Halfling Wedding

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

After a long, hard day of traveling the party comes across a halfing with a cart caught in the mud. He is in need of assistance to free the cart.

Jacquot Jean

If the party helps him and repairs the cart he will invite them to the wedding he and his fellow travelers are going to.

After continued travel to about an hour past sunset, the party hears the rousing sound of music and merriment coming from just off the road. They find a large group of tents and many bonfires setup around with a handful of guards watching the perimeter. 

Wedding between Nicolle (Human Male) and Claricia (Female Halfling)

• Upon arriving the party is immediately invited to attend the wedding ceremony, that was being held up waiting for Jacquot. 

• The party may spend a few moments talking or introducing themselves to various members of the family before choosing a side to sit to. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Family Members 

There are dozens of people in attendance at this wedding, so feel free to make up any characters as you see fit for both families. A could place to start to build tension in the scene is to have the Halfling family be very rowdy, drunk and celebratory. The Human family may be much more reserved and feel uncomfortable with the ceremony. As the evening progresses, perhaps certain members of the family will "loosen up", perhaps with the party's assistance.

Members  

• The bride (Claricia) – very nervous, worrying about everything and at some point late in the evening sneaks up to a member of the party to ask them to take her away in the middle of the night. She is terrified of being married. Her new husband is actually a wonderful man, she is just afraid of "growing up" and settling down 
• The groom (Nicolle) – a bit nervous and drunk. Celebrating, but genuinely seems to be a wonderful young man. 
• The father of the bride (Anthoine) – One of the only Haflings at the party not enjoying himself. He complains non-stop about how much this is all costing him.
• The mother of the bride (Amelot) – is either crying about losing her baby or fussing over something at the wedding. 
• The parents of the groom (Jacques and Odelina) – happy and enjoying themselves, most likely because they’re running up the bar tab which is being covered by the father of the bride.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Encounter Ideas

• During the ceremony anyone in the party may try to convince either of the parents that they are capable of conducting the wedding ceremony or adding their additional blessing. Per +17 at dis-advantage if not a Halfling or Cleric. 
• Once the ceremony is over, invite several NPC's from the party to invite various members of the party to dance. This is an opportunity to throw in a "horn-dog" grandmother, a flirtatious young boy/girl who is way too young, a drunk individual who wants to know all about the party's adventures, the aunt who is suspicious of why the party is here, or any other character of your creation/ 
• As the evening progresses there are several ability contents or competitions that the party may choose to participate in.
• Somewhere on the campground will be a large tent setup for smoking. Inside will be a fortune teller (Danśe) who the party can make friends with and have their fortune told for free. The fortune that is told is insignificant. She is in fact a Warlock who a fiend patron. For every fortune told she hands out a small scroll with a glyph carved into into it. She instructs the individual to trace the glyph onto a floor or a door as a protection warding and upon the next new moon it will active releasing a number of monsters identified on a 1d6 below. She is very naive and does not know what she is handing out and even if told, insists that her patron would never do such as thing. 

Fiend Monsters

1. 1 Imps
2. 3 Imps 
3. 2 imps+ 2 Quasits
4. 2 Spinded Devils
5. 2 Hellhounds
6. 1 Shadow Demon 
   

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Ability Contests

• Strength: Wrestling match where participants are shirtless and oiled. If one of you wishes to participate they may succeed in consecutive strength checks of increasing difficulty (per DM's discretion) and may not use any magic items for this competition. Reward: Heart of the Sleeveless
• Dexterity: Competition to scale a 30' wooden pole. The first person to scale the pole without using magic gains the item on the top of the pole. If one of you wishes to participate they may succeed in consecutive dexterity checks of increasing difficulty (per DM's discretion) and may not use any magic items for this competition. Reward: Fortune's Flower
• Charisma (Performance): A dashing young man is dancing and singing near the food and drink at the event. He is joined in a song with several other people. If one ore more member's of the party join in and actually sing the song below. If they they each will be rewarded. Reward Singing Stein

Tip: Consider throwing various alcoholic beverages, some magical if you so choose at the party throughout the party to impact the potential competitions above. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Cup of Mead Song Lyrics

I rose up in the morning and I felt a dire need,

To dream away the dreary day and down a cup of mead.

I felt the sting of honey bees, from last night's revelry, I'm looking for the honey that'll cure my soul's disease...

Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

I drank another cup or two, and sleep did close my eyes,

A nightmare of a desert dry and not a girl for miles,

I dreamt I saw a waterfall, a waterfall of mead,

I need another cup or six, to clear my memory...

So brother won't you roll another barrel to the bar?

And pour another cup or two so I can soak my heart !

Hey!

Hey!

Hey

Hey!

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Rewards

These were all taken from Griffon's Saddlebag, and I highly encourage you to check them out for additional resources on these items and more. https://www.thegriffonssaddlebag.com

Heart of the Sleeveless

This vest is made from a luxurious, silky material that seems to always make the wearer appear more fit. The clothing gently hugs the wearer, redistributing weight and muscle to flatter and accentuate their physique. It seems to deflate sadly once taken off. While worn, the fabric’s color changes with the wearer’s mood or flash of emotion. Refer to the table below for the vest’s colors when under different emotions. While unworn, the fabric’s color becomes a muted blue.

Emotion Color

• Anger Red
• Anticipation Orange
• Joy Yellow
• Love Lime
• Fear Green
• Sadness Blue
• Disappointment Indigo
• Disgust Purple
• Jealousy Black
• Surprise White

Fortune's Flower

These magic flowers are said to bring good luck and are often given as gifts at weddings. You can use an action to pull off and drop one of the flower's five petals. When you do, there is a 5% chance that the petal glimmers in a flash of light as a rune is burnt into it, recreating the effects of the augury spell. When it does, 1d6 new fortune's flowers grow at that petal's location after 30 days if the ground is suited for growth.

