Another world, another time...

Wow. It's a wonder this is still here.

OK.... so posting. Yeah... I ride my son - the writer - about posting and writing. On honing his craft by daily posts, even if they're nothing more than a "here's my thoughts on X" or "I had this kind of day". Anything to keep him sharp and able.

Same should apply to me.
I follow so many fun blogs and I don't know how they do it. Really. I they must write from work, the bus, the train, the bathroom... somewhere.

Any way rambling.

Things for today:

Work
Gaming plans
More work
and that's as far as I've gotten today. It is Monday, foggy, and no network usage at work. Yay.
But we can get on the interwebs... go figure.

Ok. Once again we start this!
Forward to Victory!

Or a a nap, yeah... I could use a nap.

Nearly a year later...

So wow... near a year later and I post.

I'm finishing up my second round of P90X and my experience has been interesting. Nutrition is so important to the success of this system it's mind blowing. When I was hitting my nutrition just right, I was losing weight and putting on lean muscle mass. Now... I've plateaued and cant' quite figure out why.

I can't complain too much. I've lost 40 pounds, dropped 2 pants sizes and went down a shirt size. I'm sharing clothes with my 15 year old(scary), and I'm liking how I look. But not completely happy. In the beginning of my first round I was "bulked" and now not so much. I've got muscle mass, it's just unequaled and... weird.
I did round one with a meniscus tear in my right knee. It hurt, but certain leg work outs strengthened my knee and I'm better for it. But...I injured my shoulders from doing a bazillion pull-ups, push-ups et al.
I started using other supplements to enhance my workouts, I started using preworkout drinks before lifting days. They were great. So great, I pushed through an intense(see painful) shoulder routine and injured myself so bad that I couldn't finish my first round.
And it hampered, and still does my second round.

What I found out via my inter-webz skillz was that I thought I had torn my rotator cuffs or at least exacerbated them to the point that lifting over my head was mind blowing painful. But more digging and research to find exercises for rehab lead me to find out that perhaps it wasn't my rotator cuff at all. Turns out bad posture and generally weak trapezius muscles will cause/feel like my shoulders do.
So I started doing stretches/exercises to strengthen those muscles and what do you know... pain got less and less. So I'm happy with that.
While I am/was getting more musclular, my obliques were still (and for the most part are) flabby. Not the entire v shape you want, but more like a u. :D
So I've started doing more cardio. Speed walking when my joints hurt and running/jogging when they don't. I even started doing 20-30 minutes of cardio on days when I lift.
In just the past week of doing this, my abs have responded. Who knew?
Plus keeping my diet clean doesn't hurt either.

Ok rant off. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can post more stuff and pics too of my progress.

Slacking and P90X

So.... I've been a miss at running my weekly (er) bi-weekly game. This last month of my daughter's life as a senior in high school has been packed with things to attend and do. Not to mention work is a bear right now. So when I'm not attending/creating/doing something for my senior, I've been working my butt off.
And thus my game has suffered. I'm seriously burnt out. bleh

In an effort to correct this, and it may seem counter-intuitive, I started P90X last Tuesday.
And wow. Monster workouts and lots of soreness. Feels like 2-a-day's in high school all over again. I thought I was in decent shape... emphasis on thought. I was barely on the cusp of the word, like on the beginning o f the letter S, if at all.

For the most part, I've been able to keep up with the work outs. The Plyometrics workout was... ugh... a bit more high impact than I anticipated. Had to modify it quite alot. But that's the cool thing, modifications are encouraged. Two things were core to me. Show up, and Bring it.
Participation is better than not, and if you need to mod every more, do it. As long as your moving and in the action, it's all good.

So on the down side, the last two work outs have been screwed up. My legs/back workout got interrupted with my Wife cooking in the kitchen. I found myself getting seriously nauseated due to the smell what she was cooking and had to stop the workout. It affected me quite a bit, and twisted the rest of my day.
And then yesterday, I just didn't find the time to get my last workout of the week, Kenpo, in.
Which is sad, I was looking forward to that.

