Food recommendations for GenCon

Some folks asked on forums, so I put together this list of food I recommend near the convention center in Indy.

As far as food goes, I have a couple recommendations:

* Buca de Beppo: A very nice Italian place a couple blocks from the center. Be warned that it's extremely popular so, expect a wait.

* The Circle Center Mall food court has a couple places I like. Currito is a burrito place that makes excellent burritos in a variety of flavors. And Maki of Japan has very good sushi for a mall food court!

* Ah-Barista, a nice little coffee & sandwich shop across from the convention center. We randomly picked it because it was close, and it was a pleasant surprise! I recommend the Portabella & Cheese Panini, especially for the vegetarians out there.

Official GenCon iPhone app is out!

Grab it from iTunes!

Free D&D stuff at GenCon

The most recent GenCon email newsletter detailed some of the goodies that Wizards will have available on the con floor.

First up, people who sign up for D&D Insider at the Wizards booth will receive a free D&D backpack. For those of you who really want to let your geek flag fly, I suppose!

They'll be pre-selling Adventurer's Vault 2 and the Dragon Magazine 2009 Annual, 100 copies per day, limit one per person.

Wizards is also heavily promoting their new free version of D&D Online, their Eberron-themed MMO. The game has changed to a free-to-play model, where you instead purchase special items and unlocks with real money, similar to many Japanese MMOs now. The GenCon promotion is that, when you buy any D&D product at the Wizards' booth, you get a free $5 DDO store gift card.

There's certainly going to be some nice incentives for the D&D fan at the con!

WotC Fansite Kit

Wizards has posted an official fansite kit. I haven't decide if I'll use any of it for this blog, but I'm going to look through the ZIP file.

WotC Catalog 2010

A few weeks ago, I was at a local gaming store and noticed something curious: a Wizards of the Coast Spring/Summer catalog... for 2010! Someone had left it unattended on top of some books that were being prepped for the shelves, and none of the employees were around.

I pulled out my crappy cell phone and managed to snap a couple pics before I heard an employee coming around the corner. Only two of them turned out, and for some reason my phone won't transfer one, so I've just got the one shot of the Table of Contents:

From WotC Catalog 2010

As you can see, lots of planar-related stuff here.

GenCon is next week, and I'll be attending the Wizards' seminars. I'll post any news I get from there on this blog!

Scribblings

Been a busy week. In addition to my normal three 12-hour shifts, I volunteered to do a fourth on Thursday. We're a touch short-handed right now, and I could use the extra money, so it was worth it. Of course, that afternoon the night shift person decided to call in.

Well, not so much "call in" as "come in to pick up her check and then tell us she's not coming in while she's at her workplace." x.x

Anyway, they couldn't get someone on short notice, so I volunteered to say a few extra hours until someone could come in. Wound up doing a 14 hour shift. On my day off.

Needless to say, I was basically useless on Friday. Lazed about, played some Rock Band 2. Finally got my (single player) band up to earning a jet plane, so I can play gigs outside the USA. Also decided to try drumming a bit... and basically got my ass kicked. Drumming is harder than I expected.

This morning, I've been doing a little writing. I've had a plan since last August to write out my own D&D campaign setting, but my typical lethargy crept in and I kept putting it off. I'm finally getting myself sorted out, and seriously working on this stuff again.

My first project is a new racial write-up. The plan is to create a 4-8 page PDF, which I'll sell online under my Bluegrass Geek label. Following that will be a new class, which is a bigger investment in time & effort, and will require some friends to do some playtesting. The final move will be to write out the campaign setting itself, which will include the new race (and a bonus "bloodline" race) & new class, plus feats, a few Paragon Paths & Epic Destinies, new "gods" and the actual world setting itself.

Depending on how well the race & class PDFs do, I'll either make the campaign setting a simple 32-64 page overview, or a full-sized Campaign Setting book & separate Player's Guide book.

I do plan on commissioning some artwork for these PDFs, but I'm going to have to read up more on creating my own company & the legalities involved (especially the D&D GSL).

"What is it with this guy and eels?"

So a couple weeks ago I ran the second adventure for our D&D side-group. This was one of the few Dungeon magazine adventures adapted for Living Forgotten Realms play.

