Old Entries

"25th/26th June 2007 - Errr... Whoops?

"Figures.

"Well, how're y'all doin'?

"Time to summarise the last... two months? More?

"Hoo-boy...

"April:

"Then a wonderful thing happened: Moosey came.

"For those who don't know, Moosey is a lovely person from America who I talk to online quite frequently.

"We met her on the 17th in her hotel, then went out around Dublin, ending up sitting on a bench in TCD, looking over the playing field.

"On the..."

But then, I didn't have time to update till today.

Which meant that, last night,...

... I saw Aerosmith in concert.

Oh holy CRAP.

Now, to continue...

April:

Then a wonderful thing happened: Moosey came.

For those who don't know, Moosey is a lovely person from America who I talk to online quite frequently.

We met her on the 17th in her hotel, then went out around Dublin, ending up sitting on a bench in TCD, looking over the playing field.

Sometime that week, we also went to the Mongolian Barbeque on Anglesea Road. All-you-can-eat buffet for €25. Best of all, you choose the meat, the veg, the sauce, the spices and the seasonings, take them to the chef, watch him cook it, then take it back to your table and CONSUME. I had four servings.

On the 24th, Moosey left us, returning to her mythical home of America. We miss her.

May:

During the first week, Inky, Kauthon, Chris and myself finished our group project. I didn't do much code-wise, I know, but I did a fair amount of writing stuff. The code was finished, and is operational. It's in ~kbkarma/files. It works. Trust me.

And then, on the 21st, the exams began.

22st: 2ba1 Maths

24rd: 2ba5 Telecommunications and Information Management

June:

1st: 2ba2 Programming Techniques

5th: 2ba4 Computer Architecture I

7th 2ba3 Systems Programming

So, overall, exams did NOT go well for me.

On the 9th, I went back to Botswana. Many of you know that I lived there for seven years, and that most of my family live there, including all of my cousins and my grandparents.

It's been four years since I was last there. And seven years for C. Air France had some crappy games, including a cheating chess game (it disappeared my rook! My rook just vanished from my own back rank!). It also had a Japanese music channel (some new music to look for...) and films. I watched the Incredibles again. :D

We arrived in Joburg National Airport (JO Tambo, formerly Jan Smuts) at about 9am. We grabbed our rental (a Ford Avenza. Captian Charisma will be banging his head in frustration right about... now), and drove north. For five hours. In the African sun.

Eventually, we arrived in Gaberone, and went to my grandparents' house. We met our younger cousin Taryn, who took an immediate liking to me and my arm. With her fingernails.

C and myself were left with different cousins, since Taryn was the only kid still there, her brother and sister being away for shady reasons. These cousins were Meli and Arturo. I was deposited in Arturo's room, on the spare bed, while C had a king-sized bed downstairs all to himself. I didn't mind that much. But I bemoaned the lack of games on Arturo's machine, then was astonished at the presence of GTA 3 on the PC of a kid younger than C.

The sun set, and the sun rose. It was the second day.

We went back to my grandparents' house, where Taryn was waiting for us. C and I decided that it was time to teach Meli and Arturo Mao.

If you've never played Mao, these are two rules:

1. The Joker is the Nine of Diamonds.
2. I can't tell you any of the other rules.

Needless to say, this surprised them. They were used to knowing all the rules at the start, rather than learning them through breaking them. They soon got the hang of it, though.

The sun set, and the sun rose. It was the third day.

After meeting all of our family in Gabs (who all commented that my brother had changed the most, which was obviously true since he who once was the smallest was now the biggest), we moved on to Francistown, far up in the north.

After a five-or-so hour journey, we arrived, and stayed at our aunt Fran's house.

Some of you may have heard that my cousin died several years ago. Some of you may also have heard that my uncle died last year.

Fran was the mother of the first, and the wife of the second.

I don't handle grief well. I try to avoid it. I don't know why, but I do. It's built into me. Hence, I was rather wary about spending the night there.

That night (the only night we were there), my cousin Anthony, Taryn's older brother, arrived with his girlfriend. He seemed to have become, at least to my eyes, which aren't the best in cases like this, more dependable, more... calm.

