Being a gamer, I want to attend conventions. It's a chance for large-scale socialisation, something that's important for people like me to get used to. Now, the local con is DunDraCon, and they have an online registration that allows folks to get money off if they pay in advance. The LA and I will be attending, for a total cost of $30.
But getting those thirty dollars to the con was a mission. First, I tried paying by credit card. Paypal wouldn't let me use the e-mail address I'd given the con, because that address already had an account. So I tried my other address, and it still didn't work. In attempting to get the first address sorted out, I found I was going to need to close that account, and why? Because Paypal refuse to admit the possibility that someone might want to keep their money after moving across a national border.
I eventually opened a new account under the second address, this time the card linked to it OK, and I got the payment in. I then zeroed my balance on the other account by sending every penny to the new account, and closed the old account.
I truly hate Paypal for making this so much more difficult than it could have been.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
On parties
So, I probably won't get my "own" birthday party this year, what with my social circle being a Venn Diagram consisting of "Me" in one set, and "Everyone else" in a non-intersecting set, but the 4th anniversary party at Black Diamond Games today was a reasonable substitute. I even won the raffle, which got me a bunch of interesting things... and a single AT-43 unit that had clearly taken on a forklift and lost. For a line that he's deep-sixing, Gary sure does have a lot of AT-43. Maybe he's hoping that if everyone gets some, people will play it.
Sorry. For all that it's one item where the AT-43 had three figs, I'm more stoked with the Battlemech. For a start, I get to assemble and paint that (if I get primer, and so on), and there's more chance I'll actually play Battletech.
Still, the copy of a|state was actually a better prize than you realised. Sure, I can't use the mechanics (percentile skill rolls won't mesh well with Savage Worlds no matter how you slice it) or the items (mediaeval/steampunk, no firearms versus post-apoc, lots of guns), but I can pull a surprising amount of feel out of this book.
I'm still intending to order a copy of GURPS Myth, though. Most of the fluff in that will be directly applicable...
Sorry. For all that it's one item where the AT-43 had three figs, I'm more stoked with the Battlemech. For a start, I get to assemble and paint that (if I get primer, and so on), and there's more chance I'll actually play Battletech.
Still, the copy of a|state was actually a better prize than you realised. Sure, I can't use the mechanics (percentile skill rolls won't mesh well with Savage Worlds no matter how you slice it) or the items (mediaeval/steampunk, no firearms versus post-apoc, lots of guns), but I can pull a surprising amount of feel out of this book.
I'm still intending to order a copy of GURPS Myth, though. Most of the fluff in that will be directly applicable...
Saturday, October 18, 2008
On flowers
So, today was Concord's Oktoberfest, ja? The LA and I went, thinking I could check out some local microbrews, but we found a distinct shortage of beers I wanted. This was because of one thing they all had in common.
Cascade hops.
The Cascade hop is the curse of the American microbrew. Yes, it grows better than any other hop variety in the USA's climate. This does not make it the right choice for American beers, however, as it is extraordinarily bitter, and lacks any subtlety in its flavour. Indeed, Cascade hops are almost guaranteed to render me nauseous. I suppose if one's suddenly discovering that beer can have flavour, then it's perfectly possible to become used to Cascade, but frankly, to me they are disgusting. Please, anyone who wants to brew, go the extra few bucks and import Fuggles, Challenger, Goldings or Saaz. European hop varieties are FAR more pleasant.
Moreover, please, America, please learn what IPA is actually about. IPAs do tend to be high alcohol and heavily hopped, yes, but they are NOT a competition to see who can make the concoction which most resembles a mixture of corn syrup, Everclear and Bitrex. If you want to know what a proper IPA SHOULD be, kindly take yourself to your nearest BevMo! and look for Meantime India Pale Ale. It's not what you think. What this stuff is, is flavourful and subtle. It's hoppy, yes, but you can still taste something other than hops.
Cascade hops.
