Gonna kick this sucker off with a bang. Introducing Armadillo Aerospace, a Texas based company with one goal in mind: beating gravity into submission. Unfortunately, they have a chute failure with this rocket, but what an attempt!

I hate it when I screw up a major continuity issue.
If you see the Kb count for DW8 Chapter 1 go backwards for a day or two, it's because I'm ripping out a mistake and trying to come up with a fix for it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

So after the trial-palooza, one of the things that obviously annoyed some of us in regards to the TPN campus Trial was the Pacification debuff that the 4 Seer Telepaths outside the buildings apply. 
I mean. SERIOUSLY annoying. 
However - 
It's not as if this is a complete "fuck you" by the Devs. There's not only a method to deal with them, there's even an accomplishment badge to go with it! 

Quote:Badge: "Fair & Balanced"
"Do not allow a single Telepathist to convert 4 or more citizens for the duration of TPN Campus, and then finish the trial to earn this badge."

Well, wasn't that fun?  I'm still half-asleep (no coffee yet), but I don't think I'd've missed it for the world.

For those who weren't there:  Just for giggles at around 9 Eastern last night, I decided to make an Arachnos Warrior toon -- just to see what the archetype was like, as I hadn't played one (nor a Widow) yet despite being eligible to for literally years.  I ran the first couple missions, and was about to do the finale of the first real arc I was in (Fire Wire), when suddenly everyone on the Legendary channel at the time goes, "Redside action?  Let's get in on this!  No one ever plays redside."

And the next thing I know, I'm leading a merry band of psychopaths in a romp across the lower three Rogue Isles, including a Death From Below trial, a frame-up job of a bank robbery, and getting in on Dr. Graves' illicit little tournament, in which I meet the redside equivalent of Twinshot and her merry band.  And may I say it appears that Dollface is just as hated as Flambeaux?  We must get the two of them together some time.

All in all, we ended up running for some three or four hours, into the wee hours of the morning; I know I barely got to bed at 1:30 AM...

Anyway, people, I had a great time.  We've got to do that again soon.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

...(that being 5/23), get yourselves there now.

Hint:  It's Robert Moog's birthday.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

In the transhuman future! Bloodsport is televised!

Kind of a fun little FTP game based on one of the Unreal engines. I like the philosophy of their FTP: You can earn everything that changes gameplay by playing the game. Buying it through microtransactions only makes it faster.
I play there as "Hilltopper" on the matchmaking service as a free agent on the US East servers.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Inspired by a Nightwish song...

Quote:6:30 winter morn

Snow keeps falling, silent dawn

A rose by any other name

Eva leaves her Swanbrook home.

A kindest heart which always made

Me ashamed of my own.

She walks alone but not without her name.

Eva flies away,

Dreams the world far away.

In this cruel children's game

There's no friend to call her name.

Eva sails away,

Dreams the world far away.

The Good in her will be my sunflower field.

Mocked by man to depths of shame

Little girl with life ahead.

For a memory of one kind word

She would stay among the beasts.

Time for one more daring dream

Before her escape,

Edenbeam we kill with her own loving heart.

Eva flies away,

Dreams the world far away.

In this cruel children's game

There's no friend to call her name.

Eva sails away,

Dreams the world far away.

The Good in her will be my sunflower field.

For those not following him, Wil Wheaton has a webcast series that's been going for about four weeks now. "Tabletop" is his contribution to Felicia Day's "Geeks & Sundry" channel on YouTube, and can be basically summed up as "Wil Wheaton plays boardgames with his friends and lets you watch." It's pretty entertaining, nicely edited to keep it from being boring, and has enough humor to keep me watching it at least. So far, they've done Small World, Settlers of Catan (naturally), Ticket to Ride, and an episode with a trio of short games - Zombie Dice, Get Bit!, and Tsuro. Guests have included folks from "Eureka" and other actors, bloggers, Rod Rodenberry, and Wil's wife (they are cute together). Episodes air on Saturday, I believe. This week's will be Munchkin.
Eb Bob sez, "Check it out!"
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

