The End of 2006

I spent a few hours yesterday running through some gaming tests with my friends to figure out what system I want to use for the upcoming 1200AD campaign I'm starting. The tests were interesting, comparing the "A Game of Thrones d20" with "D&D 3.5" in producing the same battle.

Tomorrow is January 1st - and I'm going to start working on my "real" novel in the morning. I've done a lot of pre-work, defining characters & plot elements. Today will be a real slogger for me as I have to finalize some of the work.

The most important thing is that I don't get bogged down on some of the details, but just keep going. I think momentum will be very important to me for the first draft, which I want to have completed by Feb 28th. When I get my chapters all done I hope to have a word count around 90,000.

I spent about two weeks trying to get my story, "The Angle of Incidence" ready to become a novel - but in the end realized it just didn't have enough material in it. I hope to turn it into a long "short story" and submit it in the future. I really like the story it tells, but to make it into a novel would require troweling on a lot of stuff that might not stick, and might look artificial.

So instead, I'm working on a non-supernatural Thriller. My working title is Southern Knights - and it is the Red-Neck DaVinci Code.

My first chiken tikka masala

This is a photo of my first ever effort at cooking my own Chicken Tika Masala. It turned out pretty darn good. I wish I'd used more yogurt so there'd been more sauce for the rice.

Now I just need to figure out how to cook my own Naan bread, and I'll be able to make one of my favorite meals at home.

Look out General Tso, you're next!

Merry Christmas

I was working on a special geek-christmas card, but due to family illness didn't get it finished in time for the date. Perhaps next year, or perhaps I'll just post it out of holiday sequence. That'll teach 'em.

Waiting for santa

I can't catch up with the past

I'm a gamer. You either identify yourself as a gamer or you don't.

I do.

I've been in a love-hate relationship with computer games since they first became available to me through the VIC-20 and the Atari 2600 Video Computer System Console. On the one hand, I love the way the games let you simulate battle without keeping track of mathematics or having to keep track of hundreds of counters, yet on the other hand the rules of the computer limit your ability to innovate or question the rules as implemented.

The classic example is in Computer Role Playing Games where either the storyline is on a "rail system" where you can only act towards the completion of the programmed plot, or the limitations of the mechanics don't allow you to innovate in your problem solving. For example, if you're playing a rogue in a D&D style computer game and you suspect that one of the King's council is actually going to betray him there is no way to (a) accuse him until the game lets you, (b) poison or otherwise dispose of him to protect the king, or (c) blackmail and/or collude with him to overthrow the monarch.

Or for a more simple example, in Neverwinter Nights (v1) the maps of the inside of buildings are completely different areas than the outside so you can't look out the window and see who is coming because even though you're supposed to be in the same area, you're not.

Anyway, limitations aside, I'm still amazed at the evolution of gaming. Text adventures and arcade shooters have evolved to an astounding degree in the past 30 years... at least on the outside.

But how much have the "GAMES" themselves evolved? Don't be fooled by smoke & mirrors. Yeah, thanks to the work of the graphics card industry, you can now get 3D models with astounding textures, and the computing power to render nearly photo-realistic environments. But if the game is still just a 3D shooter, is it really "better" than Duke-Nukem 3D? Do new weapons and better looking models really make a difference?

Eventually the rendering is going to be irrelevant and what will drive the success of a game will come down to three factors.

1) Marketing: There is a segment (a really big segment) that will buy anything if a hot commercial pushes it. They don't get repeat business this way, but sometimes can clear a lot of inventory.

2) Story: If the game is competently built, an excellent story will sell itself. Games with superb stories and these modern engines can essentially become interactive movies. Half-Life 2 has a great engine and an interesting story. It is essentially an action film where you play the MUTE hero and everybody else yaks all the time giving you the plot through voluminous expository speeches. I wouldn't pay $.50 to see it in theatres, but I happily dished out $50.00 to play the game.

3) Gameplay: If the story is crap and the marketing is crap - the game can still be successful if the GAMEPLAY is awesome & addictive. If you can tell me the narrative of Tetris, Bejewelled or Pac Man, well then you're some kind of very special idiot. Nobody cares about the story, they're just fun to play.

I was originally just going to post a link to the granddaddy of all adventure games , which - just like real casino games - you can now play ADVENTURE online!

My Secret Obsession - very tiny cars

I love little cars. I'm WAY too big to actually fit into one and ride around, but I just love tiny machines that get great gas mileage and yet would fit neatly in the back of my enormous pickup truck.

Lucky me!

While doing research on the ISO Isetta, I found a really neat micro-car museum. I decided to see where the museum was, figuring some day in my travels maybe I could make my way to The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum if I ever made it all the way to MADISON, GEORGIA!!!

Yes:

The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum Inc.
2950 Eatonton Road
Madison, GA 30650

Merely an hour and a half drive from my house. Oh, boy! If I didn't have the flu I'd probably go today. But a trip of 90 minutes takes a little planning. Maybe I'll make an event of it.

And I could go check out Crowe's Open Air BBQ, just up the street from the museum. Hmmm. BBQ and tiny little cars - that seems like a good idea for a nice afternoon.

The website says:
Museum Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
1:00pm to 4:00pm
closed Nov 21,22,23 (Thanksgiving week)
closed the week Before and 2 weeks After Christmas
closed the months of JUNE & JULY


That's a small window of opportunity, but it might be doable. I'd just have to burn a vacation day. Though it sounds like it'll be next year before I make it. Oh, 2007 - you're such a temptress with your little cars and BBQ...

Life is Astounding

We are so amazingly privileged in America. I try to never lose sight of that. While I've never "lived off the grid" I am certain that I could survive thanks to my country-ish upbringing. Like the song says, I can lay a trot-line. I believe I can also hunt, grow food, find shelter, find water, etc...

But I can also sit in my bed (like now), write on a laptop which is wirelessly connected to a broadband Internet connection, watch a DVD of "Kolchak - The Night Stalker", and struggle to survive the flu.

I suppose I could also struggle to survive the flu without electricity, but this is more fun. In fact, I just found a nostalgia factory in the form of a website that lets me play classic commodore-64 games through my browser. Now I don't even need an emulator - it's Java, baby!

Still, I wish the flu would leave me and my wife. At least the kids seem to be faring well, though I suspect their inoculations led to my infection.

Remove "UnDock" from your START menu

I am a corporate laptop user. We have docking stations. There is an annoying little menu option when I click START that is perilously close to the shut-down option. It says "Undock Computer" and it annoys me to a terrible degree.

There is a registry hack to get rid of it. Here it is if you want it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:00000091
"NoStartMenuEjectPC"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\RestrictRun]

Save that code as "no-undock.reg" and then run it to get rid of that pest.

Humans - a lossy format

You may know by now that James Kim, an editor at CNet, died this week in the mountains of Oregon after he and his family got snowed in on a mountain pass. This story troubled me on so many levels.

Let me tell you my tenuous connection to James. I'm a fan of Tech-TV's Screensavers. Note that I don't say I "was" a fan. I "am" a fan. When Tech-TV merged to form G4, I quit watching because they canceled most of my shows and fired a lot of the people I really felt a kinship to. There was nothing like Tech-TV's shows that really called out to me. There were no regulars on The Screensavers that I didn't feel like would be welcome in my home.

