Saturday, February 01, 2003

Miniatures Battle Cry, or I am Arogon son of Alfred

I think I need to set-up a PayPal donation button on this website.

I have been calculating the cost of furnishing one side for my Battle Cry project using Peter Pig miniatures (worst website EVAR), and if I want to create the version I have envisioned, it will cost $98.80 per side. Not counting cost of the GHQ tiles I need for the board itself, or the scenery, which I can use mostly stuff I already own. More or less, all i want is to make two troops count for each "one" in the game, so a foot unit will be 8 miniatures strong, and a cavalry will be 6. Cannons will stay the same, 1:1. I think that will give cool looking units, consisiting of 4 stands with two guys per stand. And of course one casualty miniature for each stand to leave strewn about the field. So there is my dilemma. I think I will probably go along with it just cause I like having these projects, but man, I still need to paint and base these figures after I purchase them.... fun?

All I know is that if and when I finish this project, its gonna be so kewl. My projected finish date is the hour before I leave for Kublacon, which I am pre-registered for by the way!

Rudy - Give me a ring in the morning time, we shall surf and eat food of the Hut placed on the Beach.
The Grand Scheme

That's ok bud, that mistake coulda happened to any of us... although when I read your whole time traveler deal, thought you were goin a little off whack there. Anyhow, today marks the start of the Asian New Year (year of the goat) and already life is teaching us the hard lessons.

Jon, Sorry to hear about vanessa. She was a cool dog. On the lighter side, she is in little doggy heaven. I never had a pet, and I've always remained distant in ever owning one. It's such passing aways that is a big reason for such logic.

It's also disturbing to hear about the loss of space shuttle Columbia. The sad thing is they think it's the wing that they supposedly fixed prior to the launch. I hear somewhere that they have flown over 100 missions over 4 shuttles. 2 are now lost making the approximate ratio of success at ~98%. If I am not wrong with the numbers, I think that's a fearful gamble of life. Is that a loss for man or mankind?

Jael
HEY IM IN GARDENA FOR THE NIGHT HOUSE SITTING LETS GO TO BEACH HUT TOMORROW FOR BREAKFAST PLZ THX
we are not oaks we are hobiks

Well, Rudy's double post vanished, so my comment makes no sense now. Oh well. Anyway, thanks for the Action Team support guys. Nobody likes losing a pet.

Anyway, there is a might amusing site which shows some subtitles from an asian bootleg of The Two Towers. Highly recommended....

http://home.online.no/~gremmem/engrish_ttt_captions/
Revealed at last!

DUDE, RUDY! I CAUGHT YOU! HOW DID YOU POST ABOUT MY DOG DYING THE DAY BEFORE IT HAPPENED?? FUCK YOU TIME TRAVEL:ER!

Why don't you go back and stop Bush from being fake-elected or something? No offense, but time travellers who won't take responsibility really suck!

(...Or is it only me who sees Rudy's post below mine? In which case I just look like a ranting asshole. Not that that's far off anyway....)
bUMMER Maximus

Sorry for your loss J-Mandingo! 'Ness was a good dog- i know she's in dog heaven or wherever the fuck they send dogs- poor thing.
Boo.

Putting down any animal is awful. Even if she did have projectile diarrhea a few times, it's still bad. In my lifetime, I have put down two kitties (Sasha and Amber, no, not Amber Shepherd, or Winter I guess it is now) and I just felt sick. And sad. For a long time. I still miss them. I even miss Sasha's removed, cancerous ears. And I miss Ambers lack of fat due to weight loss from diabetes. I miss everything about them. So everyone pour out some projectile diarrhea, cancer bits and such for our fallen animals.

Friday, January 31, 2003

Best dog EVAR

Well, we had to put Vanessa to sleep today. Boo. :( She was an old dog (close to 14), and was becoming more and more deprived of her abilties and health as time went on. Finally this morning she just sort of ran out of steam and we had to put her down (twisted stomach--which was something that I thought only happened to the Simpsons' dog--was actually what was about to kill her, but she also was fighting off a cancer and bad arthritis). Anyway, she was the best, tall-people-cowering-atest, sometimes-shitting-on-the-carpetest, cat-likingest dog ever. Three cheers to a great dog.

