I am a longtime table top roll player, from when the term "gamer" had nothing to do with computers.

Much of my gaming career has been spent at the local University, which has had open gaming since I was an Undergrad.

No more. The undergrads (mostly) don't go. We have one in our group. But mostly it's people out of school, so the University has said no more. Rather depressing.

I think I want to go to one of the big (tabletop) gaming cons, just to see that there is still an appreciable amount gamers still left....

M & I went to the GLMF Saturday. We had fun. At 7pm, when it ended, we were like, is it over already?

I took a peek at Google's aerial of the Farie, and can confirm we didn't see it all. I spotted a cheessboard stage and a jousting field that we never saw. M enjoyed herself, so we're going to go back, if only next year. Oh, and as an added bonus, it's slightly closer to us than Sterling ~ 2 1/2 hours as opposed to ~3 hours.

I have again forgotten to pack my earbuds and bring them to work. And I don't want to hear most of what goes on at work.

I'm considering getting another mp3 player so I don't have to take my player & earbuds out of my work bag.

I spent the weekend at UBCon this weekend with M and a friend of ours. This year M decided to sell and an not run any games (and the same for our friend).

It's a different perspective. Freeing in some ways, but not so with others. You don't need to worry about getting to any place other than your table, but you want to make sure your table is covered at all times. I was the extra person for both M's table and our friends. He was set up right next to us, so I watched his table if he needed to go somewhere, and when I went to get food for M & I, I'd pick up something for him if he needed it.

I don't think I'm as much of a salesperson as either of them, but as the backup person, that's ok. I think I like doing it, and at the very least, I don't mind it. At least if I'm not the only person :-)

Also, thanks to all of our friends who stopped by!

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I have a workbench and drill press - the same workbench tamminnanny has, bought at the same store. [Yes, we stopped and looked, and you were right, the place is dangerous. ;-)] The drill press is similar to his, though the one I got is keyless.

I also have two four-wheeled furniture dollies (along with a fancy dusk mask and some other things.) The dollies were a vital part of M & I actually getting the boxed workbench into the house and moving it to its temporary niche in the cellar. It was heavy and it wouldn't have gotten in without both or us and the dollies. (Pats self on back for getting dollies.) Oh, the workbench, drill press and dollies were all on sale. Everything together came to about the regular price on the workbench. Guess it was a Black Friday weekend sale :-)

We need to get rid of the old refrigerator in the cellar before I can set up. The fridge is about my age and heavy. I'm not taking it out; I'm just going to pay someone to do that. If I had to get it out on my own it'd be going in pieces. Small ones.

Now, I'll also have somewhere to put the band saw I picked up. And somewhere to saw long boards besides on top of the washer & drier, or outside when it's warm enough. Which isn't usually when I'm sawing something, it seems :-)

Even if you've got the trip down in concept, read the directions and make sure you understand them so they actually make sense when you need to make a turn - especially when your turn turns out to be in a construction zone. Then going West to go home to the east will make sense and you won't think your going thee right way long enough to miss all the good chances to turn around and not add a couple hours or so to your trip....

I actually caught a bus that should get me to work on time. Normally I don't manage that when I have to take a bus - which happens when the car needs work. Brakes this time.

Hm, nothing else too exciting going on. Looking forward to some things - gaming & trips. That's about it right now.

I picked up a belt sander for $5 from a garage sale Saturday and a band saw for $25 and the big flea market on Walden. Now if I only had a place to set it up ;-) (That's a longer term goal of mine, getting a workshop area.)

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Originally posted by nekojindesigns at We just need one more push!

UBCon was this weekend. It went better than I expected - expectations fueled by the Con's website.

The games I played in went well. Scion was a lot of fun. I think it bodes well for M's upcoming campaign.

The other game I played in was an "Abney Park's Airship Pirates." We went well off the the planed adventure, but it was fun for all. I'm seriously thinking of running my own event in September, and I even have an idea for a plot. The game I was in got me to thinking of "The Flying Ghost Ship" - Kaizuku Sentai Gokaiger's summer movie.

We went and saw "John Cartier" this weekend. Can't say I found the protagonist sympathetic, but the movie was generally entertainig. A little slow with the initial set up, but Mars itself was interesting. Never read any of the books, so can't comment from that angle. Don't regret paying the matine price.

We've finished watching all of the tv episodes of Kaizuko Sentai Gokaiger. I'll miss it. It was my introduction to Super Sentai (and toukusatsu in general) and it sold me on the genra (sp?). We do have the summer movie for it, and the crossover movie with Space Sherrif Gavin should be out soon. And I think there is one more movie. Of course, there is rewatching it :-)

We started watching Tensou Sentai Goseiger this week. We finished off watching Maho Sentai Magiranger a week ago, caught up on Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger last week, and will watch the end of it after we get a hold of the last episode. Then back to Gosaiger. Hm, after two episodes, I think I like GoseiPink. (And not too surprisingly, I like GoseiRed. A??? Names are not my strong point.)

