1 comments

Happy Halloween!

For those of you who follow my blog, you may remember the last post about finding the perfect pumpkin. (Or if you don't, just scroll down a bit to read it.)
Well here is the final result- the pumpkin's fate was to become a Batman jack-o-lantern! I am very pleased with how it turned out! Have a look for yourself:


Holy Spooks, Batman! You're on a jack-o-lantern!

I also encourage those gamers out there to take advantage of the Team Fortress 2 Halloween Special. What a deal! In the holiday spirit, don't forget to play lots of Left 4 Dead and shoot many zombies! If you've pre-ordered Left 4 Dead 2 then you  have access to the demo by now which is outstanding!

In other news, I've re-potted my rose in a larger blue pot which will be its home for the winter. It's growing pretty well. When I got it some of the lower leaves seemed a bit yellow, but the whole plant is a healthy green now. A new bud has started to bloom too!
read more
1 comments

Chicago and The Great Pumpkin!

I was able to visit my girlfriend in Chicago last weekend, which was a blast. We saw "Where the Wild Things Are" on the Imax screen at Navy Pier. It was a really good movie. Although I couldn't really remember the book too well from when I was a child, I'm sure there must have been plenty of creative license taken to make it into a 90 minute movie.  It's a film about a young boy learning to deal with his changing life as he is growing up and people around him grow and change too. The "Wild Things" looked visually fantastic, and the music, while a little odd, went great with the theme.

The Navy Pier Ferris Wheel at night


The Chicago Theater Sign

Late October has always been cold, but in the past couple days there's been some sunshine, which is always welcome.

Some birds eating the berries off a bush in downtown Chicago

It's almost Halloween, and that means carving Jack-O-Lanterns! My family has a tradition of going to a pumpkin patch on a farm and searching for a good pumpkin. Each member of the family usually carves a masterpiece.


read more
0 comments

A Rose by any other name...

When I was in England over the summer I noticed that practically every house in the countryside had a rose garden. There were all types of roses and the gardens all looked really nice. I had always thought that roses were really hard to grow, but if everyone was growing them, how hard could it be really?



Above: A rose garden in Bourton-on-the-Water, England.



Well I'm about to find out. I recently acquired a Kordana miniature rose plant, and I intend to grow it and, if it gets big enough with nice flowers and stuff, I'll give the best ones to my girlfriend. I don't want to tell her about it because whenever I give her flowers she jokes that I have a secret flower shop in my basement... well this one is on the back porch!


Until it gets too cold... then I might set it on top of my computer which is right next to a sunny window.
Anyways I've read about growing roses a little bit online and it doesn't really seem all that hard. If all those people in England can do it then, by Jove, so can I! Here are a few pictures of it, including a bonus picture of my dog Strider. Any flower-growing tips are appreciated.

read more
0 comments

One less rodent...


Today after class I saw a bunch of people standing around looking up at a tree on campus, so I went over to investigate. They were all gawking at this Red-Tailed Hawk as it enjoyed a tasty squirrel. I snapped this picture while it was gobbling down some intestines...


Oh well, one less rodent running around campus!

I've got three exams this week and two homework assignments due... so it's going to be a busy week...

Posted by Picasa
read more
1 comments

Shooting Star!



I captured this tonight at about 8:00pm near my house in NE OH with a Nikon D90 while taking some pictures on the night sky. I used a tripod and except for this picture I used a cable release.

Forgot to make a wish!

Below are some more pictures. Be sure to click on them to get the enlarged view to really take it in!


Looking northeast. I believe this is the constellation Cassiopeia.


Looking South. This star was the brightest in the sky and was visible since the sun started to go down. Venus or Mars maybe? Jupiter perhaps?


The second brightest star- this is the same area ( although an hour later) where I caught the shooting star. This is looking West.

Posted by Picasa
read more
2 comments

Mice With Swords

I've picked up an amazing book recently, a graphic novel by David Petersen called Mouse Guard: Fall 1152.
It's a story about mice in the middle ages and how they defend themselves (with miniature swords and such) from predators such as snakes, crabs and even other (evil) mice. The art is very well done. I think the illustrations are all in watercolor and pen.

