Cool "Resume" Submission Video

I hope you guys are not sick of The Avengers yet.....

Two days ago when we were watching The Avengers I got in a good laugh.  S.H.I.E.L.D., this high-speed, high-tech organization had a wonderful helicarrier, which was almost another character in the movie.

When you first see Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner up on the flight deck they are surrounded by planes.  Odds are you don't recognize the planes because they are obsolete A4 Skyhawks, a plane built in the 50's.

I did see some newer jets, the majority of what you see as background dressing is a plane that was essentially retired two decades ago.  Drag them out of the boneyard and slap some fresh paint on them and they still look pretty good though.

I came across this cool video the other day that you really should check out.  It is more of a unsolicited work portfolio for this guy looking to get a job working on a future S.H.I.E.L.D. television show.

Funny, but True, Avengers Movie Trailer

I just really needed an excuse to show my animated Avengers gif one more time.

Last night we watched The Avengers on Blu-Ray.  It was interesting since we'd already seen it a couple of times now, but this time we own it.  I'm looking forward to seeing it at least twice more: once with Joss Whedon's commentary and another with the second screen experience.  Evidently there is an app that listens in on the audio of the film and uses it to cue up additional information on an tablet or smart phone.

This time through, just like the second viewing, I was able to catch a few choice words I couldn't hear before that make a few scenes make a little more sense.  Of course now as I'm typing this I cannot recall what they were.

This morning after a bit of link-hopping I came across this funny The Avengers trailer from Screen Junkies.  Enjoy....

Street Art

This is some of the coolest street art I've had the pleasure of seeing....unfortunately I've only seen it on film.

Personally I found the ending to be a little sad.  It seems that this art was deliberately destroyed by the city.  The same city whose neglect allowed this to be possible in the first place.

A shame really.

Still, I'm glad someone shared this with me, so I'm sharing it with you.

Kickstarter Makes Some Needed Changes

Cool Infographic (click to view)

I've rallied on a few times about Kickstarter, so I'll try to save your from another rant on the subject.

According to the Kickstarter Blog they have finally pulled their collective heads out and decided to make some changes for the better.  I don't think that Kickstarter is completely to blame for the direction their site has gone, well they were until they decided to make these changes.

I just think the execution of this crowd-sourcing venture capital site simply didn't meet up with the initial vision the Kickstarter folks had.  Most of the problems I saw were folks manipulating the system.  Now to be fair, some Kickstarters, like the Reaper one I invested in, started off in one direction and blew up.  Once the serious money started coming in reaper made changes that let them take the whole campaign from a capital investment venture to a pre-sales pitch.  I also think that when the serious cash came in they saw an opportunity not only for pre-sales, but an opportunity to make a different type of capital investment that they could only dream about before.

Borderlands 2 Review

My wife decided to help me out last week and bought me a copy of Borderlands 2.  I liked the first game and it is one of the few full-length Xbox 360 games that I've managed to get 100% of the achievements on.

Since Wednesday morning it seems all I've been doing is sleeping, homework, and playing Borderlands 2.  Sure, I've actually been other things, but the memory blur says it's been mostly Borderlands 2.

The folks over at 2K Games and Gearbox did a great job with this sequel.  It seems they took all the good stuff from the first game, amped it up, and added more content.  So far there haven't been grinding collection missions and for that I am thankful.

The coolest thing I like was the introduction of badass tokens.  There are a ton of minor tasks, that when completed, grant you some badass rank.  When you rank gets high enough you get a badass token.  These tokens are exchanged for minor stat bumps, like weapon damage, reloading time, etc.  They are really minor tweaks to your character, but they can add up.

Of course the randomized weapon drops is still pretty cool.

I did notice though that it looks like they fixed the replication bug.  In the first game you could drop a cool piece of equipment and exit out of the game without saving.  Your buddy could pick up the item and when you re-started the game you still have the original item.  Fixing this made legitimate trading more important.  I was given a good shield early on and I've been saving specific equipment that I won't use, but I think my friends will.



