Pteryx

The right to gloat mildly, again

Sat, 09 Jul 2005 05:29:13 GMT

No, I didn't win another contest, but I am happy! Basically, I discovered a MIDI station, which to my mind is cool in itself. What's cooler, though, is that I decided to offer some of my own music. The maintainer was interested, so I tossed him six character themes I've written. And he posted them! Even said which one he likes best (Krysta Somo's theme)! :)

I'm definitely sending him some more of my music when I can. Even discounting the exposure aspect, it's great fun to actually hear my midis as rendered by four different synths. :)

The return of Senseir syndrome

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 03:06:25 GMT

I know I don't use this much anymore; that's mainly because my channel is a better place to get support and comfort. The people who normally respond here say negative or contrary things.

Right now, though, I'm pissed off enough that I want to shout at the world.

If I give you a bunch of criticism, I'm going to be grateful for any change you might make in accordance with it and thank you for it. DO NOT SMACK ME UPSIDE THE HEAD FOR SHOWING GRATITUDE OR GIVING YOU A COMPLIMENT, MORON!

If this GM actually does have Senseir syndrome I'm quitting that play-by-post.

Road trip!

Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:09:56 GMT

The tickets are bought for both the bus and the concert, my room's almost clean enough for temporary guest use, I've posted notice a week in advance in the play-by-post games I'm in and the one I'm running, and I'm already starting to pack my bags, so it's probably about time I posted something about it here. Basically, from the 16th through the 22nd, I'll be out of town on account of my going on a trip. I can barely afford it, but it'll be worth it... because I'll be meeting a few of my longest-standing friends in Chicago and spending a day with them. :)

First I take a few busses to get to Akron, OH. Once there, I'll be shown around by hiromasaki and a few of his friends (including Drew, who I'm aquainted with), then shower and sleep. The next day, we drive down to Chicago, where we'll meet eladria (yeah, we're friends again and have been for a few months) and karinu at least. I'd hoped more of us could make it, but just having four of my channel's regulars in one place is something. (It was going to be five, but the Homeland Security Department, in its infinite wisdom, decided that vormav was a national security risk for some ungodly readon -- which, I'm sure, they think is supremely godly, but I digress.) karinu and I will most likely be staying at a hotel together both the night before the concert and the night after, since the other accomodations available are already crowded. In between, there'll not only be the concert but time for us to look around the city a bit -- certainly not time enough for the grand tour, but enough so there's more quality time spent with everyone. After the second night there comes the drive back to Akron, more time with Chad and Drew and another night in bed, then the busses home.

Finally, when I get back, we'll have a new border terrier puppy. :)

Sun, 30 Jan 2005 06:31:43 GMT

I wonder what ever became of Max C. Strini, aka dar4. I'd like to ask him a few questions.

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 06:36:30 GMT

http://www.fpsmagazine.com/feature/041214weisman.shtml

Aspects of Fire

Sun, 23 Jan 2005 06:46:52 GMT

Fire burns. This is the very nature of its being -- when an object ceases burning, the fire is not sleeping, but dead. And so it is with the Exalted of Fire. Their hearts burn with a passion few others will match. To the Children of Hesiesh, passion is everything, and one who no longer feels or believes is no longer alive at all.

-- Exalted: the Dragon-Blooded, page 168

Overdone

Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:48:27 GMT

Final Fantasy crossovers -- especially those of the "When Worlds Collide!!!" variety, with "It's all one continuity, I'll show you!" running a close second -- are now officially on my Overdone List. Kingdom Hearts is forgiveable, as are any multiverse-spanning games that just happen to include FF worlds as options rather than using them exclusively... but if I see one more example of stitching together seperate realities sharing nothing other than the same brand name for no better reason than, at best, to broaden a "creative" work's appeal, I think I'm going to need something to treat nausea and headache.

Friend.

