Gratuitous Top n

For some reason I got a random urge to post this... I think I need to spend more time outdoors.

Top 5 Statistical Analyses That Amuse Me (for whatever reason)
-- ANOVA
-- Kolmogorov-Smirnoff (non-parametric goodness of fit)
-- Regression Tree
-- Barltlett's Test of Homoscedasticity
-- Tukey's Honest-to-Goodness Test

Top 5 Ecosystem Models (in no particular order)
-- CANOAK
-- Biome-BGC
-- IBIS
-- MAESTRA
-- SPM2

Today's Wise Tip of the Day

Phones set to both electrocute mode and ultra-loud with an unusually obnoxious ring-tone are a bad idea in most office situations. Doubly so when it's in a room full of very quiet people and the room is quiet enough to drop a pin and it'll sound super-loud. At least this current phone's electrocute mode is nowhere as bad as the last phone I had before it died a horrible death in the saltwater marshes near Yankeetown.

I have to admit though, the looks on my officemates' faces was quite something when the chorus to Moenia's "Lo Que Tu Digas" (for any archery-related calls) suddenly blasted out of my phone and I jumped about a meter up from my chair. It was even funnier when the chorus to Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" (for CSULA-related calls) also blasted out of my phone about 10 minutes after I finished dealing with the first call and I did the same. Thank goodness I don't have that ring-tone for O-Zone's "Despre Tine" or "Dragostea Din Tei" anymore or that would really cause the fur (and probably the phone) to fly :)

Gratuitous Amusement

So when I need to turn my brain off for a few minutes, I have this habit of going onto YouTube. Here's two VERY noteworthy videos, both footage from a very high-profile Erasure concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW3yBp9YXrc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pR1hLrOzbc

For some reason these clips just absolutely cracked me up. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what cracked me up so much. And now back to my regularly scheduled show.

An Evening with Hawkwing

So today, I decided to do a bit of 3-D to amuse myself a bit. Hawkwing, by the way, is my 68" longbow, a not-so-maneuverable weapon for me. Anyway, here's all my non-embarassing shots (ie, I hit the first time and suffice to say, I've come to the conclusion that while Hawkwing is a real fun bow to shoot and is actually very forgiving of my technique although it has been a bit picky with arrows (but not as picky as most longbows). I think I prefer to compete with Sorondil-Telcontar -- as fun as Hawkwing is to shoot, I didn't exactly appreciate half of my hits either ricocheting into a nearby patch of some species of Rhus or a hornet's nest or on one target, near a pair of rattlesnakes that were doing things I wish I didn't see. One nice thing though was that the arrows were a whole lot easier to pull out than normal. But yeah, for 3-D, I really prefer a bow that I don't have to arc my shots -- most of my good shots were the ones where I remembered to aim a lot higher than usual and let the arrow "fall" into the target or were close enough where gravity wouldn't quite take its toll!

A Bit More D&D Amusement

Here's some character stats for some of my really memorable characters, both PC and NPC, with the name left out. Just the bare numbers, race, alignment and class to see what you can infer about these characters... For those of you unfamiliar with D&D, character statistics are formed by rolling 3 six-sided dice and summing up the results and then applying any racial modifiers. Also in 3rd edition, the player adds a point to a stat of their choosing every 4th level, allowing some stats to get freakishly high. All characters are as they show up at end of the campaign...

PC #1 (chaotic good elven 20th level fighter)
STR: 20
DEX: 20
CON: 12
INT: 16
WIS: 7
CHA: 9

PC #2 (chaotic good human 6th level wizard with distant elven blood)
STR: 10
DEX: 16
CON: 14
INT: 18
WIS: 12
CHA: 5

PC #3 (chaotic neutral 8th level gnome illusionist)
STR: 8
DEX: 10
CON: 18
INT: 18
WIS: 7
CHA: 11

NPC #1 (lawful neutral, later lawful evil 9th level human necromancer)
STR: 5
DEX: 15
CON: 3
INT: 20
WIS: 14
CHA: 10

NPC #2 (chaotic good 7th level elven bard)
STR: 9
DEX: 13
CON: 14
INT: 16
WIS: 5
CHA: 18

NPC #3 (lawful neutral, later lawful good 15th level fighter of questionable ancestry... best description is an unusually powerful quasi-alien race I made for the campaign to harass or help the players)
STR: 14
DEX: 24
CON: 22
INT: 13
WIS: 9
CHA: 5

NPC #4 (lawful evil 12th level fighter/4th level rogue of questionable ancestry... see NPC #3 for description)
STR: 20
DEX: 20
CON: 16
INT: 15
WIS: 13
CHA: 15

