first off, happy 20th bday Ultima
2nd off, how the fuck did he get logged in to the beta last night
i got my code and couldnt get into the members site
I can't get mine. applications are currently suspended
alright, i'm set up finally
i just wish i wasnt at work now
for reference, Hagerstown MD is like 45 minutes east of me
I love how you guys are all excited about the FFXIV beta. I'm way more excited about the FFXI patch 
I would like to see the update notes, but closed beta participants have to reapply so I can't actually log in
In other news, there are four codes in the WoT thing, but this is very weird: there are both capital and lowercase D's, but the vast majority are capital'
Which makes me wonder if what we're revealing is actually plain English, or something that needs to be further decoded
I wish I had saved an earlier copy. I'm curious if as more codes are entered the letters shift places as well
hm.. the ;'s are gone
That's weird
It makes me wonder if the passage intimately concerns someone whose name begins with "D"
Hey Bill, do you have your copy of Way of Kings handy? I want to check if they changed a name since that release
Nope. its home.
And Matt, that's what I was thinking, but it's far too common, and even so there should be more than like, three lowercase d's
You are useless to me! I'm literally through the prelude and prologue and already I'm like "wait I don't remember that," lol
I'm curious what the successful codes were
one of them was probably "Swordfish"
I first one was "Questions of Leadership" or something similar, I have no idea about the rest
Nope, got the login screen
But I found them elsewhere... thank god you don't have to start in Limsa Lominsa anymore
Looks like no specific gameplay information, really... I do wonder about only restoring HP and MP at a crystal every 10 minutes - did they ever put in a way to restore MP between combat? That always seemed like a dumb oversight
The Times has an Opinion piece entitled "Room for Debate: Israel's Settler Problem" and for a brief moment I envisioned Israel wracked by an addiction to Settlers of Catan, unable to be productive in even the smallest activities as they are all vying
for Longest Road and Largest Army
lol
well, they kind of are too busy to do anything productive because they're trying to get the largest army
by the way dowd - thanks for getting that meeting canceled last night
It was my pleasure (and I mean that quite literally)
I like how Alex was like "I'm gonna blame you for this" and I just told him I'd be happy to take the credit
alex is disturbingly clueless
What was the meeting supposed to be about? Just a status update?
Yeah we do a conference call every Wednesday
Truth be told, it would have been pretty pointless with Steve not there, and Steve was still unpacking and such
I mean, it was a completely legitimate reason to cancel it
How long do these calls generally take?
honestly, i am of the opinion that the entire meeting could be replaced with a todo list that is actually kept up to date
an hour plus
i literally spend more time on that meeting than i do on any of the "work" that they ask me to do
In fairness, they were under an hour before we started with the objectives stuff (usually)
oh? I remember them being usually running about 15 min over limit
although, thinking about it, the target time was half an hour at one point
Maybe that's your fault 
I don't know, when it was just steve on the call, they went very quickly, and when they went longer it was because there was actually something that needed to be discussed
you know, rather than degenerating into trying to explain to alex why PHP is not the best choice for parsing string data
Yeah, proposing anything new tends to bog us down for a while (which is to be expected)
yeah, i just don't feel they're productive discussions
like if we were discussing what datapoints we could reasonably capture, that would be one thing
but the three developers arguing with alex about how to implement something is a waste of time
so either we have to ignore 'how' level questions until alex isn't around, or we have to explain everything in CS101 terms to someone who thinks he's CS675
All 3 of you agreed with the same method?
In this particular case, Steve stayed out of it
It basically went Tozzi: "We should do this in Perl" Alex: "I think we should do everything in PHP" Me: "I love PHP, and even I know that's stupid" etc.
(I've stopped trying to be diplomatic with Alex, it's too stressful and I have nothing to lose anyway
)
As an aside, the idea of consolidating languages is especially ridiculous to a web developer, since we generally use three or more to do anything
Man . . . I can't wait until all UPS packages have GPS transmitters in them, the current level of OCD tracking that Amazon makes available to me is just not sufficient
What are you getting?
