Retro Starcraft

My wife and I have become fans of classic Starcraft (and of course the Brood War Expansion). We don't particularly like online play, and most of the maps available online seem to be geared toward free for all, or melee settings, so we decided to do our own campaign.

We're kind of departing from the regular storyline, but since the game is kind of stuck with the characters acting like the characters in the regular campaign, we kind of had to go with them, so it's more of an alternate reality situation.

We have a couple of levels more or less made, but the story and dialog still needs to be fixed some, and the mission briefings need to be written. So far we're figuring on about nine or ten levels. We want to have interesting combinations of characters and races fighting each other, just to keep things nicely mixed up.

My wife is basically handling the story, and since I'm the programmer, I'm handling the scripting. She is handling a lot of the mapping as well, and I make some changes as necessary. Once we get it going, we're going to hand it off to some friends for some play testing. If and when we get it done, I'll link to it here.

Today is a Day of Celebration

Osama bin Laden is dead.  Apparently killed by a U.S. operation in Pakistan.  All I can say is that it's time to celebrate.

Needing to Get Away From the Public School System

As I said before, being a substitute school teacher was healing me, but I think that is coming to an end. While I actually like the teaching, I'm burning out on several aspects of subbing:  It is difficult to deal with kids who always want to use a sub to get away with whatever they can.  I hate never knowing where I'm going to sub, and there is just the overall feeling of being an intruder in someone else's classroom.

But these aren't the major problem.  I can't handle the left wing bias.  I don't want to go into too many details, however it seems to me that the major push within the public school system is to indoctrinate the students to a blind obedience (at least during a crisis) and waiting for someone else to save them. Moreover, no questioning among the staff about these, even in private is allowed.  In fact, in my experience, if you don't profess sufficient enthusiasm for the procedures, you are called in on the carpet.

I want to be generous and try to believe that the goal isn't to create a nation of easily led sheep, however I can't even begin to fathom how anyone involved can't see it, so I must conclude that it IS indeed the goal, and that the overall participants fall into a few categories: Those wanting to create a nation of sheep, those who have already become sheep, those who need the work and are willing to compromise their principles, and perhaps a few who are trying to undermine from the inside.

It isn't just the emergencies either.  The curriculum, texts and lessons all seem to be prepared to dumb down the population, and to force a left wing mindset.

There have been several suggestions in my state for ways to reform education, but the only reform that will really work will be to have the parents,taxpayers (for the taxpayers should have some say in what their money goes to fund), and voters to actually know what is being taught and why.  I'm pretty confident that if the general population in my state knew what was going on in the schools, there would be an uproar.  Maybe it's time to expose it.  I just can't be the one to do it.  I can't operate in secret, and that is what would be required.

The UK isn't Alone In Stupidity

In Obamaland, they've banned most lunches brought from home.  Parents are no longer allowed to make decisions for their own children.  Children in "progressive" areas have become wards of the state, with parents as free care providers.  You don't have an option on what to feed them, where to send them to school, and even what you can ideologically teach them is limited.  

This is a perfect example of a government out of control. I say again that the agenda does not seem to be to protect us, but to make sure that we are more easily ruled.

As Bad as the UK Has Become...

I think they've gone beyond anything any comedy writer could imagine.   With a hat tip to Madogre, Britain is now wanting to ban fire extinguishers because, get this, they pose a fire hazard.  The claim is that untrained people might try to fight the fire rather than leave. There is also a concern that someone might use the wrong fire extinguisher on the wrong kind of fire.

Back in the day, the Monty Python gang made fun of bureaucratic stupidity (ministry of silly walks?), but this is something too stupid even for them. 

So now I guess, it's not just guns that pose a hazard to the great unwashed, but fire extinguishers too.  Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems more and more clear to me every day that the "progressive" ideal isn't to protect people, but to make people dependent, and incapable of acting without government approval, as a dependent people bleating for security are far easier to rule. 

Reloading

If you're not into shooting and reloading, you might not understand this. 

I'm a fairly serious shooter, or rather I have been.  Life has significantly intervened, and I haven't been able to go shooting for a while.  Since my funds are somewhat limited, and I need to do SOMETHING shooting related, I am going to get back into reloading.

I had been reloading for a few years.  I was introduced by my uncle, but I think I kind of upset him.  What took him about 20 years of work to grasp, I understood in a day or so.  That particular uncle isn't particularly bright.

Anyway.  I had been reloading rather avidly, then something important happened.  I fell in love and got married.  I moved, then I moved again.  I left my reloading setup in my parents' house, but I didn't really have time or energy to devote to it. It kind of got buried, when my wife and I stored some of our stuff in the same room.  When my job went away, we had to move back in, and even more stuff went wherever I could put it.

Now I'm needing to get back into it, even if I don't have the time to go shooting now, or the money to get a range membership.  I can at least do something shooting related.

Since I left my reloading table as it was the last time I finished using it,  I thought I would share some insights.  Finish whatever you were doing before you stop, and put it away with understandable labels.

Let me share with you how I found my reloading table when I unburied it:

I found a powder trickeler full of an unidentified powder.  I don't remember what I was reloading last, so that powder is basically useless.   I'm pretty sure it's IMR 4732, but that is only based on its look, and where my powder measure was set.  I'm not willing to bet my life on it.  That means over 300 grains of powder just went down the drain.  On the plus side, I hear it's good fertilizer.

I found 2 #10 cans partially full of brass. I'm pretty sure I was doing some sort of process on a batch of brass, but I can't remember the process, or which can was the ones I was finished with vs. the ones I wss going to work on. I had various tools everywhere.  It was a mess.

While I don't really need to buy anything new, I might as well be starting over.  I have to take all of my brass and separate it out.  I have to get a bunch of new containers to store it in, and make sure everything is labeled.

I can only be thankful that nothing was rusty, or degraded in any other way.  Even my scale was still pretty close to being zeroed.

The moral of this story?  Even though most reloading equipment is of extremely good quality compared to most consumer goods, that can't keep you from all of your problems. Keep your reloading area clean and organized.  ALWAYS put your powder away, and if you can't finish a batch of something, label it.  Say what you were doing, and which stack was done and which one was not. Even masking tape and sharpie will work for that.  Finally if you can, clean up and store your supplies BEFORE you stop using them for an extended period of time.

Spring Yardwork Time

It's amazing how a little maturity, and some desperation can make things that were previously tortuously dull, interesting.   

I live on a half acre of property, and I'm pretty sure we're headed for a financial collapse, and I don't think were going to be allowed to do much to actually own anything in the near future, I'm getting into gardening.

Throughout my life I've hated yardwork and gardening.  My parents tried to force me to get interested in it, but I never would.  It wasn't technological, it was boring.

I no longer feel I have an option.  We have a large garden spot, and when the ground dries out, and we can get the grass killed, we will till up a much larger section.

We've begun planting fruit trees, and doing spring yard cleanup as well. We have access to flood irrigation, so we're moving dirt around to keep the water where we want it, and we've set up a supplementary watering system to keep the garden watered when the irrigation water is not available.

I am also working on bigger plans.  I'm looking at beekeeping, and even a greenhouse.  Keeping chickens would be good too. 

If I have access to the land, I want to use it to make myself as independent as possible.