Killing Time...

... waiting to escape from Draenor.  What to do, what to do?

Make a million gold, of course.

Technically, that's my second million.  My first million went towards buying two years worth of game time and upgrading all my heirloom items to max level.

For those curious about methodology: six max-level alts, each will a full garrison (five with a full shipyard).  Each garrison includes an Inn (for treasure missions), a Salvage Yard (for extra loot from running garrison missions), a Trading Post (for turning garrison resources into crafting materials), and two profession buildings (typically the character's main profession, plus an enchanting building).

Oh, and the Menagerie, because pet upgrade stones.

The routine: Complete garrison and shipyard missions.  Send followers out on new garrison and shipyard missions.  Collect garrison resources.  Exchange resources for crafting materials.  Visit profession buildings to turn crafting materials into high-level materials or items plus sorcerous elements.  Visit Salvage Yard to see what my followers brought back from their garrison missions.  Vendor anything that had an auction price of less than 500 gold.  Exchange any excess Primal Spirits for Savage Blood.  Do the daily pet battle(s) and then put any leftover salvage items, crafted items, sorcerous elements, Temporal Crystals, and Savage Blood up on the auction house.

Overall, it takes about an hour a day, and each alt pulls in around 2000 gold a day (some more, some less), mostly from garrison and shipyard missions.

I've got a few more things to spend gold on; I'd like to bank another year of game time, for instance, and maybe buy some of the more expensive mounts and pets.  Honestly, though? At this point, I'm just doing it because I enjoy making the numbers go up.

Oh, and so I can blow it all on new neat stuff when Legion finally hits, of course!

Star Wars VII (Spoliers)

Oh, my... the feels.

If you haven't seen it, and you are a Star Wars fan of a certain age (i.e., between the ages of 8 and 80), you will like it.

To answer your question... It a great movie?

No; however... It is a good movie.

A really good movie.

Are their plot holes?  Yeah.  Do they matter?  Not really.  You most likely won't notice them until after you leave the theater, at least.

Yes, you get to see Luke.

Yes, the Big Bad is revealed, and pretty early, actually.

The hero is not who you think it is.  Even if you think you're parsing everything correctly, you'll still wonder.

You'll ask yourself why Chewie took that bet.

You'll appreciate the humor, which flows from the characters and their personalities, not from some bolted-on comic relief character.

You'll wonder at the lack of exposition, and then realize that real people don't do data dumps to make things easier for a viewer, and get a thrill when you think you've finally pieced together all the little bits of information and finally think you understand.

You'll wonder if you're right, or just thinking what the writers want you to think... And you'll decide that it doesn't matter, really.  Because even if you're wrong, it will be exciting to discover what's really going on.

You'll understand what he meant when he said "Anything."

You'll think "Wow, this is kind of like the first Star Wars movie", and you'll be right, but in a way that makes you wonder.

It passes the Bechdel test, not that that really matters, because it isn't contrived - it makes sense, and flows from the story.

You will be left wondering what exactly happened over the past 40 plus years, and hit the closing credits wanting to see the next one NOW, damnit!

And one of these statements is a lie.

You'll have to see the movie to find out which one, though.

Go.  See.  Cheer.

Cry.

Oh, yeah.  If you're a man of a certain age, at a certain position in life, it absolutely will suddenly get a bit dusty in the theater towards the end.

It's worth it.

To J. J. and the writers, and everyone involved... good job, folks.

Thank you for making this not suck.

Huge "Star Wars" Spoiler!

Yeah, sorry.  Couldn't resist :-)

The Expanse: Dulcinea

Walter Jon Williams has a few things to say about the new SyFy series, "The Expanse":

I was in Santa Fe last week for the premiere of the first two episodes, which I saw in an actual theater, with popcorn and free booze and TV stars and GRRM and all the goodies you get with a premiere.  And the experience was a double helping of Complete Awesome.  The Expanse is the science fiction series that I, and probably you, have long been waiting for.