But... I'm on the fence. Today is my "rest" day, and technically I could do Kenpo, since I really rested yesterday. Gotta think about this.

Hopefully, I'll game with my adult group this week.
Almost forgot, finished the adventure Tower of Maraj for my daughter, two of her friends and my son yesterday. They loved it and they wanted to make their own characters for an ongoing game. So we did. Brianna is running an half-elven hunter, Matena is running an Eladrin Invoker(mage), and Ariel is running a Warpriest of Pelor. They're so excited and so am I.
While I adore my adult group, starting fresh with group of new players is fun. Everything is exciting and new to them. Everything.
Will post more soon.

I swear to Dog that work needs to back off. 2nd weekend in a row where I've put in 16 hours or more on projects at the last minute.

I understand grabbing an opportunity, but planning helps people. Really.

So I'm burned out again, and today doesn't look like much of a rest.
Emails started flooding in with changes and alterations to material I produced already as soon as I logged into the VPN.

Peachy.

I'm not sure if I'm going to run anything this week. At least right now I'm thinking no. Mentally foggy. Want to play. Want. Just can't bring myself to build up the energy to do it.

On a side note, a friend of mine has been tempting me with Rift.
I am totally tempted. I love MMO's and something unique looks good.
I love WoW. But... it's just hit a dull spot with me.

I enjoy all aspects of the game. But dungeons are too much for me at this time. I started running a tank in November of last year, and loved it. Easy peasy. But now, I'm struggling with the mechanics of it. I don't want to spend an hour to two running 5 man's.
I don't know if it's the content, me, my spec, or what. It's just not fun. And I don't want to pay for not fun. Y'know?

So Rift has a lot of options, does alot of what WoW does, and is all new. I enjoy the traditional fantasy races, but I want something... different from a solid fantasy game.
Unique races, with not the same ol tropes.

I'd love an MMO that has one faction. Not Horde vs Alliance or any such thing. That way there is a common goal. Let PVP be like WoW arena's, testing player vs player. I'm tired of the "Horde sux" "Alliance is ghey" mentality.

It builds an animosity that doesn't need to exist in a game.

Anywho... I tried EVE online and couldn't get into it this weekend. It's lovely, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me what the heck I was supposed to do.

So I'd like to play an rpg/mmo. I may end up checking out NVN2 or Dragon Age just to have something to let my imagination wander with.

But it's monday.

Slow start, great follow-up

With the slow start to the new year gaming, I found myself filling the time with work, and other things(other than family) instead of RPGing.

But in the last 2 weeks, I've gotten in 3 games, and am heading for my 4th game of the year this week.
I ran two games, and played in one(my friend Craig's Cthulhutech-mwahahaha). And we're now on track for the third game in a row of my DnD game.

And I've made some changes to the game to help speed it up and allow my players to progress faster.

• I've added the "you level up" functionality instead of rewarding exp at the end of each session. Less book keeping and more control on my end of how the ebb-flow of the game will be. Plus they love the faster progression.

• 1 minute rounds for the players. Hastens game play and gets people focused on the game. If they finish up their turn within the time, they gain a poker chip with they can use as a +1 dmg or attk bonus. They can only use one per attack or damage roll. They can have as many as they can earn, but they can turn in three of them for a +2 chip.

So far my players love it. It made for a faster game play in terms of combat, and I didn't have players getting "analysis paralysis".

I plan on adding in Complications from Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard for failed rolls. So things are not a total loss something will engage the player from their attempt.
For instance, the group is searching for a lost grain merchant. They know he went into the Harrowing Woods. The party decides to let Velrin use his Nature to track the merchant down. Velrin fails, by a lot, he doesn't find the merchant, but does find the merchant's wagon with scattered grain and tracks.
So it's an attempt to create a sense of drama from a failed roll.
I should have done it in the last game when the Fighter rolled a critical miss on an attack. The person she attacked had a hostage in one arm, and his weapon in the other. I had her describe her miss, which kinda fell flat on my end. I should have told her, "in your aggressive strike at the duergar, you barely miss him but do connect with the gnome hostage. Blood sprays forth from a grievous wound splattering your face, blinding you and wetting the floor." But I didn't... oh well.

