mwbeeler's page

Yeah, you guys have all been awesome. Not saying I’m going anywhere, mind you, just preparing you for more of the same subtle unpredictability (sorry). On the plus side, I feel awesome tonight (skipped a dose). Am pretty sure I was mildly thyrotoxic this afternoon, ophthalmologist even sent me home and rescheduled because I looked so horrible. If I feel decent tomorrow, I’ll take a half dose and see how it goes. Called my doctor and got the usual “go to the ER” bs. As if I have 6 hours to kill so they can tell me I’m fine? Pfft, some of us need to keep our jobs, thanks. Going to the ER under my own power = useless. I have voicemail for that kind of advice.

As far as my wife goes, I tell you what, it is ad infinitum times easier being the ailing one. She’s a hell of a trooper, but it’s scary. I’ll ask her today if she minds me going into it or not (I was pretty out of it today, didn't get to see them much).

I haven't had a chance to read the books yet (have to find someone with them because I won't spend money on a non-OGL product), but it sounds as if they ripped from BoNS whole cloth. Sliding an enemy off a cliff sounded a little...crazy, but I'll reserve judgment on the fun factor until I get a chance to sit down with it.

That...I don't know what to say about that.

Who funds this? I mean...what?

What's Black Spine?

Black Spine.

I was positive in the gap following the last post you had gone beyond the pale and we’d not be hearing from you again, but I didn’t want to violate your privacy by having Gary dispatch a rig to your place (sounds as if it would have missed you regardless). I sympathize, as I can’t say I would be in a different place if my wife passed, except now I have a greater responsibility to my son.

I am very pleased you made the decision to remain among the living. I can’t speak for your wife, not having known her, but I doubt she would want you to be anything except happy.

Hotels have a real tendency to lie like crazy when it comes to internet access, not sure why that is. I suppose they figure that once you are there, what are you going to do, cry about it?

Apparently, I have a real penchant for speaking out of turn when it comes to medical prophecy. Nevertheless, I have an incredible gift when it comes to predicting opposite outcomes (joy). Not my place to discuss my wife’s medical history here without asking her first, but she had the follow-up today to discuss the MRI, and things did not go well. If I post in fits and starts for a while, it’s because we’ll be shuffling all over the place for tests, tests, and more tests.

Got my own blood test back, thyroglobulin was low,. I imagine that explains why I kept passing out at 9 in the morning. It’s not that I don’t want to lift my limbs, or even that I can’t…I just can’t make myself issue the command to do so, very odd. So they started me on levothyroxine, but I think the dosage might be off. I’m ok in the morning (which is the end of my day, basically), but holy crap, am I ever drag arse at night. I can function, but I’m…boring. Hard to do much except plod. Ah well, I’ll give it some time to level off.

Yowch! Even now I still find it amazing to think of bones as “bleeding,” such an odd thing to wrap your head around, and nothing bleeds internally quite like a femur break.

Nothing quite like the sound someone makes when you pull traction on a broken femur either, and there is that crazy high pitched noise like “aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggg, oooooohhhhhhh ohhh, ahh, that’s...huh. That hurts, but not so bad….”

Glad to hear he is on the mend, sucks about getting the runaround at work.

We looked into it, but it's not going to happen.

The problem is that PayPal's authorization system is designed for paying for items that ship pretty much immediately. As with credit cards, an authorization is opened when you place an order, and gets closed when the order ships. But unlike credit cards, PayPal expires payment authorizations quickly (in a matter of days, whereas credit cards authorizations can stay open for weeks), and they limit the number of times you can reopen them, and they limit the amount of time they can be reopened after the initial transaction. Worst of all, if you have too many authorizations that expire without being closed, they say they'll close your account.

In short, this means that subscriptions, preorders, backorders, and even some plain old out-of-stock items that we have to order from our distributor would take too long to fulfill for PayPal's authorization standards, so we can't use them until that changes.

However, if I understand correctly, PayPal has a credit card program open to US residents that lets you effectively use your PayPal account anywhere that accepts MasterCard.

You might want to check out PayPal's Plug-In program, which easily generates a single-use "Secure Card" number that works exactly like a MasterCard from our end, but draws from your PayPal account.

