Crimson Sundown

The war has taken everything from me, it’s all I’ve seen

While my initial intent will stay, and I will live blog the NBA draft tonight, I must say something before I do.  I would like to send my prayers and thoughts with the families of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.  Both were icons of their generations, people who changed the world through their actions.  They had such an amazing impact on our lives, and I just want to say thanks to them and to say that it’s sad to see them go.  Everyone do yourself a favor and listen to some Michael Jackson, and look at some pictures of Fawcett soaking in just how beautiful she was.  I know I will be doing both.

Now, with that said, there is more things that I must talk about before we even touch on the draft.  Currently we have 10 minutes before the draft and we have been hit with a barrage of NBA trades today.  The big one, that is taking up the most of the day’s writing space and that would of course be Shaquille O’Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers to play with Lebron James.

To say that this trade is huge would be a fantastic understatement to say the least.  We are talking about Shaq, being one of the greatest centers to play the game, being paired with Lebron who is arguably the best player in the league right now at the age of 24.  This trade makes Cleveland one of the favorites to win it all next year, and causes everyone to start to wonder just who is going to be able to win it all for 2010.

Not to be out done, Vince Carter has been trade from my beloved New Jersey Nets to the Orlando Magic to play with the runners up in the 2009 finals and their superstar Dwight Howard.  This opens up their offense a ton, giving them the ability to jump shoot, drive to the hole, and to pound in the paint.  They are going to be very dangerous.

This doesn’t even take into account how the San Antonio Spurs practically stole former Net Richard Jefferson from the Bucks for next to nothing.  That solidifies their team and makes them younger, meaning that they have a good chance to cause havoc on the Lakers out in the Western Conference.

Basically we are seeing a lot of teams realize that if they want to win now, this draft class doesn’t have big movers and shakers.  So if you want to go, then you have to trade for big time players.  Add on a bunch of teams who are trying to cut costs because of the recession, and you have a lot of willing trade partners.  This upcoming season is going to be insane.

Before they play the season though, they have to do the draft, and what follows are my reaction to the draft pics.  If you don’t know the players involved, don’t feel bad … I don’t really either.  Geez college basketball sucks.  =)

7:31 - Waiting on ESPN to start their coverage.  In only a few minutes, the Los Angeles Clippers are expected to take Blake Griffin, the college player of the year, as the #1 pick.  If you want to know how I feel about the Clippers getting Griffin, I think it’s fine.  But Blake … seriously read this column (you too!)

7:32 - David Stern is now starting his opening statement.  The New York crowd loves and hates him at the same time.  I love the guy.  He’s honest, and he’s a smart business man.  I wish he could be in charge forever.

7:34 - Clippers are officially on the clock, not that it really matters.  We know who they will take.  really it comes down to who is taken after #1.  That’s where the drama will come.

7:39 - #1 is not a surprise, and Blake Griffin is your new Los Angeles Clipper!  Congrats to Blake, it’s a really impressive feat to get into the NBA.  Tons of hard work, dedication, and skill.  He’s a very strong forward and he’ll need all of that with playing against the big boys of the hardwood.

7:42 - Of course the second question out of everyone’s mouth is how he feels about being with a terrible team.  Oh the past is the past, and we are looking towards the future.  You know what the future is going to be?  Griffin being traded or immediately leaving at the very first opportunity that he can.  Whether or not he’s a success, that does’t matter.  I hope he is, but he’s out of there as soon as he can.  No way does he make the cursed Clippers a contender in a few years.

7:45 - Memphis Grizzlies are now on the clock and their pick is now in.  Will they take the Thabeet from UCONN for shotblocking?  The answer is … yes they will.  Hasheem Thabeet is now a Memphis Grizzly.  Good news is that he is the first Tanzanian player to ever come to the NBA.  Bad news is, he is playing for the Grizzlies.  He’s a raw talent, much more there for defense rather than for offense.  Can he be any sort of help on the offense end?  Probably not, nothing more than cleaning up the garbage, but hey what else can you do?  Jay Bilis is right though, this guy is scrawny.  For 7′2″ dude, he has no muscle.  267 pounds?  Shit that’s nothing!

7:50 - This is where things get interesting.  The Oklahoma City Thunder now have the #3 pick and this is where people can start to get a bit jumbled.  The Thunder have Westbrook, Durant and Green which is an amazing core of young players.  I personally think they should take Ricky Rubio from Spain since he is a pure Point Guard, but he may not be the best available player.  Their choice?