Even the best laid plans...

So how's this for a kicker.
In my "so-ultimate" plan for better gaming. I have to cancel my first true game of the new year, and back out of a character generation session in a Cthulhutech game one of my players is putting together.

All because of work.
I love my job, don't get me wrong. But it's a beast at times.
This week being one of those times. Multiple projects with due dates this week, covering/helping the UK with projects and leading up "potential" projects that I have no clue about. Oy.

Just frustrating... working 7-to-7(or more) daily lately, and pulling in plenty of weekend hours too. If only I were paid by the hour...

Here's to a better week next week.

Keep it together, man!

So in my attempt at running better games, I've been fighting the elements and losing.

Not the Primordials.
The sleet, snow, ice and scheduling woes that come with adult life and gaming.
My group has not gamed since before Christmas.
Christmas. Of 2010.

I was the first to bail out on our game coming into the New Year. Work has picked up significantly for me, and usually alot more toward the end of the week. Seems by Wednesday's I'm looking at half-a-dozen projects that are due now!

So I canceled the first one and rescheduled. But Winter has put us on hold. Seems North Texas isn't prepared for snow and icey conditions. It's always "Look it's a snow flake! Shut down the city! It's the end! Woe! Woe!"

But last week it was a interesting sight. 13 inches of snow at my house and it didn't just melt the next day with the normal 80 degree weather in Texas. Oh no. It stayed and stayed. And stayed.

And it seems we're in this position again this week. Albeit, a much smaller amount of snow, but lots of ice and problems with scheduling for everyone.

My solution may be just working to keep the excitement of the game alive. I plan to do this with Obsidian Portal.


I've looked Obsidian Portal as a resource for a while but haven't been motivated to use it.
I have a group that only uses the resources I provide at the table some of the time. I was concerned that if I created/setup our game there that it wouldn't be used.
So I stopped myself before I even used it.

Now after not playing for almost 2 months, I want something to reinvigorate our game and I think I'll check this out and maybe even pick up a subscription.

The site allows me to create a wiki of the campaign, store maps, handouts, npc's, pc's and a ton of more stuff.

I see the npc aspect a strong plus, as well as the possibility to store info about the game there. I've got notes and pdf's on my computer and laptop, but I need to put them somewhere where I can access them and my players can too without having either machine available.

I'm starting today, and will update you tomorrow(if not sooner) how well it goes over.

Keep your fingers crossed.

The Farce is strong in this one...

So in an attempt to "bring my A game" to the gaming table, I find myself revisiting some rpg's I hadn't finished reading. Or have read, but needed alot more reread to get my head around certain mechanics.

Shadowrun 4e for instance.
Love the setting and premise. The rules throw me off a bit. It's not that they're hard, they just have a ton of stats. And as I've gotten older, I like fewer stats in my ... uh... stat block.
I bring up Shadowrun not to bash it's lengthy stat blocks, but to fufill a promise I made to myself to finish reading certain rpg's, and run them. In the very least, read them enough to understand how to run them.

One of the games is Bash Ultimate Edition. A superhero game with a pretty easy game mechanic. But it's reeeeaaaalll loose in some of it's rules, which on one hand is great, on another... I'm struggling with it. I love openess in gaming. I love Fate, Fudge, and a few other systems that have rules but encourage alot of gray area.
Bash in it's simplistic nature also becomes deep quick.

Point in fact, my daughter Brianna who's such a wanna be gamer. Let me rephrase that, is a gamer-in-waiting. She wants to play this game. She took the rules and made up a character. She got the basics down really well, but we found out that in the process of creating her character how complicated these simple rules could become.

Not complicated in understanding them, but complicated in that we could take so many roads to get the kind of character she wanted to run. And that... was and is blowing my mind.