Sorry to be all depressing, but Vanessa was a kick-ass dog and I miss her. Hmm, what else has been going on in my life? Oh, yeah.

Mini-Review: NARC

I saw this movie 'cause me and Janice were bored and I thought that Ray Liotta (No Escape) looked totally cool in the poster. Kind of like my brother-in-law if my brother-in-law were a 6-foot-plus hulking badass with a shotgun, which he is a cool guy, but he is not quite that. Anyway, what I learned from this movie is that sometime Narc cops go BAD. And, if you have a new partner, DON'T QUITE TRUST HIM because there MAY be SOMETHING FISHY going on. He may have a PERSONAL STAKE in the CASE. I also learned that for some reason everything in Detroit is blue. Actually, you could tell it was shot in Los Angeles because, to judge from the constant camera shaking, there were earthquakes going on for 90% of the filming. Also I learned that Busta Rhymes is not too bad as an actor! (Hint: if you ever wanted to see Busta Rhymes get beat up, this might be your movie.) Anyway, final grade is about a C+/B-. It was fun, I like Ray Liotta, it wasn't brain surgery, I wouldn't pay to see it again.

(Note: this movie is unrelated to the video game NARC. I was hoping Ray Liotta and Jason Patric would fight a boss who constantly shot syringes at them, but it was not to be.)

John Wayne

John Wayne fucking rules. I am serious. He is my new guy. I'd never seen any movies with him in them before but at work I've seen several in the last few days and I really enjoyed them all. He's always really sort of cheesy and the same character (even in his earliest movies, when he's only 25 or 30, he's still playing the same roles), but those movies are constructed to be watchable and entertaining and they're really good at it! So, keep an eye out for this new guy, John Wayne! I predict great things from him in future!

Teh Onion

OK, anybody read this article?

U.N. Orders Wonka To Submit To Chocolate Factory Inspections

Ah, goodness.
Dangit Hoodle, suck my noodle!

You're calling out the Riekland Raiders and the Orcland Rams, so were gonna have to rumble now. No yellowin out, unless ur chicken like the stuff they put in cambells chicken noodle soup.... small, square, and stringy. Make your team, No rules. Star players and Big men are fair game, 1 million points, your death. (Oh I have to borrow some big men miniatures)

Take that for conversational.
J.

(all in good humor friend)
Damn Johnny...

Kidding! I know you were being conversational, as was I, no worries!
tired.... sleep

Just fyi, my intentions are purely conversational and not trying to detract from any aspect of BB, because I find something about it appealing (can't pinpoint what yet). Also just to add, I owned 2 copies in my lifetime. soo no harm no blood..

My definition of success was more of an appeal to the mass public sense. Popular successes such as monopoly, Risk, trivial persuit, Settlers of cataan, Magic, etc. Blood bowl is definitely not in this category of success. However, that is not to say that BB did not have it's fanatical following among it's fans and was immensely successful in that sense. As the number of edition goes, 3rd reich had 3 editions, Axis and allies had 2, Kingmaker had 3, most avalon hill games by and large had 1 or 2 editions put on. It's a better indicater of a need for major rule changes and not mass popularity. Revival of the game is more of a credit to the hardcore fans in keeping the game alive than letting it die to the wayside.

The reason why it never achieved popular success, which I think my whole point was that I think it could have, was that it was a collectible miniature game. You only need 22 players to play (the starting figurines) and I guess you can have some fun, but like every GW game, eg Space marines, Necromunda, 40k, Warhammer, you need variety to really have fun. How fun was space marines to play with land raiders, a few rhinos and bunch of infantry? Although granted you didn't need a whole lot like 40k or Warhammer, you still needed, Such as more team varieties, dwarves, elves, snotlings, halflings, chaos, undead, star players, refs, cheerleaders, fans, etc etc. I don't think BB fans likes to buy more to have fun, but rather they need to.

Anyhoo, sleep depravation is good.
J.








