I kinda missed the part about the new combat commander, but yeah that does sound cool. I don't know why, but I have always found that theatre to be much more fascinating. Sign me up for a game!

Enron! Paint your Cryx!

| Nerd Planet

My brother had made mentions of Nerd Planet closing. He asked if I wanted to go and I just told him I didn't have time. The truth of the matter was, that I just couldn't get myself to go in the place. I just would have been too bummed out to enjoy a fire sale. It's never fun to see the local gaming store go under.

Yeah my Xmas was exhausting too. In fact I got a stomach bug on Friday that knocked me out of commission for nearly the entire day. On the upside I also received the gift of 12+1 months of Xbox Live Gold. I am still short one Left 4 Bread game though.

eLzar: KK: Pacific sounds sweet. We'll have to bust some of that action out next time we're gaming.

I still have a heard time watching Tom Cruise in a movie. The entire time I keep thinking to myself, every dollar I pay to watch his movies, something like $0.10 will end up in Scientology hands. And even though a movie ticket is only $10.00, that's $1.00 into the L Ron Sex machine. That's just too much nautical sex for me to bear.

D>M>

I'm back home, thank God. Being home for Christmas is exhausting. I'm really glad that I have the rest of the week off before going back to work!

My main achievements over Christmas Break so far:
- My main in WoW is halfway to 65. Second I hit 68 I'm jetting off to the new continent. Whee!
- In related news, I almost have enough to afford my fancy epic mount, so will be able to travel even faster to places to hit: 2-3-4-shift+2-2-shift+1-6 over and over!
- I have enough money for a new TV now, so I can get a nice 32" or something to replace the loud, high-pitch emitting, heavy CRT that almost killed Enron.
- I got a year of Xbox Live, and a long-ass piece of CAT6 cable, and (I think - it's still at FedEx) a wireless headset, so I will be able to jump back onboard Left Four Dead soon! That game really was fun.

RIP Nerd Planet

My sister got me a gift certificate for there for Christmas, and it's a good thing I used it right away, because as I was getting rung up the guy asked me my name for the mailing list and then said, "You know what, never mind, it's over."

"What, really?"

"Yeah, we're closing on the fourth."

He was really depressed and sad about it -- in fact, he honestly seemed like he was about to cry. Well, it has been a long time coming, but it's still sad to see a piece of Action Team history go down the tubes. Perhaps there will be some glorious sales later in the week!

| ZOMG

Man, really? I seriously looked for you like every other night and never found anyone!

It is still an entirely fun game and I could not be happier with my purchase. One of the best bang for your buck titles out there.

L4D is to action gaming, as Jackass the Movie I is to laughing in movie theaters.

L4D is to action gaming as Baywatch is to bouncing boobs in bathing suits.

L4D is to action gaming as Eric is to amusing.

L4D is to action gaming as Bro Hymn is to skating soundtracks.

I was on stealth mode for like a weekend eric. I switched it back but never see you on. Don't be cheap, re-up your Live so your wife can watch netflix...

and the sound makes my video, you gotta watch it again bro, but PUMP it up

| News That is Fit to Print

- Xmas is over!

- It is cold!

- My month trial to Gold is over, and since Rudy and Jon are on stealth mode, I never knew when they were on to play a game with anyway, so I barely used it! :) :(

- That Rudy skate video is one of the funniest things I have seen in some time. I only watched the first half, and with no sound, but after hearing about the first few seconds from Rudy a few weeks ago, to finally see it made my day!

- I am horrible addicted to a game called Cradle of Rome for the DS. If you have one, and you like clever and horribly addicting bejeweled-ish games, get it.

- Combat Commander: Pacific is all sorted, punched, and collecting dust on my shelf as we speak. Along with all my other games. Except Pandemic which I have played 4 times at work! Pandemic Friday's, baby! The human race is a collective 1 - 4 vs. the game.

- Still enjoying the Left for Dead solo stylee. Good for some nice shooty good times.

- Didn't realize that Joss Whedon of Buffy/Angel/Serenity fame wrote the screenplay for Toy Story! At least he had top billing amongst 3 writers, anyway.

- Got over my revulsion for Tom Cruise and saw Valkryie with my cousin yesterday. It was a good movie and I was nervous and sweating the whole way through. Not like academy award winning good, but informative good. I knew about the plot, I knew about a lot of the tale, but unless the movie was telling a bald faced lie, I certainly learned something about the scope of the plan and just how far it went. Go see it.

| Losing the battle against insomnia...

Just finished watching Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian. It was ok. I think the first one was more 'epic'. Especially the battle scene. Not quite as epic as the 30 minute grind fest of Return of the King.. but close. That cavalry charge in "King" still gets me every time. Hard. Core.

Good news: Company distributed boxes of "Edible Arrangements" for the Holidays. I have to say I was seriously surprised by just how awesome+sex these things are. It came with an assortment of fruit dipped in ridiculously delicious chocolate. Orange slices, apple slices, strawberries and even melon. The oranges were liquid schwartz good.

In other good news, I gifted one of my employees with the emergency phone, so I have that little bit of freedom. True, it was kind of a dick thing to do the week of Christmas, but considering I've had the damned thing for about 5 months straight and he was the only other qualified / trained person to handle it... sorry. It was to the point where I've been working 60-70 hours a week and having to answer the damned phone 24 hours a day on top of that.. I was about to crack and the relationship with pregnant wife was getting strained to the breaking point. I feel a little bad straddling the guy with the emergency phone because I know how bad it sucks.. but, it's his turn to spend some time in the barrel. Hoping to get some other people trained over the next month or so, so that we can start a regular rotation of the thing that doesn't last for 4-5 months a stretch. That's just too much.

In other news.. I think we're settling on "Bennett" for the kiddo's name. I still like Beau Jackson Nikisch, but maybe that's just the Raider fan in me. Heh.

My poor Raiders. =/

Will Al Davis ever die? (Does it make me a bad person that I wanted to write "Please?" in these parenthesis?)

Allllllrightie then.

Going to find some bad late night television programming to lull myself into sleep.

(WHY did they cancel New Amsterdam? That show was AWESOME.)

| my first skateboarding video

so i had a gnarly accident a month or so back when i was thrashin in my front yard. i taped it! im healed now so i also tapes the subsequent comeback. Enjoy my first skateboarding video:

RUDYs VIDEO

| happy xmas (war is[n't] over)

| Mancon United

jr0n: That sounds good to me. Count me in. I had a lot of fun last time and hopefully we will be better prepared to run some 4th Ed action this time. Although, I dare say I have forgotten everything we learned at the last Mancon.

Happy Holidays youz jerks!

D>M>

| Man-jo-Man Conbat

Well, the new year is approaching, and since there has been some interest from several actioneers, I thought I'd throw out the ManConToo proposal and see who is theoretically interested.

As a reminder, the general ManCon philosophy is:

1. Hole up in a businessman's hotel, away from your family and loved ones;
2. Play D&D;
3. When not doing #2, take advantage of the "Manager's Special"

Last time Eric, Aaron and I played D&D the whole time and it was a blast. I bet this time, at least muddily understanding the rules and flow of the game and with some advanced preparation, would be even better! Would anybody be interested in doing this the weekend of Friday, January 23rd?

| Kicked in the Ice Nutz

eLzar: You know, the first time I saw that image I thought to myself, "Man eLzar would find this hilarious." Then I realized I was an idiot and it was your post. That is a sweet set of wheeels. Now if they only retrofitted the car with the secondary "Oh-Shit" steering wheel. That would be epic.

It has been a tad frosty here. After several days of freezing my ass off I decided to do something about the heating system in our apartment. You see, some brain donor thought it would be a great idea to retrofit a thermostat 1.5 inches away from our wall heater. Ummm... is that okay? So the damn thing cycles on and off without doing much good. It sort of gets the job done in mild weather, but when it is 30 or 40 out, it is friggy frosty. So a couple sheets of cardboard, a pen and a ruler and now it's working like a champ. Still not any where on the level with a good forced air unit...

jr0n: Unfortunately, I have to work Xmas Eve so I don't get down to LA until 8ish on the 24th. No poop for me. Boooo....

D>M>

| For Enron

I have been pouring hot water on my car's windows in the morning because they are seriously covered in a thick layer of frost.

Tim Armstrong sums it up best with his lyrics from "Among the Dead":

Let me tell you something about the (Aptos): "it's California but it ain’t sunny (at least in December)"

Strange that he would sing about Aptos in a song, but there you have it. Sort of.

| Hella Cold

It's so cold I have to chip the ice off my balls.

It's so cold peeing on my hands is an hourly temptation.

What are everybody's plans? We'll be at the poop Christmas eve as usual, hope some of you can make it.

I guess I should start my Christmas shopping.

| D. Duck

Oh my god, you guys gotta play this adventure game, Life of D. Duck II. It's so good. All this fucked up broken english and grammar and the art style is this scribbly pen drawing shit. It's fucking funny. And it's actually a really well put together classic lucasarts style adventure - but its just twisted and good. Get it her:
link

| Enjoy This!

Christmas in Malibu. So good but bad.

| Charles Gablickens

Dice... What can I say? In my head, statistical theories such crazy randomization abnormality theories are common place with dice and other randomizing devices. Outwardly, I try to not to bore everyone with such mundane thoughts. So while my mind might be like that guy, passionate about inane details most people don't give a shit about, I try and tone myself down. So if I become that guy as I get older, I give you all the thumbs-up to have an intervention. I will say this: I had no idea some 20 siders were that bad, although eLzar's d20 rolling must accentuate any deficiency of a die. If only someone would come up with an affordable machining process for d20s.

