Categorizing Final Fantasy and April 28th 2014

Classifying the Final Fantasy Games

(super nerdy extremely long post about this Here)

Some people classify the games as "old school" and "new" games, but I do not think that accurately sets up things.  It does not answer the questions on where Final Fantasy 7 goes, or when the "new" era actually starts.  First, I have to bring up that there are actually two "brands" of Final Fantasy in the 8 and 16 bit eras.  We only saw one of these in early 90's.  There is Final Fantasy A, which includes parts 1, 3 and 5.  We only got part 1 originally.  These games have the "job class" system.  Instead of a large cast of characters coming and going at plot points, you are instead given many jobs that the small class can switch between at different times or choose at one time before playing.  Final Fantasy B contains the ones we are more familiar with here in the West, parts 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9.  These have set classes and when something new is needed, we generally get a new cast member.  They have sweeping stories that are focused on narrative instead of the technical side of gameplay.

This brings up the subject of Technology.  The "modern" era of Final Fantasy is 8, 10, and 13.  This classification has nothing to do with technology because they have all had varying technology.  Part 1 had a space station and a war mech!  Part 4 has that thing.. you know the one... you know... Whale?  Trying to put the steampunk Final Fantasy 6 in between is silly as well.  What I mean by "modern" I mean that the cultures and influences of the world are focused much more on modern day Japanese culture and pop-fashion.

You already know about Ivalice

There is another school of thought.  The school of thought that Final Fantasy is not about its tropes, that it is more related to the creator Sakaguchi than that of Chocobos, Bahamuts and Dragoons.  Sakaguchi left the series after Final Fantasy 10, and has made games since.  His games Lost Odyssey and The Last Story are considered by some to be where the true sequels have gone, especially by those that hate the "Modern" era.  He also did Blue Dragon, but that feels more like a Chrono Trigger.

There is an argument for Seven to be "modern" and shares a lot with the other "modern" games, but even though the dress is modern, the characters are stylized in the way that the characters from the A and B games are stylized.  While there is angst and "crazy" in the story, the story is much more focused on the world at large, and not so much all about the group inner drama.  Sure, Cloud and Tiffa have some dramage(typo but I like the word; drama and damage), but Cid and Red 13 don't have it out.  Vincent and Yuffy don't have beef with Cait Sith.  The modern games have EVERYONE pulling a 90210 with EVERYONE.

So yea.


April 28th, 2014

For about 3 years now I've mainly watched Youtube or Netflix.  Yogscast is by far the most channels I have subscribed to, but they have expanded a bit larger than I've been willing to keep up with.  There are about 5 channels added now that I do not really know how good the stuff is.  So, each week I'm going to add a new subscription to these channels and if I watch enough of their channel that I like, I'll keep them, but from now on, being "Yogscast" doesn't automatically mean I am subscribing.  I am preparing to unsub to Parv, Zoey and possibly Dave-Chaos as it is, mostly because I just don't watch their stuff, so its more like "spam".  I like Dave though, as a person, so he might get a pass.  I'll be subbing to Pyrion Flax this week, he seems like the closest fit for the Yogs, which makes sense because he's an old Goon from the WoW days of their team.

Tried a few colognes as of late.  I have to say that I liked "Lucky You" pretty well, its a fresh one that reminds me a little of Tommy and a little of CK.  I could see myself wearing it, but I already have a few things that fit its profile, so the purposes would overlap.  A few of the bad ones...  I tried the James Bond one and holy cow can you say sandalwood?  It was so strong in sandalwood that all the undertones were drowned out.  I also tried Kenneth Cole Black because I have had a lot of luck with colognes that have "black" in them(Stetson Black is currently my favorite cool weather, every day cologne).  It became botanical and sweet, and eventually became so botanical that it smelled somewhat like Icy Hot somehow.

Tuesday I am going to be doing a lot of RPG world work.  I have not done a lot of work on one since I made that Mad Max one shot in Savage Worlds.  This is different though, this is "my" scifi space opera setting.  I have decided that I will have worlds that I just always use for certain things.  I have a Fantasy world done in what I tried to do in a "professional" manner, but I had never decided on one Scifi world because there's so many sub-genre.  This one will just be my Star Wars/Star Trek/Firefly type of space opera world(well... universe), and not have the cyberpunk stuff.  I got my outline all set up, and lots of little notes on things.  I know I can't get it all done in one day, but I can do a hell of a lot.  Just like my Fantasy world, it will be system agnostic.  I've been reading Traveller and now I'm seeing why the GURPs edition was popular as well; aside from the character creation there just isn't anything stand-out about the system.  Its not like Legend of the 5 Rings or Shadowrun where you lose something if you change the system.

weekend 25th 2014

Let's see, the weekend of the 25th of April, 2014?

Well me and my girl finished Orphan Black season 1.  It was definitely worth watching.  Around the time we got a "big bad guy" reveal, I was put off a little by its euro-trash, cheesey obession with clubs.  I don't get why Europe keeps doing that in their media, its the equal of the "big oil" company being behind all the evil in the world here in the States.  By the time the end of the season came, it finished pretty well.  I will watch Season 2 eventually.  Oh and also, if you recognize a certain actor's voice and say "where did I see him before?"  Look up the Star Trek Next Gen episode "A Matter of Time".

I'm looking for a non-Overloard, non-GM, non-DM Dungeon Crawl board game.  I know that right now, ironically, the Dungeons and Dragons board games are the hotness and the new standard for this, but they are out of my budget atm.  I've looked at Dungeon! and also I'm looking at alternate ways to turn Savage Worlds(or possibly 13th Age) into a randomized dungeon crawl.  I play a lot of games on Sundays during the hot months, and all i have is last year's games, which I've also been playing inside all winter... so yea.  Just need something fresh in the rotation.

I'm also kind of writing up some ideas for my own game set up for a Dungeon Crawl.  Its sort of a campaign simulator.  The idea is to have 4 dungeons(out of 16 choices) and a boss fight by the end of it.  It involves evil armies marching to a city to summon a God, and your choice of dungeons delays one army while the others march.  By the end, your choice of dungeons determines not only the abilities of your characters, but what the final boss battle ends up being.  It is designed to be played multiple times and with different combinations affecting things each time without getting out of hand.  I'm thinking of shrinking it from 4 to 3 armies and seeing how the diversity holds up.  More on it later if anything comes of the ideas.

Sunday, there are SO many bees out this year.  They are saying we might have a mild Summer since the Great Lakes are still 30% frozen, but the weather this year has been so atypical compared to the last 4(the only 4 I've really taken notice of in recent memory).  The flowers are all blooming at odd times and instead of lots of red wasps, I'm seeing almost all yellow jackets and bumble bees.  We have fruit trees, so I'm used to there being yellow jackets all over our property, but they almost never come to the porch like they are now.  Also I'm worried that the blue Hydrangea bush at my girl's place has died, it was my favorite new flower.  Its possible I'm early on it, but its not looking good...

Trying not to give up too much information, but my girl and much of my family participated in a 5k run recently and I'm super proud of them for finishing it.  I hear it was actually some pretty hilly terrain for a 5k, and I know it was in the hot Sun.  It was nice of the organizers and some good Samaritans to give out fresh fruit and water.  There was a health sponsorship side to the event, and since there are blood pressure medicines that dislike potassium intake, they had an alternative to the oranges and bananas that didn't have as high potassium, and I thought that was nice of them.

