Nutshell

So you may have noticed, I haven't had much to say here in the last few years.  So the brief overview of my geeky life:  I've stopped playing WoW, I've resumed playing City of Heroes, I've obtained a Wii (but I don't use it very much), I still enjoy tabletop RPGs, I plan on running a new BESM campaign soon, I got a new computer, I changed the OS on my old computer to a Linux distro (Linux Mint, plus dual-booting my main computer to Kubuntu alongside the Windows 7 it came with), I'm still watching anime (but not as much as I used to), I've rediscovered my love of Doctor Who, and I'm currently engaged in a game of chess over Facebook.   For any who care less about my geeky hobbies, but may be curious about my personal life in rough chronological order:  I left Onvoy, I moved from Morris to the Twin Cities, my father died (October 19, 2008), I floundered around a bit working some jobs that weren't very good fits for me,  my roommate moved to Vermont, I paid off my car, I became unemployed, I remained unemployed for far too long, and most recently (as in this week) I started a new job that I am extremely excited about.

So that's been my last three years or so in a nutshell.

Now to keep me honest, the breakdown of the Facebook chess match with my friend Joel:

             Me                   Joel
             White               Black

 1.         e4                    e5
 2.         Nf3                  Nc6
 3.         Bb5                 Bc5        (Ruy Lopez, countered by the classical (Cordel) defense)
 4.         c3                   Nf6
 5.         d4                   exd4
 6.         e5                   Ne4
 7.         O-O                dxc3
 8.         bxc3               d5
 9.         Nd4                O-O
10.        Nxc6               bxc6
11.        Bxc6               ba6
12.        Qxd5              . . .

I leave you with an amusing video found on CollegeHumor (the ending veers into NSFW territory YMMV):

A Mystery Revealed

It turns out the mysterious package was a very nice chess set sent to me by Erik (thank you again I really like it), along with his opening salvo in a new chess match. He has opened with 1. d4. A Queen's Pawn Opening, a very popular, very solid, and slightly conservative opening staking white's claim to the important center squares. My response to this was 1. ... Nf6. How terribly hypermodern of me, it would appear I'd rather not play a Closed Game, but I instead want to steer this game towards some sort of Indian Defense. In any event, I haven't exactly ceded the middle to Erik, but I've opted to contest it with methods less direct than 1. ... d5.

I was tempted to try out a Dutch Defense, which would make a certain amount of sense for me given my proclivity for both the English Opening, and the Sicilian Defense, but in the end the chance to try my hand at a hypermodern style proved too tempting. Plus I have to think Erik might just be getting a little tired of seeing Semi-Open Games, and Flank Openings from me to start throwing Semi-Closed Games at him as well. Still I am much too enamored with asymmetry in chess for Erik to ever get too many Open or Closed Games from me.

I think part of the reason I favor these types of openings and defenses is due in large part to a desire not to surrender the choice of match being played. If you are playing black and respond to 1. d4 with d5, or 1. e4 with e5 your opponent is still free to try and shape to the match towards his preferred opening. So I tend to look towards the Sicilian as a response towards 1. e4, and something other than 1. ... d5 in response to a Queen's Pawn opening. The same logic applies to my choice of the English Opening when I open with 1. c4 that pretty much means that's the game that is getting played; whereas if I'd like to use a King's Gambit or say Ruy Lopez I have to open 1. e4 and hope my opponent complies with me. Obviously this isn't perfect, chess matches do transpose from one opening to another on occasion, but it is my weapon for keeping as much control of the match as I can regardless which color I'm playing.

Previous misadventures in plumbing

It occurs to me that recent events aside I’ve never really shared any of my various plumbing related stories of ill luck (well at least I haven’t done so here). I’ll spare you the minute details of every single instance where water ended up on my floor, or my things. Sufficed to say the place I lived before I moved to my wee little house was the ground floor of a duplex, and before that I lived in a basement apartment so I’ve grown used to water occasionally falling from my ceiling (and once in the basement apartment seeping up through my carpet). Come to think of it in the place I lived at before the basement apartment when water was drained out of the kitchen sink (such as after doing dishes) it would backup into the bathtub. However all those minor annoyances pale in comparison to the following.