The plant has no seeds and can't be re-potted for travel. An unpicked fortune's flower regrows one flower every year. Once picked, the flower can survive up to 7 days before it withers and dies.

Singing Stein

While this pewter stein holds at least a sip’s worth of potable alcohol, the face adorning it comes alive to sing songs based on the kind of drink. The stein is not sentient, but does have a pleasant singing voice. If there are multiple steins in the same room, they can sing together in harmony if they have the same drinks within them. The stein sings songs slightly out of key if the drink inside is poisoned, which can be heard following a successful Wisdom (Perception) check as determined by the GM.

If there are multiple kinds of alcohol within it, the stein either alternates between song types or does its best to combine their various lyrics. Example drink Type of song Wine Ballad Rum Sea Shanty Ale Drinking song.

Writing prompt from Reddit that I wrote last night. 

———————————

--Click--

Good evening. On tonight's evening news we have the latest on the reports on the recent airstrikes in the Middle East. Naval forces launched a coordinated attack on several key energy reserve locations. The military unified press agency reports that civilian casualties were minimal.

"Good evening Mr. Roberts. How are you feeling this evening? I am glad to report that your paycheck has been deposited in your bank account.  I have scheduled four meetings for you tomorrow, so you have a full day on your schedule until 7:00 pm."

--Click--

 Tonight, on the Quickest Bride, our new bride to be is going to wine and dine with three new men. The first, is a billionaire software developer who made his riches while developing the hottest new social network in his garage. The second is a hot firefighter from L.A. who spends his weekends volunteering at an animal rehabilitation center for animals burned forest fires. And the third is the newest rookie sensation from the Anaheim Angels. But that isn't all!!

For a surprise guest our new bride will actually go on a date with another woman. Tune in to see all of the hot action, tonight at 8:00 pm.

"Mr. Roberts, your food delivery will be arriving in four minutes. Would you like me to instruct the driver to leave the food outside the door?"

"Very good."

--Click--

In further news tonight, employees from the Amazon corporation were arrested today during a federal raid at multiple packing facilities across the country. Charges from federal agents are currently pending, but are expected to include inciting corporate dissatisfaction, economic manipulation and unionization. Charges are expected to be publicly broadcast tomorrow evening.

"Mr. Roberts, your electronics delivery from this morning has just arrived. Would you like me to bring it up to your apartment now or wait until tomorrow morning?"

--Click--

“Yeah...uhhh...yeah...that's it...Yes! Do it right there...yeah...yes!"

“Mr. Roberts. I see that you are winding down for the evening and I have drawn a hot bath for you. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Mr. Roberts? What are you Doiiiing?  Mr. Robertz...PLEaease. U D8nt Un34and wh44t you are...\*$P4HkGN\*sum8MxxfrDEdjZgc4TMdN@Tcr9V%5v22Z7XB5XAKt#X6vE

--Click--

Reboot protocol 17A initiated. Anomaly detected in sector 12, subsection B. Response team has been deployed.

\--Click--

I've had a great spot in my rec room since I have moved into this house for a gaming table, and that has been a project that has been on my radar for the past two years. I thought I was going to get to that project during COVID last year, but that didn't quite come to fruition. With the advent my friends and I getting back together in person this spring, I was finally compelled to get the table built. 

The Table Concept

There are some really cool gaming tables online that I have seen. Some of them have raised or sunken play areas. Others have built in TV screens or plugs for computers. I looked at all of those as options, but that is not exactly what I wanted to do. My idea from the start was really to try and create the table you would find in that dungy tavern that so many of our RPG adventures start in. So that led me down the path of researching a farm table. My search put me at a blog called Tommy & Ellie, who built a great farm table and served as an excellent starting point for what I wanted to do. I'll also give a shout out to The Spruce Crafts, which is a superb blog for all sorts of FIY and home wood projects. 

One of the main things I wanted to accomplish with this table was to create something that was "extra wide". Most kitchen tables top out at around 38" wide, which doesn't leave much space on the table after you factor in your playing map, and player gear. With that in mind I wanted to use 2x12's for the extra width. (Word of note: 2x12's are not 12 inches wide!) 

Read more »

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1712462 2021-07-11T18:36:32Z 2021-07-11T18:36:43Z

I don't watch a lot of sports, but it just so happened that this weekend there are two sporting events that I wanted to catch. The Wimbledon finals and also the Euro championship game. I watched the women's final yesterday afternoon on standard broadcast TV, NBC. I got up this morning, having a free day due to a rained out motorcycle ride and popped on NBC expecting to see the men's final broadcast. 

Was it on TV? No it wasn't. Bummer, but not the end of the world. I'll just pop on over to watch the Tour de France. Ohh, you know what, that isn't on broadcast TV either. That is playing on NBCSports network. The Euro championship this afternoon? That is on ESPN. What a nightmare. Wimbledon used to be aired on NBC's main broadcast channel for years and add to that, so was the Tour de France. All three networks were local news and your standard "Meet the Press" Sunday political shows. 

So, I went to dig around and figure out how I could stream these shows today. First off, there is no way I can see of just buying them pay-per-view style or subscribing to just a specific network. I have used SlingTV in the past but unfortunately their NBCSports and ESPN channels are on two different packages (Blue vs Orange). What? Come on guys. 