Whooooooooa this is a bit of a shocker.  Thunder go James Harden from Arizona State, a 2008-09 All American player.  It’s a bit of a surprise to me, but I’ll listen in to what he offers me.  This dude looks pretty stocky … has a decent ball handling skills.  I think what they are going for something where Harden would drive into the paint, and then kick out to other players who can shoot like Durant and Green.  From that standpoint, it’s a good pick.

From what the indicators are, he has a very high basketball IQ, and honestly that is worth a lot.  While he does have a basketball IQ, he doesn’t have a fashion IQ … blech to the bowtie!  Though he does have the Baron Davis beard, and that my friends, is hot shit.

7:56 - The Sacramento Kings are on the clock and they suuuuuuuuuuucked so bad.  They needed the first pick and got the fourth.  Sucks buddies.  This is a pick though that makes the crowd happy as they take Tyreke Evans from Memphis.  This kid can flat out play.  He is a strong, fast, and good all around.  What worries me about him, is that he’s a Freshman so he’s young and immature.  that being said, he played at Memphis which is a fantastic college program, and his style of play really will fit in the NBA.  He attacks the basket, and then shoots or dishes depending on what is needed.  Hopefully he doesn’t ball hog a lot, which is possible.

8:01 - I like what the Timberwolves have done here, which is the next team to pick.  They have the #5 and #6 picks, not to mention that they also have 18 and 28, then 45 and 47 in the second round.  In order to get the fifth pick they got rid of Randy Foye and Mike Miller and traded them to the Washington Wizards.  To me, this isn’t a big deal.  Miller was never going to resign and they need to trade him for something.  Also Foye is ok, but he needs to be with other stars, not try to be the star himself.  Foye is good as a compliment, not the main guy.

8:03 - Here comes their pick.  I hope they take Rubio from Spain … yay and they did!  He can flat out handle the basketball.  This kid is an amazing point guard and I can’t wait to see him play.  He won a silver medal for Spain last summer as a 17 year old.  SEVENTEEN people.  He played well against the best players in the world at the age of 17.  How can you not love this kid?!  Give this kid Kevin Love and Al Jefferson down low in the post?  Oh yeah, this is an awesome pick.  He’s scrawny as hell, but hell they will buff him up.

8:09 - Minnesota is now picking again.  The Draft is in NYC and they are hoping they don’t take Stephen Curry … and they don’t, they take Jonny Flynn from Syracuse.  Not really a fantastic pick since they JUST took Rubio as another Point Guard.  I’m guessing that they are going to pair the two together and let them go fast together.  They just stated that Flynn has a 40 inch vertical leep.  40 INCHES!  That’s 3 and a half feet.  Are you kidding me?  That’s insane.  I will have to see him and Rubio play together, but right now I’m intrigued by the prospect.  Timberwolves are going to play faaaaaast.

8:15 - Right now the Golden State Warriors have 5 seconds left to make their pick.  We have a stadium filled with people hoping they don’t take Stephen Curry.  Pick is … NOOOOOOOOOOOO Curry gets to go to Oakland.  So many booing Knicks fans!  Even Curry doesn’t look happy, he looks so sad right now!  I feel for the kid.  You always have a team that you would love to go to, and for him that was the New York Knicks, but alas he didn’t get to.  And damn I didn’t realize that he was the son of Dell Curry who was my favorite shooter of all time.  Man that’s an amazing thing that I didn’t know, I’m happier now.  Still, I wish he was in New York right now.

If nothing else, we know that Jonny Flynn can play and he has stamina.  He was apart of that amazing 6 overtime game this past year in college.  He played 62 minutes in that game.  This kid is ready to rock!

8:20 Now the question is, what will the Knicks do.  With the Nets being gutted beyond all holy hell, I need something to root for.  Can the Knicks be that team?  Let’s see what David Stern has to say … Jordan Hill from Arizona.  Power Forward with a wingspan of 7′1″ so that’s impressive.  What scares me is that the first thing they say about his offensive game is that he has only been playing organized basketball for a few years.  His basketball IQ is not that big therefore.  He needs to improve his post moves but his rebounding is solid and he can shoot a little bit.  I will say that he has an amazing dreadlock thing going on so I’ll be totally ok with that.

Listening to him talk really doesn’t look like he feels comfortable here in NYC.  The good news for him, is that he is playing for Mike D’Antonio, so therefore since Joran loves to run the floor and is athletic, he should fit right in.