Pump: That is a fine video. Something straight out of your dreams eh? Were you a Labyrinth nut when you were a kid? I know you wanted to be David Bowie. Hahaha

Rude: Yeah the long year between Cons can be quite a downer. On the other hand, it makes the conventions that much more exciting when we do get together.

The special lady friend and I went to the Dickens Fair last Saturday. I was dreading it all last week expecting the fair to be some bunk Victorian version of the Ren Fair. Or one of those lame street fairs with the same 20 crap purveyors you see at every fair. Instead the fair was indoors and everything was heavily themed without the irksome drama dorks. The costumes were cool, the life size props and building facades for all of the stores were all well themed, the air was thick with roasting chestnuts and cinnamon almonds and the purveyors were all related products. It was a lot of fun. We even had a go at authentic absinthe. Not at all what I expected. I really did feel as if I stepped into a Christmas season Victorian London evening. Well, maybe a bit cleaned up. Although they did have their share of "poor" ruffian kids, prohibitionists, seedy women, passed out drunks and filthy chimney sweeps.

D>M>

That dice guy was AWESOME! I want his fucking dice. I miss conventions :(

| On the Other Hand....

If anyone has been unfortunate enough to be subjected to my tastes, they will recognize all of them in this music video. It has all the ingredients close to my heart:

80's pop music
Elfy-looking singers
Dragons
Swords
Magic
Frilly shirts
Swashbuckling
Hot gothy ladies
Hot ladies in leather
Hot ladies doing magic
Hot ladies with swords... you get the idea

SHINE ON ME!!!!!

| Nerrrrrrrrrds!

Makes me glad to be alive in a world with a man like this. Gives me an excuse to buy new sets of dice. This one's for Aaron, I know you will appreciate it the most.

Dice!!!

To go with my gaming theme, a few choice names for Art and the wife to throw around:
Alucard
Bowzer
Gordon Freeman
PC Loicers
Guybrush
Daikatana

I can't think of any good ones. I actually like the name Gordon. So classy and yet sci-fy.

Cool jon! And now that both of our online statuses are hidden, we will maybe be on at the same time for 14 months! Or are we?

Playing the new Prince of Persia - it's awesome. Looks incredible (they went for this oil-painting aesthetic) and it's really fluid and fun. Also playing Fire Emblem DS and it's really good (it's just Fire Emblem again, but that's a good thing.)

Me and Eric about to podcast! I bought a skateboard today and had two gnarly slams already (I fell on the floor - I haven't fallen down in YEARS! I'm all bruised up and in pain, this will kill me.)

Thanks for the heads up Rude! I went ahead and ordered the 1 year (actually it comes with a bonus month! bargain!). I'll sign up my 30-day tonight maybe and the 1 year come the holidays!

Art - can't believe I forgot to say congrats on the new bun in the oven. For names, may I suggest "Furious Styles"? I've always thought Boyz in da Hood was an inspiring film.

| Kewl Pawtty

Rude: I have bought quite a bit of randomness from Amazon. Computer parts, DVDs, stereos, speakers, drills etc... I think I have only ever bought one book off of Amazon. Its nice since a lot of the time you can forgo Tax and if you are patient, cheap or free shipping with super saver shipping. Although, if I can find something comparably priced with a smaller store that has good reviews, I will opt for that just to do my part to keep Amazon from getting too monolithic.

O: You may also consider the following names: Erronartic, Dickish (popular with the ladies), Jacob "Damnit" or Money.

eLzar: Wow, that is pretty crusty. nothing like running mission critical software on a dinosaur. Please say they at least have redundant replacements for each component on that POS. That is not a creek you want to be up without quick swap replacement paddles. Either that, or hope the drivers are written so generically that the OS will still boot on a totally new box. That's pretty unlikely though. What ever happened to working for the Cop place... worse, Police Cop place?

D>M>

If and when you guys wanna go all out with the Gold sub for xbux it's only $38 bucks on amazon for 13 months. You save $11 dollars!

I'm getting all hooked on Amazon lately. I got the Firefly box set and Nerf armor for my DS for super cheap, and now I'm looking at books and all kinds of random bullshit. Late to the cool party, but I'm stoked.

Watched Dark Knight finally the other night, good movie! I can't believe Heath Ledger OD'd after that shit. He was a fucking awesome Joker and holy shit, Eckhart was an incredible Two-Face! Man, rad movie.

| Grats!

- Lil' Art 3.0 on the way! Here are my name suggestions culled from years of experience with proper nouns: Hulk, Fart, Max Powers, P Biddy (get it? Cause he's a BABY, not a DADDY), Batman Theride, and Deuce (or Junior, but I like deuce better, 'cause poo).

- Funny comment read on BGG message board, not sure if it is more funny out of context or in: "Ah, the few but wonderful benefits of colorblindness. I can't think of any others offhand at the moment, but I'm sure the others are wonderful as well."

- L3ft F0ur D34d is so much fun. I haven't played in a few days, and I am itching like a mofo to get back at it!

- I run manual backups for a Unix system at work that needs to have the date manually updated every morning. The copyright on the build of this Unix flavor is 1976 - 1983. It is being used everyday by an insurance company, which sort of scares me. It is running on a 386. To reiterate, manual date entry, copyright 1976, 386.

| Moar deals

Ah, the tail end of Thanksgiving weekend. So sad. And yet, Christmas break will be here soon!

- Art, one thing I am thankful for is that I am no longer in Dallas. Give me the good old, liberal godless commie faggot Hussein-electing coast anyday. I hope those motherfuckers secede.
- Thanksgiving was a smashing success. I was not quite as destroyed as last year (I was literally unable to talk five minutes after eating last year) but it was still pretty devastating on my bowels, etc. Beforehand my girlfriend was fretting that we would not have enough food. Well, nine people basically only managed to destroy about 1/2 of everything we had. Thanks Aaron, Mike and s.o's for all the goof stuff!
- I really enjoyed my 48 hour trial of xbox gold and playing Left for Dead with you guys! It's been a little too busy lately since to set up and play since, but I am going to try and get back online again this week. (I also have a free month from when my xbox was xb0rken.) Enron and played some split screen co-op mode yesterday and had a good time. Splitting our flatscreen in half seemed so small. I still cannot believe we played four-player Goldeneye on Aeryk's 15" TV back in the day. Enron, I think you mentioned possibly signing up for Live sometime after Xmas? I'll bite the bullet if you will!
- Myke has invested a great deal of time and effort in procuring a huge number of Doomtown cards, and then organizing them by set so that you can build decks with the cards available at any given time in the release cycle. I think this is both crazy and awesome, or even crazy/beautiful. We've played this a couple times in the last year and it's still a really good game. I would totally buy in if they relaunched it.
- Denis and Aeryk might be interested in this one: Fantasy Flight is having a pretty mammoth sale and one thing they are doing is fire saling all the AT-43 and Confrontation stuff (they are getting out of the distribution game for Rackham, I don't know what the story is there). So the prices have gone from pricey to very palatable indeed. I'm going to fill out my UNA and Therian armies just on the off chance that we play again at Kubla Con! They are also selling off a lot of Cthulhu card game stuff for really cheap as well. Linky!

| DEALS

Ok, last post, I'm whoring it up too much. Amazon.com's Black Friday goes live at midnight tonight and they have Left4Dead for $20 bucks PC and $40 bucks 360! Enron or whoevers been a holdout, nows yer chance!

Hey, we miss you Art! Glad you guys are doing well and have another kid on the way! Happy Thanksgiving!
-T. Hanksgivington

I didn't watch the Macy's Parade today but this is a pretty funny moment:
Link
Yeah, might seem a little "dated" nowadays, but still pretty rad.

e: Holy Shit, this is the raddest claymation for Thanksgiving: watch - maybe not with family?

I can has Action Team!

Nice to have a day off from work. Navigating two separate family gatherings will be interesting, but let's just say I may not cry too much if we stay longer than anticipated at my uncle's house and wind up being late to the Hyena party at the in-laws.

John in Tey-hass? Whut? Good luck navigating through the enlightened masses of the Southern United States. Enjoy the food, but leave before you start hating fags and colored people.

Left 4 Dead sounds so awesomez. I see videos, personal accounts.. good times. I just don't have the free time anymore for games. Meh. I guess it's good to even have a job in this kind of economy, but the 14 hour days are getting to me.

Anyhow, on to happier Gnuz. We're having a boy! Weeee! We're completely stuck on deciding on a name though. Current front-runners include Jackson, Bennett, Braeden, Westley, Kieran, Aidan, Finn.. ?

Personally, I think we should just name him Emperor Wu-Tang or Chairman Mao Nikisch.

Welp, gotta go start cookin' .. everyone have a good turkey day! I'll try to be better about blogging and checking in. Shit, it seems like life is just on fast-forward right now. It's a blur!

Late,

~O.

| Black Friday Muahaha

One quick deal that's sorta relevant is a 3-month Live Gold card, $15 bucks at target. That's $5 bucks off. No biggie, but hey, not bad. That goes thur-fri.

Staples has a 750gb external Seagate hard drive for $89.99. That seems pretty good seeing as I bought a 500gb drive on sale for about $100 bucks just a couple of months back. You can order it online before it sells out.

Valve is selling the movie posters from Left4Dead, all 4 for $15 bucks:POSTORS
I haven't bought a poster in friggen YEARS.

I'm so fucking tired. Eat some turkey for meh!

Whoa, that's cool music Dennis! I've heard them on college radio a few times - I thought it was Erykah Badu! That's good shit - ah man, I gotta try to go to a show now.

That L4D thing was funny. :) Happy turnkey day tomorrow!

