Older News
11/6/2000 12am: This Sucks. Ok, so my entire Saturday was shot by going to a wedding, and I've just blown my entire Sunday doing homework, from the minute I got up to midnight, and I've only just begun a paper that's due on Tuesday for one of my classes. It's no wonder my stress level is going through the roof. Everybody says I look tired lately. These past couple of weeks have really sucked. Screw a good outlook on life, I just want to make it through the rest of this semester without accidently strangling some innocent passer-by. Ok, I'm done whining now, back to work. Have a good day.. heh.
11/5/2000 3pm: RPG. Friday nights session was run by Dana, her first adventure. Overall, it's not that bad so far, we haven't actually done anything yet, but heck, what can I say, my first adventure really, really sucked. We're playing Heroes again, switching off between so many different genre's is really starting to get annoying because I can't remember anything about my characters current projects when I get back to playing them. But at least we have the G.M.'s ready to go and relatively excited when they can pick whatever adventure they want to do. For my next adventure, it'll definately be PF 1st Ed, but I kinda of want to run a Heroes adventure as well.
Wedding. Went to a wedding all yesturday. The meal kinda sucked because they brought it out to you so you had no choice, and it took freaking forever between courses. The dancing after the meal was AWESOME though. The DJ played some pretty weird stuff, but I guess that's what you get when one half of the family is Hungarian. I have the typical white-boy dancing style (I can't), but it sure as hell is fun making an ass of yourself trying to. I drove back last night and accidently took a tour of Wisconsin. I ended up on the wrong side of the freaking lake.. opps. But now I'm a lot more familiar with all the cities and highways on the other side... yey, I guess.
Windows 2000: Whoever thinks that Windows 2000 can't be used as a desktop platform, you're wrong. Today I just passed a 1000 straight hours of uptime on my personal computer in my room. And I use this puppy pretty harshly too, I always have at least 5 different applications open at time. I love Windows 2000, we use it at work and I use it here and I couldn't be happier with it.
11/1/2000 11:45pm: Romeo & Juliet. Saw the movie last night, the most recent version where it actually takes place in modern times. It's a date flick entirely, otherwise don't waste your time.
Wedding. I have to go to a wedding this weekend in Racine. One of my old college buds who's happily working down at State Farm in Illinios. Congrats to him. Now I just have to find something to get him.
10/29/2000 11:30pm: Meet the Parents. This movie seriously had me laughing from beginning to end. I normally don't like seeing comedies in the theatres, but this one was worth it. I'd definately recommend it.
Today. Today I felt like doing nothing for most of the day. Later on tonight I did actually get some of my HR paper written. Now my weekend long headache is finally gone, and for once I'm not deathly tired. Does me a lot of good at 11:30 on a Sunday night. Ah screw it, I'm going to bed, another long day tomorrow. Sleep well ya'll.
10/28/2000 8pm: Hello There. I can't believe it's been 4 days since I've lasted updated this site, the end of the week is just mass chaos. Anyway, it was a slow Saturday here at the dorms. Everybody was home or in Madison for some halloween party or another. So anyway, This aft I went to go see one of my friends, Missy, so I could see the pictures she took from Great America, but she wasn't around. On the way back to my room I walked by another girls room, and she looked out and saw me and I was doing the usual "peer in". (Note that the "peer in" is a common occurance in which a person is walking down the hall, and for no reason at all (maybe boredom, I don't know) will look into an open doorway as they stroll by). Now that that's defined, I can continue. I made the typical split second decision to just stop in and at least introduce myself. We ended up talking for the next 3 hours before I went to go grab some supper. We were actually going to go watch a movie just because we had some time to kill, but she got a call from one of her friends who was back from college for the weekend, so instead I got some homework done and tonight I'm going to go and see Meet the Parents with the Appleton friends. Cool.
RPG. We finished Adam's BTS advcnture last night. It had a wicked ending. Our cool plan was screwed up from the beginning because of a prowl roll. Sid, Josh's guy was almost executed. Andrew, James guy, was taken prisoner. Dana's character was taken prisoner. Ted, my guy, and Ryan's guy decided to execute what was left of our plan with the help of the heavily injured Sid sniping from the trees. The coolest part had to be when the supernatural monster found Sid, Sid put a few ingram rounds into it, then it scented Me and Ryan inside the walls (the walls surrounded the mansion but had some forest inside of them). The monster came charging at us and with the warning of Sid, I wrapped up 7 sticks of dynamite with duct tape and set them out a ways, and just as the monster began to leap over the bushes by the dynamite I used the flare gun to set off the dynamite and kablooie! I never even saw the monster, which is perfectly fine with me, because my guy doesn't believe in the supernatural. It was raining monster chunks for a while after that one... hehe.
10/24/2000 10pm: Cool. Tonight was a good night. Had a little Papa John's with one of my friends and then we went to the Student Union where they had a comedian, who once he started using all the gender and sex jokes, was pretty darn good. Also played soccer tonight. Ran into a ton of girls that I knew just about everywhere I went, that was pretty sweet. Not pimp, just a good night. A girl recognized me from when I used to work in the Fletcher dorm computer lab my froshy year. She's damn cute too, so we talked for a little, she's an art major, so that's one strike against her..hehe.. but I digress.. my master plan comes into effect now...umm yeah. Gotta love college life.
Samuri Swords. Great game, if you haven't played it yet, do so. I definately want to play again.
