Saturday, January 19, 2002

Snow?

Yipee! It's started to snow! (it's 10am here, btw)... wonder how much snow we'll get today (will the predicitons be accurate? LOL). Pity that it will probably be all melted by Monday (supposed to be in the 40s on Monday and Tuesday).

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Adams pa-bedford pa-cumberland pa-dauphin pa-franklin pa-fulton pa-Lancaster pa-lebanon pa-perry pa-schuylkill pa-somerset pa-york pa-450 AM EST Sat Jan 19 2002

...A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for today into this evening...

Snow will overspread the area late this morning. The snow will be heavy at times this afternoon...Before ending this evening. Total
accumulations across the warning area will Range from 4 to 8 inches.

A Winter Storm Warning is issued when severe Winter weather is expected to occur. Heavy snow is forecast to accumulate in the affected areas...Causing hazardous driving conditions. Those with travel plans in the warning area are advised to choose an alternate route...Or should use extreme caution if travel is unavoidable.


posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:01 AM

Friday, January 18, 2002

Busy week

Seems like everyone is busy this week... I've got a massive project that is already overdue even before we got approval from the client (ok... actually that's "situation normal" for this job every year). So I haven't had anytime to play EQ except for about a hour last night (played around with starting a level 1 Troll SK, but may convert him to a warrior, not sure...) because I've been putting in 12-14 hr days. Still, I might have the project sewn up enough in a few more hours that I have some free time tonight and can play some.

Felweniel has been quiet all week (her ISP is choking on a pretzel this week I guess), and Naias has been AWOL for a few days (haven't seen him online since the weekend).

Oh, and I have to start doing my taxes in a few weeks (should take me around 40 hrs from start to finish... but my paperwork's a bit disorganized this year... sigh).

And of course, once I get my rebate checks it'll be time to go house hunting in earnest...

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 1:42 PM

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Mononoke Hime

Mononoke Hime was an interesting film... thank goodness I was able to watch the Japanese language version of the film with the literal english sub-titles. The few clips from the featurette (basically a 5 minute promo film about how great the english dub version is and how much fun it was to make... gag) reminded me how much the American entertainment industry is in the habit of "dumbing things down" for their viewers (basically, they treat the audience like imbeciles...)... because if they make things too complicated they fear the audience will get lost.

Basically, the dubbed version of the film completely changes the meaning of a lot of the actual Japanese... which I'll get into specifics after I watch it once or twice more (one of the sub-title tracks is, I think, the version of the english dubbed track so I can listen to the japanese and compare it to what the english actors ended up saying).

I still don't completely understand the story though... (or why the hero acted as he did, his motivations for helping who he helped or the outcome that he was trying for). It's almost as if the hero was completely amoral (possible), trying to win the heroines heart at the same time trying to help the people who were destroying the forest... I think there's some historical background that is not made clear in the film that would explain some of this if I knew the era better when this is supposed to take place. I never felt myself rooting for any of the characters in the film other than the hero, and he perplexed me at times.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:43 PM

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

EverQuest - the complexity lies just beneath the surface

Sigh... I still remember my first time walking out of the gates of Felwithe (the high elf city) into the dark and forbidding forest of Greater Faydark armed only with a little dagger and my level 1 offensive magician spell. My first thought was, "wow... it looks like I could get lost really easy out there", then i saw my first bat up close and wondered how I was supposed to kill something that big. (Of course, that first orc pawn look like it was 8 ft tall with 4 inch fangs after it chewed me up lickety-split.) It took me a level or 3 before I'd willing get far enough away that I couldn't just turn around and see the guards.

Still, there's so much of EQ that lies just beneath the surface of the hack-n-slash mentality. Probably the biggest few components are quests that force you to travel and learn about the back story, dealing with other players and becoming known in the community, and dealing with the added dimension of guilds.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:45 PM