I moved on when that show was canceled, but always kept a place for it in my heart. I had met Pat & Leo at various tours they did here in the south, and in person they were as affable and easy to like as they were on television. Plus, they usually knew what they were talking about, which is a trait that I really prefer.

After The Screensavers ended, I felt a little lost - but had a lot more free hours on my TIVO. Recently I discovered that Leo & Pat (And John C. Dvorak and frequently Jerry Pournelle, plus others) had a weekly podcast called This Week in Tech (or TWiT). On the show I found the same sort of lively, friendly tech-savvy discussion that had made The Screensavers so cool. In many ways, this seemed to be the pod-based resurrection.

Then this past week, tragic news came as Leo & Pat told that James Kim, a mutual friend of theirs, was missing along with his family. My first thought was that they were probably murdered by a wandering serial killer. It never occurred to me that they might have become snowed-in on a rural mountain pass.

Now comes the tragic news that James didn't make it. Going back to look at a video montage over at Cnet I realized that James was very thin. Going for seven days with no food and then setting out on foot to try and hike 30 miles for help in icy weather when you're skinny - that's a formula for trouble. Sadly, James wasn't fat and reportedly didn't have the kind of training and equipment that would serve him well in icy weather.

But fortunately his family was found and his wife and daughters will be OK. I wish he had made it. I'd have much preferred a Reader's Digest style "Drama in Real Life" where James walks 30 miles to get help - only to discover that his wife and kids are already rescued. Sadly, that's not what happened. Whatever caused Jame's death, he was doing the thing he thought most important - risking his own life to try and save his family.

I feel sad for his family, for Pat & Leo, and for Cnet. He seemed like a really nice, funny guy.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - the Music

The Tragic Treasury is out on i-tunes and provides many songs from the audio versions of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Dungeons & Dragons - The Complete Series DVD

The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series from the 1980's is available for pre-order and will be released December 5th! Wow! This was a cartoon I totally had to sneak around to watch because it was about Dungeons & Dragons. Sort-of.

The guy at the video store showed me the box but couldn't sell it to me - but it is cheaper at Amazon (CLICK HERE TO BUY - AND DON'T FORGET TO BUY ME ONE TOO).

guess where I ate breakfast

Another "Movie for Gamers Who Like Movies" review

I finally finished my review for Dungeons & Dragons : The Movie. I think it speaks for itself; it just doesn't link for itself.

Peace, out.

Where's the Love?

NaNoWriMo is not just a crazy idea; it is also a charity non-profit which uses its funds to build libraries in Southeast Asia. This year the target goal is $200,000. You don't have to be a writer to help out. Just hop on over to the NaNoWriMo store and make a donation. You can even use PayPal to do it!

Why not turn some of your e-bay cash into a place that will help kids read?

Cream of Coconut

Here's a bit of cooking advice. If you decide to make some kind of beef-curry dish with a Thai flair, be sure that the coconut milk you're adding to the delicious vegetables, peppers, pecans and smoked beef is actually coconut milk. Because if it is cream of coconut and you pour it into your cooking food, it is a sad, sad thing.

Yuck.

I just turned ten bucks of delicious ingredients into smoked-beef-coconut-candy. I can't even phonetically spell the noise I made when I tasted that mess.

Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross. As Anita Blake (no relation) would say, "Gag me with a spoon." Or, just gag.

Why I Like Writing

Although nobody ever asks me why I want to be a writer, I actually know why. I remember as a child being an avid reader from the first grade. My mother had taught me to read before I started school, and the stories in the first grade included a magic car - which I vaguely remember being driven by a curly haired gentleman and the car may have flown. (That's a bit sketchy... Mr. Fig was it?)

We didn't have the plethora of entertainment options then that kids have now, and my mother needed to give us something to do besides watching daytime television. (Daytime TV was geared towards the home-bound housewife at the time, and my sisters and I did enjoy the game shows, but at some point the soaps would come on, and my interest waned.)

Mother would sign us up for the summer reading program at the city library. We would check out books and read them, and sometime around the 3rd grade, I began to read anthologies of science-fiction stories. I read novels too, some of them classics of literature and others classics of children's literature. But it was the science fiction stories that really captured my imagination. Stories about people with time machines, ray-guns, rocket ships, and hyper-intelligent monkey side-kicks were my ticket to other worlds. As a reader, I sought the ambulatory effects that reading such works brought me. But at some point I realized that the stories themselves - though clearly magical works - had been created by mortal men, and that I could become such as them if I wanted to.

I could read these old anthologies, and smell the age on the paper. The fonts were different. The copyrights were from the 30's, 40's and 50's. Some of the stories had illustrations, and many had twist endings that rivaled those on the Twilight Zone. But what really struck me was that this sensation I got from reading these tales made me think that these old men, these dead men, had the same sorts of sensibilities that I had. They had the same sense of wonder, and imagination, even though they were really old - which meant that not just their stories had been captured on the paper, but also a snapshot of their thinking process. They had achieved a sort of immortality through being in print, and I liked the idea of that. I liked it a lot.

A more refined understanding of my feelings came in high-school when I learned more about Aristotle and the Aristotelian rules of drama. On the one hand, there was this famous guy named Aristotle who had produced rules for art. On the other hand, there was this guy named Aristotle who is arguably more well known now than he was 2300 years ago. And that's the magic of writing. You write to some imaginary audience and if you're published, it is possible that two thousand years ago some people may read your words and say, "Neato!"

Insanity. Insanity,

I'd say writing 12,000 words in a day is insanity.
Blogging about it later - even more insanity.
Believing anything in the last 4,000 words is even going to make sense tomorrow?
Insanity.

Punchy. I'm quite punchy now.

Making things fit

I've recovered nearly all my lost word count from losing a day doing tech work. This brings me back close to an average of 2000 words per day, not counting today. That's about what I can expect to accomplish in 90 - 120 minutes, assuming the words will come. If I averaged 1800 words for every 120 minutes that would be 15 words a minute. If I could magically avoid eating, sleeping, pooping, showering, or any other distraction and just keep up that pace I could knock out a 90,000 word book in just under 5 days. But I suspect that it would suffer slightly as my rational thinking wanes a bit after the first 48 hours of no sleeping and no pooping - something I learned in boot-camp.

But 120 minutes is 2/24ths of a day. That made me think of the way my days really play out.
Here are some things I do every day, and some time allocation:
Sleep - 6 hours (25% of my day)
Eat - 3x @ 45 min each. This will be rounded up to 2 hours. (8% of my day)
Work & Drive - 9 to 10 hours deducting lunch in the previous item. (37% - 41% of my day)
Kid time (for me this is playing, homework, diapers, etc...) 2 hours dedicated, and nickel and dimes throughout my waking hours. (8 - 50% of my day depending on circumstances.)

The point here is that the two things I know I ought to be doing are WRITING and EXERCISING. And those are the two things that if I do them give me the most satisfaction emotionally and physically - yet which I find hardest to make time for.

