Split/Second: A review

I don’t ask for a lot in a racing game. Just give me bare-bones flying down the road and some competition, and I’m happy. Many of the current racing franchises fall into two categories: there’s the RPG-style where you methodically build the car of your dreams by winning money in races and leveling up your tires, your suspension, your steering, your acceleration, etc.; conversely, there’s the driver-with-a-mission games that often include lots of cut scenes and dialogue, Grand Theft Auto-style, and which usually feature really, really crappy driving simulation. I recently played a free demo of one of these on Xbox Live which was a showcase for Vin Diesel. It was spectacularly bad as a driving game, and completely hilarious at the same time.
But I’m here today to talk about a racing game that I have very much enjoyed, despite a few problems: Split/Second. The central conceit is that the racers are participating in a reality game show, playing through a season through a series of episodes that each consist of 4-6 competitions. Some of the competitions are races, some are time challenges, and others are pure survival stages. To add some reality TV-style spice to the proceedings, there are various traps set up around the courses which can be activated by the drivers, resulting in explosions, collapsed buildings, and other inconveniences that can cause opponents to wreck in spectacular fashion.

The Story
The tracks are all part of a massive chunk of studio real estate that bears a striking resemblance to Seattle, complete with an airfield, port, downtown viaduct and other bridges, and something that could only be described as Space Needle-esque. There is also a track that seems more like a river gorge area, and one that seems to run through a nuclear power plant. A few of the tracks overlap in parts, which is kind of disappointing. True to the reality show theme, the game pits you against a variety of challenges which can play to your strengths and weaknesses. By far the most fun and interesting challenges are the races, followed closely by the Detonator and Elimination events. Race Mode features an 8 car field, with all the traps, or Power Plays, armed and ready. In Elimination Mode, there is a timer running that eliminates the last place car after a minute of racing, and every 15 seconds thereafter, until only one car remains. It’s a fairly common occurrence to be in first or second position, only to crash and be passed by the field with only a few seconds left on the elimination clock.  In Detonator Mode, you race solo against the clock while the game activates Power Play events (i.e. tries to kill you). The other two events that I’ve encountered thus far (both solo time course events) are just annoying. In Air Strike, you are targeted by a missile-laden helicopter, and Survival has you trying to pass a seemingly endless string of tractor-trailers that are spilling explosive barrels into your path. The many ground-level explosions that buffet your vehicle in these events throw your car out of control, which is a pretty frustrating experience. More annoying, no matter how well I run these courses in the later episodes, I can never come close to cracking the top 2 times. As in, I need to somehow shave 10-15 seconds off my time.


The Cars
As I said, this is no RPG. Forget about gradually improving your intake, or adding airfoils or other minutia. Here, you start with 3 cars from the storied Hanzo, Cobretti, and Ryback corporations. As you win races, you win credits. Eventually, you earn enough credits for a new car, but you do not get to choose the car. Instead, the game extravagantly bestows upon you the next car in the series, revealing its stats.  The stats indicate relative Speed, Acceleration, Toughness, and Drift. Toughness describes how well the car stands up to interactions with explosive things and other cars, and Drift describes the degree to which the back end will come around when you powerbrake around a corner. A lot of Acceleration and Drift can make for an interesting driving experience.  Some cars are all Acceleration, making them very touchy, and some are more balanced.  I enjoyed most of the cars, but I find the driving experience with the rally-style trucks to be not particularly "realistic" or fun.
I only have one grouse about the car system, and it’s a pretty specific grievance: I finally won a car that had solid stats in every category, and I couldn’t wait to get it on the track. In my first race with it, I placed last. Then 7th. Then last again. I raced on three different courses for at least 15 stubborn races and never placed better than 6th, before I realized that my car was only barely faster than the field, but had liabilities in acceleration and drift, such that I would have to run a perfect race while maintaining enough power to continually take out people in front of me with Power Plays. The trouble being that if they got too far ahead, I couldn’t trigger events, and I’d never catch them. So this awesome car generates an upgraded field, while backing away to a weaker car results in a weaker field that I could beat rather handily.


The Driving Experience
This is where the game really shines. After a short time behind the wheel, you get a really good idea of how your car is going to perform in different situations. I think the illusion of speed is as good as I’ve seen in any racing game. It helps that the graphics are top-notch, the field of view is uncluttered by a ton of status stuff, and that long, flat straightaways are kept to a minimum. You can toggle between a bumper-cam view (which is too close to the ground for me) or the 3rd person view from about 15 feet behind your car. There is no speedometer-- just a timer and your current race position shown at the bottom center of the screen. Oh, and your power meter. You fill up your power meter by drifting, jumping, and drafting behind other vehicles. If your meter is at least ⅓ full, you can trigger an event on a rival vehicle when it is near or approaching a trap. If the meter is all the way full, you can trigger an extra devastating event, or one that fundamentally alters a huge section of the race track (usually demolishing several cars in the process).  You have to learn where the traps are, and what they do, in order to effectively demolish the competition and avoid getting pancaked yourself.  This is in addition to needing to find the perfect line through the course, and learning how to min/max your car's capabilities.  And I must say, gaining the achievement for wrecking 3 cars under a collapsed nuclear cooling tower (High Pipe)? Priceless.
In terms of a racing experience, there is a bit of rubber-banding, where the leaders never get too far away, and you can often overtake them with solid driving in the final lap. The game does get less forgiving in the later episodes, where one wreck can put the leader out of reach. What’s worse is that the other vehicles never seem to trigger events on each other, even when there is a clear opportunity for one car to outright win the race by wrecking the lead car. This makes the Season Championship standings a little bogus, as it is always me and the same 2 other cars in the top 3 slots. I feel like the other cars in the field are just there to make my life miserable.


