tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48132619997542619582024-02-20T05:29:55.791-08:00IlluminationLight in dark places.Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-25068327435212895212012-01-29T07:21:00.000-08:002012-01-29T07:21:42.140-08:00Vancian (on Peak Output Efficiency)There's been a LOT of talk about balance in DDN lately, most of it in regard to the "Vancian" spellcasting system, but I'd like to make a point of clarity that I haven't seen anyone else mention. <br /><br />When people (including me) complain about "Vancian casting", they're actually complaining about two things:<br /><br />1) That ALL of a spellcaster's resources are daily-use, and furthermore that a spellcaster is not restricted to how often he can otherwise tap those resources. The root cause of the "five-minute workday" (which is really a different but related issue) is that the game's assumption is the Wizard will expend about 1/5th of his spells in a single encounter (and use a crossbow or otherwise do nothing the rest of the time) and thus will be "functional" for four or five encounters before he needs to rest. However, the reality is that the spellcaster blows through all of his resources in only one or two encounters, either because doing so makes those encounters significantly easier and conserves other, less-renewable resources (hit points), or because doing so is necessary just to survive the encounter. <br /><br />4e's solution to this was rather elegant, actually: give the spellcaster 1/5th as many resources, but let him use them in every encounter. A useful compromise might be to restrict how many spells a character can cast in a single encounter, but that would run into the same kind of verisimilitude issue that people take with 4e's system.<br /><br />2) That not all classes work on this system. Why are Fighters linear and Wizards quadratic, as the saying goes? Because Wizards (generally, spellcasters) have the ability to expend a huge amount of their resources in a very short amount of time in order to gain a disproportionately massive "peak output". Fighters (nonspellcasters) do not possess this ability to "go nova"; they are restricted to a baseline efficiency over time ratio that they cannot voluntarily alter. The spellcaster can proportionally increase (or reduce) his output based on the requirements of the encounter, the nonspellcaster cannot. Additionally, this creates a situation in later levels where the spellcaster's baseline efficiency outpaces the nonspellcaster's: even if the spellcaster plays for par (1/5 of his resources), his output exceeds the nonspellcaster's because his efficiency rises more quickly as he gains levels than the nonspellcaster's does.<div>
<br />Whatever the nature of the decisions made during the design process of DDN, this is an issue that will have to be addresses. If Wizards is smart, they'll address this quickly, and loudly.</div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-34041390610181770862012-01-29T04:37:00.000-08:002012-01-29T15:25:45.341-08:00Experience (on The Way Forward)<br />
I find it highly humorous that the exact attitude that shot Wizards of the Coast in the foot four years ago is what they're counting on to save them now: "The game you're playing sucks. Here's a better one!"<br />
<br />
I hope it works. I hope it works because D&D as an RPG is done for if Wizards blows two editions in a row. The brand might stick around in other forms (board games, etc), but Hasbro will lock the RPG in a filing cabinet in a bean counter's office somewhere for the next twenty years if a second consecutive flop convinces them it's not a venture that'll return on their investment in it.<br />
<br />
If you're one of the people who is excited about the new edition, I and all the other 4e fans out there wish you and those like you many years of happy and productive gaming with it. We won't be joining you (and the worst part is, in terms of sales revenue, Wizards is never even going to notice we're gone).Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-8064629712092647962011-07-27T00:26:00.000-07:002011-07-27T00:26:13.021-07:00Needles (on There's A Story Somewhere In That Haystack)<div class="MsoNormal">I’m good at building things in my head. People, places, worlds, all spinning freely away from my imagination to hang in the air around my mind’s eye like constellations sparkling in the night sky. Sometimes they start as an idea; an image or a description or a snippet of dialogue, a small thing that begins as a tiny spark and require some nurturing to grow strong enough to take wing and join the rest of the stars; sometimes they leap from my subconscious fully-formed or nearly, requiring only the gentlest of nudges to be off, rocketing away on a trajectory that I can barely control and only mostly follow. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Both kinds have their perks and flaws, but getting them out into the æther where I can access them late isn’t the hard part. The hard part, the bit I’ve always had trouble with, is figuring out where they’re going. I can set up conflict just fine –and I often even discover some measure of it is built into the things I create- but resolving it is a problem.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, in an astoundingly arrogant simile to NASA and SETI projects, I’m going to fling this question out into the great dark void and see if anyone answers it:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How do you find the endings to your stories?</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a question I’ve been chewing on all week, and I’m beginning to suspect the problem is actually two of them, coming at me from different angles.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The first one is probably the simpler: I’ve got more practice at beginnings. You have to start something before you can end it (well, usually), and a lot of things that get started don’t ever get finished, for reasons that I would need a room full of six-fingered people to count. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At least some part of this is that I’m a roleplayer, and spend a lot more time wearing the GM hats than I do the player hats. Aside an unfortunate habit of thinking in my system of choice, the demands of writing plot for an RPG are a lot different than writing plot for a short story or a novel, in the sense that because the direct actions of the characters are out of my hands, all I can really do is catapult them off the deck, hope I gave them enough airspeed to keep them up, and then watch them sail off into the adventure. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can nudge, I can suggest, and sometimes I can dangle a carrot for them to follow, but ultimately I can’t assume direct control of where they go. It’s a unique set of challenges that I know can be problematic for a writer to overcome, but it turns out that the reverse is also true. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The second problem is what I can only call an attention span issue that’s optimistically brought about by being spoiled for choices. That metaphorical belt of constellations from before the jump is constantly being added to and shuffled around, and I have a bad habit of latching on to whichever star in the sky is shiniest and newest. I’m thankful the problem’s not worse than it is, else I’d be chasing laser pointers around the house same as the cat.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have a couple of guesses on the source of this one, but this isn’t a psychology post and I refuse to let myself dive into that probably deserves a dozen pages all to itself. The tl;dr version, as those wacky Internets would say, is that I have a tragically short attention span unless I can convince myself I have a compelling reason to keep paying attention.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;">In the end both are really issues that I’ll have to solve for myself; one an issue of experience and the other of motivation. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;">And if nothing else, it’ll be an interesting lesson to learn, just one among many on my path to… wherever this desire and talent(?) is leading me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 51.75pt;">…see my point?<o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-78979680913243853592011-07-23T22:49:00.000-07:002011-07-23T22:52:04.517-07:00Ironclad (on Monsters In The Sky)<div class="MsoNormal">I sometimes think I was born a decade too late. I missed the early days of most of my hobbies –the dawn of such enduring games as Dungeons & Dragons, Battletech and Warhammer were all before my time, or I was too young to have made any sense of them. I wasn’t around for the explosion of controversy over James Dallas Egbert<sup>[1] </sup> or the early years of White Dwarf and its riotously joyful celebration of this strange new hobby.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s strange to say that I miss something that I never really experienced, but having been given –through old magazines, discussions with older gamers and the depth of history that rests behind these games awaiting only a bit of curiosity to discover them- a glimpse into what this odd social group of mine was in the past, I find myself feeling a fond nostalgia for these things, a vague wish to return to the idealistic simplicity (if not the game mechanics) of those times.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In light of that, I’ve found the last month to be a fascinating process. After all, I’ve never been one of the first people in the world to play a game that is so brand new it’s not even on store shelves yet. After having spent the greater part of my life sitting on the shoulders of the hobbyists who have come before me, the ground floor is a very interesting place indeed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> I’m talking about <a href="http://monstersinthesky.com/">Leviathans</a>, and it’s been a while since a game has captivated me so completely. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not entirely sure where I first caught a link to that site<sup>[2]</sup>, but from the moment my eyes landed on the header and saw the great ships clawing their way through cloud-streaked skies, their mighty guns turned on one another… I was hooked. I was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in</i>. I was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">going</i> to play this game, and it was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">going</i> to be glorious.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it also wasn’t out yet. Damn.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even so, I soaked up what I could. I perused the Lieutenant’s Manual and the fiction, I poured over the sketches of the ships, my mind’s eye feeding me images of these great beasts of the air in majestic flight, everything cool about early 20<sup>th</sup> century naval combat catapulted into the silver skies and altering the course of history forever. There was a weight to what I read, a gravitas lent to it by how closely this world of behemoths of the skies mirrored our own; how little it took to spin the world of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i> off in a direction completely alien to our history, and yet how familiar. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was already a fan of steampunk and its flock of related subgenres, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i> was something else… something that defied description, my command of language insufficient to produce a word adequate to the task. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Whatever it was, whatever it was called, I was sold. Each new sliver of information, each new image, drew me further and further into the game and the fascinating world wrapped around it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Months pass in growing frustration of my inability to see it in person as I absorb every new blog post that goes up, fascinating developer insight put to page with an unpretentious openness that is refreshing and exhilarating after years of stifling Games Workshop propaganda and ever-growing disdain for the designers of Wizards of the Coast. