Saturday, May 29, 2010

An Appeal

We're going to start the weekend posting on a bit of a ranty note.

I'd like to make an appeal to all my fellow modders out there.

For the love of all that's unfuckingholy, put the name of your mod in your goddamned file name!

I'm so sick of having to rename things to keep them organized in my downloads cache. I cannot tell you the number of times I've run across a file simply named "v1.1.rar", and if it's a week after download, I have no goddamned idea what it goes to.

The number of times I've run across an update archive to Robert's or Breeze's male body mods in my download directory, and thought "Okay... but what in the hell armor bug is this supposed to fix?"

Sometimes a readme will helpfully explain.... but an alarmingly high number of you refuse to include any documentation at all.

I happened onto a semi-game wide Type 3 armor replacer this morning, and the main file is okay. It's named 'T3Armors'. Not great, but not horrid. I can puzzle it out. One of the updates is named 'Fix_for_scribe_robe_color'. Now see, this is the shit I'm talking about. I had to append the file name to start with T3Armor because otherwise, I'd have no idea what that update went to.

Remember: you may know perfectly well what "Meshes.rar" is, but no matter how good you think your mod is, most of us run way more than just it, and will quickly forget.

This results in needless redownloading from the Nexus, which just wastes bandwidth from a site with an already excessive monthly bill.

36 comments:

  1. I feel your pain; I've got a few mods that I've downloaded that have some very odd names, so I haven't even bothered to look at them.

    ladydesire

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  2. Heh, in any legal document the opening paragraphs define terms - in the hopes that be doing so both parties can come to an agreement on those terms.

    A few years ago a friend of mine wanted me to edit the photos of her and her girlfriend while they were on St. Kitt's. I love Molly like a sister, but did she give the photos names that would inform me which ones she wanted me to edit, or which ones were lurking as an R rated surprise?

    Nooooo....

    Names like 'Me and Jen - the beach', 'Jen - the beach', with numbers after them. It would have been nice to get a warning like 'Jen - naked, drooling on pillow'. (That one was helpfully labeled 'Jen - Morning'.)

    It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the photos in question were left in order to see how I would react.... (Molly has a warped sense of humor....)

    The Auld Grump

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  3. @Michelle: You know, I wouldn't mind so much. The Nexus does have that number code... but I can barely remember the numbers of my own mods; let alone everyone else's. I don't know - maybe most people give each mod a separate directory in their cache? I just lump it all together in a (n admittedly messy) common "FO3" folder.


    @Dennis: So... lemme get this straight. Not only do you eschew proper weaponry in favor of a flintlock... but now you're turning down free pr0n of women you actually know? Dude, I'm so calling for your man-card to revoked at the next meeting...

    *ahem*

    What I MEAN to say is that of course you are correct, and such general naming conventions are to be decried most severely! We should all aspire to total specifics and/or content warnings in our personal files.

    <_<

    >_>

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  4. Hey, I'll have you know that firing blackpowder weapons on a hot, humid summer's day leaves you covered in this fine black dust, and smelling like sweat and sulfur. It is tre manly. :P (About an 8 on the Manley Weem's stinkometric scale, where 0 is the smell of vanilla, and 10 is 'the deer don't notice our scent if we rub ourselves down with a dead raccoon'.)

    As for unexpected nudity, and knowing the subject... Jen is someone I know by sight and by name, one step above 'hello Molly's girlfriend'.

    It likely would be less embarrassing if I knew her better. As it is, I now have an image in my mind that will replay every time that I see her for a while, drooling into her pillow, with a crease in her face where it had been lying on the bias of the pillow. Not what I would call attractive. In part because I am not thinking of it with a lover's fondness.

    Back when I used to work with Molly we had a running joke that 'Molly won't go out with me, she must be a lesbian'. The joke being that Molly IS a lesbian (not in the closet, and a member of the local Gay and Lesbian People's Alliance) and that we DID go out. (We sometimes go to movies that would be inappropriate for me to see with my girlfriend. Not porn, but movies with titles like 'Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter' We share a taste in music and godsawful movies. :P )

    In all honesty, I think that Molly looks better naked than Jen does. Of course, I might have been tempted to keep any pictures of Molly skyclad. I have seen her naked a few times, she is Wiccan, and rather casual about clothing. She claims that I looked away the first time, but have never blushed.

