What's New

October 31, 2007

More Music in October:
Here's a list of some of the music I recently acquired. Where do I get all this stuff? I find a lot of free (actually free) music by visiting several of the new music web sites out there. Artists want you to hear their music - If you like it, you'll buy it. The major labels want you to pay for their product - letting you hear it for free is contrary to their business model. Well, guess what? I won't buy it unless I can listen to it first. The major labels are killing themselves with their restrictive distribution and dissemination policies. If you like new music, you can do a google search to find your favorite artists web site, a new music web site, or an archive of free music. Free music is available - Legally! Don't believe the major labels propaganda - Not all free music is illegal. You can legally download music for free. I download music from websites, newsgroups (when I already own rights to the music), and a couple of commercial sources. Here's a listing of some of the music I legally downloaded.

iTunes free download:
* Heaven (Nicola Conte "West Coast Vibes" Remix) by Bitter:Sweet: (1 song) Here's a single, a free download from iTunes. In addition to their weekly free downloads, iTunes also offers free downloads through Starbucks. Visit the store and you can pick up a card with a redemption code. Visit often, get great coffee and great music. This remix of Heaven is a warm, smooth, jazzy tune with a touch of the electronic. Not to be confused with the band 'Bittersweet'.

Website downloads:
* Elk City - New Believers: (2 songs) Discovered by listening to 3hive.com. Here are two tracks from a hard working band New York. They've been around for about ten years, but I just found out about them. The female vocalist has a really good voice, and the band manages to mix electronic synth and traditional rock in an uncompromising vaporous cloud of emotionally charged music.

eMusic free downloads:
* Daytrotter sessions, Vol 1: (7 songs) One of the great things about eMusic.com. Free music. Every now and then, emusic releases these multi-artist compilations. This one contains seven tracks from bands which generally fall into the indie/alternative/punk genres.
* Keeper of the Secret - A Sampler of Dionysus Records Empire: (25 songs) Some of the emusic samplers contain great tracks. Some not so. Occasionally, I download these samplers, hoping to find something really good. With 25 tracks on this compilation, I'm bound to find something I'll like.
* Kaleidoscope Room 1: (17 songs) When I download these compilations, I find it convenient that emusic groups them by genre. This set of songs falls in the indie/alternative/punk category.

These are just some of the items I added to my music collection during the month of October. Since returning from Japan in 2001, I've been rediscovering my appreciation for music. I really picked it up again in September of 2005. Since then, I've been slowly adding, revising and updating my music collection. With these acquisitions, I've updated my online music listing. If you have a comment or a question regarding my music collection, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymusic/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/music.html>

D&D updates:
We played D&D on the 20th of Oct, 2007, and the updates are in. After a few brief battles (they fought a Mage Ripper swarm, the Wraiths that killed Fang, and the Crypt Thing that's been vexing the party), the party finds itself struggling to adapt and adjust to the new members in it's ranks. The struggles within their own ranks are becoming more dangerous than those with the occupants of this cursed mountain. Is the taint within Firestorm Peak starting to affect their mental state? The gates wait for no one, and making up time is now a priority. Will the party have enough time to find and seal off the source of evil within the mountain? Stay tuned for danger, stay tuned for mystery, stay tuned for adventure! Be sure to read all about it in the latest journal entry.

The Adventurers journal:
The tale of our adventurers. A series of journal entries from various party members. This document contains details of their encounters. Victory, defeat, desire and glory. Here is the tale of S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S., a group of adventurers who set forth from Whillip, seeking fame, fortune and the defeat of evil in these lands. Thanks to contributions from Lee and Mark, I was able to update this session's journal entry with a double dose of the S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S. Be sure to read about the party's journey into Firestorm Peak.
<https://www.robsworld.org/ajournal07.html#oct20_2007>

3rd Edition Campaign:
I updated the next game date (03 Nov 2007) on the campaign page. This is the first stop for information on the campaign that I'm currently running. Here you'll find information regarding our next meeting, some notes, and an index of web pages and documents that are important to our campaign. In addition to updating the next game date, I also posted some changes to player information and another new group photo!
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Who's Who?
As a result of our last few meetings, I've had to make some changes to the "Who's Who?" page. Dino is now playing Tanar, and Mark is temporarily playing Zeddishous. The "Who's Who?" page is a listing of characters, both player characters and non-player characters.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ewhoswho.html>

Players in our campaign:
Players update. At a recent meeting (06 Oct, '07), Micheal announced that due to his tightening work schedule, he could no longer attend our meetings. We'll miss Micheal, and hope to see him return at some later date. Micheal's departure left us short by one player, but that opening didn't last long. Waiting in the wings was Dino. Returned from a recent hiatus, Dino is a former player in our campaign. Dino played D&D with Kim and I back in the late 80's, and again when we formed this campaign. He's been out of the group for some time, but he was waiting to rejoin at the next opportunity. So, without further ado, welcome back to the group Dino, we're glad to have you at our table. With these changes to our player roster, I had to take a new group photo. I did that last time we played, and now I've posted that photo and made some other minor changes to the Players page.
<https://www.robsworld.org/players.html>