The Production
Not bad. It has a cool graphic opening that can be skipped past, and intuitive menus. It takes about 4 button presses to get to your current game, and there’s not a lot of lag between menus. My biggest complaint about the production (and the game overall) is the loading screens to get from the menu to the actual race. It can feel like forever. Once you have loaded a race, you can retry the race without the loading screens, but if you want to change cars, you have to exit and reload the race. It can really kill the pace and excitement of the game. In addition to the story mode, the game offers a Quick Race mode, an Xbox Live mode, and a Split Screen mode for 2 player face to face (which I haven’t tried yet).

 At any rate, I’ve been having a blast with it. The traps are really fun, and there are quite a few, "Did you see that???" moments.  It’s from Disney/Black Rock which is now, sadly, dismantled, but there is some DLC content available. I recommend this without hesitation if you enjoy racing games, but not if you need to have control over the vehicle building process.
(image from kusohappens.com)

Made you look!

Right, so I'm not actually saying anything here...just an update or two. I am now playing D&D, having been generously accepted into a well-established and competent group for a weekly session. Most of my between-session "work" on this is basically done, but I've decided that I'd like to expand my character's back story to practice a bit of creative writing and to get a stronger sense of the campaign setting. I am also At This Very Moment totally procrastinating on preparations for my lab meeting tomorrow. And I've been working on a project for my parents which involves 1)watching over 40 hours of digicam recordings (mostly of Elaine) and 2)cutting and pasting the cute/funny/tender moments into a watchable DVD. I may even use text and music, if it's not too onerous. So I've got a few projects going right now, all of which have a definitive endpoint. My goal then is to get back to nurturing this blog along, with more of an emphasis on good writing. I've been spending way too much time softening my brain online, and not enough time being creative and constructive. This is reason #2 why I canned my Facebook account. Reason #1, of course, is that their dithering made me feel like a sucker for patronizing their services, and reason #3 is that, while addictive, the experience there basically sucks. Anyways, see you soon, hopefully.

A Bevy of Bulletpoints

-Recently tried a Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye. It's my first rye beer, I think, but I'm struggling to get a clear sense of how adding rye malt makes this beer any different from plain old barley beer. It's a very malty beer, but the bittering hops and decent attenuation keep it from being overly sweet. I think that if it was not so heavily hopped, it would taste a lot like a medium-bodied Scottish Ale. On balance, I like it, and would pick it up again.

-I've just begun using Google Reader, and I think it's a great tool. I started with a few webcomics, Geekologie, and some news sites, but took Google's recommendation and added Lifehacker, Slashdot, and blogs like Design Milk and the Urbanist. Also had Engadget, but that was just 50 stories about cameras and cell phones every day. I'm looking at adding more content, but wondering how many more feeds I can add before it just gets overwhelming. Maybe if the sites in question only update a few items per day...

-I lost my iPod Shuffle about 2 weeks ago. Now I have no defense against earworms, which always strike when I'm out of headphone cord reach of my desktop at work. There I am, attempting to be industrious at the bench, when my brain is assailed with such gems as Black Velvet by Alannah Myles (for those in the know, replica plating), some stupid flash meme song called "Amazing Horse", and, inexplicably, the theme to "Welcome Back, Kotter" (what I wouldn't give to identify the trigger for that one). Anyways, it's pretty much a living hell.

-Pet peeve: places that make sandwiches and use the wrong bread. Allow me an awkwardly shoehorned analogy: The star of the sandwich is the inside part, and the bread plays a supporting role. Sometimes, you can get a great contribution from the bread, but you usually don't notice overmuch as long as the type of bread, bun, or roll is appropriate, and it's relatively fresh. What I hate is when the roles are reversed, and the bread is fancier than the filling, or completely unsuited to the task. I would list my recent disappointments in this arena, but I fear I've already lost you.

-Elaine is a trike-monkey now. We made a run to the 7-Eleven on the corner earlier tonight. It was strangely cool to help her pick a spot to park her trike outside. Even cooler for her to suggest that I wanted to get a beer. Turned out I did!

-The wit beer that I brewed a few weeks ago is done. I tried it the other day, and was a little disappointed. Either the orange peel, the hops (unlikely), or the yeast have contributed a sharp bitterness to the aftertaste. Despite the similarity in bitter character to that of orange peel, I have a feeling that it is actually the yeast. It's still plenty drinkable, but is not one of my bragging beers.

I play games!

I played a few new games the other night that turned out to be quite a lot of fun. The first, Thunderstone, is the first big, er, homage to the deck-building mechanic in Dominion. For the uninitiated, you have three virtual stacks of cards in front of you: 1) a personal deck of cards from which you deal 2) your hand, and 3) your personal discard pile. You can use cards in your hand to buy more cards (meaning you use the cash value on the cards to claim a card in the display…you don’t actually spend the cards—they go into your personal discard pile, along with the card you just bought). Thus, your deck grows in size as you seed it with cards that help you achieve victory points. The cards that give you victory points don’t really help you until the end of the game, and so they water down your deck if you accumulate too many too soon. The play in Thunderstone is similar to Dominion, with small exceptions, but it still manages to be its own game.

Unlike Dominion (and Dominion: Intrigue…I have yet to play Seaside), you have three options on your turn. You could visit the Village, which allows you to buy a new card according to the treasure value in your hand, which is really your only option in Dominion. Secondly, you could Rest, which enables you to trash any number of cards from your hand (these are taken out of play for the rest of the game…handy for getting rid of negative cards like Diseases). The third option, and primary source of VPs in Thunderstone is the Dungeon. Here you are trying to defeat one of three revealed monsters using the attack capabilities of all of your heroes, militias, and their weapons and spells. Buried in the bottom 5th of the monster deck is the Thunderstone card, which signals the end of the game.