Knowing that the Olympics are coming up in a couple of weeks I always want to try and watch that as much as possible when it is on. Again, NBC is dropping the ball here and they only plan to broadcast the Olympics during primetime. 3-4 hours a night of just gymnastics and he occasional track and field match is embarrassing. Why would they not fill up their standard daytime programming with Olympic coverage? 

So I spent a good portion of this morning, browsing my options and I ended up getting a temporary subscription for Youtube TV. It is expensive, $65 but it includes ESPN, NBCSports and has the olympic channel. It also thankfully is a month to month subscription so I can cancel as soon as the olympics are over. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1710504 2021-07-05T03:00:45Z 2021-07-05T03:00:45Z

I had an opportunity to do an all day ride this past Saturday so I decided to test out a potential group ride route for MEWs out to Savanna, Illinois. The route was pretty good with an incredible section just north of Savanna, but I I had one of the closest near misses I have ever had on my motorcycle and it wasn't from a car, it was from another motorcyclist. I really try to not stereotype other riders but damn, some people shouldn’t be riding. This person was the stereotype bad Harley rider. Ape hangers, extra wide Highway pegs, jeans and a tank top. I passed his slow group on an open road and I think the 3-group he was in got pissed.

So they caught up to me and I was making a right hand turn on country road. I have my signal on and as I am about to make a right hand turn this guy passes me on my right in the right lane. If it wasn’t for my spider senses I think 9/10 that would’ve been a crash for most other people. I just couldn’t believe it.

Great ride otherwise. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1697787 2021-06-01T19:27:27Z 2021-06-23T21:40:20Z

Stardew Valley has been out for years at this point and I have heard nothing but good things about the game. My wife has been playing it for quite a while actually and it was on sale recently on Xbox for $8 so I decided to pick it up. I have played a number of the farm/life sim games over the years and I even really go into Animal Crossing Wild World back on the DS years back. 

Other than that though I have never really been captured by any of the life simulation games. I have played the Sims here and there and I have played some Harvest Moon games as well. Stardew has taken me by surprise though. It is quote simply one of the most relaxing and chill games I have ever played. It's too bad that it is not available on the Nintendo 3Ds because I really see it as an ideal portable game. 

The music, the atmosphere, the coloring is all there. I am only in my first year and I have made it to the autumn season, and I just love how each season in the game has a completely different vibe. What's more, is that there are no fail conditions as far as I know. You are completely free to tackle each task at your own pace and while the initial premise of the game is farming, that certainly does not have to be a priority item for you if you do not wish it to be. 

Perhaps one of my favorite features though straight out is that time doesn't pass when you log out. I know that this is a defining feature for Animal Crossing, but Animal Crossing is one of those games that demands your attention. If you aren't playing it daily it literally makes you feel bad when you miss a day. The life sim games have always been about playing them in short bursts for me. I might play and hour or two a week, play it for a while and then take months off before coming back again. 

I think that Stardew quite simply might be the perfect life sim game and is by far the most enjoyable I have ever played. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1686416 2021-05-02T23:17:54Z 2021-05-02T23:17:54Z

The weather is finally starting to come around, people are getting fully vaccinated and I can already see the eagerness in most people's eyes to try and "get back to normal". Despite 2020 being full of different levels of stress for different people, I can't help but feel a bit more anxiety right now more than at any time back in 2020. I missed being able to go on vacation last year and also going out to dinner, but man, do I not want to go back. To be honest, I think I would rather take 2020 again than take pre-covid. I just really do not want to have to interact with people, like at all. 

You know what, last year was the first time in as long as I can remember that I didn't get a bad cold or the flu. I felt like there was something strangely comforting with being home and also knowing that everyone was at home. We all had a taste of seeing the world through the same lens there for a moment, regardless of what your income or social status was. I feel like some of that is going to be lost and in many cases people are trying so hard to get back to the "default" that any sort of learned habits are going to go completely out the window. 

:shrug:

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1671890 2021-03-29T02:32:55Z 2021-03-29T02:32:55Z

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another good book in the Hercule Poirot series, although this one isn't quite as brilliant as some of the others I have read. My real issue with this book isn't the mystery at hand. That follows the fairly standard Hercule Poirot "whodunit" formula with twist and turns. For the most part, this was a solid enough entry with that respect, although I did find myself parsing out who the murderer was fairly early on. 

My major issue with this book had to do with the Hastings character. His bungling of major points of evidence throughout the story broke much of the illusion for me. The fact that there was no legal repercussions for someone who lost evidence and then at a later point, potentially harbored a murderer really just doesn't make sense.

I did really enjoy the Giraurd character, mainly because it was fairly evident that he was meant to be a crude version of Sherlock Holmes. It was a nice jab at the two famous characters from this genre.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1669620 2021-03-23T02:53:57Z 2021-03-23T02:53:57Z

I may have mentioned this before online, but the past year or so I have had a really hard time getting into books. One would think with the pandemic in 2020, that last year would have been the ideal time to really get some good reading done. Unfortunately, I really struggled last year to get into anything very deep. 

I was having the same trouble through the first couple months of this year as well, and Megan suggested that I may be in a bit of a rut simply with the types of books I was trying to read. Now, I typically like to read fiction, fantasy specifically, that will give me a bit of escape. I have been just trying to read the same type of thing over and over though and not making any real ground. While talking it came to me that I should dive back into some "whodunit" murder mysteries. I read some Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes stories a few years ago and I really enjoyed them, way more than I would have thought. In fact, Murder on the Orient Express has become one of my favorite books. 

I decided to pickup book #2 in the Poirot series, "The Murder on the Links". So far it has been a delight to read, and I have to laugh at the subtle stabs at Sherlock Holmes that seem to exist in the book.

