Noöcosm

From World of Warcraft:

All of you know that I am generally not one to appreciate the merits of my own work. I overcriticize myself, and am never satisfied with what I've produced.

This makes it somewhat startling, and yet inordinately pleasing, that even several months after its release, when several products that are (in my eyes) far more meritorious have been released, my book is still the single highest-rated item on e23.

Gaming geekery of a mild sort:

Within the space of a week, I've seen three different people use "gamist" to mean, respectively, "a synonym for 'narrativist'", "a happy medium between narrativist and simulationist", and "a synonym for 'simulationist'".

So, honestly, does the term "gamist" actually have a valid definition? Or does it really mean "following whichever style of play I favor most"? (That's not meant as a condemnation; there are plenty of terms, like "moral" and "up", that depend on the viewpoint of the speaker. I'm just wondering whether "gamist" has an absolute meaning.)

"Hello, Mannie. Nice gun."

The Lilim glanced at the pistol. "I thought you might like it. You always did prefer the classics."

"I'm not sure I'd call that a classic." Hari sighed and set his pointer down on the easel. "Why are you here, Mannie?"

Mannie paused and looked over his shoulder at the captive angel.

"...he keeps bringing me sandwiches when I work too late."

"You could just go on a date with him when he gets out of Trauma. I understand that's what you do with all of the angels who take care of you."

Mannie took a deep breath. "Are you going to undo the padlock, Hari, or will I be forced to remove it by other means?"

Two of fadethecat's characters. A Steve Jackson Games setting.

Some of you (especially readers of IGN or GU Comics) may have run across Microsoft's new marketing ploy. This is a large Flash page, so be cautious when clicking that link.

Once you've clicked the link, you'll see a tree and two rabbits. (This may have changed; the image has changed at least twice before.) On the tree, at the lower left, you'll see a root/branch jutting out. Zoom in all the way, and you'll find a sentence in Latin:

in hoc spatio arbor noster floruit, fecundus pomis Elysii ignoti, quo in loco ludent electi, ab Originis angelis circumdati.

IGN sez:

We consulted the IGN annals of ultimate intelligence and wisdom and came up with the following rough translation: "In this place may our fertile tree bloom with fruits in strange elysium, where in the place of the chosen, angels surround the origin".

This is also the translation that Woody uses on the GU Comics panel I linked to above. It's also wrong; apparently the IGN annals of ultimate intelligence and wisdom aren't real good with things like, I dunno, including all the words in the original sentence. (This is ironic, because in order for the sentence to make sense you actually have to infer a word that isn't there.)

A better translation, which I'm coming up with at midnight under the influence of NyQuil, is:

"In this space our tree hath bloomed, (made) fruitful by the fruit-trees of unknown Elysium, in which place the select play, having been from the beginning surrounded by angels."

(Latin geeking: you have to assume factus in the second clause; quo and loco are paired despite not being contiguous; and although Originis and angelis look like they should go together, they don't - they just happen to be the same case and number. Floruit is perfect active indicative 3rd singular - not a present subjunctive as IGN believes - ludent is present active indicative 3rd plural (IGN left this word out entirely!), and circumdati is a perfect passive participle in nominative plural. It agrees with electi.)

Just, y'know, FYI.

I don't know how many people are aware of MEPACON, Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania's premier gaming convention.

I do, however, feel it germane to note that a gentleman named Michael Sarno is apparently directly involved with the operation of the convention, if his sending out mass e-mails trying to recruit GMs to run games at the convention is any indication.

Mr. Sarno, it should be noted, is also the man responsible for this thread on the In Nomine Mailing List (I can't get a listing of the whole thing at once, so you'll have to keep clicking through Next Message to read the whole thing).

Take that as you will.

As some of you know, I am an erstwhile player of the MMORPG World of Warcraft. WOW occasionally undergoes patches, where everybody spends Tuesday downloading modifications to the game and then bitching about them on the forums. These patches come with patch notes, which tell the careful reader what the modification has, well, modified.

In the latest patch notes, which I was reading last night, I ran across this line item:

• The Barrens should now feel more alive.

(The Barrens is an area of the game that feels much like a slightly-drier Serengeti.)

And it occurred to me to wonder whether this was based on a player complaint, because it sounds to me like one of the "airplane engineering complaints" lists that goes around occasionally:

Complaint: #3 engine missing.
Resolution: #3 engine found on right wing after brief search.

I wonder if Blizzard really received complaints like "The Barrens does not feel alive enough."

Go to bed, dammit.

I actually ended up going to bed around 11 PM last night; my nominal bedtime is 9. I read for half an hour; then I turned out the light and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling for the next hour and a half. So I'm running on four hours' sleep today. Hurrah.

Darán game tonight, at 7 PM Eastern. Just a reminder. nvdaydreamer, if you're finished by then, we'll integrate you right in. If not, no worries; feel free to swing by and just watch a session to see how we do things.

As a side note, I'm probably not going to be around much today for chatting; I don't have a lot of concentration at the moment and I'm going to need all of it for work.

EDIT: Okay, S2 Generator is really starting to bug me, with the little things that have changed from S1. (I screwed up my journal style yesterday, and took the opportunity to update to S2 while I was fixing it.)

I'm looking for two S2 variables - the title of the journal (I know you can get the name using $.journal.name, but I can't seem to get the title that way.) and the keyword associated with a usericon. Any thoughts?

EDIT 2: Apropos of nothing, I just renewed my Pyramid subscription for another year. Thanks to all who offered to help, but it sounded like it was going to be more trouble than it was worth, and thanks to cythraul I had an extra $20 sitting around in my Paypal account, so I just did the deed myself.

that I am a total geek.

*cough*

I have 1-2 slots available in my Thursday-night fantasy RPG. This is a GURPS 4th Edition game, set in an original world. Knowledge of GURPS is not required; willingness to play in a partially-finished world, and to join a group of characters who've gone through at least one adventure together, is required. Click on the link above if that sounds interesting (but please comment here if you're interested!).