Random thoughts

Happy Birthday

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:24:52 GMT

A very happy birthday to keyla87
I hope you had a great day.

~Patrick

Weekend in Review

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:01:33 GMT

Ok, so normally I do a day by day review of the event, but I've come to the conclusion that I honestly don't remember what I did on Friday night, so I think I'll just go over highlights.

This was my first event staying with Westmarch, and really my first full event as a member of the team. It worked out well, at least that's my opinion, they could all hate me at this point, although I don't think they do ;-). Switching teams made me a little bit nervous, I like my routines, so changing them is hard, but the group is a good group, and they made it easy. I'm also wary of new sleeping arrangements, even if you're friends. Other than that I can confirm that the bunks in Cabin 14 suck just as much for my hips and back as the ones in 13 do, it was nothing to worry about. Saturday night I had a really good discussion with Cadoc and Rose about various issues, while the rest of the group was out pulling shifts. It was nice to be able to articulate some things about my character that I wanted to, and it was nice to be able to do it in the Cabin where it was quiet and we weren't being distracted left right and center.

Mod wise, I think my best one of the weekend was the Westmarch quest one. It was a tough fight, but the group worked well together, even when both of our main healers were thumbing through pages of history for answers to questions while fending off quest haunts. I felt like I contributed as well as I could, got off a bunch of spells even if most of the bigger ones got returned by the big baddy. I'm not a good combat caster, I'm too indecisive, and always have a running debate in my head over whether to chuck damage or save for protectives and awakens and releases. Either way, it was a good fight and it was nice to have a good solid fight with the team.

The big Montesque field fight was odd. I know we had "Half an Hour" to prepare, and were warned that it was a "call in all your favors" kind of fight. But it still seems like it was set up to be a long shot to win. As it was I nearly Rezzed if Havalok hadn't tarried me. It's my general dislike of recycling monsters that swing for Death, or Paralyze, or any other carrier that takes one out of the fight and requires a very specific spell to cure. As soon as we got in a prolonged fight we were in trouble for the same reason we were in trouble at the September gather in the fight with Cicel and that folks swinging Paralyze. Unless there is a clear and atainable goal, and you move fast to get to it, the group reaches a point where enough healers are out of the fix it spell that the line starts to crumble as people start dropping and their backpacks can't fix them. Annoyingly enough it's usually the best fighters who go down first as they tend to get hit more than the little guys who duck in and out. Some of the issues with this fight were probably our own fault for not doing any research prior to going, others brought up that we could have done a dream vision to try and figure out what the ritual was going to be. Still, once the Twins split up, our forces split, and we were essentially done.

The other big fights went pretty well, the Vampire fight was spent chasing after Trivanus over and over again. Friday night fight went ok too, even if there was a lot of racing around while the three or four people who knew what was going on did their work. Big field fights have their moments, but are never really the high point of the weekend for me.

Food was good, and I was happy it didn't rain until Sunday. I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff, although I got to listen in on my first noble's meeting (very interesting to see the Baron's talk), and I know for sure I missed a big thing for Kumir that I'm pissed about missing.

It's nice to feel good about events again, and after my first full season back, I'm really looking forward to the next event and happy with where my character is. I also have my theories on the whole Count issue, which I will share on request.

Well, I hope everyone who went had a good time, and I missed Omi (the only person likely to read this that wasn't there).

~Patrick

NERO Question

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:51:42 GMT

To all the NERO people out there that might be reading this. Does anyone have a list of Formal Components that is formatted nicely for printing, the one on the National Website is set up horribly.

Thanks in advance if you do.

~Patrick

Good Event

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:54:31 GMT

So, after the various iffy feelings I had last week prior to the event, the event itself was a blast. I officially joined the Court of Westmarch, there was no awkwardness, no trial period, other than learning the simple court procedures, they're treating me like I've always been there. I mean I knew they were a good group of people, don't get me wrong, but I'm that socially awkward guy that doesn't always find it easy to integrate into a new group. I'm always really worried about fitting in and people liking me, and my big fear in these things are people suddenly finding out that inviting me was a bad idea. This wasn't the case at all, I need to stop being paranoid.

So Friday night I drove down, got there a little later than normal due to traffic, but not by much. I unloaded my car and then headed out to get some food, came back, waited around, that kind of stuff. As much as I dislike the rain at these events, and as much as it was still very very annoying, it didn't ruin the event really. I gave Keyla the news I was leaving fairly quickly, with the Baron pacing just out of earshot, if nothing else it made me feel wanted by Westmarch and Cadoc wanted it done so quickly. After that, Torrin dragged me off to Westmarch's cabin to give me his old Horse Coat, as my new costuming hadn't arrived yet. Tunics are miraculous things when you belt them, so much extra storage space. Within twenty minutes I was casting formals for the court, and made my first Magic sword. It wasn't anything special, but it was interesting getting to make it. I missed some big bad fight while I was doing that, but that was fine as it kept the noise and distractions down, I'm rather glad I didn't blow my first formal with the court. Ran around after Torrin's panthergast, which ended up badly, but not as bad as it could have been. There was a lot of good roleplay with that, even if Torrin did have to resurrect. Cast a delve history after that for the Baron (First time I've ever burned all my formal levels in one evening), then proceeded to go on the what ended up as a crazy mod ever. The mod was an amazing amount of fun, but it was at 5 in the morning and none of us that were there were really functioning at a very high level. By the end of it, minutes were spent with PC looking at NPC trying desperately to figure out what the NPC just did and which defense actually needed to be called. In the end, it was fun but I was awake for far too long.

Saturday morning, I woke up long before I really wanted to, but those bunks aren't conducive to sleeping in for very long. I got up and had breakfast with members of the court, the Baron got there just in time to throw some eggs and bacon between some French toast and run out the door as the court was pulled off on a mod to rescue another orc baby. We damn near got rolled on that one, but one of the Dragoons managed to get away and come back with his gasses out and get us healed. Reminder to self, I need to start collecting healing potions for emergency situations, I am woefully lacking such things ( I had one that got Cypris up and it turned out Torrin was just playing dead I think). In the end we were successful, but I hope there won't be more orc babies to take care of. After that at some point Torrin, Adriel, and myself went off to do some spying on a meeting between the Earth and Water kingdom that gave us some preliminary information, as well as gave Torrin a chance to plead our case to the Earth kingdom that may have helped keep keep the fight a little less brutal. After that we started the puzzle portion of the tournament which we did well with, and I felt like I helped a lot. Went on another mod that dealt with some kind of nightmare spiders and controlled humans.