10/24/2000 12am: Keeping the Faith. It's a movie that's out on tape. Basically it deals with a priest and rabbi both liking their same childhood female friend whom suddenly reappeared in their lives.. I'm not religious, but it was still alright. I guess if you're religous you'd get a bit more out of it, it's one of those movies that's really good when you're avoiding homework...
10/22/2000 2am: Great America. Went to Six Flags Great America Theme park today... well yesturday technically. Anyway, there were the most people there that I have ever seen by far at the park. The lines were absolutely ludicrous, but the people I was with were fun and the weather was awesome for it being late October. Overall, it is was a pretty groovy time. After we got back, I went with the rest of the group to eat pizza and watch the movie Rainman. It was the first time I'd ever seen that movie, it was pretty good. Dustin Hoffman did some excellent acting, that was about it though. Oh yeah, a bottle of soda in the theme park costs $2.75. Damn.
Roleplaying. Friday night we did our usual roleplaying session and we really didn't get to far in the adventure because most of the time was spent formulating a plan to break into a heavily guarded mansion to save one of our comrades and basically just stop a lot of other bad stuff from happening. I believe this is one of the first times ever we're going to do it semi-lawfully. Our plan is frick'n elaborate, which of course, will make it a lot of fun. Our GM was giving us a hard time getting in the back of the mansion previously, saying that there was only the front entrance. So we're going to have the police help us, because they can now be there on the pretence that the mansion owner is breaking fire code. We're going to be taping the entire thing by using mini-cameras, recievers, and our computer to put a live feed over the telephone wires back to the police station. Also, we'll be there just in case things don't go as planned. Since the police will set up a major distraction, we'll be able to climb through one of the first floor windows, and if the police don't have reason enough to come into the house to inspect, and therefore find chained up people, we'll simply fire a few rounds out one of the front windows. They have to inspect the gun fire. Oh, this will be interesting.
Homework: Seeing as how I've accomplished absolutely no homework so far this weekend, that's what I'll be doing just about all day tomorrow.
Work: Work is going better then it was previously. I've since talked to my boss and we've worked through a few things, and in the meantime, I've been getting to play with a few new toys. I still don't really look forward to going to work all that much, but I think it has alot to do with how many other things I have going on right now. Well anyway... It's late, I'm going to bed.
10/17/2000 8pm: Soccer. Just got done playing soccer. I took a ball right to the gut. That hurt, but not as much as it might of a few inches lower. I'm slowly starting to get my game back, not as much as some of those guys out there, but improving. Got a goal this time.
Volleyball. I'm on an intermieral volleyball team. Woohoo. Gotta love volleyball.
Sleeping in Class. It's becoming quite the problem in my classes. Mostly, it's just because I don't want to stay awake because the class sucks, however the grades aren't where they should be. They're alright, but it's certainly not a 4.0 semester that I have going here. Sometimes you just can't stay awake. You bring games, food, soda, you do whatever it takes, and before you know it, you're waking up at the end of class. Maybe I have a case of class narcolepsy.
Great America. Going to Great America (Fright Fest) with a bunch of people from my ResHall. Cool beanage. I haven't been there yet this summer. Should be a great time.
10/15/2000 3pm: Friday Night. We did a little bit of roleplaying, about 3 hours worth, but for the most part, we were all feeling a bit violent that night, so we out and played football for a while. It was a good time, I woke up feeling good the next afternoon (I love sleeping in). We're currently in the midst of Adam's BTS adventure, it's been so long since I've played my guy previously that it's almost kind of hard to remember what his beliefs were about guns and killing various things. Maybe I just never established that. So right now when we're at the point where we have to kill a few people I'm kinda choking as to what my guy would be doing at the moment.
Saturaday Night. Pretty cool. A bunch of us here at the ole Taylor dorm got together and made ourselves supper in the Taylor kitchen. Chicken Alfredo Pasta. That was some good stuff. The total cost per person came to $4, cheaper then the commons and a heck of a lot better tasting. We also made some Devil's Food Cake and some really good salad. Then me and Kelly (4th floor girl), went to my friends' Steph and Angela's Pajama Party (Steph and Ang are long time friends who live in the houses). I got to see a lot of old friends. Then we eventually came back and she took off to see the guy she's dating right now and I went and hung out with the people that I had supper with earlier.
My RPG Adventure. My adventure is coming up. I have a cool idea what I want to do. It'll be Palladium 1st Ed. I can't say much about it, but all of the player's will have plenty to do and the chance to exploit their abilities and hopefully their personality in there as well. Hopefully they'll work together enough so that they don't die... hahaha... <evil grin>.
10/11/2000 11pm: Excitable People. Some people really bother me, they get all worked up over nothing, they read between the lines when there's nothing there to read, and they always assume some mystical beast is out to foil their lives. I'm very laid back, live a happy life, and I guess I just don't understand how or why the others live their lives like they do. They can't get along with certain people, get vindictive and bitter towards some for reasons they can't even remember. I'm happy to say that I hate absolutely no one, sure I dislike people, but I'm not going to spend great amounts of time plotting anothers demise. Sure, I can be accused of not being the first to take a stand against something that I dislike, but if you wait long enough, and no one else steps up to the line, I'm there. It bothers me, I don't know, maybe it's just me...
