@%#$!!!

Warning, uber rant coming. I'm trying, I really am, but its not easy. I'm talking about the company I work for, who shall remain nameless but those of you reading this know. Anyways, this company just keeps piling on stupid thing after stupid thing. It started when I was in a different department making us do sales in a tech support position, which is retarted beyond reason. Even aside from that, us tech support people generally are not sales people and don't have the skills or lack of morals to forcefully sell. So a bunch of us apply for a different department to get out, and succeed in getting promoted. In the new position was going well. Now the company hires more for the first level department, they don't care about tech skills this time and hire a bunch of people that sure can sell but dont' know jack about fixing an issue, so more work for us in my department and more work for those still competent in the first department.

To make matters worse, those in my department are now required to take calls from the first tier as well as business tier, as well as do all of our own work and some of another divisions work. In other words about double the work with no change in compensation.

On top of all that management gets on a power trip now that our department is taking calls they thing thats all we should be doing and our own departments work be damned. Whats funny is literaly our actual legitimate tier2 work is now our lowest priority. Figure that one out.

Management does not care one bit and as such treats us all (tier one included) like a bunch of misbehaving children. Most don't even give a shit if we quit enmasse, they would just hire a bunch of new monkeys to sell their shit.

Whats the bottom line here? Our customers are going to suffer, their issues will take longer to fix, they will have sales shoved down their throats at every opportunity and if they do call in, the changes of getting a jaded, uncareing rep is now much higher than before.

Morale is important in a company, ours does not understand this simple concept. They think people should just work, do everything their told no matter how stupid and like it. Resistance is useless. If I got the feeling that my company actually cared wether I worked here or not maybe I would go to bat for it, maybe I would go that extra mile now and again. But under these conditions.....yeah I'm gonig to do as little as possible and just collect my meagre pay check at the end of the week. If I wasn't worried about this being discovered by a member of management and thus being the cause of my fireing I would tell each and every one of you reading to not buy our product and switch to a company that treats its employees better.

Well I'm done ranting for now. Guess I'll have to hit the papers and try to find another company I can jump to.

Hi, I’m Kimpak and I’m a PC

Player Character that is. I thought I’d take a minute and give my advice on how to be a better player character for D&D or any other pen and paper RPG. First I’d like to point out this is purely my opinion. Every person is different and will play their characters differently, so take these ideas or leave ‘em, its up to you.

First, and I consider this to be most important, don’t be a munchkin. What is a munchkin? A munchkin is a player who min/max’s stats, taking a 5 charisma to make a 30 strength or something equally stupid. A munchkin is someone who pores over every obscure book looking for feats, skills, magic items to make their character do something unbelievably lame, like being able to boost the jump skill enough to jump 40’ in the air and land harmlessly. Or manage to tweak battle stats to deal 200 hp of damage every hit and crit on a 10-20. Its about as much fun as playing a video game with the cheats on…its not. Some kids like that sort of thing I guess, but it completely breaks the balance of the game, thus making it extremely lame for those of us who don’t tweak.

Second, don’t be afraid to participate. The more you engage yourself in the storyline the more enjoyment you are going to get out of the game. There is an RPG club that always runs a tournament at GenCon called NASCRAG (National Society of Crazed Gamers) who advance you or your party they base it off how you played your character not how far you advanced in the module. This is great fun. Make up a voice, try out an accent, get into the role.

Make up a history for your character and let your DM know what it is. J.R.R Tolkien’s stories are so great because he came up with a 500 year history of middle earth. Therefore each character had a complete history with genealogy and everything. You don’t have to be that detailed, but try to come up with something, at least how and why you chose your particular character class. What things lead you up to this point in your career. Do you have an ultimate goal? What motivates you to do quests? Do you have any family still alive? Do you have an arch enemy? Or you can go a different direction, your Jason Bourne and just woke up one day and know nothing about your history, you have all these skills but don’t know how you got them and are now desperately searching the world for answers to your past. A good DM can take any of those elements and run with it, making the game more memorable and fun for all.

Understand the class you are playing and don’t just stick to a cookie cutter model. Don’t be just a big dumb fighter for instance. Look at all of your skills and feats and pretend you’re MacGyver and those are your random tools. What can you create with a matchstick and chewing gum? For example, I had a Dwarven fighter that eventually was going to prestige class into a Dwarven Defender. Fighters don’t get much for skill points and have a very small selection of what they can choose, one of those is craft. Nobody takes craft, so I decided to take it, what the hell. And it turned out that our characters were fairly poor, I would find a scrap metal and craft it into armor, then one of our party members with a high Charisma would talk it up and sell it for a nice profit. BTW the character was female and my character made her a chainmail bikini to help w/ the Cha check, lol. Anyways, that’s just an example of how I took a usually crap skill and turned into something awesome for the party. Also make sure you carefully read all of your class’s special abilities and feats so you can take full advantage of them. Look for skills and feats that compliment your class. Learn how all the special combat actions work, bull rush, sunder, cast defensively, trip, disarm and overrun. Even if you don’t have the improved versions of these as a feat they can still be performed and can save you in a sticky situation.