Towards the end of my stay in the duplex the sewer backed up in a most spectacular fashion. The problem first became evident while running the washing machine (I seem to have bad luck with those as well); a little tip – when the water draining out of your washing machine comes rushing out of your toilet its probably time to call in a plumber. On the plus side that particular incident got me a nice set of new bath towels as I had to go buy several new ones to soak up the water on the bathroom floor since almost all of mine happened to be in the washing machine at the time.

My favorite tale of plumbing woe happened shortly after I moved into my wee little house. It was a Sunday morning, and I was taking a shower before work. I was at best half awake when I attempted the incredibly difficult procedure known as turning off the water and I did manage to turn off the cold water, however when I went to repeat the process with the hot water all knowledge of “righty tighty, lefty loosey” completely deserted me. I grabbed the knob with my left hand and turned, unfortunately I turned the wrong way, and instead of the water shutting off the knob came off in my hand. Imagine my surprise as I stood dumbly in my shower holding the broken knob while a jet of hot water was streaming out of my wall. I stumbled out of my shower wet, naked, and just a little bit confused and stared forlornly at the vertical geyser of water that was slamming into the far wall of my bathroom. A disconcertingly large amount of that water was being deflected down onto my floor and draining into the bathroom heating vent.

It occurred to me that I was probably going to be late to work, so my first action was to call there and advice them of the situation. The coworker I spoke to was very understanding of the situation when I explained it to him, it probably didn’t hurt my case that he could hear the water striking my bathroom wall over the phone. With that out of my way I set about trying to get the water turned off. I reasoned that since there was an access panel on the other side of the wall where the water was coming out that might be a good place to start. I looked around for a hammer or some other tool that would allow me to open that panel (it being conveniently nailed shut), and after a bit of a mad scramble around my house I did locate my hammer. Unfortunately upon opening the access panel I found no shut off valve. I set off on a second mad scramble to find a pair of shoes, and then quickly descended into my basement to search for the shut off valve. Naturally its location was surrounded by a rapidly expanding pool of water, and directly underneath the rather impressive shower being caused dually by the water leaking out of heating ducts and by the water running down the outsides of the water pipes leading back up to by bathroom.

With my basement safe from any further deluge I was free to see if I possessed any skill at plumbing. Sadly I met with only limited success. I was able reattach the knob to the water pipe in such a fashion that when the shut off valve was opened water didn't shoot out of my wall. Instead it ran out of the bath tub's faucet like you'd expect it to, however further turning of the knob didn’t cause the flow of water to diminish in any way, and worse yet turning the knob actually ran the risk of breaking the connection with the pipe leading to a resumption of the bathroom geyser, and the basement flooding. With no other way of stopping the running water in my bathroom I once again threw the main water shut off valve. As best as I can recall I was only ten minutes late to work. It was Tuesday before I was able to get anybody out to fix it, and much to my general annoyance the only thing that needed to be done to rectify the situation was the replacement of a small rubber washer that was likely washed down the drain when the knob originally came off the wall.

I do have an update to my chess match with Erik (I'm white, he's black):

Move  White   Black

32.     Rac1    RxR

33.     RxR     c5

34.     b5      . . .

Tomorrow will be the third meeting of the online Eberron campaign I'm taking part in. I leave you with the following picture depicting an event that I hope won't be inflicted upon any of the characters in the party (although it would be a better outcome then dying). I believe the picture is of Momochi Zabuza from Naruto.

A brief interlude for Chess

I pause my campaign brainstorming for this update on Chess. As you may recall I am white, and Erik is black.

Move  White  Black

31.     Bc4     Rc2

32.     Rac1   RxR

33.     RxR    . . .

With that out of the way we can now return to our regularly scheduled blog.

Oh yes - w00t for post number thirty.

I leave you with another picture I find amusing. It also accurately describes why I won't be using Higurashi no Naku Koro ni as inspiration for a future campaign even though I think the anime is highly enjoyable (and delightfully freaky).