10/11/2000 1am: Never seen Braveheart. Ok, most of you know that Braveheart is my favorite movie ever and I've seen it way too many times. I think I can actually quote every line from that movie. Anyway, I've been trying to get a girl, Misty, to see this movie since frick'n freshman year. That's 2.25 years ago. It's been a running thing that she'll rip on the movie just because she's never seen it and she knows it gets to me. I met her the first day of freshman year and somehow we still keep in touch, this is the same girl that I got chicken wings with about a week ago. Beyond that, we never actually see each other, maybe once a semester if we're lucky. I gave her a call tonight and she's finally agreed to see Braveheart on Thursday night. There is one minor thing, I have to get Papa John's pizza for the movie, which is fine because I still owe her pizza from freshman year in a deal where she bailed me out of a huge Spanish assignment. There's a life lesson, set expiration dates on your deals.
Rifter: I still get the Rifter. This latest issue was pretty good. Palladium is getting pretty good about not pushing Rifts so hard in there. The last couple of issues have had some pretty cool PFRPG adventures. Speaking of which, I should probably get thinking on what I want to do for my next adventure. It'll either be Heroes or PFRPG. Most likely PFRPG 1st Ed.
Webshite. I finally am editing this site using Dreamweaver and not straight HTML. WooHoo. Oh yeah, Guestbook is gone forever now. It stopped working about a month ago. Maybe I'll just write my own. Should be simple enough. Everytime I try to reformat this site, I'm sadly reminds of just how frick'n huge it really is. This is going to be a major project.
10/10/2000 9pm: Sleepy times. I think I successfully spent the entire day sleepy with every free moment that I have. Motivation is a bitch sometimes. Not a whole lot going on round here... So I guess I'll leave it at that for now... Maybe later tonight I'll have something more talk about.
10/9/2000 10pm: Video Game History. I just saw a pretty cool History Channel presentation of the History of Video Gaming. They stated a lot of stuff that all of us serious geeks already knew, but I learned a few things. For instance, Space Invaders, during it's time was THE game. Japan had a coin shortage because of this game and American truency rate skyrocketed. They had opposing views of how video games corrupt us kiddies, but they also showed a speech by President Reagan in which he said that video games were driving our technological interest, and therefore, driving technology itself. Maybe Reagan wasn't all that bad after all.
10/8/2000 11pm: Highcliff. Went to highcliff again this Sunday. It was cool at times. The girls I went with both had their boyfriends with them, so I just basically took off on my own and went down various trails, and made a few trails of my own. Little rock climbing was involved which is always cool.
Seizing the Day. It's hard to "Seize the Day" as learned in Dead Poets Society and still get any work done. I'll have to find a happy medium 'tween the two. How did I "seize the day" today. Well, went and talked to some girl that I thought was cute, not sure how cute she is anymore, she's a total car girl. I know a ton of guys go for that, but I could really care less what I'm driving down the road as long as it gets me there. But she's still a very cool chick. In about a half hour, a bunch of people will be joining me and we'll be watching "Dead Poets Society" again since I still have it. I can definately handle seeing it again. Anyway... I have to find something to eat. I haven't eatten a meal before during the lunch or breakfast times since last Thursday. My whole normal eating habits is totally thrown off.
10/8/2000 4am: Up Nort der ay. One of my college friends is getting married. He's graduated and working down in Illinois right now, but he managed to make it up to Oshkosh for his bachelor party. We went bowling, ate a Friar Tucks, and then went up North, sat around a camp fire for a little while, then went inside and played a little cards before coming back here. Everybody else drank, I knew I would be driving and used that as a good excuse not to drink. I would probably need more then my 10 fingers to count how many deer I saw on the way back from up Nort. Either way, it was fun. It's really, really late right now, so I'm going to bed. G'nite ya'll.
10/7/2000 - 3am: Dead Poets. On the recommendation of a good friend of mine, I borrowed the movie "Dead Poets Society" from one of my other friends. To compare it with my favorite movie ever "Braveheart" would be like comparing apples and oranges. The symbolizm is Hollywood at times, but overall, Robbin Williams did an excellent job in this movie and throughout the movie a resounding theme appears, "Carpe Diem"... Seize the Day. A good reminder and a good movie that I think everyone should see.
Roleplaying. The adventure is going well, we had to cut it a bit short tonight because Ryan had a visitor. But in the time that we did play, we advanced a bit, and I was particularly proud of myself tonight (the old gerbil was turning the wheel in my head tonight). My guy had the thought of looking recent property acquisitions made in the city where our adventure is taking place. This was to track down a rich looking guy who was new in town. Jame's guy who had the research skill, actually found out the same / better information than I did, so we would have done fine anyway, but still.. o.k., I'm done patting myself on the back. We keep getting further, the next step is to put up our surveillance equipment around the land that we discovered was owned. This should be interesting.. oh yes.
Drunks. It is 3 am right now and every once in a while I'll see a piss poor drunk person walk by my door. I've been there, it's not worth it. I had a great night. I guess different people just have different opinions on what it is to Sieze the Day. heh...
10/5/2000: Burned out. So I was getting done with my test for Legal Environment, this is after I've already had 2 quizes today, and one of my old freshman friends says... wow, you look like crap. I don't think I've had a free moment this week except for last nights chicken wing trip. I guess I try not to think about it to much or it starts to suck. I can't wait for this weekend. I just want to sit and watch T.V. for an entire day... no wait.. just sleep all day... yeah that would be cool. Anyway, Friday's almost here. Then maybe you can all hear something related to roleplaying. What a concept. Anyway... carry on all, have a good one.