Saturday just before dinner we had the big field fight, managed to help with that to a degree. Then was more tournament stuff, followed by more fighting. Went on the next part of the land bond quest for the Baron, Raven and Cyprus. Went to sleep at a more normal NERO hour that night. We had the big crazy Nightmare copies of people come out and attack the town, which got everyone's blood pumping.

Sunday was a slower day, not a whole lot happened, bunch of role play, but not a whole lot of action until the Eastwyck stuff, Telaris managed to get Coombe back, which I suppose was good. Westmarch won the Tourny, although Eastwyck was tied with us and backed out on an honor issue which was very noble of them. There was a lot of that happening in the tourney, all the teams were very stand up, probably because it was a new Duke. Keyla got executed, and I only found out about thirty minutes later when one of the Guild members said something in passing to another.

All in all it was a very good event, I could have done without the rain on Friday and Saturday, and the humidity on Sunday. It's a major difference in feel being on a court than with the Guilds. I really think that for what I want to get out of the game the court is going to be better for me, but that's just a first impression. I think the structure is going to help keep me from being lazy about things, and give me more things to do. It's going to be interesting to see where I end up fitting in with the group. Still, it's an interesting new chapter for Branoven, we'll see what happens.

~Patrick

NERO This Weekend

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:09:53 GMT

Another Ravenholt event this weekend. I'm not quite sure what to expect this weekend with the new duke and other things that may or may not be happening. I'm kind of behind on what's going on plot wise, so other than the tournament it's kind of a blank slate in that respect. Usually I've got a good idea of what's coming in an event, but this time...I'm not so sure. It's kind of a weird feeling, not knowing what to expect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still looking forward to the event, just have this nebulous nervous feeling for some reason. I guess I don't do well with the unexpected.

I ordered some new costuming, and it may, just may, get here before I leave for the event on Friday, if not, I've still got my other stuff so it's no big deal. It will be nice driving down in the new car, should be much smoother.

Ah well, three days to go and I get to see (almost) everybody.

~Patrick

7V Pot Luck and Car Update

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:07:47 GMT

As the title begins to imply, we started our initial prep work for the 7V potluck and in the process got to put the Civic on the highway and see how it handled in something other than Malden traffic. Anytime we were going North, we had stop and go traffic due to the mass exodus to NH for the weekend, I have to assume, but on the South bound portions it was bliss, the Civic rides so smooth, at least compared to Sable. I honestly want to see how it does on a significantly longer trip, which I have a few of this month.

On to the pot luck update for those that like your food. Sarah and I went to Wholefoods and we now have 18 pounds of bone in Boston Butt. We're calling it BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, but it's not going to be smoked (we don't have a smoker in our little apartment) , just cooked low and slow over night. We'll go back out to Stop and Shop and get the makings for the barbecue sauces. Sarah was originally planing two, but she's said something about four the other day, (I've just been told that 3 is the minimum, with a possible fourth). So hopefully 18 pounds of pork is enough.

~Patrick

Behind Door Number One....

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:55:25 GMT

It's a New Car!!!!

So yea, finally got rid of the Sable this past weekend. I'll give you the run down of how this all went down, most definitely not according to plan.

Couple of weeks ago, I go to drive to the store, and part way there, my brake pedal goes to the floor. I still have some brakes, just not much, and there's no where to turn around so I drive the half mile to the store, and do my shopping and carefully drive home. I check the brake fluid reservoir, and it's low, so not knowing if the leak is a very slow one or a "oh look the brake line is ruptured," I grab a thing of brake fluid the next day at work and refill the reservoir when I get home. I pump the brakes a couple of times and it's going right back to the floor, and because I have the car door open I could hear a hissing sound coming from the back, drivers side corner of the car. Looking under the car there is a big puddle of brake fluid.

Well this lead to a AAA call and a tow to a dealer where I was told the following. I had leaks in two of the rear lines which was causing a lack of pressure, the calipers were frozen (they said for weeks, which would have included my trip to NY as well) on both the back wheels, which had caused corrosion on the pads and rotors. All this necessitated the full replacement of the rotors, pads and calipers on the back wheels, and possible the parking brake cables if they were bad too. I also would have needed two new tires before winter, and had been told previous that I had a coolant line that was corroding and would need replacement soon. All this would have totaled at least $1400 to fix, well that was the final straw, we just weren't going to keep sinking money into the sable. So in the end I got the lines fixed so I'd have pressure in the system and be able to drive, but didn't fix the rest of the issues.

So two weekends ago we went and test drove a 2009 Civic. It was a nice car but we decided to take of thinking to make sure we wanted it. We ended up borrowing some money from my folks, but in the end, we ended up leasing the Civic this past weekend. So yea, I'm now leasing a 2009 Honda Civic. It's so much newer that on the drive home from the dealer yesterday (we leased on Saturday, but they had to wait until Monday so they could do the registration paperwork), I ended up at 75 mph and didn't realize it, where as on the sable I hit the low 60s and the wheel (and car) would start to shake something fierce. Below the cut I've tossed some pictures for those who are interested.

So everyone will get to see the car if they're at the 7V play test in a couple weeks, or at the September NERO. It feels really good to be driving a new car that's not going to break randomly at any time.

~Patrick

Post About Teeth

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:06:32 GMT

So I just got back from the dentist, and apparently I'm grinding my front teeth at night and wearing down the enamel. Dentist recommended I get a night guard to help stop that. Insurance doesn't cover it, so before I drop $200 to get one fitted, I wanted to know if anyone has experience with them, or knows of someone who has experience with them. I'm more worried that I just won't be able to sleep at night with something in my mouth. Any and all anecdotes are welcome in helping me get some data (even anecdotal) one this before I drop the money.

