Last week I spent a goodly chunk of my paycheque on the second volume of The Absolute Sandman by Neil Gaiman (and artists). I did this for a few reasons. First, I don’t want Xmas presents this year (and am not buying them for anyone). These Absolute Sandman books are mainstays on the Xmas list, but now I could get it for myself. Second, for some reason it’s not available on Amazon.ca at a reasonable cost right now so I noticed it at McNally Robinson. Third, I wanted to read something in a big-ass tome, to feel like I was plumbing the depths of arcanity and such. That this volume of Sandman tales involves the lord of dreams coming into possession of hell makes it a good fit for that “reading a tome” experience.

Sandman comics are things I’ve known about through my entire comic-reading life (which isn’t actually that long). I may have only started reading comics when the original run was ending. I remember the spines of the trade paperbacks in the comic shop. I remember flipping through issues and not really being dragged in. One time at Campaign we were given a trade paperback by one of our book suppliers. I read it (it had the Midsummer Night’s Dream story in it) and I didn’t mind it, but I had other things to spend my money on like Transmetropolitan. So yes, I wasn’t a long-time fan or anything.

And then I started learning how influential it was, beyond the coolness of Neil Gaiman himself. How this was sort of a gothy bible, an artifact of the 1990s that I missed out on. But now I’m reading it. In Absolute form. While I would love to own books like Absolute Watchmen or the giant volumes of Sin CIty or Hellboy, I’ve read those stories, in many cases I on those stories already. But Sandman is this pristine land I’m walking through on these massive pages with their beautiful colouring et al.

Reading this doesn’t bring back memories of the first time reading these stories because this is my first time. I don’t know if this is forming the same kinds of memories for when I reread them in the future. Of being wrapped up in a blanket on my couch in my underheated condo, sipping tea and shooing away a cat. It’s not the same as if I’d been 17. Damned fine stories though.

Eligio Grizzo, consigliere della Lega Nord in Comune di Cordenons – ma anche Vicepresidente e assessore in provincia di Pordenone -, nel mese di giugno venne accusato dalla maggioranza di essere stato un pessimo assessore all’Ambiente nella giunta di centrodestra, e pertanto non adatto a ricoprire la stessa carica in provincia. Le accuse del consigliere Natale Sorrentino, suffragate da prove fotografiche, sono state oggetto di ingiurie da parte del deputato leghista, il quale, non sapendo controbattere alle accuse, ha apostrofato il consigliere di maggioranza con “cragnoso di un napoletano“. Come giusto che sia la maggioranza ha chiesto le dimissioni del consigliere Grizzo.

Da quel momento i consiglieri di opposizione hanno fatto passare ben 4 mesi ogni qual volta si presentasse l’occasione per dibattere il merito della questione, tanto che il consigliere Ghiani del Pd ha chiesto la pubblicazione – a nome di tutta la maggioranza – di un comunicato stampa sul Gazzettino di martedì 27 ottobre per denunciare l’accaduto:

«Quel che è successo all’ultimo consiglio comunale di sabato 24 pomeriggio è desolante. Desolante soprattutto perché il centro-destra sta dimostrando di svilirne il ruolo istituzionale. Andiamo ai fatti. Primo: il consigliere Grizzo per l’ennesima volta fugge il confronto politico in aula non volendo affrontare a viso aperto gli ordini del giorno della maggioranza che stigmatizzavano, fino alle sue dimissioni, il comportamento ingiurioso che aveva avuto nei confronti del consigliere Sorrentino per il quale riservò l’appellativo di “cragnoso di un napoletano”. Porgere le scuse sarebbe stato un gesto di onestà e responsabilità verso l’avversario politico in quanto persona e al consiglio in quanto istituzione. Secondo: tranne la consigliera Pasin che già mesi fa prese le distanze, nessun altro consigliere di minoranza si è dissociato dall’esternazione di Grizzo. E con l’abbandono dell’aula durante la discussione di sabato hanno dimostrato tutti, tranne il leghista Venerus, di legittimare Grizzo nonostante il suo comportamento fosse stato palesemente e gravemente offensivo. Infine, il consigliere Dino De Anna si è assentato definitivamente dall’aula, dopo appena dieci minuti dall’avvio dell’assise, senza nemmeno avvisare il presidente del Consiglio. Affermare che si tratta di maleducazione non è abbastanza; il comportamento assunto dimostra scarso rispetto per le istituzioni e per i cittadini che si aspettano da ciascun rappresentante il massimo impegno guadagnandosi effettivamente il gettone di presenza dovuto.»

Dal 27 ottobre sono passati appena quattro giorni, e la replica dell’opposizione si è fatta attendere solamente fino al 29 ottobre con il consigliere Bruno Tomè e sempre sul Gazzettino:

«Il consigliere Dino De Anna è sempre attivo. A differenza del segretario del Pd Ghiani, che spesso non interviene; forse lui pensa di guadagnare il gettone di presenza stando in silenzio in aula. Noi riteniamo invece che tante volte sia più utile partecipare a due ore del consiglio dibattendo che non essere presenti 4 ore e dormire sulla sedia. I consiglieri del PDL erano presenti alla discussione di due argomenti quali il regolamento dell’asilo e il regolamento del nonno vigile, e di essere andati via al momento della discussione su Grizzo dato che questi era assente. Riteniamo –dice Tomè- che il ruolo istituzionale del consiglio sia stato svilito non da noi, bensì da chi presenta ordini del giorno di questa natura. I cittadini si aspettano da tutti noi il massimo impegno e non è certo esempio di laboriosità il fatto che siano 4 mesi che non si convoca la commissione urbanistica».

Naturalmente il consigliere Gianni Ghiani ha proposto la sua risposta al Gazzettino che prontamente l’ha pubblicata oggi:

«La maggioranza di centrosinistra ha rispetto per le minoranze in Consiglio, tanto da lasciar loro tutto il tempo dovuto per esprimersi, cosa ben diversa rispetto a quel che succedeva quando Tomè era presidente del Consiglio. Se l’accusa è quella di essere troppo democratici e di non prendere in continuazione la parola per controbattere quel che l’opposizione dice, ricordo che i consiglieri di maggioranza sono il doppio rispetto alla minoranza, per cui se tutti dovessimo parlare faremmo le 3 del mattino ogni volta aggravando di costi aggiuntivi i cittadini. Sappia il consigliere Tomè che non è la quantità degli interventi, ma la qualità di quel che si dice che fa la differenza, e più volte avremmo tutti guadagnato tempo prezioso se lui e i suoi colleghi non fossero intervenuti per questioni di lana caprina o solo per il gusto di menar il can per l’aia.

Sia chiaro: molti punti all’ordine del giorno si sono protratti per mesi solo perché l’opposizione ha giocato a perdere tempo. E’ comunque evidente a tutti che i motivi addotti sulla stampa per giustificare l’abbandono dei lavori all’ultimo consiglio sono inconsistenti. Anzi, di più. Dalle dichiarazioni si evince che per il centrodestra, in assenza di buoni argomenti, è lecito insultare pesantemente le persone e disonorevole porgere le scuse; così come è considerato normale rimanere in consiglio dieci minuti soltanto e poi andarsene senza nemmeno avvisare il segretario. Si sappia che De Anna con il suo comportamento ha violato l’art.19 del “Regolamento per la disciplina delle adunanze del consiglio comunale”. Strano che a mente fredda nel replicare, proprio Tomè, che di quel regolamento è stato l’estensore, se ne sia dimenticato».

Siamo a tre comunicati stampa tra maggioranza e opposizione e la vicenda non si è ancora risolta.

Já estão no site do DAFA as fotos da FAFARQ 2009!!!

O fotógrado oficial da festa foi Vinícius Roratto Carvalho
Fotografia: www.flickr.com/photos/vcarvalho/
Blog: autofoco.wordpress.com/
Multimídia: www.vimeo.com/vrcarvalho/videos/all

(My apologies for not getting this posted sooner.  I’ve had it finished, but with my IRL move, I just never seemed to get it transferred over and posted here.  ~Gaar)

For those that don’t know, James Casey is the Team Lead for the User Interface and Tome of Knowledge Team.

So, if the Tome of Knowledge is my Holy Grail, that makes James the god I worship, hehe.

By now, everyone knows of my Tome-aholism, so you can imagine how excited I was to get a chance to sit down and talk face-to-face with someone in charge of putting all kinds of Tomey goodness into the game.

Oh yeah, and there’s that UI stuff too.  :p

Enjoy!

~Gaar

James:  So, what’s your favorite Title?

GG:  “the Mighty” because that’s the one I worked the hardest to get. 10,000 Gnoblar kills as a Tank.  I mean, I love a lot of them.  I love to wear “the Tease” and “the Flirt” while running around…   (ed.  Lately, I favor “the Sneaky”)

James:  I always run around as “the Flirt” but, if I have the time, I get “the Devioblidevannihilator”.

