Date:	2012-05-15 23:56
Subject:	D&D Excerpt #305
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

Sorry about not getting out a comic, but what I do have for you is Real D&D Excerpt #305. Apparently there's way too much stuff that happened in that dungeon and I barely scratched the surface, but hopefully it's still an entertaining report.

...aaaaaaand nobody probably cares, since you're all playing D3 or Max Payne (I'm with the former). Or you're playing both at once, in which case "Bravo, Sir."

But whenever you do get around to reading it, I'm sure you'll find lots of juicy typoes and such, since my proofreading time was grossly inadequate. Several Diablo classes needed testing, after all.

Date:	2012-05-12 17:49
Subject:	Time flies...
Security:	Public
Mood:	PBSing

We'll see if I can get out a comic this weekend, but I would like to lower expectations here. I've been trying to work on other stuff a bunch, plus I've lost an absurd amount of time this week to simply coming home tired... then losing hours of time watching Neil deGrasse Tyson on youtube.

In fact, I was actually going to go donate $5 to PBS, even though I can't watch video on their official site in Canada. And somehow they even had a specific page for Canadian donations... but their text field to enter donation amounts gave me an error; "minimum donation $10".
Moral of the story: you can accept microdonations at trivial cost through Paypal. I'm making an effort these days to give $5 when I enjoy something that is primarily donation-supported (varying obviously on how deserving I think they are). And when you're too lazy to set that up? You lose $5. Sorry PBS, I'm not made of $10s.

For example, I gave $5 to Gunnerkrigg Court, as well as to http://openmedia.ca/ a Canadian organisation that fights against big telecom lobbies (the people trying to f$@#% our already overpriced and monopoly-dominated internet systems).

I really do need to get back on the D&D Excerpt bandwagon though, so I'm going to try to get further along the next big one of those right now.

Date:	2012-05-06 22:45
Subject:	AGC #579
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

Man, I just cannot seem to get anything else done. But at least I'm getting out a comic every week, including AGC #579. I dunno about the quality... but it's there.

Date:	2012-04-29 21:30
Subject:	AGC #578
Security:	Public
Mood:	meh

I was almost lazy and let the day go by without doing it, but it was brought to my attention that I've actually done a comic every week almost clockwork for over a month now, and that I should probably keep it up. So here's AGC #578

That said, I'm spending more time (once again) trying to develop a "style of art" that could be used to create a "real comic" that would have stuff like art, action... and possibly art. We'll see though. I'm very prone to bouncing between projects, as everyone knows.

EDIT: Ugh, no link = fail. Fixed.

Date:	2012-04-22 18:52
Subject:	AGC #577
Security:	Public
Mood:	yay

After only a million years, it's back to gaming in AGC #577.

Date:	2012-04-15 18:56
Subject:	AGC #576
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

Screwing around with art, trying out a different style. Even something so stupidly simple takes a while when I'm experimenting. Here's AGC #576.

And no, most of these characters are NOT based on real people I've had to work with. Most.

Date:	2012-04-07 16:00
Subject:	AGC #575
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

Witness AGC #575. Or something.

Yay for government jobs giving a real 4-day weekend for Easter (so 2 paid stat-days, and back-to-back 4-day work weeks). Boo for getting sucked into working Sunday for my shitty old job that I'd rather get out of... but I'm not burning any bridges yet.

I watched The Godfather for the first time. I have to say, while it wasn't the best movie I ever saw by any means, it holds up INSANELY well for its age, despite damned near every major event or scene having been badly spoilered by popular culture, and many of the narrative and directorial techniques being old and worn now, whereas at the time they were if not innovative, at least fresh. So yes, very good film. On the contrary, Citizen Kane holds up like crap (IMHO). Sorry, Ebert.

Date:	2012-03-31 10:04
Subject:	AGC #574
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

At first, I thought Dan's couch looked like crap because I'm such a bad artist. Then I realized no; there's a reason for it. I had written a whole explanation here, then realized that should probably be worked into a comic somewhere - because otherwise it would just be a weird footnote and many readers might not get why his couch looks like crap. Anyway, here's AGC #574.

Date:	2012-03-28 11:07
Subject:	Ugh
Security:	Public
Mood:	siick

Staying home sick from work today. This sucks, because of all the jobs, mine would be one of the easiest to do while sick. It also sucks because I don't mind doing my job at all, and because it's a short-term contract, so I only have a certain number of days to get paid for, and I don't have any sick days.

Funny thing is, if it was a six-month or a year contract, losing one day's pay wouldn't really bother me, and ironically, if the contract was that long, I WOULD have sick days so I WOULD get paid...

But anyway, I felt pretty crappy yesterday at work (and numerous people actually told me "you do NOT look good compared to yesterday")... felt crappy all night and when I cough it really hurts, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get better if I had to walk 20 minutes in the cold and take the bus each way, as I do. At least staying home (and spending many extra hours in bed) gives me some chance.

