Berkeley East....

Here's another reason I'm glad I don't live in Madison anymore.

Recommended reading....

James Lileks in action again with some commentary on The New York Times' endorsement of John Kerry.

Hide and seek....

Maybe the reason we didn't find any WMDs in Iraq is because they were moved before we even got there.

The other one...

If I had to read a newspaper from New York, I'd choose the other one, the one called the New York Post.

Faintly flickering....

There's a glimmer of light in the darkness that is the liberal bastion of Madison, Wisconsin.

Good times, good times....

You know it's a good weekend when the Badgers win on Saturday, the Packers win on Sunday, and you have a day off on Monday.

Holy Crap!

They've found Luther's shitter.

A compass....

The Political Compass is kind of interesting. It rates you on both an economic and a social scale, so it's not just a matter of left and right anymore.

My results were a bit surprising:
Economic Left/Right: -0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.74

They were a little further "left" than I anticipated. That's still pretty close to dead center though, in the grand scheme of things.

I wasn't really satisfied with the answers, though. It offers only a four-point scale of how much you agree or disagree. I think a seven-point scale would work better, with an option in the middle for neutral/no opinion/nothing else fits.

Waffles....

Here's John Kerry being a downright ass.

Ain't nobody here....

I bet you never even knew Madison had a chicken underground.

"Chickens are basically a good time."

How true that is.

Fooling yourself....

Don't be fooled by her voice: this little lady, Renee Olstead, is only 15 years old.

And, at great risk to my person, I would add she certainly doesn't look 15, either.

"Kill the pig...."

I'll admit I've never actually watched the show, but I've seen a lot of ads now for Lost on ABC. Am I the only one who thinks it's just Lord of the Flies with adults?

National Geek Day....

Saturday was National D&D Day, a day when Wizards of the Coast was celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons with various events around the country. The local gaming store, Misty Mountain, was in on the action with some D&D events, as well as 15% off anything in the store for anyone participating in any of the D&D events. Along with all this came a free membership to the RPGA, which was pretty cool. Maryanne lamented the fact that she can now say she's a card-carrying geek, despite the fact she had fun.

Later that day we hung out with Eric for a bit until Tina was done at work, and then the four of us had dinner at Monty's. It was a fun, if long, day, pleasantly punctuated by a Wisconsin win over Purdue.

Sunday was pleasant as well, as the Packers were finally able to get back on track with a decisive win over the Lions.

Pocket full of posies....

Friday I was able to finish Don't Open This Book!, a collection of speculative fiction edited by Marvin Kaye. It was... interesting. Some of the stories were quite fascinating, some depressing, some bizarre, some thoughtful, and some downright chilling. Having finished it, I decided to start on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. When I saw this particular edition at Half Price Books I decided to pick it up, being a very nice cloth-bound hardcover featuring woodcut illustrations. I'd heard a lot about the book from Eric, and decided to give it a try. Set in Florence, Italy, during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the middle of the 14th century, I suspect in might be a little like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in nature.

No defense....

I might have to agree with this: Mike Sherman is good as a head coach, but his performance as general manager has been lackluster.

Geek day....

Saturday's geek day was fine. We started The Standing Stone, and the players discovered there's a mystery involved. Will they unravel it? We'll find out next time....

As I posted before, The Standing Stone is another event-based adventure, but there's no flow chart to use as an aid. In a way it gives the players more freedom to explore and investigate in whatever order they wish, but a flow chart, even if it involved "loops," would have been helpful.

I'm not sure how much I like event-based adventures. They certainly allow the characters more freedom in their actions, and it also allows the DM to tell a more complex story and maybe add some mystery, as well. However, even after having read this adventure at least three times, it was hard at times to keep things moving along. This was especially true when the players were interacting with an NPC, and I had to ad lib dialog. The characters were not my own, and even with the guidelines in the adventure, making up dialog on the fly was difficult. I think I've always had this problem with adventure modules, though. It's much easier when the adventure is one I've created myself, and the characters are my own. I know the nuances of each character I've created, what they know and don't know, and how they'll interact with characters in general.

I think the next time we run an event-based adventure, I think it will be one I've created myself.

Geek out!

Today is geek day, a day for our somewhat-regular Dungeons & Dragons sessions. Today we'll be starting on The Standing Stone. It's another event-based adventure, but without the help of a flow-chart as in The Speaker in Dreams. It's a much more complicated story. I hope I'm prepared!

Damning evidence....

Are you still not convinced someone in Iraq has it out for us? Check this out.

Embarrassing....

This op-ed piece from the Wall Street Journal raises some interesting --and important-- questions about Dan Rather's and CBS's botched story about Bush's service in the National Guard.

Protecting your jewels....

Money to burn for domain name + Too much time on hands = Scrotal Safety Commision.