I'm moving hosts again....

This seems to be an almost constant thing with me. But I am just not satisfied with Blogger anymore.I will be shifting the site to a new location and will likely be quiet until the move is complete.

Thanks,
MurfMan

Installing Skype 2.2 on Fedora 17 x64

I am happy that Skype for Linux was not totally abandoned, but come on. Skype 4.0 for Linux is fucking terrible. It is so bad, that I highly recommend that you get rid of it and install the much more useful version 2.2 beta. (Kinda funny how the beta was more useful than the release isn't it?)

This is going to work only on Fedora 17 64 btw...

1. Download the Skype 2.2 Beta RPM. You can google for it, or you can use this one.
2. Install the dependencies:
1. sudo yum install-y qt-x11.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 alsa-plugins-pulseaudio.i686 libXv.i686
3. Install the RPM for Skype:
1. sudo yum loclainstall -y skype-2.2.0.35-3.el6.nux.i586.rpm

That should get it going fine. If you already had Skype 4.0 installed then the dependencies are likely not needed.

Fedora 17 and Gigolo

Again this is a note to myself, and any others who might have had the same issue. After installing Fedora 17 XFCE Spin, for some unknown, and rather bewildering reason, it does not have Samba support for browsing files enabled by default.

To enable samba sharing via the ever popular Gigolo app perform the following :

1. sudo yum -y install samaba-client
2. sudo yum -y install gvfs-smb

After this you should be able to open Gigolo and connect to a Samba share. Why Fedora left this out of the final release is somewhat confusing, but oh well.

My First Narration!

This past week I had been working with Jesse over at SFFAudio.com for my very first narration. This is of a short story by William Hope Hodgson called Out of the Storm. I had a lot of fun doing it, and learned far more than I ever expected to! I can't thank you, Jesse Willis, or Julie Hoverson from 19 Nocturne Boulevard for their help and support.

You can find the link to the story, and audio, over at sffaudio.com

DIY Microphone Shock Mount

So after making the PVC mic stand and the improvised pop filter I realized that the system really needed a shock mount for the microphone. And let's be honest, there was no way I was paying $30 for it.

After digging around on the Interwebs I found an Instructable for a mount that used PVC and some rubber bands. I modified this to work with the desktop stand I built a few days ago, and came up with this.

I had some 4" PVC lying about and my wife had a bag of large rubber bands for some reason. After cutting off about a 3" pice of PVC, I fitted the rubber band and tried the microphone in it. I wasn't too sure it would actually hold the mic to be honest, so imagine how thrilled I was to find out it did!

With the rubber bands in pace I marked their location with a pencil and then removed them. These small lines would be the cut marks I would make the notches with. With a trusty hacksaw blade in hand I went to work, and a few minutes later had all the lines cut. Then I just used a pair of good dykes to cut out the space in between. These notches would serve as holders for the rubber bands keeping them in place regardless of the jostling they took.

I wanted to keep the actual desk stand I made the other day as intact as possible. Which means I really did not want to remove the actual microphone clip from the stand and have to use another type of mount. The mic clip allows my stand to pivot in two place, the  base of the arm and at the microphone itself, which makes it a lot easier to position.

What I decided to do instead was to simply drill a small hole into the PVC shock mount, and a hole through the mic clip itself and attach them both with a 2" nut and screw. I'll admit that I was a little leery about drilling through the mic clip, but it seems to have affected it none and allows the shock mount to tilt.

 And that was really it. I sanded down the PVC some to remove some of the dirt and I left it white for now. I may try and spray paint it black, but I'm not sure what I can use that will stick to PVC, and I didn't have it in my garage.

So the real question is, did it work? I am happy to say that the very short test recording I made had me thumping my desk, and re-positioning the mic stand while speaking. Neither of which were apparent on the  recording. Yesterday with just the mic stand and doing the same thing, I realized that any jostling of the mic or mic stand would cause some serious clipping. And any time I would type, or even tap on my desk absent-mindedly, I was picking it up through the microphone.

Does it work then? Hell yes it works! It is freaking awesome! It may not be the prettiest Heil shock mount that you have ever seen, but it is functional and cost me nothing. Which is pretty spectacular!

