Channel Zero

Largest snowfall in the history of Dallas.

2010-02-12T22:56:50Z

Yup, that's the big news here. Started snowing about 4 am Thursday morning and didn't quit till sometime early Friday. We got about 7 - 8 inches at our house here in Grapevine. My Boss lives in south Fort Worth and he got about 14 inches. Usually snow doesn't hang around too long here but we're supposed to have snow on the ground till Monday now.

Nikki and I are still working toward being parents but no news yet. I've been back to NY once this month but no plans to be back there until some time in March. Other than that we've been working on the house. Replacing a light fixture in the downstairs bathroom led to repainting the downstairs bathroom, as it often does. I also finally put up a ceiling fan that we bought when we moved in Jun 2008.

Here's some pictures of the snow around our house.

Second Annual 40k Tournament

2010-01-19T21:05:43Z

Last Year's 40k Tournament was so popular, that we did it again this year! It was a full on geek weekend. Friday night the guys from OK and I played a session of our D&D Eberron campaign, and then the tournament ran all day Saturday and Sunday. We even made a group expedition up to the Games Workshop Store to purchase the new Tyranid Codex. It was almost our own personal convention. There was also much beer drinking and both during and after the games. I've always said that beer won't make you a better 40k player but it will make you a worse one.

Many pictures were taken, I'll have to get those up in a later entry though, I'm still processing them.

The format was 2 games per day, 3 hours per game. Here are the tournament rules and scenarios we used.

I've listed all the players below with links to their army lists. We had some great variety this year with only Eldar and Tyranids unrepresented.

Craig - Space Marines - Blood Marines
Eric - Dark Eladr
Grant F. - Imperial Guard
Grant H - Tau
Grady - Chaos Marines
Marc - Necrons
Ryan - Orks
Steve - Crimson Fists

Grady won the overall tournament. He got the handsome certificate pictured above and one crunchy taco. Here are the final tournament standings.

Zoe the Christmas Dog

2010-01-03T15:15:28Z

One thing that I didn't mention in my last post was that we got a new dog. I was going to be off work for two weeks, so we figured it was a good time. Nicole and I decided we liked corgi's so we started looking at rescue groups and pet adoption agencies. We missed the first three corgi's we tried to adopt. They are very popular. Our friends, Grant and Brenda work with pet rescue groups and foster dogs for adoption. They put out the word to their network that we were looking for a Corgi and a rescue group up in Denton contacted them saying they had a 7 month old Corgi puppy.

I met the woman for the rescue group on Dec 16th and she was ours. Her original name was "roxy", but neither of us liked that name. I wanted to name her "Indiana," "Ein" or "Bebop". Nikki didn't like anyf those but we did want something with a Geek/Sci-fi reference. So we settled on "Zoe," which references both Joss Wheadon and John Scalzi.

She's super cute, everyone who sees her wants to steal her. Here's some pictures.

The Last Blog Entry of the Decade

2009-12-31T22:34:10Z

Well from a certain point of view anyway, the decade officially ends next year, but I think only mathematicians and nitpickers count it that way. So for me this is the last entry of the "aughts" or the "2000's" or whatever name this decade finally ends up with. Was it ever decided? Also what's the next decade called? The teens? That sounds bad.

I did get around to updating Channel Zero earlier this month. Which, of course, f'd up the whole site. You probably didn't notice, it was mostly on the back-end. I may have to try different blog software at some point. Moveable type is just so arcane anymore.

December, of course, has been a whirlwind, we left for Oklahoma to spend time with our families on the 18th. The plan was to stay all the way through till the 26th, but the weather had other plans. It hit the afternoon of the 24th while we were at my Mom's. Took us nearly 2 hours to drive back to Grady's house from there. We had plans to spend time with family on the 25th as well but since it took about 2 hours of work to get my car unstuck, we decided just to go ahead and head home.

We used the extra day at home to go car shopping. I have been wanting to replace the pathfinder with something a little smaller and nicer. After driving quite a few vehicles, we decided on the Nission Murano. I ended up getting on Monday night. It's even AWD so we shouldn't have any problems should another blizzard strike.

