ChrisTalbot.com

The Dread Gazebo

The Head of Vecna

These are old classics, but still are damn funny.

Jacquie and I finally decided over the weekend on a name for The Puppy With No Name. Menchi got nixed in favour of ... drum roll, please ...

Loki.

We named him after the Norse god of deceit. ;)

Rich sent me a link to the Ibistek homepage. Just take a look at the normal-looking trucks oufitting with heavy firepower. ... Y'know, having one of these could make me love SUVs.

Film Threat's Bootleg Files writer Phil Hall eventually had to get around to this. The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of those most-sought-after bootlegs. All I've ever seen of it is the cartoon in which Boba Fett makes an appearance. I'm actually afraid to track down a copy of the special and what it in its entirety. It might destroy what sanity I have left.

The Puppy With No Name kept waking me up last night. It's not like he was whining or making noise. He was chewing on my hair. He woke up and decided to get playful sometime in the wee hours of the morning, and I found my sleep disturbed over and over again until I finally dragged my sorry ass out of bed around 6:30.

Ordinarily, I don't get up until 7:30, but I wanted the car today, which means I had to get up and take Jacquie in to work. Additionally, Jacquie decided to bring in the pup and show him off to her co-workers. ... As an aside, I think I've just about got her to agree to naming him Menchi. :)

When I got home, The Puppy With No Name took to climbing up and down the stairs that separate the main and second floors. Prior to leaving home, he would only climb about halfway up to the landing and then just sit and whine. Now he's going up and down just fine. A lot of difference an hour makes, eh?

It seems Misty has suddenly taken a dislike to The Puppy With No Name. I caught Misty (aka Fat Cat, Shit Streak and whatever else I happen to call her) staring at the pup and growling at him. I scolded her a bit, and then she went to hide in her room (aka the cats' room).

So now here I am checking email and starting to get ready for what is likely going to be a quiet day. Thanks to the U.S., there hasn't really been much in the way of news the last couple of days. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. The Puppy With No Name is curled up in his bed beside me and sleeping soundly.

Even though I stopped playing GURPS years ago, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Steve Jackson Games.

How much smurf could a smurf smurf if a smurf could smurf smurf?

The first pictures publicly available of The Puppy With No Name.

EDIT: Jacquie made me take the picture of her with the pup down. She's got a thing about having her picture on the Net.

I barely slept a wink last night. And I can't even blame it on having a noisy puppy. The Puppy With No Name, as he shall be called until we settle on an identifier, slept like the dead. Jacquie and I didn't. I think I was worrying about rolling over on him in the middle of the night, as well as I was worrying about affording yonder puppy without needing a loan. ;)

When my parents first got T, he slept in the basement with me that first night. We put him in his cage, and he whined all night. I didn't sleep at all. After that, he went up to my parents' room and slept with them on their bed. I guess he didn't like being caged at all. Not that I blame him, of course.

TPWNN got up with me this morning. Two things are clear about him. He likes the cat's catnip toys. And he can shit like a machine. ;)

As of tonight, Jacquie and I are the proud ... uh ... "parents" of a nine-week-old cocker spaniel puppy. He -- yes, it's a he; the odds in the household are coming a little more into my favour finally -- has yet to be given a name. Jacquie would prefer to stick with her "M" theme (the cats are named Misty and Molly), and while I've come up with a perfectly good idea (hey, Logan, think Excel Saga), Jacquie's not too thrilled with the idea. I think I can get her to give in, though. ;)

This is just so friggin' cool. Bizarre shit.

That's the way William Gibson started his classic cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer, which happens to be one of my favourites (I'm too lazy to dig up my copy and make sure that the quote is completely accurate). Ever since high school, I've had a love for the cyberpunk genre. High-tech lowlife. Designer drugs. Computers implanted in your brain. Cybernetic implants. Awesome weapons. And style, baby, sheer style. That's what cyberpunk is really about -- style.

I could really go for some Cyberpunk 2020 gaming these days, but I just don't think I have the time to put a campaign together or the group to pull it off with. There's always PBeMs, though. Maybe I'll start thinking about that. I wouldn't want it to interfere with my Vampire: The Masquerade PBeM, though.