Work with the party. Game sessions can get tedious if you stay in the background and plot to backstab the party. The exception is if that’s what the campaign is specifically designed for, if it isn’t you’re just annoying everyone and bogging down the game. Barring the specific evil campaign, I find that working together as a party to accomplish tasks is a lot of fun. This is very important so read the next sentence twice. Don’t be a rules lawyer! If you have a great memory or otherwise have nothing better to do than memorize obscure rules or every spell description in the game, keep it to yourself unless asked. Too many rules will also bog down the game and finding loopholes in the rules is like using an exploit in a video game, its cheating. The rules of DnD are just guidelines, they are not the gospel. There are only two solid rules to remember. Rule number 1. The DM is always right. Rule number 2, if the DM is ever wrong, refer to rule number 1. If the DM has to hack the dice, or has to tweak a rule or simply unaware of a rule and breaks it anyway…let it be. Now, even more annoying is when you pull rules on other players. I was in a game like this once and everybody wanted to kill the bastard. For instance, my wife who was a Ranger cast entangle in a cave, the DM didn’t even think twice and started rolling saves for his monsters. With out skipping a beat our friend the rules lawyer pipes up “You can’t cast that spell in doors because there are no plants around”. Shuddup your mouth, the DM was already letting it slide and you want to gimp your own party due to a technicality. Later that same game our Druid cast call lightening again the DM started rolling saves and again the rules lawyer pipes up. “You can’t cast that indoors” However this brought the game to a screeching halt because now everybody had to look the spell up because we were all pretty sure that you could, indeed cast that spell indoors. Turns out we were right and he was wrong. Now why would you argue against your own party? You’d be surprised how many people want to follow every letter of the rules. I urge you not to. In my games if it takes longer than a couple minutes to look it up, we make it up.

The almighty D'Ehm.

Here's a bit of relief. This post is not a rant for once. I thought I'd share a little bit of my experience as a Dungeon Master and give a few tricks of the trade for any budding young DM's out there.

First an outline of typical DM n00b mistakes.
1. Over/underpowering the party.
You've just gotten yourself your first party, they of course are all your friends and you want to be the awesomest DM ever so you give them all 18 stats and a pile of artifacts. Sure you’re players will at first think they are awesome but soon it becomes a burden to you as a DM, because now you have to figure out what this super party is going to go up against and still be challenging. Alternately you might fear the first scenario and lean toward the other extreme and giving your players all 10’s and allowing only a loin cloth and a stick for a weapon. Mages can only pull rabbits out of hats and produce seemingly endless piles of hankies from their sleeves. My suggestions: Stats, I tend to run mid to high power campaigns so I give my players the option to use 85 stat points (average stat of 14) with a max of 18 + racial bonus in any one stat, or the option of rolling 4D6 take out the lowest roll and can re-roll up to three 1’s. If they decide to roll I make sure they have at least a couple stats above a 14 by either boosting their highest roll or allowing a full re-roll. As for equipment, 1st and 2nd editions was a bit easier since each magic item had a related XP value, which gave it an indicator of what level of character would typically have access to a particular item. They did away with this in 3rd edition so it gets a bit tricky and mostly you have to learn this through play testing and experience. I usually go by these general rules. Level 1-4, mundane equipment, a couple scrolls for the casters, maybe one masterwork weapon or armor. Level 5-9, I usually allow a +1 weapon and/or armor and able to find up to a +2 or rare +3 with related misc magic items. Level 10+ usually I go w/ a +3 weapon/armor and 2ish misc magic items. These are just general guidelines, I’ll allow or deny items based on the party’s location and circumstances as well.

2. Unpreparedness.
This seems like a no brainer, but there are some aspects of preparing that are easily missed, and sometimes I even make this mistake. First, make sure you have a decent plot outline setup before play starts. Its not always necessary to plot every little detail or even necessary to write it down. But it certainly helps. Now what isn’t always obvious is what the players are going to do. I’ll give you an example, a good DM that I was a player in set up this vast elaborate dungeon with a huge deadly maze as its centerpiece. Our goal was to obtain some object or some such. We walked in discovered we were in a maze, then we simply had our druid cast Find the Path spell and boom, hours of preparation for our DM wasted as we found the easiest route through the maze in a matter of seconds. Now an inexperienced DM will be frustrated beyond belief because they have nothing more to offer the characters. There are a couple of solutions to this, one always have at least one idea in the back of your mind that you can pull out as an impromptu plotline just in case your main plot falls through. Also make sure you know at least generally what all the core spells for each casting class can use, you can use this knowledge against the party too. For instance, in the case of the maze you can quickly BS the fact that mysteriously the maze is engulfed in an anti-magic shell spell or something similar. If you allow the party to use stuff from other books be sure to read their spell sheets before the game so you know what they are capable of.

