Straight pimpin'

Busy day for me, so I'll just hit you guys up with a few links to some really awesome deals and then I'll be on my way to filling more sandbags in preparation of Tropical Storm Isaac. As of this moment it doesn't look like it'll hit Florida (though it'll skirt the edges of Tampa -- stay dry, Thag!), but the think about living in the Penis State is that any time a storm gets even remotely close from April to November, we are apt to have a metric buttload (equal to 2.2 Imperial assloads) of water dumped on us.

So, you know, sandbags. To keep the porch from flooding.

Hey, if you're into filling sandbags, you should totally get the EZ Bagger. It's ridiculously cheap at $13 and turns a two-person chore into a one-person much less of a chore. (Let's be honest, nothing is going to make sandbagging fun.)




From work to play:  if any of you are gamers and regularly use miniatures in your RPGs, you owe it to yourself to check out this Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter. For $100 you get 211 minis, or 36 minis for $15. This is an incredible offer, and if it's too rich for you then perhaps you should consider going halfsies with someone, or having your play group each chip in $10-20. Better act soon, the Kickstarter ends on Saturday!

This one is 50% work and 50% play, but 100% cheapskate:  If you want a way to solar charge your phone, iPod, or other low wattage electronic device, I recommend this foldable solar panel assembly from Brunton. Regularly $80, now $30 with free shipping from eBay, and it's compatible with all of Brunton's (much more expensive) battery systems. I ordered this in lieu of the miniatures, as I felt having working electronics during a hurricane-induced power outage was more important.  My eventual plan is to have solar panels hooked up to batteries with enough wattage/amperage to run a laptop computer and a box fan, so that I can stay cool and entertained during the fall of civilization.

And finally... well, I don't normally do this sort of thing, but what the hell: if you like photographs and are looking for a way to print to them out, go visit Printcopia.com.  They're having a big grand opening thing, and if you use the discount code BLOGLOVE2012 you can get 50% and standard shipping on any photo you'd like turned into a canvas.  This coupon expires on 9/15/2012.


That's it for now, I'm spent.

WNW: How "The Dark Knight Rises" Should Have Ended

We're past the point of spoilers for this, right? Everyone who was going to see this movie has surely seen it by now.

And if not, just don't watch this video.

Unknown Ponies: Earth Ponies redux

So in a previous playtest, Mike Pondsmith said:

One of the players pointed out that the Earth Ponies get extra Skills rule was similar to the Human bonus in D&D 4th, , then proceeded to show me how to game it.

After griping about how no sane GM would allow this, and it would only be an issue if you had Fluttershy running your game, I finally allowed that maybe, just maybe, giving skill bonuses to earth ponies wasn't the quick and easy solution I thought it was, and that I needed to give it more thought.

The thing is, I kept going back to this quote by Lauren Faust, which is where I got the idea for skill bonuses in the first place (emphasis mine)

On Earth Ponies:
"*fyre-flye Mar 3, 2011
While not magical like the other pony types, Earth Ponies do have a connection to the land that other types do not. In Equestria, growing food and tending animals (Fluttershy's talent with animals is unusual for a pegasus, I always imagined she feels more at home on the ground than in the sky) is just as necessary, as managing weather and magic. Perhaps more important, don't you think? They are ponies, not people, so perhaps appreciating each other as equals is not so difficult for them."

So it's imperative to me that earth ponies exhibit a certain je ne sais quoi for, basically, making and tending and doing earthy-worky-athletic stuff, and that it be represented mechanically.

And then, in a fit of madness, the idea struck:  earth ponies are animists. 

No, really, hear me out on this.  I think we can all agree that Pegasi are elementalists, yes?  I mean, they physically manipulate wind and clouds and rain and lightning.

Unicorns, therefore, are hermeticists. As in, they believe in magic, but they also believe in science, and that their magic is just as rigorous and formulaic as science is.

(Kelpies, despite being awesome, are non-canonical. Still, if they were, they'd be short path Buddhists with all the internal re-arranging of chakras and the like in order to shapeshift or develop beneficial adaptations.)

So with all this in mind, it's plainly obvious to me that earth ponies are animists. They have a special connection with the corporeal and terrestrial that other ponies lack. They understand the concept of of the genius loci, and they alone, of all the pony types, can perceive (if unconsciously) and interact with those spirits.

Or, to put it another way, earth ponies are friends with the earth, and can make it do things just by asking nicely.

Mechanically, it's quite simple: Earth ponies, and only earth ponies, may spend Friendship Points on inanimate objects* in order to achieve greater success.