The story focuses on the adventures on the Mouse Guard, an elite unit of military mice that serve to protect the mouse kingdom and its people from all sorts of threats. The main mice are Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam. Sent on what seems to be a simple mission: to find a missing grain merchant on the road between two of the mouse cities, they discover a secret and learn that the city of Lockhaven is in danger!

It's so epic that I drew some fan art. Here is a pencil rendering of Kenzie, who is a grey mouse that fights with a staff. The scene it is taken from is when she duels Saxon in the middle of a town square to provide a distraction for Leiam so he can slip away to fin out more about the plot they have uncovered.

Her cape is supposed to be purple, but I just left all the color out since all I had at the time were my pencils.


David Petersen's art style is what really makes this comic worth it. I like how he hardly ever draws the mouses' mouths, which is appropriate since in real life you can never see a mouse's mouth unless it is eating or something.

I never thought I would see a comc about mice battling a snake with swords, but here it is... and its awesome!
read more
1 comments

What's in a theme?

To anyone who actually reads this blog: please bear with me while I try out a few new themes for the site. I'm trying to find something unique and different that is also customizable to my liking... so it might take a few tries to get it right. So if you notice that suddenly my blog looks completely different, it's OK. I appreciate any feedback on layout or design!

Also, go play the new Left 4 Dead DLC - Crash Course. It's awesome.
(If you haven't already, make sure to add me to your Steam friends as JimminyJoJo!)
read more
0 comments

Random Encounter: Blink 182 Concert

So I was sitting at home bored last night when suddenly my phone starts to ring! It's my friend inviting me to a Blink 182 concert since he has an extra ticket. I think for a moment... I'm not a big Blink 182 fan, and the other bands that were opening for them were All-American Rejects and Fallout Boy... which I am really not a fan of... 

Anyways after being assured that we would arrive precisely after Fallout Boy ended and that it was completely free on my part, I decided, eh, what the heck... I might as well go since I'd otherwise be sitting doing nothing in a very lonely fashion.

As we got there it became apparent that everyone else had the same idea we did- that Fallout Boy sucks. I have never seen that many people come in after a concert has been going for an hour already. Anyways our timing was just right, and it turned out that my friend had Pit tickets, so we got to be right up front in the mosh.



...yay?
It wasn't too bad, and there was even someone in a banana suit.

They played some songs that I recognized from middle school... and the highlight of the night was when the lead singer (I don't know his name... Matt maybe?) drooled on himself and someone next to me screamed, "THAT'S SO METAL!"
Ohhhhh, I laughed!




It was a good show, even if it wasn't my favorite band ever... or really at all... but I had a fun time and got my troubles off my mind, and I guess that's what counts.




Well my girlfriend is coming into town for a few days soon for her fall semester break, so it should be a good weekend.
That's all for today's post! Peace.
read more
1 comments

Magic 8 Ball Time

Alright folks, I haven't updated the ol' blog in a while, so in a pathetic effort to write about something I'm going to ask my Magic 8 Ball a few questions and post the answers I get. It's pathetic because this is the most interesting thing in my life right now.

Here we go:

"Magic 8 Ball, will I win the lottery someday?"
- 'Concentrate and ask again'.
I can't be bothered with concentrating.

"Magic 8 ball, am I the coolest person on Earth?"
- 'You may rely on it'.
Yes!

"Magic 8 Ball, are you lying to me?"
- 'Signs point to yes'.
CURSE YOU!!!!

"Magic 8 Ball, in 100 years will we have flying cars?"
- 'Don't count on it'.
I knew it. When I was in third grade I read in a magazine that we would have microwaves in our cars' gloveboxes by the year 2000. I waited for that moment with eager anticipation, and now, almost a decade later we have nothing to show for that prediction.

"Magic 8 Ball, will I get an iPhone for Christmas?"
- 'As I see it, yes.'
Woohoo!

"Magic 8 Ball, are you lying to me again?"
- 'It is decidedly so'.
A THOUSAND PLAGUES UPON YOU, 8 BALL!!!!

"Magic 8 Ball, why do you shatter my hopes and dreams?"
- 'Outlook Good'.

