| Stories and Philosophy |
[Oct. 9th, 2009|01:13 am] |
Time for a substantial post, or at least what passes for substantial these days.
I have taken up writing, mostly as a creative outlet, but partly as a way to track the progression of my thoughts. The first part of that, the outlet, is being done by writing fiction (fantasy mostly) that has been in my head for years. It is funny how some things are location based. I had this whole world that I had created in High school that I almost completely forgot once I went to college, but now I’m back here and the desire to actually write this stuff down has been good for me. When I first got back I spent a lot of my time making characters for games that I would never play in, coming up with situations that they would face and what-not, then I realized that these characters were far more interesting if I started from those interactions instead of the character sheet. And with writing I have sole discretion, so these scenes can play out exactly as I saw them, without the need to be fair to other characters or any other consideration.
The second part of my desire to write, the need to follow a train of thought has been brought on by the desire to write philosophy. Or to at least put down my moral and ethical views in a coherent manner. I decided long ago that if I were ever to write something like this I would avoid at all costs the errors of Kant. Specifically the utter uselessness of his ethics. I wanted ethics that could work in the real word, otherwise why even bother. And so I have started to write of my philosophies down. This was prompted by my Father who asked me one day how I would define living a responsible life, a question which has many seemingly simple answers, but, in totality, is a damnably hard question. |
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| Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 |
[Sep. 22nd, 2009|01:58 pm] |
So let me start off by saying that I really enjoyed the first game in this series. This sequel fails to meet the high expectations set forth by that game. Right off the bat, only 2 players can play together, so no more 4 player fun. Net it has a very weird relationship to the comics. The first two acts are directly out of the Secret Wars series, and then it progresses very loyally into the opening battles of the civil war. And then halfway through a very well duplicated scene from the comics (the chemical plant ambush) the game suddenly dives off into a different direction. And never returns. It is very jarring when it goes from very loyally cannon to suddenly completely new content.
As for the gameplay itself, most of the changes were improvements (except for the only 2 player thing). The new Fusion Mechanic is awesome, with new and interesting effects that replace the x=treme powers. Also they finally added in passive powers, so now Luke Cage doesn’t need a temporary boost to have good soak. All characters have at least 2 passive powers, many of which are very, very useful. Other than that the gameplay is pretty much like that of MUA 1.
The most infuriating thing about the game is the fact that you can, like me, manage to get through the entire game without unlocking any of the unlockable characters. I had to buy the strategy guide to find out how to unlock the characters (make sure to talk to everyone in all of the bases, even if you talked to them before the briefing!). One of the great bits of flavor in this game, at least for me, is the fact that deadpool completely breaks the fourth wall (“Oh, the new fusion mechanic, we should have put that in the title” and “I never should have left my comic book” as well as “Player, don’t you dare let me die” when low on health).
From reading the strategy guide I found out something very interesting, There are actually two different versions of this game. One for PS2, PSP, and Wii (although the wii version allows 4 players). A separate version of the game for PS3 and Xbox 360. And I don’t just mean different characters available, I mean that the battles and plot lines are slightly different, with different bosses. Not to mention that fusions apparently work very differently, and the game doesn’t have save points. Also all of the character’s power-set-ups have been completely redone. From what I can tell the PS3 version is dramatically better than the PS2 version. |
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| Notice |
[Jul. 28th, 2009|03:29 pm] |
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fo anyone who might be trying to get in contact with me between now and Friday: I am not going to have access to the internet until I am home again, aside from the library, so email and LJ are far from the best ways to get a hold of me. |
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| Sigh, I may have to stop reading Marvel comics out of Principle |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|02:30 am] |
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They just announced that they are doing something that they swore they would not do: They are bringing Steve Rogers back. And not even clone Cap, or anything like that, just cap resurrected. I had hoped that something billed as such a pivotal moment in 616 would stay that way. On one hand I uttery reject that the one person they promised would stay dead will come back, on the other, from how they are spinning this it seems like it may very well spell the end to Dark Reign. |
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| New Email |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|08:46 pm] |
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so since I'm all graduated and stuff, the college has taken back the email account they gave me, to this end if any of you wonderful people want to email me, my new email address is: ABStocking@gmail.com. |
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| Blarg. |
[May. 11th, 2009|10:30 pm] |
Today has not been a good day. Due to back pain and insomnia I had only 3 hours of sleep, then I had work for 5 hours, wich would have been fine if I had a few more days worth of warning that the summer hours were starting before finals ended. So it was off to a bad start and has only gotten worse. last night I had found out that I had missed a final deadline on a paper with a no extensions policy, but I figured that my good grade in the class would carry through as a low C even after the -10% for missing t5he final. Then tonight I get an email saying that the actual deadline was in fact today, I missed it and that due to this I would fail the course. I am a bit angry at this because I had stopped working once I realized that I had missed the no late papers mark, and concentrated on my other finals. This email was a double surprise, it A) told me I had more time than the sylibus and moodle said I had so I could actually have done the paper, and B) nowhere was it mentioned that failing to turn in the paper would mean failing the class.