~Patrick

Happy Birthday

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:18:22 GMT

Happy Birthday jjmarika

At least I think I got the day right ;-)

I hope you have a great day.

~Patrick

NERO Event

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:43:04 GMT

Well, this was most certainly an interesting event. I was busy often enough that when I had down time I was glad for it. Certain things happened that may change how Branoven develops from here on out. I managed to get back on track with my personal plot which is great, and Keith is handling it at the moment which is also great. So, lets break it down by day, I'll try to remember as best I can what happened.

Friday:

Got to the site early, dropped off my stuff, turned around a couple of times and saw very few people there so I went out to get dinner. Maybe it's the fact that I live in Mass now, but I never really got dinner prior to events when I was back in college or just out of it. I mean sure I scarfed a burger from McDonalds or something, but I don't think I ever went to an actual restaurant for food prior to an event. It was nice to sit down and clear my head and it also killed some time. I hate Boston and Mass traffic with a passion that outshines a dozen suns, so I tend to get to the site early to avoid as much of it as I can coming down from the North side of Boston.

So Game started fairly normally. Some Basement stuff happened that would essentially lead to the plot lines retirement. It's possible it could make some guest apperences, but chances are that it's basically done. Put up the Mages Guild Ward then headed back down to the Tavern where I ended up meeting the one and only Captain Keegan Burn (or however you spell it...Rick?). While I love Kumir, it was great to see Rick in a role where he got to joke around some and live it up, sorry, bad joke. So after that I was pulled away for some basement stuff which was pretty simple. Somewhere in there Omi grabbed a bunch of us and we had to go and rescue someone one of her former master's lackys was torturing. (picking up the writing of this Tuesday Morning) I think the order went...Ward, tavern, rescue, Piratical ploting, Basement...I think, I honestly can't remember. And there could have been more Friday night, I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I'm not sure.

Saturday:

Woke up around 9ish as I heard someone mention breakfast and I didn't want to miss food. And while I'm on the subject, it's great to have Bobby in the kitchen. I don't know how many cateerers we've had that would give us sideways glances and didn't understand what we needed food wise. Bobby is simply the best, he understands our geeky ways, he's willing to put in the extra effort to feed us late, and he and his staff make really good food.

Again, I'm horrible with the timing, my internal clock gets all screwed up and it's hard to remember exactly what I did when, and I'm sure I'm missing some stuff, so please correct me if you remember better than I. After Breakfast we had the normal wandering monsters, mostly trolls, although there were some spiders from time to time. Nicodemous, the hobling lawyer, came into town with the Gypsy Siblings, told us all the puzzles had been screwed up (and frankly even then our tenatious bard Kumir still managed to almost crack it), and that we'd all get to move on to the next step anyway. Nicodemous, after telling me that one of the contests was going to be slavers, and then me explaining that he better not want any of them left alive and why, looked at me and asked for all of Branoven's sisters information and promised to have his investigators look for information on her pro bono. Collette went first again, taking, I assume, Westmarch, saying that Andris would be back later. I ended up going to help Perdue's father, so we all went to the sunken ship thing, which was fun if confusing. Somehow sans_peur had managed, without much effort on her part I don't think, to make me feel like I was lost in a maze. We got one of the pieces, but I'm not sure if we were supposed to get more and just missed them or if the rest was left for the third group. I'm praying that Branoven doesn't get into trouble for dealing with Keegan Burn, but hey, it can't hurt to be on an Ancient Undead Pirate's good list, at least you'll die quick.

Some time after that, I think, we went on a mod to get one of the components for the Odead stuff. Our group went on the Innocence Mod, and because of it, I learned some interesting stuff about the new Duke. I don't know why then Colonel Waters was on the mod with us (at least I think it was Colonel Waters, it was Mark Alton in what appeared to be the Colonel's gear), but he was. There was some down time after that. The Saturday afternoon wave battle was pretty well run and fun. I nearly got my ass charmed by Cecil Eastwyck, I'm just lucky I had my shield magic up. I can't say it was the best plan on Steve Jr.'s part as he didn't want to say it loud enough that everyone heard he was casting charms, but when he tried to mouth it to me when I tried to clarify what I'd been hit with (I had been talking to someone else, and felt a packet hit me, I turned and Steve was mouthing something to me), I simply couldn't read his lips with people moving between the two of us.

After the fight there was the feast, which was really good. Was invested in the new celstial circle then wandered outside. This is the point where I ended up busier than I could have hoped for, and actually had to turn a hook down. I was going to have to do the Mandrake Capulus mod, and I was scheduled to go first, so I was stuck with that. Then we had the basement to deal with and I wasn't going to miss that. And while we were all standing around outside trying to deal with everything (I feel like I'm missing something again, but I don't quite think I am), Rod's Gypsy came back for the Mod. I broke a little, I have no experience with being too busy at NERO, prior to coming back I wasn't proactive enough. So I gave Rod my tortured "Why does it have to be now" look and bless his soul I swear he gave me a look of comiseration...five seconds before he tried to hook me anyway. Still I can't blame him, I'm sure he had his NPCs ready and waiting and a space picked out and everything, it was just a bad time for everyone I think. So we'll probably run that Mod next event along with Mod number three in the series.

This was also the point in the event where a very interesting thing happened to Branoven. Torrin and Cadoc called him over, and offered him a spot with Westmarch. I haven't told anyone IG about this although a few know out of game. I didn't give Cadoc an answer and he said that was fine and I promised I'd think it over, over the summer and tell him and the court at the September event. I had breakfast with Cadoc Sunday Morning and it's quite possible that Keyla caught on that something was happening, and even possible that Cadoc told her about the invite straight out, I don't know. Still whatever happens I'll tell Keyla my decision first, I owe it to her, and it is the polite thing to do. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do, I have to think about it for both IG and OOG reasons. IG Branoven's finally in the right mindset to move to a court, and Westmarch was always my and his favorite, but I've been with the guild so long it's hard to picture leaving. The field fight on Sunday kind of pushed me towards accepting, it was nice to have a big group that was able to stick together to fight with, and I felt like I was helping. It felt good to have a specific job to do (Yay for the new Refit Armor spell) and honestly it felt like I fit in pretty well with the group (more on the actually fight when I get to Sunday). We'll see, I have to think about all of the pros and cons and I've got a few months to make a final decision.

