True Geek Radio

There is a new geek-related blog in town. True Geek Radio is a blog "about all things in the world of geek. Comics, games, movies, role-playing, television, computers and all sorts of fun and interesting stuff."

So far there are entries on MODOK from Marvel comics, Stan Lee's cameo appearances in various Marvel movies, and a review on the Star Wars novel Death Troopers. More is on the way as this new site takes off.

Be sure and visit it and leave some nice comments if you are so inclined.

Saberfrog

The low-budget film Saberfrog is nearing completion. I helped a little bit with the film a couple of years ago when it was shot. I spent a few weekends and a number of other days helping out, mostly as crew (but I did get a small speaking role as well).

The trailer of the film can be found HERE as well as other Saberfrog related stuff.

It is basically a film about some thirty something friends getting back together for a quest. It involves a road trip, an evil mastermind, science fiction elements and all sorts of fun stuff. "This is a story of a generation of nerds, rebels and dropouts, searching for purpose in a world without rules."

Kiva

I have recently begun experimenting with microfinancing. Microfinancing is a way for low-income and/or self-emploed people without access to regular banking services to get loans. It is an interesting subject so I decided the best way to learn more about it was to jump in and participate in it.

The site I'm doing this through is Kiva. From what I can tell Kiva is the current leader in microfinancing. There are thousands of members giving money to people across the world who need loans.

Here's how it works:

• You sign up for Kiva and fund your account with a credit card or PayPal
• Browse the many available loans that are available. There are filters to narrow your search to certain geogrphic areas, etc
• Make a loan of $25 or more to the individual of your choice. There will also be a request for a small donation for the operating costs of Kiva itself when you process the loan
• Months later repayment of the loan will begin (suprisingly it looks like there is a very high repayment percent right now)
• Take the money that has been repayed and repeat (or pull the money out of your account)

Currently there are three loans that I have helped to fund:

• A woman in Kenya who needed money to buy a cow
• A woman in Ukraine who needed funds to stock up on inventory for her seasonal business
• A man in Tanzania who wanted to make improvements to his pub

It will be a learning experience and will allow me to help entrepreneurs across the world. As my experiences with Kiva continue I'll be sure to post any important updates.

Taxation Without Representation

The new health care taxation bill passed in the House a while back. The thing is I didn't have a representative at the time. I don't mean that my Congressman was of an opposite view as me (well, he was) or that he didn't bother to show up for the vote. I didn't even have a representative who could have just taken the day off.

My congressman seems to have suffered from a strange bout of insanity. Now I know that most people in Washington DC seem insane but the guy from my district really lost his grip. He ended up resigning before the health care vote.

So far the Governor of New York has refused to call for a special election to fill this vacancy. He claims it would cost the counties too much money, a regular election is coming in November (seven months away), and he doesn't want to disenfranchise the military vote. There is also the fact that the seat would most likely go to someone who is not from his party (aha!).

The cost shouldn't be an issue. We need someone in Washington to watch out for our area's interests, we don't have that now. It's also strange with the State wasting tens of billions of dollars on all sorts of crap they can't spend some millions to have an election so the people will have a voice.

How is not even giving anyone a vote going to keep the military from becoming disenfranchised? These people are on the front lines fighting in a war for this country and their own state has decided that they should not have someone looking out for their interests in Washington.

It is time to demand that the Governor set things in motion so that we can have a special election and fill this vacancy. How many more taxes and laws affecting us will get passed while we have no representation in the 29th district?

New D&D Character

I'm working on a new D&D character for a new campaign starting to-morrow. It will be a 3.5 campaign so I pulled out my copy of the Complete Arcane for some inspiration. In the past some of my favorite characters have been wizards. I believe that will change once I play my new Warlock!

I've played a Warlock before. I didn't realize the full potential of the Warlock at the time and managed to get killed at 2nd level. This time will be different.

He's a human with the Magical Aptitude and Skill Focus: Use Magic Device feats. Str: 11, Dex: 12, Con: 13, Int: 15, Wis: 12, Cha: 18. His starting overall bonus in Use Magic Device is 13. In future levels I'll be concentrating on picking up the most important item creation feats so that I'll be ready at 12th level to create some awesome magic items, including many scrolls. If things work out well I'll have a greater spell-casting capability at 12th level than any of my wizards.