"So my outlook on life is good?"
- 'Outlook not so good'.
AAARRGH!!!!!
read more
0 comments

Currently Listening to: Muse: The Resistance

When I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum a while back Best Buy gave me a $10 gift card, so I used it today to pick up the latest Muse album, "The Resistance". It's definitely on par with their other works, though I think "Absolution" remains my favorite of theirs. The songs all pop with that slightly electronic sound that reminds me of robots, along with their signature harmonies. This album is what would happen if Rush's 2112 album got together and had a baby with Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, and that baby got together with an awesome robot and had a baby. Yes, its truly that good.



read more
0 comments

Indie Gaming: Canabalt

So last night during my travels across the internet, I came upon a fantastically addictive browser game called Canabalt. Its a great indie project that was created for the Experimental Gameplay Project's monthly theme, "Bare Minimum". The game was made in less than a week, displays all its graphics in only six colors, and only uses one button to play.
The game is set during an alien invasion, and you play as a businessman making a daring escape from the city, running and leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Its super addicting, and the music is pretty awesome too, a techno track that was also created to fit the minimalist approach.
read more
0 comments

Fall Semester, Batman, Mastering Olypmus

Well fall semester has started, and I've been enjoying my classes for the most part so far. My favorite is Intro to Oceanography, which looks like it will be a really easy one. I'm also taking Chemistry, although I couldn't get into a lab so I'm only doing the lecture this semester. It is really interesting but it looks like it will come to some hard work eventually, as memorizing the molecules and stuff might be complicated.

For those of you wondering about the results of my summer precalc class, I'm sorry to say that I did not put enough effort into it and I will have to retake it this semester. The fast pace of summer was something I just couldn't keep up with, and it especially didn't help that I am a huge slacker in the first place.

Classes take up most of my time nowadays but I got my hands on a copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum , and I must say that it is one of the best games I've played this year, and its definitely got my vote for game of the year 2009... although I'll wait to cast a final verdict until I've played Dragon Age: Origins (I'm a huge Bioware fan if you didn't know) and The Beatles Rockband (also a HUGE Beatles fan).

An awesome game
Continuing my retro gaming that started with FFVIII (which has unfortunately taken a backseat to Batman at the moment), I've been sinking quite a bit of time into an old favorite: Zeus- Master of Olympus, a city builder from Impressions Games, which is now Tilted Mill. Its your basic city-builder where you conquer the mythical  world of ancient Greece. Its really cool to play now that I've actually been to Greece though, and seen the ruins of some of the cities that I've built in the game.

A picture I took of the ruins of Mycenae

What else has gone on in my life since my last update ages ago... hm, oh yes, I've learned a new song on my acoustic: Norwegian Wood, off of the Beatles' Rubber Soul album. Such a great song.

I'll try to keep this blog updated fairly frequently even though I'm pretty sure that nobody reads it...
Until next time, peace.
read more
1 comments

Math is Hard

So remember that "Mersenne Prime Number Finder" that I talked about in my last post? Well as some of you have noticed it does not find Mersenne primes at all. It just finds regular old Mersenne numbers, which are of the form 2^n-1. Being a Mersenne number does not guarantee primality obviously, as the program returned results such as 15.

Thanks to the help of CRGreathouse, a moderator at Math Forum, I've realized these mistakes.
So, my goal is to find Mersenne Primes. I'm half-way there by finding regular Mrsn numbers... and luckily there is a thing known as the Lucas-Lehmer Primality Test, which applies only to Mrsn numbers. So now I have to find a way to implement this test into my program and I should be finding primes in no time!

CRGreathouse also introduced me to a programming language that is more suitable for numbers and mathematical operations than Java: Pari/GP. It is actually quite similar to Java in respect to syntax, but it handles numbers much more easily. Hopefully I'll be able to write my program soon! I have quite a bit to do today though and I'm working for most of the weekend, sadly.

Next week I'll have plenty of free time though, since I'm officially and finally done with summer classes. I'm not 100% sure that I passed Pre-calc... I did less than average on most of the quizzes and tests. I have no one to blame but myself, but this is just wrong. Here I am doing a math project in my spare time and yet I can't put forth the effort to pass a class? I don't lack the ability to understand the concepts, and I have an interest in math, but... I guess my fault lies in that I don't have an interest in doing homework. Oh well, as of now I'm still scheduled to take Calc I in fall semester, so hopefully that doesn't fall through even if I don't pass. I do NOT want to retake precalc and sit through 15 weeks of the same stuff I just learned.

