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Also, no, he's no Pratchett, but that section in "Lamb" about Jesus trying to write the Sermon on the Mount with a bad case of writers block?
One of my favorite things ever.
"Fruit basket" is a favorite code phrase in our family.
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Good thing I was hiding behind this strategically placed fruit basket!
(Dresses)
I meant his writing style is so similar. I've read most of Moore's books, starting with Lamb, because it was so damn good, and I got hooked - I like how his universe isn't directly connected, but there are hints that it is, like how it's always the same demon, same angel, etc. But his style - the way he writes - it's just so very similar to Pratchett. I don't know how else to describe it. When you read a Moore book it seems like either Terry was trying to sound more American, or like Chris was imitating his style on purpose.
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...I made a massive Discworld conversion to Pathfinder a long time ago. I started with a base E7 ruleset, and then added a few homebrew options, mostly for flavor reasons. It included rules such as:
1) As witches gain levels they move up position in their coven, from Maiden to Mother to Crone. It's required you eventually join a coven.
2) Wizards must kill higher ranking wizards to go up in prestige. Such kills must be made entirely without magic.
3) Clerics can be of any kind of god they can make up. You pick the domains, you pick the rules, etc - there's enough small gods out there to fit whatever your need. However, you need to get other people to worship them to gain in power.
4) Barbarian women can benefit from chainmail bikinis despite their absolute lack of protection. (I take the videogames as canon, too.) They must also fight potential male suitors to the death. This makes happy marriages damnnear impossible among barbarians.
5) You use the elf stats for half-elves. Half-elf stats are people with "some elfish blood". True elves are more like the D&D eberron changelings, and they're always evil, and kill on sight for dwarves and trolls.
6) Trolls use mineral warrior stats from 3.5, but they have a weakness for fire/heat and a resistance to cold - they also get temporary boosts to intelligence if they are attacked with/experience severe cold, and intelligence damage if they take heat damage.
7) Dwarves remain exactly the same, but there are of course cultural revolutions regarding gender.
...and I had to update it as books came out, with rules for goblins, orcs, and more as Pratchett introduced them. Unfortunately, the laptop with all the details on it had the plug chewed to shreds by my dog when he was just a puppy. I've replaced that cord about 5 times over the years. I really don't want to again.
The first adventure I put together was the party joining the Watch during the first "gonne" crisis of "Men at Arms" - an alternate telling, as
will share that story with my wife she is a HUGE fan.
Good thing I was hiding behind this strategically placed fruit basket!
(Dresses)
damn you fruit basket!!
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Ah, talking to people who think they know the law.
Hi and Shiro insisted that since my car had been hit, the insurance company couldn't total my car. Er... they just called and said, "Yep, to do the repairs we'll need to total your car."
Nope. Just, nope. I'll have someone reasonable do my repairs, thanks!
($1800 in repairs for a dent in the fender, and the car's estimated value at $1400. I'm betting I can find a guy on the street to pull out my fender for under $400.)
Oh, and for the record, after the insurance company called I thought I'd check my legal resource, and Nolo Press states it quite unambiguously:
If the insurer says that your car is a total loss, it will only pay you the fair market value of your car as of the day of the accident. Unfortunately, an insurer is only required to pay damages up to the fair market value of the destroyed property...
It makes a LOT more sense than what Hi and Shiro were telling me ("Your 18-ton truck ran over my 1968 VW Beetle! I insist you pay to have it fully repaired and restored, no matter how many orders of magnitude more expensive that is than the car was worth!"), so I wish I hadn't wasted everyone's time going to the body shop.
Ah, well. Live and learn.
Freehold HUNGERS
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Captain slumbers.
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...drama club was a good idea. These kids have so much energy they need to get out.
In related news, I have a pounding headache.
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Limey stares at a lone cucumber.
OK. I'm disappointed.
I was hoping to post the daily saga of my sidewalk being closed but not repaired, but at 2:00 pm two guys a truck showed up and are summarily tearing out the sidewalk.
