Looks like summer is just about over…  I’ve noticed the leaves starting to change color as I drive around the area, and the weather is starting to cool off.  I am certainly not going to complain.  Fall is my favorite season.  I can’t wait until the skies turn grey, it gets windy, all the leaves drop off the trees…  Good stuff.

It also means that Terri’s birthday is rapidly approaching, as is our wedding anniversary.  And my parents will be up to visit soon.

And, of course, Winter is on the way…  I can’t say I’m terribly thrilled about that.  I don’t like the cold.  I don’t like the snow and ice.  I don’t like having to shovel, and scrape the car off.  I don’t like the muck and slush and crappy visibility.

But, of course, there are some nice things about Winter too…  Thanksgiving, and Christmas, an New Years…  I guess that almost makes up for the crappy weather…

One Man And His Drake did not renew the wardec this week, so after the 24-hour cooldown things will be back to normal.  I’m thrilled.  This has been a boring war…  With only one war target there hasn’t been a whole lot of action.  It’ll be good to get back to mining and missioning.

There’s been a story going on CNN lately about lowering the drinking age to 18.  Now, I personally don’t really care all that much either way.  Folks will be stupid regardless of whether they’ve been drinking or not.  And folks will drink too much and be even more stupid regardless of their age.  So the idea that there’s some magic number that will prevent alcohol-ralted stupidity seems kind of silly to me.

I understand that people do tend to mellow out as they age.  It’s probably safer for a 50-year-old to be drinking alcohol than a 15-year-old.  They’re probably going to be more careful and responsible about the whole thing.

But that isn’t garonteed.  There are plenty of young folks imbibing responsibly, and plenty of older people being complete asshats.

But I do find it interesting that in the United States you are considered responsible enough to get behind the wheel of a car, which can make one hell of a deadly weapon if used incorrectly, at age 16.

And at age 18 a whole world of responsibility opens up…  You can get married, have sex, and raise a family.  You are allowed to change the course of this nation’s history with a vote.  You can enlist in the military to fight and die for your country.

And yet, somehow, you aren’t considered responsible enough to enjoy an acoholic beverage until age 21.

I’ve spent a few minutes looking around for decent WordPress themes, and they seem to be few and far-between.  Seems like there was more variety out there when I was first putting this thing together.  Seems like there were a bunch of them with interesting widgets and unique layouts.

These days they all look very similar.  Most of them have 3 or more columns…  Lots of them have tons of clutter at the top or bottom of the page…  Lots of them are very flashy and visually overwhelming…

I’m looking for something fairly simple and clean.  Something that focuses on the text.  And I’m just not finding that…

So, for now, I’ve throw together a few new headers and set them to rotate.  I’ve been using the black mage from Final Fantasy as an avatar all over the place for a while now.  Netflix, Last.fm, various forums…  And I’ve had that set as my favicon for a while.  So I figured I ought to throw him into my header.

Looks like EVE University has been wardeced again…  This time by a corporation called One Man And His Drake - which apparently consists of literally one man.  I guess he’s been playing since 2003, so he’ll obviously have some pretty impressive skills…  But it’s still just one guy.  So my chances for actually seeing any combat are pretty slim.  The odds of actually being on-line when he logs in and is looking for a fight can’t be good.  Looks like I get to spend another week sitting in the hangar.

That’s ok though, it gives me an excuse to focus on training some boring skills.

Yesterday I got into my new Omen…  Still don’t have the skills to fit it the way I’d like to, but I strapped some guns to it and took it out for a spin.  I still don’t have any L2 missions to run, so I toog it out on a couple L1 missions…

I like how the Omen looks.  Very sleek, very malevolent.  It looks like it was designed to hurt people.  I can only fit five guns on it, as opposed to the eight that my destroyer carries – but they’re medium guns, rather than small.  So they put out a lot more damage individually.  Lots more shielding, lots more armor.  It’s also fairly maneuverable.  I expected it to move a bit slow…more like my Badger or Retriever…but it turns pretty quick.

It obviously wasn’t designed for killing frigates though – or, at least my fit wasn’t designed to.  The medium turrets track slower, and my sensors have a harder time fixing on a small target, and the guns are designed for longer range.  So the little frigates zoom in close before I can get a lock on them and then I have a hard time hitting them with my lasers.  Of course, when I finally do hit them it’s basically all over.  I’m obliterating frigates in a single barrage.

It’s kind of like trying to use a 2×4 to kill a fly, actually.  It’s a little unwieldy…a little awkward…but if you manage to hit the thing it’ll definitely die.

Obviously I won’t be using my Omen for running a whole lot of L1 missions…I’ll be using my Coercer for that.  I just wanted to try the ship out and see how it handles.  And I’m pretty happy with it.  I’m very anxious to see how it handles in an L2 mission, where it is actually put to the test.  But I won’t be doing that for a little while.

For now, I’ll be dusting off my EWAR frigate and waiting around for a chance to blow up a war target.

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of the day half-playing EVE.  I was logged in and had my Retriever out mining some asteroid belts, but I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention.  I was surfing the web, listening to music, taking care of Terri (who’s horribly ill this weekend)…  So I wasn’t really paying attention to how much ore I’d hauled in or how much it was going to sell for.

When I finally refined it all and sold it before going to bed last night I’d made almost 10 million ISK over the course of the day – putting me at a new all-time high:  26 million ISK.

Of course, that didn’t last long…  I’ve been running missions a lot lately, trying to get my standings up with various groups.  And I’m slowly approaching the point where I’ll be able to run level 2 missions.  In anticipation of that, I’ve been training towards an Amarr Cruiser.

I should finish up all the skills I need today, so I went on a shopping spree.  Fitted out an Omen (named Damien, at my wife’s suggestion) in EFT bought all the bits and pieces.  I spent nearly 10 million ISK in the end, virtually erasing everything I made yesterday.

It’s kind of discouraging to see that much money vanish so quickly…  But I guess that’s kind of the point – money is made to be spent.  And, honestly, that isn’t a whole lot of money in EVE.  It’s a lot to me, because I’m relatively new to the game.  But there’s plenty of ships and equipment out there that cost hundreds of millions of ISK.