Matthew McAndrews’ Modem Problems # 296 – Happy Halloween 2006 – October 31st, 2006
Matthew McAndrews’ Modem Problems # 297 – Recap – November 2nd, 2006
And on with the journal entry.
Health and wellbeing:
Well, I’m here at another Friday. I am alive, I don’t feel too bad, and I am still employed, Mhari is still okay, and Whyaylooh might be in Portland, or at least Oregon by tonight. So all is well with the world. Nothing has really changed in what’s going on with my physical and mental health. SO there’s really nothing to say here about it.
Fanzine Things:
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my Fauxpaw Publications stuff of late. I haven’t put together any new issues of Fur Visions or Fur Plus since the Fur Plus I released at Further Confusion 2006 back in January. And to be really honest with those of you reading and myself, I haven’t missed it too much. I’ve missed the feeling of putting things together, but not enough to face the disappointment of lackluster sales and my desire to put my efforts else where.
For a while there I toyed with putting together a Star Trek special salute issue of Fur Visions and/or Fur Plus, as I know for many of us older furry fans, Star Trek was one of the things that got us going. Not as furries, but just as being interested in things other than the mundane. And the feline in the animated show turned some of us on back when our hormones first got going.
It’s been nearly a year. I think I am going to go ahead and let sleeping dogs lie. All my Fauxpaw Publications are going into hibernation. This happened once before to Furversion Fanzine, and I resumed to create Fur Visions and Fur Plus, as well as Fauxpaw Publications Presents.
Sometime before the end of the year I am going to update the Fauxpaw Publications websites at http://www.fauxpaw.com to reflect this change. I will put links there to the websites for those that want to follow the Forest Tales by Goldfur. Though I am sure most of you reading here can already find it at www.chakatsden.com. And I have a website sent to me by Matthew McCullar where you will find more about FORNAX.
If you are reading this and you were a contributor to one of the Fauxpaw Publications, and you have a website for your work, and want it listed on the website for the now-in-hibernation fanzines, just leave a comment here to this entry, or write to fauxpawpub AT fauxpaw DOT com and I will add it when I update the site.
All the back issues will remain in print-on-demand supply. You can ask Ed Zolna at www.second-ed-mailorder.com if he has them, and he will contact me if he needs more printed. Or, if he says he doesn’t have them and doesn’t expect to get more at this time, contact me directly and I’ll print one up and charge cover price plus postage.
Convention Things:
Further Confusion 2007 – If you are interest in a Furry Market Place space head over to www.furtherconfusion.org and go to the dealers page. The form is available there. 10 spaces went on sale first-come, first-served, starting November 1st. I will be going to the PO Box to pick up the first purchases from the mail tomorrow. If it is anything like the first 10 spaces back in August, they will all be sold by the 14th.
This coming Wednesday, after I hit the PO Box again for any last Waiting List Forms, I will be doing the Random Drawing from the Waiting list to fill our last 12 half-table spaces in the main dealers room. Once these are gone, it will take someone already in the room cancelling before we will be able to offer more spaces to the waiting list. Historicly, however, there is almost always at least one cancellation between November 1st and December 31st. So if you don’t already have a waiting list form mailed in and want a chance in the random drawings for space when it becomes available, get over to www.furtherconfusion.org and grab the form there and mail it in.
As always, for information about the Dealers Room and the Furry Market Place at Further Confusion, look to http://www.furtherconfusion.org FIRST and trust what it says THERE. And you can always email dealers AT furtherconfusion DOT org for more information.
BC07/WC07 – No change. No News.
DDC07 – No changes. I still plan to go. I still plan to be working at the Anime Room if they need the help.
TV things:
Watched this week’s Heroes last night. Not quite as compelling as last week’s episode. I still love ‘Save the Cheerleader. Save the World.’ as a tag line. Fact is, I want a button of that. Or a T-Shirt…
Mhari’s and my suspicions were right. The girl with the scientist IS in the employ of the Cheerleader’s father. But I was a little disappointed that they didn’t pick up with the Telepath policeman. Last episode he was overwealmed by the thoughts of everyone in the convience store. They didn’t even ‘visit’ his storyline this episode. But I really liked how they weaved in the father of the genius boy. His mother’s Bad side was really getting dangerous. But I really like how the focus of that sub-plot has switched to the father.
We are both looking forward to next week’s episode, that’s for sure. But again, this week’s episode didn’t have the heavy impact the prior two did.
MMO things:
EQOA – Didn’t do any of this, this week. With Whyaylooh on the road for his move, it’s on hold. We’ll return to it once he’s settled into his new place and has a net connection up and running.
EQ2 – Again, with Whyaylooh on the move, this sort of fell appart, Guess K and N are not that interested in playing without him. I got on in any case, and put Filthi’s nose to the grindstone on doing Lavastorm writs. I’m only doing the Lavaworm and Sootfoot Gatherer ones, but they are getting me well moved along towards the goal of 80K status so I can buy a horse. I also hit the 4 plat mark of saved funds. I have been playing the auction market and have found some lucrative resources I can harvest then sell for enough to make it worth my time. I played Monday, some of Wednesday evening and some more last night there. I’ve got Filthi about 2/3rds through level 42 solo’ing these writs. It’s only been minorly annoying when there are others out there overfarming the mobs I need. Likely they need them, too. Though it’s most frustrating when I see folks in the high 40’s farming it, just casually defeating the foes that take me WORK to beat. K and N were on last night, but their ventrillo server never came online for me to connect to. Of course, I stopped trying around 9:30. It’s not like it was a Monday when I was scheduled to share the adventures. Maybe they are tired of me. Could be. I know I would be. But, you know what? I don’t mind. I am having more fun with this than WoW at present. Even solo.