Lessons and Further 3-D Exploits

I took two of my office-mates and their significant others with me to Gator Bowmen today. As usual, I had a pretty wide range of abilities, ranging from someone who already shot as a kid and had a knack at it... to someone who had never handled a bow before and was barely strong enough to handle the Mini-Genesis until I backed off the limbs as far as possible. There's something fun about teaching the basics of archery to a group that normally wouldn't have had a chance to try it and then watching them have tons of fun regardless of whether they hit the target (or something else). Here's some of the better pictures below:






I also had some rather amusing 3-D exploits at Forest Archers and Long Hammock last weekend, just that I didn't bother to extract them from my camera until today. Venison and wild boar for dinner, anyone?

A Few More Fond D&D Recollections...

Here's some more memories that cracked me up when I went through my old D&D materials...

[1st game in this campaign I had some time ago, party meets in a tavern run by a zany group of friends in a town that would soon be a disaster area]
Bard Girl: I don't trust that hooded girl who talked about honor. I think she's some kind of paladin.
Solron: That girl's hot, plus I think she's a ranger. If she were a paladin, I'd know.
Sidney: Are there any cute blonde elven guys who look like Legolas?
DM: There's a foppishly dressed blonde elf boy with a banjo who's hugging the hooded girl, who just removed the hood from her head.
Sidney: Is he cute? Does he look like Legolas?
DM: Kinda. He's more interested in the girl. The red-haired halfling named Fox brings your food. It smells very strongly of garlic. In the meanwhile, the girl talks to the elf boy about honor.
Sydney: Eew... he needs to lose that banjo.
Solron: [barf] I'm gonna kill Fox!
Bard Girl: I really don't trust that hooded girl. She's got a huge sword and she's still talking about honor.

DM: Marrq [ice devil] invites you to have a drink with him.
Tindariel [somewhat intoxicated]: I'll go drink with him. I leave my weapons behind in my room. If he starts acting like an idiot devil, I can frontier justice his scrawny butt with my bare hands!
DM: [laughs]
Casi (out of character): Oh heck... Tindariel you idiot...

[Casi had some bad luck with this deck of enchanted cards and her soul got placed somewhere extraplanar]
Tindariel: Ok, now that I have Casi's soul back, I'm gonna take her to the temple of Cai [nature god] and clean her off. [Bad idea... Casi is THE high priestess of Obixx, the god of filth, decay and undead]

Catnip: I don't trust this guy at all. He's regenerating and dresses and dances worse than O-Zone. Let's really kill him, plus the talking trees are cheering us on.
Solron: I hate him because he's Black Swan's twin brother and he's interfering with my womanizing!
Sydney: Can I turn him into a cute Legolas clone? He's got the blonde hair and the elven build!
Caol [the dual-rapier wielding foppish guy who regenerates]: I shall avenge myself upon thee! [rolls a 1, falls into the trap that Catnip and Solron built earlier]

Sydney: I don't like that parakeet guy. He's trying to steal my charmed elven prince! I'm going to tell Solron's kobold army to hunt him down and start an Empire Fried Parakeet franchise.
Solron: I whole-heartedly agree. The kobolds deserve a treat after proving themselves to be more competent than the noble guards.

Casi: I follow the old guy up to the library and copy his book. I leave him with my copy and take the original.
[Said old guy was a lich, albeit one who miscast the spell and is suffering from some embarassing side effects, including borderline senility and chronic aches and pains]

[Oskar the gnome druid (filling in for Catnip) is lounging in a hot tub in the Emperor's palace.]
DM: While you're relaxing the aches and pains, a blonde elf boy dressed like the O-Zone guys with a banjo on his back barges in. He trips on his own feet and nearly falls on his rapier. He says, "You stole Kida [ranger in the tavern that Bard Girl didn't trust] from me! I shall avenge myself!"
Oskar: I call the guards to have this idiot arrested.
Solron: [laughs uncontrollably. Little does Solron know that Xather would be a chronic annoyance along with Caol and Fox]

Blip: I cast phantasmal killer on the giant spider.
Demon playing as drow mage's familiar: So what would be so horrible to the spider to kill it?
Drow Mage: A can of raid?
DM: [laughs after rolling dice] The spider visualizes the can of raid but it shakes the effects off. If anything, it looks angrier and thinks that the fat little gnome would make a good snack.

Funny D&D Memories

I happened to be doing a small bit of cleaning (rain made it kinda hard to get to catapult safety training) and came across some of the more amusing quotes/notes from my D&D days... at least as far as my memory and notes can be reconstructed :)

DM: The mayor of the town looks rather upset and he's surrounded by guards.
Tindariel: I shoot him in the butt and shout "Frontier justice!"