10/4/2000: Chicken Wings. Pretty cool night. Me and one of my good friends, who I actually met on my first day of college oh so long ago, went to "The Bar" tonight. The Bar is a bar where they let minors in before 7pm and is a really cool place. Anyway, we went there and got 15 cent chicken wings and a soda and shot some darts, in which she managed to win... I maintain that it was all luck on her part...or that I just suck at darts, one of the two. Anyway, we see each other once, maybe twice a semester and we can get one of those endless conversations going for hours upon end that is actually interesting. We have different views on most everything, but I guess that's what makes the conversation so long. I'm not really going anywhere with this, I just think it's cool that I'm hanging out with a good friend eating chicken wings when I should be studying for the 1 test and 2 quizes I have to tomorrow. Heh... k, I'm done now.
BTS ETA 2 days. Who's pumped?
10/3/2000: Faith and Beliefs. I have some pretty cool quotes about faith in random quote thinger that you see everytime you reload. Surprisingly enough, I'm not a religous person... much at all. But I think faith extends well beyond the boxed up religeons that most people identify it with. I try to play that in each of my characters when the chance arises. Take Nick (PFRPG 1st Ed Warlock) for example, he believes of course in the elementals, but his faith and beliefs go far beyond that. He believes that he can get out of situation without harming another, he has faith in his common man to do the right thing. He believes that a metal weapon represents the elementals and the power that those forces bring to him. He's never struck another individual with a metal object and never will. To do that would, to him, betray the sactity of the elemental forces, and betray himself to the uncontrolled rage that hand-to-hand combat brings where he'd be more likely to slip from his earlier belief that you can get out of any situation without harming another. I could write a whole book about this... before I get to far into I'll stop, but it's just something to think about.
Making a Difference. Do you ever why you do or don't try to hard in your job. I think it all comes down to making a difference in some small or maybe even some large way. I know I don't do it for the recognition, I've given up on that. I don't do it because I particularly look up to my boss, he's long lost my upmost admiration and mentoring ability, although I do respect his efforts, as tainted as they might be sometimes. I do it because I like to think that I'm advancing UW Oshkosh's (my college) "computer system" in ways that other people haven't or maybe wouldn't think of. I always gets me, I'll have a really cool idea, it will be ignored, 3 months later someone else will have the same cool idea... well you get the idea, maybe it's just some bitterness creeping out. This upcoming summer should be real cool though, it won't be just upgrades, but we'll be actually implementing new things, and finding new ways to deal with some of our aging standards. Maybe I feel I can make a difference, even if I'm the only one who sees it, but I guess that's why I look forward to going to work everyday. To innovate and create, but for the ultimate goal of making a difference in some good way to our client. I hope you all feel like that when you go to work... Or maybe you should find a new job...
Politics. One other thing, the only way office politics can survive is if you participate in it. Every meeting I go to that I'm a major part in, I always try to take the political thing down to my level. In other words, no politics. You get a hell of a lot more done and it's more fun too.
10/2/2000: GM'ing. In our group, we got to the point where nobody really liked GM'ing anymore. GM's would come unprepared (guilty myself), and the players would quickly lose interest and start doing other things and start cross conversations that would make it hard to hear for the players who were actually doing something at the time. It got to the point where we just assumed the adventure was going to suck, and we started doing whatever right away which furthur discouraged GMs because even if they were prepared, adventure was screwed, or at least the mood was. Think about it, you're in a deep, dark dungeon and your looking around and then you can't help but to hear the person next to you talking about some perverted subject or another, and boom.. there went mood and that's part of the cool RPG experience. I hope it starts to turn around more, especially during this adventure because it's so cool. Ah well, what we eventually ended up doing is taking turns GM'ing from drawn straws. I'm looking forward to doing my next adventure, I just hope that the players help make it as interesting as it possibly can be, and I try to help our GM's adventure's become as cool as they can be, though I freely admit that I have some improvement to make. We only see each other once a week, but still.. I want to do some solid, concentrated roleplaying and it's just hard to come by sometimes. But I digress... I have tests to study for... WooHoo! Later all.
10/1/2000: Went out to a party last night, got obliterated, and wasted all of today doing nothing. A good reminder of why drinking is bad.. It wasn't worth it, it was hardly even worth it at the time. I think I would have rather just watched a movie.
So a good friend of mine saw my little entry below from the 28th and wrote me. It's funny... I guess I really never paid much attention to this, but the more you open up your life and experiences, the more other people offer of their own on their own. Pretty cool. I've decided that my T.V. is the anti-christ of all time wasters (except history channel of course)... Computers are different, except for computer games, you normally accomplish something when you use them... well, at least I do. Well, I should finish up my laundry now, I'm actually doing it once a week so all of it doesn't pile up in my closet. Who cares?.. Oh well. Later.