The next day, we headed back south, stopping along the way at Matsieng, the site of an old Botswana creation myth, where the ancestors of the Bakgatla, including their leader Matsieng, came forth from a three-metre-deep hole in the ground, followed by their livestock and families. Around that hole are a number of etchings of footprints. It's still a sacred site.

That Sunday, the last Sunday I'd be there, we went to a small chapel in Notwani run by the Stigmatines. The mass was very strange. The priest was Italian, and spoke in Setswana for most of the mass.

Have you ever been in a mass where everyone had a different part, i.e. bass, tenor, etc., and sang it perfectly, WITHOUT BEING TOLD? That happened here. The congregation stood up, and then sang. It was one of the only times I've heard a hymn sung in a mass in perfect harmony.

On the last day before I left, we all went to Spurs in the Riverview centre. I had a Hunga Busta Double Cheddamelt burger. I mention this merely as a recommendation to all who go to Spurs, either in Africa or in Liffy Valley. I got a burger bun, open. Each half had a burger covered with cheese. On top of the cheese was... Y'know the sauce inside mushroom kievs? That's what was on top of each burger. It was heaven.

The next day, after saying our goodbyes, Dad and I got in the shitty car (seriously, it started swerving alarmingly on the road up to Francistown, and was even worse on a dirt road) and headed back to OR Tambo Airport (formerly Jan Smuts). I, unfortunately, was navigator, meaning I could donate little to no time to sleeping in the sun (which would have been wonderful) or playing Pokémon Red (which would have been fun). Even more unfortunately, I had had no sleep the previous night, which is why the former would have been so wonderful.

Eventually, we arrived in the airport, got our bags shrinkwrapped, and were about to go through the metal detector deelie when I remembered that I still had my penknife. Which resulted in me returning to the check-in desk and reporting it. The lady there couldn't stop laughing.

Of course, this was probably because I decided to "make the most of my limited time with it." Thus, I hugged it, kissed it, picked my teeth, examined my fingernail with the magnifying glass, recoiled in horror, swore to never do that again, and left, after being told that I could pick it up when I returned in two years (and no, I couldn't have mailed it to myself).

Eventually, I was back home, where I started eating chocolate cake. I then had a nap.

The next day, I went up to Belfast for Q-Con. After very little sleep. Woo.

I've always liked Q-Con, ever since I went last year. Maybe it's the atmosphere, which is incredibly friendly and hospitible. Maybe it's because of how many people are there, sort of forcing people to get along.

Perhaps it's because the Queens University Dragonslayers are the QUB Gaming and Anime Society, which makes Q-Con a gaming AND anime con. And that's ALL gaming. RPGS were on the floor below the Wiis.

The first event took place several minutes after we arrived. Myself, Ophy, Demus and Drakol made up the second Q-Knightmare team. And were one of the many teams to fall at the fifth hurdle.

That night was the culmination of Munch's DnD scenario. More on that later.

The next day, myself and Del, after messing around doing nothing, decided to go for the Wii Tennis Doubles Tournament. After winning our first match, we lost all the rest. But they were all close. Happily, we won an extra two we never knew about by default.

After that, I wasted more time on the consoles, and managed to get ten kills with the Shield Gun. Which was entertaining, and annoyed nearly everyone else playing UT2k4 no end.

That night, I tried to do a Paranoia scenario I'd bought the previous day, along with three manga (more on THOSE later as well!). Unfortunately, Ophy forced me out of the room to read the thing. Eventually, he came to get me, informing me that my replacement for Siskey, Oisin, had dropped out, so they'd got someone called Aidan. He, however, had also dropped out. Thus, I was left with Munch, Duggy, Demus and Ophy. And then Munch dropped. Not long after, so did Duggy. Leaving me with two party members, I was mildly distraught, convinced that my GMing had been the cause. After being slightly mollified by the remaining party members, I finally agreed to give up on the scenario for the night, and turned the game into a Zap game. Ophy predicted that they'd destroy Alpha Complex in half an hour.

They succeeded.