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 03:15:01 GMT

*Karinu* Also, I want to apologize for not being more critical of Cyan's position when he was expressing his doubts... In large part I really wanted to see you have a chance to get away from your parents' influence, and that influenced my thought \
*Karinu* patterns regarding that...
Pteryx nods... "Accepted, easily."
*Karinu* I might also have been afraid of being in the position of possibly dissuading him... I always wished I could do something to help, so I was a little afraid I might be jealous of his having the ability to do so, and that might have influenced \
*Karinu* my judgement. So I tried not to judge at all.
*Karinu* When it comes to big stuff I will sometimes just assume the worst about myself rather than risk deluding myself about myself...

Something it's safe to post about

Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:18:01 GMT

Well, I've found the will to GM again, even if it's not the will to GM Dragoon's Birth. Rather, after having seen enough examples of other competent GMs in action and having dipped my toe into it again with a tiny private game I'm running called Lucid, I've found myself preparing to run an Exalted God-Blooded play-by-post game -- without even having meant to! -- and found myself very happy about this after I got over the initial panic.

There are still three slots left in Vermilion Underachievers, and I haven't been as picky as usual about what kinds of applications I accept so long as they suit the premise, so if said premise appeals, then hurry up and join! That said, I also have critics here, which is a big reason why I don't post so much anymore, so having been referred through this post isn't any guarantee of being accepted, either.

Now back to reloading my front page every several minutes to see if there's a new post yet... ;)

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 06:50:55 GMT

"I'll not lie to you; there are things which I value above friendship. It is part of my nature for this to be so. But... hatred is not among these things. I doubt that most would believe such a truth, but it is so.

"...I ask you, do you value this hatred that you harbor above all else? Would you sacrifice the ties that bind you to those who care about you, even the ability to love again, for the right to harbor such darkness?"

Wed, 14 Jul 2004 00:09:23 GMT

This one may tend to put out something flattering, but...

</ tr></ table>

you are teal</ big>
#008080

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You're smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people's conflicts well.

Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right.

Your outlook on life can be bright or dark, depending on the situation. You are flexible and see things objectively.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 23:59:49 GMT

Well, the installation went surprisingly well -- which is to say, they weren't particularly late and took no longer than they said they would. :) I don't understand exactly what I've got now -- IJ calls it FTTH, for Fiber To The House -- but it involves a lot of cat5 cable and includes cable, Internet, and phones, and even allows integration thereof. Our cable boxes, for example, can tell us of incoming calls a second or two before the phone rings -- something that I of course shut off for my box, as having half the TV blocked out in the middle of a video game would be quite undesirable.

This after I planned on this taking half a week, seeing as Adelphia sucked enough to take two months because of electric regulations. Oxford Networks gets around this by hiring people who bring a master electrician with them. :) Two other ways in which they're better so far: a strong enough cable signal to get past the RF switches of all three of my consoles, and outage reports! Wow, I haven't had outage reports from an ISP in years! :)

And now, on an entirely different note, a musical interlude.

I could be mean
I could be angry
You know I could be just like you

I could be fake
I could be stupid
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you

I could be cold
I could be ruthless
You know I could be just like you

I could be weak
I could be senseless
You know I could be just like you

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you

On my own, cause I can't take livin' with you
I'm alone, so I won't turn out like you want me to

You thought you were standing beside me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you thi nk that I'll be just like you

You thought you were there to guide me
You were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you
You thought you were there to guide me
Yo u were only in my way
You're wrong if you think that I'll be just like you

I could be mean
I could be angry
You know I could be just like you>

And now, some plain LJish stuff

Sun, 27 Jun 2004 03:01:01 GMT

98% of the teenage population does/has tried pot. If you're part of the 2% who hasn't, copy this in your journal.

(taken from giramoni)

OK, so I haven't been a teen in years, but I still haven't touched the stuff...

cabbit, ninjy, I hsve my usual LJ-joining questions for you:

First, are you sure you want to be on my friends list at all? People have complained about it ("How dare you say things I don't want to read in your own journal!").
Do you want even the nastiest things? i can put you on a censored filter if you don't wa nt to see my very worst.
Finally, do you have any preferences or suggestions as to the color scheme I use for you?

Pool, or "why didn't I think of this before?"

Sat, 26 Jun 2004 19:02:14 GMT

Originally an email to Artean.

