The Red Star!

Finally, after waiting for so long in anticipation (and the sudden realization that I had actually bought d20 Modern only for the sole reason of playing in this setting) I hold in my hands a copy of The Red Star d20 Campaign Setting!



It's a hardbound sourcebook from Green Ronin Publishing's Mythic Vistas sourcebook line for the d20 system. Personally facilitated in the writing by the creator of the Red Star, Mr. Christian Gossett, the book does very well in conveying the setting of the award-winning comic book.

The Red Star is a fantastic setting, and the Campaign Setting lives up to it by taking the D20 Modern Corebook and taking it to a whole new direction. New Base Classes, Feats, Skills, Equipment, Vehicles and Spells make the entire setting plausible for a military campaign.

Having only just flipped through the rules so far, I don't see any glaring difficulties in it. Some of the Protokols seem to have really high kasting check DCs, but I think that's pretty much expected for the effect they have in and out of the battlefied. I think it's a great touch that the spells are not so much grounded on the "fantastic" as much as the practical in a setting filled with Industrial Technology with Magic. Supply Protokols, Armor Piercing Protokols and even Bridge Laying Protokols make the spells unique to the setting, and they mesh well with the feel of the world.

The Art is top-notch, hands down. Sure most of it comes from the comic (except for a few panels which I expect to see in future issues of the Red Star) but it fits it nonetheless.

The Red Star D20 is one of the few products that has absolutely floored me in D2o. I'm not a big fan of the system, preferring the Storytelling or HERO systems for rules, I make a special exception for this book. The tweaks made to the d20 Modern game made it flow smoother in my opinion.

I'll make a deeper review of the book when I get a chance to sit down and really mull over the nitty gritty aspects of it, but as a parting shot, let me leave you guys with a link to the opening cinematic of the Red Star videogame coming out on the X Box and the PS2 over HERE.

There's a reason I play John Armstrong...

I am the mission.

You're a mecha pilot!

You might be a sub-category of bishounen, but this hardly matters since you don't notice anything that didn't feature in the last edition of Guns'n'Ammo magazine. You have been trained since an unfeasibly early age to be a machine of death and destruction. If you've noticed an annoying girl following you around and repeatedly getting into danger and requiring rescue recently, run like hell - she's probably your love interest... Which generic anime character are you?

Energy Beverage Roundup!

Out of a sheer fit of boredom, I have decided to try out four energy drinks available in the market today. Of course, these reviews may be biased according to me and the shift I was at when I took them, but these are my results so far:

Bacchus:

You guys already read what I thought of this drink on my last post. I can see why Koreans made this. It's enough to give a little buzz to keep clicking a mouse in Ragnarok Online, but hardly enough to maintain decent human conversation or performing tasks more complicated than folding paper. Tastes like battery acid. Heck even the can looks like a penlight battery.

Energy Rating: 2/5
Taste: 1/5

Lipovitan:

The Japanese are a funny people. Not only do they cultivate such amazing biological marvels such as the Colon Cancer busting Lactobacilli Shirota Strain (*not a proven pharmaceutical claim), but also the strange bottled menace known as Lipovitan. Having only tried the regular version (for fear the the IRA formulation, which is targeted to the female physiology might have irreversible effects on me). I can safely say that Lipovitan is pretty much Bacchus without the apple flavor and with less of that strange gritty suspension feel in the mouth. Drinking it is about as enjoyable and poking yourself in the eye with a toothpick, but it has about the same effect on keeping yourself awake.

Energy Rating 3/5
Taste: 1/5

Pepsi X Energy Cola

Okay, here's an idea. We take a caffine laden carbonated drink, and then empty a packet of Extra Joss into the damn thing, package it in a cool black bottle and call ourselves innovative. That's what Pepsi did with the X Energy Cola. The packaging caters to the "hip, active, and dehydrating crowds in a club because I'm so frigging high on Ecstacy" crowd. The taste however, is unmistakable. It's carbon bubbles biting on your throat as it goes down does not help the vile taste of battery acid from hanging around your tongue, making you feel that you'd rather run your tongue over sandpaper to get it out. The buzz you get out of it though is substantial, almost comparable to that of Lipovitan, and the cola taste does sort of mask things until the aftertaste hits.

Energy Rating: 2.5/5
Taste: 2/5 before the aftertaste, 1/5 when it hits.

Red Bull Supreme Energy Drink

So far, all the drinks I've reviewed hail from different countries, and show off the kind of people that need what kind of energy for their day to day activities. Koreans don't need much, the Japanese have synthesized some sort of energy that would probably only be used when running from the Yakuza, and the Americans created some vile tasting fizz that only serves to fuel the hedonistic dance of the first world capitalist economy. (*wow... too much Red Star there.)

Anyway, it only makes sense that the most powerful of energy drinks hails from the mighty country of Thailand. Location of hot spices, exotic destinations, Kickboxing and Streetfighter's Sagat. In this adventurous land where children grow up in kickboxing schools ruining their legs and desensitizing themselves to pain in order to win in backwater warehouse fights (note that I know nothing about Thailand for real), they come out with Red Bull Supreme.

