Thursday, September 13, 2001
Shock
My first thought, after I pulled myself out of bed to figure out what the siren was for and why the alarm clock radio sounds different then turn on the tv to see and hear the truth, was, "Are they crazy? They're signing their f*ing death warrants." Later reflection revealed what is evident, Yes of course they knew that and they are crazy.
My thoughts are with those that have lost in this terrible time. It is difficult to know what to say that doesn't sound ridiculously over or understated.
The world is suddenly a different world. In our stumbling around, we have very likely awoken the dragon. I hope we can survive it. -Jeffg
Monday, September 10, 2001
RiverMaster Jeff
Last weekend, I joined Melissa and crew on a rafting trip down the Black River. Despite some confusions with directions on how to get there and a poor choice of footwear, it was alot of fun. I've been wanting to do such a trip for a long time but was suffering the usual 'its easier to stay home' plague that often infests my ilk. The river was laid back, no white water dangers on this puppy. A bit shallow so there were several spots where we had to give up and get out of the raft to haul it across the rocks. There were a fair mix of rafters, canooers and tubers on the water. The tubers were the most humorist because there's not much getting out of the way power in a tube. Fortunately, everyone was ok with friendly bumps now and then. If I'm lucky, we'll do this again soon.
Meanwhile the hypemasters are at it again. Looks like someone is forgetting Mr. Franklin's words of wisdom, "Moderation in all things." -Jeffg
Thursday, August 30, 2001
Casual Things of Most Interest
Most interesting thing I have read recently: Interview with Ray Bradbury.
Most fascinating and true thing he said: You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.
Thursday, August 23, 2001
It's
I don't usually take jabs at my friends when I'm not there in person, but Suz, Oppressive Heat - 10 degrees = Still Pretty Damn Hot! I'll look into finding some electric socks for ya. Now giving you the benefit of the doubt, ya might have been misinformed by goofy weather people. Remember this: Heat Index doesn't exist. It's a fake thing that weathermen made up so they would have more to talk about in their weather segment. If it 'feels' like 80 degrees then that's how hot it is! Temperature was invented so we could have a way of saying how hot or cold it feels. Of course, scientists found it useful too, but they do that with everything just to show how smart they are and would you please fund my research.
Anyway...
Did you know that Culver's 'Butter' Burgers don't actually have big chunks of butter on them? Hey, it was a great burger, but I was expecting some entirely new burger experience. At least they have proper fries there (crinkle cut, salty, hot) and of course, they have frozen custard. :) --Jeffg
Monday, August 20, 2001
Just Checkin In
Haven't felt awful wordy lately. Just in my daily groove and have a couple of engrossing games filling up my spare time. Currently playing Majestic and Final Fantasy VII. Majestic is fun, but ability to suspend disbelief is required in order to enjoy the game. FFVII however, well lets just say if there ever was a world class all or nothing mud wrestling showdown feating SquareSoft and Blizzard, I'd have to put my money on Square.
Starting to feel the music bug again after reading thru a Roland propoganda mag. Now I just need the funds to support the habit. Yeah, right. -Jeffg
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
The Cradle of Everlasting
So I was sitting around wondering what cool title I could come up with for my most recent journal entry when all of a sudden...
Happy Birthday Suz!
Ere' now. Wot jes hoppin'd? So anyway, apparently I need to spend more time in the dream closet. Woke up to a dream where I was a cop trying to stop a lunatic murderer type but all I had for a weapon was a telescoping antenna, the kind you get off a walkie talkie. I guess in my mind's eye I'm not the shoot em dead and arrest em later type. Strange dream though it had several qualities of a bad dream but I had no fear whatsoever. If anything I was annoyed that I couldn't stop the bad guy without him stabbing people left and right. Perhaps I need to start going to sleep while watching anime like I used to (listening to certain foreign languages relaxes me, go figure).
There's nothing more irksome than depositing over 700 dollars (cash to pay car sales tax) in your bank account but knowing you can't use any of it, even to buy a cheeseburger or something. Mumble.