I don't like mayo, but since it is the base for so many foods that I have made or like as of late, I was happy to find the Olive oil mayo that Kraft makes.  I put very little mayo into whatever I"m using it with, and the fact this stuff works is pretty good.  I've been making meat salads, which I've disliked as a child, but lately have been making in a way that I enjoy them.  When I say meat, I mean like Ham Salad.  I don't touch chicken salad because my girl makes the best and I won't even try.  This week I'm going to make some asian tuna salad with sesame oil, onions and some chili peppers for a kick.  I eat them in romaine lettuce wraps, typically for lunch since a few spoonfuls = 200ish calories.

I think that's enough for the weekend.  I have no idea really what sort of posts I'm doing this week.  I'm in activity slumps since Easter came and went.  I need to get up and get to doing stuff, and I need to get a goal set up for the next few months.

Ivalice and April 25th 2014

Final Fantasy: Ivalice

(original, much larger post at my Gaming blog)

In the early 1990's, the Yugoslav Wars were highly televised and covered around the world.  Matsuno would see what the war, and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, would do to a modern society.  He became determined that his next game would explore the horrors of war, and force people to think of how horrible it was.  He then created Tactics Ogre, a game very strongly respected, even today.  Through the use of telling a smaller personal story, like that on a stage, Matsuno was able to get the epic story of war to the audience in a digestible way.  Matsuno left Quest, but was soon hired by Squaresoft to produce the first "modern" spinoff of Final Fantasy; Final Fantasy Tactics.  Ivalice was the world he created for the game.  In it, he mixed his political story with the fantastic elements of Final Fantasy.  Summons became religion, Chocobos became warhorses, and the Final Fantasy job system got one of its best incarnations.

 I personally subscribe to the timeline that goes like this:  Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story.  In Final Fantasy Tactics you find ruins while exploring that have broken airships, and they talk about moogles being extinct but once existing.  This firmly puts it ahead of Final Fantasy 12.  In Vagrant Story the religions of Final Fantasy 12 are all talked about as an old "pagan" religion, and that the new religion took place after an old one was found to be heretical.  The heretic religion, I believe, is the one from Final Fantasy Tactics while the Pagan ones are FF12's.  By Vagrant Story, magic is a rare thing, only practiced by those that know the secrets, in Final Fantasy 12 and Tactics it is common place.  To me this timeline makes the most sense.  I also have suspicion that Lea Monde from Vagrant Story is a settlement built on top of the Ancient City of Giruvegan in Final Fantasy 12.  Both cities seem to be entire cities that are actually magical sigils, arranged in circles, and tied to a power source in the center.  Matsuno has said he never intended to make Vagrant Story part of Ivalice, but this was obviously an intention that was thrown away before the game actually began, so to me it is absolutely the same world.

The world of Ivalice has had many critically acclaimed games to take place in it.  When Famtisu "Perfect 40's" were more rare than snow in hell, there were 2 games that earned it in this world, "Final Fantasy 12" and "Vagrant Story" were among the first 8 to get the score and Matsuno the only person to direct two "Perfect 40's".  Sadly the games were never financial hits compared to the JRPG's of the late 90's.  With the entire Ivalice Alliance set up taking place in a waning era of Squaresoft, we are likely to not see much else happen there.  This may have been a contributing factor to Matsuno deciding to leave Squaresoft after Final Fantasy 12 was taken out of his hands and tinkered with heavily before release.

April 25th, 2014

I am hopelessly steeped in 70's rock.  Even though the first year of the local classic rock station only had about 30 songs in its repertoire, they were all 70's rocks and I never got tired of listening to it.  I was sad when they started adding British New Wave 80's to the list of songs... I don't listen to radio any longer.  Anyway, I am practicing and learning guitar phrases from so many 70's rock bands.  A lot of it is easy power chords with some stuff played over top, and that's where I am in skill right now.  It gets me playing and playing for hours trying to spin them together, and it compliments my Hendrix/Angus bluesy rock style that I focused on so much earlier.

First spring Salamander came out to play today while I was on the porch.  I would say it was the first cardinals too, but when it was snowing they came out to stock up on seeds.  Our flowers are all sorts of confused this year.  The front ones had a super early bloom on the morning sun side, but the rest have only started to bud.  Then on the evening sun side we've had 1 bush bloom out a week basically, having only patches of "prime" flower blooms.  I guess the weather has been very sporadic so far.  Some people blame global warming, but I'm going to blame Meg Griffin, because that's what you do.

No beer and no smokes this week.  I get like 2 six pack a year, so I'm not dependant on it.  I frequently smoke a lot for about a month, the go about 6 months without one, so I'm not addicted there either.  Its always at the end though that I have problems occupying my time without them.  It is relaxing for me, and especially in the Spring they get me outside and enjoying the sunshine.  My favorite, quick simple smoke recently stopped being stocked at my close gas station, so now there's no more $2 packs around.  I guess I'm just complaining to complain.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Thunderfunk Trainwreck Connection

Thunderfunk and Trainwreck Connection

(Original unaltered post from my Music blog)

Trainwreck amps are like the #2 sought after amps in the millionaire's club of amp collectors, right behind Dumble.  Trainwreck is a more sad tale, as Ken Fischer designed and made these amps while in poor health.  This health limited his designs to around 100 made, and limited his life prematurely.

Ken's designs are exercises in simplicity.  When you look at modern Marshalls or newer Dumbles, you will see vast arrays of electronics, wired with many filters, creating these crazy complex marvels of modern technology.  Ken's designs were the opposite of that.  When you look at a Trainwreck on paper, you may go "that's it?".  Just like baking, sometimes its the care and thought that goes in to a work, instead of the amount of ingredients.  Ken's designs were unique, new, and while some say influenced by Vox, were his own.  The "purity" of the signal path leads to touch dynamics and a "quickness" to the amps that other designs lack.  I am generally a "new tech or you're a cave man" type of person, but there is this word called "elegance" and if you can put elegance in your simplistic designs, there's art there that I appreciate.

When I hear people compliment a Trainwreck on youtube or in a print review, I hear so many familiar things.  I hear about how fast the signal goes from playing on the guitar to hearing through the amp, and how it changes how you can play.  I have had the same thing happen with my Thunderfunk.  After playing it for months I got out the old Trace Elliot while I was demoing some compression pedals.  There was lag in the signal, the Trace Elliot, a tone machine of the rock gods, was "slow", and I never expected this to happen.  So when I read about the Trainwrecks, the lightbulb in my head went off.  Quite recently I was reading the forum on Freedom Stompboxes, and someone in another country wanted to make a Thunderfunk clone since they could not import one.  Several people said "wow, that looks really simple, should be no problem if you know what you're doing".  Again, the same thing said about Ken's Trainwrecks.

So how does this tie together?  Well it turns out Dave Funk was one of two people approved by Ken to work on Trainwrecks under warranty.  In fact, when Ken was in the worst of health, he hired Dave to create two Trainwreck amps that were sold as 100% Trainwreck.  Due to the low numbers, these amps are well documented and well appreciated.  So it seems like Dave did not just take inspiration from the A.M.P. series, but also threw in a little of Ken's own philosophy about keeping the tone circuits simple and strait forward.  Looking at the front of a Thunderunk belies this detail as it looks complex as hell, but in reality its a masterpiece of both complex and simple.

Thanks to Dave's own website, http://www.thunderfunk.com/, the Trainwreck Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainwreck_Circuits, and Talkbass.com for all the info.  (I do not write this kind of post to brag, I am genuinely a lover of great stories, and the amp tech stories around the Acoustic360 Legacy envelops everything from SWR, to Eden, to Train Wreck and is worth the research to read)

April 23rd, 2014

Hmm.  A few quick things, I'll keep it short since the post above seems long.

