Not much of substance here, I'll expect. I haven't had much of note happen lately. A little job stuff, some RP...
Read on if you're still interested...
OK, so I've now had actual experience with a dice-based roleplaying system. D20, to be precise. And I'm wondering where it'd been all my life. I haven't had that much fun since I first found the Hall.
Which isn't to say it doesn't have its bad moments. Rolling the d20 for a listen check: 1. "Sorry, Stam, but a natural 1 means failure regardless of modifiers. You didn't hear a thing."
And its good moments. Rolling the d20 to try and repair a friend's armor:20. "I'd say that repairs it, yes."
It's still all electronic (this is Digital Dreaming, as I mentioned in my last post), so I can't even get my own lucky dice. They've managed to build a roller into the chat, and sometimes it just hates a guy. I had a ratty little episode (Literally! Dire rats! Diseased little things...yuck!) the other night where I couldn't roll for squat, and had 'net problems on top of that to boot.
But the RPing afterwards was still as fun. Especially washing the badger off ::grins:: (To explain that some...nah. I think it'll be more fun for you to try and figure it out by yourself ::evil grin::)
In other matters, Hall's been a little slow, but apparently it always is around this time of year. A charity ball took place, and although it wasn't RPed, we did have a fun 'evening after' as the regular Hall session.
Job's a little slow at the moment too. Got a small one (with lots of editing required--would you believe a 4-line paragraph with only one sentence in it?) and hopefully something else coming along.
And that's about it for the moment. I just thought my blog had been sitting idle for too long.
One new obsession has been added to the sidebar.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Digital Dreaming D20.
::waves goodbye to spare time::
Well, nothing much doing at the moment. Yeshiva's on break, the manual's been submitted to the company, and I'm just sitting here waiting for them to give me what little corrections pop up.
Which might take longer than expected...
...which was expected. :P
Turns out they're going someplace or something, so although anything else will be minor, it's going to take them a while to get it to me.
But on the plus side, my immediate boss decided that the real work's all done now, so he'll pay me now and give me anything that comes up later later :D Payday! :D
And during my free time, Rachel went and got me hooked on another RPing site. Fortunately I have plenty of spare time now, so I can afford giving up some more ;)
When they say warm up before exercising, they also mean before any long, strenuous activity.
Like unloading a truck full of books.
Oops.
Aching muscles all over today. Ah well. At least I got the manual squared away. I think.
Well, not quite. But you can scratch the pat on the back for sure.
The manual isn't as good as it should have been. Beginner's luck, and I don't have any of it.
Damn.
There's few things as satisfying as standing back and looking at a finished product.
The company I've been sub-contracting for finally got their act together for the photo shoot, so I finished the manual today.
Actually, the photo shoot was fun. I went there (as the technical writer who wrote the manual) to make sure they didn't stuff up any of the pictures I'd asked for for the manual.
And it turned out to be a very good thing the contractor had suggested it. Major stuffups averted: one. Minor stuffups averted: I lost count. Unnecessary photos averted: two or three different shots (at least 15-30 mins each). Gee, but how do people get instructions this simple so bloody wrong??
Anyway, I learned quite a bit about professional photography. And I also learned a lot about things you don't do in a pro photo studio. Like walk on the nice white paper they spread out as a backdrop. Or nudge the stand when you're adjusting the equipment that's hanging from it.
But it was fun :-)
Anyway, so they finally gave me the photos from the shoot (two were messed up, of course, so I had to have them try again), and I got down to working them into the material. Then it was on to compilation, index creation, and voila! One User Manual, 80 pages long and 4 megs in size.
It's this part of the job that's the nicest. Having it all done, and done well, and knowing just how much of that stack of paper (or electronic paper, at least) was your effort.
'Scuse me a moment while I try to pat myself on the back >_^
Start writing an entry when you're online, and unplug to let someone else use the other computer you're sitting in front of. Finish writing the entry and hit the button?
Oops.
What a way to make a person irritable. I'll try again later, after I go shoot something.
Why is it that you always forget the things that are a) the most important and b) have limited amounts of time to be done?
Oh, and c) the ones you'll probably get your butt kicked for forgetting.
Ever stop to think how much custom-made or custom-tweaked software you have on your computer? Or even how many things you downloaded or installed and don't have the disks for? Or even how many things you've installed, period, since you got your computer?
Setting up a computer to your liking just takes so many little things. All the webcontent stuff, PDF readers, browsers, MP3 players...
After waaaaaaay too long of sharing a computer with an office and assorted others, I've finally got my own! :D
Secondhand, of course, as that's the only way I was able to afford it. But a secondhand poota's a whole lot better than none ;)
Picked it up for 4,500 N.I.S. (New Israeli Shekels, the currency of--big surprise here--Israel.), which at today's exchange rates works out to roughly US$1007.84. Which, even if some might find it a little steep, was still the cheapest thing I could find in Israel, new or secondhand. A new Celeron with XP Home (::retch::) would have cost me at least another US$100.
And now, of course, the specs.
It's an HP Omnibook xt6200 (yes, I know it's a link to a PDF. That was the best thing I could find). All the variable stuff is as follows:
* 1.6 Intel P4 Mobile (and it really does run rings around the 1.7 Celeron the office poota uses.)
* 256MB RAM DDR (I'll have to see about upping this sometime in the future...)
* 20GB disk (Drat. Guess I'll have to forget about copying KT's music collection... ::winks::)
* ATI Radeon 32MB Graphics Card (as opposed to RAM-sharing or the 16MB version. Power! :D ).
* DVD + CD Burner combo drive (Oh, yeah!).
* 3 Year extended warranty.
* Miniature optical mouse (a bonus. Cute little thing).
And the carrycase, of course. Which I didn't actually expect to get :)
Anyway, I'm still kinda busy putting everything in order, installing all my personal software, copying over files and such. But it's great to finally have my own PC! :D
I volunteered to proofread a novel for a couple of friends of mine. Most of you know who and what I'm talking about, and for those that don't... ::shrugs and grins:: You can just try and guess when it gets published.
I'm about halfway through now. And besides for a few really, really minor things I've picked out, it's very well done.
Romance, heartbreak, action, poitical intrigue, 'minor' plotlines that snake in and out of the 'major' plot...
Anyway, this is just to congratulate them both on a really good read in a way they can't come along and erase. Or argue away. ::bows deeply to the pair::
Take that, you two! ;D
"Are you nuts?!?" I hear you say. "Exercising in the middle of Israeli summer heat, when it's scorching hot in the shade and there's not a breath of wind around??"
Well, I figured that if I was going to have to sweat and stink, I'd rather have a good reason for it (and do it on my terms).
Anyway, I found out one thing early on.
I'm out of shape. Really out of shape.
In fact, so far out of shape that not only would Aeryn kick my butt for letting his Patron get into such a state, but he'd probably set me against Summer and she'd likely kick my butt, too. Without magic.
First set of pushups? Fifteen.
First set of twenty situps? Check.
Second set of pushups? ::strain:: ::grit teeth:: Thirteen.
Second set of twenty situps? Seventeen...::gasp:: Eighteen...::heave:: Ninteen...::strain:: Twenty! ::collapses::
Not to mention the heart rate coming close to a drumroll.
Damn. At least the Tai Chi went a little better, although I need to practice that more, too...
How is it that a boy three-quarters your size, age and weight can, just by walking in and sitting down, make you mad enough to contemplate throwing sharp-edged items across the table?
Is it a gift? A talent? A curse? Or simply bad timing and a bad attitude?
::grinds teeth together::
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go shoot something.