There's a new version of Street Fighter 2 out on XBLA. It's like the total definitive version if you like that game. Looks really good and supposedly the netcode is ridiculous - one of the best for any fighter out there (apparently it's hard to get fighting games down online because of lag, but this one nails it.) I suck at it and have never been a huge fan, so prolly not getting it. BUT, puttin' the word out.

A cool Live Arcade game that came out last week is A Kingdom for Keflings. It's basically a city-building/rts but with NO conflict. You don't fight anyone. You're avatar walks around the world and there's these little dudes called Keflings that you pick up and make them gather resources and build shit. That's it! You basically just go down tons of tech trees and build a little world. Can also do co-op and whatever. Sounds totally lame, but it's really soothing and fun for some reason. If you have a comfortable place to play, it's a fun way to kill some time.

| Still playing Fallout 3

I don't own an XBox 360 so Left4Dead isn't an option for me right now. But after seeing this... So this is what you guys are doing nights?

Left4Dead? Really? (NSFW)

| Embrace your new Cthulhu masters!

Went to a concert last night. Been a reeeally long time since I did that. It was in a small bar in Costa Mesa, the Detroit Bar. It's in a strip mall five minutes away from the end of the 55. They are a Swedish band, Little Dragon. Great band. Been playing the heck out of the cd. Great live show. Best part was that they were selling their cds before and after the show. Got to chat to a couple of the guys. You usually don't get a chance to do that with a band you are really into. So that made my month and totaly made up for the crappy jury duty I had to do the week before. I don't know if any of you share my tastes in music, yeah I looking at you Eric. But give it a look.

Little Dragon

Oh yeah.

Embrace your new Cthulhu masters! Do it!!!!!

| Big, fat, whiner

Played a little L4D last night with Rude. We played the co-op/team game where half the players get to be the infected, and the other half get to be the survivors. You play until either the survivors are killed, or they escape that particular map.

Not knowing how to play, and not really playing any competitive multiplayer online games in years, I totally fell back into my competitive mindset of old, and got really frustrated and whiny about how bad our team was losing and how ineffective I was throughout.

On the last map, I was killed in the first 2 minutes and since it was the finale, I just had to watch the rest of the gang play as there is no respawn point. I was mad, but then watching the heroics on display by the survivors and the sneaky-ass tricks by the infected I found a way to escape my old mindset and was ready to play again!

Of course we signed off at that point, but I just wanted to relate how L4D let me confront some of my gaming demons and exercise them! Hooray!

Because the bottom line is: it just doesn't matter anymore.

I look forward to some possible vs. co-op tonight! See you all (well, Rudy) on the 360 tonight at 9 - 9.30!

That is 2 cool jon! Glad you were able to pick up a copy. Eric's family obligations tend to end around 9pm on a regular basis, so we usually meet up around then when we're going to play. Just send me an txt message or whatever some night when you're up 4 it!

Yes, I will watch A.D. over again sometime soon. I can't believe how funny all of the actors are, especially Will Arnet. That guy fuckin' rules.

| Left <3 Dead

Well, on your recommendations I picked up Left 4 Dead, I figure it's as good a time as any to use my one-month subscription. It's a busy week, but hopefully we can find a time in the next few days to fire it up!

Dallas is a land of friendly, stupid people and horrible freeways. The water tastes like dirt everywhere you go. I was there for my college roommate's wedding and the only reason I went was that it promised to be a crazy Indian bash. All the parts that involved the wedding itself were very cool! There were horses, fire, etc. I'll try to post some pictures later when I am less baked. I woke up today eaaaarly to get to the airport, only to end up missing my flight anyway and having to spend an extra 4 hours cooling my heels and eating airport food and am thoroughly wiped.

Re Arrested Development, the 3rd season definitely is not quite up to the standards of the 1st and 2nd season. There is a tonal shift that occurs that is jarring at first. I think it picks up in the 2nd disc, and there are some classic bits like the Godzilla bit, etc. but it is not dy-no-mite to the same extent. I did notice that I enjoyed the third season a lot more after a second viewing than I did the first time around. There are a lot of number terms in this paragraph. I suppose that makes it hard to follow!

Just finished watching the last season of Arrested Development. The first two seasons were fantastic but the 3rd was kind of a let down. I guess they knew it wasn't going to last, but it just didn't have the same loose feel to it. That long un-funny arc with Charlize Theron. Ugh. The final episode was really good though. Cool show!

| Powered by DiceNutzacleese

The Internet? Real men don't need that BS when they have TexasNet. What more could you want? All the Yeeha patriotism and none of that Democratic freewill bullshit.

D>M>

you're going to move to fucking TEXAS!? You can probably pick some other backwoods state if you're looking for cheap housing and buy a friggen MANSION! For cheap price!

Did you get transferred or something!? HOW ARE YOU EVEN ON THE INTERNET!????

| Luv 4 Texass, by jr0n Peckerwood...

jr0n, what can you say. The place blows and pretty much all of the stereotypes are true. Sad. Anyway, have you bought a gun rack yet? I will be disappointed if you haven't, unless of course you are just debating on which model to purchase. I guess it could be a toss up between the rare elephant ivory model or the high performance gas powered model with AC. Also, I signed up for gold live when I got the Box and never used it. Hurray for lame.

Ahh, I had almost forgotten how sad eLzar looks when he posts. It always give his comments an emo flair.

Rude: jr0n loves Dallas and is looking for an apartment. He got tired of the hemophiliacs up here. I guess they don't bleed in Tex.

D>M>

Blogger ate my post earlier but it looked too weird to just have my face there so I left it. What the hell are you doing in DALLAS!?

| I'm in Dallas

it looks [i]exactly[/i] like you'd expect. I saw one guy wearing a shirt saying "Texas terrorist hunting license". I feel so safe!

| Oh. Cause I wasn't sure... ;)

| Yeah, I got it

| 4 = 4

See, there are always 4 people in the group. Hence, Left 4 Dead.

Not entirely inexcusable, but maybe less so?

| wow

So much left 4 dead love! I really, really did not want to pick up this game, because I also don't like multiplayer games and also don't approve of using 4 instead of "for." but it looks like I might have to change policy! Maybe I'll pick up a copy this weekend..

Enron, you may still have a free month of gold, if you didn't use it when you first signed up.

Oh shoot, I forgot that you just recently got the 360 enron - yeah, you gotta check out Left4Dead - it was rad. We were in these SUPER narrow sewers (like shoulder-width and super low) and eric turned a corner in front of me and I noticed he passed a small shaft above him. I told him "look up that shaft" but he kept moving so when I got there I looked up and RIGHT FRIGGEN THEN this fat zombie that throws up on you falls on me and I screamed SOOOO loud, hahaha. At that same time a horde shows up in front of Eric so he didn't seem to notice but it was a rad moment.

If my PC was tops, I'd say get it on there. I don't friggen LOVE xbox live - it's bullshit that you need to pay for it, but if you hunt around (amazon for example) you can get it for $40 instead of $50 and fuck it, it's nice that it just mostly works. But for now, get the 360 ver to play with ME!

I liked that first season of Heroes but it totally lost steam for me and I couldn't stomach the 2nd season at all.

Edit: Forgot to mention it but it allows split-screen for 2 players on the same machine, so all you guys with gals can have them jump on and fill a slot for the 4-person team also. Whatever - rad game :D

| Keep in Mind

You can always test the service out for $7.99 a month. I don't think I will sign up for much longer than I am interested in this game...

| Zombie Killing Live

There is truly something to be said about mass slaughter of the undead. For whatever reason it brings out the most visceral violence in gamers. Ill have to check that bad boy out. I have actually not been terribly motivated to plunk down on a Gold membership, but since I have Netflix and the 360 now offers streaming movie content, I may buy in since you need a gold membership. Maybe after that I will look into Left 4 Dead.

elZar: Yup, same situation for me. I had a relatively recent AGP card, but an AGP MoBo is not something you want to purchase anymore, unless you are sticking with an old platform and cpu. Such is the way of the industry.

jr0n: You know I never knew what the hell his angle was other than he had a bad youth. Either way, he had three of the following four attribute sets:

1. The ability to absorb other hero's powers.


2. A nasty tendency to kill other Heros shortly after gaining said skills.


3. Generally unpleasant and maniacal.


4. Oh yeah and he had gills, lived in a lake and has a good fightin' game fish.

D>M>

| Addendum

- I also picked up a new video card. Apparently, AGP have gone the way of the buffalo as well. So I have a shiny new mid-low range GeForce 8600 PCIe card. It performs the job fairly well!

- Left 4 Dead: For those who don't know, I have never subscribed to the online service with my 360; I have just not had the interest at all. Rudy swears by it and has found a nice little niche for himself in the online gaming world, I prefer to stay away. Until last night.

I picked up Left 4 Dead, which is a co-op zombie action shooter game by Valve. In a nutshell, there are 4 characters that need to get from point A to point B and perform C function to win the mission/campaign. The first campaign which Rudy and I played through last night basically had us travel through buildings, subways, sewers, and a hospital before making a last stand on a roof-top before being rescued by a helicopter.

The game is so much fucking fun, I can't start to tell you. The zombies have a few different classes like standard, tank, fat exploding guy, long tongue guy, sneaky ninja attack guy, creepy weeping woman, etc. The best part is the AI changes the way it attacks you each time you play by analyzing your positions on the map, your weaknesses, etc to launch these coordinated attacks that are just amazing. HORDES of zombies attacking a la 28 Days later in tight quarters with a flashlight for illumination from multiple directions = riotous fun!

I would highly, highly suggest you pick up a copy by hook or by crook (or by rental or gamestop if need be), sign up for the 48 hour trial online session that comes with it, pop in your headset and mic, and let Rudy and I know. Then sit back, and get ready for a ridiculous, fast, bloody, creepy good time!