9/30/2000: Early morning on the 30th now.. 2 am once again. I just got back from roleplaying. Adam, as always, has an awesome adventure going in Beyond the Supernatural (BTS). A few of us, me, Josh, and James all dug up our BTS characters from over 2 years ago when we had a really cool team going. We added Ryan and Dana, and now we're up to five people in our parapyschic investigation agency (Ghostbusters). I play Ted, the problem of the group this time, he's a Nega-Psychic. Which basically means he doesn't believe in magic, supernatural, or psionics at all, even if showed them up to his face, he tries to find a logical explaination for everything that he sees. I actually hinder the use of other peoples powers, though I don't know that. Ryan, being particularly annoying tonight with his gosh darn psionics (useful to the rest of the group as they may be), made me play out that role to quite an extent. He would object read things and say what he saw, and I finally broke down and started questioning the mental stability and credibility of his character... It was my only recourse. Either way, I had a lot of fun coming up these obnoxious explanations in a semi-convincing way while trying to lead an investigation in the problems in our adventure. We have a lot of ideas, but I think it will finally come down to just waiting for something to happen. Either way, I think we're kicking some investigative butt and I love it. Time for bed, g'nite all.
9/28/2000: Morning all.. Well actually it's 1 am right now. It's one of those nights. One of those nights, when you just don't know whats going on or how to address it. You tried to go to sleep but the thoughts in your head keep from sleep. I just watched Armageddon an hour or so ago. It makes you think... I've had a good semester going until now, I've been able to concentrate on my work and my studies, which are both important to me. Actually I've become much more of myself as you could tell from previous days notes, the world around me reveals itself through everyone I meet. There's nothing better then not trying to impress anyone. My growing cynicism at work has grown a lot the past few months, ever since I lost faith in those who I used to look up too. You meet people that you really look up to and you think they are perfect, a mirror image of what you want to be, but alas... everyone has their downfalls. I apologize for my scattered thoughts and sentences, but my mind has traveled many distances tonight. The last two nights I've gone to bed fairly late.. 2 am and I'm not tired even though I get up at 7 every morning. Something is changing in my life, you know.. that excitement that you get when something new enters your life like your first few days of school or work, that you haven't quite dealt with yet.. that feeling.. that rush. As it turns out, and as anyone could tell where this is going, I'm up tonight because of women. Back in the day I would write this as a story of Coren, but I don't feel like covering my feelings with a veil this time. My friends will understand, as for anyone else who visits this site, well... welcome to my life... who knows. Last night I spent 3 hours with a girl whom I knew before, we just talked as helped her out with some of her computer issues. She's very nice to everyone, and she's even told me that a lot of guys tend to like her because she is outgoing and still very nice. For this reason, I decided I'd keep it on friend stuff, but she was going over that imaginary line, sharing some very personal stuff that you just don't tell people. I knew more about her in 3 hours then I know about most of my other college friends that I've known since frosh year. She still has a lot of personal things she has to deal with though, and I think she's just looking for someone to be with, to comfort her, not necessarily be her boyfriend. Another girl that I work with that I barely know, but is also very, very nice from what I have seen is showing definate interest. I'm nearly blind to signals from girls, but sometimes you just know. The thing is I barely know her, and I see this and it makes me uncomfortable. I'm always friends with people for a long time before I realize whether I would really like to take it to the next level, or just leave it at friends. I don't want to give her the wrong message, but this one could be the one for all I know. If I jump on this and it doesn't work out I'm basically screwed, cus you know what, I'll be working with her for the next 2 years in the same room. I'm normally mature enough that I can work with anyone no matter how much I dislike them if it came to that, but when someone's held your heart for only brief time as I found out with my last gf, it changes things. I don't want things to be weird for the next 2 years tween me and her if it didn't work out. Maybe I should just lay low, not likely... It's hard, I've had no one for so long that I've adjusted to it, now two people appear in my life and here I sit, nearly 2 in the morning now. I think it helped out some just to write about it, seeing as no one is around right now to talk. At work, it seems like people are getting bogged down in politics and discouragement. I've long tried to bring a positive feel to everyone I work with, but I've since become cynical and sarchastic to a point that I don't like in myself. That pure innocence and belief that I can reach the stars is hard to realize. I see some of the incompetence that I work with and I've lost my humbleness there, and the responsibility with no verbal recognition bears very heavy upon my shoulders. It hurts when I know there's nothing I can do about something, it's not my position or initiative to take, and others let it pass them by. Believe it or not, I don't work for money, but since I'm still in college I'm looking for recognition from inside and outside our company. The projects that I do are growing dull and lifeless.. redundant.. people only ask for more when they have no idea how much they already have... It's discouraging. None-the-less, I think it's time I changed my attitude there. Re-evalute my goals in the field of computers, and maybe... just maybe reach for the stars again. I would be amazed had you read this far, much less, it doesn't even matter if you haven't, my mind it clear... well at least clearer now that I've had a chance to put this somewhere, to say something, to sort it out a bit. Good night my friends... wish me luck and wisdom.
9/26/2000: Just saw a special on the history channel about Battleships during WWII. They brought up some really good points. With subs and aircraft carriers in the war now, these goliath ships that costed millions upon millions weren't as effective as they used to be. Rarely during WWII were battleships actually used in ship to ship battle (which is what they were created for). Yet all sides still made them because no matter how strategically outdated they were, they still demanded the most respect of any naval vessel out there. It made me think of my old Axis & Allies games. I never really thought about it much during the game, but I never, ever, bought battleships (you can get 3 subs for the price of one battleship). It just wasn't worth it. Yet when you saw a battleship on the map, you stayed away from it just because it had to be one of the biggest pieces on the map. You respected it's position and defined your moves around the map on your opponents battleships. I think this is just a tribute to good old Milton Bradley games (or whoever really created it). Now I just want to play Samuri Swords again. That last game rocked...
