...'Cause you know that I can.

Sorry I dropped off-radar for so long. Real-life's having its way with me at the moment, but I'm finally at the point where I can kick back some.

Round up the usual suspects: Work, and the apartment. The former is due to our one part-timer, who has another full-time job, having to work OT there because of someone getting fired. Which, of course, dumps that much more on our my shoulders. During JazzFest, no less. *grumbles* As for the pad...well, apparently the price for pre-Katrina rent is doing the finishing work (which the contractors never bothered to complete) myself. While living in it.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time." Famous last words.

Birthday was....quiet. Nice, though. Got a little dining-room set from my parents, and while it's not the most exciting gift, it's definitely a big help. (And thanks for greeting me, snow_white. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond.)

( Cut for quizzes )

Was texting punkbuster towards the end of my shift, but had to stop because I ran into a problem.

I was in the middle of a job (which wasn't enough to preclude my texting)...and my drill bits were missing (which was).

Why, oh why do strange people insist on pinching my bits??

Tomorrown, I draw the line: From now on only I get to touch my bits!

(...Whaaaaat? ::looks innocent::)

A picture of yours truly, plus a few Christmas shots my lazy ass has only now gotten around to uploading.

( You'll go blind! )

Hope you enjoy 'em,

logicalmob

Enjoyed Mardi Gras. Got almost no pictures to speak of. (Yes, I suck.) Now I just need to survive All-Star Weekend.

Working on the new apartment. Have the parts for my closet coming in next week, and I just finished putting the first coat of polyurethane on my new bedframe. I'll probably sand it and put the final coat on tomorrow.

And it looks as if I'm finally back to a mostly-morning schedule starting next week, assuming the new guy works out. (Apparently he wants evenings, and as I told my department head he's more than welcome to them.) Not a moment too soon, either; evening are when I'm my most creative.

About due for a new set of pictures, too. Watch for 'em. :)

X-posted (well, commented) from BRPS

Oh, why the hell not?

What effects have the internet had on your RP experience? The internet is the biggest reason I've had any RP experience to speak of. To that point I'd only been involved in a few games with friends, mostly unsatisfying (partly because we'd always end up screwing around and doing something else ^^;;). Plus like others have said I've been introduced to people I'd never have met otherwise (for better or worse!).

Do you prefer online or face-to-face? Online. Unless I'm intimately familiar with the people I'm playing with, in a new game--regardless of format--I always feel as if I'm "on stage" (for the first few sessions, anyway.) At least online I can hide it better, and I thaw out faster.

Have you tried them both? Yep.

What differences do you notice the most between the two? an adventure that could be wrapped up in days face-to-face can take days, weeks, even months online, depending on how much RL is flipping us off at the time.

What things do you prefer/hate about face-to-face? As mentioned above, I tend to feel a bit "iced" when playing with a new group. On the other hand, there's something about having real people there to commiserate/share food/ etc. with. True, we tended to BS-around a lot, but a lot of times that was the best part of the session. :)

What things do you prefer/hate about online? As I said, I tend to flow better online, and I'm less likely to betray nervousness in a new game. Not to mention that one can hardly show up to a tabletop session in his pajamas. XD On the other hand, things take A LOT longer online, and unfortunately I've encountered people who believe because "it's just the internet" they can get away with things that would get them punched out in real life.

What specific medium do you prefer (LARP, tabletop, LJ, chatbased, etc...) and why? Forum and LJ-based, leaning more towards the latter now.

Have you ever RPed on an MMO? No. Won't rule it out in the future, though.

What did you like/hate about it? N/A

Sorry I haven't been posting. I blame the aforementioned fans for driving me apeshit since New Year's.

Good News: New year, new resolutions!

Bad News: The new resolutions look A LOT like the old resolutions. I think I might have gotten one accomplished last year, and even that one's debatable. ^^;;

Good News: The Sugar Bowl is over, and the BCS Championship will be shortly, meaning these irritating college ball fans will son be leaving my hotel/city/frayed remains of my sanity along. (Seriously. I just got home, and was greeted by an email telling me that some drunk just RIPPED A FAUCET OUT OF THE WALL IN THE MEN'S ROOM. ::twitch:: o_O )

Bad News: Mardi Gras comes early this year. Is cyanide terribly expensive? Seriously, it's like life has been one giant, stressful holiday from Thanksgiving on, and will continue to be until well into February.

Good News: Barak Obama won in Iowa, and is leading in N.H.

Bad News: Louisiana has no primary, meaning I get no say whatsoever in my party's candidate. (Or even the other party's candidate, were I so inclined.) It's rather like eavesdropping on a party to which one isn't invited. EDIT: I've found out that, in fact, we DO have a primary....problem is it comes so late that by the time we get our three minutes in the booth, the nominations are almost always a moot point.

Bad News: GreatestJournal is effectively kaput.

Good News: One less journal for me to (not) update.

Good News: I finally found Roxy. :D

Bad News: She wants to talk me ear off. D: (j/k =) By the by, you should have your code by the time you read this.)