I don't want to give an entirely specific review because if you are a fan of the over-the-top ultra-violence (but not extremely graphic), bad puns and terrible innuendos, and many......many hours of gameplay, then you will want to check it out for yourself.

I will say one thing though.....2K and Gearbox did a great job making it easy to get in on your friends games, even easier than Xbox does normally.

Creating HackMaster Pre-Gens

A question I see pop up now and then is "How do I create HackMaster pre-gens?"

I've tried to answer how I create pre-gens (pre-generated characters) for HackMaster, but the general advice is applicable to other gaming systems as well.  You'll just have to make some adjudications with the instruction specifics.

I think I've easily made 100 pre-gens in my day, not all of them for the current version of HackMaster.  I've done everything from taking my home PCs and slapping another name on it to creating a bank of pre-gens from scratch as if they were my home PCs.

Issue with my Bank

Money has been a not of an issue for me this month, mostly with regards to timing.  I was able to deposit $800 Friday through a check scan at the UPS Store.  I've had problems with my bank's mobile app for scanning and depositing checks, so I walked down to the store to use their system.

I'm used to their being a minor hold on checks, but not for six whole days!  I have bills to pay, so I paid them.  I wasn't counting on missing a significant portion of my deposit for just shy of a week.

No problem, or so I thought, I'll ask my wife to transfer the amount being held to my account and I'll transfer it back when the withheld funds are released.  I went online to check my account and that check hadn't hit yet.

This morning I go to check my account and I come to find that the transfer didn't take place until this morning and according to the bank I got a Non-Sufficient Funds fee of $29 because the one check was presented on Monday.

Now I realize this might not be clear, but let me break it down.  On Monday I didn't have enough money in my account to cover a large check I had written because the bank held a lot of funds back.  The bank hit me with a $29 fee on Wednesday, but they back-dated it to Tuesday.  When I was looking at my account on Tuesday night, none of this activity was there, but it was Wednesday morning.

While I'll take responsibility for being premature on paying a bill, I'm not a big fan of my bank taking action on Wednesday for something that happened on Monday and then back-dating the transaction.  To further compound things when I call my bank to inquire I'm told that my deposit was held for a number of factors, a primary factor being my length of time as a customer and also because I deposited the check after 8 PM CDT.

I had to call BS because a) I've been a customer for over 20 years now and b) I deposited the check around 5:30 PM CDT.  Heck, the place I went to closes at 7 PM CDT.

I was on the phone with the bank for over an hour trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  It ended up that the first banker I spoke to got my check deposit and the transfer from my wife confused and was feeding me a mixture of confusion and absurdity.  I ended that call frustrated and started  over again with a supervisor.

I wanted to know why a transfer between one account and another with the same bank takes 12 hours to process.  Of course none of this mattered because the bank had already decided I was going to pay a fee, they just didn't want to tell me until after the fact.

After a long discussion with a rather nice banker, I learn that a lot of the bank and forth transactions the bank does occurs between Midnight and 5 AM....the next day.  Fine, but why design a computer system that lies to your customers, or worse yet appear to be transparent when it is anything but.  If there is a pending charge, let your customers know.  If you aren't going to transfer their money until the next day, let them know.

I'm hoping they will at least address the problem and just do a better job communicating to their clients.

Dumbing Down of TLC

I do not get what the hell is up with people actually wanting to watch "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" on TLC.  Have we jumped the shark right on past Geek Chic on into White Trash?

I was driving down State Street in Boise yesterday and saw this big purplish-pink billboard with this child on it.  The billboard was for a local radio DJ and the sign read something to the effect that the DJ was Honey Boo-Boo's Go-Go Juice.

I've seen some ads online and read a bit about this popular show, but I just do not get it.  Is this the message we want to send out to the world about Americans?  Does anyone I know actually watch this garbage?  Something gnaws at the back of my mind imagining that some of my family back in Iowa watches this drivel.  I can see some getting a good laugh out of it, but I don't think it has enough entertainment value to overcome the abject horror I feel just watching a 30 second clip.

Car Horn Ettiquite

You would think that at 41 years of age I wouldn't be so surprised at how stupid people are on the road, especially when it comes to horn usage.