D&D books:
I recently purchased three rule books for my favorite game. This game is rule heavy, book heavy, but thankfully, the players don't have to buy all the books. That joy usually rests on the DM's shoulders. I purchase those books which I think enhance the game play within the context of our campaign. The latest acquisitions were:

* Frostburn - This book is one of the 'environment' series. I thought I might need this one, so I picked up a copy. It contains new races (Snow Elves, Ice Gnomes, Tundra Halflings, Neanderthals, Uldras), information on cold regions, new feats, alternate class features, wilderness terrains, prestige classes, weapons and equipment, magic items, monsters, encounters, maps, and more.
* The Grand History of the Realms: Primarily a resource book for the DM. This book contains numerous timelines, historical articles, and NPC notes regarding the primary region of our campaign.
* The Rules Compendium: A collection of D&D rules for 3.5. This document will save us loads of time when we need to reference a rule during the game. Most of the rules for 3.5 are concentrated here. A slimmed down volume that gets right to the core rules.

As a result of these purchases, I updated my D&D books page. I also updated the listing of permitted rules in our House Rules document in order to incorporate the rules and new material introduced in these books.
<https://www.robsworld.org/dndbooks.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ehsrls.pdf>

House rules:
I've updated some of our House Rules recently. One material change involves the 'Heroic Luck' house rule. A player favorite, I spent plenty of time considering this change, and in the end I decided I had to make the change in order to restore some balance to our campaign. Pre-revision, the wording under the 'Heroic Luck' rules allowed players to ignore the 'Natural 1 = Critical failure' house rule (this house rule is well established in our House Rules document, yet the Heroic Luck rule reversed the intent behind this rule). This modification to the house rule restores 'the 5% luck factor' to the Heroic Luck rule. Now, whenever players use the Heroic Luck rules to roll 3d20 (in place of a single d20 roll), they must abide by the roll of a 1 or 20. If they roll one of each, the two cancel, and any remaining 1 or 20 would be read as normal. In addition to this significant change, I also had to update the source materials listing to incorporate the three new books I acquired. If you're a player in our campaign, I urge you to read the full revisions to the House Rules. Especially the change to the 'Heroic Luck' rule.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ehsrls.pdf>

New feats:
One of the documents used as a house rule in our campaign. The feats document contains campaign tailored skills, feats, traits and flaws. The feats listing is available for download by the members of our D&D campaign. It's a password protected pdf, so you'll need the password in order to read it. I encrypted the document because some of the materials are taken in whole directly from copyrighted game materials. It's not my stuff, and I don't have explicit permission to re-distribute it. Thanks to Apple for making my computer powerful and versatile. Somehow, the document ended up in an unencrypted state, so I had to re-post it. Thanks go to Mark for pointing this out.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3enewfeats.pdf>

Our next gaming date is 03 November, 2007. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come. With the departure of Duracell and the addition of two new characters, the party faces the challenge of adapting to these new characters, while simultaneously facing the challenge of an ever-ticking timeline. In this quest there is a time limit that the party must be cognizant of. If they spend too much time fighting beasties, they just might find that they've run out of time to unravel the mysteries of Firestorm Peak. Be sure to follow our adventurers as they search for Tanar's father, and seek out the source of taint inside Firestorm Peak.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Annibirthday - 2007:
Birthdays and anniversaries. Sure, Kim and I get away during these special events. You may occasionally note the use of a term called an 'Annibirthday' - Well, Kim and I got married on my Birthday (Oct 26, 1985). Yes, that's right, on my Birthday - and it's a long story. So if you see that term, you'll know where it came from. This year we took a little time off to celebrate our 22nd anniversary on the 26th of October, 2007. That weekend, Kim and I took a little vacation. It was our anniversary, and my birthday. So, we decided to take a trip into the mountains. We hadn’t treated ourselves in a while, so this came as a welcome relief from the stresses of work and the hectic pace of our lives. We stayed two nights at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. Here are some of the photos I took during the trip. In addition to this web page, created using Apple's iWeb software, I also updated my photos page. I added a paragraph for the 2007 Annibirthday, and I updated some formatting. Finally, you can also view my the photo galleries at my .Mac page. The gallery was created using iPhoto '08, I'm sure you'll enjoy the amazing way that Apple's iPhoto and .Mac service are integrated to bring you stunning photo galleries for the home user.
<https://www.robsworld.org/iwebpages/Annibirthday2007.html>
<http://gallery.me.com/rvaessen#gallery>

