Lemegeton

The Demise of Mythic

July 6, 2009 in Deep Thought, Gaming | Leave a comment

Since the announcement that Electronic Arts is merging Mythic and BioWare, I can’t help but feel like a longtime friend (Mythic) has died a less than honorable death. With the ousting of DAoC’s General Manager (and lead designer of DAoC) Mark Jacobs – the end of an era has been irrevokably marked. Now BioWare has been put in charge of EA’s new RPG/MMO Group, even though BioWare has never produced an “E-Ticket” MMO. Is the writing on the wall? Clearly.

I’ve been a Mythic fan ever since joining Dark Age of Camelot back in the Spring of 2002. DAoC was my first venture into the MMO genre. I think most MMO players remember and sometimes even revere their first MMO experience. I remember it being being quite literally as magical. Friends from work had talked me into trying the game, so I had downloaded and installed it – which seemed to take forever. And I had to wait some more while the game was patching. Somewhere during that process, I had joined a teleconference with my friends from work, letting them know my progress, etc.

Back then, characters of different backgrounds started in different areas of the world. I made an Avalonian Cabalist, and as such I started at the Lethantis Association deep in the Campacorentin Forest (usually more simply referred to as “Camp Forest”). My friends at work had already been in the game for awhile and had met up near Camelot itself. I had no idea how to get there or what they even meant – I was too busy looking around at the cool buildings of Lethantis and trying to kill naughty pixies and wild bobcats. One of my friends, who had just joined the game earlier that same evening, said he’d ride a horse down and show me how to get up to where everybody else was.

After awhile (it’s a long horse-ride from Camelot to Camp Forest), I met my friend “in-game” for the first time. It was kind of surreal for me to be talking to someone on the phone that was controlling a computer character in a game I was playing. I dunno, it was somehow very different than playing Diablo2 with someone else. D2 was really a “flat” game, DAoC was truely 3D, and your characters/avatars actually walked around and interacted with the environment – falling from a height could kill you.

Anyways, it was all magic as far as I was concerned. From that day on, I’ve been inexorably hooked on the MMOgenre. I went on to try on many different flavors of MMO: Anarchy Online, Asheron’s Call 2, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Conan, Lord of the Rings, EVE, City of Heroes, etc. etc. But there will always be a special place in my mind for DAoC.

I hope Mr. Jacobs can establish another company (if he so desires) as successful as Mythic and continue the magic. And hey, I’ve got a game idea for you (like every other MMO fiend out there, LOL).

In Home Server Farm

July 2, 2009 in Computers, Deep Thought, Internet & Web | Leave a comment

So I’ve been thinking about this a bit, but not too seriously. I’ve already got a webserver in my house that is a host for three websites. They don’t really do anything yet, I’m just kind of squatting on the domains for now. But now I’m thinking I’d like a media server so I can store music and movies and junk for easy access. And maybe add an application server to the list so I can delete games and other junk off of my main machine, but reinstall it later without having to search through a mountain of CD/DVD-ROMs. With all of these machines, it sure would be nice to have a server that I could save backups to on a regular basis. Heck, I might even set up a Domain!

So in the end I end up with four servers: web, application, media, and backup. And one of those (most likely the app. or media server) could double as a domain controller. All this to serve the other four PC’s in the house: Media PC (hooked up to the HDTV/Entertainment Center), Gaming PC, Secondary Gaming PC (for multi-boxing or just Google’ing junk while gaming), and my wireless laptop. Seems like a bit of overkill at first glance, but not so much when you take into account that I have appx. 1,000 CD’s of music that I’ve converted to mp3 files, plus all of my DVD’s to mpegs. I’ve also converted my entire analog library to digital; including records, cassettes, and VHS – and I’m running out of storage space. So…. I’d like to get a media server with huge amounts of storage, which of course also means a backup solution that supports huge amounts of storage.

Anyways, it’s just a dream for now, but one of these days I’ll probably go on a server binge!

Hope y’all have a great 4th of July! Enjoy!

Mid-Year roll-up

June 30, 2009 in Deep Thought, EVE Online, Gaming, Gardening, Generic Rambling | Leave a comment

I can’t believe 2009 is already half over, but such is the nature of time – it just keeps on going without consideration toward any thing. It’s been an extraordinarily busy year for me so far, and I keep hoping that things will slow down to a dull roar, but so far I think things are actually getting busier as the year progresses. Not a good thing for my mental nor physical well being, but in this kind of economic environment, I really have no room to complain.

On with the stats… First I’ll do the June wrap-up, and if I’m still awake, I may try to tackle the 6-mo. roll up.