9/24/2000 (one last thing): I look at the number of hits this page gets, and I think I'm responsible for almost all of them. It's cool though. I can write about anything I want without offending anyone, all the roleplaying guys know me for exactly who I am, so I don't have to hold back at all. Finally, I'm back to where I started when I first created ISC so long ago, I'm not updating for hits to a counter, I'm finally doing it for the sheer pleasure of writing on a webpage. My webpage.
9/24/2000 (even later): So I went High Cliff tonight, one of Wisconsin's state parks. Oshkosh is only a half hour from it, so me and some of my friends decided we'd go romp around the park for a while. I thought it would be cool, but the more and more time I spent with them it just got depressing. One of the people was late, very late, and we were supposed to meet him there. Of all the time that I spent with them, they choose to only worry about the one person who wasn't there (who I should add is a perfectly capable human being and can take care of himself, as it turned out, he just got stuck at work), and talk about how busy their lives were. Here we are, surrounded by all this cool stuff and a beautiful sunset, I want to run around and have some fun... and they're talking about these two things. I think they've just gotten to old, they worry more about how they should or could or will live their lives then actually just living their life for the moment. It's too bad, they're all great people... They've just been torn.
There's another guy I know here who's centered his entire life around getting a girlfriend. When I first met him he was a great guy (and still is), but he's been trying so hard to get a girlfriend that it's rediculous. Every conversion with him eventually will turn into talking about getting a girlfriend. It gets sickening. He's also very opinionated, about stuff that one should not really be opinionated about, and he tells everyone.. everyone. He tells me life lessons on getting a girlfriend and I can't help but to cringe inside.
What am I trying to say, I don't know really. I guess I learn more from seeing what I don't like, and then look at my own life and say, "Am I doing this?". I used to tell everyone I was busy all the time, and I really felt BUSY. But now you know what, when asked, I tell them about the most relaxing part of my day, or something cool that happened at work. You know what, I don't feel as rushed or krazed as I used to... I may actually be BUSY, but I take it in stride now and am able to get a specific task done without worrying about everything else that I need to also do. What a wacky weekend... I'm not ready to say g'nite yet. Maybe I'll do some more programming.
9/24/2000 (later on): I think I've finally become the weird guy on our floor (of my Dorm). It only took me a few weeks, but I'm there. This weekend I could be seen programming on a Saturday night while listening to piano music. Studying on a Saturday and a Sunday. Not watching the football game. Filling up my Mountain Dew can with water (our water doesn't taste as wretched if it's out of a can for some reason). And of course trying to keep my plants alive. Spikey is doing well, but I fear I've already killed Fernifora (Ferny). She's on her last leg and I think we're past the point of return for her. Poor thing, it was doomed from the moment I saw it. What a nice relazing weekend though, after running around like a headless chicken all week. The cool part is I'm doing this all with my dorm room door open, so people will stop on by and say hi, or walk on by and do the casual "peer in". Who knows or cares what they think. This is a heck of a lot better then acting cool. By the way, every guy is actually capable of acting cool... I guess it's mostly in the eyes of the beholder. Unfortunately for most guys, the eyes of the beholder belong to a woman. Woman are for the most part a nice folk, but they tend to know whether they plan to marry you or not after roughly 2.54 seconds of meeting them. (I know, I timed once). Anyway, enough pointless rambling. I can't even believe you read all this stuff. Wait, isn't this a roleplaying page? I guess...
9/24/2000 (wee hours of the morning): Been a few days, I tried to update the other night, but the browser crashed and pissed me off. But I digress.
Movie to See: Les Miserables - I saw it for the first time tonight, the version with Liam Nieson in it. This movie simply rocks, I think I'm going to go out and buy this one. It's so weird to see such a great movie that makes you think, and then going home and seeing drunk, generally screwed up people doing whatever they do... I'm glad I spent my night this way.
Roleplaying: Ryan's adventure is over and it went well. Adam's adventure is next, we're going to have to make new characters for it which I'm not all that thrilled at, but Adam is the undesputed king of G.M.'s in our group, so you know it's going to be a good time.
Computer Stuff: My monitor is starting to get a bit screwy, I guess my whole computer has always been screwy, but now it's just starting to take full effect. Ah well, it still does the job. Before I saw the movie tonight, I spent a good 4 or so hours working on a perl script for my job. Whenever I script, I always try to make it have some general purpose. I can't code just for the sake of coding... I wish I could. Either way, the script is coming along fine. I've always had the poor belief that if you can't code it in one night, it ain't worth your time. I'm to the point in projects where that doesn't work very well anymore. Ah well...
Piano Music: I've always liked listening to people play the piano, Ryan just let me borrow some of his piano music on CD and I think I'm hooked. I'll probably end up buying the CD among other piano CD's. It's so relaxing, and it goes so well with the Rock music playing down the hall... right... Funny thing is, I can probably blast my piano music loader then their rock if it came down to it. Which it never should.
Well, enough for tonight. I don't think I have the mental capacity to script anymore tonight, so I'll probably kick back and watch the history channel for a while then go to bed. What a life...
9/19/2000: Went out and played soccer in the rain tonight with a bunch of the guys from my Res. Hall. It was awesome! It's been a few years since I've played, but I did pretty good.. got a few goals. We're going to play again next week, can't wait.