    My triggers are more a matter of control than anything else, I think. I have run games at a pagan retreat, and not turned a hair*. Having Jen (another Jen - I know five Jens, two Jennys, and a Jennifer, not counting Molly's girlfriend) ask me to paint a topless miniature for her, on the other hand, and I turn bright pink.

    Sad, really.

    The Auld Grump

    *I have a rule that the likelihood of seeing someone skyclad is inversely proportional to any desire to see said person skyclad. Molly looks better naked than pretty much any of the other pagans that I saw on the retreat. And Molly was not one of the gamers that I ran D&D for at the retreat - she is not a gamer. She asked me because they need a GM, and I have run games at conventions and a summer school.

    And, for the record, I am not pagan, but rather a curious Unitarian/Universalist....

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  5. Okay, so I know now not to be "a guy" and tease about naked chicks. Filed for future reference. Not really my thing anyway, what with the no drinking and general loathing of team sports, I make a pretty lousy guy on the best of days.

    Can relate on the nudity, actually. Several of my ex's I had no desire to see naked when we were dating. Still gives me a cold shiver, even now. That's less being a decent guy though, and more the fact that two of them each outweighed me, and I am not a svelte man.

    Have fired a muzzleloader on a muggy day, thank you. My mom's at-the-time-boyfriend's uncle is a mountain man type, and of course owns archaic pieces of... high class firearm that of course require far more skill than modern arms...

    Anyway. Decided once it would be fun to hand "the kid" (I was about twenty at the time) his Hawken-style, synthetic stocked caplock carbine. 54 caliber, 385gr 'buffalo bullet', 120gr FFFg (yes, THREE F).

    Needless to say it was not a fun day in Matt-land. Got a sore shoulder, and a lovely set of powder burns on the weak-side forearm.

    Oh... but I got him back. Year or so later, I let him "try out" my revolver.

    "It's just a 45 Colt"

    (He said, suppressing a maniacal chuckle)

    What I miiiight have failed to mention is that this particular revolver was a Ruger Bisley Blackhawk, 7.5"; and that I had learned from John Linebaugh just how far it could be pushed. In this case, the "45 Colt" was launching a 250gr cast bullet to 1375 - 1390fps; placing it ahead of most 44 magnums in power.

    Oh, I shall always treasure the look on his face, the first time he touched that motherfucker off...

    You know, to this day, my Mom won't shoot any firearm I offer her. No idea why. S'not like I tried the trick on her.

    Don't own the old girl anymore. In a fit of stupidity, I traded it for a couple of ARMS QD mounts, several years ago. Can't really replace it, either; since Ruger's new "Blackhawk" in 45 colt is on the 357 mag/44 spc mid frame, and not the 44mag large frame. Try hot rodding one of those and you'll end up wearing the top strap. Is hard to tell the difference from the old ones by look alone; and I'm not willing to chance it. Is why I own the 454's. Not to shoot full-house 454 - which is totally too much gun for anything in North America short of a brown bear - but because I figure if it's made to stand up to 454, it'll shoot 45 Colt +P for the rest of my natural life without a hiccup. Want Freedom Arms M83 so very badly...

    That aside, I disagree about the smells. Can't stand vanilla, myself; and I've had worse. Try Wolf-brand 5.56mm in a suppressed M249. I had to stop about half way through the belt, and wave my hand over the receiver to stir some air - my lungs had begun to refuse to take in the air. Smelled like ammonia, of all things. Crazy Ivan ammo and back pressure from a can don't mix.

    That sulfur is bad, though, I'll grant. Not half as bad as shooting your black powder firearm on a dead calm day, though. Like trying to shoot after someone's thrown smoke.

    And don't worry, you won't catch any religious flak from me. Renounced my own Christianity (raised Southern Baptist) many years ago, and ascribe to a set of beliefs that are... unique, on the whole. At least pieced together as I have. I'm sure there are those out there who have adopted bits and pieces here and there as their own.

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  6. No worries, I find my own idiosyncratic reactions amusing. The scars of parochial school.

    The last blackpowder weapon that I fired was a Russian piece, of unknown manufacture. You could literally fit the barrel of a Brown Bess inside the bore. The sucker was massive, heavy, and awkward - the lock was mounted backwards, striking towards the shooter's face.

