I just found out that George Carlin died yesterday, of heart problems. Sad news to hear. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Carlin - we certainly disagreed on a lot of things, but that’s completely irrelevant to me, because he was a thinker (and incredibly funny).

In particular he would think me a fool for believing in God: he passionately believed that all religion was the worst kind of ridiculous make-believe. But he was a thinker, he came by his beliefs after a lot of time and energy, and I have infinitely more in common with a man like that than with the countless hordes of my fellow believers who give no thought whatsoever to anything deeper than what’s on tv tonight.

My faith didn’t just fall from the sky one day. It is what it is today because of untold hours of thinking, reading, writing, meditating, praying; I’ve looked inside myself, outside myself, considered dozens of viewpoints about the meaning of life and humanity’s place in the universe. In short, I’ve worked at it - I’ve taken the time to consider the profound questions, the important truths, and while Carlin would doubtless be disappointed at my conclusions, I like to think he would respect the thought and self-examination involved in the process.

George Carlin was foul-mouthed, brutally honest, and very, very funny. He was a great comedian, but not a clown or a buffoon. He entertained his audiences by challenging them to think - think about themselves, think about those they allow to govern them, think about the world around them.

I’m sure many will fondly remember Carlin for his classic bits, like ‘Seven Dirty Words’, or his memorable movie roles, like “Bill and Ted’s” Rufus, or even his TV role as ‘Mr. Conductor’ on “Shining Time Station”. Here is one of my favorite Carlin routines - I’ll miss ya George.

P.S.

The irony of this post’s title does not escape me - I believe George’s exact thought would be, “He didn’t ‘pass’ anything! He fuckin’ died!”

P.P.S.

Or, as my good friend Hydrophidian put it: “George Carlin Passes - TOUCHDOWN!”  I think Carlin would have appreciated that.

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It was supposed to be a great day. I’ve been planning on getting a tattoo for years, and my sister offered to pay for it with some of the tax refund she got back. So I made an appointment last week and today was the day, 9am, first thing in the morning.

Got a little lost finding the place, but was still there before 9:00 so no biggie. The place seemed a lot dingier than it did when I had made the appointment, suddenly I was thinking about hepatitis and infection and all sorts of horrible things, and the artist who was doing my arm either smelled like cologne or alcohol. Since it was still so early in the morning I chose to believe it was cologne.

He didn’t say much, but we did go over again the tattoo I wanted - Jesus, with a dove above his head, and between them a waving banner that says “Jesus Is Lord”. Seemed simple enough to me. So he stencils on the design, everything but the lettering, and goes at it.

Now, I have a pretty low tolerance for pain. Low, as in zero. So it sucked, a LOT. This being my first tattoo I have nothing to compare it to, but he didn’t seem to be going out of his way to take it easy or anything, just got in there and poked away. The noise was the worst - I’ll never get that damn sound out of my head.

Anyway, he finishes, mumbles something, and I walk over to the wall mirror to see how it looks. At first it looks great, just a little red and puffy. But then I get a good look at the dove - it’s just … wrong. Not holy looking, or transcendent or whatever, but kind of mean - the eyes seem to be scowling, and it looks like it has talons or something. But that isn’t the worst part - HE GOT THE LETTERING WRONG.

Instead of “Jesus is Lord“, he tattooed “Jesus’s Lord“!!! I just about had a heart attack - between the weird demon looking bird and the screwed up lettering, it looks like I’m some kind of pagan bird worshiper!

I barely remember whatever happened next. There was lots of yelling, and apologizing, and more yelling, but then the desk guy (most of the arguing was with him, the “artist” wasn’t around much once he finished permanently ruining my arm) got all defensive and started yelling back, so I just yelled louder, and it just went on and on. I kept waiting for Rod Serling to step out from the back room and explain that I was in a “dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of mind”. But that didn’t happen. The desk guy finally threatened to call the cops, and I stormed out screaming something about suing him and every hack artist that worked at his dump to the last penny.

Then I flew home with my jetpack to my mansion in Beverly Hills, just in time for dinner with my lovely wife Angelina Jolie (we’ve kept Pitt on as a gardener).

Happy April Fool’s Day everyone!

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I know that for very many of you reading this, your first thought is ‘Oh that’s too bad - who is Gary Gygax?’

He was the co-creator of the role-playing game ‘Dungeons & Dragons’; which gave birth to a galaxy of other role-playing games like Traveller, GURPS, Vampire: the Masquerade, and literally hundreds of others; which directly paved the way and provided inspiration for countless computer role-playing games, novels, and movies over the past 30+ years.