DIY Desktop Mic Stand and Pop Filter

So a few weeks back I got in my Xenyx 1002 mixer and a Behringer XM8500 mic. I had tried experimenting with them a bit but honestly I needed a mic stand for the desk. Holding a mic is not possible for audio recording, at least not possible for me.

So I looked online and realized I flat out did not want to pay $20 for a crappy mic stand. Hell if anything I can build my own crappy mic stand! So that is what I did.

I had a bunch of left over PVC odd-and-ends and several pieces of cutt-offs from various projects and figured that I could use that as the stand. So I made a roughly 10" x 6" square base and on one of the short sides inserted a 3/4" to 1/2" PVC tee. This would allow me to fit a piece of 1/2" PVC as a boom.

On the tip of the boom I cut out a notch for the mic clip to rest in. And then another notch perpendicular to that that would hold a square bolt. The nut and bolt are actually some extra server rack hardware pieces that I re-purposed for this. With the mic clip attached I was fully functional, and it hold the fairly heavy XM8500 without tipping. It was still ugly though, not a problem that is why man invented black electrical tape.

After sitting it on the desk I realized that I now needed a pop filter more than ever. So, riding on the success of the fresh mic stand, I decided to make one of those as well. Shouldn't be too hard, just need a pair  of pantie hose and a wire coat hanger, no problem! Or so I thought.

As it turns out in a house with three women in it there was not a single pair of pantie hose to be found. And to make matters worse, there isn't a single wire coat hanger in my house.

"OK Brian," I says, "time  to get creative." I figured the wife's lingerie had enough spandex in it to do the job, so I went in search of the once worn, failed birthday gift from years past. And so there I was about to slice this shiny teddy to ribbons when, "Oh. What's this?" In the same box as the teddy was a lone silk sock. obviously forgotten about for years and no chance of a match coming into play. And better yet it was mine. No guilt associated with this acquisition.

So what did I have to replace a coat hangar? Well, I garden a bit and I have some tomato cages lying around the back of the house waiting patiently for me to drive them into the ground again next spring. That would work, bit f an overkill, but fuck it! I need a pop filter.

I quickly realized that this wire is really heavy, so thick that I had a hard time bending it with a heavy pair of lineman's pliers. OK, shit Well now I need a hoop. Something sturdy but somewhat flexible. "What do you have thousands of feet of lying in the garage, Brian?" "Fuck me. Cat5."

Yeah so I braided a ring out of Cat5 and then wrapped it in duck tape. It wasn't pretty, but I was going for free on this one. Then I made use of the vise in the garage and bent the wire around one end of the Cat5 hoop as best I could. Taking the partially made pop filter to the newly made mic stand I figured the best place for mounting and started bending. There was a very good possibility that this mount was in no way going to be removable, ah yeah not coming off. But that is OK because why would I record with out it?

Now the interesting bit... I decided to mount to the stand before I put on the screen, not really all that interesting actually, sorry. So I stretched the sock over the hoop, and ZIP tied it around the stiff wire. After pulling it as tight as hell and clipping off the excess it was time to try it out.

Holy shit this actually works! Sometimes I surprise myself. It might not be pretty at all. But it is functional, which is all that I really care about.

Switching to the Pipe... Again....

My pipe posts have been somewhat sparse lately because Madame Nicotine dug her claws into me and hasn't easily let go. So I really hate cigarettes. Really hate them. They smell disgusting they are taxed out the wazoo now, and they are doing me no favors at all. So I decided to attempt and drop the dirty fags for a pipe once again.

I thought about using the drugs commonly available, but honestly, I have had bad luck with them and the side effects are not particularly worth it. In other words, the fraking nicotine/cigarette dreams I get are insanely annoying.

So I recently read an article, you can read it here at Pipedia, in a past issue of the NASPC that detailed how the author was able to finally give up smoking cigarettes and smoke only a pipe. The main premise of the article is basically nicotine content. Most people do not realize it, but one cigarette has about as much nicotine in it as three bowls of pipe tobacco. So by smoking a cigarette I am getting a massive dose of nicotine in a relatively short period off time. As opposed to the hours it would smoke to get the same from my pipe.