The Cascade hop is the curse of the American microbrew. Yes, it grows better than any other hop variety in the USA's climate. This does not make it the right choice for American beers, however, as it is extraordinarily bitter, and lacks any subtlety in its flavour. Indeed, Cascade hops are almost guaranteed to render me nauseous. I suppose if one's suddenly discovering that beer can have flavour, then it's perfectly possible to become used to Cascade, but frankly, to me they are disgusting. Please, anyone who wants to brew, go the extra few bucks and import Fuggles, Challenger, Goldings or Saaz. European hop varieties are FAR more pleasant.
Moreover, please, America, please learn what IPA is actually about. IPAs do tend to be high alcohol and heavily hopped, yes, but they are NOT a competition to see who can make the concoction which most resembles a mixture of corn syrup, Everclear and Bitrex. If you want to know what a proper IPA SHOULD be, kindly take yourself to your nearest BevMo! and look for Meantime India Pale Ale. It's not what you think. What this stuff is, is flavourful and subtle. It's hoppy, yes, but you can still taste something other than hops.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
On Two Wheels
As you probably know, I'm not a driver. However, I do still know the rules of the road, since I do cycle to get to places. Indeed, I probably follow the rules of the road rather more stringently than do most cars around here. Today, I went to the library. Because the bus company is idiotic, when the library is actually open, the buses don't run past it, and when it isn't open, they do. This meant that I had the expensive and tiring option, or the cheap and tiring option. I went for cheap and tiring, and set off on my nice not-all-that-shiny Trek to reach the library.
Now, the most direct route takes me along Contra Costa. This is all well and good, but I didn't want to go along Contra Costa because a) it's being worked on at the moment and b) people drive like maniacs along there. So, I worked out an alternative route, shown below:
View Larger Map
This route is still almost entirely on public roads, aside from the section along the EBMUD trail, but those are much less busy roads. So, off I went, and was taking the lanes from the beginning. At the first stoplight, I was in the middle lane, and so it continued. All the drivers I encountered were perfectly OK with my behaviour. I count that as a great success for the vehicular cycling philosophy, which holds that as a cyclist one should behave as a vehicle, and this will cause cars and other motorised entities to treat you as a vehicle. Not a single vehicle cut me off, several actually deferred to me at multi-way stops (!), and I astounded one chap in a VW by being less than a length behind when we left one intersection, having been next to him (and in the middle tending left of my lane, so that those turning right could filter past while I retained ownership of straight ahead; safety and courtesy) at the light.
Now, the most direct route takes me along Contra Costa. This is all well and good, but I didn't want to go along Contra Costa because a) it's being worked on at the moment and b) people drive like maniacs along there. So, I worked out an alternative route, shown below:
View Larger Map
This route is still almost entirely on public roads, aside from the section along the EBMUD trail, but those are much less busy roads. So, off I went, and was taking the lanes from the beginning. At the first stoplight, I was in the middle lane, and so it continued. All the drivers I encountered were perfectly OK with my behaviour. I count that as a great success for the vehicular cycling philosophy, which holds that as a cyclist one should behave as a vehicle, and this will cause cars and other motorised entities to treat you as a vehicle. Not a single vehicle cut me off, several actually deferred to me at multi-way stops (!), and I astounded one chap in a VW by being less than a length behind when we left one intersection, having been next to him (and in the middle tending left of my lane, so that those turning right could filter past while I retained ownership of straight ahead; safety and courtesy) at the light.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
On the winding of yarn
The LA is a knitter. Some yarn does not come ready to knit with. However, ball winders are available, some motorised.
The LA realised that she had married me. She therefore commissioned me to make for her a ball winder, using K'Nex, since it had been posted elsewhere. To this end, we procured the following resources:
My first attempt was... overcomplicated.
This monstrosity never got tested, because I realised that I'd overlooked how to transmit torque properly, and thus I could get the required two-axis spinning action with a single shaft. The key was in fact the ability of the gears to free-float.
Version 2 was distinctly less overblown:
The big wheel turns, causing the small cog to turn with it. This rotates the platform. Meanwhile, the vertical shaft is held immobile, and the wheel atop it engages with the spindle cog, causing the bobbin to rotate whle the platform it's mounted to also rotates. Hopefully, once I've figured out precisely how to run this thing, it will produce balls of yarn which can be centre-pull or outside-pull, and will do so at roughly a fifth the cost of a motorised one. It actually cost similar to a hand-wound winder, but is That Much Cooler simply because it's something I built.