I like that the VP cards (monsters) are variable (in VPs offered, XP offered, and battle modifiers), and that you can’t just employ a simple strategy like streamlining to have a money-rich hand to do well. You have to have a good mix of heroes, spells, and weapons to be successful in battle. Another cool feature is leveling up your heroes, which can be done in the Village. If you’ve accumulated enough XPs, you can cash them in to convert your Squire to a Knight, and then to a Lord, which can have profound effects on your ability to fight, as well as offering another reason to go to the Village. Another seeming piece of chrome that ends up working quite well is the requirement for a light source in the Dungeon. The deeper you go in the Dungeon, the more light (torches, flaming swords, etc) that you need to avoid incurring a nasty disadvantage in battle. Just one more thing to juggle as you seed your hand with items.

As I said, the system works quite well. The only real niggle I have with the game (aside from the packaging) is that there is no unseen hazard in going dungeoneering. What I mean is that you would never go into the Dungeon unless you had a good enough hand to beat one of the monsters, all of whom have completely revealed stats. There are some monster cards will tell you that you will lose a fighter in a battle with that creature, but such creatures can be defeated with, say, wizards and militia, negating that threat. I would prefer some amount of chance in these battles, despite the certainty that the game would be that much longer.

Desire to own: moderate *** Desire to play again: very high *** Overall: 8/10

After Thunderstone, we played Campaign Manager ’08, which is as fun as it sounds. I played the Obama side against Josh’s McCain. It was quite a blast to play up the quotes and throw around phrases like “Politics as usual”, with mock pathos. It was a little eerie when Josh rasped “I already know how to do that,” with that classic McCain, "I'm not an angry guy--listen to my quiet, pleading voice," voice.. All of the components were top-notch, game depth and game length were completely appropriate, and many laughs were had.

Desire to own: unclear...high, I think *** Desire to play again: high *** Overall: 8/10

The Mystery 5-Pack, Part 2

OK, I'll try to wrap this up quickly.

I'm not expecting much.

First up, by virtue of its likelihood to be as bland as I remember, is...

Alaskan White (ABV ?%)
It pours a cloudy, pale gold, gives off hints of a very faint spiciness, and exhibits light carbonation and a slight head. The first sip revealed more flavor than I was expecting. The light malt is balanced nicely by a judicious use of spices. There is, of course, no hop character to speak of. It's not overly sweet, and is quite refreshing. The problem that I have with most of these Alaskan and New Belgium beers (OK, add Red Hook and many other Macro-microbrews) is that they end up watering down everything to a point where the aftertaste is a sharp tang, likely brought on by the carbonation. A beer that has sufficient mass of ingredients (hops and sugar) can overcome this because those components contribute noticeably to the aftertaste as well as to the main flavor. So this White, while tasty, has that tangy aftertaste that compels one to take another sip, if only to cleanse their mouth of the metallic burn. Which doesn't exactly make me excited to settle into a night of drinking such a beer. Verdict: Who am I kidding? For around $6 per 6 pack, I'd totally buy this on the way to a party.

Finally...

Scuttlebutt Gale Force IPA
Poured caramel-colored, rather heavy-bodied and with minimal head. The predominant aroma is floral hops. Hmmm. Definitely a Pacific Northwest IPA. Just the hops, please. Not nearly enough sweetness to balance the onslaught of hops (ABV 5.25%). It's not terrible, but it's a one-note affair. Verdict: Exactly what I was expecting. I could be tempted to drink another, but my options would have to be rather dire.

Thanks for playing along. I'll have to include some nice beers in the future.

The Mystery 5-pack (Pt 1)

We picked up this intriguing little item on our trip to the grocery store today:

From Blogger Pictures

Intriguing in that I don't know what's in the bag, specifically. The bag is opaque, and stapled shut, and is labeled clearly with the word "Mystery". But there are clues. Clue #1: the $5.99 price tag. Clue #2: the motivation of a store to package a variety of beers in this way is most likely to get rid of slow-selling beers. The combination of the two clues leads to the conclusion that the bag contains slow-selling, modestly priced beers. In short, a gamble. Of course, I took one look at the bag and thought, "Mystery six-pack plus long weekend equals blog post!" and quickly snatched it up.

Here's the contents:

From Blogger Pictures

As would be predicted, IPAs account for half of the beers. I've had the Alaskan White before, and I'm not much impressed with that company anyway. The Caldera is interesting due to the packaging. Two of the IPAs are duplicates, from the Terminal Gravity Brewery in Portland OR, making it a Mystery 5-pack. The most intriguing of the offerings, by far, is the Stone Levitation Ale, so that's where I'll begin.

I've had the Stone IPA and didn't like it, but I've not tried any of their other offerings. The label on the bottle is enough of a pain to read (very tiny, approximately 2 point font, stamped in grey paint right onto the amber bottle) that I just skimmed it looking for some clue of what to expect. It was, unfortunately, about 400 words of blather that basically informs you that this beer is made of the ingredients that beer is made of, and it has wonderful flavor. Can't understand why it's a slow-seller.

Let's pop the cap and check it out...
Stone Levitation
It pours a burnt caramel with very little head. Not a lot of hop character evident from the pour, except for a slight juniper note. Aroma is mildly malty. Huh. It took three good sips before I could begin to define the flavor. For such a dark beer, it's surprisingly light ("Levitation"?). There's a foamy lightness contributed by the carbonation that takes a while to settle out in your mouth. It first leaves behind the malt character mingled with the spruce-like hops, then it slowly turns slightly sour, but mostly clean. But the overarching quality is light. I think they were successful at hitting the fine line between light and watered down (ABV 4.4%). The verdict: I doubt that I'd go out of my way to get this, but if it was on sale, I could see picking up a six.

Terminal Gravity Brewing IPA (ABV 6.9%).
The label says nothing more than "Live Beer Keep Cold". It pours light amber and a little viscous, as you'd expect from a beer with a crap-ton of hops packed into it. Maybe I'm a little stuffy, but there's not a lot of hop character on the nose. That bodes poorly, as I only really enjoy IPAs when there's a strong citrus/floral aroma to fool my brain into liking the astringent hop bitterness. Now, to taste...you know, this is not bad. It's slightly sweet with a clean finish, and is fairly malty. I'd characterize this as an English-style pale ale, not an IPA. Carbonation is on the low side, and the body is fairly heavy. Pretty tasty. Verdict: Work on your branding, Terminal Gravity. That label screams THIS BEER SUCKS. It's a nice beer, but not an IPA.