My DnD campaign is tonight. Lookin forward to it. I just hope the party doesn't drown. :) -Jeffg
Monday, July 16, 2001
Tada!
Saturday morning, Steph and I struck out for the jungle known to many as "Car Dealerships". Using my best weapons including "Nodding but your mumbling and I can't hear the gist of your anecdote", "Texas hick in Missouri", "Not mentioning the bad condition of my trade in", "Secret advisor Stephanie" and "All the money I've got is what your loaning me so you if every last little stinking fee isn't included then there ain't gonna be no deal", we managed to bag this fine little machine. A 1999 2 Door 4x4 Convertible Chevrolet Tracker. The pic is actually the one in the lot down the street which had more mileage and more dents in the hood. I'll have to get Dave to break out the digital cam for the real thing. This puppy was the better deal as the hood has signficantly less hail damage (some but not very noticable), a top in better condition and a CD player to boot. Drives great. The only thing we really noticed was the grabby handle was loose and the vanity mirror was dirty. I made em tighten the handle before we took it. :) (The mirror I'll clean on my own).
So now I can relax and enjoy my new 1999 sporty 'now you can afford to stay home and eat' SUV. I'm particularly happy that I got a vehicle that I like that was in my price range, instead of a car I'd take just to have a car and be stuck with till I could afford to get rid of it. It's Sweet! Special thanks to Steph for keeping me sane during the hunt. :):) -Jeffg
Thursday, July 12, 2001
Stupid Cars
I can feel the stress over this acquiring a new car business creeping into my toes. That means of course, that it's already consuming me. With deadlines approaching, money tight, and billions of projects to complete (well ok, two), I am slowly turning into a nice quiet mess. With any luck, I'll be in the deep end soon where I can relax. What? Ah yeah well the key to a happy life is accepting fate. It's all the gnarly worrisome rigamarole that happens before 'fate' occurs that kills ya.
On the brighter side, I have added a page with illustrations and short descriptions of my three Dungeons and Dragons characters. Check em out! --Jeffg
Wednesday, July 04, 2001
DnD is Fun, Who Knew!
Just DM'd my 2nd ever session of Dungeons and Dragons last night. It went quite well. This session had several encounters (battles) as well as investigations and characters to deal with. I didn't kill my party outright like I worried I might and still managed to give them a fair challenge and a few surprises. The party managed to complete Chapter 1 'The Elusive Ring' (authored by yours truly) and has been introduced to Chapter 2 which is a module from Dungeon Magazine called 'Ever Changing Fortunes' by Peter Zollers. The next session should be even more interesting for me since I'll have the module to draw from instead of what I prepare on my own.
Along those lines, I have added a summary page of the groups adventures, see the link on the right.
On the less fun side, my transmission is going out in my car. I had planned to buy a new car in oh... about 3 years from now. But fixing the transmission, which in past experience has always meant replacement for several hundred dollars, just isn't something I want to do. My S10 blazer has been berry berry good to me, but it's not worth pouring any more money into it that I could be pouring into another vehicle. Sooo, if ya got a super cheap (and this ain't the cheap that means 10k or so, this is the cheap that means the payments will be under 100 bucks a month) car ya wanna get rid of, and it can carry 4 people (my only requirement) then let me know. -Jeff
Monday, June 25, 2001
Hopin
I'm hopin that Steph calls and tells me when to pick her up at the airport, because the only itinerary I have for her says she returns to St. Louis on August 7th. I'm pretty sure the plan was to get back sooner than that. -- Jeffg
Friday, June 22, 2001
Keepin It Simple
This is my K.I.S.S. version my journal. Note to friends: The absolute most important KEY to providing information of any kind on the Internet is readability. If people can't read what your writing, due to weird fonts, wacky backgrounds or whatever, then they won't really read it and thus why bother to publish on the net if no one wants to read it. Now if your worried I'm talking about you... well then your probably right, Fix It! If your pissed because I've got no right to tell you jack about how you do your own damn site, well good for you! Screw me! Sheesh who the hell do I think I am anyway! Feh!