So conditioning yourself to deal with the smaller amounts of nicotine is essential. To start the author, Steve Fallon, says to be extremely cognizant of the nicotine content of the pipe blends that you are smoking. And then goes even further to recommend Dunhill's Royal Yacht mixture as a good starting point. Royal Yacht is got a bit of a reputation for turning inexperienced pipe smoker's a little green, something also noted by Mr. Fallon.

Another suggestion is to do something anathema to many pipe smokers out there, inhale. Yes, this can get that bum rush of nicotine into your system faster, which is what we want, but only once or twice at the beginning of the bowl. Then just force yourself to puff slowly as normal.

The rest of the article goes into some other ideas and methods of forcing yourself to slow down and enjoy your pipe. All mainly re-associating your cigarette habit with the much more enjoyable pipe.

Anyway, today was my first day with the pipe primarily. I don't expect to give up the little rolled nicotine sticks just yet, but hopefully I will be able to severely curb my growing habit over the coming weeks.

I wanted to thank Lou Paoletta a Google+ friend for sharing the article with the masses. I hope you have been able to stop Lou, and you prompted me to join the NASPC. So thanks for that as well.

Some obligatory pics of me and the first bowl of Dunhill's Royal Yacht in my old Comoy Guild Hall follow.

Opening the tin for the first time.

Dunhill's Tin Plate

The smell hits here and it is really nice!

Really packed in there. That Dunhill ribbon cut likes sticking to the plate.

Letting it sit for a few minutes before loading. It wasn't too moist in the tin, but needed some time to dry.

Loaded into my Comoy Guild Hall and ready to go.

The first real puff!

ArchBang Dead, Long Live Fedora

So just moments after the last post, I realized that the only iso of Archbang that I had was actually from early 2012. Why does that matter, you ask? Well because Arch changed their basic structure during ArchHell, the name I am giving the update in question. After hours of attempting to update the system, I said to hell with all of this and moved back to a distro I knew would work.

So after another hour and downloading and installing Fedora Core 17 XFCE spin, I was back at a usable desktop. It took a while later before I had all of the post-install stuff completed. Don't listen to what they tell you, Fedora is not ready out of the box.

So ArchHell was avoided and I am back to Fedora. I still have a couple of little issues with PlayOnLinux and getting my Dropbox symlinks to act properly, but those are little things that are not preventing me from working and playing as I like to do.

Now for some Legend of Grimrock and Temple of Elemental Evil from gog.com!

UbuntuStudio Died...

So in a fit of exasperated rage I replaced UbuntuStudio with ArchBang. We had a power outage here that completely fried Ubuntu. How you ask? I have no fucking clue. While loading the kernel during boot, the system would freeze, no TTY, no nothing. After letting it sit for a bit, to calm me down more than anything else, I tried again. Same results. So that was it.

ArchBang is simple so far and, being a minimalist, I like it. It is going to take some time to get eberything set back up and re-learn Arch thoguh.

Port Forwarding on DD-WRT Not Working?

This is really for my own benefit, so chill out. If I post it here I am much less likely of forgetting just what in the hell has gone wrong.

For those of us running DD-WRT firmware in our routers, port forwarding can be a complete pain in the ass if you do not know what you are doing. And let us be clear up front, I do not know what I am doing with IPTABLES! That shit is completely foreign to me and I would consider myself a pretty well-rounded geek.

So here is the trouble. You just installed or re-flash dd-wrt, this includes the version of dd-wrt that is running on the Buffalo routers by the way, and lo and behold your port forwards are not working. WTF?!? I thoguht this shit is supposed to be awesome, etc., etc. bitch bitch bitch.

The issue is that a port forward is from WAN to LAN, and that is actually working just fine for you. Go ahead an NMap yourself if you think I am crazy. But dd-wrt does not allow port forwarding on the loopback, so your nifty port forward is essentially lost at the router.

This is how to fix this.