Hey I got my plate renewal form in the mail - the way they backed off on the "everyone needs new plates" thing is hilarious
The cheapest option is for me to keep my current plates, with the current number. I have to pay more to get new ones. So, uh, well done, New York
You've failed to make any significant money (the whole point of the new plates) and now there will be two styles of New York plates for years to come
Also, today is 90210 day
I was particularly amused by alex's "i want to focus on our core competencies" logic, and I was like "we have one PHP developer, what makes that a core competency any more than perl?"
Because PHP is awesome
Duh
I'm waiting on my Kindle
it Shipped yesterday at 3:27:06 p.m. from Kentucky
And is supposed to get here tomorrow
Actually the correct answer is "Alex doesn't know any Perl at all" and he's either unaware or too self-centered to care that I do (making Perl just as well-known to the dev team as PHP overall)
Oh, nice
Yeah
Unfortunately, I shipped it to work rather than home
And I was really thinking about working from home tomorrow since we get out at 2pm and there's, you know, a hurricane
But now I'm totally going to come in just to get this package
lol well played
That's on par with New York's license plate system 
Thanks 
So what are you planning to read on it, anyway? What don't you already own?
actually, I would say perl is better known than PHP, since counting alex as a developer is like counting me as an artist
although i do know a little PHP, but from looking at your code, i clearly speak it with a very thick accent
Yeah, which is about where I am with perl 
I mean, I can write a web site in Perl, but a.) I don't want to and b.) that's not what we're talking about anyway
I always have to look up the exact syntax for the basic Perl scripting stuff
Book wise?
I'm not quite sure yet, but there are a few things I've been holding off on buying
I think my initial read through is going to be Ice & Fire, since my print editions have been falling apart and I've been looking to do a read through with reviews like you've done for WoT
Plus it's dirt cheap!
That reminds me, exactly 2 months until book 13
I've been distracted from being excited about that lately
Also why can't I find a cheap copy of Way of Kings? Borders doesn't appear to have any new book discount at all for it, and B&N is only 20%
At this rate I'll end up spending more on gas than I save
Other than that, I'm not sure
I definitely had a few books that I've been holding off buying in anticipation of reading it on the Kindle, but I don't know what
I need to re-buy Ender's Game since I gave it away last year
And I think Neuromancer as well, which has mysteriously disappeared
Oh, I might pick up Cryptonomicon now, since I liked Snow Crash so much
Cryptonomicon is awesome, but very different from Snow Crash.
Yeah, I've heard . . . but I enjoyed Stephenson's writing enough to give it a go
oh, i definitely recommend it
i think i probably like it better than snow crash personally
Man I need some kind of inspiration to actually get some work done
I also highly recommend Anathem, although the XKCD complaint about made up words is pretty true
dowd - doesn't money usually fill that niche?
I have two 1-2 hour projects I've been putting off for days... that's not enough money to make me care
well, one thing at a time
i actually just finished a cryptonomicon re-read about two months ago
there were a ton of little details that i'd either missed the first time through or had forgotten about which really increased my enjoyment of it
Well, the topic of Snow Crash was like an intellectual wet dream tailored to my interests, so even if Cryptonomicon is measurably the better book I will be surprised if I like it as much
What is Snow Crash about?
Snow crash is about ancient myth and using language to hack the human mind, all set in a Neuromancer-esque cyber punk future
i've always kind of felt that Snow Crash was Stephenson's way of saying "if I wanted to be goddamn William Gibson, I'd be goddamn William Gibson; now will you please let me write the stories I want to write?"
That being said, it's pacing was kind of frantic, which is something I gather he grows out of
LOL
cryptonomicon is definitely not frantically paced, except possibly as it is getting near the end
Oh, I've been meaning to read The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for a while now, maybe I'll pick that up on the Kindle
but it definitely starts off very slow. in fact, picking up on where he transitions from cool character establishing events that are fun to read into stuff that's deeply relevant to the plot in ways that are not obvious is pretty tricky
I will also be downloading several crossword books for my business trips
I don't think I fully appreciated that until my second read through
how do crossword books work on the kindle? can you actually fill in the puzzles or what?
You can do crosswords on the Kindle?
apparently, search Amazon for Kindle Crossword and I immediately found a 99 cent thing that says it's interactive
Crazy
Yeah, right?