On a side note, Andris (Rod's Gypsy) almost got smacked around by Torrin when he and Cadoc were talking to me. Andris kept interupting trying to hook me and Torrin was not happy. It was entertaining, except for the fact that I was standing between the two of them and would have had to duck pretty fast.

The Deep Wood fight was annoying from an environmental aspect but fun otherwise. It had a little of everything so people could all get involved. I actually helped out on the puzzle (although it wasn't hard), and felt like I did a good job. The basement followed this and we managed to avert a fight. They were ready for us to come in guns blazing, but luckily Telaris got pulled away at the last second and we didn't have to. So we talked it out and resolved things the peaceful way, which I'm sure will come back to bite us some day in the distant future, but hey, that's what makes the game fun.

I got back from the basement, and was immediately rifted out by the Dealer of the Deck of Many Things, or whatever they call it. We're (myself and two other people) going to have to go and retrieve a deck of cards from a cave full of goblins. Frankly, I plan on doing this inside of 20 minutes, we're going to take a pouch full of silver and simply buy all 52 cards back. I'm not going to fight through John Walsh and his crazy Goblin horde if I don't have to. I will use every ounce of guile and trickery (and T'Kari) that I can to avoid a fight. While preparing for this, John got pulled away to do the Mandrake Capulus fight and we ended up getting released back into the wild (it really does feel like that) we'll do the card thing in September.

I honestly can't quite figure out why everyone was in such a hurry to help Mandrake Capulus. I have never heard a single story about him that doesn't make me think he's a vile evil villan. I know he's Alexa's father and the founder of Capulus, but still he's a loon, and a powerful one at that. I went to sleep, and I'm glad, from what I heard the fight didn't end until the morning.

Somewhere in all of this I ended up having a long talk with Rick's priate, it was fun, although I was waiting for Capulus to arrest me at any moment. Our talk wasn't of much consequence, but it was still fun to get to role play with Rick.

Sunday:

As I said above I had breakfast with Cadoc, and got some questions answered, made me feel like I'd fit in fairly well. I mean I've done a bunch with Westmarch prior, and we've always gotten along fine, but it was made real nice because I was asked. Didn't have any mods in the morning that I can remember. Waited around for the Final Wave battle, and hung out with Westmarch. If anyone ever wants to have a great laugh, ask Raven his opinion on Cormorants, it's well worth it if you can get him going like Anwyn, Cadoc and I had him going. Final battle was pretty fun. The NPCs didn't push, and we didn't have to push either so it felt well paced. Plenty of people got cut down and there was the normal race to save them but it didn't feel like we were going crazy. I managed to find some components this weekend and actually got to pop my first Element's Fury. It was a lot of fun to be able to bring that out and save my spells when I needed to distract a troll and save my spells for an emergency. Felt helpful and part of a team, even with the simple Refit armor spell I cast a couple of times. That spell makes me want to take a bunch of levels in Create Scroll and only make those, they are great in massive fights where fighters don't necessarily have the time to take 60.

Over all the event was really good. I was so so going in, more I think because I had no idea what was going to happen this weekend so I couldn't really get psyched up about anything specific. But coming out I'm happy with it. I've got some major decisions to make regarding where Branoven is come the fall, but it isn't necessarily a bad choice to make, I'm pretty lucky either way. I think it's going to come down to an OOG choice on how I want my play style to be and where I see Branoven going.

Please shout out if you notice I forgot anything. I don't want to leave anything off my PEL.

~Patrick

Happy Birthday

Sat, 23 May 2009 11:58:30 GMT

Well today we wish Happy Birthday to a very good friend of ours. kumir_k9 I hope you have a great and happy day, followed by many more. You're a good friend, and I'm glad you decided to pick me to torture at my second NERO event. ;-)

So, what's your favorite cake flavor?

~Patrick

Back From Vacation

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:37:02 GMT

Well, Sarah and I got back from Vacation yesterday afternoon. We left for Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Thursday around noon and spent the extra long weekend there. We stayed at the Inn By The Sea, and it was great. Technically we were in the Off Season for Maine, as it's before Memorial Day, so the rates were comparatively cheap ($179 dollars for this past weekend, compared to $450ish in July). We stayed in a suite and we had a (distant) view of the ocean from our patio door (including a group of lobster boats that were almost always anchored in the cove, it was pretty cool).

On the trip up on Thursday we stopped by the Maine Diner for lunch, it's a great place in Wells (Take exit 19, then take route 1 North for a couple of miles, it's on your right), pretty classic diner, breakfast all day long, standard fare (with Lobster because it's Maine). Sarah said the lobster pie she had was probably the best lobster she had that weekend. We made it to the Hotel around 3, then took the hotel's private boardwalk down to the beach (Crescent Beach State Park). Obviously it was a little too cold for a swim (under 50 degrees F), so we just walked down the beach a little. We headed back to the hotel, and ended up eating at the hotel's restaurant. Our expectations weren't high, I mean it's a really really nice hotel, but it's also a small hotel, so we weren't sure what to expect from the restaurant. In the end however, it was really good.

Friday: Sarah had a three and a half hour spa thing at Nine Stones in Portland, she had good things to say of the experience. While she was at the Spa, I walked around Old Port a bit, had a quick lunch at a Crape place called The Merry Table, then looked around a used book store for a bit, then headed back to the Hotel. That was one of the best things about the hotel, the drive into Old Port was less than 15 minutes, and possibly under 10. This made it really easy to just go in for dinner, or for me to head back and pick up Sarah. When I got back to the hotel, I took a walk down to the beach and walked the length down to an out cropping of rocks in search of tide pools and such. While I didn't find anything much more interesting than some periwinkles and other snails, it was a nice walk, and I took a lot of pictures. After that I watched a little TV then swung back into Portland to pick up Sarah. Later that evening we headed back into Portland again for dinner at Fore Street. Sarah has apperently had her eye on Fore Street for quite a while and it didn't disappoint. They had pretty much everything, sea food, meat. Sarah started dinner with some mussels (fairly classic preparation) which was her first time with those, and she really liked them. She followed this with a turn spit cooked pork loin with some home made saurkruat (sp?), and had the vanilla bean parfait, which came with a small vanilla and burbon milkshake. It was an excellent meal and she enjoyed it. I started my meal with a oyster mushroom confit, which was very good, and followed it with the spit turned chicken, which was just too much for me to finish completely (it was fully half a chicken), and I had the chocolate suffle cake for desert. All in all it was very good. We headed home after our meal full and happy at a good first day.

