No Compelling Content

Twitter Updates For The Week

by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . June 26, 2009 . 11:59PM

• Dude, I want a Herman Miller chair. #
• Trollandtoad.com sends me a newsletter every week. I drink deep from the tepid copywriting: it sustains me. #
• I am 0.001168 miles tall. #
• Well, isn't this Dunkin Donuts severely air-conditioned. #
• reflashing my Touch Diamond. This time, I'll be sure not to erase any files named a@ #
• really nerded out this morning when i blogged this: http://blog.inexactitu.de/archives/155 #
• i am displeased with the current crop of rpg games in THE app store at this time. #
• Ohkay, if I manage to blog before tomorrow, ill offically be on a two-day streak. #
• Oh, hell how does the girl at Wendy's know my name? #
• looks like i'm waiting until wednesday to get my itouch. Been without one since April. #
• readiing up me some vonnegut. i wish someone loved me enough when i was a teenager to put these in my hands. #
• At Community College of Philadelphia, signing up for a networking (as in with cat5) class. #
• Whowza, I walked more than 2 miles today. #
• launched my new internet homepage: http://inexactitu.de #
• back to blogging and owning ipod touches. i'm so 2008. #
• My mom is on Twitter. Good thing I never tweet anything untoward. #
• I'm watching Hannibal. Because I hearts Ridley Scott. #
• overbooked today. #
• we could of saved it,
  but we were too doggone cheap. #
• Work is just full of Vendors lately, not that I dislike them. #
• rescue me – season 1: so far so good! #
• Last math lecture for 9 days! Glee. #
• Yeah, I have plenty of chargers for your Sanyo 8200 – lemme jump in a time machine to 2003 real quick. #
• Somehow, its my fault that I don't sell SERO. #
• Yeah, its been one of those hot restless days where even a rousing game of Rogue can keep me entertained. #
• ugh this scotch is horrible. #

[Review] Book 1 of Troy Denning’s Prism Pentad, and Dark Sun.

by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . June 21, 2009 . 8:07AM

Whenever I lack the bandwidth to actually engage my literary interests with any sort of fervor, I reach for the “trashy” fiction.  Remembering a kick I was on, playing and exploring the semi-defunct world of Dark Sun, one of many left-wayside TSR worlds from the uber-expansionist 2nd edition era, I reached for the first thing that said “book one” and had something Brom did on the cover.

Dark Sun, to the uninitiated, is an extraordinarily harsh desert world, populated by city-states ruled by some of the few sorcerers that inhabit the magic-starved plane. Speaking of planes, it’s also purposefully set off from other planes in the D&D multiverse. The world, Arthas, has very interesting ecologies, featuring a preponderance of psionic-wielders, half-giants, half-dwarves, and intelligent insect creatures (the Thi-Kereen). Due to the dog-eat-dog nature of the world, evolution seems to be kicked into overdrive.

Examples of evolution gone awry abound: bears with scaly exteriors, so they don’t lose water, Dwarven beards were evoluted out, in the span of only around 1000 years (which is around a dozen generations), and many plants could easily be mistaken for rocks.

The average denizen of this world, in game terms, is about 20% faster/stronger/tougher/smarter/wiser than their standard game world contemporaries. The Prism Pentad is a series of five volumes that circle around the city-state Tyr, which also has a starring role in Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager (the PC game). Tyr, in most game material, is known as a free city, where the widely-adopted practice of slavery is outlawed.

The book, then.

The Verdant Passage by Troy Denning. (TSR, 1992)

In The Verdant Passage, the Pentad’s first volume, we’re exposed to a nice variety of PC classes, ahem, characters from varied backgrounds, with complementary skills. This party-waiting-to-happen, as it often goes, are going about their wonderful/miserable existences, when a plot to assassinate the tyrannical ruler of Tyr entwines both willing participants and those less motivated.

Of course, securing the buy-in of an adequate meat shield and obligatory spellcasters, along with weaponry adequate for the task of slaying a thousand-year-old life-drinker/psychic warrior/dragon takes our noble band through some interesting places, including a rainforest (sigh). This leads into one of my main criticisms of the volume.

While I understand that Denning had quite a hand in the game world designs, and was quite adept at weaving the tale through the characters and locales, a light went off in my head when during what can only be described as out-of-character places for this game world. A rainforest high up in the mountains that its supposedly impossible to climb due to altitude? Fine, it makes sense to have something thats not common to the world. After all, adventurers end up in the oddest places. But if a single adventuring band can go there, a sorcerer-king, with thousands of lackeys, can easily establish a thriving society there. Instead, they’re out in the middle of the desert! Sheese.

Does this make me a munchkin? Probably.