On another gaming note, I'm putting a group together for a once a month game of the Mechamorphosis RPG. To describe it simply, Mechamorphosis is Transformers with the trademarks filed off. This will be tabletop, not PBeM.

EverQuest II isn't going to run on either my computer or Jacquie's. The video card is just too out of date. Both of us have GeForce MX video cards, and EQ2 doesn't support that line. In fact, I'm not even sure that line is still in production by nVidia. So now, just to play the game, I have to look into a new video card (and preferably one that's a half-decent price -- I'll likely buy from TigerDirect.ca, as prices are usually reduced a bit).

I don't think I've ever bought a video card alone. I've always got cards with whatever PC I was buying at the time, but I did vow that the last computer I bought for myself was going to be the one I would upgrade.

Anyone reading this have any suggestions for a video card? Any idea if they're difficult to install?

I now have a copy of EverQuest II, which as gamers know is the sequel to North America's most popular MMORPG. I'm just finishing up my work day here, and while I'm doing so, I've popped in the CD soundtrack that came with the game into the CD player in my office, and I've also popped the first install disc into my gaming machine (which I can only hope will be able to run the game -- I wouldn't want to bet on it, though).

While I have no plans to leave EverQuest, I've decided to spend some time checking out the sequel. I only got a brief chance to look at the beta, and it actually seemed kind of cool. It has elements that I don't like, but there are elements that I do like, too. Still, with all the time I've invested in EQ, it'll be hard to give the game up for its sequel.

The house suddenly seems empty. For more than a week, Jacquie and I have been babysitting T, my parents' beagle. My mother stopped by a little while ago to pick him up. Add in the fact that Jacquie was home sick the last three days of last week, and now it suddenly feels like I'm all alone ... which is true. I am all alone (unless you count the two goldfish, who aren't much company, and the two cats, who I don't get along with).

So things are getting back to normal.

I gotta brush up on my Greyhawk geography and history. I feel like a complete and utter fucking n00b.

Is this the return of something not so good to my life? Tonight, I installed mIRC, an app I haven't used in years. I'm right now attending the Greytalk IRC chat, which is a weekly chat about the Greyhawk campaign setting for D&D. I got quite addicted to IRC chat for about three months back when I was in college, but when I realized it was happening, I disconnected and immediately uninstalled the software. Let's hope I'm not pulling stupidly long hours each night on IRC. ... I figure if I just use it chat in the Greytalk room while Jacquie is watching Survivor, all will be good.

BTW, to Matt, who posted a comment regarding Cat: The RPG, I'd like to hear more about your first session with the game. That is, if you're willing to share. I've been thinking about buying it, but I'd like to hear some examples of play if at all possible. :-/

It's been one of those weeks. You know the cliche. You've probably used it. Well, I am having one of those weeks. A feature story that's due on Monday isn't coming together worth a shit, and it's stressing me out. I've got far too much day-to-day work piled on me, as well -- or so it feels like. My day-to-day to-do list wouldn't seem so bad if it wasn't for this damn feature article. I really hate doing features when working on a daily.

Then again, I don't think I've ever been all that fond of long feature articles. I guess I just believe that nobody bothers to read them.

My blogging has been relatively sparse over the last couple of weeks. I haven't had all that much to say, and so I've just kind of ignored it. I've worked on RPG stuff in my spare time. I'm running my D&D Greyhawk campaign this weekend, where we'll continue along the path of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure. The PCs are still in the moathouse, and they probably will be in the moathouse for at least another couple of sessions, which most likely means we'll be dealing with the moathouse until the new year. I seriously hope it doesn't take any longer than that in real time (as opposed to game time, for you non-gamers out there). Everyone will start getting bored with searching the moathouse pretty soon, including me.

My Vampire: The Masquerade PBeM that is set in the City of New Orleans continues, and I'm starting to look for more players. Since the game started in January of this year, I've lost a few players, including two of the original four that started. The pace of play-by-email games turns a lot of people off, but sometimes it just so happens that players run out of time for the game. I've enlisted other players to take their spots, but we've even lost one or two of those recently. Now I'm looking to fill out the ranks with new players.