I had woven a few plot hooks for this adventure into the last one, so no one was too surprised when I described the scene. Though it is Midsummer, the air in Loudwater carries the chill of harvest time. Woodsmen have reported seeing strange, blue-skinned creatures and even blizzards in the deep woods. If the unnatural weather continues, the crops will die before they can be harvested, leading to famine. Some believe the cold is tied to the warlock Draigdurroch, who disappeared 30 years ago...

Spoilers for Menace of the Icy Spire!

The players were all too eager to go adventuring. In fact, I had to slow them down a bit to make sure they got all the information they needed! The town leader (who made a show of hitting on the tiefling warlord), asked that any magical tomes be brought back to her after the threat was averted. Once they were ready, the party set out for the tower they were told of... and ran right into a blizzard.

Luckily, the players had some good ideas of how to use their skills, so this skill challenge was a breeze for them. The group soon made it to the tower, a gigantic spire encased entirely in ice. The tower's stone itself was carved into the images of demons, completely encircling the building as if it were a funnel of devils ascending into the sky. Clearly, the owner was not putting out a welcome mat.

As the PCs approached the front entrance, one of the statues turned to look at them. Then, so did a few of the froglike, smaller statues lining the walkway to the front door. Needless to say, the tower's guardians were not happy with trespassers. The frog-guardians were little trouble, but the clay guardian that lept from the building proved dangerous: not only did it have some nasty attacks, but it could redirect attacks, tricking the characters into hitting their allies.

A brief rest, and the dwarf fighter hacked away some of the ice in front of the door. The main foyer was equally decorated in a demonic theme, with many evil-looking statues adorning the walls. Some of the statues had glass eyes which, upon inspection, proved to use a series of mirrors to show anyone looking in them the outside of the tower. Not only was the previous owner demented, he was apparently paranoid.

A pair of staircases led upwards, but the players elected to explore the ground level first. The first room off the left of the foyer was a simple office with some bookshelves. Everything inside is also coated in a thin layer of ice, keeping the contents perfectly preserved, if somewhat brittle. The only odd things of note in the room were an exquisite crystal statue of a demon lord and the fireplace, whose flames had frozen into an unusual blue ice.

The next room off the foyer was apparently a servant's quarters. Unfortunately, the servants had been home when the ice struck, their corpses frozen beneath the blankets as they lay on their cots. Another single fireplace, filled with blue frozen fire, sat in the corner.

Behind the foyer staircases was the kitchen. Like in the other rooms, everything was frozen, right down to the... jars of pickled eels? That threw my players for a loop. A small door in the kitchen led to the larder, which was full of freezer-burned stores... including a barrel of pickled eels. This led to my players wondering how many eel-based things they would find in this tower, and a lot of funny commentary. (Note: At some point, I'm going to start making audio recordings of these things.)

Off the right of the foyer was a large dining room. Of note, this room had two of the frozen blue fireplaces, but nothing else that seemed important.

Deciding to be cautious, the players proceeded quietly up the stairs. Our shadar-kai rogue poked his head up to peer into the next room. It appeared to be a large arcane laboratory, and had several icy elemental creatures standing about. With a signal to his comrades, the rogue burst into the room, surprising its occupants. Two of the ice creatures were large brutes with ice-mauls; one was a jagged thing with shards of ice it could throw; and the final one was off to the side, surrounded by a cloud of freezing mist and whirling ice shards.

The rogue made short work of the ice lancer, while the wizard kept the dangerous misty creature locked down in place with various spells until he could blast it to death. By now, however, several smaller ice creatures came scampering up the stairs into the room! While the other players kept fighting, the rogue quickly ran over and did a flip over the stair railing, dropping down to the first floor. Figuring the strange fireplaces were to blame, he ran into the dining hall and quickly disabled the first fireplace in it. By then, one of the maulers had come down the stairs after him, and another small ice creature emerged from the icy flames at the other end of the dining hall.

With some quick moves, the rogue dispatched the new creature and disabled the other fireplace. One swift dodge later, he avoided the mauler and ran across the foyer into the servant's quarters. He managed to disable this gateway-fireplace as well, but the mauler was now blocking the door out.

Luckily, shadar-kai can teleport short distances by making a short jaunt into the Shadowfell. He simple teleported into the nearby office room, leaving the mauler quite confused, and disabled the final fireplace.