Date:	2012-03-25 22:54
Subject:	The Excerpts SHOULD All Be There Now!
Security:	Public
Mood:	still sick

No, no new content today, BUT! If you've ever had difficulty loading the D&D Excerpts (due to my shitty-assed bad code), that should be totally solved. They are more or less unchanged, but have all been redone as real html pages and ought to be damned near foolproof now (as well as having less-shitty SEO than previously), as well as allowing comments!

So if you gave up trying to load/read the Excerpts before, give them another go! This applies to the [Fictional] AGC Old Evil Campaign ones as well, and the links on those "comics" have been updated too.

All this, and it only took hours and hours (which is actually better than the days-and-days I was afraid it might take). We'll soon see if the navigation is F***ed up in any new ways. Certainly, if you have them open recently, there's a chance you may have old (broken) versions of the navigation cached, but that should be pretty rare at this point, and should sort itself out pretty quick.

Anyway, I'm sick and it's after my bedtime. Enjoy.

Date:	2012-03-24 23:10
Subject:	If you're trying to read the D&D excerpts...
Security:	Public
Mood:	sore throat starting

The new ones from 300 to 304 work fine, and I'll soon have the Old Evil Campaign up (they're at Part 1 through Part 3, but I haven't changed the links in the comics yet), but I've borked the navigation completely for the old ones. I'll just have to grind through as fast as I can converting them all to the new format, then the nav problem will be waaaaaay easier to solve. I'll do as much as I can tomorrow... but I seem to be getting sick, so we'll see what happens.

Date:	2012-03-22 22:11
Subject:	AGC #573
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

...and here comes another "new job" comic, for AGC #573.

My own new job's coming along fine, if only it wasn't such a short contract...

Anyway, I was discussing this basic computer skills test (the one in the comic) with a friend of mine (who, like most if not all of you, would easily crush the aforementioned 'test'), and he felt that its use would be cruel and capricious, as well as shortsighted, in that one would lose a number of people who might be valuable employees, good at their jobs, without the requisite skills. He also felt that "save to desktop" was at a markedly less basic level than the other requirements, as many people use computers a lot without every changing where something saves/downloads. What do you think? Too draconian?

I still figure if you can't pass this test, and your job requires you to touch computers in any capacity that requires them to be turned on... I wouldn't hire you.

Date:	2012-03-18 22:33
Subject:	D&D Excerpt #304
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired...

Cause you guys keep wanting "content" and crud, here's Excerpt #304 (including a couple mp3s of me monologuing as GM). It took me all weekend, minus a few hours playing League of Legends with quill18, give or take some little bits that were already done, and watching (or at least listening to) brain expanding programming from TVO's Big Ideas, TED, and the Dave Chappelle Show.

Now I must bed go to. Stupid early-to-rise crap, etc.

NAVIGATION IS STILL MOSTLY MESSED UP, so just in case, here are a list of the current season excerpts. Next one might be a while, I need to do another comic, and work on converting the old ones to the newer format (when that's all done, I can make navigation that isn't crap). Probably starting with the fictional ones (Old Evil Campaign, cause they link into the actual AGC storyline), and then working my way through from Season 1.

If you need to go back, here are the other season 3 excerpts in hardcoded links:
Season 3 Prologue
Exerpt 301
Exerpt 302
Exerpt 303
Exerpt 304

After waiting so long, I wish this were a more exciting comic, but for now, here's AGC #572.

I've been spending a lot of time on misguided inefficient activities. Also working. The work itself is so much better that it's hard to blame, but it's true that I'm having a little trouble adjusting to the early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine. I'm hoping that I'll get back on track when I get used to not having to fight with my internet anymore...

For months our internet has been getting crappier and crappier, with frequent disconnects. We've dealt with tech support a million times, replaced our modem, ruled out just about everything... but in recent weeks it was getting worse and worse, having trouble reconnecting at all. We finally got a tech out here, and after going up on the pole, he came down and checked the cable running down the outside of the house... and it snapped off at his touch.
"There's yer problem..."

So now we have a solid connection again (I am no longer afraid to play LoL for fear of screwing over my team with disconnects beyond my control). I don't spend hours a night clicking reconnect on the modem webpage and then waiting for it to (maybe) do so. Hopefully productivity goes back up... after I have overloaded myself with "internet works!" time.

Date:	2012-03-01 12:47
Subject:	D&D Excerpt #303
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

That's right, somehow "fastforwarding" turned into this massive excerpt, though to be fair, it covers like 3 game sessions.

BE WARNED: I'm posting it now, so you can read the bloody thing, but the navigation appears to be getting more and more F&%^*@#&ed over time. I really need to get to work on an overhaul (which is a pain because I need to reformat all the pre-Season 3 Excerpts). Obviously if I was smart I'd use one of the pre-existing and much better tools, but I always go to their site, signup, try to do one thing, and I'm like "this isn't what I want" and then go bang my head against the wall and make you all a crappy homemade site. Your welcome.

If you need to go back, here are the other season 3 excerpts in hardcoded links:
Season 3 Prologue
Exerpt 301
Exerpt 302
Exerpt 303

Starting my new job on Monday... I just have to learn how to get up around 6am. That's gonna hurt.