Example:
Applejack is harvesting the apple crop from Sweet Apple Acres. She wants to buck the tree and have all of the apples fall all at once into her baskets and nowhere else.

Thematically (within the setting of the game), she understands the tree at an unconscious level and knows the sweet spot to kick and at what pressure. (Her cutie mark helps in this regard; more on how that works in a later post.)

Mechanically, she is spending a Friendship Point to accomplish this, in exactly the same way that other ponies could spend FPs in order to get help from non-player ponies.

So it's not so much that earth ponies have better skills, it's that they have a better understanding of what they are working with. They have better leverage.

To put it in empirical terms:

• Cutie Mark skill always beats non-CM skill
• Earth pony with CM skill always beats earth pony without CM skill
• Earth pony without CM skill but who spends FPs always beats non-earth pony

Does this make sense, or is it clear as mud?


* And by inanimate objects I don't mean just rocks/soil/trees/crops. I mean "Anything that isn't a self-aware life-form."  This includes dresses and cupcakes as well as plants and farmland. 

Monday Gun-Yay!

Hello Bronies.  Look at your rifle, then back to me. Then back to your rifle, then back to me.

http://static.fimfiction.net/images/story_images/17853.png?1332926200

Look again!  Your rifle is now Fluttershy.

http://www.neatorama.com/2012/08/19/iMy-Little-Ponyi-Rifle/

Anything is possible when you mix guns and ponies!

I'm a little horse. 

/oldspice

This has not been a good day

Ever have one of those days where you wake up on your last nerve and soon just being in the presence of people pisses you off? As in, "Goddammit stop breathing so loudly you are seriously driving me to homicidal rage!"

Today is that day for me. Most of this week has been spent on a writing project (which I was paid for, and got a nice bonus for thoroughness as well!) and this weekend has been a goat-rope cluster-fuck wherein I attempt to migrate not one but THREE email accounts (two Thunderbird, one Outlook Express) to a new computer.

Thus, for reasons that make sense only to me, I give you Sir Alan Rickman making tea in EPIC SLOW MOTION while the music from Inception plays. 

It's better than it sounds. Really. If you can't stand the wait, skip ahead to the 4:00 mark. 

WNW: The Imperial March as it was destined to be interpreted

Many thanks to Phlegm Fatale for letting me know about this gem.

Monday Gunday: Technically a firearm

Sorry for the absence. I'm going to blame the weather for my headaches.

Last Thursday, however, I was out because I took a trip to Orlando to pick up the AR lower receiver that I bought from Spike's Tactical for a song ($65.00, including tax). 

Now begins the (potentially) fun part of saving up for, buying, and then installing the various pieces of kit needed to turn this firearm into an actual, usable rifle. Fortunately for me, WizardPC over at Guns, Cars & Tech is going through the same process, so I'm going to pillage his linkdump for useful instructions and shopping lists.

Note 1:  I cannot tell you how disappointed I was that a post titled My Little AR Build had no references to ponies anywhere. 

Note 2: Yes, building an AR is a complicated process full of choices and lots of shopping. As McThag says, "You can't spell Barbie without an AR." Given how the AR platform allows a shooter to swap calibers and accessories with the switch of an upper, there's a lot of truth to this comparison. 

What may amuse some of you non-gunnies out there is that I didn't mis-speak earlier: according to the BATF, this piece is the actual firearm; everything else, including the barrel, is an accessory that doesn't need a background check. Yes, if I took this chunk of powder-coated type III hard coat anodized aluminum and beat someone with it, I could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

I shall now pause to allow you to laugh.

Here's a close-up of the Florida design on the receiver. I haven't yet decided upon a name for this one yet -- I imagine that will evolve as I assemble the rifle -- but it should be something which suggests a local flavor.

The dot indicates the location of the manufacturer: Apopka, Florida. 

The only thing I've done to it so far is to remove some the of roughness of the coating. When I first got the receiver, it was a VERY deep black and had a texture that gave me the same shivers as when I hear nails on a chalkboard.* I knew that wouldn't be acceptable for anything I would need to touch regularly, so I took a bronze brush and gave the surfaces a good going-over. This smoothed over a lot of the pores and gave the surface a thin coating of bronze, when I then scrubbed off (mostly) with a stiff nylon brush. What little was left behind gave the piece a slightly weathered look. It's not very visible in the pictures, but the difference is between "everything is exactly the same shade of deep black" and "due to variations in surface topography, some places are lighter than others and now it has a sense of relief and shading."

Also, I can hold it without getting the heebie-jeebies, which is an important feature in a rifle.


*Actually, it felt exactly like uncoated ceramic. Touching that and hearing nails on a chalkboard give me the exact same shivers.