jacob_soren

Fighting Entitlement

2009-05-13T03:51:06Z

Haven't had much time to write lately, still string to point out the audacity of others as well as fight the Entitlement rampant in the Cam Org.

Playing LOTRO lately, WoW just hurts my head.

Writing up some OWOD stuff, not sure why but I am.

The Coffee Games

2008-04-17T21:11:31Z

So I work IT, I have allot of bad days, it’s just the nature of the beast when you’re trying to work tech support for people who think John Deere should be Canonized by the Pope.

Lucky for me I have a ritual I go through every day to make my day better and brighter. I like to refer to this Ritual as “The Coffee game”.

We have a coffee company deliver and maintain our coffee supplies here. They come once a week and make sure we have all the creamers and sugar and filters and crap we need. I happen to sit near the largest repository of coffee supplies as well as the coffee machines themselves.

So every morning upon getting to my desk I run over to the machine and dump all the coffee that’s been made, no matter how new. (Sometimes if a pot is brewing when I get there I will even go so far as to dump it, not every time though, see below for more info.) I will then take the coffee and proceed to make new coffee. But my coffee is special.

I like to change up what coffee is made. On nice lazy happy days I will take and make insanely strong coffee, generally with at least 2 pouches of grounds per pot. Sometimes more, it depends on what meetings or whats going on that day.

Other times I will take and make only decaffeinated in as many pots as I can. This one is especially fun on days when lots of meetings are scheduled.

A few times now I have gone to great lengths to make Decaf for days on end, and then all of a sudden I’ll make double packets of coffee in all of the pots. Those are the fun days.

Every now and again, if coffee is being made, I will dump the fresh pot out and hit the start button again, and just recycle the old grounds. Other times, I’ll do this 3-4 times so folks basically have tea.

I would like to point out that the owners of the company want everyone to have “Fun” at work, but I don’t think they counted on some folks just plain being sadistic.

New Character

2008-04-15T02:36:21Z

Well I rolled an Invictus Gangrel to enjoy online while I finish schooling and all.
Its odd but I am basing the character almost solely off of a picture, and now I find myself having to create a suitable costume to go along with it.

So anyone with any sort of costuming advice or anything please drop me a line. This is going to take some months to completely build, but hopefully I have it in time for some large games. Maybe even a Con or 2

Link to pic: http://fc04.deviantart.com/fs29/f/2008/069/5/b/Anima__Reinhold_by_Wen_M.jpg

HR meeting

2008-04-07T17:39:27Z

So as I posted last week I had a fairly ugly run-in with a coworker. Well I wrote it all up as best as I could and then handed it over the the HR ladies here.

It took about 2 hours for them to call a meeting about it all.

Essentially they asked me what I wanted to see happen. the problem is I had no idea. Violence sounded good, but I doubt they would sanction it. Firing would be good as well, but once again I wasn't sure if they would go for that.

The lady started crying when she was called in and she apologized like a billion times.

I left it up to HR on how to handle it and they told me they would have an answer by this afternoon. I made it clear though that I would not be working with her in the future, she could call my coworkers and get help from them on any issue she might have. They whole-heartedly agreed to this.

I think Suicide happens far more then Murder

2008-04-02T20:37:05Z

So today I got hit with something that really made me pity a person on one hand and on the other I wanted to rip their throat out with my teeth like some bad horror movie. (I’m angsty at times)

I was sitting at a co-workers desk trying to repair her PC when she started asking me about my wife and son. Me, figuring this was just idle chit-chat, obliged the lady. All of a sudden she started asking some really probing questions of my son. Now I generally don’t talk to co-workers about my family life, as its really none of their business what transpires in my home. However, this lady seemed to know quite a bit about my son, so I being paranoid started fishing. It turns out that my son is the topic of much conversation in and around the office; this is mainly due to his having Autism, and us living in the south, where no one minds their own.

So this lady sits there and prattles on for minutes on end and I cannot get her PC to cooperate with me at all. And finally she starts relaying a story to me about how when she was growing up there was a “Retard” (her words not mine) that lived on the corner of whatever godforsaken street she grew up on. Apparently this kid, used to stand at the corner of his yard and yell at cars that drove by whenever he could.

About this time I feel this really ugly foreboding coming across my spine, my “spiddie-sense” is just going insane, and I want nothing more than for this PC to behave so I can get the frell away from this chick.

Alas its not to be.

So she keeps going on and on, telling me some really ugly horror stories about this “Retard” (It turned out to be a little boy)that lived near her, and how he used to do all this really disgusting things because he was a “Retard”. She was floored and couldn’t figure out why this little guy’s parents wouldn’t train him to act better in public and how it “must be the most embarrassing thing ever”.

I sat there jaw clenched for a few moments and didn’t say a word.

She must have thought my silence was permission to continue. She then started asking me about my son and if he likes to “bark” at cars. Or if he will ever be “normal” and able to play with other kids; before I could respond she then said “ its just a miracle that your wife and you could find the patience and strength to deal with such a tragedy, and god has truly blessed you for you to be able to take care of your son”.

