PAX Exhaustion

Oni outside PAX

Still too tired and things are too crazy to really write up everything that went on at PAX. So detailed reviews are going to take some days or weeks to get published. Initial takes though was that this PAX was bigger than ever before for good and bad. I do not know how they will cope in future years as PAX is already busting at the seems for all the convention center has to offer.

I wasn't as impressed with the PC and video game offerings compared to years past. That isn't to say there weren't still a few real gems to be found there. I was more impressed with the board game offerings even though I wasn't as impressed with some of the game companies like Fantasy Flight which didn't seem to have anything to show off post Gencon. They didn't even have some of the things they had at Gencon like the new Anima Beyond Fantasy RPG book.

(I feel asleep last night writing this blog, so I'll end it here)

So tired

The good jobs just doesn't last long enough. I'm so tired of a really long commutes for poor pay to work with unpleasant people. More blog posting will hopefully come with the next job.

PAX is good for families

So I haven't posted in... way too long. I'm surprised I still have loyal readers who keep coming back to check! I keep changing jobsand throwing my life into disarray, which takes precedence over blogging for me.

Anyways a while back I read Scott Jennings rant on Penny Arcade and PAX.

Scott Jennings:

But the problem is PAX. PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, has fairly quickly become the primary go-to convention for gamer culture – what everyone who tried to sneak into E3 thought E3 was supposed to be. Lots of lan parties, game demos, 2nd tier science fiction actors, and Jonathan Coulton concerts. Geek nirvana, essentially. And game companies have embraced PAX because of that critical mass of success.

Basically "the problem" is he doesn't think people should support PAX because the people behind PAX are also the people behind Penny Arcade. Like maybe we shouldn't support whatever company he works for because of his opinions on his blog? Penny Arcade is an adult and often offensive webcomic. It is my third favorite webcomic and I can firmly say it is third because as much as it sometimes makes me laugh it can not infrequently gross me out and much more frequently offend me. Not as badly as "Saturday Night Live" has a penchant for grossing me out and offending me (i.e. Ambigously Gay Duo), but still all the same Penny Arcade does. So should I boycott every Dan Akroyd movie because he was one of the creative minds behind SNL?

Maybe Scott Jennings would like to denounce Child's Play too? The charity which raises millions of dollars to help out hospitalized children all around the world on behalf of gamers, typically the youngest generation who are normally less likely to be involved with charity?

Here is my take. You don't want to support evil, but Penny Arcade is in no way evil and it is the free expression of a couple of artists which you don't have to follow if you don't want to. PAX and Child's play are entirely separate entities. There is no good reason not to support them if you feel like it.

So just because I go to PAX every year and take my two daughters, doesn't mean any of us are supporting over endowed wolves or sex offending fruit juicers. It does mean we support gaming and having fun!

Christmas games!

I didn't get a lot for Christmas, and I'm glad a lot of it was useful stuff. However, my kids got a few board games I'm really excited about. Particularly we've been enjoying "Settlers of Catan"! I've been enjoying it with my 4 year old and 5 year old. They seem to get the grasp of it fairly well, though higher level strategy is still beyond them at this point.

Still playing DDO with friends and climbing the Starcraft 2 league rankings. Starcraft 2 is getting tougher as it seems the more casual players are quitting or getting better. So come on newbs, join in and let us win some!

Finally, J-I-T (Just in Time)

So, this morning I was having another horrible, awful day that is typical of my days at work now. Called into my Boss' office so he could yell at me, someone had called him and yelled at him accusing me of something and he wasn't interested in hearing anything about it from me. I don't want to go into details of all the petty politicing, rumormongering, lies, and backstabbing which go on at this place. It has the worst office politics by far of all the places I've worked at.

I was fed up and hit the "I don't give a care anymore" breaking point because I knew my superiors didn't care about my performance so much as just trying to forge paperwork to pass an audit next week... which they're almost certain to fail... again.

Well to make this quick after all this and being in a foul mood all through the afternoon I called home this evening. A recruiter had contacted me in my email and was trying to reach me to make me a job offer at a place I'd really like to work at. So this hell job is over and my whole family can go back to living a less stressful and more normal life.

I've been smiling all evening ^_^

Playing a little

So what I've been up to... not much in the ways of miniatures games lately unfortunately unless you count a couple games of Descent. I've taken up playing 'Vanilla' Descent with my daughters who love the game. Donations to the VOR kickstarter is one of the top two items on my Christmas wishlist this year (the other not being gaming related).