By this point, the second floor had been cleared of enemies, and short work was made of the last mauler. Curiously, while all the ice creatures melted away, one of the mauls remained on the ground. This frost maul was claimed by the dwarf fighter, who was quite eager to put it to use. A quick inspection of the second floor made very little impact on their adventure, as most of the material was damaged by the ice. Also... there were no stairs. Instead was a small stepping disc just big enough to hold the party, which magically lifted up in the air and through an opening in the ceiling.

The room they lifted into was simply adorned with a desk & bookcase. In fact, there was no door... but there was a secret door hidden behind a badly damage tapestry. Stepping in, they discover a very luxurious bedroom & library, with a large central desk. Luckily, the wizard spots the magical ward on the desk and quickly disables it. Inside, the party discovers the journal and magical notes of the warlock Draigdurroch. It appears he was researching a new pact to forge with a being of darkness, and had upset the local fey. He scoffed at the fey's threats of retribution, which he had apparently underestimated.

Another secret door led to a small room with another lift-disc to the roof of the tower. The roof was flat and unremarkable except for some patches of ice... and a large, blue, glowing sapphire in the center. With a few insightful deductions, the party determined that this gem was the center of the icy curse, but that its power had become unstable. It would appear the unnatural cold drew the attention of icy things from the Elemental Chaos, who had tampered with the magical stone to spread their cold across the land. Being heroes, the characters couldn't let that happen. The dwarf used his maul to smash at the sapphire, putting a small crack in it.

That's when the gem flared brightly and a large, white-furred creature appeared in front of them. With a roar, the beast began attacking. The battle was furious and I would give a better description if I could remember the details anymore. ;) I do recall the wizard using a spell to knock the beast prone and keeping it pinned while the others struck it. At one point, they tried to knock it off the tower, but it didn't budge. Finally, after pounding on it long enough the party defeated the creature. As it gave out a last wail of pain, the sapphire also went dim and shattered. The curse broken, the icy shell around the tower collapsed with a thunderous roar and the clouds departed the skies.

Once the characters returned to Loudwater, they were regaled as heroes. The harvest was saved and the people were eternally grateful. Loudwater's town leaders were eager to go over Draigdurroch's journals and promised a grand celebration in the character's honor, as well as many rewards.

That takes care of Menace of the Icy Spire. Sunday, I'll be running the main group through an adventure in the Dalelands. Our small group will continue their journey in a couple weeks, where they'll venture into the Scepter Tower of Spellgard!

iPhone game quickie

Just a quick post. I'm trying to sort out exactly what I want to do with this blogspace, as my original plan kinda faltered. Will work on writing up a game report this weekend, before the next game. For now, here's a couple bits of iPhone gaming news:

The Blizzard Authenticator is now a free iPhone app. Instead of buying a physical dongle, you can just get the app for your iPhone/iPod Touch. Once synced to their servers, you can use it offline just as if it were the physical authenticator.

Wolfenstein 3D has been ported to the iPhone. It's available on the store for $4.99 and either uses on-screen controls, or the tilt-sensor.

Kentucky e-voting fraud manipulated voters, not machines

Six people have been indicted in a Kentucky scandal that involves rigging an election by manipulating vote totals in electronic voting machines. But the folks allegedly behind the scam relied not on high-tech hacking skills, but on old-fashioned southern charm.

read more | digg story

Kicking in the door

So, this past weekend I ran D&D for a few folks. I haven't DMed before, so this was a new experience for me.

We're all in the RPGA, so we're playing in the Forgotten Realms setting for D&D 4th edition. runs a game with all of us, but he also wants to level up a character before GenCon in August. So, I volunteered to run a "side-group" just for that purpose.

My friends all made up new characters, and we elected to start a campaign based on some pre-published modules: first, the intro adventure in the back of the Forgotten Realms Campiagn Setting book, followed by the Scepter Tower of Spellgard mega-adventure.

"Spoilers ahead for "Barrow of the Ogre King"

Our group consisted of a shadar-kai rogue, a dwarf fighter and a tiefling warlord. We only had three players, but RPGA rules specify a minimum of four… so we fudged it with a communal PC (human wizard).

The PCs begin in Loudwater, a frontier town surrounded by woods and ancient ruins. The midday market is in full swing and our characters are milling around the various shops… when the city wall suddenly erupts in an explosion!

