<![CDATA[Boards o' Magick - Blogs]]> http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php en Sat, 25 May 2013 01:46:19 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/images/_bom/misc/rss.jpg <![CDATA[Boards o' Magick - Blogs]]> http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php Fantasy RPG book http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=590 Wed, 08 May 2013 12:47:54 GMT As I mentioned in Random Babbling, I started writing a new book about a pseudo D&D group that gets sucked into a fantasy world to save it from boredom. I say pseudo D&D because I don't know enough about real D&D to make it realistic. So, I called it Sword and Sorcery (S&S) and can make up the rules as needed, while keeping the D&D flavor. It's been fun so far. I started with a prologue from the wizard who accidentally enchants a Ouija planchette, and have continued with the first chapter where the group is actually playing the game and about to start using the spirit board.

So far my characters are:
The GM, Julian -- nice guy. Haven't really developed him much.

The GM's girlfriend, Sheila -- also nice, but very much into New Age stuff, and not so much into the game. She gets bored and restless a lot and causes disruptions. She's the healer of the group. She's the one who introduces the Ouija board.

Seth: he's the wizard, very thin and wears glasses. Pretty easy-going. He's a little more developed than Julian, but not much.

Mike: he plays a half-goblin barbarian, but in reality, he's tall/built, gentle, and highly intelligent. He's also a skeptical agnostic.

Chelsea: main character - thief, not sure what race yet.. She's short, but compact with dark hair, and is a bit of a tomboy. She lives with her grandma and younger brother and just bought a used car. Her grandma thinks S&S and Ouija boards are demonic. Chelsea loves doing anything she can to flaunt her interest in things that her grandma disapproves of, especially ever since her grandma burned her S&S books. So she's really excited when Sheila brings out the spirit board. I think she might be interested in Seth, but I'll have to see as the book progresses.

I'm doing this one a little differently. I usually plan the plot and characters out first, but I'm going to try writing a first draft without a lot of planning this time, and see what develops organically as I write. I think my characters might end up pretty flat (they tend to in my books, even when I DO have some planning), but others have said that when they plan, it causes them to forget to develop those things in the actual book, so if that's my problem, maybe not planning is the answer.

Thankfully, I don't have to do a lot of setting research. That's the hardest part for me, and the most important. My settings tend to be bland if I don't know what's really there (so I skip over it). I'm basing the real world in a town similar to mine (but much smaller), and making up the fantasy world.

Anyway, I need to go now. Enjoy your day or night or whatever time it is when you read this! ]]> Vorona http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=590 Melancholy Awards http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=589 Sat, 04 May 2013 05:33:26 GMT It's weird, but I actually enjoy feeling melancholy. It's one of the reasons I miss the rain so much and hope to move somewhere where it rains more. Tonight was our high school prom. It seems odd that such a night would make me feel melancholy but it did.

With the play, I ended up forming some rather strong bonds with my theatre students. I didn't even know it was happening. But one of the girls in my class is moving to another school.

Tonight, she was very friendly to me. When I was dancing near her group she urged me to join them, even though I was fine dancing on my own. And later, she asked me if I was okay while I was sitting alone.

I'm so sad she's leaving.

I understand her reasons, and she's probably right, but I worry about her. She doesn't have a lot of confidence. She was the star of our play, and I hope she continues with theatre in the future, but it will be harder in a bigger school because she'll have to audition and everything.

And her father is kind of a jerk to her. In our parent-teacher conference, every time I had something good to say about her, he had to switch it around and make it into a negative or ignore what I said to refocus on something she needed to do better. I was so upset with him. I don't think he's abusive or anything, and I really think he wants what's best for her, but the impression I got was that he was going about it all the wrong ways.

And that reminds me of an experience my mom had at a grocery store. We have two stores that are from the same company, but they're very different. One of them is the best store in town. The other . . . I'm not sure if it's the worst, but it sure comes close. It turns out that at the good store, the management puts all the good feedback that they get from the telephone surveys on sheets of paper for the employees to see, so they know what they're doing well.