I think I'll take this downstairs and see if I can catch Apolo Ohno being absolutely OWNED by the South Koreans.

OK, one more before I turn in (you see how I suffer for you?).

Caldera Pale Ale (ABV ?%)
It's pale, I'll give it that. Looks like cloudy Budweiser when you pour it into a glass (the label informs you that it's a "Live Product: Keep cool, just like you". Right on, boss. It has a nice, floral aroma, which is the signature of Cascade hops on the finish. Unfortunately, upon tasting, it's clear that they don't understand balance. I don't mind being hopped through my skull if they do it as the second act, but when your first response upon sipping is "This tastes funny", followed by your tongue shriveling up from the hops, it's a fair guess that the target has been overshot. It really doesn't help that they put it in a can, since they didn't use one of those new sort of cans that keeps the flavor of the can out of the beer. Verdict: I'm not sure that I'll be finishing THIS one (my mouth is angry with me). I'll definitely avoid it in the future.

More to come tomorrow...

In which one vacates?

We took a trip this past weekend! Seeing as we haven't actually left Seattle since Jill's emergency second opinion flight to San Francisco (May 2008), this was a pretty big deal. Jill's dad and Debbie rented a two-room unit in Coupeville on Whidbey Island. This was about a 40 minute drive, 15 minute ferry ride, followed by another hour or so of driving on the island.

Some trivia: Whidbey Island was originally settled by several tribes, before it was discovered on a Spanish expedition. When Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey were mapping the region, Whidbey was the first European to demonstrate that it was an island by successfully navigating through Deception Pass.

Here's some shots near Deception Pass, which has a bridge to the mainland:

From palm

The water was a beautiful green

From palm

Standing on the bridge, looking beyond tiny Deception Island at the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which connects Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean.

From palm

We also visited Fort Casey, a WWII installment of big guns, and it was pretty cool, but my phone had died by then, and we had forgotten our camera. It was a shame that we couldn't explore the parks on the island more than superficially, but it's close enough that we could go back for a day trip if we want. Although, honestly, there's so much to do around here that I don't see Whidbey Island as a first choice if we get a chance to get out of town again. Unless it's to get some more Penn Cove mussels (omigod nomnom), or to visit awesome establishments like this one:

From palm

From palm

Facebook ate my blog

Right, so it's a lame excuse, but it's essentially true. I have the ability to sprinkle my pithy wisdoms to the Facebook community (ok, my 50-some friends) in compact little packets, and it kind of fills the same urge to connect that I was getting through this medium. But, NO MORE! There will be discipline, and word counts, and blog angst!

Well, enough about my lengthy absence. Everyone knows that I have a precocious toddler, an interesting life-situation vis-a-vis Jill's illness, and serious demands at work, but I know plenty of people who manage to do a lot more than file a fracking blog update a few times a week, so I'm done with excuses. Let's get right to it.

I bought some pants the other day. Jeans. So last week, it was New Jeans Week. I tried to stretch it out, wearing the same pair for two days (but not consecutively!) so I had new denim happening for all five days of the work week. It's pretty nice when they're new, since jeans are completely pre-shrunk these days. Instead of breaking in your jeans like you used to do, they actually feel good the first few times you wear them. That, combined with the visceral sense of power that comes with wearing newly acquired goods, makes those first times in public particularly exciting. Were you looking at my ass? Of COURSE, you were. And I have to say, my ass is pretty comfortable (new boxer briefs, too).

Some douchey entrepreneur is posting anonymous ads on some of the comments pages here. I try to delete these as they happen. Sometimes, they are on really old posts, and I find myself scanning through a few months worth of posts. This is part of why I missed writing; I had so much fun reading it again and reading all of the back and forth with you guys. I also realized that I disagree with former me on many points to do with my amateur music analysis. So if you ever come across any of those earlier posts, just think of it as how I felt then. I'm way more sophisticated now.

The other major reason why I came back to these old pixels is that Jonathan Woodard was surprised to learn that I was not much for cats. I realized that my branding was slipping, and I needed to get back before my entire online identity slipped into some sort of brown, averaged, everyperson. Listen: I kind of don't always like cats. OK, Jon?

Summertime

Ever notice how you don't have as much to say online when it's all nice and beautiful and summery outside?

I love a parade

Wait, what?

Zebras!

Flying Spaghetti Monster!

My mind...!

Fight Global Warming!?




Who knew? We celebrated the Solstice this year (I guess) by dragging Elaine down to the self-proclaimed Center of the Universe, aka the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle, to witness the legendary Solstice Parade. We got there way in advance and scored some front curb seats. It was pretty incredible. There was a lot of dancing and tribal drumming, costumes that ranged from the lavish to the bizarre, and the signature opening event: cyclists wearing nothing but body paint. I was highly entertained from start to finish. Elaine was a little freaked out. The coolest thing for me was that every float/exhibition/whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is had some sort of meaning as related to the Solstice celebration or some progressive cause, but there were no signs or symbols associated with the parade to clue you in to it. It was art, and it was lots of fun. Flaky as Fremont is, they really manage to pull off a great parade.

Since I've got a general rule against the posting of bosoms and weewees on my blog, I kept those images out. If you'd like to see more great images of the parade (and I recommend that you do), including an extensive gallery of the naked/painted cyclist parade, visit this page. In addition to gratuitous nudity, you'll be rewarded by pics of the completely awesome Soviet era statue of Lenin, situated at the heart of Fremont.

She's Two!

Deal with it!