Suikoden II has been rated for North American release.  This is one of the most expensive, low number produced GOOD games to have come out of the PS1 era of RPG's.  It is probably the holy grail of the JRPG's of that era.  One of the reasons is because we never got another version of it in English.  Japan has had a few reissues on the PSP and other places, but not the western world.  I can't bare to part with my copy even though I could get a few hundred bucks in its semi-bad, but well loved condition.  It is miles ahead of the first one, and is on the emotional and complexity scale of Matsuno's Tactics series, even though its turn based combat like classic Final Fantasy games.  Of note, aside from the story, is a great Sim City like village creation sub-game, and an Iron Chef contest where you must know the likes and dislikes of even minor characters to know what to cook them, its very fun and very worth the money.  Soon that money cost will be down to $10 or so.

I will not be placing a review of my 2nd beer from Tuesday that I drank because I do not feel like I gave it the attention it would deserve.  The Arrogant Bastard probably blocked some taste buds with its high hop content, so I will be getting another Sam Smith Nut Brown for another review day.  It was good, though seemed a bit underflavored, which is not what I read about, so I either got a slightly old one, or the Bastard broke my taste buds for a few hours.

I think I may have switched what guitar amp I want to go for.  It will probably change again as time goes by, that's just how I am, up to the point of money changing hands, I'm always looking for a better deal.  I want the one amp that will make me not want other amps.  I went through a few bass amps before I got the T'Funk, but I've not wanted anything else since.  I want that with my guitar.  I will not go into it here, but its German.  Germany has been good to me on the tech end of things.  The engine block in my Ford was made in Germany, and has held up perfect for almost 25 years(the American made susepension, and Taiwanese electronics? not so much).  This German amp has auto-biasing on it, much like the Mark Bass Tube heads, and the sound is somewhere between a JCM800 and more modern Marshalls with a huge mid response(like I like it).

Arrogant Bastard Ale review

Arrogant Bastard Ale
Stone Brewery
7.2% Alcohol
Classified Hops and IBU rating
Under $5 for 22 oz bottle.

Stone Brewery is the craft beer's most darling of breweries in the United States.  They get virtual no "bad" ratings from anyone that likes their style of beer, taking top honors in a lot of websites like Beer Advocate.  The podcasts I listen to highly praise them as well.  Their flagship beer is Arrogant Bastard Ale, and though I set out to get Levitation Ale, I ended up with this; their epitome of their brewery.

The story goes that Stone decided to throw caution to the wind and make this beer as hoppy as they liked it themselves.  They released it and found that the nation went crazy over it.  There is a lot made about the hoppy character of this beer, and many consider it the start of the new hop craze in the United States.  As you can see in the picture above, it is a dark red ale, and its head(of which I reduce the amount of through my pouring methods) is thick, creamy and reminds me of a good Guinness pour.  I have to say that this is the first red ale I'd classify as "ruby" red.  Its red is spectacular, and the reflection of the light through the bottom of my mug is that of cherry Kool Aid.  I was told to think "strawberry wine" in color, but I was not prepared for the richness of the red, its quite impressive.

Surprisingly, with all the hype around how strong and full of flavor this beer is, it has to be one of the the least remarkable on smell.  The lack of smell made me doubt the beer content.  I thought "oh no, it really is just all about the hops, so many people only want to rate it high so they can seem to be on the bandwagon".  There isn't even a strong hoppy smell.  Trying harder, I do get fruit, but that disappears quickly.  I know Alcohol and hops can quickly wipe away smells, and so I suspect that is going on here as well.  Still, very surprising.

The taste of this beer astounded me and may have won me over.  There is a floral hop character there, but there is sweet, perfectly caramizled malt in there that stands right up with the hops and says "fuck you for doubting me" just like the gargoyle on the bottle.  So much of this beer is focused on the hop character that people do not talk about how much of an incredible ale it is to have the other flavors stand toe to toe with that hop.  The finish... turns super bitter, like you'd expect.  I did expect it, but my palate does turn the bitter into a salt flavor because its not developed the taste for hops so much yet.  The bitter lingers, do not wait for it to leave if you do not like it, keep something by to snack on after sips.  Lots of people talk of pine flavor, but I can't even taste that because I don't have a taste for hops.

Taste progression:  I get early notes of floral, the kind of floral I look for in a good refreshing beer.  After that, it changed to amber ale bliss for a few seconds.  The bread taste I like is there, but there is not a strong nutty flavor.  From the bread it turns into caramelized sugar with some nutmeg, though any sweetness is quickly overwhelmed by the coming back of the hops.  The hops return strong, and then a turn to bitter that lasts the rest of the drink and half a minute after.

Until I find another amber ale with the same flavor but less hops, I may have to buy this and eat a sandwich while drinking it to tame the bitter, because however bitter it is, the taste of the malts, breads, caramel, are worth it.  The flavor is so great that it perfectly masks its alcohol content.  This is one of the strongest beers I have had when it comes to alcohol and yet I did not take a note of it in the least.  There's no alcohol astringency, there's no burn in my tummy.  Whatever they do to make the flavor of this beer, they do it perfectly.  The hops and bitter can't be overlooked, if you don't like hops you probably won't like this beer.  But the unsung hero of the ale portion of flavor is just as incredible I'd consider using this to work my way to a more hoppy palate if it meant having this great quality amber ale.

(the cap is nothing remarkable, but enjoying a nice cap is sort of a personal preference of mine)

I am not a hop head.  I am a nut brown and amber drinker, styles noted for their lack of bitter.  If you can brave the bitter, you might find one of the best beers in the nation.   For the record, this is guessed to be in the 80-100 IBU(bitterness rating), and the most bitter beer I tend to drink and enjoy fully is rated at 22 and budweiser is about 10.

Easter Weekend 2014

The weekend started with some happy Spring stuff going on.  The first of the Humming birds made their way to our porch.  By the next day I had some humming bird nectar up in the feeder, and I've seen it come by a few times.  We seem to have two breeds of humming birds around my place, with the larger ones showing up early in Spring, and the smaller ones coming in around mid-summer.  It leads to a few push fights between them when they arrive at the same times.  Our flowers are acting so strange this year.  Usually we have this huge, beautiful bloom before Easter, and the flowers have wilted and died about the time the gathering starts.  This year, even with a later Easter than usual, the flowers are just now blooming.  Its almost time to get some really nice pictures.  Bumble bees sure have been busy though.  I call them flying cows.  I imagine them as dopey, but happy little flying bovine, and it makes me smile.

The Easter gathering went off pretty well.  Each year I get better and better prepared for the onslaught of food I have to cook.  We did about the same amount of food as last year, but I got a much earlier start to cooking it all.  I got up and got most of the hotdogs cooked and into a warming tray before anyone arrived.  I tried to do a nice mix of burnt and unburnt.  See, you can always tell who is not blood relations by what they say of the hotdogs.  People with my family's blood love a super charred outside to their hotdogs.  The poor suckers that get tricked into being a part of the family will come up and say things like "get those hotdogs done enough?" or some other smart ass comment.  If I did not burn the hotdogs, I would have a riot, and be recalled as the official grill-meister, and be replaced.  I try to get a mix for the silly people that like normal done hotdogs.