I think that's really important. I think it's necessary to tell people what they do well, because that gives them encouragement. I gave an award to every single one of my theatre students. I don't believe in giving fake awards, though. This is something that I don't think a lot of people get. You can give an award to everyone if you really find something they actually did shine at. I think it's wrong to give fake awards just to give out awards or make someone not feel left out. That's not a reason to give an award, and people know that it's not a real award. But that doesn't mean you can't find something to celebrate about someone. You just have to sometimes look a little harder.

For example, I had one student in the play who did not know many of his lines. He was late and sadly ended up being a laughingstock to the audience. Before the play, he was terrified, and yet, he went onstage and did it anyway. That must have taken tremendous courage. Not only that, but there is this one moment in the play where his character is angry at another character. There are no stage directions, but he took up the glove and threw it at her feet. This was the best scene in the entire play. So, I gave him an award for the "Best Single Moment." Because it really was the best single moment in the whole play. It was a real award, a real acknowledgement of something he did very well.

So many people say we're doing our students a disservice when everyone gets an award. That's true if the awards are meaningless. But if they have meaning, they can be a powerful motivation.

Wow. I had no idea that that's where this post would end up when I started it. I'm still sad that my student is leaving. And in some ways, I'm enjoying that sadness. It proves I made a connection with a student. And in the end, that's one of the things that matters most. ]]> Vorona http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=589 ProudButBoredMommy added a new photo. http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=588 Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:17:58 GMT
Spoiler!


I can’t go along with it. I don’t follow the mood. The enthusiasm with which some young mothers put the cute faces of their children on pictures, is not shared by me. But it is shared with me.

Consequently, and much to my dismay, I repeatedly had to face up to how an oh so droll toddler just couldn’t succeed last week at wolfing down a bucket of sludge without scooping his face full with spinach. Or was it her face? His, her… it’s hard to see the difference, even more so when all sorts of nourishment seem to be used for external use only.

That’s mainly due to the parents. They blow up the incompetence of still motorically impaired, flabby little arms. During the cold months, especially mothers seems to obtain a warm, fuzzy feeling when day can shove their flesh become hormones to the table. What they did earlier to their make-up dolls, they can now finally do to living matter. Turns out babies don’t come from cabbages, but are put straight into them!

But it doesn’t stop there with spinach and cabbage alone. On the third day we stumble upon a picture of a carrotty pulp with eyelashes. Because carrots are not green, but orange. An entirely different situation, obviously, that needs to be shared with the outside world immediately.
The week of neuroses and creative breakdowns is blithely continued: a blob of rhubarb with nostrils, followed by toothless little jaws in banana yoghurt and the ever-present chocolate snout with tonsils and neck fat.

By that time, I kinda had it with the madly daring adventures of this audacious parent. Annoyed, while gnashing my teeth, I mash my kidney beans and baby bell peppers into a goo that no longer reminds me of anything containing estrogen or baby cramps.

I should count myself lucky I didn’t get to see all the substances that actually made it past the uvula, but between gullet and sphincter had not been recognized as contributing matter. Happy, that I didn’t get a notification on the social media that ProudButBoredMommy84 added a new photo of a screeching, purple poopmachine that crapped the space between its shoulder-blades. She’d even add something awkwardly informative like: “Oops! Teehee! Looks like AttentionAccessory012 can’t digest potato salad yet. Lolzz!!!1 #Tomorrowwhitebeans.”

It’s part of being a mom, I suppose, all those funny pictures. But if I really want to see a sparse variety of fodder with body parts every damn day, I’ll just buy a friggin’ Mr. Potatohead! ]]> Master of Nuhn http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=588 Update http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=587 Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:49:16 GMT Figured I would post an update on how things have been for me. Found someone new. Been looking for what felt like forever for someone. Figured I would post an update on how things have been for me. Found someone new. Been looking for what felt like forever for someone. ]]> Topken http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=587 of quiet places http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=586 Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:54:26 GMT I stepped outside at 4am. The silence is profound when most of the city is asleep. There was a bedroom light on in one of the neighbouring... I stepped outside at 4am.

The silence is profound when most of the city is asleep.

There was a bedroom light on in one of the neighbouring houses. They have a baby who's stomach doesn't care what time it is. The temperature was lukewarm and there was no wind. My eyes were drawn to an overgrown icicle hanging off a high rooftop. Street lamps bordering the nearby field made the ice glimmer.

