Ken Newquist Alias is my kind of show. It’s got a cute, strong-willed female lead (Jennifer Garner), storylines involving shadow wars between rival espionage agencies, and the obligatory James Bond like spy toys. And yet, somehow over the last three years I’ve never seen it on TV. Not once. Not even for five minutes while clicking through … Read more
Draconomicion — “The Book of Dragons” — is a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons dedicated entirely to its signature reptilian scourges. The first chapter — “All about Dragons” — presents a comprehensive look at the physiology and ecology of dragons. It dissects the physical characteristics of the beasts, reviewing everything from their eyesight to their … Read more
The other day I got into something of a debate with a liberal-minded individual and I got a healthy reminder of just how much folks on the left dislike and distrust business. No, those words are too weak — “hate” is a much better descriptor. The debate arose with in the context The X-Files — … Read more
I’m in the process of redesigning my work Web site (and probably the sites for Nuketown and the GriffCrier as well). This time around my goal is to avoid cheating with my code, which basically means I want to avoid using any of the hacks or tricks that Web designers typically use to create a … Read more
Dungeons & Dragons is a great game, but when it comes to combat (and it almost always does) things get confusing. Who’s got what spells up? Who’s invisible? Who’s wounded? These and a hundred-odd other questions bounce around the table, slowing down combat, and annoying people. The folks at Alea think they’ve got the solution … Read more
It’s finally happened. StarGirl walking. She’s officially … a toddler. She first did it on Monday — she wanted to cross our third floor office, and suddenly decided that walking would be the best way to accomplish that task. She made it a foot or two before hitting a toy and falling down, but she did … Read more
Here’s a rundown of everything I’m reading right now (March 8), from audio books to comic books to good ol’fashioned novels. Audio A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (Amazon): A tale of political scheming set in a world in which the summers and winters can last for years. So far I’m enjoying it, … Read more
A rundown of everything I’m reading right now (March 8), from audio books to comic books to good ol’fashioned novels.
Underworld is the story of the secret war between werewolves and vampires, a war that humans have been blissfully unaware of for years, but which now threatens to erupt into our consciousness. It was also the subject of a lawsuit by White Wolf Games, who claimed that the vampires-vs.-werewolf storyline infringed on its copyright. Having … Read more
I’ve recently been considering the question of how best to display random information from a database. Specificially, I’ve been working on a randomizer for Nuketown that would display a random banner ad every time one of the PHP driven pages was loaded. This blog entry details my attempts to create a random generator via MySQL … and how I ditched that solution in favor of PHP.