Tonight we are off to hang out with the Dallas crew at a hotel party.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Bad Guys don't post pictures of thier kids on Facebook.

2009-12-08T20:48:08Z

So I was listening to Think on NPR last week and they had a story about the book Start Up Nation. The book is about Tech innovations coming out of Israel. The part I found most interesting was about a company called Fraud Sciences. The company was started by ex-Israeli military who used to track down terrorists. The software system they created is used to combat fraud on the internet. Here's the basic idea. If you run an internet website like say Ebay and someone registers on your site you'd really like to know if that person is "real" or if they are using a made up identity. If they are using a made up identity then most likely they are going to try and use your site to commit fraud. The Fraud Sciences software scours the internet and looks for any and all available public information on the person who has registered. If it finds lots of info, you are probably a real person, if it doesn't, hmm maybe you aren't a real person and Ebay should ask for a more in-depth identity check. In other words, "Bad guys don't post pictures of their kids on facebook." Here's an article from Business week that probably explains it better than I do. Sound like a good idea? Ebay thought so, they bought the company for $169 million. I just wonder what kind of software these guys made for the Israel to track down terrorists.

Oh also I'm going to upgrade Channel Zero this week to some new software so if it craps out for a day or so that's why.

The Holidays

2009-12-01T04:51:27Z

Wow been really busy lately. The Monketo and his lovely wife are visiting and we've been hanging out with them a lot. We've played 2 big 40k apocalypse battles so far and are getting ready to do another one tomorrow.

The Holidays are in full swing now. We went home last week for thanksgiving and to visit family. Thursday with my mom, grandmother, Aunt and Uncle and then Friday with absolutely everyone on my Dad's side of the family. It was great to see everyone, especially my cousins who I hadn't seen in years.

This rest of this year has quickly filled up. Looks like I'll be back in NY next week, then we head home for Christmas on the 18th and I'm off work till Jan 4th!

Today

2009-11-07T07:34:30Z

So today is the day. One year ago today my friend Bill past away. My plan was to write a very geeky tribute to him today, which I will, later. First, however, I must must say something about Mira. Mira was was dog, my companion, my friend for nearly 13 years. She passed away today. She had been ill for 2 years. I'd done all I could to keep her with me, but today she moved on. I will miss her.

So now to my friend Bill. He was so much more than just Bill. He was many people but still the same. So, in marking the one year anniversary I say goodbye to Bill in the way that I know best, as geeky as possible.

So goodbye

Grayghost (DikuMud)
Riverwind (Runequest Rune Priest of Orlanth)
Domongart and Sithec (Ars Magica Bjorner Magi and Dragon Slayer )
Khuul Bheenz (Everquest Troll Warrior)
Khuul (Tauren Hunter, World of Warcraft)
Anahka (D&D Eberron Shifter Fighter)

I know that Bill will watch over Mira till I get there, wherever they are.

Full Disclosure

2009-10-26T20:13:22Z

So I guess the FTC made up some kind of guidelines for bloggers where they have to reveal the source of their income. For example, if a publisher sends a book to a blogger and then the blogger writes about that book, the blogger needs to disclose, "Hey I got this book for free from the publisher." I think its actually more complex than that but you get the idea. Well in the interest of full disclosure. No one pays me anything or gives me anything for free for this blog. In fact, I think the blog costs me in the neighborhood of about $25 a year. Which is super cheap, IMO.

Lots of family stuff going on latley. The weekend before last Grady, Crystal and Aiden came down. Nikki and I got to hang out with the little guy while Mom and Dad went to the OU/TX game. He's sure a little bundle of energy. Cat chasing is still the highlight of any visit.

Sunday, went to see Zombieland, which I think is the best movie I've seen this year. I'm planning a Tallahassee costume for Halloween.

