It ended with Arrrrrr!

And it started with a visit to the Munchkin Booty website. I thought I would look up Munchkin Booty and see what it said about the game, the rules errata, and any other information about the game I coulde find. So did just that and then saw the Resources list with thing like the game rules in PDF and level counters. But at the top of the page I saw the iPhone link which has a great looking and useful app on it for any of the munchkin games (and a counter that could be used for any game like Magic the Gathering to track you life too).

This led to Gear and Toys -> T-shirts (cause I always look for something to show my geek) and I noticed the site’s file name is utterlyunsinkable and the page has Utterly Unsinkable T-shirt at the top. Hmmm, thought I, that tis a curiously unusual name. Well back to the page… and I scroll down to see

Official Tournament Rules

• If you are wearing an official Munchkin shirt*, you may draw one extra card from either deck when you start play or when you come back from the dead.
• If you are wearing the Utterly Unsinkable shirt, nothing can make you lose a ship.
• Either Steve Jackson’s or John Kovalic’s autograph on the shirt gives you a +1 bonus per ship. With both autographs you gain a +2 bonus per ship.
• Wearing two or more Munchkin shirts does NOT give you both bonuses. The one on the outside rules.
• Use of the Cheat! card overrides Rule 4 and lets you benefit from two different shirts. (It doesn’t matter which one is outside.)
• But under no circumstance is there any bonus for MORE than two shirts at once.

It is NOT an official tournament rule, but if you wish to make a house rule that a “Lose Your Armor” card requires you to remove your shirt(s), we cannot stop you.

*On your torso. Right side out.

OMG! You mean if I own a t-shirt and wear it during the game it helps me in the game. Sweet. But if its autographed by Steve Jackson then it helps even more. Sweetness. How do I get an autographed shirt?

A quick glance around the website yields me nothing. hmmm, maybe I can Google his name and find out where he is appearing. I chose his Steve Jackson wikipedia entry for some reason. Read that and noticed:

Jackson is also an avid collector of Pirates themed Lego sets. He has written a miniatures game that uses Pirate sets, Evil Stevie’s Pirate Game, and has run it at several conventions.

Sweeet or rather, Yarrr! Have I mentioned I love pirates. And he has a game he runs at cons and I found pictures. Well I had to print the rules off and read most everything on the website. This included going to many out-of-date links but some paid off in gold. Thar be treasure. Various lego cannons people built and ships, mostly pirate but one person was building 32 and 36 dot wide lego battleships. Amazing stuff.

The rules to the game can be quite involved and he states that the game could be run non-stop 24 hours a day given enough refs and people as it allows people to jump in at anytime and leave at anytime. A typical session will need to run at least 6 hours. You can keep it pretty simple too and I will be experimenting with utilizing the most basic of rules and playing it at home….once I collect some more ships, parts and at least one island base plate. I feel like its something my oldest kid will be able to grasp in a few years. So I better get hopping and collect some more Lego pirate/sailing stuff.

I didn’t buy a t-shirt, yet. I didn’t find out where Steve Jackson was appearing and if it was anywhere near me anytime soon. I did however something even better, a fun activity I can play with my family combining Legos, pirates & gaming.

Arrrrrr!

HP +12 and a successful Save vs work

A few days before New Years Eve we had some visitors. Close friends came to visit and socialize. We all agreed we would play some games but not anything electronic. As a result we went back in time to our more youthful days and played a list of games including Talisman and Magic the Gathering. We even made a lethal trip to a local comic book and gaming store, Emerald City Comics in Clearwater.

All of this gaming made me realize how much I missed it and how much it helped to recharge by batteries. I took off a day from work just to hang out with my friends and play. I almost had to go in to work but a quite able coworker, Gina, was able to replace a server motherboard and allowed me to stay home. I saved versus work and was able to stay and play 8).

While I didn’t play Talisman myself and never have, I did play Magic the Gathering (MTG). I even managed to dig out my old MTG cards, including the original cards and the first expansion set, Arabian Nights. Two games was all I was able to play which just made me thirsty for more. I started looking on Ebay and purchased several premade decks, and some single cards which will help make my black artifact deck concept better. It’s either Death by a Thousand Cuts or the Suicide deck. Anyway I enjoyed the games and look forward to playing again soon.