On the last day, I played my first ever Living Greyhawk game. More on that later. I then bought a lever-arch file for my Magic cards. It is currently holding around 1400. Which is about half my collection. I need more pages. And I also bought the DnD Player's Handbook (PHB). Hooray!

After the closing ceremony, we buggered off to the bus stop, catching the bus at 8pm, which resulted in me ending up at home around 12:30am. After crappy home-made kievs, I went to bed.

The next day, C and my mom got home. I'd had barely any sleep, and my sister had done no cleaning. Thus, it was MY task to make the house look good. I looked around, and gave up. I did my best, then wasted time on the net.

The next day was Aerosmith. Chris Cornell was better than I'd expected (which wasn't much), and was really good. Aerosmith were, of course, amazing. The Feeling, however... meh. Of course, anyone who can do justice to Video Killed The Radio Star gets at least some props. I got an Aerosmith T and keychain, and a Blues Brothers T (there was a place selling Ts for a reasonable price).

Which segues rather neatly into today. I can smell the braai outside, and saw the duck and steak and stuff. Woo.

Now, onto the gaming stuffs.

In Ophy's game, Demus got his soul stolen by a man in a self-induced trance. We got it back, and watched the man become a priest of Nyarlathotep (why can I SPELL the gorram name, but not PRONOUNCE it?). We were freed with the sigil Emet tattooed on our foreheads. Anyone who knows their myths (which included me, Munch and Ophy) knows that that is the Yiddish for Truth, which is inscribed on the heads of golems. And, when you wipe away the first letter, you get Met. Which means Death. We all then went to sleep, and woke up in the Dreamlands. We discovered we were without any of our equipment (including Demus's large quantity of weaponry and my magical aids), and sitting ducks. We managed to get to Dylath-Leen with the aid of some cats, and thence to Ulthar, the city where no man may kill a cat. There, we picked up a new companion, a cat played by Wing, and, during the last moments of the latest session, were travelling with a trader's caravan when we woke up.

In Munch's game, we managed to deal with the vampire (he was permitted to stay in the Mortuary by the Dusties... I mean, the Funary Guild), met some Barmies who I disco-danced with and who thus left all my stuff nearby after they beaned me and glued me to the now-16-year-old paladin, and, after getting seperated, found their hideout, where I was viciously attacked by a dire weasel I'd tried to hug. While I and Demus were recuperating (he got attacked as well), Ophy patrolled the streets. On his own. Needless to say, he got owned by a head-humping octopus dropped by our friends in Xaos. After getting fully healed, we set out after him. We rescued him, then gave him a potion we'd found that was labelled "Healing Potion." Turns out it was a Charm Potion. And Ophy's character was suddenly attracted to mine. After some madness in the house perpetrated by yours truly, we opened a room with signs all over the door saying "DANGER! NO TREASURE IN HERE!!!" The signs were right. It contained a baby chicken. Since I already had one, I tried to tickle it. It pecked me. I made a Fort save, and passed. My character tickled it again. I made the save again, and failed. Turned out it was a cockatrice. The party continued on, got bashed, and retired, leaving me there. They returned, and got me dropped on them, causing me to lose an arm. They entered, killed one of the Xaosmen, killed the wights they found there, and brought back the ghoul, the Joculators and me. So, all looked dandy and fine, when the party decided to fix my character. I had to make a fort save to survive the destoning. I rolled 12, 19, 15 and 17 before the roll, which would all save me. Then, for the actual roll...

I rolled a one.

RIP Celerian, my first dead character. Gone and replaced with a Gith monk, but not forgotten.

After the death, Ophy tried do mouth-to-mouth. At the same time, Drakol decided to loot the still-warmish corpse. Ophy beat seven kinds of shit out of Drakol, and left. Demus tied up Drakol, covered him in oil (why?), looted the body, and took my body and possessions and my chick Prudence, and went off into the sunset, with the promise from Munch that he would return as a recurring villain.

So, onto Greyhawk.

Living Greyhawk is a world-wide campaign. Every region in the world has a name. Ours is Onwal. All scenarios run in the UK and Ireland are set in Onwal. Your character grows thoughout all of these scenarios. And all of the loot, abilities and other stuff that he gets in one is carried over into all others. Essentially, your character becomes what DnD characters should become: a world-renowned hero.