NaNoWriMo has reminded me that getting up at 5:00 am to do stuff is the best way to accomplish things. You only have time for stuff if you MAKE time for it. So combining the military saying of "If you have time to sleep then you have time to work" with the knowledge that if I go to bed at 10:00 pm I can get up at 5:00 am without suffering much, I've been able to meet my goals so far.

The only problems have been getting a virus which weakened me one day and emptied me the next, and trying to squeeze in some computer work. If I don't write in the morning it is terribly hard to get it done during the ensuing day. But I'm betting my best editing work will be done at night, should I ever get that far in the process.

34,000 NaNoWriMo

Well, I caught back up again. Finally. Once I get to 50,000 I think I may just collapse. Now 3/5th of my family is sick with some kind of stomach virus. I say stomach, but that's just the start of the problem.

Maybe this weekend will be very productive in writing - either way, I'm sure using a lot of paper.

An Interesting Windows XP Issue - Part 2

A few months ago I saw an article in Information Week's Langa Letter column on performing a "No Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option" refresh of Windows XP. This article is about an interesting problem I ran into while running the refresh trying to fix a problematic XP system.

The system I was trying to repair had been subjected to numerous internet game installs, and was running rather sluggishly. It also had problems staying connected to the Internet, and getting e-mail. Both of its browsers (IE and FIREFOX) were out of date, and the anti-virus software was expired. There was also a serious problem with the file system permissions. There were two user accounts on the system with similar names, but one was a "user" and the other was an "admin" account. However, when trying to use the admin account many of the desktop items couldn't be deleted and software couldn't be installed because the system said that the installation required administrative permissions - which it should have had, but didn't. I tried creating a new account and moving files to the new profile for the administrator. This resolved the installation issue, but not the files that couldn't be deleted. I decided it was time to run the refresh install.

The refresh went smoothly until it got to screen 17 in the process - where the system required reactivation. However, when I tried to reactivate the system an error popped up saying that the internet could not be reached. Then another message popped up saying that I had zero days to get the system registered. Then the installation was complete and the machine rebooted.

This is where the fun began. The system was configured to use the "Welcome Page" login screen. It was XP Home edition, so that's fairly common. When I clicked on the icon for the primary user (with admin privileges) I got an error message:

A problem has prevented windows from accurately checking the status of the license for this computer. You can not log on right now. Please ask a computer administrator to activate windows on this computer.

The error message flashes for a moment, then the system logs back out to the Welcome Screen. Nice. This account had administrative privileges so it seemed like that should have worked, but no. I did some research on Microsoft's Technet and came up with article 306081 which advised that with activation issues, sometimes the activation software can get corrupted. It talks you through the process of using the recovery console and expanding the activation software off the install disk to refresh it.

That didn't work.

Other websites strongly advised doing a refresh install - like the one I just did. Doh!

(Just to be safe, I did re-refresh install, but same issue.)

I went back and re-read the error message and decided that maybe it didn't want me to login as a user with administrative priviledges - but as THE ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT. Only problem there is that the administrator account doesn't show up on the Welcome Screen unless you boot in safe mode.

So I booted into safe mode (with and without networking) and discovered that the Administrator account gave me the same error. In my line of work - and at home, I almost exclusively use a domain and therefore the domain login screen instead of the Welcome Screen. But when I called a friend to describe the problem he mentioned that it was possible to change from the Welcome Screen to the domain login screen - if I could get logged into the system. Which I couldn't.

So I did more research and many sites out there advise that if this happens to you the best solution is to back up your data and just blow the whole system away. But I wasn't prepared to do that - I had one more thing to try. (And it works - so keep reading.)

Here is the actual solution to the problem:
1) Boot the system into SAFE MODE WITH COMMAND PROMPT. This mode of booting works and does not generate the annoying lockout error.
2) At the command prompt type "EXPLORER.EXE" This will launch the windows desktop and allow you to get to step 3.
3) Go to the CONTROL PANEL -> USER ACCOUNTS -> CHANGE THE WAY USERS LOGON. Change that disable "Use Welcome Screen" then save your settings.
4) Reboot. When the system comes up you should be able to login with the Username/Password dialog box. Use "Administrator" as the user, and whatever password your administrator account has for the password.

Now you should be logged in as administrator and able to re-run the ACTIVATE WINDOWS WIZARD and successfully get the system authorized.

I hope someone will find this information useful. I would post it at one of the myriad "Windows Tech Forums" but I'm too lazy to fill out another friggin forum sign-up even to help people.

An Interesting Windows XP Issue - Part 1

A few months ago I saw an article in Information Week's Langa Letter column on performing a "No Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option" refresh of Windows XP. Having experienced some of the results of doing reinstalls with Windows 98 and 2000, I was dubious but was able to successfully use the technique multiple times to clear up issues with Windows Genuine Advantage errors. As long as you have a valid CD-Key and don't mind calling India to get the approval code from Microsoft the refresh install can really do wonders for clearing up all kinds of registry problems, pesky spy-ware issues, and other sundry ailments that a non-refreshed XP is heir to.

The first problem I ever ran into with this kind of repair was when I tried to fix my sister's machine - a fairly new Dell - whose chief symptom was "slowness." As most IT Pro's know, slowness is a relative term and is very subjective based on the experiences and perception of the user. Unless the user has done benchmarks on the machine in the past and can compare them to benchmarks in the present, it is difficult to objectively say whether or not a system is really slow. But when she gave me her machine and it took me nearly two minutes to reach a non-hourglass desktop I figured that was slow for a 2.5Ghz system. The first step was to remove the cancerous "Norton System Works."

[START RANT]
Currently - in my mind - "Norton System Works" is the worst piece of software out there for home users. Users recognize the "Peter Norton" name and think they're getting something really good. But Pete's been gone for a while, and "Norton System Works" is the equivalent of tying a cement block to the back of your bike before you go out for a ride. Does it work? Does it protect you from evil? Maybe, but your system might run faster if you just turned it off and unplugged it.
[END RANT]

After cleaning her system of spyware, removing the Norton System Works and adding memory things were running faster, but I thought I would run the refresh install from the Langa Letter - but I couldn't. New Dells include a special repair partition on them and this allows Dell to do "rollback" fixes to their systems which restore it to a pristine state. That is probably very handy for modern computer users who don't want to know how to fix their system and would prefer to just back up their data and start over. However, it prevents a refresh install because the XP installer thinks you want to make the system multi-boot. In the end, I made the improvements I could and did not do the refresh install on that system. It is much faster, but I regret not being able to do that little bit extra.

The second issue I had running the refresh install came on the 17th. I'm going to make that its own post - a part II to this entry.

My First Zero-Count Day

Day 14 was my first zero word count nanowrimo day.
A long delayed opportunity to fix a PC for a family friend turned horribly wrong - and will be the subject of another posting in the future. For now, it is the 15th and I've got to get a lot of writing done before I can go to sleepy land.

-B.

We're having a fairy over tonight...

My son lost his first baby tooth today. It was kind of funny. He came into my office while I was writing on my nanowrimo project and said, "Daddy, my tooth is broken."

