Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira - Run Away

As can sometimes happen, news to me may be a couple of years late. That's true in this case, but I couldn't help not sharing this video.

Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira (Moldova) - Run Away (Eurovision Song Contest 2010)

It's like a slice of the 80s in my living room.

The Plaid Mentat | Friday 18 May 2012 at 11:54 pm | | greenethorne, pseudorandom | No comments
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Starting a New Army: Circle Orboros

I've been thinking about it for quite some time, but I recently made the jump to start a new army, this time in the world of HORDES. It took me a while to figure out precisely which faction I wanted to play, and I finally settled on Circle Orboros.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 16 May 2012 at 8:46 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments
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House Update #6

We got siding! We went down and took these pictures just today after returning from vacation, so they are hot off the press.

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 14 May 2012 at 7:37 pm | | greenethorne | No comments
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Weekend Warmachine

Last weekend, I got in a couple of Warmachine games, and I wanted to take a moment to document how they went here. The first was Harkevich vs. Reznik (against Cody) and the second was The Butcher vs. Supreme Aptimus Zaal (Ian). Details follow.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 09 May 2012 at 7:56 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments
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House Update #5

This week, we got a lot of progress as our house now has its second level. More pictures below

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 07 May 2012 at 12:02 pm | | greenethorne | No comments
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The Emperor of Mars

I’ve been reading The World’s Best Science Fiction 28 when I get the chance, and the latest story I read, “The Emperor of Mars” was quite a treat. Sure, the plot was a bit predictable (I’m not sure that it wasn’t supposed to be), but it was a real treat for me, as someone who has a soft spot for the Golden Era of Sci-Fi. Spoilers and a short review after the jump.

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The Plaid Mentat | Friday 04 May 2012 at 11:53 pm | | books, greenethorne | No comments

Why yes, I have lost some weight.

I always remember being chubby. In middle school one of my friends lost weight over the summer and kept encouraging me to go on a diet. I never cared enough. I liked eating and I didn't see what the problem was. I'm pretty tall for a woman (5'8") and I have a body type that hides the weight well, so I don't look fat, but I always felt sort of guilty.

Throughout high school and college I slowly kept gaining weight and by 2007 I weighed over 200 pounds.

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ichigo | Thursday 03 May 2012 at 09:57 am | | ichigo | No comments
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Guild Wars 2 - First Impressions

I'm sure there will be a lot of blogs like this this week, but I wanted to give a quick look at my first impressions of Guild Wars 2. This weekend was the first open beta event, and Jessa and I had one account between us, so I played a Charr Elementalist (Dalgren Crow) and she played a Norn Ranger (Carolina Lee). A couple of pictures and my main likes and dislikes below.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 02 May 2012 at 08:50 am | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

House Update #4

We got our lumber drop on Wednesday, so we officially have quite a bit of the frame this week. Pictures after the jump.

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 30 April 2012 at 10:22 am | | greenethorne | No comments
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Guild Wars - Kae Listre

In anticipation of the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, I spent some time taking some screen captures of my current Guild Wars main: Kae Listre.

Enjoy!

The Plaid Mentat | Friday 27 April 2012 at 9:31 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

Building up a Card Deck - Step 4: Printing, Gluing, and Cutting

If you've been reading the rest of these entries, this part really boils down to getting the physical cards built. In all the prior entries, I talked about how to gather the artwork together, create a template, and finalize the digital copies of the decks. Now, I get down to actually printing and assembling the cards.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 25 April 2012 at 8:24 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

House Update #3

Not much progress on the house this week, I suspect primarily due to weather. However, they did get the lot backfilled, so there's not as much of a hole there as before. This week we also got window wells, and it is a lot easier to tell where the garage is. As always, pictures after the jump.

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 23 April 2012 at 8:16 pm | | greenethorne | No comments
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Fantasy Gaming in the 80s and 90s - Part 2: The Why

When I started my previous post on fantasy gaming in the 80s and 90s, I realized part way through that I had much more to say than anyone would want to read in one sitting. In that post, I talked about the various board games that I grew up playing, why I liked them, and what I still had left of them. Here, I'd like to talk a little bit about why I miss those games, and what is different about more recent games.

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The Plaid Mentat | Friday 20 April 2012 at 1:35 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

Building up a Card Deck - Step 3: Putting Together the Deck

This is the third in a short series of posts about putting together a custom deck of cards from scratch. Step 1 was all about organizing the artwork in a meaningful way, and step 2 was about putting together a template to make the actual physical work easier. In this step, I'm going to talk a bit about how I put those two pieces together to make everything work.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 18 April 2012 at 5:00 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments
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House Update #2

Last week, it looks like they poured most of the foundation and got everything set. There is concrete in the ground, and we were able to tell where our porch, garage, and various basement spaces were. Pictures after the jump.

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 16 April 2012 at 5:19 pm | | greenethorne | No comments
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Fantasy Gaming in the 80s and 90s - Part 1: The What

I recently received a copy of HeroQuest from a friend of mine, and it made me feel quite a bit of nostalgia for what it was like to be a young gamer. When I look back at the things that really got me in to gaming, aside from the fact that my parents role-played, I think of four games in particular: HeroQuest, Dragon Strike, Talisman, and Key to the Kingdom.

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The Plaid Mentat | Friday 13 April 2012 at 08:43 am | | gaming, greenethorne | One comment

Building up a Card Deck - Step 2: Creating a Template

If you haven't read Step 1 of this series, you might want to do that now, however, it's not necessary. In this post, I want to go over the goals and method I used to create the template which I would eventually use to cut out the cards. This is the part where I felt that a bit of design would go a long way, and is typically the part that I work on the most between projects.

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The Plaid Mentat | Wednesday 11 April 2012 at 9:46 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

Building up a Card Deck - Step 1: Gathering the Artwork

This post is the first in a short series I would like to do on putting together a custom made card deck. My goal is to include sufficient pictures and information that one could use the information here to recreate the custom components I have created (for Arkham Horror or otherwise).

To start, I do an initial conversion or export from the distribution format into an image format that I can use.

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The Plaid Mentat | Monday 09 April 2012 at 2:17 pm | | gaming, greenethorne | No comments

Witch Coven and Pistol Wraith

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Masterkavian | Friday 06 April 2012 at 9:29 pm | | gaming, masterkavian | One comment

The Start of the House

Today, Jessa and I went to the house to take some pictures. They broke ground last week, and we had our meeting with the building supervisor yesterday, so there's not much but it's a start. Pictures after the jump.

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The Plaid Mentat | Friday 06 April 2012 at 6:37 pm | | greenethorne | No comments
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