1. telnet  into your router (alternatively you could goto the Administration tab in the webgui and then to the Commands box)
   

   telnet 192.168.11.1

2. Enter the following into the prompt:
   

   iptables -y nat -I POSTROUTING -o br0 -s 192.168.11.0/24 -d 192.168.11.0/24 -j MASQUERADE

   Remember to change the line above to match your local network path.
3. Hit enter and close telnet.
4. Voila! Your port forwards are working!

Basically all the above actually does is force a loopback into.... fuck it I don't know what the hell it does, but it works. And this might help someone else who has this fun little problem in the future.

Delta Green: Angel Review

So I finished reading the online only Delta-Green novel by David Farnell, Angel. Most times when I come across an online only novel I am a little leery about reading it. Most people these days can come up with an epub with virtually no work what so ever.

Either way, this is a must read for Cthulhu/Delta-Green & horror fans alike. The images that Mr. Farnell evokes are just downright disturbed and are worthy of the genre.

I'm not going to ruin this one for you guys. Just know that it is a really good read, I devoured it in about a day, reading from HTML no less.

USB Headset has Finally Died

Well my old reliable Creative Fatal1ty USB headset has finally been killed by a 10 month-old's slobber. It had seen a solid 3.5 years of heavy daily use with no issues at all, well until Jackson found it that is. It was an awesome headset. It will be missed.

As for the replacement I ordered a Kinivo BTH220 Bluetooth Stereo Headphone Headset from Amazon last night. As you can see, it was pretty cheap and had some decent reviews, so it won't be a total loss if they don't work. Honestly, I just need something without wires so the little ones can't commandeer them. Hopefully, I can set it up in Fedora to work as good as my old set did.

Setting Up Skype to Use USB Headset in Fedora

I use Skype as a business line in my home office, which means I use it religiously. It has its ups and downs for sure, but it is cheap, and runs fairly well. That is unless you run Linux and you want Skype to pipe output to separate channels for ringing and voice actions. In other words, I want to use my USB headset as my default Skype communication device, but have the ringing (and all other system sounds) still pipe through the main speakers. After a whole lot of messing around I finally got it working, here's how.

1. Install pavucontrol. I am not really certain why this isn't included in Fedora by default. But, to be honest, you might never need it unless you want to do what we are doing today.
   
   

   sudo yum install -y pavucontrol



2. Open Skype and go to Options -> Sound Devices
   Un-check the option to allow Skype to adjust your mixer levels.
   
   


3. Make sure you USB headset is plugged in!


4. Open pavucontrol and get it side-by-side with the Skype Options screen.


5. In pavucontrol, go to the Output Devices tab and you should see two options, the Internal Audio Analog Stereo, and your USB audio device.
   
   


6. Each device has three buttons on the top right hand side for Mute, Channel Lock, and Set as Fallback. Choose the Set as Fallback option for your USB headset.


7. Switch to the Input Devices tab. You should see two items here, maybe just one if you don't have an internal microphone. Select the Set as Fallback option for your USB device again.
   
   


8. Now comes the easy part, go to the Playback tab. You might want to make the window a little bit bigger so that you can see all of the feeds.


9. In the Skype Options Sound Devices page, (you didn't close it did you?) click on the Make a Test Call button.


10. You should see the Skype output here now and it will be piped to the Internal Audio Device at the little button on the top.


11. Click that button and select your USB headset.
    
    


12. End the current test call and start another one. You should hear your Skype audio in your headset.


13. Have a friend call you on Skype and it should ring on your main speakers. When you answer, however, all of the voice action will be piped to the USB headset.

So I hope that helps someone else out there that might be having the same issue. I know it drove me crazy for a while.

Making Chromium View PDFs

Chromium by default has no built-in PDF viewer unlike its cousin Google Chrome. I am not really certain why the hell this is, but it is. This is the easiest way that I could get this to work on Fedora (sometimes I wish I was back in Arch).

1. Install Google Chrome. 
Yeah I know, just trust me here, besides we only need one file, libpdf.so.


sudo yum -y install google-chrome-stable



After Chrome is installed, copy the libpdf.so file out of /opt/google/chrome to Chromium

sudo cp /opt/google/chrome/libpdf.so /usr/lib64/chromium-browser/plugins/


Go ahead and change the file permissions on libpdf.so to 755.

sudo chmod 755 libpdf.so


Now open Chromium and go to chrome://plugins. You should see a plugin called libpdf. Mine was enabled at this point but if your's is not, then do so.


