Sports, Black-Outs, and Tax Money

This Sunday’s Buffalo Bill’s game will not be televised.

Back when I was younger and still had a television I would get ticked off when my usual weekend viewing was interrupted by sports. Nothing is more annoying than looking forward to the latest episode of your favorite show only to have it replaced by a bunch of grown men playing a silly game. At least now that I don’t have a television I watch what I want when I want online or on DVD so there are far fewer disappointments in that regard.

I’m not much of a sports fan. Football…. or I guess it should really be called Tackleball, is certainly not something I would watch. A bunch of overweight men in tight pants bending down around a ball is not my idea of an entertaining time.

However, as a taxpayer I find the Bills being able to black-out the game as highly offensive. While I don’t like football many other people do. Millions of taxpayer dollars went to help pay for a frickin’ playing field for a bunch of millionaires and now that the locals don’t want to buy overpriced tickets to sit in cold weather and watch a terrible team play the high-up muckity-mucks in the Bills organization black-out the game.

Screw them. That stadium is owned by the government not the Bills. When you don’t pay your own way you shouldn’t be able to decide if your game is televised or not. Everyone in western New York is owed a lot by these ungrateful schmucks. If you won’t televise all the games then give us our money back.

Of course the government won’t ever make such an interpretation of things. How many communities have been fleeced by various professional sports teams. Countless times have crybaby millionaires complained that a ten or fifteen year old stadium is no longer suitable for their childish little game and if they are not given tens or hundreds of millions of dollars they will take their toys and go somewhere else. Next comes the stream bureaucrats telling how the community will actually make more money by keeping the team in town and push through the funding.

After the taxpayers get fleeced for the stadium next comes the police overtime. Then if the community is really lucky the team is good and wins a couple championships… and then the related victory riots burning parts of the city that the police don’t dare try to stop without hearing cries of police brutality.

In return we get some low-paying seasonal jobs at the stadium, increased traffic accidents as tens of thousands of people (many of whom are drunk) try to leave the city at the same time, increased sales of multi-colored body paint (and the related sales tax revenue!), and an over-inflated sense of self worth because we have a big sports team.

And another thing; how can anyone have any loyalty to a team? Players are traded and move with more frequency than they did thirty years ago. The team is made up of a bunch of carpet baggers not local talent.

I have no problem with people who play sports for fun. It’s great exercise and competition is a good thing. I just hate having my money stolen for something that doesn’t benefit me or at least the community.

Finally, I’ve heard a number of people say that the Bills have a chance this weekend to defeat the Lions and get their first win. I still have faith in them. They are going to what they are best at… finding a way to fail.

FUN NOT REALLY FACTS
#1 The average football fan that goes to a game weighs 220 pounds. With 70,000 people crammed into the stadium that makes 7.7 kilotons of flesh and bone. With each person consuming an average of 1.7 pounds of food at the game… almost like 541 additional people leaving when the game is over!

#2 Enough urine is excreted at the stadium on game day to fill a 12 by 24 foot in-ground pool 3.5 feet.

#3 For every person that thinks the fan that the camera always zooms in on who is shirtless and covered in paint is cool there are 577,314 people laughing at him. While these 577,314 don’t want that guy in the gene pool, the are more than willing to push him into the pool mentioned in fun not really fact #2.

Star Wars Campaign Development & Stuff

Campaign Thoughts
I'll be running a few more sessions of my Star Wars role-playing campaign before I have to put it on pause again. It has been overall an odd campaign over the last two or three years. I've pulled from numerous expanded universe sources including the Marvel comics series, the River of Chaos series, and other places.

As I think about what to do next I have to decide if I'm going to go a more normal route with the game or continue to build on what has transpired so far. If I make things more normal there is a chance that things could get bogged down in the mundane and the efforts of the heroes during the Yuuzhan Vong war will be an insignificant ripple in the conflict.