8:26 - Now Toronto is picking and they take DeMar DeRozan and this is where I’m starting to check out.  Well looks like he can dunk … good for him.  Jay Bilas would like to remind that he really can’t shoot well but that he could upgrade that.  Well to be honest, I am not jazzed by the pick, not because of how he plays, but because I’m bored now.  I will stick around though until my lowly New Jersey Nets make their pick.  After that I can’t take anymore dissapointment.

Commercial break … with Shaq being interviewed in one hour.  Maybe I’ll keep watching after all …

8:33 - Milwaukee Bucks take Brandon Jennings who decided to play in Italy rather than play in college for a year.  I actually like that a lot, because he plays with better competition I feel.  He plays against men and not boys while in Europe.  While he’s a project, which is a scary prospect, but hey I like it.  Seems like a tough kid with a chip on his shoulder.

8:37 - My stupid New Jersey Nets.  I knew they were going to trade Vince Carter, but it still stings.  I love Devin Harris, but it’s so hard to do all of that on his own.  I want some help for the team, and I don’t want them to move to Brooklyn.  Impress me boys … Another forward?  Terrence Williams from Louisville.  I like that he is a senior from Louisville, so he got a degree.  From what Bilas is saying, he has a good balance of strength, vision and defense.  While he has to improve his shooting, doesn’t everyone?  Looks like a very high character kid, which to me is something that should be applauded.

He gets one question?!  That’s it!  Man they must really want to talk to Nets President Rod Thorn.

Well I have exhausted myself and honestly, after the Nets picked, I don’t care anymore.  will continue to watch, but for now I will leave you patient souls who have read all of this.

Have a wonderful night, and prepare for me to talk a lot of Basketball while I wait for October to come back.

I promised tQ a proper Tuesday post, and for the most part I am a man of my word!  What transpires below, is something that I have been thinking about for awhile now and finally just wanted to get off my chest.

In 2004 when American Idiot was released, it was a calling out to the country.  A declaration that the country was in a bad spot, and it took a gang of punks in order to let this generation know about it.  The themes were obvious;  the war in Iraq, a President and leadership specializing in fear mongering, and the youth of the country falling into waste and ruin.  No one can question how good the album was, nor will I spend any part of blog trying to tell you how I feel about it.  You all know that I feel like American Idiot is one of the best albums ever made.  The question now becomes … was it really necessary to make ANOTHER rock opera immediately after such a perfect album?

Green Day has just released 21st Century Breakdown their follow up to Idiot and a completely new rock opera narrative.  You won’t find old Whatshername coming back to make a cameo, nor will St. Jimmy be magically brought back from the dead.  No Jimmy is still dead with a gunshot to his head, but what we have in Breakdown are the characters of Gloria and Christian.  Whereas Idiot was content on talking about the problems of raising a family in the era of the “W” and Iraq, watching as communities are torn apart by children not coming home (whether it be the army or via drugs), Breakdown takes a more active approach at spitting venom at modern technology, prescription drugs, and organized religion to name a few.

The subject matter has changed a bit, but the style in which Green Day tells the tale is pretty much the same.  This is where my first issue with the album comes in.  It’s not exact, but it’s damn close enough.  The opening song is essentially filler, but it is followed by the title track, a 6 minute song that changes styles as you go on, describing the world that we live in.  Sound familiar?  It should, it’s what they did with “Jesus of Suburbia” on Idiot.  The rest of the album is filled with songs that don’t sound the same, but fit the same build as songs on American Idiot.  They even seem to come in the same order, so therefore you are stuck making direct comparisons to the albums.

Idiot talked about hard drug use, whereas Breakdown talks about abuse of prescription drugs and over diagnosing.  Idiot attacked the government, and Breakdown attacks the catholic church.  The back and forth with the similarities continue throughout and while it’s not a terrible thing, it feels very cookie cutter.  It might just be that I have listened to Idiot too much, but I don’t think I’m alone in that.  I’m sure others have noticed that at similar points in both albums, as you are listening you might be expecting them to go in a different direction, but they take the safe route instead and give you something similar to what you heard in 2004.

Musically Green Day have really hit their stride though.  They sound good, and are incorporating their full arsenal of additional performers.  Violin’s, acoustic guitars, timpanis and much more can all be heard in full effect.  That’s the good thing, but unfortunately Billie Joe Armstrong decides that the album should have a song dedicated to one topic per additional instrument he uses seemingly.  If the album was just shots against the things that I have mentioned above it would be similar to Idiot but at least it would be focused.  Not so on Breakdown.  The album hits religion, politics, the war, drugs, detorating conditions in major cities, and the nasty influence of mordern media and technology.  That’s a lot of songs to get through, and it would be fine if it was just a normal album.  Green Day though wanted Breakdown to be a rock opera and as a narrative, there’s just too much stuff that they are talking about at once.  The storyline starts to breakdown (haha, get it?), and as a result you either forget about Gloria and Christian or simply don’t care by the end.