The best thing to help with the cooking is having two chimney starters.  Hamburgers just get done better over high heat, and when you have way over 30 hamburgers to cook, you need the heat to stay hot.  I go ahead and fill the entire grill with two loads of charcoal.  That gets REALLY REALLY hot, and so I keep a spray bottle with water and apple cider vinegar.  Apple Cider Vinegar will cook clean on grilled meats, leaving a nice, very low key taste of anything its sprayed on.  Its not vinegary at all.  When the coals flare up, which will always happen when cooking that many burgers, you just spray down the coals.  I was very happy that my hamburgers are not so dry you can use them as coasters, and yet they are done all the way with a nice crust.

I have this thing that happens, I can't remember how many times I've mentioned it, but the heat and the smoke gets to me when I'm cooking for 4+ hours in front of the grill.  By the end of it, I do not want to eat a hamburger or a hotdog.  Last year my girlfriend made a chicken salad.  It was the most perfect food I can ask for when grilling.  Its very cold, its not overly sweet, but it has apples in it to give it a little bit sweet.  I can stand there and eat it all day long, its just kind of "cleanses" the grill away.  It greatly improves my mood and decreases my "decompression" time after the grilling is done.

This week:  A beer review will hopefully pop up.  I keep a beer journal on Evernote, but I'll put it here as well.  I'm limited by what's available, but I'm hoping to try a risky beer from a brand I haven't had before.  I will talk about Trainwreck amps and their connection to me(I think I said I'd do this earlier, I'll get around to it eventually).  Also I'm finally giving Enterprise a chance, so I'll talk about it through the weeks while I watch it.  I think Netflix might be losing the license this year unless they re-negotiate, so I'll go ahead and take the opportunity.  Ok, that's enough wall of text for today.

April 18th, 2014

Thanks to my girl, I've got a pair of really nice looking earbuds coming to me in the mail.  You have to bow down and do some marketing survey for Black and Mild, but you know, I like Black and Milds.  The back of the earbuds are not made out of plastic, they're made out of what looks to be cigar box wood(not the maple that the wood tips use, something nice and brown looking).  They come in a nice carrying case too, which is something my current set of earbuds did not have.  Oh, those are Phillips She3590, and they sounded amazing... for as long as they work.  They're sub-$10 so get a few pairs.  Really great bass and clarity, but in about 9 months you'll be wanting a new set.  A lot of places rate them as highest in the sub $30 range on sound quality.

There is a game on my tablet that I can't really recommend to you without knowing you.  It is called Star Traders and its by the same guys that make Cyberknights.  These are true sandbox games, and Star Traders even more so.  They have steep learning curves, its going to take you HOURS to learn what exactly it takes to do things.  Also, there's no real direction, you have to make your own goals, you have to find your own way, you have to motivate yourself to play.  If you're the kind of person that played Minecraft and said "I don't get it, what are you supposed to do" then don't get Star Trader.  If you want to act like you own a ship, and manage a crew, and travel along the stars in some retro 16bit graphics and read a whole lot, and deal with HARSH random outcome generators, try it out.  Its kind of like FTL, but with spreadsheets.

I have read that Civilization is doing a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri with the next Civ game.  Civilization games is a weird thing to me.  I LOVE sim games.  From Sim City to Banished, to lots of stuff in between, i love that stuff.  I can't get into Civilization games, the game style doesn't "click" with me.  I bought a silly expensive Civ3 limited edition set once, thinking "so many people are treating this like God's gift to intelligent gamers" and I think I played 3 games of it.  I watch Yogscast play it, and enjoy hearing them talk and goof around while playing, but still, I don't think its for me.  Maybe a scifi spin on it will make me feel better about it, because its largely the theme and premise I don't care for.

Oh, and big science news, like actual science.  They found the first planet that is the size of Earth and in the habitable zone of a star.  Now, the star is a fainter, lower heat star, and so even though the planet orbits it in only 180ish days, the planet only gets 1/3rd the amount of heat from its Sun as we do.  This could mean its an ice planet, or that it just has very large icey poles.  Still, its generally thought to be in the ball park size of Earth, and its designation is Kepler 186... so if we murder our Earth, we know where to go?  Probably not.

Lots of RPG's getting funded on Kickstarter lately.  I have been looking forward to this time, if its indeed here.  The indie group got big on platformers, and then a few years back they the beat'em ups came and then the shooters just about a year ago.  If you know your NES history, after the Marios came Double Dragon and Contra, then late came the Final Fantasy.  Its time for indie devs to be good enough to make their Final Fantasies.  Also my demographic(the ones that aren't me) have disposable income(agian, the ones that aren't me) and they are the ones that made the JRPG boom of the late 90's.  Its approaching a generation since then, and that's generally when big things come back in vogue.  When the kids that fell in love with trading cards came into their 30's, you saw a small renaissance of super high expensive baseball cards being made with pieces of shoes and jerseys and such.  JRPG's are due for a researgence, too bad I don't believe a word Square Enix says about going back to their old fans, they've buried their heads too far up the wrong people's asses for too long.

Murder Games and April 17th

Murder at the Table

(Full Rules posted at my Table Gaming Blog)

(if these rules do not make sense, know that the full rules are on my gaming blog)

What you will need is some form of hat or bucket and several pieces of paper.  The game is separated into Rounds and Turns.  You begin a round by writing "Knife" on one piece of paper, "Gun" on another piece of paper, and "Bystander" on all the others.  You put these in the container and the players draw them.  Until all the players have had a chance to take a piece of paper, no words are spoken.  After the last piece of paper is drawn the players are free to say what they will.  They can declare they are bystanders, they can even declare they have the gun, it would probably be unwise to claim to have the knife.

After each person has had the chance to defend/declare themselves, new paper is passed around to the players that is blank.  If the player is a Bystander(even if they have the gun), all they can write down on this paper is Innocent.  No one is yet to share what they write down.  The player with the Knife may also write down Innocent, or they may write down the name of a non-Gun holding player they wish to kill.  All the papers are folded and put into a container.  Before the papers are revealed, the person with the gun may reveal they have the gun and kill a player using it.

Each piece of paper is revealed.  If the Murderer has killed someone, they leave this game.  If the Bystander with the gun killed someone innocent, the killed Bystander killed will profess their innocence and leaves the game.  If the Bystander with the Gun kills the Murderer, the game is over.  If the Murderer tries to kill the Bystander with the Gun, and that Gun carrier never declared they had the gun, the Murderer is shot and killed and the game is over.  If there are Bystanders left, the game starts a new Round, repeat the steps of the Round.  If only the Murderer and the Bystander with the gun is left, the Murderer kills him or her and wins the game.  Repeat the rounds until either the Murderer kills the Bystander with the Gun, or the Murderer is dead.


April 17th, 2014

I am having wild Hobby swings as of late.  I'm jonesing to play a Fantasy video game that is similar to, or is in fact an MMORPG.  I am having a nostalgic yearning for MMORPG's, but I know that this feeling is actually a missing of friends or a want to re-capture past fun and neither actually happens.  I know that I start a new MMORPG when I want new experiences, and that's the only way they are successful for me.  I am equally swaying to the scifi area and wanting to play something like FTL or Sins of a Solar Empire.  Combining the two, I am wanting to GM a Traveller game or something similar.  I've been wanting to do a 30+ crew carrier/bed-in-breakfast ship game with a small group of players.  I know, weird?  I want the players have to deal with things like room service requests while also hunting supplies and avoiding piracy.  I also get a kick thinking about a player playing non-technical ship personnel, like being the concierge.

