Invain's Domain

Watchmen MC

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:26:23 GMT

I just finished watching episode 12, the final episode, of Watchmen Motion Comics. Damn. Good. Fun.

The Watchmen was probably my favorite comic series of all time, followed by Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing' and 'Miracle Man' series. (OK, so I am an Alan Moore fanboy. I admit it. Shaddup aboudit already.) I am guardedly excited about the Watchmen movie due out in a couple of days, but man! Why make a movie? The motion comic version got the job done as well as I think it can be done. It is somwhere between a comic book, a movie, and an audiobook. The graphics are animated directly from the comic book art, and preserve the original vision perfectly. The music is atmospheric and the voice actor does a great job. Would I have liked to have different actors playing the parts? Sure, particularly for the women. In the final analysis, though, the voice actor pulled it off more than adequately.

The graphics were particularly fun. I would love to know more about how they did it. Static graphic novel frames were transformed into cinematic cuts, wipes, and fades. Bits of blowing street trash actually blew along the street. Characters moved around on the screen, if only in a sort of old TV Spiderman sort of way. It wasn't perfect, but it was still wicked cool.

If you want to see it for yourself, the episodes are available on iTunes for $2 apiece and the DVD will be available soon for $24. It is well worth every penny.

One Year Later

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:01:39 GMT

It hardly seems real to us that one year ago the adoption of our wonderful son, Alex, was in grave jepordy. We are now a normal happy family with a healthy precocious little boy. This time last year, though, our adoption of Alex was still in process and the Guatemalan government, under pressure from the US State Department and UNICEF, was attempting to implement an ill-considered new intercountry adoption law. Although we managed to complete our adoption, aproximately 1000 of our fellow hopeful parents-to-be were not so lucky. Even more unlucky are the many children in Guatemala who are now being abandoned in garbage dumps to die or languish in severely overcrowded and under-funded orphanages - children that could otherwise have been as well loved and cared for as our Alex.

For more information, please read this statement issued by the Joint Council for International Children's Services - Guatemala: One Year Later

Then consider writing your congressmen and our new Secretary of State (or similar office holders in your country) to voice your opinion.

Thanks!

One Man and His Dice

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:54:15 GMT

I am very late in posting kudos here for Darran Sims, the man behind the One Man and His Dice podcast. Darran has been doing what I had assumed was the impossible - posting audio recordings (and some accompanying graphics) from several Glorantha oriented gaming conventions, namely Continuum 2008 and Tentacles Fumble 2008. For a guy whose budget doesn't allow travelling thousands of miles for a gaming convention, this really has been a godsend. Thanks Darran!!!

The most recent podcast is a presentation on the Glorantha magic system for the yet to be released new version of HeroQuest. It included some very cool stuff! I agree with most of the changes, but think the heroforming/feat rules may need some extra guidance to avoid problems. Basically, devotees can act out the myths of their god for magical power. As long as they do what the god did in the myth they maintain the power. Once they are forced to act outside of that role they loose the extra power and can't perform that myth again for a while. I think this rocks on toast.

The problem comes when the players invent their own myths. Players who lack imagination might not think of myths that have enough variety to be useful - like the myth of "Orlanth fights the Zorak Zoran worshipping trolls while balanced on an outcropping of metamorphic rock during a snowstorm." Other players might try to game the system by inventing myths like "Orlanth Does it All". Yes, I realize that the narrator has a large role to play in preventing this from happening, but I am lazy and would prefer that most of that guidance come from the rules rather than me.

Gloranthan Goldmine

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:07:53 GMT

After waiting and waiting and waiting for my regular game store to get anything gloranthan in stock I finally started looking around for a new store. I landed at Lost Goblin Games, a neat little store in north Raleigh. Most of the floor space at Lost Goblin appears to be devoted to playing games instead of selling them, which I thought was interesting. So... I took a peak at their meager offerings and lo and behold - a gloranthan goldmine! I had several of the books on display already, but I managed to pick up Dragonnewts (a RuneQuest sourcebook), and the Players Guide to Glorantha (a RuneQuest rules suppliment). While there I picked up the new edition of Traveller too.

I then returned to my regular game store to pick up my comics subscription and what do I find? Blood of Orlanth (a RuneQuest adventure)! In one day, I picked up three of the four gloranthan RuneQuest books that I had been missing. Now all I need to do is get Elfs (another sourcebook) and I will be caught up.