Feeling Minnesota

Just a brief post tonight:
I am now officially a Minnesotan. Or at least I now have a valid Minnesota Driver's License. Honestly I've been a Minnesotan for some time, aside from three summers and one spring, I've lived in Minnesota since the fall of 1994, I've been paying Minnesota income tax since then, I've been voting in Minnesota since 1996 (to be fair I could have voted in Minnesota in 1994, but I cast an absentee ballot in my native South Dakota, because my father was running for a county office – he didn't win), and I haven't been a college student since 1999. So at the vary least I think you have to give me credit for being a Minnesotan since the second half of 1999, but now I feel all bureaucratically correct. I guess if I want to match the stereotype I'll have to start being nicer to people now.
I’m sure you are not surprised to hear I’ve been watching lots of anime, but I'm feeling a bit tired tonight so that will have to wait for another post. However I'll say this much. I finally caved in and watched Eureka Seven from where Adult Swim is at on through to the end. I lasted three maybe four weeks before doing so, not too bad on my part. Just tonight I started doing the same thing with Trinity Blood. On the advice of a friend (rather belatedly taken, but taken never the less) I watched Karin. I started it Sunday night after I got home from work, and I didn't stop until I had finished all 24 episodes. I seem to have a weakness for romantic comedy anime.
After a delay of two months, I've finally responded to Erik's most recent move.

30.   Bb3      Re2

31.   Bc4      Rc2

32.   Rac1     ...

40,000 Volts of Justice!