Summer rolls are amazing.  Its like the healthiest food I've ever seen that actually tastes good.  Think about the inside of a Spring Roll, but then don't deep fry it.  Add more fresh veggies and then something like shrimp for a kick of protein, then wrap it in a tapioca wrapper.  The wrapper is sort of like a thin, see-through dumpling wrapper that isn't nearly as unhealthy.  I had some of them yesterday for dinner, and it was awesome.

Because of my Sci-fi mood, I'm watching Enterprise.  This is the first time I've been able to stomach more of it.  I really do not like the way they are portraying Vulcans, especially after First Contact already established them as well meaning.  I think what they're doing to vulcans is xenophobic lazy-writing garbage.  The doctor though, is really good.  Star Trek has always had a good batting average with the doctors.  Only Pulaski was truly terrible, and Bashir got much better once they started adding the Garack stuff.  I like this Enterprise doctor from the start, he reminds me of a very intelligent Neelix.

The Easter grill out is shaping up very well.  It looks like we're going to have good hamburgers for me to cook, and I've been assured plenty of Hotdogs are coming.  I have my favorite choice of charcoal.  I need to get my work area planned out and set up.  Having a garbage can and several table surfaces near the grill is a must.  I'll be doing many of the hotdogs before the first guests even arrive, keeping them warm on the grill in a pan.  Once the guests arrive, I'll get the 2nd batch of coals on the grill so that the hamburgers have plenty of heat to be done quickly.  With the burgers being good and the charcoal being the no-hassle, long lasting kind, I think my main Easter concerns are taken care of.

Steak Stuff 2014

Steak Stuff

Steak is a muscle.  Bacteria needs air.  If air could get into muscles, we would not need blood or lungs.   Almost all illness, from the beef side, comes from hamburger because generally 100% of the meat in hamburger is touched by air while it is cut up.  Steaks INSIDE are medium at 140 degrees.  The outside is cooked well done, or even beyond(hence the char) by the time the inside gets to 140.  This does not mean you can cook the bad out of any steak.  make sure your steak is fresh, cut in a reasonable amount of time before offered to you, and does not have any weird slices though it.

Salt is a mineral, literally a rock.  You can salt as early as you want when it come to grilling because salt does not burn away.  In fact, salting early and letting the meat sit with the talk on it for a couple of minutes will promote browning on the meat, leading to the crusty, grilling flavored meat you're setting out to make.  Black pepper is a plant, and I know it is always "salt and pepper this and that" but when it comes to grilling at temperatures in excess of 600 degrees, wait and put your pepper on a minute before you take the meat off.  The heat of the meat and the juice that will come from it will take that pepper flavor and do its job.  One exception:  This does not apply to marinades or sauces, as the liquids will suck the heat away and prevent this from happening.

Identifying good, cheap steak cuts at the super market is hard on purpose.  If you read print media, you'll not find journalists down from their pedestal into the every day people's section of the meat department.  The super markets know this, so while sometimes you'll see "stay away from chuck steaks" in magazines, the super market will hide it in local jargon or regional names.  Many cuts have different names and this too is capitalized on.  The tri-tip is seen as humble in Texas, but is known to be an even cheaper alternative to filet minion than Top Sirloin is.  In a super market in Texas I've read that you'll find tri-tip over by the chuck steaks in normal packaging, cheap price, and generally just trying to look like its not all that great.  If you go to California you will find that tri-tip is re-named "Santa Maria", packaged in the "black label" packages, and sitting right beside the filet minion.  Also, don't forget that a lot of what is labeled as "steak", is actually roast trimmings that are too small to call roasts.  They are typically in the roast section, if that's a hint.  This is grill season, stay away from that section for grilling.

More steak tips; let a steak rest.  Think of steak as a sponge, and your hand as heat.  If you cook well done, you're going to squeeze all the juice out and never get it back.  If you cook to medium you'll push a lot of the water to the center.  Letting a steak rest gives the juice time to redistribute back out into the meat because the pressure of your "hand" isn't pushing it anymore.  It will look like a little bit of juice gets on the plate, but its nothing compared to slicing into a steak right off the grill, it'll "pop" like a balloon and ALL the juice will flow out.

Unhealthy but good: melt some butter.  When your steak is resting, brush it with the butter.  The steak juices will mix with the butter and create a tsunami of umami, the savory flavor.  This is a common practice in higher up restaurants, because that butter mixed with steak artificially creates a boost of savory similar to aging steaks for long periods of time.

Chimney Starters and April 14th

Chimney Starters

Say no to petroleum fuels

That is the basic version of what we call a "Chimney starter".  Chimney starters have been used for a long while, but for some reason haven't been all the mass marketed till recently.  The change to gas powered grills and the selling of them as luxury items has largely held back shelf space for making charcoal products available.  What are the benefits of a Chimney starter?  Well, for one, you will not have to use lighter fluid in your cooking.  Now, I know there are those that say "but I grew up on lighter fluid tasting hotdogs, it tastes like home", and those that say "lighter fluid is just easier".  I would not say it is easier.  Also, you have to make sure you have lighter fluid around or buy match light.  Typically match-light charcoal is filled with other chemicals or car manufacturing by products.  It is also super dangerous to keep stored if you like have spontaneous grill outs.  Match-light burns super fast, super hot(per coal), and takes just as long to be ready a regular char wood or char coal.

How does a Chimney starter work?  Well I use news paper or phone book pages.  I crumple a page into a ball and put 3-4 balls under the starter.  I fill the starter full of charcoal, and light the newspaper.  Now all I have to do is wait.  The flames will draw in air, which will then circulate and heat, rushing out of the top of the chimney, where it will spin and create a sort of tornado inside.  This will draw even more air from the bottom in a self sustaining jet engine like flame that will get your coals lit and burning hot in about 20-30 mins, depending on charcoal size and weather conditions.  When the coals stop smoking, char white, and the flame is red hot, then the coals are ready to transfer to your grill.

Remember how I said that match-light burns hotter per coal?  At first you think this is great, but that just means the charcoal is burning away faster.  You can still get lots of heat by bunching regular charcoal together.  You can get 650-750 degrees with regular charcoal and it will burn for much much longer.  If you use actual wood chunk charcoal you can get up to 900 degrees.  That'll cook a steak perfectly medium with a nice crusty outside in no time.  Plus you won't taste any of the lighter fluid that is left over in matchlight no matter how long you let it "set".

April 14th, 2014

A surprise rainy day.  Well most of them are because I do not keep up with weather forecasts.  Maybe I should have because I wanted to see the lunar eclipse tonight.  I remember seeing the last one in 2010 with my father, but tonight is just going to be too cloudy.  Ah well, it won't be too rare to see them I guess.  Not like the total eclipse of the sun coming in a few years, that I really hope to not miss.  The last one in my area, I was too small to really care about such things because they weren't as amazing as Star Trek: TNG's intro.  Now I really appreciate them.

Grocery day!  I swear Old Spice recycles older scents that don't sell well into their new line ups to see if they get traction.  They took Komodo and made it smell a little sweeter(unfortunately) and call it Bearglove now or some such.  I really wish they'd sell Komodo around here more, it was the best.  It was spicy and slightly sweet, without being old fashioned and blah.  I'm not a fan of old fashioned cologne.  

I am notorious for my gigantic mugs of coffee.  The last few days I have tried making much stronger tasting coffee in smaller cups to see if it will cut down on how much of it I drink.  So far its working.  I think I put more milk per-cup than I usually do, but I drink far less cups overall, so I think its a positive, I'll have to measure because we all know we underestimate things.