This past weekend, we marked the event of Elaine’s second birthday with a bash for the ages (of one, two, and three). Jill took care of most of the prep with a very productive Target run. We had a small helium tank and balloons, cupcakes, a pizza lunch, and little gift bags for all of the kids which contained plastic dinosaurs, party favors, and bubbles. Some of the children blew bubbles, some poured bubble soap onto the lawn, and some just drank it straight from the bottle.

The party, with Elaine's big present in the background. Clockwise, from top: Big Molly, Madeleine, Susanna, Phillipe, Elaine (not pictured: Matthew, Olivia, little Molly


The festivities got underway a little early when Jill got locked in the bathroom at T minus ten minutes. We disassembled the doorknobs, but the mechanism had been installed from the edge of the door. Jill decided that we needed to call someone, leading to this exchange:

Me: I could kick the door in…?
Jill: Really?
Me: Sure!
Jill: (after a pause) OK, I’m in the bathtub.

Needless to say, I didn’t wait for her to change her mind. How often does one get to fulfill destructive fantasies like this? Amazingly, the door survived intact, but we’ll need to get the jamb reassembled. Anyways, this is a total word of warning to any crooks out there who think they can hide from the kicking foot of justice. I know you’re in there, and I’m a-comin’ in! (Please don’t have any weapons, because Jill won’t let me have a gun.)

Sunday night, I got to play Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization for the fourth time. This time, it was just Josh and I. Man, this is a really well-done game at 2, 3, or 4 players. I believe the third printing is underway right now, so I’m definitely going to be picking it up.

Elaine’s birthday fun times continued into Monday night, when we took her and her grandma (technically, grandma paid, but I drove) to Red Robin! Milkshakes, burgers, and balloons, oh my! When we got home, there were presents that had come by mail from various people. She scored some radical toddler clothing, a few small empty boxes (awesome idea), a bunch of crayons, and some books.

We got a lot of good video from the party, but not very many pictures. I’m looking into editing the videos on my MacBook (it has to be good for something) to post at a later time—perhaps on Picasa or Vimeo. Any suggestions for video hosting are welcome.

Deploy the grappling hook

A friend of a friend knows this guy who builds weird cars. Most of them are based loosely on the ship Serenity from the movie of the same name (and the series Firefly). I got to drive this one yesterday:



I was not able to see the looks on the faces of other drivers and pedestrians, as it took all of my concentration to keep it in the intended lane. Steering this vessel did approximate drifting through the vacuum of space: any direction on my part was largely suggestive. Also, it kept wanting to stall out at traffic signals. Also, it is a manual transmission vehicle, which is not a recommended feature in a hilly place like Seattle. It was fun, though.

Oh, and if you've never seen Firefly, do yourself a favor and rent the whole series (it is only one season long, as it was tragically cancelled), and then watch the movie. I can't recommend it enough.

In which you curse my name

I've been somewhat addicted to this quiz website, Sporcle. There are new quizzes every day, most of which take the form of lists. My favorite section has been the geography quizzes, found here, particularly the one in which you are called upon to name all the countries of the world. There is a map, and a little text box will appear over the country as you name it. It allows 15 minutes, which is plenty of time if you know how to spell the countries correctly. I have taken it every night over the past week. My scores, out of a possible 195, have been 185, 190, 192, 193, 193, 193, 194. The countries that I miss always vary, because the map is pretty small and has low resolution, and it gets covered up by your correct answers. It's a fun challenge.

I didn't start out with knowledge of 185 countries. There are also quizzes for the various regions of the world (5 continents plus Oceania) that I mastered before attempting the big enchilada. These are much easier to learn from, since the countries are colored in as you name them. Are YOU ready to possess this kind of raw knowledge? Do YOU want to be able to kick serious booty in a very specific subset of geography-related categories on Jeopardy? Then head on over to Sporcle and get hooked. Pro tip: Vatican City.

Of further internet-related interest, I've solved part of my productivity issues at work. I exclusively use Firefox, and there is an add-on called Leechblock (Tools menu -> Add Ons -> search for Leechblock). It will block your access to specified websites between certain hours. You can schedule in a lunch break, or tell it to permit 10 minutes every hour or two. There are a lot of options. You can have your access restricted by a password, but I don't trust myself with such an easy fix: I have it set up so that I can't access the settings during working hours. To avoid temptation, I eliminated Safari from my always-visible dock on my MacBook. It's only been two days, but I feel like I'm adjusting to life without Boardgamegeek, ESPN, Facebook, this blog, the Seattle Times, and Sporcle at work. When I do waste time, it is to flip through Science, Nature, or PNAS, which is slightly more germane to my work situation than the latest argument in the Religion, Sex, and Politics forum on the Geek (or even successfully naming the 195 recognized countries of the world).

Update, several hours later: I did it!!!

Mother's Day Weekend

I must say that it was a pretty awesome Mother’s Day weekend. On Saturday, we packed up Elaine and headed for Marymoor Park. This is a place that is outside Seattle, but is not the airport or a big box store like IKEA. Meaning that this is a relative first for us since we’ve been here. Saturday was Migratory Bird Day, and the folks at the park were holding birding events. Unfortunately, the events began at 2 pm, right in the middle of The Beautiful Time (Elaine’s nap time). So we went in the late morning, walked some trails, saw a few birds, had a picnic, and headed back home. I managed to not apply any sunscreen on myself or Elaine, so we both got a little pink. Later, we ordered pizza, and I popped the top on the first small bottle of my IPA. Lovely stuff. After Elaine went down for the night, Jill and I watched some bad television (season 2 of Heroes) and got to bed early.

Finding birds:


Sunday, I got up and got to work getting the house ready for a load of guests. We did Mother’s Day on Saturday so that I could devote Sunday to drinking and playing games. By 2 pm, several gallons of beer were on ice, the grill was going, and games were being set up. We hosted some friends in town (Josh, Jarrett, Miranda and Rachel), as well as some out of town guests, Jarred, Christine, Tim, Jessica, Jeremy, Josh, and Steven. Jarred, the guest of honor, is serving in Afghanistan as a contract officer in the Army, making sure supplies are allocated properly in the region. At least I think that’s what the job is. He’s a big fan of IPAs, which is what inspired me to make a batch. His crew was a fun bunch, and we look forward to having them back up again sometime.

