Being "under the weather" has done a couple of things. First, it has taken my computer away from me, it is really hard to use it and be in a half sitting, half laying position. Anyway, it has sent me to my entertainment to keep the mind distracted.
By now everyone, well, some people, know that Sue and I abandoned TV. Somehow paying for 720 hours of TV a day seemed rather extreme. Especially with us watching a few hours a week at most.
Now I rely on the Internet. I have a couple of archeology podcasts, legal, philosophy, sociology, psychology and grammar podcasts that I follow to keep up with my college degrees.
For technology I follow a number of the twit network podcasts, plus a couple of others. If the tech podcasts know less than I do, I do not stick with them, and there are a surprising number that are either dumb or paid pawns of someone.
On the news end I have a left wing, right wing, neocon, liberal, and a couple of extra wings as well. I must live in a quad plane society. My favorite is dan carlin's common sense.
I have a number of movies on my computer, usually I get them a few years after release for $3.00 at the dollar stores, but I have them, and I can watch those over the network on the iPad as I rest.
I also have a good number of audiobooks. They come from iTunes, audible and from cd's. These are also available across the network, well, the audible is not. They use irritating DRM. I can't listen to my own books over my own network. They have a work around, but why do I need it?
I have a number of open source audiobooks as well, reviewing Aristotle, Bacon and others is always good for the mind.
I have some TV shows that I have gotten into the computer as well. I go back and watch Babylon 5 on a regular basis. I have not gotten many of these, there really are not that many that I want to watch more than once.
Right now I have a radio episode of the Scarlet Pumpernickel playing in my ears. Beyond Midnight is up next.
The result is that I actually have more entertainment that I am interested in now than I did when we had TV's 720 plus hours a day.
I guess getting sick has made me realize just how good it is to live in a free society and be able to make my own choices rather than letting others choose for me.
Life is good.
-- Posted From My iPad
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday talk
Life has thrown me a curveball here over the past few days. The warm, wet weather has exploded my allergies. A good deal of swelling is going on. It is causing my arthritis to be rather painful, and even typing is causing pain. One of the side effects of having no insurance and relying on good food is that while I am doing very well on average, when there is a flare up, it is a pain.
We got set 401 in and I am slowly getting the pre-orders ready for shipping tomorrow. I will also get it moved over to the regular item order page in the morning.
Working with Flint laminators and doing ink research we are building a way to be able to sell special orders of individual cards. We are having to layout our storage and numbering system in a way to make it reasonable. We will be able to sell the cards in batches of nine cards. Those nine cards can be different cards. We will be able to do that for $9.00, or $1.00 per card. That will allow people to order just the cards they want for a character.
Sue is still having trouble reading her Dragon Storm cards. What we are going to have to do is to strip out the backgrounds and and make the cards Black and White with a color art square. I still have a couple of days work to be able to make that work. The result is that Sue can read the cards.
This weekend we will be at Penguicon. I know the hotel has a number of "things" in the air that set off my allergies. With my current allergy attack, I will have to be very careful, and find ways to support Sue. It can be done.
I need to spend a day creating the newsletter in here somewhere. I think I should schedule that for tomorrow. I can do it after we get the shipping done in the morning.
Tonight we have a game, it will be with lower CP characters. This groups main characters all have a chance to get Boons, so they are taking an adventure off to account for the time used. Gives them a chance to build up the secondary characters.
It is interesting to watch how Second Edition characters build. We have a lot more "big" cards coming down the pipe, including the HP cards, so characters have fewer cards. This leaves them more vulnerable to Fatigue. To counter that characters are taking more small role-playing cards to create a buffer against fatigue. It is also making them, on average, more capable in hamlets, villages and when meeting merchant caravans. Players are damned sharp people, they quickly adapt to change. Their choices are also giving me, as GM, more variety in what I can create for them to encounter.
Tonight they will be spending some time traveling with a Trader Tribe of Das Karr. Their are about 40 of them. A dozen other humanoids are traveling with them for security. They travel between hamlets, villages and towns trading what they buy, buying what they can trade and selling entertainment.
Ok, enough for now, fingers hurt.
-- Posted From My iPad
We got set 401 in and I am slowly getting the pre-orders ready for shipping tomorrow. I will also get it moved over to the regular item order page in the morning.
Working with Flint laminators and doing ink research we are building a way to be able to sell special orders of individual cards. We are having to layout our storage and numbering system in a way to make it reasonable. We will be able to sell the cards in batches of nine cards. Those nine cards can be different cards. We will be able to do that for $9.00, or $1.00 per card. That will allow people to order just the cards they want for a character.
Sue is still having trouble reading her Dragon Storm cards. What we are going to have to do is to strip out the backgrounds and and make the cards Black and White with a color art square. I still have a couple of days work to be able to make that work. The result is that Sue can read the cards.
This weekend we will be at Penguicon. I know the hotel has a number of "things" in the air that set off my allergies. With my current allergy attack, I will have to be very careful, and find ways to support Sue. It can be done.
I need to spend a day creating the newsletter in here somewhere. I think I should schedule that for tomorrow. I can do it after we get the shipping done in the morning.
