STeaP Showdown

Currently drinking:

North Carolina wine

Life has been very busy lately. Although I didn't make a formal New Year's Resolution to update this more frequently, I'm going to try to be better about it even during busy times.

Anyway, here's a recap.

Online Game Site

This weekend we used the online site I've been working on (which we're now calling RPGTV) for its first live group session. Three people from our group met in Charlotte (two of whom played online as well) while two of us played strictly via the site.

Even though the site is still very incomplete and rough around the edges, it worked quite well. We only ran into two relatively-minor bugs over the entire weekend (one of which was fixed within minutes; the other seems to be an issue with an external library) and feedback has been very positive overall. I think everybody—myself included—was surprised at how smoothly we were able to transition the overall game experience online, even the fuzzy, not-strictly-part-of-the-game elements.

Our next gaming session will be early next month; I've already set out a basic development schedule which should take care of the four mostly-requested additions by then.

Job Search

My job search is moving full speed ahead. I sent out a lot of applications over the holidays, and so far most of the replies have been promising. I'm still hoping to find a position relatively nearby if I can, but I've heard from some companies further out which look interesting.

As before, I'm not planning to spend much time talking about employment-related stuff here, but several people have been asking so I wanted to give an update.

Grandma's Cat

I asked about Grandma's cat when I visited last week: he is a Chartreux, like I thought. I didn't get a picture, though, and I also forgot to bring over the red laser pointer for him.

STeaP Showdown

This is the thing that inspired me to update, but it's the most recent so it comes last. =P

I've written about STeaP before; it's the weekly tea vlog/vodcast where two people taste/discuss/review various teas.

Back in December, they put out a request for everyone's favorite teas. After some hesitation (since our tastes seem to differ significantly), I suggested Rishi Tea's Jade Cloud, one of my long-time favorite teas.

Here is my review from when I first tried it in April, 2006, as originally posted on the old spautz.net:

This was unimaginably smooth. It felt like liquid pillows in my mouth. The flavor was great too: light and soft. The price is excellent as well—I liked this tea better than several others I've had which were twice the cost. This is a serious contender for "spautz's all-time favorite tea"; I'm definitely going to order this again.

(Personal note: the price has gone up quite a bit since then. It used to be $10/4oz, which was a very good value.)

So, today was their "STeaP Showdown" episode, where they tasted all of the viewer-suggested teas and rated them. Although it sounded like they liked most of the teas quite a lot, the Jade Cloud green tea managed to average out highest. =)

So anyway, that pretty much made my day. It's a VERY long episode, but it's entertaining. =)