Since my occassional Sunday D&D game will be a small group the DM said we could each make two characters. I don't feel motivated to do so right now. I really want to focus on my Warlock. I thought about making a Dwarf Monk, but then I thought a Wizard/Cleric heading towards the Mystic Theurge prestige class would be cool... and would allow me to create all sorts of additional scrolls for my Warlock; but I decided not to be that cheesy.

Of course my Warlock will have a number of tricks up his sleeves, but I'll have to leave them secrets for now. Don't want to tip the DM off to my plans.

Peter Parker, A Menace!

Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with the world when an event in a comic book is reported in the news like it was a real event. While I don't want to listen to terrible news all day for the lighter stuff I'd prefer reports on good things happening around the world.... Peter Parker being fired is not one of those.

From what I can tell Parker, a photographer for the Mayor (once a photojournalist for the Daily Bugle) , doctored a photograph (supposedly for the so-called greater good) and was caught. He is quickly fired and now has trouble paying for his web fluid. It would have been more timely just to give him a pink slip like so many other people are getting these days.

So doctoring a photo gets Peter Parker fired... is he really the only person out there in the media creating false documents and stories? Not by a long-shot, he just doesn't have the powerful friends.

Is what he did unethical. Probably. Then again Spider-Man/Peter Parker is not an exemplar of an ethical life. He hides his identity and prowls the streets of New York and commits various crimes (trespassing, assault & battery, destruction of public property, and violation of local noise ordinances). Not only this, but he learned to profit from his own alter ego by selling photos of 'Spider-Man' to the Bugle for years; there is something not right about selling photos of some masked vigilante to your boss when you are that vigilante. He has even made a deal with the Devil in order to save his family.... maybe a noble reason, definitely selfish, guaranteed to land him in Hell.

A Year on Bookmooch

Since February 2009 I've been a member of Bookmooch. Bookmooch is a book trading site. Basically you post books you don't want any more and mail them to anyone who asks for them. For each book you post you get 1/10th of a point, for every book you mail you get 1 point and for each book you mark as received you get 1/10th of a point. You get extra points for mailing internationally.

Since I've started I've given 56 books and received 69 books with enough credits left so that I could get 17 more books. Depending on you tastes the selection might not be the best, but I've got odd tastes which have kept me busy trading.

After all those trades I haven't had any bad experiences. People on Bookmooch seem friendly and generous. If you have old books you don't want any more give it a try, it beats tossing out the books.

It's gotten to the point where I go to the book sales at the local library. On the last day of the sales they sell books by the bag at a low price. I pick up a lot of random stuff, usually the just picking the books that are left and in the best condition. I then post them on Bookmooch so they can go to people that want them and I get some credits for them. Sure I'm paying for all that postage, but I'm finding all sorts of books I probalby never would have purchased just browsing on Amazon.

The Steagles

In 1943 during World War II many NFL players were in the military. Football was having a major shortage of players. Those players who remained were old or had medical problems making them unfit for service.

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles merged their teams creating what the media dubbed "The Steagles." Neither team was very good in the past, but combined they did some amazing things.

Here are some links to the games that the Steagles played:
Pre-season 1
Pre-season 2
Regular season 1
Regular season 2
Regular season 3
Regular season 4
Regular season 5
Regular season 6
Regular season 7
Regular season 8
Regular season 9
Regular season 10

NaNoWriMo Fail

Well I'm cutting my losses on this year's National Novel Writing Month. A couple reasons: Work has been very busy, I was under the weather for about ten days and had trouble focusing on writing, and even the Halloween event for City of Heroes ate up some of my time.

The big problem I was having was making a couple of my characters seem believable. I didn't like the way Kaiser Wilhelm II was coming across; it didn't really feel like a German emperor speaking. I need to do a lot more work to get this story in shape to actually be written.

So I'll be spending the rest of 2009 getting the draft of my first novel ready to be read by a number of proof readers and focus my energies there as well as developing my blogs and other online presences.

To-night is a meeting of the Rochester Writers Group that I'll have to attend. I missed the last one because I felt terrible.

I'll also try to post here a little more often....

Update

I haven't been able to add to my NaNoWriMo word count the last couple of days. I've been feeling under the weather and have been getting extra rest after work as opposed to writing. I'm nearly recovered and should be getting back to my novel to-morrow.

I guess I should have spent more than the hour or two I spent on Sunday. But I'm still confident I can hit 50,000 words by the end of the month (well, mostly confident anyway). With Thanksgiving and a few other weekends spread through the month (and possibly a week off from work) I should get caught up.

Gotta go get some more sleep now. Further and more interesting updates in the near future.