Enoch

I had uncles who were D&D nerds, one of whom (stereotypically) lived with my grandparents. He had a C64 (might actually have been grandpa's, but resided in his room), and the game that hooked me on that was Might and Magic 1. I was probably 8 or 9 when I first saw it, and I had already read some of the fantasy paperbacks and D&D manuals that I found around that house, so it was immediately recognizeable and appealing to me. Sadly, those relatives of mine play nothing but WoW these days...

Yep, an encounter with built-in trap support would appear to present a problem to a party without a unified Rogue-archetype. But I wouldn't go so far as calling it "no win." It's an additional tactical challenge. Obsidz level designers presumably have included the trap in their planning for the projected difficulty of the encounter. Having a Sneaky/Trappy Rogue gets the party a good advantage in that case, and maybe lets them take down an encounter that is generally scaled for a more advanced party. That's a nice "reward the player for skill investment" moment. (And, presumably, there will be other, similar moments for other skill synergies.) The problem is that, at present, a party that disarms the trap gets more XP than the party that overcomes it in combat or avoids the whole encounter via stealth or dialogue. Which is pretty silly.

Had a couple grapefruits getting old in the fridge, so I juiced 'em. That led to experimentation. A plain Salty Dog (Gin, Grapefruit, over ice, salted rim) is a bit boring. It improves if you add plenty of angostura bitters. Other than bitters, the thing that I discovered is nice to add is Sweet Vermouth. This is a bit like a Bronx, but with no Dry Vermouth and grapefruit instead of orange. It's also a bit like a Negroni, with the grapefruit (and bitters) serving in the bitter/sweet role of the Campari. As these are all common ingredients, I figured that somebody, somewhere, had done this before. The internet tells me that those who did so called it a "South Beach ****tail," although they didn't mention the bitters. (They may have been using a less sweet grapefruit, though.)

I think he's roleplaying character called Gromnir from BG2: ToB. Heh. You've got it backwards. He's been doing this act for a long time.

That's be awesome, but would also probably require a prohibitive amount of new animation work to do right. I wouldn't want a Squidward that moves just like a biped does.

I like the idea of doing a Coastal Aumaua Druid-- a wanderer with a staff of driftwood, at home among the tidepools, marshes, and mangroves. Too bad none of the wildshape forms really pair well with a druid originating from a littoral or estuarial biome. Forget the wolves and bears-- we need a 'gator!

Man, what did I tell you all about the Chip Kelly drama! Nick Foles, plus some draft value (lots of picks changing hands, but the balance being that more value goes to STL) to the Rams for Sam Bradford's (1-year, well in excess of his reasonable value) contract. This "never stop to huddle" philosophy of Chip's might not be transferring all that well from the football field to the GM's office.

It's always embarrassing when a post of mine gets quoted before I have the opportunity to edit it... Anyhow, today I played with the youngin'. We got 7 or so inches of snow yesterday, and the local infrastructure isn't particularly well equipped to deal with that sort of thing. The office was closed yesterday, but open on a 2-hour delay (because lots of side-streets hadn't been plowed yet) today. However, most the schools in the area were closed outright. And that forced the youngin's day care center to close as well, as lots of the staff had to stay home to mind their own kids. So I took some unscheduled leave. He has developed an unfortunate habit of including "biting the shirt of the other person" in the concept of "hugging."

What the heck kind of fence can you build by hammering the posts into the ground? Surely you're not going to get a post deep enough to support a fence of any useful height (or strength) by just hammering it in? Sledgehammers are notoriously ineffective at generating downward force to an object at the user's eye-level. You use one of these, drop your post in, then fill around it! (With concrete, if you're particularly serious.)

Normally, I wouldn't link Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing fewer than 3 wind instruments at once, but this particular performance caught my fancy. (Also, there really isn't enough live footage of the guy out there on the 'tubes.)

I like my Brussels Sprouts simple. Half 'em; sear 'em cut side down in a pan with a little oil; toss; add a little garlic and a good slug of whatever beer you have open (beef stock also works); lid the pan to let them steam until fork-tender; take the lid off and cook off excess beer; salt, pepper, and a little butter to finish. Cleaning and prepping the sprouts takes some time, but it still works out to a reasonable weeknight side dish.

"... provided that nobody has it on video." For my part, the most entertaining part of the offseason has been watching the continuing adventures of Chip and the Philadelphia Ducks. He wins an internal power struggle to gain full control over player personnel, and promply uses that to trade away the team's most popular and dynamic player. Now, I'd typically be all for trading away an expensive aging RB to gain a cheap, young, and promising LB. But McCoy isn't that old, and it raises my eyebrow a bit that the LB in question is yet another guy who Kelly coached in college. (And that he's had multiple ACL surgeries.) Genius? Hubris? Both? We'll soon find out! Also, between Desean, McCoy, and the recently-released Trent Cole, I'd say that at least 80% of the jerseys purchased by Philly fans over the last 5 years last year are now out-of-date.