That's it!

See that wasn't too hard was it?

A side note you should be aware of, in this format libpdf.so will not get updated. So it might be a good idea to do so manually every once and a while. Or you can leave Chrome installed and create a symlink to the chromium install for libpdf.so. 

Running Evolution in Dropbox

After switching to Fedora several months ago I have been using the Evolution Mail client solely. I got away from my long-time friend Thunderbird over some rather ridiculous issues that I won't go into here. And so far, Evolution is great. And it integrates into the default Fedora 16 desktop beautifully.

My only gripe is when Fedora 17 is released I don't want to loose everything or spend mass amounts of time backing everything up for the re-install. (Or if something goes completely haywire with the linux kernel during an update.) So I mapped all of the Evolution data into my Dropbox folder. Here is how you can do the same thing.

Evolution stores basic settings and such in ~/.evolution/ and even though nothing of any real import is stored there, you still need to move it to Dropbox.

mv ~/.evolution/ ~/Dropbox/evolution

Now make a sym link to the default location for Evolution.

ln -s ~/Dropbox/evolution ~/.evolution

The main data files and all of your emails are stored in ~/.local/share/evolution so we need to do the same thing to that folder. I changed the name to evolution-data in my Dropbox but you can use anything you want.

mv ~/.local/share/evolution ~/Dropbox/evoulition-data/

And then make the sym link.

ln -s ~/Dropbox/evolution-data ~/.local/share/evolution

That is it. Now Evolution will save the files into the Dropbox folder and it will in turn be synced to the web. If you have crap loads of emails, like I do, then you might need to purchase the 50gb plan to deal with the space. For $9 a year it is definitely worth it.

Flushing DNS in Linux

This is the easiest possible way that I know of to flush your DNS in Linux when you are not running a DNS server. Simply toggle the lan port off and then back on.

Installing Chromium on Fedora

For some reason you really have to work to get Fedora to install the chromium browser. Hopefully this will help someone else out there, and serve as a reminder to myself when I need to do it again.

Illness Overtakes Murphy Family!

Reports are coming in that the Murphy household has been stricken with lung ailments. News right now is scarce, but it seems that the two youngest children, Addison & Jackson, both have bronchitis. The oldest girl, Jillian, has been diagnosed with pneumonia. And now reports are coming in that the patriarch of the family is coming down with something horrid.

In a press statement earlier, Mrs. Murphy, the only one not afflicted as of yet, stated that all "should keep their distance," and that they were "going to have to disappear for awhile" to attempt to nurse themselves back to health.

Apologies were made for any persons who might have come into contact with them in the last several days and for those they were supposed to see over the weekend.
We should have another update on the situation on Monday.

The Ring Cycle Part I: Das Rhinegold

Bryn Terfel as Wotan

On May 9th at 6:30pm for about three hours I will be sitting in a movie theater for the first time since Avatar was released. Not for some other new release movie, but instead for an opera. Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, known as the Ring Cycle, has been re-done this season by The Metropolitan Opera. And the first opera Das Rhinegold will be playing.
This is the epic opera. It is broken into 4 separate operas and runs a total of somewhere near 20 hours total in length. Most people are familiar with the most recognizable piece of music from the second opera, Die Walküre, Ride of the Valkyries. I know most of you people are gong to label as fraking weird and demented to want to go and sit through 20 hours of opera, but seriously this is Wagner! And this production looks absolutely stunning. I personally also like the updated costumes and look of the impressive new stage. I personally didn't like the more traditional costumes that have come to type-cast operas in general since the Ring Cycle debuted back in 1869. The new director Robert Lepage has taken some criticism for the updated interpretation, but I am excited to see it. 

WWII Vet and Wife Brutally Beaten in Home Invasion

On March 14th, Bob and Nancy Strait's Tulsa home was invaded by four to five assailants. They then beat the couple brutally leaving Bob with a broken jaw, cracked ribs, and a BB pellet lodged in his face. Then they beat and raped his wife Nancy. She would die the next day. Can you imagine? Who the fuck would even think about beating a frail elderly couple? And raping an 85 year old woman, human depravity really knows no bounds. All of this for a TV, $200 in cash, and a Dodge Neon. Wow.