Saturday we stuck around the hotel room and relaxed. We took a walk on the beach as Sarah hadn't seen it all yet, and I wanted another walk by the water. We took some more pictures, and then headed back to the hotel. Dinner was in Portland again, this time we hit Duckfat, which is great. It's not your standard sitdown dinner. They have pannis and soups and milkshakes, but what they're known for is their fries. They fry double fry them in their name sake Duckfat. The place is owned by the chef that owns the big fancy place in Portland, and he just won a James Beard award for best Chef in the North East US.

Sunday was another fairly easy day, we had brunch at a place in Portland called 555 (it's address on Congress Street). It was all very good, just simple standard brunch fare. The rest of the day was pretty much like Saturday, relaxing, with a short outing for Dinner, this time not in Portland, but at a little Thai place just up the road from Portland Head light.

Monday, we packed up, had breakfast at the hotel (French toast for me, lobster and eggs benedict for Sarah). We drove home and settled down for the rest of the day and headed back to work today.

Overall it was a very very good vacation. It was good to get out of the city and to some place calming. We both had a good time, if a little expensive, but still it was nice to get away. Here's a link to my Flickr page which has the pictures we took as well as a couple of our cat trying to stow away when we were packing (also has some pics from Ravenholt closer 2008).

Well, feel free to discuss or ask questions if you have any, I'm more than willing to re-live the trip if necessary 8-)

~Patrick

Ravenholt Opener Review

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:22:28 GMT

Ok, so the Opener is a few days behind me, and I'm back to my normal 8-4 job. I've had some time to think about the event and what I liked and disliked, and why. So here's the review...

Overall the weekend was great. I had a lot of fun, got to interact with a lot of people that I have had a chance to interact with in a while, and got to go on some fun mods. I was generally useful in the Sunday wave battle, and was the one who came up with the circle idea to cut off the bad guy from his circle. Darrin(sp?) took Branoven seriously, thought about it, and then went with it. It felt good to be able to come up with a good idea and have it recognized and used (I think the quote from Darrin was, "Branoven and any other caster who want to try something crazy and dangerous, come over here") I went on no less than three puzzle mods, and saw a total of 6 puzzles myself and saw Capulus working on a seventh (the old 6 point cross wooden one). I was glad to see a lot of mental stuff going on to compliment the physical.

Mod wise I went on a handful, I never go on a ton, but that's more to do with the fact that the nobles tend to segregate. I was another person on the Gypsy Epic adventure mod with Kumir and T'Kari, and that was by far one of the top 5 mods in my seven years. The Key Maker Mod with Draco was a grind, but it worked out well once Keith had the NPCs slow down their recycling times. And with a little help from Keith in the end after we didn't realize we needed to force the pieces a little to get them to fit. The word puzzle with Baron O'Dead was fun as I actually felt like I could get it, which isn't always the case with some of the puzzles that get put out. the jig saw puzzle was a bit of a tease and annoying. We had less than 24 hours to complete a edgeless jigsaw puzzle without a reference picture, with extra pieces, with a repeating pattern of flying pigs as the image. While it was introduced as "The Impossible Puzzle" I felt it far from fair. If plot would rather us not solve a plot line that weekend, I'd rather they just say more time is needed, rather than give us something that required some people to spend significant amounts of time sequestered in the cabin working. I understand they need a really hard puzzle to be the solution, but there has to be a limit, at least in my opinion. Going over everything that happened, I think that all the official mods I went on were puzzle mods in some way, I managed to avoid grinds and hell slogs somehow this weekend, I like that there was that option for me.

One Mod like thing that I got to do was helping to find Fluffy. Annie came into town as a old woman named Helda, looking for her lost cat named Fluffy. After a while Kumir and I finally offered to help find her kitty, and walked her back to her house where we discovered that Fluffy was more than likely not a normal house cat, being that the claw marks on the door made him out to be the same size a Kumir. Kumir and I set off through the woods, wondering what we just got ourselves into, and after picking up Videl who was looking for Kumir, we eventually did find Fluffy well beyond the pool, down the trails back there. In the end we resolved the encounter without any combat. I really liked that the NPC was obviously briefed to go with the flow, to allow characters who actively tried to be nice to Fluffy to coax him out of the woods without conflict. It also give Kumir and Branoven more time to talk and was a lot of fun.

I think everything worked well, and if there were snafu's they were apparent to the players. I had a lot of fun, and was able to play and interact with people. I'm doing my best to make sure Branoven is very consistant in kneeling to all the Baron's, and Telaris has even told him that he doesn't have to keep doing it everything he walks by. Baron Gabriel may or may not still dislike Branoven, but I don't think he hates him any more, I think I saw him smile once when I kneeled, but I guess well see what the future holds on that front.

I like that the plot team seems to be linking people's personal plots back into main plot threads (Draco and the light stuff, and Omi and the Master stuff as he looks like he's going to cause trouble for the whole town for a while now). I'm hoping this means maybe I'll gets some personal plot in at some point too, but I do understand that there are a lot of people and only so many plot members. Again, something for the future.

Overall I think Annie should be really happy with the way the event ran, at least from what I could see as a PC. Food service was great, plots ran smoothly, and were a lot of fun. There were more than just the typical diablo mod, and hell grinds. It was a great event, first or otherwise.