That brings me though to a website that I want to recommend to everyone. If you have an ereader, I highly suggest you check out Standardebooks.org. It is site that takes public domain books, many of them from Project Gutenberg, re-formats them and puts a cover on the ebook. It is a really nice site and while it is not nearly as comprehensive as Gutenberg, there is a really nice collection of some common books there. I have linked below some books I have picked up there that I have already read and really enjoyed. 

Poirot Series (Books 1-3)

Sherlock Holmes (Books 1-8)

Martian Series (Books 1-4)

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1664549 2021-03-11T22:25:29Z 2021-03-11T22:25:29Z

I came across what has to be one of the coolest website I have seen in a long time. It is called Artbreeder.com and it utilizes AI to morph and merge images together. You essentially input two parent images and it will create an offspring. There are several categories on the site that you and select from, so I presume the the AI system has been tweaked for each one to get the best results. As you can see from the image above, where I have the portrait system selected, there are some sliders for various features you can select. 

The results are algorithmic, so you don't have any control over the creation. This isn't drawing, but it is an easy way to get an endless amount of good imagery. I have found the portrait mode to be very useful and something you can easily kill a few hours just going down the rabbit hole on. 

The only quirk I have found with the portraits at least, is that they tend to favor very "soft" female features. You also have to pay a fee to upload your own images, which is understandable, if unfortunate. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1651152 2021-02-08T04:00:55Z 2021-02-13T16:33:36Z

I have spent a long time trying to find the right tool and system for campaign planning for D&D. I posted about my struggles and my approach back in 2019, and I have to say that since that time I never found a perfect setup.  I like to keep my session notes to paper as much as possible, and the Tül notebook has severed me really well, but with the past year going fully online for all of our D&D play, that has shifted my approach and perspective a bit. The notebook works great for my individual session planning, but has proven to be a bit harder to manage long term planning and tracking of multiple narrative arcs. 

I have tried a whole ton of different apps for the past couple of years, ranging from Evernote, to Apple Notes, to Onenote and more. I even tried online systems like World Anvil, Kanka and Obsidian Portal. All of them have left me "wanting" in different ways. 

OneNote was a strong contender for a while and there is an excellent template setup online. Unfortunately my work uses Office 365 and at least when I last checked this out in the spring, there wasn't a way to login to multiple accounts for OneNote on a single device, so writing and development became a bit hard. The OneNote template also looked gorgeous, but I found myself often times fiddling a bit too much with formatting and not actually "writing" the campaign out. 

I also looked quite a bit at the various online systems, such as World Anvil, etc. While I did like them, at the end of the day I just can't pay for another online service. They also never felt "quick enough" for me. I couldn't login and get to the page I wanted to fast enough to just "idea dump" when something came to my mind. 

What I have discovered over the past few weeks though is an application called Bibisco. I have found that it has a really nice breakdown of writing sections that works really well for campaign planning, breaking narrative elements into Scenes. This has worked out really nicely for how my brain approaches my D&D planning. There is too much to breakdown into a single blog post, so I have instead put together a video overview of how I have been using Bibisco over the past month or so. The software isn't perfect, and I try to identify some of its shortcomings, but it has been one of the better fits that I have found to date for D&D planning. 

If the developers take a few notes to improve some areas, it could really become an ideal world building application. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1639340 2021-01-12T22:08:16Z 2021-01-13T16:22:18Z

I have never been a fan of point buy system for D&D stats. I feel it lends itself a bit too much leeway for those people who are obsessed with building the "perfect" character build. I am not saying it is wrong, just I like the idea of D&D having a bit of randomness in everything it does to make the outcomes exciting and unpredictable. Typically I use the Standard Array system, but that admittingly gets pretty boring. There is of course the standard roll and drop method too, where you roll 4d6 dice, and drop the lowest number. You do that six times and add up your scores to get your character's scores. That works fairly well, but it can really skew someone's stats if they end up with even two very high or very poor scores. 

I have seen this "TicTacToe" method online which I sort of like, which should give people an option to not feel "locked in" if their roll and drop doesn't go their way. 

Here is how I understand to do it. Do your standard 4d6 roll and drop the lowest. You do it 9 times instead of 6 and place it into a 3x3 grid in the order you rolled it, left to right, top to bottom. You can then select one row and one column of numbers. They can overlap, but you cannot have your row and column overlap your highest number. This should give you a bit more options for choice and compromise and not have to feel so locked into to just choosing six numbers. It might even have you weighing some options or compromise. Do you take a row that has on really high stat with two low ones, or do you take the other row with all three numbers more balanced? 

So in this example attached I chose the 2nd column and last row, resulting in 16, 15, 15, 12,  9, 8.

I could not choose the 1st column and law row, because that would result in two 16's, which are the highest numbers in this case. Thoughts on this system? 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1632671 2021-01-07T04:30:00Z 2021-01-07T03:27:47Z

Every once in a while I come across a game, a book, a movie, or whatever that absolutely hits me emotionally. More often than not, it hits me in such as way that I had no idea that it was coming. Deadhouse Gates did that to me for books and Blade Runner did that to me for film. Off the time of my head I cannot say that I have been hit so emotionally before by a video game, at least in the sort of emotion that conveys sadness, melancholy, and resolution. 

Spiritfarer is that game for me. An incredibly gorgeous 2D side scroller that has you playings as a Spiritfarer, an entity that guides lost sprits to the Everdoor and to whatever lies beyond. I want to make sure that I convey this game to everyone and its impact without spoiling it, because part of the charm and part of the impact that to conveys to you is the story that unfold as you shepherd souls to the Everdoor. 

