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TableTalk/Azuran

Adventures in Azuran – Part 2

Posted by iamsupergeek on

The month of Nevermoon has arrived.  At the end of the month, Azuran inhabitants hold an event called All Dark Eve where people dress up in costume and have parties celebrating the time when all three moons leave the sky.  This is similar in many ways to the month of October and the celebration of Halloween.

The Diamond Skull of Mithras, a 1000 year old artifact, is coming to the museum in Moon’s Crossing to be placed on display for a short time.  Rumor has it that an Elf thief named Kartoth is also coming to town to try and steal it.  Our group has been tasked with securing the skull while on display.

Miscellaneous

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by iamsupergeek on

Happy Thanksging to everyone!

What would this day be without the (in)famous Turducken?!

Mmmm! Turducken! (credit: Food Network)

“What the hell is a ‘Turducken’?” You may ask? Well, according to thefreedictionary.com, it is defined as:

a boned turkey stuffed with a boned duck that is stuffed with a small boned chicken, sometimes also containing a breadcrumb or sausagemeat stuffing

For your enjoyment, here’s a link to Paula Deen’s Turducken recipe from the Food Network website.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/turducken-recipe-1944770

Enjoy! And remember your sweatpants!

Sightlines

Foo Fighters – 2018 Concrete and Gold Tour

Posted by iamsupergeek on

The Foo Fighters ended the 2018 US leg of their Concrete and Gold tour last Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, MN.  Doors opened at 6:00 PM, Gang of Youths started things off at 7:30 PM, and the Foo took the stage around 8:45 PM.  They love to put on a party and play long sets.  This was no different, they played 22 songs and finished around midnight!

Geekspeak

Self-Deleting Scheduled Task via PowerShell

Posted by iamsupergeek on

Starting with PowerShell v4, there has been cmdlets available to create scheduled tasks instead of using the schtasks.exe program, or the wizard.

My organization is using PowerShell v5.1 and there is a lingering bug from the Windows Vista days relating to setting an “EndBoundary” in order to have a scheduled task expire.  An expiration date/time is needed for the scheduled task to delete itself.  But, if you try to set this using the cmdlets, you get an error message.

This post is a culmination of tidbits I found on several other blog/forum posts, and a metric crap-ton of my own trial and error.  All because I wanted a scheduled task to delete itself once it was done.  That doesn’t seem like much, does it?  Yeah, I didn’t think so either, but it was.  My pain is your gain.

TableTalk/Azuran

Adventures in Azuran – Part 1

Posted by iamsupergeek on

Two common questions that arise immediately when a new RPG campaign starts are:

  • “Do the characters know each other already?”
  • “If not, how do these strangers agree to go off on adventures together?”

Last Friday night, we had our first campaign session in the world of Azruan, and these questions came up.  This is the recap of how those questions were answered.

Sightlines

METALLICA!

Posted by iamsupergeek on

Metallica played at the Target Center last night!  This is normally where I add a comment about the opening band(s)… but there wasn’t an opening band… there was an opening comedian.  You read that correctly, Metallica didn’t have an open band act, they had Jim Breuer open for them.

Don’t get me wrong, Jim is a funny guy – which is a good thing as a comedian.  I mean, if a comedian isn’t funny, I guess they’re still considered a comedian, but they’re most likely VERY underemployed.  I first heard of Jim from the MTV Icon Metallica show in 2003 where he impersonates the members of the band (video quality is crappy).  In the video, you can see them laughing at him, loving his material.  Since then, he has become friends with the band, was the MC at Metallica’s 30th anniversary show in 2011 at the Fillmore Theater in San Francisco, has interviewed them several times, and now the opening act for this leg of the WorldWired tour.

TableTalk/Azuran

Adventures in Azuran – Part 0

Posted by iamsupergeek on

On August 24, we had our Zero Session for a new D&D 5e campaign set in a homebrew land called Azuran.

What is a “Zero Session”, you may ask?  Well, it’s basically the player group getting together to talk about the campaign in preparation for the actual gaming sessions.  The DM will lay out the campaign concept, talk about the setting, explain what races/classes/alignments are within scope, etc.  It also gives the players a chance to chat with each other, meet everyone (if they don’t know each other already), discuss character options, and roll up characters.

Geekspeak

Software Uninstalls – How I Do It

Posted by iamsupergeek on

As a follow-up to my previous post on installing software via MSI, I thought it would be good to dive into uninstalling software.

There are a multitude of methods to install and uninstall software, and just as many (if not more) methods of automating this task. Going into “Programs and Features” or “Add/Remove Programs”, selecting the software, then clicking the uninstall button is very easy. But having the user do this can require permissions that they probably should not have, and the wrong item can be selected and removed. Automating the removal of software can have many pitfalls and unforeseen consequences. Sometimes, when you install a piece of software, it doesn’t always update a previous version of itself that may be on the device, then you’re left with two versions that can often conflict with each other. In this case, administrators will uninstall the old version during the installation process of the new version. It is important that the correct software be uninstalled the correct way.

Geekspeak

Software Deployment via MSI – How I Do It

Posted by iamsupergeek on

Part of my job is to deploy software to our fleet of Windows computers via SCCM.  This involves PowerShell scripts to automate the process and capture logs. So, I decided to make a post showing how I do it.

Anyone can double-click an MSI file to launch it and proceed through the GUI to eventually have the program install (as long as they have sufficient rights on the device to do so). In a business environment, it is best to not let the average user have this level of access – it often leads to malware and other problems. So, administrators use utilities like Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to wrap up programs in a cute little bow to be either automatically deployed to devices, or to be made available for the user to install at their convenience. Either way, the installations usually need to be “silent” (no GUI or user interaction) so they can be installed in the background, or to prevent the user from pressing a button you may not want them to. This can be challenging at times because every company is different, every programmer is different, and even if industry standards are followed, there is enough wiggle-room to make things crazy.