Tunic +1 to Confusion Charms
Swung by the grocery store today to pick up dinner. I was wearing my Technicon 17 (2001) t-shirt, and the cashier kept staring at it. I think kittenchan‘s catgirl in Grecian robes confused the heck out of him.
I just don’t wear the number of t-shirts I used to. At Staples, I had to wear corporate red, but at B&D, Thrifty Nickel, Decipher, and BCT, I could wear what I wanted as long as it was neat, clean, inoffensive, and gender-appropriate. I owned a LOT of t-shirts. But at NASA, polo shirts are the order of the day, so my t-shirt wear has been cut by five-sevenths, and much of my collection has felt the bite of the ongoing ‘stuff’ purge.
Kinda sucks, because I kept seeing t-shirts I like at cons – such as an excellent Jennie Breeden shirt at MarsCon – and having to tell myself, “When will you be wearing this, and how much room do you really have in the dresser?” Sigh. I have a rule that I can buy something new for every two objects of similar kind or size I purge. Maybe I need to do another t-shirt purge soon to make room. Wish I could justify doing another run of TeeFive shirts (and find the art for the back).
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I was wearing the TCon 18 shirt. Either I fail at reading Roman numerals upside down, or the +1 to Confusion is working better than I thought.
Fantastic Settings
The other day Starr picked up a book for me, one that I’ve been meaning to read for years: Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle In the Dark. I’m enjoying it, but he’s preaching to the choir, and I’ve not yet gained any new insights from the book. On the other hand, I also finally have a copy of tltrent‘s In the Serpent’s Coils waiting in line, and I’m looking forward to reading that one. In my opinion, “Young Adult” fantasy and science fiction is where much of the good stuff is happening right now. Say what you want about Harry Potter, but Sorcerer’s Stone was a better read than many of the transcribed D&D adventures that pass for fantasy novels these days.
Speaking of transcribed D&D, Gary Gygax’s recent death caused me to drag out some of the old adventures I’d saved since the mists of First Edition, with an eye to running them again. In particular, I’m looking at the old S-series: “Tomb of Horrors”, “White Plume Mountain”, and “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” (a particular favorite).
Now, I know these were convention tournament modules, but I was struck by the lack of role-playing, or even much of a plot besides “collect loot and survive to the end”. The adventures are full of unfair puzzles, insta-deaths, and places where the GM will have to do some blatant railroading if the party’s not going to wipe (no running back from the graveyard to rez!)
If I were to run them now, and the basic concepts are juicy enough to make the idea interesting, I’d have to do some major re-writing for my audience. I’d want map revisions, monster changes, and some serious story integration. It wouldn’t be a trivial task, even discounting the problem that the adventures were designed for experienced First Edition AD&D characters. What game system do I want to use – a D&D version, Earthdawn, Herc & Xena, an alternate-universe Shadowrun? (And in most of those cases, which edition?)
Yeah. This is kinda turning into a campaign, which is too bad; I’m not sure I can spare the time right now, fun as it sounds. The urge to run “Barrier Peaks” near Roswell using the Deadlands setting may have to wait.
Addendum: The sentence “the chest contains 10,000 gold pieces” was obviously written by someone who had never counted out 10,000 quarters, say, and then tried to carry them around for any length of time.
Brief updates
- 11:51 .67 miles again this am. Working my butt off. Also, found a pic of G.Lucas wearing a “Han Shot First” shirt. tinyurl.com/5ms88t #
- 13:30 20 min. into lunch: not a good time to find that Quiznos no longer carries my favorite sub. Prime rib cheesesteak okay, but too much onions. #
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And They’ll Monitor His Mind
I really want to sit and watch some good DVDs, preferably with company as I hate watching movies alone. I wonder if it’s worth it to buy an upconverting DVD player at some point; we’re using the PS2 at the moment.
The Aviator and Catch Me If You Can are on my list. I’ve seen them before, but they are cool enough to make me appreciate Leo as an actor, and Starr’s never seen either. The uncut, re-dubbed My Youth In Arcadia is on the list, as is the recent CGI Appleseed. (Is there an uncut, properly dubbed Galaxy Express 999 available? I’d like to find a good version of that too.)
Also sitting unwatched on my shelf: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Heroic Trio, about which I endlessly badgered kittykatya for a copy; and the new Transformers movie, which may not be fanservice perfection, but at least it’s got the right Optimus Prime voice.
We won’t even talk about the movies in theaters. Everyone’s raving about Iron Man, yes I intend to see Speed Racer despite the reviewer bashing, and ditto Indy 4.
I can’t even blame World of Warcraft for this. I enjoy the game enormously, but go weeks without touching it sometimes.
Reverse Engineering the Future
First day in two weeks I’ve felt halfway decent. My sleep was restful, the little headache pulses are gone, and I even had the initiative to get back to walking today. (Only 2/3 of a mile, because it got cold out, and I didn’t bring a jacket this morning.)
Tonight I will be catching up on housework and bills, and of course giving my Mom a call to see how she’s doing.
Was thinking more about the high-tech Captain Nemo today. If you dropped today’s MacBook Pro in his workroom, I suspect that he’d figure out how to turn it on, and even use some of the software if there wasn’t a login password. I expect he’d work out what the battery was, and might even be able to recharge it using the technology of his time. I’m sure he could work out the basic concept of the motherboard, and I’ll even grant that he could reverse-engineer the simpler peripheral protocols with enough brute force, time, and care.