And due to her High School scheduling of things and my work has completely been a stumbling of us getting to play. And thus my reading of the entire book and running has fallen on its face.
But hope springs eternal. The new cartoon series Young Justice has recently respawned our interest in playing this. I've picked it back up, started sketching out a couple of adventures and written down villians. This could happen.

I'm rambling now.

So my Gaming ADD is building up strongly. And I don't know how to combat it. Because we live in a world of accessibility, too many outside influences seem to catch my attention and I think "OOooo I can run this doing X".

Oy. I need help.

Don't watch twitvid's without knowing what they're about

So in a search for something unrelated... I stumbled across an interview with Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files from late last year. He's chopped off all his hair(much like me) and shaved down his beard(not like me-I don't have one).



Because he's one of my favorite author's, I watched. Only to find out the spoilers from the book Changes, which I hadn't read yet.

Oy!!!

While I normally don't mind spoilers, because I'm the kind of person who enjoy's the journey of a story and can appreciate it not matter how I find out. This was a kick in the stomach.
I can appreciate the interviewer plugging his upcoming short stories book, but really? Really? The ending of Changes.

Now I have to step up my reading to finish the series. Not that I needed much arm twisting, it's just that I've got soooo much stuff on my plate I can barely keep up with my other interests and read for fun too.

At least I know there's more Dresden Files coming...

A new year, and yet again... a new attempt

Like many bloggers, and people in general this time of year, I'm restarting my blog.
Mostly so I can post on the interwebz, and get my thoughts out. Not that I don't on a regular basis, because I tend to lurk and post on rpg.net so getting my opinion out is something I do often...

I plan to post at least once a week, more often if I get a chance.



I'm currently working on upping my Game Master skills. I'm trying to reinvent the way I approach my games. Due to time restraints and real-world conflicts, I've been running a a campaign using a lot of published adventures which I've tied to my home game. Mostly with good success, but from my point of view I'm still lacking. I've got a straw man plot that I'm trying to reinforce as we further our game along.

So I'm trying to increase my skills. I've started rethinking how I do things and really start practicing more of things I preach. "Say yes or roll dice".



I'm running a 4th Edition DnD game at the moment. And it's been the longest game I've run in quite sometime. Alittle over 2 years. Wow... I've been good about keeping my GM-ADD under control, but it's starting to buckle. With such great games as the Dresden Files, Legends of Anglerre, Strands of Fate, Gamma World 4e, Bash UE, Icons, Shadow, Sword and Spell, Legend of the Five Rings 4e, and waaaay too many more to list all calling to me to run. Ugh.

Anywho... I can run those. But it all works the same, I gotta bring my game up. I gotta take my GM skills to the next level.

And I will.

The Moooooving Finger

Ok, what's worse than having a big ol' sinus infection? Having one with a newly broken finger. Blah.

Hard as all out to type, but managing.
If I can figure out how to transfer the file over to an image, I'll post my x-rays.

I'm not dead... yet

Ok just a quick "hullo".
Been a busy beaver the last couple of weeks and haven't gamed once.

However, got a game on Thursday with my so-called adult friends. :D
And then possibly a game on Sunday with my kids. It's my son's 14th birthday and I think he wants to play. (or rather... he's asked me, are we gonna play on my Birthday?)

So full game week. Yay.
A-Kon is coming up and I'm sure I'll have some nifty things to post about that.

Gaming with new players, in this case, my kids.

So I've started a bi-weekly 4e DnD game with my son (13) and my daughter (17).

They've been wanting to play for awhile, but their school schedules and my own work schedule has been conflict.
We started a couple of weeks ago, and I had invited a couple of my regular players to join. While teaching new players isn't all the hard, they can stay in their "shell" not knowing what is ok and what isn't. That's where an experienced player can help.
My friend Craig was the only one who could make it and I'm glad he did.

We had a blast.