I'm pretty happy about that, though I guess it remains to be seen how good the experience is
Also, I tend to use the crossword book for the part of the flight that you can't use electronics
Well, with 99 cents the worst-case scenario isn't so bad
Agreed
can you use the kindle during that part of the flight?
I wouldn't think so, but it's also only about 10 minutes when landing and taking off
I also think it's probably not an issue in terms of interfering with the flight itself, they're probably more worried about incidental issues like a bumpy landing sending the electronic device flying
Sandy is apparently interviewing William Shatner today
One of her friends replied to this with "Holy Shat", which I think might be the funniest thing ever
lol that's pretty good
Today has officially stalled
We can talk about this lame birthday coupon Best Buy gives out
Or the fact that Cuzzo is actually on and chatting
It's a coupon for triple rewards points on a single item. So they're just giving you the chance to possibly spend enough money to get a $5 gift certificate for your birthday.
Oh, hey. I'm on.
And I'm chatting.
Dude
My kitchen is now past the peak of destruction and is on it's way to being a new shiny kitchen
That's not terrible... if you buy a $1000 laptop you'd end up getting $40... ok yeah that's terrible, lol
They couldn't have just given me a $5 gift certificate? I'd be much more willing to go and spend money there with that incentive.
Well yeah, but you'd only be incentivized to spend a few bucks... how would that help them? lol
I am honestly surprised it's a single item rather than a single purchase, though
Well now I'm not incentivized to spend any money
True, I guess their statistics on who is a consumer whore aren't very accurate
I don't think I've ever gotten one of those birthday incentives 
And it's from a very restrictive list too. Basically it's only good for really expensive items.
And it would have been useful when I bought my new monitor
Do you block their e-mail maybe?
Because sara and I have gotten the occasional 10% off coupon which does make us go and be consumer whores.
Nah I do get some. My account is in several names, though, because they're idiots
Usually mail is addressed to "John Dawd"
Well, maybe there's a John Dawd out there getting birthday e-mails for a James Dowd
That fucker!
I know, what an ass that John Dawd is.
John Dawd is totally on Linkin and Facebook. You should friend him just to let him know what a fucker he is
Wired.com helpfull pointed out Fantasy University to me, a new Facebook game in beta testing, and it's got my interest
If you're into beta testing Facebook games, I have one that you should... let's be honest, the word to put here is "avoid" 
no, i think he should definitely beta test it, as soon as it's ready for a beta test in, say, three more years
at current rates of progress
Well, I wouldn't exactly say I'm into beta testing. I'm just keeping my eye on that game because it looks promising
Three more years? So, just in time to miss the Facebook craze huh? 
I was just making fun of our Facebook game
Although you have an open invitation to play it and be as brutal as you want to in criticizing it
wow, the idea that maybe game play counts for something in a game...how novel
actually, that looks pretty cool. i might actually try that out
Tozzi, it's not a competition to see who's more bitter. Largely because you would win hands down
heh, thanks, i appreciate the acknowledgment
the graphics on that are pure genius tho - it looks like they are just using the concept art dierctly (based on the screen shots), which i'm sure did wonders for their time to market
Yeah, part of the reason I'm interested in it is the stylized approach they're taking
If you guys want me to hit your facebook game, you can throw me a link on my wall and I'll see what I can do to break it
If you remain interested long enough to even try, I'll be impressed
in short, they're doing a lot of things right that alex is doing wrong, and why can't he pick someone to model his business on that is actually achievable?
But I'm not worried about bugs, I'm worried about the fact that the game is completely uninteresting and directionless
Because trying to emulate the big thing from a few years ago is the sure route to success!
I mean, when has that ever not worked?
*sigh*
No time I can think of
emulating the big thing from a few years ago might even work a bit, if you could do it quickly
the fact that we're nearly a year into this and don't have half an hour of content is really pathetic
Cuzzo, I'd be way too embarrassed to actually acknowledge this game on my Facebook, but if you're really (really) bored, feel free to check it out
You guys should just do progress quest: now with 100% more clicking with clothing options at a modest price.