Goblins pour through the breach, attacking townsfolk. Without hesitation, our heroes leap into action. Our dwarven fighter does what fighters do best, wading right in and pounding goblins into the dirt. The warlord was good at forcing the goblins around the terrain and keeping the fighter alive. And the rogue was… well, being roguish. Ducking through doorways, throwing shurkien and backstabbing everything in sight. And the wizard was blowing up minions left and right.

Soon, it became apparent that the goblins were trying to reach the local magic shop for some reason. Between the wizard's grasping shadows spell and the shadar-kai rogue's ability to teleport, that got shut down real fast. The PCs subdued two of the goblins & finished off the rest, then set about saving the injured citizens of Loudwater.

A brief interrogation of the goblin leader ensued, whereby they learned the goblins were trying to retrieve an object stolen from them: a dagger carved from the horn of a large humanoid being called the "Ogre King." These goblins live in the Ogre King's burial mound & worship its body… and their leader claims to have a ritual that will allow him to ressurect the Ogre King.

This doesn't sound like a good thing, so the leader of Loudwater asks the heroes to put a stop to the ritual. And, thus, we have our plot hook! ;)

A brief trip leads everyone to the outside of the barrow. The path leads through a stone dwarven face, carved so that you walk through its open mouth. Beyond this gate is an open courtyard. Some investigation led the PCs to a secret door in one corner of the courtyard, exposing a ladder leading into the earth. One short climb later, and they found a door underground. This door opened to a rubble-covered chamber, its roof supported by very weak rotting timbers. Turns out, the center of the courtyard was trapped, designed to collapse into this pit and drop unsuspecting victims painfully into the barrow.

Just up a short flight of stairs from the rubble-strewn floor were more goblins in a stone-tiled chamber (with a neat "trap" involving a magic teleportation disc… that the PCs avoided like the plague). With surprise on their side, the PCs launched an attack. These goblins were no minions, however. In fact, two of them were extremely tough & equipped with heavy battleaxes! At least two heroes were nearly killed during this battle, but a combination of the warlord's inspiring words and the dwarf's "hammer CPR" kept them going.

Disaster was neatly averted when the dwarf spotted yet another pit trap in this chamber before he would have stepped into it. This pit was a shorter drop than the other, but contained four starving dogs that would've ripped him apart! With that out of the way, they were able to take down the last few goblins and catch a brief rest.

As a DM, this was a tough battle to handle. I screwed up by not sizing down the encounter for the smaller number of PCs, and I did have to fudge at least one roll to prevent a PC from certain doom. I generally didn't pull punches though, including when one of the battleaxe-wielding goblins nearly dropped the warlord to instant death. One of the real things that confounds a DM, though, is when PCs do exactly the opposite of what the adventure suggests.

For the next chamber, the adventure suggested that if the PCs tried to sneak through using Stealth, they could potentially slip past the enemies entirely, or at least get a surprise round. So, of course, they all elect to have the dwarf bash down the door with his hammer. o.o

This was a burial chamber that doubled as a shrine for the goblins. Two goblins were at a small statue making offerings when the door went ka-boom, so they came out swinging. That's also when the dwarf zombies came shambling out of the antechamber. And this is where the dice come in.

See, most of the zombies are minions (one hit kills a minion). The one "real" zombie was pretty tough, but had a special zombie-weakness: a critical hit kills it instantly. (Think "head shot.") Guess what the wizard rolled with his scorching burst spell?

So, that combat went shorter than I expected. They even managed to force one of the goblins to surrender with a good Intimidate skill check, and had him take the dogs from the previous rooms' pit with him when he left. This time, they didn't bash in the door to the next room…

This room was a bit interesting. Another teleportation disc, plus a large open pit with a set of stairs down into it, and several hobgoblins assisting the goblin hexer (a spellcaster). There was one goblin hiding by the doorway that smacked the first PC that stepped in, and the hexer actually had another goblin "stored" inside the teleporation disc that he brought out as reinforcements. Again, though, the heroes were smart and managed to shut down the enemy's most dangerous tricks. They almost managed to knock one of the hobgoblins into the pit, too.

Finally, they descended the stairs into the pit. At the bottom, they find the goblin shaman in front of the Ogre King's sarcophagus. Remember what I said about "not going by the adventure's recommendations" earlier?

The adventure was written with the idea that the PCs would at least try to talk with the goblin, and get some information from him. They could even attempt to negotiate with him. So, what do they do?