GG:  Yeah, everybody loves that one because it’s just this big, long thing.  I do have that one. I’m looking forward to finishing my…oh! I have “the Natural Disaster”…

James:  Nice!

GG:  …which is awesome, for getting all the PQ Armor Sets.  People see that one and they’re like “What?”  I really need a way for my Title to just be random though, just randomize your Title.

James:  That would be a nice one.

Andy:  Isn’t there an addon that does that?

GG:  Well, someone started to make one because we had all talked about it on the forums.  So they had done a bit of it, but I’m not sure how it ended up.  I would love it because I’m up to over 250 Titles now and I’m really trying to break 300, but it’s so hard because you really want to show them all off.  We used to be able to do that in Star Wars Galaxies.  We could make a macro that switched between all of our Titles so when we were running around, it would just switch all the time.  So you’d be fighting someone and they’d be like “Who is this guy!?!?!  It’s not stopping?!?!!”

All laughing…

James:  It would be interesting to randomize it or even allow yourself a way to pick a certain amount of them that rotate, almost like the Bragging Rights [tab] but for Titles.

GG:  Yeah.  I think the way the addon worked was it would change them when you zoned and I think they were going to work on a timer.  It was definitely interesting, but I’m not sure how much they got done.

James:  It’s definitely an interesting idea.

GG:  So, yeah…I definitely love the Tome of Knowledge.  It was actually the main…when I first heard about WAR, I’d heard about RvR and I was playing an RvR game at the time…

James:  Which one?

GG:  Pirates of the Burning Sea. So, I was kind of like “I’m already playing an RvR game” so there was no real reason to look for another one.  But I lived in San Diego at the time and I went to Comic-Con and headed over to the Mythic booth.  I walked up to a guy and said “Show me Warhammer Online.”  So the guy showed me stuff and it was a lot of stuff I’d done before so I wasn’t too excited, but then he goes “…and then there’s this book that tracks everything you do.” And I went “OK, I’m in.”

All laughing…

Because, to me, I was always the guy that did all the little quests…

James:  Yup.

GG:  All the little things, explored everywhere, got all the armor items, you know.  I was a huge, huge rare collector in SWG and did all kinds of decorations and things, so, to me, in-game, that was the biggest thing and all of a sudden here was something that put it all into one place.

James:  Yeah.  I think that’s something that Microsoft did really well with the X-Box 360 and they did the whole Achievement thing.  I mean, they tapped a market there that just…I don’t even think they realized just how good that was going to be.  I mean, it’s incredible.

GG:  Everybody likes to feel like the effort they’re putting in is getting them something.  So, like the Achievements in the Tome…and just for, not even bragging rights, people are always like “Well, prove it!” and there was no way to do it, but with the Tome there is.  So, yeah, the Tome of Knowledge was the major draw for me.  It’s awesome to be able to talk to you about it. 

James:  So, any suggestions you have, or questions, comments?

GG:  Well, obviously the Tome is very PvE-oriented, for the most part.  Sure, there’s some things you get through RvR and we know that there was a comment made at one point where we may be getting more of an RvR section, almost like the Dammaz Kron addon or something like it.  Are we still going to be seeing that, or is it something that’s been pushed off for later?  I mean, for the RvR population that doesn’t care about the Tome, that could almost get them into the Tome as a whole and I’d love to see that happen.

James:  Yeah, you will still be seeing that.  I can’t give you a firm date on when it’s going to occur, but we definitely have plans to expand what the Tome represents for RvR.  It’s a combination of things.  We want to make sure that there’s a dedicated section.  We want to make sure that there’s more stuff that you can get out of it, Achievements that you can do RvR-wise, let you track more stuff, let you see that, and that’s all in the works.  Will it be sooner or later?  I can’t really tell you at this point, but we have been actively working on it.  It’s definitely something we want.

GG:  Flavor text.  Fluff.  Things that you can sit down and read.  With the Tome of Knowledge, I see some there, but it still feels like it’s a bit short because it’s supposed to be the story of your character in the world.  So it feels like there’s some aspects that still need to be in there…

James:  Like what?

GG:  “You’ve achieved Rank 10 on this date in this area.”  Key moments in your character’s progression.

James:  So, it’s more of a journal of your achievements versus you’ve got an achievement?

GG:  Yeah, so almost like how the Guild screen shows the Guild progression but it’s tied to your Tome so you can always go back and look and find out when and where you did major things.  So, when you’re bored and waiting for a Scenario, you could be reading/reviewing it.  And then the Dungeon crawlers would love it because they’d be able to say “World First” and back it up with their Tome.  Personalization adds some flavor to the Tome because then it truly is a story about your journey.

James:  That’s a good suggestion.  Thinking about it, I can probably guess why they didn’t do some of that stuff to start with, just because of the bandwidth involved.  Storing that much data would be kind of monumental.  You’ve seen some of the things where you notice longer loading times, which we’ve taken steps to reduce…

GG:  Yeah, I haven’t got to test that yet, but I heard it’s like night and day.  I heard my 3,200+ Tome unlocks will just load right in.

James:  Yeah, it’s much better.  The initial load will still be a little longer than someone without as many, but once you start zoning around, you notice a big difference.  So, I’m sure that went into it.  Now, that being said, I don’t think it’s a bad suggestion.  Maybe not everything in the Tome would be that type of drilled-down thing, but you make certain life events able to have data stored about them.  I don’t think that’s a bad idea to look at and investigate in the future.  It’s a good idea.

GG:  Cards.

James:  Yes.

GG:  The ubiquitous Card tab.

James:  Yeah…

All laughing…

James:  Well, there are a lot of things that, obviously, we wanted to do at Launch and one of them happened to be…we wanted to have other reward types.  So, there were a lot of ideas thrown around and, I’m pretty sure we talked about it before, but the idea was that if we had other rewards you could almost make it like a card game where you could get those things and it allowed you to have a meta-game within the Tome and things like that.  Unfortunately, over time, we just haven’t had the ability to go back and focus and finish the design on it because of other aspects of the game that have taken more of our resources.

It’s still there, we’ve got a few designs that we’ve kicked around with what we want to do, but it’s something where, if we finish that off, it’s all in there, so we can hook it up in that regard but we need the end part to be perfect.  If we do this, we don’t want to go “OK, we’ll utilize this” but then nobody does it and we just haven’t gotten to that point.  It’s something we’d still like to do at some point and we still have that mechanism for adding additional reward types.  I guess we could have left out the tab at some point, but that’s kind of a hindsight thing.  We had the intention of doing it more right away but then we had other priorities come up, which you see with a lot of our patches, things are subject to change in that regard.

So, it’s still there.  It’s still kind of a tease.  We still have some designs for it, just nothing that’s been green-lit at this point.  I would say you won’t see anything there for the foreseeable future.

GG:  Obviously, there’s sections where you can kill X number of monsters and if you do that for all the similar monsters, it unlocks a new Title.  Are there plans for, maybe, doing things like that but then that unlocks another set of unlocks that were hidden before?  So that people who really get into the Tome meta-game…you’ve unlocked stuff, but say you have to unlock these certain Achievements and Exploration areas but then, when you get a certain combination of them, then all of  sudden a new Achievement section opens up that you didn’t see or have access to before.  So, you’re like “Wait, what’s this?” and it says “You’ve started down the path to…” whatever.

Andy:  Yo dawg, I hear you get unlocks with your unlocks…

All laughing…

GG:  Well, you know me, I love my Tome unlocks.  I love me some Tome unlocks…

James:  Sure.  I don’t know that we have anything specific planned…I know we have things where we’re trying to do more stuff with how unlocks interact in the future.  We’re always trying to get stuff in Live Events and technically all that stuff is driven off of unlocks and the Tome of Knowledge.  So, we’re trying to work on ways where you can have sub-tasks and do things like that where certain things are available and unlock others.

(The Wild Hunt Master Huntsman page was a recent example!)

Directly what you’re asking about, we probably don’t have any definite plans.  I think that’s kind of cool.  We did it to a small degree with some of the obscure things out there.  I mean, there ar some things out there that if you do certain things, unless you do them, you can’t do other unlocks in the Tome.  We tried to be kind of restrictive on it because we didn’t want too many things that were really obscure, because as it is, some people are like “How the heck do I do that unlock?”  I mean, some of the Achievements are built like that where they were almost a quest series in that regard.

GG:  Oh yeah, like the Witch Hunters in Tier 1 Nordland.

All laughing…

That’s one of the coolest unlocks because you’re like…you could be watching them walk around but never click on one of the townspeople and then you do one day and all of a sudden the unlock pops and you’re like “I’ve got to find out where the rest of these are!”

James:  Yeah, but definitely in that regard, we don’t have something that’s like “Hey, I’ve collected all these books that are scattered across the world” and then it says “Hey, why don’t you do this?”

