Second Person Plural

Stop reading this!

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:43:44 GMT

Seriously. I'm not blogging here anymore. I'm blogging here. So if you find out by reading this post that I have blogged the latest playtest session, you're reading in the wrong place.

But go read the other post anyhow.

New digs

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:54:09 GMT

If you ordinarily follow my exploits here, you may be curious to learn that I am now doing my blogging at blog.ultrablamtacular.com.

That is all.

Microsoft Sucks

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:20:23 GMT

So, the other day, we took a family trip to the emergency room.

Both of my in-laws were ambulanced to the hospital. I was sitting in the waiting room trying to keep my son occupied by discussing the reasons for perspective (as an artistic technique).

This is the moment that the MS Elite Team calls me. Not, I might add, between 6 and 8 pm, as they had said. Why bother scheduling something for a two-hour window and then ignoring it entirely? They were like, 8 hours early...and that was the best part about the call.

I told my support monkey my demands. She said the best she could do was request expedited shipping and request a new console from Microsoft. I didn't bother pointing out that she had introduced herself as being from Microsoft, because I knew she was just some offshore support center drone. I did bother asking what was so effing elite about her - why I had waited days for this if we were just going to do the same thing as before.

"I own this case." She said.

"No," I replied, hotly, "I own this case!" I prodded a little more and eventually it came out that the elite time can do nothing exceptional. The only benefit was that a single person was going to shepherd this through the process. Woohoo.

So yesterday I got my callback.

Microsoft refused me a new console.
They refused me expedited shipping!

And, as we all know, the 360 Elite is coming next month - 120GB is all that matters to me. Black makes no difference. HDMI makes no difference. But 120GB - that's how much the system should have had to begin with. But whut-ev. Basically, I'm so pissed at MS I could spit.

They suck. supermuse does not.

End transmission.

The key to great comedy

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:59:40 GMT

As everybody knows, the key to great comedy is timing.

I mean, there's the joke:

A: Ask me the secret to great comedy.

B: OK. What's the secret to great co--

A: TIMING!

So, I have to think that this is fucking hilarious.

What, you may ask, is so funny?

My XBOX 360, which I purchased on launch day, has died.
For the third time.
Right before Guitar Hero 2 comes out (my box died on Saturday, which for all intents and purposes is a Business-Monday, and GH2 comes out a week from tomorrow).
Right after reports of 360 problems from house-sitting IINTweens prompted me to drop $20 on a cooling device to try to eke out the life of the 360 past the release of GH2.
When I have events surrounding GH2 planned with other people already.
And a new, 120 GB 360 supposedly being unveiled Wednesday.

How could the timing be any better?

I am beginning to loathe XBOX support. They're a particular breed of friendly and ineffectual that I really despise. I guess it's the desired state for all support persons these days, and Microsoft can certainly afford to hire the best . After explaining my extreme displeasure with my multiply-resurrected 360, I had my case escalated to "The Microsoft Elite Team". I was supposed to get a call back from these problem-solving ninjas, but haven't yet. I called support again to ask exactly when the Wolf would be on the motherfucker, and was told I'd get the call between 6 and 8 pm tomorrow night - oh fuck, that's during Kenpo. Well, we'll see.

I was referred to this team, I believe, because I have made several demands. Fulfillment of these demands would probably mollify my intense rage until my 360 goes belly-fucking-up the next time:

I want a brand-new console. I'm tired of getting refurbished consoles. Let's say you were at a restaurant and there was something wrong with your chicken Caesar salad. For instance, the chicken in question was raw. When you send it back, you expect a new salad. Your lettuce is no longer edible, having been in contact with the raw chicken. You don't want the old salad back, everything having been broiled together, you don't want someone else's salad that the kitchen has slapped back together and you sure as fuck don't want a different raw chicken Caesar salad that somebody else puked into the bathroom sink.
I want it now. I'm tired of waiting a week or more for a shipping box, then shipping my 360 away, then waiting another ten days or more for my puked up chicken salad to return. I want my new console overnighted to me post-haste. I didn't get my call today, so getting a console tomorrow is apparently out. They're flunking this one so far. But I'm willing to wait for the call (which if I miss it tomorrow, I'll be equal parts pissed and surprised) to start grading them.

As unlikely as I think any of that is to happen, I'm blogging it here so that there's a public record of this colossal mess.

Grrrrr...

Head for the hills!

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:39:24 GMT

It's a DWYM!

OK. So it's not strictly a DWYM. But all I needed to see was "neural interface" and "mouse" attached to the same peripheral, and I was very, very afraid.

Thanks and apologies

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:12:11 GMT

Both of the titular entities are in order.

First - Thanks to the Increasingly-Ill-Named Tweens for housesitting.

Second - Sorry to aforementioned IINTweens and also to supermuse for the particularly awful kickoff to the Song of Steel game. This week will be what last week should have been. Or something else suitably better.

Like "rotating" and "maw"

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:31:08 GMT

The internet is is an enormously powerful tool. It can be used to great political, scientific, and social effect.

But it also does a great job of bringing together elements that are ordinarily left far apart.

Our theme today is kittens. Kittens and war.

First up, a classic. This is almost as good as the Penny Arcade spankalicious Strawberry Shortcake image of internet infamy. With a fan of each disparate element in my house, I'm reminded of this all the time, so I thought I might as well grab it as long as I was on the Kittens + War topic:

Following that, there is this: http://kittenwar.com. I'm thinking of posting a picture of Spike. He would drive the other kittens before him, and hear the lamentations of their women. Totally.

You guys rock

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:52:19 GMT

OK. I don't usually write about personal stuff. Mostly, I'm a political blogger, and that's deeply unsatisfying. But I wanted to put a post up to shadydrummer and natmun and supermuse.

I wanted to let them know how awesome it is to have players as good as they are. Is the other member of the Maddy tVS cast on LJ? If so, I don't know his username or whatever tf they call it here. Anyhow, shady's awesome blogging was actually a great reward for a GM - a +5 ramchip of goodness. And the dedication they have to the game, their characters, and this story we built together (which, hey, I'd have watched this game as Season 8, wouldn't you?) made this one of the best RGPs I've ever been involved with.

I'm intending to ignore the living shit out of all Buffy related stuff for about half our break, and then hit it hard for the second half, because this game came out of, "Hey, I got this new Buffy RPG, wanna make characters?", so if I'm gonna plan something this time, I want it to show. :)

So thanks guys, I totally couldn't have done it without you.

PS - Futurama plays on the 360! Yay, backwards compatibility!