Until Dara Happa Stirs (another RuneQuest adventure) comes out, that is. Dara Happa Stirs is listed on Lost Goblin's "New This Week" page, so I suppose another trip to north Raleigh is in order.

Note that all of this gloranthan goodness is for RuneQuest, which is not my favorite way to play in Glorantha. I prefer HeroQuest, and the publisher is saying that new books for HQ are right around the corner. I just hope my wallet can take take the punishment!

Guatemala repeats the anguish of adoptions

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:45:24 GMT

I just ran across a good article in the Chicago Tribune about the consequences of the new adoption law in Guatemala. It doesn't cover all the issues, like the fact that the few existing government run orphanages are woefully underfunded, but it does give some idea of the misery that is being caused.

Guatemala repeats the anguish of adoptions

Yes, I am still alive!

Thu, 22 May 2008 13:50:06 GMT

Hey folks,

This is just a note to say that dispite my lack of posts lately I am, in fact, still among the living. I have just been very busy lately with my new son, Eddy Alexander (Alex)! We are all doing fine here in Camelot, but everyone is exausted as we try to adjust to life with a baby and Alex tries to adjust to life with us.

On that matter, since Alex is adopted we are co-sleeping with him to help ease his adjustment into our family. This seems to be working fine, but one or the other of us has to be in bed with him whenever he sleeps. Now, babies sleep alot and this is getting to be a real pain in the keister. Have you ever tried to go to bed at 7pm?

So, any of you out there have any experience with co-sleeping?

Playing with food

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:31:45 GMT

As our current adoption adoption stress reaches stratospheric levels once again (due to goings on in Guatemala), we are using every stress reliever that we can find. Yes, some alcohol has been consumed, though not much since my wife and I are not big drinkers. Lots of television has been watched, to the point where we resolved to only watch TV all evening once a week now. I role-play, which is fun. I keep trying to go see a movie, but haven't found one that my wife can get excited about. I still carry an increasingly desperate hope that I can convince her to see Sweeney Todd with me.

Anyway, that still leaves much stress left trying to burn its way out of my stomach. Being gluttons, we choose food. Kathy is making cheese now, which is really cool. And delicious! She had some left over whey from the cheese making, and I used it to make a pretty damn good soup.

First I drizzled some olive oil in a large pan and fried one onion, diced. Once the onion began to turn clear I added a couple of pinches of sea salt and some fresh garlic. That cooked for a couple of minutes until I became worried that the garlic was going to burn. Then I de-glazed the pan with a big splash of Belgian style ale (Three Philosophers). As that cooked down I tossed in some red pepper flakes and Italian seasoning. When the mixture began to dry out, I added enough vegetable stock to cover it, and then cooked until the liquid reduced almost to nothing (drag your spatula across the pan, and it doesn't immediately fill with liquid). Then I did it again. When that was done, I added big splash of Tamari (a kind of soy sauce), a small jar of home-made crushed tomatoes (mostly just juice, really) and topped the pan off with the whey. I reduced this down to about half its original volume and served with a slice of lemon.

The result was much like a Thai soup. It was savory and spicy with a citrus twang. We ate it with cheesy pita chips and were both quite pleased!

~KP

Holiday Report 2007

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:01:46 GMT

This has been a fun, but busy, holiday season for the McDonald-Paull household! We got off to a slow start as I recovered from a year of job-stress and Kathy fought off a series of migraines. We did manage to drag ourselves to our favorite Thai restaurant (Sawasdee) on the solstice and ate an absolutely wonderful meal.

Once we finally got rolling time had grown short. Every year we give our close relatives an enormous package of cookies and assorted other goodies. All home-made. In the two days remaining to us before Christmas, we baked Ginger Spice cookies, Hazelnut Chips, Mexican Wedding cookies, Sugar Cut-outs, Orange Chocolate Shortbread cookies, Holiday biscotti, Citrus biscotti, Chocolate Anise biscotti, spiced almonds and spiced walnuts.

On Christmas eve we packaged the baked goods up nice and pretty and drove them to my parents house where they were eagerly received. Then my parents took us out to eat - but what is open on Christmas eve? When in doubt... Thai, Thai again! The Thai place in Aberdeen, NC, isn't nearly as good as Sawasdee but heck, we weren't complaining. The next day we had a big home-cooked meal with the relatives and managed to visit with my brother and his wife for about two hours before we had to return home.

