Dungeons and Dragons: A Human is Born

I just started another Dungeons and Dragons online campaign yesterday.  I found everybody on #reddit and we just got our first session in.  I opted to play a sorcerer this time around except with a bit of a twist: Instead of the typical glass cannon route, I decided I would play more of the Support role in combat and the Face outside combat.  The DM had us do point-buy so I spent all of my points on an 18 in Charisma and spent the one remaining point on an 11 in Dex.  I also have no damaging spells.  Everything I cast is either going to be a buff, a spell that helps control the battlefield or anything I can use to annoy the rest of my party or the DM.  I was lacking inspiration for a good backstory for my sorcerer Harlow Walton up until yesterday when Tony, our DM, said "please just write something".  So I did and, surprisingly, I think it turned out rather nicely.  Here, for your reading pleasure, is the story of Harlow Walton the Traveler and Wayward Son the Sorcerer...

Born to a human mother and a human father, baby Harlow was anticipated to be born a human. And he was.  His father, Michael, is a lawyer and his mother, Emily, a social butterfly.  Michael had great expectations for his first son and his mother loved him the moment she set eyes on the small baby.  

  As he grew into a beautiful young boy and eventually a dashing young man the two parents were truly proud of their son.  What he lacked in specific talents (for he was not exceptionally great at anything in particular) he made up for in pure charm.

  Never once was a bad word spoken of their young Harlow, not from teachers nor parents of his friends. Everyone that met the young Walton were nothing less than charmed by him.

  "He gets his personality from his mother" Michael would always say to family acquaintances with one arm around his wife, a hand atop his son's head and a beaming smile on his face.  "And he certainly gets his looks from his father" Emily would finish, turning to her husband and lovingly kissing his cheek, Harlow beaming up at the company the entire time. The Waltons were the family everyone aspired to be.

  And then one warm Autumn day Harlow left.  Left behind his family and friends; His mansion on the hill above the city and his gorgeous female pursuers.  All of the relationships he'd made chatting everyone in the city from the transients to the soldiers, everyone missed the young soul.  His parents though most of all missed their young jewel.

The only person that wasn't taken aback by Harlow's departure was young Walton himself.  He'd always been able to please everyone so much so easily that he was eager to expand his horizons.  So he did just that in the most literal interpretation of the phrase and left his home.  He knew he wouldn't miss his hometown. He thoroughly enjoyed the company of everyone there and knew if he left he'd love all of the other interesting characters there were in the world. So with that, Harlow Walton became Harlow Walton the Traveler and Wayward Son.

  H-Dub the T and Dub-S quickly learned though that there were many things in the wilds of Galrion that require more than just a smile and wink to pacify.  His lack of immediate influence over these beings was intriguing and slightly bothersome to the young man.  Using this intrigue an bothersomedom the young Adonis learned to channel his charm into tangible arcane magic and best his foes. Harlow Walton the Traveler and Wayward Son became Harlow Walton the Traveler and Warward Son the Sorcerer.

I like him.  I think he's quite endearing.  I'm looking forward to playing him.

That's all for now folks.  Thanks for checking in.

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Back on the Scene

   Only a few more days left of Summer Vacation for me, so I decided to spice things up.  And by spice things up, I mean start playing a new video game, hahaha.  World of Warcraft.  After trash-talking it for the past few weeks as being an 'easy-fest', my friends talked me into it.  $70 later I have my rogue faction-changed and transferred to Laughing Skull - PVP.

   I've also been going to the beach nearly everyday with said friends.  I love to body-surf and the street we go to is perfect for it.  I'm actually going to go today hopefully after I finish studying for my SAT re-take.  1870 last time without studying.  I can do better.

  These next few months are going to be a bit hectic, what with me starting school and college apps being due November 30th.  Which reminds me...NOVEMBER!  Soo many games coming out: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Rage...among others.  I really don't know how I'm going to pay for them all but I want to play every single one! Let me know what you guys think

Still Alive

    So I know I'm terrible at staying active on this thing, and I've promised in the past I would try, but really I'm just going to start posting awesome stuff and if you miss out...well...just don't miss out. Hehheh.
    I've been gaming alot lately (Mostly Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 and Minecraft) which hasn't been too terrible.  Minecraft has some pretty interesting circuitry elements in it that are actually a ton of fun.  I'm an aspiring Engineer/Computer Scientist, so any outlet for functional creativity is amazing.  In fact, Minecraft's circuitry elements are so fundamental and straightforward, that people have actually built fully-functional computers within the game world.  Let me say that again.  People have built working computers from the ground up, starting from simple logic gates, inside the game world.  This blew my mind!  I got curious as to how they were actually built and stumbled across a reference to, what I think, is an amazing text book.