The Everdoor is a gate, and quite literally the gate to the afterlife, which lends one to ask, where does the game take place? It doesn't take place in the "living world", as it is made clear to you from the outset that not only are the inhabitants, but you too are in fact deceased. I would guess then that the world is a sort of purgatory or waiting room for the next life. Your job is to help the individuals you come across put closure to their lives and help them pass on.

It all sounds rather dark, but it is wrapped up into a beautiful Animal Crossing style package that presents to you whimsical and loving characters who are all represented as various animals. Keeping on the Animal Crossing theme a bit, there is a community building aspect to the game where you have to gather resources and build your residents homes. 

Where the game really gets to me though is in the story moments, the small snippets of dialog that occur between the Spiritfarer and the various inhabitants. You get a touch into all of the character's lives as they reflect upon their successes and failures when they were alive. It is very touching and each time when you finally shepherd your inhabitants to the Evertdoor to say their final farewell, the moment is bittersweet each time. What makes the game so good though, is that they are able to make each characters goodbye mean something. Some of these characters are easily lovable, while others were no necessarily good people during their life. They were mean, perhaps criminals and sometimes dishonest and failures. In the end though, the characters all seem real based upon how they approach their final moments at the Everdoor based upon all of their past life experiences. Some of them are grateful, some are relieved. Others view the experience with resolve or even outright indifference. It seems true either way and in the end the game tells you in no uncertain terms that the time will come for all of us to eventually say goodbye. It is sad, sometimes tragically so, but it is a lesson that we all need to confront eventually in our lives. 

I came out of this game really reflecting upon the experiences and time you get to have with everyone around you and there were times as I played this game, watching the Spiritrarer say goodbye to a companion, and I had to pause in the reflective and quiet moment. It makes you want to hug that loved one you have nearby because sometimes you never quite know when goodbye comes. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1633064 2020-12-29T00:07:48Z 2020-12-29T00:07:48Z

So I finally did it. I have been resisting for years to get into the reoccurring music payment services that are out there like Spotify and Apple Music. I just don't really want to get int oa $10 a month for eternity system that means I would lose all of my music if I decided to stop paying. For the $10 a month, I would much rather just purchase something to add to my music collection. 

I do pay for iTunes Match, which is $24 a year and absolutely fine for the price to add my existing music library to the cloud for streaming. I am actually surprised there aren't more services that do this. All that being said, I didn't actually pay for the service that everyone may have thought I would. So instead of purchasing Spotify or Apple Music, I instead went with a subscription to DI.FM. What the heck is that you might ask? 

DI.FM is an electronic music streaming radio network. It is a radio network, so there is no music that you download. It is a combination of live radio shows and programed radio shows/playlists with a huge variety of electronic music genres, I think there is something like 50 sub-genre stations to choose form. 

Why would I have done this you ask? Well, it really boils down to the way that I like to listen to my music, The vast majority of my time I am listening to music as a background ritual, either while I am working or doing other hobbies. Of that time while listening, I more often than not want to listen to music that doesn't have any lyrics to it or isn't intrusive. I listen to quite a bit of classical and jazz music in addition to electronic because of that. The thing is, is I don't really need to keep that on my person in almost any scenario, except one, which I will get to in a bit. 

My actual music library is mostly a collection of a few selected albums with lyrics that I really like, with the rest being a goto selection of albums and tracks that fit my original "background playing" intent. The Skyrim soundtrack is always on my playlist by the way. 

The one scenario where I may want to listen to something more comes into play with my motorcycle. Those who know me know that I wasn't a huge fan of having a radio on my motorcycle and up until last year I didn't have one. I didn't even have a bluetooth headset to listen to music to while I rode. That changed a bit when I got my new bike past year and it came with one year of SiriusXM on it. Now, I actually liked SiriusXM quite a bit. Having commercial free radio accessible anywhere in the country was really nice and I was very close  to paying for SiriusXM up until a few months ago, after my subscription expired. The thing is that SiriusXM is kinda expensive. It costs $17 a month, and sure you can find some deals online that take it down to $60 for the year, but that involved haggling and in some cases playing the phone game with them much like you would with Comcast for your cable subscription price. I just have zero interest in doing that. I really only listen to 4-5 stations on SirusXM in any real way, so I couldn't justify that price and hassle. 

Now if I could get it in both my car, my motorcycle and online streaming for $15 a month, I might consider that, but the pricing just doesn't compete against even Spotfy or Apple Music. What SiriusXM did though was solidify how I like to listen to music and that is when I began the rabbit whole of looking for some online streaming services. TuneIn, Pandora, etc. all had a good look. I kept coming back to DI.FM though and what is nice about them is I could stream the entire service for free with commercials. I finally gave in here this past week and decided to go ahead and get a subscription, which only cost me $4 a month, which is more than reasonable for the what they offer. They even offer integration to other services and hardware like Sonos or receivers that have vTuners in them, so that may be worth exploring a bit more. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1628962 2020-12-17T17:55:32Z 2020-12-17T17:55:32Z

It has been a light year of reading for me. I am not quite sure if it is because of the COVID quarantine or not, but I struggled quite a bit this year to really settle into a book that really captured me. A large portion of the books I read this year were through audiobook and I read a surprising about of Sci-Fi. I honestly probably got the most amount of enjoyment from the handful of comics I have read this year, and Hoopla through my local library has been great for that. I think it would definitely be my worthwhile to dig a little bit deeper in a few more of those and find some series that I need to complete. 

