Hokey Smoke!

While finishing up the Beowulf review tonight, I heard a loud impact on the air conditioner. Sometimes a panicked cat will jump up there, so I checked it out to see if there was an emergency. Instead, I beheld this:

I blinked multiple times because I had never seen anything like it. Then I realized what it was and was even more shocked. It was an honest to goodness flying squirrel!

For some reason I had always thought they were bigger than this little guy, but there was no mistaking the flat tail and membranes between the legs. I had no clue they even ranged into Minnesota.

Walz vs. Quist: Rochester Chamber of Commerce Debate

Twenty-five minutes in and it is obvious the two men cannot stand each other. What surprised me is that Republican Alan Quist managed to get under Democrat Tim Walz’s skin and make him angry. Quist is always angry with prickly being the mellowest you ever see him. The whole tone of the debate is personal attacks, led by Quist -- and complained about by Quist. I thought Walz was slicker than this, but he has been red faced multiple times throughout the debate.

Wow, neither candidate looked good in this forum. This debate is the epitome of complaints about a lack of civility in politics these days. Only partisans on each side would declare their candidate the winner. Quist was hectoring, took constant nasty shots,  and was constantly confused whether it was his time for rebuttal. Walz was flustered and increasingly angry while sticking to boilerplate talking points (Akin SQUAWK).

Inspector Dreyfus Has Passed On

Herbert Lom always had the best scenes in the Pink Panther films, in my opinion. Perpetually chasing and trying to kill Clouseau, he appealed to me as a kid and as an adult. So I am a little sad to see that he died today.

I had no clue that he was a Czech refugee from the early days of WWII. At 95, he certainly lived a long life after making it to Britain. While he was best known for the comedies with Peter Sellers, he was in quite a few films spanning many genres usually as a supporting character. His roles in The Ladykillers, The Mysterious Island, The Phantom of the Opera, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun were the ones I remember the most.

It strangely feels like another piece of my childhood has disappeared, even though the movies remain.

So here is Dreyfus speaking at Clouseau’s funeral, one of his best performances as an actor or character:

Health 9-26-2012

Had a relatively high pain index night of 7-8 so I ended up reading and playing Torchlight II until tired enough to overcome it. The body has been acting a bit in distress, but still an improvement over last week. It looks like pain is going to be at higher levels post Lyme Disease. Such is life.
So no lit dropping for Greg Davids in Houston today. At least I was able to drop my father off and have lunch. It is a nice day out for walking, wish I were up to it.
Hope the headache will subside soon, I have a review to write.
Updated some hours later:
Some of the symptoms of Lyme Disease are flaring up now and I will be keeping a close eye on them. The swelling in the head and odd sensation when breathing began showing up shortly after I posted this in the afternoon.
Back to writing the review.

More Torchlight II Observations

Now that I have a character approaching level 30 in the Second Act and have had some multiplayer time in, I feel like I can make some more comments.

First, FIX THE BUGS! I have had the disappearing stash and shared stash bug hit with me unable to access my gear online or offline. Mysteriously, it all reappeared late last night and so far I can use the rare and unique gear. We’ll see if that lasts. Saved game synchronizing to Steam’s cloud has been hit or miss for me. This is frustrating.

Second, this is a remake of Diablo II as far as the plot line goes and the settings. I do not view this as a bad thing, in fact I was happy to see the desert again. Enough has been changed to avoid lawsuits, but if you are a big Diablo II fan this is your game to play.

The performance of the game engine has been a pleasant surprise, with the only slowdowns I’ve encountered being in online play. Playing with others is a blast and incredibly fast moving due to people triggering fights left and right. The graphics are pretty with the cartoony/anime style of Torchlight looking better than ever.

Sound is well done and my pet cat purrs after he kills something. It reminds me of the best cat ever, my late pet Sid. So I have named the critter in my solo embermage build after him.

Loot is ridiculously plentiful. While there is an option to turn off seeing normal items, I cannot get that to work in solo games. It works fine in multiplayer. Inventory management is sleeker than ever, but it gets a constant workout due to all the goodies you find. Trading with others in your party is very easy.

Remember how frustrating it was to get your first complete set in Diablo II or Torchlight? Expect to have at least one by level 10 in my experience. I actually had two complete sets on my mage by level 12.

I really like the game, but advise people to wait for a couple of patches before completely committing. If you are willing to deal with bugs, buy it now if your are an old school Diablo fan.

Health 9-23-2012

I never did completely shake the cold symptoms from last weekend and they have only gotten worse. Today I am a total space cadet and am having to refrain from any serious decisions on anything due to an inability to function. It took me three tries to write the previous sentence and three to spell “sentence” just now. Bleh.

And now I just caught myself staring into space for a couple of minutes. Yep, I am not in.

Not Something You See Everyday in the Middle East

In Libya, protests against the murders of American diplomat Chris Stevens resulted in a crowd attacking an Islamist militia headquarters. I had been aware of smaller groups protesting earlier in the week, but this is quite a surprise. It gives me some hope that Libya may pull it together in the end rather than disintegrating. As Totten points out, it is quite a contrast to Egypt.

Standing up to terrorists needs to be a priority around the world and good people should not allow evil to go unchecked. Frankly, it all needs to be done locally by local people in the first place. Let this be the start of something good, I pray.