Welcome to Tim's World - a Worldcrafting, Writing, and Experimentation Blog!

My Internal Gremlin

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I’ve been listening to Radiolab a whole lot at work lately. I first heard some of their stuff on NPR on the way back from Austin – the Parasite episode – promptly forgot about them for a few months, and then was coincidentially reminded about it via a tweet from Adam Atomic. So I’ve been toiling away the hours at work plugged into their podcast, which has been very, very interesting and entertaining to say the least. But one of the segments that I heard seems to have sparked a thought that I keep coming back to again, and again, and again… and I’m wondering if the best way to help exorcise this thought is to write it down (or type it up, or whatever :P)

So the piece that has stuck to me – and it’s not even from one of their longer segments, it’s just something someone said – has to do with the possibility of ‘downloading’ someone’s brain into a computer, thereby giving someone virtual immortality. I think I went way deeper in this post than ever before… Almost feel like I’m touching on the edges of that-which-is-not-meant-to-be-known, and trying to look at it too closely will send me spiraling into some Lovecraftian madness… but it’s all good :)

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03.03.2010 Featured, General, Personal No Comments

The End

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

I made a decision last night to cancel my WoW Account. It was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. Since finally achieving the Loremaster achievement, and even a little while before that, I just haven’t had much fun with the game. I still love the game, but I think I’ve done all I really want to do with my characters – at least for now. I realized that I had not even logged into the game – except maybe once to check my banker’s mail – in almost a month.

Still looking forward to Cataclysm, and I’ll probably renew my account when it comes out, but for now, I feel it’s best to focus on other things, such as Tile Isle, Combat Cast, and other things.

That being said, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m discontinuing development on my WoW Armory WP Plugin. Considering Blizzard’s new armory features that let you place your character model and history log on your site, the only thing I’m really offering anymore is the gear list, which isn’t that amazing…

I’m planning to restructure the site a little bit and make it more about general game design (as was it’s original intention), and start moving WoW Armory and related articles to an archive of some kind.

I went ahead and put the source up on Google Code so that anyone who wants to see or use the code for themselves can do so. You can find the project here: http://code.google.com/p/wow-armory-wp-plugin/

I am a little saddened by the need to let it go, but I think it’s for the best. I’ve kept it very close to my chest so I could retain creative control, but I haven’t been able to give it the attention I would like lately, and I haven’t been able to give the users with questions or bugs the help they require.

Well, I think that’s all I have to say for now. Thanks for taking the time to read this. From here on, the posts on this site will focus more on game design, creation, and development.

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21.01.2010 Featured, General, Personal, Projects, Website, World of Warcraft, wow-armory Plugin 1 Comment

Uh-oh…this is how these things get started…

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I’ve been listening (and re-listening) to the Penny Arcade, PvP, Wil Wheaton D&D 4E podcasts. Yeah, again :P They’re so much fun just to listen to. Plus, Gabe has been talking about his Campaign (with pictures!), which has been nothing short of awe-inspiring, and inspiring in general.

So I started thinking about D&D again, and thinking about how awesome it was to play, when I actually had a group to play with…

Uh-oh.
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15.10.2009 Dungeons & Dragons, Personal, Projects, Website No Comments

My Trip to Austin, Tx

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Well, my vacation finally arrived! After months of building excitement, plans, dealing with banks run by mental patients, it was finally time to head down to Austin for the first (only? :( ) Flixel workshop.

Great Wall Chinese Buffet
I left work Tuesday evening, and we packed up the Mankey, drove up to St Charles and took my Mom out to dinner (Chinese Buffet), then we dropped my Mom and the Mankey off with my Dad at work, and went home to finish packing.

Wednesday morning, at the crack of 7:30, after picking up ice and snacks, we started out Journey down Highway 44.
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20.09.2009 Personal, Travel No Comments

Brothers, Golems, and Time Travel

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Recently, I obtained copies of the Artifacts Cycle I & II. I ravenously devoured the first book (The Thran, The Brothers’ War), and started in on the second book (Planeswalker, Time Streams, Bloodlines). I’m already almost finished with Time Streams – didn’t matter that I’ve read them all before… Since I either never owned them originally, or no longer own them, I’m very pleased to now have all of these books together in one place.

I started thinking about why these books – despite being tied strongly to a game I no longer play or even like, or the fact that when I first read them it was during a time that I still thought FFVIII’s graphics were cutting-edge, and learning to ‘read’ Japanese off of foreign Pokémon cards would get me all the ladies – still have as much (if not more) impact on me as before…

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11.09.2009 Featured, General, Personal, Worldbuilding No Comments

Headed for Austin!

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Well, It’s official! Louisa and I are heading down to Austin next month so I can take part in the Flixel Workshop ‘09!

We’ve already booked the room for 3 nights. We’re going to be driving down there on Wednesday, September 16th, and then driving back on Saturday.
The workshop itself is only 4 hours long, so the rest of the time we’ll be sightseeing.
We (well, mostly Louisa ;) ) picked out a few places to check out:
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12.08.2009 General, Personal, Travel, World of Warcraft No Comments

Reading

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I recently picked up a couple of new Fiction novels from the library. Reading has recently started to feel empty… but I can’t tell why. maybe by discussing it a bit, I can see where things have gone wrong for me.

I used to love to read. Even in grade school, I remember devouring Anne McCaffrey novels in class, or perusing the adult fiction section of the library while others my age were picking their way through the ‘Teens’ shelf, and if the opportunity were to present itself, I would tear through a new Discworld book in a heartbeat, but I’ve noticed over the years that every book I read has done less and less to sate my appetite…

Lets start with the first book I read. Typically, although I would say that I am a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Geek, I tend to stay away from most of the books in that genre unless I know ahead of time the author, the subject matter, or some good word of mouth, but as I was hurriedly scanning the shelves at the library with the Mankey pulling and screaming and causing a ruckus, I noticed a book that somehow seemed interesting just from the title and the cover to me. I know, I know, ‘never judge a book by its cover’, but I took it home anyway.
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15.04.2009 Personal No Comments

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