However, I don't want any feedback here. My goals are either to a.) improve the game or b.) break Alex's will, and that will accomplish neither 
the problem is that the goal of the game isn't to make money, it's to make money while "getting people excited about space exploration"
I don't acknowledge that link. It needs to be sent to my facebook wall.
there are much faster ways to get money, including, but not limited to, working at McDonalds
It's not worth it 
actually, thinking about it, even given how low they have the stock valued, i would have made the "fair market price" of the stock they've issued me by working the same number of hours at minimum wage by now
I'm getting mixed signals as to whether you want me to give suggestions, or if you're more happy with just having something to be bitter about 
he wants you to give suggestions, just not to him
See, Tozzi may be more bitter, but he's still holding on to the possibility that we'll ever make any money on this
since he is powerless to do anything with those suggestions
i like to think of myself as delusional
although, not nearly so delusional as steve, who's thinking that this might save him from having to get a real job
Man I need a real job
. . . I think Steve's just undergoing some shock at the trifecta of a baby, a move, and the end of school
i take it you haven't heard anything from UCHC then?
i think steve is in denial of how bad his situation is, to be honest
Nope, I've moved on, though so far all I've found is telecommuting jobs, and I want a reason to actually do something with my life so I'd rather not
he's over-educated and under-experienced coming into a very rough IT marketplace with a child to support. I really feel bad for him
This is the only job we have floating around right now
On the upside, he lives in Camden, Maine in the vicinity of his Pulitzer-prize winning father-in-law
forward some of those telecommuting jobs my way...all the ones I find say "we're telecommute friendly, as long as you don't want to actually telecommute more than once a month"
Well, the only job that might conceivably be the least bit interesting to you
And even then it's a stretch
Oh I just looked up "PHP Developer" on monster.com 
I know his plan was always to go into research, I have no idea what that kind of market looks like though
Dozens of jobs, all by the same company though... I think they just list every possible location to make sure people notice them
you could take a telecommute gig and move out here to help me garden
Wow, then I could make a new Odd Couple-esque sitcom based off of this experience and become rich
out of curiosity, what salary range are they talking about?
You know, I don't remember, but IIRC it was pretty wide, like $40k-60k... and I do not want a $40k job
That's probably why your people never called me back
to be honest, i don't even want a $60k job....
Neither do I, but in this economy I'd settle 
I mean, right now I'm on course to make like 20 grand, plus the monopoly money earned at Colony Moon, so... yeah
touche
I'm just saying, as long as there's a possibility of me staying at about, $60k isn't enough to get me to move, even with a more definite telecommute option
if i were flat out unemployed, then yeah, i'd be all about even the $40k gig
I'm glad I have enough money saved that I don't have to just take the first thing that comes along
yeah, i desperately need to rebuild that buffer
most of mine got eaten for the downpayment on the house...i've currently got about a 4 month, presuming nothing goes wrong
Ask bill to get you a programming job here =P
Yeah if I actually had moved in the past year, I'd be royally fucked now
If you guys actually have jobs doing what I want to do, sure... but from my conversations with Bill, I'm pretty sure you don't
God, a four month buffer would be unbelievable
Right now I'm desperate to get a job I enjoy, I'm not yet desperate just for money... I'll get back to you when I reach that point 
Yeah well given all the disadvantages of living at home, I feel like I deserve some kind of break for doing so 
I think the most I've ever had was probably a month and a half, and that was when I was saving for the security deposit on the new place
I was talking more to Tozzi
Totally respect that your buffer is coming from the living at home thing, that's a great way to build that kind of savings
My parents always talk about wanting to have the apartment my grandparents are in now down the road in the event that me or my siblings want to move in their for our first home to build money after marriage
And I'm like ". . . . Sure . . . <sotto voce >over my dead body </sotto voce>"
As a complete aside, I hate when I'm in the middle of a project and then suddenly it's apparently done, but I didn't think it would be, so I feel like I forgot something
Dowd - total tangent note about why I advocate test driven development
Sweet, Kindle is in Secaucus
was just writing tests for a dirt simple text manipulation function which i am planning to implement with one regex, and was wondering if it was worth even writing tests for
That wouldn't help me in any way in this case
Oh I thought you meant my thing, carry on
opened up some sample data to grab a few test lines from, and found two cases that the regex I was planning to use would have failed on
easy to fix, just possibilities i hadn't considered
lol Dr. Horrible reference in the spoileriffic WoK review on Tor.com
I wonder why Tor.com would post such a spoilerrific review on their own website a day after release (of a 1,000-page book!) though
because they hate their readers?