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Three months ago, Randall announces that he is going to be running demos of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i> at <a href="http://mygamesngizmos.com/">Games & Gizmos</a> in <st1:city><st1:place>Redmond</st1:place></st1:city>. My brain vapor locks, refuses to process. I have to read it again. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Live demo, in Redmond</i>. Friday night. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On the kitchen wall, my calendar explodes, scattering shrapnel across my timetable and sending discarded plans scything outward in a lethal blast radius sufficient to send the contents of my painting station diving for cover. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> be there, hell, high water, or coming of Christ. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But no. I get out-voted. D&D is the same night, and the players want to play. I oblige, sending waves of minions crashing down on them while my brain is busy steaming through the skies over <st1:place>Europe-circa-1910</st1:place>, my battle group angling to cross the T of a column of British warships that have transgressed too far beyond the Channel. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A month passes; the next supposed date of the demo is upon us. It isn’t other gaming that gets in the way this time; it’s pneumonia –not me, but rather Randall. Disappointing, but unavoidable. I wish him well and a speedy recovery –Gen Con is looming ahead, and while the mad, headlong dash to that particular finish line has yet to begin, it will soon enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">July. The weather finally breaks here in <st1:city><st1:place>Seattle</st1:place></st1:city>, our usual palette of gray skies and rain-soaked evergreen giving way to a spectacular and comfortable summer of warm days, cool nights and brilliant sapphire sky as far as the eye can see. It’s perfect weather for flying. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This time, there’s no missing it. I’m writers blocked to hell and back on the D&D game anyway, and one of the players is down with a please-put-an-ax-in-my-skull-to-end-the-pain migraine. I want to feel bad about both, but can’t quite bring myself to. It’s the opportunity I needed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Games & Gizmos is in full swing by the time we arrive, and I immediately spot Randall amidst the crowd, his mad-scientist beard marking him out a senior most among the geeks and gamers in attendance (his Catalyst Game Labs shirt helps too). On the table before him is arrayed the trappings of his creation: the beautiful hex maps, the spectacularly-sculpted ships –bigger than I thought they’d be!- and of course the dice, a pile of technicolored twelve-siders that seem, along with the models, to glow of their own inner, heavenly light. Or maybe that part was all in my head. I’m not sure.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Randall notices me peering intently over the top of my sunglasses at the ships and introduces himself, asking if I’ve ever heard of the game. I give him a grin and tell him it’s the reason I’m here. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The next hour is sheer joy, watching a master at his craft, as Randall explains the game to me. I’ve been doing this whole “wargamer” thing for a while now and I’m an old Battletech hat, so I’m able to keep up reasonably well, but getting to dialogue firsthand with one of the industry titans on the design of his game is a glorious, enlightening and entertaining spectacle. I wish I’d brought a tape recorder, or at least a notepad. Ideas and insights and the wisdom of experience flows from him like raindrops from the usual skies of our city. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not just fanboy gushing here, either. Games design is a fascinating topic to me, and I always enjoy direct insight from those fortunate enough to do it for a living. The hows and whys of a mechanical system or a decision based on the fiction of a world over the abstracted rules, the level of detail gone into and the thought committed to the process… it’s a creative, visceral, hands-on process that enthralls me and which I would love to someday break into. Until then, however, I can learn as much as I can from the people who, in the end, are responsible for keeping me entertained on many, many evenings. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s a little later that one of the two sets Randall brought with him frees up and I settle into my first game of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i>. Randall’s explanations of the rules are clear and precise, and the rules themselves are a crisply-engineered example of games design done right. Ten minutes and he turns us loose in the game, and I already feel like I know what I’m doing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I remember about naval tactics from games and readings past applies- maneuver is paramount, maintenance of position, range, arcs of fire and the importance of escorts. Even the quick-start version of the game feels complete and rich, and though the movements of the game itself are restricted somewhat by the gex grid upon which the game exists, I can see the concessions made for ease of play made here and agree with them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Two games took a couple of hours, with plenty of hobby-related chatter in between while we sorted out the game and made comparisons to other systems we knew –the relations to Battletech are obvious in Leviathan’s heritage, but there are also concepts drawn from other places, or at least trains of thought that I found familiar.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans </i>does a good job of replicating the “iron clad” feel of warship combat of the day –a design goal that Randall mentioned to me while we were speaking- where opposed ships are well-protected enough to take a pounding before they go down, and the game uses a very simple conflict resolution mechanic (effectively a target number system, but with the added twist of having the great majority of roll modifiers that would otherwise be present rolled directly into the dice of the game) that emphasizes the sheer toughness of the ships without de- or under-emphasizing the power of their weapons. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The action is smooth and fast, and I was playing comfortably with the rules within minutes of sitting down at the table –another refreshing thing after perhaps too many years dealing with arcane and esoteric game systems whose highest barrier to entry is the sheer impenetrable complexity of its rules (Warhammer 8th, I’m looking at you).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The game as we played it was paced well, and while it was only a small skirmish between a pair of Light Cruisers with a single Destroyer escort each, I immediately felt that it would be just as comfortable handling a larger fleet. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most importantly, however, amongst my thoughts on the mechanics of the game and the arrangement of its unique dice structure, damage tracking systems, and all the other minutiae I was immersed in, a single thought, a single impression rose above all others:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i> was every bit as gloriously evocative as I imagined it to be, immersive in a way I haven’t felt since I played my first game of Necromunda on that chilly New Year’s Day in ’96. By the second game, I wasn’t moving miniatures around a hex map and rolling dice anymore; I was shouting headings to my helmsman and directing fire from the bridge of the Cruiser <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pontbriand</i><sup>[3]</sup>, the noise of the game store around me having melted away into the heavy thrum of warship engines, the booming of big guns and the howl of incoming enemy shells. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">glorious</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the two weeks since then, I’ve gotten a hold of all the materials currently available for the game, and the household has been throwing our proxy fleets into combat in the wild blue yonder over and over again. Even limited to the quick-start rules that are currently available, the game continues to be immensely entertaining, and we are all excitedly awaiting the release of the full boxed game. My <a href="http://oraclemaab.deviantart.com/">wife</a> is already coming up with new scenarios to play, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her art taking on a decidedly more… naval theme in the coming months.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Gen Con and the hopeful release date of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviathans</i> is barreling down the tracks at breakneck pace, and my anticipation is only increasing as it draws nearer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it feels good to feel good about a new game again. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">[1] – Wikipedia’s comments on the man are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III">here</a>; the tl;dr version is that the unfortunate events surrounding this young man who took his own life are the source of a great deal of the misinformation, controversy and misunderstanding about D&D that persists to this day. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">[2] – it may have been from the good people at <a href="http://brassgoggles.co.uk/">Brass Goggles</a>, a fantastic community of Steampunk enthusiasts whom you would be remiss to not introduce yourself to!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">[3] – The look of the French fleet caught my eye from the moment I discovered the game, and handling their elegant, swift vessels in-game only cemented it. While my wife is eagerly looking forward to the forthcoming German fleet and my roommate the Italians, I think my tours of duty in the skies of the <i>Leviathans</i> world are going to be in defense of <i>Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-61398497890485590452010-12-31T18:15:00.000-08:002010-12-31T18:15:13.846-08:00Themes (on Heroes Redux)Life, I've long maintained, has a soundtrack. It has a grand score, unmatched in passion and scope, rising and falling with the highs and lows of life. I feel sorry for the benighted fools among us who can't or won't hear it, because I find this world much richer with it accompanying us through our days.<br />
<br />
This third member of these odd little pieces of fiction is, I think, a reflection of that. What if we were able to harness our personal soundtrack and project it to others, for they to share in it with us? That would be a powerful gift indeed.<br />
<br />
Every so often, I stumble on a song that suits its particular moment perfectly. Several nights ago was such a moment, and such a song. It led to this, three hours later, bleary-eyed and dazedly tapping away at a laptop keyboard as time sinks away into those cold pre-dawn hours when the world seems to vanish beyond the window.<br />
<br />
There are few things I enjoy more than this "magic hour," and the creations that spring forth from within it. I hope you'll enjoy it too. Eventually I may even tell you where I'm going with these odd little stories.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Symphony</span></u></b></div><br />
Hypnotic. Enthralling. Mesmerizing. And then she actually touches the keys in front of her, raising a haunting chord that resonates through her enraptured audience before slowly, achingly, fading away into breathless silence.<br />
<br />
She brings down her other hand, fingers stroking black and white like they were long-lost lovers. Above these effortlessly lingering sounds her melody rises, melancholic in its minor key without being sorrowful, calling to mind images of a carnival ground in the rain, meridian silent and empty as the grand ole dame of Paris rises into the clouds behind. Satie.<br />
<br />
She fills the hall with emotion, tugging subtly on tempo like it was a direct line to the souls of everyone in the room -in some ways it is. She isn’t a performer, but an artist. The hall is to capacity, but she is utterly alone as she plays. She does it for no one in the world, save herself.<br />
<br />