Once home we visited with Kathy's mother, who was in town for a couple of days. It was a nice visit, which we concluded by taking her to see the IMAX 3D version of the Polar Express. We all had fun watching the cool 3D effects and then she had to take off for the airport.

As for Christmas loot? We got three different cook-books so I guess our food obsession has become well known. Kathy gave me a book on craft beers, which is pretty cool. I gave her one on cheese making, which she is eager to try out. The only thing missing this year was role-playing stuff. Since I didn't receive a single game supplement, I guess Santa will just have to make a late delivery sometime soon. ;)

~KP

PA! PA!

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:14:25 GMT

Now that the new adoption law has passed (with yet to be defined "grandfather" provision) it seems that the US embassy is working hard to clear out all the existing cases - including ours. Our potential child now has a provisional visa to enter the USA. More details are available at our family blog:

http://mcdonaldpaullfamily.blogspot.com/

~KP

If you listen to fools...

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:44:33 GMT

My family is trying to adopt a child from Guatemala, so the opinions expressed here are no doubt biased. Judge for yourself.

The legislature in Guatemala has once again set a date (Dec 11) for voting on the most recent version of a new adoption law. Because this is the holiday season it is very much uncertain if they can achieve a quorum, so this may be yet another false alarm. The 'on again, off again' process of passing a new adoption law has unfolded throughout this autumn and has been very stressful for everyone with a stake in the Guatemalan adoption process. The opponents of adoption in Guatemala, and there are many, seem to have the following objections:

1) Poverty is not a good reason for giving up a child. This seems obviously absurd to me. The good of the child should always prevail, and if the mother doesn't believe that she can provide for her kid, and doesn't want to let a relative raise it (there some very good reasons why she might not want that), then what right does the government have to say "no"? Kids have to eat, right? If the birth-mother wants her kid to be raised by people who can give it a good education and other opportunities, then that should be up to her. In the USA a birth-mother can give her kid up for pretty much any reason at all except for profit, and even that has a grey area. Many birth mothers here are given money for housing, food, clothing, medical bills, etc. Nobody blinks at this unless it becomes extreme. Why should Guatemala be any different? In my opinion, if people don't think kids should be given up because of economic considerations then the appropriate thing to do is to try to alleviate poverty.

2) The lawyers make lots of money. Yea, everyone thinks lawyers make too much money. They are a fact of life in a society governed by laws, though. I do agree that there should be some additional oversight regarding how they spend all that money, though. We are paying our lawyers $20,000 which goes to pay the lawyers, government fees, the foster mother, and provides for our child. It still does seem like an awful lot of money by Guatemalan standards, though, even if it is for a process that takes between 6 and 12 months.

3) Kids are abducted and put up for adoption. Not to americans, they aren't. We require a maternity test (DNA) and then another test later to prove that the kid hasn't been exchanged for another child. Can this process be interfered with through bribery? Sure. A new law isn't going to change that, though.

4) The birth-mothers are being coerced. And they have to sign off on four separate occasions that they really, really, really, really want to place their child for adoption. And be interviewed by a social worker, and sometimes by the Attourney General's office. That still doesn't mean that she wasn't coerced, but that isn't the fault of the adoption laws. The same thing could happen in the USA, and we only require american moms to sign once, with variable grace periods for changing her mind - very few lasting as long as the four signature period in Guatemala. The problem here is one of crime, not the adoption process itself.

5) The lawyers seek out birth-mothers. Yea, and so do agencies and lawyers in the USA. This is a 'straw-man'.

6) International Adoption is cultural genocide. Rubbish. How many kids are we supposed to be adopting, anyway? Are we depopulating Guatemala through adoptions? Their culture is entirely unaffected. Also , every adoptive parent I have met is very committed to exposing their kid to Guatemalan culture. We just attended a Guatemalan Culture seminar hosted by our adoption agency and it was standing room only.

Basically, it seems to me that there is a double standard being applied here. Things that are acceptable in the USA are somehow not acceptable in Guatemala.

The long, long, long, long day

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:32:58 GMT

So. Right now I am sitting at a table in the infrastructure team's area at work, waiting for the time to come when I must send out my latest in a series of "Sorry, the servers are not up yet." messages to our clients. I am a bit punchy, as I arrived at work around 4:45am this morning and it is now almost 9pm - and there is no end in sight. That is 16 hours and counting. Or two work days, if you like. On a Sunday.

