Cue John Cleese
In WoW, warlocks drain soul energy from their enemies and store it to power their spells. Tuesday night, I drained the soul of a parrot. Hey, it attacked first!
Stacey “Pink Five” is back. Amazing to me how one can start off making a one-camera, one-actress short Star Wars fanfilm and go on to making a 60-minute extravaganza that includes a full-scale X-Wing prop and legal agreements with Lucasfilm. But then, we live in a time where Star Wars fandom gets its own Hasbro action figure.
We started up the grill last Saturday, officially welcoming back Spring!
“Mirondarah” could be a Japanese monster movie
Last night, raininva‘s rogue and my mage assaulted the ruined desert city of Zul’Farrak with shrewlet‘s paladin and a little other help. I died a lot; that seems to be the mage’s job. When I moved forward to see what was going on, I attracted aggressive attention (‘aggroed’); when I hung back, stuff snuck up on me from behind and clocked me before the rest of the party could react. Ah, well. At least Shrewlet was able to resurrect me, and I completed 4.5 quests I’d never have finished on my own. 1/2 a level worth of experience; really, a pretty good evening in the game.
One of the quests involved summoning and defeating the giant water lizard Gahz’rilla. Just for rattrap‘s info, Gahz’ruki was nowhere in sight.
Before that, we spent a couple hours at my workplace’s Game Day. The host had a really nice place in an area we wouldn’t mind living… must weasel some info out of her 🙂 Rain and I spread the gospel that is Apples to Apples, and lo, it was good.
Saturday, I played in the comp a bit and then spent 6 hours cleaning the house; you can actually see the floor of my office now, yay! That night we broke in our copy of the WoW board game in a four-person run with Bert and Meche. Took about 5 hours to finish, and Rain and Bert’s Horde characters finished off the boss on turn 33 or so. I have to look up who to contact – upon opening the game, we learned that it’s missing one of the character figures.
There’s an Internet rumor going around that the PlayStation 3 will cost $600 – $700 upon release in the US. Of course, Internet rumors aren’t known for having a lot of basis in reality. However, if it’s true, it may be a good thing that I still have many months’ worth of PS2 games to finish.
TCon 23 report
Some cool things about Technicon 23:
Giving rattrap his combined holiday present for the next several years.
Playing the WoW board game with jsciv, meiran, and candidevoltaire; then buying a copy.
A copy of The Heroic Trio from kittykatya.
Opening the wrong door and accidentally joining this year’s Vile Skit.
Being practically the only character in vileone‘s LARP that was exactly what he said he was: no more, no less.
Friday dinner seated between Dwight, raininva, and Christy.
Friday night panels that went Most Excellently. (Some details soon in a filtered post, heh heh.)
A Vile Script that forced me to wrestle with rainbowsaber. (Oh, shucks.)
Helping southernsinger perform “The Dragon & The Lady” for Holly Lisle.
Late Saturday dinner and great conversation with meiran.
Thanks to trenn, chown -R us:us yourbase.
Frequent backrubby morale- and energy-boosts from shrewlet.
Two boxes full of new reading material from the Auction.
Cool artwork from kittenchan and ranchonmars.
It’s my 20th Technicon.
—–
Some less-cool things about Technicon 23:
It’s my 20th Technicon.
Not enough time to be in Whose Con Is It?
Long drives from and to Norfolk.
Not enough quality time with many friends.
My lousy Simon Cowell imitation.
A body that gave out too early on Saturday night. (For once, stomach issues rather than exhaustion.)
Our air mattress developing a hole.
Not enough time for after-con dinner in Blacksburg. (But a good one with Bert & Meche in Salem.)
—–
I’d call TCon 23 a success, for my part. Well done, nius, and thanks for the good weekend!
I’m pretending I don’t have to leave for work
It’s web video linkage thingy time!
“Cap-tain… Jean-Luc Pi-card… U-S-S… Ent-er-prise!”
How does the average WoW player feel about Murlocs? Approximately how Gimli felt about orcs. Now, here’s a complete Flash Murloc RPG to give you the fish-man perspective.
And Samorost, where I don’t know what’s going on yet ’cause I haven’t played enough. Cool looking, though.
My wife hangs out with Victor Davion
(Actually, probably not – they’re associated with rival Houses. But anyway.)
Rain’s now an official part of the Battletech universe, allowed to pilot any medium-weight ‘Mech from the “Age of Destruction” or later. (Yes, that could well mean Hunchbacks some day. *shudder*)
Meet House Kurita MechWarrior Reign O’Broin (time-travel does such terrible things to spelling). Personally, I think she’s a lost Kerensky; but that’s just me.
I canna give you any more power!