This weekend Nikki and I went to Oklahoma to see family and hang out. I ran a game of D&D on Saturday for Grady and bunch of other folks from OK. It was a good time, some of the people that played were from my high school/college gaming days. We played Eberron, which is really a fantastic setting. It's sorta pulp/steampunk fantasy. I wish they would develop more for it, rather than just 2 books and one adventure. There are a lot of 3rd edition books available but an entire campaign set in Eberron sure would be nice.

This weekend is Halloween. Somehow we managed to keep this weekend free, so we are planning to go out , in costume, both nights. Should be a blast.

And of course since I can't possibly be home for more than two weeks in a row, I head back to NY on Sunday for a week.

Rpg Survey

2009-10-19T16:31:32Z

A friend sent this to me on Facebook. I thought I'd post it here too.

Origins of a Player

1. When and where did you first play a roleplaying game (could be a year or your age)?

1981 Fourth grade, my Mom bought me basic D&D because, get this, my fourth grade teacher thought it was great for kids. (Thanks Mom!)

2. Which game was it?

Yeah I just answered this didn't I.

3. Did you know what the hell you were doing?

Nope. I didn't understand the rules at all. We made them up as went went. I clearly remember not understanding why the HP were so low at first level.

4. What was the first published adventure you played through?

The example dungeon in the back of the D&D rulebook followed by Keep on the Borderlands

5. Did roleplaying capture your imagination immediately?

You could say that.

6. Do you still game with some of the people from your first game?

Nope.

7. Did anything in particular inspire you or led you to playing RPGs?

No not really. I don't think I'd even read that much fantasy till then.

8. Have you ever been a game master (dungeon master, keeper, storyteller, etc.)? Which games?
Uhm how much can you type in one of these notes.
Lets try Chronological Order if I can remember them all.

D&D Basic/Expert
AD&D
Star Frontiers (I loved this game.)
Marvel SuperHeroes
Gamma World
GURPS
Rolemaster
Middle Earth Roleplaying
Star Wars
Toon
Paranoia
Call of Cthulhu
Shadowrun
Cyberpunk
Aftermath
Chill
Runequest
Mekton
MegaTravellar
Ars Magica
Vampire
Deadlands
Hell on Earth
Dark Heresy
D&D 3.5
D&D 4E

9. Do you currently referee, if so, which games?

D&D 4E, Call of Cthulhu, Dark Heresy

10. What is your favorite thing about GMing?

Seeing where the story goes. Seeing how the players react to the situation.

11. What is your least favorite thing about GMing?

Cumbersome rules. (I'm looking at you Dark Heresy)

12. Do you prefer to be GM or a player?

13. What are your favorite gaming systems you've played?

Star Frontiers
D&D (All editions at the time)
Rolemaster
Runequest (now there's some cumbersome rules)
Traveller
Call of Cthulhu
Deadlands

14. What are some games you would like to play, but haven't?

Hunter the Reckoning
Rogue Trader
Mage
Spirit of the Century

15. Rules light, rules heavy, or it depends?

Light but not so light its boring. Players quickly become bored with "rules light" systems. They want options.

16. Dice or Diceless?

Dice, everyone likes dice. Diceless RPG = modified Rock Paper Scissors.

Immersion and Setting

17. To homebrew or not to homebrew?

Who has time to homebrew? I "'hack" and modify games to fit my needs but that's mostly world settings.

18. What are some of your favorite settings?

Post Apocalypse
Steampunk

19. What are your favorite genres?

Post Apocalypse
Modern Horror
High Fantasy

20. Do you prefer pre-published adventures/modules or original/tailored campaigns?

Modified Pre-published. I have made a few adventures but its hard to make up good plots yourself.

21. Are you a member of any roleplaying organizations? Which Ones?

Nope.

22. Do you think RPG organizations are important to the hobby?

Probably. I've never been really involved with one. If I didn't have people to play with I probably would be though.

23. Do plan on joining any RPG organizations?

See Above.

24. Have you ever attended a gaming convention, if so which ones?

Mostly for miniature gaming, Games Day and the Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments, back when they did that. I gamed at a bunch of local cons in college and high school.

25. Do you think conventions are important for the hobby?

Probably. There's always too much to do at a convention to get into a game. Also I hate one shot games. If its not a campaign I'm not that interested.