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

    This is actually a hands-on, "How-to-Build-A-Simple-but-Powerful-Computer" book that really accomplishes just that.  I looked online for a torrent of a PDF of this book, but, for once in my life, I thought to myself "Hey maybe I should buy this product so I can enjoy a nice, crisp book for once".  So I did. And its everything I ever hoped it would be.
    I'm on Chapter 2 and since its a "Do-It-Yourself" book and I have no other platform but Minecraft to 'build' it, it's going to take a while to get through the book.  Despist how simple Minecraft is, each module take time to build....and I get sidetracked when I build. Hahaha.
    Also, I know I'm a few years late on this, but you know that show Adventure Time on Cartoon Network? Fucking great!  If you can filter out some of the annoying 'meant-for-kids' obnoxiousness, the show is actually quite clever and charming.  I managed to get my hands on this picture below. Its an actual picture hanging in Cartoon Network's  graphic development office.  Full sized wallpaper here.

Anyways...looking forward to hearing from you guys!

Free Man

School is OUT!  First day of summer vacation for me.  Pretty much goes without say...I'm stoked.  Next week my family and I are leaving to visit relatives for the 4th.  Can't wait to blow some stuff up!
   As far as plans for the summer go...I have no plans.  I'm not going to get a job so I should have a nice open schedule...to waste.  I'm probably going to start playing D&D again.  I've been playing COD: MW2 lately with some of my friends but I'm sure I'll get over that in a few weeks.  That and Minecraft.  Minecraft is so sick.  Actually, now that I think about it, I can't believe I haven't posted here about it.  If you don't know what Minecraft is, you must live in an actual mine.  If you've never played before and you are the creative type, I would HIGHLY recommend it.  For those of you who have/do play it, I recommend checking out the piston mod for v1.6.6.  They're tons of fun and add a LOT of functionality to the game.  In fact, they're so cool that pistons are being added into patch 1.7.
  That's all for now folks.  See ya soon.

Summer Time Shine

    Well its unofficially summer. Last week of school but one can see many more tank tops and swimming trunks than t-shirts and jeans draped across students moseying around the halls.  Classes are a joke; everyone's mind is on the beach or really anything else.  I finished my boat and attempted to row it across the pool yesterday.  I completely forgot to get pictures which is really disappointing but it was probably for the best since it didn't end up working.  Halfway across the pool I hear a sharp *CRACK* and I just started racing to get to the other side before it went under.  No dice. I sank just barely out of reach of the wall.

   So instead of the boat I'll give you another project...BATTLE BOT!

3 Months

3 months? Sure as hell doesn't seem like its been 3 months. I look at this page everyday (its my homepage for cryin' out loud) and haven't felt like posting anything. I have a girlfriend now. I guess thats the first thing I mention because shes always the first thing on my mind now, so it seems.  She's really great! The polar opposite of me in so many ways, but in some ways we are very alike.  Other than THAT...same ol', same ol'. I quit WoW and then started playing again a weeks ago so not much has happened there.  I'm nearly finished with the school year; I cannot wait for summer!  3 weeks to go until complete and utter irresponsibility.  Until then I've got some projects to finish up for my classes.

  For Physics, a friend and I are building a full-sized boat out of thin wood and butcher paper and I'm going to get in it and (hopefully) row across the school's pool.  The idea is to use as little material as possible while still producing a semi-reliable floating object. Actually, I'll upload some pictures of the finished product and maybe some action shots of the event.  I'm actually pretty excited. The frame somewhat resembles one of the drop ships used by troops storming Normandy, so we're going to paint it to look like one and I'm going to dress up as a WWI soldier.  Should be a lot of fun.

  For Psychology I have a presentation about the effects of stereotypes on behavior. There was actually a study done that measured the effects on participants who had their 'elderly' stereotype activated.  Two groups of participants, a control group and the group that was being experimented on.  Each participant was given a 30 sets of 5 words.  Their task was to take 4 of the 5 words from each of the sets and form a coherent sentence as fast as possible.  They were told it was a test of literary ability.  One group were given words relating to a stereotypical elderly person (ie. gray, wise, retired) while the other was not.  After the 'test' experimenters directed the participants to the elevator, secretly timing how long they took to walk there.  It was found that those that had their elderly stereotype activated actually took significantly longer than those that had not.  I thought this was actually kind of crazy.  Similar to subliminal messaging (which was debunked as the scientist that came up with it never had solid evidence) a persons actions could be affected by words printed on some paper WITHOUT them being aware of it!

  Anyways, its good to be back and I just want you all to know that I do read all of your comments and appreciate the follows. Cheers!