The worst part of this is the fact that other than a bit of anger at the situation I can't bring myself to care about this. Right now is not a good time for me. There are some things going on back home that have me rather deeply depressed and I find I really can't muster any enthusiasm for school right now. I don't need any of my current classes for graduation, and my GPA is already shitty, but not shitty enough that I am in danger of not graduating. Basically I have realized that I could fail every single class right now and it would have no significant impact on my life. Because of this I have the persistent feeling that everything I am doing now is meaningless.
I have completely finished the finals of two of my three remaining classes, and intend to wake up early tomorrow to finish off the last one, I'm not going to completely give up on my schoolwork, but this is mostly out of respect for the teachers and a sense of duty, not for grades or knowledge. I never thought that I would be ready to leave Beloit, but I really am. I can't wait to be done with all this shit. I would like to spend the next few weeks hanging out with my friends and enjoying their company in the little time I have remaining, but I am easily irritated these days and have basically just holed myself up in my room. I am hoping that summer will help with these feelings, despite it being out of character I could do with some sun and a nice happy glorious day.
I want to find something I care about doing, something that is more than simply going on. I am for the first time really debating whether to move to madison at the end of the summer or to go off somewhere new. I have felt that I am not ready to move on, and in all reality I am not ready for adult life, but I don't want to keep going judt because I'm afraid of the alternatives. In all honesty I probably should have graduated at the semester break and not finished out the last semester. I have greatly enjoyed the time spent with my friends, and learned a bit more about myself, but not enough to justify the money spent on this semester here. |
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| The CIA wishes to trade brick for wood |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|10:48 am] |
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Man, playing way too much settlers plus reading a like amount of Tom Clancy combined with only 3 hours of sleep makes for some really fucked up dreams. |
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| I like computer games |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|09:30 am] |
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So my entire evening (and night, and morning...) has been eaten up by playing a new game called the babylon project. The game is one of th3e best space combat sims I've seen, set in the Babylon 5 universe. It is entirely built out of the freespace 2 code, wich was publicly released to modders. Because of the original publishers releasing this code this game is fully legally available for free download off of its' website (if you are interested just Google the Babylon project). I have a lot of respect for any space sim where you can rotate your ship independently from your line of travel. Anyway, if you are a B5 fan and looking for a good, free game, you should look into this. |
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| I'm enjoying life (a general update) |
[Feb. 9th, 2009|01:39 am] |
Today has been a very good day. I woke up around 3:20, and walked with Claudia to Save-a-lot, which was a pleasant walk. There I got enough food to last me quite a while, and all for around $15. that is for 10 meals plus assorted snacks, all for such a low amount, which made me happy. I needed to spend another buck on a bag (they don’t actually have plastic bags, which was a bit of a surprise) but the bag is actually pretty good quality for $1.
Then there was Housing committee elections. Elections this years went very smoothly, despite having 20 people initially nominated, which dropped down to 15 in very short order. We finished elections in under an hour, which is nearly miraculous. In the end we have a very good Housing Committee: Karis, Maggie, Tanya, Jeremiah, Justin, Kristen, Chris and myself.