It’s hard to overestimate the influence Gary had on the landscape of modern entertainment - things would be very different today were it not for his ‘little game’.

But it’s much more than that - I’m not sure I can adequately explain what gaming meant to me growing up, or the impact it has had on making me who I am.

I was first introduced to role-playing games with Dungeons & Dragons in 1983, by my best friend Erik (he had been playing with his brother) - we were in high school at the time. The sheer novelty of it, the mystery, the strange dice, the joy of being able to unleash my imagination and revel in creativity - I fell in love with it, with everything about it. I spent hours reading the books, creating new characters, drawing maps. Nearly every waking moment of free time was happily spent playing the game, or talking about the game, or planning for the next game. It instilled in me a passion for reading, and learning, and creating that continues to this day.

So many of my happiest childhood memories I have thanks to role-playing games. Playing in the school cafeteria during lunch, and having to explain to the occasional teacher that just because we were rolling all kinds of funny dice, we weren’t gambling. Riding my bike to the next town over almost every day after school to hang out with new friends I met through gaming. Entire weekends spent at that same house playing games until the sun started creeping back into the sky (and God bless his mom for letting four young boys take over her home so frequently). Lazy afternoons of thumbing through the latest issue of Dragon magazine, laughing with friends until we could barely breathe, hearing the click-clack of plastic dice on a table and hoping so fervently for the right number - I don’t just remember these things, I can still feel them when I close my eyes, feel the dice in my hand, hear the laughter.

From those magical beginnings, RPGs have brought so many dear friends into my life. I played games with almost everyone I knew in high school at one time or another, and met many people from other high schools I wouldn’t have otherwise. I ran a game that drove other adolescent gamers crazy with envy, as it was just me and three gorgeous girls. Shortly after high school I ran a half dozen or so games for a millionaire astrophysicist who was curious about role-playing games and wanted to try them out - he noticed one of my players reading a gaming book at work and asked if he knew someone who could run a game for him (and if I ever have gobs of money, I want to build a house just like his). While waiting to return from an unsuccessful bid at the Marine Corps, I ran a game for a Staff Sergeant, a Corporal, and a few of the other recruits going home.

I met some of my best friends at a university gaming convention - in much later years I would even move in with them for a few years, and more than 15 years later we’re still in touch. The best man at my wedding was a gamer - so were four of my five ushers, and my ex-wife, and most of her friends. I’ve played games that were funny, heroic, sad, epic, scary, moving; in public buildings, school cafeterias, student unions, military barracks, mansions, my home and others’ homes; with hundreds and hundreds of people, old and young, rich and poor, close friends and complete strangers, men, women and children; in settings like the old west, imperial Japan, ancient Rome, imagined futures, other planets, any place or time you can imagine, past, present or future.

Gaming helped me to be more outgoing and social. It showed me the vital importance of imagination, creativity and fun throughout all stages of life. It made me a voracious reader, and an eager student of history, literature, mythology, technology, philosophy - just learning for learning’s sake. There is no part of me that hasn’t been positively impacted by my love for games.

That’s who Gary Gygax was. I and millions of others owe him a lifetime of thanks, and mourn his passing. He spent his life doing what he loved to do, right up to the end, and left the world a much better place for his having been in it. Truly a life well-lived.

Rest in peace Gary.

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• Updated the Soldier of Fortune 2 Player Stats for those who play on our Laid Back Assassins server, the Kill-a-Rama.
• Changed the tracks in the site Jukebox; this set is a shout out to the smoking crews.
• Added a new section called Games and Gadgets - just a few little games and time wasters.
• The biggest change is that I added a second blog, The Hollow Valley. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while - it’s just too out of place to have posts about my unending depression or my mother dying in the same list as posts about TV shows or troubles with my internet connection. The new blog will be for more personal posts and thoughts; I’m not exactly hiding it, but I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea either, so I’m not putting it in the main navigation bar that shows up on every site page. It will only be linked from the core ‘Home’ pages, and the forums.

I think that’s everything. You know the drill - please let me know if you notice any errors, have any suggestions or comments, etc. Thanks for hanging out at TheMook.Net.

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Did you ever see someone and just want to slap the ever-living hell out of them? I mean seriously just want to pop them in the mouth until they cry?

This is the biggest, most obnoxious d-bag I’ve seen in years. Seriously, just watching this clip makes me want to break something.

Sure, maybe the kids were giving him some lip - tough shit. The only one disgracing that badge and uniform was you, you worthless piece of trash bully.

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Had a pretty “productive” (as productive as working on TheMook.Net can be) weekend, most unusual for me, but I got a lot done around the site. Tons of little tweaks here and there to try and get everything working and looking a bit more uniform.