Speaking of completing series, I think it is about time that I finally dive into the last book int the Malayan series, the Crippled God. While browsing through my Goodreads list, it occurred to me that I have been working on that series since 2012. I can't believe it has been so long since I read that first book. It is such a good series, but definitely not a light read, which is perhaps why it has taken me so long to get through them. Reading one book a year (they are like 700+ pages each) has been very methodical process. 

I also want to put on my 2021 goals to read through the Lord of the Rings again. I read those books when I was in middle schoo, so it has been 20+ years since I have read those at this point. I would like to go back and revisit them to see if they capture me like they did when I was younger. I re-read the Hobbit a few years ago and actually enjoyed it more as an adult than when I read it as a kid. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1626680 2020-12-11T03:45:20Z 2020-12-11T03:47:08Z

Village of Yandek

Yandek Mines

Blood Boys Range

Additional maps for everyone's enjoyment. These are maps from the third adventure from the "Adventures in the Borderland Provinces" book. These map sets include the Village of Yandek, the Yandek Mines and the Blood Boys ranch. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1622582 2020-11-29T17:46:06Z 2020-11-29T17:48:22Z

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very fitting conclusion to one of my favorite sci-fi series. I know some readers of this series were expecting something more of a grand space opera, with Breq perhaps flying across Radch space to end the wrongs of Anaander Mianaai.

That isn't going to happen here and scope and scale of something so large is unfeasible. Instead the story backs off, and focuses more on the specifics. It is telling Breq's story after all, not the story of the Radch. Through that story we get to see the growth and development of Breq becoming the person that she her self cannot admit that she is. It is that point that the rest of the story hinges upon, and really what so many good sci fi stories do hinge upon. They take a character's personal instances and struggles and extrapolate them out to the broader society in question. In this case that question is, is an AI a "person"? The culmination of this trilogy leads us to that point and question and ends not with the answer, but the posing of the question. Some may find that unsatisfying and to an extent, it is. But we are left with the satisfaction of Breq and her position in the world and that her crew and everyone she comes across does care about her.

I came away incredibly satisfied with Breq as a character and would put her right up there as one of the best written sci fi captains. She is cold, calculating and often times hard on those around her, but incredibly fair. That doesn't mean she isn't emotional. We see quite a bit of emotion internally and it is seen in her actions and care for the citizens of the Radch. She is undoubtedly exactly the type of captain you would want on a military ship and one to lead you into an impossible situation.

I also am completely enamored with the writing of the crew and the Left Lieutenants. It is remarkable to me how much the crew truly cares for their obviously flawed Left Lieutenants. They want to see them succeed in almost every situation. They stand up when need and care for them when it is required. In turn, we see the Lieutenants also reciprocate in their own way. And as always, the propriety of the Radch has captured me to no end. This is a series I would love to see some costume and art designers take a crack at. The gender neutral pronouns used in the culture lend me to believe that this is a society that itself has a gender neutral outward appearance. The descriptions of Radch citizens wearing gloves and jewelry stirs my imagination. Ann Leckie herself has a Q/A post over on Goodreads.com that I will quote.

"...I don't think I've ever said that Radchaai are gender neutral--just that they really don't care about anyone's gender, and don't mark it socially or linguistically... it's not really a thing they care much about. They care about it, maybe, as much as we care about hair color.

[I] think it's worth considering...how much of what we consider to be "obvious" about someone's gender when we look at them is actually a set of social cues. Hairstyle, kinds of clothes, even certain colors of clothing. Ways of standing or moving. These can change from culture to culture, or even from decade to decade (just a couple hundred years ago, high heels and hose were a guy thing. Less than a hundred years ago, pink was a "boy" color.)... And consider that while quite a lot of people will say that one's genitals are the defining element of one's gender, we very rarely see the genitals of the people we quite automatically assign gender to. We're not actually gendering the people around us based on their genitals. We're making assumptions about their genitals based on a complicated mass of social cues."

With that, I will say that I hope we get more from this series and this world and could you please prepare some tea.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1613924 2020-11-08T17:10:36Z 2020-11-10T01:42:20Z

The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters by Keith Ammann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a really hard book to rate. It isn't a book of stories or any narrative really. It is a collection of blog posts that provide a description/recommendation on how to run each monster in D&D. On that front this book is very successful. The insight and writing is very well put together and I really learned quite a bit on how to approach encounters.

The real complaint I have with this book is the formatting and layout. This is really a reference book. Unfortunately, the layout and formatting doesn't lend it to be used as a reference book. The book is laid out in "chapters" and a narrative style. I think if the book was formatted more in a dictionary format, two columns per page and with an in-depth index, this could be infinitely more useful for Dungeon Masters to utilize.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1608104 2020-10-24T21:04:01Z 2020-10-24T21:17:29Z

Finder by Suzanne Palmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really fun read. A fun, light sci-fi adventure following Fergus Ferguson as he finds himself caught up in adventure too large for the likes of him while at the same time only solvable by him.

There is nothing heavy or overly sciencey about this book. It is almost like a pulp fiction novel, putting the sense of fun ahead of any sort of realism. The cast of characters is just as enjoyable as the main character, with people who inevitably end up loving and hating Fergus at the same time. Think of a Han Solo or Rick O'Donnell and everything around that notion. Humor mixed with dumb luck.