26. Are you planning to attend any conventions in the future?

DragonCon, but not for the gaming.

Play Styles

28. Serious or loose?

Uhh I dunno. probably directed-loose.

29. Soundtracks and sound FX?

I tried music once, it annoyed me and everyone had to talk over it. I will probably use sound effects for the next sci fi game I run.

30. Adversarial referee or wish fulfiller?

Huh? Neither.

31. Should GMs have PCs?

Not that aren't a story character.

32. Is technology welcome at your table?

Sure. Just pay attention. I throw my plushed D20 at you if you aren't pay attention. (looks at Chris Kmita)

33. Are Terrain & Minis an advantage or a hindrance?

Terrain? not really. Minis and a Map yes, it helps everyone visualize.

Related Hobbies

34. Do you like to LARP, if so, which systems?

I tried it once, sadly LARPing is a litte too geeky even for me.

35. Do you collect/paint Miniatures?

yes

36. Do you like Wargames/tactical miniature games, if so, which ones?

yes, I play warhammer 40k a lot I'd play more minature games if I had time.

37. Do you play Collectible Card Games, if so, which ones?

Used to play a bunch. I still play Magic the Gathering some. Thinking about getting into the WOW card game, looks fun.

38. What about Board Games?

yup, they are low entry. Settlers is a favorite. I like the complicated ones of course but its hard to get people to play those with you.

39. Do you play Video Games, what kinds?

Yes, lots. Mostly RPGs but I like shooters if they have a good story. Loved Dead Space and Bioshock, can't get into Halo or Gears of war. Also Real Time Strategy games but those have kinda become stale lately.

40. Any closing comments you would like to add?

Nah. I need more time to play.

It is a little windy up there.

2009-10-15T17:47:00Z

Been back in New York for work the past two weeks. I flew out here on the 5th and decided to stay over the weekend in-between so Nikki could come visit. Even though I've been here for almost 2 weeks it seems to have flown by.

Nikki came in last Friday and we went into Manhattan. Friday we walked around, went back to Rockefeller center, where we got engaged, and went to go see West Side Story on Broadway. It wasn't as good as I expected, kinda middle of the road for a musical. Not bad but not really my favorite. It seemed slow.

On Saturday we got up and went to the top of the Empire State Building. Whew, was that a process. You have to stand in line 4 different times to get up to the observation deck on the 86th floor. Since we probably wouldn't go there again, we paid the extra $15 each to get to go up to the 102nd floor. Very cool to see NYC from the top-down. Little known fact, the ESB has an airship (blimp) dock on top of it. It was only ever used once and they decided it was too windy. How cool would it have been though to see airships docking over NYC?

Saturday night we went back out onto Long Island, where I was staying. On Sunday we went out to see the ocean along the Peconic bay,ate some really good seafood in Greenport and took the ferry out to Shelter island. The traffic out that way is pretty bad, but we had fun.

Unfortunately, on Sunday I came down with some kind of cold and have been sick ever since. Not sick enough to stay out of work or fly home but sick enough that it makes working annoying. I seem to have the unerring ability to only get sick when its not really possible to take a sick day.

This weekend, Grady, Crystal and Aiden are staying with us. We are watching the little guy while they go to the OU Texas games. I'm not really a fan of either team but since I'm from OK and not TX I tend to root for OU. Unfortunately, unless OU pulls a magic football out of their butt I think they may be looking at their 3rd loss.

Almost forgot, on Saturday after we came out of the ESB, we stumbled across the Compleat Strategist. I had no idea it was there. I remember back in the day seeing their ads in Dragon Magazine. It's about the coolest game store I've ever been in. I bought 2 RPG books (Rogue Trader and Victoriana) and Nikki even bought one.

That which never was.

2009-10-01T20:15:32Z

So around the time of Dragoncon, I'm not sure if it was right before or right after, I decided I had a lot more to say about RPGs (role playing games) than I do anything else. My plan was to write something rpg-related on my other blog a few times a week. That never happened. Not even one entry. I had like 5 good topics lined up and I can't even remember what they were now.