    I am pretty sure that was how it was supposed to be mounted, I just have no idea of WHY? If the ball mold wasn't included (it was stored inside of the stock - the butt plate swiveled) I would have thought that it was some kind of shotgun. Why store it inside the butt? I have no idea.

    I want one. :P

    Pretty much every pagan or Unitarian that I know has manufactured their own faith, to some extent or another. And some are both at the same time. :) (You can recognize Unitarians, they are the only folks who bother telling Unitarian jokes....)

    The Auld Grump

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  7. No, no. When are you going to learn to do this correctly? Sheesh.

    You want THIS:

    http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/05/28/the-first-2-bore-sh-rifle/

    Otherwise known as a cannon with a stock.

    Pretty sure you could buy a new 300 series Benz for what it would cost to get one, though...

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  8. Oh, and because I know you're going to complain it's metallic cartridge and thus doesn't count, have this one, too:

    http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/09/17/a-mighty-2-bore-muzzleloader/

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  9. Damn, those look as big around as small punt guns! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_gun - Or, why the passenger pigeon don't roost here nomore.)

    The Auld Grump

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  10. Gotta love punt guns. A shotgun so friggin' big they have to bow-mount the thing in a boat.

    How could you not like something so big it can't be shoulder fired?

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  11. Heh, apparently a punt gun makes a showing in one of the later Tremors movies - blowing a large hole through the monster....

    I have not yet seen that one, though the Tremors movies are generally low-budget fun. :)

    The Auld Grump

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  12. Tremors 4. The prequel, which is set in the 1880's. You'd love it. Barely a smokeless weapon in sight.

    Personally, I detest the movies myself.

    Don't get me wrong, they stand find as unthinking action-y entertainment. If you're in the mood to watch shit blow up and/or get shot, you won't be disappointed.

    Trouble is, my dad is a HUGE fan, so I've had to either sit through or hear from another room all four movies and the TV series dozens of times.

    Once is entertaining; twice is boring... by time number six, I want someone to die or the TV to obligingly explode.

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  13. Okay, tonight I really did kind of fail a 'guy' test.

    After my steampunk game one of the girls propositioned me and I turned her down.

    She is ten years younger than my girlfriend, eighteen years younger than me. (But old enough to both vote and to drink.) I had no clue that she was going to ask me.

    Our characters in another game had a relationship, and there have been times that she has teased me over my sometimes prudishness. She is the girl that laughed when I turned bright pink when she asked me to paint her topless miniature. But was happy when I did paint it for her.

    Then tonight she asked if I wanted to spend the night with her. I told her that I was working tomorrow morning, and I am, and she replied that she would ask again later, and that there will be a later.

    Me? I am afraid of what this will do to our relationship, we have been friends for six years. I have no idea what, or if, I will tell my girlfriend. I do know how she is likely to react - she has laughed at every other confession that I have made to her, but this is the first time that someone has asked me to sleep with her, even though she knows that I have a girlfriend. Hell, she's met my girlfriend.

    The Auld Grump, spinning his wheels in a semi-panic.

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  14. Kind of torn on those issues, myself.

    On the one hand, you ARE in a relationship, and it's not unmanly at all to be loyal if you love someone.

    On the other... before She Who Owns My Ass laid official claim to me, I cheated WITH her on two girlfriends and a third "kinda-sorta" relationship... so I really can't knock your temptress there without being a huge hypocrite.

    All I can say is there are certainly high points to being claimed by an aggressive, ruthless woman. Especially when she decides it's time to prove she's better than your girlfriend... *whistling innocently*

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  15. I have already decided to tell my girlfriend, which relieved a good deal of the stress. I like Jen, and we have had a lot of laughs at the game, but dang it she's poaching, and she knows that she's poaching.

    I sent an e-mail to Jackie before I could chicken out. :-/

    The Auld Grump

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  16. Or you can jump in and fess up before you have a chance to back down, that works too.

    Even if it does greatly increase the odds of someone ending up bleeding on the floor.

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  17. It helped that I had a quart of whiskey sours before sending in my confession.

    This is much worse than the time I may have accidentally gone on a date with a Russian exchange student. I didn't think of it as a date, I have no idea if she thought that it was a date, but her roommate definitely thought that it was a date, and encouraged me to do it again. Needless to say, I didn't.