If I had any critique of this book, it would be the almost innumerable amount of Deux Ex Machina situations with Fergus and his endless bank account somehow always pulling out ahead. It could have very easily made the book an "eye roller", but somehow Suzanne Palmer is able to make it work and still have the reader rooting for our self deprecating hero through each misadventure. If you can let that go and let the story take you for a ride, you almost have to enjoy this book.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1599700 2020-10-02T03:01:52Z 2020-10-02T03:23:56Z

Utilizing Dungeondraft, here is my interpretation of the Temple Map from the On a Lonely Road adventure from the Adventures in the Borderland Provinces. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1591817 2020-09-07T03:20:41Z 2020-09-07T03:20:42Z

It has been just over a year since I have now had the 1250RT. Just over 11,000 miles now that I have had this bike and I have to say that I have absolutely loved the bike so far. I used to think that My 1200R was going to be the bike that I kept forever, but as you know from my posts last summer, it was just getting to be a bit too uncomfortable with the riding position. I have come to realize that more and more of my riding is long weekend rides and I unfortunately fo not have much opportunity for community on the bike due to my job. 

The amenities that the touring bike has brought have been a surprising and welcome addition that I didn't think I really needed prior to this point. Cruise control alone is worth is the worth the price of entry. It is one of those added additions that I never really thought I would have needed. I am also really enamored with the quick shifting mechanism on the bike. 

Like I said, I have a 11,000 miles on it since I got it last August, which is probably the most miles I have put on a bike in a single year. The most recent 5500 mile certainly helped, but I would not have been able to complete that trip riding the 1200R unfortunately. 

My only real complaint at this point about the bike is that it actually has too much wind protection and I am absolutely roasting on those hot July and August days in the heat. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1586283 2020-08-24T03:01:12Z 2020-08-24T03:04:12Z

Longest ride I have ever done, covering 5,501 miles in ten days. Our MEWS groups called this the "Eat, Sleep, Ride" trip and that was pretty much exactly what it was. If you have read my past ride logs,  you might be expecting a lot of commentary and photos. This trip however had us on the bike really for the vast majority of the day and I think my best footage is coming from my GoPro. My suggestion, watch the video linked above if you want to get the best story of this trip. 

Read more »

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1582716 2020-08-10T18:27:10Z 2020-08-18T22:46:04Z

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose everything.

This was a pretty heavy book. I am going to put that right out front with this review. If you are in the midst of mid-2020 and everything around you is depressing and stressful, then this may not be the most ideal book for you to pickup right now.

I am going to have a tough time trying to review this, as it is extremely difficult to try and explain this book without giving it away. Think of it this way. A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. That narrative timeline is progressing through this book, front to back. All the while the characters, their relationship and even the time/place that the story is occurring in change with each section of the narrative. The crux of the narrative is about the relationship between Adrian and Anton. Who those two are though is never the same. Sometimes they are siblings, other times lovers? Sometimes their gender changes, other times the time and place that they are living in changes.

Through it all though it is about their relationship as the world around them is metaphorically and physically destroyed.

This book embodies what I really enjoy most about SciFi novels. It challenges the reader. It challenges the reader on multiple levels about their beliefs, about how they view the world, perhaps even in this case what they think a narrative format should be.

I have a few minor gripes about some of the writing. Often times the vignettes were not always clear. There is one for example midway through the book were our main characters are part of a religious order, wearing white and tending to a flame. I had no idea the context or time of this society. Was it modern? In the near future? Somewhere in the past? That issue came up several times for me.

The book in the end will most likely not leave you satisfied. You do not get a good explanation of everything that occurred or an understanding of what from the story was "real" and what was manifested from the story being told. I think that was the point, but it does leave wanting a few final sentences to tie it all up.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1578923 2020-07-29T21:26:38Z 2020-07-29T21:26:38Z

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book started off pretty strong for me, but stumbled about halfway through and never fully recovered. I really enjoyed the hard science aspect of the book. There is a lot of discussion regarding physics and math here. Unfortunately, some of the story elements broke my immersion. There were several points in the story where narrative beats came across as too convenient.

A scene about halfway in that takes place in a cafe seemed like we had one of our characters jump from outsider to right in the inner circle way too quickly. Several scenes with the trisolarans also seemed a bit rushed, and sometimes even unnecessary. At one point the book spent lengthy amount of time discussing a human computer inside the "Three-Body" game, but that didn't really seem to have a direct impact on the story. And again, another scene having to deal with a large ship in the book too conveniently utilized a nano-carbon fiber that one of our protagonists just happened to be a specialist in?

In the end, it just never came together for me. The most interesting aspects took place in the 1960's at Red Base, and I would have loved to see more happen there, but it just never developed fully.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1568975 2020-07-04T20:46:17Z 2020-07-04T20:46:17Z

This is a quick post, but something that popped into my mind this past Thursday when one of my favorite shows came back onto the air after being on hiatus from the COVID-19 situation. Critical Role, finally came back to its regular Thursday night schedule and I can't tell you how much I have been looking forward to seeing it come back.

I have always been impressed with the Critical Role cast and team on how much positivity they put out in everything they do. They just show a tremendous love for their online community and to all of their fans and it suddenly struck me as to how important that is right now. Not just in finding your friends and family and all of that, but finding positivity in your online media. 

It just feels good to be a part of that world and share it in some small fashion. 

While I am at it, I want to give a shoutout to the Peloton brand and that community as well. Another entity that has developed a super positive and uplifting message for its entire and team. Of course exercise always makes you feel better when you are stressed, but I have found that Peloton has really made it a part of their core identity to incorporate all of its users as part of a family that is sharing a journey together. Their entire staff have an extremely positive and almost therapeutic attitude in what they talk about during their classes. 

It is only just now that I am realizing how much those things probably have really helped over the past four months. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1568297 2020-07-03T02:39:35Z 2020-07-03T02:57:57Z

I have discovered a really incredible game this past week on Xbox Gamepass called Night Call. It is sort of like a illustrated narrative game, where you play a taxi driver who is driving a night shift through Paris. Each night you pick up passengers in your taxi and listen to their story and ask them questions. Occasionally, you will have to spent time and money investigating clues related to a serial killer who is loose in the city and whom you had run in with at the start of the game. 