Those are the typical n00b mistakes, there are others but not as big of an issue. It also helps to have a decent grasp of miscellaneous rules like grapple or bull rush, or at least know where in the book you can quickly look it up. I also have a personal rule that if it takes longer than a couple mins to look up a rule I generally make at least a temp house rule to cover it.

Tips on campaign building.
Don’t get too elaborate, the party will often times not follow exactly what you have planned so don’t plan too much, try to make your world as sandboxy as possible. Nobody likes an extremely linear game. That’s not to say you can’t throw an occasional plot stab (not hook) their way to make them do something specific, just don’t over do it. When building a dungeon, think of a few things. Why did the NPC’s pick this place for their stronghold? How would you really defend it if you were actually there? Where do they sleep? Where do they poop? Is there an escape route? If you use traps, do the NPC’s have a way to get themselves around them on a daily basis or are they theoretically running a gauntlet every time they walk down the hall? Minor details like these really make a dungeon stick in peoples minds and makes it that much more realistic. When planning on making a whole DnD world to campaign in, make sure you at least have a general idea of what the temperature is like in various regions, politics, rivers/streams and mountains flow in the right directions. Keep the world small, maybe just stick to one continent or a small portion of a continent. The events that took place in Lord of the Rings for example took place in a very small area of the world. Its also good to have a list of random names you can just pull out if you have to create an impromptu NPC shopkeeper or something.

Last bit of info is a little touchy, and that is crowd control. Games of D&D should be fun, first and foremost so always remember that. Inevitably a game will degenerate into a side tracked conversation about something else, or someone tells a story about something or other. Allow this to happen, and don’t get frustrated but gauge the conversation and when you can interject, throw in a “meanwhile, back at the ranch” and go around the table and call for character actions to pull everyone back into the game. Make sure you ask everyone so their properly re-engaged in the game. I find this to work very well and keeps things very organized as an added bonus. Be wary though, its easy for a game to get derailed for hours if you let it and everybody walks away feeling like nothing got accomplished. Also make sure everyone gets involved in the game. Try not to set up a dungeon crawl where the fighters are kicking ass but the mage and the cleric are sitting somewhere in the background playing cards while everyone else does the butt kicking. Try to setup encounters where everyone’s skills are needed to survive. Setup a history and background for each character that you can draw from and sprinkle little bits of story here and there. A group will always remember that character even when the campaign ends if it has a history, or if only they could solve a particular puzzle.

Well that’s about all I can think of for now. Maybe I’ll revisit this topic some other time. My next one will be how to be a better player. Cheers!

Its not a phone booth!

First in tribute to the first snowflake to fall I give you this.Click me I'm funny!
Which is a good segway into my topic,asshat drivers and particularly ones who cross double white lines. We have traffic laws for a reason, and as you know a double white line, means DO NOT CROSS ME!! Yet lately I have seen people in increasing numbers completely disregard this simple little rule. One even very nearly avoided an accident, crossing over the white lines, merging much too early and causeing people on the highway to slam on their breaks, the person in the lead's breaks locked up and started to skid crazily. Fortunately no one was hit and the asshat drove on w/o a care in the world, probably didn't even see the chaos left in their wake. So, please, please do the world a favor and never cross the white lines, unless its an abosolute emergency and you are very aware of your surroundings and all aspects of traffic coming and going.

My second road ragey rantiness is cell phone drivers. People, you're not Dr. Who, you are not driving a phone booth, its a car. Its a deadly weapon. Some people its not too big of a deal, they seem to be able to multitask better than others. On the other hand you have these teenage valley girls, ear glued to their iPhone that daddy bought driving down the bypass going anywhere between 40 and 75 mph, depending on if they are going up a hill or not. I don't want to be too hypocritical though, on one job of mine at one point I was on two cell phones (both hands free, but one earbud in each ear), and randomly typing a password into a laptop when I got disconnected. That wasn't by choice though, one a test was started I couldn't stop my car for more than a few seconds or the test data would be all screwed up. But that being said, I did make sure I knew where all the vehicles were around me before doing what I needed to do. If I deemed the situation too unsafe I decided it was better to have screwed up data than myself or someone else in a casket.

Winter is here, don't be a tool, drive safe. Drive smart.