Let's see since Dragoncon I was in New York for two weeks and it looks like I'm heading back there next week. I should find out more today. One thing about Long Island, or I guess just the non-NYC area of NY, they have A LOT of diners. They are kinda like non-chain super-denny's. They have all day breakfast, sandwiches, burgers, home cooking, greek food, italian food, and usually a full bar. I wish they had those here.

Last weekend was the Lone Star ride that I'd been training for all summer. It was brutal. 93 miles on Saturday and then 77 more on Sunday. Sunday was hotter, windier, and had the monster hills. I made it through though. Not without some difficulty. I started getting a flat in the first few miles and limped into the first rest stop. My friend Marc got a flat around mile 30, and his girlfriend Shannon had an actual blowout around mile 60. We made it through though. With Fall rolling in and the DST time change coming up that is probably the end of cycling season for me this year. No big plans for this weekend, we need sometime off from doing anything.

Dragoncon Report Cont'd

2009-09-21T18:10:07Z

Picking up where I left off in my Dragoncon story, Friday we got up REALLY early, to get in the line to see William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I think we were in line by 7:45am. Chris and Janene were the only brave souls to join us that early. I figured we were going to have to stand aroud outside forever but since it was the first panel of the day they went ahead and let us sit down about 8am. Then of course we had 2 hours to wait till it started, but we had great seats! Nimoy and Shatner were great. They pretty much talked to each other for about the first half hour. I think they only got around to taking about 3 questions. It took the con almost an hour to clear the room afterwords, so all told, it took nearly 4 hours for the panel, but it was worth it. We met up with about half our con crew for lunch and then headed to the dealers room. It was packed though, so we didn't stay too long. Friday night we had our groups yearly room party and inducted new stonecutters. After that we attempted to get into the Steampunk event but it was way too crowded.

Saturday morning, Nikki and I were the only ones to get up early enough to see the parade, but it was very cool. Nikki got some great pictures of the costumes. We hit the dealers room for a little while and then got in another really long line to see Patrick Stewart. I saw lot of people give up when they saw the huge line but really they shouldn't. The rooms they have the panels in are HUGE. Nikki and I were way back in the line and we ended up sitting in the middle of the room. I don't think the room was even full after everyone in line got in. After that, Nikki headed back to the room to rest and I had planned on going to the Farscape panel but I met with everyone at the Marriott bar and didn't make it much further than that.

Sunday, Tiffany decided to join Nikki and I on our Con wanderings. I'm not sure she was ready for the whirlwind of keeping up with me at a con but she hung in there. We hit all 3 dealers rooms for our last big shopping trip, the Art Show, the Walk of Fame, the Stargate megapanel, and the Battlestar Galactica panel. We even tried to see one of Felicia Day's panels but I got the hotel wrong so we missed that one. We didn't have any planned events for that night so we just wandered around and looked at all the cool costumes.

Nikki put our photos up on Facebook, but I'm not sure that are publicly accessible.

Chris put his pics up on his server though so if you aren't on Facebook you can check those out.

Dre' s pics are up on his site as well.

Apart from the panels, shopping in the dealers room is about my favorite thing to do. Even though it seems like the dealers room is less cool every year I always manage to find stuff to buy. I bought 2 new RPGS: Wild Talents and Fading Suns. Fading Suns seems very cool. It’s a Sci-Fi RPG that fits somewhere in-between the somewhat bright future of Travellar and the grim darkness of Warhammer 40k. I don’t know if I will ever run it, but I bought it from the Author himself so it was hard to resist. Wild Talents is a super-hero game written by a bunch of RPG authors I really like, but whoah is that thing complicated. I realize it s a niche game, in a niche-genre, of a niche hobby, but dang you'd really have to love this one to want to play it.

I bought some new steampunk gear (bracers and goggles), some comics, a really cool print by Elmore Leonard (who even signed it!), and a map a the Serenity Verse! I need to get both of those framed.

Well that was the con for this year. We've already made our reservation for next year though!

