Month: March 2015

clouds lifting

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I just dropped the writing class that I’ve had issues with this semester (and my freshman year and last summer, but I digress). My semester is looking much better, if only because I enjoy how easy my business applications class is. Doing the week’s assignments in an hour on campus? Sure, it seems futile and absurd to expect Excel and Access 2013 to apply whenever I manage to get a job that actually involves using “productivity” software (as opposed to cooking utensils, like my current job), but who knows, maybe after I graduate I’ll have an IT job with a company that’s still using a ten-year-old Microsoft Office version.

Of course, before that happens, I still have like another 60-odd hours left before I graduate.

(laugh track)

Considering the vital place the aforementioned writing class holds in the requirements and curriculum, I’m currently thinking about trying to take it this summer, or at least during a future semester (next spring?) in a “traditional” classroom setting. Continue reading →

writing about my problems

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Mid-term grades came out today, and there were no surprises. There have been previous semesters where I don’t really know how I’m doing until I’m pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised by my mid-term grade (I’ve never really been an academic perfectionist, and this has been particularly true in college), but this semester, I was pretty sure that my grades would reflect the effort I’ve been putting into my classes. Being able to do my business applications assignments for the week in about an hour at the library works a lot better for my underdeveloped study skills and inconsistent motivation than the much more open-ended assignments for my writing class (which I believe I’ve written about here before). Now I don’t know why I didn’t just suck it up and do most of the assignments for the first half of the semester, but a very consistent theme in my education, since at least kindergarten, is that I have a low opinion of and interest in anything that seems stupid, which is effectively synonymous with anything I’ve already learned. Continue reading →

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton, part III

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(I played and wrote about these events more than a week ago. As of this morning, I’ve played this game as the Duke of Chariton to 2701, so there’s plenty more to come.)

Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton

III: War and Rebellion
January 2670 – April 2676

In April 2670, Duke Truman purchased an indulgence from the Pope, and news of the pope granting absolution reached Duke Truman near Des Moines mere days before King Franklin summoned his vassals to war, announcing his intent to return Rock Island to Iowan rule.

In late April 2670, Rose, the young wife of Duke Truman’s marshal, was the subject of salacious rumors after she was supposedly seen in a compromising position with the Count of Thompson, who was 22 years her elder. In early June, Rose died after a brief illness.

In June 2670, heathens from Michigan raided the country near Hannibal.

In July of that year, Count Napoleon requested to be allowed to duel his rival, Duke Truman’s marshal, over affronts to his honor. Duke Truman allowed the duel.

Duke Truman’s marshal, a man named Phineas, would later marry Maisy, a woman from the Canonate of Boone, part of the Boonslick Republic (also known as the self-styled State of Missouri).

In September, the heathens from Michigan who had pillaged Count Hamilcar’s lands were raiding near Ottumwa, so Duke Truman sent orders to muster men from his lands around Kirksville in order to defeat the pagans. 600 Chariton men under the command of Count Hamilcar and Lavon Graham marched north from Kirksville to Ottumwa and met the 500 Northmen near Ottumwa, where they were also joined by 500 men led by the Canon of Shoquoquon.

The 1000 Iowans met the Northlanders south-east of Ottumwa in early November. Count Hamilcar commanded the Duke of Chariton’s men on the Iowan left, while Canon Flint of Shoquoquon commanded his men in the Iowan center. After putting the Northlander scouts to flight by his vastly superior numbers, Count Hamilcar joined the Canon of Shoquoquon in attacking the Northlander center.

On November 24, His Holiness Praised-Be died in battle against the heathen King Louis of Louisiana at the age of 48. The College of Cardinals quickly elected Pleasant Cottonclad, the Abbot of Doniphan (a vassal of the Duke of Lead Belt, in southern Missouri).

Upon his hasty election, the 31-year-old new Pope, who had been commanding troops near Rapides in Louisiana, assumed the name of Cruxipher. Continue reading →

Pathfinder character contemplation

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Since moving to my current city in August 2013, most of my offline social interaction has come in the form of playing Pathfinder, a tabletop roleplaying game which has its origins in the revised 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons, with friends and acquaintances every week or so.