...but my Net connection went down for a few hours and I couldn't get it back.  
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Anyway, after a twenty-minute "flight" from darkest Romania, I
found myself sprawled on a patch of bare dirt in the sun, with
Charlie standing next to me, laughing his fool head off.  I
rolled over onto my back, then knocked him off his feet with a
quick legsweep.  As he went sprawling himself, I hopped to my
feet with a quick kippup and took a quick look around me.
The bare patch was actually part of a dirt road running through a
good-sized meadow.  On three sides of us, the meadow was bounded
by lush old-growth forest; the road ran toward the forest in one
direction, and in the other vanished over a low hill that blocked
my view of anything beyond it.  The sun was shining to beat the
band in a brilliantly clear, bold blue sky.  It was warm, but not
uncomfortably hot.  
Nodding to myself, I looked back down at Charlie, who had gotten
to his hands and knees during my glance around.  "That," I said,
"had to be the single worst magical transport I've ever used, and
I've used some doozies."  
He laughed and looked up at me.  "Heh.  Should have guessed you'd
never used a portkey before."  He held out his hand.  "Here now,
give us a hand up."
I gave him a dubious look.  "If you pull me back down into the
dirt when I do, Charlie, I will *so* kick your ass."
He laughed again.  "Would I do that?"
"In a heartbeat," I said.  "I haven't forgotten who dunked me in
the camp cistern."
"I *told* you, that wasn't me!  It was Tannenbaum!"  Rather than
wait for me to offer a hand, Charlie climbed to his feet.
"Tannenbaum was visiting *Vrajitor lui alee* in Bucharest that
day, and you know it."  As he straightened up to his full height,
I began slapping the dust and dirt off his clothes.  Maybe a bit
harder than I needed to, but he deserved it.  "If you'd decided
to blame someone who was actually *in* the camp, I *might* have
believed you."
"I swear on my mother's grave..."
"Charlie, two things.  First, your mother's still alive, which is
one of the points of this visit.  Second, you would swear on your
mother's grave that you were a 140-centimeter Swedish girl with
three legs if it would further one of your gags."
A thoughtful look crossed his freckled face.  "Yeah, I suppose I
might, at that."
I whapped him on the back of the head, but not hard enough to
cause cranial trauma.  "C'mon, Laughing Boy.  Lead me to this
Burrow of yours before I decide to bury you out here up to the
waist -- head down."
As it turned out, the Burrow was on the other side of that low
hill -- which was only low on our side:  when we crested the top,
I saw that it sloped gently down into a broad, low dell, in the
center of which was what I could only assume was a house.
It was either that, or someone had spent his life creating a
three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle out of building supplies using
an Escher collection as a guide.
It was, as best as I could determine, about three stories tall,
or trying to be -- but rooms and wings hung off the thing with
an arbitrary whimsicalness that made it difficult to determine
what floor they were supposed to be on.  The lowest level looked
like it might once have been a classic British cottage or
farmhouse, but *so* many random architectural encrustations had
been applied to it that it was hard to be sure.  At least one
part seemed to be *upside-down* and reachable only by an exterior
door and a crawlway past a working chimney.  It was much larger
in the middle -- where I figured the second floor was likely to
be -- than at either end, but had no supports of any kind.  
Despite this, it defied all logic by appearing to be rock-solid.
"And he built a crooked house..." I muttered to myself as I
stopped short at the sight of the place.
"Well, there it is, the Burrow," Charlie said as he came up
alongside me.  "The Weasley ancestral home, the family's been
living there for... Merlin, I don't know *how* many generations."  
He slapped me on the back.  "What do you think?
"Charlie," I said softly, "I now understand you *far* better than
I did five minutes ago."  I shook my head and snorted a brief
laugh.  "Whoever built this house clearly was in a blood feud
with both physics and architecture.  Either that or clinically
insane."