My inhibitions no longer being lowered by alcohol I am now free to dispense with the mildly embarrassing comments on my personal life, and kick the geek up a notch for this post. I’ve been talking about it long enough here is the dreaded post about City of Heroes. What is prompting this post is the fact that two fairly momentous events (momentous events at least within the context of the game) have occurred within the last few days. I had a character reach 14th, and then 15th level.
Before I can describe why this is so cool, I really need to explain some basics of the game. First City of Heroes is an example of what is know as a MMORPG a rather impressive looking acronym that stands for Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. If you need an explanation of what that is, and don’t feel like following the link I provided then let me say this; the name is pretty self-explanatory. Massively-multiplayer as in lots and lots of people playing at the same time; World of Warcraft, one of the most popular MMORGPs has something in the neighborhood of 6 million subscribers worldwide, now naturally not all of them will be playing at the exact same time, but even a small percentage of 6 million is a pretty big number (1% alone is 60,000 people). Online as in it happens over the Internet. Role-playing game as in it’s a game where you pretend to be somebody else. In City of Heroes you play the role of a superhero defending Paragon City from crime and the forces of evil.
The first two things you do when creating a new hero are decide on the archetype and origin of the hero. There are five basic archetypes: blasters, controllers, defenders, scrappers, and tankers. The archetypes define in broad strokes what type of hero you are creating by determining what your primary and secondary power categories are, whether your hit points will be low, medium, or high, and whether your damage output will be low, medium, or high. Blasters for example have low hit points, but high damage output, and as the name implies their primary power focus are ranged attacks (think for example of The Fantastic Four’s The Human Torch). On the other hand you have the melee archetypes scrappers and tankers. They lack ranged attacks, but excel at getting up-close-and-personal with their foes, however each type goes about that in a different way. Scrappers have high damage, medium hit points, their primary power category is melee, and their secondary power category is defense (think Wolverine). While tankers have medium damage, high hit points, the primary power category of defense, and the secondary power category of melee (think The Thing from the Fantastic Four). So a scrapper can deal out more damage in a fight, but cannot last as long as a tanker who can soak up more damage because the archetype will take less damage per attack, and will have more hit points in the first place. Within each archetype there are numerous different power sets so one blaster could focus on fire attacks, while another could be an archer.
Origins determine how characters received their powers. There are also five types of origins: magic, mutation, natural, science, and technology. Magic heroes gained their powers from the mystic realms (Dr. Strange or Wonder Girl). Mutation heroes were born with their powers (the X-Men). Natural heroes derive their powers from either training (Batman), or their powers are the natural inborn traits of their species (The Martian Manhunter or Superman). The powers of science heroes are the results of either scientific experimentation (Captain America), or an a fortuitous accident (Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four). Technology heroes derive their powers from devices (the Green Lantern or Iron Man). To some extent origins exist mainly for flavor, as they have no effect on what powers can be selected or how those powers work, but origins do effect which NPC contacts a hero will start with, and what types of equipment can be used to improve the character. Origins also grant each hero a ranged attack (albeit a fairly short range) that does very minor damage, and has a possible secondary effect that varies by origin.
Once archetype and origin are out of the way the primary and secondary power sets are chosen. First the primary power set is chosen. Blasters for example can chose between archery, assault rifle, electric blast, energy blast, ice blast, fire blast, and sonic attack for their primary power set. Each set then has a list of nine powers tied together by a common theme that as the characters advance in level the more advanced powers on the list will become available to them. The first two available powers in the archery set are snap shot, and aimed shot with their difference being snap shot does less damage, but recharges more quickly then aimed shot. A starting blaster using the archery power set would be able to choose one of those two powers at first level.
Then the secondary power set is chosen. There can be some overlap between archetypes on power sets. For example the defender has ranged attacks as a secondary power category so can choose some of the same power sets as the blaster, but not all of them, and has access to some ranged power sets that the blaster doesn’t. In other cases there is little to no overlap scrappers and tankers both have access to the melee and defense power categories (differing in which category each archetype has as primary and secondary), but they share only one power set in common in their respective defense category, and no power sets in common in their respective melee category.
Even when different archetypes have power sets in common the archetype that has that power set as a primary power will always be more effective then the archetype that has the power set as a secondary power assuming the two characters are the same level (or really within a level of each other). A blaster using archery powers will always do more damage then a defender of the same level using archer powers. As another example defenders who select one of the power sets that grant healing powers will always heal more hit points of damage per use, then a controller of the same level using the same power set because for the controller it will be a secondary power while for the defender it will be a primary power. Another difference between primary and secondary power sets is the speed at which the powers on the set become available to the characters. As a character goes up in level the more advanced powers on the primary set become available at a lower level then the more advanced powers on the secondary set. Sticking with defenders and controllers for an example a defender using the empathy power set will be able to select the power resurrection (being able to bring defeated heroes back to life is a popular power when heroes team up) as early as 6th level which is when the forth power on a primary power list becomes available to characters. A controller with empathy as a secondary power set won’t be able to choose resurrection as a power until 10th level, because that is the level a character has to before the 4th power on the secondary power list is available.
In any event starting heroes are only able to chose the first power available on their secondary power set, so a defender who selected archery as the secondary power could only take snap shot at first level. Armed with those two powers one primary and one secondary, along with the inherent power of brawl (any hero regardless of archetype can punch somebody), and the minor power granted by the chosen origin the hero is now ready for combating evil. Actually character creation continues on to what may be my favorite part - costume design, and then wraps up with selecting a name and the optional writing of a description (usually of the characters origin), but that doesn’t really factor into why I’m writing this post so I’ll move on.
As a character goes up in level different things happen. There is the obvious (at least to anyone who’s ever played a RPG) the character gets more hit points, and does more damage, and at 2nd level and every two levels after that the character can select one new power from their list of available powers drawn from their primary and secondary power lists. There is another often highly anticipated event that happens at 6th level. At that level charactesr can start selecting powers from the pool power sets. The pool power sets each contain four powers the first two of which are available to be selected by any hero regardless of archetype as long as they are at least 6th level. The third power in each pool can be selected at 14th level (or later) as long as the hero as previously selected at least one of the first two powers in the pool, and the fourth power in the pool in the set can be selected at 20th level (or later) as long as the character has selected the third power in the pool at an earlier level.
The idea behind these pool powers are there are some abilities any hero should be able to pursue if desired (the power sets are optional and don’t have to be selected). Among these power pools are the four travel powers flight, leaping, speed, and teleportation. The first two powers in each of these four pools are all pretty interesting. The true gems, however, that most people want their characters to have at least one of all happen to be the third powers on the respective lists. Those coveted powers are fly, super jump, super speed, and teleport. Each one of these powers allows the character go get around Paragon City very quickly. As implied by the name MMORPG (or at least the first M) Paragon City is a pretty big place and it can take a while moving your character from one location to another (a not uncommon complaint in MMORPGs) especially when the area you have to travel through is filled with numerous villains of a higher level then your character. Once one of these travel powers is obtained much of difficulty (and time spent) in moving from place to place is removed.
This of course is the first cool thing I mentioned that happened to one of my characters recently. I have an electricity blaster named The Sparkstress (pictured above) who as of 14th level has super speed. It rocks. I absolutely love watching her zip across maps in about 30 seconds that would have taken a few minutes to cross before (and that is before factoring in additional delays caused by running into groups of villains). The second cool thing that happened at 15th level is I got to select a title for The Sparkstress. So she now displays to all the other players as The Extraordinary Sparkstress (in retrospect I kind of wish I’d opted for startling because The Startling Sparkstress would have been pretty damn cool).
Okay that’s probably enough about City of Heroes for the time being. I likely will have more to say about the game in the future. However before I go I do have a chess update for you. I have received a move from Erik, and remarkably responded to it with in 24 hours. Erik was no doubt extremely shocked.