The moon stole everything. Two days away from showing its entire self. No wonder centuries of people have been entranced by its power. ]]> Dice http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=586 Update - March 24, 2013 http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=585 Mon, 25 Mar 2013 03:18:07 GMT So, I'm going to try to do these once a week on Sundays. We'll see. I tend to be a bad blogger.

Yoga: Uh, well, that didn't work out so well. Still haven't done any. But I'm on spring break, so I've convinced myself I can do it two days this week and then on the week-ends. I'm also considering changing the goal to once per week.

Indecision on gaming: I decided to stick with Dragon Age: Origins at night until I'm done with this current game and then switch to Planescape: Torment. Meanwhile, I'm playing Skyrim during the day. I still find targeting very frustrating, but at least I know how to look for and pick stuff up. When I'm done with Skyrim . . . well, I'll probably have a completely different idea then, so I'm not going to make any plans now.

Other news: I didn't get sick this week! The last time I was sick was the Friday before last, and I just had the pain. Then I took a Benadryl and fell asleep. I hadn't thought of that before, but now I'll consider it in the future. The biggest problem with Benadryl though is that it puts me to sleep and keeps me drowsy/loopy for a full 10 hours, so if I get sick too late in the evening, it's probably not a good solution. I know I would have thrown up if I hadn't fallen asleep, though, so I'm glad I was able to prevent it. (Incidentally, I've been taking Benadryl periodically on Sundays to help me reset my sleep schedule to getting up at 5:30 as it's also the "sleep aid" part of Tylenol PM).

Also, as mentioned earlier, it's my spring break! Aside from relaxing and playing computer games ( :) ), I'm planning on continuing the massive job of unpacking boxes. I have some minor work from school, too, but thankfully, I got most of it done at school last week.

Best wishes to all!

~V. ]]> Vorona http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=585 You have a lot of time to think when you are freezing your ass off walking home. http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=584 Sun, 24 Mar 2013 04:48:48 GMT O.K. That got your attention. I had a very interesting evening that resulted in me coming up with a marketing strategy for myself. Only you guys... O.K. That got your attention.

I had a very interesting evening that resulted in me coming up with a marketing strategy for myself. Only you guys are privileged to know about it before I do it. (I hope you know I'm saying this tongue in cheek.) Also it's an experiment so I have nothing more vested in this if it does not work, however if it does work it could be mildly to very beneficial for me.

I am on FB a lot and I get really sick of the endless memes of the same sort of thing all the time. I decided I'm going to make a series of memes with my own characters. I already know what these characters will be. And I am going to write my own sayings. And advertise my blogsite.

I wanted to ask if any of you guys come across one of my memes if you could share it and help me spread them around the net. Also they will be signed with "Pen" in one of the corners but only a 25% chance of it being the bottom right. I will post some of them here once I make them. ]]> Dice http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=584 In the Mind of the Indecisive http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=582 Fri, 22 Mar 2013 16:41:28 GMT First of all, with my renewed hope in actually returning to my resolution, I'm planning to do yoga on Saturdays and Sundays, and I think it would help to have a place to post my progress, to help with accountability. That's not all that indecisive though; in fact, it's pretty decisive.

The indecision comes from this: I bought Windows 7 and put it on my Mac via Boot Camp. This means that a lot of games that were previously inaccessible (due to either graphics constraints on my PC or OS constraints on my Mac) are now very accessible. I also never figured out how to use mods on my Mac (and deliberately chose not to on my PC). Most of the games I already had but just couldn't play for one reason or another.

So, now, I don't know what game to play! But I've started a lot of them, and here are my thoughts so far:

Baldur's Gate (original): Still doesn't let me create a multiplayer game. I don't know why. I had originally thought it was a Mac problem, but it doesn't work with Windows either, so it must be a hardware issue. I can do it on my old PC. Both are connected to the internet on the same wireless network. *shrugs* I guess it's EE on Mac if I want to play a multiplayer game.

Dragon Age: Origins: I'm in the middle of a game on the Mac. Since this is the only game I've ever actually finished, I kind of want to finish a second game. I also want to get in the habit of finishing games I've started. But I think it will be awhile before I actually do finish. I'm also very curious about mods -- especially the one that puts a chest in your camp. I didn't realize how much of a pain it is to keep going to Soldier's Keep (because in the last game, I didn't know I *had* Soldier's Keep, and I couldn't download it for Mac -- good thing, since I did have it).