I’m fairly confident, though, that the LCD screen, integrated circuits, memory, and hard disk would be completely beyond him. At his technology level, any of them would have to be ripped apart and destroyed to achieve even a basic understanding of the principles involved. A magnetic storage medium might be within his imagination, but the ability to build another one just wouldn’t exist yet.
(A few of the TNG and DS9 episodes annoyed me in this fashion, showing the heroes taking apart communicators and tricorders with utterly primitive tools. I’m convinced that one couldn’t even crack the cases with less than highly specialized tools, and if one did, the contents would be largely integrated into a few non-user-serviceable bits. But that’s just me.)
Perhaps Nemo could accomplish much with “black box” parts delivered by a mysterious supplier, much as the scientist-heroes of This Island Earth did. But could our justly-paranoid sea captain trust the source?
130 Leagues Over the Asphalt
T – I – R – E – D.
Went back to Roanoke on Saturday. My mom’s doing great: she can move both her leg and arm now, and on Sunday took a few steps (with a great deal of support). I’m told this is still Gold Medal performance, and my optimism was repeatedly fed this weekend. nanoreid was there for a bit, and I got to say hi to Ginny and Ian as well. Starr bought my mother a knitting loom which can be fastened to a solid surface, and now my mom can indulge her addiction one-handed for the duration!
Roanoke felt a little odd, there are buildings and shops which weren’t there last time I passed through – a bit like hearing an old song on the radio and finding an entirely new chorus after the second stanza. I took a hotel room there Saturday night to save us the drive to and from shrewlet‘s offered crash space in Blacksburg, but while the room was huge, the bed was hard as a plank, and we slept poorly for folks who would be driving 204 miles home. Route 460 was a beautiful, tranquil drive, though. I’m sold on that road for now.
Yesterday we woke too early, and headed over to spend lunch with Starr’s mom, then the afternoon at Amy’s with the gamer group. Her mom was going to gas grill the food, but after the gas loop rusted away at a touch, we went with good old charcoal, and lunch was yummy. I now know where Starr gets her habit of cooking a regiment’s food for a few people, and felt guilty leaving before I could consume a second hamburger.
While the afternoon was sold as a combination grilling / gaming event, I’m not sure anyone was really into the gaming, and after a few hours of excellent chatting and cattching up, we left to get me some badly needed quiet time. I developed yesterday something that feels much like my old migraine headaches, something which comes in short, searing pulses then goes away for a half-hour or so. (One of the first things Starr did when hearing about that was to check me for stroke indicators – of which I seem to have none.)
In geek news, the Mars Phoenix robot probe has a Twitter account. Andy Ihnatko referred to the account as cosplay for rocket scientists, but I’m enjoying keeping up with what the probe’s doing (or at least what it was doing 15 minutes ago – speed-of-light lag, y’know). Some quick Googling finds images taken by the Mars Recon Orbiter of Phoenix on the way down (Phoenix Down?) which means that we Earthlings not only managed to hit a target scores of millions of miles away, we got a picture of it from another camera that had previously done so under our instruction. [T]hese are the things that hydrogen atoms do when given 13.7 billion years. – Carl Sagan
So, yeah. Probably another early bedtime tonight, which is a shame because I wanted to get some WoW levelling in. With luck, the rest of the week will go a little easier on me!
Drama Burger, may I take your order?
I’m back home from Roanoke. (Salem, if you’re being picky.)
As I mentioned in the locked post, Mom’s in the hospital after suffering a stroke. She’s lost motor function in her right limbs, but still has full sensation, vision, and her normal faculties.
Sunday night Starr and I discussed the situation, and I decided to head up Monday morning. Mom was surprised and very touched to see me, and I got to see her moving her limbs ever so slightly – perhaps a centimeter or two – which, only days after a stroke, is a major accomplishment. I’m hoping for her sake that this is the beginning of a swift recovery. She’ll be starting physical therapy next week.
On top of that, Starr’s PT Cruiser is in the shop, and we just got Midori-kitty back from surgery. If exhaustion counts as exercise, then I’m completely caught up.
Much thanks to everyone who offered assistance and good wishes. It means quite a lot.
Lunch and a walk
Finished my 10th mile of the new mile-a-workday program. At this rate, I should reach Rivendell by Christmas 🙂 Yesterday and today were beautiful walking days – 70 degrees, light breeze, cloudless skies. I notice that I’m slightly less overheated and winded than I was two weeks ago, though much progress remains to be made.
With the removal of two 200-calorie Cokes from my day, and a 200-calorie walk in addition, I’m hoping I see even a tiny bit of body difference in a month or two. I mean, I figure my diet beforehand was in the 2,200 – 2,400 calorie per day range, so that’s a fairly big cut.
After around 20-years, I have reconnected with cynical_prophet. He and I used to be thick as thieves in the Pathfinder days, but we had a falling out. That water’s long passed under that bridge, and I found him through clicking random LJ links – it’s good to hear from him again. Hard to write a short letter about “here’s what I’ve been up to for the last two decades”, though.