Got in another game of Arkham Horror with a new board game group. Might get some more games worth writing about in the next month, but we'll see. If I succeed in replacing the lame job I have now, then I should be able to play board games a lot more.

I've been playing a little bit of the free-to-play DDO and LOTRO with friends and family. I love that these games are free now and they've certainly breathed new life into them.

But mostly what I've been playing when I have the chance is Starcraft 2. The number of cheaters in the game is annoying (like people who are obviously working together in a FFA). It is still a lot of fun however and it reminds me a ton of my old college days playing original Starcraft and Brood War when they came out. Ah, for the misspent days of my college youth!

But the sad thing is, there is nothing coming out this christmas season that I look forward to. Is there anything that you are looking forward to?

The Replacement... Stuff

It is frustrating being a poor Gamer Dad in a bad recession. My 1 and a half year old son has recently wrecked two dining chairs and my gaming mouse. In addition I've had to put all my painting supplies and models up high as well as my Wii gear. I've had my car throw a bolt and a light socket burnt out at our house. This is just in the last week too so it seems like a lot of stuff is getting wrecked and I don't have much funds for replacing it. My gaming mouse got slightly downgraded with a replacement. Still haven't found dining chairs cheap enough to replace the ones we lost.

Plus with all that I still can't get out of my mind all the Geek Chic furniture at PAX... a Gamers' dream house is made of it!



I sincerely hope by the time my kids are teenagers the job situation has improved and they've stopped wrecking enough stuff that I can just afford these things as upgrades. Or at least have the funds stashed away that when they do wreck stuff I can replace it with something better than what I had!

Summer vacation

Well things didn't happen like I'd hoped and we've been busy at home with people coming and going, including ourselves. Summer vacation is upon us and I expect it to last for at least two weeks more. Meanwhile all you VOR fans should be aware of the Ironwind Metals painting contest! Getting something VOR painted and send it in.

In August I will return with new videos and in eager preperation for PAX!

Tis' da Suck!

New crazy work schedule and insane work politics is keeping me away from my blog. I've got a 3-day holiday weekend with the 4th of July coming up though and I hope to finally get back to properly posting again and finish a video I've had mostly done for ages.

Hopefully this weekend will bring less whining and more gaming. But it will probably just bring more of both.

In a Funk

So yeah, I've not done much in the way of blog posts and videos for a few weeks. Sorry for that but I've been in a bit of a funk. Adjusting to the crazy new work schedule and the havoc it wreaks on life. Also, had a few events hit me that were more important and worrying.

Speaking of which, if you know Korina Marshall from Omaha, Nebraska (and numerous other locations) then let her know she has people who care about her. I knew her from the Oregon foster care system and was saddened when a relative checked up on her to find her on the missing person's registry. If you've run across her or think maybe you've seen her anywhere in the U.S. please do something about it.

Meanwhile if you've made it this far, don't worry too much because I'm certain new gaming related blog posts will continue soon.

The Insanity of it all!

Wow, time has flown. Two weeks ago yesterday I was told I didn't need to come back the rest of the week for my job due to a lack of production. Then I was let go on that wednesday and the same day got an interview for a new job. I had expected to be let go soon and have some unemployment but I got whirlwinded a week ago on monday into a new job. The new job surprised me by having me work 5 back to back days of 12 hour shifts. It is also now a 40 minute commute instead of my old 5 minute commute. So I was expecting to have a ton of time for Anima Tactics week but instead had next to none.

It also just in general sapped me of energy as I'm spending most of my working time on my feet. But the hard part has to be coming home to kids just screaming all the time. Just at the drop of a hat my 3 year old can't do something and decides to act like a 2 year old screaming at the top of her lungs and thrashing on the floor. It feels like I'm a character in the game Arkham Horror failing their sanity check against a Wailing Byakhee and going insane about ready to be committed to the asylum. Now I can understand more what H.P. Lovecraft was writing about with gibbering monsters and bad dreams taking the sanity away from grown men.

Too bad about the employment thing, my sanity could use a vacation I'm not going to be allowed to take.

I want to see more "Intensity"

Okay, I had a total "Office Space" moment with my manager at work today. But first some background on the situation is required to understand it:

I perform my main function very well, am very punctual and in general try to be professional as I always do. The main issue they really have with me is my speed at my secondary tasks, where speed is really all they value. Now I've been a Quality Assurance guy for many years now, I'm professionally certified and excel at those positions. I started at this company as a QA Tech and when I was the #2 pick for the permanent position I got to train my replacement and production decided to take me for my current position. So like anyone else you might know in a QA department I take pride in making my work as flawless as possible... but not as speedy. I've been this way for years and in my next permanent position I'm certain it will be an asset. But when I'm doing secondary tasks rather than my primary function it is clearly a liability and I understand this. I'm also making more as a temp (because my one requirement for agreeing to transfer over was that I keep my pay rate) that most of the permanent workers doing these jobs.