I know men who know sound. I know men who can make a poor space sing, and a good one ring like heavenly chimes. I know men who can control their space with long-practiced precision, deftly muting or letting soar tones to impact the hearts of their audience. All seem as clumsy children against her. She can make a tiny room ring like a vast hall, or draw an audience of thousands to believe they have stepped into the most intimate of spaces.<br />
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Today, she chooses a sweet and rich old Schweighofer, but anything she touches is magic. Indeed, she need touch nothing at all, able to stir the hearts of men with her voice alone. She hushes a room with mere presence, and to meet her gaze is to experience a breathless rush, falling into an endless night sky.<br />
<br />
She fills the hall with passion and the ennui of waiting for a lover, and there is no inch of the room that is not hers to command. The purity of her sound is so complete that none dare disturb it for fear of shattering it like a delicate, priceless, jewel. Her audience does not move, does not even draw more than the barest of breaths as they listen.<br />
<br />
Each of them feels as though she is playing for he or she alone; they have forgotten utterly that there are hundreds here. But she must wield this peculiar magic of hers with great care; I once saw a man enthralled so by her ever-joyful laugh that he froze in oncoming traffic -and another, the same day, who simply fell to tears as she flashed him her smile.<br />
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She plays on, eyes closed now, the hot lights of the stage turning her auburn hair into a golden halo, diamonds at her ears and neck sparkling. I found her, 16 then, in an airport parking lot, dusty coveralls and checkered flannel, sitting on a battered Carhartt, an equally-battered RainSong tucked under her arm as her ballad stopped traffic and drowned out the jets going up and the rain coming down, all a far cry from the lights now draping her gown in ripples of satin silver. She could have gone anywhere, done anything, but she came with me because she said I made her laugh, and because I wasn’t one of those “big shot tinsel town gaff hook producers out to milk talent to make a buck.”<br />
<br />
She was enchanting from the moment I first laid eyes on her, but it wasn’t for a year that I discovered why. We met a man, loud Hawaiian shirt and an easy laugh, kind eyes, who told us. He brought us into a realm even I had never dreamed, offered her a way to change the world. But she said no, that she was happy, being herself, practicing her art for its own sake, playing for herself alone, and if others cared to listen, she said that the hoped only they take the same joy from it as she.<br />
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But she knew, then, of what she was. It helped her focus, learn. Even without her spellbinding allure, she was great -with it, she was the finest in the world. It could have taken her anywhere, but she chose to stay here. Some people call it the center of the universe, but to her it’s just home, as it becomes to everyone who hears her.<br />
<br />
Her melody rises now, fingers brushing vintage ivory as she crescendos, her odd sorcery helped along by the raw, unfinished chestnut case -rough around the edges and lovingly warm, a lot like her in many ways. A plainly honest sound that compliments her piece; unpretentious, intimate.<br />
<br />
She isn’t singing, but I can see her mouthing the words to herself as she plays, rocking in time with her hands on the bench. A lot of professionals do that, but she always laughs at how fake she thinks it looks. Haughty, she calls it. I don’t think she even knows she does it herself, but instead of conceit, she gives off and air of being just as awash in her music as her audience is.<br />
<br />
Students play notes, professionals play music, masters play meanings... she plays hearts and souls and emotions themselves, and not a single one of her audience is even aware of the hall around them anymore. They are far away, strolling through a garden of fading glories, a moss-covered path through hedgerows leading to the small, secret places of the world.<br />
<br />
She likes these sorts of pieces -Satie is a particular favorite of hers, that vague despondence seeming at first to clash with a young woman able to fulfil her greatest dream. As I got to know her better, though, I learned that it was no clash at all, and that she is thrilled and touched by all of life’s moments, not merely the happiest. I have never met someone more at peace than she -that she can share that, even briefly, with others through her music is a gift of unimaginable worth.<br />
<br />
Those like her, who bear burdens unimaginable to you or I, are doubly blessed. This is one of the few places they can come to forget themselves, to walk these hidden, magical paths of music and emotion with her for a time, moving by turns from desolate tears to unrequited joy at her whim, freed for an instant by her presence. We always welcome them with open arms, no matter who they are -in the end, we are all human, and I know it is easy for them to forget that, sometimes.<br />
<br />
She brings the piece to a close now, her melody falling away from its peak and returning to barest whispers of sound; even so they fill the hall. She lets the final note linger in the air, fading slowly, tenderly, finally, to silence. Her hands rise form the keys at last, to fall demurely into her lap. Her eyes flutter open and drift in my direction. The wings of the stage are dark against the waxed hard-wood glow of the stage, but she knows where I am standing; where I am always standing. She smiles at me, sublime joy written on her pretty, freckled face. I smile back, even though she can’t see it. She knows I am, anyway; I always do.<br />
<br />
It is nearly a full minute before her dazzled audience realizes she is finished, lured so into her sound and the perfection of her ending that they only now realize the silence is not part of the song. Or, perhaps it is -who am I to judge, a mere mortal in the presence of the godlike figure sitting on stage?<br />
<br />
They begin to applaud as the spell finally breaks, slowly at first, then with rising intensity as they take to their feet. She stands, elated smile, cheeks flushed, and bows before their thunderous adulation; they filling the hall as fully as she, attempting to express their thanks for a rush of feeling they will cling to long into the night, and a memory they will carry forever.<br />
<br />
She looks to me again as the curtains close. I could never hope to hear her over the applause, but I watch her breathe the same words she does every night, that capture her magic so well: “...Je n'ai qu'une envie...”<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>“J'ai compris ta détresse</i></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Cher amoureux</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Et je cède à tes vœux</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Fais de moi ta maîtresse</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Loin de nous la sagesse</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Plus de tristesse</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>J'aspire à l'instant précieux</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Où nous serons heureux</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Je te veux”</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>-Erik Satie, “Je Te Veux”</i></span></div></i>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-44577016637777897702010-11-18T18:20:00.000-08:002010-11-18T18:20:01.943-08:00Heroes (on Hang On A Minute, I've Got An Idea...)Sometimes writing for writing's sake is the best kind. It's pure catharsis, free from obligation or expectation. I need to do it more often, because sometimes it produces something memorable, something worthwhile... something with potential.<div><br />
</div><div>Whether or not these are any of that is up for some debate, but I quite like the way both of them came out. I might do a few more in this "series" and see if it bears out.</div><div><br />
</div><div>So without further ado, here are the first two of these odd little pieces. Enjoy.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">High Flight</span></u></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div>In flight, she glitters like a jewel. It’s something about her aura; makes her shine and shimmer and dance like a shooting star through the midnight sky. High above she comes to a pause, striking a pose in midair as she catches her breath, sequins studding her outfit still sparkling in the bright moonlight.<br />
<br />
Sequins. She’s the only one of us I’ve ever seen wear them, the only one of us who wholly embraced the aesthetic pop culture stuck us with. Every movement, every breath sets off a new cascade of silver down her body. On anyone else doing what she does it would be childish, ridiculous. On her it’s breathtaking instead.<br />
<br />
She’s in her favorite outfit tonight, a black leather one-piece that leaves one shoulder and both arms bare. Most of us dress down, wear what we will or what’s right for the job. She’s in stiletto heels and a gala mask that matches she bracer on her arm, both paneled like a disco ball, brighter flashes of light among the waves of silver. She has a bra that’s made of the same stuff; says it’s her favorite piece of clothing.<br />
<br />
Sequins. I once heard her comment that she was going to take over the world, one sequin at a time. Two years later, I’m not sure she was joking. The effect works: she is power and elegance and mystery, and a little flirty and a little fun. Some people try to sell a look, play up mystique or intimidation. She does the opposite, makes the look work for her, this modern-day Lady Godiva. When we’re out doing our thing, a lot of us take steps to hide our identities -not her. She doesn’t care, and nobody would believe it anyway, if she were outed.<br />
<br />
Or maybe they all would believe it. A lot of us stay low-key, try to keep our heads down, off the radar of our tabloid-fuelled, instant-access, scandal-obsessed media world. A few of us embrace the idea of hiding in plain sight -she turns it up to eleven. She turns everything up to eleven.<br />
<br />
Having regained her poise with the grace of a born performer, the way I’ve seen her do dozens of times in front of fifty-thousand people, she rockets back down toward the streets, becoming a dazzling streak of light, falling like a comet down on some unsuspecting head.<br />
<br />
Even to us, who share a rare gift with her, she is an ideal; a flawless excellence, unattainable, that most of us can only dream of. Even more so those of us unable to free ourselves from the shackles of the earth. Not so her; she dances in the skies as though on laughter-silvered wings.<br />
<br />
We’ve had many names in history, some deserving and some less, but what they call us today... I can’t think of a better way to speak of her. She is an ideal, a paragon; quintessence of what we all strive to be: a hero.<br />
<br />
Before she meets the fray, someone else rockets up to meet her, pitting brutal power against matchless grace. They collide in a burst of radiance and a shower of sparks -another trick of her aura.<br />
<br />
As the light fades and the two forms, locked together, arc away from their collision, I remember the tattoo I’ve seen she has. A simple peace sign, a reminder to herself of “why.” It’s part of that ideal of excellence: she is free of the petty concerns that weight on the rest of us; of country or company. She is one of the few true independents, insulated from the repercussions of working alone by her status as a world-wide icon.<br />
<br />
The two forms roll around each other, fighting for control of their curving climb, swirling her dazzling silver with a dark, rich purple from her attacker. She would have approved of the spectacle -I think it’s her favorite color anyway.<br />
<br />
She’s one of a few ‘classics’ left in the world. Her particular gifts -graceful speed, catlike agility, prodigious strength, and most of all her ability to soar free of the surly bonds of earth- are getting rarer. She may be the youngest of those left, she may be the last of her particular kind.<br />
<br />
Some of us realize our gifts earlier than others. Most as teenagers, some as adults... I think she has always known. I think this -everything, really- is all part of her grand plan, some design on the fate of the world.<br />
