Shhh... it's Top Secret.

How could I forget? How? Just... how? How could I forget the "other" RPG that I played only slightly less than D&D?


Unknown. I'm just stupid, I guess. But, while at a thrift store in Truckee, CA, I stumbled upon a fantastically preserved copy of "Top Secret, An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3 or More Players, Ages 12 to Adult". Oh. My. Gosh. We are talking a complete copy of the boxed game in "Good" condition. The box is in really quite amazing condition, considering that it is 30 (!!!) years old. Also, the game manual and the included module (Operation: Sprechenhaltestelle - Code Name: Pisces) are both in nearly flawless condition. Plus it still has the registration sheet, completely untouched and flawless. And, if that wasn't enough, it has both dice (2D10, one green and one red) that were originally included in the box, *with* the sealed plastic bag (already opened). A-Maze-Ing.

Top Secret on Wikipedia
TSR on Wikipedia

If it don't work, force it...

So another client had a problem... apparently one of their super-smart people decided that he'd like to head home and take his shiny, new, company-issued, expensive laptop with him; to do some extra work that evening. Well, this super smart person found that his laptop wasn't coming free of his docking station. What to do, what to do... force it.

Well, next thing you know... his laptop was free. He took it home, telling no one of his troubles and thought nothing of it. Until the next morning, when he couldn't get the laptop to connect properly to his docking station. Further examination revealed that he had damaged his shiny, new, company-issued, expensive laptop and the accompanying docking station. After a quick examination (by yours truly), it was apparent that the laptop's motherboard needed to be replaced (to repair the damaged docking port) and the docking station recycled properly (as it was damaged far beyond repair).

 

Moral of the story: Even super smart people can be extremely stupid.

RPGs and Video Games

Back in the day, in 1982 (when I was 13), I got introduced to RPGs (role playing games). This was long before personal computers were everywhere. We're talking pencil and paper here. Pencil because your character would grow and change; getting stronger, smarter, better looking and richer as "their" adventure continued.

The obvious favorite of the time was "Dungeons & Dragons" (aka "D&D") from TSR (later bought by Wizards of the Coast, eventually a subsidiary of Hasbro) and I loved it. I had my official Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Fiend Folio. In junior high, I'd head over to a female friend's house (boy, was that relationship a disaster) with a couple other guys and we'd play for hours. Eventually (once the relationship with that "girlfriend" died), I'd end up staying home and just rolling up characters in the living room and put them in an arena, fighting random monsters that I rolled up from the encounter tables in my Dungeon Master's Guide. So. Much. Fun.

However, I also played a couple other RPGs from that time. The first (which was my least favorite) was Traveller, from Game Designers' Workshop. I had the 3 mini-books (8-1/2" x 5-1/2") which contained the core rules and specifications for everything from characters to gear to vehicles to space craft. I eventually even bought the hard-backed rule book, similar to the books from D&D. My biggest complaint about Traveller was the amount of rules. So. Many. Rules. Rules for everything from Non Player Character (aka "NPC") encounters, to Creature encounters to Space encounters. And the rules for combat were insane. Too much to track for someone under 16. Which leads to my second biggest complaint about Traveller. None of my buddies played it. It was just too hard for our tiny attention spans to focus on *and* have fun. But it was interestingly different from D&D.

The next one (second only to D&D) was Gamma World, also from TSR. I owned the first edition rule book, black and white cover and all. This RPG was like a cross between D&D and Traveller; all the mutants and space ships (plus swords *and* laser rifles) but not so many rules to worry about. A few more of my buddies played this one and it was sweet. The only thing that left this one short of D&D in playability was the lack of official "modules" or "scenarios". But the environment was loaded with potential. Good stuff.

I also had lead (as in "Pb") figures for all three of these RPGs. I tried my best to paint these like I'd see in the hobby shops but my attempts were pathetic. I specifically remember having a set of D&D figures from Grenadier Models Inc (Set #2013 - Adventuring Party). So cool, if only I could have been able to paint worth beans.

All of these were a launching block for my video game habit. Zork on a teletype "computer" (dialed in, via modem, to the local MUD) was probably first. Soon I was into "Castle Wolfenstein" on the Apple ][e from high school or "Dragon's Lair" at the local 7-11 store. Next were classics like Auto Duel, Bard's Tale, Castle of the Winds, Dark Sun, Diablo, Doom, Dungeon Hack, Gothic, Heretic, Hexen, Might & Magic, Neverwinter Nights, Nox, NetHack, Quake & Ultima (just to name a few) and all of their descendants and variants. There are literally hundreds and I've probably played a big majority of them. Some were great (Diablo, Doom, Neverwinter Nights) and some were not-so-great (Castle of the Winds, Planescape Torment) but all were fun to some degree and worth playing.

Now, with a 4 year old son of my own, I hope to be able to pass along the joy of using my imagination and help him to learn the values of honor, integrity and determination (beyond what he'd normally pick up from me, of course) through the awesome-ness that is RPG gaming.

Links -

Dungeons and Dragons on Wikipedia
Dungeons and Dragons at Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast

Traveller on Wikipedia
Game Designer's Workshop on Wikipedia

Gamma World on Wikipedia
TSR on Wikipedia

Wow... we should hire him! Wait... what??!?

OK, here's another one for the books (no names to protect the "innocent" and I'm not sure this is 100% true, as it is third-hand)...