    When I confessed it to Jackie she laughed and said that it was 'totally a date!' (To understand fully - I took her to a free movie that was playing in a park that was just outside of the hotel that she was living in. Literally just outside, you took the side door instead of the front door, and there you were. She got married last year.)

    The Auld Grump

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  18. Reading my explanation of the Russian exchange student situation, I would have to say that the whiskey sours have kicked in.... The parts that are missing - Yana was a very nice, and huggy, Russian girl, I told her about the movie, and she asked if I were going, then we agreed to meet at her hotel. Aside from the movie we had ice creams, and that was the extent of our 'date'. Tatiana, her roommate, was the only one who, aside from my laughing girlfriend, who ever referred to it as 'going out'.

    The Auld Grump

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  19. An entire quart.

    And you're still coherent? Impressive.

    I'm not surprised Yana didn't consider it a "real" date.

    I had a (very) brief interest in a Russian girl many years ago, and found out very quickly that they're under immense pressure from family to only get involved with Russian men.

    Was kind of an interesting situation. She was hardcore Russian Orthodox Church, and I'm... well, me...

    She thought she was going to save me from the Devil, and I was having fun corrupting her every chance I got.

    Never could get her to understand that I don't follow Lucifer in the first place.

    Those people are worse than Baptists. She actually considered dancing to rock music a sin.

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  20. Yana was actually a very open person, and huggy as all heck. When we worked together there were exactly three people that she did not greet with a hug. (All of whom she thought were pretty yucky.) One later got fired for sexual harassment, another really wanted to date Yana. After smiling and nodding at him until he went away Yana told me, with a smile, 'I really don't like him. I really, really don't like him.' That was actually how we ended up going on our 'date' - so she could tell him that she was doing something that weekend.

    There were three other Russian girls, aside from Yana and her roommate. At one time the younger three were laughing, talking at about a mile a minute, and pushing each other. I wondered out loud what they were talking about, and Yana replied 'don't worry, it doesn't make any more sense in Russian.'

    Religiously... I think that she knew I was a U/U, which was pretty close to her cheerful agnosticism.

    Yana was a sweetheart. If I hadn't been seeing someone I would not have minded dating her at all. Well, except that she was only going to be in the country for one semester. She and her roommate were both fairly old for exchange students, in their thirties.

    Hell, if Jen were maybe ten years older, and I wasn't seeing someone, I might have taken her up on it, though, given my nature, I would have aimed for something fairly permanent. (My girlfriend and I had a 'one night stand' more than ten years ago....)

    The Auld Grump

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  21. Ten years older? Hell, man, you're only as old as you feel!

    Most days, I'm pretty sure I'm in my mid 2400's.

    But, yes, I do actually advocate the whole fidelity thing provided you're involved with someone worthy of it - and to be clear I am not insinuating anything about your current rather significant other.

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  22. Ah, one short e-mail ('Doooode! You should totally dooooo her!' [Insert eye roll here]) and one long phone call later, my equilibrium is returning. :)

    Jackie accused me of being 'so Catholic' (which I can't really argue with, a decade or so of parochial school leaves a mark, especially since at one point I was considering going for the collar), with my replying that given my public confessions more of a Northern Baptist. This led to Jackie checking several forums - I found out that Jackie did not know of my online persona as The Auld Grump - we only share one web forum (Mudcat) and neither of us are all that active there. On the flip side, she could tell that I was the one posting, once she read the posts.

    She made one major correction - Jackie and I met in 1990, we have known each other for twenty years, and have been seeing each other for sixteen. The girl in my steampunk game is as old as I was when Jackie and I first met. I remember the day and the month clearly, but am a decade off on the year....

    Jackie pointed out that while i mentioned that 'if the girl had been ten years older' several times, I never once wished that I was ten years younger - that I am happy and secure in being the older person that I am. She also made some suggestions that I will take under advisement, but most likely not act upon. (Seriously suggesting that I take the girl up on the offer - that I am in a rut, am content in the rut, and this might get me out of the rut. I do not understand Jackie, I agree about the rut, but I am content with just Jackie, thank you ever so.) Part of me wants to give Jackie the girl's phone number, so they can talk it out (i.e. Jackie frightening her off), and part of me is afraid that they would end up comparing notes....