/rant

Leet Haxzor Skillz

Clicky here!
First, read the article its pretty good. If you're lazy (shame on you), basicly its about defensive computing and how some computers are too important to be linked to the interwebz.

Well the election is over so I don't have to rant about politics for the time being, I can focus on more interesting topics. Today its going to be computers and computer security. So Obama and McCain's campaign computers were haxzored, idiots. Its tards like that, that irritate the piss out of me, people who don't take computer security seriously or just plain don't want to understand the risks involved. They think, hey what a convienience we'll just link all this data up and slap on a cheap VPN system and call it 'safe'. Then, when inevetably their system is compramised they act all surprised, "I don't know how this could possibly happen, I mean we had a password with a capitol letter and everything." First, just assume anything you have networked to the webz is hackable, or better yet just assume its wide open and everything on it is viewable to the public. Now take a look at whats on that 'pooter and ask yourself if you want the public looking at it, if the answer is no then don't network it via interwebz, especially if you or your company is high profile. Even the most sophisticated security models can be comprimised, as it all comes down to the weakest link...the lUsers, who leave their passwords as 'default' or 'password' because they don't give a shit if the company is hacked.

As far as home computer security is concerned, your computer is fairly safe as long as you are not an idiot. Don't click on the flashy banner add to win an iPod, don't surf pr0n sites. If you follow safe browsing habbits, you wouldn't even need to have a resource-hungry antivirus. However, pr0n might be too tempting so I would suggest having a seperate computer outside the in the DMZ side of your router w/ file shareing turned off.....not that I do that sort of thing of course

Back to Obama and McCain though. What a bunch of tards, I bet they honestly thought they were 'safe' too. Who knows what data is out there now, maybe some foreign national has some dirt on Obama that could be used for blackmailing our country? Or when companies get compramised who knows how many SSN #'s or credit card #'s get released. Please, I plead w/ you big companies who haz my info's, "Keep your shit on your intranet, and don't put it even close to a web server or VPN box. Not even in the same room." Ok thats a bit extreme, but still.....

God Bless Amerika, comrade

Ok, I spose thats taking things to the extreme but I thought it was a humerous title. Well We have a new president. Not the one I was hoping for but, none the less its someone new. I will stand by Obama as best I can. Who knows maybe he will surprise me and do a much better jorb than I am expecting. I just hope his socalistic views are not implemented, or implemented to firmly.

It is a great success though for America in general. In the past Barak wouls have been nothing more than a slave, barely even worth mentioning on the Census, let alone run for president. Now he is the leader of the free world, hopefully it remains that way. one good thing, acording to the national news, most of the rest of the world supported Obama. So, at least, we will look slightly better on the world stage. We definately do need a facelift on that front. Hopefully Obama can make the diplomacy checks the world throws at him witht that high charisma score.

I urge all of you too, if Obama wasn't your first choice. At least give him a chance, don't throw him under the bus just yet. If nothing else, if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, we can at least say "I told you so" in 2012 when the next election comes around.

Standing on the precipice

Quite literaly. Once upon a time I contemplated suiside, I was standing very near the edge of a very scenic bluff at a state park where I grew up. Yesterday, I was back standing in that same spot, during part of a hike me and the Mrs. decided to go on to strech our legs. A flood of memories returned, I as I stood in that spot and remembered everything. If you are a reader of my blogs you know how my memory works, everything played out just like a movie. But this time, Mrs. Kimpak was there next to me, and I could see the things that are good in my life. My friends are awesome, Mrs. Kimpak is awesome, and as much as I biatch about it I do have a decent'ish jorb.

I did ponder though what would have been diferent had I decided to do a tripple gainer off the bluff. How would the world be different, like the cliched christmass movie "Its a Wonderfull Life", or "A christmass Carol". People would have been more sad I think at my loss than that of Scroodge I'm sure, but would it have really mattered? IDK, I think it would, I hope I have touched a few lives for the positive in my exisiance.

The best part about standing there though, was the feeling I got. I've contemplated suiside often between that time and now. At that time I stood there and had no fear of falling, I would have stepped off w/o a second thought, what kept me from going over is a long story in and of itself. This time, I stood there and was afraid I might slip and fall. This is came as a shock and great happiness for me. It seems such a simple thing, but to me it means my life is now worth something to me. I'm not just existing anymore but am actually once again a part of the world even if sometimes I don't see it. So next time I'm feeling depressed, I can now think of that spot and realize its not so bad, I can make things workout for the better.