Dragoncon Report

2009-09-17T03:36:26Z

I wrote this on the plane on Monday, while flying to New York. I’ve been meaning to write for days and somehow haven’t gotten around to it. Of course the dude in front of me has decided to lean his seat back all the way so it’s making it difficult to type. I’m sorta blind typing, as I can either look at the keyboard or the screen but not really both at the same time.
This is my second week in New York, not NYC proper, I’m out on long island in the Bohemia/Islandia area. I don’t like traveling back to back but this is a pretty good project. It's a small business that needs a network built for the new facility ASAP. My coworker has been out here the last 3 weeks, so I can’t complain too much.

Labor Day weekend was Dragoncon. It was a blast as always. I think I did pretty much everything I wanted to do. We got to see William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, the cast of Stargate and Stargate Atlantis, Patrick Stewart, and nearly the entire Battlestar Galactica cast, including Mary McDonnell, who I never thought would attend a Sci-Fi convention.
We were able to get an earlier flight out on Thursday which was great since it was non-stop once we ot their. We checked in to the hotel, grabbed lunch, hit the liquor store, and then went to badge pickup. Nikki, Dre and I didn’t have to wait in line at all. It’s good to be an Eternal. The other folks had hit and miss with the badge line, some took over 2 hours. After that we met friends for dinner and then the grocery store. After we got back, we discovered the con was in full swing even though it didn’t officially start till the next morning. The Marriott bars were packed with people in costume already.

Whew, I think writing this on the plane is starting to make me queasy, so I’ll have to finish later.

Dragoncon!

2009-09-03T12:59:55Z

Dragoncon starts tomorrow, and a lot folks here from Dallas are headed to Atlanta for the long weekend. Apparently, all of us are really excited, back in may or june we all bought tickets for the same flight, leaving at 12:45. Everyone's now decided that's just "too late" and is heading to the airport early to see about earlier flights. I won't be updating here till after the con, but check facebook for random Dcon updates

Got a lot of travel happening this month. Last week I was in San Diego for work, this week I'm headed to Atlanta and it looks like the 2 weeks after that I'll be in New York for another project. Whew!

Been trying to fit in as much cycling as possible, preparation for the Lone Star Ride. I did a 65 mile training ride last Saturday, took Sunday off then rode, 20, 30, and 37 miles Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. With all the travel I have coming up I'm not going to be able to fit much more in so hopefully I'm ready.

Still working on the whole having kids thing, no news yet though.

Headed to Dragoncon!

Weekend Travels

2009-08-18T20:21:10Z

We spent this past weekend in Oklahoma with our families. Nikki's family had been down recently but we hadn't seen Grady, Crystal, Aiden since May and my Mom since April. We packed a lot into one weekend. We drove home Thursday, which wasn't too bad but hurt my back. I just can't take long car rides anymore. Friday, my mom and I went to see "Public Enemies." It wasn't bad, but it was high action or drama really either. The director, Michael Mann, did a lot of things to give a a particular "look." He used a lot of natural lighting and very few "sets" so it had a very documentary look to it. It seemed like some of the scenes were shot all in one take too but I wasn't really watching for that so I couldn't tell. I'd give it a "good rental but no reason to see it in the theater".

That evening, Grady and I played 40k. I think it was the worst game of 40k I have ever played. Not that it wasn't fun, I just had the worst luck ever. I failed every single leadership roll I had to make and had at least 3 units run off the board and my warboss unit missed with all his hits the first time he went to attack. I still almost manged to pull out a draw. If I was more familiar with the 5th edition rules and targeted Grady's troop transports right off it could have been a draw.

Saturday we had lunch with Nikki's family to celebrate her sister birthday and then that evening went and saw District 9. It was a really good Sci-Fi film, probably the best I've seen in a while. It was, however, violent and gory. Nikki liked the story quite a bit but was put off by the violence, so be warned if you go see it. Not for the squeamish or children.

Dragoncon is less than 3 weeks away now and folks are getting excited.

I finally got around to taking pictures of the game room remodel with everything complete so here ya go.