Terry Scott Taylor

While listening to a Christmas album the other day, eleven of my neurons fired with a nebulous recognition. The artist's voice was uncannily familiar, but where had I heard such tones before? I listened to the song again, and came to a tenuous conclusion. Could it be? A google search later, I discovered I was right!

The man who sings Holy Emmanuel on City on a Hill: It's Christmas Time is the same font of mirth who lent his voice to the Playstation game, Skullmonkeys.

Nero is a Piece of Crap

This is so bloody frustrating. I'm supposed to make a DVD of our wedding video in time for Christmas and the computer gremlins are doing all in their power to stop me. The program that came with the DVD burner is one of those "dumbed down" applications. You know the kind I mean: big friendly buttons, no menu bar (those are too advanced for you), and you can only work on one project at a time.

Oh, so you want to save it to come back and work on it later? Okay. We'll just save it for you, and then never let you open it again. How's that?

City of Heroes Screen Shots

On a totally unrelated note, here are some pictures of my City of Heroes characters.

• Grey Dog on the wrong side of the tracks. Note that his "cape" is actually just a bath towel.


• Grey Dog's alternate costume.


• Magmaroth is wreathed in flames.


• Magmaroth wields his firey sword.

Christmas Tree

We have our first Christmas tree as a family. At first, it wouldn't fit in the stand we got for it, so we ran out and bought a saw. Then it fit, but it was crooked, so we stuffed a couple towels under one side of the stand. After setting it up, we discovered that I'm allergic to pine. As long as I don't touch it, bad things don't happen.

Initially, we were worried the dog would eat the thing, or make a mess on it or something. So far the worst he did was try to drink the water out of the stand.

We're Married Now

That was the best week and a half of my life. The wedding was perfect, the reception was a blast, our honeymoon was so much fun!

The most nerve-wracking part was actually the rehearsal on Friday night. It just made it all a present reality instead of, "Oh, we're getting married in November. That's months away!"

Wedding Bands

We picked up our wedding bands yesterday. Mine is surprisingly heavy. It may be that, of all the transitions I will make when I am given "husband" status, the wearing a jewelry will take the most getting used to.

Also, we bought a camcorder. The bride-to-be wants to make a wedding/reception/Hawaii video. It should be noted that we do not have the correct cord to connect this thing to the computer, nor do we have a DVD burner. "Family Christmas Gift" here we come.

November Fifth Nears

I have never been more terrified in my entire life. A major milestone of life is coming up VERY soon and then it will pass. A chunk of my life will be over. Granted, a new one is beginning, and that's very exciting, but as change often is, it is freaking scary.

Good Movie, Bad Movie

Serenity is all it promises to be. It takes a series cut down before its time and makes it awesome again. Loose ends are tied, and those that aren't are simply cut off, so to speak. Joss reveals things fans of the series always wanted to know, and makes it a big deal.
This movie is good; intrinsically better than the Star Wars prequals (those have enough going for them that they don't need to be as good, unfortunately). It's better if you've seen the TV show. Knowing the characters intimately makes their changes and growth mean much more.

See this movie, or even better, watch the entire (14 episode) series, then see the movie.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy stinks. If you ever read the oft-quoted Slashdot review, its pretty much dead-on. Attempting to walk into this film with an open mind was difficult, having heard the things I have, but I did my best.
Rarely do I leave a movie unfinished, but I can add this one to that short list. The characters (and the story) meander about the galaxy with no purpose in mind. (They actually have a goal, or so they say, but it must not be terribly important or they would have tried to attain it.) Clever bits were altered to be less clever, and other things were intentionally changed so they made no sense.

Don't see this movie.

City of Villains Beta

The City of Villains beta non-disclosure agreement was lifted today. I am now allowed to tell cool things I've seen while testing the game.

Brute: Definitely my kinda guy. You smash things, and the faster you smash, and the more guys attacking you, the more damage you do (up to triple normal!)
Mastermind: You get henchman who do your bidding, including soldiers, zombies, robots, or ninjas. You get to name them and you can make 'em say stuff. I look forward to setting up complex macros of them arguing with each other, etc.

I've been doing this for two weeks and those are the only archtypes I've played. I've been trying to get up to the point where I can create my own Supergroup and build a base. Mission accomplished this evening. However, base editing is non-functional right now, so I can't play with it. Puh.

So, uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure I didn't mention anything that people didn't know before.

AirZooka update! My coworker did indeed make a working fanzooka out of a plastic disposable cup and a latex glove. Not as mighty as the trashcan-sized version, but cool nonetheless.

