Sunday, June 29, 2008

OMG!

Papelbon and Manny (the other one)...FTW!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Rob's Wargaming background.

I've hinted at my love for tabletop games, but have yet to really write anything about them. I figure it is about time I get started.

My wargaming experience started in the early 80's at Larsen's hobby store in Waterville, Maine. I was a young kid and Mom brought me into the store to get some minis to use while playing D&D. There was a group of guys playing some kind of game on a huge table covered with minis. Believe it was house rule system called Hack and Slash, about as simple a game as there was. Rather than leaving the store with just a couple of minis, I left with about 20 dwarves and a war elephant.

My wargaming is probably 25% Historical, 25% Fantasy and 50% Sci-Fi. My first “wargame” that I bought was 6th Fleet in the late 80’s, think I bought it shortly after I saw Top Gun. It was a "Modern" navy game set in the Mediterranean about 1985 and played using counters. I went through the AD&D phase but got off before 2nd edition, the “Magic” phase, the Board game phase, The anything but Magic Card game phase, etc…

The conventions up at Hinkley were the first that I remember going to. There I met the group a guys, and a couple of life long friends Joel and Josh. I also have been to a few conventions at USM and UMF, playing Wes Decamos’ WWII naval ship game whenever possible. Really fun game using Model WWII ships on a gym floor, and you have to guess ranges to shoot the other ships. I’ve made the trip to Historicon in Pennsylvania a couple of times, with Joel and Josh, and had a really great time.
Currently, I’m a game rep for Catalyst Game Labs. What does that mean? I run official Battletech Events for them. Probably the work I was most proud of was the once a month Carver V Battletech Campaign I had going down at the Greenhouse. But that is a story for another day.

Real life has curtailed my gaming as of late and I am lucky to get one game in every couple of months. So most of my time is spent surfing forums of various games, watching for after action reports. I am working on another Battletech Campaign, Painting my Warhammer 40K Eldar and looking at those old Warhammer Quest boxes that are collecting dust in the bullpen.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Added Online Comics

Took a little time today and added a list of my favorite Online comic strips.

These are comics that I have discovered over the years. Most of them have something to do with gaming. Wanted to have one place that had the links, never knowing what computer I will be using any given day.

Later,
Rob

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The nWo

Yeah, so what is the deal with the nWo theme music? Let me start out by saying I know wrestling is fake. I no longer watch wrestling and it has probably been 8 years since I felt I had to tune in every monday night. I guess I was always more interested in the prematch taunting/speaches. Wrestling has been called a soap opera for men. I always thought of it as a stage production with stuntmen. I mean these guys and gals have to remember their lines or adlib, usually to a live audience. Then do a pretty intense acrobatic sequence without actually hurting the other guy or gal.

Anyway, My favorite "wrestler" was Kevin Nash. Really big guy, mostly a bad guy throughout his career. He made a name for himself as "Diesel" in the WWF during the early 90's, even getting to be WWF champion for a year. Anyway his contract with the WWF was up and he and his good friend Scott Hall signed new contracts with rival orginization WCW. So on Monday night Scott Hall shows up on WCW, pretending to be coming over from the WWF starting an invasion/War between the two main Wrestling shows. Kevin Nash shows up two weeks later and they challenge the WCW to bring their best three guys to the next big Pay Per View event. Hall and Nash kept their third guy a secret and even fought most of the match two on three. The following video is the end of that match and shows the forming of the nWo (New World Order) and kicked off the greatest storyline in the history of wrestling.



So that doesn't really explain why the nWo theme is the first song listed. Well, I couldn't really really choose one song or band to have the top spot, so I thought the first song should be "Entry" music, like a wrestler coming to the ring, or a closer coming out of the bullpen to close the game in the 9th. I almost went with "Walk" by Pantera...Which would have been my entry music If I had the arm and talent to be a big league closer. No song on this list gets me an instant adrenaline rush like "Walk" does, I know not a good title for a relief pitcher. Anyway, rambling, back to the story. I was thinking entry music for the top spot and there was only one entry song that could be considered. The one that when I heard I knew I was going to be entertained.

nWo, 4 life.