Finally, the last problem that I personally had with the album is the timing of the album’s release.  This is a two pronged complaint.  From an easy spot, I mean it’s the next album after Idiot.  Breakdown brought upon a direct comparison and unfortunately it’s almost impossible to make a better rock opera back to back.  I don’t care how talented you are it’s tough to keep that momentum up.  Not even The Who did that, instead elected to follow up Tommy with Who’s Next, one of the band’s biggest commercial successes.

The last part of the problem is the timing with where the country is right now.  In 2004 the country, specifically young democrats such as myself were still in college and needed an anthem to rally behind to show their displeasure with not only George Bush being re-elected, and not only with the Democratic party giving us no good candidates, but also with our friends fighting in Iraq.  American Idiot was that album, as it stood for everything that we wanted to say to those in charge.  All I remember is playing the album in my dorm room with Katie, Pedro and Sundeep with me.  What started as harmless background music while we talked, turned into an epic listening party as no one said anything after the second track in an effort to absorb all that was coming out of the surround sound.  All we could say at the end was … “wow”.

With 21st Century Breakdown the problem lies in that right now Green Day want to spit some more venom at the world, but the things they are yelling at I don’t necessarily feel like we have to be campaigning for so much.  Sure the economy is in the tanks, but we have a new President in office and love him and hate him it’s a time of change and hope.  Now we don’t need to be hearing about every single one of our problems with no suggestions for what can be done.  Instead now we know the issues, and we want to tighten our belts and get to work.  Unfortunately for Green Day they want to start a revolution, and the revolution was already started.  It ends up sounding like they are late to the party.

Does this mean that 21 Century Breakdown is a bad album?  Not in the least, it’s a very good album.  Green Day just shot themselves in the foot by making such an iconic album before hand.  It’s a tough legacy to live up to, and one that they don’t ultimately make.  I can listen to selected tracks off of Breakdown but if Green Day was hoping that I would get goosebumps after every song like I did with American Idiot … well I’m sorry to disappoint guys.

For the past few years, LOST has been a staple show in my viewing rotation.  Many times, it has been the only thing that I felt was worth watching.  Now for some people, their intrigue for LOST is something that just spawned after watching the first season and seeing all the weird things happen and how people tried to deal with it.  Some might have even been enticed by the flashbacks and the connections that people had to other characters.  All fine reasons to like the show, but I know for me my obsession for the show was tied to one very specific moment.

Watching Terry O’Quinn in the first season was something that made everything click for me.  Honestly, the flashbacks and episode were fairly standard fare.  Here was a guy, with a boring job, no significant other, and someone that got picked on by many people.  Sucky of course, but by no means tragic.  That all changed for me, and my attention was cemented in place once the music kicked up in the background and the grand reveal was that John Locke was bound to a wheelchair.  This was the first of many “OH SHIT” moments that I have had with LOST.

Here was a man that was crippled in the real world, yet on this island he is able to walk.  Would certainly give faith and conviction to anyone put into that position.  Still to this day that scene envokes such emotion in me, that I can’t think of anything else overtaking it as my favorite scene ever, in any format.

Yet with the amazing, comes the down turn.  Locke has gone up and down as the series has continued on.  When Locke reaches his lowest, I feel defeated.  When he rises back up again, I personally feel like I overcame adversity with him.  I have had many opportunites to do this, because like a well written character, Locke has a weakness like anyone else, one that I can immediately identify with.

Locke spends so much of the series being told what he can’t do, that once he gains a bit of confidence in Season 1, it’s obvious that he won’t be taken down so easily.  Yet over time what you find out is that Locke has had some stable points in his life, before his crippling.  Exploiting and bringing Locke down is not a terribly difficult plan of action, as you simply need to fill him up with thoughts that he is someone of importance.

Like so many others in this world Locke just wants to be apart of something.  People will go up to him and tell him that he is special, that he is an extraordinary individual.  Once you have built him up to a certain point, that is when you can start having him do whatever you want for you.  After that, characters have simply dumped a now degected Locke because they know that he won’t do anything to them.  He’ll just crawl back up into his shell, waiting for the next person to build him up and crush him.