GG:  Right, cuz I know a lot of people look at that and go “What if we get all of this?  Is it going to do something?”  Almost like National Treasure.  It’s almost like a treasure map that you didn’t know was a treasure map.

James:  Yeah, so you’d finish off a set of unlocks in an Achievement area and that one gives you an unlock that is the first one in a new section, for example, which is not a bad idea for some stuff going forward I think.  It’s kind of a cool goal to go “Hey!  What did I just unlock?”

GG:  Yeah, so I have to follow this up with a question…so I try to do everything and I keep everything because I never know when I’m going to need it…so, obviously, there are certain items that drop in the game where, if you find the secret person or you get X number and you click on them the right way, things happen.  I have a bank vault full of Easter Egg items like this and, for the love of Grungni, I can’t find where these things are!

James is laughing at me at this point…

I love the fact that it is very vague.  I like that you can choose to keep it and go explore, or not.  I don’t have any room left though…and some of them have some flavor text and, yes, that makes it so much easier, but so many don’t.  And I mean, SO many do not.  Is there any way we can have flavor text as a little more of a hint added to some?

James:  Sure.

GG:  Or maybe even make some hints more readily available.  I don’t want to give stuff away for free, we all want to work for it…

James:  Right.  We had that conversation internally.  Do we make them a little easier to understand?  Do we give you more flavor text perhaps? For example, in the Bestiary, if you hover over some of the tasks, it gives you more of a description of where it is and kind of what you have to do.  So, do we make that a little more directed just to give people a better chance to go “Oh, I found this here and that kind of relates, so that’s cool.”

We did try, at least initially at Launch when we were doing a lot of these items, to make sure that…I think they’re all white items and not trash in that regard…we tried to keep to some kind of building scheme so that at least they stayed similar.  I don’t think we succeeded in getting all the flavor text to the degree where it would all be useful and you could go “Oh, hey, I should probably keep this or collect more of those.”

In that sense, actually the best way to probably do that is to submit feedback or even bugs that say “Hey, I have no idea what this item does.  It looks like it’s important.  There’s no flavor text.”  The more we have like that, our guy in the Tome Team can go in there and make a quick change and we can just push that up with the next version and that gives more information for you guys.

GG: So, that begs the question, is it truly definitive that only the white, bind-on-pickup items are Tome unlocks or are there some white items that are disposable/sellable, or maybe some grey items?  There’s grey items that have no sell price, there’s grey items that have a sell price but look like the others.  I mean, I can literally go through my bank vault and…

Andy:  A lot of those are itemization bugs too.

GG:  Right.  But we have no way to know that as players and we want to know.  That’s why I’m curious.

James:  We probably need to do an audit to see if some of those things have slipped through the cracks.  For the most part, we tried to make them white.  We tried to make them bind-on-pickup, but as you said, there’s some out there that are not that you say “Hey, I can sell these” and you do.  So, we probably need to do an audit to get that a little more clear in the players’ eyes because, yeah, if you don’t have a set standard, it’s like you said…

GG:  Yeah, cuz there’s definitely Easter Eggs that give you things that are grey, but with no sell price.

James:  Absolutely.  I’m in the same boat sometimes and I know most of the items that were made because I either tested them or made them, and even then, it’s like, I’ve got this grey Mote of something…that sounds cool.  Wonder what it does?  It’s grey though…I don’t know…

GG:  Yeah, like the Unstable Squigling and nobody knows what you’re supposed to do with it…

James:  Yeah, so, I think in that regard, I do see that as an opportunity.  Something we could do an audit on, even from our QA people, and go from there and say “Let’s tweak these up.”  And we talked about that even recently, so I think that’s a great idea. But I can see, as a player myself, I get confused by a few of those too.  It’s like “…yeah…this is a Dwarf dagger…cool…”

GG:  Yeah, I got a Marsh Axe…I got an unlock but I also got an axe in my inventory…am I supposed to keep it…?

James:  It’s like “Yeah…sure…”

All laughing…

Yeah, I don’t think we want to go to the route where there’s like a definitive level for those type of items or even a definitive flavor text that says “Hey, this is a Tome item” or anything like that.  But the fact that if they at least had a standard format that we used on some of the items that it’s at least 100% across the board.  I would definitely agree with that.

GG:  OK, how about a UI question?

James:  Sure.

GG:  Auction House UI.  A big complaint from a lot of players is that when you do the drill-down, say for crafting materials, unless you’re specific about the name and toss in level requirements, you can’t really find stuff.  Are there any plans on trying to make it more streamlined or redoing it altogether?

James:  It’s actually a combination of things.  It’s kind of a complicated beast in that the Auction House is more than just a UI feature.  It has a lot of server code, our back-end database, things like that.  So, it sounds easy to throw a in new search, for example.  Unfortunately,  it’s a lot of code work and database structure before we can do that.  We can’t just go into the UI and say “Hey, we’d like to search by this.”  We have a number of bugs in that regard as in it should have more searches for this and this, especially with some of the more recent things.

We also include in that we have a bug about the specific thing you mention where you don’t seem to get anything [back from your search] unless you’re very specific.  That’s also a search engine thing where it’s just not pulling the database quite right.  I’ve got all those bugs together and I’ve been working with our Ops Department, which actually handles a lot of the database side of that.  It’s just a matter of getting the chance to correct those.  But we do have all those things set up, we have them listed, it’s just a matter of getting the time to do it and we realize how frustrating that can be because if you can’t find what you want, it becomes a not-quite-as-useful tool for people.

GG:  So with the Auction House, you have Alliance and Guild-only auctions.  You have the ability to set that.  Is there any way we can maybe see it send out a notification to those in your Alliance/Guild that someone put up items just for those people that gives you maybe the basic information about the items?  Otherwise, there’s not really any way to know that someone’s listed stuff unless you just always make a habit of go checking or someone’s always spamming your Alliance/Guild chat about what they’re selling, neither of which is enjoyable.  Maybe even being able to browse your Guild/Alliance Auction House from your Guild page but not be able to buy anything from it.

James:  Yeah, I can understand that because even if it’s a news feed type of message when one of these items is put up for sale and you can filter the Guild news by that, I could see that.

GG:  Yeah, because then you’d at least know to go to the Auction House and hit Guild-only and go shopping.

James:  Yeah, absolutely.  Great idea.

GG:  Especially when people have different schedules.

James:  Oh absolutely, because if you don’t go on or check the Auction House regularly and someone’s putting it up there and you may need it…

GG:  Yeah, it also gives more of a benefit of being in a Guild or an Alliance than just a chat channel.

James:  Yeah, I agree.  I just have to check with the server guys to see what messages we’re currently doing on that.  It should be relatively easy once we get that, so I’ll ask them about that.

GG:  So, while we’re on a “social” topic.  Friends Lists are like…I can’t…I don’t know why, but I play an MMO and my Friends List only has room for 40 people?  This is supposed to be this Massively-Multiplayer thing and I can’t add people onto my Friends List because it caps at 40. So, it’s like, with Star Wars Galaxies you didn’t have a limit on your Friends List at all…

Mykiel:  Just stay within your social group…

GG:  Well, I’m in an RvR game, my social group is my entire Realm.  There was a time after the server transfers where, if it had allowed me to, I’d have had 200 people on my Friends List that I literally would have contacted every couple of days because I needed to know where they were to coordinate RvR.  I don’t have the ability to do that, I also can’t label things like “Here’s this person, what guild are they in?” or “What crafting do they do?” etc.  And I even talked to people in the addon community and I’m like “Can I make an addon that does this?” and they’re like “The API won’t allow it.”

James:  So, let me ask you a question first.  As far as the cap on the Friends List would go…if it was removed, would you be ok with having the list be client-side only at that point?  Like, if you went between computers, you’d only have that set of friends there versus on the server.

GG:  Well, to me, it’s not that big of a deal.   If it’s on my client, I can export it to a file and copy it to another computer, especially since I’m usually just on one computer anyway.

James:  Yeah, I’m just thinking aloud because we keep a certain amount of data there on the server.  So maybe we add a secondary tier where those are all client-based.

GG:  I would think the benefit would outweigh the negative there because now I can truly track everybody plus with as many people that have alts, keeping track of all of them and who they belong to is a nightmare.  If I could label them, it would be great.

James:  We’ve been discussing a lot of those types of things in that regard.  We’ve thrown around adding maybe comments to players that are tracked client-side so you can say “This guy’s on my Friends List but only because he’s a jerk and I’m tracking him.”

GG:  Exactly.

All laughing…

James:  Whatever the case may be…sometimes…you have to be honest, people use Friends Lists for different reasons.

GG:  Yeah, I want to know which zone NOT to go in because they’re there and I don’t want to deal with them.