Twitter Updates For The Week

by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . June 19, 2009 . 9:59PM

• things you don't know I'm passionate about, PG-13 edition: james bond movie intro sequences. #
• Note to self: Out of Pepsi. Other note to self: Also, Whiskey. #
• hey @jakemarsh, have an extra copy of 10.2 for my bondi imac? #
• neversoft bringing turntables to rock band. next edition is going to be Rock Band: Limp Bizkit #
• looks like i'm watching good night and good luck for like the 3097th time. #
• @twinfluence score 39841 marks, rank #12023 of #87911 useless twitter apps. #
• Work on a RMS patch day, on a Sunday, in the summer. Don't get much better than this. #
• upgrading my wordpress install. sigh. #
• sign smore. i never do this right. #
• done! that means that http://blog.inexactitu.de is up to wordpress speed, for once. http://bit.ly/wmRRE #
• 16GB eee 900s with XP on sellout.woot for 180. not bad. #
• Watching Daria. I'd do this all day – cept for the work thing. #
• so, it's $75.75 in quarters. #
• 250+ fps encoding a dvd on my desktop. niiice. #
• BB tour announced by VZW, Sprint does so mere seconds later. I think Sprint employees will be the happiest about it. (5 co-workers have one) #
• Yay! I'm under NDA for an unreleased product! Its when I'm at my happiest. #
• hey, this is pretty rad: http://bit.ly/OAB4E #
• In the apartment that @jdotames and I share, we have over 160 inches of LCD screens, not counting mobile (smaller than netbook) devices. #

Twitter Updates For The Week

by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . June 12, 2009 . 9:59PM

• Premania!! #
• thanks @gizmodo for the wm 6.5 tutorial (or i guess i should say link to XDA) it works great! #
• I want a house with a better view… Of I-95. Can’t barely see traffic, unless they’re taller cars. #
• Reflashing my TD is getting pretty easy after a bit of prctice. #
• New macbook pro;: still rather have a thinkpad. #
• Yay! My doctor can ignore me with new technologies in the iPhone OS 3.0. #
• Wanted a new iPod Touch!!!! #
• @jessicaames I don’t want science, I want a mac pro looking itouch! I saw a render a while ago and it was drool-enhancing. #
• hate saying it out loud, but I think AT&T is right to not unconditionally give every iPhone 3G owner an upgrade. #
• aaand they’re still discounting more than their upgrade plan. Instead of paying retail, its about 200 cheaper. #
• @johnwesleyA what if they bought a 3G like, lets say, 7 months ago? Its more important to look at the discount vs. retail/unlocked. #
• turning any mustard to ketchup #crapsuperpowers #
• I’ve only bought 6 cell phones this year. #
• @jessicaames but the destination’s dayton ohio!?!? #
• Remeber satan may be a stan. #
• Made a google profile. Not as hard as advertised. #
• dear #squarespace how are you? I am fine. #
• Poop #
• Oh, I almost forgot: Virgin Mobile announced prepaid, nationwide prepaid 3G service, backed by Sprint! #
• I actually think I want the Kindle 2 now. #
• i thought i was the only one who misses battle chasers!!!: http://bit.ly/xjvIy #
• o noes the internets are down. aircard says, “huh wot?” #
• if the PSP Go! lets me play games i already have, i might actually finish final fantasy Tactics. the magic animations took 3 seconds each. #

Twitter Updates For The Week

by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . June 5, 2009 . 9:59PM

• you are not as interesting as hollywood would have me believe, transient man. #
• So, will iPhone fans think I’m cool for having a Palm Pre, when employees get to buy them? I already have 2 phones with more features. #
• wowza!!! http://bit.ly/ZSxhc #
• i saw @ev using a sprint blackberry on his ted talk video. #
• thanks wolfie! http://bit.ly/VacWa
  *-2n%2Fsin%28n%29%29 #
• hey @jdotames http://bit.ly/nB1IW #
• only problem with buying clothes off season is the whole can’t wear-this-awesome-jacket for months issue #
• @jessicaames its freakin itunes #
• I keep on losing-regaining the same followers, but I still like my fairweather friends. #
• I gotta make new “internet friends” to interact with via skype & gtalk. The current roster aint worth the e-ink it was printed on. #
• i need a second job to pay for all the cool stuff coming out of e3 and comdex these last couple of days. #
• @jessicaames its totally itunes. it uses 1.2GB of ram on my mbp and 800MB in vista. #
• i wanna free @eyeficard from @evernote!11!! #evernote_eyefi #
• i forget important things upon leaving a good 40% of the time. #
• I’ve always wanted to be a British politician – with whats going on, I’m putting in my application. #
• Work computer tip: If your MS outlook takes a sizeable chunk of ram to keep open – run outlook web access in a browser. Or just close it. #
• gizmodo has the @palm pre’s review up. http://bit.ly/zDYHO #
• @alexknowshtml you know the palm pre has a unified inbox, riiight? #
• @jbtaylor looks like the embargo just lifted on pre reviews, eh? #
• “Natrually aged beef” tastes way better than that time-machined beef. #
• So, in Jonestown, it was Flav-Or-Aid, not Kool-Aid. If I worked for Kool Aid, that’d really annoy me. #
• With the PSP Go!, new Windows Mobile HTC Phones, and the probable iTouch update, my pocket situation is going from bad to worse AND zune HD #