It started as a relatively straight forward, if not simple, upgrade. Soon we encountered our first problem, and then another, and then another. Absolutely nothing went as expected. There was no single source for all of our problems either. I am here as an observer, mostly. I am an "Organizational Resilience Analyst", which you might know better as disaster recovery or business continuity, but resilience is apparently a more trendy buzz word these days. This makes me the communications hub for this event, which is even less fun than it sounds.

Oh, well. At least I am making some CRAZY comp-time.

Game ideas

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:56:12 GMT

DrivethruRPG has been giving away PDF game suppliments all week, some that interest me and many that do not. The items that I found the most useful or interesting were:

HeroQuest Heroes Book (You downloaded it too, right? Right!) - this is a brief synopsis of the HeroQuest rules system and includes a lot of great advice for how to run a game.

Mongoose RuneQuest Core Rules - Just to satisfy my curiosity.

Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot - A delightfully wacky little RPG that I think deserves to be played sometime soon.

See Page XX - A collection of RPG articles by Robin Laws, author of the Feng Shui and HeroQuest RPGs.

That last item is a real gem. I have just gone through about a quarter of the magazine and it has already given me lots to think about. For my thoughts and observations follow the cut...

In one article Robin described running a game by having the players as yes-no questions. The narrator responds with an answer in the form of "yes, but..." That's right - every answer is "yes". The devil is in the details, though. The narrator gets to modify the "yes" answer most anyway he/she chooses as long as the player's basic idea is not negated. I *really* want to see how this goes in practice!

This reminds me of the game Donjon by Clinton Nixon. In Dungeon, every contest is a roll between two parties (player vs player or player vs narrator). The looser of the roll narrates the result, using a method similar to the "yes, but" rule above. If the player wins, the narrator describes the result. If the player looses, then the player describes the result. This balances the effects of both success and failure and keeps things lively. Donjon is another game that I would really love to try someday.

Another article suggested that PCs should only be allowed to fail if it adds interest to the story. If it would slow things down and frustrate everyone involved, then the player should automatically succeed. The narrator should arrange circumstances such that success is believable. Recognizing that players love to roll dice, Robin offered the suggestion that players roll to discover how *well* they succeed. Did the character scrape by by the skin if his teeth or did he make it look easy? Another possibility is that the roll could determine what side benefits might accrue. A good result might mean that in addition to being successful the player also gains an item, reputation, or some other side benefit. It is a very cool idea.

Reading this last bit made me recall my previous HeroQuest game where the players almost always succeeded because they spent hero points whenever loosing was unacceptable. Which was almost always the case. My players *really* hate loosing! Should they really be spending all of their HP to make this happen? Is the benefit of spending a HP really worth the cost? Should the timid players really accumulate HP faster than their more aggressive companions? I mean, shouldn't action be rewarded over inaction in a game?

All good things to mull over.

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:27:54 GMT

So... Not long after we accepted our adoption referral the government of Guatemala tentatively passed a law that threatens to trash our adoption plans. Ugh! The stress has been waaaaay off the scale this last week in my little household. Seriously, the last two years have been among the hardest in my adult life but this last week took the prize.

This new law, the Ortega bill, totally changes the way adoptions will be handled in Guatemala, which is a good thing if they do it the right way. Sadly, they are off to a bad start. The Ortega bill has no "grandfather clause" for in-process cases. If things don't change, then there is a good chance that all in-process adoptions will not just be delayed while the kinks are worked out of the new system - there is a good chance they will be canceled altogether. Besides taking Eddy Alexander out of our future, this would probably mean a difficult life for our little guy as he will be dumped into whatever institutional facility that poverty-stricken Guatemala throws together in the next couple of months. The current adoption system has all the infants living with foster families or in private orphanages. The new law makes that arrangement all but illegal, and will establish state-run orphanages instead.

Kathy and I haven't been taking all this lying down, though! We fired off emails to our congressmen and we plan to write letters and make phone calls this week.

Senator Burr - An aid called me back before the end of the day, saying they were aware of the situation and that the Senator is looking into it. He may become the first republican that I vote for - I was that impressed.

Senator Dole - No response

Representative Etheridge - No response

Things are already looking a bit better. The Joint Council on International Childrens Services has established the Guatemala 5000 Initiative, to promote adding a "grandfather clause" to the Ortega bill. A "grandfather" amendment has already been proposed in the Guatemalan legislature and is being supported by the US State Department, the Hague Permanent Bureau and, to some degree, UNICEF.

