Sleet began coming down yesterday here in Pittsburg, Kansas. It stopped for awhile but unfortunately began again after sun set, and the result was an inch of ice. There is some damage through out the town, with a few unfortunate souls dealing with large limbs breaking through their roofs.

We got lucky compared to those few folks, but we still have a heck of a mess to clean up. The limbs in these photos fell regularly through out last night and knocked out both our power and cable (tv, internet) services.

Click through the photos to see more of them. There’s a heck of a mess there, and the weather report says that we can get more ice until Wednesday. Look for power to go out some more until this icy, wintry weather subsides.

Technorati Tags: ice, weather, winter weather, snow, sleet, hail, pittsburg, pittsburg ks, kansas

It’s a shame that no one who visits my blog can read Mandarin, or whichever dialect of Chinese this is. I have no idea what the name of this CD is, and I’ve had no luck finding this CD on Miriam Yeung’s official website or on the Miriam Yeung wiki entry.

By some odd, random chance that someone swings by this blog that reads this language - and I don’t ever expect this happen, sadly - then how about dropping a line to tell me which CD this is?

This Miriam Yeung CD was a gift from an ‘ol friend of mine. Totally unexpected, but totally cool. Miriam Yeung has such a lovely voice!

I wonder if i got the name in there enough times for keywords. Surely her fans will find this post some day…. right?

Later folks.

Technorati Tags: Miriam Yeung, Cantopop, Chinese, music, Chinese Music

well this semester is pretty much over. there’s one more week and one more test and that’s it. then it’s one month of vacation before the Spring semester begins.

so..

• passed my karate test. technically i hold an orange belt in shito-ryu karate-do genbu-kai now, but they didn’t have a belt in my size on the night of the testing so i don’t physically possess the belt. whoops, but oh wells.
• in all seriousness i have almost definitely failed my drawing class. i hated that class all semester and it’s the one thing that made this semester lose some of its enjoyment. go figure.
• i don’t know what my score in Korean is, but i think that i passed the test. the instructor is leaving for another state this weekend, so i won’t be seeing our test results. i’ll just see my final score when the university gets around to posting them. it’s sad, i really liked this class.. it was so much fun, and our instructor was a great person. i’ll actually miss it all.
• abnormal psychology isn’t through yet. we have one more test next thursday. current score in this class is 85/100, which is pathetic compared to what i absolutely could have made otherwise but hey, the next test should bring that up to 90 or so, so it’s all good in the end.
• oh, and “life time fitness concepts”… i guess i passed that? i have no idea, nor do i know what my grade will be in that class.

I am concerned about my GPA as a result of the drawing class and possibly the final grade in lifetime fitness. after all, i attend the university on funding that i receive based solely on my grades. on the other hand i guess this shows that i’m only human and that i have my limits too.

it’s been a strange semester. it’s simultaneously been both the best semester, thanks almost specifically to the Koreans on campus (you’ve all just been great ^.^), and the worse.

sure i’ll have to repeat drawing some time in the future, but i have a better idea of what to expect and hell, i may just create some drawings before re-enrolling into that class, put them up some place, and then use those drawings at the end of the semester for my out-of-class work. that way i have no farking rush to get crap done. gods, but i can’t express enough how much i loathed that class’ out-of-class requirements.

imagine being required to calculate a 30 to 60 minute mathematical formula every day, at home, as a class requirement for no other reason than the instructor loves their subject too much and thinks that no one should think that it’s a big deal and should have all of the time in the world for their oh-so-precious bull shit. then at the end of the semester, just because nothing else that you’re doing could possibly be of equal or greater importance, you have to do five extra long equations during dead week.

ain’t that cute? yeah. only it they were drawing assignments and not mathematical equations, but they’re both the same to me and now you’re getting the idea.

anyway enough of that. now i’m just getting all fucking emo.

this isn’t the tone that i had in mind when i started out this post. i’m kind of starting not to care though, ya know?

i need that fucking vacation.

I had to put my cat down today. She was 15 human years old.

You can’t help but feel rotten; like there’s something more that you could do, or could have done. that she could get well and stand back up again somehow. i know that’s not true though. not the way that she was experiencing convulsions, and the doc said at best she had 10 or 15 % chance. even then this or something like it would probably have happened to her again eh?

i don’t know what else to say, so i’ll leave it at this. I love my baby.. I wish that there was something more that I could do. she deserved better. i know that. i just don’t know or think that there was better to be given to her. at least I was there with her. i didn’t let them put her down without me being in the room with her. i just couldn’t let that happen.

it was so quick though. i’m glad for that.

mkay, that’s enough or i’ll just get worse ‘n worse.

I passed last night’s karate test and will receive my orange belt tomorrow evening. They didn’t have my size on the evening that I took the test. More info & photos later.

Why oh why did I take an art class? No, I remember why. It was in hopes of picking up the ability to draw simple illustrations for the stories that I write. Bah! What an idealistic fool I can be!

I just spent about an hour or so trying to draw one of the three required out-of-class drawings. It didn’t go so well…. at all.

Sheesh, this is a nightmare.

Today’s Tabula Rasa play session was more enjoyable than the previous. My character has moved onto the next map where there are higher level characters and folks seem to be a bit more behaved. General chat was also significantly cleaner today, but I suspect that’s because today is Monday and most of the emos couldn’t get online.