[The party is trying to investigate what's going on with the mayor of the town (same guy that someone attempted to "Frontier justice".]
Casi: We want to know if they mayor's here.
DM (as this demon we're chasing): No, he's not here. [Closes the door]
Tindariel: Hey, let's come in on official business and send the mage and the whiny fighter guy in. [Knocks on door] Hey, we're here on official business with the mayor...

[The party just captured one of the mysterious toga-clad elves to figure out what's going on with the random attacks on the town.]
Barbarian: He's not responding to my threats [after rolling a 1 on intimidate]
Catnip (sorceress): I cast mage hand and use it to squeeze the prisoner's (censored).
DM (as prisoner): Owwwww!
Barbarian, Rogue, Druid: [collective doubling over and clutching themselves in pain]

Blip (serious glutton of a gnome illusionist): [passing a note that reads: I cast shocking grasp and shake hands with the high priest]
DM: [groans] The high priest suddenly gets furious and shouts at the party.
Drow Mage: Oh crap. [Stuffs food in Blip's mouth]

Tindariel: I build myself a banjo and go to the tavern where I do my best Eminem inpersonation while playing the banjo.
Sunflower (crazed, enimatic druid filling in for Catnip): I polymorph into a fly and hide in her banjo. When she sounds really bad, I'm gonna jump out and turn into Eminem.
DM: [chokes from laughter]

Tindariel: I want to bring back a friend who's been banished. His name's Zavon, scrawny pathetic wuss of a half-elf... [she's unaware of his demonic nature]
DM: The wizards look at you and say "Are you sure?"
Tindariel: Yeah. He's a friend. We're trying to beat up on some devils!
DM (as one of the wizards): Are you really sure? He's going to kill you if we do it!
Tindariel: Hah, I'd frontier justice his butt before he could do it. Plus he's harmless.
DM: You overhear a wizard commenting on how Tindariel must be desperate for attention. The paladins also mutter about how Tindariel must be demon-posessed.

[PC1 inadvertently drank some spiked punch at a school party. Best way to describe his attire is to imagine Arsenium or O-Zone in their music videos.]
PC1: Hmm, I'm gonna sneak behind the DJ and replace his awful hip-hop and rap CDs with some country and Chinese opera before I go up and sing of my undying love for the most popular girl at school.
PC2: Oh crap, I deny knowing that idiot.
DM: Suddenly the entire room full of people look at you in disgust. All of the girls run out in terror and all of the boys decide to dogpile on the nerdy little dork. The next day, a newspaper article about the ugly little nerd messing up the party gets published.

DM (as a cop-like character): What are you doing out past curfew in the graveyard?
PC1: Uhh, I'm doing an experiment on mosquito population dynamics.
DM (still as cop): Well, don't get bitten too hard.
[PC1 was really investigating this cult and has a habit of insulting the cop-like character.]

DM: You find several little bags of white powder in the dressing room.
PC1: I'll take some of these bags to analyze the contents.
PC2: [busy rummaging through clothing] I didn't know they played with that stuff.
PC1: I'm gonna sniff it to see if I can identify the stuff.
DM: [laughing] Suddenly you feel really hyper and high. You hear the little salt-creature sighing at you.

Sidney: I'm gonna hang around the big fat dumb guy and the mage and wait for the mage to die. [said mage had a severe cough and was usually either coughing up blood] If the big fat dumb guy keeps bothering me, could someone help me get rid of him?
[Let's just say Sidney was very disappointed about waiting for the mage to die]

Bard Girl: I'm gonna read the book that the cultist handed to me.
Solron: No!!!
DM: As you read the book, you suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to preach the words to everyone else. Roll a Will Save [Bard Girl fumbles big-time]
[later in the adventure]
DM (as townsperson): The dragon's here!
Bard Girl: [preaches to dragon... content left out due to severely offensive content]
Solron, Sydney, and the two NPCs (they lost the big dumb guy in an earlier battle to save a village from giant were-parakeets) are beating up on the dragon before Solron decides to make the dragon fall to its death.
Bard Girl: [still preaching]
DM: The brass dragon suddenly writhes in pain and falls from the wall right on top of Bard Girl, who also gets nailed with a lightning bolt from Baelnorn (sickly mage) and all of your attacks also hit Bard Girl.
Bard Girl (out of character): You killed Kenny! [Bard Girl had asked for a South Park-style death and everyone's dice roll just fit in perfectly by sheer random luck]