I think I've used my horn maybe twice in the last year, both quick beeps to alert another driver that they were being inattentive at a stop light.  To me inattentive doesn't mean they've not taken off in 2 seconds, but they've actually sat there for four or five seconds and we are going to use the light.

The last time was a read idiot who decided that the four lanes of traffic (from left to right in direction of travel were left turn, left turn, straight ahead and straight ahead with a mandatory quick right turn into a business lot) were whatever he wanted them to be.  He was in my lane, which was the "straight ahead" lane and he figured he could turn left with the other two lanes.  He expected to merge into the turn lane in the middle of the intersection.  Did I mention that he was a truck towing a very large trailer?

Today the Mrs. and I were driving down State Street towards downtown and at the intersection with Veteran's Memorial there is a right turn lane that can turn against the light as long as they yield to oncoming traffic and pedestrians.  The second car in the turn lane honks at the first car because she wouldn't turn right against the light......

.......and plow into a bicyclist crossing the street.  Now the second car was taller than the first (SUV vs a econobox) and should have been able to clearly see the cyclist.  The girl in the first car motions to the cyclist and gives a "what do you expect me to do" while the second car just makes an angry motion.

Seriously?  I think some folks need to learn a little car horn etiquette.  I really wanted to beep my horn to the first car beside me, point at her and give an "OK" sign before gesturing to the car behind her and flipping the bird.

Of course that would be impolite and a poor use of the horn.

Frustrating

Ever since I had to utilize the Ride of Shame a couple weeks ago with Maggie, it's been a "fun" experience.

By "fun" I mean that a lot of swearing and some bloodshed is involved.

I finally got the money for parts and headed over to NAPA to get what I needed.  You cannot just ask for a part.  instead you have to let them know the make, model, and year of your vehicle so they can get you the right part.....

.....or so they would have you believe.

Gamers With English as a Second Language - by Choice

First off, I apologize to anyone who does actually happen to speak/read English as a second language and to those who have some sort of reading disability.  My commentary simply does not apply to you.

The rest of you....not necessarily you dear blog reader, but those gamers who choose to ignore their basic English and reading education....listen up.  This is as close to an "open letter" that you are going to get.

The Joys of an Older Vehicle

I reported a couple weeks ago that my FJ40 had lost the clutch master cylinder.

Today I finally got the money to go get parts.  I shopped around and ended going with NAPA because they had the parts "in stock" at the warehouse.  I was able to put the parts on order and was expecting a call when they got in.

The call came real quick, within an hour.  Evidently the parts aren't "in stock" or in the "warehouse".  The master cylinder is in Post Falls, Idaho; the slave cylinder is somewhere in Washington; and the brake cable is in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Instead of being able to simply pick up the parts when the come in I have to drive over to the store and pay for them in advance.  The parts are in other NAPA stores and the local store has to "buy" them from the other stores.  Evidently the new brake line I wanted is completely out of stock and the replacement is kind of expensive....and I'm expected to pay $8 for shipping from SLC.

Seeing as it isn't a special brake line, aside from having M10 connectors on it, I think paying $8 for what should be a $12 line is a bit much.  Evidently I couldn't just say "screw it" and sourced it elsewhere because the local store already bought it for me.  I wasn't happy that their system tried to do a switcheroo on me, telling me I could get a certain part for $12 and not tell me I also had to pay 75% extra for shipping.

Luckily the local store was kind enough to lower the price of the more expensive (I never did get a price) to the $12 and since I was getting an unexpected 10% off my total order because I did this online initially, I wasn't going to let it bother me too much.  In the end I paid within $1 of what I thought I was getting the parts for.

Now I just have to wait a couple days for everything to arrive.  Fortunately this is supposed to be an easy fix.  Of course, I've thought this before entering into other car repair jobs.

My Thoughts on a Good GM and Good Player

Had to re-use Dave's awesome graphic

My wife blogs a bit also and her most recent post was about a couple of threads from the Kenzer & Company discussion forums.