James:  Yeah, so there are definitely some possibilities there.  We’ve been throwing around a lot of ideas on increasing the functionality of the Friends List, make it more like a Buddy List, and hopefully you’ll see some of those things soon, without going into specifics…

(The new Buddy List-type Social window was just introduced in 1.3.1.)

We’ve even talked about some of the things you’ve mentioned.  As far as the cap thing, I don’t think we really discussed that as much, but it’s something I can bring up in our conversations.

GG:  It’s been a big thing in the last two games I’ve played because they were RvR games, but they had the tiniest Friends Lists.  So, someone like me, the social person who wants to really coordinate and communicate with lots of broad groups of people and know what Guild/Alliance they are in, I need to know that stuff to really get a cohesive picture, there was really no way for me to do that which makes it very limiting.

James:  One of the things, and I’ll use an example outside of our game so you can know where I’m coming from or at least about some of the thoughts I’ve had recently, do you use X-Box Live?

GG:  Not really, but I’ve seen it used.

James:  They kind of have some good things on there that I would love to see changes implemented for as well.  For example, they have a suggested friends, in essence, based on people you’ve grouped with, so we’ve looked at that as well…

(This went live in 1.3.1 as well.)

We’ve looked at all kinds of things that make for a good social atmosphere with the tools.  One of the things that I think I would actually love to have on X-Box Live, and it comes down to…it’s almost like the commenting thing that you mentioned…I have like fifty-something friends on X-Box Live.  I play with like four of them.  I really want a way to tier my friends.  I want to say “You know what?  These guys I care about.  They should always be at the top of my list.  If they’re on, I always see them and know that they’re on.”  Then these are kind of my “Hey, these are my acquaintances.”  Hey, if I want to, I want to say that I’m offline to my acquaintances because I don’t want to be bothered by these people.

GG:  There was a system in SWG where you could make it so that if I put you on my Friends List and if you had me on yours, I could ping you and find out exactly where you were.  But, if I put you on mine, but you don’t put me on yours, all of a sudden, this is an acquaintance relationship.  So maybe for your tier system, that would tier it up a slot or the number of times you group with them gets tracked…

James:  Yeah, so it’s like you’re leveling your friendship.

GG:  Right, you’re almost playing a friendship game, but in a sense, it automatically controls your list so that your main friends you play with all the time are up at the top, but you still have access to the others you want to communicate with and you can almost watch someone drop down and it reminds you “Hey, I need to talk to this person and see what they’re doing” and when you do, it pulls them back up your list by your interaction.

James:  I know we’ve been talking about some things like that where if there’s some way we can make that list a little easier…that’s where I’ve been taking some of my inspiration from is some of these systems like AIM and Trillian that are essentially Friends Lists like X-Box Live or whatever and some of them do some really cool stuff and some of them have some opportunities just like we do.  So it’s like what can we do?  We have some of those in the pipes and hopefully you’ll see them soon.

GG:  Totally derailing the conversation, but this just came to me.  Another blogger had commented a long, long time ago that it would be cool to see kind of a Dev Diary in the Tome where when you get to a new zone or see something…not for everything, but just for unique pieces of art or cool statues…so you actually unlock a Dev Diary entry that explains “This was put in because of this” so it’s almost like an explanation so that people can see how and why things are in the game.

James:  You’re talking about like a commentary track?

GG:  Almost, yes, but in the Tome as maybe additional flavor text but truly about just the development of the game.  Then, when you’re exploring the game, you’re not just exploring the game world, you’re exploring the making of the game as well.

James:  Yeah, because you’re going to get some insight into like “Why exactly does that look that way?”

GG:  Exactly.

Andy:  It would be cool to have that be an audio track actually, if we could figure out how to toggle a “Hey, you’ve unlocked a commentary track.”

James:  There would be some distraction to that.  The audio track, the biggest issue I’d see there would be bandwidth and adding additional audio to what is already a large download or a large install.  I like the idea, but it would almost have to be…in fact, the feature as a whole almost sounds like it would have to be built into the game ahead of time.  Because, even if we went back and did this for a lot of things, trying to get the exact idea behind some of these things would be tough.  I mean, some developers aren’t here that did certain things.

GG:  Right, but there are some things you could do as kind of the introduction of it and then as the game matures, because despite what people say, we’re going to see the game around for years, so every time things get added it would almost be like a cool little commentary added in.

James:  I could see how it would be kind of cool going forward with new stuff, kind of pepper it in.  Like I said, the hardest part would be trying to do it for existing content at this point.

GG:  Yeah, but it’s one of those things where I’d almost want to see it just for new content as opposed to not at all.  So, if you can get some for old stuff, that’s cool.  Sort of a “You’ve unlocked a Classic Commentary” because you found the story for something already in the game.

All laughing…

It’s just another thing, but there’s so many people who want to know how and why the game gets made the way it is.

James:  I can see that as being on any certain thing that you get, maybe there’s almost like a Post-It note on it so you can say “Hey, I unlocked some information about this” and you bring it up and it gives you that information and it doesn’t really break the existing Tome in that regard, which is kind of cool.  Definitely worth investigating, especially with newer features I think.  Heck, you could even do it with some of the Live Events.  I know we’ve done a few times where we’ve done Dev Diaries on the Herald about certain events but I don’t think we’ve done it every single time…

GG:  But then it’s hard to find those and not everyone sees the Herald.

James:  Yeah, I agree.  Having it there versus in-game…yeah, so either you say that in the Live Event thing, either we have a way to link you to that story and it pops up real quick or we have a built-in version of that text that is easily accessible.  So, I can definitely see that as a possibility.  I’d hate to do it just as a web-link only because people do play full-screen and things like that become an issue, but then having a built-in, almost a mini-browser, with the text of it would almost be the easiest way to go.

GG:  So, UI question again.  Is there any way we can see the chat boxes streamlined so that they maybe remember old channels you’d created or joined so if you make new windows on occasion, it’s easy to get them set up the way you want them to be again with all your preferences?  That way you don’t necessarily have to have all these chat tabs up all the time, you can just delete and re-create the tab when you need it and it’s already set up for you because you stored the settings before.

James:  So, like a Favorite Channels where it’s like “Oh, here’s my dropdown of all the channels I’ve made.”

GG:  Yeah, and there’s kind of an addon that will set up channels and join for you each time, but you don’t always want to have to rely on addons to do things and they don’t always do what you’d really want them to.  And there’s also a lot of things related to this that you can only do with slash commands.

James:  Yeah, it’s actually one of my pet peeves where, as we get time, I’d like to see some of the slash commands we have in there be in the UI versus just as a slash command.  Because there’s things in there that people don’t even realize that you can do necessarily or where you can do it, so making that more intuitive is definitely on my agenda as well.

Mykiel:  And can we get a /hug command?

All laughing…

GG:  There’s no hugging in WAR!!!

Andy:  You should take that up with Paul and Games Workshop.

James:  Yeah, I’m pretty sure that there was probably a conversation about that where they were like “That doesn’t really fit with the WAR theme” but I can understand why players would want it too because I’m consistently going “Yeah…why can’t I do that?”

Mykiel:  I don’t even want the animation.

James:  Right, it’s just an emote at that point.

Mykiel:  I have said it so many times and it’s like “Hey Mykiel…where you going?” and we’re on defense and I’m like “OK guys, I’m gonna step out and give someone a hug” and I run out and do whatever I need to do and then I die and I’m like “Ahhh…they got me.  They didn’t want to get hugged.”

GG:  It’s just flavor stuff, to have more fun.

James:  Well, it is.  It’s flavor, it’s fluff, but to a degree, I see some of the argument of “Well, it’s war!” but yeah, that’s fine, but in wartime there’s also…

GG:  There’s always that crazy guy that does weird things on the battlefield.

James:  Well, yeah, we have a roleplay sever and you’re not at war with your Realm-mates.  So there’s no reason you can’t hug them because it’s not like you want to hug them to slip a knife into their back.

GG:  Well…not always…

All laughing…

OK, so then, my ultimate Tome question is:  Do you know, roughly, the possible number of Tome unlocks one person could get?  I know that there are unlocks that only one side can get that others can’t, things like that, but is there like…is it something you keep track of or is it that you just add stuff in and no one really knows?

James:  I can’t remember the last time that I looked at that number.  Umm…

GG:  Because I know you can’t get everything, it’s just impossible.

James:  Yeah.  You can’t because there are definitely a few that are locked out by Realm obviously, because you just can’t do those things.  In fact, there’s some Bestiary things that are like that for the opposite Realms.

~sighs and thinks for a moment~

I can’t remember.  It’s definitely like five or six thousand…a little higher than that maybe.  There’s so many in there.  It boils down, though, to true unlocks versus some things that are unlocked via the Tome, too.  Because we have a lot of things that are unlocked through the Tome like map stuff or PQ stuff, then you have stuff that’s Achievements and then Bestiary and then you have stuff that’s who knows.  There’s a lot of things that Tome system ends up being.  I know it’s several thousand but I honestly can’t remember the last time I looked at those numbers.  We have a spreadsheet that has every unlock ever made…

GG:  Nice!  That’s like my Holy Grail…

All laughing…

James:  That thing is much more than several thousand, that’s quite large.  Umm…as far as an actual number, no, I can’t think of it off the top of my head.  If I get a chance and I can get like an average, maybe I can get with Andy and have it be a Grab Bag thing, but I know it’s rather large.