For one thing, this series doesn’t condescend to its viewers.  When characters speak in Belter patois, there’s no translator hovering by, there aren’t even subtitles, you just have to go with the scene, and either you get it or you don’t.  You get the political background or you don’t.  You get how the space ships work or you don’t.  The story just happens, it doesn’t stop to give infodumps to the viewers who can’t keep up.  Experienced SF readers should have no problem with any of this.

Honestly? I agree. I watched the first episode of "The Expanse" last week, and... I am hopeful.

Which is saying something, really. This is SyFy we're talking about, after all.

Here's the thing: I've read the series this is based on, and the important thing to remember as you see the spaceships swooping around? This is hard (ish) SF that is primarily character driven. In other words, perfectly suited for a TV series. The world, the politics, the science are all excellent backdrops for the (terrifyingly interesting) lives of the characters.

Assuming they get the characterization right, of course. Keep in mind that in the first episode, we've met a corrupt and cynical Belter detective (Miller), an Earth spacer seemingly allergic to authority and responsibility (Holden), and a UN official condoning torture (Arvarsala). In coming episodes, we will almost certainly meet an amoral sociopath with a history of criminal violence; a genius with a dark history of mass murder; and a political leader who is known as "The Butcher" for his past war crimes.

Note well: these are the good guys. One of the themes of the books are the search for truth as a path to redemption... and the idea that figuring out what they truth is can be hard, if not downright impossible, when nobody is really as good - or as bad - as they seem . The truth of things is often hidden, and sometimes well intentioned people can make horrible choices for what seems like all the right reasons: Loyalty. Honesty. Truth. Justice.

From the looks of it, they're making a good effort with the characters. Establishing the characters will come slowly, though. Part of the limitation that they're working with are the novels themselves. From what I could see in the first episode, they are keeping to the plot of the books fairly tightly.Which is normally a good thing, but...

That's a big but, right there.

The first novel has what are essentially two major plot lines that eventually converge. In the series, they show what appears to be four plot lines, as they seem to be trying to set things up for later and introduce some major characters that don't show up until later on in the books. Which is ok - TV serials are a different medium, after all. There would have to be some adaptations.

It does mean that if you haven't read the books, the first episode can be confusing. Who's that girl on the Scopuli? What's with the blue stuff flying around in the engine room? Who is this Miller guy? Why are you flip flopping between him and the crew on a tramp ice freighter? What's the deal with the Indian woman on earth? Why does everyone on Ceres seem so angry?

Trust me. Stick with it. It all comes together... maybe not quickly, but it will; and in much the same way that four different chunks of uranium might be brought together enthusiastically, the plot lines will give a very satisfying bang when they finally converge. In fact, depending on how closely they adhere to the novels, Marvin the Martian's catchphrase may be quite rightly invoked.

The first episode is online.  Watch it, keep with it. I think - I hope - that it will be as good as it looks.

Fingers crossed.

The Wolf

Cobb on The Wolf:

The Wolf is always with us and it doesn't matter which guise he takes, what manner of attack he plans or fulfills. What matters is what we are prepared to do when he visits his hungers upon us.

Go.  RTWT.

In Which Curmudgeonhood Is Expressed

Yesterday evening was interesting. Came home to dinner (pot pie) prepared by Eldest Daughter, which was quite good. Afterwards, I told her to get her shoes on, and that we were going to stop by the church, then head up to the Tractor Supply Store with a stop off at Walmart.

The mention of the TSS was a ruse, of course. While the place is absolutely fascinating for me (So. Much. Neat. STUFF!), it's anathema for her teenaged mind. Who in the world could possibly get excited over trailer hitches, galvanized tin tubs and fence hardware? Aside from her Old Man, I mean. The TSS is located near Walmart, though, so heading in that direction wasn't a total falsehood... and, if we ended up with some extra time at the end of the trip, I was absolutely going to stop there, anyways.

Because Neat Stuff!

The TSS wasn't our intended destination, though. First was a pit stop at the church, which has a nice, big, and (most importantly) empty parking lot.

Yep. Driving lessons!