I created a Dwarven monk, who, along with his fists, used a quarterstaff, a nunchaku (because monks have an attack called Flurry of Blows, which allows them to attack really quickly, and thus I thought that a Flurry of Blows with a nunchuku would look cool) and a siangham (I don't know what it is either, but it pierces and I can't pronounce its name). The mission was to get into a city that had been ruined in a past campaign (yes, what happens in one scenario happened in ALL of them. Essentially, your character is involved in history, changing it as he goes) in order to find the body of a soldier for a barmaid. After lots of undead (including someone metagaming by killing dead adventurers that were lying on the ground) and an Air Elemental (uh-HUH...), we found the guy at the end of a long procession of dead guys. We re-killed him, snagged the amulet, and then faced off against a zombie ogre. The first character to rush towards him was our tank, aka the fighter. He got taken down with critical. By the ogre's foot. Then the paladin rushed in, only to get the same treatment from another critical. At which point, everyone else decided to up sticks and run for it. Unfortunately, dwarves don't move too fast. I got taken down. Someone yelled at it to go away. Which, surprisingly, it did. Just as the downed characters were healed back up, the ogre came back. With friends. Needless to say, we all buggered off.

Long long before this, Demus decided to run a DnD game. I played a Warforged fighter, with asperations to reach Juggernaut-hood. Ophy played a warlock. Munch played a bard. Drakol... played a half-nymph sorceror. We started at level 4, except for Drakol, who, due to LA, started at 1. The place we went through was a glorious trap-filled dungeon-thing. Eventually, we managed to get out, dragging Drakol behind us, having spent nearly the entire run stopping various things from killing him. I'm rather proud of managing to use a tower shield as a surfboard along the ground in order to destroy a load of pressure-triggered spikes. It was cool.

Well, that's all the RPG news I have. Except... The new Leprecon director, Nuge, decided that, since I did such a good job last year, I should run RPGs and LARPs this year. Woo.

Linkage!!!

First off, the gaming section now has the d20 SRD. Up until recently, I wasn't sure about its legality. Then, after some consultation, I discovered that it was legal. Thus, it's there. It's the PHB, MM and DMG on the Internet. Useful. I've also linked to The Spoils, since it's unfair to link to Wizards but not to them. And I also added ComputerAndVideoGames.com, which hosts the new site for PCGamer UK, including their shiny new blog, Replacement Docs, in case you lose your manual, and System Requirements Lab, which tests your PC to see if it can run certain games.

In friends, I've added Apathy Sketchpad, home of AT, a mod on the T17 forum. I also removed several inactive sites.

Webcomics now. Oh boy, LOTS to add here.

Too many to summarise. The new additions are:

1. Irregular Webcomic
2. Lackadaisy
3. Looking For Group
4. Marsh Rocket
5. Ozy and Millie
6. Pointless
7. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
8. Sconeborough
9. Shortpacked!
10. Three-Panel Soul
11. Too Similar
12. Weregeek
13. xkcd

All are good.

I've also added Nethack, Angband and zAngband to the Freeware section. All are classic RPGs. All should be played.

I've updated the About section with my new Flickr page and my Facebook page.

AAAAAAAaaannnd I think that's it. Hopefully, I'll update sooner next time.
-KB.

The last day of holidays. Wow. Long time. Easter soon. Should be fun.

I've been playing Deus Ex recently. I've got to France. Now to hunt down Nicolette duClare. Everyone who's played this gem will know what I'm doing. Right now, I've just left the Silhouette bunker, and am in the sewers, about to come up for air/headshots. I have EMP grenades, LAMs and tonnes of gas grenades. I have a few 30.06 rounds left, and ten rounds of 20mm HE. My Rifle and Pistol skills are Advanced. Time for fun.

In Planescape, I was told to man a rooftop. I elfed it instead. Heh. I was told to watch the entrance to the Mortuary, which is where our undead gent comes from. Then, in the square behind me, a portal opened in a statue. And an enormous tentacle emerged, grabbed someone, then slowly started retreating.

