InkBlot's Inkernet

Me and my better half about to step through the Stargate

This past weekend, my wife and I went down to the Texas Renaissance Festival in Plantersville.  One of the nation’s largest renaissance festivals (so their website claims), we’ve been going to it for over a decade now.  Some years we go in costume, usually faux-medieval outfits comprised of things we’d bought the previous year, swords and all.  Some years we just go in our skivvies, particularly if the weather looks to be bad.

This year, I thought we could try something new.  After discussing it with Cindy, we began laying plans back in October.  We nearly had things in place for Halloween, but alas had to wait for everything to arrive last week; just in time for this weekend when we went down to the festival as our very own Stargate SG Team.  So read on for details of our adventure, and full instructions on how we put our outfits together – where to buy, what to buy, and what options you have. Continue Reading »

I know, frightening…but I saw this clip on some livejournal friends’ blogs, and I was moved.  There’s a video here, and a transcript below.

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So, I joined up to Facebook awhile back for one reason: to play Dungeons & Dragons Tiny Adventures.

Go ahead, when you stop laughing, I’ll continue.

Feel better?  Good.  Anyway, it’s a fun, little, no-effort sort of game where you pick “quests” and let your little character go off at them.  You don’t actually do anything except buy and sell loot between adventures.  So, you can turn it on and ignore it while you go about your day.  I’ll usually start an adventure in the morning, and check in on it around noon time…reset, do the same at the end of the day.

I admire the creativity in the quests, not just for the brief stories, but even the random encounters.  They vary from silly to serious, reasonable to outrageous.  I just checked on my little human warchief, and sent her on a new mission against some Orc Lord.  Here was the description:

The orcs caves deep in the forest used to be a fun place for adventurers to gain experience. Now the orc lord has begun inflicting his wrath on travelers and he has become a great threat to the good people in the world and must be dealt with.

Well, GEE, humanoids have been wandering through your home for years, randomly slaughtering your people for their possessions and “the experience”, I think I’d be a little testy too.  I’m trying to picture these people..”let’s go kill some Orcs, it’s FUN!”

Dungeons, Dragons & Psychos?  Yeesh…

Mind you, I am SO gonna kick that Orc Lord’s butt.  I mean, come on, there are standards to maintain.

Sorry it’s been quiet this week.  I keep crawling the web for your entertainment, but everything out there is all election, election, election!  So, once that goes past maybe I’ll find something more interesting to put up here.  In the meantime, go vote!  Early voting is still available in many areas, if you want to beat the rush next week.  There is no voting after Tuesday! Which I figure would be obvious, but I hear some states are having a problem quashing the rumors.  Oy.

New pictures of J.J.Abrams Star Trek movie are abounding everywhere on the internet, so I’ll just be directing you to Ain’t It Cool News below as they seem to have the bases covered.

I’m excited about this film, although I’m not usually inspired by “reboots.”  And, to be honest, hearing a Star Trek story is based around another time-travel adventures usually makes me queasy.  The later television productions got much too fixated on time travel, and, I feel, handled the concept rather poorly.

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It would seem over in Torchwood Magazine, Producer Peter Bennett has announced four new cast members joining the show for next season.  If you hadn’t heard, Season 3 of Torchwood is in a different format – just five episodes featuring a single story arc called Children of Earth.  Guest stars were already announced, but the crew down in Torchwood 3 are a bit understaffed – what with one being shot, and another sealed in nuclear bunker having a meltdown.

So, it looks like the new members are:

Alice (Lucy Cohu) described as “a woman keeping many secrets from the past.”

Bridget Spears (Susan Brown), “a character vitally connected to the government, which plays an important part in this story.”

Lois Habiba (Cush Jumbo), “a secretary who hacks into some vital information.”

and finally Doctor Rupesh Patanjali (Rik Makarem), a “junior doctor at St Helen’s hospital who gets drawn into Torchwood’s investigations.”

from: Digital Spy

In last night’s Presidential Debate, there came a bit near the end where the formal back-and-forth order broke down for just a bit and the two candidates traded some “follow up” comments¹  In discussing an energy bill, McCain said,

“You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.”

The particular comment, “that one,” has bounced around all the major news outlets, with varying degrees of reaction.  There’s a strong suggestion that could posses racist overtones, although no one is explicitly claiming there was racist intent behind it.

Perhaps my multi-cultural radar is off, but even as a southerner who still hears enough off-color jokes at family reunions to make me cringe, I didn’t see anything in that comment to suggest a racial epithet.  I rather suspect McCain is looking at the national reaction in honest surprise.

Watching the debate myself, what it did make me think of was, Continue Reading »

1. In the first debate, the order held Comment 1 – Comment & Follow Up 2 – Follow Up 1.  In last night’s Town Hall format, each side got one comment, with no followups. ↩

On the heels of their final win in the Echostar/TiVo lawsuit, TiVo is also percolating through the news with an upcoming new product in conjunction with Nero AG: TiVo PC.

Bringing the popular TiVo software interface and control to your desktop, it looks like you’ll need your own TV tuner card.  For the full experience, you can splurge for a actual TiVo remote and IR interface for your PC.  I imagine TiVo/Nero will have various packages to sell you any hardware you need.

The question is, where is this going for TiVo?  Continue Reading »