Thursday, January 30, 2003

Work Was Poo Today, Hence No Updates

Jael, I must say, I disagree with your assessment of why Blood Bowl is for the most part, unpopular. As far as success goes, it was a successful game, I mean, it made it to 4th edition and has spanned over ten years of off and on production with two full miniatures ranges. My thoughts are that it "never quite caught on" for two reasons. First off, it is a collectable game in so far as you only need 11 miniatures to play, and if you want you can collect other teams. But if you don't want to "collect", you only need 11 miniatures. I think miniatures players like buying more and more stuff for their army to tweak it out and make it extra-hard. That brings me to my second reason, GW realized that you didn't need more than 11 miniatures per player, and stopped supporting it in favor of 40K or Warhammer where you need anywhere from 50 to 200 miniatures to play, per army. Also, those two games re-write their own rules as new armies are released, with the newest army being the most desireable with regard to "spiky bitz". BB, I feel, is a strong enough game, as does the designer, that to release a new team that significantly changes the rules, is not in the best interest of the game itself. Case in point, there is now a yearly review to see which "new" teams and rules become official, and which stay as house rules. That tells me that the elegance of the game is important to the designers, and to the new supporters of the game (Fanatic).

I could go on and on with my BB talk, but I won't. Bottom line, if there is ever a game that both Jael and I enjoy on the same levels, I think you will have the perfect game. Therefore, if we can sidestep killing each other over rules disputes, we should make a game together, cause if we did, it would be the best game in the world and everyone would play it. Even Rudy.

NOTE TO MIKE: Sorry about laggin on the JavaBowl stuff, work has been heinous and I just haven't gotten my shiznit together enough to make the "kit" I was talking about. Say "hi" to Hagrid for me.
Games review column

Hey Oric the network administrating norseman, when are you going to update the games review section? Not that there's a lot of games review anyways.

Here's a review for the agees.

Yesterday, landmarked the playing of the first game of a title named Kingmaker! Since its purchase 2 years ago, it has been unpunched and just shitting on my shelf. So anyhow had a good game with some of the local geekies. It's actually quite an interesting game with a lot of cool concepts. You begin the game with some land, armies, Lords, and Titles (that gives your more troops) and then place the representing markers on the board. You then use the markers to manuever around England to do two things. One: Kill off all the lineage of 1 line and Two: Hold the highest ranking of the 2nd lineage. For those that are not familiar with a little bit of the game background, the setting is during the war of the roses, where richard and edward were vying for the throne. Anyhow, really all you have to know is there's two sides.
There is a subplot, which is a lot more difficult to achieve, but another way you can win is by eliminating all the opposing players forces. Although possible, it is pretty difficult, unless you get careless and divide up your forces, weak enough to be eliminated piecemeal or your just dumb.
A chancy way to lose, but apparently happens quite alot, is to lose by a plague. Upon massing your forces, if a plague lands in the city that you are in, all your forces are wiped out.

The game itself takes quite a long undertaking, and is certainly not a beer and nut game. It requires careful calculation of movement (which is a part I do not like) and planning at least 1 or 2 moves ahead (which is not fun either as it takes a long time and plans can change quite suddenly). Overall, I don't think I will be playing much of this game, and frankly, not many of you would like it either knowing your love for strategic type games. But it does have flashes of brilliance, and definitely a second version from JDP corporation.

Jael

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

I gotta take a piss.

ALrighty. Internet for a little bit for me. Too bad this keyboard sucks the llama's nutz. Superbowl. Snore. HP's driver creation team, lame. Lack of Internet at work, king shiz suck. Today was sooooooo slow at work. It has been a personal task of mine to find a way to put nethack on those computers. So far I have been thwarted at every turn. No CD-Rom. Do'h. No functional floppy. D'oh. USB is disabled, D'oh. Internet is disabled, D'oh. Stupid admin left those computers as dumb as they get. I guess that gives me more time to read books o' plenty.

Hopefully I will have internet at home, albeit slow access.

Elric, rock on with the new nobby hobby horse. Battle Cry will be cool on terraineous maximus.

Bortz

Sickwolf's Masturbatin' Toilet

EDITORS NOTE: This is sent for Johnny, there was another Blogger hiccup... Apologies

Dunno. Maybe it's the whole head cold epidemic going on, but I keep waiting for that toilet to explode or something. But annoyingly, it just keeps jacking off on and on and on, nonstop. Kindof a blueballz letdown. Feels like it should be doing something more. Lousy little pic apps.