Airzooka

The art department where I work is a war zone. The two guys on either side of me are equipped with nurf suction-dart guns that they have modified to a frightening degree (extra rubberbands all over them, etc).

Out of place without a weapon, I purchased the AirZooka. Of course, the first thing they wanted to do when I brought it in was supe it up. We tried a number of modifications, but none increased the weapon's potency. One guy vowed to build his own from scratch this evening. I'll post updates on how that turns out.

The Beginning of the End

I write this thing for me, so I shouldn't feel guilty about not updating. I promised myself that I would never post about not having anything to post about. I also tried my very darndest to never start my opening sentances with the word "I."

That's three broken promises. That hurts, Dave.

Wookie, Firefly, Squid

We're baby-sitting a dog for a few days. He's obese, breathes laboriously all the time, stares obsessively at the guinea pig cage, and smells bad. Good ol' Wookie.

Firefly is a pretty good show. Jeff lent me the series on DVD. My favorite character is the real gruff mercenary guy. He's a total ass, but the ship just wouldn't be the same without him.

Somebody has finally done it! A giant squid has been successfully photographed in the wild. That should put a stop to the documentaries where they go looking and never find one.

Awesome Things

The following things are totally awesome.

Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children
and
Duck Doom Deluxe

I had the extreme pleasure to experience both this weekend. Advent Childen is all it promises to be and much more. I never really thought about it before, but every character in that game is a superhero in the truest sense of the word. They can all fly like in wire-fu films, except hundreds of feet more, and they fight and holy crap they're fighting on top of multiple really fast motorcycles and a giant monster is blowing crap up and Cloud is flying and there's awesome music and Vincent is being great and everybody's throwing things and people use limit breaks and explosions and things that are awesome and Final Fantasy and holy crap!

Dave takes this moment to change his pants and wipe the drool from his desk and keyboard. He then proceeds to relate an amusing comment from his watching of the film. "I baptize you in the name of Aeris, the Lifestream, and the Holy Materia." There was really no other way to interpret that scene, blasphemous as it was.

The Doom thing is really fun too. My high score was 450,100. My favorite part is when you kill the duck with the rocket launcher or the BFG 9000 the dog doesn't hold up its corpse. Hilariousnessicity. You'd think they would have let you shoot the stupid dog, but no. Not even when the dog turns into a monster.

Hackjob

My weekend must not have been very exciting. The only thing I can remember is giving my guinea pig a haircut. Allow me to repeat this so the shame can sink in. The only thing I remember about the entire weekend is cutting the fur of a freaking guinea pig. Bow before the gweena-barber! BOW!

We are in the process of discovering that one of our guinea pigs is secretly a long hair. This luxuriant breed of cavie can be rather high-maintenance, if the fur is allowed to grow to its full length. Sunday, I decided to nip this potential problem in the bud, so to speak.

The one with the haircut is Chiquita, the other is Penny.

Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

Yargh. Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Batten the hatches and swap the poop deck, etc.

A Fantastically Gibbous Moon

Behold the swollen, leering eye of Earth's dark sister!

Taking a detailed picture at night is difficult. If I wanted to relay a boring couple of sentences about cameras, I would say something like the following:

Everything is black except light sources, which become featureless hotspots. I could maybe get a decent one if I had more direct control over the f-stops and shutter speed, but I don't.

Why I would want to do that I can't imagine. It's not like I published that as my original post, later decided that it was dry and uninteresting, and replaced it with a post talking about the post.

That would be unhealthily narcisistic.

Dirty Words

The web programmer at work was creating a database site where people could submit information via a form. She wanted the thing to edit out offensive words without making an actual person go through each post. While compiling a list of the vilest, filthiest words she could think of, she started to run dry.

For about an hour today, it was my job to find a list of naughty words. Here's what I found. (Warning: Link contains naughty words.)

Charlie needs a haircut.

Note that I did not personally witness the events in the following anecdote. It was mearly relayed to me with such mirth that I felt the internet would be richer having heard it.

The other day, Charlie was out for a walk and decided to claim a certain tree as his very own. The act is quite comical, as he raises his one back leg up much higher than it needs to be. He often loses his balance and falls over, right leg skyward.

Anyway, this tree was a pine tree. A juicy one. The poor dog leaned into the thing 'cause he was standing on only three of his legs, and when he began to walk away, discovered that he couldn't. His long, lusterous fur found the sap of the plant irresistable, and he had gotten stuck. After a bit of tugging, he was free.

The sap in his fur has proved relentless, sternly rebuffing all attempts to remove it. Bathing, brushing, necromancy all have come to naught.