*POP* It has happened. I have DM'd my first ever session of DnD. It was a blast. Quite a bit different from playing as you might imagine, as the perspective is from behind the scenes. But the fun is still there. Fun Rping the characters that the party meets and converses with, fun watching the party take the bait I have offered and fun being baffled that the character I am RPing keeps mentioning the note he got, claiming it was written by the party when they know they didn't write it, waving it around in the air blaming the note as the reason he was acting the way he was, and no one... no one in the party was asking what the note said! They were too busy questioning the poor kid, who was upset and slightly incoherent but very talkative. (They did finally get him to read the note).
I originally was going to run an adventure from a module in Dungeon magazine but I ended up running all original stuff. I've always had more fun making up my own stuff instead of adapting others. Still, I'm going to run the magazine module as part of the campaign just to see how that works against all original stuff. In many ways, this has been spiritually fullfilling. I've not lead a group of willing players thru a story of my own composition in quite some time (referring to my GameMaster days in GemStone III and HX) and I've missed it. My own fault for having a talent for coding and building systems, it drew me away from the jazz.
And with that I grow tired. I'll save the jazz and Roleplaying philosophical comparisons for another time (hey stop applauding). Laters, -Jeff
Monday, June 18, 2001
When The Internet Agrees
I saw Atlantas Friday night. It was pretty good, nothing super special, very formula but the story itself was at the very least not stereotypical for the Atlantis legend. I can say , however, that without even having seen Tomb Raider that it was much better. My friends who have seen it agree and the entire Internet (no link here, pick any site it's the same review) all agree it stinks.
Almost done preparing for my first DnD campaign. Why I have to create the whole world instead of using existing worlds I don't know, I guess it's just me. :) (In my case, world means places. Gods professions and other stuff like it are straight out of the core books). I am using one module from Dungeon magazine, adapting it into my city but the players won't come across it first session at least (can't entirely rule anything out though). ;)
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
Convenience or...
This morning at the local convenience store I noticed a display rack just under the cashier's counter. Items right next to the register are usually impulse buy items, things that people might suddenly remember they need. The items I saw grouped together on this rack were:
Condoms
Chapstick
Batteries
Calculators
I'll leave it up to you to fathom the related uses for these 'spur of the moment' purchase options. -Jeffg
Tuesday, June 12, 2001
To Dream the Light of Tomorrow
The week of mania is over. All and all things went pretty good. My game 'Race to the Top of Roa'ter Mountain' was well received. For those who missed it, 4 brave adventures (4 because 2 was boring, 6 was a bit slow and it was harder to get all the names on the mountain) must climb to the top of the mountain hopefully without getting knocked down by everyone's favorite nemesis, Roa'ters. Their only tools, a round spinny thing that comes up Climb (move up one), Loose Rocks (try to move up but scramble and get nowhere), Roa'ter Attack! (knocked down one) and Lore of the Lands (answer GS or DR trivia question [or trivial pursuit if you don't play either]). If you answered a question correctly you get an Acrobatic card that lets you use a Roa'ter Attack to vault up one instead of down. And it's just that simple, first one to the top wins! Several people played, even big D was in on a few.
The rest of the convention went well, it's definately better to get a room for the whole thing than driving back and forth like in previous years.
Now that we're on the flip side of crazy, I can start working on the good stuff. I've got some funky web stuff to complete and polish, a few new game things to solidify and I am likely about to become as DM as well as a GM as I take the plunge by hosting a DnD game (I'm currently playing in two run by MikeP.) I had never played a table top RPG before this year but it didn't take much for me to get drawn in.