WoW – Got on Sunday and got 2.5 levels for my warrior nightelf. Blackcypress and I were not able to meet up. I play too early in the day and can’t play late on Sundays, it seems. Didn’t bother me. From the sound of it my niece was having fun doing other stuff. I’ll keep playing on Sundays from 2pm to around 5:30pm. And I just might explore playing a defensive priest some, and take her up on her attempt to recruit me into PvPland. But right now, my schedule for this is small. Sorry about that. Oh, and I have given up on EZ, RB, RP and the others I was getting on to share WoW time with. That’s just NOT going to happen.
SecondLife – Didn’t do more than wallsit, really. I’m watching the blog, and the whole broohaha over the new Island Sim pricing is… well, disturbing. Oh, not the fact of the price going up. But more the way that some of the secondlife citizens are reacting to it. In my opinion LL knows what they are doing. They have a supply and demand issue. My guess is that the price hikes are really meant to slow the demand for the islands. If it doesn’t, then they have even more of a gravy train on their hands. Mainland prices are remaining stable. This is going to cause more mainland sales. And more of the mainland is going to get marked as inaccessable to ‘free’ accounts. It’s that simple. Is this going to ‘improve’ Second Life? How the hell do I know? If it does, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But I -do- expect we will be seeing some other metaversal worlds appearing soon from someone else. We’ll see. I’m keeping my accounts, and my presence on Second Life. It’s a good place to hang out, much as FurryMuck and Tapestries have been for years and years.
City of Heroes/Villains – Here’s where I have been spending a LOT of my time. Mhari got Pink Squirrel to 40, so both Commander Kitty and the Squirrel have been doing their missions for their patrons. Commander Kitty chose Siracco (sp?). Pink Squirrel took Ghost Widdow. We need gather Whyaylooh’s Broulin up and drag him up to 40 kicking and screaming.
Oh, and there was the Halloween stuff. Various groupings of various characters hung out together over the last week to collect pieces by trick-or-treating. It’s all over now. My personal fun was starting up a new Commander Kitty on one of the other servers (Infinity?) and taking her fresh out of the Zig and to trick or treating. Got the pieces in under an hour, then swam to the ferry, swam from one ferry to the other in Cap, then swam to the island in Nerva to turn in the pieces. It can be done without being KO’d! 🙂
During our regular Tuesday night, since it was also Halloween in the real world, we didn’t do that much other than Trick or Treat in the game world. But Wednesday the group gathered. We had my Knight of Power, Mhari’s Katiri, Nightwind’s Katrriana(sp?), Reba’s Snowslide, Eric P’s KoD, and from his hotel room in Bismark North Dakota, Whyaylooh’s Avenging Flame. And we were all on my ventrillo server. We took on Family for a number of missions, then Freakshow and Tsoo. It started with Knight of Power and the three women, Katiri, Katriana, and Snowslide. That’s a defender, 2 scrappers and a tank. Made us all think of Charlie’s Angels. Then Eric brought on KoD, another scrapper. And that made it four women. Must have been one of those Special Charlie’s Angels episodes with the guest angel. And finally Why’s Avenging Flame, another tank joined. Mhari spoke up at one point saying, "2 guys, 4 women. Still good odds." It drew chuckles across the board. Another comment about it was how of all the female toons, Katiri was the least busty. You know superwomen, they mostly got those over developed chest muscles, right? 😉
All in all, CoH/V continues to prove to be the most fun for us. And getting a good portion of the team onto ventrillo has made it extra fun. Moving/adding Wednesday as a ‘official’ game night seems to have helpped a lot too. But then we can always be assured to have at least four of us on, two couples in myself and Mhari, and Reba and Nightwind. So things are shaping up well.
Tonight… it’s villian time! In Commander Kitty’s missions for her patron, she seems to always be going up against an elite boss. And now she has to ‘rescue’ Wretch to get on Ghost Widdow’s good side for her patron. And another story arc is going to pit us against Countess Crey (another EB). And we think Pink Squirrel’s next mission from Ghost Widdow is going to have one, too. We’ll see.
Books:
Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson – WOW! Spider Robinson writes this FINE book based on the DETAILED outline by RAH from 1955. It really reads like the stories from Heinlein from that era, with a modern flavor and style. Spider does a really, really good job of it, and it was just a JOY to read. I highly recommend it to anyone that’s either a Heinlein fan or a Robinson one. Here’s a link to Amazon.com for the book.
That’s all for now. I need to write this to the flash drive and quietly slip out. Mhari’s still sleeping, and she needs her rest. And I need to get to work. I’m the United Way rep for my floor at work, and today’s our seasonal orientation meeting for it.
Jethric's Mess 