COMCAST Fighting spam!
<rave>Recently, I received a bounce message from a COMCAST email server. It seems they had refused delivery of an email I had sent to Kim's COMCAST email address. This bothersome development was actually the result of a COMCAST policy, designed to fight spam. COMCAST will refuse delivery from servers that do not have valid reverse domain name information. When a computer connects to an email server to deliver email, it has to identify itself to the email server on the distant end. When it identifies itself, it does so with an IP address (such as 192.0.2.25). The COMCAST server then does a lookup to determine whether this IP address has a properly configured domain name (such as 'example.comcast.net'). Spammers often use compromised machines to send their spam. These compromised machines do not have a properly configured domain name (it takes some time and effort to properly configure the domain name of a computer). If the machine doesn't have a properly configured domain name, COMCAST assumes that the machine is being used for some nefarious purpose. It refuses to deliver the email. As it so happens, my hosting company had not configured the domain name of an email server I was using. As a result, COMCAST wouldn't deliver my email. While it may have been a minor nuisance for me, it's a big nuisance to spammers. It pretty much stops them dead in their tracks. They can't or won't configure a compromised machine to have valid rDNS data, so this measure will stop many spammers from ever delivering their spam to COMCAST customers. Way to go COMCAST!</rave>
<http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.jsp?faq=Email118405>

The USPS is awesome!
<rave>When it comes to home delivery, the USPS wins hands down. Their delivery times are the shortest around. When I order merchandise online, I'm often amazed by the poor performance of FedEx and UPS. If the shipper estimates a delivery time (from shipping date to delivery date) of 5 to 10 business days, you can pretty much guarantee that you won't get the package until for two weeks. It seems like they almost always deliver on the last possible day. I always have to excuse their 'late' delivery, because they don't count the weekend or holidays. The USPS on the other hand, is almost always early in delivery estimates. Take for example, two recent shipments from Amazon. An order of books (3 books, all in stock w/24 hour shipping time) took Amazon five days to process and ship (despite their supposed 'usually ships within 24 hours' statement) the books. They then estimated a delivery time of 5 - 9 business days. When the books arrived three days later, the USPS not only blew away Amazon's 'expectations' on delivery time, they shattered them. Amazon shipped the books on the 30th of October, and the USPS beat Amazon's best delivery estimate by three days! In a separate shipment of three movies (from Amazon), the USPS repeated their performance. While it took Amazon four days to process and ship the order (despite their 'usually ships within 24 hours' statement), the USPS beat Amazon's best estimate delivery time of 5 - 9 business days. Once again, the USPS shattered that estimate, delivering the books in three days time, far surpassing Amazon's best estimates of 6 - 10 business days for delivery. In my opinion, USPS is the way to go when you're shipping packages. If you've got a choice as a consumer, always pick the USPS for the delivery of your packages. For home delivery; I can't speak directly regarding business deliveries, but the business to customer performance seems pretty good from my end! Oh yeah, as an added bonus, they're usually cheaper than FedEx or UPS!</rave>
<http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/direct-mail/42067.html>

Movies:
Usually, I try to purchase three movies a month. This month was a slight exception. In addition to three movies from my list of 'Must Buy' movies, I also purchased a couple of those $1.00 movies from WalMart. The kind that pairs not-so-good movies with some pretty-darn-good movies. Those two discs included a total of six movies. That makes for nine movies purchased during October of '07 From the list of usual suspects comes two American movies (In Cold Blood - The one with Robert Blake in it, and the unrated/extended version of Knocked Up - A comedy by Judd Apatow), and one foreign movie (An outstanding movie about Algerian resistance to French rule - The Battle of Algiers). The WalMart one buck movies were a couple of multiple title discs. The first was a selection from the Alfred Hitchcock collection (Jamaica Inn - A movie I haven't seen, Sabotage - A movie I've already seen (and own), The 39 Steps - A movie I've already seen (I actually have three copies), and finally a silent film (that I haven't seen) called Easy Virtue). The second disc was one of those two-for-one horror combos, containing one pretty good title (The House on Haunted hill - with Vincent Price), and one title I've never even heard of before (Don't look in the basement). I haven't seen all of these movies, and some I haven't seen in a long time. See my movie reviews page for the reviews. With these new purchases, I updated the main movies page, my 'must buy' list, the listing of my movie collection, the reviews page, and an alphabetical index (see the 'angry critic' entry above) that I'm working on.
<https://www.robsworld.org/movies.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymovies/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/reviews.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/reviewsindex.html>

Movies and Music:
During the last couple of days, I updated a few listings. A few months back (May 29, 2007) I completed a long running project to revamp and update my music listing. I started on the project more than two years ago, and I finished it in May of '07. Using CDPedia and iTunes, I've posted all my music online (except for seven albums) online. I completely transitioned my music listing from a flat file spreadsheet (converted to HTML table), into a database based index. After completing a cassette digitization project, and a database clean-up, I finally completed the music listing project. Since then I've been occasionally updating that listing. Since I'm adding approximately 100 songs to that listing every month, I usually update the list once a month. I just finished one such update. In addition to the music listing, I also maintain and update a movie listing. This month I purchased three new movies, and they arrived in the mail a few days back (see my movies page for the new additions). With the acquisition of these new movies, I've also updated the movie listing. With my recent purchase of an iPhone, and some recent updates to a couple of pieces of software (DVDPedia and CDPedia), I also created two new listings (iPhone movies listing, iPhone music listing), which are geared towards the iPhone. These new listings make it easier for iPhone users to browse my Movie and Music listings. All of these listings received updates this month.
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymusic/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/mymovies/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/iphonemusiccollection/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/iphonemoviescollection/index.html>