This weekend is the Chinese new Years! it's that time again for red envelopes, and pai gow. So if you guys are going to hang out, bust out the dice, and dominoes in honor of the festivities! I wonder if there is a chinese new years parade in San Francisco. I know there will be a small one in Oakland, I ran into it two years straight, without even knowing it was there.

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Sickwolf Too

Yeah, i'm pretty sick too- it REALLY sucks. At first I thought it was just the Santa Ana's making me have some major post-anal drip, but now it feels like a nasty head-cold. BOO.
so very cold

I have that achy back, tingly feeling, headache, stomachache, and general sense of malaise that often is your body telling you, "Get ready for some being sick! Cool party!" How nice of me to hang out with Eric tonight then! I am the greatest friend ever.

I am tired and I got nothin' else to say.

Waffle Lad
work is suck

i hope i get canned soon. Then is party time!

J.
Internet Radio is Poo

So, I've been at work alone these past two days and I found a pair of speakers for the PC. I have been listening to stations on Shoutcast and man, there are some stinky, crap-o-licious stations out there. Motivation enough to get the Action Team Radio back up and running. At least if its crap-o I can blame myself.

But truth be told, Internet Radio is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than FCC regulated radio, aka KROQ-o-shit, etc.
Slamma Jamma

Yeah, I've totally noticed how like half of the net doesn't work! Last weekend a similar thing happened so my Friday Night Internet Party was a bust. :( At least Blogger still wor#@$%^
SQL Slammer Worm

- Work has sucked because of this virus. I have been getting non-stop calls from guests and hotels complaining that our computers don't work. I should just have a tape playing when they call, " it's not us, its the virus that was released over the weekend that is taking database servers off-line. Sorry, you can try later. No, there is nothing I can do about it. No, we can't give you a credit for your inconvenience. Have a nice day."

- As a side note to the virus, here is a quote from an article on CNN about the virus, "SEATTLE (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. itself was exposed to the virus-like attack that crippled global Internet activity last weekend because it failed to install crucial fixes to its own software on many Microsoft computer servers, according to internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press." Microsoft rules. They don't eat their own feedback.

- Virus-like attack? I thought it was a virus...

- Surfin' today ruled. The Kings didn't last night, or this season for that matter.

Monday, January 27, 2003

Football Was Played

- So from what I hear, an American football match was played for the championship of the world. Tampa won, Oakland lost. Terrific. What I watched was boring as hell, and I felt drained and much more stupid for watching it. Great.

- To those who were not present for the new branding of Aaron, his name is no longer Enron, but instead Bobby McOil Baron Killen. So it is written, so it is done.

- I have realized that I need to have a project always in the works that is creative and involves my hands. When I get home from computer work, the last thing I want to do is computer or TV at home, unless the Kings are playing. So I finished painting the BB Dwarfs, and I need a new project. I decided that project would be a miniatures version of Battle Cry. So there you have it. I just need to get started. Why did I tell any of you this?

- Halo just gets better. When you think that it has become dry and boring, multi-player never fails to impress. Ryan, Jon, Bobby McOil Baron Killen, and myself had a rousing game of drive the jeeps in circles, and attack the tanks. A highlight was the group effort to throw grenades at the jeep and blow it in the air to land inside one of the starting bases, and then blow it out again. Good times.

Sunday, January 26, 2003

Super Bowl YIPEE

*Um, not really. Well, I have it on in the background, but not a lotta interest in it. I do plan on having a few beers, so maybe that'll get me more into it.

*Jael- Don't sweat the ladies so much. They don't make NO sense sometimes. I went to a friends birthday party out in PV last night (what a wierd place- I've only been up in PV maybe 4 times ever- bizzaro-land.) Anyways, I met this pretty cool chick when I first got there, but then she had to leave like at 10pm- she works as a counselor at night- Oh well. There were a few more honeys at the party but I was pretty burnt-out from drinking and PV so no love for the rude-dogg. (sniff)