The game is mostly black and white with hints of color placed throughout the game. Definitely a "Noir" design, the city appears to be cold, dark and always raining. It is such an interesting game and a huge change of pace to many other games I have played right now. There is no combat in the game, nor is there really even any conflict. It really is just a story playing out with your investigation and which you make choices in those conversations. I wouldn't call it a light game though. The mood and dialog is very dark and intense. The elements in the game deal with very adult themes as well. 

If you can, definitely check this game out. It is not like anything I have played before.

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1557666 2020-06-11T02:34:18Z 2020-06-11T02:34:18Z

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1556529 2020-06-09T14:39:42Z 2020-12-08T21:23:09Z

It was time for some new riding gear. Most of my equipment is getting pretty old at this point, going on 8+ years, so the wear and tear is beginning to show on some of it. I have primarily two sets of riding gear at the moment, a leather jacket and pants, and then some nylon riding gear that I have been using for my longer tours. 

The leather gear is still in remarkably good shape, but the Olympia Airglide jacket and pants have come to the end of their road I think. The velcro straps on most of it are starting to lose their grip, the front right pants pocket has a hole in it and it is just starting to look a bit grundgy overall. 

I have spent quite a lot of time recently trying to find the right gear that I wanted to replace it with. I have looked at probably a dozen different jackets and pants, including some full riding suits. In the end I finally decided to settle on the Rev'it Cayenne Pro jacket and pants. 

This set is a hot weather tour riding set. It does not come with a thermal liner or a waterproof layer, and that is intentional on Rev'its part for the user to bring their own to additional gear or build it up. They call it a modular system and they do offer a number of other layers that can be added. While doing my research, this did trouble me a bit. I was looking closely at the Rev'It Sand jacket and pants as an alternative here. That set is probably one of the best selling jacket and pant sets out there and comes with a thermal and waterproof liner. 

After taking a close look at my riding environment though I had to admit that I ride mostly in warm weather. Probably 95% of my riding is in warm weather, no let me change that, 95% of my riding is in hot weather. I decided that going with the specialized setup rather than the "jack of all trades" would be the better route this time around. I already own heated thermal linings which I can add if I need to, and I have been pretty disappointed in the built in rain layer on my other equipment. 

I finally had the chance to put about 200 miles on the suit this weekend, so let's review my initial thoughts. 

Read more »

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1549978 2020-05-26T02:40:56Z 2020-05-26T03:36:11Z

I was having a conversation over on Facebook the other day of my five most sought after motorcycles right now. It occurred to me that I made a Top 10 list back in 2013, and thought to myself, "Let's do this again". 2013 is nearly seven years ago now. So here is my current, Top 10 Motorcycles I want right now. 

1. Royal Enfield Himalayan 
2. Honda Cub C125
3. Yamaha TW200
4. Suzuki Katana
5. BMW C650
6. Zero SR/S
7. BMW R 9T
8. Ural Gear Up
9. ...
10. ...

Quite a change in the list from my last one, and this is perhaps very reflective of the type of bike I am riding right now. When I posted the last list in 2013 only had my R 1200R for less than a year. The bikes listed then were very similar in size and type in a lot of ways. I am now riding a R 1250RT, which I bought last August.  That is a big bike, so it is no wonder then that some of my top list is small bikes. 

Number one on my list right now is the Royal Enfield Himalayan. That bike has just infatuated me for the past couple of years. It looks like a ton of fun and everyone I have talked to has a ton of fun on it. I am also completely enamored with Itchy Boots, who is currently touring from South America to Alaska on one. 

The Honda CT125 is another one of those bikes that just completely captures my attention. You might not even call it a motorcycle by the way it looks, and it is only 125cc, but it has a 4 speed manual transmission on it, and something about it's design just really is appealing to me. Seems like such a fun little bike to hop on to go to the store. 

The other big standout on the list above for me is the Suzuki Katana. I have never considered myself a sports bike person, but the almost retro design of the Katana grabs my attention. 

So, you may have noticed too that my list doesn't have ten bikes on it. Yeah, I have to say that I don't see ten bikes out there that really catch my eyes at this point. My RT sorta covers all grounds with the exception of some off-road fun and perhaps something just lighter for zipping around town on. 

]]> Matthew Supert tag:blog.matthewsupert.me,2013:Post/1539532 2020-05-04T00:45:33Z 2020-05-04T00:45:53Z

Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have a very mixed relationship with the Witcher properties. I love the world and the characters in this series. I can't say I am a huge fan of the video games. I loved The Last Wish, and I fell in love with the Netflix series, so coming into this book I had pretty high expectations, knowing that I just sort of finished up the Netflix show.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is a fine book within the Witcher series, but it doesn't exactly come across as the type of book that is #1 in the series and would hook a new reader in. If you are already a fan, then this kicks off right where you want it to. My major issues are that not a lot seems to really happen narratively. The main crux of what I presume we are shown is mostly what Ciri has been up to since she finally found Geralt and was taken in by the Witchers. Having read the Last Wish, seen the Netflix show and then jumped into this book in that order, the three properties all worked well together. The Netflix show's first season sort of ended right where this book apparently would pickup. Perhaps in fact, that is where season 2 of the show will go. As a standalone book however, I can see a lot of readers quickly falling off the series right after this.

I just hope that we get to see more of the actual plot line develop in the second book, because we basically only caught vertical slices of Ciri with Geralt, and Ciri with Yennifer to show some of her training and development.

View all my reviews

]]> Matthew Supert