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weekend april 11th 2014

April 11th Weekend update


Posts to come this week:  This upcoming weekend is Easter weekend.  I think Easter is 2nd on my list of favorite holidays now, right after Thanksgiving.  This week I'll be making posts on stuff like "how to use a chimney starter" so that maybe people can stop using lighter fluid on their charcoal grills.  I also have my rules for "Murder" to be played at a table with friends that I said I had an idea for last week.  That leaves 2 more subjects for me to scrounge up, they may be about "Easter" things, but be aware that "Easter" things doesn't mean the same for me.  Lager vs Ales might be a good subject, as might be some cigar/pipe talk.  We'll see how it goes.

One of the first things you learn with bass is "if you just want to play guitar, just do it, because generally if you try to do guitar's role on bass, its going to sound bad".  This comes up more than you think because a lot of teenagers(and grown up teenagers) come at bass thinking its "easier" than guitar, and since they failed at guitar, they could use bass as a stepping stone.  I never had this problem.  I became a bassist because the role and the techniques spoke to me.  It felt much more natural and interactive with my fingers than guitar did.  I disliked the disconnect a guitar pick gave me between me and my instrument.  I hoped learning guitar would change the way I play bass, and it did in a positive way.  It kind of freed me.  I was never trying to play lead guitar on bass, I was never trying to play ACDC's solos and such using the bass, I'm not dumb and I never had the ambition to just be a guitar-bassist like that.  I did however try to play both roles on bass at once, and in a way that just did not get the job done.  Playing guitar has somehow "freed" my bass playing, emphasizing the strengths of the bass in a bass-centered take on the role of lead and rhythm.  If this sounds overthought out, its because it is.  I typed this out like 5 times trying to not sound like "duh, you fucking idiot, that's bass 101" but I"m telling you I've been playing bass for a decade now, I wasn't trying to do like the newbies or closet guitar play wannabes, this is different.  Its about feel and strengths, and roles, and natural tendency of a instrument here.

I'm watching Orphan Black now, unfortunately not on Netflix, you gotta find an alternate way to view it.  Its about a girl that sees a twin of herself jump in front of a train and die.  The girl's life is sort of shit, so she has the idea to impersonate her twin because it looks like her twin was well off financially.  The twin turned out to be a cop, and now she's jumping through loops to try and act like she was a cop long enough to take all the twin's money and leave... and then she sees another woman that looks exactly like herself and her twin and then it gets messy.  It is really suspenseful and really well written.  You can see so many ways the show can go, and so many situations that could happen or might happen, and its like storyline goldmines all over the place.  I highly recommend it.

Read that Fergusson will probably leave Late Night after the Dave-Colbert transition.  I'll miss having him to watch.  I still watch Conan, but Conan's "gold team" of writers left around 2004 and his new writing team just never filled the void.  I still like his interviews, but I largely ignore his sketch segments.  Fergusson, on the other hand, is just hilarious to watch all the time.  I record him and watch him in the morning while I eat breakfast.  All the horri-shit comedians that caused me to leave watching TV in the early 2000's are inheriting the positions left by the old, much more talented, comedians.  I hate everything to do with Saturday Night Live after the 90's, and that's all NBC is.  Its like, not even 2nd string SNL cast, the Later slot is full of the shit of the shit of SNL's history.  Then Colbert, sure he loves Lord of the Rings, but his career is now focused on a satire impersonation that has lasted waaaaaay too long.  They are talking about putting Chelsea Handler in Fergusson's spot, and let's just say I will not watch 5 minutes of her show in my life time.

So yea, that' got negative fast.

I'll miss Craig Fergusson at the late night slot.  I knew he was too crazy to get Dave's post, and he gets like $10 million extra for not getting Dave's post, so I'm happy for him.

ACDC: Lange Years Done and April 11th

ACDC: The Mutt Lange Trilogy

(Much longer post from my Music Blog)

Here we come at last, after over a month of listening to ACDC albums, in order, repeatedly, I get to the end of the Mutt Lange produced albums.  Three albums, 2 singers, and enough classic hits to fill a best of album release themselves.  Looked at sequentially, I think you can see the influence of Lange in the band quite well.  The first album they did had much more of the original ACDC feel to it.  There's some genuine rock and roll mixed in with the pioneering Hard Rock sound.  It is with Back in Black and Brian Johnson's introduction that we leave a lot of the Rock and Roll behind, and are full in to Hard Rock that will exemplify the successful albums and songs from here on out.

Let's talk about that 3rd album, as its the one I had heard the least of.  I read that they went to France and had troubles with the technical side of their first chosen recording space.  That kind of things leads to tension and resentment in most cases.  They ended up scrapping things and heading to a place outside Paris.  I think the band was feeling the strain, and it probably lead to them parting ways with Lange.  Lange, himself, was a very busy man at this time.  The #1 album before and after "Those About to Rock"'s #1 stint was produced by Lange as well.  He was establishing what would be almost as huge a stint with Def Leppard, and would produce The Car's hit album: Heartbeat City.  If Giving the Dog a Bone from Back in Black, or Touch Too Much from Highway To Hell were among your favorites, then you have an entire album of these kinds of songs in For Those About to Rock.

A hugely successful, but physically draining arena tour later, combined with the problems in the studio, and ACDC decided with Lange to make a change.  So ended one of the greatest meet ups of talent that changed popular music for over a decade after(remember when #1 hits contained guitars?), and influenced home and weekend guitar warriors for decades after.


April 11th, 2014

Got a tiny bit scorched at the park today.  I have decided that its a good thing that I am not limited by endurance while walking at the park.  My limitations are the amount of Sun I can handle and the amount of time I spend.  I'm sure this means I need to start jogging during it more.  I have ankle problems, so I have to get used to walking on the asphalt.  Over the Summer and the Fall I got used to walking and jogging on grass at home, I may have to get some shoes designed for that and jog next to the track instead of on it.

Also another resident of Spring showing up, butterflies were all over the place at the park.

Decided to have a special dinner for me and my girl yesterday.  We went with Persian influence.  I got some sirloin medallions that were wrapped in bacon.  I know that's a big popular thing to have right now, but they are small enough to not weigh us down a ton, which is good because there was more I wanted.  I got some Naan for the first time.  I knew i was grilling the steak with charcoal, so I wanted to grill the naan too.  To go with that, I resisted the hummus route, and got some cucumber and mint couscous salad.  They went perfectly together.  I like lentils, so I grabbed a can of the Campbells condensed lentil soup, and holy crap did it turn out to be pretty good.  I think with all the marketing and nice pictures on the Chunky and Homstyle brands lately, I didn't think the old blue collar condensed soups would be good; I was wrong.  We also got some red and green bib lettuce.  We eat a lot of romaine, so I wanted to change things up a bit.  Lastly I got a few mini-cannolis and 1 of each type of Petit Fours they had.  All in all, less than a full Little Debbie cake, but enough variety to make us feel like we had lots for dessert.  Everything, especially the steak, turned out perfect.

Romantics Anonymous and April 9th 2014

Romantics Anonymous

(Original post from my Media Blog)

Someone wrote that Romantics Anonymous is a cup of warm cocoa, and I think that fits it better than I could.  I can describe this movie as sappy, corny, sweet, funny, quirky, and just an overall nice movie, but somehow that can come out sounding bad?  I mean, let's get this straight, this movie is not going to make you rethink or change your life, but that's not what it set out to do.  The movie has set out hoping that you find a little of yourself in these neurotic, afraid of everything characters.  But then that could turn people away too, I certainly would have had a hard time convincing myself to watch a movie about social anxiety laden people, but it somehow does it without being annoying.  American cinema, romantic comedies especially, rely on "annoyance is funny" of which I despise.  Romantics Anonymous never felt annoying, it felt warm, and silly, and was just overall a warm cup of sappy cocoa.

