Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is a cross between a Space Jam RPG and a sequel to Barkley Shut Up And Jam!. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the world was destroyed by basketball, or as it’s known in-game, “b-ball.” Future Charles Barkley and his son “Hoopz” are refugees in Neo-New York, trying to survive the basketball cataclysm. It stars various basketball players from the 90’s, with Michael Jordan cast as the antagonist.

It is exactly as amazing as it sounds, like a video game Zardoz. Behold at your own peril:

But don’t take my word for it:

Download for Win32: http://www.talesofgames.com/barkley.zip

1. Come up with an interesting theme you absolutely love, and specialize. The GM will help you round out your character as you play. But don’t sacrifice stats. The GM will use this against you, later.
2. Resist the urge to play a fantasy version of yourself unless you are, yourself, a very interesting and charismatic person. Nothing says predictable and boring like the guy who always plays the same evil mage.
3. When you realize Charisma is not a dump stat, nothing can stop you.
4. If you have an alignment, then hash out a moral framework for your character. The personal conflict that arises will be both entertaining and memorable. Exploit the alignment crossover that exists in D20 between Good and Evil; Lawful and Chaos.
5. If you have a god, then call on him. Most gamers are agnostics so the existence of gods makes for interesting play. Clerics are a hilarious class if you take the time to read the player’s handbook section about religion. See my example in #7.
6. Write an in-depth background story or make art.
7. Come up with an amazing name. Most people name their creation after it’s done, but I sometimes come up with the name first, and form the character around it. Example: Rick Rockwell. With a name like that, I knew he had to be badass, so I made him a Psionicist lawyer and Priest of Amaunator. He requires paperwork before any healing attempts.
8. When in doubt, be funny or tragic. Design your character to leave a mark, one way or another.
9. During game, become your character. Act appropriately and your enjoyment of the game will increase dramatically.
10. Find out what type of game you will be playing in. Don’t play a social character in an action-packed game.
11. Talk to the GM.
12. Bring beer and snacks.
13. Get to know everyone at game.

In future posts, I will detail some of my favorite characters.

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called “xenix”, which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people’s computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people’s stereos to steal their music, using the “mp3” program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as “telnet”, which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.

It started with Tom’s mother, Beverley, who, in the presence of about 30 Mormons over to help us all clean out their garage, used the term to describe my relationship with these friends that had nothing to do with family, church, or marriage:

Our motley crew convened every Sunday to take part in a shared storytelling experience, wherein we would create fantastic, heroic, tragic characters, and play out their lives in a fantasy world of myth and magic.

I don’t know if this is common amongst Mormons, nor will I pretend to know the slightest bit about their social habits or graces, but in my experience, those who were kind enough to help Tom’s family seemed to have a tendency to refer to each other as Brother This or Sister That. So rather than explain those heretical activities — and bless her heart, she never did the entire time I visited — to clear up the unspoken question of “who is this Tom-tall person with the temperament and cackle of Sister Shawna?” she simply referred to me as “Friend Brad.”

Somehow that made sense, and since then, we haven’t stopped finding it funny. Since then, I’ve been referring to everyone with a title; coworker, friend, and soon, family members (just wait!)

Sunday game has since ended and been moved to Friday, but this lives on. When some of my international friends started using the honorary, I figured it was time for a writeup.

I would pass a law for truth in city planning. Thus, if you drove down Elm Lane, there would be at least a single Elm tree down each block. Patriotic Drive must have no less than one flag or eagle, and Lakewood Avenue should be adjacent to a lake.

The only thing I believe such a law would accomplish is that children will no longer ask the question “mommy, if this street is called Deer Lane, where are all the deer?”

Design should be honest, even down to the littlest of details.

For the record, I grew up on Oak Park Boulevard, in Ferndale, Michigan — a place of much ferns and oaks. I live in Roseville, CA, and was secretly delighted when I discovered our property had roses on it. My previous address in North Highlands, was in fact, on one of the higher elevations in the valley.

One of my close friends had a pretty terrible childhood, but at least his stories are funny.