Tonight we have a game, it will be with lower CP characters. This groups main characters all have a chance to get Boons, so they are taking an adventure off to account for the time used. Gives them a chance to build up the secondary characters.
It is interesting to watch how Second Edition characters build. We have a lot more "big" cards coming down the pipe, including the HP cards, so characters have fewer cards. This leaves them more vulnerable to Fatigue. To counter that characters are taking more small role-playing cards to create a buffer against fatigue. It is also making them, on average, more capable in hamlets, villages and when meeting merchant caravans. Players are damned sharp people, they quickly adapt to change. Their choices are also giving me, as GM, more variety in what I can create for them to encounter.
Tonight they will be spending some time traveling with a Trader Tribe of Das Karr. Their are about 40 of them. A dozen other humanoids are traveling with them for security. They travel between hamlets, villages and towns trading what they buy, buying what they can trade and selling entertainment.
Ok, enough for now, fingers hurt.
-- Posted From My iPad
Sunday, March 27, 2011
A Successful Experiment at Animarithon
Sue and I drove down to Bowling Green for a one day Anime convention as an experiment. It went well.
Yes, we did expand the number of people who will be playing DS and who appreciate Sue's art, but there was more, a lot more.
I like these young people. They have ears on both sides of their heads, and they use them. In general they are also mentally flexible. By that I mean that they have not yet locked their minds down into any ideology, or have become set in their ways. They still have open minds.
They do not have as much life experience as older people, but that is something they will gain. And they will gain it from the future rather than from the past.
They are going to make a different world than we live in, and I am going to like it.
-- Posted From My iPad
Yes, we did expand the number of people who will be playing DS and who appreciate Sue's art, but there was more, a lot more.
I like these young people. They have ears on both sides of their heads, and they use them. In general they are also mentally flexible. By that I mean that they have not yet locked their minds down into any ideology, or have become set in their ways. They still have open minds.
They do not have as much life experience as older people, but that is something they will gain. And they will gain it from the future rather than from the past.
They are going to make a different world than we live in, and I am going to like it.
-- Posted From My iPad
Friday, March 25, 2011
We live in interesting times
As Sue works on the newest draft of the DS 2.0 rules I get short messages of "I need an appendix of X" or sometimes it is y, but you get the idea. I am looking forward to seeing what she is getting done. I really expect to see the near finished rules in the next few days. Then I get to do an edit and lay it out.
The cards are slowly coming through the system and we have a lot of them at near publishing stage. I am dipping into the card ideas that people have sent in to the web, and they will recognize a number of their ideas as the cards come along. I am actually surprised that we do not have a lot more ideas from people, but there you go.
I have been putting in a lot of hours for the past few months and it is giving me a number of minor pains, aches and strange food cravings. A couple of weeks ago I slept 18 hours a day for three days in a row. That seemed to help. Once we get this project well in hand I am taking a vacation.
Change is difficult for people to deal with, but we are happy with how well DS people are dealing with it. Groups that started playing with the changes last summer are telling us the new version is more fun and easier to play. We still have some people who are afraid to make the jump. We understand. Therefore we left "Classic" in place for them. Classic groups will need to evaluate some of the new cards and decide if they want to use them. The new limiters allow us to create some cards that will be "broken" if you do not use the limiters, but that we leave to the Classic GM's. It is their game and they have 3.4 to assist them.
Sue has just dropped a pile of sketches on me to be scanned so she can complete cards and commissions, so I must go.
-- Posted From My iPad
The cards are slowly coming through the system and we have a lot of them at near publishing stage. I am dipping into the card ideas that people have sent in to the web, and they will recognize a number of their ideas as the cards come along. I am actually surprised that we do not have a lot more ideas from people, but there you go.
I have been putting in a lot of hours for the past few months and it is giving me a number of minor pains, aches and strange food cravings. A couple of weeks ago I slept 18 hours a day for three days in a row. That seemed to help. Once we get this project well in hand I am taking a vacation.
Change is difficult for people to deal with, but we are happy with how well DS people are dealing with it. Groups that started playing with the changes last summer are telling us the new version is more fun and easier to play. We still have some people who are afraid to make the jump. We understand. Therefore we left "Classic" in place for them. Classic groups will need to evaluate some of the new cards and decide if they want to use them. The new limiters allow us to create some cards that will be "broken" if you do not use the limiters, but that we leave to the Classic GM's. It is their game and they have 3.4 to assist them.
Sue has just dropped a pile of sketches on me to be scanned so she can complete cards and commissions, so I must go.
-- Posted From My iPad
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Some things just do not fit.
I just deleted a long rambling post I wrote yesterday.
Some cards do not fit neatly into any of the categories we have designed. Therefore we are going to have to add a "Special" card category for everything that requires careful reading before using because they break the rules.
To be able to get the core work done I am going to have to take many of these ideas and post them to myself as projects for the future.
So, when you see something being by passed, assume it needs work and will be along later.
Feel free to email and ask, just in case we have missed something you are interested in.
Some being shelved until later are: Clanborn, Waystones, Familiars, Companions, Elementalism, Ritualism, Astral and nothing else I can think of off the top of my head.
