1000 buffalo stampede

Yes, nothing very impressive today. Work, work, and some more work. On the positive side of things, I got to do a Red Hat 9 install on a P3 today. It went smoothly. I can see the improvement that linux distros installations have made in just the past year. Much more sophisticated. Then again, it’s a P3. Eh. Managed to put in another hour just now at virtual work. The new VPN client on my work machine finally manages DSL, so I can just pop it into my router and in I go. Now, my work laptop is a Thinkpad T30. A very nice machine. It certainly feels durable, if nothing else. But my preference at the end of the day (literally, as well) is my Powerbook. All the coolest superheroes and supervillians use Macs. It’s a given. Or Linux. Well, I got both baby! You hear me, John! I got both!

In other news… picked up the Wilderness Beastiary for Mechanical Dream. Whoa. It’s definitely a lush, landscape size, mostly full color painting whoa.

It’s not very yellow anymore, is it? No, it ’tisn’t. I looked at it a bit more and decided that while I like yellow just fine, I just didn’t like it in a blog. Nrrr… make that, my blog. There. So, I figured I’d try something monochromatic.

Hmmm. Did I mention the change in the name of the blog? No? I thought I did. Well, it’s up there.

There’s a thought. hrrrrm indeed. After some more consideration, I think I’ll sleep on the new site. Figuratively. I like the color and simplicity, but it needs a splash more of something or another. Oh well, won’t push it too far in one shot. Good to have gotten this much done (even if “this much” is simply the redesign, coloring, new site name and such or another. I’ll have to whip up a background with Painter, I think. Add a touch of organic to the page.

Well, I’m on to play The Allyn tomorrow at Fight Club. The game of choice will be IK War Machine. Hope springs eternal, but I don’t have a good track record against ol’ Allyn. Not a good track record at all. Regardless, should be a lot of fun.

Nice to have the music collection all stored right on the Powerbook, I’m finding. iTunes is a very well developed program – it lets me access my music in ways not really (or at least easily) achievable before. I’ve now got an “Underappreciated” playlist, a result of reading Derrick Story. And a quick drop of an Applescript and I can easily declare that I’m listening to “Native Son” by John Hiatt on the album “Walk On” as I write this. Continued development of the new three-way GMed game with Anthony and Ben. And the super-secret writing project I’ve accepted.

Well then … that D&D 3.5 launch event was interesting enough. I arrived at Endgame and there are five players signed up and ready to game (I was not late – I was, in fact, early). All of them in high school. I’ll say this, they were very enthusiastic about their gaming. Luckily, my prep had been ” Three Days to Kill ” – The Rev and I kept them fairly well amused. 3DtK has a main scene of a tactical nature. Much action and combat.

Understand that the last time I ran for kids in high school was when I was a kid in high school. It was an interesting time. They seemed to have a lot of fun, and said as much.

Of course I killed one of those PCs. It was at the end of the climax. He was warned. He failed his Saves. He bit it. That’s how gamers learn. I believe I’ve done my part to educate the new generation.

The site’s finally, finally back up. Finally. Sheeesh. Had some problems connecting properly from Kinko’s for one reason or another. Last night’s updates came through fine at work today, although not from home last night. Seems the new nameserver finally caught on. Bought D&D v3.5 today – figured why not get the Monster Manual, but get the other two? Gotta shelve the old ones back in the library. The new ones have a nice new feeling, but with the same basic look and art, they feel like an old friend.

Got battlemaps for tomorrow’s 3.5 “launch party” at Endgame done last night with Taipan’s help. Printed up the sheets on laserjet – just need to fill them in tonight, using the new PHB. “Official” 3.5. Heh.

In other news: Apple releases Soundtrack. That’s what I call a pleasant surprise.

Tapping away on the Powerbook between reading up D&D 3.5. Prepping PCs for tomorrow while playing around with some web design and surfing. And the Apple Music Store – some new jazz playing right now: “Desafinado (Off Key)” by Charlie Byrd & Stan Getz on the album “Jazz Samba”.