Neighborhood Watch:
Civic duty? Recently, I decided that I wanted to do more to help my community. With shift work, finding something that I can do to help has been a bit difficult. When I started wondering what I could do that wouldn't necessarily require a specific 9-5 schedule, I realized that my odd-ball schedule would actually work in my favor if I were up at odd hours of the day. I decided to volunteer with our local neighborhood watch. Like many of the people in my community. I own some nice things, and I want to keep it that way. Volunteering for the neighborhood watch doesn't require a lot of dedication, but it does require some attention to detail and a keen sense of your surroundings. We held a second, much smaller meeting the other day. The meeting was held at the home of the neighborhood watch organizer. There were only eight of us at the meeting, and we spent an hour discussing various topics. I volunteered to help with a newsletter and mailing lists. I've even registered a domain (tollgatecrossing.org) for use with our neighborhood watch. I'm planning to set up a few mailing lists, and might even do some more things with the domain.
<http://www.auroragov.org/AuroraGov/Departments/Police/Neighborhood_Watch/index.htm>

October 20, 2007

Apple's iWork '08:
Recently (09 Oct 2007) I ordered a copy of iWork '08. It arrived on Tuesday (16 Oct 2007), and I installed the application that afternoon. This new version of iWork is a considerable improvement over iWork '068. Initially, I was planning to wait until I purchased a new computer, before I picked up iWork '08, but my computer purchase has been pushed back a few months, and I've seen some of the iWork '08 output first hand.

iWork is Apple's productivity suite. Previous versions of iWork contained two applications, a bit anemic for a productivity suite. It was missing a crucial component. No spreadsheet application? This year, things are different. They've added a spreadsheet application. Numbers is the newest addition to the productivity suite. With the addition of this new component. iWork becomes a feasible replacement for the venerable (and still useful) AppleWorks - which hasn't seen an update since 2004. iWork is also a home contender for Microsoft Office. Most home users don't need the power provided by Microsoft's productivity suite, the applications are Office compatible (No it's not 100% compatible, but it can open, edit and save as Office documents), and the pricing is far more affordable than the behemoth on the block. So, the addition of numbers, the fantastic price ($79.00 for three full feature productivity apps), the great reviews (that I've read), the compatibility (Office and AppleWorks) and the outstanding support that Apple provides, have enticed me to switch from AppleWorks to iWork.

iWork now consists of three productivity applications:

Pages - A word processor and page layout application. The application has been revised to include a simple 'word processing' mode. No need for frames, centering objects or selecting layout templates. This new mode lets you open the app, and start typing immediately. In addition to this new 'simple mode', Pages includes some very sophisticated page layout capabilities. With 140 page layout templates, you've got a huge arsenal of sophisticated, ready to use, professional looking documents waiting for your input.

Keynote - Apple's outstanding presentation software. This application features many capabilities that PowerPoint lacks, and the reviews have been glowing. Instant Alpha (remove backgrounds), 30 effects (works on any object), 25 transitions, voice-over recordings, and A to B animations make Keynote a heavy hitter in the presentation arena.

Numbers - The latest offering in the iWork round-up. It's Apple's entry into the spreadsheet ring. Apple has taken a simplified approach to a complicated subject. Create intelligent tables using drag-n-drop or natural language formulas. Numbers even works with Exel spreadsheets. No, it's not 100% compatible, but it covers most of the bases, and it tells you when it can't recreate some formula or function.

I'm looking forward to using iWork '08. The tables in Numbers should help me with my website construction. The templates in Pages will give me some excellent options when it comes time to make a newsletter, and the sophistication of Keynote stands ready to present my latest vacation to all my friends and family.
<http://www.apple.com/iwork/>

Software favorites:
One of my favorite pieces of software recently released an update. GraphicConverter moves ever forward. One more steps towards perfection. Another product that's always getting better. This release marks the incremental advance of beta releases.

GraphicConverter:
The developer of this fantastic application released a new beta version (6.0.2b1), in the past few days. GraphicConverter is an image converter and editor. A fantastic piece of shareware that is well worth the price ($34.95). I use it to convert image formats into web standard formats, to create and edit image maps and other graphics. I've been singing GC's praises for many years now, and I'm not sure I would do without it. The best part about GC is it's author. Thorsten Lemke is completely committed to his customer base. Constantly and Continuously responding to customer recommendations and bug reports. GC is a dynamic, evolving, application. Always on the cutting edge, an absolute must in any web developers tool box. At a fraction of PhotoShop's cost, this photo editor puts a huge wrench in your toolbox.
<http://www.lemkesoft.com/xd/public/content/index._cGlkPTE5Mw_.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/myfavs.html>

Neighborhood Watch:
Civic duty? Recently, I decided that I wanted to do more to help my community. With shift work, finding something that I can do to help has been a bit difficult. When I started wondering what I could do that wouldn't necessarily require a specific 9-5 schedule, I realized that my odd-ball schedule would actually work in my favor if I were up at odd hours of the day. I decided to volunteer with our local neighborhood watch. Like many of the people in my community. I own some nice things, and I want to keep it that way. Volunteering for the neighborhood watch doesn't require a lot of dedication, but it does require some attention to detail and a keen sense of your surroundings. We had our first meeting the other day. The meeting was held at the local police department, and we had a great turn-out. There must have been close to twenty people at the meeting, and we spent more than two hours discussing various topics. All in all it went rather well. I even volunteered to help with a newsletter.