She was thrilled. Spent about half an hour letting her toodle around the lot, just helping her get a feel for driving the car. We practiced turning, backing up, pulling into parking spots, making use of turn signals, using high/low beams on the headlights, the critical difference between the brake and the gad, and stopping without causing Dad to bang his head off the windshield. Essential skills, in other words.

I'm pretty sure I only got loud once or twice. In my defense, while the parking lot is nice and big, and was very empty, it also has a rather large drop off on one side. I made sure to keep her well clear of that part of the lot, but one of the "No, that's not the brake, kiddo" moments came as we were oriented to go straight off the edge of the lot and down the hill on the other side.

I think, in those circumstances, a loud "BREAKS! STOP!" (or two, or three... maybe four) was not only allowed, but called for.

Afterwards, we did head to Walmart to look for a set of cheap speakers for my workbench. What I has in mind was something I could plug into the wall, dock my iPhone into, and enjoy some tunes while I'm puttering about.

I mean, that's got to be a pretty common thing that people want, yeah?

Apparently not.

Walmart had an array of (a) unbelievably cheap, battery powered speakers that used Bluetooth, and (b) unbelievably expensive, battery powered speakers that used Bluetooth. Some of which would let you dock an iPhone, but - and no, I am not kidding - would only play music via Bluetooth.

As far as I'm concerned, Bluetooth is a ravenous, phone battery devouring monster of a wireless network. YMMV, but turning off Bluetooth on my phone seems to have helped my battery life considerably. I might want to spend a couple of hours puttering, after all - that's what a workshop is for. Having my phone cut out after 45 minutes because it had to stream music over a wireless connection was a no-go.

Not to mention the whole battery powered speaker thing. I mean, really? Yeah, I understand - that makes them portable. In my situation, though, I know exactly what battery-powered Bluetooth speakers would would mean:

• Head down to the workshop Saturday afternoon, puttering in mind.
• Turn on Bluetooth on my phone.
• Watch the battery percentage on my phone start dropping like a stone.
• Try to turn on the oh-so-portable battery powered Bluetooth speaker.
• Realize the speaker batteries were dead as a doornail.
• Hunt for good batteries.
• Find dead batteries that somehow, inexplicably, migrated into the good battery box.
• Finally locate good batteries.
• Replace the batteries in the speaker, get it powered up.
• Realize that my phone was now dead, because Bluetooth.
• Curse modern life, swear off technology, move out west and raise yaks.

Now, as the lovely Mrs. Robb isn't all that into yaks, the end game here is not someplace that I really want to end up. So I flagged down a pleasant clerk in the electronics section, and explained that I was looking for something simple - an inexpensive AC-powered speaker that I could hook my iPhone up to, avoiding Bluetooth. Ideally, one with a dock, so the phone could charge while it was playing.

I may have ranted a little bit. Just a smidgen. A little touch of curmudgeonhood. "I mean... I mean... all I want is a speaker. That plugs into the wall. That I can plug my phone into. No. NO BLUETOOTH."

In the end, what I ended up with was... this. Yes, Dancing Water Speakers. Think of is as an analog equalizer display using LED lights and little water streams. Kitschy as all get out, but dead cheap, and if they came with a little show, well, who cares? Cheap. USB powered, but with a wall adapter. I could plug 'em in, hook up the phone with the stereo cable, and listen to music. Wouldn't charge the phone while I was playing, but since I wouldn't be using Bluetooth, eh - I could live with that.

Got home, plugged 'em in, hooked 'em up... and the lovely Mrs. Robb was enchanted by them. Absolutely cheesy, but she thought it was cool. Me?

Well.

They were kind of neat, but the whole "dancing water" thing was run by a little impeller in the speaker enclosure that was... loud. Not horribly loud, but noticeable. Whenever it kicked up the water, you'd hear a little "ksssh!"