GG:  Well, I’m nowhere near getting to the end and I’m around 3,200, so I’m just curious as there are definitely people that would like to know.

James:  Yeah and I wish there was…or at least that we’d spent a little more time on making that more robust in that you could almost know kind of where you were in that progression.

GG:  Yeah, but then it’s always going to get a little bigger…the carrot’s always going to move.

James:  That’s the one nice thing about the achievements from X-Box in that regard.  You know your end-point in that.  In this case, it’s a little more vague.

GG:  Well, you kind of know your end-point because you know “These are all the beasts”, etc.

James:  Sure and at that point you pretty much get a good sense of it in some sections with things like that and then when you start getting 3,200 and things like that you’re like “I’m probably better than most people…”

GG:  It slows down a lot…

James:  Oh, absolutely…

All laughing…

I would hope so, because then you’re in that mode where you’re like “Well, I got 1,000 and now I’m at the 10,000 and then…”

GG:  Yeah, well, some of them aren’t even up to the 1,000s because as an Ironbreaker it’s hard to kill fast.  When I did the 10,000 Gnoblars that…took a bit.

James:  There’s one in there that one of the guys that used to work on the Tome really wanted to get:  the Title “the Exploiter”.

GG:  Nice!

James:  It’s in there, but it’s for…I wanna say it’s for salvaging but the amount of times you have to do it is ridiculously high.

GG:  Well, I just got one for destroying items.  We were talking about this because I was in my Guild chat going “Woohoo!!!!!” and my guildies are like “Did you get a good piece of loot?” and I’m like “No, I just got the 10,000 destroyed items unlock and Title!” and they’re like “Dude, you suck.”

James is laughing at me…

To me, that was great, because, we talked about this earlier, you can’t throw away a stack and have it count.  I break them all apart and throw them away.  So, I don’t even sell junk loot on my toons.  It gets collected and mailed to my IB and when I’m standing around waiting for stuff, I’m splitting things into singles and discarding them over and over.

He’s laughing at me again…

James: Do you remember what the Title was?

GG:  Not off the top of my head, no.  Because it was more that I’d got it and I was just glad.

James:  Sure, that you’d got to that point.

GG:  It wasn’t something that was going to take over one of my other Titles that I love.  But yeah, each Title is awesome.  I’m always like “Oooo!  I got a new Title!”

James:  I got to tell you, that was definitely one of the funner parts of working on the Tome, from when we started and going forward, just coming up with some of the Titles and things you can put on them to try to be descriptive, sometimes humorous, and things like that, it’s a lot of fun.

GG:  Some are prohibitive to the way I play.  Like, at some point, I’m going to have to sit down and force myself to do certain things to get certain Titles, but I’m not there yet.

And he’s laughing at me again…   /sigh

But then I’m also doing the crafting profession and I’m liking it but really I’m just breaking stuff down so I can get the unlocks and once I get it, I’m going to switch to the scavenging and work on that one and once I’m done with Talisman Making, Scavenging, and Salvaging, I’m becoming an Apothecary again.

James:  Yup.  And you will have the most crafting titles eva…

All laughing…

Andy:  There’s probably a Tome unlock for that…

GG:  Probably.

Andy:  One thing I’m actually excited for, for the Tome, is that we have actually got a new Title in the game just for our Core Testers.  So, we are working on…

GG: …”the Masochistic”?

All laughing…

Andy:  No, no!  “the Self-Flagellators”…

All laughing…

GG:  “Crash Test Dummies”?

More laughing…

Andy:  Actually, before Adam left the UI Team, he put “the Oracle” Title into the game.  So, that will be a very exclusive Title that only a small number of people will have obviously.

James:  And I’ll have to remember to put that in the “Exclusives” section.

GG:  Oh!  There’s another question…

James:  We’re trying to do an audit on that.

GG:  Thank god!  Because the very first option, whatever the generic catch-all is, has like 180 of my Titles and I’m like “Are you kidding me?” because there’s all these other places they could go and it’s just not organized.

James:  Yes, there are a lot in our category six which is Achievements and we need to go through and go back and say “Well, that’s not really an Achievement, that’s more of a Killing, or that’s more of an Exploration, or…”

GG:  I would actually like a Live Event option.

James:  We were actually discussing that as one of the Title things.  Either putting things like that into something that’s more exclusive where we keep things that are non-Tome stuff.  Because when you do something for a Live Event or for Marketing…

At this point, Jess walked in and asked a question and we totally got derailed from our conversation and ended up in one that had comments like “Oh wait, that would be same-Realming…” and “That would actually be an interesting server: Male vs. Female.”  Yeah, you don’t want to know…

GG:  Any chance we can get Titles for completing multiple Live Events?  So like “You have fully completed five Live Events!” and you get a different Title like “the Eventful” or “the Party Planner”, I don’t know…yeah…that last one sucked…nevermind, hehe.

They’re laughing at me now…

GG:  We definitely want to thank you for taking the time out to talk to us!

James:  No problem at all.  I like talking about this stuff.

Thanks again James!  Andy kind of snuck him into the lineup at the last minute, so I really appreciate that he took the time out of his day on such short notice.

Honestly though, I could probably have spent all day talking Tome stuff.  From little things like where some of the more hard-to-find unlocks are, to how many Titles are possible to get, to…well, everything.  lol.

Although, there’s something to be said for the mystery of the hunt…

Until next time…

Have fun!

~Gaar

Bon. Premier article depuis un bout. Sujet : le tome 1 de Haruhi 8D !

Je sais qu’il est sorti depuis mi-juillet, mais comme dit dans l’article précédent, j’étais en vacances. Bref, je viens de l’acheter, passée l’euphorie d’avoir ENFIN le premier tome de HARUHI, silence. La couverture n’a rien de spécial, c’est juste assez voyant parce que rouge =p. J’enlève la couverture et je trouve Mikuru beaucoup plus belle qu’en anime, j’aime un peu moins Haruhi.

Je tombe sur une première page en couleur, avec un Kyon que je trouve bizarre. Sa tête me gêne. La deuxième page est pas mal, on reconnaît bien les persos, et c’est assez dans l’esprit “Haruhi” =p.

Ensuite, ça se dégrade, la tête de Kyon change à chaque angle de vue, je n’aime pas du tout la façon dont il a fait Yuki, à peine reconnu Ryoko (où sont donc passés ses sourcils à la Tsumugi ? =d ). En bref, je trouve le design assez mal adapté.

Niveau scénario, je trouve Kyon changé (oui, je fais une fixation sur Kyon ces jours-ci), il n’est pas assez…pessimiste, disons, comme dans l’anime, je sais pas si vous voyez…Mais sinon, le scénario en lui-même respecte l’anime, je peux pas dire s’il respecte le roman, je l’ai pas encore () acheté.

Je crains ne pas pouvoir vous en dire plus pour l’ instant, je l’ai pas fini, vous êtes bons pour un edit demain entre midi et deux =p.

EDIT : J’ai pu le finir, mais pas faire d’édit à midi, car aujourd’hui – j’avais oublié – c’était le jour de la légendaire et si controversée photo de classe.

Mais revenons à notre sujet. J’ai trouvé Haruhi étrange, elle est différente de celle de l’anime – mais toujours aussi excentrique -. Je confirme préferer cette Mikuru-là, un peu plus pleurnicharde cependant. Apparition d’Itsuki, toujours aussi…Itsuki quoi =p, mais sa coupe de cheveux à changé. Un point important tout de même : Kyon est…comment dire…il est beaucoup plus expressif, par rapport à l’anime, où il accepte plutôt calmement la nature de Yuki, Mikuru et Itsuki, alors que là il nous fait un gros pétage de plomb (d’accord, c’est comme ça que la plupart des êtres humains normalement constitués auraient réagi, mais tout de même).

A la fin, on nous offre un extrait du roman, et d’après ce que j’ai lu, je vais l’adorer 8D.

Je ferais des scans demain, principalement sur les parties qui m’ont gêné.

Ja.

Vem aí a FAFARQ 2009, que vai acontecer no sábado, 3 de outubro, no centro de POA, um local seguro, com vista pro Guaíba e muito mais!!!

COMPRE SEU INGRESSO ESTA SEMANA A PREÇOS PROMOCIONAIS!!!

FEMININO – R$8,00 . MASCULINO – R$10,00

SUJEITO À DISPONIBILIDADE DOS INGRESSOS, CORRA!