Well, 2008 should be interesting, if nothing else.

Running late, so this is gonna be short.

NaNo Result: A catastrophic FAIL! that echoed throughout the FAIL!hills and FAIL!valleys and made all the FAIL!villagers tremble with FAIL! I grossly underestimated just how irritating writing a large body of text on a PDA (which had been the linchpin of my plan) would become after a week or so, and ended up having to drop it. That left me only able to work at home, and with my work schedule being what it was and the fact that I'm a f'in lazy sod even under the best of circumstances I was pretty much screwed. But the biggest problem, I think, was that the novel's rai·son d'être was to unblock my writing for the game...which, ironically, I succeeded in overcoming by the time I had the plot for the novel planned out. ^^;; That kinda took the wind out of my sails, and left me asking myself, "Self, why are you using this horrid PDA to peck out this novel that will, at best, have a readership countable on one hand, when I could be setting up an RPG that'll at least have enough players to count on TWO hands? And when will your cheap ass pony up for a laptop?"

But don't worry, I paid my karmic debt for quitting soon enough. Had jury duty for the first two Mondays and Wednesdays of this month (so only four days total; December is a short month thanks to the holiday) called up for voir dire twice, and actually served once. Joy. Won't go into too much detail about the case--can never tell who'll read this--save that it was 1) minor and 2) a utter waste of time. Entire trial took six hours...nearly four of which were spent in recess. Immediately after opening arguments, the six of us (again, minor offense, hence only a six-person jury) were sent up to the jury room for a "brief pause" (!), having no idea what was going on. This was especially irritating due to the fact that it was getting late (it was after 6 PM before the trial resumed), and the room had plenty of soft drinks, but nothing edible whatsoever. In fact, we were debating whether we should send someone back down to the courtroom to make sure we hadn't been forgotten when they finally called us back in. The other one that I wasn't selected for was no picnic either: it too them a good seven hours before they decided to cut me. Though considering that it was a second-degree murder trial that would've kept me out of work for the rest of the week (though not sequestered, thank every deity real or imagined), I probably shouldn't complain.

On the bright side, Christmas shopping's nearly complete. Just need to mail a few things off and I'm done hemorrhaging cash for the year.

God, but I hate the evening shift.

Bored at the moment, so I'm composing this on ye olde PDA, to be posted via Semagic once I get home. Figure it'll be good practice for Nanowrimo next month tomorrow today OMG. Typing on this thing generates enough PITA to open a Greek restaurant, but I figure the ability to carry and use it literally anywhere offsets it. I hope.

Also, the fact that it can play music as well as run Word Mobile is a big help. Or maybe not. First song in the shuffle queue? "Calm Before The Storm" off the FF X soundtrack. An omen, perhaps?

In case anyone is wondering if this is taking time and energy away from BB (as if), fear not. My novel is set in the same alternate timeline, and will actually help me flesh out things might have turned out in the US, which I've mostly neglected to this point. Besides, I've always wanted to see how my beloved New Orleans would fare in my Timeline From Hell.

( A Synopsis )

And now that I'm both home I'm free to start on the novel...between work amd typing this, I'm too wiped out to start typing out of the gate. Not an auspicious start.

I'll start in the morning, I swears it.

Having mostly finished my research for the game, I've unfortunately found that I've an unfortunate tendency to either "freeze up" whenever I try typing any of it, or type it up, hate it on sight , and delete it all.

Aided by much thought and no small amount of beer I've decided to resort to drastic measures to break myself of this.

God be with me. ;_;

My computer took a dive Tuesday night. I haven't had time to properly diagnose it yet, and probably won't until Monday or Tuesday. And while I've access to a backup machine (which I'm now using) it's a bit on the slow side. I'm praying that it isn't the motherboard or the processor that's gone bad, since 1) both are out of production, meaning that I'll have to either resort to buying used or reconditioned, or building a new system alogether, and 2) If I can't find a board with the same (or similar) RAID controller, I'm afraid I'm gonna lose a LOT of data. Nothing really critical, mind you, but it's a headache I don't need right now.

Still managing to get some work done, at least. Right now I'm reading Why the Allies Won, by Richard Overy, a book highly recommended for AltHistory fans. Only two chapters in, and it's already proven engrossing, especially because it makes a strong case for WWII not quite being the forgone conclusion that most history books, in the name of brevity, make it out to be. And my other book--Heydrich: The Face of Evil, by Mario Deidrichs--is due to arrive by Wednesday. I'll have some more on him in a later entry.

Besides that...I finally scored a bottle of Absolut New Orleans vodka last night. I'm not really into hard liquor (I prefer beer), but this stuff is pretty good with the right mixer. Ocean Spray Cranberry/Blueberry juice is the best I've tried so far. Plus I've finally got someone else in my department at work, and he seems decent enough. Hooray for us.

(EDIT 1/7/08: Comments disabled. For some reason the spambots keep hitting this one.)

