Beyond the Void.

Now I have seen some big pussies in my time, hell I live with one but this one takes the cake.

(This is totally 100% clean)

Ever since the Movie Office Space geeks every where have talked the about The Red Swingline Stapler... and now you can own your very own!

Milton Waddams

they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire.

You know you had a wild night when something like this happens to you.

Very funny and work safe :)

I just watched some of the videos over at SkyRunners.com and I have to say... those skyrunner things are really cool. The people that have using them make it look really easy however I bet that you have to already be pretty freaking athletic to even use these things very well.

Alabrax's Exalted Fan Site is getting revamped. It will have all the same Exalted goodness as before only now it will be update more and organized better.

Stay tuned.

This week will bring techincal challenges, be sure to update your anti-virus. A sharp rebuke from a woman will lead to a suprising game find. Listen to the voices around you, there maybe gamers closer then you think.

Lucky numbers 010110, 69 and google

Last night my buddy roped me into playing Tactics Arena Online. I figured it would be a good little distraction but I didn't figure I would really like it. Well I do, I really like the game. I don't know if I would ever pay for it, but its great for free.

You know you have been spending too much time alone with your cats when you want to squirt people that annoy you with a water bottle.


My wife has been out of town since Thursday. I'm not the only one that misses her, the cats do too, and they are driving me nutty.

This weekend I attended a gathering of members of my Everquest guild. It was a cook out followed by a trip to Dave & Buster's. I went to the cookout but skipped the Dave & Buster's however, I didn't have the money as I am saving for GenCon.

Anyhow Chris the guild leader that hosted the cook out has a very nice, wife and child. I was very impressed. The food was good, and there was tons of it. It was great to get to meet some of the folks that came in from out of town. Heck, I even got to meet some local guild guys that I had not met yet. Everyone that came from out of town was really cool.

One thing that surprised me is that Lumi (sorry I only remember her online name) remembered the back ground I was going to do for her and asked me about it. I honestly didn't think she cared about that. I was very happy that she asked.

Her and her husband Gunath (I think his real name is Chris) were really cool. It was great getting to meet them both. Gunath is pretty funny and a great sport as we picked on him. Trel and Rey ( Argh I don't know either of those guys real names)

The beer tap broke, so there was awhile that the beer did not flow. However we did have Jello shots... Which were a little weak, but still good.

There were elements of this meeting however that bothered me quite a bit. However those are the subjects of other posts.

Looks like I found a new WebComic to add to my daily rotation. If your a computer gamer you should really check it out also.
ExtraLife!

Thursday nights is my gaming night. Currently we are in a rotation of Living Greyhawk, Exalted and on the first Thursday of the month we do Board Games. We keep a Gaming Calendar to help keep it all straight.

Last night was a D&D night. Its a living Greyhawk game. So far we what been doing one shots from the material for Living Greyhawk. It's fairly fun as my character is a freak, but I am a freak that kicks 7 types of ass for a second level character. However it's my hope that we do something with a storyline, maybe something involving our backgrounds instead of random "Box Text" adventures. Something alitte more epic and something I can care about. Going town to town and being roped into fixing problems that we didnt go looking for in this contrived manner will only cut it for so long. And I argue that this isnt the nature of D&D. We just need a big adventure. The first one we did with the Demon Bear was fun, and it had me pretty puzzled.

Anyhow... I want to include my characters history. So I though I would post that here for you guys. When I rolled up his stats I rolled 4 1's. !!!! Yes 4 1's. So I put that in Charisma. I was given the chance to make that a 9... but I turned it down. How often to you get to play someone like this.

Anyway this is my story.

Cromwell of Ket
Human/Warrior

Cromwell was once part of a one of the noble families of Ket. His family was well known for their kindness to the peasants of the land and for their loyal defense of the nation of Ket. Cromwell was the most beloved son of Ulend the Lesser, son of Ulend the Great. However the history and tradition of this once great family held a dark secret. Ulend the Great had bargained with powerful inhuman forces once upon a time for power and wealth. It was through these secret deals that Ulend unknowingly placed a taint on his family.

