The recent cold weather hasn’t kept me from computer gaming, even in the basement where all the warm air rises away from. I admit, though, that gaming down there has required me to wear my sad little gloves with the fingertips cut off of them. Becky feels they are “pathetic” but hey, if they’re good enough for overworked clerks in Dickens novels then by gum, they’re good enough for me.

I finished the game “Divine Divinity” and it was a heap of fun. It’s hampered slightly by poor grammar (possibly due to being translated from German) and its stupid, stupid name, but it more than makes up for it in funosity. It’s like Diablo 2, only with a plot that goes slightly beyond “kill anything that isn’t you and doesn’t sell you anything.” There’s tons of side-quests and a lot of room to explore, which I found wanting in Diablo 2. Definitely worth a look, and since it hasn’t gotten much press in the States, you can probably pick it up on the cheap.

Which brings me to the next game I’m on, Morrowind. Yeah, this one’s a bit old, but that’s what happens when you don’t upgrade your computer constantly. The advantage is that I didn’t pay $50 for it. I haven’t gotten too far into it yet, but it’s very nice so far. I’m finding the interface a little non-intuitive, but I think that’s because it’s largely based on the first-person shooter model, and I don’t play FPSes. I’m getting used to it. There are interesting touches, such as somewhat smart NPCs. Last night I stole some brandy from this one guy’s storeroom and then tried to sell it to him. Apparently he can recognize his own stuff because he yelled at me and then his friends all killed me. The graphics are very nice. Just wandering around the town was neat.

Which reminds me: if you’re like me, you enjoy soup and have hands. So you owe it to yourself to read my friend Stewart’s review of Campbell’s Soup at Hand.

One of the bands I’ve been getting into recently is The Minders. Fun, hook-laden, power pop with a heavy Beatles influence. It’s a refreshing change from all the overblown angst rock that seems to pervade the airwaves lately. If you miss charming tunes with melodies that you can sing along to, you should certainly check them out. What’s more, I was so moved by their songs that I sent an email to the band via the linked site and got a response! When was the last time a band emailed you? Rebecca Cole, the drummer, sent me a very nice email: “Hi Dave, thanks for listening, and I’m glad that you liked Hooray for Tuesday and Cul de Sacs. That’s awesome! Golden Street is Martyn’s favorite of our records so far, hope you enjoy it. … I agree that it’s nice to have music to sing along to, it’s an immediate connection. Thanks so much for writing us. It’s really great to know that you like our music.” Is that cool or what?

For video, we started watching the Complete Fawlty Towers DVD I got for Christmas. Man, that show is high-larious. It’s great the way John Cleese can go from broad slapstick to bizarre absurdity to witty banter in mere seconds. Each show is incredibly well put together and very very funny.

That wraps up this entry. Before I forget, you can use that little yellow arrow at the bottom of the page to read older entries. I need to change that graphic and make it more obvious. Oh, also, once we inevitably begin our war against Iraq, we plan to have 800 missiles hit them within the first 48 hours. Strangely the missiles would probably be targeted mostly at the people we’re ‘liberating’ instead of the one guy we don’t like. Still, it’s worth leveling the entire country from a distance to combat “terror”. Have a pleasant day.

As you know, the Apollo Moon program, among other benefits, resulted in the creation of devices that were capable of measuring fun more accurately than the previous device, the Barrel of Monkeys. Thus, the “Fun Size” candy bar demonstrated that the size of fun is about 1″ x 2.5″ x .75″ (2.54cm x 6.35cm x 1.91cm). An alarming trend has been the shrinking size of fun, which some say stem from refinement of the accuracy of fun-measuring devices (and introduction of new devices such as the Electron Funometer), some say are based on social aspects (indicating that “fun” and the size thereof may be an artifact of social conventions - studies being done in vastly dissimilar cultural environments are testing this theory), and some, more ‘fringe’ theorists say that this indicates a basic fault at the core of modern physics.

As interesting as this is, that’s not the point of this entry. Having measured the size of fun, why have we not turned our attention towards other entities? Why no “Despair-Sized Snickers Bar”? What would the dimensions of such an object be? How many “Ennui-Sized Milky Ways” would it take to equal one “Pandemonium-Sized 3 Musketeers”?

And why are products other than candy bars not dispensed in Fun units? Perhaps we enter into the metaphysical realm here, but would a Fun-Sized, say, automobile have the same dimensions as a Fun-Sized Snickers? Or would its measurements merely be in the same proportion?

Also, if “bigger” is indeed “better”, what are the implications of “Fun-Sized” candy being smaller than its normal-sized brethren? Is this a case of “less is more”, a Philip Glass-style minimalism designed to reduce the object to the absolute essence of fun? (Ironic, since many people don’t regard minimalism as fun.) If so, what does that say about normal-sized candy bars? If they’re not fun, what are they? Why are they dispensed instead of their more fun counterparts? Or is it that case that a normal Snickers bar, at a size approximately 2.5 times that of a Fun-Sized one, is, ipso facto, 2.5 times as fun?

Three cheers for Joe Lieberman throwing his hat in the ring as a potential candidate for the Democrats in ‘04. Surely he heard the cry of the masses, saying, “Please give us the chance to vote for the part of the ‘00 Gore team that made everyone queasy and think maybe Nader wasn’t such a bad choice after all.” I hope he gets the nomination, because the only thing I can think of that would be more exciting than Bush getting re-elected would be him doing so by a landslide.

But I didn’t bring up Joe just to sardonically mock him. Here in Illinois, our Governor decided to commute the death sentences of 167 death-row inmates to life in prison simply because he discovered that 13 inmates had been wrongly convicted and that their confessions were the results of torture by Chicago police. Like, suddenly torture is wrong or something.