    Jackie has a BS in Psych, sometimes it shows... Other times it leads to her setting up a date between me and her sister, leaving two confused people going 'what the Hell was she thinking?!' (This was about fourteen years ago, going by the timeline that Jackie hammered home. Jackie was going to Sterling College in Vermont at the time.) Jackie has an odd and widespread education, nutritional sciences, dendrology, and psychology. Much odder than my focus on history, military history, and religion. (Jackie is actually much more religious than I am, for me religion is a puzzle, for her it is a part of her life.)

    In any event, I will be seeing Jackie on Friday, and then doing character generation for the Gargoyles game on Saturday. By then I should be mostly sane again. :P

    The Auld Grump, I really don't deserve Jackie, but I am ever so glad that she is there.

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  23. Sanity is for the weak, I maintain. Tried it once, it was no fun. So very boring.

    Sounds like you have quite the complex relationship.

    The get it out of your system bit was a bit of a surprise though...

    But, then, I'm used to my girl; who cheerfully announces that she will brutally murder me for cheating. I would at least get the courtesy of a quick death. The other girl, though...

    Protip: do not piss off a woman who not only owns but is an expert in the use of a bastard sword.

    I know, it sounds sort of totalitarian. I like it though. Co-dependency can be a beautiful thing, provided both parties acknowledge and accept it.

    Regardless, as long as it all works out for you. Here's hoping for a tish less drama in your near future.

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  24. I think part of it is that she knows that it isn't in my system - if I were interested then it most likely wouldn't be okay, since I am not then it is....

    Another part may be the fact that we live about 150 miles apart, distance can add distance. She is rural, I am semi-urban (Portland, Maine does not really count as a city to my Boston bred bones.)

    We kind of broke up once, while she was going to Sterling. She wrote a Dear John letter that she had found someone else. About a week later it was followed with a letter saying 'No, no I haven't. The kid is a twerp'. Leaving me secure in the knowledge that all my myriad flaws aside, I am neither a kid, nor a twerp. :P

    So, from that view, I suppose that she owes me a little infidelity. Too bad that I really am not interested. (And in all honesty, Jen is way too young. My tastes are a trifle more complex, and all that I know we have in common is steampunk, Gargoyles (now - she was the one who introduced me to them), Larping, and RPGs in general. Our tastes in music are almost certainly incompatible, same for our taste in books.

    And, of course, I am paranoid enough to think that Jackie may be laying some sort of complex trap.... (Not likely, actually, Jackie is very open. I am the closed and secretive one, public confessions aside.)

    I am the kind of person who has a one night stand that lasts sixteen years....

    The Auld Grump

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  25. I don't think that most people would consider it infidelity if she had broken up with you at the time.

    So, the answer is clear: break up for a week, get your wild oats sewing on, and then make up.

    Err.. *ahem* I mean to say that the answer is you've missed your window and should be happy with what you have. Or something.

    I'm really not all that good at this relationship thing.

    Had tons of problems when I tried to date "normal" women. No, that stuff did not end well.

    Actually only been on one actual date in my entire life. Went well, I thought, until I find out a couple days after the fact that the woman I went out with was defacto engaged to some guy "he just hadn't asked yet"... and then someone resembling me accused her of leading me on to get free dinner and a movie, and things went downhill rapidly.

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  26. I spoke with the girl tonight - she had broken up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago, and wanted someone 'safe'.
    Conversation:
    'Safe?'
    'You might as well have Lawful Good written on your character sheet.'

    Awkward as I found it after the game, I found out that it could have been more so - she almost asked me a few years ago, the last time I ran a game at a pagan retreat.... I would have had a naked young woman asking to share a sleeping bag, and no convenient job the next morning.

    I told Jackie about the follow up, and mentioned that the girl had almost made a play about five years ago, and Jackie said 'wait, is she the girl who' - and proceeded to describe her, amazingly well for someone she has met once, about three years ago. 'I could have told you that'.

    I think Jackie had a 'that's why' moment, when she realized who the girl was. I also think that she was suddenly a bit less alright with it, given that the girl had been thinking about it all that time ago.

    So, it does look like I missed some serious warning signs - Jackie picked up on them three years ago. I also had one of those 'that's why!' moments - I had wondered why Jackie had stuck so close to me when I introduced her to my players, since Jackie is by no means shy. I think she was feeling territorial.

    And Jackie made certain to tell me that 'forgivable' does not mean 'okay' - that she would forgive me if I lapsed, but that she would not be happy about it. Since I had not lapsed I felt pretty relieved, actually. Her telling me that it was okay bothered me a good deal.