BTW, we killed over 3000 zombies during our campaign/movie last night...

| An Evil Bass?

I only saw the pilot episode of heroes so I didn't know the show was that "out there.". Was he the fish kind of the instrument kind? And either way, what was the nature of his supervillainy?

| Schhh-Peons!

eLzar :: I went through a very similar drill a few months ago with my rig. Although, I also had to replace the Vid Card too due to the fact that it's teeth were too long to fit in the new MoBo. While processor speeds have not increased much, I have got to say the extra core and the wider bandwidth in the system buses did have a reasonable impact. Still, it seems that single threaded processing has not changed so much. Three cheers to throwing more cores at a problem. Too bad most applications are still lagging in making use of these extra processing streams. Adobe products run real nice now though. The upside to all of this is that my rig is very quiet now.

Funny that you mention the Wayback machine... Coincidentally, after years of not visiting the site, this morning I was showing a co-worker the persistence of ones presence on the web via the Wayback machine. Even if you remove yourself from various incriminating sites, your still doomed. One more reason to leave all traces of our last names off this site. Could you imagine? None of us would ever be employed again.

Ry :: Hopefully the new Trek movie will be sah-sess-ful reboot of the series. The new Spock actor does seem a bit unsettling. Maybe that is a vestige to his hero character that was just an evil bass.

D>M>

| Success!!!

I was silently running a little experiment here on the blog to see if it would wither and die without me adding my constant inane chatter to the intarwebz, and to my delight, I am officially off of the front page of the blog! I was seriously thinking about putting this bad boy to pasture and letting theactionteam.org slip into the annals of the Wayback Machine and move on.

With the recent flurry of posts, clearly our good teammates are not ready for that to happen... yet. We even got a post from PETER! Speaking of which, I need to put a picture up of that guy, I don't think he has actually ever posted here before?

News and Notes:

- The podcast has been totally fun! I feel like I need to get back into gaming more than I am now if I am going to be a valuable member of the team, and in particular the cardboard contributor, and that's not a bad thing. We recorded last night and it is feeling like we are dialing it in a little bit better; it was more focused, concise, and meaningful than our previous outings (IMHO, until I actually hear the episode and remember all the stupid crap I said that invalidates my previous statement). I'm glad the AT has been listening, and of course welcome any feedback, show ideas, etc. And really, the more people on the show the merrier. Rudy and I sort of jumped on this to just get it going and we both would welcome anyone to be a permanent member of the 'cast, just let us know and we can start playing with the Skype conference calls!

- My CPU went kaput and rather than try and find another one to fit my current outdated MoBo, I picked up a new MoBo, CPU, and RAM. A lot has changed since the last time I did that, SATA is pretty much the standard over IDE, I have a dual core CPU which essentially means I am running two CPU's at the same time, and RAM is cheap as a mofo. One day I will get a nice monitor, but for now I will be the only IT guy on the planet that uses an 8 year old 17" CRT at home.

- Grats about Borst! Perhaps we will meet in the Outlands if I break my 4 week long hiatus from WoW anytime soon. I mean I logged in for a second during the expansion weekend JUST to prove a point about how ridiculous a 775 person queue is on my server. I suppose I was proving a point to myself? I dunno, but I just wanted to do it, and then I pretty well logged off after 5 minutes or so, and never saw a death knight because I was playing around with my level 3 shaman. Nice story, jerk.

- Ireland seems like the place to go if you never have to work again, and all you want to do is play games in view of awe inspiring vistas all day long and then feel like you a part of a D&D game every night by drinking at the local pub in a 300 year old building.

- I am looking forward to seeing Star Trek on DVD. I would have no chance of getting Leslie to see it on a rare date night, so I will wait. We took Wylie to his first movie last weekend, Madagascar 2, and he had a blast!

- Deux Ex Man Con Eye Eye is a definite maybe for me. While I have every intention on attending, quite a few things could happen that would make me miss it were I to commit early. So pencil me in, spirit AND body.

That fuckin' dude from HEROES though - ugh.. he looks irritating (but surpisingly like Nimoy.) But yeah, it can't be worse than the last 10 or so Trek movies, I'm pumped for it.

| New Star Trek

Have you seen the trailer for the new Star Trek movie? It is directed by JJ Abrams and Wow! I think it looks good.

Here is the trailer.

| Beer n' Movies

Joke of the day

"An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says "You're all idiots", and pours two beers."

Seems suspiciously like Sony is being a bunch of jArks: Apparently all Sony Pictures movies titles have switched to Not available on XBox for Netflix streaming, on the launch day of the new XBox 360 service.

Rude: I like the Spock motif. Nicely done.

D>M>

The New Xbox Experience comes out tomorrow although I got into the preview a couple of weeks back - everyone gets it no matter what tomorrow. Pretty cool. There's my Mr Spock avatar.

Left4Dead is seriously the funnest game. Unfortunately it's basically only co-op (or versus) so playing with bots is un-fun and boring. But you can get it through Steam and play on PC for those who don't like Xbox Live. Seriously, so much fun. (1st person zombie shooting game but it's just super thematic and exciting and fun.)

| Going to bed....

jr0n: I think we talked about Man-Con II and I am definitely in. I should have posted it so as not to leave the others in the dark.

EDIT: During a good portion of February I will not be about, so Man Con would best be setup in January for me.

I have been in a bit of a routine lately and not much has been worthy of Blog chatter. Mostly a revised version of Ry's schedule: Pubic Transit, Work, more Pubic transit, eat, maybe a movie or some ass sitting, sleep, rinse and repeat. Other things: got drunk once, stayed up late a couple times, went to the Hollywood Halloween affair since the Castro Halloween event is a dead (Boo!), downloaded some music on the sly, surveyed and plotted an acre of land, played through Portal... Exciting huh?

Rude: That story of trying to pay on an overdue account with a spider drawing is pretty funny. Only slightly less sweet then when Rich attempted to barter with wrench at a Taco Bell drive through. Curb your enthusiasm embarrassing. God they hated him there. All the employees eventually knew him the minute they saw him.

D>M>

PS. Meh? made it into the dictionary. Next step... Fargin.

| ManCon Eye Eye

Salut! Been back from Dublin for a couple of weeks now. Interesting place. I'm not used to this, but I was surprised at how many tourists there were. Walking around I was mostly hearing Russian, German, etc, not as many Irish accents . My sister said it was like that pretty much everywhere in European cities. Did you guys (who have been to Europe) also have this experience? I was also surprised that the city center was fairly small and relatively easy to get around. Big difference from growing up in the mother of sprawls. And so much history. I can guarantee you that many of those streets are older than the United States. Mostly went to museums and a few tours outside Dublin. Went to Newgrange (neolithic burial mound). Nice countryside, great ideas for gaming terrain.

Did go to Northern Ireland to see Giant's Causeway. If that isn't the ultimate in gaming terrain I don't know what is. Look it up! Our bus did a quick tour of Belfast. It too is very compact. Saw a police station that was a modern day castle, it was surrounded with thick, bomb-proof walls. No mistaking what that was. Also saw one of those loyalist murals (guy in a mask with an assault rifle saying you are entering loyalist territory). Our tour guide said it was going to be painted over to reflect the new times.

Not much shopping for me, mostly books from the museum shops. I don't know how big gaming is in Dublin. could not find a game store. Did go to the Games Workshop. They are all pretty much the same everywhere. I did love the food halls in the basement level of the department stores. Lived off kiwi-apple juice (so goood - they use a different pasteurization process, tastes fresh pressed) and roast beef on baguettes for most of the trip. Mmmmm baguette.....

Bought the WoW expansion. Haven't played too much yet. Made a deathknight character. I don't think it suits my play style though (bowazon is in my blood). Also bought Fallout 3. Since my pc is below specs, all the settings are at the lowest. Even then, after running around for too long, I get nauseous. This is how hardcore I am. I'm simulating radiation poisoning. But it's not as bad as I feared it could be. A few nitpicks here and there. But you can't relive old game experiences I guess. This is currently sucking up all my free time, sleep time, eat time, etc.

ManCon Eye Eye sounds like it's doable for me. Count me in as very likely.

Been listening to the podcasts. Good stuff. Makes me feel like I should be gaming more. Sound and editing are very good. I'm used to hearing the crappy podcasts that sound like they used cups and strings. Music portions are nicely done as well. Mad props to DJ HighEnd.

| If that's what it takes...

I'll guest star for sure!

Thanks for the encouragement to check it out, I'm mostly through the first episode and it's fun reading. Like hanging out with you guys except I don't get to respond! I'm up through Rude talking about the World of Darkness. It makes a great accompaniment to WoW!

Oh man, I wasn't trying to be a dick to Jon. It was more a play on the fact I hardly do these meetup things, even when you guys were in town. I'm lazy as fuck when it comes to trips. The going and "there" part I'm cool with but I always hate the long, boring "coming back" parts. But man-con that shit up boys! I'm there in spirit (but I'm really here in boxers.)

Thanks Ryan! Come on it and talk about Scene It or waterpolo or drumming. It's just a cool way to bullshit and there's no real agenda since we're just nobodies.

I have heard yours and Eric's podcast, and I really like it! I listened to two of the broadcasts so far and even though I am not what you call a "gamer" I like listening to people talk about stuff that they are really into. I am not bullshitting you when I say good job boys!

Wake. Teach. Coach. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Creature of habit.

I'm totally going to Man-Con Too right after you totally guest star on our podcast, let alone listen to it one time.