I stopped writing and turned around to look. I wasn't sure what he meant because he uses the word "broken" to mean a lot of different things.

He grinned a big wide grin and showed me that his lower incisor was wiggling back and forth. I immediately turned back to the computer to see if I could find out when a kid's teeth are supposed to start falling out.

He said, "I want to pull it out."

I said, "Wait, Daddy needs to find out if your teeth are supposed to come out yet. "

He said, "I did it! I fixed it. All done!"

I turned around and he had pulled his tooth out by himself. He handed it to me and told me he was going to go play trains.

The visions of having to tie a string to a doorknob stooges style, evaporated.

The tooth looked great, with no sign of decay. And it was complete, not chipped. The average age for kids to start losing their teeth appears to be around age 6. He's 5, and got his teeth at 18 weeks, so I assume he's just going to lose them early too. One down, nineteen to go.

Looks like somebody's getting a visit from the tooth-fairy.

Sprint Employee Referral Discount

OK - I've got a lot of friends who use mobile phones. If you're not stuck in some contract, here is a chance to get a special discount. Although this blog and my website are my own creations - and have nothing to do with Sprint - I know some of my friends drop by from time to time. Since by day I work at Sprint, they sometimes have special deals that I'm eligible for as an employee.

If you're one of my friends you can sign up for a Sprint Employee Referral Discount for mobile phone service.

Just go to this website: http://www.sprint.com/sero
On the site it will ask for a name and e-mail address.

Sprint Employee Name: William Blake Smith
Sprint Work E-Mail Address: Blake.Smith*sprint.com (replace the * with an @).
I'm beginning to suspect that the web-scrapers out there looking for spam addresses now look for "something at something dot com" and parse that to e-mail addresses as readily as the true-format ones. But maybe the * will slow them down a little.

This makes you eligible for either the NEXTEL or SPRINT plans, but you can check it out yourself.

To the best of my knowledge I get nothing if you sign up for this, but you get good discounts - so enjoy!

Special mention to A.V. who was the first to spot my misuse of "their" in today's posting. He wins the complimentary issue of Granny Grainer's Grand Grimoire of Grammar.

Separated at Birth?

Ok - so I'm watching "The Sword and the Sorcerer" last night. (Recharging my NaNoWriMo batteries, if you will.)

And one of the characters in the movie is clearly the guy from "Will & Grace." And after just a second I though, hmmm. How is that possible? Of course it isn't possible - but look at these two! It is freaky! (I believe if you click on the picture you get the "zoomed" version.)

And thanks to observant reader A.B. who observed that I misspelled separated in the original post. I wonder why Firefox 2 caught it in the text of the blog, but not in the Title field? Maybe I need to learn to spell better myself.

15K - at last!

I broke 15,000 today on nanowrimo! Not bad for day 7.

I like to see the profiles of the other participants and track how they are doing. It helps me work better.

It is just like John F. Kennedy wrote: Profiles Encourage!

Don't forget to vote today!

Zaruba wedding

It is done.

Cleanup Underway

The house, mind you. Not the writing. I hit around 1500 this morning, bringing my a.m. total to 6501. My p.m. total should be higher, barring unforeseen circumstances. It's getting exciting for me now because three of my characters have cliff-hangers going on, two of them more pressing than the third. These mid-nanowrimo blog-entries may be more terse as I save my letters for the project.

Observation the first: Having an outline, some simple character sketches and a map has been an absolutely different experience than any other writing project I've done. Wonderful.

Observation the second: It takes me about 20 minutes to hit the zone where the words just flow and flow. In that first 20 I hop around a bit and stare and sometimes mis-align my hands to the home keys.

Observation the third: I read that everyone who finishes this year will have their project added to Oprah's book club!!! I wrote it, and then I read it. Just now.

10% Done - 5000 word mark crossed.

If I can keep up this pace I'll have met my 50K words in 20 days. But I aim to do better than that by doing a marathon session on Saturday night and Sunday night. I'd say Friday too - but I've got to get the house cleaned up for Maddie & Sophie's first birthday.

All you Nano-Buddies out there keep up the good work! You can do this! Work hard, and edit later. Edit later. Edit later.

Work hard and edit later.

What are you doing reading my blog when you should be typing?

Mars 30+ Years Later

When I was seven years old Americans landed a spacecraft on Mars. Even though I grew up to love science fiction, this major hurtle towards our eventual colonization of the red planet had already been jumped before I read "The Martian Chronicles" or any other work on the subject. But here in the 21^st century I fail to be able to fly my car to the office. Yet I can telecommute if the boss allows it. I don't remember telecommuting being a big theme in sci-fi, but it is a real accomplishment based entirely on geek-tech.

I digress.

This is about Mars. I heard that NASA is planning a Martian "plane" mission where they'll send a plane to mars (via rocket) and let it fly around the surface of the planet taking pictures. A plane can get low enough to get very detailed photos and look for "life signs."

Which brings me to my point: Who cares?

I don't care if there was microbial life on Mars - even if it seeded Earth. What I do care about is that we should be trying (as inexpensively as possible) to seed Mars with earth's bio-matrix. By that I mean that we should scour the earth for hearty bacteria suitable for the Martian environment and dump it all over that little planet in an effort to make Mars a viable backup planet for Earth.

I think about 50% of Mars missions fail - but if the mission was a planned crash to eject bacteria everywhere, we might get better results. If I was rich (really, really, really rich) I think I'd try funding something like this. We are never going to get astronauts to fight Martian dinosaurs if we don't start working on this kind of project now!

NaNoWriMo - Wordcount

Well, I got up at 5:00 am and started writing (after the requisite cup of coffee and bowl of cereal). I hit 1500 words before my wife had to leave for work, and according to the "official" wordcount software, I broke 1700 this morning.

Track my progress here:
WBlakeSmith's nanowrimo status

I like the flash software they have for viewing your work - BUT, it cuts off the sentence at the bottom of each page, which is why I'm linking to the non-flash version. As weak as a non-edited word vomit may be, I think it suffers even more when you're missing a sentence or more every page.

But so far I'm pleased with me progress! Argh!

They're Tearing Down Aker's Mill Theater Today

It'll be gone in an hour or two. Very efficient.

I tried to contact the owners back in 2001 to find out how much it would cost to lease the place, and perhaps start a Cinema/Draft-house. They told me that they were planning a big renovation and didn't want to rent it or lease it.

I see now that they've hired Designs by Caterpillar - I think I saw them on DIY.

It is where I saw my first midnight movie.
It is where I saw my first "R" rated movie.
It is where I saw the re-release of "Heavy Metal"
It is where my friend John first saw "Dawn of the Dead."

Of course it is also where I saw "Event Horizon," for which the bulldozer may balance Karma.

The Shape of things to NaNoWriMo

This is the map of the Southlands where my NaNoWriMo project takes place. I will have to add more details later, but this should work for getting me through the 50K. And my chapter outline is 10 chapters long so far, so I think it needs about 20 more... So far, so perilously close to "iffy."

The older I get, the sweeter the scent of nostalgia

I'm fascinated by the world of my youth, because when I lived in it I had such a narrow view that I missed a lot of stuff. I certainly wasn't deprived access to the arcade at the mall, but I didn't have many quarters and my skills were sadly underdeveloped.