We're also watching Kamen Rider Kiva, and are over halfway thru the series. It's pretty good. We're getting story twists and tugging on the heartstrings.

We've also been watchin Oran High School Host Club Live - the live version of an anime. When we started watching Gosaiger, I realised one of the actors in it also played GosieRed. Small world, it seems :-)

OHSHC live is interesting in that the series uses manga-style special effects with the live actors. I can't think of anything U.S. made that does that, with the possible exception of the Spider Man skits on the Electric Company (old educational public TV show.) I don't think the special effects would fly here, but they seem to be fine for Japan - after all they are manga/anime based special effects and tokusatsu shows will use styization over strict realism. (And think of how much clean up is saved with not using lots of fake blood.)

I don't think I've watched this much tv with live actors (as opposed to anime) in years!

I turned off the router function of our dsl modem last night. It went relatively smothly, as I've done pretty much the same thing before for my in-laws. Mine had some extra steps, as I lost the IP lease for the network hard drive in the shuffle, and I finally conluded it was better to just give it a permanent IP address outside the DHCP lease range and remap the stuff pointing to the old address. I did notice out there is an advantage to the old operating systems that I manually had to map drive using the device name - the device name doesn't change when the IP address does, so I only had to change the ftp settings. (But the software that comes with the drive and requires at least XP maps using the IP address.) Maybe I'll try manually mapping the drives witht the device name and see if that works. But it shouldn't matter with the new fixed IP address.

I did get it all set up and now have the router logging into the dsl and running the (only) NAT/firewall. Makes it much easier to connect something that needs an open port, as there is a single firewall. I think it may help on needing to reboot the modem & router to get things to connect, and should help the xbox etc. And with just the one firewall I can manually open a port and have it work (as it's not blocked by the 2nd routing/firewall).

M & I have been watching Japanese tokusatsu (live action "superhero") shows lately, including some Super Sentai shows. In the West, the scenes with the Japanese actors get stripped out and the costumed action sequences are combined with english speaking actors to create "Power Ranger" episodes.

M's observation is that the Japanese actors are hot (or at least not hard on the eyes), but the replacement actors aren't (as) good looking. In general, I pretty much agree on the Japanese actors (*drools*), and on the replacement actors M showed me. (The one that stuck in my mind is the guy who always looks angry in is shots. He might look good if he smiled, or at least stopped glaring.)

I will also add the observation that Kamen Rider (another tokusatsu type show) actors tend to look hot.

So M wondered why you end up with "ugly Americans" replacing the good looking Japanese actors. (Ok, the Western actors are not necessarily Americans, but it was a good phrase.)

There are some pat answers which I doubt are the case, but seriously, I belive the answers are due to different attitues by the respective producers (and audiences) toward the different versions of the shows.

In the West, kids shows seem to expect less from their audience, than in Japan. Japanese shows have shown things that get cut out of American shows. People dying is a notable theme that has gotten cut out. Also, my personal thought is that Japanese shows also may expect some of their audience to be adults, if nothing else for the movies that go with the tv series.

Ok, so if you have more respect for your audience, you're probablly willing to pay more for your actors. More $, and you have more actors to choose from.

Second thought is that in Japan, with Super Sentai (and Kamen Rider, at least in some cases), the series will have new actors, and the series seem to give them a positive exposure. There are books and magazines articles showcasing the stars of the series, for example. Each series lasts a year, so the actors going in know it's not permanent.

In contrast, I understand that the Power Ranger actors were threatend with being fired if they wanted more money, and the show would go on indefinately without them. Seems like a less desireable atmosphere to work in. If I could get something better, I'd probably go work there. So my thought is less actors wiould want to work in Power Rangers than Super Sentai, based on the way they expect to be treated. So again, less actors to choose from, and you're likely left with the ones who can't get other work.

Of note is that one of the actors in the current Super Sentai show is a fan of earlier Super Sentai. And the one movie for the serries gives a prominent nod to fans.

Lately we've been watching Japanese Super Senti shows as well as anime. Specifically Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (Pirate Sentai) and Maho Sentai Magiranger (Magician Sentai). I like the Japanese actors and the story lines involving their characters. Okay, the space pirate ship in Gokaiger is neat and I'd be happy to have it, and the in-costume battles and giant (robot) sequences are interesting enough, but I'm hooked on the characters.

Gokaiger airs in Japan along with the current Kamen Rider, and the Gokaiger footage has the teaser for Kamen Rider. So I ended up looking at Kamen Rider shows. Kamen Rider Decade was the retrospective show. (Kamen Rider, like Super Sentai, changes the theme and actors each year.) Kamen Rider W is the preceding show, and looks pretty interesting. It's a detective theme, with Kamen Rider (the costumed hero) being controled by two people. I've seen bits of it, and the start of the first episode. That looks like the opening to a movie. I'm looking forward to watching it.

