The Adventure Begins

So Saturday night, I sat down at a table next to John, Travis, and a woman named Roxana. John and I both quieted down, and she began "The patter of rain wakes you from your sleep, as your caravan rolls along the road."

So began my very first real table-top campaign of Dungeons and Dragons (v 3.5). It was a blast. John and I were both knowledgeable about the game and its mechanics, but Travis was a complete and utter novice. A lot of time was spent explaining how combat worked, or how to roll a die, and other elementary stuff most players take for granted. That being said, Travis added a very interesting element to the game. Once he learned that you're allowed to throw a roll pretty much any time, he took advantage of it. Pretty soon, every person that glanced at us was subjected to a Sense Motives check. It got pretty funny. At one point, someone cast Entangle on us, and Travis tried to use a Sense Motive on the trees that tried to grab us.

We played for three or four hours, at least. Probably more. Rolling up our characters was the hardest part, especially for Travis, who didn't even know what a d6 is. But now that we've got our characters, we're ready for this Saturday (or Sunday, if I can't get Jamie to reschedule me to work on Sundays instead).

Roxie says she can make the campaign last a year. I hope it's true. I had a LOT of fun Saturday night.

Dark Sky Entertainment

Two very exciting pieces of news today. Firstly, I have been officially hired as a Customer Service Representative for Dark Sky Entertainment, publisher of the MMORTS game Beyond Protocol. Originally, I bombed a few questions on the evaluation test, and the Jamie, the executive producer, told me that I wasn't going to be taken on at this point. Well, last night, I got a call at 8:50 PM from Jamie. He told me that if I wanted a job, I could show up at the office at 11 AM today. Well, you can bet your candy ass I showed up at the office. Only problem was that I greatly overestimated how long it would take to get to said office. I was an hour and a half early. I beat Jamie. He let me in to the office, and he talked to me and told me how to piss him off. After that, I spent about three hours grinding through the longest tutorial I've ever played. No lie. Once that was over, Will had me help with some work. I'm going to sign and NDA and Non-Compete Agreement soon, so I won't give too many details, just to be safe. After a few hours of that, I was dismissed, and asked to return.

Okay, I'm tired as hell, and not up to writing another section. I'll write a second post tomorrow morning after math class. Good night!

Picasa Web Albums

This is really exciting for me, so I'll write up a quick post on it. A day or two ago, Google released their beta of Picasa 3. They added a bunch of new features and redid the UI, making things look a lot nicer. One of the most exciting things they added, though, is face recognition (to Picasa Web Albums, at least). It's almost like Facebook's face tagging system, except photos that you upload to a web album are automatically scanned for faces, and if the face matches someone already tagged, Picasa will suggest that name for you. Also worth noting is that your GMail contacts can be tied to faces. I'm sure there's a practical application here, but really, I'm most excited about how well Google's services all tie together.

Also, I've set up Google Analytics for the blog. I'm not sure why, but my Adsense doesn't work at all.

Practice and Life Story Part 1

I'm going to try to update at least once a week, so I can get stronger in my content-fu. I'll try to practice my writing here, and see how long I can make posts without filling them with BS content.

So I've started working on Project Euler. So far, I've solved problems 1 through 4. I think I've got the fifth one solved, but my loops seem to be infinite and the program hangs forever. Annoying. I'm taking a break from the whole furiously-coding thing. Math and programming is fun, but when I hit a wall like this, it takes me a bit of time to untangle it all in my mind. I'll come back to it in a day or two and I'll see right through it all.

As promised, I'm going to fill in a small chapter of my life story between now and two years ago, when I abandoned ship out of boredom. So, the story begins.

It was my second year (or my first? christ, I can't remember anymore) at Colonial. I think it was my second. I was riding the bus home, and this cute chick with pink-and-black hair (I'm a sucker for crazy hair colors) asks me for the time. We start talking, and we end up friends. Well, she, who goes by the name Mercedes, talks almost incessantly about this game called Unwritten Legends. Eventually, she helps me and a friend sign up for the game, and we begin playing. It was my first real MUD, so it was awkward at first, but I soon found myself comfortable with text-only interfaces. Then, I learned that UL was very roleplay-oriented. It was here that I met Kaylie. Our characters hit it off. It wasn't too long before we started getting closer to each other for real.

December 2, I skipped school, and sat around at home all day long. She came home from school herself, and I saw her get online. The original log is lost to a Windows reinstall, but the conversation went something like this:
Kaylie: I like you.
Me: Me too.
Kaylie: You wanna go out with me?
Me: Yeah, definitely.
And so began a new chapter in my life. Part 2 of however many I want to make is coming soon.

Ho boy.

Jesus. It's been a long time. Little more than two years. Well, a lot has happened. Trying to describe all of it in a single post will just ruin the post, so I'll keep it short, and fill in the missing pieces over my updates in the future.

I've got a girlfriend now. She and I got together nearly two years ago. In fact, shortly after I stopped posting here. We've been through a lot of shit together, but we're still here, so something's working right.

I'm in college. I actually managed to PASS high school, which shocked me as much as anyone. There was a mad rush at the end of my senior year to earn credits; I had failed three classes, and because I wanted to graduate on time, I took all three online. In the space of about three months, I managed to take three 36-week courses. It was the first time my parents ever though I achieved something worthwhile. Which didn't last long; now that I'm in college, dad is on my ass about getting a job, which, in this economy, is nigh impossible.

I'm taking a very active role in a beta testing environment. Unwritten Legends, a MUD that's been in beta for maybe a decade, has just added a wiki to its site. This has spurred me into wanting to make a contribution. For reasons I can explain in later posts, I haven't been playing UL very much, but now, I think I'm going to be hardcore about helping.


This is me and Kaylie. I look like an utter tool in the monkey suit, but Kaylie is an angel. She and I both busted our balls to get together for my prom night, and it was...something.

That's enough for one post. If I spill it all at once, then I won't have much content for another year. I'm out.

On my to-do list: fill in the two years I've been absent.