Charlie needs a haircut.

Thermal Radiation

The cause of the popped blood vessels in my eyes revealed itself to me last night as I delivered dinner to my fiancee (now, which one of those gets the accent?) at work. Her boss mentioned that the same thing happened to her after she drank too much and threw up. It was like a cartoon, with a little lightbulb over my head and everything!

Another wave of invites went out for the City of Villains beta test. Guess who wasn't in it. C'mon, guess. That's right, me. They said I'll get in eventually; I've been in City of Heroes for over twelve months. Right now, the main reason I want in is the "Thermal Radiation" power set. My motivations are subtle, varied, and mostly incomprehensible, but they can best be expressed with the following sentence:

You heal your allies by setting them on fire.

I'm torn between that and the army of robots.

"Blood tears I cry, and the screams remain inside!"

The stress from last weekend has caught up with me, it seems. I've had a headache the last two days of work (sitting at a computer in the dark doesn't help) and I popped a blood vessel first in my right eye, now the left. I took a picture, but it's really gross. Nobody needs to see that.

Suffice it to say, my eyes hurt and they look scary.

Floor Chicken

Two pieces of half-eaten fried chicken sat in the hallway outside my apartment for a couple days. What sort of person would drop fried chicken on the floor and just leave it there?

I managed to throw it away without touching it. The dog really, REALLY wanted to eat it.

Monster Manual 3

This weekend, Eric found my copy of the D&D Monster Manual 3 and pawed through it. There are a few gems, but I'd really have to say the MM3 was a disappointment overall. Because I like making lists of things, here's a list of things.

Beacons of Hope

Arcane ooze
Cinder swarm
Sorrowswarn demon. Great name, great picture, cool powers. We got a winner.
Death giant. Sounds really highschool, I know, but he's got what it takes.
Shadesteel golem. THIS KILLS EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME.
Grisgol. Really great. He puts a curse on you when you kill him. An AWESOME curse.
Knell beetle
Night twist. Another monster with an awesome curse.
Redcap
Rot reaver. Not a very good picture, but good anyway.
Slaughterstone behemoth
Slaughterstone evicerator
Vasuthant

Solid

Ambush drake. I'm a sucker for dragons.
Astral stalker
Battle briar
Boneclaw
Brood keeper
Cadaver collector
Charnel hound
Chelicera
Chraal
Conflagration ooze
Dragon eel. This one would get a lower grade, but it has a really good picture.
Dread blossom swarm
Dust wight
Ephemeral swarm. Good picture, great idea.
Geriviar. Really strange, but has a unique combination of abilities.
Eldritch giant
Glaistig
Alchemical golem. Not a bad idea, but I can't imagine why in-game person would ever make one of these sure-to-destroy-your-entire-house-in-its-first-battle golems.
Gloom golem. Not bad, but a bit of a stretch to make a golem out of that.
Prismatic golem
Grimweird
Gulgar. If you absolutely must have more monstrous humanoids.
Harssaf. See above.
Justicator
Living spells. Neat idea. Nice to have 'em statted out.
Mindshredder. Silly-looking, but some good abilities.
Necronaut. Awesome name.
Lifeleech otyugh. Why isn't this a template?
Petal. Not a badly written fey, if you're into that sort of thing.
Phoelarch. Points for creativity.
Plague spewer
Protean scourge
Ragewalker
Ak'chazar rakshasa
Naztharune rakshasa
Prismatic roper
Runehound
Shimmerling swarm
Shredstorm
Shrieking terror
Skindancer
Snowflake ooze
Spellwarped creature
Splinterwaif
Stonesinger
Summoning ooze
Susurrus. But seriously, WTF?
Topiary guardian
Trilloch
Witchknife
Wood woad
Woodling
Yugoloth (I love yugoloths, even though the 3rd edition team keeps giving them extra arms for no reason)

Uninspired

Armand. Alright guys, get this. They're like people, but they're ARMADILLOS!
Bearhound
Changeling. I know they think they need to have the playable races in the monster manual. Sigh.
Deathshrieker. Uh, alright, we need another undead. How 'bout something that screams a lot. What'dya mean we've already done that? Oh, right, well, just give it a skull for a head and I think we'll be good.
Battletitan dinosaur
Bloodstriker dinosaur
Fleshraker dinosaur
Swindlespitter dinosaur. Yawn.
Drowned. Good picture, but no.
Storm elemental
Feral yowler. Yawn.
Hangman golem. Uh, how 'bout... uh, what haven't we done yet? Rope!
Mud golem. See above.
Kenku
Blackscale lizardfolk. A write-up for these guys wasn't really necissary.
Poison dusk lizardfolk. Again.
Lurking strangler
Needletooth swarm
Odopi
Omnimental. So if one of these, a Tempest, and a Storm elemental all got in a fight, would anybody care?
Plague brush
Rage drake
Rejkar
Salt mummy
Shifter. See "changeling."
Ssvaklor
Swamp strider swarm
Thorn
Vermin lord
Visilight
Voidmind creature
Warforged. You know, Eberron?
Zezir