A week of death…

June 28, 2009 in Deep Thought, Gaming, Generic Rambling, Writing | Leave a comment

Man I can’t believe how many public figures have been lost this week! It’s just weird. Ed McMahon, Farah, Micheal, and Billy Mays. OY!

In other news, I’ve been palying around with my new camera and posting pics over in my facebook album. I’ve also been going through some of my more “historic” photos and creating albums for those.

As for gaming, I’ve twiddled around in LOTRO and mainly been turned off by it, yet again. It still suffers from some design faults that are systemic to Turbine games – grinding, forced group gameplay; a total lag-fest in towns (it’s even worse than it used to be!); and rubber-banding that eventually kills you due to “misadventure” (this was the last straw). So I probably wasted $30 re-sub’ing for 3 mos. Oh well…

I’ve have been playing a bit more Battle Forge – but that comes with its own set of frustrations. I’m up to “Expert” level, which basically means it’s now really just a “game” to see how much aggravation you’re willing to put up with before you rage-quit your “gaming” session. Plus I’ve pretty much exhausted the selection of cards and am impatiently waiting for some kind of update that will either add more cards to the current edition, or offer a whole new edition of cards. But I haven’t seen any indication of when such an offering might be forthcoming, so I’m not too optimistic that it will come any time soon.

On a completely different note, I was finally able to attend the local writer’s “meet-up” group. I’ve been too busy, or forgetful, to make it to one of these meetings for the last few months, so it was nice to get involved again. And it’s always been a great meeting to get my creative writing juices going again.

I hope your week goes smooth and take some time to have some summertime fun! Enjoy!

You know it’s Summer…

June 23, 2009 in Gaming, Gardening, Internet & Web | Leave a comment

‘Cuz the blog gets very little attention… I’ve been busy at work and busy outdoors, busy cleaning house, busy, busy, busy - I tend to skip the whole “Spring Cleaning” thing and do all that during Summer for some reason.

So besides all the work stuff, what have I been doing for entertainment? Mainly I’ve been watching (the new) Dr. Who. I just finished Season 4 over the weekend, so I’m all caught up with the show, as far as DVD releases go.

I’ve also been adding quite a few photo albums to my facebook page – which led to an interesting IE8 discovery. When I first tried to upload photos, IE on my laptop kept hanging and crashing on the ActiveX download. I Googled the issue and it appears A LOT of people have this issue and nobody seemed to have an answer. Eventually I FINALLY found something to make it work for me. Apparently if you have both the MS version of the Java Virtual Machine and the Sun version, there’s some kind of problem. So the fix is to remove the crummy MS version and keep or re-install the working Sun version of Java by following these steps (you’ll need to scroll down a bit).

As for gaming, I’ve mainly been goofing around in BattleForge, however an old friend called me up and convinced me to resub to LOTRO, at least for another 3-month “trial.” We’ll see if it sticks this time, or not… I really WANT to like LOTRO ‘cuz the setting and graphics are simply superb, but the grind-style of play really leaves me wanting. But, supposedly, Turbine has made quite a few improvements to the game since I last played. We’ll see if it’s enough to keep me interested. And of course I’ve been popping in 0n Warhammer and EVE online just to keep tabs on how things are going there.

Over the weekend I also bought a little PnS (point-n-shoot) camera to tide me over until I can afford a new digital SLR. As a Father’s Day gift to myself, I ended up getting a little “CoolPix” Nikon, and it’s been great so far – it’s noticeably better than my old Olympus digital. My long term goal is to get a Nikon D90, or equivalent, once they get the upgraded to support SDXC cards(the 2TB SD cards). I took a bunch of pictures at “Tsunami on the Square,” so I’ll try to post some of those – but probably over on my FB albums. Hmmm, I’ll have to try linking from here to there and see if that works well. It’d certainly be much quicker than having to re-size everything to make it “web friendly,” which the FB app does auto-magically

Anyways, I hope y’all had a great weekend, and that you fathers out there had a super Father’s Day too! Enjoy!

[Edit: adding an experimental FB photo album link]

Slow Gaming Week

June 12, 2009 in Deep Thought, Generic Rambling | Leave a comment

I’ve only been playing Battle Forge, and that sparingly. I’ve been spending most of my leisure time this week watching the new Dr. Who series on DVD. I finished Season One on Wednesday and I’m two discs into Season Two already. I’ll probably finish that up over the weekend and then start watching some other vid’s I’ve got coming my way. One of the “hazards” of working at the library is that it’s very easy to request a hold on anything in the collection and pick it up on your way out the door.