These fuckers are sick and need to be apprehended. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has mentioned nothing about this, deferring instead to the Trayvon Martin killing.

Bob Strait was a World War II veteran that served with the 101st Airborne division. (I liked him at WWII vet, but to be an original member of the 101 makes him an original bad-ass.) He parachuted into France on D-Day, won the Bronze Star, declined a Purple Heart, and finished out the war. He returned home and met his soul-mate on a blind date in 1946. They would have been married 65 years by now, had Nancy not been taken away from him.

Bob Strait is a bona fide war hero that has been forgotten by the mainstream media. This is an important story to our veterans, and the more and more time that goes by with no news coverage of this horrible atrocity is another day that they seem to think that the civilian world doesn't care about them.This just flat out isn't true. The main stream media outlets might not care about our vets, but I think the rest of the nation does.

 This really needs to get out. Spread the word. This is a horrible story and needs to be told.

Donations to help the Strait family can be sent to:

Nancy Strait and Bob Strait Support Trust
c/o Arvest Bank, Tulsa Branch
502 S. Main Street
Tulsa, OK 74103

Please include on the check's memo line that is for the Straits' account.

Reddit Thread - What originally let me know about it
Snopes Post - Why this has even been questioned is kinda strange.
LiveLeak Post
Nicolas Stix, Uncensored
Tulsa NBC Affiliate
KRMG Radio

 

CoC Dreamlands KickStarter

I noticed this awesome KickStarter for a Dreamlands campaign by Dennis Detwiller, one of the guys that made Delta Green. Dreamlands has always been a favorite setting of mine, especially since you can totally wrack a player's mind here and it isn't wrong, or right for that matter.

Anyway, he has already doubled the amount he was asking for and has now offered a hard cover print edition as well. I went ahead and ordered one for myself, I mean $40 for a hard cover Detwiller campaign? That is a no brainer. Anyway, check out the KickStarter page and help support this awesome project.

New Books!

Nightshade Books is having an awesome good old fashioned 50% off sale when you buy 4 books or more. If you aren't familiar with this company, they are a small independent press and are responsible for producing some amazing works, especially in the weird fiction department. So I bought my four books, actual books not e-books, in order to support them. I would love for everyone out there to just drop by and take a look at what they have, they will most likely have something that interests you.

Anyway, here are the books I just got in. Not sure what to read first honestly.

Cthulhu by Gaslight

Cthulhu by Gaslight 3rd edition cover

This last week I got in a copy of Cthulhu by Gaslight from Chaosium. This is the third printing of the Victorian era supplement, but the first update or reprint in over 20 years.

The book has an awesome new cover by mythos artist Paul Carrick, and new maps by Steff Worthington. David Englehardt made the new character sheet and the new scenario handouts. A nice acknowledgement is also goes to The HP Lovecraft Historical Society for use of their excellent period fonts in the scenario handouts.

The book itself is about 50% bigger than previous editions with new material reaching the earlier edition's page count. They did remove the majority of the Sherlock Holmes related material from this edition in favor of expanding the Victorian setting more thoroughly.

There is one major revamping of the basic BRP styled character generation system, traits. These are advantages and disadvantages that are randomly rolled after skill point allocation. There are 120 possible traits which run from Aged to Youngster and damn near anything in between. This chart is not Victorian era specific at all, which leads me to believe that this is the next major add-on that we will see in CoC 7th edition.

Income levels in Gaslight are not determined by occupation, as most will be familiar with, but instead by the character's Social Standing. This was done to more properly reflect the huge gap between the wealthy upper and middle classes and the poor. As such, the Credit Rating skill has been given a lot of significance and is directly tied to your character's social standing. The base chance for CR is now 5% for every £100 of annual income. Upper Class characters however start with a fixed base of 65%.