Lawn work:
Luckily for me, I managed to time something perfectly. On the 19th of Oct, 2007. I had someone come by (It was scheduled two months ahead of time) to do some lawn work. Winter is fast approaching - More on that later - and it's time to get the lawn ready. Workers came by to aerate and fertilize the lawn, they also blew out the sprinkler lines. After they finished, I picked up some stuff around the yard, insulated some pipes, removed some delicate parts from the sprinkler system, and covered the outside faucets.

Frigid days of Fall:
18 October marked a very cold day for our area. It came as something of a surprise (at least to me). Coming home from work, I was shocked by just how cold it had gotten (in the low 40's). With the wind chill, it was easily below freezing. The wind was blowing, and my face was stung by the cold wind as I made my way to the Volvo, across the vast tundra of the ADF parking lot. That cold day wasn't the biggest surprise. The big surprise came on the morning of 20 October, 2007. As Kim and I were settling in after a recent D&D meeting, the weather outside (on the morning of 20 Oct) was turning nasty. We could hear the freezing rain hitting the roof and windows, and kim remarked that it was getting pretty bad out there. I didn't go to bed until 0430, and I didn't wake up until 0945. When I finally opened the blinds, I was surprised to see several inches of snow! That's right snow. First day of snow for this season. It snowed most of the day, and I was forced to trek out into that nasty weather. Due to the weight of the snow, I had to shake the snow off the tree limbs, and brush the stuff off of our shrubs. I even took the time to tie up some of our shrubs. Later that evening, I even had to shovel. I thought it might melt, as the temperatures rose, but the amount of snow was too much; even for the relatively warm temperatures (up into the low 50's) that we saw later in the day. Of course I took a few pictures.
<https://www.robsworld.org/iwebpages/First_snowfall_-_Oct.html>

October 16, 2007

D&D updates:
We played D&D on the 6th of October, 2007 and the updates are in. During that meeting, the party had to deal with the loss of Duracell and Grenco. Duracell was killed by the Black Beast of Bedlam, and Grenco was so panicked that he used a 'stone of recall'. The party packed up Duracell's body, packed it in, and headed out of the dungeon. Reunited with Grenco at Grayven's Shrine, they then flew to the Monastery of the Nether Mountains for some serious rest, recuperation and reinforcements. Be sure to read all about it in the latest journal entry.

The Adventurers journal:
The tale of our adventurers. A series of journal entries from various party members. This document contains details of their encounters. Victory, defeat, desire and glory. Here is the tale of S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S., a group of adventurers who set forth from Whillip, seeking fame, fortune and the defeat of evil in these lands. Thanks to contributions from Lee and Mark, I was able to update this session's journal entry with a double dose of the S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S. In addition to the journal entry, I had to update all hyperlinks pointing to Duracell and I made several punctuation corrections. Be sure to read about the party's journey into Firestorm Peak.
<https://www.robsworld.org/ajournal07.html#oct06_2007>

3rd Edition Campaign:
I updated the next game date (20 Oct 2007) on the campaign page. This is the first stop for information on the campaign that I'm currently running. Here you'll find information regarding our next meeting, some notes, and an index of web pages and documents that are important to our campaign. In addition to updating the next game date, I also posted some changes to player information.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ecampaign.html>

Monsters encountered:
As a result of the meeting on the 6th of Oct, I added two new entries. One for the Dusk Giant that the party fought on the outskirts of Grayven's Shrine, and the other was for a Nagatha sighting while the party flew over the Charnel Bog. The monsters page is a listing of monsters that the party has encountered, read about or heard of.
<https://www.robsworld.org/monsters.html>

Who's Who?
During a recent meeting one of the characters died - Duracell died! She was slain by the Black Beast of Bedlam. The party traveled back to the Monastery of the Nether Mountains, where Duracell was resurrected. She then announced that she was returning to Whillip. Things have become too dangerous for her to continue in her weakened condition. While they were at the Monastery, the party met two more adventurers who have decided to help the S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S. fight the source of taint within Firestorm Peak. Belt and Enola joined the group, and the party headed back to Firestorm Peak. As a result of all these character changes, I made several changes to the "Who's Who?" page. I removed Duracell's entry, updated all links to Duracell, created new entries for Enola, Fang the Viper, Belt, Maalthiir and Balding Near-Eye, and made some minor format changes. The "Who's Who?" page is a listing of characters, both player characters and non-player characters.
<https://www.robsworld.org/3ewhoswho.html>