Personally, I had a good time. It was great to feel like I helped in the final wave battle and that some of the older players/characters who haven't always paid me or Branoven much attention, starting to notice. I wonder if I've just finally put in the time, or if my going away and coming back made any difference. I/Branoven still have a way to go on not putting our foot in our respective mouths, but we'll get there eventually.

The Franklin site helps a lot in my enjoyment. I know a lot of people don't like it because it's too compact, but it gets me out of the cabin and in a central gathering place (the tavern), where I get grabbed for more things than I did at Brimfield. We'll see how things continue to go. It will be interesting to see where Branoven ends up in a season or two, or even just by the end of the year. I'm honestly not sure what's going to happen with him. I want to toss a wrench in his works, so to speak, but I've got to figure out exactly how, I'll work on that.

Well that's my review, no Earth shattering revelations, but still good.

~Patrick

Ravenholt Opener

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:05:24 GMT

Well, Season opener is tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited. Branoven has some stuff he wants to get done fairly quickly, although one conversation depends on when a certain plot member/baron shows up, but I'm not that worried just so long as I get to it at some point this weekend. Our side of the cabin, thus far, only has four people listed on the housing list which makes it blissfully empty allowing us all to have bottom bunks. The guild looks to have a slightly smaller team this event, but T'Kari mentioned that there are four new players or so from the Revel who showed some interest in the guilds, so we might have some extra people with them. I have a feeling I'll end up on at least one Mod with them as fire support as I have been playing for a while, but am not a high enough level to cause the APL to spike. I don't mind, sometimes it's fun to go on some simple stuff that doesn't involve a ton of the bigger personalities in town.

I'm looking forward to seeing what plot arcs get started, and hopefully getting involved in at least one. For all that I've been playing for a while now, I'm never really been a proactive person when it comes to getting involved, I blame my awkwardness in social situations. I'm trying to be proactive and get involved in stuff (it helped not being invested in the cirlce at last event as I didn't have the option of just sitting there. Still, if any of you notice me just sitting around on my own, poke me and make me interact some, I still need some help from time to time.

I still have a little prep work to do, I need to go through my gear and make sure I have everything, I think my belt ended up in my dresser instead of my bag. Need to go through my tags and sort out some things, I know full well that I need a new spell book having been gone for so long prior to last event. I've got one with the new spells in it, but not one with the regular spells. I'll just borrow Ebon's or Perdue's until I can procur one for myself. It's easier now that we don't need one to cast, just to study at reset. Also need to go through all my bags and consolidate my silver and gold, I have a tendancy, at the end of events, to just toss coins in my bag instead of putting them away. Not that I have enough coin to actually buy anything useful, but still, it's good to be organized.

Weather is supposed to be nice too, so that's good as well, I really don't want to have to deal with rain and cold.

So, I guess I'll see everyone (who reads this), tomorrow at the event.

~Patrick

ETA: Ok, so it looks like there might be some morning showers on Saturday, and what a few showers on Sunday. Still, there have been worse events.

Reunion

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:13:01 GMT

So while I won't really admit it to myself, I've basically decided that I'm not going to my 5 year reunion. At first I was all fired up about it, it was an easy choice to make as I loved Bates, and loved the people I went to school with. It was a no brainer until I found out that Mass was holding the June event on the same weekend. I actually had to weigh options, as I wanted to do both. For a while I was still pretty sure I was going to go to my reunion, because...well...it was my reunion.

It was around that time that I found out that it was going to be the cost of a NERO event to go, double if Sarah came with me. I also found out that jjmarika wasn't going to be going either. I had a great time at the revel, and was actually looking forward to NERO again, making my decision that much harder. I had to go through and make a list of who I was looking forward to seeing, and then remember that most of my friends were either in the class a head of me or behind me which drastically reduced the number of friends I would see that weekend. I also had to ask myself just how uncomfortable I would be there. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I'm not the most comfortable person in social situations, especially awkward ones where the people I'm talking to only live half an hour away and I've seen them once in five years or so. NERO is a known quantity for me, reunion wasn't. How much fun was I going to have when everyone was at Pub 33 or the Goose, drinking, and I wasn't, was I really going to enjoy myself? And even if I had fun, was it going to be as much fun as NERO?

And so I guess I'm not going to reunion. I've got more friends at NERO that I want to see, that I'll enjoy hanging out with, even if I'm awkward and stick my foot in my mouth at least once. I think I may have enjoyed college a little too much, it was safe for me, and now that I'm finally starting to be a functioning adult, I'm not sure going back to Bates for a weekend and hanging out with old friends who I've grown apart from is a good idea just yet. Bates was my life for a significant number of years, but it can't be the way I live forever, and when you're prone to hanging onto the past you have to be careful. NERO is a fun hobby I get to do with good Friends, in my head I guess there is a difference.

So I'm going to make it to all four events this year. Maybe now that NERO isn't an escape it can just be fun.

~Patrick

Mage: Session 1

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:31:38 GMT

So we had our first Mage game session last night. Six PCs and the Story Teller. A couple of the people are/were new to the system so a significant portion of the time was spent with them making characters and learning the system. I've never played before, but I've had the books since the new system came out two or three years ago, and was familiar in theory, we'll see if that stands up to repeated practice.

Everyone seemed to get along well, everyone in the group is probably between 23 and 30, give or take, with the one exception being a high-schooler. He's going to be an issue very soon, if the ST doesn't have a long talk with him first. I don't want to call him immature, but I think he's just not looking for the same type of game as the rest of us. He's looking to goof off with friends, everything is a joke, lets do silly stuff to the exclusion of all else, kind of player, the rest of us (including the ST) seem to be looking for some more serious with some good roleplaying. I think his goofyness and fooling around was getting to one of the other players, and frankly, if it's a choice between him and her, we all would rather keep her around. He spent all last night not seeing the clues we were all giving him that his joking and goofing off wasn't going over well.

Other than that it was the standard opening night of rolling dice, slightly contrived just to get things moving right away, with a lot of the ST coming up with stuff on the fly. Scheduling is a bit rough right now, we're meeting next Saturday, then back to thursdays, I think, but we might need a week off after next week with the ST out of town. We'll see, I know we're meeting on the 11th, and I guess we'll figure it out after that.