The real meat of this book is in the setting, as it should be. There is an excellent, and brief, history of the British Empire and it's colonies in the last half of the 19th century. There are also wonderful breakdowns of the British Army at home and abroad, and the rather lackluster British Navy of the time. The Vicotrian Timeline from 1880-1901 is William Barton's original from the first edition, and is still a wonderful piece. Glynn White wrote the excellent new British Exploration and Fortean Timelines in this edition. There is also a short list of sample Victorian stores and shops that is included as more of a series of examples more than anything else.

There is loads of new material covering the occult world in the 1890's, with articles on the Theosophical Society, Freemasonry, The Golden Dawn, Spiritualism in general, and the Society for Psychical Research. A new Gazeteer of Selected Strange Sites in Britain lists out numerous occult locations throughout Great Britain and Ireland, but focusing primarily on London. In fact if there is one problem with this edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight, it is the obvious focus on London and not other Victorian locations that would be just as interesting. Oxford and Cambridge both have long storied histories and, especially Oxford, the architecture to provide a really amazing backdrop. Maybe we'll see an add on for additional Victorian cities throughout England and the Continent in the future.

There is, of course, the list of Fictional Victorian Characters which has been updated with even more new possible NPCs, including Allan Quartermain, Buffalo Bill, Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, and many others. There is of course a nice list of NPCs based on occupation included.

The Night of the Jackal and The Burnt Man are the included scenarios with this edition and both are excellently done, with top-notch handouts. There is also a new section from Kevin Ross detailing some more scenario and campaign setting ideas that Keepers can use.

A number of excellent short biographies on a number of influential Victorian personalities that would be nice to put into play. I would love to see Sherlock Holmes, with set stats in the Victorian Fictional Characters section, and Oscar Wilde or Yeats from the Victorian Biographies section. That combo would be just amazing for me personally.

So all in all, this is probably the best CoC rulebook that has been produced in years. My Cthulhu Fez goes off to the editor Kevin Ross, and the original author William A. Barton. There are some scope issues that I mentioned earlier with the London focus, but that is really a preference issue, and they give ample information and imagination to create whatever else might be needed. This is a wonderful release and the guys at Chaosium should be proud to have released such a high quality product.

Review: Penzance Pipe Tobacco

Comoy GuildHall pipe on Penzance on
Chaosium's Malleus Monstrorum

Last night I had the pleasure of smoking the fine Penzance tobacco from Esoterica Tobacciana. This is one of those hot, and therefore rare, pipe tobaccos that are so popular right now. And with good reason, Penzance is a robust English blend that produces a lot of smoke. For inexperienced pipe smokers, you are probably not going to get this the first time around, I know I didn't.

After a few bowls and some time, several months, the flavors start to pop out at you. There is an underlying earthiness that at first you think is almost moldy, but later takes on that pure earth flavor and odor. Then the sweetness balances out the spice from the Latakia. This is a wonderful tobacco, is it worth the ridiculous amount of hype surrounding it? Probably not, but it still in my top three favorite smokes. For that alone I bought the 8oz. bag you see here, totally worth it.

You can try the usual spot for tobacco purchases online, but know that it is generally out of stock. So unless you have a local dealer with it in stock, plan on waiting a few weeks/months to come by it.

I smoked this in a nice little estate pipe I picked up a few months back, a GuildHall second series from Comoy. This one is a nice little bent Dublin, or Zulu, shape, and smoke quiet well even with the Comoy stinger in there.

The Penzance listing on TobaccoReviews.com
PipesAndCigars.com Esoterica page - My favorite online seller.

My WiFi Router Finally Died

Last night my ancient, by tech standards, Linksys WRT54gs v7 wireless router finally died. I had been running DD-WRT on that guy for about 5 years now and it has been fairly reliable, until last night.

I was watching Religious, the Bill Maher documentary on religion, go figure, when my Roku lost all connection. I had experienced some down time over the weekend and a general slowdown, but attributed it to the new placement of the Roku inside an enclosed entertainment system. (I know that doesn't matter but I was grasping at straws to be honest.)

Anyway, I checked on a wired PC and that came back fine, so I checked on my phone, no signal. Checked another wireless device with the same results. After checking the admin page on the router I realized it thought the wireless was on but there was no WAN traffic at all. Antennas were plugged in and there was no movement of the router to make me think it could be an interference issue. So I guess the wireless radio went out. It is rare but it does happen. 