One fateful day as the whole of the family made its way from its eastern estate of Granfel to the King’s count in Lopolla, they were beset on all sides by highwaymen. Though the men and retainers of his house fought with valor they were out numbered and slain. Cromwell was the only man to survive the attack, though he may have been better off dieing with the rest. The highwaymen had several mages in their ranks and it was a misfired spell from one of these mages that hit Cromwell square in the chest. Much to the surprise of Cromwell and the mage the spell did not have the intended effect. It knocked Cromwell back some thirty feet where he landed in a thicket of brambles. When Cromwell arose from the piercing underbrush the eyes of the remaining bandits fell on him, but their expressions of terror confused Cromwell. He had expected pure malice from them as he fought to the death like his brothers and uncles, but instead they fled in horror upon looking at him.

He thought, “What has changed that I might frighten a score of men to flee from me in battle” and looking down at his own form he felt as if he was looking upon a stranger. His clothes were cut and torn from the battle and his skin was wet from the cuts from the brambles, but he saw that his blood was not red, but black and his skin, normally an olive tan was now a deep red. His legs now bent in odd ways, more like an elk then a mans. His hair had turned from a curly black mop to an ash white mane.

For four years he fled into the wilderness trying to come to grips with what he had become. He learned ways to hide from normal looking humans and the art of hunting for food. He favored the bow as his weapon of choice. It allowed him to remain hidden from sight or at least out of reach where his secret was safe. This life as a wondering huntsman could not last however as he longed to avenge his families death and reclaim what he had lost.

Cromwell now seeks his own wealth, skill and knowledge so that he may find the man that did this to him, find a way to get changed back and re-establish his family line.

[What Cromwell doesn’t know is that the mage that cast the spell on him did not do this to him directly. He was effected by the spell but only in that it trigger the taint in his blood from the dealings his grand father Ulend the Great had with those powerful inhuman forces. The curse was made manifest in Cromwell, unlike in the rest of the descendants of Ulend.]

Cromwell dresses in a heavy cloak to cover his animalistic legs, and wears a large brimmed hat that he pulls down over his eyes at most times. He also has made a habit of wearing a scarf like wrapping that covers his neck and lower face. He goes to great lengths to hide his appearance and avoids contact when he can. He is not ashamed of how he looks; he merely does not like the hassle his looks give him when he is exposed. Not knowing of how this truly happened to him he sees himself as the victim here and dislikes the need to hide. Cromwell also dislikes most mages; however he is inconsistent in his reaction to them.

If you are like everyone else, and the odds say you are, then from time to time you have issues with your money. It sucks but for many of us it's just part of life. Well there is one man out there that wants to help and that is Clark Howard.

No I am not getting paid to tell you this. I just happen to listen to this Radio call in show every day on the way home from work, and I have to tell you, the man is looking out for the consumer. He gives advise on how to save money in all areas of your life, what are good buys and how to get out of debt.

Anyhow his website is worth a look so check it out.
clarkhoward.com.

SNL did a skit on Harry Potter with Lindsay Lohan as a busting out Hermione Granger.

Browse on over to the RPGnet Home Page. There you will find game reviews, game columns, game news center. Also they have one of the most active gaming forums I have ever seen. Not only is it a haven for gamers and freelancers but game developers visit often.

Host Department: Current Network Status:

"Date/Time Issue DescriptionStatus
2004-07-22 10:06:09 ESTProblem:
We have an emergency issue on servers web4.worldispnetwork.com. The system detected failure on HTTP service. Our admin are now investigating this HTTP service on this server. Please be patient while they are working to correct this issue.

Effected Servers:
web4.worldispnetwork.com

Effected Services:
FTP, HTTP, HTTPS

How to check if you are effected:
To check if you are effected or not, go to 'FTP/User account' menu on Control Panel and look at Host Name parameter. If you are not under web4.worldispnetwork.com server, then you should not be having any problem. Open
2004-07-22 08:18:12 ESTProblem:
We have an emergency issue on MySQL5.worldispnetwork.com server. The system detected a system failure on these servers and our admin are working on this issue now. Please be patient while we are working to correct this issues so we can test it out.

Effected Servers:
MySQL5.worldispnetwork.com

Effected Services:
MySQL5 Database

How to check if you are effected:
To check if you are effected or not, go to 'Database' menu on Control Panel and look at MySQL DB Host Name parameter. If you are not under MySQL5.worldispnetwork.com server, then you should not be having any problem. Open"

If you chat at all, and lets face it there are not many who do not chat at least a little anymore, then Trillian is the program you are looking for.