(The Plug-In is, I'm told, Windows only, but users of other OSs can get Secure Card numbers from PayPal.com without using the plug-in—it's just not a one-click operation.)

That's right Andrew, if you cross the street to the mailbox without holding Daddy's hand or looking both ways, well, Nic Logue might just be hiding inside the box today, and we wouldn't want him to get you, now would we?

This needs to be stickied:

The main rule here is (or ought to be): DON'T BE A DICK.

Please. Not even Chuck Norris can eat Pop Rocks and soda without blowing up!

True, but then each piece becomes its own Chuck Norris and then they have to battle it out to become “The One.” Which raises the question, can Chuck Norris kick his own butt, or would the universe implode trying, leaving Chuck Norris the only survivor?

Figured I would wait until the memory of your Florida trip was behind you and you were in a better mood before I asked, Fakey. How are things going with your son?

Might be good news, too soon to tell. Big relief, but it was a long weekend.

Right now, I can only imaging you feel like a piece of half rotting meat that refuses to die and keeps on dragging itself to work every day after half your soul was torn from you, and why the hell can’t anyone else see it?

Distancing yourself from life will not fix the problem. Harming yourself indirectly will not fix the problem. If you have any direct thoughts at all about harming yourself, call a crisis center immediately. Hell, call me, if you want my cell number, and we'll talk as long as you like.

Ditching everything and hitting the road is an awesome idea, if you do it for the right reasons. You aren’t. You can run away as far and as fast as you like and you’ll only die tired. If you honestly need to get away, throw yourself into volunteer work.

Call your family doctor. Today. Right now, after you finish reading this.

Tell them exactly what you’ve told us, and then have them write you up for stress / grief and talk to HR about taking long-term disability leave. Box up your stuff, close up the apartment, and go move in with your family for a while. It’ll be there when you are ready to look at it again, and in six months if you decide you still don’t want it, sell it or give it away to someone who does (like a school or a library).

The best thing you can do for the person who loved you is to honor their memory by asking for help and getting better.

*looks around for motivational whip* ;-)

I recommend renting a Chipper Shredder and leaving it in one of the employee parking spaces. Does wonders.

Fess’ up, we know you snuck a warehouse copy out of its "handsome" case. As if the Paizo staffers could afford to purchase a set of the 4E books in this economy. One case of ramen noodles incoming!

That explanation I'm willing to buy.

Agreed, that was also weak. Personally, I thought they should have left her dead (or not bother killing her at all) and made the regens a side effect of staring into "The Anus of Time."

Duplicate Thread.

(Though it was a decent review; so nice we posted it twice!)

Actually, now that I look at it, Fray, your link is related, but different. My bad!

What a great quote:

For a hobby that has (despite the high prices of the actual D&D books) mostly been a fairly cheap pastime, DDI's pricing is tantamount to highway robbery.

I opened the free set of item cards that came with my last order and there was a foil inside, I think it was Rapier. I'll double check when I get home today.

Also just watched The Doctor’s Daughter this morning with my wife. It was watchable, but it wasn’t great. Within the first ten minutes you knew exactly what would happen throughout the entire episode, and sure enough, totally predictable, to the point of making sitting through it kind of a drag (wow, look at that...they made the girl summersault through the laser beams...that's never been done...and redone...and overdone). On the plus side, the fish-men were cute.

It’s all good, hope it clears up quick. I hear you on the pills, love them and hate them, oiy. I may be away myself for a day(ish) as Marcy needs to go in for a brain MRI this morning (rains it pours, Lord this year is just sucking up a storm), and if the dye contrast knocks her on her butt I’ll be looking after Drew almost all day (which is not such a bad thing, he’s a cutie).

Please no. Loads fast, looks clean. Don't make the mistake the Dilbert website did.

I just liken it to Star Trek after Roddenberry passed on. Some people enjoyed the new writers, some thought the vision was over.

What else could be more important, in the real world or the one of Dungeons & Dragons?

An open gaming platform.