Then there was some hanging out and talking about who would likely be applying to live in house, which always engages the puzzle part of my brain and is therefore fun. After that I read comics and the topic of conversation drifted to a variety of topics. Now, for the first time this semester, I am feeling tired and sleepy at the proper time on a Sunday. I should be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight. On that note, I should get to bed. |
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| Ok, so my day so far: |
[Feb. 6th, 2009|08:13 am] |
12:00 AM: get out of Exalted, proceed to sit in lounge and talk about the game, as we are wont to do.
2:30 AM: Most everyone has left, but Robbie and I continue to talk about an ever increasing variety of topics.
4:00 AM: Robbie goes upstairs. At this point I remember that instead of needing to get up at 11 like I usually do (and would have gotten 7 hours of sleep), I need to get up at 7, and as such cannot get enough sleep so an all nighter it is.
7:15 AM go to breakfast.
8:00 show up to work. Discover that the person who gave me her hours had actually already given them to someone else, and that I could have slept in till 11.
It is currently 8:13 and I already hate the day. |
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| Might as well do this meme. |
[Jan. 8th, 2009|04:05 pm] |
When we role-play, we tend to pick up a variety of characters. They could be ones that we like, ones that we want to experiment with, or ones that we just end up making from scratch. Eventually, we come to associate with (some of) them in one way or another. Out of all the characters (past or present) I role-play, pick out the one I am most like and tell me why you think so. (And hey, add on any interesting insights you've got into the types of characters I play, similarities between them, and whether they can imply anything interesting about me as a person).
Changeling:
Ashan - An evil Eshu who looked like an angel. Was a manipulative bastard who cloaked every underhanded thing he did with the story of a torrid gay romance, because it made people uncomfortable and they stopped asking questions. Had the flaw "Dark Sercet: Not Gay"
D&D:
Lucanis Marathesian - A thoroughly evil and somewhat insane warlock who eventually became a lich and then ascended to godhood.
Aberrant:
Fitz - would have been a member of the Teragen if they existed in the world of that game.
Kenshi Yoshida - a mega int gadgeteer who has continuously upgraded himself with technological equivalents to many powers.
Exalted:
Satoshi - a low compassion chosen of endings, fully believed that the ends justified the means.
Tenaka - a night caste who did everything a night caste is supposed to do, only through sorcery and thaumaturgy.
7th Sea:
Fareem Al'Marikk - Die kruritter phantom guard who fell in love with every pretty woman encountered in the adventure. Had a thing for using various types of poisons. Masqueraded as a religious peot.
Vampire: The Masquerade:
Haji - Settite Sorcerer who ended up insanely powerful. Was the evil half of the Egyptian siblings in the LARP 2 years ago. He believed that he was liberating those he corrupted from the chains of slavery.
Kai - Coyote gangrel who rebelled against every authority figgure he ever saw. Also, he tore people's faces off when they were evil.
Mage: The Awakening:
Felix - An Acanthus lawyer who tried to right injustices with curses. |
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| General Update. |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|07:53 pm] |
It’s been over a month since I posted anything to this journal, huh. Oh well. Home is pretty nice actually, which is a bit of a surprise. I’m usually sick and tired of living with my folks by now. This winter I’m just content to be sitting around reading/futzing with characters/playing computer games. We have had glorious weather, including a snowstorm that left 4 feet of snow in some drifts. As a related note I had forgotten how heavy snow is, it looks light a fluffy, but a good snow-shovel full is nothing to laugh at. Today was an oddity for me, I went to two social events.
Event 1 was a D&D game that I stopped by at. The game crew these days contain only 3 people I know, only 1 I know well, and their games are crap-tastic. Someone I didn’t know was running the game, and they were very obviously just reading the description in a dull monotone voice, everyone looked bored and were glad for an opportunity to chat with me. I left after a short while as the GM was glaring at me.
Event 2 was a neighborhood party. The youngest person there besides me was 50 or so. I left after 45 minutes and having the same conversation with 6 people.
While I’m pretty happy here I do miss folks from Beloit. I miss the company, as well as the game and game talk. In the meantime I am doing some things that could be seen as preparing for school, which keeps me sane. I’ve been plotting for my games, all three of them, as well as lamenting the games I cannot run. I have a number of ideas that I really want to run, but frankly don’t have the time (running three games is more than enough).
