The Hoochy Coochy Dance

A song and dance that Emily and Xander learned at school.

Online D&D (not D&D Online)

I've always really enjoyed playing tabletop RPGs. Most of all, I enjoy running them. You know, being the Dungeon Master, the Storyteller, or any other game-specific term for the guy who makes crap up and tries to kill the PCs? However, as it sometimes goes, the older my friends and I grew, the harder it became to find the time to come together to actually play. We all started spawning children and settling into careers (well, some of us, anyway) and those things tend to suck up a lot of time.

So I was very pleased when, while wandering around the internet, I found a program called MapTool at www.rptools.net. This small, simple, but powerful program is all you really need to play a game of your favorite tabletop RPG via the internet. Combine MapTool with your choice of VoIP service and you're practically all in the same room. Only, you can play in your undies without the awkwardness of doing so at a traditional gaming session.

Basically what MapTool does is it provides a grid (square or hex) which you can use to move your tokens around on. You can load a map image from just about any map generator, then lay the interactive grid over it and there you go. Now your map is ready to be used for play.

The program works just the way you think it should. One of the things that I always struggled with in my old traditional games is how to handle darkness. No matter the system, the whole process seemed really cumbersome and seemed to only slow the game down. But MapTool makes it simple. It allows you to designate any areas of the map which should be solid and that should block a character's view. So, from the player's screen, they'll be able to see that 5x5 pillar, but they'll never see the enemy standing behind it. It also makes it easy to determine line of sight.

There are also three other programs that are provided by the same site. One is DiceTool, which is an extremely versatile dice rolling program. The second is InitTool, which the GM can use to run the encounters and keep track of turn order, which can sometimes be complicated. There's also TokenTool, which provides a quick and easy way to create your own tokens for use with MapTool.

The best thing is all four of these great programs are completely free. You don't even have to register at the site. Just go to www.rptools.net, download the files, and you're ready to go.

I think my job is making me suck as a person

My job requires me to deal with a lot of people's problems. People who I know for all of about ten minutes at a time. I can explain the whole process pretty easily: these people come into my office; they explain their issues; sometimes I help them, but sometimes I don't; and then they leave. And usually they're either pissed off or crying during the whole thing. If we're both lucky, I'll never see them again after that.

This is all well and good. I mean, I've been doing this job for years now and I'm pretty good at it. The best, by most accounts. The problem is, it's getting to me. I used to be able to go through the process and, not only fix the problem most of the time, but also improve the attitude of the person at my desk. The crying chick would leave my office smiling and the pissed off dude would leave my office only slightly irritated. And what's more is I used to actually care about that person. I actually wanted to help them. Now, not so much.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not wishing bodily harm on the people that come to me for help at work. Well, not all the time anyway. But I seem to have lost that desire to help. It's been replaced by a desire to get the damned whining bitch out of my office. OK, maybe I'm not to that point yet, but I'm afraid I will be soon.

Kim, the lady who pretty much trained me from the start, and who has been with the company for something like fourteen years, sometimes seems like she has completely lost all compassion for anyone of the human race. She has the same functions as I do at work and I see people go to her and she's so cold and heartless. So much so that some people have taken to avoiding her and coming to me, which gives me even more people to slowly chip away at my empathy. The funny thing is, Kim's not really cold and heartless; when she's not actually performing the functions of her position, she's a great person. But as soon as someone sits in her chair, she changes into something completely different. And that's what I'm afraid I'm becoming.

Everyone gets tired of their job at some point, I guess. I'll bet even Superman has probably entertained notions of just letting Lois fall to the ground after having been dropped from an extraordinary height by some villain or another. And I'm certainly no exception. I'm not exactly ready to change positions at this point; I still have a lot of things that need to be done before I move on to something else, but I'm afraid if I don't make a change soon, then I'll be altered in some fundamental way. And what if I've already been altered?

Xander's review of Star Wars Episode IV

Xander recently watched Star Wars Episode IV for the first time. This is his review.

School days

Emily and Xander started kindergarten last week. They didn't go to preschool and they've never been to any kind of daycare, so as you might imagine, this is a pretty big deal for Debbie and I. Debbie more so than me. I have to leave them five out of seven days just about every week, but she's hardly been away from them since they've been born. In fact, I think it's fair to say she spent more time away from Emily and Xander their first week of school than she had the entire five years and four months prior.

She handled it pretty well, all things considered. Admittedly, I thought she would be an inconsolable mess on their first day at school, but she surprised me. I was proud of how strong she was, even as we left the two of them in their classrooms. She has Luke to keep her company while they're away, so I'm sure that helps.

We made the decision to split them up into separate classes. We thought this was important for a number of reasons, chief of which was simply that they had never really been apart for extended amounts of time and neither one had ever really been alone in social situations with children of their own age group. We wanted to make sure they're given the opportunity to develop as individuals. Xander needs this more than Emily, I think. When meeting new people, Emily has always been the one to communicate, while Xander is allowed to retreat to a safe distance. We felt that, if they were in the same classroom, Xander's social skills might suffer.

The transition to school went smoothly and they're both doing great. I know it's just their second week, but I think they'll be fine. There's no bellyaching in the morning when it's time to get ready for school. Well, unless you count the usual complaints about uncomfortable clothes, but we've been living with that for years and it certainly has nothing to do with school. They both go out the door with their oversize backpacks and climb up into the school bus without so much as a whimper. And Luke seems to be having no trouble adapting to being the only child in the house for a while every day. He doesn't have to compete for Mom's attention anymore, at least for those few hours while his brother and sister are at school.

You know, before they started school, I was most worried about Emily and Xander being in the care of someone else for several hours every day and this was the thing that I thought would be the most difficult for me to get used to. I was wrong. The strangest thing to me about this transition, and the idea that I may never get used to, is that they are learning things now that we are not teaching them. I guess I just assumed that Debbie and I would always be the ones to shape their minds until they were ready to take over for themselves. But now there's someone else who is given the opportunity several times per week to impart knowledge upon them and to influence their beliefs, priorities, opinions, etc. That, to me, is pretty scary.

I guess I should have expect this, but I didn't. Though it might not be such a bad thing. As long as it helps to make them good people and as long as it doesn't change them so drastically that they become different kids, I'm all for it.

Exciting times. Scary, but exciting.