Imagem de exibição “FAFARQ EU VOU” para MSN/Orkut

Hey, j’ai oublié de poster vendredi !
bon et donc, saucisse purée mousline ça fait un peu repas de cantine scolaire comme ça.
Ajoutons que la saucisse était de la saucisse fumée et que j’ai mis pas mal de tome dans ma purée… mieux non ?

Préparation : 3 min
Cuisson : 10 min

Le concept de rizotto, c’est un concept qu’il est bien : c’est dur de se planter. Bon, je garantis pas la réussite d’un rizotto merguez-banane-concombre, hein, mais bon

Ce midi, rizotto fenouil-poulet-tome des bauges (on en a piquée une entière en Savoie ). (Notons au passage que la tomme de Savoie s’écrit avec deux m, et que celle des Bauges s’écrit avec un seul m. C’est comme ça.)

Bon, le principe est toujours un peu le même hein (voir ici et là), mettre dans une casserole du riz, un poil de matière grasse et des trucs divers, couvrir au bouillon, faire cuire une vingtaine de minutes, ajouter éventuellement d’autres machins, manger.

Avec, ce midi, dans le rôle des trucs divers, un oignon, deux petits bulbes de fenouil et un blanc de poulet sorti du congélo, et dans le rôle des autres machins, des petits cubes de tome. Dans le rôle du bouillon, un bouillon-cube de poule. Pas d’assaisonnement particulier, le fenouil est déjà pas mal anisé, et on veut pas non plus flinguer le goût de la tome

Bon, et ça cuit, là, donc je peux pas encore dire si c’est bon. Mais en tous cas ça fait envie, vivement que ça soit prêt

Préparation : une quinzaine de minutes.
Cuisson : 20 minutes.

Hello! I just wanted to post a quick update on the novel. Chapter Seven is coming along nicely, and you may be surprised to learn that it features the introduction of a new main character who is an elite soldier in the Emperor’s Own, the Emperor’s special task force and guard. There’s also a little philosophy/metaphysics involved as Brother Zerain tries to explain some things to Edward and Enoch.

I’ll have an excerpt up in about a week, I’d say. I say that because it’s my birthday on Monday, so I’ll probably take that whole day off from everything; including writing, haha. Anyway, I’m really pleased with the direction the novel has taken (rather suddenly, it seems to me) thus far, and I’m excited to see how it continues to develop, both within my mind and upon the paper!

Francisco e o velho rádio cujas canções embalavam seus sonhos

por Leandro Marques
Blog “Deus e o Mundo”

Assisti, finalmente, o filme 2 Filhos de Francisco, que conta a história da dupla sertaneja Zezé de Camargo e Luciano. Embora tivesse ouvido muitos comentários positivos a respeito do drama dirigido por Breno Silveira, confesso que não tinha a menor idéia do que me aguardava quando aluguei o DVD, dias atrás, e me sentei diante do velho aparelho de tv de 20 polegadas que eu e minha esposa mantemos em nosso quarto.

O que para mim era uma incógnita, veio a ser uma grata surpresa. Fui profundamente tocado pela poderosa história de Francisco - um lavrador incauto e visionário que apostou todas as suas fichas no sonho improvável de transformar dois de seus nove filhos em astros da música brasileira.

É desnecessário dizer que o sonho de Francisco tornou-se realidade. Mas eis a pergunta que o filme parece querer responder: como? Como é possível um caipira pobre, sem-instrução, e de poucos amigos realizar tal sonho aparentemente impossível? Como Francisco conseguiu aquilo que a maioria das pessoas não conseguiria? O que Francisco tem que falta na maioria de nós?

A meu ver, a resposta a esta pergunta cabe em uma única palavra: fé. Francisco era um homem de fé. Uma fé não-tematizada, certamente. Uma fé talvez não-religiosa (se é que existe fé que não seja religiosa em sua essência e natureza). Mas uma fé verdadeira e profunda. De algum modo que, nem o filme, nem nada é capaz de explicar, Francisco cria que seu sonho era realizável.

Segundo o escritor sagrado, a fé é “a certeza de coisas que se esperam, a convicção de fatos que se não vêem” (Hebreus 11:1). Certamente era isto que o movia: a visão do invisível, a convicção de que o impossível podia acontecer. Diferente de São Tomé que precisou ver para crer, Francisco fez o caminho inverso: creu e, por isto, viu.

Não é novidade o fato de que a maioria de nós, indivíduos modernos maculados pelo vírus do racionalismo cientificista, abraçamos a lógica de Tomé como nossa atitude básica diante da vida. Duvidamos de tudo até que nos provem o contrário. Se não vemos, não cremos. Se não for razoável, taxamos de impossível. Assim, cremos apenas no que faz sentido, no que é provável, previsível, mensurável e conhecido. E desse modo descartamos sem mais uma gama enorme de possibilidades inusitadas e maravilhosas. Afinal, não é verdade que as coisas mais belas e importantes da vida escapam à razão analítica e não se prestam a muitas explicações?

Ora, quem se orienta pelo possível rouba da vida a dimensão do surpreendente, do transcendente, do misterioso. E assim limita demais as suas possibilidades. Em contrapartida, quem crê contra a própria probabilidade das coisas descortina diante de si um universo infindável de alternativas onde mesmo o impoderável é contado como opção.

Quem, à semelhança de São Tomé, espera ver para crer saí perdendo. De outra parte, quem abraça para si a lógica de Francisco, é mais bem-aventurado. Pois, pela fé, chama a existência o futuro ainda desconhecido. Com efeito, a fé de que o sonho impossível pode acontecer é o primeiro passo para sua concretização histórica. Esse foi, me parece o segredo de Francisco. Ao contrário da maioria de nós, o pai de Zezé de Camargo e Luciano viveu todo tempo nesta expectativa, carregando no ventre o futuro que aguardava ver nascer. E um dia, como fruto maduro que cai do pé, o sonho de Francisco nasceu.

Francisco e o velho rádio cujas canções embalavam seus sonhos

Assisti, finalmente, o filme 2 Filhos de Francisco, que conta a história da dupla sertaneja Zezé de Camargo e Luciano. Embora tivesse ouvido muitos comentários positivos a respeito do drama dirigido por Breno Silveira, confesso que não tinha a menor idéia do que me aguardava quando aluguei o DVD, dias atrás, e me sentei diante do velho aparelho de tv de 20 polegadas que eu e minha esposa mantemos em nosso quarto.

O que para mim era uma incógnita, veio a ser uma grata surpresa. Fui profundamente tocado pela poderosa história de Francisco - um lavrador incauto e visionário que apostou todas as suas fichas no sonho improvável de transformar dois de seus nove filhos em astros da música brasileira.

É desnecessário dizer que o sonho de Francisco tornou-se realidade. Mas eis a pergunta que o filme parece querer responder: como? Como é possível um caipira pobre, sem-instrução, e de poucos amigos realizar tal sonho aparentemente impossível? Como Francisco conseguiu aquilo que a maioria das pessoas não conseguiria? O que Francisco tem que falta na maioria de nós?

A meu ver, a resposta a esta pergunta cabe em uma única palavra: fé. Francisco era um homem de fé. Uma fé não-tematizada, certamente. Uma fé talvez não-religiosa (se é que existe fé que não seja religiosa em sua essência e natureza). Mas uma fé verdadeira e profunda. De algum modo que, nem o filme, nem nada é capaz de explicar, Francisco cria que seu sonho era realizável.

Segundo o escritor sagrado, a fé é “a certeza de coisas que se esperam, a convicção de fatos que se não vêem” (Hebreus 11:1). Certamente era isto que o movia: a visão do invisível, a convicção de que o impossível podia acontecer. Diferente de São Tomé que precisou ver para crer, Francisco fez o caminho inverso: creu e, por isto, viu.

Não é novidade o fato de que a maioria de nós, indivíduos modernos maculados pelo vírus do racionalismo cientificista, abraçamos a lógica de Tomé como nossa atitude básica diante da vida. Duvidamos de tudo até que nos provem o contrário. Se não vemos, não cremos. Se não for razoável, taxamos de impossível. Assim, cremos apenas no que faz sentido, no que é provável, previsível, mensurável e conhecido. E desse modo descartamos sem mais uma gama enorme de possibilidades inusitadas e maravilhosas. Afinal, não é verdade que as coisas mais belas e importantes da vida escapam à razão analítica e não se prestam a muitas explicações?

Ora, quem se orienta pelo possível rouba da vida a dimensão do surpreendente, do transcendente, do misterioso. E assim limita demais as suas possibilidades. Em contrapartida, quem crê contra a própria probabilidade das coisas descortina diante de si um universo infindável de alternativas onde mesmo o impoderável é contado como opção.