Wish us luck! (and write your congressman, if you are a Yank)

The Next Generation!

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:53:17 GMT

Kathy and I are proud to announce that we have accepted the referral to adopt Eddy Alexander!

Much to our relief our international adoption pediatrician felt that our young man was of average risk for medical problems. That was all that had been holding us back, so we contacted the adoption agency today to accept the referral. Whew! Now begins the looooong wait. We expect the process to take about 8 months, if all factors remain constant - which of course they won't.

We are now looking at baby names. At the moment we are planning to keep "Alexander" and replace the first name with one of our choosing.

Anyway, this is a pretty good day for our little (but growing) family.

~Kevin McD

Nothing's ever easy

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:50:48 GMT

Now that we have our adoption paperwork submitted, the adoption agency wanted to meet with us to discuss the referral process and how the adoption proceedings will generally unfold. When we arrived for our appointment yesterday we received unexpected news - a new baby had just entered the system moments before we arrived. Did we want him? We were stunned. We tried to pay attention to the rest of the meeting, but it wasn't easy. The agency gave us his paperwork and we drove home, trying not to get too attached too soon. We were already starting to see synchronicity in the details of the referral. "Do you realize that today is one year to the day that we found out our IVF attempt had failed?" and "His middle name is a common name in my family!" It wasn't a frame of mind conducive to critical thinking.

As we read the paperwork for the fifteenth time we noticed something that was a bit of a concern regarding his medical report. One of the statistics looked like it might be on the edge of what is considered normal. When we got home we checked up on the web and our concerns deepened. He was indeed dangerously close to a line beyond which permanent (if relatively minor) disability is a real possibility. We are now planning to show his records, such as they are, to a pediatrician who specializes in international adoptions. We have also requested that the doctor in Guatemala take his measurements again, just in case there was a mistake (which apparently does happen).

We are now in a wait and see mode. It is much like finding out that you are pregnant but that it is a high risk pregnancy. Will it go the distance, or will it be yet another in a series of disappointments? We keep reminding ourselves that if this one doesn't work out, there are always more kids out there who need homes. It will just require a little more time.

Stress? I eat stress for breakfast. It tastes a bit like chicken.

~Kevin McD

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:25:59 GMT

Today we received approval from Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring an orphan into the country! That is the last major paperwork hurdle that we need to pass before being matched with a child - which could happen any time now. My wife and I are overjoyed at this development and are anxiously awaiting a call from the adoption agency.

~Kevin McD

The paperwork is in!

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:44:37 GMT

Well mostly. We are still waiting for our approval from Citizenship and Immigration Services, which looks like it should happen in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, we turned the rest of the paperwork in to our adoption agency, Mandala Adoption Services, yesterday. While there, the kind folks at Mandala told us that we could have a referral in as little as two weeks! That means I may see the face of my child to be (in a photo) very soon. Sadly, the adoption process will take approximately eight months until it is finally approved and we can pick the child up.

Mandala said that the reason we can get a referral so quickly is that there are more babies that need homes than people who want to adopt from Guatemala. These days everyone seems to be going to Vietnam, which seems to be the more stable option right now. These things change all the time, though. Picking an adoption country is much like picking a lane in a traffic jam. The one you pick always seems to be the one that slows down.

~Kevin McD

Space Invader

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:28:44 GMT

I had a close encounter of the weird kind last night. I was sitting in BoJangles, my favorite source of greasy fried chicken, minding my own business sipping tea and reading an article in Champions of the Reaching Moon. This guy I've never seen before saunters up and plops himself down in the chair across the table from me. He says "hi" and "Are you enjoying your meal?". For one naive second I thought he might work for the restaurant, but no. He smiled at me for a second, and then looked off to his right at nothing in particular. I stared at him for a moment, and then decided that if he was going to ignore me then I would just ignore him. I continued reading the article, The Sapphire Ring I think. Occasionally he would look at me and smile, then look away again. I finished reading the article, put the book away, and started to leave. At long last came the expected plea - "could you give me two dollars?" I told him that I don't carry cash (which is true), picked up my stuff, and left. While I did this he started picking through my leftover chicken looking for something to eat. Sadly (for him) I rarely leave enough for a mouse.

This isn't the first time that this sort of thing has happened to me there. It must be some sort of magnet for the mentally disturbed - which may be why I like the place so much. I have never had this sort of thing happen at any other restaurant.

~Kevin McD

My book is out! Again... Sort of...

