poukledden

The best reason to use Ubuntu, work-addled Gregory maintains, is the cool names -- each release has a funky animal name. The recent versions: Feisty Fawn (7.04, April 2007), Gutsy Gibbon (7.10, October 2007), Hardy Heron (8.04, April 2008), and the version I'm currently using, Intrepid Ibex (8.10, October 2008). The next release is taking a jaunt - ha! -- into the mythical, with Jaunty Jackalope, which will be version 9.04 and be released in April (you can probably guess what the version numbers mean). Well, they've just announced the name for the version after that, due in October -- Karmic Koala.

Go on. Tell me you don't want something named Karmic Koala on your computer. Macheads can keep their silly cats, and Windows users can keep their, uh, whatevers. Numbers, I guess.

This is about the quality of my thought, mind you, when I try to blog after 9 and a half hours at work.

So I'm watching Rachel Maddow, and she's talking about the Post Office woes, right? As you've probably heard, the Post Office wants, as part of its attempt to get its budget problems under control,  to go to delivering mail only 5 days a week. And then she says something chilling: it might not be Saturday that gets axed. See, it turns out that volume wise, Tuesday is the slowest mail day of the week, and thus we could end up with no Tuesday delivery.

Why is this chilling? Because I'm on Netflix, that's why. Do the math. No Tuesday delivery makes getting two rounds of movies per week that much harder. (for those that don't know, it doesn't matter whether there's mail delivery on Saturdays or not as far as sending movies back -- Neftlix doesn't receive them into their system on weekends, nor does it send out movies on Saturdays). If I'm figuring it correctly, you'd be able to do 3 rounds every two weeks, but not 4. And that's assuming, of course, that you can watch the movies quickly.

Wanna bet Netflix is praying for the Tuesday option?  I'm just hoping that the Post Office will decide that weekday delivery is too important, what with critical business and governmental communications and all.

Man, this economic downturn just got personal. :)

AND my Cox internet service is going up 2 bucks a month. Okay, I'm done griping now.

Dear Sister:

What we feared, what we knew in our hearts of hearts, is true: our mother is not human.

Oh, if only I hadn't decided, in innocence -- a lark, I say, an innocent lark! -- to run the face recognition program on Picasaweb. I may have been able to continue in happy ignorance, only occasionally bothered by flickers of doubt. But I did run the facial recognition program, and it is now clear: our mother has no face. No human face, at least. So much is clear now, the oddities over the years explained. Perhaps even her cat, clearly a superior in disguise, leading the pre-Invasion mission.

Or, you know, Picasaweb gets easily thrown off by goofy hats.




But no, such a glib answer is too easy. You know it, sister, and I know it -- our mother is a Galactic Fiend out for world domination. We know what we must do. Humanity is depending on us.

Your Loving Brother,

Gregory

So, there's a shiny new 4th Edition of the world's oldest role-playing game, and one might wonder -- if one is bored, and aware of the fact that this new edition is MAJORLY different from D&D's past -- one might wonder, as I was saying, what the Gregory D&D Personality Profile would look like now.

Here's the things to consider -- gnomes are out as a PC race. Druids are out until the Player's Handbook II, due out next year. The alignment system has changed in a way that is both cool and epically Bizarro -- I mean, why mostly simplify to good-unaligned-evil, but also keep lawful good and chaotic evil? EPIC WEIRD.

Anyway. Let us read the D&D tea leaves and see what they say. Here's some choices I'd probably make.

Alignment: good or unaligned. Would depend on mood.

Race: Hmmm. Halfings seem to have settled into something rather fun these days -- it seems official, now, that they've gotten over their Hobbit-envy and settled for being less insane Kender travelling about in caravans. So I think I'd go halfling, or maybe Eladrin (elves that still live in the FeyWild), because, well, I mean, the Twilight Lands of the FeyWild. Duuuude. Regular elves (which are a bit like Wood Elves in older D&D versions) would also be a possibility.

Class: Either a Warlock with a Fey Pact, or a Rogue. But really, the class choice is hard. Rangers still a definite possibility. Wizards also amazingly cool, right from first level. And the killjoy Paladin has been turned into a generic holy warrior who can be dedicated to any god and alignment, and has an array of powers that are pretty damn cool. If I did a Paladin, it would be one dedicated to a suitably interesting god or goddess. Maybe the Raven Queen, the Goddess of Death. Or some Nature god/dess.

Paragon path would depend on the class, so it's hard to say. In general, I'd choose the paths that were less "DESTROY! DESTROY!" and more...subtle. And maybe nice. Or maybe not.

Epic Destiny is easy -- Trickster all the way.

I gotta say, though -- I can't wait to see what they do with Druids. Damn this waiting business. It's discrimination, I tells ya!