My parents have been turning one room of the house in particular into a rec room. This includes getting a pool table, which just arrived yesterday. :) Earlier this week, Dad hung up a dartboard, which of course ende d up reminding me of DS9. ;)

As for today, I just played a couple of games of 9-ball with Dad and as I shot a few balls around for practice afterwards, all the working with angles reminds me of a certain M3 character (a player's original) who was good w ith angles due to her purpose and actually, so her player told me, ended up interested in astrology, which also uses angles a lot (the proper kind, anyway). As for Crystal Man, aside from his expertise in astrology, his combat style includes plenty of bank shots with conjured crystal orbs. So, between having Trek's tradition of using Earth games or versions thereof on the brain and being reminded of M3 in a positive way for once...

Holographic pool table -- holographic in particular so the balls don't have to be thrown all over the place in the event of an attack. And I feel a bit sheepish for not having thought of Crys playing pool *years* ago. Now I just need someone else in the crew to introduce Krisson to it...

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 06:46:10 GMT

Well... the good news is, the new driver is installed, the reformatting is done, the bundled software of a slightly newer iMac have been thrown on (I even get slightly less outdated browsers out of the deal), and I'm back online.

The bad news is, Ircle doesn't realize that it's actually been registered anymore, even though I kept the prefs. That data must have been stored somewhere covert... This will complicate the restoration, as I was counting on being able to DCC and Ircle quits after 30 minutes when its evaluation period runs out. Still, all is not lost -- I do have working browsers, I can still accept the smaller DCCs, and so on. And there should be a way to get Ircle reregistered...

Absence update: Relief

Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:34:12 GMT

Well, the idea that the HD needs to be reformatted went over with Dad very well, surprisingly enough. He wasn't crazy about the idea that I backed up over the Internet, but admitted that it's too late to do anything about that now -- so seeing as the alternatives were rather time-consuming and unreliable, I'm glad that I did act behind his back until now.

In light of my looking to get into a second RPG (Exia, exis's D&D IRCRPG) that happens on Wednesdays and the meeting about whether to let me in being tonight, I'll repartition and reformat after that. Then comes the long job of reinstalling everything...

Absence

Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:29:54 GMT

Well... everything's just about ready to go. Mom's going to mention the HD problem to Dad tonight, since I'm too chicken to approach him myself. I just hope this doesn't go sour -- this is the most perilous step of the whole reformat plan.

Of course, complicating the issue is that my parents have decided to change ISPs. That's going to be this coming Monday, so it's safe to say that Lost Eon won't happen for the third week in a row -- frustrating, but I'm going to have to deal with it.

A notice and a link

Wed, 09 Jun 2004 23:24:09 GMT

For those of you who aren't already aware, I'll be going offline at some point in the near future due to a need to reformat my hard drive (basically, the directory has gotten corrupted). Fortunately, hiromasaki was nice enough to lend me the HD space to back things up with. :) Thanks Chad! :)

On a completely unrelated note, here's a nice debate about DRM. It takes a while to get good, but it does indeed get good:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=127041

On another unrelated note, I caught the ice cream truck, which usually passes through only about once a year, today. Couldn't have been better-timed, as it was hot and I was in the mood for ice cream. :)

On yet another unrelated note, still enjoying Lost Eon and the people I've met through it. :)

Fri, 28 May 2004 22:06:45 GMT

Years ago, someone broke a dream. My dream.

I've seen it suffer and fade because I don't know how to fix a dream.

Hatred of those who broke the dream swells...

And yet I know that won't help. Dreams feed on hope, I've learned that much.

But all I have now is bitterness, desperation...

...and someone willing to help. Though I'm not completely sure if he knows the depth of what he's doing for me.

And I still fear that it'll only involve going through the motions now.

I fear... fear that I'll be forced to throw my dreams away. Just like everyone else.

Then they will have won.

Hope in the unlikeliest of places...
Love discovered within a demon's heart...
The truth from one's soul conquering all else...

I know that isn't wrong. It can't be wrong...

...or else I'd be better off dead.

If trend entries garner more attention than real entries, is that a bad sign?

Thu, 20 May 2004 20:09:13 GMT

Pteryx

Made with [font color=yourusername][b]yourusername[/b][/font], substituting greater-than and less-than signs as appropriate.