So I had a slightly newer Netgear wireless router laying around, it was an early N device, so I set it up last night and got everything working. Not a big deal really but shit happens I suppose. I don't think I will be going back with another Linksys, something I never thoguht I would say five years ago, but there blatant refusal to fix a gaping security flaw in their WPS system makes them a liabitlity now. I am not too thrilled with the Netgear, but it is working fine for now. I probably will find a good D-Link eventually, but for now this seems to be getting the job done.

This is My Only Webspace...

So over the years I have had an run a number of personal blogs and book review sites. I typically get them up to speed and get a few thousand followers and then just disappear. Life would typically take hold and I would get distracted and my post count would go through the floor and the people would disappear.

In my defense, I have a RL. I know I’m on the Interwebs and that shit isn’t possible, but I do. I have four kids, a wife, and a dog, and they take up my primary time. When I get a chance I get online and do some things but lately I have taken up gardening, probably because of the damn arthritis I have in my hands from excessive gaming and KB work. Either way, I have not been around much and I let about 4 domains go over the last year.

This is my last webspace, true I am still on Google+ but that doesn’t count. The rest are all gone. There is still a Twitter address that I might or moght not keep updating, I haven’t decided.

So basically when I get time, this site will have anything I feel like putting on it. Beware the spectrum could be fairly broad, from scfi/fantasy books to Warhammer 40k, and my CoC based podcast The Miskatonic University Podcast.

My conkyrc …

background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type desktop
own_window_hints
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 1250
maximum_width 200
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color blue
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 32
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no
undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=20}$alignc ArchLinux
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
#File System: $alignr${fs_type}
#Mail: $alignr ${execi 300 python ~/.scripts/gmail.py}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}Intel Core2 Duo E6300${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
Core 1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu2}
Core 2: ${cpu cpu2}% ${cpubar cpu2}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}HDD ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/home $alignc ${fs_used /home} / ${fs_size /home} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /home}%
${fs_bar /home}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}Seagate $alignc ${fs_used /media/SEA_DISC} / ${fs_size /media/SEA_DISC} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /media/SEA_DISC}%
${fs_bar /media/SEA_DISC}
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth0}
${downspeedgraph eth0}
DLS:${downspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth0}
${upspeedgraph eth0}
ULS:${upspeed eth0} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth0}
${color FFFFFF}${font LCDMono:Bold:size=10}${alignc}A Dance of Dragons${font}${color}
${alignc}Release Date
${font LCDMono:Bold:size=10}${color AAAAFF} ${alignc}${exec ~/Apps/countdown.sh}${color}${font}
${execi 10 ~/Apps/mocp.sh | fold -w55 -s}

Here is the mocp.sh script that is dumping my mocp content…

#!/bin/sh
    TITLE=”`mocp -i | grep ‘Title:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
    if [ “$TITLE” != “” ]; then
     ARTIST=”`mocp -i | grep ‘Artist:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
         SONGTITLE=”`mocp -i | grep ‘SongTitle:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
     ALBUM=”` mocp -i | grep ‘Album:’ | sed -e ‘s/^.*: //’`”;
     if [ “ARTIST” != “” ]; then ARTIST=”$ARTIST - “; fi
     if [ “ALBUM” != “” ]; then ALBUM=”($ALBUM)”; fi
     echo $ARTIST $SONGTITLE $ALBUM
    else echo MOC not running
    fi

And this is the little countdown script…

#!/bin/bash
START=$(date +%s)
END=$(date +%s -d “2011-7-12 00:00”)
SECONDS=$(( END - START ))
MINUTES=$(( SECONDS / 60 ))
SECONDS=$(( SECONDS - MINUTES*60 ))
HOURS=$(( MINUTES / 60 ))
MINUTES=$(( MINUTES - HOURS*60 ))
DAYS=$(( HOURS / 24 ))
HOURS=$(( HOURS - DAYS*24 ))
echo “${DAYS}d ${HOURS}h ${MINUTES}m ${SECONDS}s”