I played Jethro Tull's "Fire at Midnight", and... well, here's what it sounded like:

I believe in fi[ksssh!]res at mid[ksssh!]night [ksssh!]

when the do[ksssh!]gs have all been fe[ksssh!]d.
A gol[ksssh!]den toddy on the man[ksssh!]tle ---
a bro[ksssh!]ken gun ben[ksssh!]eath the bed.[ksssh!]

Bleah. Probably not an issue if you were someone who was going to play everything at full volume. For me, though, it was annoying, and not something that I thought I could get used to.

So, down to the workbench, for some puttering! A screwdriver, a pair of wire cutters, and some electrical tape... and I now have a couple of Non-Dancing Water Speakers. At some point, I'll get some rigid plastic and make a new top for them, so I can ditch the heavy and now completely useless water-filled LED light show attached to the top of the speakers. For the time being, though - eh. They were cheap, I made them do what I wanted, and I can haz music when I'm working.

I'll call it a win.

Operation : Workbench (Part II)

With the workbench done, I was left wondering what to do with that pile of lumber.  I woke up far to early (i.e., before noon) on Saturday, and decided that since we didn't really have anything going on that day, I might as well continue with building my workshop.  After doing a bit of research on line, and making a cup of coffee, I got to it.

I really wanted to reclaim that space (for the couch, for a desk, for shelves... really, for anything except a pile of lumber scraps!)  I already had an idea that I wanted to do an overhead lumber rack, and a friend in Texas suggested just the thing.  First step was moving the lumber out of the way, and moving the sawhorses up to the garage, where the lovely Mrs. Robb needed them in order to work on one of her projects.

No pictures of the assembly, unfortunately.  I blame myself for starting out before finishing my cup of coffee.  Longer wood sections are intended to go across the top of the 1x6's, shorter sections across the strips underneath.  Overall, it's pretty stable - I was able to do a quick chin-up on each of the U-sections after they were installed - but I'll probably get up there and put some 3" screws through just to make sure.

That would be more for peace of mind than anything, really.  As you can see, the finished overhead lumber rack is quite capable of doing the job!

Here's a picture from the side, showing the storage of the shorter sections of scrap lumber.

Now it's starting to look like a real work area.  Getting the desk in was a nice surprise.  When I measured, it was 46" long, but the space where I wanted to put it turned out to be 45" wide.  However!  The way I built the longer support box left a gap in the side of the box!  You can see that clearly here:

So I really had 46 1/2" to work with!  I had to pull the desk drawers and tilt the desk in sideways, but once I did that, it fit into the gap nicely.  There was even enough space to allow the drawer closest to the work bench to open fully. I honestly wish I could say that I planned it this way, but really, it was just dumb luck on my part.  I was originally planning to put the desk under the lumber rack, and just happened to notice that it would fit in the back corner.

Once the lumber rack was done, and the desk and couch placed, I realized that the workbench was looking kind of... plain.  It lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.  It needed something...

Pegboard.  I mean, what's a basement workbench without pegboard?

So, I made another trip to the hardware store to pick up some pegboard and supplies.  Only two trips?  Not bad at all for a weekend project, really.  I had them cut two sheets of pegboard down to 4'x4' sections, which (a) made it easy to load into the car, and (b) made it easy to mount.  I didn't want to mess around with having to drill into the cinderblock walls, so I dropped down a couple of furring strips where I wanted to mount each piece, and...

There we go!  Pegboard achieved and mounted.  The lower sections are screwed into the backboard of the counter, and help keep them nice and stable.

I put up a third section of pegboard on the back wall, because you can never have too much storage.   That leaves me with one extra section that I can mount elsewhere if it turns out that I can use some additional wall storage.  As a bonus, my workshop now smells right... the smell of sawdust, concrete, and pegboard is just right, exactly what I remember from being in my Dad's basement workshop when I was a kid.

The finished (for now) product!  The rug gives my pup a place to hang out when he doesn't want to climb up on the couch.  I am sure that I'll fiddle with the placement of tools and such on the pegboard until it feels right.  I've got a couple of boxes of tools that my father-in-law picked up from yard sales to help be rebuild my collection after the fire.  I need to sort through those, and figure out what's generally useful (and worth putting close at hand on the pegboard) vs. what can be chucked into a box and squirreled away out of sight.

