Movies! Music! Games! Parties!
For the first time since moving here, my weekend return to Salem was marred by traffic delays in both directions, both at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Neither time did I see an evidence of an accident – it was instead as if a claustrophobe had realized too late, “oh, I’m going through a tunnel!” and slowed to 15 mph, causing everyone for 6 miles back to have to slam on their brakes.
However, the Game Day / raininva‘s Party / Con Meeting / .Hack Session was lots of fun. Rain proved once again why she’s nearly indispensable to Rising Star, I demoed MegaMan, and Nick P. showed me a .Hack//Enemy deck which is no fun to play against :p I also got to say hi to a bunch of Blacksburgites who I don’t see as often as I did before the move – I might not be in B-burg again before Rising Star.
Despite reviewers’ best efforts, I have figured out the plot twist in The Village from reading reviews, just as I did in The Sixth Sense. The difference is that the deduction made me more interested in watching Willis and Osment, but I know I’m going to give this new movie a pass. Instead, rattrap nearly talked me into seeing Thunderbirds after all – at the very least, I can sit back and enjoy the CGI rescue vehicles.
Moving to Virginia Beach has certainly improved my concert situation. I saw a Chicago / Earth, Wind, & Fire doubleheader last month, and this month Blondie is playing a show less than 2 blocks from where I work. Yes, I am still all about the 80’s – if I can catch Duran Duran on their 2004 tour, I can check off two more bands that I always wanted to see.
Time to go fix another laptop…
RPG Team Meme (Weem!)
Now all I need is a catchy soundtrack and a hyperactive title sequence and I’m ready for cable TV:
Hacking, pretend and real
Played the new MegaMan card game today (yesterday was official release). Guess who won? If you guessed the other player, you’re right 🙂 Of course, he’d played it many times during development, and this was my first. Decent game – I don’t follow the MegaMan console games or cartoon, but the play of the game was fast-paced, and slightly less complex than ./Hack. Another quick time-killer. Interestingly, your draw deck = your hit points, so every time you take a hit, your combat possibilities diminish. Conversely, you lose a trickle of hit points every turn whether you attack or not.
The staff at LiveJournal has posted in the lj_maintenance community that the terrible recent slowdown has two causes: LJ overgrowing its network, and a Denial of Service attack. Firstly, I’ve never understood the psychology of trying to take down a journal site. The Pentagon, or Bank of America, maybe. But LiveJournal? You gain that much hacker cred from preventing people from commenting about their day?
Secondly, they mention that a significant chunk of the attacks come from innocent people with infected Windows machines. Aside from a wry suggestion of changing OSes, they suggest firewall, anti-spyware, and anti-virus software, or at least changing web browsers to one that doesn’t have a direct pipeline into your OS. The response? “I don’t have time to bother with that!” “I’m not computer-savvy enough to install a new browser!” Or, in other words, “Yes, officer, I realize that my brakes are failing and my steering doesn’t work right, but it’s a real inconvenience to fix it. Perhaps you could make the other drivers just stay out of my way.”
Argh. People.
Somebody invent the frelling transporter!
Phew. Still a little tired from the accumulated 12 hours of driving this weekend. I had a great time in Riner, it was good to catch up with folks. Ironically, I had to drive back to the B-burg area to see some people who live here on the Virginia coast :p By the end of the evening, I was on the floor of the guest house with a bunch of buzzed people working out the “King James ending” of Space Rogues. Turns out that the cat is more important than you can imagine!
rattrap and rubinpdf helped me with my HeroClix issues, and that was much appreciated. Told several people about the portfolio review – hope they get in and get to draw a card or two!
Thanks again to calandra for a great afternoon and evening!
Game text: “Sacrifice personal pride to play this card”
Re: my earlier whine about collectible games…
Just played two games of ./Hack//Enemy with one of my co-workers over lunch. I lost them both, but I didn’t humiliate myself. Even he admitted that I just got some bad card draws. So now I feel better.
I need to see if we have some spare Marvel Hero Clix, he wants to play some games of that. If not, I’ll buy some next week.
Technicon 21 report
The element of Technicon that has stayed with me most this morning is the great pain in my legs from dancing too much too quickly Saturday night. Oh, yes… and I think that next time raininva and I go to India Garden, we’re ordering just bland chicken “tanders” and the garlic “naan” (bread). Our stomachs aren’t international enough for much else.
Bots, bots, bots, and marriage
I think it’s Ken Wright’s fault that every time a SCAdian refers to an “autocrat”, I picture Optimus Prime with a sword, shield, and crown.
Anyway.
Didn’t mean it to be six weeks since the last time I posted here… guess I’ve been a bit distracted. The main high point of that period would be my trip to Portland with Rain, which was pretty decent. It did trigger secret VTSFFC marriages somehow… I’m wondering who else got married that I haven’t heard about yet.
After a thorough study of the Warhammer 40K miniatures rules, I’ve figured out that I would probably enjoy the game. A quick check of the budget, and the remaining space in my apartment, tells me that I still won’t be getting involved in it 🙂
Got the BattleBots ready for T-Con… we’re only using the two big ones this year due to wear and signal strength issues. Look to your ankles!
The Borgus MarsCon Report
I had the first glass of wine I’ve had in years. Honestly, probably the best-tasting, to my preferences.
The dealer’s room had the Callahan’s Saloon softcover (“Lady Slings The Booze”) I’d been missing, and the next Miles Vorkosigan I needed. I also discovered that FanPro’s Shadowrun supplements are a lot more expensive than the old FASA stuff.
Stayed up till 3am Friday for a dot/Hack//Enemy demo. I won, but then the newbie is supposed to win demos, so they’ll get hooked on the game. I’m very cautious about getting hooked on collectible games.
Only ate one meal Friday. I thought I’d outgrown that kind of con behavior.
Rain and I gave Jesse Braxton her Xmas present – a set which included figure of Lucy Lawless, as Xena, in the style of “The Simpsons”. It went over very well.
Spaz-quested for 30 minutes Saturday trying to remember where the nearby Wal-Mart was. (We never found it.)
Learned to play “Button Men”. Discovered that the game has a few game-balance issues, but at least I ended up with a pair of Dork Tower Button Men (my entry requirements) and another pair of general fantasy ones (a fellowship prize for not throttling the little kid I played one round against).
Had a lousy dinner in the hotel restaurant. That place is just cursed, I swear.
Won two starter decks and a box of boosters for dot/Hack//Enemy in the auction. Now I can build a few decks at a bargain price, and play some before I decide if I’m really going to get involved in this.
Enjoyed another good Caprizzio show – the vibrating duck was good for a laugh, though it got a bit overused.
Managed to order pizza at 2:30 am, thereby avoiding going another 24 hours between meals.
Drove home earlier Sunday than I really wanted, but not early enough to miss the snow. We counted 6 or 7 wrecks on our side of 81 alone, and there we a couple juicy traffic-stoppers on the other side.
Overall, a good weekend – I hope more of the folks around here can make it next year.