And when your library is part of a county-wide consortium, the collection is quite large and just about anything you want to find is somewhere in the system. Then it can be requested and usually delivered within a couple days. I’m feel so spoiled! But I love it!

I’ve also been mucking around my facebook page and adding things like music preferences and commenting on my friends’ walls and all that fb junk. But mainly I’ve just been veg’ing to Dr. Who.

I did get a new set of colored pencils from a local art store. I had no idea that colored pencils were so expensive! No wonder they offer to sell them one at a time, for upwards of $2 per pencil. Yikes! They had a very nice set of 60 pencils for $100 – OY! But there was also another 60 pencil set that was on clearance for $40 (originally $70), so I bought that set instead. Otherwise the cheapest “per pencil” brand they had was $1.25 ea. So, getting the $40 set was a much better deal.

Once I got that home, I overheated my electric pencil sharpener. It was an el-cheapo “X-ACTO” brand and I’ve never been very happy with it, so I’ve ordered a new “Panasonic” brand sharpener that has rave reviews on Amazon. Somewhere I have a Boston brand sharpener, which I cannot find for the life of me, but if I remember right I wasn’t terribly impressed with that one either… Hopefully the Panasonic will do the job, I’d hate to hand-crank sharpen 60 pencils – oy!

I hope y’all have an amazing weekend! Enjoy!

Blog Milestone: 10,000 Views

June 6, 2009 in EVE Online, Gaming, Generic Rambling, WarhammerOnline | Leave a comment

Hard to believe, but my blog has been viewed 10,000 times! WOOT!

This has been a pretty lackluster gaming week – but have spent a few hours in BattleForge and I also peeked in on my EVE Online characters to see how their training was coming along. I’ll probably drop in on Warhammer Online tomorrow.

I’ve been goofing around over on my facebook page, mainly adding friends here and there and creating more “flair.” I also finished up planting my planter boxes earlier in the week and the seeds are already sprouting, so that’s cool.

I also attended an “esoteric” meet-up group, and that was interesting. I’m so conflicted, LOL! See, I don’t “believe” in mysticism of any kind, be it magick or religion, but I find the topic utterly fascinating. So anyways, I’m glad that I was able to attend and didn’t get rocks thrown at me or anything I did share a number of the tarot decks that I collect, and the group was appreciative.

And I got a new sphere this week. I collect rock spheres – I blame my Mom and Dad for that. Dad was a geologist and one year when he and mom went to the big rock & mineral show down in Silver City, NM, they returned with several, very nice looking spheres – and I’ve also been hooked on them ever since. I tend to get mine from “The Rock Shed,” where I’ve felt I’ve always got great stones for a very reasonable price. Anyways, I just got a nice 3″ quartz sphere this week – what’s normally called a “crystal ball.”

Anyways, I hope your week was easy and that your weekend is turning out grand! Enjoy!

Facebook . . . reevaluated

June 1, 2009 in Deep Thought, Generic Rambling | Leave a comment

A co-worker had me log into my facebook account, which has basically been sitting there idle since I created it last year. Then she showed me how to make “flair.” And I’ve been a “facebook junkie” ever since! And since I’ve been hanging out there so much over the past few days, I’ve been adding friends and getting in touch with folks that I haven’t had contact with in years!

Dunno, maybe it’s my version of a mid-life crisis or something, but just saying “hi” to folks I haven’t been in contact with for years is pretty cool. So far, I’ve only been inviting people who I really liked or admired in some way, but I’m always willing to expand my circle of friends… Anyways, just thought I’d share that I’ve been having a blast over there making buttons and posting them on my “flair board.” It’s been amusing, fun, and nostalgic all at the same time. I hope things in your world are going great! Enjoy!

Robert Lowe’s Profile

Create Your Badge

Tarot Collecting

June 1, 2009 in Occult | Leave a comment

Last month I joined an “esoteric” Meet-Up group, which had their first meeting while I was out of town, but I’m hoping to make their second meeting later on this week. I let the founder know that I have a fair sized collection of tarot decks, and maybe I could bring a few to show folks the various types of decks that are out there. And there are TONS of tarot decks out there. Way back in the 70’s when I first heard of the Tarot, there were a scant few decks to really get your hands on. Esp. behind the “Zion Curtain” known as Utah. Pretty much you were limited to: Rider-Waite, 1JJ, Marsailles, or Aquarian.