I think it's about two weeks since I popped onto EverQuest. All of my gaming time has been spent dealing with pen-and-paper games rather than video games. I actually think I'm going through a bit of a lull in terms of video games. I just can't be bothered to play them right now.

I wouldn't have believed this was in production if I hadn't seen it listed on Amazon. Check it out. It's Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies. No shit.

The sour-sweet smell of Scotch whisky touched my nose as I stepped off the escalator. Only a few minutes before, I had signed in at the desk of the Lucid nightclub for the Johnnie Walker tasting event, and I was already regretting my decision to attend. The girl behind the counter had handed me a ticket and a single drink token. Although the token was a cool disc-like item with the Johnnie Walker logo on it, my heart sank at the thought of travelling all the way downtown just for one measly drink.

Rob and The Law were en route, and I so I decided to wait for them near all the swillers of Scotch. It was twenty minutes before they finally arrived, and we all agreed that it seemed like a waste. One shot of Scotch apiece didn't seem worth the trip. And we all agreed that it was Rawl's fault, as he had originally put the idea into my head to go to this event -- and then he cancelled out at the last minute. The bastard.

After a quick stop at the little boys room, the three of us made our way to the bar. With tokens in hand, we ordered our drinks. Rob and The Law both tried some kind of mixed drink that used Johnnie Walker Black Label, soda and a bit of lemon (or was it lime?) juice. Me, I went all hardcore and ordered mine straight. I began wishing that the event had taken place in less trendy environment. What I imagined was a gin-soaked barroom with old men and pool tables. However, what I got was the Lucid nightclub, which is in the location that used to house the Playdium video game arcade (before it went tits up, that is).

As we finished our drinks and chatted, we started trying to make plans. Where would we go after we left this crummy place? We were settling into the idea of leaving when the announcement came that the presentation would begin in a few minutes. Of course, what we heard was a garbled mess, and then it seemed like we were being routed to the exit. Oh well. We were on our way out, anyway.

Instead, we were led to a presentation room. Little glasses of Scotch were everywhere, and a smile crept to my face.

"Now this is more like it. This is what I thought it was going to be like," I said.

Over the next forty minutes, a Johnnie Walker representative ran us through a presentation that informed us about the different types of Scotches, the difference between single malts and blends, a bit of history of Johnnie Walker and how to savour a Scotch properly.

While I can't speak for the others, I was quite content with the evening when we were shuffled out of the Lucid nightclub.

The D&D retrospective book, Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons, is out now, but I haven't purchased or even seen a copy of it (not setting foot in a book store since the release has obviously affected my ability to see it). For good or for bad, this is probably one of those books I'm going to just have to let pass me by. I've heard good and bad reviews of it, but no matter whether it's a good read or not, the MSRP of seventy frickin' dollars is just a bit much for a glorified coffee table book. Even at the reduced fifty bucks at Amazon, it's still about double the price I'd prefer to pay for it.

The Law sent this to me:

One day, Jane met Tarzan in the jungle. She was very attracted to him. During her questions about his life she asked him how he engaged to have sex.

"What's that?" he asked.

She explained to him what sex was and he said, "Oh, I use a hole in the trunk of a tree."

Horrified, she said, "Tarzan, you have it all wrong but I will show you how to do it properly." She took off her clothes, lay down on the ground and spread her legs. "Here," she said, "you must put it in here."

Tarzan removed his loincloth, stepped closer and then gave her an almighty kick in the crotch.

Jane rolled around in agony. Eventually she managed to gasp, "What the hell did you do that for?"

"Just checking for bees," said Tarzan.

The trailer for Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith is now online.

Initial thoughts...

An army of wookiees! Woo hoo! Why weren't they in ROTJ instead of those damned ewoks?

What's with Princess Bunhead?

Half the teaser is footage from other Star Wars movies.

Where's Christopher Lee?

Is that Chewbacca?

How bad is this movie going to suck?