If I ramp up the storyline it will become something it may have been lacking a bit lately. It will become an action-adventure series on a grand scale with the heroes actually having a chance to save the galaxy (or watch it burn when they screw up). I need to through in more exotic locations, bigger explosions, more bizarre aliens, and things for the players to care about. We have relatively short sessions for Star Wars, but as I learned last night it is possible to get a lot done if we get to it and I'm properly prepared... I just have to make sure I don't run out of material and do what I can to keep tangents from happening.

As I've been getting more notes together I've even realized I've made some major oversights on a couple of small scale things. It's probably hurt the characters a bit, but I'll make up for that oversight before things go on pause.

With the mysteries of Splendid Ap and Centerpoint Station mostly solved and other revelations it would be anti-climatic to have the team running a droid factory churning out hundreds of thousands of droids for a war that involves trillions. The players deserve better than that so I think I'll have to put them in the position of being the heroes of the story. Now If I could just get them to act heroic.

I'll give some details of what I have planned at the end of next month after the last session before the break. I don't want to spoil anything for any of the players.

Unrelated Thoughts (Stuff)
Again timing seems to be off for me. A package I've been expecting actually arrived at the main Rochester post office this morning. I was hoping it would get delivered but now I'll have to wait until Friday since to-morrow is a holiday.

I've been reading some of the stories in The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Some are good, some are bad, and some are mediocre. Thinking about putting it aside for now and jumping into L. Neil Smith's Lando Calrissian trilogy.

Finally, I'm behind schedule on my NaNoWriMo again this year. November just doesn't seem to be a good month for me to try to write a novel. June has worked much better for me. I'll keep at it a bit, but it's starting to morph into something I plan to merge with my first novel and some other material. More details next summer as I get things organized.

Warren Redlich for Governor

"Stop wasting money!"

Tuesday is election day. Here in New York we have numerous choices for Governor, seven of them to be exact. For those who are not happy with either Cuomo or Paladino we have candidates form numerous other parties: the Libertarian party, Anti-Prohibition Party, Rent is 2 Damn High, Green and Freedom party. If you are disillusioned with voting because of the direction New York has been going under the two main parties, please consider voting for one of the 'third' parties.

Warren Redlich and the Libertarian Party of New York will work to bring liberty back to New Yorkers. First by stopping the wasting of money by the State. Warren's website also lists his stand on other issues such as taxes, tort reform, eminent domain, the second amendment, and drug policyreform. His view on the issues is what is in the interest of the citizen not what's in the interest of the politician. If you want government intrusions in our life reduced or just want to scare the major parties into working for us instead of the party bosses, please give Warren your vote.

While I'm not going to tell you that you have an obligation to vote (voting is a right not an obligation) I will ask you to please help shake things up this year. Let's make sure that voter turnout for this race is better than the voter turnout on Dancing With the Stars.

Week Off

I've finally managed to take a week off from work. Not going out of town; just going to work on a number of projects here at home:

1. Catch up on my blogging - I've been falling behind in my blogging. I hope to catch up and start working on a back-log of material.
2. Voting - Tuesday is election day. I'm working to get Warren Redlich votes for Governor of New York. I'll post more about him this weekend.
3. NaNoWriMo - I'll be starting my next novel during National Novel Writing Month. I tried this last year but failed. I should be able to do it this time, I've written over 40,000 words in 30 days before, how much harder can it be to get to 50,000?
4. Getting rid of old junk - Time to clean out crap I don't need. Old furniture, DVDs, books, comics, games... reducing the clutter and trying to get a little money. I've given up on collecting anything, it's a waste of space and money... it could be fun at times though...
5. Fixing up my old computer - no upgrade, just going to clean out ould files and programs off it and do some other back-ups & maintenance.
6. Lots o' other stuff too - My list of odds'n'ends for this next week or so it pretty long. I'm not going to finish everything, but I will take a dent out of my list.
7. Rest - I also plan to just sit back and relax a bit. Do some light reading. I won't be able to take another full week off until the summer, so I'll have to make this one count.
   