Aptly named, this bottle contains the very essence of Thailand itself, completely concentrated vicious Thai energy drained from the Chi of thousands of Kickboxers punishing themselves by repeatedly kicking trees to toughen their legs. Seriously though, it's got one mean kick, and is enough to keep anyone awake. The taste is a similar experience for your tastebuds. Oddly enough, if you can keep your wits about you after the first swig of this stuff, you're good to go. Just force it all down and you'll be okay for the rest of the night... and most of next morning.

Energy 6/5
Taste 1/5

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And that's it for today's Energy Beverage Roundup! If you haven't noticed, Energy Drinks aren't really well known for their taste, but do things gradually. Look for the one that does the most for you, and avoid taking Red Bull right away. Taking too many of these also has some side effects, as the rest that you're cutting out on with these drinks will catch up with you eventually. So make sure to get rest as well... artifical means will only keep you going for so long.

Anyone have any ideas for what I should review next? :)

Rest Days and Blog Toys

Hey guys!

Here I am, on a monday morning, getting in as much rest as I can before tackling another week of calls and angry callers. It's not going to win me any awards, but hey it's work.

Not that I'm being naive, I'm looking at other options. Ones that might offer more stability than what I'm on now. I'm all for company loyalty, but I've been burned more than once, and I'm not going down with the ship this time.

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On other news, you guys might have seen my new blogpet. Just in case you guys didn't know, you can click on it repeatedly to have a conversation with it. Pretty amusing to while away the time. Not to mention it tries to read your mood depending on what you write on your blog. :)

Energy in a can...

Bacchus...

such a strange name for a can of energy stuff. Supposedly composed of several energy boosting components, this is the drink I had on the 12 hour shift day. My verdict... the taste, not the components, will keep you awake.

To be fair, at least the can tries to look competent, as after close observation during my 15 minute break, I realized what it was trying to look like: a "AA" battery. My realization is that it gives about as much of a charge as one, not enough to do anything aside from turn on a few lights.

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As you can all tell, I'm bored. I'm in my lunch hour right now, and I'm working on getting some rest for now. The couches are full of sleeping people, so I can't nape, and I'm turning irritable on the phone. Not a good sign...

Marathon Shift...

Fantastic.

Here I am, getting as much rest as I possibly can before today. Its not going to be fun today, and I hope I make it though without any problems.

12-hour shift.

My God.

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The account is shaky at the moment. The performance scores of the entire account have not been meeting the targets set by the client, and with the VP of the client company here to witness it first hand, the meeting at 8:15 pm with the entire account may not be a good thing. Regular shift starts at 9:00 pm and ends at 6:00 am then I've got overtime for two more hours until 8:00 pm.

I hope the energy drink thingy I bought is enough to keep me alive through today.

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I'm really trying to keep myself going nowadays. Its getting really difficult on the financial end for the family right now, and I'm finding myself more and more pressured to pin this job down, even as I feel that the pressures are building. I'm polishing my resume as we speak... only to be on the safe side.

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I need a diversion. Thankfully HERO 5th takes a long time to build characters for. Just for the sake of keeping sharp, I'm thinking of building a superhero character for each of the archetypes there are for comic superheroes.

Gadgeteer
Power Armor
Martial Artist
Supernatural
Energy Projector
Mentalist
Brick

and whatever else comes to mind. All hail escapism, the last bastion of true sanity in the world.

Quiet Time to Think

Hey guys,

It's been a while since my last post, I know, but things have been hectic. My girlfriend just left for Singapore yesterday to accompany her mother for cancer treatments in the hospital there. She'll be staying there for the next six months, and I have to admit that I feel like a large chunk of who I am is missing. Thankfully, there's still a lot of options to keep in touch.

Work is a little iffy right now to be honest. The head honcho for our account has disappeared under the phrase "no longer connected to the account" quite suddenly, and the pressure over here is escalating. Rumors are flying and everyone is bracing for the worst. I'm not sure what this is leading to, but here we go again... why the hell is it that whenever I seem to find a job, the boat starts sinking? It makes me thankful that I'm not a pilot or something.

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Enough moping, on the upside, I've just had my PC upgraded, and it's doing pretty well. I'm pushing it's limits with a few of the high-benchmark games I have over there. Right now, my playlist includes:

Warcraft III
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Ragnarok Online
Neverwinter Nights
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

So far I'm satisfied, except for the last one. I'm experiencing a bug in KotOR where my character starts running straight ahead, and doesn't stop. Does anyone know how to fix this?

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Anyway, I'm off to get ready for my shift at work. Life doesn't look too good right now, but I'll manage. I've got my kitty with me (even when she's not physically here), my best friend Kate to back me up, and everyone else to rely on and remind me that I can get through this.

So here we go again... visor down, lance in hand and mounted on my steed I go. The Quest for the Grail never ends.