Dragon Age II: I was really frustrated the first time I tried playing this game that I gave up pretty early. Part of the problem, though, was that I had bought it in French so that I could practice my French. I thought maybe it was at least partly the language that caused my frustration. True, there are the random fights that are all the same, that get very tedious. But I also think I missed out on some of the better parts of the game (interactions with NPCs) due to language. Yes, I understood the words, but I might have missed the nuances. So I want to give it another shot. In English. When I downloaded it again to my PC-on-Mac, I chose the English language.

Planescape: Torment: All the news on the new Torment: Tides of Numenera has made me rethink this game. I bought it from GoG ages ago, but it was along with several other games, so I never actually played it. I started playing it the other night, and I really like it. I particularly like the fact that it's not going to be as combat heavy and will be more connected to words. I also like all the text, since, by nature, I love to read.

The Witcher: Having the same problem I had on my old PC. I had thought it was a graphics problem, but I guess not. I'll have to look into Tech support.

Skyrim: This is the only game I've actually bought, since by the time I was looking at it, I knew about my PC's graphics problem and it doesn't have a Mac version. So in some ways, this was one of the main reasons for doing this -- all the reviews sounded so good. So far, though, it's not working for me. I can't figure out the controls at all. As others have done, I screwed up at the first jump. I'm going to look at the video someone here linked to about it. I also find the first person view very difficult. This is something I think I should probably eventually try to "get", but for the moment, it's pretty frustrating. I had the same problem when I tried out Morrowind on my old PC -- I couldn't get into it because I couldn't really figure out where I actually was. I had seen somewhere (can't remember where) that in Skyrim, you could change it to a third person view, but I haven't figured out how to do that, so I'm wondering if I misunderstood. My friend says that she has the same problem with third person view, so I figure it is something I can learn to get used to. Right now, though, other games (Dragon Age and Torment) seem much more appealing. On the other hand, a lot of my students play Skyrim, so it might be a good thing to play in order to connect with them better.

I also have GoG versions of Neverwinter Nights and Icewind Dale. I couldn't figure out the camera in Neverwinter Nights, and I've heard that Icewind Dale is really combat-heavy. So, those are at the bottom of the list.

I'm not sure that writing it out helped with my decision. I think it may actually have made it worse, since before posting, I was pretty sure I was choosing between Origins and Torment, but now the Witcher and Skyrim look like more viable options -- particularly if I figure out why I can't seem to start The Witcher. Oh well, we'll see. Thanks for listening to me ramble! ]]> Vorona http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=582 Stomach problems and randomness http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=581 Wed, 13 Mar 2013 05:20:57 GMT I'm going to vent some more, and then talk about fun stuff.

So, back in 2009 or 2008 -- I no longer remember -- I ate some leftovers from Friday on a Sunday, and I got sick. Really sick. I had nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and of course, mild dehydration. After four days, I still wasn't recovered, and I was in so much pain and so cold . . . I ended up in the ER. They were convinced it was my appendix. Incidentally, when I was in Russia in 1994, I drank some bad water and had bad stomach pain, and they thought it was the appendix then, too. In any case, they checked my appendix, my intestines, my gall bladder, my female organs . . . everything. Two things came up: 1) High white blood count, indicating infection and 2) a strange looking small intestine -- apparently it looked like Crohn's, but Crohn's is usually in the large intestine.

They prescribed antibiotics and urged me to see a GI specialist. The GI specialist wanted me to have a colonoscopy, but then said that a blood test could rule out Crohn's. By then, the antibiotics had worked. I also had a stool sample for the specialist. The specialist told me I had "Travelers' e. coli" in my stools, but that otherwise everything was fine. I talked to my regular doctor, who ordered the blood test.

Thankfully, Crohn's was negative. I thought everything was fine.

A month later, I was sick again. I had some anti-emetics (Zofran), but they didn't work. I went to a Docs on Call type place, and the doctor there was convinced I had celiac. I tried a gluten-free diet, but two weeks later, I was sick again.