Why the long post about a fictional character?  Because when I watch LOST, John Locke stands out as a masterfully written character, one that I wish I could create.  What if there was a character that was just so abused and kept trying to believe in something, only to have it snatched away from him every time.  Now for John Locke in the show, each time his faith is tested, he gets one step closer to fulfilling his destiny.  Yet what would happen if a character who kept getting shit on decided to shun his destiny.  Would characters try and embrace him and put him back on the path of faith?  Or would they destroy him, because he could bring anymore destruction on the world?

This is what I’m trying to work on for Scion and while I can’t see anything else that is happening in the story, I have a clear image of this character that I’m trying to create.  I see him, and I see his inspiration that is John Locke.  My only hope is that I can make this new character of mine 1/10 of as impressive as John Locke.  If I can do that, then I assure anyone who plays in my Scion adventure down the road … you’ll be in for quite a treat.

We are on the cusp of something cool here people.  We are officially 2 for 2.

CosWatch, the wonderful idea started by Frega, Dro, Liv, Tee Morris and myself has officially been accepted as Press for Tekkoshocon in Pittsburgh, PA and as of today, Anime Boston in … wait for it … Boston, MA.  What follows after this sentence are my thoughts on the process and why I’m so excited about all of this.

This whole idea got started at Anime USA in Virgina this past November.  As anyone who has followed my rants for the past few years, I am a big fan of Anime Conventions and simply conventions of geekery period.  I think it’s a lot of fun to be in the same place as so many other fans, and have a forum to further your love of the hobby.

Yet this convention in particular, 2008 being our fourth year there, something was lacking.  Perhaps we had simply grown too old for this kind of thing (possible).  Maybe the event was just not well organized (definite).  Whatever the reason may be, the most fun we had was everyone huddled around the couch and table area in our hotel rooms, drinking and talking about things.

One thing that stayed constant, was our love and hate for the amazing and down right disgusting cosplay that we saw.  This is when the idea became a reality and people seriously considered trying to go to a convention and interview people, blog, podcast and take as many pictures as possible.  We wanted to give ourselves a reason to be at these coventions and we hoped that since that is our favorite part of this, that it would enhance what we were doing at the cons.

When I asked for press passes to Tekkoshocon in Pittsburgh, I firmly believed that we would get a ton of passes.  Mostly because it’s a fairly small convention and any press they could get to the event, would be good press.  I ended up being right, even though it took me forever to get in touch with them.  Granted we didn’t end up going to this con because of Dan’s birthday, but that’s besides the point.

When I filled out the press form for Anime Boston however, this is where I began to worry.  Boston is a HUGE convention, one of the biggest on the east coast next to Otakon, and they are known for being real sticklers on a variety of topics.  Yet here we are, heading to Anime Boston free of charge.  This event, since it was in such doubt, is somethign that I’m extremely excited for now.  Tekkoshocon I could deal without, as it was just something to do because I wanted to get this idea off the ground.  Now though we are going to a big convention which is going to be a real blast I think.

I will keep everyone posted on how preperation goes for this event and be sure to keep tabs on www.coswatch.com for the latest news from the convention!

Because of the generation that I am currently (and forever) situated in, technology is just going to be a part of my life.  Things have moved forward and expanded at such a fevered rate that sometimes it’s a little daunting trying to keep up.  I am constantly striving to do just that, keep up, and for the most part I do ok with it.  What I have found out though, is that while I may be aware of something’s presence, I am usually very old fashioned and feel like the way I’m doing things is just fine for the time being.

The easiest example for me to point to is obviously how long it took me to break down and move to the iPod.  I wanted to stay so close to the CD’s that had cluttered my living space for ever.  I liked having the liner notes, took great joy in the little easter eggs that artists would sometimes sprinkle through the packaging, and simply liked collecting something.  Of course, those days came to an end, and now I’m like everyone else and loving the way I can have my full music library with me at a moments notice.

I didn’t want to use a blog software for my website, I preferred hand crafting everything myself.  Part of me still does, but now the convenience of WordPress has superseded anything I could have ever done on my own.  Just last month I was talking about how Twitter just didn’t seem that interesting to me.  Today I am watching as Trent Reznor and Chris Cornell get into a flame war, and wake up to the image of Shaq sleeping, all from just 140 characters per message.