Games I want to run
Shadowrun: Good Guys (the PCs would be a fast response Lonestar or Knight Errant team).
A Game of Thrones
Aberrant: The Directive
Trinity
Pendragon: the Winter King (based off the books by Bernard Cornwell)
Scion
An unfortunate number of games that I won’t get to run while at Beloit.
I’ve been loving the internet speed here, when I started writing this post I had just started downloading 7 D&D books, and they just finished. I’ve been using this shamelessly to download comics, and have been reading all the current ones as fast as they come in. there are some awesome new comics around, including a run on volume 5 of iron man that is doing its’ best to turn Tony into a hero again.
On a related note, I forgot my mouse in Beloit, so I left off playing ultimate Alliance, but then I saw a PS2 version on sale for $5 and grabbed it. I do love that game, and wish to share that love with other BSFFAs who might well get a kick out of playing some of their favorite marvel characters like Deadpool, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Spidy, Cap, Nick Fury, and the Silver Surfer. To the end of maybe playing this at Beloit, I have been playing through with the express purpose of unlocking everything in the entire game, including alternate costumes. So far I’m 4/5 through the game and have unlocked every character you can before finishing the game, as well as all but 1 costume for all of those characters, still working on unlocking the final Mrs. Marvel costume, but I’m really enjoying the game. It has some issues, in that some characters are just worse then others (although that is realistic for the Marvel universe). I feel strongly enough about this game to write a review, which will happen once I finish the game.
That is about all I’ve got to report. Hope all of you are enjoying the holiday break.
EDIT: add a 4th edition forgotten realm game to the list. I just read the Forgotten realms book for 4th ed and it is great. |
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| A note to those of us who were voicing our complaints about LARP... |
[Nov. 11th, 2008|02:57 am] |
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I went and talked to the STs tonight and it did actually help put my mind at ease about several issues. I'm not completely satisfied, as much more of the shit we are dealing with is PC driven then I had thought and they obviously have no control over that stuff. That being said I do feel better about LARP having talked to the STs about the problems I have been having, and I urge you to do the same. I will freely admit I was among several of us who mentioned dropping LARP due to being unhappy with it. Then I realized that if we don't bring our concerns to the STs and then drop LARP because we are not happy, that would definitely fall into the category of passive aggressive behavior, and none of us want to be there. So please, those of you who felt as I did, go talk to them, if you are not having fun talking to them can't hurt and it might help make the game more fun, which is kinda he point of the game. |
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| So, Chris asked all us LARPers do take this quiz... |
[Oct. 22nd, 2008|04:38 pm] |
You Are a Witch (or Warlock)
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You are deviously brilliant and a perfect manipulator.
You somehow always end up getting what you want - without anyone knowing you're working behind the scenes.
Crafty and cunning, you can work your way out of any jam.
And it's easy for you to get people to do what you want, whether you're working for good or evil.
Your greatest power: Mind control
Your greatest weakness: Making people your puppets
You play well with: Ghosts
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| This Walloween should be awesome |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|06:42 pm] |
So I usually put off thinking about a Halloween costume until the last minute. But this year there is a plan. And that plan is the Avengers Initiative. It all started when Indy made an arc reactor heart, and now we have a large group costuming as the Avengers. So far we have:
Indy: Tony Stark
Andy: The Mighty Thor
Claudia: Captain America
Nick: Beast
Abe: either hawkeye or ant-man
Chris: Hulkling
Robbie: Loki (Ok, not an Avenger, but he is the founding Villain)
This should be hilarious. |
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| Analysis and Ranking of L5R schools |
[Sep. 23rd, 2008|06:42 pm] |
So, I decided to do a write up of the L5R schools just like I did for 7th Sea, as such here it is. This post will just cover the bushi. The next post will cover scouts and ninja. The one after that will be Courtiers, then shugenja/other.
As a note, so far this just covers the Bushi schools in the Core book. I will later be adding in the supplements.