Needless to say, we all attacked it. We managed to make it let go. The portal was then closed. Everyone then went to bed, except Drakol, who went patrolling, and myself, who decided to make some... PURCHASES...

Later, when everyone was awake, I left, on my own errands. Meanwhile, the rest went out again. The met an NPC called Mother Xero, who took them to see a person in the Mortuary called Lord Madrigore. They went in, and met Lord Madrigore, the vampire we'd been hunting.

He apologised, gave them compensation for Glory, the jinkskirt he'd assaulted... then asked Ophy why his face was blue. Turns out that paint I'd put in the bowl of water he splashed his face in was rather slow-acting. Needless to say, I'd gone to a different rooftop.

The following afternoon, myself, Drakol and Demus went to visit Deadwick, a lich, while Ophy tried to get the blue paint off. He asked us to pay for a scrying spell, since he didn't care about ordinary people and thus refused to do it for the good of others. The spell should be complete by the next session. And then we bumped into some Xaosmen dressed in Dustman robes. Some cutters to wigwag with.

In CoC, we were leaving the city for Maine, in an effort to escape the cult we'd irritated. Several miles from anywhere, the leading car (mine) ran a man down. The car careened off the road, and crashed into a tree. I took some damage, and Demus took less (he was in the back). The car BEHIND, however, also hit him, also careened off the road, and hit the back of our car. Luckily, us in the front weren't any worse off.

The only place to go with the dying man was a glow about ten minutes away, which turned out to be coming from a small hunting lodge. It appeared to be where the man was from. Before arriving there, however, I made a valiant attempt to break the plot, by wanting to go to either of the towns, which were 12 hours away by foot. I failed. Oh well.

On arriving, we found a car like the two we'd crashed, and myself and Munch made another fruitless attempt to hijack the plot. Oh well. After going in, I noticed an attic in the hall. We continued on into the living room, where some of us started having halucinations. Mine was blood leaking from the chimney. Since I lost no san from witnessing it, I started yelling at the ghost, ghoul or poultergeist to clean up. On looking away, then looking back, I expressed gratitude that it had. And then picked up an occult book on legends and myths, reading about a thing called the Spirit of Past Summer, or something of that ilk.

We soon found out that the man we had run over had come from here (told you), and had gone quite quietly mad. He wrote of his wife killing his son, and him pushing his wife down the stairs into the cellar. After reading this, there were a few seconds pause, and then, as one, we decided to barricade the living room. Then, while kauthon's NPCed character maintained a vigil over the man, we ventured into the next room: the kitchen.

We found the entrance into the cellar, being held closed, rather ominously, by the rather heavy kitchen table. The larder contained some supplies, but not much else. We continued on, to a corridor, and some bedrooms. At some point, the NPC called out that the man had died. So, Demus went back and created a ward around the body. Once he returned, we continued into the rest of the bedrooms.

In the middle one, we found the body of the boy lying as if asleep in bed, but with his throat slit. After Munch's character performed the Last Rites on him, we went into the last room, and found a skull in a scarf, which I grabbed. We then went into the attic, and found a bone flute and book in a chest. The book described how a prejudiced idiot built his house on what local Indians called the home of a bad spirit. Oh great. An Indian burial ground. At which point, Demus left.

A few moments later, before we could finish, we heard a scream from the living room. We all ran back, and found, to our horror, that the boy had been possessed and had attacked Demus and the NPC, who was unconscious, and that the other body hadn't been properly contained. It had also attacked. However, Demus had... let's see now, five pistols, one Winchester, one shotgun and a hunting rifle. In short, he was our tank. And he had taken them all out. And was covered in blood.

At this point, Munch and myself went outside to get the spirit to talk to us. Nothing. Then Drakol ran out, saying that the Major (Demus) was possessed. We ran back in, and tried to go in through the door in the hall. It had been barricaded. We had to go the long way through the house. And the kitchen door was also barricaded. We rammed the door open, just in time to see Demus leaping down into the cellar with the NPC. We gave chase, with me in the middle.