29.   a4      Kd6

30.   Bb3

I'll leave you with one final picture of The Extraordinary Sparkstress.

Guilt - it is a powerful motivator.

Okay time bring up a new subject here at Irregular Blathering namely the game of chess.

I’ll spare everybody the detailed analysis of how I became a chess player if for no other reason then I’ve already written such a post for roleplaying games, and I am planning to write another for anime. I will say many of the same players who were featured in my post about roleplaying factor into me picking up chess as a child. Namely my parents directly because they were basically just good parents, and more indirectly because they owned a really cool chess set that I like to play with as a child. Add to the mix a decent chess program that I’d play on the family computer (an IBM PCjr just to give you an idea of how long it has been since I’ve “owned” a computer). And to bring it all home my local public library had a book called Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer, Stuart Margulies, and Donn Mosenfelder. I highly recommend the book to anyone looking to learn chess, because it focuses on teaching how the pieces move, and how they can be used to either checkmate your opponent, or avoid checkmate yourself.

I bring this up because this evening I received an e-mail from a good friend and former college roommate, Erik, with whom I’ve been engaging in a chess match via e-mail since November 2005. In his message he was nice enough to compliment my blog, but suggested it was taking time away from our chess match because it had been quite sometime since I last made a move (for those interested I’m inferring here and not actually quoting). He went on to request either a move, or at least a post about chess. I have in fact given him both (obviously I’m a very good friend).

For a number of different reasons I’ve decided to post the moves of our chess match here. I’m doing this mainly because I hope it will provided me with additional incentive to promptly reply to Erik’s future moves. Also chess and kibitzing go hand-in-hand. For anyone curious this is an example of the opening called the King's Gambit Declined. I am white, Erik is black:

Move	White	Black
1	e4	e5
2	f4	Nf6
3	fxe5	Nxe4
4	Nf3	Nc6
5	d4	f6
6	Qe2	d5
7	exd6	f5
8	dxc7	Qxc7
9	c3	Be6
10	Ng5	Nxd4
11	Nxe6	Nxe6
12	Qb5+	Qc6
13	Qxf5	O-O-O
14	Be2	g6
15	Qa5	Nd4
16	Bg4+	Ne6
17	Bf4	Bd6
18	Bxe6+	Kb8
19	Qd5	Bxf4
20	Qxc6	Pxc6
21	O-O	Be3+
22	Kh1	Rhf8
23	Na3	Nd2
24	Rfe1	Bc5
25	Nc4	h5
26	Nxd2	Rxd2
27	b4	Bf2
28	Rf1	Kc7
29	a4	. . .

While on the topic of Chess, I have a certain other good friend from college with whom I've also been engaging in a game of chess via e-mail, and I'll just point out it has been a few months since I sent you my last move.

A few other things in brief. . .

Well I finally did it, I forced myself to watch the fifth disk of Tenjho Tenge. It wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it might be. The first two episodes continued the flashback that had been going on and on since the last disk. The events depicted remained confusing, but at least the fight between Tawara Bunshichi and Natsume Shin at the beginning of the first episode (and continued from the final episode of disk four) was interesting. The third and final episode on the disk returned to the present, where the majority of the characters I care about are active, so that was pretty good. However I fear I’m do for another visit to the past as it has yet to be explained how and why Takayanagi Mitsuomi kills Shin, nor has Mitsuomi and Natsume Maya actually started dating which the present alludes to them doing before Shin’s death.

After that I moved on to disk one of Saiyuki Reload. It was a pleasure to watch, but none of the four episodes advanced the plot in any noticeable way. I’ve heard from a friend that much of Saiyuki Reload is like that, but if I hold out I will be rewarded with plot advancement before the end of the series.

My BESM campaign should continue on Sunday, so I’ll probably post something about that on Monday. I’m really looking forward to it, I’m even more excited that for the first time in quite a while I won’t have worked the morning before running the gaming session. So game mastering while wide awake will be quite the treat.

Finally on the iTunes front the total number of items in my library is up to 1166 or 2.8 days worth of music. My jazz collection is up to 140 songs or 12 hours of music. My anime OST collection is up to 204 songs (11.8 hours of music). There are 419 songs on my iTunes that haven’t been played (1.1 days worth of music). That is actually fewer songs then last time that haven’t been played, but the songs themselves seem to be longer in nature since last time I had 24 hours worth of music that hadn’t been played.