Enough rattling, later. -Jeffg
Monday, June 04, 2001
It is almost here... Gah! *runs screaming*
Monday, May 21, 2001
In Memorium: Sony 15sf
Many years ago when I still had an amazing amount of untapped credit, I decided to apply some of that potential towards a good monitor. After having used one at Microsoft, appreciating its sharp view and slick simple clarity, I dropped 800 big ones and some change on a Sony 15sf computer monitor. It wasn't the first monitor I've bought. I remember my Princeton, 14 inch screen but crisp, clear and beautiful. Before that a Goldstar monochrome gold that supported Hercules mono graphics. Ah the gold was so much more classy and cool than the green monitors of that day. But the 15sf was the top of the line and to get better was to go the way of paying the price of a nice car. Money well spent as it has served me many many years (in computer years of course).
But alas, this weekend the web was purple. My games were purple. My email was purple. Occasionally blue... but mostly purple. Only and ungraceful slap to the side could bring out the more colors of glory but such treatment leads to madness. It was time to retire the noble 15sf to the side table and soon after, to the garage. It was a fine monitor that served me well. Ah yesterday.
In the meantime, filling in for the champ is the great understudy, the NEE MultiSync 3FGe, a fine contender in its own right and a gift from Suz before she made her way west. If I had known this gift would be there for me when I was in need at the time, well lets just say there would have been more tears shed.
I've been threatening to buy a new 19 inch monitor for 2 years now. They are even affordable now (if the difference between not having 500 dollars and not having 250 dollars can be called affordable). Yet woe, I must wait as the financial demon blocks passage to the happy place of monitors just as he blocks the doors to JUST ABOUT EVERY FREAKING OTHER PLACE! Patience... I have remarkable patience.
But I never claimed to not bitch alot while I'm being patient. *grumble*
Wednesday, May 16, 2001
BLOG-NAP!
HAhaHAhaHAhaHAha! All your blog are belong to -- (thump) (thud) (eep!)
Heheheheheh. Working overtime has broke my head. Hehehehehehe.
Monday, May 14, 2001
Sleep, Work, Goof off
Sometimes my writing muse takes a sabatical. Made it thru tax season much better than last year. Cash flow is tight as usual and my car continues to remind me it's only held together by great fortune. Meanwhile, I work on interesting things and I play boring online RPG's. Occasionally, I run thru a few SWAT 3 scenarios (an excellent game for atmosphere).
I am also spending more time than I should pondering the future career of my DND Cleric (although it's perfectly healthy amount of pondering for the average geek).
For now though I gotta find some breakfast. --Jeff
Sunday, April 15, 2001
Gotta Love the Internet
Just when your bored and not sure what to do for entertainment, you stumble upon the next soon to be Internet fad, Dewds Check it out, its funny!
The Sad Day Arrives
Yes friends it's true. Today is the day we have dreaded and feared. Today we must leave the world of dreams and live in reality. Today... my truck's body repair is complete and I must return the beautiful spacious comfortable perfect-working-shape Silverado rental truck that I was given. Most unfortunate since the weather is turning to the warm side and my truck, with its non functional air conditioning that I will never attempt to repair is ill suited to keep us cool. Sad because I could afford to acquire a wonderful amazing Silverado or other fine vehicle if it was only the year 2004. Dreaded because my friends will not notice the fine body repair, not notice the speedy time in which the work was done, but they will notice the smallness, discomfort and heat that will be greater than it was by comparison.
Sadess. Oh... I must weep!
P.S. Not actually the 15th but the 12th. No way I know to edit the date on blogger.
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
When It Rains
Man oh man, you here a few comments that it is gonna rain in a couple of days and then it does. But not just a light friendly rain. More like a 'lets try to wash you off the freeway' flash flood rain!
I really like rain and thunderstorms. They cheer me up. Alot of times when I have been really down in my life, rain came, and I felt better. I usually explain this by saying rainy days get most people down and that makes me feel good because haha your in a bad mood and I'm not. But that isn't really it, that's just the joke. It's part of it, misery shared and all that, but I think it's just that it reminds me of home. My sister and I, sitting out on our back porch watching rainstorms and lightning. Trying to make lightning strike in specific places by pointing or suddenly looking in one spot. My mom always told me how she did the same kind of storm watching when she was a kid. Rain brings back alot to me.