In fact, I just looked outside and they're working so fast I don't even think we're going to get to implement GothBard's nefarious plan (if they left the hole on Halloween, we were going to buy a bunch of half-zombie and skeleton mannequins and set them up climbing out of the hole).
They're being seriously Captain Yesterday-efficient out there. I think the guy driving the mini-bobcat even just shaved a bear...
EDIT: There's hope after all. They're doing the standard assembly-line thing. The trucks that showed up at my place were just the removal crew: Broke up and dug out the old sidewalk, cut out the tree roots, and flattened the ground. So I'm expecting a second crew to actually dig the area to a reasonable depth (at the moment if they pour the sidewalk now it'll be less than 4" thick, meaning it wouldn't last 10 years). Then a third crew to put in the rebar and framing (or whatever you call the wood that shapes the concrete). Then the concrete pourer and smoother. Then the finisher.
So if they don't start 'til 2:00 pm every day, it may take all week.
Of course, when government is involved, I'm a pessimist. I'll bet dollars to donuts they just pour the concrete now, 4" thick and with no rebar, and we're asking for a new sidewalk within 10 years.
Limey stares at a lone cucumber.
The sheer volume of lewd and/or inappropriate responses I came up with for that single, simple statement made me shudder.
You, sir, deserve a thumbs-up!
(at the moment if they pour the sidewalk now it'll be less than 4" thick, meaning it wouldn't last 10 years)
And your point is?
1) though they are getting better and better here, at least for now, we'll see in a few years
Once it would've surprised me that anyone did any construction fast anywhere, NH. Once...
You see, upon leaving Florida, I was amazed to find there are cities in other states that actually finish one project before starting another. Seriously, all over that wang-shaped swamp of hell there's construction projects that have started everywhere - yet you never see workers anywhere actually doing anything - just barricades, closed lanes, and abandoned construction equipment that makes it look like some kind of ghost highway, especially on I-95. Nothing is ever finished - google the I-4 Eyesore for another example that's been sitting around for years and years and years - but that is nothing compared to how many half-finished road projects are just freaking everywhere. You'd think "maybe we should take all these crews we hired and have them work around the clock on one project so it will be finished." That would make sense. Nothing in Florida makes sense.
I haven't seen any construction in The Planes, and Athens has one road being added to, of which I have seen people actually working.
This may not be news to you, but it was weird as hell for me to see.
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I was set loose in Best Buy yesterday, and nearly walked out of the store with Ark: Survival Evolved just because the cover reminded me of Dino Riders.
Mind you I know nothing about Ark, so it could be fantastic or it could be a total letdown for all I know.
Was gonna give some very basic pointers but Vis beat me to the most important one:
I suggest starting it on an easy setting (there is a lot of tuneing options to get it where you want it) The default is pretty vicious. You chain die several times in a row from random circumstances. It has a steep initial learning curve.
Otherwise:
- Its a survival game so you'll be banging banging rock together fro quite some time, thus having some one to game with makes the experience easier and more enjoyable.
- Aim for making Walls + Spikes early.
- Location is king, you want a place for your home that'll give you easy access to most resources while offering little danger (dinos or griefers).
- Aim for making Walls + Spikes early.
- Make friends with your neighbors...as it can prevent the next point
- People are going to steal/ruin your s%&+, so don't hoard more stuff then you're willing to lose.
damn you fruit basket!!Good thing I was hiding behind this strategically placed fruit basket!
(Dresses)
*Joins Freehold in shaking his fist at the fruit basket*
Yes, I'm fine. I was nowhere near the shooting. As a matter of fact, I was many miles away, picking up my mother's prescriptions at the Supermarket.
*Gives John a back pat*
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I was set loose in Best Buy yesterday, and nearly walked out of the store with Ark: Survival Evolved just because the cover reminded me of Dino Riders.
Mind you I know nothing about Ark, so it could be fantastic or it could be a total letdown for all I know.
Was gonna give some very basic pointers but Vis beat me to the most important one:
I suggest starting it on an easy setting (there is a lot of tuneing options to get it where you want it) The default is pretty vicious. You chain die several times in a row from random circumstances. It has a steep initial learning curve.Otherwise:
- Its a survival game so you'll be banging banging rock together fro quite some time, thus having some one to game with makes the experience easier and more enjoyable.