The trip to Emerald City was great. I didn’t buy one MTG item but I did buy a couple of Birthday gifts, Munchkin Chuthulu and another game for my friend, Josh. He in turn bought me a gift, Munchkin Booty. While there he also bought a Monty Python card game which was fun to watch and looked fun to play. For instance they had to sing a Monty Python song, never the same one twice, when they played a certain card. That trip got me wanting to play games every so often again, not just computer games. I miss playing a Role Playing Game (RPG) or a fun card game like Munchkin or MTG.

The social aspect, eating, and gaming, made the visit too short and very enjoyable. I hope we don’t have to wait too long to get together again. It recharged me giving me a much needed boost to my health points (HP).

Blogging for me

I decided to do this 30 day challenge for several reasons. I am expecting to improve my typing, communication, length of posts, and meaningfulness/information of these posts. I set some person goals for it too. I usually type maybe 200+ words per post and whil I am not forcing my posts to be longer than necessary I always feel I cut them a little short because I either forget what else to say (which is why I want to type faster) or I don’t have the time to do all the research to find every detail I would like.

This post will be a bit short and not the total length I would like. I do my best thinking when I am driving and I try to remember what I was thinking later when I sit down to type but invariably I forget a few points. This is one of those times I can’t remember everything I wanted to talk about here.

Symantec Endpoint Protection, Oh how I hate thee!

Symantec used to make a great home antivirus (AV) product: simple install, simple interface, easy to use. I recommended it to my parents even though I was using McAfee’s AV product at work. I loved McAfee’s business grade product.

Let’s jump to the change in jobs to a place using Symantec’s AV product line V10. We upgrade to Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) v11. The upgrade went impressively smoothly. A few months later the SEP server had a hardware death and couldn’t be revived. I had to install from scratch on a whole new piece of hardware but I named the server with the same name, gave it the same IP, and installed the same version of SEP. Now none of the desktops talk to the server; Great, just great. I know I did something wrong but should it be hard to fix? Let’s do some research.

They won’t talk to it for upgrade and you can’t take over control of it! The answer appears to be to manually uninstall SEP from every computer in the company and the use the SEP Manager to “Find Unmanaged Clients” and push an install package to the computers. Really? Manually uninstall. Its freaking 2009 and I have to manually uninstall your product because your server can’t locate these computers and tell me anything about them. Like, gee, there’s 30+computers that have this other Symantec AV on them and are managed by a computer of the same name as me. Ok, 2 days and 30+ computers later and they are done. They sychronize their Av Definitions from the Live Update server for the next 2 weeks as I check them daily via the management console. Whew, those are working. Life is golden.

I leave for vacation. Two weeks later I return and check the Virus Definition report. The SEP manager says 1 computer is pulling the current and is up to date but the other 30 odd comps are 2 weeks out of date. Obviously they are communicating because the report has the computers info. Obviously Live Update is working as far as the client is concerned because when you manually run it the clients say they are synchronizing. I even go into the Live Update server which I set up to make sure the original updates would work right, and it says its updating. They are not considered unmanaged as the SEP manager still sees them. And I know the computers have been used since I was here last based on phone calls and emails in my InBox. So what gives? Why is this so hard to get working?

Also I found out that somehow SEP stops Microsoft’s free Windows Defender spyware and adware detection and removal product from working. Using the SEP Manager I look through all the Policies and setting and can not find any way to undo this. However, when installed an unmanaged SEP on a mobile user’s laptop there is a checkbox in the setting that says “Block Windows Defender”. You can uncheck it and get a warning about how Windows Defender may conflict with SEP and shouldn’t be used. Once again, Really? What can really happen is that 2 scanners running at the same time, SEP and Defender, can cause your computer to slow downs and if you don’t configure your exclusions correctly you MAY have some trouble.

Come one Symantec, SEP is a mediocre spyware scanner and removal tool at best. Windows Defender works great at finding and removing spyware and adware, is free, and comes with weekly updates which can be deployed via my patch server. Shame on you Symantec for not allowing us to find and uncheck that setting for all managed clients. I have always had 2-3 spyware infected computers per month while SEP was working “properly”. Windows Defender would have helped me clean these up or blocked them to begin with if it wasn’t disabled. And why were they infected to begin with? Because SEP can’t find and remove the spyware, nor block it anything like Windows Defender can. This reeks of jealousy that Microsoft can make a better product than you, not that it conflicts with anything. BTW, this is why us trained experts work on the computers, so we can fix conflicts by configuring the products correctly to begin with, NOT just disabling them and leaving ourselves unprotected.