Some of the bigger changes/updates:

• streamlined some of the Blog categories and posts
• added a small Jukebox just for kicks (I’ll try to change the music now and then)
• moved the Gallery into the overall site template (though it still stretches the formatting, at least it looks more like the rest of the site)
• on the SoF2 pages, updated the Clan Roster and the Server Status page (the status page doesn’t look as pretty as it used to, but it no longer relies on ServerSpy, it just runs off TheMook.Net; aesthetics aside, this is good because it no longer sucks $7/month out of the LBA account for ServerSpy!)
• the RPG pages had a lot of work done - I got the fully indexed and cross-referenced version of Mudge in place, and I also posted the complete details for all four of my last campaigns. Took a long time to get it all formatted and uploaded, but I’m really happy that stuff is finally back online.

As always, please let me know if you have any suggestions, or find anything that isn’t working, whatever, I’m always happy to get feedback on the site, good or bad.

I’d particularly like to get some feedback on a new project I’m starting, a small database of combat examples using the GURPS 4th edition rules:

http://www.themook.net/rpg/examples/

That’s the only way to get to it right now, it isn’t in the usual navigation links yet, and the only example posted so far is under “Melee (Weapons) - One“.

I’ll be using that one as a template for all the rest, so I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on the format and layout, the colors, is the example clear enough, all that stuff, before I start using it for many more.

The next big project is a completely fresh reboot of our SoF2 game server, the Kill-a-Rama - expect a lot of changes there in the next week or so as we get things ironed out.

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From day one they have been an absolute pleasure to work with. My website’s uptime is well over 95%, probably closer to 98% or 99%, and their fees are incredibly reasonable. Every single time I’ve had a question of any sort, they’ve answered it quickly and with a smile. I’ve never had a single problem related to their servers - php works the way it should, the MySql database has never corrupted or frozen, all of their user control panels work flawlessly.

When an irate company requested that they take down my site, they stood up for me and rightly responded that, barring any sort of illegal activity, it isn’t their place to censor their customers’ sites. When I recently made huge upgrades to my site’s forum and blog software, the changes went off without a hitch - no traffic caps, no permissions errors, nothing.

In email after email over the years, without exception, regardless of what I was inquiring about, their customer service has been friendly, knowledgeable, and sociable. The email exchanges have always been more like chatting with buddies than dealing with a corporation! In a word, I’ve always found EsoSoft to be the perfect company (and no, I don’t have any sort of connection to the company beyond just being a happy, super-satisfied customer).

I tell you all this to share with you what I thought of the company before this morning. What happened this morning you ask? Well, I received a package in the mail, and the card on the box showed it to be from “EsoSoft Service & Support”. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. And don’t think for a moment that this was some sort of crappy promotional item, like they sent me a pen or a keychain or something with the company logo on it. Oh no, they actually went to my Amazon Christmas List and sent me something I really wanted but just can’t afford.

I’m speechless - now that is a company you want to do business with! For as long as there is TheMook.Net, it will be hosted with EsoSoft - you couldn’t pay me to leave a company like this.

Thank you EsoSoft - Merry Christmas to you too.

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As it was before all the trouble started, the connection is once again rock solid and fast as hell. I’ve never had any complaints at all about the speed and stability of Comcast when it’s working, so I’m glad to see it has returned to full functionality.

These are the kinds of downtimes I was dealing with:

Connection Log

I don’t judge a company by whether it gives me a perfect product - I’m realist enough to know that perfection just isn’t possible, especially when dealing with computers and the internet. I judge a company by how it responds to the problems when they inevitably arise, and Comcast failed that test, big time. Their customer service reps frequently sounded clueless, and would often just tell me nonsense to get me off the phone; their service technicians were a little better, but still went over the same things time and again, even when I explained that a previous service tech had ruled those things out as part of the problem.

The very first technician to come out to my house and test all the lines and signals knew it was a problem “at the pole”, with the Comcast node; so did the second; and the third; and the fourth. But it took all four of them requesting work on the line, one after another, and my neighbor complaining simultaneously with me (his television service was having similar disconnects), for them to finally get a crew out here and take care of the problem.

The simple fact is - it shouldn’t have taken that long.

At any rate, my service is back up and running now, and they did credit my account for 2.5 weeks of downtime (at least, they said they did, I haven’t received the next bill yet, and the customer service rep I talked to didn’t seem to be aware of different prices and speed tiers; she was trying to refund me a rate according to the lowest price tier, when in fact I pay at the highest). Hopefully this isn’t just a temporary lull in the no-connection storm, and my service is truly back to normal!

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