In those threads folks were asking what do they look for in a GM and what do they look for in a player.  I didn't really participate heavily in those threads even though I do have some strong feelings on the matter.  I moderate over there and sometimes I think that has caused me to pull back a bit on my posting.

This is what I think on the matter:

WTF A Christmas Story 2?!

You have got to be kidding me!

I realize that sometimes it is hard to be creative, but does everything deserve a remake or a &^%#$! sequel?

I just learned this morning that they are making a sequel to "A Christmas Story".  That movie came out almost 30 years ago.  It was a self-contained story that is my generations "It's a Wonderful Life".

While I know I cannot speak for everyone, I'm certain that a lot of people are like me and thinking not just no, but hell no!




That painful sensation you feel in your stomach while watching this?  That is your childhood being raped.  OK, rape may be way too strong of a word.  "Inappropriate touching" ok?

11/7/12 Edit
I saw this video for sale at a truck stop while on my way to Spokane, WA from Boise, ID.  Looks like it didn't just go straight-to-video, but straight-to-video-hell.

Broke

As of right now I'm officially broke.

Which is a shame since I have some bills due today.  The rub is I shouldn't be broke.  I have a client who owes me money, friends who own me money (albeit a small amount), the VA owes me some money, and my school owes me some money.

Pretty much anyone paying up would take care of things.  One check is allegedly in the mail, another payment is set to arrive on some random date between the 1st and the 15th of the month, and the school decided that since this is my first classes with them they should just hold on to the funds for an extra three weeks.

Added together it just feels like a kick in the balls.  Of course it wouldn't bother me so much if I knew that one check or random deposit would show up today.

Deadpool at my Local Library!

I had to go to a local library to get some information for a short report I have to do for one of my classes.  I know, not exactly new territory here, but the report was about the library itself, so I had to go.

This was a new branch and a bit on the small side, but I was surprised at just how many computers there were at the library.  I swear they had more computers than library shelves.

I went later in the day and there were a bazillion kids playing various online computer games at the library.  It reminded me of the homeless guys who would spend all day at the "free" computers at BSU.  At least at the library you only get two hours a day if you have a library card.

When I was done walking around taking my notes for the report I decided to see if there was anything I wanted to pick up.  I found an audio book to try out since I have never attempted to listen to an audio book.  On the way to the self-checkout I crossed a nice display of "staff favorites" and one of the favorites was this Deadpool hardcover that collected Deadpool #27-31.

I might have to go to the library a bit more often.

My Thoughts on the NFL Season Opener National Anthem

NBC Screenshot

While I'm not really a professional football fan, I did manage to see the beginning of the NFL season kickoff last night while eating dinner out with the Mrs.

Two things struck me as odd and I've had mixed feelings about them.

The first was Queen Latifah's rendition of our National Anthem.  I know she's gotten a mixed reaction concerning her performance and my feelings have nothing to do with how well she sang, which I think the bulk of the bad reactions are on about.  For me, it is how she sang the Star Spangled Banner.

I thought her voice was great and she did a bang-up job.....but, and this is a big one for me, she did not sing the Star Spangled Banner, she sang most of the first stanza and added some words (really just a repeat of the last line) at the end.  While I get artistic licence and expression, I don't think that our National Anthem should have that much artistic wiggle-room.  Part of the issue for me is that I liked her performance, which should make it OK, but that is the rub......it is only OK because of my judgement call.  I don't have any more a right to approve such an alteration of the Star Spangled Banner as she had to alter it.

Those that dismiss her performance simply because they don't like her singing....they can stuff it.

My second issue went hand-in-hand with Queen Latifah's performance.  If you watch the video you'll see that there are a bunch of servicemen in the background holding a huge American Flag off the ground.  My first reaction was positive because.....hey, a flag....but also because I knew that all those folks were getting to see the game for free in exchange for wearing their Class A uniforms (I know they don't call it that anymore) and a few minutes of work.  I hope they got good seats.  This was all fine and good until they showed a shot of the arena from overhead.  I wish I could find a screenshot.

IT WASN'T A US FLAG!!!