Happy Holidays!

We got everything wrapped and the tree up yesterday. Can't say this was our most orginized year. M ended up working all week unexpectedly, so her expected prep time was a lot less. But we both have Monday off, so that's good. Today will be spent with both familes. M's currently helping her Mom in the kitchen, and this afternoon we'll go over to my sister's for my side of the family.

A visit from a friend so beats getting a religous track when you answer the door!

Okay, back to wrapping....

I was waiting for the bus but not by the bus stop, but in the shade. I could see the next bus stop up from where I was, and the bus had to make two turns before it got to where I was, so as long as I paid attention I had plenty of time to leave the shade and get to the bus stop near me.

It was sort of like hunting, waiting to spot the bus, I thought. You have to pay attention. Of course, if it had been real prey and I hunting, if there was someone with me we couldn't have talked, as it might have scared off what we were waiting for. Perhaps that's why there are, as far as I can tell, more tacturn men than women?

We let Ari go yesterday. We cried a lot at the time, but we're doing surprisingly well now. We went out to dinner and talked about some of the adventures he had. We learned from him that cats can like bread, including bagles!

I'll miss him.

I am alive. Good start. It's Friday. Another positive. I'll take what I can get.

I've been playing Fallout: New Vegas. I don't think it's quite as good as Fallout 3, though it does have some minor improvements and changes. The buggyness I've read about in reviews doesn't seem to be as bad as reported. Sometimes they're more extreeme than Fallout 3, like the wolf that got stuck high in the air and was bullet proof. But the frequency doesn't seem to be worse than Fallout 3, maybe better - though I played FAllout 3 for years, so I may have predjudiced view.

At least some of the FNV companions have side quests, which is neat. I picked up one (male) companion by having the Confirmed Batchlor perk. Apparently he had a crush on my character. So, interesting.

The game uses background from Fallout 1 & 2, so it's nice to see old friends etc.

Haven't played much of anything else lately. FNV is interesting enough to keep playing and yet mindless enough when rather wiped out. Also, you can save any time, so it's good when you don't have large chunks of time to play in.

I was on Bailey Ave and hit a hole right by a manhole (northbound, right lane if you're local) and it ripped the sidewal. M got a ride to UBCon, and I'm waiting while I get the tire fixed

M & I ordered ourselves new phones over the weekend, after mine started having error messages. It's still functioning at the moment, but with its other problems, it seemed time to replace it. And M's current phone is my old phone from prior to my current one. I'm getting a G2 to replace my current G1. I don't remember what M's new phone is, but it is an android phone.

My G1 lost its Android App store application, and its Google map app. The first I should be get around via the web site, but the web site won't give me back my google maps, which I do like and use.

So I'm thinking it may be time to replace my phone, at least before we go somewhere on vacation. I'm thinking of getting a G2, which has a physical keyboard, a feature I like. Notably it has a flash for its camera. And there is an extended life battery for it. Fat, and the phone gets thicker and needs a new backplate, but I did it for my G1 and think it was a great accessory.

Apparently I like tower defense games. I've played through all the available scenarios at least once, and I'm working on getting gold medals now. But at least I'm not so addicted any more. Plus getting gold medals is harder than surviving, so it can get stressful, which does bad things to me. So I'm back to playing other stuff too. Chiefly Dragon Age Origons (going to finish the story with my dwarf noble) and Ca?? (360 version of the board game wher you build cities, roads and monastaries. Still want to get back to Persona 3 and finish that, but it's time consuming and takes a (working) brain, which seems to be in short supply in the evening.

We've been watching Persona Trinity Soul in the evening, along with Planetes and Gogaigar. It gets tempting to watch more, but there's only so much time....

I suspect the sound the furnace has been making is something like it needs a belt for the fanor something similar. The poor thing was going almost constantly when it was very cold, and it's old. :-( Could be worse, as it was still working this morning. The chalenge will be to schedual someone to come when one of us is home.

I need to download my email more often. I do read the messages on my phone but when you download several hundred emails in your primary email account, it's time to start doing it more often. Like more frequently than I do Christmas shopping....

I got my father-in-law's new used laptop to work with his home network. Turns out that the settings had extra security on by default, so it was trying to log in to the network, like it would for a college or workplace network. (And as it used to be used on one, it makes perfect sense that it was set up that way.) I updated his antivirus etc, so he should be set for a while.

I also got my new used laptop's wireless to work now. It wasn't even that hard - it actually worked with the first driver I tried. (But I did download a lot of drivers the day when I went hunting.) And I'm posting from it now at my in-law's. So I've got something decent to take with me next time we go on vacation. :-)

Originally posted by neo_prodigy at Spirit Day