I created characters for them based off of what they wanted to play. The reasoning was that while creating a character is not too terribly hard to do, they could play these characters and decide whether or not they truly enjoyed playing.
And you know what, they did. It was all they talked about the next week.
My daughter played a human fighter, Gwen and my son played a Dragonborn Warlord, Ximnar.
They both had moments where they felt in the spotlight and that is what it should be like.
We played Into the Shadowhaunt. It was, from what I am told, the module used at the first 4e DnDXP day.

I modified it to the core setting of the Nentir Vale, and off we went.
Couple of highlights: Ximnar used his breathweapon on the hobgoblins hiding behind the oil-filled coffins and blooding him. He also intimidated the necromancer Helvec off of his 10-foot high dais where he was casting an evil ritual.

Gwen cleaved an animated statue in-two, destroying it and prior to that she had been atop the dais fighting the necromancer. But when the animated statue arrived, she took a running leap off the dais to attack it.

Pretty sweet.

The paradigm of defender and leader worked great for this first adventure.
The second adventure... not so much. I ran them through the first adventure in the Dungeon Delve book, Coppernight Hold.

Alot of it had to do with my son not wanting or not understanding how to use his powers for most of the game. He stuck with basic attacks instead of using his powers to take on threats and positioning or amplifying Gwen. It was frustrating for me to watch. I continued to ask are you going to use a power, "no, just attack." I don't know how much of it was he was afraid to take the risk of his character, he's a Bravura Warlord. Which means he leads from the fight or in the middle of the fight, and often places himself in harms way to gain the advantage for his team.
So for two encounters he got the snot beat out of him and his sister because he didn't use his powers.

But in the final encounter when they faced a room full of kobolds and white dragon wyrmling.
At first it look bad for them. His breath weapon failed to kill most of the minions, and they initial attack of the minions had left both of them almost bloodied.
And the dragon hadn't even moved up to attack.
But it started working out as they took care of the minions, and faced the dragon.
By now both were bloodied, Gwen had been twice!
The dragon had hardly been hit. Then out of the blow, Gwen crits it almost blooding the beast.
It attacks and almost puts Ximnar out.

On the next turn, Gwen hurts it more beyond bloodied. It had about 38hp left at this point.
And finally. Finally, Ximnar started using his powers. He used his daily, an action point and an encounter power(don't remember off the top of my head),, and the encounter power set it up for its ultimate demise. The power was worded so that he granted the dragon combat advantage against him, but if the dragon attacked him both he and any ally that was adjacent to the target(dragon) could get a free opportunity attack. And that was all she wrote.
The dragon went last in the round lunging at Ximnar with a defiant snarl, only to hammered down by attack from Gwen and Ximnar in retaliation.

Very cool.

So all this week it has been, "I can't believe we killed a dragon. Are all dragons that easy, Dad?"
"Nope I replied. They are all dangerous."
"Good." he says with a smile. "I can't wait to fight another one."

They've been trying to recruit a few of my daughters High School friends, with not much luck. One made the remark, "I watch a game before, it seemed boring."
The keyword I told him was watch. Had you played you would have a much different experience.
Anywho... rambling now.
So this is a win-win for me.
One, I get to play the hobby I love with my kids.
Two, they love it.
Three, this version of DnD allows me to do something I hadn't in the past. Be spontaneous with encounters and be able to play the next time they hit me up with, "Dad can we play tonight?" Which usually meant, right now. With just about any other game we've tried, I've had to plan and research. But with this, I can just pick it up and go.
I look forward to the near future where I can add a couple of other games to that list of pick up games.

BASH, Mouse Guard, Savage Worlds and anything with FATE; I'm look at those to teach my kids over the summer so we can start having more fun.

Allergies and Benadryl

So the last couple of weeks have been brutal for my allergies. And up until a couple of days ago, I just dealt with it.
Watched what I ate, tried to keep hydrated and waited for rain.

But my wife convinced me to take some benadryl before bed to help me sleep.
I have and it's been great, however... my dreams are often, clear and just plain bizarre.

Case in point, last night I had a very brutal nightmare. I say brutal because it involved the death of my son. I didn't see it(in the dream), but as dreams go, I knew it.