Just don't make me drive in a rental car in it!
Friday, April 06, 2001
The Unexplainable
Something things must be seen to be believed.
Thursday, April 05, 2001
The Casual Gamer
Last night, I was takin it easy after work by hopping into EQ for a relaxing evening of meditating and playing Soul Caliber. Right when I logged in I saw this:
I got a kick out of it myself but in truth I hovered over my keyboard awaiting some kind of official visitation proclaiming that I, a mild mannered game designer and graduated GemStone III GameMaster, was secretly behind these outbursts and they MUST STOP!
This didn't happen of course, but the imagination does run rampant in the creative mind occasionally (ok, more often than not). Still, it's the little victories that win the day. :)
Wednesday, April 04, 2001
Crazy About Security
Some people like to feel safe. There's plenty of paranoia to go around when it comes to the Internet. People worried about fraud, predators, scams and all sorts. People worried about having their messages hijacked, or read by some weirdo. Nothing particularly wrong with wanting to feel safe.
But some people do it with Style! Spam Mimic is cool encryption tool that takes your message and makes it look like email spam. Pretty damn funny if you ask me. Sadly, it's currently only available on the web, thus you must encode your messages by sending them over the net insecure. Nobody's perfect.
Monday, April 02, 2001
Lazy Days
Said goodbye to a friend the other day as she began her trip home across the country. As always in such happenings, it's a happy and sad occasion. Happy because you know they going so they can be happy. Sad because leaving is the key point in the previous need for happiness. There was also that tension that is hard to describe. I figure it comes from the fact that your holding back the desire to proclaim at the last minute "F all this. How about you just stay?" Unfortunately, statements like that don't solve any problems nor make ease any feelings.
Besides, in our happy little online universe we are not so far apart. It's where it all started in the first place!
In the meantime, my friend Mike is at fault. Due to his praise over the game, I am now an owner of Black & White. Not only is it a fascinating game, but its graphically beautiful, well done and polished. I've barely begun to get to the higher game points but it's just pretty darn cool.
Getting close to rush to work time so must stop. More later... -Jeffg
Sunday, March 25, 2001
Prelude to the Crud
Before I start whining about sickness, take a few minutes to read this Salon article, Death to the Minotaur. It's an interesting account of the legends of Wizards of the Coast.
Now that you've returned (or ignored or whatever), looks like I'm not going to just not get sick this time around. I can feel a dryness in my chest and am getting the occasional involuntary cough. Yuck. It ain't bad yet but if it's what everyone else is getting well... gee thanks friends! Feh!
Lots of shake ups in that close knit little business we call the gaming industry. Although the demise of a competitor is often a happy thing (there's a great German word for this type of joy but I don't remember it, maybe someone can clue me in), its really not, especially the way this one went down. I hate to see friends and acquaintences lose jobs. I've been in enough situations where I or my friends get layed off for reasons that quite frankly make about as much sense as sitting on the left side of a couch because some idiot on the other side of the country said that people prefer having room to swing their right arms at random. It's just stupid and not well thought out reasoning.
Here's the thing. Gamers and businessmen, they don't hang out at the same parties. I guess it's sort of like Republicans and Democrats. They'll agree now and then on the principle of a thing, but they never want to accomplish the thing the same way and their end goals are always different so they never end up in the same place at the end. I'm pretty sure Dr. Seuss covers this somewhere but I can't think of the names involved.
In any case, I'm dissapointed that I won't get the chance to pick apart and ridicule the competition's game systems. I was actually looking for to this. Still, I know there will be other jobs (I've already seen a few get approached). Even in the internet shakedown, there's people that need stuff done.
Enough rambling, I gotta research some pancakes. --Jeff
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
Things That Do and Do Not Suck
The Suck: Getting rear ended on the way home from work.