<br />
An arm’s length from the side of a building she gains control her aerial battle, dazzling silver flashing again as she drives her opponent before her. The wall doesn’t slow either of them down much and the both vanish into a cloud of dust and powdered glass that becomes trails of glittering tears falling away from the building.<br />
<br />
An instant later she reappears, still pushing her counterpart along, from the other side of the tower, erupting through glass that becomes a rain of diamonds around her. She climbs free of it, swooping upward again to silhouette herself against the moon while her opponent falls away, still trailing wisps of purple and concrete dust.<br />
<br />
It’s easy to forget how small she is in the wake of her performance, and it’s hard to imagine this as the same girl I’ve seen trip off a stage more than once, but I suppose stilettos on hardwood is a different matter from the freedom of flight. Tonight she is flawless; maybe the clumsy slips are part of the act.<br />
<br />
All of our kind who aren’t gifted with her freedom are a little jealous, I think. They jokingly call our gifts a lottery, and she with the winning ticket. I can think of no man or woman better to wield her talents. She takes what is given and embraces it fully, without hesitation or reservation, wraps herself in it, makes it her own... and never loses herself in the middle. The paparazzi say what they will, of course, accusations and rumors and vitriol for the sake of a byline, but to those who are willing to listen rather than simply hear, her message and her motives are clear: freedom -choice- is all.<br />
<br />
Putting her back to the full moon she looks in my direction, and waves. I lift my arm overhead, curling my hand into a claw -her sign- and the others around me, all of us here chained by gravity, do the same.<br />
<br />
She darts off, rocketing west toward the glow of the city and we follow, a cheer rising in our voices. We may not be able to fly, but we can certainly join in her purpose. This isn’t about the battle, or or even about showing off -though she does a little of that, too. Ultimately, everything she does is in celebration of life; the beauty and vibrancy of humankind, maybe embodied best of all in herself, a riotous explosion of light and sound and color and movement, ultimate freedom, ultimate joy.<br />
<br />
That’s what she really fights for. Maybe that’s why she can fly.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>"I'm a shooting star leaping through the skies </i></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>I'm gonna go go go </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>There's no stopping me"</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>-Queen, "Don't Stop Me Now"</i></span></div></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Live Wire</span></u></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div>It’s like she’s everywhere, y’know? All at once. Above, below, behind, beside, then just gone like the wind. She’s on the ground chasing some dudes who’re gonna be hella screwed in a minute but then one of them gets the bright idea to split from the alleys and hit the streets, and I blink and she’s up, doing the electric slide along the power lines over his head. I blink again and hear her hit him and him hit the pavement. Ouch. Major road rash, dude. I kinda wanna feel sorry, but I don’t because I know it’s gonna get worse in a minute. Still; sympathy, my brother. I been there, man. Totally been there.<br />
<br />
So the dude’s face down on So-Cal Summer Sidewalk, cheek frying while she’s standing on his back. Poor dude’s not in nearly good enough shape for this -she isn’t even breathing hard and he’s pooped. Living baked like a potato kinda makes it suck when you gotta outrun somebody. Trying to outrun somebody like her is like leaving your car on some streets at night, anyway -you just don’t do it.<br />
<br />
But damn she’s hot right now. And I don’t just mean it’s like a million degrees outside -cause it is- but man... it’s redheads, y’know? She’s not like model figure or anything but that’s not bad, cause she’s a total hard body. I’d melt if I was wearing black in this heat but she totally is and totally doesn’t care a bit. I don’t think she can even feel it.<br />
<br />
Now she’s yelling at the dude, one big shitkicker planted on his cheek while she grinds his face into the sidewalk, hands on hips. Dude’s totally bein’a whiny little bitch about it but so was I the day I met her, so it’s cool. She gives him a little jolt -maybe a hundred volts- right on his ass and he starts yelling and trying to get out from under her boot but it’s not budging and he’s just making the road rash worse. Man, and I thought razor-burn sucked.<br />
<br />
Dude’s still not making the kind of sounds she wants to hear -where his supplier is- so she decides it’s time for some fireworks and reaches an arm up toward the power lines. There’s nobody around so it’s okay, and she’s far enough from any cars that she’s not going to make them explode this time. That was a totally wicked awesome day, though.<br />
<br />
Her arm comes up and the closest one of those transformer things explodes and she turns into your worst nightmare, lightning arcing off her and scorching the pavement around the poor dude on the ground. He curls up on himself, screaming now trying to not get fried, but he’s not gonna get hurt -if she wanted barbecue she wouldn’a ever bothered to tackle him.<br />
<br />
She kicks up a wind when she does this, I dunno why, probably something to do with electricity burning the air or something, but now it’s whipping around her, making her hair and those strappy-things on the bondage pants she’s wearing snap around while lightning dances off her. After a minute one of the like eight things she’s got around her neck catches fire but it must not’a been important anyway cause she just yanks it off and tosses it.<br />
<br />
Dude on the ground is just about pissing himself now but that’s what she wants anyway and his eyes are huge by the time she lets up. She keeps crackling for a minute while she leans down to whisper something on his ear that I’m too far away to hear. He nods at her really fast and still all kinds’a fucked-up scared and names a building over on Compton that I sorta know where it is.<br />
<br />
I feel for you, Bro. She’s fuckin’ Death itself when she’s angry and she’s been on the war path ever since she found out about those kids. I mean what the hell, Dude? They’re just kids, they don’t know better. I remember it, I was one of ‘em back in the day.<br />
<br />
She’s got what she wants now, though, so she crooks a finger at me to come over with the camera -I gotta carry it because she cooks anything with more moving parts than a spoon- and snap a picture of the guy, because she makes sure she remembers every single one of them so she can really mess them up if they get in trouble again. There’s cops and shit for this, but I think she can smell it when you’re afraid and I think she likes that.<br />
<br />
She points up the road and gives him a kick in the ribs to get him going, and he’s off up the street like a stoner to a Twinkie sale while she smirks at his back until he hits a corner and hauls ass around it and gone. Some of them show up again later, but I don’t think this dude will -he’s runnin’ too fast.<br />
<br />
I hear a lot of stories about other guys like her -who can do the same crazy kind of shit, but I’ve never seen any of them, but it’s a hella big city so I’m not surprised. She says she’s not even one of the really good ones who can fly and punch through walls and throw cars and shit, but I think throwing lightning is pretty badass anyway, so she’s cool to me, and she can skate on power lines and electrical shit too and I’ve seen her catch up to cars that way more than once.<br />
<br />
And then it’s time for munchies because she says being a walking Tesla Coil makes her mega-hungry but I think it’s because she’s secretly still smoking weed like the rest of us, even though we all try to hide it (but we totally fail, ‘cause all of us know that all of us still do, but we don’t care, ‘cause we’re funny like that). Either way it means I get to stuff my face at this totally amazing little like hole-in-the-wall place she knows that has the best chili dogs in the city; no kidding, man, they’re like four pounds of toppings each.<br />
<br />
It’s on the way to Compton anyway, so she says we can grab some for the road and mack on it while we go find Dude-man’s dealer and add another notch to her belt with his face. She says that those big-leaguers who fight like international terrorists and stuff are too busy to do the kind of shit she does, down here on the streets, in the middle of Turf War, USA. She says they all have, like, private jets and their own fuckin’ islands to train on and stuff and they’re too busy stopping nuclear bombs and face-melting chemicals and giant space lasers to come and help out clean up the streets of drug dealers and pimps and stuff, so that’s why she does it.<br />
<br />
I think there’s something else, though. When you’re from the hood, you always know it when you meet someone else who is, too, and she is, even if she don’t admit it. I think it’s something personal. She’s not half as bad as she says, she could run with the big dogs if she wanted, but there’s something, someone down here in the alley trash that’s keeping her here.<br />
<br />
It’s cool to me, though. I don’t got the stuff that she does, and I got no chance on my own of making shit of myself without her help, so I’m glad she wants to stay. My ‘hood may be a piece of shit, but it’s my ‘hood, and I’m not leavin’ it to the dogs for nothing.<br />
<br />
So it’s cool that she keeps me around to help her, ‘cause it makes me feel like we can actually make a difference here, like we can actually take out some of the trash and make it so that kids don’t have to grow up like I did. And because she’s smokin’ hot. Can’t miss what you never had, but... dayum.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>"Come on down to the other side,</i></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Come with us through the gates of hell,</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>Where we'll drag you from where you are </i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>to where you belong."</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>-Pendulum, "The Other Side"</i></span></div></i>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-38003795321415821182010-11-16T00:47:00.000-08:002010-11-16T00:47:39.307-08:00Monologue (on This is Tokyo Future)<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">War. War never changes.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Patriots or tyrants, governments or religions- it doesn't matter: the three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on in an endless waltz. Thirty years ago they came, unbidden and unannounced, proclaiming their arrival in a beacon of light high over <st1:city><st1:place>Tokyo</st1:place></st1:city>, visible from the towers of Mumbai to the beaches of <st1:city><st1:place>Honolulu</st1:place></st1:city>. The Seven, the Idoru. Goddesses, at least to our mortal eyes. With them came the return of magic to the world, a hard clash against technology and society and the science that said it was impossible. Many denied the truth of these Idoru and the power they wielded, but many more flocked to their banners. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These factions, calling themselves the Clans, spread their power and influence throughout the city, then the world, driven by their greed for resources and recruits. Nobody remembers who made the first strike, but it wasn't long before all seven Clans were embroiled in bitter conflict. Though the rest of the world was spared the worst of the fighting, the home city of the Clans was all but razed, with no end in sight.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Eventually a coalition of heroes banded together to put a stop to the fighting: only at great cost they were able to break the hold of the Clans' power and bring the Great War to an end. Seen as saviours, these heroes assumed positions of leadership and influence within the Clans, and a truce developed, with one Clan, the Church of the Lady of Lace, emerging as the leader among them.