But if you can't BE good at a game from the 80's, at least you can wear a shirt with the game's logo on it: PowerUp Clothing has the shirts. I just need to lose a 100 pounds so I can represent without causing confusion and delay when I wear them.

What does this button do?

I keep seeing this little button that says "BlogThis!" and I decided to click it and see what it does. (If anything.) I'm hoping it adds a blog entry to my own blog automatically. However, if it doesn't - then what does it do?

Dead Babies

I went to a graveyard near work today at lunch. These three sad markers sat side by side.
Carl O. Waters 9/28/1915 - 02/04/16 (4 months?)
John D. Waters 01/04/21 - 01/16/21 (12 days)
Charlie T. Waters 06/30/23 -12/02/25. (1 year, 5 months?)
Mr. And Mrs. Waters were interred next to the kids... According to the tombstone, she was the sunshine of Mr. Water's life, but it looks like she delivered a lot of rain too.

It made me sad, and I wondered what had happened to the kids.

incidentally, Kathleen and I went to a graveyard in Canton, GA a few years ago and it looked like there were lots of families that had lost a huge number of kids. I wasn't sure if that was from the influenza, or what. But that must have been a sad town for a while. Some families lost more than others... I know that it is a recent thing that parents "expect" to have their kids make it to adulthood, but it is the only world I've known directly. My grandparents on both sides came from large families, and a lot of them made it to senior-adulthood which made for big reunions.

What's the gaming opportunity here?

1. It would be a cool intro to a mystery in an RPG. What happened in year X that caused all these kids to die. And will it happen again?

2. In this graveyard I was visiting, there were a lot of unmarked & sunken graves. And lots of graves were missing their tombstones, or had just a rock to mark them. Behind the graveyard is a shopping-center, and the drainage for the shopping center backs up to the graveyard, and there are tunnels where the water comes from the shopping center down to the drain pit. A similar set of tunnels burrows off towards the graveyard, and that set has a man-sized access hole with a rusty steel grating... and it has been pulled off and discarded. Do those tunnels actually extend under the tombs?

Happy Birthday

I surprised my wife with an early birthday gift!

Halloween costume

Still got some work but getting there!

Mini Display

I finally got my minis put up in their shadow box.

And then, just hours later, my Matt Wilson signed print showed up!

Huzzah!

Medieval Times

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Medieval Times!

Thanks to my wife for arranging that, and going with me. :)

I'll post a review of my experience in a later blog entry.

The Secrets - the secret secretions secreted into secrecy

For those of you coming to the secrets "late" in the game, you may have noticed that episodes 1 through 8 are retired according to the text of the feed. However, the episodes weren't deleted from the server yet - and here are the links to the episodes:

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7

I don't know how long they'll stay up there, but if you find the links are broken let me know and I'll edit this post and remove the hypertext. If you find that there is no hypertext in this post, then you may safely assume that the episodes are gone.

About my NaNoWriMo project:

For years and years I’ve been a fan of Sword & Sorcery type fantasies. However, with the exception of G. R. R. Martin and Tolkien I harbor this belief that they’re easy to write. I’ve never tried, until now.

My NaNoWriMo project will be “high fantasy.”

I'm writing my novel based on a strange opening phrase that came to me in a dream while I was stationed in the Middle East in the Navy.

On the night that Ossifer's mother coupled with the dragon,
she carefully swallowed a whole raven's egg.
And two-score weeks later when she delivered him,
he came out clutching the bird.

The character Ossifer didn’t have a name when that dream first hit me. Instead, because I kept thinking of this wandering, raggedy man with a Solomon-Kane style Puritan hat, a walking stick and a talking bird on his shoulder as somehow “amusing” I decided to construct his name with a meaning. I chose the name Ossifer as a nominal form of “Ossify” – meaning, in my intent, “bone.” Then I selected the last name “Bean” as synonymous with “head.” So Ossifer Bean literally meant “Bone-Head.” However, I later decided that I didn’t want the character to be stupid, so I’ve changed his basic nature to being stubborn in the sense of “tenacious” but hopefully not stubborn to stupidity.

Yet that clearly doesn’t make any kind of story. That’s just a character.

So I’ve added the following other characters to my tale:

Caul – a bird
Fox – a thief
Keg – a fighter
Jade – a half-orc monk

But when I went to fill out my NaNoWriMo form, I knew I wanted Ossifer to be the main character. I figured he ought to be fighting somebody – or falling in love with somebody. And I figured putting this antagonist’s name in the title (or title in the title) might help me focus my thinking better.

But would anybody actually publish a story called, “Ossifer Bean and the Very Naughty Sorceress”?

Maybe. But I don’t intend for the tone to be as light as all that.

What you may observe I have not included here is any kind of plot. That is because I don’t have one put together yet. At this point (October 12, 2006) I’m working on Character outlines, a map of the territory – and then I’ll be working on politics in the region. I've got rules for the world, and some simple ideas for the main story - but a lot of work to be ready by November 1st!

The Secrets - NaNoWriMo Issue

Mr. Stackpole's special "NaNoWriMo" issue of The Secrets podcast is available. Even if you don't care to subscribe to his free podcast, this special episode may be of use to you if you're going to participate.

The focus of this episode is: Writing Fast.

One thing I definitely agree on - even if you're a writer who likes to edit as you go, you'll have a lot of difficulty reaching 50K in one month if you do. Write first, Edit later.

The Conceit

Mortality. We're all mortal, and just days away from dying.

The method by which the majority of Western society goes on to accomplish great feats of discovery, engineering and art involves a conceipt: We pretend we're immortal.

We may know rationally that we're going to die, and even feel at peace with the idea. But most of us ignore the looming spectre of death, or would find ourselves either paralyzed by fear of the event itself, or crippled by the exasperating pointlessness of the creative process given that we and everyone we know are going to dust.

The conceit is simple: Pretend you're going to live forever - until you die.

When we encounter the death of someone close to us, it not only saddens us at the loss but also pierces the thin veil of our conceit.

Two things have recently reminded me of this:

1) Tearing out my ACL in my left knee. This reminded me that while I "feel" as immortal as ever, I am actually succeptible to physical injury. (So much for the Kryptonian Immigrant fantasy I had going...)

2) My Grandfather broke his ankle. As I understand it, the foot was loose, heel-up and flopping around loose like a sock full of rocks when they moved him to get him to the hospital.

The latter event is troublesome because Grandpa's always been more of a force of nature than an actual person to me. That may sound weird if you don't know him. And he's such a connundrum of mixed philosophies. He's a farmer, a former builder, and a former army nurse. He always reminded me of John Wayne's characters (not the actor himself) in his ruggedness and simple certainty of his opinions. But with that toughness came an aloofness and while I've no doubt he loves me as a grandson, I don't remember ever hearing him say it. But he's shown his - if not love - at least loyalty to his family in his support of them despite the variety of mistakes all family members are bound to encounter through the years.

Now this man who I thought of as immortal is getting really old. His foot is broken. His heart is not working like it should. He has clogged veins and arteries.

