Saturday, July 14, 2012

Can't Sleep... Clowns Will Eat Me...

I wasn't certain this combination would work. The green and purple make it look Joker-esque, but I believe the brown helps pull it together nicely.

Hey all... It's Saturday morning. Your humble narrator has gotten about four hours worth of sleep before pulling himself back into the store. It is supposed to be one of our "Minis Day" where folks can come use tables for miniature games, but no one is here yet, and two of our main miniatures guys are help some friends move today, so... we'll see what happens.

Tonight is Shady's Terracide game. At this point I have no idea what is happening. Either we are playtesting the Savage Worlds version of the setting, transferring the whole campaign over, or just playing another segment of it in S-Dub. To be honest, I have no clue. I'll find out later tonight.

Friday Night Magic was another "silly" night here, with 40 people packed in to play. We only have 46 spots, so it wasn't maximum, but it was close for the second week in a row. On top of it being release day for the new Core Set, it made for a very busy and tiring day.

Taking off for now... May check in later, but don't count on it. =P

-- GopherDave

Friday, July 13, 2012

All Seems Go...


Okay... late night, early morning... here goes...

The Point of Sale at the store seems like the damage has been repaired. Three clean sweeps from three different virus scanning programs with nothing outside of tracking cookies found (and destroyed). Much thanks to PC and RNR Cowboy for the help with the magical, blinking box. 'Tis appreciated, folks.

Today is the release for the new Magic: the Gathering M13 Core Set. We cracked packs for singles last night, and while we got done earlier than usual, it still made for a late night for me. Many MANY thanks to Loquacious, TinyLittleBabyMan, Big Bank, LaneLane, Snow, HiSign, and Double L for the help. It was fun, but you guys knocked it out of the park.

Finally, I broke down and purchased the 40K 6thEd rulebook. I haven't had a lot of chance yet to look through it, but it *LOOKS* pretty and has LOTS of that "new book smell" going on, so that's something. On first VERY CURSORY thumb-through, it looks pretty good. Once I am up to speed, I think I will break out the Mexi-Marines and go shoot some things.

Seems like a plan... =)

-- GopherDave

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Still Checking...


Came into the store this morning to a clean virus scan. So far, so good. We are running a couple more with different programs, just to be certain.

Also, to place our credit/debit card-using customers at ease... The machine we use to process credit/debit transactions is, and has always been, separate and discrete from our point-of-sale system. There was talk of tying them together, but that never happened as I am lazy by nature and didn't follow through.

Now, I'm glad we didn't...

I have been talking with PC about locking down the browser to a few select web sites, and he stated that while it might help, the bulk of the malware he is seeing is being delivered via fake advertisements coming through services like Adclick and the like. If that's the case, then no one is truly safe from this crap, as web ads have become a part of daily Internet life. The malware propagators have found a truly ingenious and insidious way to dispense things to us, whether we want them or not.

We have now entered the era of Internet "pest control". We cannot stop them from getting in 100% of the time, so now we have to settle for killing them when they show up.

Ain't technological evolution grand?

-- GopherDave

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Groove Check...


Today started out with something bad and it's still continuing. The point-of-sale computer at the store has caught a virus that won't let go. PC and RRC came over and did what they could with their limited time. We thought we had found everything and was finalizing clean-up when three more infections popped up. The machine works, but it is slow. PC is coming over tomorrow morning to see what he can do with more time. I'm thinking we take the machine offline and leave it there. If nothing else, it can get cleaned without the "back-door" Trojan letting more crap in.

This whole thing has kind of colored my day and put me mentally off my game. I'm trying to get back into the swing of what I figure I should be doing. That is working on game stuff. I think I'll go try to do so, if life lets me...

-- GopherDave

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Settling Back Into The Groove...


Okay, for the last week up until yesterday, it was hot here in the middle of the corn... VERY hot... I tried to wear the uniform, but it just wasn't happening. On top of that, we had three pre-release events for the up coming Magic: the Gathering care set (M13) happen this past weekend. I was pretty much awake for around 43 straight hours or so from 7:00 AM Friday morning until about 2:00 AM early Sunday morning. Needless to say, I was a bit tired. I closed the store Sunday night, after having slept the bulk of the day, and then spent the bulk of Monday doing pretty much nothing but sleeping.

However, the temperature has lessened and I am back to rested form, so I can hopefully settle back into a routine. With that routine comes working on game rules, which is something I should be doing now, but I wanted to throw something out there to let folks know that I wasn't dead.

Speaking of not dead, I have been watching folks play games of the new edition (6th) of Warhammer 40K, and I have been liking what I see. Is this new version my much beloved second edition? No, it's not. It does have much of what appealed to me from that edition, though. I like allies... I am intrigued by the "terrain as part of force org" rules... and the rules set in terms of what you can hit and what you cannot hit makes sense once again. I have a copy of the rulebook on the way for myself. Once I read it, I may break out the 'Marines and see what I can do. Who knows? It may be fun... which is something fifth edition 40K never was for me.

-- GopherDave