Preparing for 2010 NaNoWriMo

I'm getting ready for this year's National Novel Writing Month. Last year I wasn't successful in my attempt. This year I have some of the same time constraints that I had last year, but I will be trying to take a week of vacation to give me some extra writing time.

Last year I planned to write a retro-science-fiction story set during World War I. This time I'll be writing an adventure story set during the Second Angl0-Afghan War. I did some research last year and I'm currently getting a few characters and scenarios into the back of my mind so I'll be ready to start writing on November 1st.

I'll try to give regular updates of my writing status as the month progresses. The goal for the 30 days is 50,000 words. A sizable amount, but it should be easy to accomplish, even with work and other obligations that need to be met.

This will hopefully be my first successful NaNoWriMo attempt. Last year was my first attempt, and I failed. My other novel in a month attempt was in June 2008 and netted over 40,000 words.

If you've always wanted to write a novel you might want to join me next week in writing. The goal is to get words on a page. Future months can be taken up by the clean-up and re-writes. Once the first 50,000 words are written, everything else is much easier.

Now all I need is a title for my new book...

15 Games in 15 minutes Meme

Here is something I've seen a few other people post about. You get 15 minutes to list the first 15 games you think of that stuck with you in some way. I'll be listing role-playing games on mine:

1) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
2) Villains & Vigilantes
3) Amber Diceless Role-Playing
4) Star Frontiers
5) Mage: The Ascension
6) GURPS
7) D&D 3.5
8) DC Heroes RPG
9) Star Trek RPG (Fasa's version)
10) Extreme Vengeance
11) 7th Sea
12) Deadlands
13) Marvel Super Heroes
14) Space:1889
15) Doctor Who (the new RPG; haven't played it but it looks like it has some cool systems to it)

Okay, that took only about five minutes. These were the first 15 games I could think of as having had an influence on my gaming style, having been fun to play, or just looking interesting. There are lots more, but these must be the most important ones since I thought of them first.

I'm sure I'll think of a few more that have had more of an influence on me after I hit the 'Publish Post' button.

Pittsford Library Book Sale

The Pittsford, NY Library is having a book sale at the end of this week. According to their website members of the Friends of the (Pittsford) Library can be admitted to the first day of the sale on Friday the 22nd of October at 5pm. Saturday and Sunday it will be open to everyone.

Between 5pm and 6pm on Sunday after being briefly closed the sale will open back up and people can fill up a bag of books for $3.

I've gone to a number of Friends of the Library sales in Brighton and they are cool. You have to go early to get the best books, but showing up for the $3 per bag of books is well worth it. My bag'0 books usually have some good titles in them, but everything else gets posted onto Bookmooch. Of course I was able to choose what went into the bag, but you're trying to quickly get the better books in your bag before one of the other patrons takes something that might interest you.

Should be fun.

Sims in Business

Continuing my Legacy Challenge:

Albert Fugg has opened his first business. I only had about §50,000 available so I had to find an inexpensive site. Since this will be the core family business I want it to have room to expand. I picked one of the four park zones in the town; they are large and give me plenty of room to do what I want.

Putting up big stores in one of the central park areas is not the most appealing thing. I believe I'll be selling various outdoors-type statues and plants. Many of them will bring in big bucks and they will add to the look of the park more than setting up a department store.

In an isolated area I might set up a small workshop area for some employees to create additional items to sell at the park or for me to keep until I set up additional business in town. All of this and a nice playground and picnic area for the locals. Nice.

Albert is about 8 days away from becoming an elder. The two youngest kids, Xeno & Cody are going to have a birthday soon leaving toddlerdom to become youngsters and starting school. Hopefully they will become teenagers before Albert dies so they along with Bobert will have a chance to become the 'official' heir of the family line.