If they let me go yesterday I won't have worried one bit, I rather would have celebrated because the stress level is ridiculous. So when my Manager pulls me aside today I expect some rather legitimate talk either about needing to speed up or him having to let me go or whatever.

Instead I get his talk about how I'm not "Intense" enough about my work as he watches me and how he wants to see more "Intensity" from me. He explains to me that in his long time there he used to invent games out of doing his work to make it more exciting and create new challenges. I think my only puzzled response was "... Intensity???" He went on to talk about it like the job should be some kind of extreme sport (which is Ironic considering he is a GOLF fanatic... how unextreme can you get?)

I realized quickly I wasn't suited for this job after I started it. I'm used to working in casual business attire, button-up shirts and slacks and I'm now working with a crew of T-shirts and slacks. I usually am sitting either in a cubicle or in a lab doing analytical work and now I'm standing all day mostly doing work of a the manual dexterity sort which I just don't have. I've got short, thick fingers that don't play guitar well and aren't good for speedy manual assembly (but I guess I impressed my coworkers by twisting cables with my fingers that I guess everybody has to use pliers for) I'm a "Professional Perfectionist" as my online resume says trying to work in an area where "Blitz speed" should be their motto. I don't think even my Manager has a college degree, let alone anyone else in my department and I've got a Bachelor's in a scientific field. I'm the guy who this morning when one of the computers in our area wouldn't boot up I fixed it before they could even finish finding the phone number to call IT.

So, yeah I'm not exactly a good fit. I'm going to give it my professional best however and try to meet their goals because professional (Not "Intense") is what I consider myself. Furthermore, I couldn't quit if I wanted to because I'd make myself ineligible for my unemployment (from a previous employeer and not them).

So hopefully they'll realize they need to let me go soon and I'll write more blogs about gaming rather than complaining about work. Because if I can't take getting much more "Office Space'd" and keep my sanity.

Anima forums are down, long live the Anima forums!

The most popular Anima Tactics forums by Edge Entertainment are once again down. A second major crash in two consecutive weeks. Doubtless some of the increased blog traffic I'm seeing right now is a result of it.

So I'd like to remind everyone that there are two other official Anima Tactics forums. The Cipher Studios forums and the Fantasy Flight Games forums.

In addition I would recommend stopping by the Warmonger gameday Anima Tactics forums as a lot more is going on there.

In other news to compete with the news below my post, my 1 year old son got a hold of our (my wife's and mine) work in progress tray for miniatures and shook it out all over the dining room floor. All but one miniature I had assembled was broken (Jerome was saved). Even pinned joints came flying apart. Several models already in various states of being painted (Claude Valmore, Arkeid) came apart. But even at the worst at least there are no infectious diseases involved.

Maybe if I'm lucky enough to get laid off this month I'll have time to get caught back up :(

Such a scary little thing

I can't believe a little mouse can be such a scary thing. We found a nest of a mouse in our garage and we have no idea how old. However, my wife being a hypochondriac and me knowing a guy in college who died due to hanta virus from deer mice it has the household all upset. We're going to be afraid to step into the garage for the next week. All because of a tiny little mouse that is harmless except for the diseases it may or may not be carrying.

But Hanta Virus is scary, very scary. It acts fast and the fatality rate for it is 30% to 50%. In a house with 3 small children you just don't want to take that risk.

I Descend!

Got a new game to play with sometime soon!



In other news... work sucks again. I didn't get the permanent position where I was working and was replaced. Luckily or unluckily I was requested for transfer to production where I work. I spend half my time as a Tester, and the other half doing odds and ends no-skill tasks for a lot more than minimum wage. So I spend half the time being appreciated and the other half being constantly too slow and overpaid. So I hate half my job but there isn't much I can do about it right now. The economy isn't picking up THAT much yet that I can tell. I think for sanity's sake I'm going to be trying really hard to find a new job anyways.

Blog forecast: Increasingly posty

Well, the bad news is in. I didn't get the permanent position at the place where I've been temping for several months. Despite having my entire department and the leads of several other departments trying to pressure my manager into hiring me he went with someone else. I don't know why, and I'm not going to sweat over it. I'm disappointed, but I'll survive on unemployment if it comes to it. So if I am indeed back on unemployment next month you can expect a lot more posts and videos from me. I've spent the last couple nights hunting for my lost Anima: Beyond Fantasy RPG book when I'd rather have been making a video. With the prospect of unemployment I can't afford to replace it and losing stuff like that is driving me crazy.