With Trillian you don't have to run 5 different programs to talk to your 5 different friends that all use different chat programs. So say your Mom chats on Yahoo, and your Dad (because realistically these days its safe to assume they don't live in the same house) used ICQ. You can run one program and chat with them both.

It's cool. You should check it out. www.ceruleanstudios.com

Excerpt, courtesy of ENWorld:

Conan: You have this image right now, of an action star, tough guy, but there is, for lack of a better term, maybe a slightly nerdy side to Vin Diesel, is that fair to say?
audience: *laughs*
Conan: Please don't rip my head off, reach into my neck, and pull my heart out, but... You can do that later, but.., let's just say a side of you that people might not expect.
Vin: I spent a lot of years playing a game called Dungeons and Dragons.
audience: *laughs*
Vin: Very few people know that I was rolling 20-sided dice and talking like a half-orc
Conan: You would talk in the voice when you played the game?
Vin: Oh, we completely role-played, yea.
Conan: *laughs* you're kidding?!
Vin: (in the voice of a half-orc) "How dare you!?"
Conan: That's amazing! (in a nerdy voice) "Fear not, Gandalf is on the way!"
audience: *laughs*
Conan: That's what I would be, if I was playing with you. You would not let me play with you, probably. You'd be like "that guy's too nerdy, he's gotta go."
audience: *laughs*
Conan: So you played this for like how long?
Vin: For like 24 years.
Conan: For 24 years?! *laughs* I know...
audience: *laughs*
Vin: Now I call it the training ground for imagination.
Conan: Right, well that's very...
Vin: But this was before video games. I started playing in the 70s. And, this was, I mean, I could have played Risk, Monopoly, or D&D.
Conan: Right, which was probably the cooler of those games.
Vin: I think, yea.
Conan: And you created a character for youself, didn't you?
Vin: I created a character... No one knows this, but in Triple-X, one of the tattoos, right above my belly-button, or below my belly button, I don't know why I'm saying this *hoots from audience*, was the name Melkor. And that came from a character that I had, uh..
Conan: That you created in Dungeons and Dragons?
Vin: that I created. That was a Drow witch-hunter. Double-specialized witch-hunter. but this is all
Conan: There are so many nerds watching right now who are just thrilled. Cause you're making them cool, suddenly. All these guys are watching going "Go, Vin Diesel, Go! Go!" All hail, Melkor, you know?
audience: *applause and laughter*
Conan: I think that's neat though. See that you did, see that you'll talk about it.

The ExaltedWiki is one of the best fan sites on the net for Exalted. I have written a number of things on this site, although not nearly as much as many of the regulars there. The best part is that the noise to signal ratio is fairly good... unlike some Exalted sites I know.

The National Security Decision Making Game is a Great Game! I can't wait to play it more at Gencon.

If you haven't seen the witty little flash cartoons at JIBJAB yet you really should. It pokes fun at both sides of the political process.

If you are a fan of White Wolf games then you should really check out theWhite Wolf Forums

If anyone has been wondering... Where the hell has Alabrax been? Well I haven't gone away. Nope,  I have just been busy.
 
So what all has happened since my last post?
 
Well I went to Origins. It was a good time. I played a lot of games, met some interesting people and took lots of pictures. I got to play in an Exalted game ran by GCG himself. I also got to take part in a Q&A session with GCG and some other big wig at White Wolf. It was pretty interesting. I look forward to Gencon next month.
 
I made some new friends. Aaron and Chris. While I have never met either of them, and only know them over the net... I feel I could neck punch them like brothers :) They are both gaming fools, and great guys. Too bad they live so far away.
 
My buddy Tim has his own blog now. Check it out.
 
We are trying to sell our Condo. We are doing this because if we can sell the condo by 8/15/04 we will be able to build a house. So far it isn't looking to hot. But even if we don't sell it on time I think we are going to sell it anyhow. Have a look and then make an offer. You know you want to buy it!
 
I started running Exalted again on our Thursday nights. The game is going well and I am excited to be running it again. More on that later.
 
Since my last post my cat has made 3 attempts on my life. My days are numbered I fear.