Quem, à semelhança de São Tomé, espera ver para crer saí perdendo. De outra parte, quem abraça para si a lógica de Francisco, é mais bem-aventurado. Pois, pela fé, chama a existência o futuro ainda desconhecido. Com efeito, a fé de que o sonho impossível pode acontecer é o primeiro passo para sua concretização histórica. Esse foi, me parece o segredo de Francisco. Ao contrário da maioria de nós, o pai de Zezé de Camargo e Luciano viveu todo tempo nesta expectativa, carregando no ventre o futuro que aguardava ver nascer. E um dia, como fruto maduro que cai do pé, o sonho de Francisco nasceu.

President Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, took a controversial and amoral approach to the science of population by recommending mass compulsory sterilization and even forced abortion (and/or forced marriages) under certain circumstances. His 1977 tome, Ecoscience, which he co-authored with Paul and Anne Ehrlich, also displays a revealing disregard for the institution of the traditional human family.Holdren and the Ehrlichs write:

Radical changes in family structure and relationships are inevitable, whether population control is instituted or not. Inaction, attended by a steady deterioration in living conditions for the poor majority, will bring changes everywhere that no one could consider beneficial. Thus, it is beside the point to object to population-control measures simply on the grounds that they might change the social structure or family relationships.

Auteur : Benjamin Lacombe
Editeur : Soleil Productions
Collection : Libel
Pages : 48 pages
Date : Septembre 2005
Site de l’auteur : http://www.benjaminlacombe.com

Résumé :
Emprisonnée par le Dieu de la mort Daïtoku, la princesse Setsuko, devenue fantôme, parcourt plus de dix siècles de l’Histoire d’un Japon en marche. Elle sera d’abord troublée par l’arrivée des premiers occidentaux au XVe siècle, puis embrasée par les feux de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale et la folie kamikaze.

Mon avis :
Tout comme le premier tome, ce deuxième volume nous laisse sur notre faim ! On retrouve évidemment notre héroïne, Setsuko, mais cette fois-ci dans une époque différente, qui ne cesse d’évoluer au fil des pages. Là encore, on reste béat devant la qualité des dessins et du scénario. Rien n’est laissé au hasard, on se surprend à trembler devant les épreuves que doit subir la princesse.  On en arrive même à douter que la situation s’arrangera un jour… La fin de cette bande-dessinée est un véritable “cliffhanger” (comprenez “fin ouverte”) qui nous pousse à vouloir en savoir plus, encore et encore. Personnellement, même si j’ignore quand il sortira, j’attends avec impatience le 3e tome !

Auteur : Benjamin Lacombe
Editeur : Soleil Productions
Collection : Libel
Pages : 48 pages
Date : Septembre 2003
Site de l’auteur : http://www.benjaminlacombe.com

Résumé :
Setsuko, fille de l’Empereur Aratakashi, s’apprête à épouser son amour d’enfance, le Prince de Chine Xao Ping. Mais c’était sans compter Daïtoku, le dieu de la mort… De peur de la perdre, il la transforme en fantôme la veille de ses noces et l’enferme dans un temple maudit. Lorsqu’elle parvint à s’en évader, deux siècles se sont écoulés : son amour, sa famille sont morts. Seul l’Esprit du Temps pourrait conjurer ce sort… Ainsi commence la quête de Setsuko…

Mon avis :
Alors déjà, Benjamin Lacombe est mon illustrateur jeunesse fétiche
Il a tout fait dans cette première bande-dessinée, des dessins au scénario, et vraiment, c’est une réussite !!
Ce que j’ai apprécié le plus dans ce premier tome, c’est le voyage dans le temps que nous offre Setsuko dans sa quête. Ce bond en avant nous permet d’avoir un aperçu de l’évolution du Japon depuis notre Moyen-Âges. Dans ces pages, adieu les clichés tenaces sur ce pays à part. Une véritable leçon d’histoire mais aussi un conte qu’il est très plaisant de lire, non sans oublier le régal visuel que nous fournit encore une fois Lacombe. J’attends avec impatience la suite, c’est beaucoup trop court !

little known fact: fake birthday celebrations are far superior.

we were super stoked to find out that happy birthday to you day was so close to emily’s real birthday. taking it as a sign from the calendar gods, we headed down to the del mar fair to celebrate properly. we hopped on the surfliner and got the party started with some mimosas. cole was a bit embarrassed to run into a former coworker, but considering she was heading to a bachelorette party, the treasures she had hidden in her backpack were far worse than our red cups.

once we got to the fair, we immediately began stuffing our faces with every fried food imaginable- hot dogs, jalapenos, cheese, zucchini, hamburgers, smores, funnel cake and turkey legs- and washed it all down with a quick visit to the beer fest. (don’t worry, we stepped out for the pig races.) after a couple rounds of happy birthday to you, and introducing ourselves as “tome*,” we got a second round of our fair food favorites and hit the rides- roller coasters, inflatable slides, swings- all the best the fair has to offer.

thanks to cole, jeff, court j, george, and elisha- happy birthday to you all! and to the man in the lederhosen, you’re fantast.

totes! tome!

- the calendar girls

*note to readers: “happy bday to me” means happy birthday to me (two separate words), not happy birthday (to someone named) tome. we just want to make that clear, as some fellow fairgoers were confused.

I decided it was time to read Infinite Jest. If thousands of so-and-sos could read it, then I certainly could. I scoff at so-and-sos. But I didn’t realize how heavy the thousand and then some page tome would be. I can barely hold it up, let alone take it with me on the subway to work. It’s even too heavy to read in the bath tub. I decided read a few pages to see if it was really worth all the fuss and didn’t pick my head up until page 75. Okay, I’m sold—and only nine hundred and something pages to go.

With a new zone comes new enemies. Herein you will find a list of all the new enemies and their corresponding Tome unlocks. (As I find out what tactics the fragments are for and what the trophies look like, I’ll update this post.) Enjoy!

~Gaar

Land of the Dead Bestiary

Asp Bone Construct
Created in the form of a giant asp to honor the goddess Asaph, the Asp Bone Construct is a dangerous, albeit rare, weapon in the arsenal of the Tomb Kings. Assembled from the ribs and vertebrae of countless dead, it can strike fear in even the stoutest heart.

Encounter an Asp Bone Construct – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 1,000 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 10,000 – 1800 xp, Title “Snake Charmer”
The largest of the Asps must fall! – 1974 xp, Trophy

Asp Bone Constructs are only created in the direst of circumstances, and they represent a Tomb King’s desire to see his enemies utterly destroyed. To call upon Asaph is not without cost, and this price must be paid if construction of the Asp Bone Construct is to succeed.

“It were a snake, Munson! I seen it! A snake made of bones!” “You’ve been in the bottle again, ain’t ya? If I so much as catch ya sniffin’ at a wine cork, I’ll have yer tongue out!”  – Sergeant Jacov Munson, Emperor’s 3rd Jäger Corps (now deceased), chiding one of his men.

Scarab Bone Construct
Crafted from the remains of dead Giant Scarabs integrated with bones and metals, Scarab Bone Constructs are terrifying and formidable opponents. They are nigh-unstoppable and highly efficient killing machines that spread destruction and terror in their wake.

Encounter a Scarab Bone Construct – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 1,000 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 10,000 – 1800 xp, Title “The De-Constructor”
The eyes have it. – 1974 xp

Few people witness the destructive power of a Scarab Bone Construct and live to tell the tale. Those that do can barely express the terror of the spectacle, for their broken minds have difficulty recognizing the monster for what it truly is.

“Something big was moving further up in the tomb. I can’t say as what it was, ’cause I didn’t see it. I just heard it: a rumbling, crashing, roaring sound. Wasn’t anything like I’d ever heard before. When the screams started, Sigmar himself couldn’t've kept me from running.” – Daniel Fuches, Explorer

Tomb Scorpion
Tomb Scorpions are constructed from a variety of materials, including bone, stone, metal, shell, and wood, and brought to a semblance of life by Nehekharan Liche Priests. Each one is meant to resemble one of the mystical creatures that guard the entrance to the underworld.

Encounter a Tomb Scorpion – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 100 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 1,000 – 1800 xp, Title “The Claw”
The dead can (and do) speak! – 1974 xp, Tomb Scorpion Trophy

Tomb Scorpions serve as mobile sarcophagi for High Liche Priests who have entered the Death Sleep. These constructs lay in wait beneath the surface of Nehekhara’s sands, emerging only when they sense prey approaching.

“Rank after rank of Hammerers and Ironbreakers, reinforced by countless Thunderers, stood stoic and proud as the Tomb King’s abominations advanced in eerie silence. Suddenly, the sands beneath those brave Dwarf feet began to shift, and massive beasts, like scorpions banded in bronze and gold, came from below …”

Ushabti
Powerful, silent, and deadly, the Ushabti are uncanny combatants that will never retreat or surrender. Carved into the semblances of Nehekharan gods and goddesses, the Ushabti serve as guardian statues in the necropolises of the Land of the Dead.

