Conversely, the PC software for the Sony Reader absolutely sucks. It looks remarkably like someone was hired to clone iTunes, and did so without ever understanding the ways in which iTunes is good and bad. You can’t drag content directly onto the Reader; you have to copy it into the Library, then copy it from there to the Reader. The interface is custom and non-standard — the menus don’t look like Windows menus, and the dialog boxes aren’t Windows dialog boxes. The Preferences dialog box has one option: “Check for updates automatically”. If you sort a list of books by author, it’s sorted by first name rather than last name. The Status window doesn’t tell you the titles of the books which are being converted/added. You can’t create new collections (playlists) directly on the Reader; you have to create them in the Library and move them over. ...

The Drunken Magistrate is one of many taverns in Vain’s Rest. There is nothing unusual about it. There’s a common room where people drink and eat, and perhaps six bedrooms up above. One can sleep in the common room, too, but one’d best count on being woken up early. The stable is not particularly good, and there is no dedicated stable boy. There’s a musician or two most nights. Ba Juerun owns the place; his daughter Nuru waits tables, and his wife Audu cooks. His son, Chanc, does whatever needs doing. ...

The Banegard was founded by Jacob Sloth, some two generations after the Maiden Broke. His purpose was to provide a bulwark against evil in the world, one not dependent on the politics of Oratain or the religious strictures of any church. His departure from the Army of the West was not entirely amicable, but since he was perhaps the best general of the age and since he brought much of his support staff with him, Oratain chose not to obstruct his passage. ...

Vain’s Rest is located at the border between the North and the South; it’s a border delineated by nature, not by man. To the north, green hills and white mountains rise to the horizon, and farmers trade stories of children stolen by the southern barbarians. To the south, the desert rolls in dunes as far as the eye can see, and the cultured gentlemen of the jeweled cities discuss the ways in which the northern barbarians can be cozened. ...

Vain’s Rest Vainites Geoffery Vain Drunken Magistrate Broken Maiden Untamed Lands The Untamed The North Order of Hermetics Banegard Tower Oratain Kingsmen The South Trader’s League The Yuanya Emirate The Camel Tribes Free City of Calain

The MacHeist thingiemabob is coming to an end. In this case, thingiemabob is defined as “a big publicity/marketing event for small Mac developers.” The salient information is that you can get a bundle of nine applications for $49. Of the apps in the bundle, I find Delicious Library and Newsfire to be fairly significant; that’s DVD/book/game cataloging and a very good RSS newsreader. There’s also a personal information manager, an OS level skinning application, a game of your choice, an HTML authoring program, etc. Check out the list for yourself. ...

I’m gonna count Orlando Trash (original) as a successful campaign at this point, which means I’ve run two successful campaigns. Maybe three if we count the Iowa City Vampire campaign; it’s vanished in the mists of time for me, but I think we didn’t go more than five or so sessions. Regardless, everyone’s enjoying Orlando Trash and I still get compliments on Huey Long’s Men of Action (original), so definitely successes. Okay. Two is not enough for a trend analysis if I was being a scientist, but I’m being a GM. ...

There are no free weblog clients for the Mac. I don’t deserve a free weblog client, but I’m not sure there are any weblog clients I want to pay for, either. Hm.

Pandas don’t have just one religion, but probably their most popular religion is this: There are many gods. The goal of all the gods, except for maybe a few twisted ones, is to create the most perfect object possible in our universe. In fact, this is the sole reason our universe was created; any object created in the palaces of the gods, which lie beyond, is perfect by definition. The universe we live in was fabricated as a testing ground of sorts. ...

Robert Altman died yesterday night (original). He was one of the very best. On his last film, A Prairie Home Compansion, Paul Thomas Anderson stood in as the backup director just in case — so this doesn’t come as a huge surprise. But it is hugely sad.