Mindlence

D&D session 03-06-08 notes

Exile — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:15:20 +0000

I wasn’t able to make it to this session, so I don’t have any notes for it. the DM put together a synopsis of what happened. So in order to keep the story together, I’m tossing that up here. This was the final wrap up of the previous module, and the introduction to the new module.
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D&D session 02-12-08 notes

Exile — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:48:25 +0000

Prior to me even starting to write this our group has completed the campaign, collected all the rewards, grabbed the plot hook for the next module, and have started off to put an end to a slaving group. Fortunately I am slowly catching up to my notes. After this one I only have two left to do until I’m back in line with the campaign.
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D&D session 02-07-08 notes

Exile — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:43:01 +0000

As we proceed through the campaign we’ve had to adapt our strategies as we learn more of the rules. For example, one of our main strategies was to use the Wizard spell Thunder Wave to shove enemies past our melee fighters. In our initial reading of the rules we thought this would give them all attacks of opportunity, and it made us very efficient at clearing large groups. We later found out that forced movement, such as this, would not grant attacks of opportunity. Hopefully we’re not breaking too many other rules, I’d hate to think we’re doing so well because we don’t know that we’re not following the rules.
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From Russia with Love

Exile — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:33:37 +0000

It only took a brief two months for Netflix to send me the next James Bond film, From Russia with Love. They do this to me every now and again. Some movie in my queue will inexplicable get marked with “Long Wait”. The last couple times this happened I found out the DVD was no longer being made, so Netflix probably couldn’t get a copy to send me. I highly doubt that was the case with this movie since the Bond movies are so popular. More likely some rabid Bond hater went and rented all the copies Netflix had and snapped the DVD’s to prevent them from renting it anymore.

Regardless of the rental difficulties I’ve finally gotten back to watching the Bond movies.
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Endless Ocean

Exile — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:54:27 +0000

Years ago I played the game Sub Culture, a game where you piloted a submarine through the ocean scavenging for things to sell or possibly shooting at underwater pirates. There was probably some kind of story line you could follow but I skipped that. I spent all my time exploring and taking in the scenery, scavenging enough stuff to sell to enable my sub to go a little bit further and deeper than before. Despite ignoring most of the actual content of the game it still convinced me that I needed a Monster 3D graphics card.

Recently I was loaned a copy of Endless Ocean for the Wii. All I really knew about it was that it was a scuba diving game that didn’t have any real goals or objections. Yet somehow people were drawn to it and managed to spend lots of time playing it. For me its the successor to Sub Culture, except even more tailored to what I want to do: Roam about the ocean looking at stuff.
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D&D session 01-16-08 notes

Exile — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:17:51 +0000

The adventure continues. The DM told us that this was the final dungeon in the module, so we were approaching the end. Things started getting a little combat heavy, so role play has been a little light through these parts. It works out since we’re just now starting to get the hang of the rules, so its letting us try out some things and explore our classes a bit more.

The classes seem to be mainly built around combat. There doesn’t seem to be as many abilities that are useful in non-combat situations. It could be I’m misinterpreting things a bit, or possibly our class selection, but it definitely looks like they retooled the rules to adapt better to video games. It simplifies them enough to make the rules easy to understand, but any role play heavy campaigns may not adapt well to the changes.
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V for Vendetta

Exile — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:47:29 +0000

When I bought the Watchmen comic, I found out that the same author that wrote the V for Vendetta comic. The one that the film of the same name was based on. With as much as I enjoyed the Watchmen comic and the V for Vendetta movie, I figured I should give this comic a look as well.

Alan Moore had distances himself from the film since it followed some very different themes than his story. The comic was about anarchy versus fascism, where the movie seemed to be less about the opposites of the political spectrum.

I’ve never been too interested in the philosophical explorations that are hidden below the story in movies. I’ve always been more interested in the story thats presented. I guess I’m a lazy moviegoer in that way, I just want to be entertained. I’m not so interested in allowing the movie to make me think too hard.
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D&D session 01-02-09 notes

Exile — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:03:55 +0000

The party had completed its initial goal last time, but we had a few loose ends to finish up. Then of course the DM had another quest hook lined up that sounds like it will keep us busy for a while.
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Wii Fit

Exile — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:32:32 +0000

I’ve been using the Wii Fit for almost two months now, and my opinion has changed slightly. Its still a pretty good workout tool, and until spring comes round and the weather changes to where its tolerable to do things outside I’ll still be using it regularly. I’ll probably keep using even while doing outside activities because its more fun than plain jogging.

However, I had originally said that this is a game that makes a poor first impression. I was wrong, this game is just plain doesn’t like you.
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Chrome plugins

Exile — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:23:24 +0000

I still mess around with Chrome from time to time. I like a lot of the new thinking they’ve put into the browser, but I still can’t bring myself to make the switch to using it over Firefox.

It comes down to the lack of add-on support. There are a few add-ons for Firefox that I use regularly, and don’t want to give up. Admittedly most of these I can work around. I’ve been using Google Reader to handle all my RSS feeds, which removes the need for Sage. Chrome comes with a fairly robust Javascript debugger which lessens the loss of Firebug.

AdBlock+ is another story. There just isn’t any equivalent for that. There is a bit of a workaround in Chrome though. What you can do is open your Bookmarks bar (Ctrl + B) and drag this link to it: "+(j==3?"third-party "+t:t)+"";N.parentNode.replaceChild(b,N);}}}catch(E){r=0}return r}R(self);var i,x;for(i=0;x=frames[i];++i)R(x)})()">Adblock. Now when you browse to some site thats bogged down by ads you can click that link to strip them out. its not automatically or nearly as convenient as AdBlock+ for Firefox but it can remove all the distracting flashing ads that clutter most pages.

There are a number of other little things you can accomplish by means of that bookmark bar. So it might be something that can really add to the browser. I don’t see it ever competing with the add-ons that Firefox has though. Still, the browser is still fairly young, I can’t see them leaving out major features like that for too long.