I spent like most of the weekend watching Arrested Development. Oh my god, what an awesome show that I never really watched while it was on. I'm midway through season 2 and totally sad that I'm gonna be out of show pretty soon. God, that whole cast is fantastic. The last episode I watched had a seal with a bow-tie with a hunger for cats. Oh man, that music that kicks in when Gob is doing his shows is SO stuck in my head.. fucking best show, fuuuck.

| Quiet around here lately

Let me shake things up with some earthshaking news: Borst has passed through the Dark Portal. That's right, bitches. Level 58!



Nobody ever responded in any yea or nay manner to my proposal of ManCon II in something like January/February. Good? Bad? Formica?

Gears of War 2 is really good! Played through about 1/4 of the single-player and it's a billion times more solid/fun than the first one. Played some multiplayer last night, and it was fun, but the people I played with were kinda lame. They've got a 5-player co-op mode called "Horde" where you basically try to survive 50 waves of enemies. We got to about lvl 15 and that was hard as hell. We tried to jump into level 19 to try it and that shit was impossible. On "casual" difficulty at that.

Something I didn't know, the voice actor of the main character also does the voice of Bender, ha. Pretty cool.

Real life Office Space, that's awesome Jon.

Bonus Cup: THIS IS FUCKING FUNNY (right panel)!

And then the very next day I got a raise and a promotion, which I assume was for my daring initiative in skipping out on my meetings.

| Irresponsibility Day

I awoke this morning with a funny feeling of dread. I logged in to my work email from home and realized why -- five solid hours of meetings scheduled today, most of them totally worthless. One of them during lunch!

I burned a sick day.

Man, I hate meetings.

Politics

I feel like a huge weight is off me for sure. Yes, the country is still fucked, and in four years we have to go through all this again, but at least for now things are undeniably better than they were a few days ago.

Enron, myself and our respective (and respectable) ladyfriends went over to a local sports bar/taco place to watch the results. We had barely settled in and started drinking when they announced the results. I don't even think it was eight o' clok! Amazing. And a biiiig first for our country.

Although I think I was not as pessimistic about this election as Aeryk was, I also expected some sheisty election fraud, although I thought it was going to come from the other direction. The morning of the election the RNC announced that they were basically going to sue for voter fraud if any counties fell outside expected results. I guess fortunately the ass-kicking Obama gave McCain was fairly well within expected results. And also so overwhelming that there was really no denying it. Still, they gotta fix these goddamn voting machines. They will be a problem in any election that is not a one legged ass kicking contest.

HOPE you motherfuckers, HOOOOOOPE!

And Eric was just telling me today that the election was going to be stolen yet again.

Yeah, I am still alive. Due to the lack of economic goodness, my job may be subject to axing before the end of the year. I have no idea if or when, as there seems to be a dearth of info trickling down.

On the brighter side, Fallout 3 is pretty phenomenal. Bethesda actually seemed to have learned a great deal from the travesty Oblivion. I was worried they would fuck up the legacy of Brian Fargo, and they made a kick-ass game.

I also pre-ordered Red Alert 3. Partly because that has been my favorite RTS series, and partly because the campaign is co-op, which is a rarity that I have not seen or heard of outside of Total Annihilation. But I have not even installed it yet because of Fallout 3.

I'm also playing Fallout 3 and it's good! I also have Fable 2, and that game is incredibly fun also , but they're both very different games. Sorta open-worldy (fallout more obviously) but Fable totally has the feel of a single player WoW exp, in a totally good way. Makes me feel happy when I play it. Fallout 3 is pretty depressing, but I'm enjoying myself and I think it is worlds better than Oblivion (totally more focused), even though some of the annoyances from Elder Scrolls find their way here. It's rad though. In both games, I'm mister good-guy as well - I just don't have it in me to be an asshole. Sometimes I'll be a little snarky, and I kill motherfuckers ALL DAY without them so much as seeing me, but yeah. speech-wise I'm mr. nice guy.

Don't spoil it for me outright Jon, but let me get a little hintage from you. I don't have Dogmeat, the dog. Um, is it something you do that makes him available or will it just happen eventually? The dog in Fable 2 is awesome and totally lovable, so I kinda wanted some company in Fallout 3 as well. But I'm level 8 now, and fuck if I'm starting over - I've done way too many quests.

*******
Me and Eric have been doing our Podcast for a few weeks now and it's a lot of fun. Eric is shy about it (!?) but I'm going to pimp it to you guys real quick, just so if you have some time to take a listen and give advice (or of course, participate which is always welcome.) You can search for it on iTunes: Electric Cardboard Mayhem. Or it's even hosted on this here site: SECRET

I listen to a ton of podcasts so it's fun to actually make one and edit it, etc. It's rough, it's two assholes you guys already know, but it's fun and would be rad to get some feedback. THanks

| Man-Con II!!!!(?)

Hope everyone is well!

Back in August Enron, Aeryk and I rented a room at the Embassy Suites and used it as the location of our mini con. It was really fun, because we focused on one thing (playing D&D) with little else to distract us, and it had a very different flavor from the normal fun of the cons, which are typically less focused.

I think we should do another one, and I think it would be great if another couple members of the Action Team could make it up! Holiday season is pretty crazy but I was thinking that sometime in late January or early February would work out. Would anybody be interested? Basically the idea would be to get a tight focus on one game (prob. D&D) with occasional breaks for free drinks in the "businessman's lounge," aka the lobby.

And when two o'clock rolls around, of course, it's time for rape. (According to EJ.)

Sound good to anyone? How about the timing?

Other notes:
* My proud character, Borst, is now level 55 and tearing shit up in the Plaguelands. Three more levels 'til the Outlands! Whoo-hoo!
* I wish Rudy was still playing, 'cause I could really use some new bags :[
* I have also been playing Fallout 3. Lots of fun so far. My first character was Gandhi's evil brother, Snake Gandhi, who never saw a situation he couldn't punch his way out of. While playing however I had two realizations. One was that I just do not like playing evil characters and can't stick with it. The other was that I was spending most of my time scrounging for junk (coffee cups, plates, etc.) and selling it. So I created my new character, Fred Sanford, master of repair, barter and shotguns. Every time I am near death I shout: "This is the big one! Elizabeth, I'm comin'!" I also make acerbic, yet insightful jabs about race. All in all it's a good game and I recommend it.

| I'll carve a B in yo forehead, bitch!

This campaign keeps getting weirder and weirder! Man I cannot wait for this thing to be over.

So my cousin got married in vegas this weekend, at the Shalimar, which is in a Howard Johnson's. When they made the reservation they were told they could have the wedding either with Elvis or without, to which my cousin responded "man, that's not even a question.". It was pretty cool. Every time the ceremony threatened to get too moving,Elvis would launch into another song. Also, a fat lady broke a pew. You can't ask for a better wedding than that, man.

| Hypnotised then Fucked

Here's my Rock Band character - broke Cobra Commander!

Yes, I'm still alive (barely)

Job is still absorbing the majority of my life force these days. I gotta figure something out with the amount of hours vs. family time vs. bills to pay. Sigh.

On a lighter note, I give you MANLY BIKE FOR SALE

| Okay...

If this guy was running for Mayor I'd totally vote for him based on these images alone. Maybe even as the President of United Zombies of America. But Prez of the US... Not so much.










D>M>

| Get out of my head!

Jon - It's almost like we are living parallel lives! Get out of my head! Were you missing any figures from the box? If not, that lorvely piece of Chinese plastic was ballast. It's to keep people from figuring out where the chase figures are.

1. My dead end job is wearing thin as well.

2. It's illegal for temp workers to start a 401K or think about the future.

3. My sister finally finished college (all other siblings dropped out).

4. I am entirely responsible for the downfall of the guild. I embezzeled the guild treasury to fund the surge.

5. I almost felt bad for McCain when he had to defend Obama from his own pitchfork waving mob. Ah, mainstreet, the real folks. Shucks!

6. I sure hope your brain doesn't melt. I've been trying to jog to loose weight. Unfortunately I killed my knees a few years back when I was a running addict. Need to buy bigger clothes instead.

7. I've been know to use the facilities from time to time.

8. Just to show you I'm my own man. You're not the boss of me. Point eight: I'm off to Ireland this coming weekend. Just my luck, the world is going to hell as I travel abroad. I shall be this country's representative and apologize for causing the coming Mad Max and the Thunderdome economy. I've been doing research and am sad to report that Dublin is not a gaming city. No miniature/game stores to speak of (there are GW stores there, but they're here as well so it doesn't count). Be forced to do touristy stuff. Stupid tourist stuff...

| random sh1t

I picked up a starter box for a new collectible miniatures game from Privateer Press. I guess they don't quite have all the kinks worked out of their process yet because I got a weird block of clear plastic resin, nicely polybagged, along with everything else that was supposed to be there.

RARE CHASE MINIATURE!!!