People at the party:



The beer was very well received. One person said that he thought it might be the best IPA he’s ever had. Fresh beer can have that effect. I think next time, I’ll throw in an extra pound of malt, to raise the alcohol and sweetness levels. I drank it all day, and managed to avoid getting all sloppy like I do. I’m relaying Jill’s account here, as I’m no good judge of such things.

The dry-hopped fermenter, just before bottling:


I got to play Kingsburg, Ra, Imperial, and Carabande. The other table played Vegas Showdown and Pillars of the Earth. This was my second play of Imperial, and I learned a lot about using negotiation and alliances to get ahead in world domination. All in all, a fun weekend. Jill did a lot of behind-the-scenes work on Sunday, but she enjoyed her Mother’s Day on Saturday. She has expressed that she misses the real migration, back East. I’d have to agree--not much beats Magee Marsh for the migration.

Lookin' out my back door

Spring is well-underway here. I've had to cut the grass once; Rachel's garden is really taking off; the lilacs outside of Elaine's room are exploding; the plants that I thought were dead have fleshed out remarkably; the grapevines that I thought that I killed are producing buds; the cherry blossoms have come and gone, with the plums now on their heels. The camelia bush (which is now, more or less, a tree) is just about done with its annual show of beautiful white flowers, and, this year, has been the source of some additonal entertainment: it is hosting a crow's nest.



I was pretty surprised to see a gigantic crow decide to build a nest in this bush. My impression had always been that crows' nests were usually high and inaccessible, likely stemming from the nautical use of the term. This nest hardly provides any kind of lookout. One advantage, from the crow's perspective, is that the top of the bush is fairly open, and a power line runs directly above it. Thus the crow can hang out on the line and keep an eye out on the babies and the general area. I was also surprised at my own willingness to suffer the use of my property for the rearing of these godforsaken devilspawn. My curiosity to see and hear the baby devilspawn apparently outweighed the blackness that I hold in my heart. Or perhaps I'm just getting soft.

I didn't always hate the crows. The faithful reader will recall the moment when I became convinced of their diabolical origins and hateful intent. I had my reasons. Still, I wonder if I might have been mistaken--if these creatures may have the capacity to stir something good in this heart of mine.

I found my answer last week. I was home sick (and still am) and I heard the young crows calling for food. A large black streak threaded into the bush to increased clamor, and I found myself excitedly calling to Jill and Elaine to listen. Mama Crow flew out again, and soon returned with more food. I started thinking about getting to see the fledglings. Man encounters hate and embraces it, then his world changes and he releases it again. It's an old story. But it's never the ending.

There is a neighborhood cat who patrols the alley behind my house. I glanced out the window this weekend to see it seated below the bush, looking intently up, tail swishing. The faithful reader will recall that I am not a big fan of cats, mewling, greedy little bird-murdering panhandlers that they are. I was about to head for the back door to send it running when I realized that there were three large crows on the power line, daring the cat to make a move. By the time I got downstairs to the back door, the cat was gone and the crows were in the air, down the alley, harrying the feline back to its yard.

Then, yesterday, I looked out and saw the cat in the tree with no crows in sight. I hurried outside and lobbed a rock in its direction. Part of me would probably get some satisfaction out of beaning the beast broadside with a good thump, but the larger part of me would regret it. So it was just a near miss that bounced once and sent the cat scurrying. I scared it off again from the window last evening.

So, this is what I've come to be -- a protector of crows. It remains to be seen whether my heart can change enough to feel affection for cats again, but this tale suggests that anything is possible if you just give love a chance.


(from glitterpissing.blogspot.com)

"We fight for money and an indefinable pride."

I just finished the first 3 books of the Black Company series by Glen Cook (single volume, The Chronicles of the Black Company). Mustafa made me buy it. Literally. On the last day of Kathy and Mustafa's visit last month, we had breakfast at IHOP and then poked around in a Barnes and Noble. I was watching Elaine in the kids' section (she had a blast) while everyone else did some shopping. Mustafa placed this book in my hands and told me that I have to read it.

The book is told from first person perspective. The voice is Croaker, an ironic name for the physician/soldier of the legendary Black Company, a highly disciplined band of mercenaries that could trace their existence back for many centuries through their Annals. Croaker is also the Company Annalist, which is why we experience the story through his eyes. The secret to the Company's success is a combination of planning and sorcery. Three of the Company members are skilled spellcasters. The Company are not the Good Guys. They merely fulfill the obligation of their hire. Protection. Warfare. Assassination. The Company exists to ensure the further existence of the Company.

The main narrative revolves around how the Black Company, and specifically Croaker, become involved in a cyclical prophecy. Long ago, the world was under the rule of a very powerful sorcerer, the Dominator. (I should stop here to point out that all of the sorcerers have ridiculous pseudonyms; to declare a sorcerer's true name deprives him/her of all of their power.) Apparently, the Domination was a bad time. The Dominator was married to the Lady, who was nearly as powerful as he. The end of the Domination came when the White Rose, a girl, defeated the Dominator and the Lady and interred them among multiple spells and safeguards in the Barrowlands. They were too powerful to kill.

Later, a too-curious wizard accidentally let the Lady out of her prison. She immediately began a push for control of all of the lands. She ends up hiring the Black Company as her personal bodyguard. She has the ability to take powerful sorcerers and make them her subjects, more powerful than they would ever have been alone. These Taken are the boogeymen of the story, alternately advancing and twisting the plot as you try to figure out where their individual loyalties lie. The Lady wants no part of her husband's resurrection, and the Dominator's touch and allure was never fully eradicated. The crisis comes as a comet appears in the sky, heralding the birth of the next White Rose, meaning that the Dominator's time of imprisonment is drawing short.

