Monday, November 26, 2007

Kindling and other news

As per my previous post, I do now have an Amazon Kindle. Perhaps even more interesting is that I've almost finished reading my first Kindle book. It works pretty well. Books are actually still better (due to being able to grip it anywhere, but it definitely works even for long reading sessions.

In addition to the book I'm reading ("Poison Study" if you care), I am also experimenting with a newspaper and magazine subscription (Seattle Times and Times, respectively). This is actually going really well for the newspaper, every morning I take a little time to skim the headlines and read some of the articles, and I feel much more in touch with the world. The convenience of having it wireless delivered is really quite large.

I'm also trying to convert my library of DRM-free roleplaying books to the Kindle. I already have a really good version of Bliss Stage on there, but Amber and Exalted are having a very tough time getting translated (partially because they are 50 MB in size). But it is working somewhat, and does allow me to search through the books on the kindle.

But enough about what I love about the device, if you really want to read poetic verse about it, read this MacWorld opinion piece on the subject, its very very positive, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Moving on... I'm not sure I ever updated the blog with car news, but I did end up buying a BMW 5 series. It has been built (I had to order it because I wanted a manual transmission), and is currently on a boat coming to california. It will arrive there in 24-30 days, and another 10 days after that will be up here in Seattle. It's a long process, but hopefully one that will be worth it.

I recently bought several bookshelves, 2 6ft. tall ones and 2 "media" bookshelves for DVDs/video games. I've got all but one of them assembled and put together, and I'm really glad I got them all. Now I have room for all of my books that heretofore were piled in stacks throughout my apartment. My dad is coming to visit next week, which is why all of the work. Hopefully I'll have it all done by the time he gets here.

We finished the Bliss Stage game. The endgame, at least when you're trying to force your crew to an end, doesn't work as smoothly as other portions, and I kept having trouble trying to bring about the semblance of a plot I cooked up, but overall I'm pretty sure everyone had a great time. I for one hope to play another game, and maybe then I can play a pilot and actually get a mecha. We had a little wrap up and we all agreed that the best portion of the game was the interludes with the character development rather than the mecha fighting, even Nikita, whom I had to entice to the game with talk of laser guns and missile tubes and so forth. Next week we try out my crazy DnD idea, where we take DnD for a 2-4 session trial to see how the other side lives. And yes, we've all pointed out that we're playing DnD on "indie" night, but we're still going to do it.

Thats all for now!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

DnD is about all I play anymore (although I haven't picked up my dice in a month or so). I'm interested to hear how your "indie" session goes. :-)

Ben said...

oh, I'll definitely let you know how it goes...

I'm hoping for some real epic world-shaping stuff which I feel the DnD "setting" is particularly geared towards. We'll see... Hopefully the system won't overwhelm us, which is really what I fear. We've been playing such light systems recently, and I barely know the DnD rules at all...

Anonymous said...

The Attacks of Opportunity rules are confusing, scattered throughout the books, and (in my opinion) incomplete. Make up a houserule about them before you get into any really complicated battles and your game will go much smoother.

Ben said...

Yeah, great idea. Attacks of Opportunity are a little crazy. I hope to do more political intrigue and plotting than fighting, but I'm also planning some big set piece battles (perhaps even with miniatures, yes, I'm going _that_ far), so I'm betting they'll come up.

Suggestions for a house rule?

-Ben