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Nov. 23rd, 2009 @ 12:12 pm And in the list of random stuff...
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Our themostat is having issues... We set it to turn on when the temp dropped to around 63 last night, and it failed to turn on. The house was about 57 when we woke up! The heat turned on when I turned the themostat off and on again, but clearly this is something that Needs To Be Looked Into.

In other news, had a fun D&D game last night. My noble paladin is horrendously embarrased at having been captured by goblins and having to be ransomed by - of all things - a slaver. Her mom, who's the ruler of a bordering region to where we are, is going to be FURIOUS at having to pay the slaver as much gold as Lady Karen has given her a writ for.
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tazz
Sep. 11th, 2009 @ 08:15 pm (no subject)
Like [info]ladybird97 , I haven't posted anything of substance in a while.  So, I post!

Work has been going along in a mixed-to-reasonable fashion.  We've got positive expression for enough of our genes to make it worthwhile to start on The Big Interactome Project.  One thing stands in our way: the ELISA that we're figuring on using to detect interactions isn't working.  Again.  We plan to work on the problem next week.  But meantime, just about everything else is ready for launch.

We had a fantastic time over the holiday weekend at the giant gaming party hosted by cerebralpaladin and orichalcum.  We saw a number of people that we hadn't seen in quite some time, and met some new - and of course cool - people.  I played two D&D games: one set in ancient Babylon, in which my thief character helped figure out why it was raining on the Jewish Quarter and nowhere else (everyone else in town was blaming the Jews for stealing their rain - turns out that basically, they were right!), and one in which all the PCs were members of a theatrical troupe.  The troupe put on plays of heroic adventures, and in this one-shot, we had to basically *become* adventurers to get our hands on a kidnapped playwright who'd promised he'd write us a play.  The last game that I played was in a system called "Dogs in the Vineyard," in which the PCs were essentially lawgivers of the One True Faith in something like mid-1800s Mormon Utah.  You can get a sense of the mechanics of conflict resolution from this Wikipedia article and the character creation and gameplay from this review.  It is significantly more freewheeling than any game system than I've ever played before (not that that's very many).  The traits and relationships that you use to define your character have essentially no limits on them in terms of their definitions: "sense truth", "skeptic", "healer", and "joyful celebration" were some of the traits in our group.  Having played a session, I can pretty definitely say that the more vague you can be in your traits and relationships, the better - it means that you can more easily bring the die values of those traits and relationships into conflicts.  It was fun, and I wouldn't at all mind playing in the system again.

We had our first choir rehearsal of the season a couple of nights ago.  We have two new people: a strong bass and a strong soprano.  Having two whole basses to our name makes a huge difference, as does having a soprano who can actually generate volume on Wednesday nights.  I'm really excited about choir this year - we're gonna be goooooooood...... :D

And next weekend we're going to see Spamalot and Yellow Face, both should be good pieces of theater.  I'll be interested in hearing what y'all think of the movie 9; it's on my 'hmm, could be interesting' list.
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tazz
Sep. 5th, 2009 @ 10:03 pm Quick update before bed
Current Mood: very tired, go bed now
D&D: Rolling a natural 20 on a Move Silently roll while invisible = teh awesome

Being a male dwarf who plays a female gnome as part of a traveling group of players = amusing.  Fantastic PC interaction.  

Chibi-Okami for the DS: Um, okay... let's see how this pans out!

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tazz
Sep. 2nd, 2009 @ 08:46 pm D&D this weekend!
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I'm very excited about this weekend: [info]orichalcum  and [info]cerebralpaladin  are hosting a gaming weekend, and Huz and I are going!  For one campaign, set in ancient Roman times, I've been putting together a character (D&D 3.5).  I've spent several days poring over the Player's Guide and the Dungeon Master's Guide, and I think I've finally finished the character creation process.  Long.  Kinda exhausting - I've probably spent 6 or more hours reading and stuff.  But lots of fun - my rogue is ready to go!

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tazz
Nov. 16th, 2007 @ 02:05 pm Fun links for Friday
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For the gamers:  Not that I have a Windows machine, but even if I did, I sure wouldn't buy a copy of Jericho.  (GWJ scathing review here.)

For the programmers: Want to learn a new coding language?  How about LOLCode?

For the movie-goers: Why in the name of heaven did they do basically CG stuff for the human characters in Beowulf as well as the monsters??

For the rest of us: May brainless (or brain-ful, depending on your preference) happiness be yours - enjoy the weekend!
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tazz
Nov. 10th, 2007 @ 05:37 pm H.G. Wells and Games
Current Location: home
Current Mood: calm
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The huz and I just finished listening to two audiobooks available at Librivox, both by H.G. Wells, and both on a subject that I would not have expected him to write about: games.

Floor Games is a brief (45 minutes) essay about the games Mr. Wells played with his sons on a large cork floor.  They use boards, toy soldiers and animals, and common household objects to create islands, cities, parks, and other inhabited landscapes.  Then the imagination of the boys, both old and young, is let loose to create events and act them out.  It's a droll, well-written set of general instructions on how to have fun with your kids.

Little Wars is a slightly longer (1 hour 45 minutes) booklet which should be of interest to anyone who's ever played a turn-based tabletop-style combat strategy game.  While I haven't done the research to make sure, I rather think that Mr. Wells' 1913 publication may be the first time that someone had published rules for a game that would eventually evolve into the tabletop games we know today.  The writing is clear and often amusing.  The instructions themselves are fairly brief, and much of the work is a detailed description of a short campaign between himself and another middle-aged gentleman of his acquaintance.  Wells devotes a brief section at the end to thoughtfully commenting on the connections between Little Wars and what he terms Great War - the wars that humanity fights out in the real world.

Both works are narrated by one of my favorite readers on Librivox, Mark Smith.  He has a great sense for the text and for making the most out of the drama and humor in both works without overdoing either aspect.  I recommend both books to people who like to play games of every sort.  :)
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tazz

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