Published?

So I did a google search on me to see if I could find the guy who referred to me as a ‘smug nazi’ in a card tournament. As I recall, I won a game I had no right winning because the guy was terrible at magic and I wasn’t and could barely contain my mirth. Anyway, he must have removed the post which is good because it was quite offensive.

What I did find is that some company has used my thesis as its resource. This amuses me greatly, I would probably not trust this company with my money.

Crawl

My latest effort to appear as productive as I am is to go for runs in the mid-late afternoon. While I am not at my desk for an hour, I am at my desk for an hour later in the evening which is very observable. In fact, by taking my full lunch break and going for a run for an hour or so, I work a normal, proper, day and appear to be working extra hard and when they look at the work I have done, they will think it is because I am super awesome rather than simply super efficient.

This, however, does not solve the problem of what to do when I need a break for a few minutes. Facebook is gone and the newspaper doesn’t update nearly frequently enough. I should/could get more things on my Google Reader but I have found in the past that those things which update most frequently are largely noise. I would prefer to not read crap even if it means that I miss some of the good stuff. (I encourage people to share things they find interesting!). I don’t usually have enough to say to warrant a blog post so I have resorted to my old friend Crawl.

Many years ago, Suresh introduced me to two roguelikes: Crawl and Angband. I became quickly frustrated with both games but felt as though I was getting further with Crawl. Perhaps I should have learned how to cast spells before I tried to play as a Wizard. Regardless, I stopped playing when something shinier came along. A couple years later I came back to it with an attitude of exploration rather than trying to simply beat it. I tried at least one game with each class and at least one game with each class. I really really tried to play a rogue class but never got above level 2. Eventualy I decided to play wizards again and after some fiddling around, decided on an Elvish Ice Elementalistas my character of choice. I chose Sif Muna as my deity and quickly started playing around with different spells, of those that I had, I really only used the offensive ones. Summonings and Enchantments seemd far too weak to me. I played a lot and a lot and was probably save haxing like crazy but I eventually hit the jackpot when I discovered the pure joy of Ozocubu’s Refridgeration in Ice Form and lots of cold resistance. This character had enough wands to kill the undead and some teleport control whilch allowed me to zip through the last big chunk of the game, get the orb and get out without much hassle.

Having beaten the game (despite save cheating like crazy) I felt that the game’s hold over me had been broken and I again didn’t play it for a number of years. Until now. It operates in a window that looks a great deal like one of my unix windows and can easily be used to spend a couple minutes after accomplishing something or when deep in thought as it is fairly mindless much of the time. When I started again, I tried a couple of classes I think would work; Ogre-Mage Crusader was one since the ogre can’t wear armour anyway (and is quite strong) but I didn’t really do well after about level 6 on any of these. I took a different tack and started with some demon spawn because mutations are fun. Apparently it is more fun to have a character that survives. I then went for a Spriggian Venom Mage and found my dream character: early on the venom mage is very powerful as nothing is immune to poison for a while, your spells have an ongoing effect so the guy tends to die as you run away from him. Your starting book is called the Young Poisoner’s Handbook which has infinite cool points associated with it, it has the Mephitic Cloud which shores up your greatest weakness (centaurs on the early levels) and being a Spriggian you are faster than most anything. Sadly you are quite fragile and I had many characters die from traps. I decided that I would try out Vehumet as a god and found the gaining power from killing people to be not as useful as the protection from the side effects of magic that Sif Muna provided but the books from Vehumet were much better.

Eventually I got a character that was doing rather well so I became a lot more careful with it, I decided that I would give earth magic a try. I found that tomb of Dorokhole was amazing in open spaces. I was able to run away and encase myself in rock. This would allow me to heal and when I did dig myself out out, I would only face one enemy at a time. Crystal Speak soon took over from Mystic Blast as my offensive spell of choice as it would kill even orb guardians in one hit much of the time. Sufficed to say I waltzed through the game watching out only for Storm Dragons (I had no lightning resistance). Getting out with the orb was rather difficult though as greater daemons kept appearing near me. A couple crstal spears later and they were dead. NB. Dig and Magic Mapping should be in the aresenal of any spellcaster. I tend to think that Crystal Spear falls under this category too.

Now I am going to try playing a warrior. Suresh tells me that Hill Orc Gladiators are the way to go while Rachael has a preference for beserkers. I have had more luck with beserkers so far, as a simple orc priest kills my gladiator. Or should I play a hunter?