It just seems odd, I can't imagine anyone other than someone else who had an ARC getting anything out of it (although, as someone in that category, it's pretty cool to have)
My favorite might be the one with Peter Sellers playing Agent Smith from the Matrix
Though Steve McQueen as Luke Skywalker would have been hysterical too
Hi
thats interesting
What is?
the whole bolding the name of active people
night, nerds
i guess you have the user update the server if the window is active?
It's been doing that for a long time you know
i havent been on in a long time
Actually no, the page has a flag to determine whether it's active, which is controlled by events bound to onblur and onfocus for the window
Frankly I'm surprised it works
Oh, damn, XKCD just ruined an Emily Dickinson poem for me
He's right . . . once you've thought of it to the tune of Gilligan's Island there's no going back
i'm not sure if i should be frustrated or grateful that i can't remember the Gilligan's Island tune
and as long as we're on the subject, did you know you can set Lewis Carrol's Jabberwoky to the tune of Greensleeves?
I did not know that
yeah, it's pretty good
One of my friends in college did a Jabberwocky piece as part of his tuba recital, it was interesting
cool
Sort of a core music line written for tuba with the jabberwocky poem in spoken words interspersed in it
i presume you know that Billy Joel's 'Piano Man' is done entirely in limerick, right?
yep
I've been told there's music written specifically for Jabberwocky, but I don't think I've ever heard it
Yeah, I don't know if that's what I was listening to or not, but we'll see
Wait, sorry, the "we'll see" was in response to a different conversation I'm having via e-mail
My head is nowhere near being focused today
heh, no worries
so, Klunk has been reborn
he's a level 2 miner
woo
<petpeeve>an acceptable answer to "should I use camel case or underscores?" is not "both!"; Day_of_Week is a function name that should never exist.</petpeeve>
Is he a tailless Galka?
Last night I took Marie to see Inception (although let's be honest, taking Marie was just the excuse)
Once again she hadn't seen a single preview - how is that even possible? She didn't even know Leonardo DiCaprio was in it
Hey James
yes, he is
Is she of that age range of girls who are required by law to have a giant crush on him, due to Titanic?
oh, its xphacter
i'm on Wutai
Tozzi, how do you feel about underscore names that are proper names?
Yes, and she does, Matt
And hi, Who
Oh, I stopped in the Strategist yesterday and flipped through two things that might be of interest to people here
One is the Dark Sun campaign setting, in which I discovered that all Defiling magic is handled the way it was during my game at PAX East (an At Will power that can be used to enhance Daily powers at the expense of the environment)
haven't seen you on AIM
Part II of the FFXI job adjustments are up... don't think there was anything that affected any job anyone I know plays, though
and preservers just don't use that ability?
yeah the 76+ SMN thing is cool
Basically, yeah
And I didn't see anything mentioned about clerics behaving in an unusual fashion
that's a pretty reasonable interpertation
I think they just treat one of the Sorcerer-Kings as their god
i don't remember for sure, but i thought old dark sun didn't have clerics
They did add an ability called "Deus ex Automata" though, which is hilarious
oh, right, there are the clerics of the sorcerer-kings, i forgotthat
So wait Matt, what was the second thing?
Oh, sorry, got distracted looking through that link I posted
still part of Dark Sun: they had an optional rule for giving everyone a minor psionic ability
Which I thought was a nice nod to the original
The other thing was the Return of the Empress splatbook for Exalted
Which was a hardback, but not a full sized fatsplat, and seemed like a surprisingly good guide to the apocalypse
Chejop Kejack dies in the intro comic, and in a way that I don't entirely understand, which seems appropriate for a Sidereal death
Does anyone know if the FFXIV beta servers will be the same as the live servers (name-wise)?