Bonus Blog (warning, politcs ahead)

Ok so I'm going to come out and say it, I'm voting for turd sandwitch...er I mean John McCain. Why? I don't want to make y'all hate me who want to vote for Obama, I'm sure you have your reasons. Don't get me wrong, I don't really like either canditate, but I do belive John to be the lesser of two evils. I think Obama is too untested, thats not necicarily a bad thing since a set in stone politician isn't good either. But I would like to know where the man stands in practice, not just in speeches. To me, he is like Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings only with more charisma. He will say whatever it takes to win, in such a way that you want to belive every word of it. He's too shiny. Secondly, he's way to socialist for my liking. I think the government should stay out of our business, and our businesses. I was kind of on the edge till Obama made the comment "I think spreading the wealth around is a good thing." I wholeheartedly disagree with this, it sounds like somethign Karl Marx would say (and maybe he did). Also his health care plan, again socialism. I get the feeling that this guy leans in that direction a lot.

Now I'm not saying McCain is some super genious though. I don't like his healthcare plan either, and I don't think he knows jack about what to do w/ the economy. I do think he will listen to people who do know whats going on though and make at least somewhat decent decisions based on that. I also think he can make better decisions on the war and terrorism in general.

Either way the next 4 years are going to be 'interesting' as I have said before. If you havn't decided on who to vote for yet, don't take my opinion, go visit each of the candidates websites and decide for yourself who to vote for. And then on election day, for heavens sake, even if you don't think it matters please vote. Don't write in Micky Mouse, literaly vote for one or the other, or a third party if you prefer. Your vote does count, my vote counts and collectivly, we can take control of our country again.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This was a movie w/ Jim Carey that kindof flew under the radar. The basic premise, w/o ruining the movie is this: Jim Carey's character meets a girl and they start dating. Something happens and the girl no longer wants to be in the relationship so she hires a company that can come in and erase from your mind any event or person or whatever. So, its like the relationship never even happened. Well this confused Jim as to why this girl is acting like she doesn't even know him, he is devastated but also discoveres this company and has the same thing done. Well something happens to him during the procedure and he changes his mind and trys to resist and keep his memories. Now go see the movie for the rest, its very good. You'll like it.

Anyway, my point is; is there anything in your life that you would hire this company to remove your memories of? I was thinking about this today, I keep going back and forth. There are some memories in my live that still haunt me, still depress me sometimes. But if they were removed, I don't think I'd be who I am today. But on the other hand, it would be nice to break the cycle and not cling to the past so much, maybe I'd be able to look forward more and maybe be a better, happier person. Or, maybe not, who knows.

Not that my life is bad. Things couldn't be better I s'pose. I have a great wife and a great house, great friends etc. But sometimes the past sneaks up on be and my memory is such that I can see those events in my head as if they are happening right now. Thus the feelings are just as fresh now as they were then. Its like a photographic memory but only for distant past events. My short term memory was fried, probably by too much caffeine. Anyway, these memories kick my ass whenever I start to think about them, particularly in October like one of my previous blogs mentioned. I try to not let them bother me, but yeah, they do. Oh well I suppose its how we act on our feelings not the feelings themselves that make us who we are, and I never (well not anymore) act on those feelings.

So this is a pointless blog other than, the eraseing your mind part. Think about it, its fun. Make comments, let me know if you would undergo this procedure if it existed.

Postpartum Depression Defense.

First I give you this. Now I warn you anything that Basu writes makes me shoot blood out of my eyes, but I like arguing w/ the people who comment on her drivel. If your lazy basicly, some chick killed her baby several years ago and was sentenced to prison. Now she is aparantly getting a new trial because they are blaming it on Postpartum Depression....

I'll conceed the point that postpartum depression is real. I won't argue that, I know depression and what it can do. However, I whole-heartedly, disagree that it should be a get out of jail free card. Where do we draw the line? Murder is ok, as long as it was committed by a crazy mother? No, murder is murder and there should be punishment, this was not a justifiable homicide. This was a messed up lady who, instead of getting help (or any of her friends or family getting her help) she decided to act on her depression and kill her infant. I'm not completely heartless, I dont' think this was Murder 1, but definately Manslaughter or hell some charge of fatal Neglect I would agree with, and of course some mental help while they are in minimum security or a secure mental hospital.

Here is another example of how our society has turned to one of excuses and "the devil made me do it" attitude. We will look for every other reason why something happend before we will take personal responsibility for our own actions. Which is going to lead me off on a different tangent in this blog, I'd considered makeing a seperate entry but, meh deal with it.