    I need to put some points into Sense Motive, I guess.... O_o I wonder if I was the only one in the group who was taken by surprise. It wouldn't be the first time. :-/

    Hopefully everything will get back on an even keel now, though I am going to be a good deal more cautious around the girl for a while.

    I had been considering running a game at the pagan retreat again, since my summer job is no more leaving a largish gap in my summer. I now think that it might be best not to take the chance, this year.

    The Auld Grump

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  27. Urgh. "Safe".

    Know that feeling. Believe it or not, pre-21, I was the "nice guy". Attracted what I like to call the 'recovering slut'.

    The party girl types. Drinking, drugs, random sex, etc. Then something happens that scares them - a friend ODs, they have a pregnancy scare, and so on - and they decide they want someone "nice" and/or "safe".

    Trouble is, we all are who we are, and old habits die hard. Actually had one tell me once that she didn't consider it to count when she cheated. Sex didn't last long enough or something. I wasn't really listening at the time.

    Funny thing about it was (and this proves that someone out there is watching, and is a sadistic fuck, to boot) the universe DID count it, since she got chlamydia from the little interlude.

    ...and got very upset when I started laughing upon hearing the news...

    Found it even less amusing when I said I wasn't going to touch her, 'cause I didn't want to get whatever else she had gotten that "didn't count".

    You should be happy, though. I've found few things in life are as much of an ego booster or general "feel good" as being blatantly claimed by a woman you're fond of.

    But, I have a thing for the aggressive types, so y'know...

    And no, I don't think I would recommend the D'n'D-for-nudists event. Unless you learn to utilize the word no, and have full control of your baser urges. You could invest in a can of OC?

    It's rare that a guy gets to yell NO MEANS NO! and pepper-spray someone.

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  28. All problems aside - Jen is at least not a party girl, just a bit too pagan in some regards. I just don't want to be the surrogate father in her life. In part because I can picture myself imprinting my tastes and values on her - and I was decades behind the scene when I was young enough for the scene. (Listening to Kingston Trio, Doc. Watson, Peter, Paul, & Mary....)

    I really don't mind being the 'nice guy' - I can't even argue all that hard against being called Lawful Good, at one time I considered becoming a Catholic priest. Fortunately, my innate agnosticism won out. I did end up teaching Bible study at a youth correctional agency about twenty-five years ago, despite being a U/U by then. (Perhaps not surprisingly, what I covered in part was how -not- to read the text literally, that Fundamentalism is generally a lazy approach to study.) Nice thing about being taught by Jebs - they teach you how to question.

    Thinking about it, I suspect that I would likely not have had much difficulty saying no to the girl if she had asked me at the pagan retreat - at the time she was literally half my age, give or take a couple of months.

    Fortunately for my sanity the retreat is only clothing optional, not clothing forbidden - the number of people who look much better with their clothes on than off.... (I am proud to count myself among their number.) Plus, skyclad in New England means being a mosquito buffet. (Or would - most bugs seem to find me distasteful, a fact that my girlfriend thinks most unfair.)

    Plus it is a paying gig - fifty dollars and free admittance for running three games, at least it was five years ago. Last time I ran an extra game, chiefly because I was bored out of my skull. (The number of D&D playing Wiccans, Sufi, and pagans is sometimes surprising. Not surprising, I also ran some White Wolf games.)

    The Auld Grump

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  29. Yeah, I didn't figure it was nudity-mandatory event, but I think a lot of people go to those things specifically for an excuse to get naked and/or slut around (yes, I am hardcore cynic, why do you ask?). So would assume 'skyclad' was more common than not at such times.

    Though from photos I've seen, I have to agree with the assessment that the odds of someone deciding to strip are inversely proportional to how much anyone wants to see them without.

    I had also never realized previous to viewing said photos that going Pagan also required you completely swear off the razor or convenient bottle 'o Nair.

    See, there you go with that sanity thing again. You've got to learn to embrace the madness. Life becomes so much more amusing, that way.

    Although you will have to go older than that with music to successfully obtain old fogey status with me; being as I'm an avid listener of the likes of Sinatra, Buddy Clark, and Doris Day. Even the Four Lads, when the mood strikes.