Also the reporting drill down capabilities could be better. You can click on a number in the status summary to see a list of computers that are listed there with a Host Integrity Failed problem for instance. On the Virus Definitions report I can only look at how many computers are on each version of a definition but you can’t click and get a list of which computers are using that version. Why doesn’t it work the same way? I could swear v10 could do that from that same report. It was a great way to find out which computers were out of compliance and fix it.

Personally I think this is a piece of crap. I used McAfee for 4+ years and never had this issue. 3 version upgrades, etc. Even migrated the server to new hardware and when the client didn’t quite act right I could uninstall it from the management console and reinstall or even reinstall over the old installation. Their management console rocked. It even allowed you to monitor the version numbers of other company’s AV products, Symantec among them.

I could rant on this all night but my soap box time is gone and frankly so is my concern. I will add this last part: Our Symantec license renewal is due later this month; If I can get the equivalent McAfee enterprise product for the same cost I will switch to McAfee and hopeful laugh an evil laugh as I tac-nuke SEP on every computer.

Sayonara Symantec

An innocent conversation

Something that struck me as a beginning to a short story or novel after having this conversation. The paranoia however is all my own:

(Thank you Rod Sterling and yes I really think you had a toothpick in your mouth when you did your soliloquy)

It started off as that most innocent of conversations.

(In reality it shouldn’t be his voice reading it in your head…maybe a pulp detective, Marlowesque kind of voice).

Remembrances, you can’t quite place the name to the face or better yet the place to the face…where did you see them before?. You tell your wife on the phone you’ve seen the manager at the old location for this place only to find out there is no old location. But I’ve seen him somewhere before. Where?

On your way out of the place you ask him, “Did you used to be at the other location?”
He says, “No, I’ve only been here 4 months.”
“Hmm, well sorry you look familiar. I probably just saw you some place before, maybe church or (snerk) maybe just that one time at the mall or something.

When you leave he steps outside for a break, smiles and watches you leave.

Later he is following you only you don’t know it.

Attempted murder or successful? He remembers you glancing at him as he left the place he robbed/killed someone/or did something else at that he needed to cover up.

And it all started with an innocent conversation asking someone where you’ve seen them before.

Well as far as posts go I am cheating a bit. I had time to type in the bulk of this before Christmas but had to wordsmith it a bit before posting it. And although its after midnight here I am counting it as I haven’t gone to bed yet so technically its still yesterday. Think on that one for a while

The New Year

I usually don’t make new year’s resolutions. I don’t believe in resolving to do something just because its the new year however I do have a “to do” list for the year. I’ll share what I’ve thought of so far and maybe add to it later:

1. Post here once a day for 30 days (preferably the entire month of January). Practicing the writing helps me get better but of course doesn’t mean the writing will be good.
2. Clean out the five boxes I unloaded from my desk 2 years ago when I had to move the desk. I think I have pulled only a few things form the boxed so I must not need the contents so much.
3. Add some more shelving to the garage, move the Christmas decorations to the new shelves.
4. Clean out, clean up, and organize the garage.
5. Complete some maintenance on the house (touch up paint inside, pressure wash the house, fix a few other things that need it)

I was going to look into replacing the carpet in a few rooms with wood flooring but will most likely forgo that with doing some cleaning up around the house and organizing some things better. My wife’s job is questionable after the next year or 2. We may be making a move so why invest major money in the house if we have to sell it.

Well, this is a start and makes the second post of January.

Already missed a new year resolution

I planned a personal challenge to post every day for the month of January and already missed it. I was busy with Christmas today at our house as we left town for Christmas elsewhere and forgot to post. Well I guess I will amend it and keep this short but make it a post a day for 30 days.

More tomorrow on my New Year’s plans.

The Jetsons Inc.

Where is my wireless cordless vacuum? (yes I mean cordless and yes they make wimpy ones but it sounds way better when ranting to day wireless cordless) The cord tangles and pulls out, its in the way, you trip over it. Vacuuming today was pain in the butt. I mean really you can’t make a cordless vacuum yet?