The Non-Suck: Being in an accident without experiencing great pain, injury and death.
The Suck: The shakes and tension in your body caused by being in an accident.
The Non-Suck: Corn on the cob, because after an accident its nice to eat America's best.
The Suck: Dealing with insurance and car repair and all the hooha that goes with it.
The Suck to come: Knowing you'll be able to scrape up the deductable hopefully before summer.
The Non-Suck: Pleasant highway patrolmen who show up right when your pulling into the driveway after dinner. Good timing and friendly attitude helps sooth the nerves.
I haven't been involved in a car accident since high school and I really cannot recommend them, even the ones that result in no bodily harm. There are much safer ways to get a burst of adrenaline. Air soft for instance or scuba diving. Compared to a car accident, they are both nice safe relaxing sports. I really must revisit Cozumel soon.
Jeff -- (the thankful)
Monday, March 19, 2001
The Art of Tea
Steph gave me a beautiful present in the form of an RPG. She 'ran' me through the defining moments that led my DnD half elf Saris to becoming a cleric of Sehanine Moonbow. I've not the time to detail it here yet but it was just a stunningly beautiful story, navigated by my unskilled RP talents and guided her brilliant narrative abilities. The story touched on issues that stir me more than most, taking a risk to follow your heart even when you are unsure of the outcome.
I was not entirely comfortable with this style of gaming. In most games I have played, your start off immediately with a clear goal and idea of what you can do. Even in the tabletop game we've been playing, there's plenty to focus on and when there isn't there is 9 other people to lean on when I feel insecure. I liken it to the difference between a comedy writer and a comedy improvisationist. I myself fancy myself a fair write with some talent for comedy (no dreams of professional careers there, worry not), However, when put under the spotlight and expected to perform my talent vanishes into little phrases such as "What" and "I don't know" instead of clever banter.
Morning is getting on and I have to remember to get Suz's phone number today. This is supposed to be a simple task. We'll see. -Jeff
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
The Unintentional Vampire
Sorry to the web searching dark fantasy goth gang, it ain't that kind of V. As I prepare to say goodbye to a friend, I've come across one of those odd phenominons. In this case, my friend is giving away some of her stuff so that she need not take it on her cross country move and thus keep the costs down. She offers that I take this or that, and I slide into that evaluation of a new thing mode then perk up and the thought of acquiring it. Then after smiling a bit I remember why I'm getting it and a frown battles the smile. To battle the frown the mind starts up a 'wonder what else she doesn't want' process and here begins the vampirism. Feeding off the friends remains, in this case the stuff they leave behind.
This really bugs me.
I figure that the reason this occurs is that it is easier to deal with getting new stuff than it is dealing with the leaving of the friend.
That said, and not having a clear way of resolve, I have totally been absorbed into 3rd Edition D&D. Having not ever played a table top RPG before recently I've found it to be quite enjoyable and I look forward to more sessions. We've been playing one every two weeks, and we had to reschedule due to other events and play a week early this weekend. My first thought? Woohoo! Yup I am hooked.
Late for work, next time. -Jeff
Thursday, March 08, 2001
Speechless
www.amiallyourbaseornot.com
Do I really need to say more?
Monday, March 05, 2001
Groundhog Day
Once every month or so, it is rumored that the artist formerly known as and actually still known as Jeff Gatlin will pop his head out of the ground to look around and see what is up. If he sees his shadow, he will return to his hole to play games and wait 6 more weeks. If he doesn't see his shadow, he'll walk around in the sun breathing the air for a few minutes, maybe even grab a bite to eat with friends then return to his hole to play games because he's about to make a level.
So that was yesterday, met some of Steph's comrades and had lunch at Magpie's (arguably the best place around for sandwiches and dessert). Bruce would like the beef sandwich there, cause it's that kind of roast beef that is not quite done. It was however, quite tasty.
Speaking of tasty, its morning and I must seek out breakfast. Till the next time I peek my head out of the hole... -Jeff
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