    And damn ya, you're giving me the gaming itch again. Not huge on World of Darkness, but I did pick up a sourcebook for The Everlasting years ago that I always wanted to try out...

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  30. Only about one in six was skyclad, if that.

    I got the job offer in the mail again this year, they offered $100, plus free registration, and I can bring a guest if I want. While my fee has been doubled since last time the registration has quadrupled - an event that was $50 in 2006 (the only year that I paid for my registration) is now $200, $350 for couples.

    I sent an e-mail back, asking for $50 more, pretty much expecting 'no, sorry', instead I got a reply at 12:30 AM of okay - leaving me convinced that I could have asked for more. Why they had someone answering e-mails at freakin' midnight...?

    It is hard when Pride and Avarice gang up on you like that. :-/

    I am going to ask Jackie if she wants to come along, but without much hope - she has never been able to get time off for the Gooch Island party, and she likes folk music. This happens the same weekend that the party used to take place, so odds are not good.

    Jen was one of the better looking skyclad folks, though not as nice as Molly - both remembered that hygiene still counts when you are nekkid. (There are showers available, but, yeah, a lot of folks neglected to use them, especially the guys who think of themselves as 'mountain men' when they are camping.)

    Heh, that said - good old Liver Eating Johnson might make a decent NPC for Fallout.... :P

    The Auld Grump

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  31. So you are still bangin' around, eh? Figured you had moved on to greener pastures.

    Back when I was working construction, there was a trick the big contractors would use when they didn't want to do a job. They'd overbid. I don't mean fifty bucks, but like 300%. The theory being that if the owner wanted the job done by them that badly, the contractor would make so much money that they wouldn't mind being annoyed by the job.

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  33. No, I am still around, just busy season. :)

    I wasn't trying to price myself out of the market, but I did want to see if it was worth it to them - more a matter of leaving it in the hands of fate than anything else. But yeah, I could probably have doubled rather than adding half again.

    Not the highest that I have been paid to run games, by quite a stretch. At a summer job that I still miss I was paid $20 an hour/five days a week to run games and teach military science & military history. For the latter two I typically used the Thirty Years War and WWI, or as I liked to think of them 'how not to do things'.... (Okay guys, invading across the enemy's artillery practice field? Probably not a good idea....)The Auld Grump

    *EDIT* Gods, I hate laptops sometimes - my thumb brushed the danged fingerpad and screwed up my pst quite nicely....

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  34. You heathen! Real, honorable men CHARGE those cowards using the machineguns! A gentleman cannot be defeated by some base barbarian with some newfangled technology... *is riddled by bullets and then hit by an artillery shell*

    And yes, laptop keyboards suck. On the rare occasion that I've had to use one, I always plugged a real keyboard into it; just to be able to type an email in less than a bleedin' hour.

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  35. Finally found a cartoon that I had been looking for in regards to being skyclad in New England....
    http://www.drunkduck.com/Stupidity_in_Magic/index.php?p=29121

    The bugs don't bother me on these retreats - there are sooo many better tasting people, with fewer clothes. (Bugs in general don't seem to like my taste, a fact that my girlfriend considers most unfair.)

    I am taking Jen to a movie - before we had our little, umm, incident, we used to see movies together on a fairly regular basis, and I would like to get back to that.

    So, wish me luck, just not THAT kind of luck. :P

    One of the opening battles of WWI - they did in fact try to invade through the artillery practice range. Not all that many survivors.... Gods, that was a stupid, stupid war! And it seemed no one had learned any lessons from the ACW. :(

    The Auld Grump, entire towns were left without men, because the way recruitment worked.

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  36. Yeah, you've got to love industrialized warfare combined with the compulsory service practices of the middle ages. What could possibly go wrong?

    You know, I will say that the bugs are the one advantage to living in this godsforsaken hellhole of a desert - no mosquitoes. No chiggers, no fleas, no ticks, no water moccasins...

    Snakes out here at least have the decency to rattle before biting your ass. Copperheads don't give that courtesy.

    I can sympathize with your girlfriend. I was always a flea magnet, myself. Mosquitoes not AS bad, but they still got me pretty good. Blasted sand fleas, though, I am (or was, at least - haven't been back in over a decade now) allergic to. They didn't make enough diazinon to keep those little bastards out of a house.

    Don't miss that aspect one bit. Naturally occurring trees? Yes. Bugs? No.

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