Long Live Duracell!
She's back from the dead, again! Duracell is the last remaining original member of 'The Summoned Six', the original group of adventurers in this campaign. After dying twice, she's now two levels lower than the rest of the party. In this weakened state, she doesn't think she can contribute fully to the group's efforts. She's decided to leave the S.C.R.E.W.O.F.F.S. in search of something more matched to her capabilities. She left for Whillip in a cloud of uncertainty, but one thing is clear, our group will miss her, and look forward to a reunion when they return to Whillip. As a result of Duracell's departure, I removed her from the 'Party Member/Player Characters' section of the "Who's Who?" page and created a separate page for the character. Undaunted by this set-back, Kim has rolled up a new character. She's currently playing 'Enola', a female, Elven, Ranger.
<https://www.robsworld.org/duracell.html>

Here there be Heroes:
With all the character updates recently, I took the time to update the "Hero's Gallery". I updated Duracell's entry, added entries for Belt and Enola, and made some format updates. The Hero's Gallery is a list of characters from my campaign. Past and present, the characters listed represent a fraction of those who have called Rob's World! home. Some of the players are long forgotten, but many of the characters live long in our memory. Who can forget their heroic feats, the daring deeds, and tragic endings? Let's heft our mugs, sing their praises, and salute those hero's of lore!
<https://www.robsworld.org/gallery.html>

Players in our campaign:
Players update. At our last meeting (06 Oct, '07), Micheal announced that due to his tightening work schedule, he could no longer attend our meetings. We'll miss Micheal, and hope to see him return at some later date. Micheal's departure left us short by one player, but that opening didn't last long. Waiting in the wings was Dino. Returned from a recent hiatus, Dino is a former player in our campaign. Dino played D&D with Kim and I back in the late 80's, and again when we formed this campaign. He's been out of the group for some time, but he was waiting to rejoin at the next opportunity. So, without further ado, welcome back to the group Dino, we're glad to have you at our table. With these changes, I'll need to take a new group photo in the near future. Hopefully everyone will make it to our next meeting.
<https://www.robsworld.org/players.html>

Where Now:
With the addition of a couple new characters, I added a few new locations to this page. With the addition of new characters come new character backgrounds (sometimes). The new places come from Enola's background. I added new entries for Hillsfar, Elmwood, the Elven Court (updating the entry for Cormanthor) and Elventree. In addition to these new character induced additions and updates, I also added a new entry for 'The Vast Gate'. "Where Now?" is a listing of various places the party has visited or researched.
<https://www.robsworld.org/wherenow.html>

Our next gaming date is 20 October, 2007. Stay tuned for more adventure; there will be lots of thrills and excitement in the months to come. With the departure of Duracell and the addition of two new characters, the party faces the challenge of adapting to these new characters, while simultaneously facing the challenge of an ever-ticking timeline. In this quest there is a time limit that the party must be cognizant of. If they spend too much time fighting beasties, they just might find that they've run out of time to unravel the mysteries of Firestorm Peak. Be sure to follow our adventurers as they search for Tanar's father, and seek out the source of taint inside Firestorm Peak.

Cold and rainy October:
The weather of late has been cold and rainy. Over the last couple of days (13 and 14 Oct, 2007), we've suffered through a couple of dreary rainy days. With thunderstorms, hail, and heavy rain, the temperatures have been steadily dropping throughout the month. We've been getting down into the 30's and 40's at night. Day time temps are up in the 50's or 60's, reaching the 70's on warmer days. There's still a few leaves hanging onto the trees, but I doubt they'll hang on much longer. We haven't had any killing frosts yet, but that and the snow are only a few weeks off.

13,000+ documents:
When I first laid down "Rob's World!", back in 1996, I never imagined that it would grow to be so large. The other day, I was running a 'Find and Replace' operation on all the text files at my web site. I was astonished to learn that I've got more than 13,000 pages online (not counting pdf's, Stuffit archives, images and some other special files). It took a while to complete the operation, and I realized that the number of pages has really grown. Over the past several years, I've developed a few indexes and a search page to help visitors find whatever they might be looking for. In addition to my indexes, you can always use google or some other search engine to find something at Rob's World! as it's routinely indexed by several web indexing agents.
<https://www.robsworld.org/index.html>
<https://www.robsworld.org/search.html>

October 11, 2007

Out to eat in Aurora:
Yesterday (10 Oct '07), Kim and I went out to eat at a new restaurant. The first of it's kind in Colorado - Fish City Grill. The grill is a Texas franchise, and the location in Southlands mall is the first in Colorado. This restaurant is a small unassuming place, nestled in between a couple of other restaurants, but they've got one of the better locations in the mall - Adjacent to the pop-jet fountains, and a very short walk from the theater. Inside, the place is cozy and rustic, with lots of brick and dark wood. There's a good view of the kitchen, and they've got a large bar area. We were seated immediately, and our server (Mike) took excellent care of us. We never had to ask for refills, and he answered all our questions. One question that I'd been dying to ask: "Will you have blue crabs on the menu?" - The answer, an optimistic 'Yes', 'as soon as we can get them added to our distribution'. It's a lot to hope for, but it would be the only place I know of (In the Denver/Aurora area) to offer blue crabs on the menu. I've been known to travel a long way to get my hands on some blue crabs.