Twitter has now started me to think in a different way.  Before twitter I just didn’t get the entire idea of Blackberries and iPhones and having the internet hiding in the back of your pocket.  I mean why may the extra money for a phone plan with all of this data integrated into it, so that I can have a cool phone?  Yet here I am, realizing that the iPhone plans aren’t much more than what I already pay a month.  With it I would be able to get Google directions instantly, have my e-mail always with me, and anything else that I may need.

This whole thought process got worse last night, as I bought my first Blu-Ray disk.  Just like my first DVD (The Matrix fyi) the only Blu-Ray player I have is on my computer.  For a start, I think that’s just fine.  Right now I think the Blu-Ray player in the laptop is a wonderful idea, so that if I’m every away from the house, which is becoming more and more popular lately, I can have a high definition movie to watch with me on the go.  That and a 17″ widescreen is pretty awesome to watch a movie on when you aren’t home.

The first movie I picked up was Wall-E, and I can’t come up with enough clever ways to tell you, the reader, just how damn impressive the picture and audio quality is.  It just looks completley uncompressed, so the texture quality and detail level is unlike anything I have ever seen.  I can see individual rust spots on Wall-E’s face, right next to the specific type of round bolt that keeps his face together.  It’s ludicrous how good it all looks.

Does that mean I dive head first into Blu-Ray?  No.  Like anything else, I will slowly build up to that point.  First I need a bigger TV that can get me 1080p, and then I get the player, and even then I can only get specific movies on Blu-Ray.  Animation and Action movies are worth it to me, because the high definition quality makes the movie better.  I don’t need my comedies or drama’s in high def.  What’s the point, so I can see how bad of a job the makeup artist did?  Not to mention that I can’t justify the $30 a pop price to rebuy all of my previous movies.  I have over 200 DVD’s, and there’s no way I’m going to buy them multiple times.  Shit, some of them I shouldn’t have bought even once.

With the other technology, it’s the same policy.  When my phone contract is up, I might switch over to the iPhone, or just get my parents off the plan and get a Blackberry.  Simply put I just don’t know yet.  Technology is great, but it’s very expensive and early adopters always get screwed.  I’m a wait and see kind of guy.  I don’t mind that I didn’t get something first.  I just like getting something that works …

Anyone who has followed my online career knows that I have periods of ludicrous updates and activity, and then I go away for a long time.  This situation, is somewhat of a middle ground as it really hasn’t been so long, but still long enough for people to question what the hell I have (or more appropriately haven’t) been doing.

It has been little over a month since my update on the RPG campaign, and I suppose I will start there because it requires the least amount of effort.  Things are going well in the adventure right now, as we are hitting a balance of extremely difficult encounters, but the characters are just on par to make it through.  For me, this is what I wanted.  The threat of death is real (we’ve had at least 2-3 close calls for PC’s), and the group is doing some really epic shit.  Kudos to them, it only gets better / worse from here on out … depending on your outlook of course.  =)

The first annual Diablo 2 Marathon weekend took place on the 13th and 14th and to say that it was a success would be an understatement.  Games started Friday night at about 9 PM with Josh, Corey, Luke, Dan, Katie and myself all going up against the minions of Diablo.  Friday night ended at 2:30 AM, with us half way through Act II.  We picked up right where we left off at about 11 AM on Saturday, minus Katie, and we kept going until 10:30 PM that night.  In that time we finished up all the acts, killed Diablo, dropped Luke off in Boonton, killed Baal, had a drinking game, took a shot at the end of each act, and did the Secret Cow Level.  Suffice to say, I still don’t think I’ve recovered after all of these days.  I have a feeling that this is not the last time we do a Diablo 2 fest, not to mention what we are going to do once Diablo 3 comes out.

Final gaming note, is that as you can see on the right, my Death Knight is doing fairly well for herself.  =)

With the geekiness out of the way, it is starting to finally hit Katie and I that the wedding is coming.  We are about 4 months away, and really there’s a lot that still needs to be taken care of and of course I feel like it could never get done in time.  I haven’t been hit by a wave of nerves or jitters yet, only a profound desire to just have the wedding already.  It’s shaping up to be one hell of a party, and really I just want to have it already.  Excitement is really starting to work it’s magic over me, and I’m fully embracing the big life change that I’m in store for.  Katie shares my sentiment.  If we could have the wedding in all of it’s glory tomorrow, we would do it.  But alas, we have some more things to finalize, and a more days to sit through, but in the end it will be worth it.