For the past year, the fan in the power supply on my G4 has been making a grinding noise. This week it got loud enough to drive raininva to distraction, so she asked me to please fix it. (Frankly, I was sick of listening to it too.) Replacement Apple power supplies run $130 – $230 on the web, so that was right out. Besides, it was only the fan itself.
I pulled the power supply out, then the fan, and took it to CompUSA. They had a wide variety of fans, but although several were exactly the right size and shape, they had three-pin connectors instead of two-pin, and the amperage ratings were different, which worried me. The technical guy there strongly suggested I just get a new power supply. (Fans are $10, power supplies $40. Hmm.)
Apparently, my G4 can use a standard ATX power supply, but the motherboard connector pinouts are slightly different, and I’d have to splice some wires (and me without a soldering iron or, indeed, much soldering practice). Also, my power supply is 237 watt. I think I can use a 250 safely, but I don’t know that.
On a better note, we played Plague and Pestilence and Dork Tower at Card Night last night, and both games went over well. Dork Tower even came with a free 8-page mini version of Dork FRAG, which means that by taking advantage of the Dragon*Con sale, I got two games for the price of half of one. Not bad!
Soooo tired.
That garment is not available at your security clearance.
Card Night was at our place last night, instead of at team_kitty‘s place. This had the advantage that we didn’t have to fight yups for use of the clubhouse at Kitten’s apartment complex, plus shorter drives for some people – with gas prices the way they are, this means something. (I’m not sure I could afford to make Rising Star this year if it weren’t for the fact that I miss everyone there so badly!)
We played my new copy of the Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game last night – with 8 players and a new game, it ran very long. The Computer killed off three of each Troubleshooter’s clones in mid-game because of the traitorous amount of time the missions were taking 😉 But the game itself was great… there was much cheerful backstabbing, though the players took a while to understand that it was body count that would eventually win the game. It had that perfect Paranoia feel, though, and I think I might have more people interested in a few sessions of the RPG.
I’m running out of time to assemble my EmCee costume for Rising Star this year. It would help if a) my bank account was healthier, and b) if I actually had a final idea picked out. I’d love to have this Halo Master Chief armor I saw at Dragon*Con… it vaguely fits into the con’s ‘mecha’ theme… but neither of the websites that feature it are actually selling copies at the moment, and it would probably be hard to hear me through the helmet.
Speaking of the con, I will probably finish the report today. Probably.
Dragon*Con 2005 report, pt. 2
Friday, 9/2
It was kinda weird to wake up at a Con hotel before the Con’s started. Despite an attempt to mark the interesting early-morning panels in the 100-some-page program booklet, I got a slow start on Friday, and blew them off. Instead, I wandered over to the Marriott to see if the dealers’ room had opened.
Accidentally, I sat down to rest exactly where the WizKids envoys were meeting. One knew me, and the others reacted well when I dropped raininva‘s name. As a freshly-renewed Envoy myself, I was offered the opportunity to help out, but declined, as I needed a “vacation” con over a “working” one.
The Exhibitors’ Hall held larger dealers, such as game companies and prop dealers, and the Dealers’ room had the smaller stores and such. There was plenty in both I’d have bought with an unlimited budget; several times during the weekend, I had to ask myself, “If you take that gaming book home, will you ever actually use it?”
I wandered back into the lobby, and started to feel a real case of costume envy. There were so many incredible outfits there; I really wish I’d had time to pack more of my stuff. Not that much of it would be competition, but it might have been fun to show off anyway. I won’t bother trying to list everything I saw, as that would be boring. It started to get a little depressing, honestly – I could have worn anything I own and not looked out-of-place – and there I stood in jeans and t-shirt. I felt like an arch-conservative.
I went back upstairs for a badly needed nap, as the laps of the hotels in the warmth of Atlanta (and 30,000 fans) were beginning to get to me. Rain called to let me know she was on the final leg of her flight in, so I wandered down to the Food Court joining the Hyatt and Marriott: a tunnel leads to the local metro station, where she’d have been coming in. I misremembered her arrival time, though, and her plane was delayed and the flight’s luggage held up, resulting in me spending about 2.5 – 3 hours in that food court. I saw lots more great costumes, though, and recognized the trademark t-shirt and flame-boots of Jennie Breeden, author and artist of webcomic The Devil’s Panties. She needed directions to the Hyatt, and I talked briefly to her while taking her there. Very nice lady. I’m sure she thinks I was a borderline stalker.
Rain finally made it to the Con, and we went to the WizKids Envoy Appreciation dinner. Good food, and we learned to play WizKids’ first CCG, High Stakes Drifter. As well, Rain got to see something very very very cool at the Dinner which readers of her journal should get to hear about soon.
Tired. Slightly overheated. Rain went to the room WizKids had arranged for her, and I headed back up to mine. Fell into bed and blanked out.