Later this week, I'm going to take the time and put some shelves in the support boxes, turning them into something more like real cabinets.  That will let me have enough under-counter storage that I can get most of the power tools and larger items tucked away where they won't be cluttering up the work surface.  Maybe even get some hinges and latches, and put doors on them.

I also want to put a support in under the main length of the counter.  If you look closely, you can see that it's slightly bowed.  I'm thinking that I might build a long, narrow box to fit underneath - something that will support the counter, but set back a foot or so from the edge so that getting right up against the counter isn't uncomfortable.

All that's for the next phase, though.  For now, I'm a happy camper with my new workbench!

Operation : Workbench (Part I)

Building a basement workbench has been on my to do list long before we moved into the new house. There's a little extension off the basement under the sun room that's about 14" by 16" - perfect for a workshop-slash-man cave. I've had it kind of set up for a while (i.e., I had an old desk I could chuck tools on), but long term, that really wasn't going to cut it.  What I wanted was a real workbench, some extra storage, and a change to organize everything a make the space my own, instead of a random jumble of "where did I put that whingding?"

This weekend, I finally got the time to make that happen!

The focus of the workshop, of course, is the work bench.  Because of a contractor mistake, we ended up with two kitchen countertops - one without and eating ledge (which is what was initially shipped to us), and one with an eating ledge (which is what our contract called for, and which was installed). The first countertop was propped up against a wall in the garage, and... our builders did not want it back, and didn't really care what we did with it.

Seriously.  As far as I could tell, the cost of shipping it back to their home offices in Ohio, storing it in a warehouse, and keeping it there until someone wanted the exact same configuration and finish as we selected was just not worth the trouble.  So when we pointed out the error to them,  they ate the cost, shipped us a new counter top, and wrote off the old one.

Which left us with an extra counter top.  As soon as I realized that, I realized that I wanted to - nay, needed to - use it to build my basement work bench.

It was, as they say, a moral imperative.

With that in mind, on Friday night, I ventured into the realm of workshop construction.

Step one was to build a couple of support boxes for the countertop.  I had originally thought about getting some used kitchen cabinets to use for this, but (a) even used kitchen cabinets can be more expensive then a couple of 2x4's, and (b) I wanted to do it now, when I had the time, instead of three months from now when I finally found the right cabinets cheap enough.

Since we already had a bunch of random length of 2x4's left over from construction (yeah, we dumpster-dived to save a bunch of wood they were simply going to trash!), I really only needed a few extra to let me make the longer sections.

So, here in pictures, I give you Operation : Workbench!

Doing the main framing for the first support box. This was the trickiest bit - if I screwed up the smaller support box, I could slap together another one without too much trouble.  Mucking up this one would mean another trip to the hardware store.

Ready for assembly.  Internal supports added because I want to turn add supports for shelves,  and then turn these into cabinets with real doors.

Putting it all together!  That's a pretty box, and it's even a good approximation of plumb, level and square.  Constructed from 2x4's and 10d nails. Cuts made using a pencil, carpenter's triangle, and a mitre saw.  Surprisingly low tech.

We had some salvaged 2x2's last year that turned out to be exactly the right height to use for the smaller support box, because they came from a former neighbor's workbench.  Serendipity!

Smaller support box assembled.  No, it's not pretty, but hey - it's a work bench.  It'll do.  I'm thinking that once I get an internal shelf in, I'll use this for storing paint, stain, and the like.  We have a lot of excess paint that the builders left us sitting under the basement stairs right now. It will be nice to get them out of the way.

Support boxes placed, and countertop installed, thanks to the timely assistance of the lovely Mrs. Robb and Eldest Daughter! Which makes a nice end to a evening's work.  Except... I need to find a better place for the couch.  Yes, I have an old couch in my workshop - it's my dog's bed.  Keeps him happy, because I GET TO SLEEPS ON TEH COUCH?  YOU ARE TEH BEST HOOMIN EVAR!

