Maps for Heroes

I normally don't share posts between blogs, but I thought this was worth it.

An Internet Associate of mine.....I don't have a better way of putting it, likes to draw maps. I like to draw maps too, but he's just much better at it. I used to be in the military, working with the Army, but he's actually in the Army. I like to think I do things to help others, but once again I find myself falling a bit short in comparison.

I'm OK with that as I've learned I have nothing to gain by comparing myself to other's standards, but enough about me.....

Matt Jackson has decided to put together a cool little fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project. It is a cool organization (though I wish they wouldn't limit themselves to just helping post 9/11) and Matt decided to organize a bunch of respected RPG map-makers to contribute a map for his fundraising campaign:

+Mike Schley 

+Carl Bussler 

+Gus L 

+Simon Forster 

+Monkeyblood's Model & Map Mayhem 

+Rob Conley 

+Logan Knight 

+Tim Shorts

Now putting together this effort is cool enough on his own, but Matt has also decided to donate any of the July proceeds from his Patreon campaign to the fundraiser as well. The goal is $1K, very reasonable.

I'll go one step further than just suggesting a donation.....I think you should donate at least $8. Eight map-makers, at least eight maps, at least $1 a map. Totally reasonable and it will only take 125 of us...maximum..to make that goal.

Come on....you do have $8 lying around, right? It is totally a Win-Win here.... 

Tree City Comic Con EPIC FAIL

Did you hear the news?! Boise is finally getting a Comic Con!

Just a couple of days ago the news hit that a few folks are organizing a Boise, ....er, Tree City Comic Con later this year. The organizers expect 10,000 400,000 participants and have ambitiously priced their event at the same rate as the Salt Lake City Comic Con.

These organizers are so full of FAIL that I don't even know where to begin, but I'll try.

It occurs to me that someone thinks they can try to make a buck by poorly imitating someone else's efforts. SLCCC is being held in September, a good date, at a good location, and has lots of guests, as well as a good website. Hell, I didn't know about this fall's SLCCC before this morning and now I want to go.

Tree City Comic Con, on the other hand has a crappy date, terrible location, and jack squat for guests. I recognized two names: Lou Ferrigno and the Tardis...

Wait...what?!

They have a fricken prop listed as a guest of honor?! WTFO?!

Don't even get me started on the website. It is a joke, well at least a joke as far as a professional site goes. Not serious, bare-bones, and filled with errors. Hell, their headlining guest doesn't have anything aside from a link and a small headshot.

I think I've saved the biggest issue for last. Boise already has a number of small cons....ones that have been around for years and there is already a con that fits this general con role: Fandemonium. They've been around for what....a decade? Now they don't have Lou, I'll give Tree City that, but they did have the foresight to pick a good venue with access to a hotel......places to shop and eat are walk-able.

The fairgrounds technically has places to eat nearby, you just have to walk past the parking lot, to the corner, cross the street, and either walk back down the other side of the road or cross an even busier street and walk down a little bit. Hotel? The closest decent hotel you HAVE to drive to. Walking isn't an option.

Tree City Comic Con, please take my $50 so I can go to Boise's fricken fairgrounds mid October to see the man who played the Hulk when I was a child. No offense Lou, but as strong as you are you can't carry the weight of this on your shoulders.

Seriously, if you want a Boise Comic Con, just go to the Library! Comic Con in September. Even they know how to pick a good date.......

Took an Online Exam for a Job Application

This morning I finally got online and took an Excel test as part of a job application that I had been putting off. I've taken a few online exams, and classes, on MS Office and without a doubt they'd been rather painful experiences.

Usually the program being used isn't actually MS Office, but instead of lame facsimile. It can be as bad as a simple screen shot loaded up as a webpage with URL hot-spots for clicking to a somewhat interactive database. Almost always they fall far short of the actual program. This is a huge problem when trying to replicate a program that has multiple ways of doing a given task.

Want to save your file? You could mouse over to the File tab and then drop down to Save-As, or you could just hit Ctrl+S. Either way would work in Excel, but the facsimile? Who knows? I had one class where you had to go through a long & boring step-by step guide after you got a question wrong, but the guide...which takes about a minute to show you a 3 second process, showed exactly what I was doing int he first place! You couldn't move on without successfully completing the given question, so I was stuck in a loop of question, slow guide. I finally just took a screen capture video and sent it to my prof to show how messed up the software was.

Now if you are lucky, they word the questions such that you have only one way of successfully completing the task, like asking to only use command key shortcuts.

This morning I was lucky. I knew it was an Excel test, but I could only assume it would be for Excel 2010, which it was. The software was pretty good and I only really had a problem with one question out of 30. I only got one question wrong, not the one I had problems with, but I think it was "do it this way" and I did it another. It may have actually been the save your file question.....I went with the command key options.

Meh....I'll take the 97%.