Either way I expect to get my review of Arkham Horror and showing off the two models I painted this month up on youtube.

Family Gaming

Things have mostly been pretty good and we've been getting in more gaming as a family. The Wii game "Pirates Vs Ninjas Dodgeball" has been a huge hit in my house. Also, the Wii game DDR 2 has added a second dance pad and now dancing has become a huge family activity. Having games that one can enjoy with your children really helps bring the family together. The Wii has seen a surge of activity and my body is feeling better for the extra exercise. My Shoulders have even been quite sore a few nights from boxing. Plus I can feel my heart getting stronger again from all the vigorous dancing as Dance Dance Revolution puts me through the paces. Meanwhile seeing my kids get more into gaming as they get old enough to enjoy it has me very excited for the future.

I look forward to when my kids are old enough to introduce to roleplaying games. It is still years off, but the linked article makes me look forward to playing Shadowrun 3rd edition or Anima: Beyond Fantasy with new generation of gamers. Sooner than that we might get into the minaitures board game "Descent" if my kids are interested in it.

On my birthday I finally got to try out my copy of Runebound: Frozen Wastes expansion. It was a good expansion. I'm not sure if I like it more than the base game, but it was a lot of fun to mix it up and do something different. The Frozen Wastes expansion makes movement much, much more important. The game is also more competitive as you actually feel driven to keep up with others so the weather doesn't kill you and they don't beat you to winning the game or getting the good treasure. If you're a Runebound player it is definitely worth getting to get some more life out of your Runebound game.

For those of you interested in a good debate about gaming you can go have a debate about Violence in Video games. Worth checking out though both sides of the debate are getting very stale to me in my opinion.Honestly, this isn't new territory. Video games just seem to be a new emerging media to target.

It has been a Looonng week.

It has been a busy work week. I was hoping to do youtube videos or more blogging this week, but work has been kicking my butt. At least right now I only live 5 minutes away from work! I'm hoping to get a video this weekend of our new and improved art space.

There are no updates to Elemental till February, blah. So no updates there. No updates that I know of with VOR since the Masher update.

I rented Avatar for the Wii and found it a fun game and I liked how it made use of the balance board. I'll be adding that one to my wish list as being a Dad and settling into our house didn't give me enough time to really get through it.

Not making any progress on any terrain right now. I've got 4 figures I'm working on painting between now and the end of February, all for Anima Tactics. They are:

Church Agent (for a contest from Cipher Studios)
Kairos (Last time I assemble this model EVER!!!)
Momiji (Greatly looking forward to this one)
Samael Agent

I'll try to get some in progress photos of something up on the blog before too long. I'll try to be interesting again soon when the work week is over!

Move Complete - End Turn

So not only have I been working... I've been moving. With a family moving becomes a horrendous affair. Plus so many delicate minis and terrain that I don't have proper packaging for. Luckily we're only moving about 15 minutes drive so we've made a number of trips for delicate stuff we didn't feel good about packaging. Today is our last day of moving and then I look forward to being able to have fun again and enjoy our new place!

We've got a nice garage in the new place that we're going to use for storage, as an art shop, and for gaming. We'll have a gaming table out there so we can keep games of Arkham Horror or Runebound out without having to put it away from the kids every night.

Speaking of which, I had a very nice Christmas haul. Runebound Frozen Wastes expansion, Runebound Scepter of Kyros expansion, Anima Tactics Momiji, and a visit to Cipher Studios. Once we're a little more settled in you can expect to see some youtube reviews of things and a nice blog entry with pictures about our visit to Cipher Studios.

Until then look forward to a normal resumption of blogging come January!

Working yay!

So another reason I haven't blogged recently is because I'm working... and moving... and I've had friends and in-laws over.

In other good news if you're a VOR fan be sure to note that the MASHER Sneak peek is here! Merry Christmas to all the VOR the Maelstrom fans! Hopefully 2010 will be a good year for us.

Also of note is that my friend Kirara won the Samael agent painting contest for Anima Tactics.


I'm eagerly looking forward to next month and debating entering the next leg of the Cipher Studios painting contest for Church agents. My funds are going to be limited for a while so we'll see.

My friends and even random people on the internet keep telling me I need to play DragonAge. Is it really that good?