Tangent: America, Socialism and you
Judging by what I'm hearing from the various news sources I read/listen/watch, it seems our society is more than ever, heading down the slippery slope of socialism. The most blatent example was while I was listening to Sean Hannity (Don't worry, I'm not a crazy republican. Its just one of my many sources I look at). He was taking 30 second calls from Obama supporters and refuting whatever topic they brought up. When this caller said something that he agreed with Obama's tax plan and his quote "I think spreading the wealth around is a good thing - Obama". Hannity said so you agree with "From each American acording to his ability, to each American according to his need"? The caller said, "yes". Hannity for a moment was speechless. He asked, do you know who said that? The caller truthfully admitted "no", and this guy sounded like he had to have been at least middle aged and thus had no excuse why he shouldn't have known the famous Karl Marx quote. Is this really what the majority of Americans belive? That the government should have their hands in everything so we don't have to? Should the government have controll over your healthcare, retirement, mortgage? Or in the extreme, what you eat? Your income? Your profession? Aparanlty some people do, but I doub't they know what socialism really means in the long run. It just doesn't work. It strips away the freedoms our ancestors fought so hard to obtain and protect. It discourages, innovation and productivity. It discurages uniqueness.

I just found it sad that there are really people out there that have no problems giving up these freedoms. Simply because they don't want to be held responsible, or think nobody and no business should be allowed to fail because it might cause someone, somewhere, an inconvenience. In my opinion, people should be allowed to fail. When we fail, that is when we learn the most and will (excuse my callousness) weed out those who refuse to better themselves. There are some things the government should have a hand in of course, but that list should be significantly smaller than it is now. Take responsibility for yourself

Firsts

1. What you wanted to be when you grew up?
2. The name of your favorite toy?
3. Your best friend in the whole world?
4. Your first day at school or a new school?
5. The first time you realized that the opposite sex wasnt a cootie-coated monstrosity?
6. Your first kiss?
7. Your first real kiss?
8. The first time you realized that you were happy, no matter what?
9. The first time you realized what it means to be in love with someone?
10. The worse time you and a loved one fought? (not related to you)
11. The first time you threw up after an arguement of any kind?

First of all, I must apologise. This topic is ripped off from my friend Rusty's blog. But I thought it would be a good subject to muse over.

1. This evolved over time. Originaly I wanted to be a train engineer, then I wanted to be a mission specialist for NASA ( I went to space camp), then I just wanted to be an electrical engineer...then I realized my dyslexia combined with other things meant I suck too much at math to be any of those things.

2. My earliest favroite toy was probably my Transformers action figures. But my all time favorite was probably my Lego's.

3. My first best friend was a neighbor girl, Kimmie Sanders. This was before I was even in Kindergarten so, no dirty thoughs folks ;)

4. I remember every first day of every school I've been to. I remember most the smell, of new school supplies, default teacher perfume and whatever it was they used to clean the floors; all combining into that one unmistakable 'school smell'. I was never scared, I usually liked going back to school because it meant I could see all my friends more often and see some I hadn't seen all summer. I wasn't a very good student so I knew I wasn't going to do much work, thus was never worried about any tests or anything. I would just assume I wasn't going to do well or if it happened to be a subject I was interested in or had done my own research then I knew I would do very well regardless of how good or bad the teacher happened to be.

5. Hm...I don't remember ever feeling this way actually. I've always had a girl that was a friend (but not necicarily a girlfriend) for most of my years. The usual problem was the other way around, the girl/girls thinking I was full of cooties.....

6. Kimmie Sanders in a shopping cart at Pamida. Again, before I was in school but I remember it like it was yesterday.

7. Ahh....as a matter of fact the anneversary of this event was 2 day ago, on Mary's birthday. It was in High School, I had to work but in the afternoon (at McDonalds, uck). But I went over to Mary's to hang out before hand and to celebrate her birthday, we watched a movie (Lost in Space). Right when I was leaving, she walked out to my car with me and I finally worked up enough courage to kiss her......I didn't want to go to work that day.

8. My life has been alternate stages of happy and depressed....It wasn't till I started dateing my wife Jenn that I was truely happy no matter what.

9. I'm going to get in trouble here if Jenn is reading this (I'm sorry). First time I was really in love, was when I was dating Mary. Things eventually didn't work out but it was the first time I was truely in love with someone.

10. Again, I'd prolly have to go w/ Mary again on this one. I've never really 'fought' with a significant other, but have had many a sad conversation. The worst was when I received a letter from Mary titled "To whom it may concern"...I called in sick to work that day and ran away to Minnesota with my Mom (in an ambulance no less, lol) I couldn't handle life that day....I think its the only letter I've destroyed because it just hurt too much. We did patch things up after that letter, our eventual breakup was not for many months later.

11. I've never thown up after an argument, but I have as I mentioned ran away. I've also stood on the edge of a bluff trying to jump...


So there you have it, a window into my soul. Mostly just typical teenager stuff, some of it not. You'll be pleased to note (hopefully?) that I don't get depressed as badly as I used to. I think Jenn helps that a lot. Mary and I are still friends (I hope :) ). I made this list in regard to all my firsts, but there have been others in my life who I don't want to leave out. Namly Jamie, my second real girlfriend who I ended up screwing up the relationship this time. I know if she's reading this she'd be rolling her eyes, and telling me not to dwell on it but, well its my nature. Jamie and I are still good friends and I still love her very much, but miss her lots since she went and moved half way across the world......ok maybe only 8 hrs away but still...