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Slowly, the clans rebuilt the city they had destroyed, but what was called a truce and an alliance was merely a cover: the war went underground, fought by spies and assassins rather than infantry and artillery. For years the <st1:place><st1:placetype>Church</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename>Lace</st1:placename></st1:place> defended itself from all comers looking to bring them down, all the while becoming more insular; adopting an elitist, isolationist mindset that demonized and alienated them in the minds of the other Clans. Despite this, their power made them proof against the feeble attempts to topple them.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then, in an instant, a moment never fully explained to this day, the Church destroyed itself: it's spires brought down, it's people killed, it's Idoru vanished without a trace, the memory of it's very existence erased from the minds of most of the world in an event the few who remembered came to call the Exodus, for it is believed by some that the Lady of Lace took her followers away, to a place far beyond our reach.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The remaining six Clans rushed to fill the power vacuum, heralding the return of war to the world. But without the heroes of the past, the war saw no end. Clans were devastated, split, reformed and altered even as they changed the world around them. New factions arose, old ones died out, and the march of years carried on with still no end in sight. What came to be known as the Exodus War never stopped, but the Clans eventually lost their ability to fight it, settling into an uneasy cease-fire that persists to this day, none willing to commit their resources to an attack that would leave themselves defenseless.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But war never changes. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Just before it’s destruction, a champion of the <st1:place><st1:placetype>Church</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename>Lace</st1:placename></st1:place>, a man known only as Nightwalker, spoke a prophecy that promised the return of the Lady of Lace to the world and her faithful once again rising to power. There are some who believe that this prophecy is close to fulfillment and that the time to begin the next beat of the waltz -revolution- is now.<o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-71454113412665162322010-11-05T16:19:00.000-07:002010-11-05T16:20:26.042-07:00GPA (on Applied Philosophy)<div class="MsoNormal">I really try to avoid using this as a rant space, but some bones need to be picked. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Try not to flinch, Haulman. That apple’s looking smaller and smaller from way over here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“No work is perfect; it can always be improved upon,” is, as a guiding philosophy for an artist of any kind, an admirable approach. Provided it doesn’t become the pathological ‘no work is ever <i>good enough</i>’ version (sadly far too common), it can be a constructive boost to creativity as well as providing the impetus necessary to generate a truly honed final product.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That belief and the willingness it provides to polish an acceptably good work into a true gem can be a great strength to an artist who is willing to take the time needed to not just complete a work, but to <i>refine</i> it has generated some of history’s most memorable works.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I get that. I agree with it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the <i>moment</i> you try to apply that philosophy to a grade-book? That transcends the pathological form and dives straight into the foolish. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A philosophy can be taught, but trying to enforce one only demonstrates a self-righteous arrogance that any artist worthy of the name should be ashamed of. Doubly so in an academic context where content, although subjective, can be fairly and impartially judged on a very simple criterion: did it fulfill the objective of the assignment, and how well? If it’s informative, how well did it inform? If persuasive, how convincing was the author’s point? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Writing, unlike many other subjective subjects, does have benchmarks that can be used to render a fair grade. This is a sophomore-level college course, so let’s be polite and assume that we all know the basics of spelling, grammar and academic verbiage. So other than obvious mechanical blunders (that demonstrate lack of revision process more than anything else), the grading has to be on something more ephemeral: the effectiveness of the work in communicating what it was meant to communicate. How it does so, how <i>well</i> it does so, and how the various elements work together in creating that whole can be judged. No work is perfect, but an assignment <i>can</i> be graded on a clearly-delineated scale and can (and should!) receive full marks if it performs to the standards of the rubric. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“No work is perfect, it can always be improved upon” is a lesson plan, not a grading scheme. Trying to enforce a philosophy doesn’t make a man a philosopher or even a teacher; it just makes him a pompous ass. He can at least be an honest pompous ass about it and nitpick the work to find the points to mark off rather than the vaguely passive-aggressive and wholly deplorable behavior of quietly subtracting score for no apparent reason.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or maybe this is about penalizing an opinion you disagree with, at which point we have a <i>lying</i>, pompous, passive-aggressive ass.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or at least that’s my philosophy on the matter.<o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-55039818302764925952010-09-24T19:15:00.000-07:002010-09-24T19:16:15.746-07:00Manifesto (on Page 5)<div class="MsoNormal">People call it plastic crack. Lots of people call it a hobby, or a lifestyle, or a career, or a state of mind. Some people call it pointless. Most people call it bloody expensive. Everybody calls it Warhammer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Warhammer is an institution, a legacy stretching back to the earliest days of tabletop cooperative and competitive games. It was around at the start of the industry, and it’ll likely be around at the end, too, if that ever comes. It’s the common denominator for war-gamers the world over, and you can get in a pick-up game just about anywhere if you know which rocks to look under.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But it’s missing something. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Games Workshop has been around since 1975, and in the thirty years hence have produced eight editions of their flagship Warhammer Fantasy Battles game, five of their wildly-popular Warhammer 40,000, dozens of “Specialist” niche games set in one or the other or neither setting, a few of which have even gotten second or third editions themselves. They have also licensed content to several other companies who have produced a plethora of sourcebooks, role-playing games, novels, video and board games, and many other miscellaneous products.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve been a GW “hobbyist” <sup>[1]</sup> for roughly half of those thirty years, and in hindsight have always felt that something was lacking from their activities. I could never quite place what it was, however.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then a few months ago, I discovered WARMACHINE, <sup>[2]</sup> and what Warhammer has been lacking all along.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Publisher Privateer Press calls it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Five Rules of Page 5</i> in their introductory section of the game’s newest edition, WARMACHINE Prime Mk. II. What began as a tongue-in-cheek “manifesto” of the game’s guiding philosophy ten years ago has grown and evolved into a declaration of war against the so-called grognards who populate the customer base of the hobby gaming world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To WARMACHINE players, it is simply known as Page 5, and can be summed up in a single phrase of such sublime elegance I can’t believe nobody’s thought of it before:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; font-variant: small-caps;">“Play like you’ve got a pair.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Page 5 is about respect, you see. It’s about the mutual understanding that Privateer Press shares with its players, you share with your opponent, and we all share with each other. Respect for the game, respect for your opponent, respect for yourself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>, my friend, is what Games Workshop has been missing all along. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Five Rules of Page 5</i> set the stage for what to expect from WARMACHINE, as well as setting the tone for the book. It’s a black, sardonic wit that makes its points with a sledgehammer but never forgets where it’s from or what it’s about, calling back shades of the manliest speech <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i>. <sup>[3]</sup> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Five Rules</i> are:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thou Shalt Not Whine</b> –because nobody likes a whiner. WARMACHINE is a game about face-smashing aggression and bludgeoning your opponent senseless with steel and fire. Everything is broken. Everything is overpowered. Get over it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Come Heavy, Or Don’t Come At All</b> –WARMACHINE favors the aggressor. It’s not about turtling up in your base or camping your objectives –if you try, you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> lose. You’ve got to let it all hang out and take risks if you want to win. Try to play it safe and you’ll get ground into the dirt beneath your opponent’s four-ton iron heel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">3: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Give As Good As You Get</b> –A great man once said “it’s not about how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">get</i> hit and keep moving forward.” If the fight isn’t hard, if you’re not walking away from each and every one beaten black and blue, you’re not challenging up the ladder.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">4: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Win Graciously And Lose Valiantly</b> –You’re going to lose. In fact, you’re going to get beaten so hard you’ll be left reeling. Take it like a man, then dish it right back. Nobody likes a sore loser <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or</i> a sore winner, so whatever the outcome, respect your opponent for the accomplished competitor he or she is.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And finally, 5: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Page 5 Is Not An Excuse</b> –This is the big one. Page 5 is not license to be a jerk. Page 5 is not permission to be a jackass, to run the clock or game the scenario or rules lawyer your opponent to death. Page 5 isn’t about discrimination or bashing your opponent to inflate your own self-absorbed, petty little ego. If that’s how you get your rocks off, get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the hell</i> out of my game.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Page 5 is the spirit of competition, the spirit of fun. It’s not something you beat your opponent with and it’s never a shield to hide behind and if you try… you’ll get exactly what you deserve like a Juggernaut in a tube sock to the back of the head. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No quarter asked, no quarter given. Balls-out, all-or-nothing, fire-breathing, adrenaline-fuelled aggression, but always, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> tempered with that one singularly important thing: respect. