katster's closet

Okay. So I might get a job sometime this year, and I'd like to see the world. And since I've got a friend in the Netherlands, I might finally take him up on his offer to show me the sites. But first I have to get a job. But let's forget all that, since it spoils the fun.

So, if one wants to be a good world traveller, at some points one has to confess their nationality. And confessing I'm American leads to a problem. I mean, most folks are good enough to distinguish "American in my country" from "President Bush's policies", but sometimes you want to make it clear.

So I'm collecting the phrase: "I did not vote for President Bush" in as many languages as possible. Bonus points if you can add "I hate him and his policies" to the end. :)

So if you can contribute to this worthy endeavour, feel free to comment below. :) [And if you're just going to flame me for being a Democrat, well, the line starts over there, I'll screen that stuff in this post. But I'll flag with the politics icon.]

So I can't sleep. What's new?

Finished Unknown Armies. Gah, that RPG setting is trippy. That, and I have odd friends, who would even make the recommendation in the first place, but he's already been damned for it, so no need to do it again. ;)

While on the subject of RPGs, I also want to point out that SJ Games r0xx0rz muchly. Why? Well, y'see, the first sets of fourth edition main books showed up with a binding defect that causes pages to fall out, and both halves of Basic Set that I managed to acquire have this problem. Doh! But SJ Games very quickly responded and they're replacing the books, pretty much no questions asked. I mean, I'm a big fan of GURPS anyway, which means I'm dealing with SJ Games, since they *make* GURPS in the first place. But it's really nice to know that they're so cool about problems with the books, when they could have left me hanging high and dry.

Between that and SJG's rules with e23, their online publishing initiative -- no DRM on the pdfs they're providing, because they trust their customers -- it makes me very happy to be dealing with them. Especially after the last RPG company whose products I followed provided me a huge example of how *not* to deal with your customers.

*cough* And here I admit I once played a certain, well, very munchkinistic combat-oriented post-apocalyptic game made by a certain company which has the same name as a precious metal. Short of it, though, is that due to what I think was a misunderstanding and a large overreaction on the part of one of the higherups at said gaming company, the mailing list which was once official suddenly became not-official. *boom* Simply because one controversial post had gotten onto the mailing list at a point where the higher-up was getting upset with something. Maybe she was justified, but it's one of the things that turned me off to the system -- this incident seemed to magnify what was already in my mind a bad rep for dealing with the customers. (That and the mechanics of combat really suxx0r3d. It took us five hours of gaming to resolve a minute of fight time in a large complicated battle once.)

But the point is, keep the customer satisfied, and I am more than amazed at the lengths SJ Games has gone to in being fair and honest with their customers. If I wasn't already a loyal GURPSie, guys, I would become one. :) (That and it made me feel that speaking up for the company in conversation at the game store in Berkeley a few weeks back was definitely the right thing to do. Nothing big, nobody was badmouthing the system, it's just the proprieter, not being a GURPS person, was curious about the differences between 3e and 4e. Since some companies like to screw over customers by issuing a new edition, he was worried SJG was doing this. And I said "nope!" Well, at least, not in my opinion.)

Anyway, since I can't sleep, I think I'll sit here, get more ISBN numbers entered on bibliophil and otherwise get the crate of RPG book *DOOM* squared away. Then I can use the box that was the box of RPG books for another purpose.

Since it seems we're 95-98% sure we're moving to the city of the sacred tomato, but that's another story for another time.