Thinking about parking: A DC blog discusses how dedicating fees to local improvements instead of the transportation fund gains a lot of support from local businesses, etc. The article also includes a discussion of how to set fees in congested areas and more.
On a happy note: The Olive Press (which closed on May 1) is now open and serving lunch inside the 2039 Ultra Lounge. Unfortunately, the waitresses don’t seem to have made the transition.
Works schedules seem to be OK this week, so we’ll game on Friday unless someone has trouble making it. Please let us know if you’ll have any trouble– otherwise, we’ll game Friday.
A very quick read (about 3 hours), this is one man’s tale of getting buried in the depths of a corporation. The story is funny, often ironic, and moves along quickly. It feels like a book version of Office Space, though with a larger cast of shallow characters. The “lessons learned” bullets at the ends of each chapter fit a pseduo-business book, but they rarely contribute much. The book is strongest as an indictment of corporatism and a personal tale.
I read it indifferently; the book starts off somewhat slow and very stylized, making it hard to really engage. The viewpoint character is decidedly strange and begins with amnesia (so that we can learn the world beside it).
In the end it’s a decent book– easy to set aside, a good intrigue (though hard to follow with the character names/relations so similar), and it has an interesting twist on the population explosion and containment.
This upcoming Friday is the 4th of July. Do we want to meet some other time this weekend (Saturday or Sunday), or does it just not match our schedules? Let me know if any time is particularly good or bad and we’ll see if there’s sometime that works for everyone.
UPDATE: I spoke with Kev last night. He’s working unavailable Friday, works 1-10 on Saturday, and 11-7 on Sunday. It doesn’t look like we’ll manage to get our normal game up and running, though Jennifer and I are discussing backup options if there’s interest and availability.
I wolfed the book down. It kept me up several nights– I kept thinking just one more page, one more chapter. It was well written, and I really liked the characterization. As Jennifer said when she finished reading it, this book is going on our gift giving list. It has a lot to recommend itself to everyone, adult and teen.
After struggling with infection and slime on llamafodder, I gave in and created a new blog. I imported the old posts and comments– so after a very little while we’ll be all the way up to speed again. Let me know if you have any problems!
Another solid six books in the series and a good conclusion to the world.
The Wind Trilogy is Elspeth’s and is about her long journey, training, and return. She’s a more complex character and not completely sympathetic, which is good. She’s given a number of gifts and talents, which seem to exceed the demand that’s put on them by a pretty wide margin much of the time. The book also introduces Darkwind who has a lot of POV chapters and his own struggles for the first two books before falling in beside Elspeth for the conclusion.
The Winds trilogy returns to a tighter set of POVs; typically Karal (the Karsite scholar). As the series goes on other POVs become more common, but the story is still Karal’s. Karal gets a lot less cool powers and status– most of the time, his efforts are like a Buffy scooby– inspiring, but not the person slinging the power or beating the bad guys by himself. The second book’s conclusion is a little disappointing, mostly because the third book’s conclusion is so similar. If you’re annoyed by “reunion books” where everyone in every other book makes an appearance, you might be annoyed– but it’s handled quite well and doesn’t dominate everything.
Please let us know if you’ll have any problem with making it this week. We left off just after your ambush of the Ogre camp, the rescue the gnomes, and the interrogation of the fallen Ogre. We’ll resume next with with the characters at 6th level. See you then!
UPDATE: As Kevin mentioned below, he’s not going to be able to make it when we start, but he encouraged us to begin without him. Unless you hear otherwise, we’ll play as usual tonight.
Bruce Brown had a great idea on the FATE list for initiative.
The theory goes that GM calls out the adjectives on the ladder in descending order. Players can then use any skill that matches or exceeds that at any point during the round.