Joe feels that Ryan erred. He says, “Governor Ryan’s action was shockingly wrong. It did terrible damage to the credibility of our system of justice, and particularly for the victims.”

I know I’m not the only one who is somewhat mortified by this whole thing, because I ripped off this whole story from the This Modern World website. Let’s see if I’m following. A supposed Democrat is angry about reviewing death row cases where several instances of torture and forced confessions have been discovered - and feels that commuting the sentences harms the credibility of the system? As opposed to coerced confessions and freakin’ torture hurting the credibility of the system?

Am I wrong in thinking that once upon a time there was some kind of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans? The natural response would be to register Democrat so that I can do what I can to not give Lieberman any support, but the majority of the Democrat candidates-to-be feel the same way. Is casting a vote in this country simply a statement of whether you’d like Conservative Christians to have most of or only a whole lot of power in our government?

Update: Yes, I know Lieberman is Jewish (re: my “Conservative Christians” remark) nevertheless, I both am speaking of the Dems in general AND still stand by what I said. If it walks, talks, votes, and quacks like a Conservative Christian, what can you say?

We can rest easy again. The dedicated officers of the local constabulary have apprehended the scoundrel who shot someone outside of our house on New Year’s Eve. That’s quite a relief, as you can imagine. You can read all about it here:
News-Gazette

This weekend I get to finally do role-playing gaming again! After several months’ hiatus, I have a new group, consisting of me, Dave, Brian, and Rob. We’re starting out with me running a 3rd-edition D&D all-rogues game, where the players all are rogues trying to get into and then running missions for a thieves’ guild. We also have other ideas for games. I’ll try to keep a running log on the rogue game on this site. Sunday we start out with chargen (”character generation”) and I’m really looking forward to it.

Well, there’s no news on the New Year’s Eve shooting. The police came by Monday and asked if we’d remembered anything new, and the only newspaper coverage has been that police would really like people to call in with any info they may have. So it’s clear they don’t know anything at all.

On a lighter note, I’m very excited about the new Legos coming out this year, though I don’t know how I’ll afford them. I don’t usually buy the big expensive sets, but the AT-AT is just too nice to pass up. Similarly, there’s an AT-TE I’d like, a bunch of smaller sets, I’d still like a Millennium Falcon, and now there’s all these mini-vehicles. And that’s just the Star Wars stuff - the Oriental Adventures stuff looks cool too, as well as the monster sets.

We had a visit this weekend from Anne, Stewart, and Sydney, which was nice. Had some Dos Reales, some OPH, and some Mah-Jongg. Pictures will be posted soon.

I found this film hanging out on the server, and don’t think I’ve ever linked it. It’s Beebo Attacks! and it documents Beebo defending himself from a foot-powered air pump.

Finally, I leave you with documented photo evidence that Frodo has failed in his mission:

I didn’t make this photo, I just thought it was humorous.
I’m not sure who made the original.

Please note that it is rude to directly link images from another site. If you like it, copy it to your own site.

Last night (New Year’s Eve) we had not much planned. Some friends were coming over at 7:30 to watch movies or play games, hadn’t really decided which. Around 7:20 Becky and I were sitting down watching TV when we heard several bangs.

“I’d forgotten there’d be fireworks,” I said. “I wonder who’s got them?” I looked out the window and heard a girl screaming in what I thought was excitement. Then I saw the body on the ground.

I assumed there’d been a fireworks accident. I was wrong. Someone was murdered across the street from my house.

I don’t know many details. All night long the police were out there. The victim was taken away in an ambulance, but he died at the hospital. The police asked what we’d heard or seen (not much except the gunfire, which we thought was fireworks at the time) as did a news reporter. Here’s how a local news site is reporting it:

WCIA

I don’t think the person lived across the street - those are rental properties and I think he may have been just visiting someone there. As the report says, they have no motive and don’t know if the shooter even knew the victim. They didn’t catch the shooter. So far it looks completely random. Ten minutes later and perhaps it could have been my friends coming over (they didn’t come over - fortunately they hadn’t left yet). I’d had a mind to put the recycling out last night so I wouldn’t have to do it this morning, so it could have even been me.

This isn’t a bad neighborhood. This area has a bad reputation, but that’s mostly because it’s mostly (whispers) black. We’ve been living in this house for 3.5 years and have had no problems at all with anyone - it’s largely retired older people and a few rental properties.

They say whatever you’re doing on New Year’s Eve is how your year will go - in that case we’re in for a year of confusion, fear, and, I suppose, Cirque de Soleil, which we watched until the 10pm news came on.

Honestly, despite the seemingly random nature of the killing, I don’t feel particularly unsafe, though I admit that I had a hard time getting to sleep last night - every car door I heard gave me a little rush of fear, even though I knew there were still police cars all parked in front of my house. I haven’t talked to any neighbors about it, but I don’t really know any that well. I imagine they’re all feeling about the same way.

Update - Today the police were out with metal detectors, apparently looking for more shells. Hopefully they found whatever they were looking for, because we’re supposed to get snow tonight. There’s been a lot of activity across the street as well, which we think are police, but we’re not sure. A lot of coming and going. It’s grotesquely fascinating. According to the news tonight they still have no description (the only description they’re releasing was downgraded from “a black male” to “a male”). They claim they have leads they’re following. Apparently the victim was out talking to some people when the shooter walked up, fired at him, and then took off on foot. The victim was described as a good kid who sometimes ran with a bad crowd and had had a few run-ins with police in the past. Perhaps it wasn’t random after all, I don’t know.

I’ll keep you posted if we find out more.