So, after going through my various decks, I thought I’d post an inventory here with some links to the various decks that I have. First I’ll start with the decks that I use:

Daddy’s Piece – I use this self-crafted, custom deck almost exclusively for myself, however it is an “erotic gay themed” deck which would be inappropriate to link to from here.
Mythic Tarot - This is the deck I learned with. The illustrations are great, and the association with well known mythology made learning the tarot very easy. The biggest drawback was the lack of more esoteric symbolism (like kabbala, astrology, or even numeric assignments to the trumps). This deck always seems to have a Rosy outlook.
Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot - I’m not sure when I acquired this deck. I know it was one of my earlier decks though, and I still use it today if I want a concise, honest, no-holds-barred kind of reading.
Rider Waite Tarot - Another early acquisition and very familiar images. One of the most popular tarot decks out there.
Haindl Tarot – I very occasionally use this deck, but mainly it stays in its black cloth wrap. I do like its unique associations of the cards to the runes.

Collection Decks – Decks that pretty much have stayed in their boxes since I bought them.

Morgan Greer- I so rarely ever used this deck that I forgot I had it and bought a second one – LOL! This deck has a very 1970’s feel to it.
Da Vinci - An unusual deck themed after Da Vinci’s artistic style.
Liber T- I thought this was the deck designed by Thelemite; Lon Milo DuQuette, but alas it wasn’t. It’s primarily a re-rendering of Crowley’s Thoth Deck. L.M.D.’s Deck is called “Tarot of Ceremonial Magick” and it’s out of print, and very expensive at the moment. I’ll pick it up on it’s next printing…
Legend: Arthurian Tarot – A deck based upon the Arthurian myths.
Spiral Tarot- An unusual and well realized tarot. I actually used this deck for awhile, but it has since been put back on the shelf.
Tarot of Northern Shadows - A deck themed on Nordic traditions. Being mainly of Danish ancestry, I HAD to have such a representative deck.
Radiant Rider Waite – This is a re-painting of the traditional Rider Waite deck. In some cases I really like the new rendering, but in others it’s almost distracting. I continue to use my traditional Rider Waite deck…
Renaissance Tarot – The images of this deck really captured me. I love this artistic deck, almost too nice to use!
Old English Tarot – I think I bought this deck based on a few images that I really liked. After getting the deck it didn’t quite meet my expectations. Also I’m not a big fan of “pip” minor arcana sets (non-illustrated cards, you may as well use traditional poker cards).
The Golden Tarot - Another tarot where I loved the old fashioned look of the Trumps, unfortunately the minors were another “non illustrated” pip design – bummer.
Victoria Regina Tarot – A very unique and unusual deck. It’s in Black & White and uses what look like 19th century to early 20th century lithographs to illustrate the cards with. Something about it just made me have to have it!
Mystic Dreamer Tarot- This is one of my newer decks. Initially I really liked the imagery, but after awhile I noticed that it was just way too feminine for me – basically it seemed like a rectangular version of the Motherpeace deck.
Gilded Tarot – This is a very modern stylized tarot. I love the vibrant colors and illustrations, but it’s a little bit too modern for my own everyday use.
Universal Fantasy Tarot – Basically I bought this for the amazing art. The cards themselves don’t lend themselves well to the traditional meanings of other, older decks. But I love the art in this deck, very vibrant and interesting.
Robin Wood Tarot – Another deck bought because I fell in love with the illustrations. I did use this deck for awhile, but a few cards just didn’t resonate with me (the Devil card, for example), so it ended up back on the shelf.
Golden Tarot - Different from “The Golden Tarot,” this deck was designed by Kat Black and is comprised of collage images from classical periods.
Medieval Enchantment: Nigel Jackson Tarot – I’m not entirely sure why I bought this deck. I must have only made the selection based on seeing a very few cards from the deck, because for the most part I really do not like the illustrations in this deck.
Dali Universal Tarot – It was designed by Salvador Dali – ’nuff said!
B.O.T.A. Tarot- This is a B&W deck designed to be colored by the owner and primarily used for meditation, not divination. The deck I have is significantly over-sized (7″ x 4″ or so), and only includes the 22 Major Arcana. BTW, BOTA stands for Builders of the Adytum. An Adytum is like the sanctum sanctorum of a temple. See also Adyton…
Prediction Tarot – I bought this deck years ago because of the amazing illustrations for the Major Arcana. The minors are just pip design, so that’s why this deck got relegated to the shelf. But I do love the Majors in this deck, very well done! I think this was my second deck after acquiring the Mythic Tarot.
Baseball Tarot – I actually bought this deck for a friend who was really into baseball and thought it would be cool to have a tarot deck based upon this unique past-time. I’ve never even opened the cellophane around the cards! I’m not sure why this deck never got this into my friend’s hands, who is now several states away (I think). Anyways, it looks like it may be a cool deck to have in the collection anyways.
Mage: The Ascension Tarot- A very unique and unusual deck. It was actually designed for use in the role-playing game “Mage.” The illustrations are much like modern day comic book style. Not a very practical deck for traditional purposes, but it’s a neat addition to the collection because of it’s very distinctive and unusual design.
Dragon Tarot – A tarot featuring dragons! I had to have it, and it’s actually a very well illustrated deck.
Quantum Tarot – This is an ultra-modern deck with some very cool illustrations. This is the newest deck to be added to my collection. I don’t think I’d be able to use it for traditional purposes, since the designs are so different than any traditional design. But it’s very unique and colorful, which is something I like and look for in Tarot design.
Aquarian Tarot - This is another new arrival to my collection. I bought it out of a fit of nostalgia, since it was one of the very few “new,” contemporary decks that were available when I was young. Designed in 1970, and boy does it show!
Motherpeace Tarot - Ok, I can’t stand this deck, but it IS an icon, so it has to be in my collection. It’s the first round tarot ever published, and it’s also a very early feminist tarot. I also had to have it since my own deck is designed in direct opposition to this deck – Daddy’s Piece Tarot.
Golden Dawn Tarot – As an ex self-initiate into the Golden Dawn, I really wanted to have a copy of this deck. The illustrations are somewhat amateurish, but there is a lot of esoteric symbolism included in the deck. Now-a-days, I hope there are much better illustrated esoteric decks available. Eventually I hope to make one of my own design using the symbolism from several of the esoteric decks and books that I own.
Hermetic Tarot- another B&W deck of esoteric origin. Again from the Order of the Golden Dawn, designed by Mathers.
Stairs of Gold Tarot – Extraordinary Major Arcana with lack luster minors schlepped in.
Medieval Scapini Tarot – I bought this deck because of its very traditional, old-world feel. There’s just something about this deck that I’m really drawn to, but not so much that I want to use it for anything.
1JJ Swiss Tarot – Another old deck that used to be one of the very few you could get “back in the day.” Another deck I bought out of nostalgia and respect for the tradition. It stays on the shelf because it is another of those decks that uses simple pips for the minor arcana, and I just don’t like “pip decks” very well.
Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Playing Cards - Another deck that I bought in a fit of nostalgia. I remember my older sister having this deck in her chest of drawers and I used to sneak into her room to read these cards. So of course I had to get a set of them much later in life when I became interested in the tarot again. Maybe I should get another set for her and see if she remembers them