Haha, well here's to slacking off and getting nowhere!
-Cheers!
read more
2 comments

Prime Numbers

Have you ever had one of those days when you wake up thinking about prime numbers?
Of course you have! Everyone has! Today, that was me. I rolled out of bed and stumbled over to my computer to find out about prime numbers.

For those of you unacquainted with theoretical mathematics, a prime number is a natural number that can only be divided by itself and 1. Here's more information about prime numbers if you are interested.

Anyways, its theorized that there are an infinite number of primes. When they start getting larger, you run into numbers known as Mersenne Primes. These are prime numbers that can be expressed in the form (2^n)-1. It was these prime numbers that grabbed my attention this morning. I wondered just what some of these numbers were, and the fact that there are lots of people trying to find larger and larger Mersenne Primes intruiged me. I thought to myself, "Why, if they can do it, so can I!"

So I set about writing a simple program in Java. It asks the user how many Mersenne Primes they would like to find and then spits out all the numbers of the form (2^n)-1. The problem is that in Java, there is a limit to how big a number value can be, and when dealing with java's basic exponent function (java.lang.Math.pow(x,y);) this peaks at the value limit for integers. Therfore the most Mersenne Primes you can find with my program is 30.

So here are the first 30 Mersenne Primes (1 is on the list but I don't count it because I know its not a prime number):

1
3
7
15
31
63
127
255
511
1023
2047
4095
8191
16383
32767
65535
131071
262143
524287
1048575
2097151
4194303
8388607
16777215
33554431
67108863
134217727
268435455
536870911
1073741823
2147483647

My code:
/* Prime Number Finder
* Created by Tyler Ash
* (c) August 12 2009
* --------------------
* Searches for prime numbers within a user defined amount of numbers starting at 1.
*/
import java.util.Scanner;
public class PrimeFinder
{
public static void main(String args [])
{
int a = 1;
double k;
int n;
Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println("Welcome to Mersenne Prime Number Finder. This program searches for Mersenne primes within a given amount of numbers, starting at 1.\nHow many numbers do you want to search?\n");
n = input.nextInt();
if (n<1)
{
System.out.println("Please enter a number greater than 1.\n");
n= input.nextInt();
}
while(a<=n)
{
k= java.lang.Math.pow(2,a)-1;
System.out.println((int)k);
a++;
}
System.out.println("\nSearch for the first " + n +" Mersenne Prime Numbers competed.");
}
}

Oh, and I got a haircut today.
read more
0 comments

Not Good at Goodbyes

I had to say goodbye to my girlfriend this morning as she left for school in Chicago. We did a lot of fun stuff over the summer, but its hard to know that there won't be any more hugs or kisses for a long time. We talk online or call eachother every night, and I randomly send flowers to her dorm address to let her know I'm thinking of her.
Chicago is such a cool city- I'm jealous. Its good to have an excuse to visit the Windy City though!
This was just a short post, but I wanted to say what has been in my mind all day.


read more
0 comments

Dungeons & Dragons


Recently I've had the pleasure of playing in my friend's Dungeons and Dragons game. Its a 10th- level adventure called "Touch of Madness." There is a group of 6 or 7 of us, and we've been able to get together for two sessions so far.

The adventure so far has been cool- it started off with a bang, throwing our characters into a pitched battle against some ferocious Grells (floating, tentacled brain- monsters). My character is a 10th- level Deva Wizard named Tavar Deathgaze. Pretty sweet, I know. Fourth edition is cool, and we were able to make use of the DnD Insider tools to make our characters, but this adventure is the first game of DnD for several people at the table, so I think that starting off at 10th level was not such a great idea. The powers and abilities at first level are still pretty cool. Being at such a high level with so many different abilities and powers and no idea of how to use them has definetly caused the party to move very slowly. In our two sessions we've managed to get through only two encounters. Our party has only now finally come to the Forlorn Tower- the first dungeon in the adventure.

