I am three episodes into the third season of Heroes. I’ve been hearing for a while that the show tanks halfway through the second season and just kind of sucks from then on. My experience has been different.

The first season was amazing, which I’m pretty sure people will agree with. However, I also really enjoyed the second season, but I can see where other people would start to lose interest. It seems that, due to the writers’ strike, the show was rushed to a close. Eleven episodes is not enough time to tell the same type of story that the first season had.

For example, it was jarring when Dr. Suresh told Bob that he had been working with Bennett. It was obvious that Suresh was conflicted once Molly got involved, so it wasn’t necessarily out-of-character for him to tell the truth, but it seemed like it was too soon.

Likewise, when Niki injected herself with the virus to stop herself from injecting Bob or Nathan, it wasn’t the wrong action for that character, but it wasn’t quite ready to come out of the oven.

I think the biggest disappointment for me was that once Takezo Kensei/Adam Munroe was shown to be a bad guy, there was no further twist that changed that. The “I’ve seen history and it has made me crazy” thing was kind of a weak place to take that character, and it would have been nice to see something a little deeper. Heck, even if he did ultimately end up being a villain, it would have been nice if they’d kept me guessing longer. But there was a writers’ strike and they couldn’t do that.

Which brings us to the third season. The first three episodes have been intense: Future Peter is screwing up time, Sylar has Claire’s healing ability, Angela is in charge of The Company, a rift is forming between Hiro and Ando, Matt was ported to Africa, and Mohinder has given himself powers. It’s a house of cards, and the rest of the season could bring it down.

I guess I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ve enjoyed more of the series than many people have, so there’s a good chance I’ll continue to enjoy it. It also helps that I’m watching it in chunks — I think season two may have been more frustrating if I had to wait a week between episodes before facing the disappointments I mentioned above. As I experienced them, they were just minor bumps in an otherwise smooth road.

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What is StanManX?
It’s a name that grew out of a very small number of people calling me “Stan”. I use it as my gaming handle. It became my internet identity because I would sign up for stuff that my gamer friends used, and it just sort of made sense to keep it consistent across all web stuff, even the non-game stuff.

However, people at work call me “Stan”. That’s because the friend that got me hired called me Stan. It irks me, though, because there are people I strongly dislike calling me by a name that was previously only used by people I had a ton of respect for.

Who is StanManX?
I use the name primarily for gaming, but also on this Christian music forum I used to visit much more regularly than I do now. The entire identity of StanManX consists of playing games, talking theology, and ranting about how the Christian music industry is dumb. More recently (‘08-’09), people in the Flint NaNoWriMo group know me as “stanmanx”, but even they start calling me “Matt” when we meet face to face.

StanManX is this guy who plays games, talks theology, and rants against the Christian music industry. He’s also not me.

Okay… Now what?
In a few weeks, I’ll be bringing this site down until I can figure out what to do with it. It will coincide with the launch of something new, something more in line with the person I am and the person I want to be.

So, who are you?
My name is Matt. I play games and talk theology. I also love music, especially making my own. I’m learning how to design websites. Lately I eat a lot more raw food than I used to, and I’ve been much healthier for it. I love my wife. I have amazing friends.

And I’m sure there is more stuff that I’ll figure out when I stop trying to be StanManX.

Are you going to post more at the new site?
That’s the plan. Honestly, it’s not that I’m out of ideas or time, it’s that I’ve been having a really hard time getting “in character” to post here. By that, I don’t mean that I’m being inauthentic when I post here, just that I expect myself to write with a particular style that no longer comes easy to me and isn’t always appropriate for what I want to talk about. At this new place, the whole point is being true to who you are, so a change of tone won’t feel wrong.
What’s happening to stanmanx.com?
I haven’t decided yet. I’d love to keep it as an outlet for my cranky gamer side, but it needs some downtime first.

SoulSilver is pretty good so far, but there are a couple of things of note…

1) There is this kid named Wade who calls you like 600 times a day to tell you he found some berries, and you can have some, so please go see him on Route 31. My real life friends don’t call me as often as Wade does… which is why we’re still friends

2) The Pokewalker is as fun as the actual game. It’s part Giga Pet, part… well, Pokemon, and it’s easy to play discretely at work. Um… supposedly. No, just kidding, I’ve been playing with it at work. It also makes you want to exercise because OMG WATTS GOTTA UNLOCK STUFF.

3) I feel really bad about neglecting all the Pokemon I caught in Diamond.

My impression of the Bard class in DnD has always been this: Crappy sorcerer who can also play music, emphasis on the “crappy sorcerer” part. I have a different sort of vision for the bard, one that involves much more focus on the music and less on the lame spellcasting.

Draw a Crowd
When the bard is in an inhabited area, he should be able to break out his instrument and bring people out to hear him play. In battle, this kind of ability could be used to get bystanders riled up enough to jump in the fray. However, getting people to risk life and limb would only be successful if the battle revolved around something important to the bystanders, e.g. invading soldiers are here to pillage their homes.

Get Everyone Pumped
Songs that move people don’t differentiate between friend and foe — if the bard is playing something moving, it will move everyone within a certain radius. The effects will last longer than the song’s duration, so the bard could sing before a battle and have it last for several rounds of combat; or he could try to sing during the battle, but run the risk of giving an enemy a bonus.