Directions are available on request; if you share them, please credit me for them. I put a lot of thought into this device!
The LA realised that she had married me. She therefore commissioned me to make for her a ball winder, using K'Nex, since it had been posted elsewhere. To this end, we procured the following resources:
My first attempt was... overcomplicated.
This monstrosity never got tested, because I realised that I'd overlooked how to transmit torque properly, and thus I could get the required two-axis spinning action with a single shaft. The key was in fact the ability of the gears to free-float.
Version 2 was distinctly less overblown:
The big wheel turns, causing the small cog to turn with it. This rotates the platform. Meanwhile, the vertical shaft is held immobile, and the wheel atop it engages with the spindle cog, causing the bobbin to rotate whle the platform it's mounted to also rotates. Hopefully, once I've figured out precisely how to run this thing, it will produce balls of yarn which can be centre-pull or outside-pull, and will do so at roughly a fifth the cost of a motorised one. It actually cost similar to a hand-wound winder, but is That Much Cooler simply because it's something I built.
Directions are available on request; if you share them, please credit me for them. I put a lot of thought into this device!
Monday, October 6, 2008
On keeping things tidy
The LA and I live in an apartment community. What this means is that there are no gardening tasks I need to perform, unless I decide to grow something. There are grounds, with plants growing on them, and a gaggle of small men who maintain them.
At this time of year, even in California, the leaves are turning and falling (I must remember to take a camera next time I'm visiting the LA's parents; some of their trees are gorgeous), and so there is a drift of leaves. This being the USA, they need to be removed, lest you get natural mulch and humus. Again, this being the USA, the small men refuse to use rakes to collect the leaves. Instead, they scatter them using leaf-blowers. Said leaf-blowers are powered by small but loud two-stroke engines, which is hardly West Coast Hippie. I personally find it amazing that leaf-blowers haven't been banned; they're loud, they're ineffective, and they're unkind to air quality.
Indeed, the blowers fail even the most basic test of leaf-collecting: actually collecting leaves. They merely redistribute them, mainly to the surface of the ponds.
Speaking of the ponds, recently the LA and I were walking home from somewhere, and I saw a small bird. For the Americans, it was roughly football-shaped; for the rest of the world, roughly rugby-ball shaped (the rest of the world is closer) and it was cryptic colours, with a dagger-like beak, showing it to be related to herons. I ran it past the rather good What Bird? wizard, and ascertained it to be an American Bittern.
At this time of year, even in California, the leaves are turning and falling (I must remember to take a camera next time I'm visiting the LA's parents; some of their trees are gorgeous), and so there is a drift of leaves. This being the USA, they need to be removed, lest you get natural mulch and humus. Again, this being the USA, the small men refuse to use rakes to collect the leaves. Instead, they scatter them using leaf-blowers. Said leaf-blowers are powered by small but loud two-stroke engines, which is hardly West Coast Hippie. I personally find it amazing that leaf-blowers haven't been banned; they're loud, they're ineffective, and they're unkind to air quality.
Indeed, the blowers fail even the most basic test of leaf-collecting: actually collecting leaves. They merely redistribute them, mainly to the surface of the ponds.
Speaking of the ponds, recently the LA and I were walking home from somewhere, and I saw a small bird. For the Americans, it was roughly football-shaped; for the rest of the world, roughly rugby-ball shaped (the rest of the world is closer) and it was cryptic colours, with a dagger-like beak, showing it to be related to herons. I ran it past the rather good What Bird? wizard, and ascertained it to be an American Bittern.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
On the allure of sticks and string
Those of you who follow the LA's blog will know that she knits. Among her current projects is a pair of socks to keep my feet toasty through winter, but that's beside the point. This afternoon, we were in the drugstore failing to find a shoehorn, any pseudoephedrine or a 4" cube-shaped box, but we did get some Halloween candy (since we can't actually turn off our porch light).
The LA saw some 49ers hats and scarves, and immediately began analysing the stitching. She's mildly obsessive...
The LA saw some 49ers hats and scarves, and immediately began analysing the stitching. She's mildly obsessive...
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