I've got to give props to our DM though. He's got a lot of patience to be able to deal with the group of us. We have a problem of just talking and going off-topic and debating this and that detail of the game. Only one other person and I have experience playing aside from the DM, so we often have to help focus the game. The other experienced player actually pulled me aside and invited me to play another game with other experienced players later this week. It would be fun to join a game like that, even if only for a one-shot.


My core rulebooks for 4E DnD. Oh, what's that? A natural twenty? Yes sir.

This experience of actually playing has given me hope. I started writing a 4th-ed adventure last winter, and now I've given some thought to completing it because I think it might be possible to get a group together and give DM-ing a shot.

We'll see. I also want to finish my NWN mod, which I have been slowly but surely working on piece by piece over the last week or so.

I still have a few more math classes to go, so I need to focus on that for now. Hopefully I get a good enough grade to move on to Calc I in the fall semester.
read more
0 comments

Hot Dogs


Why do hot dogs come in packages of 12 and hot dog buns come in packages of 8? That means that the only way to have enough buns for all your hot dogs is if you buy 2 packs of hot dogs and 3 packs of buns.

Bun- length hot dogs come in packages of 8, but they are usually too big for the buns. Life is so complicated.

read more
0 comments

Weekend in Review: Mostly Work

This weekend, like most weekends, I worked at my steady job as a cashier. Its an ok job, but sometimes it can be terrible. There has never been a day in my nearly wo years of working there that I have looked forwards to going to work. I often work in the One-hour photo lob, and that's where I was today. It was suprisingly enjoyable though, because I worked with some of my favorite co-workers, Kristina and Steve. It was an easy day becauase the photo devolping machine was broken, thanks to the weirdo lady that everyone disliked and who got fired for breaking the machine. I brought a copy of The Count of Monte Christo by Alexander Dumas. I really like the movie, but the book is so much better and I'm only 9 chapters in so far.

After work I took a nap, which was nice because I haven't had a lot of sleep this weekend. I worked until late saturday night and every night my girlfriend keeps me up later and later. (No, not for the reasons you would think. I wish) Then my girlfriend and I watched Slumdog Millionaire, which is a really great film and a good way to spend the evening.

Since I don't have English anymore I'm planning on sleeping in tomorrow. Hopefully I did alright on my math test. We'll see. I also with I wasn't broke. So much to do. My girlfriend leaves in less than two weeks and she is determined to spend every possible second of our free time together. Tuesday might be DnD night or some other board game with my friends though.

So tired... I want to play some Left 4 Dead of Sins of a Solar Empire or work on my Mod... but I think I'll just go to bed. I'm so tired in so many ways and of so many things.
read more
0 comments

Nightmares in Rivertown: Dev Diary 1- Area Creation


Following the development of my NWN mod "Nightmares in Rivertown", I've decided to do a sort of Developer Diary to document my progress. Hopefully it will be worth following along.

The first thing I do when creating a mod is always to sit down and plan it out. First, I write down the plot on a piece of paper, then detail how many and what kinds of areas I will need to make. The characters, dialogue, custom items and actual quest lines all come afterwards, but for me at least, I need to have the areas down first.

The areas are the setting for the story. Sometimes they can be dark and gloomy, sometimes they are bright and peaceful. Bioware's aurora toolset gives great tools to mold the setting of your adventure, from the shape of the landscape to the color of the sky, to the background music. (I believe the tracks are composed by Jeremy Soule, my favorite videogame composer. This is the only game I've ever played where I never had to turn off the music and put iTunes on in the background. There are really some superb tracks.)

The story for my adventure revolves around the small town of Rivertown, so logically that is the first area I started with. I wanted it to have the feel of a small rural community, with a few houses, shops and an Inn of course. The community would be sustained by farmers who live around the town center. Then I plopped a major road cutting through the town to show that it is not alone in this world, and other adventures lie outside its boundries.

Since Rivertown is the first area the player visits, (I plan on having the PC spawn there, just outside the Inn) it is important to set the mood right away. I did this by making it night time and having a dark green fog obscure the landscape. This makes all but the closest features seem like dark shapes, and along with some dark, foreshadowing music sets a mysterious and creepy atmosphere.