What in Christ's name possessed me to start work an a game that--if things so far are any indication--is going to require post-grad level research on my part to pull off successfully?

::goes back to his biography on Wilhelm Canaris::

Don't worry--you won't have to read all this crap to play the game, I'll make certain of that. I still feel compelled to make it feel real for some reason, though.

Been AWOL, but I have an excuse.

( Cut for pissing and moaning about obscure RPG prelaunch crap. )

I feel exhausted. Just copied all my posts over from Livejournal to Lostjournal as a precaution. My LJ's up for renewal at the end of the month; still haven't decided whether I'm going to stay yet.

And for the few of you reading this: though it's not nearly finished yet, here's a peek at what I've been up to. Most of the world info's going into a wiki; I'll link to that once I've got it presentable.At the moment I'm hoping for a late August-early September launch.

Back from Indianapolis. The actual time I spent in Indy was fun. The trip there and back...well, let's just say that whoever said "Getting there is half the fun" probably didn't go Greyhound. -_-;;

I'll do the post-mortem once I get the pics back from the developer (yes, I still use film. I suck ^^;;). It'll be easier to explain everything with the pictures for context.

Plus I spent much of the trip back writing up things for the..."project" I mentioned last entry. Right now my target date is Labor Day, though I'll try to get it done sooner.

I apologize for not having posted much lately. Between my workout plan, work (which, for most of the past week, has been a hitherto-undiscovered Circle of HELL), and a certain project of mine I hope to unveil in the near future, I simply haven't had the time or energy.

And now I'm off to Indianapolis for a week, to visit my father and half-sister--who, at the moment, have neither a computer nor internet access. It's probably for the best though. I really need some time to decompress right now, and I suspect teh Intarweb would be too much of a distraction. My only regret is not buying the plane tickets while they were relatively cheap. As it was, they wanted over $400 for a relatively short trip--and since I needed most of that money elsewhere, I had to...Christ, I feel dirty even typing this...go Greyhound.

The last time I rode a bus any distance was when I was 9. I didn't particularly care for the experience, and have refused to travel that way since. This time I had no choice: flying's too expensive, and Amtrak would have taken a day an a half to get me to Chicago, where I would have an eight-hour layover before sending me on to Indy...on a bus. ::sighs:: Still, I'm sure times have changed, and I'll have a pleasant experience all-around to report when I return on Monday, or whenever I next find internet access and time to post. I'll come bearing pics as well.

And with that, I'm off. See you soon.

And God? Please give me seatmates who BATHE this time.

Having noticed that I'm just a touch heavier than I should be (190lbs. @ 6'0"), I started a new fitness plan on Sunday (running everyday, using the stairs at work--significant, as we're in a 12-story building and I move between floors a lot, some weight training, and a high-protein diet). So far, so good; I'm startiing to feel better already.

The biggest challenge is the fact that it's hard to cook under my current circimstances (the house stil has no gas, an unfortunately common problem in this neighborhood), we've only one hotplate that we're using as a standby, microwaveale stuff gets old fast, and there are entirely too many temptations in this city...

Well, it's official. I've gone paid at LoJo. Flirted with the idea of going Permanent, just to spite LJ (who, in spite of everything, still intend to go forward with their Perm. Acct. sale this month), but we'll see how this goes first.

In other news: Apparently LJ made some changes to its login page. I found this box marked "Writer's Block", that suggests topics for people who cant think of anything to post about. Even creates tags for the posts if you choose to answer the question. And where was this last year, may I ask?

Anyhow, today's topic:

What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?

Favorite: "swashbuckler". No real reason, it just sounds cool.

Least-Favorite: "thing."

Random Person(flustered, talking with hands): "AIIIIE!! Drop what you're doing and get over here! The Thing isn't working!!"
Me (dodging hands): "'Thing'? Which 'thing' are we talking about?"
Random: "Um....you know!! The...thing! The THING!"

I work as a building engineer. After your thousandth conversation along these lines, you won't care much for the word either.

SInce I didn't mention it here, I've decided to use my LostJournal as a mirror for my posts here, and for another project I've been promising forever now (see my Resoluutions post for a hint). Dunno why, but I like the place...then again, I've always preferred smaller crowds.

In other news...

Didn't post last night after all. Ended up reading Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brien, and didn't go to bed until I finished at 4 am.

Knowing damned well I had to be up for 7.

Honestly, you'd think I'd have learned by now.

Still, the book itself was excellent (and ended with a couple of huge question marks, meaning I'll have to buy the next one ASAP), and I didn't really feel the lack of sleep today...'til now.

...Yeah, I think I'm turning in early.

Didn't post last night after all. Ended up reading Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brien, and didn't go to bed until I finished at 4 am.

Knowing damned well I had to be up for 7.

Honestly, you'd think I'd have learned by now.

Still, the book itself was excellent (and ended with a couple of huge question marks, meaning I'll have to buy the next one ASAP), and I didn't really feel the lack of sleep today...'til now.

...Yeah, I think I'm turning in early.