Now, here's where I wanted to put the couch: on the opposite wall from the work bench.  Problem is, there's a mess of lumber scraps there, though, as any fool can plainly see.

Remember when I said we went dumpster-diving to save wood the builders were just going to throw out?  The majority of that pile is made up of 4' to 6' long pieces of of stained oak trim.  You can't really see it in the picture, but there's also four SIXTEEN FOOT lengths of stained oak trim there as well, along with a couple of nice, heavy lengths of 2x6 and 2x8.

On top of that, I have two 30-gallon tubs filled with smaller (2" to 6") oak scraps, and a 4' by 8' by 4' high pile of 2x4 scraps, 2x6 scraps, and plywood sections sitting out in the barn.  And all of that, honestly, was only the better half of what was left over from construction.  I really could have built my entire workbench from oak scraps, if I wanted to... but I have projects for that stuff in mind, and really, why waste good oak?

What I needed to do was find some way to get that lumber out of the way...

Donald Obama vs. Barack Trump

Just this morning I realized how similar these two really are.

"Here's a problem!  I'm going to solve it!  Because I'm AMAZING!  The solution is perfect!  You want details?  How dare you question my brilliance!  You have concerns?  That makes you a bunch of slack-jawed, un-American {racists, idiots}!"

Well, OK.  The final insult is different.

The Trolling of the Cups

OK, folks.  Most of you know that I'm a Christian.  I mean, I've got "theologian" right there in the title of the blog, right?  In particular, as far as the sphere of Christianity goes, I am a fundamentalist (gasp!) Baptist (double gasp!) evangelical (swoon!).  I'm a Sunday school teacher.  I do a Bible study weekly up at a local veteran's center.

I bring that up to point out that (a) my faith is important to me, and (b) as a teacher, I do quite a bit of reading about it.  Online, I follow a bunch of blogs and news sources that focus on religion in general and Christianity in particular.  Lots of theology and apologetics.  Folks talking about putting faith in practice.  Discussions about current events and how they relate to living as a Christian, and so on.

Now, a few days ago, some pastor in Arizona got all bent out of shape over Starbucks using red cups for Christmas.  This is, apparently, an extension of the War on Christmas!!1!11eleventy1!!, and as a Good Christian, I am of course supposed to be Stupidly Outraged, or something.

Yeah... about that.

Mind you, this video seems to have gone viral, albeit in a strange way.  You see, while I've been hearing about it a lot on the Book of Faces recently, it has all been from a certain segment of people - those friends of mine who are generally antagonistic to the Christian faith. [1] 

From what I can see online, that seems to be the only reason this whole red cup thing gained any sort of notice whatsoever.  All the top results from a search on "red cup starbucks" returns...  mainstream media articles talking about the video and how Christians are outraged.

Actual instances of outraged Christians?  Zip.

Remember all those online sources I read?  I have yet to see a single person discuss the horror of red cups at Starbucks.

My Christian friends on Facebook?  Not a peep, really, except for "Wait, what's this red cup thing now?"

Please understand - we generally have far more important things to talk about.  Abortion?  Oh, yeah.  Racism?  Sure.  Culture issues?  You betcha.  Apologetics?  Absolutely.  Reaching the lost?  Top o' the list.  ISIS, Israel, and the future of Christians in the Middle East?  Yup.  Challenges in marriage, in raising kids, in working and living in the modern world?  Tons.

Red cups?  Please.

Oh, I'm sure there are some Christians out there sweating over red cups, because Reasons, and because there are enough people in the world you can always find someone who's outraged about something.  On the other hand, I'm also confident that 99.999% of Christians don't really care in the least what color cups Starbucks is using, just as long as they come filled with something resembling a hot, caffeinated version of a liquid candy bar.

Seriously, guys.  All those articles about this?  About how "Christians are OUTRAGED!"?

Dude.  It's clickbait, man.  You've been trolled.  Hard.

[1] Yes, I have a wide variety of friends.  That we have differing opinions, some significant, does not mean that I love them any less.