So, what did we eat? Well, the menu had quite a selection. They even had a 'Things that don't swim' category for Kim. Seafood doesn't always agree with her, but she knows that I love it. In addition to the menu, they also had a blackboard filled with specials. If I remember correctly, they had five specials and a bunch of deserts on the blackboard. We started with some appetizers. The blue crab stuffed mushrooms were outstanding - drizzled with a jalapeno cream sauce, they were tangy, filling and fantastic. For entrees, Kim chose Blackened chicken in red chili cream sauce with a Tabasco infusion. She thought it was good, but a bit too salty. Next time she'll get it with grilled chicken. I chose one of the blackboard specials. A tequila crusted tilapia. The fish was perfectly done. Crunchy and tasty on the outside, light and tender on the inside. The tilapia normally comes with a rice pilaf (and steamed vegetables), but I substituted their waffle-cut seasoned fries. Yummy - The seasoning was great. No ketchup for these fries.

With drinks (sodas), our lunch for two came to $28.11. That's pretty good for lunch. Considering the fact that they combined cajun style cooking with my favorite food - Fish! I can guarantee that I'll be back.
<http://www.fishcitygrill.com/>

October 10, 2007

October's Music:
Here's a list of some of the music I recently acquired. Where do I get all this stuff? I find a lot of free (actually free) music by visiting several of the new music web sites out there. Artists want you to hear their music - If you like it, you'll buy it. The major labels want you to pay for their product - letting you hear it for free is contrary to their business model. Well, guess what? I won't buy it unless I can listen to it first. The major labels are killing themselves with their restrictive distribution and dissemination policies. If you like new music, you can do a google search to find your favorite artists web site, a new music web site, or an archive of free music. Free music is available - Legally! Don't believe the major labels propaganda - Not all free music is illegal. You can legally download music for free. I download music from websites, newsgroups (when I already own rights to the music), and a couple of commercial sources. Here's a listing of some of the music I legally downloaded.

iTunes free download:
* Pictures of You - The Last Goodnight: (single) This little nugget - Classic Pop. Well constructed top 40 track. Good guitar work. I'll have to check out more of their stuff.

Website downloads:
* Office - Oh My and The Ritz: (2 songs) Originally discovered this song through an iTunes free download. This month they came out with a new album, so I got another exposure when 3hive featured these two songs. From their album 'A Night at the Ritz', this band has a great danceable groove. It's pop-punk indie rock, featuring some great lyrics.
* Horsemachine - Recordings: (34 songs) Another great giveaway at Musicalfamilytree.org. One of these days, I need to put a few bucks down for this site and 3hive.com. I spend plenty of time soaking up their free offerings, and I'd be sore if they went away. Horsemachine is the effort of an Indiana artist named Robbie Augspurger (sometimes accompanied by Eric Lee). The music is eclectic, folksy, blues. With an unpretentious production level, the quirky lyrics are great. I dare you to place this band in any specific genre.

eMusic downloads:
* Office - A night at the Ritz: (11 songs) See the website downloads above. Combining the two tracks I got for free, with the 11 songs I downloaded from eMusic, I pulled in the entire album from this band. I really enjoy their high energy level, electro-pop instrumentals, surprising lyrics and catchy chorus work.
* Cowboy Nation - A journey out of time: (11 songs) Former members of 'The Dils' - An early punk band that I downloaded back in April of '07. Recently, I was listening to some of the Dils tracks, and thought to myself, 'Those vocals sure sound familiar'. Sure enough, after a little research, I found a connection to 'Rank and File'. The Kinman brothers were in both bands. While I previously couldn't find out what happened to 'Rank and File', I was able to track the Kinman brothers. After 'Rank and File', they formed this alt-country outfit. The instrumentals are definitely country, as are the vocals. Great acoustic and percussion work. The infusion of Punkers like 'the Dils', has provided the new blood that country music needed in order to keep it alive, vibrant, and able to adapt to a new era.
* Neighborhood Texture Jam - Funeral Mountain Plus: (13 songs) Combining this download with two free downloads from last month, and I hauled in the entire FMP. I first discovered NTJ by listening to free tracks at 3hive.com. Loopy lyrics, visceral vocals and the passion of Flesheaters. This hard-rocking band has the added benefit of good instrumentals.
* Gary Numan - Dance: (16 songs) When I first signed up with eMusic, they had a pretty anemic selection of Gary Numan music. Since then, they've acquired most of his work. A pioneer in the electronica, dance and goth genres, I really dig the danceable dark grooves of this musical master. I first discovered Gary Numan back in the 80', when his hit 'Cars' cruised it's way up the U.S. charts. While I stuck with him for a while, the American music scene virtually ignored him, and I lost track of his work. This album is marked by some as his best effort ever. I'd have to disagree. It's some good work, but I'll stick with 'The Pleasure Principle'. This isn't my last Gary Numan download. I'll be back to eMusic for more work from this man's collection.
* Meat Puppets - Rise to Your knees: (15 songs) Cranking guitar work, punk lyrics, and a non-stop ethic of creative juice. Meat Puppets back again. With this release, the Pups are back from a five year drug and prison induced exile. Here we hear the promise of an energetic return. Excellent guitar work, raw production, and subversive lyrics announce their resurrection. I wish eMusic carried some of their earlier stuff. I really miss them from my days as a skanking hard rock punker.
* Jeff Middleton - I might be wrong: (12 songs) I first discovered Jeff Middleton by listening to a free track off a MacAddict disc (defunct Mac magazine which included music tracks on the software disc). His folk/country stylings are simply splendid. Truth oozes from the lyrics, and the instrumentals are top notch.
* Matthew Dear - Asa Breed: (12 songs) I first heard Matthew Dear by listening to an eMusic compilation. A free download. Thankfully, eMusic introduced me to this artist's music. This is my second download from this man, and it won't be my last. Dark, electronic, but filled with energy. Great instrumentals combine electronic sounds and acoustic truth in a minimalistic way. The lyrics and instrumentals combine in just the right way to create a great experience.

