Midge was not the only one enjoying the water park in this 98 degree weather.
Sang karaoke in a bar for the first time, surrounded by family and friends. Got a taco from a street truck at almost midnight. Great birthday or greatest birthday?
Something that's been long overdue since being kicked to the curb in 2021 is the disposal of my Wells Fargo memorabilia and effects. nearly 20 years ago, when the company still really celebrated excellence in employee performance, they gave me this acrylic (?) plaque as part of the Sales and Service Conference trip I was sent on. I took it outside today to triumphantly and cathartically shatter it on the concrete... And failed. Dropping it did not work. Throwing it up in the air to come crashing down mildly scratched it (something that managed to inexplicably also happen in the careful controlled space of my cubicle a year after getting the thing). Throwing it across the yard managed only to break off one chunk of corner. Even striking it with the claw of a hammer repeatedly did nothing but furrow out tiny gouges.
You win, plaque. And your reward is that as you sit for eternity in a landfill, you can do so mostly whole, perhaps discovered centuries from now by puzzled archeologists.
I am determined to still make the most of my time from the company. In the coming week or so I will be auctioning on eBay a banner with several dozen employee recognition and event pins, as well as the (un-named) acrylic cubes given out for 10 years of service and 15 years of service. If you need physical evidence to help perpetrate your fraud involving employment at Wells Fargo, keep your eyes peeled, I got you fam.
Here it is! The full effect, with new vest I like better and cut to acomodate the wings
My wing created a really cool weird lens flare
Totally forgot to come up with a name for her ahaha
Look, you can't just post pictures like these and not expect something to come of them...
Somewhere out there, maybe in a weird alternate reality, one of you has wanted to have Doc as a faerie-kind rogue-ish character. Congratulations, dreams do come true. In Pathfinder 1st edition, at least. (Lena Eastblossum is a PFE1 rules-adherent NPC using the Fey creature template and a little bit of numbers-juggling to keep things sane. Treat Lena Eastblossum as a CR 3 encounter.)
Scenes from Elk Basin's 24 hour run, a beautiful and treacherous experience. 29 miles in two days. If anyone finds my legs, please send them along ASAP.
I'm at my first rave. It's pretty much exactly what I expected. Great time! (Could stand to have more video game mixes. As in, like, any.)
We all laughed when Hermione forgot how to dance. If only we had known.
Apparently this confused a few people, so perhaps I should clarify. This is one of those trains of thought which seems obvious in your head but on paper, not so much.
About five years ago, a chapter of Harry Potter and the Portrait of what Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash was published by Botnik Studios. The title is of a nonexistent book, and this segment (Chapter 13, "The Handsome One") was written by then-nascent AI using "predictive text" behavior which was quite the rage at the time.
The short generated story is filled with nonsensical ramblings resulting in unintentional off-the-wall humor. Ron devours Hermione's family after doing a frenzied tap dance. Hermione opens a locked door with the password of "Beef Women." Harry tears his own eyes out and throws them into a forest.
For a brief moment, this story was a hit in pop culture circles. The highlight of the story appeared to be this line:
The tall Death Eater was wearing a shirt that said 'Hermione Has Forgotten How To Dance' so Hermione dipped his face in mud.
This led to digital memes as well as physical memorabilia such as t-shirts bearing the phrase.
The point of my original statement is that, at the time, few people if any gave much thought to Harry Potter and the Portrait of what Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash or other, less popular works of predictive text. It was all a laugh, a silly little computer trying to be creative and showing us all how terrible it was at doing so.
Fast-forward five years and we have ChatGPT and similar software which can write term papers and legal briefs (albeit questionably) and can finish fanfics if you feed them source material. We have Midjourney and StableDiffusion churning out visual art. Systems are being tested to synthesize voices seamlessly using just seconds of audio samples. While these could ultimately be quite useful tools for humanity, they do currently represent a significant threat to the livelihoods and cultural contributions of millions of artists and technical experts.
Let's not make the same mistake that we made in 2018 by assuming that just because ChatGPT makes some mistakes like lying about its sources, or that some art generators struggle with perspective, that these are silly things of idle amusement and not worthy of consideration. These things are important and we should give serious thought to how they are going to affect our future, how they should be used, and whether they should be regulated, supported, or suppressed. I don't have the answers to these questions, but as a people we should be giving some thought in order to come up with those answers.