At the bottom, Demus slit the NPCs throat, killing him and awakening eldritch powers that man shouldn't what ought to have. Munch was tripped by the wife hiding under the stairs, and crashed into Demus. Drakol came in brandishing a syringe filled with twice the normal dose of morphine ("It's the Major! Of COURSE I'll use twice the dose!"), tripped, and nearly broke the syringe several times. Eventually, Demus got anaesthetised, and we had the other zombie to deal with.

I had tried throw a silver bowl at Demus, to no effect. I then tried to throw some other stuff at the second zombie, to no effect. And then failed to shoot it (highs when I didn't need them. Woo.). Finally, we dug up the skeleton that had been buried here. We recapitated it, and the spirit appeared, and mimed playing the flute. Drakol did, and his teeth were all blown out. Munch completed the melody, and banished the evil spirit. We were given tonnes of SAN back, and told to buy the property and restore it, ie tear down the cabin and put the stones originally used to contain the evil back in their proper places. And we would regain more SAN over time whenever we visit it. As a result, I'm back on 91 SAN!

We also played a brief Planar Chaos draft tournament. I won once, against Ophy. In fact, Ophy lost every round, and Demus won every round. My deck was found wanting in some cases. Now to mod my Dimir deck and my Selesnya deck.

I've also heavily modified my Rogues deck. It's now 95 cards (10 more than before), and is focussed entirely on one thing: control. I've got four Scrags, three Face in the Crowds, no Ferrous Ferrets (they were deflecting my Scrags and Snake Eyes), no Tremor Engines (I'm saving them for a Rogue/Banker deck, where I can steal what Tremor engine puts in my opponent's graveyard, and raise what it put in mine). It should operate better now.

Now, to Psychonauts.

In this game, you have to wander through various people's consciousnesses, removing Mental Cobwebs, clearing up Emotional Baggage by finding the luggage tags and bringing them to the associated bags, i.e. duffel bag tag to duffel bag, finding repressed emotions, collecting figments of the person's imagination, and fighting mental enemies, including Censors, who censor thoughts that are unacceptable to society and all foreign object, e.g. you, and inner demons, that explode when close/killed.

The game is both incredibly funny and darkly disturbing. In one level, you have to deal with Censors in the well-ordered mind of a supreme Psychonauts. Unfortunately, you mess up. The Modernist black-and-white cube of his mind starts to fragment, and become objects related to his childhood. It's fun to kill infinite amounts of Censors on a giant bed... till you come to the first memory, that of the agent's mother dying when he was in nappies. And the landscape suddenly takes on a macabre element, suggesting that this man repressed all of this, and it's now breaking through.

What REALLY makes Psychonauts, though, is the powers.

First, you have a Psy-punch, which occurs when you attack. Then, you get Pyrokinesis. The Pyrokinesis lesson ends with "And what have you learned?" "Burning stuff is FUN." "That it is, m'boy!" Then comes Telekinesis. And with it, a whole new way to kill enemies. Instead of hitting them till the explode, now you can throw them into trees, buildings, each other, or the sea! Then is Invisibility. I don't think I need to tell you how much fun THAT is.

Those ones you get by increasing ranks. After them, your powers start upgrading.

Somewhere in there, you also learn others from other people. You gain Psi-Blast, which is one of two powers that uses ammo. It's like a small gun, which uses ammo called Little Balls Of Hate. You also learn Levitation, which allows you to create a small ball out of your thought bubble (yes), Aang-style, which allows you to go faster and jump higher. And, even if the power isn't active, it allows you to grab your thought bubble (I'm serious) and float with it. Like an umbrella. Or a ribbon chute from MDK. You also gain Shield, which protects you from damage (duh), and Clairvoyance, which allows you to see the world through the target's eyes. Later, you also get Confusion, which also uses ammo, and causes enemies to go the wrong way and miss. When used on you, your keys are switched and flipped, and your powers are shuffled.

Overall, a great game. Niggles? Collisions detection is hit-and-miss. And the menu is weird to navigate. And the map is useless on the mental battlefield. However, it's still a brilliant game, made by Tim Schafer, writer of Monkey Island games and designer of Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Full Throttle, and his team at Double Fine. Get it. You won't regret it. I promise.

Well, I think that's all. Sorry to all who were genuinely worried about the continued existance of this place.
-KB.