Dissonance
The enemy has surrounded the bard! What does he do? He turns on a random mish-mash of sound effects and unleashes a banshee’s wail on nearby creatures. The noise is like being stabbed in the brain, and they take a penalty to hit, or they are dazed, or something of that nature. Again, this affects everyone within a certain radius, so be careful about using it when your friends are nearby.

Setting the Mood
The bard may opt to play The Saddest Song, Ever. This makes everyone weepy, and may even cause them to see their common humanity and put an end to the conflict. Or maybe he wants to make everyone happy, so they turn the fight into a sporting event rather than a bloodbath. Who knows!

Persuasion
The bard is so cool that people just might do what he says, especially if he does something intricate and impresive.

What would you like to see a bard do?

Not that I have anything against flutes and lyres.

In fantasy worlds, you have all manner of attack and defense spells. That’s obvious to any reader/viewer/player. Additionally, you start seeing some other crazy stuff, including:

• Magically-enhanced weapons and armor
• Animals that have been enchanted to communicate with humans
• Magic-powered airships
• Portals that instantly transport people great distances
• Pens that can transcribe what a person is saying

So, with all of this stuff, why is the entirety of bardic magic (if it even exists) focused around buffing the party or debuffing the enemy?

You know what a bard would want? Make me louder so more people can hear me.

Or self-playing instruments. Or a unique melody that is used as a password to get into a secret room. Or — and this is what I really want to see — ways to change the sound of his instrument.

Now, rad as it would be, I’m not saying that a traveling minstrel should be packing a Marshall half-stack with which to rock His Majesty. What I’m saying is that, when there is an advance in technology, it gets applied to just about everything (think about how many things have computers in them).

If magic is being used to create floating cities, you bet that some guy is going to want to start messing with the sound of his harp. It’s the nature artists — whatever tools exist will eventually be used to change the face of art.

So, I’m curious: What styles of music do you think could come to exist in a world filled with magic? What kinds of sounds would the bards be creating? What would their performances be like?

I’m thinking I should figure out how to make this relevant to a DnD session.

My car was making noise, so last weekend I took it to my dad to see what the deal was. There were a few things that needed to be done, so we did them. I wound up having to take it in for an alignment the next day because the work we did made it necessary. The noise was drastically reduced.

Only it got louder Monday and Tuesday, so I took it back Tuesday night. It turns out my motor mount was broken, so I left it there and drove my mom’s car for the next few days.

Today I went back over there to see how things were going. A bolt had broken, one that supported about half the weight of my engine. My dad was headed to town to see if he could find a replacement when I left his house. Hopefully everything will be in working order tomorrow.

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I recently worked through a programming textbook and started on a web design book. I’ve been taking these things to work to read and work through during my lunch break, in addition to what I can get done at home. Only, lately I’ve been feeling crazy overwhelmed and not doing much at home — no studying, no music, no writing, none of it. The time is there, but somehow it never feels adequate.

A few weeks ago, I said something like, “Oh man, I thought about something when I first got into work, and that activated my brain, and I’ve spent the whole day fully aware of how little brainpower this job requires.” Turns out, that quip was the key to solving my problem.

I don’t use my brain at work. When I get home, I suddenly need it, so I fire it up and start all of my thinking applications. As you may have observed when doing this to your PC, that slows the boot process (and sometimes crashes Firefox). With enough crap running, things are sluggish and it’s hard to be productive. That’s what my brain is doing.

So, Sarah came up with some ideas for fixing my brain. They fall into two conceptual categories:

Start utilizing my brain at work. If I can figure out how to keep my mind active during the day, it should be easier to transition into “do stuff” mode when I get home. We picked up a book of lateral thinking puzzles, and Sarah is going to start emailing one to me in the morning so I have something to think about while I’m performing repetitive tasks. She also suggested that I start learning random words in a foreign language, things like objects found in an office, insults, and the words that the boss and the brown-noser are constantly misusing. I may give that one a go pretty soon. We had a couple other ideas worth trying out at some point, too.

Don’t do stuff at work that I want to do at home. If I read a web design book at work, it feels like I’m bringing work home with me if I open it at home. If I start writing a blog entry at work, it’s near impossible to finish at home. So, instead of trying to take real life into work, I should play stupid Facebook games during lunch and, you know, utilize my brain the rest of the day.

I’m optimistic. If this works, I’ll be rocking hard again. Wish me luck, and feel free to offer any suggestions or insights you have.

The campaign – One thing I realized when I sat down to start working on the campaign was that I had no idea what I was doing. I spent about an hour coming up with concepts for the world, since I’d like the campaign to make a little sense. I didn’t actually finish a module, but I’m laying groundwork, which will benefit me more in the long run than a contextless module.

Fallout 3 – The original plan was that I would get to spend today on Fallout 3. I decided to load up my game Friday night, just to get back in the swing of things (I hadn’t played in a long time). It was frustrating because unlike the original Fallout games, Fallout 3 pretty much makes non-gun skills useless. When I created my character, I put points into talking and being stealthy, which don’t help when you’re out in the open and a super mutant with a minigun spots you. So I started over, put my points into weapons, and promptly got bored and quit. I’ll go back to Fallout 3 later.

I spent today working on new music instead.

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My friend Troy creates things like costumes and wallets, and I think that’s a pretty fantastic skill to have. He’s been offering to show me how to do stuff for a while, so I finally made some time to start learning stuff from him. My first project is going to be designing a costume to wear to nerd conventions:

It’s going to be epic.