If the group manages to hold together to the point where we get some momentum going, this just might work out well. It's also just the thing to get me through to NERO Opener, which is just two weeks away.

One final note to everyone (which amounts to probably 2 people) who are going to Madrigal this weekend. Have fun, stay dry if you can, and have a great weekend!

~Patrick

Wednesday's are mean

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:54:11 GMT

I have zero motivation, I'm tired, I want to go back to sleep, in fact I almost did on the T this morning. I feel like I have the attention span of my Labrador back home, which is to say none at all. If I could I'd be willing to write today off as a mulligan and start over fresh tomorrow, but apparently I can't do that now that I'm not in college.

~Patrick

In Which I Expound on the Soundtrack of my Life...

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:35:17 GMT

...which I am probably wholly unqualified to do. Still, I should put that degree I'll be paying for until my late forties to work.

I know it sounds odd to some people, but music has been woven into my life from such a young age that the thought of there being no music is simply impossible to think of. I can't tell you what my reaction to that alternate universe would be, as I am purely unable to imagine it. I suppose that, before I go any further I should give my musical background for those who may be keeping score. I have been in choir since the third grade. Everyone in the third grade was required to go to music class, I think, it's really fuzzy that far back. I do remember Mrs. Donaldson, however, my first music teacher, she was also my first Choir teacher. Starting in the late third grade I sang in an organized choir for every single year of my schooling, including all of my four years in College. I am a tenor, and proud of it (any tenors out there knows the kind of pride I'm talking about). I also played the clarinet for maybe three and a half years. It wasn't long, I didn't like practicing, and they got made at me in middle school for not practicing and yea, not fun, so that went the way of the dodo for me. In elementary school I sang in a community children's choir at Nazareth college. I remember absolutely nothing of what we sang, but do know that I loved it. During High school I sang in the All County Chorus one year (it was just one concert), and that was where I discovered two things...1) choirs where everyone is there because they want to be, and not because they need the arts credit to graduate are infinitely better, and 2) tenors are so rare that even I could make it in with a score of 88% (I couldn't sight read yet), when other parts were cut off at 97%. In College I sang in choir all four years, and loved nearly every minute of it. I also took two and a half semesters of music theory, dropping Theory 3 after the professor and I disagreed over what exactly how closely I needed to stick to the formula for Rag time. As I wasn't a music major, and didn't need the classes for more than the credits, and not even that, I dropped. Still those years taught me how to sight read music, how to pound my part out on a piano, and a lot of the technial terms that while not necessarily important when it comes to my solo performances in my car, are useful none the less.

Now, nearly five years out of college, I am bereft of a choir, or time to try and get into one in the area. I miss the structure of a full choir, the grand pieces by Mozart, Handel, Bach, Beethoven (ok, don't miss Beethoven, but that's his fault not mine). I miss the people, and the singer's high after plowing through the entire Carmina Burana, or Messiah. I also miss the cheese cake.

Music has been such a large part of my life that being without it in the formalized way that a choir is, is...different.

Ok, I need to drag myself back onto the topic I was going to initially talk about,

In the title to this post I mention the soundtrack of my life. Currently it's on my iPod, but over the years, especially in college, if I was in my dorm room, there was music playing, and chances are I was singing. Studying, napping, playing video games, all had music playing in the back ground. There were never any really big play lists, like some people had, but they changed frequently. Some I only listened to for brief sections of my college life, then the MP3s never got listened to again. But since then, when I had my own space, that I didn't share with anyone, music has been so closely tied to memory that it is hard to seperate them. There are songs that, if they are played now bring back memories of sitting in my dorm room playing a specific game I loved. There is an album, which I can't actually remember at the moment, but all of it's songs are inextricably tied to a fall drive to NERO in my old Saturn. I hear one of those songs, and I don't care if it's may, I might as well be driving through Western Mass, in September or October.

And what's even more amazing, is that it isn't just me that feels this way. I am convinced that everyone, regardless of their history with music, even if they've never sang a note in choir, of played in a single band in middle school, Everyone has an attachment to music that is deep and important, and unbreakable.

What is it about music that is so important, what is it that draws us in, not as a culture, but as Human beings. Is it the language of music? If words have meaning, then how is that meaning changed when you set those words to a series of pitches, and other pitches to a rhythm. Does that triple the meaning, or cube it, or something more?

There is not a single person that will read this, for all their various tastes in music might differ, that doesn't like music of some kind.   Music means too much for anyone to lay claim to it.

Maybe kumir_k9 can help me out here. I had a point when I started writing this, and I lost it at some point.

So how about a discussion as I'm to addled in the brain to make sense. Talk to me about music, what is it that you love about music, whether it's listening or performing or writing. Do you have an all time favorite piece of music that is just perfect?   Talk to me.

~Patrick

D&D Meme

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:44:39 GMT

Everyone else is doing it.

D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium

Ah Monday

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:59:21 GMT

I dislike Monday. You'd think I'd be used to it at this point after roughly 1352 Mondays I'd be used to them, but nope. I'm always tired which sets my week up for failure as I just get more tired as the week goes on. I'm fairly sure I have a meeting today, although I won't be sure until I actually see the program chair in the building, and that's not even a perfect predictor. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate my job, it may not be my favorite thing in the world, but I've done worse, and this is far from it. It's just so hard to get motivated Monday morning.

Still I shouldn't gripe for too long or I'll get bitter.

Let's see, this weekend was pretty boring. Watched a bunch of TV and wrote up my character for the Mage game on Thursday, hopefully it works well with everyone else's. I'm pretty flexible with my characters, as I tend to have at least two more stashed away in my head at any given time, which makes it relatively easy to switch gears so that our little group is cohesive. I've never played this version of mage before, so I don't know what it's going to be like. White-wolf games tend to be far less hack 'n' slash, which attacts a different type of player on occasion. We'll see I guess, these are the possible pit falls with a pick up game where no on knows anyone else.

Saw two kids boffer fighting at Northeastern on Friday, that brought back memories. I don't think they were NERO folks though as they were doing location based damage from what I could see.