I was in another room, I heard shots(which in real world terms-turns out to be thunder) ran into the room he was and in, found a gun and knew he had shot himself. The sheer amount of grief I felt is still felt as I write this, and he's sitting on the couch right now playing the Wii. Trying to figure out the meaning behind it or if it's just some perverse worry I have about him. I don't even own a hand gun and my ammunition for my rifles are locked up.
But the vividness of my dreams, and the fact that I've been remembering them because of the benadryl makes me think that I'm not sleeping well prior to taking this.
Not saying I want to continue taking this beyond the help with allergies, but man... the trade off: good sleep vs. bizarro dreams.

Anywho... it's Saturday(yahoo) and we've got a ultra-non-planned day. Should be good, at least better than my dreams.

Designing Video Game Club Flyers...

Ok, one of the benefits of having teenagers is doing cool things for them.

Last year I created 24 posters(11x17) for my daughter's HS anime club.
Had alot of fun with them. I think my ego got a really big boost from the fact, that after the first day, more than half of the posters were missing. Not thrown away, stolen. LOL. So I sent another couple of sets to the club. Same thing. 3rd time helped(plus a notice about not stealing signs from the principal).

So now I was asked to do video game flyers for their video game club.
meh... it was fun to do. But I'm so so about the outcome.
Take a look and see what you think.(just a note: I created 20 flyers, these are just my two favorites)

Google keeps stuff I forget about.

The original header designs.
In using Google/gmail I forget that I have stuff stored. Such as... graphics.

The last 2 were meant to be part of animation I had thought of starting. Start out dark, then blurry and finally clear.
Considering the frequency of my posts, it's probably better that I've kept it just plain. :D

Working from home and the constant discipline of self

So my current job allows me to work remotely, i.e. from home.
I love it.

Love it, love it, love it.
It allows me the flexibility to work my hours as soon as I get up until I get stuff done.
Granted I do pull some late hours and weekend work, but the trade off is nice. I can pick my kids of from school, take time to go to the Dr when needed for them and still meet my deadlines and get my daily/weekly hours in and then some.

But keeping focus is struggle.
Too many tempting things pop up during the day(see blog and other shtuff) that contend with my attention.

I can so easily take a break to surf the web or watch the news and all of a sudden a 5-minute break has become 20-30 minutes. It doesn't happen often, but when things are slow, that's when it is hardest to stay sharp and keep focused on what I should be doing.

It's a constant struggle and hopefully... something I can keep up and even get better at. :D

And many months later

It's funny how you go through spurts of creativity. 

Or maybe that's just me.

So blogging a design post without designs is not cool. Blogging for many months without designs is an offense is some countries.

So here is a place holder until I can get some sleep and post more.

Oh, and by the way, I updated the correct link in the upper right hand portion of the site.

Weird how that changed to carbonmode and not carbonmade... it used to work.

Anywho... it works now. :D

MS Word and the Adobe Designer

What do you do when you are required to design a document in MS Word, when you'd rather do it in InDesign?

Me? panic.

But I'm trying. I'm working on a doc that is roughly 24-30 pages, and is a 5x7 piece. So itty-bitty fonts, with .75 gutters on the sides. And is clean. I mean, real clean. Boring clean. 

Forwhatever reason, I can't seem to design worth a flip in Word. It's clunky and boring. But then again, it may just be my lack of using it that's hampering me.

Oh well... we'll see.

Round 2: The same... only different

Ok. So I got an email telling me that the client is not ready for a bottle redesign as much as they are just some simple cosmetic changes.

Ok.

I can do this.
But they need it for a meeting this morning at 10:30am.

Oh cool. I look at my watch(8:45am). Loads of time.
We need it by 9:30 so we can prepare.

Oh...crap.

No worries!

I took their basic yellow(which is the bottle they're using) and pantone matched it.
Guessed at the specs(aka the live area) for presentation and came up with some real simple designs. I have some that have the full wrap to show the continuing design but they mainly want to have an initial "here-it-is-look" for their presentation.

What do ya think?