October

Double blog post today. Sorry its pretty emo though. October; I love it and I hate it. More spacificly September and October together. The weather is chaotic, but the nice days are really nice, not too hot not too cold. The leaves are changing and beautiful. But it inevitably reminds me of high school, and marching band. High school was a very life changing time for me. My first kiss was in October. I know it sounds stupid, I was just a kid and all that but its always going to be a time in my life that I will vividly remember. It was bittersweet. I loved band, most of my friends were in the band, and my girlfriend at the time was too. That was wonderfull, except when we were having some, shal we say, rough times. Then things couldn't have been worse. The smell of October, brings back all these memorys of sitting on the hill not watching the football game on Friday nights (or was it Saturday?). Or sitting on the side of the hill completely consumed w/ depression and trying desperately not to show it. All of these are memories that have not faded to me, my memory is such that past events are always crystal clear; like a high def movie playing in my head. If any of you from that time in my life are reading this, please know this is not aimed at you. I love you all, and wouldn't change that time for anyhing. (well there is one thing I would like to have changed, but that is a something that will never be shared)

So, October. I will always love you and I will always hate you.

Busy Busy Busy

I remember back in the latter days of middle school and all of high school, playing games on weekends. Sometimes 48 hour sessions of Dungeons and Dragon's or Starfleet Battles at the Brimeyer's house. It was never hard to pull a group together, and we didn't have a care in the world. I was afraid that when I went to college all this would end, maybe I wouldn't even be able to find a fellow RP gamer at a business collge. Fortunately, the Gods of gameing smiled upon me and introduced me to, who would become my brother in law, and a couple other guys that gamed. I was also brought into the wonderfull world of LAN partying. Good times were had by all. Once again, we had 48 hr games of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 or epic adventureing in the worlds of D&D.

Sadly, little by little, one by one, all of us who play went off to start their own lives and their own worlds, many in different towns (5 different towns to be exact). I miss the days, when we could play even once a week. I tried rallying one last, great hurrah! Against the Giants is the name of the D&D module, it was my first campaign back in 8th grade. I thought it would be great to come full circle and now DM that campaign as a last great gathering. It started off well, but now as I said we are all scattered through 5 cities, two players of which now live in Seattle so they can no longer play. It became once a month. Then people got even busier and it became once every other month. Its now longer than that, we did have a day thislast month but unfortunate circumstances made us call off that date. I'm getting tired of trying to orgainze the group. Everybody's life is too busy now, I guess we all have to grow up.

Adult life is way too boreing to me. Church things, community things. Meh. And I know it would only get worseish when my friends start having children. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be wonderfull to be an uncle and I wish them nothing but happiness. But I have to admit a part of me will be sad that it would be another, if not the final nail in the coffin of game night. On that note though, there may be a sliver of hope if Mrs. Kimpak and I have children that grow up to be gamers, I can dust off the old books and DM for them and their friends, just as Mr. Brimeyer did for us.

Economic Bailout Boogaloo

Wow, 700 billion dollars. That is a hell of a lot of money. To put it in video game terms (for those of you who are familiar w/ EVE online) that much money could buy you a Titan. Which is a spaceship the size of some planets. Our elected officals are pissed that the american public is actualy fighting them on this. By some reports more citizens called and/or mailed their congresspeople than ever before. That is saying something, when our society is largely based on lazyness.

Anyway, as to the bailout plan itself, its terrible. Don't get me wrong, there are some good bits in it (yes I have actually read the thing.../shudder); but its mostly bad. Jay Leno said it best, "Here's the way a bailout works. A failed president and a failed Congress invest $700 billion of your money in failed businesses. Believe me, this can't fail." Riiiggghht, sounds pretty awesome to me what about you? All kidding aside though, something has to be done but it must be done by 'We the People', not the federal government. However, given the state of our current society; I think we're doomed if we rely on people actually taking personal responsibility for themeselves.

Even if this bill passes, no one is guaranteeing that it will work. In fact most experts will tell you that this bill sucks and it has maybe a 50/50 chance to work. But, they say, something has to be done rather than nothing. So they are taking the chance and throwing the dart. We're either going to hit the bullseye or its goint to riccoche off the wall and land in someones beer. I'm hopeing for the bullseye, but preparing for the spilled beer.

Sometimes though, I do entertain the thought of hoping for an actuall economic collapse or our military just up and leaving Iraq and Afganastan etc... What would the world be like? Would it be just a clensing fire and eventually a new "Greatest Generation" will rise from the ashes? Or will it be the collapse of a great power like Rome, to be replaced by a new dark age?