That's the basic plot explored by the first 3 books. I liked the concept, and enjoyed all of the great wizard battles and military planning. The whole thing kept reminding me of Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, except THIS ONLY TOOK THREE VOLUMES. The story was of a similar scope and theme, without all of the tiresome descriptive passages and repetition. In fact, these books provided all of the things that I liked about The Wheel of Time and excluded all of the things that I disliked.

The third book was not the end of the stories of the Black Company, but I'm assuming that they're the end of Croaker's involvement. I liked the story and I was satisfied enough with where it ended up that I'm not likely to pick up any more of these. It was a fun read, and I'd recommend it to any fantasy aficionados.

Now here's some pictures of us at the bookstore. (Smooth, eh?)

One foot in the door

Very much against my will, I am starting to enjoy more beers on the hoppy side of the fence. Perhaps it's this misty green vale of mystery where I reside that is working this insidious magic upon my taste buds. Perhaps I was just ready. I still stand by my previous jeremiads about the corrupting nature of hop-lust, but I've come to conclude that most people are just doing it wrong. It's not how many pounds of fragrant green flowers you pack into your brew, it's how you pack them that counts.

My biggest complaint has always been that most IPAs are like chewing grass. Too green, too bitter, too laden with what tastes like pine tar. Occasionally, I encounter a lovely IPA. I've started to notice what I like: citrusy, floral aroma, a bit of sweetness and full-bodied nature, high alcohol content (7%+) and not a whole lot of bitterness. You can tell that the beer was made using a lot of hops, but you don't feel like you're currently trying to eat them. After some research, I became confident that I could pull this off, and so I made my first IPA today. In honor of a US soldier and homebrewer (and game player) who is coming home for a week in May, and who will probably open the first growler of the brew, I'm calling it Afghan Pale Ale.

Hops are added to the brew at two points. Just as the boil begins, the bittering hops go in. Hops are flowers that contain bitter resins that do not easily dissolve in water, so it takes a long boil to extract them. They also contain very aromatic compounds that are easily dissolved in water. These are destroyed in a long boil. Thus, flavor or aroma hops are added at the end of the boil. For most of my beers, I use a very small amount of hops at the end, and typically boil for 5 minutes, and leave them in while I'm cooling the wort.

For this beer, I used almost as many ounces of aroma hops as for bittering, but I used very aromatic, citrusy hops (Amarillo and Centennial). Also, I put them in a mesh bag and only boiled them for 1 minute before removing them. I think that this will give me the character that I seek without contributing any more of the green/bitter flavor to the beer. The 7.5 lbs of malt extract and 1.5 lbs of cracked grain should help to balance out the extra hop character, and give a nice kick to the beer.

I'm looking forward to this one. It smells pretty.
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Also wanted to add, for those who follow along, that Jim and Sonja have begun posting on their boat blog again. The ice must be cracking in the harbor up there. (link on sidebar)

Pigs in Space

My gaming has been pretty sporadic since the annual Christmastime extravaganza, but I’ve had some pretty fun times over the past few weeks. Notably, I’ve been playing Battlestations somewhat more regularly. Battlestations is a sort of boardgame/role playing game hybrid. You create a character to control, and you can use that character on subsequent plays. There is a game master (GM) who takes you through each mission, keeping information hidden and doing her level best to confound and destroy the crew. Your character gains experience and money at the successful completion of each mission, and can gain levels. Subsequent missions are then tailored to the enhanced abilities of the crew.

A typical crew in a beginning ship consists of a pilot, a marine, a scientist, and an engineer. Each profession has enhanced abilities and gear according to the needs of their position. For example, the engineer is responsible for generating power in the ship’s engines, and allocating that power to shields, helm (piloting actions), and guns. The engineer has a bonus, then when he rolls for a success at generating power, or undertaking repairs. The floor plan of each ship is assembled, and the character standups are placed in their start positions (at battle stations). Thus, a character must move throughout the ship in order to accomplish their tasks. You can’t fire a missile if there isn’t anyone manning the missile bay, for example.

Separate from the ship’s floorplan, there is a map of the region of space where the action occurs. Generally, there’s a planet placed as a reference point, then the crew’s ship, and then any other details, such as debris, asteroids, or enemy ships. For the missions that we’ve attempted, the early part of the game is largely maneuvering and firing. Later, there may be a boarding action, either by the heroes or the enemy.

This game starts off kind of slow and thoughtful, as the players try to come up with the best strategy to approach the mission. The writers do a great job of coming up with interesting puzzles for the players to solve. In one mission, the enemy ship had an inversion field that turned successful rolls into failures, and they could switch it on and off. We made the mistake of boarding their ship—a mistake because the two boarding characters were specialized for this sort of thing, and the enemy characters were horrible at combat. Thus, they cut us to shreds while we missed badly.

It’s difficult to describe the allure of the game, so here’s a sample session report of our last go-round. We had tried, unsuccessfully, two previous missions as pirates, but our puny Level 1 characters didn’t have much of a chance. So we decided to join the Federation and do some contract work. After gaining some levels and upgrading our ship, we plan to return to a life of plunder. This was our first such mission:

A federation spy was flying way undercover with a pirate syndicate. The Federation received intel that the spy’s position had been compromised. We needed to perform an extraction before the enemy ship reached its headquarters. Simple, eh? Yeah, right.

We set a course orbiting a seemingly deserted planet, while sending out a distress call. Sure enough, the brigands warped into our sector. They immediately sent a message demanding our unconditional surrender, and fired a lucky cannon shot to make their point. This was somewhat more heat that we had expected so soon. They lobbed a missile to try to soften us up some more, but we were able to electronically scramble it (ECM) and then harmlessly destroy it. By this time, we were on the dark side of the planet, and breathing hard. We realized that our slow speed was making us a sitting duck, so we prepared to accelerate as soon as we had completed this orbit.