The shadar-kai rogue says, "We want to help! Here, I'll give you the horn!" He makes an insanely high Bluff skill roll, walks up and stabs the shaman in the neck… with the ritual horn-dagger! Preventing an anti-climax, the shaman had over 200 HP, so the final battle ensued. Which effectively meant bashing the shaman into a corner and beating him to death, while he tried to blast them with area-effect spells.

In the end, the heroes subdued the shaman and dragged him back to Loudwater. And there was much rejoicing. (< Monty Python > Yaaaaay. < /Monty Python >)

Overall, I think everyone had a good time. We'll have to run one more adventure next time before we can dive into Scepter Tower of Spellgard, and I think this extra adventure will be just as much fun.

The Tragically Unhip

Say hello to my Rock Band group: The Tragically Unhip!

Weekend Reverie

I've neglected this blog far too long. Things have been crazy at my day job, but that's no excuse for a writer! *shakefist*

This weekend was a great break, though. I got to participate in the Weekend in the Realms event with some great folks. We got the cooperation of Page 3 to use their store to play in. We did get stuck in the basement and had to leave after a few hours, though. Moved the game to our friends' place and played for hours.

It was a lot of fun, and we got to try some things in-game we hadn't done yet. Overall, it was worth it!

Pimp my ride, WoW style

Got a couple product reviews awaiting approval on RPG.net. Those might go up Monday; if not, should be on Friday. Either way, they'll also go up on EN World and here as well, this week.

In the meantime, some news from the Warcraft… world. First, the Brewfest festival has begun. You can buy your own invisible Wolpertinger pet, get smashed and race rams. Used to be, you could build up tickets to buy a Swift Brewfest Ram, regardless of your faction. This year, that's been scrapped. Instead, there's a level 70 boss that (sometimes) drops the Ram, or a new Brewfest Kodo. He can also drop a teleporter remote. Or, you could just buy yourself a non-virtual beer stein.

Second, coming in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Engineers will be able to make motorcycles. They're able to hold the rider and one passenger, and are Bind on Equip, so they can be sold or given away.

Ding!

Today was a Warcraft day. Not much else to accomplish, but I did get a lot of gaming done. Among them:

• Finished Uldaman, finally. And it was a surprisingly cool PUG too.
• Hit 275 Engineering
• Became Friendly with Ratchet, Gadgetzan and Booty Bay.
• Hit level 50
• Made a new gun: Thorium Rifle
• Started exploring Un'Goro Crater. Awesome place. Got eaten by a dinosaur.
  

The Magic Smoke

Well, that was fun. My current laptop, an old 12" aluminum Powerbook G4, has been a workhorse for about 6 years now. I briefly tried replacing it with an Asus eee, but the Xandros linux on the eee was so locked down it wasn't worth my time.

So, of course, right after I return the eee, my Powerbook decides to get revenge on me. The power adapter, which has seen better days, began to smoke near the actual plug at the laptop. A couple of the wires had finally frayed their insulation and shorted, melting the plastic housing them. One quick unplug-and-shutdown later, and I was offline until I could get a new power adapter.

I've now got a new MacAlly power adapter, which is a sight cheaper than the official Apple one and seems to work just as well.

I'll work up a review of the Asus eee shortly, long with several game book reviews that will likely go up on RPG.net.

GenCon: Cosplay

As the final post in my GenCon report (finally), I thought I'd leave you with a few more pictures. Several folks were dressed up as their favorite characters (aka cosplay), and a few were really just outstanding.



This is a really nicely done Blood Elf from World of Warcraft. There's a lot of detail in this one, and it must've taken quite some time to put together.



The elves were well represented this year. Here, we have an absolutely awesome Drow. The lighting in the hotel was bad, so it's a bit hard to make out, but she did a fantastic job with the makeup and costuming.



A medieval troupe. The lady in the white dress must've had a time with it, because the train was extremely long. Looked great, though.



The best Captain Jack Sparrow of the con. And yes, there were a few.



A monkey and his banana. Be sure to look at the sign on the monkey's chest. And, who is that to the side?



Why, it's Vash the Stampede! Complete with his friend, Kuroneko.



I'm not sure if this counts as cosplay, but this was a fully featured R2-D2 rolling around the con floor.