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:49:21 GMT

I contributed three pieces to the Moon Design role-playing book Champions of the Reaching Moon. A few "beta" copies were released at a convention a few months back, but I wasn't there so I didn't get a copy. Now the book has been released as a PDF at Drivethu RPG. A print version is expected to follow in about a month, but I will believe it when I see it. I am not trying to be negative here, that's just how things are in this business I guess.

As for the book itself... I really like it! It is a real privilege to have my work published alongside that of so many creative people.

~Kevin McD

The Deathly Hallows

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:55:33 GMT

So, I have finally (thanks Amazon! Not.) finished the latest and last Harry Potter book. I liked it quite a bit, and the ending even had me smiling as I thought "Of course! I should have known!" I really like it when I discover that the clues for a mystery really were all there. I even liked the epilogue, which some people thought was schmaltzy.

~Kevin McD

Another quickie

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:15:57 GMT

Today's KP news roundup:

I came down with a cold last week and am still in bad shape. Ugh.

Mongoose Publishing, current producers of RuneQuest and Paranoia, have now acquired the rights to the Traveller sci-fi game. Now they publish three of my go-to games. While I am glad to see a version of Classic Traveller (as opposed to the GURPS and T20 versions), I have to say that I have not been exactly thrilled with their execution of RuneQuest. My players actually refuse to play Mongoose RuneQuest, and opted for sticking with RQ2. I hope they do better with the Traveller license.

Mark Galeotti, the acquisitions editor for Moon Design (publisher of HeroQuest) has resigned due to having a successful Real Life. This is good for Mark, but bad news for the rest of us. My interactions with Mark were always a pleasure, and he is probably the biggest reason that I have remained involved in the Glorantha hobby to the extent that I have.

~KP

Another quick update

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:47:52 GMT

Whew! Things have been hectic lately. Here are a few bits and pieces:

Work = Krayzeeeeeee! My biggest project is being actively supported by management, which is good, but they have also dumped a ton of other stuff on us and assigned us an unreasonably short (and arbitrary) deadline. This seems to all go back to the impending arrival of our first CIO, and the reorg that is expected to follow.

Adoption: We are now waiting for the Citizenship and Immigration Services people to process our application to bring a child into this country. They apparently only have one part timer serving all of North Carolina (my home state) so the processing takes months. In the mean time, we are working on the rest of our paperwork. My wife finished hers, so now we are waiting on me. Unfortunately, work is consuming so much of my time that it is difficult for me to make progress in other ares of life.

Household: My wife and I just purchased a new gas powered weed trimmer and a Nordictrack elliptical trainer. Now we have no excuses! The weed trimmer works great, but is a bit heavy. The elliptical trainer has made painfully obvious how out of shape I really am! I like the machine so far, but service hasn't been the best.

Sales Guy - "You have a Honda Accord? No problem! Our delivery people will have no problem fitting this into your car!"
Delivery Guy - "There is no way this unit will fit in your car. If you insist on making me load it for you, then you will have to sign a waver."

(It did fit, and we did get it home in one piece)

Sales Guy - "Those four missing screws? No problem! If you purchase our service contract we will send out a Sears service person to fix it, and you get one tune-up and maintenance evaluation per year."
Sears Services Center - "Transferring you to Nordictrack now..."

The sales guy also said that he is going to send us a free AC adapter, but I will believe it when I see it. Finally, We bought an iFit card for the elliptical. The card has an eight week weight loss program on it, and looks pretty nice, but apparently can only be used by one person at a time! That's absurd if true.

Gaming: I am still in a holding pattern waiting for my GM slot to come up in the rotation. I fear that by the time it does the HQ play-test will be over! Not that I am not enjoying Todd's Paranoia game - Todd is a natural Paranoia GM.

Buddhism: I have been really enjoying the first real teachings in the new Kadampa Center building. The teacher is Ven. Robina Courtin, who is both knowledgeable and fun to watch. She is a very popular teacher, and has completely filled our new expanded facility more than once so far. It's very cool. One topic came up that still haunts me, though. Ven. Robina says that you need to have confidence in the possibility of enlightenment to drive your practice forward. If you don't believe you can succeed, then why try? Well, that just brings up this question form me:

Given that -

A) We have been cycling through Samsara since beginningless time, and
B) We still aren't enlightened

Doesn't this logically mean that it is impossible to become enlightened? I mean, no matter how long it takes, we have had that much time and more! Much more. Infinitely more. In an infinity of time, anything that is possible must have happened an infinite number of times. I am trying to get up the nerve to ask Ven. Robina this question...

