A year?!

It's true, I've been married for a year now. (Insert all the jokes about never finding a girl, or never getting laid here). We're FINALLY getting to take some semblance of a honeymoon by heading up to Des Moines for an extended weekend. I know, nothing says honeymoon like Des Moines. Hey, I figure start in your own backyard and go from there, right? (Next year, Chicago?)

I'm not going to lie. There have been some rough spots. Like everyone says, it usually revolves around money. What do you expect? We're two people living just slightly beyond our means with our slightly better than minimum wage jobs. Maybe I shouldn't pick such expensive hobbies (but I need that new $2000 dollar video camera!).

Do I ever regret it? Not when I hook my girl on games like D&D, Civ3, and Neverwinter Nights. Nothing says love like, "No, honey. You need to use a +1 sword to kill that enemy."

A special shout out to those friends who hung around (and continue to do so) for the insanity that is our life together. From monkey-wrangling to LAN parties, life wouldn't be the same without you people. (Oh yeah, and I suppose Mom and Dad too, because I know they glance at this from time to time.)

I'm reminded of a card I once saw. The cover showed a couple sitting in a roller coaster with the line, "We've had our ups and downs." The inside showed them screaming as they went down a hill, "Hang on, you haven't seen anything yet."


Special postscript: Here's the best relationship advice I can give. If you want to know if it's meant to be move together once. (i.e. from apartment to apartment or something) If you haven't killed each other by the end, you just might live long enough to make it work.

Revenge of the nerd

So, once again, I've been thinking about gaming (I know, more action, less talk, right?) Probably thanks in no small part to the gift of Neverwinter Nights (Platinum) from my in-laws. Regardless, I've been going through the books I do have (and eyeing with vicious intent the ones I don't) to try and figure out exactly what I want to get out of a campaign and what I think people would enjoy. I've also been surfing the web reading forums and the like. It appears the creator of Eberron (Keith Baker) has some pretty well-thought out opinions on how he thinks the world spins. I recommend checking out his FAQ on the wizards message boards to anyone interested in Eberron. Fair warning, there's A LOT there.

But to the task at hand, I've been trying to understand the difference between divine and arcane magic. To make things even more difficult, I've thrown in psionics too. Partly because I think they make a great plot structure that would be fun to throw my adventurers into, partly because I have the expanded psionics handbook (which is highly recommended to everyone. The original psionics handbook sucked. This one, not so). *Quick disclaimer: there is a variant rule that psionics are different from magic, and I have enough problems with magic so I'm throwing that right out. Psionics and magic come from the same "source."

Anywho, the best example I could wrap my head around is a bowl of water. The goal: make the water boil.
--Arcane magic user: Puts a flame underneath it (frankly this could easily be done with a cantrip, or the low-level spell 'heat metal' if it's a metal bowl). Why? Magic is scientific. The mage knows that by creating an action he'll get a reaction (we're not talking theory of relativity here, but simple stuff)
--Divine magic user: Prays. Why? Faith. If I believe hard enough that my (insert spiritual force here) will help me to boil this water, it will. And he'd be right. Thing is, where is the power coming from? That's a philosophical debate even for a fictional world. Is it the cleric's force of will, or is it some divine being exerting (in this case a really small amount) of divine influence? You decide.
--Psionic user: Thinks. Hard. Why? Well, I always imagine a psion as seeing things beyond our capabilities. I imagine the psion thinking of the individual particles of the water and then agitating them. Result heat. Take this to a farther extreme and you get the creation of materials from perceived nothingness, and the ever popular disintegration power.

Here's the short version. All three do the same thing, they make water boil. They have different tools at their disposal. The arcane user uses his mystical knowledge to bend the world. The divine user has his faith and strength of will in that faith to do it. And the psion literally uses his brain to do it.

I know, I think too much.


**unrelated information: from the blog of the creator of 'Dork Tower': "I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous."
(think about it)

Some days you just find something funny

For all three of you who haven't seen the movie: There is a line in there saying "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

For the rest of you, you'll get the joke right away.

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1028

Look, I'm gloating over one of my friends!

Here's an amusing story about one of my friends. We won't talk about the fact that he's at "the other school"

http://www.iastate.edu/Inside/2005/0722/wayfinder.shtml

From the work file

In a little laugh at work, a great line came to me. I had mentioned the "Department of Redundancy Department," to which my boss replied, "You'd think there'd be offices everywhere."

Ha ha ha. I laughed. And so should you.