There is a small cast of quirky individuals that reminds me of the kind of casts in Hedgehog and Amelie, and they all do their job very well also.  The stars make the movie though.  Angelique is played by Isabelle Carre, and she's kind of quirky like Amelie, but she has this Pam Beesly(Jenna Fischer) from The Office quality to her.  She is played well, but I feel the star performance is by Jean-Rene's actor Benoit Poelvoorde.  He is what separates this movie from the Hollywood drivel that comes out here in the states.  He's funny, and almost clown like in his mannerisms, but plays the part strait at the perfect times.

I hate to keep tossing the name Amelie around, but if you like that sort of movie, you may like this one too, though its only done in the same "tone" or "voice" as Amelie, it is definitely its own movie.  It is on Netflix as of this date.

April 9th, 2014

Looking at these battery powered mini-amps.  I know they are generally novelties and toys(with the exception of the $100+ Roland and Orange offerings), and I'm thinking I want one.  I like sitting out on my porch, especially in the Summer, and a battery powered amp would be a nice thing to have with practicing.  I hear the best things about the Dan Electro Honeytone amps, but I have to say that the Smokey Amps might be the coolest.  The Smokey amps have a powered output to them, so I could plug them into a speaker cab and actually power it.  Its that little bit of extra versatility that I like, it opens up a lot of options, making the Smokey not only a battery powered porch amp, but also a headphone amp and also could take the place of a practice "combo".

I've been watching Sips and Hat Films of the Yogscast play a game called "Murder".  In it, one person gets a gun, one person gets a knife, and the rest are bystanders.  The person with the gun has to figure out who is the one with the knife before he's able to isolate and kill the others.  It is really fun to watch and I think I have come up with a group "beer and pretzels" version.  I will write up the rules and post them soon.  I think a game similar may already exist because it feels sort of like "Werewolf".  I will have to look it up, but either way I think it would be fun to play.

Dragoons and April 8th

Dragoons: Legacy of Sorrow

(Original Unabridged Post in my video game blog)

When I say Dragoon, many things come to mind.  To some, THE Dragoon is Kain.  Some of you will think "jump attacks", and/or the use of a spear, and both of these do identify the Dragoon in a Final Fantasy.  With a wider focus of the series as a whole, to me the legacy of the Dragoon is that of loss and sorrow.

To Dragoons it is the devotion to duty and their loyalty that is tested and ultimately leads to their plight.  The original Dragoon, named Ricard(Gareth in some translations) was devoted to his dead best friend's wife and child, but ultimately his duty as the last Dragoon meant that he had to leave them in service to the greater good. Its still too early to talk much about Final Fantasy 13(more people need to finish it, IMO), but Fang's devotion to duty means(( the death of millions, while disobeying means the death of her best friend))
(highlight the white text  to see the spoiler))  In Final Fantasy 9, we meet Freya.  Her identity is so wrapped up and mingled with her beloved, that when he disappears her life does as well.  Ward is the Dragoon of Final Fantasy 8, and it is through his actions that his best friend falls in love and then loses that love.  Kimarhri of Final Fantasy X loses honor which causes him to swear an oath of protection on Yuna, and this devotion that causes him to throw his tribal traditions aside, losing all of his family in the process.

There is one dragoon I have left out.  Cid Highwind is the one that bucked the trend.  He was everything that makes a Dragoon sorrowful.  He worked as a test pilot for evil Shinra.  Many of the missiles, rockets and destructive aircraft you see through the whole game are around because Cid helped them develop them.  His team is responsible for a lot of hurt in the world, and Cid did not care because he got what he wanted.  Why is he special then?  Well we are told from the start that his "loss" is that of being the first man in space.  This is a lie.  (( Cid's true loss would be losing Shera.  Dragoons are characterized by giving up everything for a "duty" of some sort, and in the end it was Cid's willingness to not give up Shera that lead to everything else being cast aside.  Cid was the only Dragoon to choose the love of someone over his sworn goal, and for that he is rewarded by getting both in the end, and ending up the least tragic of all dragoons to date.) Highlight the white text for spoiler reveal.

April 8th, 2014

I went out looking for Spring today, but its not really here completely.  I have gotten a few pictures of some tulips, and I've seen the pear tree blooming, but that's about it.  The last couple of days, the non-Spring weather had come back, triggering heaters and blankets, but the Sun came back today and tricked me.  Things are getting green, and the clovers are breaking out all over the place, but there's just not a lot of Spring to take pictures of yet.

Went to the local park that we've chosen to be "our" park.  Unlike the last few times, it was really busy today.  I was doing a "get gasoline and go to the park" combo, so I had to go later in the day.  Just about every sports field(like 9 of them, minus the tennis courts) was filled with people, and every pavilion had people as well.  The walking path was not very crowded, but I did see more people on it.  Its fine with me, I just feel awkward when I'm walking faster than someone else that is just walking, or someone that gets on the path ahead of me and it feels like I'm following them lol.  Thursday I'll be there much earlier.

In Rocksmith I am exploring the multitudes of amps they have modeled.  I'm pretty much a JTM45 fan that does heavier stuff by adding pedals in real life, so I have not experimented in game like I have the opportunity to.  I'm rather liking the Vox clone.  I've used the Vox-2x12 cabinet clone because I prefer 2x12's in general, but this is the first day I've really tried the head.  It has a bit more treble definition and "speed" to it than the Marshalls, so I find that it works really good with modulation effects, though it can sometimes over do them as well.  It reminds me of Mesa Boogie stuff, though I have not looked up if there's any real connection there.

Handwired Amps and Why People Like Them

(different but similar post from my Music Blog)

The easiest way to explain Hand Wired vs PCB is to just up and show you.

See the green board there?  Looks familiar I bet.  From the cheapest radios to the most expensive smart phone, you will find printed circuit boards(PCB) inside them.  They are cost effective, reliable, and a marvel of 20th century tech that allowed us all to have cheap, working electronics.

That tangled mess of spaghetti there is a hand wired, 18 watt Marshall clone.  As you can see, its components are bigger, take up much more room, and are all connected to each other using wires.  Someone has to wire all that up, robots can not do it yet.  They take hours of work, a skilled solderer, and use parts that aren't in ready supply any longer.  So why would anyone want to use those hand wired things?  Well, I used to think it was snobbery.  Old fashioned "they don't make them like this anymore, all new stuff sucks", knuckle dragging cave men who like to lug around 100+ pound speaker cabs and amp heads.

But now, with a broken amp, I can see the allure.  When a PCB based amp goes bad, it can burn other components and cause damage to the entire PCB. It is hard, if not impossible, to get fully working PCB's to replace old bad ones.  The components are small as well, and hard to work with.  With a Hand Wired Amp, anyone with electrical knowledge can fix them.  Hell, there's a huge "do it yourself" home movement with them where you buy the kit and LEARN as you make it.  It is like working with old muscle cars; less efficient and fancy, but you can fix them yourself.

Hand Wired amps are generally basic designs.  This can be a positive thing for some, but not if you need a "do anything" amp.  There's no way I could do all the things I have gotten used to doing with a Hand Wired amp unless I"m looking to buy one for over $2000(which I'm not).  I need effects loops, I like built in digital reverb, and an emulated line out does not hurt things either.  I'm lucky in that this newer tech also comes in at well under 1/4 the price.