Anyway it's been a while since I posted, but I'm still alive for now. Updates:

1. I don't like my job, and yet, it is hard to find a different job. What a conundrum!
2. Literally every time I am about to start a 401k the economy takes a huge shit in its own mouth. This also happened back in 2001 and in the late '90s. Conclusion: the stock market is for chumps, saving is worthless, get ready to eat cat food in my old age.
3. My sister got engaged. Crazy! She has been dating the guy for a year but I haven't met him yet since I've barely been home. He sounds like a good guy though and my parents are pretty fired up. Fortunately we are meeting at my cousin's combo drunken party/wedding in Las Vegas next weekend. I am fully prepared to play the part of the thuggish brother. I predict a series of events leading up to a high-stakes poker game followed by tearful speeches and reconciliation.
4. WoW has me by the balls again. Borst is almost level 49 and soon after that, the big five-oh! Perfect timing too because a patch with a whole ton of fun new shit is about to drop. The only thing I don't like is that our guild has really gone down the tubes since our change of leadership. Docnorvell has committed nepotism, banking and other war crimes. That's not change we can believe in!
5. Speaking of politics, holy shit the McCain camp is getting desperate and crazy. They are really appealing to the wingnuts. I caught part of a McCain speech this morning and he kept getting interrupted by angry yells and really hostile sounding chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" I was also struck by how much older and frailer he sounds since the start of this long ass campaign. I used to think McCain was "pretty cool for a Republican" but he has really not behaved in an honorable way this campaign season. Although, let's not forget, for five and half years he wasn't even able to have a political campaign.
6. I have been having this persistent eyestrain and weird visual effect in my field of vision for five weeks, similar to a mild version of what you get if you press on your eyeballs. The first opthamologist (sp?) I went to said he had no idea what it was and I should just see if it goes away. He also yelled, "You could trying Googling it up, too!" from the other room as he was walking away. The second guy I just went to was a little more helpful. He said it's not an eye problem, basically it is either some bizarre, persistent low-level migraine and I should just load up on ibuprofen for a couple weeks and it will probably go away, or alternatively there is something totally wrong with my brain and this is the first sign of a condition that will cause it to melt into putrescent goo. It is funny how the two guys basically said the same thing but the first guy filled me with disgust at his rank incompetence while the second guy inspired me with his medical derring-do. Anyway we'll see about my brain.
7. I don't have a seventh point, but I'm a bit superstitious about the number six so I just had to add another thing. Oh, I know: I need to take a large shit.

Au revoir!

| Equities - Crude oil - I don't get it

Why should this be a commodity that is traded? Should be regulated. So when price of oil was 120+ it was the equity traders pushing the price up? I don't think the demand of oil has changed, in fact if anything the demand of oil usage is still increasing specially for christmas time. Offshore drilling, was that ever the answer.

OPEC has been saying that they were producing enough oil for the world market.

So what's wrong with the scene here?

| Rudy and Ryan's Roundtable Blogcast

I think I found an acceptable name for it!

But yeah, it's cool me and Eric were able to get a cool Skype setup going that sounds pretty great so I think they only thing to do is start taping some conversations.

I listen to quite a few podcasts (mostly video game related, but also Astronomy and Old-Time Radio) and the ones that I enjoy and I think work best are the ones where it's just dudes sitting around bullshitting. If the people mix together well, there you go.

If we could get some of you dudes to call in on occasion, I think it'd be pretty fun (if for nothing else than for ME to talk to some of you guys more than once a year at Kubla.)

The kind of things I'm interested in listening to and talking about are things like DND 4th Ed. I have no group here, so I have to live vicariously through Jon and you guys talking about it. And of course, I'm a video game addict, but boardgames too. Just the sorta shit we talk about when we meet up at the convention.

I'm not a stickler for STRUCTURE and I don't think these things need to be taped so much in a "go for one hour LIVE and stick to the script!" Segments work fine, and that's where I think the whole "everyone's too busy" part can be worked with - Eric can call Aaron up on skype and they can talk about fucking auto-parts (Aaron's expertise!) or whatever. Get Dennis on to talk about painting mini's or whatever goofy stuff you guys feel like chatting about. And then I can slap the pieces together to form some thrashin-AT action/dramedy.

[Holding back tears] I just really miss you guys and want to hear your voices... do you still think about me? [Sob]

| The AT Podcast

Rudy and I have been hammering out some technical details over the past week regarding our new little podcast and I wanted to send out a call and request out the rest of the AT for info and input.

1) Clearly, everyone is very busy. Does anyone have any interest in making time to be a part of this? Right now, R00d and I have been working on it at night from like 9.30 to 11.30-ish. For me that works best as the family is asleep an I can do what I gotta do. Anyone feel like they could possible free up that block of time every so often?

2) Does anyone want to be a part of this in the first place? Everyone in the AT has a valuable point of view to add to a show about gaming (mostly), so don't feel that you don't. Heck, I play less games than anyone on the blog, with the exception of probably Ryan, and I feel I can contribute. Ryan has a place on the podcast too, for sure.

3) What should we name it?

We got our sound quality up to par (for a first podcast, certainly), we got some material and a format, we just need to get started and we wanted to see if anyone else wanted to be a part of it!

Didn't want to speak for you Rudy, so please add/subtract anything you want here.

| OF COURSE

I wanna try skype to do a remote podcast! Lemme know your account name, and I will actually try and search for it right after I post this message!

I have a mixing board and mic here, so I know the signal to you should sound nice if I can figure out what I am doing. My only problem is that I am wireless in the garage, and if I want to talk at a decent level at night, I will need to be in there. Unless we get REALLY serious and I run a cable out my front door and into the garage....

I know the Instance guys have one dude in Utahrr and another in Austin, TX and occasionally someone from France, and their sound is awesome. I also think that they use skype, though I will check their forums to see if there are more details on their setup.

DO IT AND I AM THERE! Can I talk about ASL? *grimaces ever hopefully*

Hey Eric - do you wanna try at some point soon to mess with the Skype confrence call feature? I don't know if it works with the free version (I have no friends to test it on) but I can pump the audio-out of my pc into my laptop which could be dedicated to recording confrence calls - I don't know how sweet that'd sound (I'm guessing "super sweet") but I wanna test it out sometime.

Hey, don't you get 1-month free of the Live Gold membership when you buy one of those things? Add me as a friend so I can cyberstalk you and see what you are doing at all time. My gaymor tag is: PoundRock

We can play the one free game, Aegis Wing together. And then when your Gold membership runs out I'll force you to play Eve Online with me. EXCEL WARRIORS UNITE! (Just kidding, I've been MMO-free for quite awhile now.)

Edit: SPEAKING OF PODCASTS! I don't know if you guys have peeped this one out, but the "Gamers with Jobs" one is really good and I just got turned onto it. Old dudes like us talking about games of the video variety. I guess a lot of gaming podcasts are dudes our age, but alot of those are douchey and obnoxious - these dudes are more mellow and thus eek out approval from yours truly. INSPIRATION! I'M READY ERIC!

Usually she likes games like Braid. She has a few puzzle cutsy games for the DS and she loves platformers. Oh well, maybe she will warm up to it later. Anyway, I like it, so it is definitely not a waste either way. I have been looking at Castle Crashers. It looks cool and seems her type as well, but then again I am batting .000 at this point. Oh well, what are you going to do?

j0rn really likes the Lego games too. I guess he is either a girl or perhaps he set sail for... well you know where. Lego is totally on her level. She played the hell out of Indy Legos on the DS. Maybe I'll pick up Star Wars Legos.

I played Geometry Wars and it is neat, but I got really frustrated. I sort have really bad reactions and so I didn't fare well. Maybe I will give the demo a try and see if I can get past the frustration point. I am interested in Fallout 3 when that comes out. Looks good. In the mean time I will continue to run people over and jump back in time while I let my smokin' wallet cool off.

D>M>

| NEXT GENNN, FRIES, and a COOOOOOKE

Nice work Aaron! Welcome to the next gen of extreme dating! gaming! err.

Braid is cool - doesn't seem very girlfriend friendly - more of a guys puzzle game. Let me run off some of my sweet Live Arcade titles you guys might dig.

UNO - everyone loves UNO. It's cheap (400 points or something?) and if you ponied up for the Gold membership, there's always online games over Live - chicks dig it.

Castle Crashers - It's a beat-em-up sorta ala the old arcade TMNT game but with sorta RPG elements and just the greatest hand-drawn art. 4 player same machine or over Live gameplay - it's a fuckin' rad game, no regrets. (I don't know how gf-friendly it is - try the demo, maybe she'll like it.)

Girls apparently love those goddamn horrible Lego games. I hate them very much. Lego Batman just came out, feels like Lego Indianar Wars. HATE! But girls and their sappy boyfriends LOVE!

Ok, I'm totally boring the hell out of myself, so let me rundown really quick what I've played and generally have mass appeal and are awesome games.

TRY THESE DEMOS:

Ticket to Ride
Carcassanne
Catan
Lumines
Puzzle Quest
Pac-Man: Championship Edition

Prolly not so chick friendly (but my personal faves):
N+
Geometry Wars 2

Ok, I'm going to stop. Egads.

| Dresden & Braid

I read a bunch of the Dresden files books last year. They were perfectly suited for reading material during my commute to work. The books are light and easy to set down at anytime, which was ideal for Muni commutes due to the typically large number of distractions and interruptions. Usually, when I am on my way to work or on my way home from work, my brain is a little slow, so it worked out real nice. The books were predictable, somewhat cheesy and a bit of a guilty pleasure, but good for what they were.

Last weekend I decided to throw down some bones on the refresh of the Xbox 360 Pro, 60GB, and the new lowered price. I finally decided to move to the next generation console and put a fork in the GameCube and PS2. So far I am pretty happy. I picked up GTA4, of course, and an XBox live game called Braid. Braid is pretty cool. A little puzzle solving platformer with a pretty neat theme. Although, I thought the gf would be more into it. She likes the theme and the music, but the puzzles sort of irked her, which is odd. Either way I think it is a well designed game. There is an interesting feature that enables you to move backwards in time to undo mistakes and to interact with some objects that are unaffected by the time reversal. In some cases the puzzle can not be completed without some time shifting. jr0n I think you may have mentioned this game recently to me.

D>M>

| Warhammer Online

I have heard mixed reviews, as is the case with anything, but hearing your opinions are certainly more useful and interesting to me than from other sources. I THINK I know your opinions on PvP and groups and all that (I think you don't care for them), it is telling that you don't seem displeased with the heavy emphasis on PVP in WAR.