We noticed some things at this point in time. The episodes, whatever they were, seemed similar. I had intense abdominal pain first, and then I would start throwing up. After awhile, I was able to sleep (most of the time this occurred either in the evening, late at night, or early morning), and the next day, I would be fine, but sore. Also, if I could go to sleep *soundly* before throwing up, sometimes I didn't throw up at all, and everything was fine. My regular doctor thought it was Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome. That's what it is. You can Google it, but basically, it's recurring episodes that start with some kind of prodrome phase (mine is abdominal pain) followed by vomiting, followed by recovery, and in between, there are no symptoms. It's "diagnosed" when all other conditions have been ruled out, so it's like IBS for vomiting.

Everything fits, even down to the part that when adults get it, it's usually after having a bacterial infection. The only difference is that I (as usual, though you probably don't know this) did things backwards. CVS is much more common in children, and then later, they will develop migraines. I used to have migraines, but now I have this instead (personally, despite the pain, I'd rather have migraines). Also, children usually have around 10 episodes per year and they're relatively short. Adults typically have them only 4 times per year, but they last usually at least 4 days. Thankfully, mine only last half a day or less (my last episode went from 11:30-2:30am), but like children, I get episodes more often than four times a year. On average, it's about once a month, but there have been variations.

So, I've been dealing with this for awhile. Triggers include various foods (that I haven't yet identified) and stress. Unfortunately, our school and our community had a rash of Norovirus this year: the stomach virus. I caught it. Plus, as a first year teacher, I'm more worried and stressed than usual. So, I got the virus in early December (it was very different from my usual "episodes", which alerted me to the fact that it was the virus, and not just an episode). Since then, I was sick again in December, and then three times in February, and again last week. I feel like I have no control and that I will never be able to eat the foods I like (especially hot wings, which are definitely a no-no, even if I seem to be feeling fine). I've been lucky in that most of these episodes haven't affected my ability to be at school, but still: I had it on a Friday, then the next Tuesday, and then the Wednesday after that . . . and then three weeks after that! I just want to live a normal life!

In other news, my Mac laptop is working very well, and I've switched from Baldur's Gate back to Dragon Age: Origins, mainly because I want to finish the game I started. Also, I have the EE, and I'm finding it so hard to choose a character. In a way, I think there might be too many classes/kits. I just want to play them all, so I keep restarting with new characters. That's always been a bit of a problem for me, but it's even worse. I never made it through BG2 (keep dying in the prison) or even BG1 really (I think once I made it to chapter 3) because of the constant "want to try a new character" issue I have. I'm also just terrible at video games, which doesn't help. Anyway, I keep trying to finish BG1 before playing BG2, other than the few bad starts.

This week is good! All my main grading is finished, so I just have late work and remediation (work that students have redone to get a better grade). The quarter ends on Friday. I'm looking forward to it, although I can't believe that I've made it 3/4 of the year, and that I only have 1/4 left.

Good news: I started getting a cold, but I took Airborn regularly, and it's going away. Yay! ]]> Vorona http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=581 Clock/Calendar Project: Completed http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=580 Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:48:33 GMT For the enclosure I used the same fiber board you saw in the previous pictures where the clock PCB was mounted. I didn't use any CAD software to design the parts; I just freehanded drawings and made some measurements on the final article to get dimensions that would fit. Then I used a hot glue gun to glue the fiber board parts together.

For the face, I cut a piece of 8"x10" 3/32" thick glass down to a size that would slip in front of the clock face PCB and the fiber board face frame.

OK! So now it's time for the pictures of the final form in its working state!

Here's a picture taken with the flash enabled so the detail of the clock face is more easily seen, but the LEDs are a bit washed out:



The time/date it is showing is Thursday, Jan 31 7:43:34 PM

Here's a picture taken a few seconds later with the flash disabled that gives a better idea of how bright the LEDs are:



The time/date it is showing is Thursday, Jan 31 7:43:49 PM

So that's it for the hardware aspects of this project. There's a lot more software this time around to decode the WWVB signal, to convert the time code (that gives only the day of the year) to the day of the month and the day of the week, etc., but as last time unless someone expresses interest, I won't bore you with the details. :) ]]> Blackthorne TA http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/blog.php?b=580