But I still think if the doctors ticked him off he would hop out of his bed on one foot and beat them up with his cane. I'm probably wrong about that - but it's my conceit.

NaNoWriMo - Building to a Frenzy of Mental Preparedness

Ok - there are some things you (and I) can be doing to prepare for NaNoWriMo. We want to be building up to a frenzy of productivity so we can produce something truly useful with our 50,000 words.

1) Sign up on the NaNoWriMo site so you can keep track of your work and word count. I think it will be fun to be able to look at their nifty interface and track my progress.

2) Go ahead and figure out a few things about your book. I would say that consists of the following things:

• Write a preliminary outline, with a story arc
• Write a chapter break-out of at least one sentence describing what will happen in the chapter, and how it will propel the story (plot).
  
• Write short bios for your characters - include questions and answers to things like: favorite hobbies?, when was your first-kiss?, would you kill for love?, who do you want to be like? Favorite Food? Personal Motto? Or at least think about this and figure out who these people are you're creating.
  
• If your book was a movie, who would you want to direct it? That's the kind of writing you need to do. Is Raimi, Spielberg or M. Night going to do this thing? Or will it be a Mike Nichols film starring Meryl Streep? Think of each chapter as a film shoot. Who is behind the camera?

3) Remember the most important rule for getting out 50,000 words: EDIT LATER! Just keep typing, make a note if you figure out you've screwed up something. You can fix it in the edits. If you realize half-way through the story that your buddy-road-trip movie should be a screw-ball romantic comedy - just turn Bill into Billie and do a find & replace December 1st. For now, you need to type, type, type your way to success. There are NO prizes for the best edited 30,000 words in NaNoWriMo, only the 50,000 you actually write will be your ticket to the winner's circle.

4) Stay motivated. In the words of Jesse "The Body" Ventura in Predator, "I ain't got time for writers-block." There are a million reasons to stop writing; you just need to find one reason to keep writing.

Now, for your homework assignment:
Listen to Michael Stackpole's "The Secrets" podcast. You don't need an i-pod to subscribe and download it. It is available through i-tunes, or through his site at: http://www.stormwolf.com/thesecrets/podcasts/index.html

Hurry over there and get these episodes before they are retired! These are 15 to 20 minute episodes from a writer with 30+ books in print, and teach very good rules and provide rich experience to new writers. Remember, even if you're already trained in writing and know what you're doing it doesn't hurt to hear refresher information. His work is motivational, educational, inspirational and free!

I'm serious about this and I will pester you. Get these and listen to them - soon!

We're going to get into a writing frenzy! We're chumming the water so that the prose hungry plot-sharks of our mind will be leaping from the sea of creativity in anticipation!

Are you going to be ready for NaNoWriMo?

I am!

ISBW - Joined their Forums

For those who don't know it, I am a fan of the "I Should Be Writing" podcast, available at www.ishouldbewriting.com. (Or subscribe at i-tunes or any number of other places.)

On the forums there you can link to an 80x80 pixel picture, so I'm setting this entry up solely to mention ISBW one more time, and to host this tiny picture.

Hello, tiny me!

Coming Soon: Me in Weird Tales

I'm a very patient person. I did an inquiry today with George Scithers over at Weird Tales, and he tells me that while my story won't be in the next issue of WT - it will be in an issue "soon." I'm excited. WT has been through a lot of changes, and I'm hoping Wildside Press proves to be a good home for them.

I'll put up a link to the issue when it comes out so all my fans (and fans "to be") can find it.

Self Promotion? Hell yeah!

In the mean-time, you can check out their new site and forums at Weird Tales.

Pop Culture

Well, it is halloween-month, and I'm desperate to find what horrors await my TIVO. Horrors so vile and terrifying, that by the time I get around to watching them in November/December I'll still find them shelf-fresh and tingley.

Clues?

Well, back in the day AMC used to have Monsterfest as a commercial free extravaganza. Why in the world they aren't able to continue that using crawler-sponsor-ads, or logos and present commercial-free horror with the commercials "built-in" is beyond me.

My Net-Flix queue floweth over with potential horrors, but I can't seem to get around to watching them. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.

Wish I'd thought of this...

I didn' think of it.
I didn' t write it.

But I wish I had...

Adios A-Mi-Go! a Deadlands / Call of Cthulhu official cross-over product.

This Woman Is an Idiot

Sometimes idiocy is its own reward.
I shouldn't complain, though. My mother wouldn't let us watch "Bewitched" or "I Dream of Jeannie" for the same reasons - though I suspect the latter may have had more to do with her fear that Daddy would look at the costumes too closely, if you know what I mean...

---

Mom Begs For 'Harry Potter' Ban

POSTED: 12:01 pm EDT October 3, 2006

UPDATED: 12:10 pm EDT October 3, 2006

ATLANTA -- A Gwinnett County woman begged the hearing officer for the state Board of Education today to remove Harry Potter books from county school library shelves. Laura Mallory of Loganville called the popular fiction series a "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion. (READ MORE)

Star Trek - Remastered

The OLD Version:












The NEW Version:












From the site http://www.startrek.com:
"The most noticeable change will be redoing many of the special effects, created with 1960s technology, with 21st century computer-generated imagery (CGI). Upgrades include:

• Space ship exteriors – The Enterprise, as well as other starships, will be replaced with state of the art CGI-created ships. The new computer-generated Enterprise is based on the exact measurements of the original model, which now rests in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
• Show opening – The Enterprise and planets seen in the main title sequence will be redone, giving them depth and dimension for the first time.
• Galaxy shots – All the graphics of the galaxy, so frequently seen through the viewscreen on the Enterprise's bridge, will be redone.
• Exteriors – The battle scenes, planets and ships from other cultures (notably the Romulan Bird of Prey and Klingon Battle Cruisers) will be updated.
• Background scenes – Some of the iconic, yet flat, matte paintings used as backdrops for the strange, new worlds explored by the Enterprise crew will get a CGI face-lift, adding atmosphere and lighting."

Well, here's my take on this. I'm going to check it out by watching it. Hmm. Then, if the birthday gods are kind, I'll get the DVDs of the original series and can compare/contrast the differences while the eps are fresh in my mind.

In the mean time, I have to remember to setup the TIVO for this Saturday. As I've previously said (in e-mail), I expect these episodes will dominate the fiercely contested 2:35 am timeslot here in Atlanta on Sunday mornings. Look out REAL ESTATE INFOMERCIALS! Fire photon torpedoes!

This saturday one of my favorite episodes will be on - yet it is one of the most hotly debated by its author, Harlan Ellison. For a good read, and a view into how the series was put together I heartily recommend the following book:

Harlan Ellison's the City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay That Became the Classic Star Trek Episode




In this book, Harlan Ellison provides a sharp-witted and biting response to the decades old legend that G-Rod (Gene Roddenberry, as the more hip Trekkers refer to him) had to re-write because the draft Ellison provided wasn't up to par. Of course if you note that Ellison's un-rewritten script won him a Writer's Guild Award, you can already guess (correctly) that the original script was pretty darn good.