I don't really like PVP WOW style either, infact I have exactly 5 PVP kills in Docnorvell's lifetime. I was turned off to WAR because of the heavy, almost integral, PVP elements to the game. Then other bits I heard described the PVP as so essential, it was almost like a PVE with smart AI, and it happens so much that it has a different feeling than WOW PVP which reeks of everything that Enron says is bad about WOW - n00b calling, swearing, childish antics, min/maxing, etc.

WAR sounds more and more interesting, but since you are probably going to pass due to PC restrictions, I will probably pass as well and see if I can ding 64 with Doc before Wrath of the Lich King comes out and I am depressed because not only have I not hit 70, but now I have to hit 80!

But still, it is Warhammer and I have always liked the World, no matter how cliche and derivative it is, it still is embedded in my DNA to some extent. At least 3rd edition WHFB, WFRP, and Rogue Trader is, the new stuff not so much. Very tempted....

- RB Update: So I am playing an 8 song set for what I guess is my album deal or something, and I rock the crap out of the first 6 songs, and then they spring Painkiller on me. Not a problem normally, but I was so fatigued by that time I just could not get past the ridiculous solo part and failed 4 times in a row, losing 200k fans along the way. It is currently on pause with the TV turned off in the garage.... will... not... admit... defeat.... Will report back if the Red Rings of Death greet me when I return to my home tonight.

- Started reading the Harry Dresden Files at work. About 20 pages into it and it is a fun, light read so far. Just finished reading World War Z prior, and I swear to goD there is a game in that book just screaming to be realized. I took copious notes along the way as to how it might work, so we shall see.

- Added an RSS feed (finally) to The Action Team, so I can now read all the non-existent new AT posts from my Outlook at work! And you can too with your cool iPhone, freeware, non-MS product, cooler than thou, RSS readers too!

So I've had Warhammer Online for about a week now. Unfortunately my pc is below specs, so it runs choppy, freezes up and looses terxtures regularly. I can't even run the intro movie properly. I would have to get a new computer if I really wanted to immerse myself in play. Probably going to cancel after my free month play expires. If I upgrade my pc maybe I'll come back. That said here are my impressions:

It is focused on PvP play. Given the background it makes sense. If I understand it right, one could capture enemy cities, affecting access and such for the opposing side. Makes the world feel more dynamic. If you want solo/exploring adventures, I'm not sure how much they have for that.
Tome of Knowledge: basically a stat/achievement database. You get achievement rewards like Xbox games and keep track of every monster, kill, loot and quest you've encountered.
I've only made it to about 9th level, but so far the world doesn't feel as big and expansive compared to WoW (physical area).
I need more time with crafting.

Denis like:
- PvP better intergrated into the game and maps.
- Public Quests - as soon as you enter the area, the quest pops up. The quest cycles, so one could come to it at any point. rewards are given (provided the quest is completed) depending on amount of participation (amount of combat). The problem is that you have to be there prime time when more people are doing the quest. You can't finish these by yourself at 4 am (booooo).
- Dark Elf Witch Elves!

Denis don't like:
- Chaos warriors and marauders can only be male. You only worship Tzeench right now. Maybe the other chaos powers are for the expansion.

| Nose

- So I am getting over sinusitis by nothing more than faith healing. Yay for me.

- And as much as I would love to put Wylie in a cool costume for Halloween, I think we are gonna stick with the skeleton pajamas again. He is becoming fairly particular with what he wears, so anything exotic (particularly things as crazy as a ballcap) won't fly. I guess I could say he is going as Glenn Danzig?

- RB Update: I finally failed out on the Testament song! It is a WAAAAAAAY different recording than I am used to so it totally caught me off guard! Hooray! I then followed that fail up with failing the ridiculous grindcore song! It is like the Dragonforce song from GHIII in stupidity (at least as much as I saw of it).

- The 4e DM's screen appears to be really useful. Not that I will ever find out just how useful it is, but there you go.

| My baby's a LARPer

Hey Eric - I see you don't have the Flawless Drumming or Solid Gold achievements yet in RB2. Go download the free song by Stephen Colbert.
Stephen and the Colberts - Charlene (I'm right behind you)
It's short, pretty funny, and easy to play. DL that shit!

Yeah, vocals are scary. I've only tried it on my odd day off when no one in the neighborhood is around, and I'm still too embarrassed (and it's hard as shit.)

| Is Sarah Palin a gamer?

Just a heartbeat away? God I hope not.

Wait, what do computers have to do with that video Ryan? Is that shit not real!? Did they piece that together from his Ghandi performance or something!?? o.O

Ben Kingsley as Ian MacKaye.

Pretty rad. I wish I was better with computers I would totally do things like this.

Yeah, Rock Band is not much of a challenge when it comes to the guitar. You are 100% right that they're more for party gaming/fun; Guitar Hero is the series you play when you are an expert shredder. RB2 is slightly harder than RB1 I guess but still, I haven't failed out of any songs yet (although the solo on Man in a Box was pretty tough). I'd honestly stick with drums for single player.

Rude, you HAVE TO go back and beat that final level of Braid! It's really not that hard, certainly compared to what came before (you just need to do things as fast as possible) and has a VERY cool ending. Then you gotta go back and get all the secret stars! Including the one that takes 2 hours to get... /sob

| Rock Band: Degraded

From a purely solo studio musician guitar players point of view, the guitar experience of RB is getting stale for me. I think the root of my problem is that the songs in the game are better suited to be played in a group/band format and are designed to be enjoyed as a party-style experience.

Sure, playing Eye of the Tiger was novel as the first song and got me fired up to play the game because I was eager for the experience of RB. Playing it again as a challenge set instantly became boring because (for me) it is mind-numbingly simple and repetitious. This simplicity problem spans almost all the songs I have encountered so far (I just played through the songs in Dublin and London last night).

There have been a few songs that are just so much fun to play despite their simplicity (Journey, Jimmy Eat World, for example) and I totally get into the song I forget it is actually boring from a gameplay perspective. The real problem is that so many of the songs are boring in their own right, that I can do nothing but focus on how boring they are to play and how much I wish the song, or my life, would end so I could stop.

I see the songs as 2 things: puzzles to figure out and conquer, or good-time simularockstar experiences. If the song sucks at both, then I am wasting my time.

AND ANOTHER THING, I d/l'd a few metal songs to sort of beef up my challenge level (All That Remains pack 01, Machinehead, Devildriver) and beat all of them on my first go at expert. I am not tooting my own horn here, I am just concerned that the game as a guitar game for me is possibly dead because these songs are rated 5 star difficult on guitar, and I didn't fail out on any of them.

All this being said, the story MOSTLY changes completely when looking at the game from a drum perspective. I have muted the drums somewhat and moved the kit to the garage so I can play at night. I think I will give the game one more night to impress and challenge me on guitar and if it is akin to grinding murlocs for a random drop, then I may hang up the axe and go all drum all the time.

I have been thinking about singing some songs too.... *shudder*

| Pitch Black 3: Chronicle for Leibowitz

The world with the rings in Braid was the only place I had to look up a solution as well (and I HATED myself after for doing it.) I never beat the "braid" level at the end, but someday I'm sure I will.

Did you pick up Castle Crashers!? That shit is fun as hell.

Rad, didn't know there was a new Stephenson book out. I'll def track it down.

Hey Ja-El! Sorry we missed you last weekend.

We picked up Rock Band 2 as well. So far, a good time, although we're only a couple clubs into the game. Eye of the Tiger is super fun to play on Expert!

I had a weird day. I've been having a lot of eyestrain lately, so I went to the doctor this morning, not realizing that they would end up dilating my eyes and therefore I'd have to end up taking the day off. I ended up sleeping until 2:00, waking up to eat some chips and salsa and then falling asleep again. Feels like college or something.

Things I've been enjoying lately:
- Braid. Really fun, I only looked up the solutions to a few puzzles at the end (ring world) when I got sort of exasperated. I also looked up a story guide after completing it -- wow, all that stuff went totally over my head. Good moody game.
- Warmachine. It has been enjoying a mini-Rennaisance lately. So fun!
- Descent. We're finally nearing the end of our epic campaign. Saturday's session was actually one of our most fun yet, way better than the last one (which kind of turned into a festival o' defeatism on the part of the non-Action Team players). I think the odds are in my favor as the evil Overlord, but it feels sorta close.
- Anathem. Neal Stephenson's new book. Very strange sci-fi novel taking place in a convent in an alternative universe. It's good to read something sci-fi by him again. Like his recent books, slow to get going but really interesting once it does. Kind of reminds me of Chronicle for Leibowitz.

| RBI 2

For Eric's eyes only: Go into the game modifier screen, enter a special code, and all 84 songs will be unlocked instantaneously. The code happens to be the same unlock code from the original Rock Band: Red, Yellow, Blue, Red, Red, Blue, Blue, Red, Yellow, Blue.

Boom.

Yeah, I got it too and it's pretty neat. Kinda wish I had friends to play this shit with (or real life friends who use Live /emocry) but as a solo jammer it's pretty thrashin. Some awesome songs, some fucking horrible songs, it's got it all.

The first song you play when you start the game is Eye of the Tiger. How fucking awesome is that!? And then I just played ALive by Pearl Jam - pretty neat.

I made my guy look like a broke-ass Cobra Commander - I'll take a pic one of these days soon - it's pretty funny.

Damn Johnny, only here till the 20th!? I was hoping you were here for a couple of months. Well, I'll catch you next time - give a good headsup if you have it.

| Rock Band Deux

- Picked it up yesterday, and forgot how much I dislike the RB guitar controller. Not enough to buy a Guitar Hero one yet, hopefully the Guitar Hero World Tour Controller will scratch that itch. My 30 second review is that the game is good, so far the songs are good (Anyway You Want It - Journey being the most fun song to play ever), and the ability to World Tour solo and switch instruments is a mixed bag. It is great fun to do the 'roleplay' aspect of the game, but the downside is the whole random setlists where you get stuck playing the worst songs you hate but need to play like 5 in a row or you fail.

