3 hours ago
Angry Robot BooksBaby Squirrel: The Invasion
Last October we had an intersting event here at the house. Well Friday night while watching the remake of the remake of the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1,2,3,4). Joani and I both thought it ironic that Nichole Kidman was cast as one of the last people who were still human, being that she seems imotionally void in most of her films.
So about halfway through the movie (which really isn’t terrible) a small dark shape jumps up on the arm of my chair. It did not quite register other than to draw my attention a little, then it flicked it’s tail. Scared the crap out of me at that point. I jumped out of my chair and it surried away and hid in the same place the last one did. To keep the story short, I basically used the same method to catch him. Small, clear rubbermaid tub and peanut butter. When the squirrel got in the tub to get the goodies, I slid the lid shut and took him outside.
Next year about this time, I’ll get pictures when the next generation sends in the little guy who gets the extra exploration gene.
Arrogance and Ignorance
Wizards of the Coast suffers these terribly when it comes to marketing DnD now. This was beginning to show itself way back at GenCon for the release of 3rd Edition. I took part in a marketing research panel with about 10 other people and 3 market research folks who had been briefed on what the product was but did not really seem to have any real knowldge of what they were working with. Their intended spin they wanted to try out on us was geared toward ten year olds for the most part. We gave our input, told them what we thought was lame (most of it) and what we thought might work.
About 6 months later to their credit the marketing was 50/50 our input and their input. However, things have been downhill since then. The dregs are now washing back with 4th Edition. However what really seems to be the problem now is that WoTC seems to think they can throw any piece of shit out there and it will stick. I am sure of of this is tied into budget and profits, they are a company after all. However Gleemax closing down in September should be of suprise to no one. They named it after an inside joke. Made it look fairly lame. It was nearly impossible to navigate. They called on folks to post to “blogs” that were nothing more than locked threads on a message board. They dropped it out on the net in a very early alpha state of development and it never got past an early beta state.
WoTC’s web efforts have never been stellar. Navigation logic and user interface are pretty much always an after thought. The new DnD insider site is not great, but it seems almost to be something. However they hyped it way too much not to have more meat on the table when they rolled it out. That was a HUGE missed oportunity they will never get back.
Now we get to the Arrogance portion of the rant. The new edition touts all of these thing sthey have brought to the table, improving the game from past editions. Marginalizing things from old editions telling you how bad they were and in reality much of the “new” stuff is just old tried and true with a spiffy new name tossed on it. “Points of Light” being the most blatant example.
Unfortunately I was interupted in this train of thought, so we’ll pause this rant and return later for part two. I’ll do a wrap up and link to some other similar thoughts at my favorite blogs.
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M-A-N
Big bummer on Bo Diddly biting the bullet today :( Rest in piece and rest assured your beat will live on.
Boy I suck at this
Yeah months later, another post. I’ve recently changed jobs. No longer doing desktop support for NASA. I am not doing software support for Telcordia. Very good bunch of people at the new job. Looking forward to the challenge. Instead of getting a shit ton of calls a day, I’ll be doing just a few issues a week.
Quit playing EQ2, the game has pretty much been ruined. Many players driven off by the changes they made to leveling in the latest expansion. It was set up to make solo experience gain much , much more efficient than group exp. Raids were really not that interesting in the end. Initially I had hopes for those, but they ended up being pretty lame. Content was trivial with a good crew. Problem was the good people all fled.
So we are tooling around in LOTRO for now.
School progresses nicely.
EGG
Since I spent a lot of time in my youth playing and having a great time with some good friends who have since spread across the country because of this guy, I thought I should at least post links to some of the better tributes.
New York Times – Not in and of itself a tribute, but pretty good :)
FFS, one of the Blade Runner comercials really pisses me off.
So they have been pumping lots of ads out for the new Bladerunner DVD boxed set. The “Final Cut” First thought is while it is one of if not my all time favorite movie, Ridley, dude, move on. Are you trying to compete with George for recutting a movie? 2nd, if you are making an ad why pick a line you have to dub? Now when I ranted about this at work with someone, they pointed out there is a chance the final cut actually changes the line.. We shall see, but by now everyone has seen that movie, or should have and that change in line has to be bugging fans.
The baby squirrel
Tuesday night neither Joani or I got very good sleep. We both heard something rustling around, I sort of assumed it was a cat doing something annoying, Joani seemed to have a bit more problem with it so her sleep was impacted a bit more. I get up around 5:30 now so after getting ready I went downstairs and turned onthe light in the living room. Swoosh, a small brown shape shoots acroos the floor for the nearest cover, makes a lap out of the living room, into the kitchen, and then under the dining room table. The cats find this interesting and Miss Kitty is beside herself. There is a small standoff between her and the intruder in the dinning room and I get my first good look at the baby squirrel that has somehow found himself in the house.
Poor guy is pretty confused and looking for safety from the three cats attention he now has, not to mention the big biped. I grab something to throw on him hoping to catch him. He shortly finds refuge under the entertainement center, and the cats (and I) are thwarted for now. Off to work I go expecting to come home to carnage and a present left in my lazy boy or Joani’s office chair.
I check out the situation at lunch and see no blood, no sign of the baby squirrel, and 3 cats sacked out as if they have had a really active morning trying to flush the interloper out.
3 pm and I get home from work, walk in and find Tye, the fat cat sitting near the front door staring with great concern at where the squirrel must still be hiding. Tye relaxes after I give him a good head scratching to let him know job well done, walk to my normal backpack drop off and set it down. Zoom, the little guy shoots out from his refuge, along the wall and then up under my lazyboy to come to a hault right between my feet. We stand there looking at each other neither not sure exactly what to do for a minute or two and he finally flinches and finds a small hole in the grate of the blower on the fireplace.
Eventually I come upon a plan after a couple of games of hide and seek with the squirrel who pokes his head out to see if I am stil watching him. I grab a decent sized clear plastic rubber tub and lid. Put some peanut butter in one end and prop the lid and tub covering the hole. I sit and wait. No squirrel can resist a glob of peanut butter, let alone a baby squirrel.
Amazingly the makeshift trap works, he eventually creeps out of his little metal cave crawls far enough out that I can slam the lid closed and snap him up. With lid closed he decides all is right with the world and snacks on the peanut buter treat until I get him outside and set him free.