In fact, it was a cutting-edge work that dealt with the harsh realities of what can happen when drug addicts are given access to time-portals. And can we really afford to brush that kind of stuff under the carpet? I think not.

Anyway, if you don't have this book you should buy it. In fact, you should buy it off of my blog by clicking the link and going to Amazon and purchasing it. And you should purchase 10 or 15 of them and give them to every struggling Hollywood scriptwriter you know, because it gets cold out there in Hollywood and if they have one copy to read they can use the other 9 to 14 of them to fashion a winter coat.

Stranger in a Familiar Land

Heinlein's Rules. I can do this. You can too.

Obviously this has little to do with gaming, but it is my blog - so there. :P

Almost to 3000 words on the novel I'll give the working title of "Angle of Incidence".

If I change the title later, I predict I'll make some kind of bad pun about "on reflecting" on the title's appropriateness.

NaNoReady

NaNoWriMo has their site ready for 2006!

If you're planning on participating "officially" you'll need to sign up at http://www.nanowrimo.org.

My nano-name is WBLAKESMITH.
Please send me your nano-names when you're done and I'll add you as my writing buddy.

I'm very excited! I'm going to start working on my plot outlines now - and get some lists of character names together so I don't have to think 'em all up on the fly. (That's been helping my other writing cruise along.)

Looking forward to seeing your progress in November! Remember, it doesn't have to be great - or even good - it just has to be 50,000 words.

Hey Michael Martinez - don't forget to pack this!!!

Good luck in WA, dude!

NaNoWriMo - Pledge?

Well, I'm already committed to producing a novel in 1 year. I know this is an achievable goal. But what about "crazy" goals?

Can I write a novel in 1 month? A 30 day month? Along with 59,000+ other people trying to do the same?

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo - pronounced nan-oh-rhyme-oh) is coming up in November. All you have to do to participate is sign up and keep track of your word count. "Winning" involves reaching your 50,000 word goal.

Last year (2005) 59,000 people participated with 9769 completing the whole 50K words in the 30 days. That's a "success rate" of 16% - which ain't bad. And from what I hear the community out there in NaNoWriMo land is quite friendly and supportive.

You can donate to them and help support their website (www.nanowrimo.org) and they will donate excess funds to support the creation of libraries in needy parts of the world.

I don't want to say I'll succeed at this. I'm not going to get all Tony Robbins (Though I have found inspiration in some of his work). But I want to challenge my friends who are writers and have succumbed to apathy, laziness, fear, excuses, and all the ailments that writers are heir to - and urge them to join me in my silly Quixotic quest to write a novel in one month.

The rules say you can't start until November 1st. I've got other stuff (my "real" novel) to work on in the mean time, but you can go ahead and name your characters, develop your plot outlines, think up vicious things to happen to your heroes, and wonderful rewards for others. It's your book. It's your time.

You might get hit by a bus December 1st. Wouldn't that feel better if you could die secure in the knowledge that you'd squeezed 50,000 words out of your fingers?

I will be hosting a celebratory dinner for myself and any of my local friends who achieve this goal. If I make 50,000 words in November I'll have much to celebrate indeed. Look out, Taco Bell - writer's coming through for 4th meal.

Will I miss my deadline?

Yes. It looks like I will.

Sadly, after reviewing the requirements for the RPG Halloween contest, it seems I was unable to get 11,000 words out by the deadline. :(

All is not lost. The adventure has been a joy to work on, and I plan to finish it, polish it up and see if they can't still make use of it. This will give me a chance to play-test it as well, which is just a joy to contemplate.

2000 Words - A measurable percentage?

Well, there you go. I've hit 2000 words of my novel, and all of them have been written in bed. That's amusing to me. I'm surprised at how my life has consistently missed my "dream scenarios" yet still worked out pretty well. I used to always dream of writing in coffee shops, or in big oak or cherry paneled offices, or in libraries - but I'm just happy to get some words down at all. So I write in bed.

I still write in other places too, but it seems like the drudgery of day-to-day living eats up a lot of my valuable creative energy.

And I'm also way more realistic than I used to be, and constantly find ways to remind myself that I'm privileged and shouldn't complain.

Perspective: I can write. I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or whether or not my family will be blown up while they go to the grocery store. I don't spend a lot of time concerned that my shelter will burn down, or the water I drink will make me sick. I'm privileged.

BUT - I also have this other perspective that creeps into my mind. There are only two forms of immortality that seem to work to any degree of success.

1) Have kids (done that) and your genetic identity will at least be partially carried on and reproduced. Whether it (or your kids) will survive is uncertain, but it is a way that has worked. If you consider that your own existence required that every single ancestor you've got had to have survived to the age of reproductive viability, and then successfully found a mate, and then gotten through childbirth - well, that's a lot of iffy territory that had to be crossed to make you be here.

2) Write. You may not get published, and you may not be famous, but the only way we really know about the ancient Greeks and Egyptians are through their writings. Aristotle may not have any direct heirs today - but millions of students know his work and his ideas live on.

There is no greater invention in the history of mankind than that of written language. I doubt there ever will be, for it gives substance to the vapors of our minds, and volume to the whispers of our soul.

Practice what you preach?

I finally got around to actually BUILDING a system of my own instead of buying one already assembled. No, seriously.

I've done thousands of repairs on thousands of systems, including changing out system boards but in all the time I've been using PCs I've never gotten around to installing my own system board replacement until tonight.

I'm installing the O/S right now - but it seems like (cross-fingers) I got it right the first time. If you've never done this before, installing OEM equipment instead of fully component-ized Dell, Compaq or [BRAND-X] systems it is a bit different. Reading the silk-screens and matching them to the manuals instructions is quite a treat.

A special thanks to Mung, who pointed me in the correct direction on lining up the various LED cables since that was not explained in the manual.

---TOPIC CHANGE ---

I am moving along with my COC scenario submission. Not sure if I'll make the deadline, but I'm definitely enjoying the writing and creation.

In other game-writing news, my article on Wights is coming along. I hope to get it done by Thursday so I can submit it to Pyramid this week - but if it goes out till next week that'd be OK too. Since it doesn't have a deadline I should probably focus on the COC adventure.

Call of Cthulhu

Call of Cthulhu may be my favorite RPG. It probably is. It is definitely the one I feel most comfortable running & playing - and I have a lot of source books for it.

The publishers at Chaosium are running a contest, soliciting for Halloween-Themed adventures for one of their special books. I may work on that this weekend; the deadline is the 30th of September.

Probably the first really great electronic character generator I ever saw and/or used was made for COC - and it is still out there today, working great. Byakhee is its name, and it is now a sourceforge project if you've any interest in making a D20 version. (Though the original version of the game and generator are super-fun, super-easy and golly-gee-whiz, just Super!)

Secrets - the After School Special

There may come a time in your life as a GM where you want to run a game and the number of anticipated seats at the table is a sub-set of the total number of friends who would want to play. What do you do? Do you run a secret game and ask the players not to tell? Do you invite everyone and try and re-design the scenario to fit the numbers? And what if you want one of two players who don't get along with each other?

Surely this isn't the kind of problem that non-gamers run into is it? Maybe it is. Maybe sometimes you want to have a BBQ at your house but can't invite everyone who would want to consume your food and partake in your meal. But how to handle such a social situation?