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And all the whining, all the moaning about ‘OP’ this and ‘broken’ that and ‘unfair’ whatever among the GW community… I’m amazed I didn’t figure it out sooner. It’s so obvious. That’s what’s wrong with Warhammer. That’s what’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> been wrong with Warhammer. GW forums are stuffed to bursting with the latest unbeatable combo or power-play or gushing about the new uber-unit. Nobody cares about having a good fight, they only care about surgically-precise uncounterable wins. Nobody cares about taking an ancient, out-of-date army or unit and twisting it until it’s armor-plated, spiked death on wheels just to see if they can. Nobody cares about winning (or losing!) the bloodiest, most brutal fight imaginable. Nobody cares about whether or not either player had any fun.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s the same problem as every MMO I’ve ever played- the pursuit of perfection becomes such a priority that fun is left in the dust of the race to get to the next boss, the next piece of gear, the next shinier new mount or tabard or title.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s not what I play these games. That’s not why these games were meant to be played. Get in there! Take a beating! Give it back! Kick faces in! Have a blast!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And always.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Always.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Respect your opponent.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[1] see also; slave, servitor, punching bag</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[2] Yes, all caps. According to publisher Privateer Press, it’s a necessary function to contain all of the awesomeness of the game.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[3] </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmV13eB0fa0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">See here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. (NSFW profanity warning. Lots of it.)</span><o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-71830779862040525322010-09-24T13:46:00.000-07:002010-09-24T14:06:33.546-07:00Terminal (on Why Japan)I’m too young to really remember the ‘80s. I was only around for the last half of it anyway and very few of those days percolated through a young brain learning the basics of being a human. Brief flashes of locations, events that I’m not sure I actually remember so much as imagine, and a particular color of carpet that will immediately scream out its decade to any nearby observers.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Nonetheless, I am a child of the decade. Or at least I’m a child of the students of the decade, recalling flashes of the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Nihonjin</i>-owned future that we were all sure was one day going to sweep over us from the Far East in the west; faint, flickering images of a rain-soaked dystopian Los Angeles, voiceover courtesy of a young Harrison Ford, or skies above ports the color of television, turned to a dead channel.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most people I know now say the moment has passed, that the so-called Asian Invasion that the Eighties was so sure was in it’s Double-oughts never materialized. I say look around, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">omae</i>. We’re here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Twenty years on now from the heyday of the cyberpunk movement and it’s easy to think that greasy, burnt-out future was just the idle dreams of a generation that grew up without a defining cataclysm to call their own. While it’s hard to see it here among the local color palette (which consists primarily of evergreen, concrete and overcast), it’s less that we as a nation avoided the cross-cultural osmosis and more that it’s become invisible to us. We’re used to it. After all, we’ve been living with it for fifteen years now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My alarm goes off in the morning, and I hit the button that says “off” right next to the one (that doesn’t seem to actually do anything) that says “Sanyo” and get up. I grab my phone, a little black Sony video-enabled camera 3G smartphone with Bluetooth wi-fi that has no special capabilities whatsoever and came free with the service and shuffle toward the kitchen in search of breakfast. On the bulletin board nearby are tacked takeout menus from Himitsu Terikyaki and Kaiten Sushi –both roughly located between my present coordinates and destination for the day- and I foggily wonder if I have time to stop through one. The staff know me in both places, and I’ve apparently progressed past their usual hosting behavior and straight to a hearty <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“irrashimase!”</i> and the assumption that I know how to find a table and the fridge that they keep the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ramune</i> in on my own. They’re right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My Toyota pickup is obligingly named after my hometown and I once again find it funny that the logo –which symbolizes the mutually-beneficial trust between the company and customers as well as the “unlimited potential” of Toyota’s technology, gives me a vaguely Texan vibe, which is so far off the designer’s mark that the thought probably never entered the minds of the members of the Toyoda family who approved it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Later I talk with a friend about what shows he’s watching this fall. The usual fare: Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Bleach, Glee, High School of the Dead, Castle. I roll my eyes at the third one, calling it one of those mindless <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shounen</i> ‘action’ shows that roll on forever with the same plot recycled over and over again, he retorts with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gurren Lagann</i>, and has me soundly beaten –it’s everything I don’t like about the genre, and is totally awesome. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I trek to Holman and settle into a workstation, chuckling at an overheard <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">okomiyaki</i> joke told in what appears to be an impromptu <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">boke and tsukkomi </i>routine. The joke isn’t really funny, but the overdone, obviously-fake <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kansai-ben</i> is. I briefly wonder when I developed the ability to recognize the regional dialects of a language I don’t really speak. I briefly wonder when the giant fan is going to show up and when that became funny, too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A librarian accosts me ten minutes later because I’ve taken up a print station seat and am not printing, wanting to know if I can move. A clock tells me I need to be wandering toward class anyway, so I obligingly pack up. The student I’m being ousted in favor of gives me a polite bow by way of thanks/apology, which I return in reflex I thought I’d forgotten. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At home that evening a conversation turns to writing for an interactive environment and Kojima comes up as a prominent example of the do-anythingness often needed in that kind of work. The train of thought dies out and I settle down to watch the latest episode of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Keion</i> that aired an hour ago and should have propagated out to the video sites by now. It’s not subbed yet, but that’s okay. Subs take a day or two for the fast groups, and then it’s back to the usual game of hide-and-seek trying to find a version that Youtube hasn’t noticed and deleted yet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As the episode’s catchy, chart-topper of an end credits theme plays, I realize that only about half my day actually happened in English and that a recent line from a comic I read, “Yes, I’m so desperate to avoid you that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">walked</i> all the way here [to Yoyogi] from Den-en Chofu” is funny without having to look it up. The comic in question is one of DC’s top-selling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manga</i> titles, drawn by a Michigan-native and also selling fairly well in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What happened there? When did it happen? Sure, we didn’t get the perpetual rain and smog (well, LA did, but that’s not news), the evil all-powerful megacorporations (except for Google), the hyper-controlling fearmongering governments (debatably not counting the Obama Administration), the sensationalist scream-sheet tabloids replacing legitimate news (other than Fox), the mishmash pidgin street languages (except for Spanglish and Engrish), devastating natural disasters wiping out major population centers (besides New Orleans), the emergence of a mass consensual immersive hallucination virtual world and a functional economy that interfaces with the real world (not counting WoW), a tireless robotic workforce displacing human labor (oh wait…), rampant piracy and terrorism (er…), and massive man-made ecosystem-crushing disasters (other than Deep Horizon)…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Okay, so we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> living in a dystopian cyberpunk future. Not quite the one Gibson and <st1:city><st1:place>Sterling</st1:place></st1:city> and Scott envisioned for us, but give it time and we may yet get ourselves there.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So that’s why <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Even twenty years too late, it’s still the world’s default vision of the future, and it’s a future we’re closer to than we think, and growing larger in our world at an exponential rate, a kind of socio-cultural Moore’s Law. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So is <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region> going to take over the <st1:country-region><st1:place>US</st1:place></st1:country-region>? No. At least not without the <st1:country-region><st1:place>US</st1:place></st1:country-region> taking over <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region> in turn. We live in an era of instant worldwide communication that has done more to break down culture barriers than ever before. Physical borders mean less and less to the average human (if there is such a thing), since he can be in contact with anyone, anywhere in the world, all the time. He can instantly know the lunch special at his favorite restaurant in <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city> while he watches the live-streaming night life at a club in <st1:city><st1:place>Tokyo</st1:place></st1:city> while he buys a paper and his morning coffee in <st1:city><st1:place>Boston</st1:place></st1:city>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In 2001, Gibson observed in an article for Wired Magazine that <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s status as the “future” was because they’d been living in it for a century and a half. Another nine years has diluted that somewhat as western civilization catches up to them, but with that far mysterious –and yet strangely familiar- island nation coming out of the downward-swing of the economic cycle and we just nose-diving into it, they may leap ahead yet again. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People say cyberpunk as a counterculture and literary genre is dead. I say these people haven’t been to Shinjuku lately.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It didn’t take long for Stephenson’s so-called Metaverse to manifest in the real world in the form of Second Life, and it didn’t take much longer for Gibson’s prediction of an idealized virtual-construct popstar to manifest, either: Hatsune Miku’s recent live concert tour proves that. Now there’s talk of doing to the <st1:place><st1:placetype>Bay</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype>Bridge</st1:placetype></st1:place> exactly what he proposed in 1993’s <u>Virtual Light</u>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Picture a city in lights, towering glass and steel and neon looming over crowded streets that never empty. Picture the changing of the guard as the city moves from businesslike daytime efficiency to wild nightlife set to pounding synth-bass and retrofuturist sensibility straight out of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hackers</i>. Now, is it <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state> and <st1:city><st1:place>Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:city><st1:place>London</st1:place></st1:city> in your head, or is it <st1:city><st1:place>Tokyo</st1:place></st1:city> and <st1:place>Hong Kong</st1:place> and <st1:city><st1:place>Manila</st1:place></st1:city>?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Are you sure?<o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-29583880944408375552010-05-09T15:03:00.000-07:002010-05-09T15:04:58.582-07:00Cybele (on Ostensibly Singular Possessive)<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