Encounter an Ushabti – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 100 – 1716 xp, Undead Tactic Fragment
Kill 1,000 – 1800 xp, Title “Statue-Breaker”
The Ushabti are occasionally quite charming. – 1974 xp, Ushabti Trophy

In centuries long past, living Nehekharan warriors were bolstered by the presence of the Ushabti in their ranks. With each of the Ushabti resembling a Nehekharan deity, it was as if the gods themselves had descended upon the battlefield to fight by their sides.

“Djaf, with his jackal’s head; Qu’aph, his visage that of a striking cobra; the vulture’s guise of the mighty Ualatp. All these and more will cause our enemies to quail in fear of their divine retribution.” – Seheph, High Liche Priest of Khemri

Preserved Dead
The Preserved Dead are corpses that have been carefully embalmed and preserved prior to being reanimated. The Tomb Kings, Tomb Princes, and Tomb Guard of Nehekhara are counted among the Preserved Dead.

Encounter a Preserved Dead – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 100 – 1716 xp, Undead Tactic Fragment
Kill 1,000 – 1800 xp, Title “Tombstalker”
Someone may be rapt by wrappings. – 1974 xp, Tomb Guard Trophy

Unlike Zombies and Skeletons, the Preserved Dead are intelligent and powerful foes. Some are capable of great magical deeds, while others possess martial skills that have been honed over centuries of practical use.

“So unwilling to relinquish their grasp upon their worldly power were they, the Tomb Kings sought eternal life as a solution to the conundrum of death. The priests of the Mortuary Cult mollified them, brought them placebo and ritual, but only with the fall of Nagash was the true nature of their so-called immortality revealed.” – Excerpt from “The Gods of Khemri” by Vasili Kolavich, Scholar of Praag

Giant Scarab
Unlike its diminutive cousins, the Giant Scarab is a monstrous Khepra beetle twisted into being by dire sorcery and selective breeding, then reanimated upon death. While they are employed as tomb guardians, the most dangerous Giant Scarabs dwell in the desert, laying in wait for unsuspecting prey.

Encounter a Giant Scarab – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 1,000 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 10,000 – 1800 xp, Title “The Verminator”
Can you kill even the biggest bugs? – 1974 xp, Trophy

Because they require so much food to maintain their huge bodies, Giant Scarabs are able to enter a dormant state that can last for centuries at a time. It is the Scarab’s ability to seemingly rise from the dead which has caused the Nehekharans to revere the Khepra beetle as a symbol of resurrection and eternal life.

“The beetle’s shiny carapace was studded with the shafts of a hundred arrows. As more landed, it displayed no discomfort. Its movement was plodding and deliberate, its multifaceted eyes focused only on the enemies that goaded it with pike and spear, arrow and shot. Well-placed cannon fire brought the Scarab to pause, but for the men who fought against its dogged advance, even that respite was all too painfully brief.” – An excerpt from “War in the Desert” by Ruprecht Altzman

Tomb Swarm
Individually, the flesh-eating Scarabs of Nehekhara are annoying pests. Nonetheless, they are also capable of massing together into great swarms that can strip flesh from a man’s bones in mere moments.

Encounter a Tomb Swarm – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 1,000 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 10,000 – 1800 xp, Title “Bug Stomper”
A voracious Tomb Swarm leaves nothing to waste. – 1974 xp, Tomb Swarm Trophy

Unlike the Khepra beetles that comb the desert in search of dung, the scarabs that comprise Tomb Swarms are long-dead insects that have been animated by the Liche Priests. The members of the Mortuary Cult learned long ago to summon and control these undead swarms, and they are as dangerous as they are terrifying.

“Every step I took in the tomb elicited a delicate crunching sound, as if a thousand hollow quail’s eggs had been strewn about on the floor around me. Curious, I knelt near to the floor with my lamp.  “Thousands of beetles, dried out and long dead, littered the ground, their dead legs bent at odd angles and their iridescent wings catching the light. All at once their legs began to flex, their wings began to twitch, and my heart, already pounding, was drowned out by a droning buzz …” – Timothy Ehrlichmann, Scholar

Carrion
The Carrion were once a species of great carrion bird. Their massive flocks darkened the skies above Nehekharan battlefields, and they were thought to carry the souls of dead warriors into the sky where they would fight eternal battles against Daemons of darkness.

Encounter a Carrion – 1050 xp
Kill 25 – 1476 xp
Kill 1,000 – 1716 xp, Tactic Fragment
Kill 10,000 – 1800 xp, Title “Buzzard Bait”
You Can’t Make an Omelet Without Breaking Some Eggs.  (Though dead, Carrion prefer shiny things.) – 1974 xp, Carrion Trophy

Now all but extinct, the remains of countless Carrion have been interred with Tomb Kings and Tomb Princes through the ages. Now they rise, animated by Liche Priests, and fly into battle once more.

“I’m quite fond of them, these Carrion. What magnificent beasts they must have been in life! With but a flock of such birds I could scour Finubar’s stain from Ulthuan once and for all!” – Hyrthex, Beastmaster of Arnheim

Rio Grande as seen from the air, approaching Albuquerque.

The Times piece broke my creekfreak silence.  I was on an unintended sabbatical, my grandfather having passed away, work piling high.  But I’m back now.   Being in New Mexico to be with family, I couldn’t help but also see the waterways.  Looking out during the descent into Albuquerque is always a pleasure – to see the Rio Grande’s welcoming green bosques, the adjacent farmland, cutting through the hot llano, this richness made possible only by the river.  For all our ipods and text-messaging and satellite imagery, it really is this simple an equation.  This is what keeps us going.  

And in New Mexico, as in the former Mexican California, the traditional hispano water-agriculture relationship is negotiated through a community water-sharing system, the acequias (that’s the NM word – zanjas being the angeleno word, both meaning ditch).  

Cottonwoods lining the acequia near my grandfather's house.

The acequias are often lined with cottonwood trees, they might look almost like little streams, except they are in straight lines and have little berms and floodgates.  In Los Lunas, my cousins were telling me to look for pheasants, early in the morning, near the acequias.  Amaranth (“wild spinach” my mom called it), a green as well as a grain, also grows near water, and can be seen alongside the acequias.  They also served as community links – my cousins said – back in the day, anyway – it would be ok to walk along the acequias to get from one person’s house to another.  I might try it to walk over to the Rio Grande, which was a short distance away, they suggested.  The sheltering trees, next to the water, the growing food-stuffs, did create a sense of security and permanence for this city-dweller, but being an angelena, I drove.

Maintaining that permanence is the job of the mayordomo, the traffic controller of the water flows, who sees to it that each farm gets its allotment. My great-uncle held that role for the Acequia del Llano in Santa Fe for a while.  Mayordomos organize the ditch cleanings, make sure gates are opened and closed.  In the world of small-worlds, my co-worker told me he used to get yelled at to go open the floodgates, back when he worked at the Santa Fe Audubon Center years ago.  ”Must have been your uncle” he laughed.  Years ago, when I last spoke to my great-uncle about it (he too has since passed on), he had been thinking of lining the ditch in concrete, to prevent losses to infiltration.  I did notice that some of the ditches in Los Lunas were also lined in concrete, and wondered if that affected the health of the cottonwoods.  This, after all, is the microcosm of the MWDs huge project, lining its canals in south San Diego County to prevent “losses” of water intended for cities and farms, that support wetlands and life south of the border.  

And thus creeps in the unease.  For water and New Mexico have an even more delicate dance than water and Southern California.  The finality of New Mexico’s finite resources are a little clearer than here in LA.  You see that llano out there, ready to move in if the water table drops, and it is dropping while urban development bears down on the desert landscape.  My cousins told me that some acequias are under pressure to sell out their rights.  And here, this is about more than water, it is about a way of life, a bonding with the land, a culture.  You sell out that water and you’ve sold out your culture, your legacy, your land (and, I was hearing, your right to bitch and moan about the changes you’ve sold out to).

Sign in a field in Tomé, New Mexico.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe has enacted very strict water conservation regulations to limit its diversions of water, presumably from the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project.  Did I just say there’s finality to New Mexico’s water resources?  As in Southern California, there is a federal project that diverts water from the Colorado River into New Mexico.  The already over-allocated Colorado River.  

And this diversion is holding, just barely, a lifeline to the endangered silvery minnow, minion of the Rio Grande.  Due to overpumping and development in Albuquerque.  Albuquerque has worked hard to wean itself of its prior waterhog ways – it has dropped per capita consumption from 250 gals/person/day to about 135-150.  Still has a way to go to meet Santa Fe’s 109, or Tucson’s 107, or if you believe the stats, LA’s 96 – but we all have a long way to go to compare with Barcelona’s 39 or Queensland’s 40-something.  And it probably will take bridging such a gap if Albuquerque – and the entire state of New Mexico  - seeks to maintain that vital and essential green valley that is the Rio Grande.