I think the scenario can be exacerbated with gamers, because lets face it - most of us are trying to retain our childlike interest in games. And many of us have instead retained our childish interest in self-fulfillment.

I've got friends who would be offended if you didn't invite them over for an asparagus tasting party even though they can't eat asparagus. They want the invite and the (imaginary) prestige that comes with being invited to such an exalted event.

Then again I've got friends who are cut-ups. They only want to play funny characters and make jokes and recall things they've seen on TV. Perfect friends for playing TOON with, but not really the right player for that heavily researched Call of Cthulhu campaign I've spent two months preparing for Halloween.

And I've got friends who are fragile, whose egos aren't built for rejection by good ol' me.

And I've got friends who are tanks. They'd plow on through life just fine if I got caught under their treads.

I think I'll write an article about this and see if I can get it into Pyramid. If I succeed I'll like to it. If they reject it, I'll post it on GGO.

1500+ words tonight!

Wheeee! I knocked out 1500 words on "Rufus Tidwell and the World's Greatest Flutist." Neato. I'm very happy with that progress, but to be fair I took a pain pill for my back and am "very happy" in general.

Speaks for itself

Some costumes speak for themselves.

New Movie Review

Ok - I've posted a new movie review on the GGO site. As a part of my "filling in the blanks" effort, I'm trying to revisit the Sword & Sorcery movies that I missed growing up in a conservative Southern family.

I've seen a lot since I got out into the world, but there are plenty I missed. These movies aren't "great" in the "Citizen Kane" sense, but they're fun and I'm reviewing them in the context of the genre sub-set they represent.

So far I've seen "Deathstalker II" and "Hawk the Slayer." The review of the latter will be up this week barring unforeseen circumstances.

Novel Progress: I've got around 1,000 words so far. Good words. Words that form sentences! And unlike this blog (bjournal) the words may save me from ignominy. Speaking of ignominy - has anybody made a mock-version of the game In Nomine? Wouldn't Ignominy make a nice title for such a micro-niche product?

Site Re-Design - Pt II

Ok - so the site as you see it now is a lower-cost hosting solution, and is based on PHP scripting and HTML. The host offers CHAT and BOARDS - so I set them up. Not sure how they'll be used yet, but they exist and if you want to sign up you can.

I've had a couple of blogs in my life, and I've ditched them both in favor of this one. I barely have time for one blog with all my life's projects - but I'll manage. Besides, occasionally I have something to say to the Universe and the Internet is a comically apt analog to the utility of such an effort.

Today I entered into a pact with Mr. Ollerman.

Mr. Ollerman.

I know you're reading this, Mr. Ollerman.

But on to the pact. Today is September 11th, 2006. I have until September 11th, 2007 to finish a novel, or will have to buy Mr. Ollerman a Billy Bass.



I do not enter into this pact lightly. The very idea of Mr. Ollerman having a singing fish (purchased at my expense) in his Yankee Writer's Workshop is anathema to me. It sickens me. It makes my stomach roil. And that makes me want to write, which is exactly the point.

On the other hand, having Mr. Ollerman purchase a Billy Bass for me - well that's suits my decor. Besides it will fit neatly between my collection of bottled dreams (unfulfilled) and clown tears (the crying on the outside kind of clowns).


But I'm sure that won't happen. After all, he's already written a book.

5 years later...

September 11, 2006.
It has been 5 years since the terrorist attack that finally got the attention of Americans.

To commemorate, President Bush is travelling to all the sites where planes struck, and will hold a special national address tonight to re-read "The Pet Goat."




You can buy your own copy on Amazon (See the above link) and follow along tonight. It should make a stirring tribute that will become a tradition with your family, like it has with mine.

Site Re-Design - Pt I

It all began with a simple idea. My friends and I like to game and we like to create web pages, so why not combine the two interests and try and make a gamer friendly site? Sure there are already 12 other gamer sites on the web – but we’d be the 13^th, and that had to bode well for us, right? So we pooled our skills: Rico took first watch, Dutch grabbed the pencils to do the ‘toons, and I stoked the fire and heated up the VanCamps. After all, you can’t make a web-page without chili.

Our first mistake was trying to use dot-net-nuke to be our document management system. It turned out after months of tweaking and piddling, that we could have had the site out in a month if we’d stuck to what we knew – HTML & CSS.

Our second mistake was in believing that we had plenty of time to work on this kind of thing. I mean really, it all comes down to the core principal I’ve come to live by: My time is worth money. It doesn’t mean that I always get money for my time, but it does mean that I have some imaginary number that I believe my time is worth per hour. This is my Personal Time Wage (PTW).

That is a value I use when people want to use my time. If I’m giving these “free” hours – am I getting something in return that compensates me for this time? And I use it even if I’m the one “wasting” my time.

From a gaming perspective, I think in terms of entertainment value relative to movie ticket prices. If I play a five hour RPG was it at least as fun as the value of a 90 minute $9 movie ticket? (That comes out to a $6/hr “Entertainment Wage.”) I often do a post-game internal evaluation to consider how my PTW compares to my EW. The better the game, the less I worry about this, but if the game is not truly engaging then my PTW may force me to stop playing for imaginary fiduciary reasons.

There’s more to this story – but my son is upstairs screaming for somebody to come read Thomas the Tank Engine™ stories to him. That’s my cue.

Thanks Blogger!

Now I can share my important thoughts from anywhere!

Test #2 - Desk Encounter

Another posting test.

Testing autopost

This is just me testing the autopost feature from my "Sprint Treo-700" palm phone. (It's only the greatest friggin' phone ever made!) With Microcenter selling 1GB SD cards for $16.00 I gotta believe this is a glorious age for the digital photography fan.

Welcome to GGO’s “Random Encounters” – the BLOG where the “geek” and “nerd” perspectives are finally given voice on the Internet!

Let me start by saying that I hate the word “BLOG.” If you’re one of the 14 people who don’t already know the etymology, this is a sort of portmanteau word formed from combining web+log. Only it should be formed from web+journal. This should really be a “bjournal” or a “webjo.” But them asses have spoken. I mean the masses have spoken.

(Although I must confess; I really like the Swedish styling of “bjournal.” )

The whole gamegroup.org website is the place where (in theory) some friends of mine and I put our game-related ideas out on the web for the enjoyment and edification of the gaming community. In reality, it seems like I’m the one doing the lion’s share of the uploading, editing, writing, etc…

But, man does not live by dread alone…

Here in our articles section you will find some items for your role-playing games that were just too dangerous, too extreme for Dragon Magazine or Knights of the Dinner table. Now they’ve a home.

You’ll find cutting-edge reviews of movies that came out anywhere from 1 to 80 years ago. Priceless.

In the crypt of comics you’ll find drawings and illustrations so amusing, so profoundly avant-garde, so infrequently updated – that you may find yourself chuckling with mirth.

There are message boards. There is a chat feature. There is even a munginator.

This is the only “first” post I plan to have on this site, and I hope all the rest of the posts are totally sweet. I detect a tinge of sour in this one.