Entertainment
The things I'm doing in my free* time warrant mention, I think.
1 - I made a terrible mistake recently: I started listening to the official D&D podcasts. Now I really want to play D&D again. A lot. I don't just miss the game itself, either, I miss the whole process of character creation and the gathering in the halls to talk about game. Specifically,
>Play a 4E Wizard. There are several major things I dislike about Fourth Edition, but it's really hard not to think about Prestidigitation and Ghost Sound at will.
>Run a game that features the usual dungeon crawls some of the time, but features characters who all have day jobs in the city, and roughly half of the game is city-based. Player choice would determine whether they actually had secret identities or not.
>Play someone similar to Lyzek again, but in a good party instead of an evil one.
>Run or play in a game in which all of the characters are from the same culture and area, and are unfamiliar with the area they are adventuring in (and the area they are in is similarly unfamiliar with them). Such as a group of dwarves from a deep mining settlement traveling to a human kingdom.
>Play an adventurer who is also a traveling magic-item craftsman and shopkeeper. This is the concept that I think I shared with a few of you of the guy who unfolds a portable hole vertically and an awning and display tables pop out.
>Play an arcane trickster (or something similar) modeled after a circus acrobat and stage magician. This may actually be the was to do that 4E wizard.
>Play a half-celestial character who was raised on one of the celestial planes.
The folks behind the D&D PSAs have a fan site now, which includes a newborn play-by-post community. I'm thinking I may start participating there as soon as my time is less devoted to the website. Actually, come to think of it, if I play in and run a few games there and like it, I may try to figure out how to start doing that here.
2 - I started watching TV again tonight. I say that even though I have been watching one show for a while because that show is British and on PBS. That's MI-5, a show about the group of the same name. It's Thursdays at 9 here. It's quite good if you like the idea of a domestic pseudo-spy unit and are fond of action.mystery/dramas and/or British TV. It's a full hour, even without commercials, and moves fairly quickly.
What brought me back to network TV tonight was the discovery that one of the low-budget digital channels we get now puts on the A-Team every weeknight. So that's pretty awesome.
Since I was watching non-public TV again, I decided to check out the premier of Castle on ABC tonight. It's a show about a horror/mystery author who starts consulting with the police when someone starts recreating the murders in his books. It stars Nathan Fillion, which was the entire reason I gave it a second look. I was not disappointed, as he delivers a very good performance. In a demonstration of poor advertising, he was also the only reason I suspected it might be a comedy in addition to a mystery show, an assumption that proved correct. So, a good show if you like mystery/comedy/romance (did I mention the sexual tension between him and the detective?) and/or are a fan of Nathan Fillion. The only complaint I have so far is that the show falls back a little too heavily on the "workaholic falls for the roguish guy because she secretly craves adventure" motivation.
3 - I finally started playing Mass Effect, having owned a copy since I bought the x-box. I was very pleased for a variety of reasons. That's all I'll say now, though, because a very detailed review has been bouncing around in my head for some time and if I start to write it I won't get anything else done tonight.
*"free" in this case does not mean time when I have nothing to do, but time when stress levels dictate that I need to not work on website writing or job hunting for a while.
1 - I made a terrible mistake recently: I started listening to the official D&D podcasts. Now I really want to play D&D again. A lot. I don't just miss the game itself, either, I miss the whole process of character creation and the gathering in the halls to talk about game. Specifically,
>Play a 4E Wizard. There are several major things I dislike about Fourth Edition, but it's really hard not to think about Prestidigitation and Ghost Sound at will.
>Run a game that features the usual dungeon crawls some of the time, but features characters who all have day jobs in the city, and roughly half of the game is city-based. Player choice would determine whether they actually had secret identities or not.
>Play someone similar to Lyzek again, but in a good party instead of an evil one.
>Run or play in a game in which all of the characters are from the same culture and area, and are unfamiliar with the area they are adventuring in (and the area they are in is similarly unfamiliar with them). Such as a group of dwarves from a deep mining settlement traveling to a human kingdom.
>Play an adventurer who is also a traveling magic-item craftsman and shopkeeper. This is the concept that I think I shared with a few of you of the guy who unfolds a portable hole vertically and an awning and display tables pop out.
>Play an arcane trickster (or something similar) modeled after a circus acrobat and stage magician. This may actually be the was to do that 4E wizard.
>Play a half-celestial character who was raised on one of the celestial planes.
The folks behind the D&D PSAs have a fan site now, which includes a newborn play-by-post community. I'm thinking I may start participating there as soon as my time is less devoted to the website. Actually, come to think of it, if I play in and run a few games there and like it, I may try to figure out how to start doing that here.
2 - I started watching TV again tonight. I say that even though I have been watching one show for a while because that show is British and on PBS. That's MI-5, a show about the group of the same name. It's Thursdays at 9 here. It's quite good if you like the idea of a domestic pseudo-spy unit and are fond of action.mystery/dramas and/or British TV. It's a full hour, even without commercials, and moves fairly quickly.
What brought me back to network TV tonight was the discovery that one of the low-budget digital channels we get now puts on the A-Team every weeknight. So that's pretty awesome.
Since I was watching non-public TV again, I decided to check out the premier of Castle on ABC tonight. It's a show about a horror/mystery author who starts consulting with the police when someone starts recreating the murders in his books. It stars Nathan Fillion, which was the entire reason I gave it a second look. I was not disappointed, as he delivers a very good performance. In a demonstration of poor advertising, he was also the only reason I suspected it might be a comedy in addition to a mystery show, an assumption that proved correct. So, a good show if you like mystery/comedy/romance (did I mention the sexual tension between him and the detective?) and/or are a fan of Nathan Fillion. The only complaint I have so far is that the show falls back a little too heavily on the "workaholic falls for the roguish guy because she secretly craves adventure" motivation.
3 - I finally started playing Mass Effect, having owned a copy since I bought the x-box. I was very pleased for a variety of reasons. That's all I'll say now, though, because a very detailed review has been bouncing around in my head for some time and if I start to write it I won't get anything else done tonight.
*"free" in this case does not mean time when I have nothing to do, but time when stress levels dictate that I need to not work on website writing or job hunting for a while.