Also has anyone here not seen Inception? If so I may need to berate you in review format 
the 14 beta servers do not have the same names
and i have not seen inception
yet
Well we'll have to decide on one once the game is live
Well you should
i'm not sure if i'm getting hte game yet
i'll figure it out after this weekend
right now i'm mad at it cause i've spent more time patching and installing than playing
and it crashed twice on me in 45 mins
Going back to the music to accompany poems, Leonardo Da Vinci wrote music to accompany The Last Supper and hid it in the painting
Also, Inception was pretty darn nifty and should be seen ASAP.
Where is it in relation to Animitronio
Matt - if they're releasing apocalypse stuff for exalted, i'd say 3rd ed is probably going to be a major world overhaul, possibly 3rd age stuff
at least if they follow the WoD pattern
Maybe, but I'm not sure there's any indication that this is the case
They've been pretty deliberate about any plot books they release being strictly optional
whereas the plot was always pretty integral to WoD, at least as I understood Mage
that's true
but as you said, they're due for new line, and there just doesn't seem to be a need for a massive rules overhaul
That's true
(these past three minutes might be the single most reasonable exchange of dialogue ever to occur on this website)
Whatever, dick 
sometimes someone will say how bored they are, and we'll all agree - that's pretty reasonable
Oh, hey, reading a review of Dark Sun on Amazon it looks like the Divine classes are gone from the setting, instead there are elemental priests or something like that
yeah, that sounds right
there are no gods on athas, rajat killed them all
i remember there being a templar class which got some divine magic via the sorcerer kings, and elemental priests sounds right now that you mention it
did you see if they brought back gladiators as a class?
I looked at the campaign setting briefly, and they explicitly said it is not a followup, nor exactly the same, as the old setting
They said exactly where in history it takes place - after the rise or fall of some king, I think - which was earlier than the old setting, I believe
Well, interestingly they created a new thing called "Character Themes", which are like setting driven paragon paths that you get at level 1
I can live with that as long as they kept true to the spirit of the old setting, which so far it sounds like they did
So it seems like you would play a Shaman, with a Character Theme of Elemental Priest
that sounds cool
I recall them giving us one specific power at level one, all of which were pretty useful
are they like power sources? or do they have more concrete effects?
this is definitely the most persuasive argument for 4th ed i've heard to date
More concrete effects
although probably not sufficently persuasive, since if I really want to play darksun, i can use the tons of old darksun books i already own...
I think they each came with an At-Will power at level 1, not sure if you get more powers as you level or notB
Yeah but then you'd be playing 2nd ed... ew
But there were some in-setting consequences too (e.g. choosing the Templar theme brings with it all of the issues of being a representative of a tyrranical god-king)
in fact, if i hadn't already committed to a sidereals game, i might try to fire up some 2nd ed darksun just for kicks
Oh, apparently they're Encounter powers, not At-Wills, and then later on you get to choose from Theme powers in addition to Class powers when you level
Sidereals and 2nd ed... sometimes I wonder why we're friends 
dowd - 2nd ed has two big advantages over 4th ed - 1) I already own several hundred dollars worth of 2nd ed books and 2) everyone I might game with down here already knows 2nd ed
Oh I'm not saying you have to play 4E - 3E would be fine - but I mean, THAC0? EW
I've always kind of assumed we're friends because it's really hard to find someone you can hate this much for this long
actually, i would love to convert darksun to 3.5
Oh hey that reminds me, apparently D&D essentials is a bit of a return to the "fighters only attack, wizards have lots of abilities" style of D&D
Tozzi, don't give yourself that much credit 
heh
oh, ouch. i'm feeling the burn there
frankly, darksun practically prototyped the prestige class system with the dragon transformations and such
It uses THAC0!
i mean, prestige classes did it better, but you could model that really well in 3rd ed
Didn't someone actually publish Darksun for 3rd, but it was a third party? Or was that some other old setting?
oh boo-hoo Mr "I'm too weak at math to do subtraction"
I don't know, I feel like that might have been Dragonlance
Ok, I'm on whatever side is not in favor of THAC0
i vaguely recall there being some conversion effort on darksun, but i don't remember it ever getting anywhere
Oh yeah it might have been... although wasn't Dragonlance sort of legit? Like it had the logo?