Rivertown


The fog makes the town seem mysterious

The outlying farmland was next. This was to be a large open space with fields, and less mysterious since... its a farm. I put several farms with a river dividing them in a large area. To show a sense of division from the townsfolk, I walled off one of the farms- the one with the granaries and storehouses. This may come into play later in the adventure.

Farms

After the farms were done I created the Wrymling Hills area, where there is a quarry that miners from town work in for stone, metal and minerals. This quarry will also be the scene of most of the mod's action, since it is one of the mod's two dungeons.

The Wyrmling Hills... not a very friendly place


The heart of the quarry- Rivertown's biggest mining operation


A misty area of the quarry- I plan on using this for a creepy encounter like with spiders or something.

Only about half of the area of the quarry is actual mine. The other half is a Kobold enclave that the miners had stubled upon and tried (unsuccessfully) to block off with a door. To move the plot forward, the player will have to rescue a certain hostage from the Kobolds' clutches, which means fighing their way through the mines and the enclave.

Ancient pilliars and a Wyrmling skeleton... no wonder they're called the Wyrmling Hills.


Part of the Kobold villiage.

I've also had time to create a few commoners for the town. Take a look:


"You're probably all wondering why I've called you here today..."

There are still a few areas to be done, mostly interiors. Main characters, farmers and miners need to be created, encounters and traps for the quarry need to be set up, and all the conversations and quests need to be done. Wow, that seems like a lot of work.
This might take a while... but I think it will be worth it.
read more
0 comments

Attack of the Cheeseburger: A Cautionary Tale

Today as I was driving to class, I was simultaneously chowing down on a Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. While concentrating on the road in between bites of the delicious meaty wonder, I was suprised to find that someone had added a large quantity of ketchup to the interior of this prince of foods. Therefore, as I took a bite I was ordained to the order of the slob, as a cascade of condiment careened through the air and onto the clean canvas of my white T-shirt.

No amount of furious scrubbing from the little yellow napkins enclosed in my to-go bag could entirely remove the pinkish stain, and I was forced to suffer the embarrasment of a messy eater all through English class.

Fortunately my girlfriend had enough brains for the both of us this day, and took me to the mall to get a new shirt: a kindergarden green affair which I pulled on over top of my shame-rag. A clean look at last! Thus, I was able to endure precalculus without the discerning eye of my peers being cast upon me in the way that says, "You, sir, are frankly a slob. Please don a garment of appropriate cleanliness if you wish my approval. Good day to you sir!"

And so concludes my tale; a tale of cheeseburgers and betrayal, romance and redemption. I hope you have enjoyed it, and I hope you will take with you a knowledge of the dangers of cheeseburgers. Because knowing is half the battle.
Good night.
read more
0 comments

Site Changes, Adventures in Precalculus

I know its early in my blog's life, and I don't think anyone has even read it yet, but I've made a few changes to the layout. I added a picture of some swirling galaxies to the header and added a subtitle which I think goes well with the purpose of my blog. I also have been fiddling with the fonts and colors of the text to see what works well. I think I've found a good setting I like with red and black as the main colors.

Tomorrow I get back my analytic trigonometry quiz, which I'm pretty sure kicked my butt. I should have studied more... those questions about proving identities were not good to me. Professor says after the test on thurs we are all done with trig (thank goodness) and on to more "random topics to prepare for Calc I." Great.

Other than that I've got a research paper to write and present for thursday. This is the last week of English. I doubt I'll take another summer course again if I can help it. The pace is just too much to keep up with, especially while working. Having a girlfriend who expects to see you takes up quite a bit of time too. I haven't seen many of my other freinds for weeks, months even.

Yet still I blog. I don't know why, but I'm trying to be honest in it. Maybe its a way to be introspective, a way to analyze myself as I read what I've written. Maybe I just hope that someone will actually read it and care. Maybe I'll forget to update for a month and then decide to screw it and abandon the whole thing to the unforgiving wasteland that is the internet.

Oh, if anyone does read this, you can read some short stories I wrote (mostly science fiction) if you are into that sort of thing. Just click on the EditRed banner on the bottom of the page or my link on the sidebar. Its pretty good stuff, if I do say so myself.