Hello, Dyson, Hoover, I mean really do I care about capacity or a ball on it instead of wheels so it rolls around corners. No! I can empty the clear container or change the bag more frequently and gladly do it if I don’t have to trip over the cord.

They can make a skilsaw that runs off of a battery pack why not make a good vacuum that is rechargeable. Yes there are rechargeable vacuums but they don’t suck well. They suck bad as in don’t suck up the dirt well. Also they only seem to last about 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, and 1/2 a family room before the battery dies.

Which led me to this:

If I didn’t think Hanna Barbara wound sue I would start a company with the name, The Jetsons Inc., to make items of the future of the 1950’s today.

Where’s my robotic housemaid? And where’s my flying car?

Mr Wil Wheaton

These thoughts came to me after reading an “Out of the vault” post by Wil Wheaton in his blog a couple of weeks ago….

Interestingly I always forget peoples names, like currently I can’t remember a certain actor’s name and usually don’t. So any conversation I would have with my wife, for instance, would be something like

Me: You know that guy in the matrix movies. The one who says “Dude’ alot in those other movies
Wife: You mean … (actor-whose-name-I-can’t-remember-at-the-moment)
Me: Yes him

I still can’t remember his name at the moment. Well he’s an A-Lister and Mister Wheaton is a whatever-Lister and I remember his name.

Cue Haughty “How-dare-you-think-so-little-of-yourself” sounding voice:

Mister Wil Wheaton, how dare you think so little of yourself (see I told you it would sound like that). That’s right for what it is worth I remember your name, Mister Wil Wheaton, so all those A-Lister wannabes and reality stars (more likely boring stars) can suck it. I have 3.78 kids (our 4th is due Feb 28) and all of them will not know that actor’s name either. Although I remember a few like Arnold Schwarzenegger (because I grew up watching him and yes I could spell it without looking it up) or Clint Eastwood (whom I grew up watching also), my kids will still not know their names. But they will grow up hearing me talk about Wil Wheaton, his books, his various guest appearances on tv, his blog, his selflessness, his self-deprecating, his example of a human being, his creativity and in some ways inspiration.

So mister Wheaton, how dare you think of yourself as a C-Lister (in case you still think you are). You, SIR, are an A-Lister among nerds, geeks, and dweebs. You are the envy of us all and we outnumber ‘them’, those who think the other A-Listers are really A-Listers. They may be bigger, meaner (or mean in general), self-serving, and able to beat some of us up, BUT, we can hack into their financials and ruin them, which I think is what happened to what’s-his-name from the matrix.

You are an A-Lister of the A-Team of the only A-List that matter; that of the Awesomeness List.

End Haughty voice cue

(This was obviously tongue-in-cheek but it entertained me to think of this while driving home.)

BTW, /hats-off to Wil Wheaton. He married a woman who had 2(?) children of her own and raised the other man’s kids as his own, loved them as his own, and has made them his own. He calls them his sons and treats them as such. That doesn’t seem to happen often. /salute

AND I remembered its Nicolas Cage.

The 3 sweetest words ever heard

My wife and I have 3 kids and go out to eat on occasion. A few Sundays ago we went to Jason’s Jelly (my 3 yr old daughter says it this way; actually it’s Jason’s Deli). We went in line ordered our usuals (Cali Club no guac for my wife and Chicken Pesto Panini for me) and 3 kids hot dogs with fruit sides and 1 each of white milk, chocolate milk, and juice box. My 2 oldest kids always come through the line and “help” grab the drinks, napkins, etc. This includes my 5 year old getting the fountain drinks which scares the bageebers out of me. I keep expecting him to drop both glasses of tea on his way back to the table. While there we are ordering our food and my kids always come through the line with me.

The manager took our orders and wrote them with their prices on the slip. Next to the kids’ meals he doesn’t write a price but rather 3 letters, ‘KEF’. I get up to the cashier and ask, ‘What does KEF stand for?” and she says, Kids Eat Free!

Sweet baby Jesus, we actually found a place where kids eat free and we like the food too. Since then Kobe’s Japanese Steak house offers the same thing on Tuesday nights and Boston Market offers it on the weekends (a new thing for them too). We like Kobe’s and will try Boston Market. Both of which we like the food but find them a pit pricey for what you get.

KEF FTW