9/18/2000: Wow! What a day. I got up at 6:55am and didn't stop moving until now, being 11:15pm. It's weird though, even though I was busy all day, it was one very good day. I guess that's all I have to say... I'm going to bed. G'nite all.
9/16/2000 (even later that day): We just got done playing Samuri Swords. It was wicked. I got the upper hand in the beginning of the game because everybody else was opting for the Center or Eastern side of the board. Ryan (Neptune) was scarred right from the get-go, but survived by an alliance with the 2nd power of the board, Adam (Ash). They were in the center of the board. James had the far East. I had the whole West side and inching towards the middle. We finally ended the game because it was getting late. Right before it ended, I had all 3 of my Diasho's ready to attack Adam. He out bid me on the Ninja, and stopped one of my attacks, but I snuck in the backside of his base with one of my other Diasho's and had a kick ass army with me, and the other Diasho took out one of his Diasho's with the help of some hired thugs (Ronin). I ended up 5 provinces short by the time we ended. It was a great game though, and luckily I had non-aggresion pack going with James (mostly because we were far from each other), but if he would have turned and joined Adam and Ryan, it would have been rough going... What a cool game, it's exciting throughout the entire thing because there is never a clear cut winner and your options just keep growing for bidding and buying. We'll definately have to play again! Good game to all involved.
9/15/2000 (later that day): What would be cool? A Magic the Gathering type game for Palladium Fantasy. It could go a lot of directions that M:TG doesn't. Incorporate a monetary system of some kind and expand on levels and weapons for warrior cards. Hrmm.. I'm sure it's been done, the whole card market has been pretty much played out (bad pun)... Still, would be cool.
9/15/2000: We played Palladium Fantasy tonight, Neptune was the G.M. Nick (my PC) reached 2nd level just as we were finishing up, yeah baby! I took the second level Air spells "Silence" and "Wind Rush". I always tend to take spells that have little or no saving throw for the person I'm using the spell against, heck, I can only cast so many spells per a day, they might as well work, the rest of the time I'm all talk. In a few levels, I'll have something to back up that talk.. oh yes.
In the adventure, Neptune had dwarves as part of the population of the town. I've always loved having my P.C.'s be dwarves and general dwarf interaction. I was having some fun last night with those guys. They're always impressed when you can speak to them in their native langauge.
Tonight, a few of the guys are coming up to my dorm room and we're going to play "Samuri Swords", the awesome board game I previously mentioned. Should be a good time.
It's kind of funny, I still update this site and I know from my counter that absolutely no one reads it anymore.. Screw you all :) My site, my updates... ISC lives.
9/14/2000: RPG tonight. I'm psyched! On a completely different note, I got two dorm room plants, "Spiky" and "Fernifora". Although the one's not very spiky and I'm not even sure if the other one's a fern, but oh well. My goal is to not kill them... This would be a first for me. I have to get new pots for my plants...
9/13/2000: Busy couple of days, I started writing up a page on my new PFRPG 1st Ed. character but had to stop midway to sleep... damn these 8 o'clock classes. One of my buds is working out a web menu system for my place of work that hopefully I'll get to eventually, long down the road, implement into ISC... That would be cool.
The other night (last friday), Josh ran a victim adventure (That's an offshoot of old school Beyond the Supernatural for you young'ns). I got to be the 8 year old annoying brainiac. I had to leave early that night so I'm not sure what point in the adventure we're at. Victim adventure's always rule though, although being the kid who always got beat was starting to get to much like real life with my older brother (the whole brotherly love thing...) Well, anyway, time to catch up on some reading. Later ya'll
9/11/2000 (later that day): So it started raining... a bunch of college kids got out of the dorm and went to the back of the dorm and started mud sliding. I watched from my window for about 20 minutes, couldn't take it anymore, and went and joined them. I think of a Rush (the 70's band) line as I write this, "Old enough to know what's right, but young enough not to choose it". Anyway, within five minutes I was caked in mud along with 70 other people and having one awesome time. You have to do that stuff (otherwise you get old)... We got in trouble for dragging mud all through the hall, so we had to clean up the mess after the proclaimed "mud incident", and we'll probably get charged for some of the mess that we couldn't clean, but it was so worth it just to be head to toe MUD. If I had to do it all over again, I would have gone out even earlier. I imagine I'll still be cleaning the sand and mud out of my hair 3 days from now... what a rocking time.
9/11/2000: Today I got to make a new Linux box at work. A PIII 733 MHz beast, and boy does she move. I downloaded the entire OS at work in under 10 minutes from Madison, WI., I love this network. One would wonder why I leave this page on geocities when I have my own webserver.. I have an answer... pure laziness. Gotta love it.
I don't know about the rest of you, but every semester I say I'm going to get my 4.0, well, almost a week in, I'm still on track... it'll get to be about mid-semester and I'll start wondering why I care about the 4.0 and I'll fall short.. again. Maybe this time I'll pull it off, maybe this time I'll care long enough to get it, doubtful, but not improbable. I hate to break it to most of you, but it's not what you know, it's all in who you know if you're looking for a career. This explains the reason that some dumbass who doesn't know shit is in a higher position then you are at virtually any job. Ah well, enough ranting... I'm going to go play on my new Linux box... hehe.