Another plus, you can import all the Rock Band 1 songs into the game! Huzzargh!

All in all, a super sexcellent game and purchase that will have me playing the one man studio musician in my garage for a long, long time. A good, solid game for fans of the genre.

- I really don't like the guitar at all. As I type this, my fingers and hands are reminding me of how old I am and how playing long sessions with a crappy Rock Band guitar will fatigue and hurt after a while.

- Hit level 63 with Docnorvell a few nights ago! ABBBOOOOOSCHHHHHH!!!!! Also, got to play with Kasiopaeia for a little but a few nights ago, haven't seen her since, and have yet to see Borst, Blurst, or Fashionista, but I am ever hopeful!

- Picked up this little game called How to Host a Dungeon (look it up on BGG). It basically is a set of processes and flowcharts that creates a dungeon over time. So it starts when the ground was solid, then throws in some reasons for anything to want to settle there (mineral deposits, etc.) Then sort of simulates and builds civilizations year by year until they fail for whatever reason and leave their dungeons behind only to be settled by another civ for different reasons later. You basically draw a representational map as you roll some dice and add some fluff. In the end you have a dungeon location that is there for a reason, and has a history. I have played it a little it at work, but it needs some space and uses counters for certain parts so I have not gone too far into the process. I think it was a $5 pdf download. Check it!

Just arrived bro! but my trips fairly short, from the 10th of september, and will stay until the 20th. It's already been 2 nights and time goes so fast.... feels like the weeks gonna go by really quickly. This last weekend, I wanted to go gaming in SF with the action team, but my brother decided to fly in from New York for the weekend, so I'm hanged out with him instead. Will probably buzz Aaron again sometimes this week to at least try to hang out and chat for a bit.

When can you make it down Rude!? You can stay in my house/apartment if you don't have other plans. Call me if ur seriously thinking about scooting up here.

*- Edit: Hey, sorry for the late post. I actually typed the above this afternoon, but then about halfway through, I went out for lunch & shopping for a new cell phone. Trying to get a 8700G Blackberry (older model).

So yeah, let's get some strippers in SFO. I don't know if Jon or Aron would be up for such an endeavor, but I think it would be great!

| More Eric's Kid Halloween Idears

Link although I posted the cutest 2.

How long are you in the Bay Area, USA Johnny!? Maybe if it's an extended visit I can pay a vist to up there!

Hey Enron-
Saturday is cool. I'm pretty much up for any cool game/s. Except probably long campaigns and stuff, since theres no way we'll get past the first epic orc/goblin battle. I tried dialing the 415-xxx-xx33 That's the number I called you on, but I'm getting a disconnected message. Let me know where to go. My cells been disconnected, but the house number you have is still correct.

Anyway, gotta run, - see ya soon.

Johnny

| Gamin'

jA-El: Welcome to the new world of struggling American air carriers. My experiences of late, outside of Virgin America, have been less than stellar since they started cutting costs and services left and right to make up for high fuel prices and a sagging economy. Boo...

jA-El, I believe that jr0n and I will be getting together with a couple other gamers this Saturday @ Noon. Come visit! As far as phone numbers, jr0n's has changed. Mine is still the same though. Do you still have the same mobile number? The 510.xxx.xx55? If not are you with your parents at 510.xxx.xx93? I'm still at 415.xxx.xx33. Lemme know if this doesn't help.

On a whim, the special lady friend and I went to see Bad Religion play at a small venue in SF on Wednesday night. I still really like seeing them in concert. They played a good mix of classics and newer songs, although if it were up to me they would have played more from the early days. On the downside, I was a total turd at work yesterday. I was so beat when I got home last night I fell asleep at 8:00pm and slept the night through.

D>M>

My 70th level pally would rip through the baby Murloc!

jk jk... in game


Bay Area Residonts ...

I tried calling some of you but none of the numbers are any working anymore! Got milk? I just got back in town last night, what do you guys do for fun these days, besides work/sleep/work? That seems to be what I do most of the times anyway. My flight was unusually smooth, no delays, didn't get checked, got to ride first class (award points courtesy of my wonderfully generous brother). The only complaint I had was the lousy service of United and Northwest. Not a lot of smiles and only tried to do the bare minimal amount of servicing. Came around 1 or 2 times for drinks, etc. It just felt like the bare minimum that could have been done without the customers complaining that the attendents weren't doing anything. The chairs reclined to a whole 180 degrees horizontal! Wow.

Anyway, any plans on the weekend? Let me know if there's any home-brew gaming conventions going on in town. My preregistrations in the mail, but could have gotten lost.


Jett

| wiley's halloween costume 2008

fyi that's a murloc costume.

| Roll call?

Monkey puts his finger in his butt, smells it and passes out.

| Anarchy Burger!

Hold the Government!

~LOL

test... :'(

This election is insane. The DNC was pretty cool - Biden's and Obama's speeches were great. THEN fucking McCain brings out a pretty hot braud for his VP. Holy SHit. The drama.

| Smoke and Mirrors

I think Jon is full of smoke and mirrors. I have checked the wowarmory and there are only TWO Blurst characters, and neither of them are Draenei....

Hey now, I actually listen to a WoW podcast too, haha. Legendary Thread - it's one of the 1up.com ones and I'm pretty gay for most of their podcasts. I just meant what got you to start playing the game again after all this time - cool you're digging it though, it'll go down as one of the greatest. I played for a lot longer than you lot after the initial crew fell off and probably burnt myself out from that point.

I gotta reiterate: Castle Crashers is one of the funnest fucking games. www.castlecrashers.com/ (It's slammed right now, but later on check it out - 4 player same machine or over live or mix n match - super funny and cute and fun. It's MY WoW dammit!

Dude Eric, I'm down for some Podcastin' maddness. I guess the big bummerness is that I'm down here and you guys are up there - sucks! Doing it over skype or whatever probably isn't very viable. Too bad. :(

Tiger Woods PGA 2009 is kinda weak. The demo was fun but renting the full game, not so fun. I'm like +17 on the tour right now. That's just ridicolous. But you can put your face in the game, so there's this freakish spore-creature thing that sorta looks like me playing golf. Or gorf.

| Not Obsessed

It's just sort of what I have time to do anymore. Wake-up, get ready, family time, drive to work, work, drive home, family time, 15 - 60 minutes of WoW, bedtime, rinse repeat.

I don't have a weekly game group, I get to SF maybe once every month and a half, and that will be much less now that I am a 7.30 - 6.30 guy, and I really have no local friends up here.

It's really just what fits my free time schedule, and I think it is interesting to simply listen to people talk about things that interest me, even remotely interest me.

I totally love you eric, don't get mad, but I gotta ask, where did this totally random wow obsession come from , YEARS LATER!? I don't mean that in a snarky way like "oh, welcome to 3 minutes ok" but like I thought the glory days were pretty much done maybe after that first year or so and the group at least kinda quit playing. Yeah, rad game, but personally I can't imagine going back. What made you go back to it?

Castle Crashers released today on Live - sounds friggen rad. Great art-style, 4 player same machine co-op or over Live. Beat-em up but with RPG elements - I can't wait to get home and play - hearing great shit about it.

| The Blurst of Times

Ah, nice decision with the Russian Goats from Space! The worst thing about playing the Draenei is their stupid-ass home city. I hated that place. I will try and log on tonight and see what's cookin'. Same server? Dalaran, right?

So, I am working 29 miles from the house in Gilroy these days which leaves me plenty of time to listen and explore (by necessity) podcasts, as the radio is burnt, and music is burnt too. I have discovered quite a few good ones which I will inform all of you here about.

- The Instance: A really good and well produced and supported WoW podcast. Lots of interesting information about WoW in an interesting format. From listening to the show, I am pretty much only scratching the surface of what the game has to offer, and I still feel like the game is rather rich and fulfilling. Raids, dungeons, pvp, guilds, arenas, equipment sets, supar rare pets, etc. Wowzers. And Curt Schilling is a regular on the most recent shows! Also, from the Rudy standpoint, one of the guys is in Texas and the other is in Utah and the audio quality is perfect with no lag. So it totally proves that it can be done. I wonder if they are using their guild ventrillo server and just balancing the input levels and mixing it all down.

- The D6 Generation: Three dudes that really like mini wargames. They all started as Warhammer 40K lovers, and have migrated to mostly Warmachine. One of them has a Golden Demon, one ran a game store and website called "Dakka Dakka" that only sold and supported GW stuff, another has been published in White Dwarf for his modelling skills. Whatever. They mostly talk about and discuss Privateer Press vs. GW from different standpoints; business, fun, cost, etc. They also discuss gaming in general and in later episodes regular board games, etc. Interesting talk to listen to.

- 3 pretty good wargame podcasts. Point 2 Point, the Sound before the Defeat, and The 2 Half Squads (ASL podcast).

- Puck podcast. Weekly NHL show by two sports writers for fun. They do a really great job, handle the show rather professionally by having sports writers from different markets interviewed on the show, and talk about all the different teams in the NHL. One is a Kings fan, and the other a Ducks fan, so that is a fun element.

So there you have it. No one needs to listen to podcasts because everyone that commutes on the Action Team takes the train so they can read or play games. But if for some reason, someone out there wants to listen to some 'casts, check these out!

Certainly makes me want to have a show every time we get together. As long as we have a brief outline, we could pull it off and people would listen to it methinks.