brewing the story for some time now. I originally got the idea … oh … wow … about 2 years ago. It came to me while I was trying to come up with an idea that didn’t tread on the thought process that I had started with a friend of mine. ::sigh:: That could have been cool … but in the end nothing came of it. I guess I could just take my character and run with him … but without the rest of the story he’s just a vampire with a self destruction complex. So I let him lie. He is resting with the rest of the clan now. Rest in peace. But Melissa … if you ever get the urge to bring him back to life I’m sure you will know how to get in touch with me.

But I digress. The new story I came up with … involved a theory about the Nephlim. The theory stated that they were the children of humans and angels. Obviously Lucifer isn’t gonna that lying down so I figured that the Succubi and Incubi would be good inverse Nephilim. But these are obviously theologically … iffy at best. And the more I pushed the story … the more it was going places where I wasn’t about to tread. There’s only so much blaspheme that I want in my life. So I scaled back the power level of the the 1/2 spirits. Well it still was taking me places were I didn’t feel comfortable making judgement calls. So I have scaled the characters back once again. Now … now they’re just humans. But as we all know humans are destructive enough without external spiritual power.

The parts I’m keeping are the internal struggles of two people. Yes I do like the internal brooding thing … it’s what I know … and they say “go with what you know”. There is also their external struggle of a mutual attraction. Yes … it has romance. Wha? Can’t a guy write a story about that too? Anyway. The story will be about people. People fascinate me. I enjoy trying to figure out how and why people react to things the way they do. The challenge I face is presenting them in a fashion that will be believable. I may post some stuff about that here.

[Listening to: Another Morning – The Pillows – FLCL (3:45)]

Gadgets » The Top 10 weirdest case mods

There are things that you just never expected to see. some of these fit that description. The 1st place winner is … well it’s so very idicitve of the dedication that certian people of it’s sub culture have.