April 7th, 2014

Grocery day.  For some reason I"m in the mood for lentil stew, Moroccan chicken, and a starch with lemon in the flavoring somewhere.  I don't know why, I just am.  I'm also starting to find ways to justify wanting a Keurig.  The fancy advertising never won me over.  The small brew size was a deterrent even if it meant better coffee, I've seen that thing since "pods" were the new thing over a decade ago.   The multitude of things you could make with it, again, did not get me all excited.  Now though, I'm thinking it might be a way to cut down my coffee in the mornings.  Less, but good, coffee means less milk needed.  Hell, the other day I completely forgot that I don't dislike good, black coffee.  I love black coffee if its just a tad bitter, has no acidity at all, and a nutty flavor.

Started the Brian Johnson era of ACDC.  I will start out by saying that I probably could not be surprised with how well Back in Black was made.  It is the best selling rock and rock related album of all time, and with good reason.  I can't really tell you about songs you might have missed out on, because it is damn near a greatest hits album by itself.  I read that the album was recorded so well that it became a standard for recording for all of the 80's.  Nashville clubs used to use it for sound checks because everything was mixed and recorded crystal clear.  Motorhead would do their sound checks by using the album to test the PA systems.  It is every bit the masterpiece that the albums that surround it are, both musically, technically, and production wise.  Really paying attention to the music, the riff on Have a Drink on Me is something I have always done without knowing this song.  Its a movement I did with my bass for many a year, and when I got on guitar I added a slide and bend, so its pretty cool because I had a "hey, me and Angus thought alike" moment.

Weekend of April 4th, 2014

Disaster!

My crab cake put-together turned out like shit.  Oh well.  Better next time.

Friday me and my girl went to the park near us to see if it was pet friendly and what its picnic amenities were like.  We walked the 1 1/10th mile track and found that it was a mix of stark soccer fields and a delightful bird sanctuary.  The 97% chance of thunderstorms never got to us(yay 3%).  Its a nice park all things considered.  There's a grill section and a covered pavilion, and it doesn't seem to have a lot of busy traffic.  I am thinking of doing walks there every Tuesday and Thursday.

Sunday came around and we had planned our first picnic.  The clouds were all around us, but the rain stayed away.  The day started with me finding a four leaf clover among a field of fresh new spring clover.  I have pretty good luck when looking for clover, if I really want to I generally find a 4 leafer, this one was not really looked for.  I was walking over a patch of clover while taking the dog for a walk, and I saw a particularly broad clover.  I thought it might have been a large 3 leafed one, but nope.  We stuck it between 2 pieces of wax paper so that it could stick around a little while with us.

The picnic was fine, though the doggy did not have it in it to do many laps around the park.  Still, she had fun and played with me in the creek that runs along the back side of the park.  We ate our picnic out in the open because the covered pavilions were occupied.  It was fine since the sun was not out.  My gal made us a special yogurt kind of cake that had a tang to it that I really enjoy(sour cream donuts are my fav at Dunkin').

I came across a amp kit manufacturer that will also put them together for you and ship them ready to go.  They are Ceriatone, and they happen to be based in a far east country that I do not mind dealing with.  They do almost exact copies of by-gone era amps that are no longer produced(the custom shop versions from the companies feature many changes).  I would really consider it, since you can have them add some modern stuff to it(like an effects loop), but they are still expensive even if they are less than half what other people charge for them.  I'll probably do a write up about what the "Hand-wired" craze is all about, and why I feel it might be worth the money.

Inspired by finding these amps I played with some more amp models in Rocksmith.  I have found that I can like a billion different shades of 70's Marshall tones, and realized that as long as I get one that does a version of these million shades, I should be happy for a while.  I also see why people buy lots of distortion pedal variations.  I wish they had more 2x12 cabs modeled because I seem to like this set up, though it may be due to me having a 2x12 in real life.  It could also be that its just enough low end to get those mids pushing without being boomy.  That's one of the struggles in my guitar rig decisions: can I live with just a 1x12?  I feel my thoughts may be colored by a few things.  1: I have only ever had a 2x12 and 2: solid state is not as loud as tube, so I may think I need the 2x12 to compensate.  When its closer to decision making time(when I have the money in hand), I'll go try out a few things.  I have a local shop that has Orange Tiny Terrors in several flavors, and I have a big chain that I hope will have a selection as well.  I'll take whichever sounds good to me, no matter who offers it.  Hand-wired is starting to look good to me though...

John Doe Era and April 3rd

John Doe Era

(original post at my Table Top blog)

Savage Worlds has this mechanic that happens during down times(like if the group is camping for the night, or staying in a motel between cities, etc) where you invoke an "Interlude".  In the Interlude, a character is given a chance to expand their character's story and personal life out of the context of the game.  A trend that started in the Happy Jack's podcast circle of friends was that the GM would get an Interlude out of someone without them realizing they were Interluded.  Speaking from experience, it is hard to get an Interlude going without people realizing, and without that, the Interlude can feel artificial and out of place at times.

The new idea, though, is something I feel is one of the best I've come up with in a while.  When explaining it, I used the name John Doe, so that's why its called the John Doe era.  I was watching The Walking Dead the other week, and in it the group skips ahead about 9 months.  You are not specifically told what happened in those 9 months aside from the fact that the group because more like a family to each other, and a whole lot of surviving happened.

 thought to myself "what if I skipped ahead a certain amount of time, and told my players that someone had joined the group and now is not a part of the group anymore".  This was the era of John.  At the interludes I would ask the person something about that time.  "its nights like this that remind of why you liked John, maybe you want to tell the group a good memory"  or "one time you saved John's life, why did you never tell the group, and what happened that day?" and after the character of John is built, I pull out the big one, "why is John not with the group any longer".

April 3rd, 2014

Something happened yesterday that I believe would have had many of you freaking the hell out and probably jumping around like a mental patient.  I was on the porch yesterday, having a nice little cigar, when I decided I wanted to sit in one of our rocking chairs.  I sat down and moved my hand to the armrest, and noticed a very dusty cobweb attached to it.  This was a little strange, as I've sat in this chair a lot recently.  Things were made clear when I went to clear the cobweb, and the "dust" jumped to life and started crawling both toward the wall and all over my arm.  Yes, the "dust" was probably 20ish baby spiders, recently hatched and blurry eyed in the world.  Now, I am lucky in that I have no fear of spiders for myself.  I kill spiders only for 2 reasons, fear of them hurting my tiny dog(have only killed one due to this) and if its dangerous to humans(of which only brown recluses and black widows are in my area).  I think I got the 7 or 8 that were on my arm to a safe place without any of them dying.

Later, while having a beer, a big woolly adorable jumping spider came out of hiding, "I heard about how you treated those young'uns, good job" he said, gave me a thumbs up and crawled back into his shaded area.

Easter is getting closer and closer.  I think I've decided to have a six pack of Sweetwater Blue.  Sweetwater is the local acclaimed brewery in the Atlanta area.  They specialize in lagers generally, a type of beer I do not typically drink.  However, I am expecting to be in front of a grill for over 6 hours on Easter, and a nice, refreshing lager with the slight hint of blueberries would be perfect.  I only ever use wood based fuel, not gas, so there's going to be lots of thick smoke, and so to cut through all that heavy smoke and grilled flavors, I'm going to want a very nice, cold beer.  If you can get it in your area, go ahead and try it.  Just remember that Sweetwater is not a brewery that pasturizes their beer, so you need to get a very fresh one if you're more than a few stays away.