In the meantime, we had received communications from the enemy ship, via the secret agent. He sent along a schematic of the enemy vessel and info about the crew. He also managed to trash their teleporter and damage other modules. As we accelerated away from the planet (lobbing a missile of our own) we received a final communiqué. He was jumping ship. On the next turn, six spacesuits were simultaneously ejected from the craft. Only one of them had a passenger. As we exchanged fire with the pirates, our scientist probed the suits for signs of life. Finally, we identified the correct suit and set a looping course to intercept.

The rule for picking up a space walker is that the ship must have a speed of zero and occupy the same hex. The slower you go, the easier you are to hit. So we were getting pummeled by the other ship as we attempted this maneuver. But we were also giving as good as we got. It was their cannons that caused most of our distress, since our scientist was a specialist at remotely detonating enemy missiles. But then, as we were two hexes away from our quarry, the scientist rolled a successful ECM against a missile. The GM informed us that the missile failed to explode.

A few beats later, comprehension dawned on the faces of the crew. It was a boarding missile, which is a piloted, two-person vessel. It crashed through an engine room, and an enemy marine and engineer emerged. The engineer immediately began hacking into our ship’s systems, but quickly became a smoldering pile of chitin. Oh, wait…I forgot to mention the races.

My character, and the ship’s pilot, are both Tentacs. This is a race of highly tentacled beings who have a decent move rate, and great endurance, but cannot wear armor. The ship’s engineer is of a fungoid race known as Whistlers. His movement is enhanced by the ability to “puff”, or soar a short distance as part of his movement. The ship’s scientist is a Zoallian, which are roach-like creatures that have a natural armor bonus. The invading pirates were Zoallians. There are also silicoid creatures, cat-like creatures, and, of course, humans.

The invading roach backed away from our defense squad, destroying the engine compartment as he did. When a module (such as an engine) is badly damaged, or slagged, there is a movement penalty within the module. There is also a penalty to all skill rolls while in the module. Our ship is shaped like a donut, so we were faced with the choice of either following the marine through a path of destruction or doubling around to cut him off. We went with plan B.

Meanwhile, the success of the mission was in jeopardy. We continued to slow to zero while taking shots from the enemy ship. Finally, we were at zero and sitting on the same hex as the double agent. The enemy ship had overtaken us and was on the same hex, as well. Why they didn’t attempt to ram us, I don’t know. We had two missiles trailing the ship, and their scientist couldn’t keep both of them off, so there was a strike. The GM performed a hull check, and failed badly. The enemy ship exploded right over our heads.

Our mission was to safely return the agent. Failing to do so would be, well, failure. Conditions for an Overwhelming victory involved killing all of the enemy and destroying their ship, as well. The GM rolled for damage…6d6. The result was 14. The spy survived, but was quite unconscious. Our ship took damage, and we did a hull check. It failed. However, each player has a certain number of Luck points at the start of each mission, each of which allows a reroll of one die. We survived on luck. There was only the pesky marine to deal with.

That little bastard had managed to slag all three of our engines. With no engine power, we couldn’t pick up the spy. Our engineer went into action, repairing the nearest engine and pumping for power. We got enough to scoop up the spy, and our scientist set about healing him. Meanwhile, the pilot and I were bearing down on the roach. I hit him once, but then my dice got all crappy on me. So I did my duty and blocked the way into the only operating engine room and let him rip me up. The pilot did the same, and so we kept him occupied for a few turns. We had the advantage of being in an operational module while he was backed into a slagged module.

Eventually, the spy had recovered enough to come running, with the scientist and his MediKit in tow. The spy had a much nicer weapon than any of us…the same weapon that the roach was using to fire indiscriminately into the wall of our ship. I guess he'd figured out what that big explosion was. The spy roasted him, and we all collapsed in relief. Well, all except me and the pilot, who were already sprawled on the floor with life-threatening injuries.

Upon our glorious return, we received a bunch of credits, serious experience that we used to level up, and we went shopping. We each requisitioned new modules for the ship, and then bought items that would likely help out our respective professions. I got a scope that I can put on the particle rifle that I found on the marine roach. I also got a few different types of grenades and satchel charges. Safe to say, I can’t wait to try out my shiny, new tools of destruction!

Grab bag

Life and hobby updates:
-I'm finally recovering from The Cold of 2009.
-I discovered a new precious beer that is delicious and wonderful. I forget the name. Duchess Borgnone or some such. Tartness at first that quickly warms to an almost cider-like sweetness, thanks to those crazy Belgian yeast.
-The Kathy and Mustafa visit was a whole big load of fun. We had a game day at Josh and Megan's place, complete with waffles and mimosas. Double Awesome.
-Played Imperial at said game day. Double Awesome. It is a non-intuitive economic game with a military component. I lived, I died, I had very vocal moments of despair and tragedy, I lived again, I had fun. Mustafa won on his last turn of the game. That never happens!
-Elaine played at Madeleine's house today. I picked her up, and noticed that she was picking at her shoe in her car seat. I reached back and grabbed her shoe, "ROWRRRR!!!", and my thumb sank into a fresh clump of dog poo. Not Awesome.
-It's cold as the wastes of Heck here. Arctic winds are a-blowing through our little convergence zone. It's supposed to die out soon, and 50 degree weather will return. I'm thinking that I might be able to get out for a run this week. Finally!
-I'm kinda bummed that we don't have anyone on the immediate schedule for visitation and hanging out. I guess we have June to look forward to, possibly.

And now, back to my yummy beer.

Mustafa and Kathy are here

So that's pretty cool. After the marathon house cleaning last night, an attempt to debulk the house of cat hair to keep Kathy's considerable cat allergies at chair-and-whip length, I had my first beer in over a week and then failed to fall asleep. Jill went to pick them up at the airport around 12:30 last night, and I was still up when they got home, and remained so until after 2. I woke at 6 as usual, so today should be interesting.