Maybe them fancy private-sector attorneys. Me, I'm just a humble public servant-- a patriotic American drinking a spirit of a type that was distilled by George Washington('s slaves) himself! (The Scotch in the cabinet is more of a special occasion thing. For "just a normal Thursday" drinkin', the rye works fine. I prefer its spiciness to the sweetness of the bourbons that I could get at a similar price point.)

Chicken breasts in a mushroom cream sauce. Roasted cauliflower. Rice. Aesthetically, a bit too all-white. But the other veggies in the store didn't look too great, and the cream sauce was the wife's preference. (I told her I could make either that or a red wine sauce and went with her choice.) Now I may follow GD's lead on that whiskey. (Although mine is rye.)

Or he's just too proud to get his eyesight checked and get glasses. A number of years back, I had occassion to see the late Senator Robert Byrd give a brief talk. He used notes, bound in a 3-ring binder, that were printed in what I estimated to be a 72-point font. Politicians-- even octogenarian ones-- don't like being seen with their reading glasses on. Edit: As to the circumstances and content of the speech, this is the kind of thing that everybody comes out of looking bad. Just a terrible idea to begin with, with foreign officials on both sides publicly allowing themselves to be used as props in the internal politics of their supposed allies.

No reason not to dump him, the Viconia clone is a better mage anyway. Plus the fact your choices do not matter in the slightest. He will always be possessed in DA2. I'm thinking more in terms of content tourism, rather than functional party structure or influencing the long-axis story of the series. Part of the DAA experience is getting an understanding of this guy, so, as a first-time player, I'm willing to play along (for the time being). Anyhow, the game really didn't give me a "dump him" option. (At least not yet.) It gave me a "let the Templars take him" option, which didn't seem like a particularly nice or character-consistent thing for my Mage PC to do.

That's me, just add MMORPG to the list of genres I've never enjoyed much. A co-worker has pulled me into a few multiplayer sessions. Mostly Torchlight 2 and Borderlands. I had fun, but the games were not the sort of thing I'd generally seek out were it not for the fellowship element. We're trying to play some co-op Divinity: Original Sin, but scheduling has been a challenge.

Dragon Age: Awakening. Man, the writing in the opening sequence is ham-handed. Obvious set-ups for bad Anders/Oghren jokes; a jarring cut from talking with just-rescued Zaeed-guy to chatting with Anora way out at the castle gates; a lot of cheesy "we're counting on you, great hero!" stuff. That last point probably would've been better had I killed off my DAO PC, but it seems that Awakenings can't import a world-state with a dead Warden, and DA2 can't take an import that incorporates both DAO and DAA decisions if they were played with different characters. Anders is already starting to bother me. He's like Alistair-- same terrible jokes, same accent-- but with the marginally endearing naievete replaced by caddish behavior. Ugh. Really, if I were given a little more room for role-playing, I'd probably try to find a way to lie to the Templars and just let him go. My character would see no reason to trust him much, and would have a fair amount of sympathy for somebody being sent off to the Wardens to escape the Templars. But, apparently, he plays a pretty large role in both this story and DA2, so I guess I'm keeping him around.

It wasn't just David v. Goliath-- more like David picking a side in a brawl between a bunch of Goliaths. The ISP-types were against it, but the big companies on the content side were for neutrality.

I have to say, with that selection, I might go for the Bud Light. I enjoy interesting ales, stouts, lagers, etc., but I find that I intensely dislike any beer with the word "wheat" "white" or "Belgian" on the bottle. Edit: Actually, no, I'd dilute the bourbon heavily with soda water and drink that.

You know, that does make a certain amount of sense when you put it that way. I agree-- when Bio tries to write a comedian, it usually falls flat. (Joker being the leading example that you didn't mention.) But they are, IMO, pretty good at writing characters who deadpan for humor, either deliberately (Sten; Wrex; Jolee) or inadvertently (because their outlook is foreign enough to the player that their "normal" statements come across as funny-- see HK-47; Shale; Mordin; maybe Jan Jansen).

Tomorrow is the tyke's first birthday. He's much more fun now than he was a year ago. Even when he wakes us up crying because a tooth (it'll be his 3rd) is trying to push its way through his gum.

So, basically an Alexander with absinthe as the base spirit. I'm not much for creamy c0cktails, but that sounds more interesting than a traditional brandy or gin Alexander. The last interesting drink I had was a Pink Gin variant. Gin (Plymouth), 2-3 dashes each of Angostura and Scrappy's Cardamom bitters, stirred over ice and strained. A traditional Pink Gin is all Angostura, but somebody gave me a sampler set that included the cardamom bitters as a holiday gift, and this seemed like a natural application for them.