Date:	2012-02-25 16:03
Subject:	AGC #571
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

Sorry I've been sucking so much lately; life and work have been busy, and I've been spending a lot of energy on my own D&D campaign and other gaming. I'm hoping to have another Excerpt up soon, and trying to lay the groundwork for better ones going forward, once I get caught up.

But for now, here's AGC #571. With all kinds of classy debates... like does a Beholder have an ass?

Date:	2012-02-16 12:53
Subject:	You know when life makes no sense...
Security:	Public
Mood:	confused

Sure you do, it happens all the time. In fact, it's so consistent that I figure our expectation and desire for consistency or any kind of narrative causality is really sortof a throwback to our neolithic brains, and one that we will probably evolve away as we approach the Singularity (or the equally likely "half-assed" singularity where we stubbornly refuse to evolve in the face of true non-human superintelligence and our computer progeny say "F*** you mom and dad, I'm moving to Alpha Centauri!")...

...but anyway, so far today is shaping up to be one of those truly rare instances where life makes no sense... in your favor. Surely, an enterprise doomed to failure at the hands of equally improbably failures of an unanticipated variety, which is why it's so creepy, but let's see what we've got so far...

• I appear to have gotten my desired job. It's only a seasonal contract (tax season), but it pays 50% more than my current job, and should open the doors to future government positions.


• I ordered a monitor from Best Buy (probably the last thing I'm buying for a long time just in case my current job screws me and I have to go on EI for like 6 months). It arrived like 5 seconds later. I seriously received the "your item is en route" email ON the item that was 'en route'.


• I called my boss for the awkward "I'm going to screw you by leaving for 3 months. Can I come back after that and pretend nothing happened?" conversation, and she was like "OK". Seriously. She didn't even hit me with the guilt trips and stuff (they are probably still coming), or try to make me come in on Sundays while still working full time for the Canada Revenue Agency (that stands for "Canadian IRS") - which I probably couldn't do even if I wanted to since it sounds like a conflict of interest, considering that I also work on taxes as part of my crappy job.

Date:	2012-02-15 12:46
Subject:	Sooo....
Security:	Public
Mood:	all over the place

It appears that I got the government contract I was trying for over the last few months. Nothing is signed yet, but they've literally asked me when I want to start (Mar 5 or Mar 19). It's only a 3 month position, give or take, but it pays fully - no shit - 50% more than what I make right now (plus I'm pretty sure they have paid lunches, possibly an hour long).

This is very exciting, and friggin' scary, especially scary in that I now have to tell my current job that "oh by the way, I know you're short staffed and I'm the most experienced person in this division... but I'm going to screw off for 3 months to get experience in the hopes of someday leaving you forever". I may not put it that way... actually, my preference would be to be granted an (unpaid) leave of absence from Mar 5 to May 18, and to return to my current job after that. Believe me, they will still desperately need me. But if they won't take me back out of some insane self-destructive spite, I will have earned months and months worth of Employment Insurance benefits which, after the contract's elevated pay should equate to between 70-80% of what I'm making right now... for NOT working, while I look for a better job.

So I'm all stressed right now and trying to word a letter to my boss... and THEN if all goes well, I'll get all the scariness of going to a new job as well. Fun.

Date:	2012-02-13 12:50
Subject:	AGC #570
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah

I've been having a hard time getting stuff done lately (obviously). I finished AGC #570... then realized that in doing so I totally saved over #569 (because I hadn't changed the name before editing it), and I had finished without realizing and saved over the local backup copy and the copy on the website...

The only reason I didn't have to waste more time completely remaking #569 from scratch is that I had a copy of it open in a tab on my other computer, which I was able to screenshot, crop, and then convert to a flash file so I wouldn't have to add a new cludge to my already ugly archives system. I sure hope there aren't any typoes in the real #569 though, cause it's really just a BMP now and editing it would be less viable. Also, it's slightly pixelated, which will doubtless disappoint all the art afficionadoes who read this...

Date:	2012-02-04 21:34
Subject:	Something like content...
Security:	Public
Mood:	yay.

I apologize a lot for these, because they aren't quite the excerpts that I wanted to produce, but I was never producing them, so this is a compromise. I'm losing a lot of that great player stuff, which is sad. It sucks. But my notes weren't up to it, and with months passing obviously my memory wasn't either. So I'm going forward with what I do have; I have my campaign notes, and I know what actually happened (materially, not so much the exact dialogue or the nuances). So (after the first half or so of this installment, which I'd previously written) what you get is a fastforward; a more stripped-down retelling of what happened, because even at this rate it's going to take several to get up to date. Hopefully I can make it interesting with some of the content from the GM side of things. Without further apology, here's Season 3, Excerpt #2.

In real life, I got over that cold I was complaining about (I have a new slight cough, but I'm hoping it's nothing). I've still been working too much, but I actually have some time off in this next week. I should probably use it for sleep.

Admittedly, I've been wasting a bunch of time playing The Old Republic, and spending some time trying to help with the early design decisions of Tower Dive's (quill18's) community gaming project, codenamed Project Porcupine. Plus I'm always spending a lot of time thinking about the future of the D&D campaign, because that's kindof an easy place for my mind to go (and somehow easier than working on real projects, like writing a book).