Now Available on DriveThruRPG
Dextra has been cleared and published on DriveThruRPG, and is available at this link. If you were waiting for it to drop on this particular storefront, wait no longer! I apologize for the delay in availability, but it may have been a little more warranted than I initially thought. Contrary to what DTRPG states on their correspondence about the approval process, it appears they actually read the entire file submitted before letting it go through, which is admirable. They also provided me their own review:
"This is a wonderful system that equips tables with a framework of rules they can build off of and utilize to create collaborative stories together. Character creation is uniquely designed, with all players contributing. The reference sheets at the back are incredibly helpful and guarantee ease of use at the table."
Though the preview images and options differ between DriveThruRPG and Itch.io, the product itself is the same on both sites. As always, thanks for your interest and support.
Dextra Community Character Project
One of my favorite parts of Dextra is the concept of character creation. The collective chaos from handing sheets around the table is, to me, a very refreshing change to the standard methods of selecting and filling out the options (limited or not) of your own character.
But some people just flat up don't like character creation. That's fine. I can't agree with that mindset, but I support it, certainly. And sometimes people just don't have the time to create new characters, even with methods as easy as Dextra makes it. If some PCs have just unexpectedly died and snappy replacements are needed to keep the story moving, taking a break to pass papers around may not be what the table feels like.
With that in mind, I had an idea that might not only allow members of the public to get a taste of the character creation process (albeit a slightly distanced one), but also generate a number of characters organically that will be made available to interested parties as a free download.
If this sounds like fun to you, I invite you to follow the link below to some Google spreadsheets containing blank fields for 40 characters of various fantasy RPG staple classes, as well as some blank ones in case people want to get a little crazy with it. Various instructions are included as to how best to fill these out and, for those of you who don't have a copy of the game, brief information on the various character aspects is also provided.
The Dextra Public Character Sheets listing can be found at this link. It's not the prettiest, but I will be putting the finished details into actual Dextra character sheets to be added to its download sites.
I look forward to seeing what the internet can bring to life. Happy character creating!
When I made my initial post yesterday, I failed to include a link to the actual Dextra Tumblr blog I've created (I only included a link for submitting asks); the post above is from the actual blog, which you can choose to follow if desired. In addition, this post is about a just-started effort for the internet (even those who don't have the game or intend to play it) to collaborate on creating characters that will be offered as free downloads to the public. Check it out if you're interested!
Introducing Dextra
Like many gamers, it has long been a goal of mine to develop and publish my own game, to add a minute something to the fabric of our culture, but especially to the hobby which I have enjoyed for a very long time. At long last, through a confluence of self-determination, assistance from friends, and an environment more friendly to independent publishing than any yet, the time for that dream is now. It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the my first role-playing game, Dextra.
I WASN'T WEARING MY GLASSES AND CHASED THE WRONG PACER FOR THE WHOLE RACE, I WAS FOLLOWING THE BOSTIN MARATHON QUALIFIER PACER.
I am not feeling the upcoming race this morning. My training has not been up to snuff, I feel a little ragged from the summer job, I left my earbuds at home. I would be astounded (but pleased) if I get my goals i set a few months ago. But we don't always do things just because we want to be the best or even to top ourselves, sometimes we do them just to stop ourselves from not doing them, and that's enough.
Also, I hate being bussed out to races. Nothing makes you feel like you have an insurmountable journey ahead like spending 15-20 minutes on a speeding vehicle to get there.
I am not feeling the upcoming race this morning. My training has not been up to snuff, I feel a little ragged from the summer job, I left my earbuds at home. I would be astounded (but pleased) if I get my goals i set a few months ago. But we don't always do things just because we want to be the best or even to top ourselves, sometimes we do them just to stop ourselves from not doing them, and that's enough.
I made Lamingtons for our Eurovision party!
Sponge cake: one hour (including bake)
Icing: ten minutes
Assembly: THREE HOURS, thankfully I started early.
According to online, some people actually add more steps of jam or cream sandwiched between. We call those people deranged.
Things I didn't expect to see in my news feed:
- The Pinkertons still exist and operate as an agency, with the same goals and mission statements they did way back when.
- Wizards of the Coast hired them this past weekend to intimidate someone who managed to purchase the next Magic: The Gathering release early, into giving the cards back instead of leaking information.
As if I didn't need yet another reason to be glad we quit MtG so long ago... Or a reminder of why I'm not interested in picking up modern editions of Dungeons & Dragons.