More Forgery:
Over the last week, I've started receiving a series of new forged spam messages. These are forged bounce messages. Disguised to look like a bounce message, spammers have figured out that some people (and reporting services) will ignore or not report a message which appears to be a bounce. So, spammers have begun generating spew that looks like a legitimate bounce. The bounce contains the supposedly 'original' message which triggered the bounce. Of course this original email is spam. Complete with huge banner and clickable links, the spammers are hoping to get their spew past spam filters (and spam reporting services), by disguising the email as a bounce message.

This new ploy is just another one of the tactics employed by the evil spammers in this unending war. Spammers are forging their email messages so that they contain my email address in the 'supposed' original message. Most header data can be forged by spammers. It's very easy to do, and spammers do it routinely. They forge portions of the header in order to confuse, deceive and deflect. Unfortunately, there are still some ISPs out there that blindly trust that much of the header data is authentic. This leads to plenty of cases where an ISP will send a bounce message to an innocent victim, route spam to unwilling recipients, mis-deliver legitimate email, and all sorts of other shenanigans. I sent an email to the upstream provider of the email provider in question. So far, system administrators don't seem to get this new form of spam.

Have you received any suspicious 'bounce' messages lately? If you ever need any help hunting down a spammer, don't hesitate to ask for my help. I'm willing and eager to help. Just drop me an email. I'd put the email address here, but this email message is also posted online, where spammers could scrape the email off the web page. Damn those spammers!
<https://www.robsworld.org/index2.html#fightingspam>
<https://www.robsworld.org/forgery.html>

Books:
A new development in my reading habits. A few weeks ago (Sep '07), I downloaded a few 'audiobooks' from eMusic.com. I didn't do it on purpose... but that's another story altogether. So anyway, I downloaded two audiobooks. I figured I'd give it a try. Try out this format. A format that I had previously shunned because of the cost. The audiobooks that you purchase retail are usually twice as expensive as a normal book. Well, eMusic.com is offering these audiobooks at a substantially reduced price. With a subscription, I would get one book a month for $9.99. That's a significant reduction from the usual prices. It's even lower than the prices at Audible.com. It's a LOT lower than the prices at the iTunes store. During my 'trial' membership, I received an extra audiobook for free. So, I downloaded two audiobooks. Over the last 15 days, I've been listening to one of those books: Hornet Flight by Ken Follett. It's historical fiction - a genre I enjoy, by an author I like. AN good book. Not one of the best that I've ever read. I won't be adding it to my 'Favorite Books' page.

What did I think about the format? Well, for one I didn't enjoy the fact that the mp3 format was broken up into separate files for each chapter. In order to make the audiobook iTunes friendly (so I could resume play from where I left off. So it would show up in the audiobook category), I had to merge all the files into a single mp3, than convert it into aac format so that I could make it into an audiobook file that iTunes would recognize as an audiobook. All that effort took approximately an hour. That's a lot of work just to get the file into a manageable format. I certainly won't be subscribing to any mp3 audiobook subscription services, and I doubt that I'll be purchasing any mp3 format audiobooks. If I purchase an audiobook in the future, I'll probably pay the iTunes price in order to avoid that conversion work I had to do. That was quite a chore.

I still have one more audiobook to listen to, and I'm reading a traditional paperback as well. The other audiobook is Spook Country by William Gibson, and the paperback is Sundiver: A Science Fiction novel by David Brin. First book of the 'Uplift" series. Something a friend recommended. Unfortunately, the paperback is so heavy on character development that I'm having a hard time finishing it. It's a very slow read.
<https://www.robsworld.org/books.html>