- Aim for making Walls + Spikes early.
- Location is king, you want a place for your home that'll give you easy access to most resources while offering little danger (dinos or griefers).
- Aim for making Walls + Spikes early.).
- Make friends with your neighbors...as it can prevent the next point
- People are going to steal/ruin your s%&~, so don't hoard more stuff then you're willing to lose.
damn you fruit basket!!Good thing I was hiding behind this strategically placed fruit basket!
(Dresses)*Joins Freehold in shaking his fist at the fruit basket*
Yes, I'm fine. I was nowhere near the shooting. As a matter of fact, I was many miles away, picking up my mother's prescriptions at the Supermarket.*Gives John a back pat*
Is Ark single player or multi-player? I only play single player. Too much of a whimp.
Is Ark single player or multi-player? I only play single player. Too much of a whimp.
I've only played it as 'open world multiplayer experience' but if I remember correctly it can be played as a more 'singleplayer sandbox'.
Edit:
Yea follows the standard MMO pattern:
PvP(vE) - Griefers Rejoice!
PvE - Other players can't ruin your s*++ directly (Though your stuff will disappear if you don't log in after a designated 'PvE demolish time')
Single Player - basically an form of 'offline' play mode.
(A smattering of other modes exist too)
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New avatars are in!
I like froggy imagery. Multi-eyed frogs look neat and properly inhuman.
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I may never change it.
Until next week.
Never is such a long time...
I wonder if Ambrosia already saw this avatar?
My friend Tiffany and I wrote a paper senior year about the world being one or two evolutionary quirks from the frogs taking over the world.
We even had T-shirts made.
RIP Sir Terry. You were a glorious writer.
Rowling stole your rightful place at the top of Britain with better publicists and advertising, but her quality of work was so far below yours - it was the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing one.
Not to say she was bad, but she was no Terry Pratchett.
...and all I'm left with to comfort me even close to you in your American equivalent, Christopher Moore, who barely reaches your shadow.
Not the same genre, but if you want Pratchett-level wit and humor, but in politics/law, I really like Christopher Buckley. No Way to Treat a First Lady and Supreme Courtship (not to mention Thank You for Smoking) are pure gold.
Then there's Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather, Tourist Season, Lucky You, and Double Whammy. (I've got a copy of everything he's written, but those four are by far my favorites.)
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There comes a moment in every creative project where (usually quite close to the end) I get so damned sick of it I just want to throw it on a fire.
Not because it's going badly (because it looks beautiful), and not because it's hard (because it was a fairly easy modification of a basic pattern), but because the only time I have to work on it is late at night, after I've worked a full day, run errands, made dinner, put the kids to bed, and cleaned the kitchen, and all I want to do is lie on the couch with a beer, not put the finishing touches on a @#$%^&*@#$%^&*@#$%^&*!!!!! Easter bunny suit. F@#%!
And I only have tonight and tomorrow night to finish it, in-between 10:30 and midnight before I get up at 5:30.
Sounds like your version of writers block.
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Nope. My version of writer's block is that when my daughter was born seven years ago, I threw both books (fiction and non) I was working on into a box and haven't unpacked them since. I'm completely dry.
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Oh and for Arc I only play single player and it was fun for awhile I do suspect I would enjoy the multiplayer but I only played single. At that point you just have to enjoy building and survival games.
Cacti are very aggressive cucumbers.
Aggressive plants are scary. at least they would be if they were aggressive towards us. (think Giant Venus fly trap you know rick moranis style)
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You know those random pains you get sometimes? Maybe those are caused by alternate universe yous being killed.
I want the whole Jet li "one" scenario. I am prepared to kill other mes if I get super powers out of it.
A fake smile shows that you care enough to not show how much you don't care.
And Its a lot mind you.
If at first you don't succeed, we have a lot in common.
Something about skydiving
Earlier I was singing excerpts from The Marriage of Figaro in the shower and got shampoo in my mouth. That's when it became a soap opera.
Thats the new winner. That one right there is absolutely your worst one yet.