His mother had a penchant for striking him whenever an insecurity struck her, so most of the stories he relays to me about that period of his life generally end with “… and then she beat me!”

It follows that he has issues with her.

My coworker happens to share his mother’s first name, which complicated my attempts to relay my amusing work-related Ebay anecdotes.

A solution was devised at the local In & Out Burger while enjoying their delicious fries: nickname my coworker after the text on the fry container.

This works well because of her penchant for fried potatoes. The nickname is sticking at work, I can tell!

Another coworker, who has a similar name, is named “Chinese Restaurant,” because of a fast food Chinese restaurant I saw near the Noodle House.

I had heard about a new direction that Canonical was taking with consumer Lunix, so I decided to give it a try on the borrowed laptop I use exclusively for Friday (aka Sunday) game.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Backed up everything on Dropbox. I do nothing major to any laptop without making sure all my data is here. All my recent data is synced across all my computers and I can access it at any time. It’s really quite fantastic.

2. Downloaded and installed Ubuntu Lunix10, Netbook Edition. Installer was moderately better, but still ended up wiping out my old install. Given that Lunix doesn’t have the hideous Windows registry problem, why can’t it simply move the old install and leave my documents intact?

3. Downloaded Skype, Dropbox, Google Chrome, Flash, and several other proprietary programs I wish were listed in the nifty Ubuntu store.

4. Waited several hours for my Dropbox data to be synced.

5. Updated Lunix. Made the mistake of listening to the Lunix recommendation to use the NVIDIA driver for my laptop. This caused X to crash so badly that the LCD looked like it was bleeding. I imagine this is a common reaction to consumer Lunix.

6. Searched the Ubuntu forums for a solution.

7. Discovered that the Ubuntu forum search doesn’t work. Used Google to find a solution, involving the X config file and bringing Lunix into “recovery mode.”

8. Recovery mode was, in fact, a linear lie. Used the LiveCD to bring the system back up.

9. The LiveCD doesn’t automatically mount hard drives, so did more searching and talked to Dan (Blobbus) to find out how to do this in Ubuntu. In RedHat, the naming of the drives was a bit more logical. So it goes. We found out that, in fact, there is a GUI interface for this. Oops.

10. Had to open the file in sudo, as Lunix was still respecting the permissions.

11. Made the change and rebooted.

12. X no longer crashed, but now, the Netbook Edition window manager “thing” made every program I launched a background application.

13. Reinstalled Lunix and started over.

14. Hours later, I am back to square one.

So basically, this was my best experience with Lunix, ever!

I really like the Netbook simplified interface. I hope GNOME becomes this; the iPhone OS has taught us that most operating system components go unused and are just confusing.

Canononical is basically one of the few Lunix distributions that matter at this point, and I am glad they are finally moving in interesting directions. Cloud computing, video editing, window manager replacements, touchscreen optimizations, and more!

Final grade: D+

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, updates have broken the “Netbook” edition, and I had to switch back to the inferior “Windows 95” look. I replaced most of the menu UI with an application called “Docky” to make it work like Mac OS X and it’s slightly less annoying.

I’ve taken to writing down all my configuration changes for the inevitable reinstall.

Do you know or care what Linux is? Neither does my Blackberry. I like this new misspelling.

One of my best memories at HFE Electronics was tinkering in the back room with computers and code while indulging the 90’s. This was one of my favorites. Also notable is C+C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat.

There’s just something about tearing apart computers with makeshift equipment, in a crowded backroom, while discussing PHP and Linux that really goes well with HIGH N-R-G.

This is like David’s Bridal x Timecube x Numba1stunna. Best yet, I think it’s real. Thanks, Clients From Hell!

My first experiment with Filipino cooking, as suggested by Coworker Jacob: 2 scrambled eggs (+salt & pepper), 1 can of somewhat-drained tuna added halfway in, served next to rice, with some seaweed on the side.

Also, Tang, because I’m an astronaut.

It turned out quite well! Some hot sauce gave it a kick and I would make it again. Next time, I will try spam musubi, which is incredible.

While helping 3 people work on their writing projects, it occurred to me that I should restart mine.