The game play hasn’t really changed, but it’s become more difficult and, at times, a bit more intense. I had another moment of “wha..? cool!” today as friendly NPCs were drop-shipped into the area that I was running through. I have no idea why they came into the area. I’m sure that it’s a regular occurrence - just another scripted spawn - but it was a nice surprise.

At the time I was running through the area in an attempt to get a crate of bane goodies, but I was having a heck of a time reaching the crate. There was a small army of various bane critters in the area and running through it created a small light show as energy weapons hit me and my character’s reflective armor bounced some of it back. The view was messy, and there was really no way to get through in one piece.

So when a small army of friendlies arrived via drop ships (which teleport the NPCs down in a way significantly similar to Wraith ships in Stargate: Atlantis) and began taking on the small army of bane… well, it was a good moment. I spent several minutes taking out bane along side the NPCs. Those NPCs were not your usual weaklings either. Some of them were Rangers with net guns, which will be my character’s next weapon set.

My chara has a touch more than two levels to go before hitting level 15 for the third tier. Then it’ll be cloak armor goodness and net gun funsies for all.

Sadly, tomorrow will be spent making a few drawings for class and I don’t know if I’ll have time to work on progressing the character.

A random screenshot from today, shrunk from its original size.

I really like the style of this NPC’s clothing, especially because we players can’t have straight white or black colored armor. bah!

Yes, I should have removed the UI. Whatever. Deal with it. :-p

Later all.

Technorati Tags: mmorpg, tabula rasa, richard gariot, richard garriot, tr, rgtr, mmo, mmofps

The gist: The community is awful, but if they would drop the emo nonsense then the game would be a much more enjoyable experience.

The long version:

Tabula Rasa, on its own, is not a spectacular game, but it’s also not bad. It’s one of those titles that you can pick up for a half hour to an hour and actually do something, even if that “something” is nothing more than putting down some of the bane.

Logging in to take down some mobs is not quite as boring as it sounds thanks to the Control Points, which are potentially temporary bases that are scattered around the map. This morning was a good example of what these CPs can do for the game.

I quit the game last night with my character parked in what has to be the most heavily contested Control Point on the map: A place called The Landing Zone. This was a fairly silly thing to do and just goes to show how new I am to the game.

1. I logged in
2. I noticed that the server population was “Low” this morning and I thought of how much more difficult it was going to be to get a group
3. Once my character was in the game world I heard weapons fire and thought, “good, I have something to do right away”
4. I see the NPCs running back into the base and think that the fight is over…
5. …only to see a bane running through the base. A quick glance to the side revealed that the normal blue force field was now red.

This all happened (and was over) pretty quickly. I unholster the chain gun and begin emptying it into the closest bane, but it just wasn’t going to do any good. At least three drop shops came down inside of the base as teams of bane spawned inside, and my little, lone level 11 character couldn’t do anything against the attack force.

One person, one chain gun, and an assault force of bane may be fun, but it’s only fun for about 20 seconds before you’re respawning.

There was a brief moment when I saw some other unlucky player run out and be put down just as quickly. It was a cool but sad animation as his character fell, raised his arm as though he were pleading or trying to block some of the attack, and was promptly covered in a hail of energy and weapons fire. My own character must have been in an equally sad state.

This leads back to the community though, and sadly there’s just nothing good for me to say. I turned on general chat to report that the control point had fallen and I was immediately reminded of why I turned it off in the first place. I honestly can not think of another game in which there are so many people complaining, whining, and/or hurling as many childish insults as is seen in Tabula Rasa’s global general chat. It’s pathetic.

Imagine the Barrens chat from World of Worldcraft and replace every comment with someone complaining about the game, or how another class is so much more powerful, or cursing someone for beating them in a duel. There are no Chuck Norris jokes, there are only self-defeated emos.

I turned the general chat back off pretty quickly, but apparently someone picked up my message because a force of players did show up at the control point. My character died about three times as I tried to pitch in whatever assistance I could in retaking the landing zone, though I admit that at level 11 I may not have been terribly helpful.

General chat aside, it certainly gave me something to do immediately upon logging in this morning.

Even when the control point is not taken by the bane it is still frequently attacked, and defeating an attacker nets you a sort of “defense insignia”. Get enough of those and you can turn them in for some experience and perhaps an item reward.. can’t say that I paid too much attention to the rewards of it, I just picked it up and quickly went back to putting down the ugglies outside of the base.

Grouping in the game requires dealing with the above described emo community and it’s about as enjoyable as it sounds. You’re flat out ignored in local /say, nobody wants to group, and everyone attacks the same mob and hopes to out damage it to get credit.. it’s a real mess.

The only reason that people group in Tabula Rasa is to accomplish a very specific goal. The concept of grouping to adventure together simply does not exist; not that I’ve seen thus far. Once the goal (or goals) is accomplished then the group immediately breaks apart and everyone goes their own way.

That’s disappointing, because I don’t doubt that TR could be a fairly enjoyable game if people would just start treating each other like people. The game itself isn’t bad at all. The worse part about Tabula Rasa, thus far, are the people who populate it.

Edit: Here’s a screen shot from some extra play time today. The bane nearly recaptured the same point, getting so far (not shown in the ss) of taking down the blue forcefield. That was one of the few times of genuine fun, “woohoo more!” moments that I’ve had in TR up to this point.

Note that anti-aliasing is not enabled in the game. It’s not needed at that resolution, but it becomes obvious in a screen shot.

Technorati Tags: Richard Garriot, Tabula Rasa, TR, MMO, MMORPG, MMOFPS