I'll probably wind the night down with a couple rounds of Counter-Strike or L4D before I go to bed, sleep, wake up and do some research...

Hakuna Matata
read more
0 comments

Star Trek does Camelot

I came across this on youtube today and doubled over with laughter:

Star Trek and Monty Python are awesome! Props to Starship Conductor for superb editing.
read more
0 comments

A new NWN project

Its been a while since I've even played Neverwinter Nights, but it has never left my hard drive. After I went on that ghost tour in SC with my girlfriend, one of the stories there suddenly sparked an idea for an adventure that had to be told through a NWN mod.

It's about a Hag, a mythical creature who flies around at night and gives people horrible nightmares, and during the daytime assumes the form of an ordinary person. In the adventure, the player will have to find a way to find and defeat the Hag that plagues a small town, before it erupts into civil war sown by fear and distrust.

I've made a few mods before, my biggest one for NWN is called A Pirate's Tale: Quest for the Pearl. No it doesn't have anything to do with Pirates of the Carribean, it is my own creation. It is not very well made, and needs a lot of work. I keep meaning to go back and clean it up, but it would require more effort that I am willing to commit right now.

I made a mod for NWN2 also, the first french mod actually, called "Le Vol de Mort" or "The Flight from Death" in the english version. Yes, I know a little french, but its not very good which became apparent when people laughed at the language in the mod. It was a short little hack n slash adventure, and I meant it to be a jumping- off point for a series, but I never got around to actually making the rest. Since this was one of the first mods to come out for NWN2, it got scooped up and included on a CD that was put out by German magazines PC Games & PC Action.

I also created a small adventure, more of a side quest really, the same mod for both NWN and NWN2. This was based on a PnP quest I had written, just discovering the secrets of an old crypt. It was short but solid.

The Flight From Death took about a solid week of work for me, but that included learning the toolset. (which is atrocious for NWN2 by the way)
This is why I'm sticking to NWN original this time. I'm intimately familiar with the Aurora toolset, and already after one afternoon of work I've created most of the key areas, set up the transitions, and plotted out the story and the quests. All I need to do now is populate the world with some characters and items, write the dialogue and do the plot wizards, and I should be good. I am challenging myself this time around with adding a henchman, something I did for my NWN2 mod, but something I've never successfully done in regular NWN. I might even get really fancy and add a cutscene or two... who knows?
Who knows if this project will actually even come to fruition... I have so little free time... but one must have dreams...

Last night I saw Bruno, the new Sascha Baron Cohen movie... and I left the theater feeling dirty, like I had just been through a gay porno... except one that I had watched it with my girlfriend and her best friend. They enjoyed it a lot more than I did. There is like 5 minutes of just a penis wobbling around on the screen in that movie... so... unless you are gay and desperate, watch Bruno at your own risk. The few laughable parts are not nearly funny enough to warrant a reccomendation.

Other than that, I'm working this weekend and I've been chilling out to my friend's Aladdin soundtrack he lent me the last time we went frolfing. Good stuff. I remember having like my 8th birthday party and playing musical chairs to the soundtrack.

Go disney! Yeah childhood memories!
read more
0 comments

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I are two things that don't pwn

Just finished a couple rounds of CSS. I pwned some faces pretty hard, but I don't exactly rock at that game like my friend Mik. I should've been studying anyways, seeing as I have a math quiz in 30 mins. (summer classes, yeah I know) GG priorities.

Well since it takes 20 mins to drive to school that means I need to leave soon. I've given up WoW for the third or fourth time. Several of my friends are always in and out with that game and I foolishyly follow every time. Its like Ben Kenobi said, "Who's more foolish: the fool or the fool who follows him?" Wait... I guess that means I'm a fool. :(

I also saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today. It was pretty dissapointing which made me sad. It could have been great, but the scenes were choppy and there were random parts that didn't make sense. ( The Weasley's house getting attacked by Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback on Christmas for no reason?) The acting all around was better though. I still think either The Prizoner of Azkaban or the Goblet of Fire is the best film so far.


Here's hoping that parts I & II of Deathly Hallows will be better than movie #6!
-JimminyJoJo

P.S. Blog post number 1! Hooray!
read more