Imagine a sheet of ice,

Now imagine yourself picking up a nice think piece of it in your hands and holding it under a scalding hot stream of water.

You sit there and watch all the little pieces fall and break away , to spatter and run along the floor.

That was my brain this whole time this cow talked to me

The sad part was that for once I couldn’t say a thing, I couldn’t’ even muster the energy to lash out at this woman, let alone attack her back for being essentially, meat wrapped around a core of useless ideas and preconceptions.

So how was your day?

Update

2008-03-24T22:03:31Z

Saturday I went out and became the shiny new owner of the following Tattoo:

I frelling love this thing, its taken me 5 years to decide what to get, but this is it.

EvE online

2008-03-21T04:01:00Z

So I have been playing EvE online as a break from all things that require creative thought, its working out nicely, I actually just sit there in a random system and mine asteroids, fly back to whatever station is handy, drop off the ore, fly back to the belt, mine, rinse...repeat

Its so deliciously mindless.

Anyway, I started at work yesterday flying around the known Galaxy in EvE, gathering up all the random crap I have bought over the years that I have played and moving it all to the one System. I have an utter butt-ton of gear scattered around. In order to move it all I actually bought a Hauler and outfitted it with an expanded cargo hold.

While the thought of having a double decker uhaul-it flying through space emptying out my various houses was cool enough, I was left with a new question as really started to look and plot my course for the most efficient series of jumps to hit all the stations I had left crap at.

My new question was Just how big is EvE?
Answer: just over 5,000 systems
Five Frelling Thousand

Thats not Counting Stations or Belts inside each system

Thats just sick!
for the hell of it I plotted a course from one arm of the Galaxy to teh furthest point/ opposite arm, Only 176 jumps, but we'll say you can get one jump every 5 minutes, (NOTE: some systems are faster while some are slower, so I am rounding here). Thats 880 minutes, or 14.6 hours of in game time. Thats nuts!

And here you all thought flying from EPL to STV was bad,
Amateurs, all of you!!!!

For those of you that are curious, here is a link to teh Regions that make up the entire Universe of EvE:
http://www.eve-online.com/peopleandplaces/universe/u_9.asp

How to ruin a game

2008-03-05T03:52:00Z

How to ruin a game

I have been a gamer for approx 22 years now. Quite a long time to be honest and its somewhat scary.

Over the years I have been a player, and a ST/ DM/ GM/ etc… Generally I am pretty good ST, but lately I have noticed a problem; I just can’t get motivated anymore. I just can’t bring myself to care.

At first this bothered me, and I forced myself to work on things, this just made it worse. I started to wonder what I could do to get myself motivated again; I started to focus all of my attention on it. Soon my work was slipping and I really wasn’t doing anyone any favors as I struggled to put pen to paper.

Then it dawned on me, I’m not the problem in this equation, everyone else is.

It felt so good to say this, and to actually know it was true.

Once this really set in I started looking at the way things are and how they relate to me as an ST. and I was able to come up with several things that I can pinpoint as ruining to a game.

A) Non-stop badgering – why is game all that folks that play want to talk about? There are other things happening in life, why not discuss game when its time for game. Don’t talk about it every waking moment of every day and night.

B) Whining (A) – (this is a 2 parter) If you’re a player, then accept the consequences of your actions. Don’t be a cry baby, be a frigging adult and move on. Make a new character or ask the DM to be understanding of your foolish move. Realize that this is not them against you.

C) Whining (B)- Don’t whine, don’t beg, don’t nag. If your acting like a child then expect the game to end abruptly as folks will stop having a fun time, and seek their enjoyment elsewhere.

D) Arguing – Don’t argue with rules calls, have faith that the DM is not an idiot, especially if they are the ones taking the time to sit down and run a game and actually sift through all the books and plan out an adventure.

E) Learn the game – Crack a goddamned book, don’t quote scripture and verse when you haven’t even read the books. Don’t quote your friends, they are not a reliable source of information, and they most likely don’t know their rules either. Honestly if you can’t point to a passage in a book, then you should just quiet down and let whatever scene or session end.

This pretty much encompasses my fed uppedness (is that even a word?)and how to ruin any sort of game for me. This might be a total “take my ball and go home” attitude, but I think after playing in and running both good games and bad that I am entitled.

I have allowed my characters to be killed, I have been grumpy over it, I have never once destroyed a game though over it. I have been bitter about the amount of loot I have received in a game or the XP or how often the game is run, but I vent and move on, I don’t sit and harp on it or poke and prod it.

I don’t push new players away simply because I felt their concept was dumb. I either help them make better ideas or I limit my exposure to their new superhero/ flavor of the month.

In a nutshell be an adult, its pretty simple

To be, or not to be....

2008-02-22T19:58:57Z

A week or so ago, my Membership with the Organization formerly known as the World of Darkness, expired.

While I don't particularly want to continue playing, I do miss allot of the interaction, but the game is bogged down in rules that just plain do not make any sense.

Oh well, the inner debate continues.