( Read more ) |
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| of Injury and Intrigue |
[Sep. 16th, 2008|05:01 pm] |
Right so, the last few days:
We had rush last Sunday, which I enjoyed quite a bit, despite some complications and consequences. And now a breakdown of my thoughts on rush, in grade format:
Shooting/kills: C+/B-: I’m not the best shot with a nerf gun in tower, nor will I ever claim to be such, but I got off a few shots that were pretty good, and so I rate myself as a bit above average, but not by too much.
Survivability: C-: This was a bad year for my kill/be killed ratio, I got hit more then the average person, sometimes seeming to live on 3rd floor due to getting hit quite early on.
Weaponry: A+: I brought the Vulcan into lounge where it stayed, sometimes manned by me and more frequently by others, and man is that thing good for stopping a push in its’ tracks.
Personal Safety: F: I managed to hurt one of my feet quite badly on one of the final pushes. But this is my first Rush BSFFA related injury in 5 years, so I really can’t complain.
The creepiest thing is that after going to sleep that night half-convinced that my toe was broken and being in excruciating pain, when I woke up I couldn’t feel a bit of pain in it. I have full range of motion and no pain whatsoever. Man I like being me.
Also last weekend was the first session of LARP, which I greatly enjoyed. I was worried at a couple of points that I might not make it to the second session for political reasons, but all that got worked out. I am dismayed by the actions of several of the mages and man do we need to have a talk to some of our own about what we mention to others (No Celestial Flange rumors!!!) and some of the mages seem willing to set aside the good of the mages as a whole for some excitement, so there is work to be done, and fun to be had.
Annoyed by the college, due to the sports center doing weird things with my paychecks (like submitting one timesheet when my time is tracked and paid differently for two positions) I don’t have money right now, something I hope to remedy tomorrow, although it will take a fair amount of hassle. |
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| School type things |
[Sep. 10th, 2008|05:37 pm] |
So Things are going very well today. I started the day with less sleep than I wanted, but managed to get up and do the reading before class. The reading was almost insulting, it was the most basic directions on how to use a compass to determine which direction north was, and then using that to figure out where east south and west were. Then I got to class and found that those with any orienteering experience at all had, like me found the reading uselessly self explanatory. The problem was that those students in the class who had never held a real compass before hadn’t had the experience needed to understand the reading. So if you knew the topic is was insultingly simple, but if you didn’t it made no sense, probably one of the worst devised readings I’ve seen here. But then the class broke into pairs, to do distance and bearing exercises. I (since I had orienteering experience) was paired with one of the least experienced girls in the class. I can’t for the life of me remember her name, but we share two classes and get along quite well.
For the distance tests (learning to estimate distance by our steps) we were off by 6 centimeters off for 10 meters. That was just pacing out and trying to put a marker at 10 meters. Then there was a quasi-competitive project to estimate the distance between a tree and a sign. When the groups compared numbers no one else, including the professor was anywhere near ours, but we were pretty confidant we had it right so we stuck with our answer. We were exactly right, not off by a single centimeter, which in a public forum/competition is always fun. Then we broke off into the orienteering part and I discovered that while my partner knew nothing at all of compasses to start with she was a fast and a good learner. I have never quite appreciated how much fun it can be to teach someone something they enjoy learning when they are a good learner. She made quite good progress and by the end was the second fastest to get an accurate bearing in the next test (I came in first). All in all a very enjoyable class for something that has been dull, dry and boring up until now.
And now, at work things are going great. For reference: I work front desk at the sports center. I was trained to be a supervisor last year, but for various reasons I decided to stay at the front desk. Yesterday the Supervisor came over and started asking me questions about how the sports center works, and has been redirecting people with questions and problems to me. This is a rather nice ego boost for one, and secondly my record allows me liberties not enjoyed by other workers. We are not supposed to use our computers for anything other than schoolwork upon threat of being fired. The bosses don’t care that I play computer games and read comics, because they trust me to be attentive. This leeway is great, and is a sign of trust that the other workers don’t enjoy, and hey, I can never resist someone saying “have some special privileges because you are better then the others” Man talk about feeding my ego nicely. |
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