Other than that, things are quiet on this front.  I will promise you further updates to come, and in a more timely fashion.  I also promise you that there will be a lull.  Hopefully not immediately after I post this, but one can never be so sure.  Until that day then …

I have been participating in pen & paper role-playing games since I was in the 8th grade.  In that time I’ve been a Jedi Knight, a Shaman, a Vampire, a Drow sports agent, a Kazekage for the Sand Village, and an insane Changeling just to name a few.  For the longest time I felt like my calling was to be a player character, to simply react to what a hard working game master / storyteller would give to me.  This had always been my lot in the world of RPG’s.

I had tried my hand at GMing a few times during my high school days, but it was a mixed bag at best.  I always had fun ideas, but my initial problem was that I would have one really great idea and cinematic, but didn’t have anything else.  I didn’t plan very well, I gave too much to the players, and I couldn’t improv very well.  Suffice to say, I was taken advantage of, but not in a bad way.  What my friends Steve and Tom taught me in those sessions where they beat the ever loving crap out of me, was what to plan for.

Player characters are an interesting breed, and with having the GM experience and my own what I found is very easy to understand.  Players want the most power and positioning, because they want to ensure that their character makes it to the end.  They want to be able to say once a GM closes their book, laptop or RPG screen is, “Not only did I make it to the end, but look at all the stuff I did and got!”  Just like in real life, perhaps even more so, they want to brag about their accomplishments.  They want to complete the goals that were set out for them, either determined by the GM or by themselves.

I didn’t get back into GMing seriously, until I started reading the White Wolf system.  This, pretty much everyone knows already.  What was not readily apparant is how I would take the system and use it to this very day.  When I made my first World of Darkness campaign, it was all Vampires.  What did I want to do with it?  I can’t even remember to be honest, but I had accounted for having large amounts of people in it, and I introduced a character who has lovingly haunted me for a little over four years.  To quote Fight Club, his name, was Jimmy Jackal …

With each passing session in which I had to plan for, Jimmy’s life came to me in new small doses.  Stephen King once wrote about how sometimes, a story just comes to you even when you aren’t thinking about it.  You’d start writting down your ideas, and a thought or a character from a previous story would come crashing in, and you wouldn’t even subconciously know about it.  This is what happened to me.  Jimmy Jackal just kept showing up in my plans.

It started in London, and he was there causing trouble but also guiding the PC’s towards what they needed to do in order to survive Gehenna, the Vampire Apocolypse.

In New York he wasn’t immediately known, but he did have somewhat of a role to play.  I never told Pedro this, but his character Damen Locke who was a Malkavian … he was embraced by Jimmy Jackal.  Jimmy saw great promise in the man, in both brothers to be specific.  For some reason he knew that the priest would come in handy at some point and had a role to be played.  That destiny is coming …

In Paris, he had a more immediate impact but one that many had to think about.  How was it that Jimmy Jackal had just left a position of power in London and immediately ascended to a high ranking role in France?  Odd indeed.  He was there and this was where the death of Jimmy Jackal took place, at the hands of Longinus … or did it?  Even then I knew that he wasn’t going to die, I had plans for him to come back.

Yet that adventure fell through and by the time I had found another group of players, the new World of Darkness had come out.  There were points where the two worlds could cross over, assuming you wanted to go that way.  For me, I had to finish what I started.  In order to finish it though, I had to figure out where it began.  I figured out what Jimmy Jackal was planning, and that was for the supernaturals to not live in peace, but at least to live in understanding.  The difference was, you didn’t have to like the other groups.  Hell you could loathe them for all he cared.  All he wanted them to realize though was that they all have to live in a balance for each to continue through.  If one of them gets too powerful, it throws off everything and they just end up killing each other.

With that established, it gave me the opportunity to begin a true crossover, one where I could explain why all these different groups were getting together.  Next issue I had to address of course was, where did it all begin.  New Orleans …

Mostly because the city is a feel good story where after such a terrible tragedy such as Katrina, the town got back together and rebuilt as much and as quickly as possible.  Yet there are still parts that are doing badly, and that causes conflict in real life, and it can obviously do the same in game.  This was the spot I wanted to focus on, and I wanted to do it in an effort to display the city in different lights.

So why this very long, tired blog post?  This weekend, marks the start of the New Orleans RPG end game.  I have all of the things that I need to get across written out, and they all have consequences.  All the last bits of the adventure are going to come out, and at some point in the near future, the group will have either succeeded or failed.