9/10/2000 (later that day): My god, two updates in the same day, I normally don't even do two updates a week! Anyway, I just saw the movie "U-571", a very sweet submarine movie. Should be out on tape soon if not already, I saw it in our university POS theater. Anyway, I have a natural love for all sub movies, but I'd definately check this one out if you get a chance. Wouldn't you know, History Channel has something on subs right now. Kick Ass! Later all.
9/10/2000: At UWO (college) we now get the History channel. This has to be one of the best channels out there. In the last week I've easily watched a good 12 hours worth of shows. Unfortunately they put even Comedy Central to shame with how often they repeat episodes. This is the 3rd time I've seen the same show on John Dillinger.
M:TG (Magic: The Gathering) has picked up a little with the guys again. I've already decided I'm not going to buy anymore cards (money pit). I decide this and then I see that Neptune already has like 5 new packs sitting out. Ah well.. I can still take him most of the time.
Ash just got "Samuri Swords", a very "Axis & Allies" type game that takes place entirely within Japan and it's warring families. It kicks ass, I would definately recommend it to anyone who likes Axis & Allies. We started playing one game and me and Neptune were up on top before we ended up stopping due to it being early morning. There's a lot of strategy that could be developed though. It's more open then the automatic first turn strategies that take place in Axis & Allies.
8/30/2000: Palladium at GenCon. I remember a few years back when Palladium put on a big show about not going to GenCon because it was no longer for the small companies, just a huge commercialized event where it costed too much money for the smallest companies to get in. It's funny, you know, I don't remember prices at GenCon going down this year. My point is straight and not so humble, Palladium is a hypocritical sellout on this issue. It was so cool a few years ago when they took that stand and now they just screw their morals and go out and make a few bucks? It's not like the fans are missing a whole lot, sure, it's a major convention, but Palladium makes it around to enough other conventions besides having their public chats etc..
As long as I'm ripping into them (and rightly so), let's talk about books. Bill Coffin.. the downfall of Palladium Fantasy. I'm sorry, this is nothing personal against Bill, he's a good guy, but the books he writes are not good. Could I do better, hell no, but I know a couple of people who can.. Kevin Siembieda and Erick Wujcik. Erick Wujcik just plain rocked the PFRPG world when he was writing for them. I don't even bother to buy Bill's books anymore, they're all the exact same but in different parts of the world. All he does in them is flesh out the world, any GM worth his beans can do this for their particular adventure. I realize that Kevin and Erick have no time to spend writing PF books, but I would rather see PF not supported at all. Kevin should take a closer look at writers like Randi Cartier and the Old / Low Kingdom Mountains. Some of the ideas she had were excellent. Someday Kevin will look back and see his creation marred and he'll regret it.
People blindly support Palladium. I should know, I used too. Don't take my word for it... look around this web site for all the proof. Palladium books lost it's edge and is turning too corporate. If you don't agree, fine, you're always entitled to your own opinion and I ask you to follow it to your hearts content. Rant done.
On a brighter note, I got Tolkien's 2nd book today, I'm going to try and get it done before life gets too busy with school once again.
8/29/2000: For the Tolkien series, I actually stopped reading the 2nd book, and went back and read the first book like I should have in the first place. The first book reads pretty poorly actually. The first 90 or so of the pages I had read from the 2nd book were much better though. I'll be starting the 2nd book all over again as soon as my friend can get me the book.
In Palladium Fantasy 1st Ed. my Warlock is almost to 2nd level. I'll get 2 shots with my short bow per melee! I think I might have played my racial hatred of Paladins / Knights too well, I drove the Paladin in our group out! Eat it! Of course she's now happily playing a healer. Don't mess with the man... right. I should really start archiving the old news again... Ho-de-hum..
8/10/2000: I made a 1st Ed. Air Warlock who has some pretty cool querks. I was just trying to get a hang of him last meeting, but hopefully I'll be able to fully play him better soon, you know, to fully annoy my group with all his cool little traits. Also, I started reading J.R.R. Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings" series. I should have read the previous series first, but I didn't know any better. Anyway, the book so far is excellent. I would definately recommend it.
7/30/2000: Damn.. it's been a while. Right now I'm updating from Geocities cheesy file editor, but no matter, good enough. Surprisingly enough, I'm still alive.. and maybe even more surprising, our RPG group is alive and well. I just got done running a short PFRPG 1st Ed (that's right baby, 1st Ed.) Adventure. It was a blast from the past and I had the most fun I've had in a long time as a G.M. Hopefully there'll be more to come...I promise you this though, I'll be long dead before I ever truly leave ISC. Speaking of leaving ISC, I will be moving it in the future to a REAL server (my own)!
3/9/99: Wrote another little story late last night 1st person by Coren dealing with Sir Garland. However sad to say, Garland wasn't my true inspiration (gee...who woulda thunk? :), that honour is given to a lovely lady off at college right now. I'm not sure if it's as good as the first part of Coren's Calling, but give it a read and hopefully you'll enjoy - Part II: To Shed a Tear
2/28/99: Confused about those churches of Light and Dark? Hopefully this should clear things up for ya.
2/11/99: Hey ya'll. Just thought I'd quick stop by and share a little story with you that I wrote at 4 am in morning a couple weeks ago. It's about a subject that we all hold dear in our lives and i think it's my best work yet. It's 1st person from Coren's (my old character) point of view and about none other then Sir Garland. Keep in mind this is a guy writing this... Female readers, how close did I come? ;) Hope ya enjoy! - "Coren's Calling"
E-mail: dornfm94@mio.uwosh.edu
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