I feel like I need something interesting to talk about here, to keep everyone entertained.

Hmmm, too bad I guess. Comment away if you are moved to do so.

~Patrick

An excuse to learn the system

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:07:54 GMT

So there's no real reason for this post, I'm just going to ramble about stuff, if folks feel like reading it and commenting go for it, but it's basically a reason for me to learn what all the buttons and such do.

So there's a few weeks left until I start my LARP season, which I have discovered is drastically shorter and smaller than everyone else's. Only doing Ravenholt I'll have four events this year, and I think that should work out nicely. Not so long as to to cost an arm and a leg, but not so short as I can't get into it. I'm excited to see what Annie and her plot team have planned for this year. I'm going to try and be more involved this season, get out of the guilds and off my ass and participate instead of waiting for stuff to come to me. I had a lot of fun at Closer and the Mod day actually going on mods and getting some combat in. Although to be honest the best Mod I've been on was the Guild mod on the Mod day when we got all thos documents, I spent most of the rest of the day reading that stuff, maybe I should have been a librarian after all.

But yea I'm excited to try and get myself involved in some plot lines in more than just being another person on a mod, kind of way. It's been a long time since I was a main member of a plot line (which is mostly my fault), and it should be fun to be more involved. Being introverted and lazy is hard on my fun, took me long enough to figure that out.

Let's see... what else to wonder about. Oh yeah, Sarah and I made plans for vacation in May. We're heading up to Cape Elizabeth in Maine for an extra long weekend. It's a really nice hotel, but because we're going a couple of weeks before the vacation season starts it's comparatively cheep. It's got a heated swimming pool that I hope is open, a nice restaurant which while expensive for Maine, is cheap compared to Boston. They've got their own beach, with a board walk that goes through a nature preserve that sits between the hotel and the beach. We're going to go out and buy a stack of books the week before and relax most of the weekend with a trip or two into Portland. We were hoping the Sea Dogs would be playing but they're on the road the only weekend in May we could go. It's going to be a lot of fun, Sarah and I both need a vacation, and the chance to get out of the city.

Ok, so I didn't really play with anything other than the Cut thingy, and I figured out how to tag other LJ users in my first post. Still good to type.

kumir_k9 , I guess this blogging thing isn't so bad.

~Patrick

It's Kumir's fault

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:04:13 GMT

Start as you mean to continue, or some phase like that. Well, I won't continue to do this, but I should lay the blame for this blog, or journal, or whatever, squarely at kumir_k9's feet, or paws, peet?...whatever. I've tried to blog in the past, it has never worked out. I chalked it up to a combination of zero readers killing my motivation, and trying to think about it too much. Maybe I should just stick to telling people about my day, and the crazy people on the T, they're fun to write about.

Ok...interesting stuff to talk about in my first post. Gotta hook everyone, keep you all coming back for more....

....

Crap.

Ok, so semi interesting stuff, and pray you all come back out of pity, I can work on that level.

Basically I'm a wannabe writer. I love writing, but am horrible at the actual creation part of it. It's why I'll never be on plot at NERO, as soon as I try to put pen to paper my mind goes blank. However I still manage to do some creative stuff.

Recently I've been writing Branoven's memoirs (holy hell I spelled that right on the first shot). It's not really for anyone else but myself, and possibly everyone should I ever perm Branoven. I started writing them as, after taking the two years off that I did, I was having trouble sorting out all of Branoven's events in my head. And I didn't just want to make a boring bullet point list of the various plots and events Branoven has been involved in since 2002, so I figured I'd write them down from his perspective. That's why I wanted to know Midian's name and needed my old Character history from you Kumir. So it took me a couple of starts but I eventually managed to get some momentum and it kind of turned into a written, one sided conversation. Neither Branoven nor myself are very eloquent with the spoken word, something we are both well aware of. We stick our foot (is it plural if Branoven and Patrick share the same aforementioned foot?) in our mouth on a regular basis and are horrible at expressing opinions and thoughts well. So once I was able to get into Branoven's head space, something that's harder than it seems even though Branoven is essentially me, the writing kind of turned into a post death explanation for his life and actions, and more importantly, something his sister can read should she be rescued after Branoven dies. It's turning out pretty good thus far, and being able to put Branoven's thoughts in writing is actually helping me make Branoven a more fleshed out character, so win, I guess.

My other permanent creative output at the moment is my Star Trek game. It's technically called a PBEM (play by e-mail). It's essentially a big old smash up of a multi-author fan fiction, and an RPG. It's set some few years after the end of Voyager, and a slightly altered time line (due to the fact that the game started during DS9, but was set in that future). It basically works like an RPG without stats. Everyone has their PC (and a couple of supporting characters if they want), and they write for that person only. The players who are the command crew (Captain, First Officer...) come up with the plots and stuff and the rest of the crew play it out. It's really fun most of the time, and I've been playing nearly as long as I've been doing NERO, I actually met Sarah through the game, so I can honestly say it's made my life better. It's a lot of writing, and creativity, but it's helped along by the fact that I'm interacting with other players and can play off their ideas too. I'm in the middle of helping the command crew of my ship (people I've played with since the beginning) run a plot, as I was the one who wrote up the background on the new alien species that's the focus of the current mission, but I'm nearly burned out from handling 7 different characters including my own. luckly we just moved the mission along so it should take a little weight off of me.

My third source of possible fun/creativity for the moment hasn't materialized quite yet, but I'm hopeful. I'm actually going to be playing a table top RPG (Mage: the Awakening), this Thursday. I haven't done table top gaming since College, so I'm actually pretty excited. I know exactly zero of the other players or DM, we all sort of found each other via White-wolf's website, and various other methods, so lord knows if we'll even get along or manage to gain enough momentum to keep a regular game going, but we're going to try. So I've been running characters through my head the past few days, trying to come up with a good concept and I think I have one, but we'll see if it fits with everyone else comes up with.

Those are really the interesting things in my life at the moment, I probably should have milked this for all it was worth and spread it out over a couple of posts, but I'd probably never manage to write it all if I did that.

Ah well, hope to have more to write soon.

~Patrick