-- Posted From My iPad
Some cards do not fit neatly into any of the categories we have designed. Therefore we are going to have to add a "Special" card category for everything that requires careful reading before using because they break the rules.
To be able to get the core work done I am going to have to take many of these ideas and post them to myself as projects for the future.
So, when you see something being by passed, assume it needs work and will be along later.
Feel free to email and ask, just in case we have missed something you are interested in.
Some being shelved until later are: Clanborn, Waystones, Familiars, Companions, Elementalism, Ritualism, Astral and nothing else I can think of off the top of my head.
-- Posted From My iPad
Friday, February 11, 2011
Firing up for a weekend of work.
Sue is deep in the writing of the Second Edition rules. I do not get to see it until it is finished Monday. I am looking forward to it. After I get it we will be deep in the editing.
Once the rules are formed I will be going over the new cards and make sure they fit the rules.
I am approaching the character card building in stages. I am focused on being able to create and run a dragon through. In the basic form that means dragon, Valarian, universal, channel, health (just as they are) and a set I am calling character builder with Valarian Boons, nightvision and combat masteries.
Once these are done I can add all the different shifter races. They use the same add on cards as the dragon.
I am also building a set of Bloodline sets. Each Bloodline will get nine cards. The current surges are being broken up. Each of those cards do several things and are printed to small to be easily used. I am making the split out abilities come out at about the same CP. Of course, each clan also gets some new cards.
Ok, back to work.
-- Posted From My iPad
Once the rules are formed I will be going over the new cards and make sure they fit the rules.
I am approaching the character card building in stages. I am focused on being able to create and run a dragon through. In the basic form that means dragon, Valarian, universal, channel, health (just as they are) and a set I am calling character builder with Valarian Boons, nightvision and combat masteries.
Once these are done I can add all the different shifter races. They use the same add on cards as the dragon.
I am also building a set of Bloodline sets. Each Bloodline will get nine cards. The current surges are being broken up. Each of those cards do several things and are printed to small to be easily used. I am making the split out abilities come out at about the same CP. Of course, each clan also gets some new cards.
Ok, back to work.
-- Posted From My iPad
Monday, February 7, 2011
Making Progress and enjoying life
We are making some real progress towards the new DS. You have probably already noticed that I have started putting actual cards up on the blog to show off.
The current plan is to finish the ring set on Tuesday and Wednesday, then assemble them for the printer and send them on the way. The way we use rings around here it seems that we should also do the Teleport ring as an individual card. My thought is to do them in five card sets for $4.00. Repackage them here and sell them. Sue should get the guideline back to me on Wednesday. I will be able to post it on the order page.
We worked our butts off over the weekend, so today we cut back to just a few hours of work. Tuesday will be web, the talk and plan, then I run a game. We shall see if I am up to a late night work session or not.
Sue is also getting the basics laid out for a DS comic, but we have no date for starting it.
Now, I really need to go pack orders and make prints.
-- Posted From My iPad
The current plan is to finish the ring set on Tuesday and Wednesday, then assemble them for the printer and send them on the way. The way we use rings around here it seems that we should also do the Teleport ring as an individual card. My thought is to do them in five card sets for $4.00. Repackage them here and sell them. Sue should get the guideline back to me on Wednesday. I will be able to post it on the order page.
We worked our butts off over the weekend, so today we cut back to just a few hours of work. Tuesday will be web, the talk and plan, then I run a game. We shall see if I am up to a late night work session or not.
Sue is also getting the basics laid out for a DS comic, but we have no date for starting it.
Now, I really need to go pack orders and make prints.
-- Posted From My iPad
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Boston Terrier
Now let me try one from Flickr using the iPad. Sitting down at the computer gives more options for work, but it is not always the most convenient way to work.
Snow and the wild times in Michigan
I shoveled the drive this morning. It looks to me like we got about six inches of snow around here.
I am working on the Second edition cards and getting Susan's artwork caught up online. Each day Sue is going through a few cards and editing the new rules at the same time.
I am also keeping my eye on how the new version will be affecting the old classic cards. It looks like they are almost all going to work as is. There will be a little mental gymnastics, but DS people can easily deal with that. It really makes us glad we started with the GM 3.4 rule so GM's can make at table decisions and the players know that the GM has the right to do that. Players know full well that arguing with the GM on rules is dumb, the GM is the final rules.
I am off to do another round of shoveling, drink some more coffee and get going. No rest for the evil ones up here.
-- Posted From My iPad
I am working on the Second edition cards and getting Susan's artwork caught up online. Each day Sue is going through a few cards and editing the new rules at the same time.
I am also keeping my eye on how the new version will be affecting the old classic cards. It looks like they are almost all going to work as is. There will be a little mental gymnastics, but DS people can easily deal with that. It really makes us glad we started with the GM 3.4 rule so GM's can make at table decisions and the players know that the GM has the right to do that. Players know full well that arguing with the GM on rules is dumb, the GM is the final rules.
I am off to do another round of shoveling, drink some more coffee and get going. No rest for the evil ones up here.
-- Posted From My iPad
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