It’s Mother’s Day in my little corner of the world, and in spite of the Midterms rush and a general dearth of interesting things to say, I’m going to take a few minutes and let my hands wander my (shiny, glowing) new keyboard on the topic.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are three prominent women in my life who are mothers. I won’t say they are prominent mothers –it is part of who they are, but not what defines them as people by any means. Two of them have children already grown up and moved on; the third still has a number of years to go before that post-18<sup>th</sup> silence settles back over her home. All three of them raised fantastic children, one of whom is quite literally the big sister I never had, and others who I hope to meet someday. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All three of these women have been a huge part of my life, and I cannot begin to thank any of them for the things they’ve done for me over the years –but by and by I’m going to try, today and the many May 9<sup>th</sup>s to come are but a small part of that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not big on holidays, generally. I feel that too many of them have become too commercialized and too easily thought of in terms of merchandising goals and sales quotas, the bottom line cutting into the meaning of the day itself. I don’t claim to be an expert on any of these things; I prefer rather to take a little bit of time out to reflect, to think –as I am now- on the people that are important to me and the things I value. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mother’s Day should, I think, be every day. All too often in the chaotic shuffle of life we forget the people that are dear to us, and none more so than our mothers, who from my observation have the most difficult, endless, thankless job on the planet. They deserve more than one day a year for all of that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve been lucky. I know more than a few people who don’t feel as I do about my mother, who were raised without theirs or wish they’d been. I’m ever thankful to have one who put as much heart and soul into raising me as she did, teaching me right and wrong and to always question, always think for myself (the greatest gift I think any parent can give their child). Two know two more women just as amazing makes me truly blessed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t have a lot more to say on the topic, so I’ll keep this brief and wrap up by saying to everyone out there: even if you’re not in a part of the world that celebrates the day, even if you’re in a part of the world that celebrates it on another day, take a couple of moments out of your day to thank your mother and the other mothers you know: they take a responsibility I can’t imagine bearing and make it look easy, all for the benefit of the next generation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some phone calls to make.</div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-72636722935687730722010-04-10T21:33:00.001-07:002010-04-10T21:54:01.701-07:00LAWS (on the Migratory Patterns of Modern Man)<o:smarttagtype name="City" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">I’m destined to become one of those crazy, wild-eyed extreme survivalist the-government-is-out-to-get-me types. I’m sure of it. One of these days, something is going to become the last straw and I’m going to calmly shut down my computer(s), turn off all the lights, grab by pre-prepared kit, sling a rifle over my shoulder and disappear into the mountains. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That, of course, is assuming the dam doesn’t go, or the mountain doesn’t pop, or the zompocalypse doesn’t spur it on a little earlier.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I avoid social networking sites. A blog is about as far as I’ll dive into the bizarro-world that is that particular aspect of the Wired. I’m well aware of what Facebook can do, and that somebody on Twitter scooped that 737 that went down in the <st1:city><st1:place>Hudson</st1:place></st1:city> a while back, and I respect the capabilities of these networks… I just want nothing to do with them.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m pleased with the fact that Google doesn’t know my real name, and that knowing my various handles simply leads one around in a recursive series of links that ultimately take you back to the beginning of your search. I don’t want people to be able to do to me what I’ve done in the past and, taking only a name and a city of residence, find the phone number and home address of a man whose kneecaps I’d not mind removing.<sup>[1]</sup></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Call it paranoid, call it groundless, call it whatever you like, but that’s how I feel on the matter. That’s part of why I’m here: apart from my little rant above about the “scene,” I’m also rather strongly against many of the other little things companies try in the course of their marketing schemes. Things like the mandatory ads that Livejournal implemented a few weeks back.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Okay; I get that advertising dollars is what allows sites to offer free services. I’m fine with that. But I can’t help but wonder how much more effective an undismissible, unskippable banner or video in the center of the screen really is compared to a simple banner across the top or down the side of the page. That’s what LJ started doing and it’s a large contribution to why I chose now to migrate to Blogger which, for the moment, has no such nonsense. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I understand I’m ranting for the sake of ranting on this one and breaking one of the core tenets I set before myself in using this space, but it’s frakking annoying.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s damaging, too. I know more than a few people who’ve flunked out of school or gotten in trouble at or fired from their jobs because of too much time spent obsessively playing Farmville and not enough time, y’know, <i>working</i>. It’s as bad as the doomsayers would have you believe WoW is.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I just don’t get the appeal. So, if you’re plodding along one day in the future and think to yourself <i>hey, whatever happened to that Straylight guy? He just kinda up and vanished…</i> well, all you’ll need to do is think back to this post, and you’ll know.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, by then we could be in the middle of a nightmarish invasion of the living dead<sup>[2]</sup>, so your mileage may vary on that one. C’est la vie!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1] – despite how that sounds, I did actually have a legitimate reason for looking the man up. Come to think of it, <i>n</i> of you still owe me a favor for that one, where <i>n</i> is an integer greater than one. You know who you are, you know what I want, you know how to get it to me. Pay up, kids.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[2] – Rule #2 is my favorite. Teehee.</span><o:p></o:p></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-38203660800653062922010-04-02T21:06:00.001-07:002010-04-03T16:37:59.977-07:00Revolutions (on Screw You, Buddy)<o:smarttagtype name="City" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="State" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="date" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">In a couple of hours it’ll be my birthday. That… stopped being a big event for me about ten years ago, and it’s become quite just-another-day-ish since I finally ticked up over that last legal age limit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Honestly, hitting the quarter-century mark is probably the least of my concerns at the moment, but since I only get to do it once, I figured I’d at least commemorate the occasion by <s>getting completely smashed </s>looking back over the last 25 years at some of the things that have led me to where I am now, and some of the things that the April 3rds throughout history have brought the world (other than me).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">9,130 days ago, on a rainy Wednesday evening, I was born. I’m told my first action was not to cry, as many newborn do, but rather to open my eyes and, silently, look around. I joined the world about an hour after sunset in a room overlooking the southern reaches of <st1:place>Puget Sound</st1:place>. I drive past the hospital occasionally and I can still pick out the room’s window from I-5.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was, by all accounts, a fairly ordinary day in western <st1:state><st1:place>Washington</st1:place></st1:state>. While I haven’t had the Michael Bay-directed explosion-fest that some of my friends’ lives were, I think I’ve led a fairly interesting existence so far. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Twenty years ago, the world was steaming implacably into the last decade of the millennium and I was getting my first taste of the larger world: the holidays in <st1:country-region><st1:place>Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region> with my grandparents. I got an NES for Christmas, though at the time it was still called Famicom. Both were omens of things to come. I blame those two weeks for turning me into both a gamer and an anime fan.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fifteen years ago, I learned what pinballs felt like, bouncing and springing from one end of the country to another before eventually coming to land, some thirteenish years ago, on <s>Bugs Bunny’s inevitable desert island </s>Oahu, HI. So began a decade of tropical exile. I don’t miss much but the food and one or two people. I’m from <st1:city><st1:place>Seattle</st1:place></st1:city>: I’m waterproof, windproof, and Vulnerable 5 Radiant.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime during the Pinball Years I picked up a Trumpet for the first time, and that battered little King (and the Yamaha and Besson that followed it) are probably responsible for more of who I am today than anything else. Nine years of music rehearsals and performances instilled in me some things I can’t adequately describe, but the clear, soaring sound of a horn never fails to put me in a good mood.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">High School was an amazing period and lots of incredible things happened; I learned an incredible amount. Not a single one of the important moments happened in a classroom. Friends came and went. My poor little King died heroically. I adopted an orphaned Yamaha; upgraded to a fine French Besson. I still have all three. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">About twelve years ago, I met a mischievous catgirl named Maab (see Dramatis Personae) when she asked me to pass her that year’s Merriam-Webster. We hung out, became friends, split up, drifted apart, ran into each other, grew up, reconnected, became more than friends. That all took years. We’re getting married next summer. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ten years ago I was a participant in the Tournament of Roses Parade in <st1:place><st1:city>Pasadena</st1:city>, <st1:state>CA</st1:state></st1:place> on <st1:date day="1" month="1" year="2000">January 1, 2000</st1:date>. Two years after that I was a participant, a year after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC. I screwed up drill on live national television in both.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Five years ago I returned “home” from my tropical exile. A year later I turned 21 and didn’t get wasted on my birthday. I got a handgun for Christmas.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A year ago I got caught up in a stupid political game my company was playing and got axed as a result. The economy took a nose dive; I managed not to starve.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Four months ago I decided I was fed up with doing what I was doing and went back to school. I felt better than I had in a long time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tomorrow, I’m going to catch up on the homework that a tire blowout and a sick day cost me, and hit the first week of April running.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On April 3<sup>rd</sup>…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1043: Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1593: poet George Herbert is born,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1783: author Washinton Irving is born,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1860: The Pony Express begins service,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1922: Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the <st1:place>Soviet Union</st1:place>,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1924: Marlon Brando and Doris Day are born,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1958: Alec Baldwin is born,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…1961: Eddie Murphy is born.</div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-29973308500072053302010-03-21T23:39:00.000-07:002010-04-29T00:55:00.023-07:00Thermodynamics (on Friends)<style>