Just Plain Bad

Avalancher. Who could take this thing seriously with a picture like that?
Bonedrinker. Really bad picture.
Arrow demon
Dracotaur. We already had this creature. It's a tauric lizardman aligator.
Sand giant. Does this interest ANYONE?
Flind gnoll. It's like a gnoll, but with NUNCHUCKS!!!
Goatfolk
Forestkith goblin. It's like a goblin, but with a NET!!!
Web golem
Harpoon spider
Ironclad mauler. It's like a bear, but with ARMOR!!!
Lhosk
Lumi
Mastodon. This is different from a dire elephant, how?
Mivilorn
Nycter. For the love of... Nobody likes desmodus, alright, NOBODY!
Skullcrusher ogre. This goes far beyond "uninspired."
Quaraphon. WTF?
Sea tiger
Seryulin. It's a slug. You ride it.
Siege crab. If I see one more creature described as "a living siege engine" I'm gonna lose it.
Cave troll
Crystalline troll
Forest troll
Mountain troll
War troll

A Wrinkle In Time

Sunday evening my friend Eric came up to visit. I hadn't seen him in a while and it was great to catch up. He's now all fitted for his tux (he's my best man for our November nuptuals) and all that.

I can say as a matter of fact that Sunday evening I imbibed more alcohol than I have ever had before. That night marks the first time I threw up as a result of drinking too much, and the first stretch of time that has been forcibly wiped from my memory.

After my head was over the toilet for the first time, I have no recollections. Eric tells me I was ranting incoherently about something and offering him all my pillows. Thank goodness we were at my house instead of some bar somewhere. To sum up, alcohol should only be enjoyed in the following ways:

• someplace safe
• with people you know and trust
• near a toilet or large sink
• after eating food that will taste as good several hours later
• far from fun but sharp or otherwise dangerous toys
• with strong opinions that you have yet to form or loudly express
• um, in moderation, yeah.

Juice: the Shark-dog

My aunt threw Erin and I a wedding shower this weekend. We drove up to her house in Wisconsin and spent the night. For many years, my aunt's dream has been to have a quilting-retreat at her house and have groups of quilt-enthusiasts up for weekends. Over the past year, they built it, and it's huge. It's so cool that she has pursued what she wanted to do gung-ho. That's where we stayed. It's kind of like a rec-center/dormitory.

They have this enormous white dog with no neck. He was like a pitbull-shark mix (a rare breed) and he wouldn't leave Charlie (our dog) alone for a minute. Not attacking or anything, just following him around, trying to play.

Charlie's a bit neurotic and really shy around other dogs. He didn't like Juice too much.

Going to Chicago

Two of the things on my list are done. I still have to finish the kid invitations. I worked on them a little, but I mostly played City of Heroes. Issue #5 is up! There's a new zone, and new powersets. I played it on the test server a few weeks ago, but I didn't to invest too much time on the Training Room 'cause anything I did or accomplished wouldn't count.

We're going up to Chicago in an hour or so. We have a wedding to attend, and another shower for us in Wisconsin. The dog gets carsick, so we can't feed him until we get there, and he has to take his doggie dramamine (the hassle of forcing a dog to take a pill is better than cleaning up the alternative).

Boo-ya, etc. Four day weekend.

So begins Skebar, I guess.

It seems the pull of the 'weblog' is strong indeed. Long have I resisted, and several times I have succumbed to its pull, but perhaps this time will stick. Maybe the reason I couldn't keep it up before was my obsessive need to oversee every tiny detail of the website. I programmed it all myself, and every update I literally rewrote the page by manually. This should be much easier and updating will be less of a chore.

Ooh! How 'bout a numbered list. Everybody likes lists, right?
Things I should be doing now instead of writing:

1. Cleaning the guinea pigs' cage. It's been a mite too long since last it was done.
2. Going to Target. I need to buy a card and a wedding gift for this weekend.
3. Creating a kids' invitation for our wedding in November. Why isn't it done yet, Dave?

One of these might get done, if I'm lucky.