My favorite GM, my friend Steve from High School once told me how you had to approach a campaign such as this.  He told me that for most of the campaign, you want to tell the story and flesh out your characters.  You want them to survive.  Sure they can get hurt and go through tough times, but in the end you need them to make it to the end.  Once they are there though, the threat of death is real.  It has to be because the characters are fighting for their lives, and in order to resolve whatever conflict you’ve given them.  You can only hope that they have built the character and planned just as much as you have in order to do that.

That is where I am at right now.  The characters are at that dangerous point where death can come if they don’t play the cards right.  No matter what though, and this is a thing that I will emphasize, this is the story of Jimmy Jackal.  Will the characters help me make it a story with a happy ending?  Or will be the last we see from him?  I look forward to seeing the result, either way.

The last time I played wow, before the year 2009, was I think a Fall day in 2007.  I was kinda bored, having destroyed the last few Xbox games I had in my queue, and Chris had just told me how much fun he and the rest of the guys were having.  So I went home that night, updated WoW, and logged in for the first time in 6 months, and then proceeded to play a trick on everyone and tell them that I wasn’t Joey V, and that I had bought the account from e-Bay.  Good times were had by myself and Chris, though I’m sure the Zitz brothers would beg to differ on that.

This was also about the time that I played that first time for a tiny bit, took off the next day, and then on the third day I was running through Karazhan helping out Anthony and Chris’s guild at the time.  It also so happened to be the night that I was third on the damage meters, after not playing for 6 months.  I felt good about myself as a player, if such a thing is allowed in a MMORPG, but after a long night raiding, I didn’t log on again.

Now we fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2008, and Chris handing me a copy of Wraith of the Lich King, latest WoW expansion.  So why did I accept it?  Well on the forums I did make the promise that if my services were needed for anything, I would come back.  Chris informed me that my services were needed, and thus, here I am back.  Now what happened when I got back is an interesting little tale.

After a year or so away from the game, I knew that my previous max level class, the Warlock, would be a shell of it’s former self.  This had to be expected, as Warlocks were kings for a very long time and just needed to come back down to Earth.  Also, I knew that my gear would be shitty, because after that much time with no upgrades, I wasn’t going to be top dog anymore.  What happened though was that they completely changed my spell rotation around.

Before, it used to be that I would just put all of my damage over time spells (DoTs) and then hit shadow bolt, until I had to reapply the DoTs.  Rinse and Repeat.  Now however, in order to make everything work perfectly, I basically had to reverse this process, along with speccing correctly and add a new spell into the rotation.  It’s not hard, but it just took me a few levels to get used to it.  Other changes that they made was to make the Imp Demon a viable damage giver, and to make Spirit something that Warlocks needed now.  Spirit used to be total crap to a Warlock, now it is an important stat.  This also meant that all caster gear is starting to look the same, and now Priest, Warlocks and Mages are sometimes rolling on the same shit.

Overall, I felt kinda blech as I leveling up my Warlock Synth.  Maybe it was the changes made to the class, maybe it was the fact that I had played the same character for 3-4 years, or maybe I just didn’t want to look at an Undead male any longer.  I’m not sure what the case was, but as I got the Warlock up to 73 out of a possible 80, I had simply had enough.

That’s when I started up a Blood Elf Death Knight.  The new expansion had brought with it the new Hero Class of Death Knights, and since everyone I talked to told me that the starting area for DK’s was amazing, I decided to give it a go.  What I found when I went through everything was that they were absolutely right, the story telling that Blizzard had employed for the DK starting zone was great.  You felt like a general on the battlefield, and at the same time you learned how to play the class somewhat.

I finished that questline up, really enjoying every bit of it, and then once I was out and level 58 I moved to Outland.  What happened then was something amazing.  I slowly on and off leveled from 58 to 61.  When I say slowly, I mean like 2 play sessions.  The Death Knight had so much utility and killed things so quickly that I was turning in quests in half the time of my warlock.  Then just this week in one day I ripped from 61 to 64 like nothing.  Last night I just hit 65 and I’m already half the way through it.

For me the leveing and questing is always the best part of WoW and the DK has rekindled that in me.  It’s fast, efficent, and most importantly fun.  I just feel like I’m having fun again, and the fact that I get to do that with my friends, just make it even better.  So where do I go from here?  Going to keep on leveling quickly, working on having the Hand of Ragnaros made just for shits and giggles, get to Exaulted with Cenarion Expedition so that I can get my epid Hippogryph mount, and learn how to Frost Tank with the DK.  With all of that, I think I’ll be in a better place when I eventually step into Naxx 10 man with the rest of my friends.