I have a few PNG (thank you, Tom Boutell) files that I want to put on top of a simple PDF template and save as a new PDF. Positioning and size are important to get right. Word won't open the PDF template, I tried GIMP for an hour, read the tutorials, manual, couldn't get layers to move around without smooshing into each other, couldn't get images in any way besides layers.

I tried Preview on the Mac, because I read that could work, but I could not get it to work.

What am I looking for?

A. Image editing software

B. Graphic design software

C. Desktop publishing software

D. Something else

Thank you in advance, Rob

I was contacted today by the lead recruiter for an IT development company located in King of Prussia who needs a content writer. We emailed back and forth and chatted on the phone and - hurray - I have an interview tomorrow. 

In preparation, I checked out the company website, read some copy, scanned a few blogs. Oh boy, do they need a writer!

And the recruiter just emailed back thanking me for "conformation" of tomorrow's interview.

Yikes!

yes, it came out just as i typed it.

hese boxes seem to multiply.t

There's a new post in my blog, Harbinger of Doom, in which I talk about the plight of new players in boffer LARPs creating rogues, knaves, and ne'er-do-wells.

Saw a truly good production of Hamlet today, at Hedgerow Theater. It made me have more sympathy for Laertes and Horatio than before. Horatio in this case is the deeply-friend-zoned would-be lover (played by a woman, an inspired choice).  And poor Laertes, the guy goes through all Hamlet's hell in less than an act. 

Got to see it with my favorite smart 12-year-old, and it was wonderful to experience it with him. 

I wish someone would make a cinematic first-person shooter of Hamlet. Seriously. 

I also wish (and I hate to say this, but I will) for a 25-year moratorium on Shakespeare.  I'd be willing to allow universities to do one Shakespeare play a season, but only if no white people are cast in the production. I love Shakespeare, but I think not enough other work gets a chance. I also think we need to let a generation roll over and see it with fresh eyes. 

that being said, it was a lovely show. 

I've been a huge fan since I discovered his work in 1988. What has impressed me so much, recently, is the way little bits from his earlier work (phrases, ideas, images) keep popping up. As if the first time I saw them he was just planting them, and now they're mature. And as much as his work changes every decade or so, it still seems like a sharper and sharper iteration of his first stuff.

I'm imagining a writer who keeps going back in time, killing himself, and releasing better and better versions of his first novel.

Anyone is welcome to use that idea, if they want to make fiction based on it. No one is allowed to actually do it, please.

I keep seeing memes after last week's midterm elections that make me despair for how little Americans understand their own democracy, or, in many cases, respect it.

Most absurd has been, "now that people voted for Republicans, the Republicans have to X", where X is "govern" or "work with the President", or a variety of other verb phrases that mean, "get things done", because "that's why people voted for Republicans."

This is hogwash.

List of reasons to vote Republican, not Democratic in the 2014 elections:

• anger at Democrats
  
• preference for Republican point of view and for Republican policies to be enacted
  
• preference for gridlock / divided government
  
• dislike of local Democratic candidate
  
• affection for local Republican candidate
  
• strategic vote so that if Republican President elected in 2016, comes alongside large Congressional majority
  
• generic subcultural affinity for Republicans
  
• the benefits of incumbency
  
• interest in how Republicans might govern if given the chance
  

All of these are valid reasons, but their preferred outcomes vary dramatically.  Only some of them imply a preference

And that's okay! 

Similarly, there's been a striking number of people saying that 2014's election was "historically" bad for the Democrats, which shows a surprisingly tiny window of "historical" knowledge, given that the outcome was not exactly different from 1994's midterm elections, or (for a six-years-in election), 2006's.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-year_itch)  I realize that looking a whopping eight or twenty years into the past is a challenge, but I do wish political reporters and the people who transmit their drivel could do so. 

We tend to eat 'clean' here in the moveable house. 

And by clean, I mean as little processed crap as possible. Of course, we have a freezer full of chocolate, and there's 3 boxes of Krispy Creme sitting on our bench after the trip to Canberra; I mean we aren't strict, we simlpy prefer to eat well. (Which means we tend to shop from the edges of the supermarket rather than the middle isles. Very little that is good foor you is found in the middle isles of the supermarket.) 

Last nights dinner was steak and salad. In summer, I like to add fruit to our salads. It seems to make them crisp, light and refreshing. 

Last night we had watermelon and rocket salad. Which is just rocket, a few finely chopped mint leaves, balls of watermelon, cucumber, danish feta and cooked proscuito. (If it was just me eating it I would have also added some sliced black olives, but I am the only one in this house that eats olives so I omitted them.) The dressing is balsamic vinegar, runny strawberry jam, salt, pepper, a sprinkle of sugar if needed and olive oil.  A friend of mine got a thermomix lately and has been making all sorts of stuff in it. She made strawberry jam and gifted a jar of it to me. It's rather runny for a jam, but makes a nice sauce. So I fgured it would work well in salad dressing and it did. 

I have no picture. It was demolished at break-neck speed. 

But breakfast this morning is not a clean meal. Not by a long shot. (And it's something I rarely eat, but the family loves it, so I endeavor to make it at least once a fortnight) We're having Dutch Pancakes.  My pancake mix is a little different to regular pancake mix. 

1/2 cup of condensed milk

3/4 cup of hot water

(I mix these two ingredients first, then go have a cup of tea while it cools. I usually make a double mix because my boys are pigs, so to save time I add 3/4 cup of hot water and mix then add 3/4 cup of cold water from the fridge.) 

To that I add

20grams of melted butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 cup of plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg. 

(Even when I double the mix, I still only use one egg. But that's because we have our own chickens and they lay massive eggs. so depending on the size of the eggs you buy, you may need to experiement.) 