That's all for now - back to work!

~Kevin McD

Run Forest, Run!

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:48:38 GMT

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

Things have been pretty hectic lately! A co-worker is on vacation for the next two weeks, so naturally everything has to hit the fan now. The good news is that our director really likes my recent work. On the down side, the vacationing team-mate left me holding a bag full of steaming delinquent project poo. I don't have the chops to cover for him, either. I just had to apologize for the lack of progress and promise that my team would do better in the future. My manager (also out of town) would have come up with some clever way of making our tardiness sound like a good thing, which is why she is in management I guess.

On the adoption front, we now have our dossier packet from the adoption agency and are working hard to gather all the required documents. Everything has to be notarized and some things need to be approved by the NC Attorney General! On Tuesday my wife and I will travel to Charlotte, NC, to get fingerprinted.

On the game front, the book I contributed to (Champions of the Reaching Moon) is due out any day now! Also, I received the long awaited magazine Tradetalk 15. It seems very cool, but I have been side-tracked by something else. I am now a play-tester for the new edition of HeroQuest. It looks pretty sharp, even though I do have my usual plethora of comments to send in. I hope to get my game group to let me run a play-test game after Todd's Paranoia game wraps up.

That's all for now - I am off to see Pirates of the Caribbean III.

Try, try again

Tue, 29 May 2007 14:26:09 GMT

OK, so I just wrote a lengthy, fascinating, and witty summary of my memorial day weekend. And then pressed the "Rich text" button, which should more accurately be labeled the "Erase text" button. Oh, well. That's computers for ya. Here is a much simplified version of my post:

Good news! We passed our adoption home study and Kathy received her workers compensation (on-the-job knee injury) check. Both of these events were vital to our adoption process. Go team!

Royal India - a bit of nirvana on earth. We celebrated the above good news with a meal at my favorite restaurant on earth. I swear that I would live there if I could afford to.

Party at Scott and Susan's place - Kathy and I attended a cook-out with our friends Scott and Susan Aiken. Other friends were also in attendance, including my old buddy Bill and his wife Betsy. New friends were also there - Paul and... er... Paul's wife. Anyway, a great time was had by one and all. Good beer was imbibed and tasty food eaten. The only down-side was that Scott wouldn't take his "Alias" DVDs back! Bastard. Now they will clutter up my house until I can find some other sap to pawn them off on. Not that I didn't enjoy the DVDs (despite the absolutely moronic tech stuff in the show), but I really can't see myself wanting to watch them again.

Tomatoes + peppers = salsa! We finally managed to get the tomatoes and peppers planted in our garden. Now we care for the little jewels until they produce. By late July we should have fresh salsa! In the mean time, I have discovered that I love guacamole. I never did before, but this year I do. A lot.<shrug>

Cookout with the Parents - Kathy and I went to Southern Pines to visit my family on Memorial Day. We stopped at Big Bloomers, which is to horticulture what Royal India is to food. It ain't my cup of tea, but Kathy really loves the place. We had a lovely visit with my parents, and listened intently to my aunt Sharon as she described her recent trip to California to attend my cousin Amber's wedding. It sounds like she had a blast! Now she is resting up before taking off for Bolivia this July to help build a kindergarten. That's our Sharon - the globe-trotting do-gooder.

No game for me! Alas, the trip to Southern Pines meant that I had to miss my regular Monday night game. This was disappointing because the current game is Paranoia (2nd ed), and is being run by the perfect Paranoia GM - Todd.

Thanks for listening to me ramble!

~Kevin McD

Good bye Princess

Thu, 10 May 2007 20:50:42 GMT

Please say a prayer or two for our darling cat Tasha and my family. Tasha heroically fought her cancer for twice as long as anyone thought possible but as we all know, nothing lasts forever. Tasha's cancer came back recently and this time the treatment didn't work. We brought her home from the animal hospital yesterday and are trying to keep her comfortable while she goes through the dying process, which doesn't look like it will take very long.

Tasha was already part of my wife's family when I first met her seven years ago. My wife adopted Tasha as a 1 year old stray about a dozen years ago. She is a quiet sweet tempered cat who loved to play "chase the string" games with us every evening before bed time. She is our little princess, and will be deeply missed.

All this I must endure while suffering from the flu. When it rains it pours! <sigh>

~KP