In the last month or so, our progress through the Skulls and Shackles adventure path (in which the players are pirates), as we near the end of the first book, prompted the group’s Game Master to ask what the group wants to do next- continue the Skulls and Shackles adventure path, or possibly do something else entirely. This also prompted the other campaign I’m participating in, in which the first group’s Game Master and I play a campaign in the world of Eberron with Pathfinder rules, to consider what we’d like to do next. It was decided that the Skulls and Shackles campaign would continue and the other group would add another member (possibly two) and begin the Rise of the Runelords adventure path.

After finishing a battle on Sunday of this week, the Game Master and the two of us who are definitely playing Rise of the Runelords discussed the campaign, some character ideas, and various housekeeping matters (ability score generation, hit point calculations, etc.). From the sound of it, it sounds like our party of 3 so far is going to have a half-orc fighter, an inquisitor (apparently a spontaneous divine caster, like a divine equivalent to the bard), and I decided to assume the mantle of arcane caster by choosing a half-elf sorceror. I’ve thought a sorceror sounded interesting, but most of my characters to date have been skilled (a rogue, a couple bards, a cleric, a ranger, a barbarian, a fighter, and a rogue/wizard multiclass) and not very magical. I also typically play humans, but the player’s guide for the Rise of the Runelords adventure path said low-light vision or darkvision would be helpful. My next major decision is deciding on my sorceror’s bloodline (though I might eventually need to pick sex/gender too).

One thing that I find very intriguing about sorcerors in Pathfinder are the bloodlines, which grant various abilities and options to the character as a result of the strong magical source in their ancestry, whether this is an ancestor who was an accomplished wizard, a dragon or elemental outsider who contributed to their heritage, or the result of an ancestor’s pact with a devil (among various other options). I haven’t decided yet which to choose, because there are several that seem potentially useful. I’ve been wanting to play a sorceror with the Undead bloodline for a long time, but I’m not sure if that would be the best choice, and I’ve decided I need to read about the various bloodline options and the player’s guide for the adventure path again.

At least for now, I have plenty of time to decide – next Sunday I believe we have a cave system to finish exploring in Skulls and Shackles, and we’ll probably be meeting to begin Rise of the Runelords the Sunday after that.

Spring break has been enjoyable so far, and it’ll be even more enjoyable once I get off work at 8 tonight and have three consecutive days off (!) for the first time in a while.

Draft: Deeds of the Dukes of Chariton, part 2

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(This is almost everything I’ve written in the past few days, after restarting my post-apocalyptic North America Crusader Kings 2 game as Duke Truman Still of Chariton earlier this week.)

Part II:

War, Peace, and Succession
July 2666 – January 2669

After swearing fealty to King Franklin in 2664, Duke Truman served as his Lord Treasurer, usually spending a part of each year in Des Moines and in his own lands near the kingdom’s southern borders when he wasn’t traveling in either direction or on His Majesty’s business. Continue reading →

and it started so well

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Today was going well until I decided to restart my computer after installing some updates.

I slept in till about 11, had scrambled eggs with sausage, onion, and green pepper for brunch, got some homework and laundry done, had spaghetti for lunch, and decided to go ahead and restart my computer to finish installing updates.

Something was apparently messed up, because I then wasn’t able to boot Ubuntu properly, and after fiddling around trying to delete an old version of the kernel I apparently deleted (or otherwise rendered inaccessible) everything I had accumulated in the last month since my last drastic computer problem(s).

The good news is that I still had an older version of Ubuntu installed on the other hard drive, so I still have all the data from before the motherboard in my old computer failed, but now I have a hard drive that may or may not still have other stuff on it and nothing works properly with my old hard drive.

On the one hand, I want to fiddle with it until it works properly, but on the other hand I’m already sick of messing with it and I just want everything to work perfectly.

Long story short, looks like I’ll have to restart my attempt at writing about the Crusader Kings 2: After the End mod game.