I even have a half-day off that friday!
The Science
The Global Consciousness Project (http://noosphere.princeton.edu), Princeton University, runs a network of Random Event Generators (REGs) around the world, which record changes in randomness during global events.
I need to set up some “random event generators” in my own house. Oh wait! I already have one; it’s called my cat.
Even though I haven’t posted since October 3rd, I’m still alive and consious. Things are still happening. Food is being consumed, sleep is being slept, etc.
I promise to post something today, other than this, even if it’s merely to update my book list.
Without a doubt, the Lord of the Rings will not stop being reinterpreted until some post-modern deconstructionist proves that it never existed in the first place.
Next it will be in Mime.
Don’t forget that todaytomorrow is International Talk like a Pirate Day!
I’ve been blogging incessantly about Dragon*Con and all things con-ish. I just can’t take it anymore (even though I have at least 2 more posts coming, including the one featuring Hot Babes!)
On to more important things:
Skepticality is a great podcast. Go! Listen!
The Prez (“Tacos Rule!”) flew into Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia today, which so happens to be right across the street from my office. I was intending to run out and get a picture of Air Force One, but alas, no luck. It seems (in my very uneducated opinion) that AF1 is vewwy vewwy quiet. I neither heard it land, nor take off, which is unusual, because I’ve heard some really small planes take off from that runway. Maybe next time.
Need a Random Number? Click this link…
An acquaintance of ours costumed himself as Gungrave for Dragon*Con (I can’t escape!), but more on that later.
I’m the number one hit for ruhsam on google, today.
I’m almost done with this glass of Bushmill’s whiskey I’m drinking, which might be contributing to the randomness.
I think I should start a clearinghouse for all things Ruhsam! I’m totally dissociated from the majority of my relatives. This is on account that I have no first cousins, and all my second cousins live way north in Wisconsin, etc. There are a few poking around in other places, but I really couldn’t tell you where.
</randomness>
I felt that having a humongous post about everything that went on at Dragon*Con would be a bit absurd. Here is installment III of the post.
Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files. He attended Dragon*Con this year and was seen by me in the Gothic Shadows programming track. He was on a panel entitled Scarey Fairies and one featuring himself.
First off, let me say that Storm Front
Second off, let me say that Jim Butcher is almost identical in manner and presence to my friend Brian, shown here. It’s uncanny how similar they are. I’m still freaked out about it. This picture is not the best for comparison purposes (book signing vs. RPI Freakout) but should give you some idea.
Thirdly, Jim is great to listen to because he loves what he is doing!. The Dresden Files will be a show on the SciFi channel starting in January and Jim was totally stoked about it. He went on and on about how awesome it was to be on set during shooting and to be involved (however little he’s involved; mainly proof-reading scripts, he’s got no artistic control over the series but does contribute comments) with the creation of this program.
It will apparently be a parallel universe to the Dresden Files books with the script writer (who’s name escapes me, he did Andromeda for a while) creates episodes based around the Harry Dresden character.
This seems like a good thing. According to Jim, they’d originally intended to do a 2-hour movie, but it turned out so well, they went ahead with the series. Cool! I’m looking forward to seeing it.
And of course, now that I’ve seen the guy in person, I’ll have to start buying his hardbacks. Time to run to the book store to get the latest Harry Dresden novel.
I felt that having a humongous post about everything that went on at Dragon*Con would be a bit absurd. Here is installment II of the series.
Gaming has been a part of my hobby set since I was 10 or so (Jenn’s been playing since age 4!). I still remember the worried look on my mother’s face when I told her I wanted to start playing D&D. She had heard all the media-hyped stories about kids who’d committed suicide when their character died, or practiced “satanism”, or tortured the neighor’s turtle, or something. Thankfully, she got over it.
Since then, I’ve played D&D, AD&D, D&D 3.0 (not yet 3.5), Shadowrun, Call of Cthulu (Congrats, you’re insane!), GURPS, and several other role playing games. However, I’ve always liked playing board and miniature games more, especially battle simulators. Battletech is one of my favorites. Axis and Allies is good, but long, Risk, Warhammer 40K, the list goes on.
When I was in high school and college, I would attend at least 2 game conventions a year at various locations. Thusly, whenever I go to a con I always try to squeeze in some gaming and come home with something new. Dragon*Con is no exception.
This year, I’ve been introduced to Pirates which tickled my fancy. It is an age-of-sail “miniatures” war game. 
The goal is to gather the booty and terrorize the neighborhood. To that end, you purchase (yes, I know, they sucked me in) booster packs which contain ships and other sundries on credit-card type platic cards. You snap the ship pieces out of the card, assemble them together and poof! you’ve got yourself a navy. Different ships can do different things, and you sail around exploring islands for treasure and trying to knock your opponents masts down. I had great fun playing it, even though I got romped by the group I was with. In my defence I hadn’t even read the rules, so I was making stupid mistakes*.
We managed to squeeze in a round of Battletech. I made the mistake of giving into an insanity and had one of my ‘mechs destroyed during a charge. Alas… The interesting thing we noted was the age of the people who would stop by and say, “Wow, Battletech! I haven’t played that for years!” Unfortunately, Btech seems to be on the wane, to my grave despair.
We played Frag, a Steve Jackson game based on computer games such as Doom and Quake. Yes, it’s a board game based off a computer game. Odd.
We also squeezed in a game of Ticket to Ride: Europe with the maximum number of players (5). I’d never played it with 5 people before. It was frustrating not being able to complete your routes because 4 other people are all trying to get though Zurich!
The gaming was all great fun. As the title mentioned, I got to blow shit up, and that’s what it’s all about.
*I was playing in a “tournament” wherein the player with the most gold got a prize, the player who sank the most ships got a prize, and the player who did the worst (lost the most ships) also got a prize. I played so badly, I didn’t even come in last. No prize for Captain William…
Wahhhhhh!!!!!!
As you may notice from the categories tags, Dragon*Con was a multi-threaded, awesomely spectacular, ravingly cool, devastatingly delicious weekend. There’s so much to talk about, I’m not sure where to start. This will probably end up being a multiple posting.
I’ll start by saying, I bought a new camera the week before Dragon*Con, and I’m still working with the settings. Unfortunately, I had the white balance set on tungsten all weekend, so my pictures are a bit blue. I’ll be photoshopping them to adjust the color balance before I post anything. ‘Til then, you’ll just have to deal with my descriptions.
I think I will leave this post as is. Dragon*Con 2006 was great! I’ve already made hotel reservations for next year.
[editorital addition] It seems this post is similar to last year’s post. That’s ok! I feel that this year was even better, but that is probably because of the bevey of friends that made the trip here for the Con.
My phone rang this afternoon with a wrong number. As my habit is, I typed the number into Google to see who was calling me. It turns out to be Jeff Greene, a composer and bassist originally from Jonesboro, GA. I’ll have to keep an eye on his schedule and go listen if his group ever gets down to Atlanta.