Because I’m evil and sadistic, my solution to this would be to place an easy to spot magic trap with a non-magic trap around it. Players boldly stride around the glowing square only to set off the spear throwing mechanical trap. It’s all about misdirection.

Short if your elves are meant to look wise, long if your elves are meant to look capricious.

Hot dogs are "Michigans", and meatball subs are "grinders."

Michigans? Interesting. Here in Michigan common advice holds not to eat hot dogs from out of state (lips and a-holes is a typical follow-up comment).

Are we allowed to chime in as more words show up?

Names for places, plural or singular? (here in SE Michigan we tend to make our proper noun’s possessive, ex. Meijer(s) and Ford(s)).

I promise not to do anything bad. Honest.

Tobus, how was the honeymoon?

They'd be volunteering to be shot at around here. :)

On the non-flippant side of things, I am growing concerned that high travel costs will create an insular society. I wonder if message boards are seeing a boost in population as people spend more time at home?

GentleGiant wrote:

Any truth to the news bulletin I just read that US truck drivers have problems with people stealing their gas e.g. when they're at lunch?

This happened in the 70s, people siphoned gas out of cars because of the OPEC crunch. And yeah, I've had gas siphoned out of my tank pretty recently. Very annoying. For what it's worth, locking gas caps only cost about $20 or so, so you can replace a standard gas cap fairly inexpensively. Less expensive than losing a bunch of fuel. :P

It's getting bad around here. They've given up on siphoning and instead drill / punch holes in the tanks themselves. An empty tank plus a $300-500 repair job.

Michigan:

We use tornado.

My addition: Pop / Soda / Coke / Tonic

Top ten things I hear during my day:

7. "Do you want a donut with your coffee for an extra 39 cents?" (no)

But...donut! Mmmmm, manteca!

Another visitor. Stay a while. Stay forever!

Blasphemy.

That is quite the soliloquy.

I'm willing to bet it was less of a translation error and more of a "written by someone a couple generations after the event."

If you ever need someone to talk to / rant at / blow off steam with, send me an email at

and I'll send you back my cell phone number. I'm awake all night every night, and if need be I still have two international calling cards from the Ireland trip I can mail you.

Some people just have small heads, not that big a deal. Maybe we’re just too used to all the characters looking like they have a killer HMO with dental and vision. While we’re nitpicking the blog, what’s up with the usage for Haruspex (entrail readers)?

IIRC, the brother was from his father's first marriage.

The cool part about having people who care about you is they don’t judge why you’re gone, they’re just glad to have you back. You were missed.

I can't see how typing is faster the Voice Chat?...

You've never watched me type. ;) I can carry three to five conversations via text chat in the time it takes me to communicate one thought verbally to an individual. The amusing part is, I’m useless if I have to stop and think about it. Can’t do it, have to look at the keyboard. If I just let it “flow,” it works flawlessly. I have the same issue with passwords, combinations, and my badge at work. If I stop to think about it, bam, gone. That "home row" bs they force on you in school? S…l….o….w….

I'm opposed to cherry picking from 4E as it amounts to looting their IP (let's set aside the fact I'm opposed to IP for the moment), and it amounts to laziness, when we could be thinking up better ideas for PRPG.

Don't nuke me for this, but what game is that, Warcraft? Is the VOIP interaction really that good?

Yes, and most people use either Vent (Ventrillo) or TS (TeamSpeak) for in game communication (not unusual to have 50+ people in a channel, though usually they get subdivided pretty quick). I prefer to type (it's quicker than talking and I hate the sound of my voice digitized), but hearing the accents is always interesting, plus most people can't type and play at the same time to save their lives.

Uh, the link's broken.

Huh, so it is. An extra "ht" crept in there. Thanks.

Fixed.

enjoy?

Oh no way! I totally remember that movie. It was the clay-mation special with Mark Twain chasing Halley’s Comet. I’ll have to see if Netflix has it later, thanks!

That'd odd. I had a post in here complaining about lack of sleep. Ah well, I collapsed almost all day long aside from a stint for a bath and some pizza, and now I'm firing on 3/4 of my cylinders.

How does a product sell out before it's officially released?

Lord no, keep this tripe isolated (not to bash the cogent commentators on this thread, you know who you are).