That does it for GenCon. Hope you enjoyed reading my blogposts! Later this week, I'm going to do reviews of a couple books I picked up at the con, as well as some new computer hardware I recently purchased.

Gencon: Days 3 & 4

Saturday at GenCon started out early. The "Haunted and Historical" tour kept us up late, so we almost overslept and missed...



The "Killer Breakfast" does not serve breakfast. :) Basically, it's a silly thing that authors Tracy & Laura Hickman put together. Everyone piles into the room and a group of about a dozen people get pulled up onto the stage and given "character sheets." Tracy then gives a scenario and starts asking the people "How did you get here," and "What do you do?"

If people's answers are too boring or just lame, they get "killed" and taken off the stage, to make room for the next person. Of course, the trick is that everyone will get killed by the end of it, so it's no big deal. The people who are the most entertaining "live" the longest onstage. A couple of my favorites:



The Pirate gal actually lasted a couple rounds, if I remember right, because she played it to the hilt. And besides, everything's better with pirates!



As I mentioned before, there is no breakfast served at Killer Breakfast. When Tracy Hickman asked this guy "what do you do?" he got up and pulled out a table, then proceeded to serve Tracy & Laura a light breakfast. He lived a couple more rounds. :)



Yes, this guy dressed up as Yoda, complete with little arms on sticks. And he really stole the show. He also was sitting next to a kid who was doing a Harry Potter-ish thing to play, and they really had fun playing off each other.



I really wish I could've got a better picture of this. Someone dressed up as the "Monster in Darkness" from the comic The Order of the Stick. Did a great job of it, too.

Of course, in the end, the entire audience died. :)

We managed to double-book several events on Saturday, so we didn't get to do everything we had planned. After the Killer Breakfast, we got some real breakfast, and did more shopping in the dealer's room. Then, it was time for "Tracy Hickman's X-Treme Dungeon Mastering!"



This was a seminar where he talked about the various ways to play games, and how to avoid many of the pitfalls gamemasters make when running their games. He had a lot of great insight, including...



... using Joseph Campbell's monomyth to help build your stories.



At the end of the seminar, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis held a contest. Apparently, a batch of human DNA samples are going to be sent up to the ISS as a kind of "back up" for the human race. They drew out a name and the guy pictured in the middle won.

Again, the seminar kept us from attending a couple other events, so we just spent some time walking around getting pictures and such. I stopped by the miniatures painting area, and they had a bunch of their contest winners out for show.





Then, the big event of the con...



Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the original Dungeons & Dragons game, died this past year. In tribute, the con had this huge styrofoam d20 die out on the floor. The die was hollow, and people were encouraged to drop some of their spare dice into it.

On Saturday evening, a charity auction was held. All purchases made at the charity auction went to help soldiers who had been badly injured in combat. Several artists and writers donated unique pieces of their work, along with lots of other gaming related items. But the big event of the night was auctioning off the huge foam d20 and all its contents.



The auction started off kinda anemic, without a whole lot of bids going in. It was a bit disappointing, but some of the presenters gave impassioned speeches that seemed to get people more in the giving mood. The die ended up going for $1500.

That brought an end do our Saturday. Sunday, the final day of the con, started out after a good night's sleep. We only had a single event to attend, the "Worst Mistakes in Game Writing" seminar. Several writers talked about the typical mistakes people make when trying to get into game writing, and took questions people had about the subject. It was really informative, and I hope they do it again next year.

After that, it was just a matter of getting home. GenCon was fabulous fun, and I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.

I have one more follow-up post to make. There was a bunch of good cosplay at the con, and I'm going to show off some of the highlights in another post later today.

Nice chrome.

Google has unveiled their own web browser, Chromium.

The concept was to strip off all the "chrome," aka unnecesary menus and visual effects that most apps have. The second concept was to revolved around the "web app," such as Gmail, Google Docs and other web applications. It will use Google Gears to actually "save" the webapp to your computer so you can run it offline.

So far, it looks really cool, and I hear its quick. It has a few really neat features, such as: each tab is its own process, so if one tab crashes it doesn't take the whole browser down with it; inline search, like Safari; Firefox's spell check; "private browsing" mode; and a thumbnail view of your sites, similar to Opera's "Speed Dial" function. The developers describe the browser as drawing on the best features of today's web browsers, and they hope their open-source code will be used to improve other browsers.