We let a couple guys go recently, "down-sizing and new direction for the company". Not a real surprise, but it does increase the work load for the rest of us.

One of the guys let go contacts another engineer, asking to see his resume "so he can see the layout and whatnot". The engineer says "yes" and sends over his resume. Next week, one of our current clients approaches our current engineer and asks about the guy no longer with the company. Why? Because he's received a resume from him and keeps receiving calls and emails from him, asking for an interview. And here's where the problem becomes two-fold.

First, we all sign a "no-compete" contract when we get hired. Basically it states that we can't be hired by a current client for 1 year. To do so opens ourselves to a lawsuit from our previous company, for them to recoup a year's worth of "lost income". Also, the client's contract has the same clause, which also carries a penalty of 2 years worth of "engineer wages". And he's only been gone for a few weeks. Ouch.

Second, our current engineer gets a brief look at the resume the guy apparently sent in... and its apparently his own resume with just the contact information changed. D'oh!

How in the world do people like this continue to get employed??

Too Much Information... Really.

Another user came to me the other day, worried about some pictures he couldn't delete. Apparently, he had some pictures (about 30-40 pictures) on his USB drive that he had taken of himself, by himself, in a hotel room. All I can say is, highly inappropriate pictures. Which he insisted in showing me, "so I'd understand how serious this was". 'Nuff said.

But he needed to use his USB drive to transfer a presentation to a meeting. So he copied the pictures into his "My Pictures", so they wouldn't just pop-up during the meeting. The trouble is two-fold; not only did he forget to move them back onto his USB drive afterward but user's folders are also redirected to a central file server, for ease of backup. These folder, in turn, are also subject to Windows Shadow Copy backups twice a day.

He panicked when he found that he could right-click on his "My Pictures" folder, select the "Previous Versions" tab and still find copies of those pictures. He had tried over and over to delete them but couldn't. Note that these are the shadow copies that Windows has made and not directly accessible by everyone. But he proceeded to ask me, in earnest, to help him delete those pictures from the server. I told him I'd look into it but really didn't have much hope at finding a way to do so. But before I could even look for a solution (having never come across a situation like this before), he wanted to show me that he wasn't the only one doing "crazy stuff like this". He pointed me to some videos in another user's folders; highly inappropriate videos, which he wanted to show me "so I'd understand that he's not the only one doing this type of stuff". Do these people even do any work?

So I look and find no way to remove these files (not surprised). And I discover that the Shadow Copy service only retains 30 days of backups, deleting the oldest as new ones are created. And his pictures are on the 3 oldest backups available. In other words, his pictures have been there for almost a month and he's just stumbled upon them. So I tell him not to worry, they'll be gone by the middle of next week and no one will be the wiser. He's sweating over this (literally) but thanks me for trying and agreeing to not tell anyone else at his company. And then he insists on shaking my hand.

I'm half-way considering requesting not to go back to this client.

Cell phones... are a pain.

So my Blackberry has decided to be a pain as of this morning. So far, it has crashed 7 times, forcing me to pull the battery to be able to do anything. Without it, I'm pretty dead in the water.

It always surprises my that fairly major companies demand a solid remote communication platform but put almost no thought or support into it. For example, I have a few clients that use various smartphones (Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm or iPhone) for business purposes. But they rely completely on their wireless providers' support for everything. Normally, not a problem. But when the phone actually breaks, they expect a replacement within a few minutes of walking into their store, sometimes simply within calling their support line. Very few carriers will do this unless the phone is very new or you've payed for the extended support contract. And the user either never thinks to get it or simply doesn't want to pay for it. Guess what, most wireless providers are *losing money* when they give you the phone for cheap. They make it up in the wireless plan you select and all the little options you add to that plan.

Morale: If you're going to use a smartphone for business, invest a little money into supporting that device.

Promote him!

I am a Systems Engineer in Silicon Valley (San Jose, CA, USA). I work on high-end servers all day; either setting up new servers, resolving issues that are present or running routine maintenance to (hopefully) prevent any new issues from appearing.

One client I work for has had no Network Administrator for the last 2 to 3 years. But they did have a Desktop Support guy. They hired us a couple years ago and we began working on their servers exclusively, to provide the best computing environment possible. Considering they wanted to spend nothing (literally), this has been a real challenge.

Recently, they decided that they needed someone on-site to coordinate all of the IT support tasks and they chose their Desktop Support guy. In fact, they promoted their Desktop Support guy to their IT Manager. However, considering the types of questions he constantly asks me and some of the choices I see him make, I have to seriously wonder if he has any experience in computers at all. He repeatedly asks questions that he could have Google'd faster than walking over to the IT office where I sit (2 doors away), consuming 1-2 (sometimes 3) hours a week asking these questions. And, when you consider that I'm only there 12 hours a week, that can be up to 25% of my time on-site. And I suspect he does the same thing to the other systems engineer that's only there 8 hours a week.

For example, they recently opened a new branch and, so far, it's taken him over a month to completely deploy a new server, for which he had a pre-configured system image. And since it has taken him so much time, he's dumped all of the desktop support tickets on us (the hired systems engineers), in addition to our normal server support (they have over 20 servers). But, since we probably cost their company about 4 to 5 times more per hour than him, I'm not sure he (or his boss) realizes the expenses he's costing the company.

But then, I'm just the hired Systems Engineer doing desktop support and this is just my opinion.