I mix it all up and pour it into a large squeezy bottle.  This is just easier for use with the dutch pancake hot plate. Melted butter on the plate is super yummy, but I just use spray oil to cook the pancakes. They are quite small bite sized rounds of pancake. My plate makes 14 at a time. With this mix you can get 6 plates out of it. I usually double it because the man will eat 4 plates worth on his own. With cream and maple syrup. My little guy will eat 2 plates worth (sometimes 3) but he likes his with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. (They taste like donuts when you eat it like that.) On the rare occasion that I do eat pancakes, I like mine with lemon juice and sugar. 

So a double mix will make 12 plates of 14 mini-cakes. (we usually do have some left over and they are delicious eaten like pikelets with jam and butter.) 

If I get the chance to take a pic before they gobble them up, I will. 

(If I make this on a weekday morning, I make the mix up the night before. I used to put it in the fridge overnight, but the mix would go a little weird sometimes so I only put it in the fridge over night now on really hot nights. But these pancakes are surprisingly quick and easy to make. Its the prep work that takes the most time.) 

Not a good pic, but this is what 1 plate of naked dutch pancakes looks like. 

(Note, this is a side plate not a dinner plate.)

On a tangentially related subject, I continue to be delighted by the two most recent They Might Be Giants albums.

Blindside is the working title for the game I'm designing/building. The Angels 50 view is "a multi-user action RPG played entirely in text." Yes, reading & typing speed will play a factor. It's an extended revisitation of a simple game I made two decades ago. It's probably far too ambitious in scope, though when I look at it from an architecture point of view it's really just a lot of components that interact fairly simply, so should be doable. Whether or not it will ever be done is another question. I am having fun working on it so far.

On the technology side it'll be playable in a web browser. That's all you'll need. Well, and an internet connection. Because it's multi-user. Of course. I have a proof of concept up and running already, but it's nothing to be impressed about.

I wanted to write about the character design that I'm working on. I'm familiar with lots of computer game RPGs and a few tabletop RPGs so I have a pretty solid base of where things have been and where I want to take them.

The game's characters are broadly described by gender, race and alignment. These characteristics affect the finer statistics that define the abilities of the character.

Gender can be male, female or aescetic. Race can be human, elf or dwarf (these are placeholder names for something more interesting). Alignment can be lawful, beatific, chaotic or nefarious (pick one).

Thus, there are 36 combinations of gender, race and alignment. These combinations affect character statistics in reasonably predictable ways, though for game balance reasons I'm reaching a little bit here and there. 

Each unique combination of race and alignment produces a class, which is more or less the character's profession. At this point there's no restriction on what you can do as the member of a class, except that your stats may make certain playstyle choices superior to others. My gross simplification here is that you'll choose a class which provides a starting "dice roll" for your stats so that you can start playing the way you want to play right away.

There are twelve statistics, grouped into four sets of three as attack, defense, active and passive. The attack & defense stats are physical, magical and empathic power and resistance. Active stats are accuracy, speed and stealth. Passive stas are awareness, constitution and charisma.

Physical power and defense are basically bashing things with swords or whatever, and not being hurt by being bashed. Magic in the game will probably be based on physics effects like light, fire and electricity. Empathy is a spiritual realm that will emphasise non-physical effects like fear, healing, and buffs/debuffs.

If you are a human, you get bonuses to physicality, and a lawful human is a heavy-footed Justice and with boosts to accuracy and physical power; think of them as a traditional soldier. Beatific humans are the somewhat clumsy Chaplains who get more awareness and constitution; these are also fairly powerful fighters but emphasising defense with healing abilities. Chaotic humans are the fragile and light-footed Tinkers with high resistance to debuffing. The cautious Assassins are nefarious humans with their devastating stealth and accuracy.

In the cerebral and magic emphasising elven realm: if you're lawful, you are a physically weak Scholar with high accuracy and charisma; your reputation preceeds you everywhere. Beatific elves are your 'glass cannon' Mystics with little defense but tremendous magical output. If you suffer from ADD you are probably a chaotic elf Pixie with the highest speed stats in the game, though you do have a hard time paying attention with a tragically low awareness. Nefarious elves are the half-dead Necromancers with their very high physical defense; their slow stealth makes them exceedingly dangerous in the dark.

Our dwarves are part of the earth and all living things and accordingly their stats reflect high empathy. Lawful dwarves are Mechanists whose accuracy and defenses are quite high, though the clanking of their armour does hinder any stealthy activities. Beatific dwaves are the aetherial Earthborn with dramatically powerful empathic abilities, though they are somewhat weak to magic. The chaotic Hermit with its quick reflexes and the highest awareness in the game is not one you'll sneak up on. Lastly, the nefarious Thief uses its natural abilities to blend into the environment mostly for selfish purposes. 

From a game balance point of view I have everything worked out on the spreadsheets, though that isn't what worries me. What worries me is the need to ensure that when these characters encounter each other in battle that the fights are more or less evenly matched, not necessarily between individuals, but broadly across classes. For example, I can't imagine a specific hermit winning a battle against a justice, but hermits in general should be able to defeat 4 other classes, be evenly matched against 4 others, and regularly lose to the others. 

What I want is for each particular class to find a different natural "groove" through the game, so that there are 12 different playstyles to be explored. Which will be a good thing as there are intended to be 12 major stories to be told (about which more much later).

To the end of game balancing, I'll be running probably millions of simulated battles as I simultaneously adjust what the stats mean, what battle tactics are included, how powerful the AI should be, and how all this stuff interacts. And I'll probably keep running it over, and over, and over, as the engine evolves. Balance is going to be the hardest part of the project, and I know it.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning, it's an ambitious project, but as far as I'm concerned right now, the journey is the interesting part. If a great game comes out the other end, that's great.