The downside is that it's beta. From what I've read, having each tab really takes up way too much memory; and there's no real bookmark manager in place. Plus, they're still working on MacOS X and Linux versions.

Now is the appropriate time to headbang.

I've had a few bands that I've loved a long time. Many were because my dad listened to them quite a bit: Pink Floyd, the Doors, Dire Straits, etc. Once I got to college, I got exposed to something new: "alternative" music, which turned me on to bands like Alice In Chains, Tool and others.

One of my favorites from this time period was Nine Inch Nails. The sound was raw, the lyrics were full of emotion, and there was a wonderfully layered effect to the sound. Trent Reznor, the heart of the band, takes advantage of live instruments, synthesizers and his own powerful voice to create music that builds on itself, adding rhythms to each other, often building up the complexity of the song as it goes along. It's really evident in their big hit "Closer" as it approaches the end.

So, when my partner told me he got a notice from Rupp Arena that NIN was coming to Lexington, and were offering special $20 preorder tickets, I snapped them up. The seats weren't the best, but for $20 who was I to argue?

I have never seen so many people wearing black in my life. n.n

The venue didn't sell out, but it was pretty well packed. The folks next to us were cool, and we chatted with them a bit before the show. The opening act was a band out of Ohio called White William. Three college guys, one on guitar, one on a very small drum set and one on synth/vocals.

These guys sucked. I hate to say it, but good lord this sounded like a self-absorbed college band. They used reverb and echo effects for their entire set. The guy on vocals and synth was the worst offender, as there wasn't a single song where he wasn't using both effects on his singing. Plus, they apparently used every damn effects key on the synth. The guitarist kept to the really high notes and was headbanging. My partner commented that "this is not the appropriate time to headbang," because the music really wasn't heavy; rather, I can best describe it as pop-synth-crap. The drummer didn't get to do anything interesting for most of the set. The worst part is, the band didn't seem to have any enthusiasm. When the singer talked to the audience between songs, he was flat and emotionless. I'm guessing he wrote the lyrics to their song because the words were just as flat and trite. Well, what I could hear of them. Did I mention the whole set was badly over-amplified?

It's telling when the lead singer says, "This is going to be our last song," and the crowd starts cheering. o.o

That said, their last song almost didn't suck. If the lead singer had turned off his damn echo & reverb, used a few less effects, and the outro hadn't been three times too long, it would've been a decent electronica piece.

Following that disappointment, the lights came back up and we sat for about 45 mins while roadies set up equipment for the headlining act. We chatted with folks about the opener, and they all agreed it wasn't good. My partner thinks that NIN must be picking up local acts for their openers, rather than bringing an opener on tour. After the concert, I thought it would've been much more appropriate to track down the guys from Days of the New, as they were a Louisville band originally, had talent, and were at least an alternative band that would've fit the sound of an opener for NIN somewhat.

Finally, we got to the main act. And, damn, Trent Reznor knows how to put on a show! This is billed as the "Lights in the Sky" tour, and the name shows. There was a fantastic amount of lighting effects, and several curtain effects that were just dazzling. For one song, a curtain came down in front of the stage showing TV static. And at certain points during the song, Reznor would step up close to the curtain and the static would clear just around him for a few moments. He'd step back and the static would fill in, he'd come close to the curtain and it'd clear, he'd run across the stage and the static would clear as he moved across, filling in behind him again.

At one point after a song, a block of 64 hollow squares appeared on the screen, stacked in a pair of 16x2 grids. Reznor walked up in front of the curtain screen and a pair of white squares started tracking across the grid. He'd touch one of the hollow squares, which would fill in red and, when the white trackers crossed the red square, a snare hit was played. He started filling in the squares in the right pattern to begin the song "Echoplex" off the album The Slip. Once the main pattern was started the band began playing and he started singing the song. It was a great bit to watch, if kinda hard to explain. (You can download The Slip for free on the official site, linked.)

Edit: Found a YouTube video that shows it off well!



Most of the music was off The Slip, but he also played the band's most popular songs, plus some stuff off Ghosts I-IV. (You can download Ghosts I for free on the official site, linked.)

I really hope they put out a concert DVD of this performance, as some of it needs to be seen to be believed. It was just a fantastic show. The band was really into it, Reznor knew just how to play the crowd, and the crowd was singing along to most of the songs. Overall, it was a fantastic show to attend.

NIN