Virtual band has virtual dvd debacle - looses thousand of virtual fans

While I was in Dayton this weekend, Men without Comma, the Band Chip and I created in Rock Band, experienced a severe setback.  We decided to record a DVD in the game rock band, which gave us the opportunity to gain extra fans if we had 5 star performances for every song we played at a certain venue.  We did well, scoring 21 stars on 5 songs, but that cost us over 100,000 fans.  We lost the right to play in many venues, and had to rebuild our fan base.  We were able to do that, and got our band over 700 stars for all shows performed.  Chip and I were also able to get though some of the easiest songs in the game on expert mode, which felt like an accomplishment.

In other events in Dayton, Chip and I managed to get his fridge back to bachelor status.  It now contains pickles, beer, and condiments.  I also visited with Dan, Michele, and Karina.  I got her laughing at one point by making a do-do-doo sound for her.  On the 3rd syllable, she got really amused.  However, after a nap that sound was no longer funny.  Despite having her laughing (or as close as a 3-month-old gets to laughing) I couldn't get any good pictures of her smiling.  The one above is as good as I did.

I had a good time on my trip, but this weekend I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing time of doing nothing but puttering around my house.

I'm addicted to this ASCII game

Well, after a winter of brewing and digging, I'm playing one more season to try to get some migrants to arrive.  At least the digging has given me enough room to clean up some of the loose stone cluttering up the place.  The goal for the spring is to get some pig tails growing and set up a loom for weaving the pig tail thread into cloth.  Ack!  Pig tails grow in the spring.  Maybe some elves will show up to trade and I can get some booze off of them, otherwise my dwarves are going to have to live with drinking fermented mushrooms.  

One of the things I did in the winter was to set up a row of traps leading into the fortress.  They caught an intruder, a "vicious" dear.  Yes, my traps killed bambi.  I built a butcher's shop and a tanning shop too.  My dwarves are making some bambi leather.

Dear lord.  I got my immigrants, 19 of them.  I've got to figure out what to do with them now.  I've got them smelting iron and burning coal, turning trees into crossbow bolts.  I made plenty of crafts, but no elven traders showed up.  I also cut a few gems.  At least I'll be able to brew some pig tails come summer, which has now hit.  I'm going to stop the game then post this.

Dwarf Fortress - The Gilded Axe

I learned about this game in a list of free games from PC Gamer magazine.  It's the most ambitious city builder type game I've ever seen, and the graphics are all ASCII art.  I decided that I would start blogging about my world for two reasons.

Without the blog, I tend to play for way too long in a single sitting.  Also, without the blog, you have nothing to show for you efforts.

I generated a world called The Gilded Axe, and I'm going to build my first fort at a river coming out of the mountains into a forest.  That should give me a good mixtrue of stone and wood to start with.  I selected a dwarven society called The Treaty of Obeisance as my home civilization because I liked the name.  And I gave a dwarf named Zulban some social skills so the game should make her the leader of my expidition.  

One of my goals for this game is not to build aboveground structures and keep everything below the surface.  I was going to customize my group name, but the randomly assigned one fits perfectly.  My dwarves will be know as The Banner of Depths.  Their fortress will be known as Darkbrew, the Eyes of Elders.

So I'm going to embark and see what I can get done in a single season.  The basic goals are to get a spot for the trade depot dug out, underground farming started, and a baracks built.  When I get a look at my map, I have an immediate decision to make on where to the entrance to my underground fortress.  There is a stream at the north end of the map, and a large plateau at the southern end.  I would really like to dig down into the rock plateau, but because trees and water are useful, I decite to start at the northern end of the map.

I got my spring goals accomplished, plus I got a baracks built.  I'm going to go ahead and play another season since this first one goes quickly.  I want to get my initial set of bedrooms built, and get my initial set of workshops laid out in a good pattern.  I want A Carpenter, mason, mechanic and wood burner on the industry side.   I also want to get all my storage underground.