However, before those birthdays Albert will be taking Bobert, Venus and a family friend on a third vacation to Three Lakes. It will be a long vacation giving the kids time to work on maxing out more skills and for Albert to generate some more money for the family. All this while making new friends and trying to get the last vacation memories in that destination. I really hope one of our next vacations is to another destination... but we have to save up for a vacation home in the other vacation destinations. Staying at hotels is too expensive and has other drawbacks.

Anyway, I hope to work to develop this first family business to a high level and use the revenue to buy some additional business property. I may focus on this since breeding dogs is becoming a major task.

There will be another update soon.

4th Edition Problem

I'm working on reviving an old campaign and I'm trying to decide what to do with a problem with being 100% compliant with 4th edition rules. I would stick with the old rule from earlier editions but new sourcebooks are based on the new edition so I may have to change.

I'm not talking about D&D 4th edition; I'm talking about GURPS. The fourth edition of GURPS has messed with the higher tech levels. In old GUPRPS tech level 7 was the modern day and was projected to last until about the turn of the century (2001+ was listed as the time TL 8 would begin). New GURPS has TL 8 starting in 1980..... 1980 to about 2001 or so being TL 7 in old GURPS. Sure we may have some Tech Level 8 technology making its way into our civilization, we may be at the early stage of TL 8; but then again it's 2010 so that's where we should be in the old scale.

Additionally the higher tech levels had gone to 16 in the old Ultra Tech book; the new one has the anti-matter weapons and super tech that was 15-16 at TL 12. So now the tech level starts one higher than it used to and we have lost four levels at the other end of the scale. So from today's digital technology it is now only four steps to near god-like powers.

If I update to the new tech rankings I'll have to bump the campaign base tech level to 9. There will be annoying little bookkeeping things to do like update all the NPC character sheets so their skills reflect the proper new tech level. That way as new GURPS books are released with higher tech gear I wont' have to go back and figure out what tech level it would be in old GURPS. Either case is a pain.

Since I was running an alternate worlds campaign there is also the high technology and special tech from various alternate worlds that have to be adjusted as well. I like having more tech levels because that helps make some of the super tech very difficult for the PCs to use or figure out.

Would it have been too difficult to just leave the tech levels the same? What benefit is there to changing it and reclassifiying a pile of ultra tech gear to lower tech levels?

Return of Gamma World

This week the latest in a long line of editions of Gamma World has been released. I've lost count of how many editions there have been but this one might just as well be called 4e since it uses the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition rules. In fact it is called D&D Gamma World.

The boxed set stands out in 'radioactive green' similar to the Deadlands Wasted West products. While it is a boxed set it is not in the old style flimsy boxes of the old days its in a nice sturdy box. The contents, however, don't require such a big box.

The rule book is over 150 pages... but its a 8.5" times 5.5" book instead of your standard 8.5" times 11". Of course the dimensions of the box would not allow for an 11 inch book. Next are the battle maps; while useful for the game these is only so many battles that can be fought on them before they get boring. A bunch of cardboard character and monster tokens are included as well (too bad they won't release a non-collectible miniatures set for Gamma World, that would be cool).

Finally we come to the card deck. The new Gamma World uses collectible cards for mutations and 'Omega Tech.' So for those of you not turned off by the 4th Edition rules, the collectible card aspect may have now driven you away. For those who like both collectible cards and 4e this might be the game for you.

From what I've seen online there isn't much of a campaign background in the new game. That's too bad. But at least that keeps them from creating something as horrible as the Alternity version of Gamma World (pure strain humans are actually aliens.... really?). Despite the apparent strikes this new one has against it I really didn't like the background changes they mad in the Alternity version... which is too bad because I liked the Alternity system.

If you are going to buy this one be sure to shop around. There is a wide range of pricing online. Also, you might want to hold off on the booster packs and see if the price on them goes down at all right now I think it is averaging about fifty cents per card.

Now I wonder when they'll get around to re-releasing Star Frontiers.