The signs have been around for years that the tabletop roleplaying game hobby is doomed. Players are clearly getting older, and I rarely see anyone in their teens or early twenties hanging out in my local gaming and comic book shops. I see the occasional child, though, but they're always with an adult who happens to be a Big Fucking Geek -- so the kid looks like he or she is just along for the ride (unless they're into buying CCG booster packs, that is).

Wizards of the Coast has claimed in recent years that the hobby is at its peak. It's bringing in more money now than it ever did back during the so-called hayday of RPGs (generally considered to the 1980s, I believe). So revenue is up, they say. I'm sure it is. However, the price of books has more than doubled -- and in some cases, tripled -- since the hayday. If there are just as many people engaging in tabletop RPGs as there were back then, then revenue should be double or triple what it was. I'll admit I haven't seen any numbers proving that either way, but my gut feeling is that there are fewer people playing RPGs now. However, those people are older, because they got into the hobby in the 1970s and 1980s, and they've continued to play.

When those people first got into the hobby, like yours truly, they were young and didn't have a lot of cash to spend on their hobbies. Now these people are fully grown, possibly have kids of their own and more than likely have jobs. Jobs pay the bills, but they also open up the ability to spend money on your hobbies. So these people can buy more books than they could when they were kids or teens or college/university students. However, most of them are probably playing less because they have a job, kids, responsibilites and other things to do. But they still buy books. It's that whole idea of collecting RPGs that grabs a lot of gamers.

As these old-time gamers get older, many are dropping out of the hobby. I know several of the guys that I used to play RPGs with have dropped out. I'm sure there are others. However, I'm sure when I'm a senior citizen, I'll still be running dungeons and slaying kobolds, as will several others. By that point, though, I don't expect that the tabletop RPG industry will even be around -- or if it is, it will be even more niche than it is now.

All I can say is: Too much fun. ... Play Bush Shoot-Out.

Optimus Prime wins the election. Yay! Go, Optimus!

This is just a weird idea for a roleplaying game. Cats protecting people from boggins, eh? What was the John Wick smoking when he came up with this?

Although I'm not participating in the National Novel Writing Month challenge (that is, to write a 50,000-word novel between Nov. 1st and Nov. 30th), I am thinking I would like to do what so many people are trying to do -- write a novel through a blog. I'm just not ready to start it. Perhaps in the new year. Or perhaps next November during NaNoWriMo. Or maybe I'd just like to try serializing a story for shits and giggles.

You know those days where you do something stupid and then feel extremely dumb? I'm having one of those days. Yesterday was my first day back to work and I got dumped on with stories. Somewhere in that mess, I had to deal with my boss about an event -- an event that I believed was happening today. I even got up early to get the car today and was frantically trying to finish things up this morning to go to the train station (the event is in downtown Toronto). As it turns out, the event isn't until the end of the month. That's a big "duh" on my part.

Logan sent me this link to videos from World of Warcraft. Just check out the dancing orcs. Too funny.

It's Back To The Grindstone Day for this hack. After a week of slacking off and doing very little, but I'm back at my desk working for a living again.

Several things were going on this past weekend, much of which revolved around Hallowe'en. Friday night, Rawl and I went over to Steve's and Brett's new apartment (same building, four floors up, one less bedroom) and drank. We picked up a Canadian beer called Red Maple, which is brewed with maple syrup. Bizarre, but pretty good. Unfortunately, the sugar in the maple gave me a weighty headache-style hangover on Saturday, which lasted until mid-afternoon.

Saturday was The Law's annual Hallowe'en party. Last year, he and Beth decided to give the party a theme (that being The Thirties), and it went really well. This year, there was no theme and a lot fewer people. A lot of us just crashed in front of The Law's big-ass TV and stared at Friday the 13th movies all evening. I didn't drink anything, as I still felt I was recovering from the night before, and then Jacquie and I took off about midnight.

Last night was All Hallow's Eve itself, and Jacquie and I just watched DVDs while she went to the door and handed out treats to all the little ghosts and goblins that came around. I hate being on door duty, so I didn't really help out there at all. I'd rather shut off all the lights and ignore the trick-or-treaters than hand out candy, but I think Jacquie likes to see all their costumes.

It wasn't the most exciting of Hallowe'en weekends, but it was okay.