And that’s all of them… for now. I’m almost always adding to this collection if I find something unique and enjoyable in some fashion. I’m still looking for a decent copy of the Marseilles Tarot, hopefully I’ll find that one soon. I hope y’all have a great week ahead! Enjoy!

May Rollup

May 31, 2009 in Computers, Deep Thought, EVE Online, Gaming, Gardening, Gay Interest, Generic Rambling, Internet & Web, Music, Occult, WarhammerOnline, Writing | Leave a comment

What a busy month! I can’t believe how much I’ve neglected writing in the blog, so I’m gonna blame work for that! I’ve been really busy trying to put together purchase plans and distributing and configuring new computer systems for the library that my time has just disappeared on me. By the time I get home I just wanted to vedge in front of a game or do some reading.

On the gaming front, I was jumping into WAR fairly regularly, playing both my Order and Chaos toons. Then a week or so ago I got into Battle Forge, which has been a very nice diversion. I also kept my training queues going in EVE, but I haven’t done any active EVE gaming for quite awhile. Once the next set of queues finish up sometime in June, I may jump back in. We’ll see.

In other hobbies, I planted several of those window-box style planters and they’ve all done quite well so far. The number of the seeds that actually grew surprised me, since many of them were several years old. I also started getting my FaceBook stuff going. I’ve actually had a facebook page for over a year, but I’d never really done anything with it – I’m not really much of a socialite, so the whole social networking thing just leaves me with a “what’s the point” kind of reaction. But a new co-worker has turned me on to some of the interesting things that can be done in FB, so I started messing around with it, adding “Flair” and trying to hook up with old friends and acquaintances. We’ll see how it goes. I still think my main “presence” in webspace will remain fixed here on the blog though. It just suits me better.

On the music front, I grabbed a few more albums this month. Mainly from the “rock-opera” genre with some MM thrown in for good measure:

(I Love that I can look up my digital library on Amazon )

In the reading arena, two books rose to the occasion:

Now for the Statistics for May