Inform Yourself

Rest in peace, Common Sense, Critical Thinking and Personal Responsibility. You shall be missed. What happened to this world? When did it happen? Maybe it was always like this. It seems we live in a world full of stupid. I give you this(clickme). There is so much wrong with this article it boggles my mind. First of all, perhaps the writer of this article should have actually taken upon herself to find out what exactly a VOiP phone is (critical thinking..fail). Second fail is lack of understanding for the situation (personal responsibility...fail). It seems people these days are all about 'I'm the most important person in the world' and get outragously upset when something doesn't happen their way, even when its completely unreasonable.

One of my biggest pet peves is the sheeple mentality, again critical thinking is lacking. People see something on tv, or in a magazine and take it as gospel without thinking for themselves. Take Window's Vista for a prime example. The only reason people don't like it is because the pundits say so on the T.V. The Wondow's Mojave project shines a bright light on that phenomenon. Thats not to say Vista has its faults, it does, but its nowhere near what people preceive it to be. Other example, global warming, climate change, zomg teh sky is falling, whatever you want to call it. They hear it from only one side, the left (ok, mostly lefties), but does anybody bother to do a tiny bit of research themselves...no. Stop following people! Even the news has an angle, their trying to sell you something an agenda. Fair and balanced my butt, if you belive that then I have a bridge to sell you. Think for yourself.

Ignorance is not an excuse. Inform yourself on important issues, don't let others tell you what to think

A year of Marriage

Yesterday 9/2 was officially my one year anniversary w/ Mrs. Kimpak. I have to say its been one of the best years of my life. Jenn has been great and I do all I can to return the love that she gives to me.

Ok that was the sappy stuff. What have I learned from a year of marriage? Its not all ball n' chain like the comedians say..at least not yet, lol. I've learned to try, and not be such a messy person. I have had somewhat limited success there unfortunately.

I'm still learning the ropes though, there are many things I have to work on. Hopefully I don't screw things up too badly. Here's to hoping, and here's to many more good anniversaries.

A new blog

Yes, I'm starting a new blog, I'd like to keep going w/ my old one here, but I seem to have forgotten my password. Oh, well. You can click over and read some of my really old rants. But here is a new beginning, but once again mostly boring rants about the world I live in.

Where shall I start? How about the stupidity that I know best, the world of technical support. What is it about relatively normal, averagely intelligent people, that when they sit in front of a computer they just completely loose their mind? And furthermore, when they decide their issue is too mind boggling for themselves to handle they call in to us and unleash their dark side in relative anonymity. Here are a few things to keep in mind when calling into any tech support (especially ours). 1. Most of us are trained professionals, trust us, we know what we are talking about. So if we ask you to do something, even if you think its stupid like checking the power cable or power strip to make sure the modem has power DO IT, 9 times out of 10 its something simple like that, that you may have overlooked. You may feel stupid, but its much less stupid-looking than arguing about it for 20 mins only to realize that, yes, you did shut off the power strip. Anyway #2, and this one is very, very important; the supervisor/lead does not have a magic wand, no matter how much you wish it so. Thus, asking for our supervisor will only net you the exact same results we will give only it will take more time on the phone for you and possibly loosing a trouble call time slot. In the case of our company, yes we know sometimes it takes ridiculously long time to get a truck to your house but theres nothing we or anybody else in the company can do. If you don't like it, get DSL and be content with slower speeds for the same prices. And most importantly #3 is, just be nice to your rep. We are much more inclined to go the extra mile, to pull a few strings or bend a rule to help you if you are not being an ass. And last, have confidence in yourself. It doesn't matter if you barely know how to turn on your computer and fire up your email program, we know what we are doing so all you need to do is follow instructions exactly as we say them. Even if we take you to some scary, command prompt or diagnostic screen.

And now for something, completely different. I was at the renaissance festival this last weekend, and it was wonder full. We spend pretty much the whole day there from about 9:40 am to 7:00 pm. I've been going to it every year for about 17(ish) years, and I have to say this was one of the best. People watching is great at the Ren fest, we saw this one gal whom we dubbed The Amazon Lady. She was pushing 7' and huge, but was also wearing tights and a see through white shirt. Eww. We also met a nice couple who ran a shop selling pet treats. The couple asked us about our snazzy Ren Fest garb and as it turned out it was the lady's birthday so we sang Happy Birthday to her and took some pictures. Also saw a cool guy who made armor out of turtle shells. We also did the Feast of Fantasy; a 7 course meal w/ plenty of entertainment in between. Plus the booze was free, I had a bottomless glass of Merlot, it was delicious. Now I just have to convince the Mrs. to go to the Des Moines Ren Fest