Heh, funny... that's actually one of the greens in my journal color scheme (and old homepage color scheme).

For once, a news post

Fri, 14 May 2004 05:10:06 GMT

Because this needs to be better-known:

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1084492882.html

ahem PLAYERS WANTED.

Sun, 09 May 2004 01:22:21 GMT

One would think, out of all the role-players I know, there would be one who is:

skilled enough for Star Trek: Lost Eon;
knowledgeable enough about Star Trek and yet also open-minded enough about it to play in an RPG based on it;
interested in playing a science officer on a Nova-class starship;
able to come up with a concept for said science officer; and
reliably free on Monday nights for the forseeable future.

And yet practically everyone is "too busy"?! It's ludicrous enough that I can't help but half-wonder if one or two of them are just being "polite" about saying they're not interested. Not that I'm doubting anyone in particular, mind you; I trust those who've actually come out and said they don't have time at least that much.

Not that it's monolithic, mind you -- I've got two "maybes". hiromasaki says that he could free Monday up but he just isn't finding any free time to actually conceive of a character concept; meanwhile, sherinmir says he should be able to get Mondays off once he's employed (which sounds oddly like what skywardshadow said about his employment issue, but I'm more inclined to believe that Sher won't be a problem because of the nature of his job), but that he doesn't know Trek very well.

Two "maybes" aren't enough to get my hopes up, though. In role-playing, a bird in the hand is worth more like an entire small flock in the bush.

Wed, 05 May 2004 04:06:49 GMT

Well... I know it's been a long while since I updated, but now I at least have something to say. Namely, after skipping three weeks (two due to skywardshadow thinking that he could arrange his schedule such that he could continue to attend the game, one because another of the players understandably forgot), Star Trek: Lost Eon continued. There've been two more sessions, and in my opinion we've crossed from ep 1 to ep 2 (Auden's decided not to judge yet)... though I still need to talk to SongCoyote about tidying up a scene between Chalcedony (our Horta chief engineer -- yes, a Horta) and Krisson as well as Sky about some NPCed lines Auden did for Devi.

Anyway, we do have a lingering problem... no science officer. Auden's specifically asked me to try to look around in my own circles for a new fifth player interested in taking on that role while he looks in his own. Seeing as the time I mentioned in passing in this LJ that a fifth player would be nice I unexpectedly got two offers, I'm hoping that an out-and-out request in here will have results too.

For anyone who's interested, ST:LE is played over IRC on EsperNet every Monday night at 7 PM Mountain time, weather permitting. We currently have four PCs (human XO, Horta chief engineer, Betazoid doctor, perceptual-strain Wylian counselor) and two major NPCs (human CO, Vulcan ops/apparent second officer) along with other assorted named NPCs. Again, what we need badly is a science officer -- someone who'll understand the significance of some kinds of plot twists.

The game itself has by Auden's observation taken on more of a "day in the life" quality than he'd expected... not that either of us are complaining. :) I'm looking forward to next week, as well as many Mondays more.

EDIT: Oh yes -- just in case it's not self-evident, this is a long-term commitment. Those who expect their situation to change monthly need not apply.

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 19:26:45 GMT

"A GM is lord of his universe, essence of every living thing, and is less important than a first level wizard PC." -- Stantz, RPGnet forums

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:34:20 GMT

Last night's Star Trek: Lost Eon game went well. :) Artean adjusted a piece of his style towards something I'm more used to in response to my trouble with the game two weeks ago, which was very nice of him and, I think, worked well. :)

Additionally, something happened in the game that I didn't expect yet -- but not only is it not disruptive to the rough character plot flow I had in mind, but I think I see where he's going with it. It may well be that he's basically trying to replace Crystal Man's discovery of his own ability to use his powers effectively in combat; there's a significant difference here since Krisson's discovering that he may actually be able to become capable of something else entirely which he was bred to do in the first place but seemed to fail at, but the degree to which it could change his life measures up.

I was too tired to immediately edit the log last night, but probably I'll do so tonight or tomorrow. I also need to send Artean the raw logs of the channel and our query window, since he asked for them.