Well, I didn't get a wood burnder built in the summer.  I should probably produce a few rock crafts as trade goods this fall.  Hopefully I get a few imigrants.  If I don't, I probably need to put a miner onto farming duty.  The bedrooms are dug out, but not fully furnished, so I want to get that done this fall.  I need to get my bookkeeper an office too.

Well, I didn't get any imigrants, so that limits my options for expanding things.  I went on into winter, where I think my goals are to burn a little wood into charcoal, harvest more trees to make up for what I've been using, and dig out my metal ores.  This game is so addicting.  I'm going to let it run while I'm not doing anything fancy and cook some dinner.

Drywall

Well, I helped hang drywall and Michele and Robert's yesterday, and I'm sore today.  We made a lot of progress though, the walls are looking pretty good.  After we were done working, Michele, Blake, Taylor and I had a good time watching The Princess Bride.  Blake is quite a bit like Fred Savage's character who doesn't like all the kissy stuff.

Snow, power, and fish

Well, we had a big snow and ice storm here in Louisville about 10 days ago.  I worked from home on Tuesday, but I lost power that night.  My power came back on just before the superbowl.  Fortunately we had a warm weekend.  It was 38 degrees in my house when I woke up on Saturday morning.

So now that I've covered snow and power, you may wonder why fish are in the title of this update.  Well, my poor fish didn't survive the chilly conditions in my house.  They hung in there for a while, and if someone had mentioned this technique to me sooner I might have been able to save them by putting sealed containers of hot water in the tank to keep the water warm.  Fish have survived for hundreds of millions of years without electricity, but my fish seem to be pretty reliant on it.

The Spirit

Now I loved Sin City and 300, so I was really looking forward to this movie when I first saw the previews for it. In fact, I thought it was a trailer for Sin City II when I first saw the styalized black and white images on the screen.

I saw this movie a few days ago at The Village 8, a cheap theater in Louisville. I should have known bad things were going on when a movie that opened on Christmas day was already in the cheap theater on Jan 19th. However, I was already there, and Village 8 gives you free refills on a large soda.

The good: Scarlett Johansson is absolutely drool inducingly gorgeous as Silken Floss. Her acting may have even been the best in the movie, or it could have just been that when everyone else is overacting and saying ridiculous things, playing a deadpan straight faced character makes you look good in comparison. Also, all the Sin City style is there. That's it, end of the good list.

I suppose Eva Mendez is hot too, but her character is so annoying you probably won't care. Another thing about her character is that the name is apparently Sand Serif from the printed material, but sometimes the other characters call her San Serif and other times Sand. Couldn't the director have at least made them say her name consistently one way or the other?

There is too much wrong with the movie to make an exhaustive listing, but despite all that, I was entertained. The problem was that it was in a MST3K or USA Up All Night kind of way. When the movie made me laugh, I was definately laughing at it, not with it.

Vacation

Well, I'm down to a half day of vacation for my 2nd year at SVS, and I have to say that this has been a good relaxing one. I've caught up some on my movie and DVD watching. I need to do more, but if I can watch the Dark Knight today I'll be able to check one more off my list. I also got some stuff done around my house that I had been meaning to do for a while. I'm probably going to head back to Louisville sometime tomorrow so I can get a little more done on my last day before heading back to work.

I drove up to Dayton and saw my niece Karina on Wednesday this week. She looks a lot bigger than when I saw her just a few weeks ago at Christmas. She's also a lot more interactive. She reacts to music and rhythms by smiling. She also smiled when I recited the alphabet rhyme from Edward Gory's The Gashly Crumb Tinies. I'm trying to be a good gothic influence on my youngest niece. I wonder if she would like Poe's The Raven as well? Maybe I shouldn't point this blog out to Dan and Michele, they might not want a young goth on their hands. On the other hand, a gothic influence can't be any worse than metaphysics for an infant, can it?

Chip and I played some Rock Band for the first time in a long time as well. We got our band, Men without Comma, up over 500 stars for the gigs we've played, but we lost some fans on a punk song with brutal fast drumming. To add insult to injury, you can't even practice the song in the practice settings!