Because while I totally am able to do subtraction, I believe that THAC0 involves subtraction and dark voodoo magic
BOOM take that, Tozzi
i'm not so much in favor of THAC0 as I'm in favor or mocking James
You only mock yourself with your THAC0 defense
dude, THAC0 was offense, not defense
so speaking to that long tail discussion from yesterday, our conversation here had me thinking "gee, I don't actually have a 3.5 PH these days. I wonder what a PDF of it costs." The answer is, as far as i can tell, it doesn't exist
so, way to go, WotC. a person who was totally looking to give you money for something you've moved on from can't do that
WotC used to sell all their books as PDF files, until they all mysteriously showed up as torrents minutes later
yeah, i had no trouble finding torrents for it
I suspect they wouldn't still be selling 3rd ed stuff regardless
man, i love it when alex builds stuff with totally different terminology and data sets than what we discussed
Really? See, I always had you pegged as the kind of guy who would be upset about something like that. I guess you learn something new everyday.
nah, i'd be upset if a project i cared about did that
with alex, i can just say "well, if you'd told me that in the first place, it could have been built by now."
So do you guys want to hear about the biggest wedding faux pas I've ever encountered?
I can gossip freely about this to you all, since none of you know the individual in question
sure
So
One of the groomsmen at one of the weddings last weekend has been going through a rough time lately
He's going through a separation (soon to be divorce)
Oh man, just by the setup alone I can tell this is going to be more than a faux pas. Press on!
I don't really know the details, but suffice it to say he's been emotionally turbulent to begin with
So at this wedding, he gets just about as drunk as I've ever seen anyone, frequently seen wandering around with a bottle of wine in one hand
hey, shacking up with bridesmaids is never a faux pas, except possibly for the groom
While in the bathroom one time I heard someone making loud beeping noises outside, and when I left the bathroom, sure enough it was him
He looked at me strangely for a moment, handed me a thing of q-tips, then ran away
This is all by way of back story to set the scene
From there on in, every time I went in the direction of the bathroom he was running up or down the hallway, yelling something strange
Anyway, there was a shuttle bus to take people back to the hotel, which I was not on
But some of my friends who I gave a ride to needed to stop at the hotel to pick something up
So, when they get back in the car, they say that as people were getting off the bus this guy told the groomsman that he needed to apologize to some of the women on the bus or they'd have to step outside to settle this
Now, this guy was about two feet shorter and fifty pounds lighter (at least) than the groomsman in question
So already we're thinking this had to be something pretty bad, but nobody knows what it is
The next morning I get a text from him saying "Hey, I had a totally epic night last night"
To which I reply "I heard, complete with a boss fight and everything, eh?"
And he says: "What happened? I can't remember anything after 10pm" (wedding finished around 11pm)
I reply "You got me, I was hoping you could fill me in on the details"
So, finally I get in touch with someone who knows the story
Apparently, while on the bus, he called a bunch of the bride's mother's friends "dirty sluts" and then threatened to fight the father of the bride
(the women in question were probably in their 50s, for reference on the 'dirty slut' front)
Suffice it to say, far worse than anything that my friends and I had possibly imagined as we were batting around the possibilities on the way back
wow, that's pretty intense
I know, right? I'm thinking if I had called Sara or Emily's mothers' friends "dirty sluts", I would not be friends with Mike and Steve right now
seems likely
here's a great alex-ism. I asked him to send me the apache log format string, since he's doing the sysadmin work right now. He tells me "looks like we're just using the installation defaults" and sends me a conf file...
which doesn't have the information i need, but does have a comment from the previous sysadmin
Oh, you mean you don't remember the dirty slut incident from my wedding? You were pretty high on acid at the time
Oh, right, forgot about that
OK, so, two huge white dragons, seven large white dragons, eight doppelgangers... and now 16 hook horrors at once? Really? And it's chapter 3 (of 6) - IWD2 is friggin' ridiculous
Honestly it wouldn't even be annoying if not for the fact that literally 90% of the enemies I fight give me no experience, and absolutely nothing gives me more than 300 (I'm level 13, one CR 13 mob would give 3,900 XP)