Instead of a proper flag, the servicemen were holding onto a giant piece of cloth made up of stars and stripes like a traditional flag, but this cloth was in the shape of the continental US.  The song was barely cut up, but this flag was positively butchered!  This felt so wrong to me on so many levels.  I was actually a bit pissed off at seeing this.  Seriously, who in their right mind thought this was a good idea?

I think whomever was responsible should go ahead and pay up their taxes for the year, have their citizenship stripped and be made to re-apply.  Make them sit through the classes and learn a little respect for the Flag and what it stands for.  I can understand a mistake like placing the flag on the wrong side of the room or doing an inexperienced job folding it up, but to hack it into the shape of the Continental US?  That is just inexcusable....an EPIC FAIL if I have ever seen one.

Astrid To-Do List Manager

I know I posted about The Perfect To-Do List back in June, but I was wrong.  I'm man enough to admit it.

For a while I was enamored with ToDo.ly, but over time it just didn't hold up.  I loved the idea of using it as my browser homepage, but the execution just didn't hold up to the expectation.  Usually....seriously, like nine times out of ten, I never saw my to-do list.  When I opened my Chrome browser, my to-do list homepage would just sit there, attempting to load.  Invariably I'd just open another blank tab and go to the page I needed.

The whole idea of a to-do list that would be "in my face" ended up being a big fail.  Not and EPIC FAIL, just a "meh....move on" fail.  I didn't shed any tears for the death of my beloved to-do list.  Instead I just opened my list one last time, logged out, and moved on. It was important to move on.

Blogging as Homework

Today I have it rough....I have to blog as part of a homework assignment.

Seriously, writing a couple of posts this week is (unfortunately only part of) my homework for one of my classes at CSI.  Instead of screwing around now on the interwebs I can say I'm doing schoolwork.  Yeah me!

I guess technically I could finish up now since I'm already putting up some posts and I have another related topic I want to blog about.

Maybe I should have posted this on Twitter?  A lot of people call that a micro-blogging site......

Random Gaming Thoughts......

I haven't subjected my 12 readers to a good PC story in a long time.........don't worry this won't be a "good" story anyway.

I've had to cut back on a lot of my gaming recently.  Some of it was because of school and some of it was just because I wasn't having as much fun as I used to.  I was in a weekly game that traded off GMs and it was just "meh" for me.  I liked the GM and the players, but it was just too complicated for me and the whole affair seemed more like an obligation than recreation.

Right off the bat.....I'm not "dissing" the GM or the game.  The GMs had their own game worlds and a whole slew of new rules.  While I actively encourage GMs to play the game they (and their players) want, I prefer to stick as close to by-the-book as possible.  Since I do occasionally get to playtest and I do a decent amount of convention work, I find the RAW (rules as written) to be quite comforting.  If a GM wants to use a bunch of new rules, go for it...but make it as transparent for me as possible.

Bucket List (Part I)

Sometimes I make lists to help me get organized, sometimes I make lists to make me feel like I'm organized, and sometimes I make lists because I don't want to forget about something.

To the best of my knowledge I've never made a "bucket list".  If you don't know what a Bucket List is, I'll just have to refer you to a movie by the same name.

I've never seen the movie, which is odd since I like both Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, but maybe someday.  No, I'm not going to put watching the Bucket List on my Bucket List.  That would be funny in a Meta sort of way though, wouldn't it.

For the record, I don't think everything on a Bucket List has to be "good" and "positive", and some things can be pretty effed up, but I'm not judging and I hope you don't either.  Here are 10 items for my Bucket List.  If I was making a generic Bucket List I'd be proud to say some things would already be checked off.  These are presented in no particular order.

1. Fly a plane
2. Earn my MBA
3. Earn a Doctorate (honorary degree would still count)
4. On the same day see the Sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific.
5. Salt the Earth of my Enemy so that nothing will grow there (some old-school vengeance)
6. Meet someone with my exact same name (Christopher James Stogdill)
7. Take my wife to see where I lived in Germany
8. Walk in the Vierdaagse again.
9. Pay my respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
10. Hold $1,000,000 in my hands