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</style><o:p></o:p><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[note: for appropriate musical accompaniment of this piece, the author recommends “Wish Me Well (Go To Hell)” by The Bouncing Souls.]<o:p></o:p></span></i> <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Friends are troublesome things. They make demands of us that would seem ridiculous from anyone else, and we largely put up with it because… they’re friends? We tolerate their antics for reasons I suspect few people could articulate; I know I can’t. We exert energy on them; they exert energy on us, and somehow the entire system holds itself up.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Friends, for all the long suffering we generally endure because we’ve decided these people are important to us, can sometimes repay the demands they put on our time and resources by expending their own on our behalf. The benefits having friends in the right places can provide are remarkable and what often seems like “luck” is more often having resourceful people on your side.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this isn’t about the benefits of friends.<br />
<a name='more'></a>This is about what happens when they leave. It is the crux of my last couple of weeks, because speaking of luck, mine’s what you’d describe as “extreme.” With me, it’s feast or famine; drought or deluge. There is no middle ground. So, when I’m fighting off a cold and buried up to my ears in a project with a short deadline that will not come together in a manner that pleases me, that is, of course, the moment one of my friends decides it’s time to slam a proverbial door in my face.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Really, this has happened often enough that it should no longer surprise me, but it manages to catch me off-guard every time it happens. It’s my own fault, I suppose: I was once told a cynic is a person who knows exactly how beautiful the world can be and refuses to settle for anything less… which means I tend to put a lot of stock in people I’m actually willing to call friends <sup>[1] [2]</sup>, which usually leaves me at a bit of a loss when they decide it’s time to take a powder.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve lost friends before. I’m sure I’ll lose more in the future. Life’s a revolving door, and often people step into your life with no warning… and leave it just as abruptly. Sometimes you move half a world away; sometimes you get hit by a bus. Sometimes it’s a decision you make; sometimes it’s one that gets made for you.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some of them think they’re doing me a favor; protecting me from some horrible fate or sparing me a waste of time. Most of them think their sudden absence is going to utterly crush my world, forever leaving a gaping hole in my life where they used to be. Dramatic, I know, but that’s what I get (extremist, remember?).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve yet to have any of them realize how wrong they all are. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Friends come and go. It doesn’t matter how close they thought they were: when they go; they go. I might be upset for a couple of days because they’ve still got my X-Box or because the RPG we were in gets canned, but I’ll get over it, break out the PS3, find a new game to play. I don’t have time for long regrets, and I don’t have time for absolutes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I don’t like are ultimatums <sup>[3]</sup>. I’ve never reacted well when people tell me I “can’t” something. “Can’t” do that. “Can’t” go there. “Can’t” be friends… I think not.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Can’t? That’s either a challenge or an insult. If you want me to tip my hat and ride off into the sunset, <i>don’t</i> tell me I don’t have a choice, because that’s the last thing I’ll do. If you want a quiet exit, make a quiet exit or ask me politely. By the same turn, if it’s a war you want, have the courtesy to say so. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is becoming a rant, and ultimatums are really a topic I should save for a rainy day (Rainy day? Hah! Annual <st1:city><st1:place>Seattle</st1:place></st1:city> Rain Festival: Jan. 1<sup>st</sup> to Dec. 31<sup>st</sup>), so I’ll cut this short here and get to work on the <s>Dramatis Personae</s> Rogue’s Gallery. Ta.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1] – “Friend” is actually a spectrum, with only the top bit actually deserving the name. In roughly ascending orders, the others are: Minions, Scapegoats, Porch Monkeys, Couch Monkeys (also Dish Monkeys), Mafia, and Accomplices. There is a super-category that exists above the standard scale, but it is currently unoccupied.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[2] – In whatever form they may take. The nature of technology means that “community” is the people you associate with, not the people you live near; and physically boundaries have become almost entirely meaningless. Friends can be text on a screen as easily as flesh and blood, and I see no difference between the two.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[3] – Tell your silly chook that I’ve never been a threat to him or what he wanted and had. Hell, I’ve been <i>encouraging</i> him for years. He ought to be smart enough to figure that out, but sometimes people need to be reminded of the obvious. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-27542217971163696122010-03-19T19:33:00.000-07:002010-03-19T19:41:40.034-07:00Encounters (on life, 1d4 hours at a time)<style>
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Well, I suppose there’s no point in delaying the admission that I’m a gamer of all stripes, since a good portion of this blog’s contents is going to be devoted to my hobbies. So without further ado:<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Wizards of the Coast’s new “D&D Encounters” events, which is an all-comers Organized Play series where players gather once a week and play a single encounter in an ongoing adventure.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I signed up for and attended the opening night of adventure –into the Forgotten Realms’ famed Undermountain- at Uncle’s Games in Southcenter Mall, and the event was a huge hit! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">WotC’s own Chris Tulach ran and organized the event at Uncle’s, and the store had 42(!) players spread across seven(!) tables, far exceeding both the space available as well as the number of available DMs. The WotC people had to recruit two new DMs on-site and Chris himself ended up having to run his group out in the mall itself, since the store had filled up all of its available table space!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, and they bribed us with cupcakes, because fifty-odd sugar-buzzed gamers packed into one place always makes for an entertaining evening. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, I’ve heard some of the naysayers about this new program; how it’s doomed to failure, how it’s just more money-grubbing from WotC <sup>[1]</sup>; how nobody is going to care about it. There has been a notably mixed reaction to the idea out in the Wired and even on WotC’s own community site. It seems that a lot of people, or at least the vocal minority, aren’t too pleased with the idea.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To all of those people, I say: put your money where your mouth is, fellas! Grab some dice, roll a character, and come on down. Sign ups at Uncle’s start at <st1:time hour="18" minute="30">6:30</st1:time> and the dice hit the table at 7. If you’re not on my slice of the world, then give your FLGS a call and see if they’re running D&D Encounters (and if they aren’t, ask them why not!).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our DM for the first night was Chad Brown, an imposing but friendly fellow in an official-looking “DUNGEON MASTER” shirt. Credit where due: the man knew his stuff. Throwing down an entertaining adventure for six complete strangers, two of whom hadn’t even played 4<sup>th</sup> Edition before, is no easy task, and Brown proved he’d earned the shirt by doing exactly that, keeping the 4e veterans like myself entertained while giving quick, clear explanations to the newbies. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our group took just over 90 minutes to finish the night’s encounter, a back-alley brawl against a gang of thieves and ruffians, and we were the first of the seven tables to finish up. Part of that was the group: Four of us knew each other and we had prearranged to have all four of 4e’s roles covered<sup> [2]</sup>. Both of the table’s walk-ons ended up bringing Warlords, giving us a triple-threat of leaders with which to crush the encounter. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t contribute much to the fight itself, unfortunately, since my dice decided it was a good time to take a night off and I found myself unable to roll above a 7 on any of my attacks, but that happens from time to time and I think my peppering everything in the area <i>except</i> the bad guys with arrows only added to the entertainment of the game.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was refreshing to be able to just jump into the action for once without having to worry about any of the usual minutiae of playing or running a D&D game. The short-form style of Encounters is designed to be easy to get into and easy to enjoy: show up, roll dice, have fun. The bite-sized experience is different in a fun way, and I’m looking forward to more.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t speak much on the long-term plans WotC has for this first “Season” of Encounters or whatever may follow it since I haven’t honestly looked into it much, but I hope things continue to be as awesome as Tulach and his crew made the opening night. Most of the downers I’ve heard about Encounters have had to do with its format or the mechanics and organization behind it… but screw all that. I had fun, my table had fun, and from the roaring laughter and high-fives emanating from the rest of the room, so did everyone else. That’s what really counts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">*</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Okay! That’s enough of that for now. It’s time to take a short rest, refresh my encounter powers, and spend a couple of healing surges. I’ll be writing more about my experiences at D&D Encounters as the 12-week season continues on, so stay tuned! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it bears repeating: If you can get to Uncle’s Games Southcenter Mall (upper level, near JC Penny) on Wednesday nights at <st1:time hour="18" minute="30">6:30</st1:time>, come join us! If you can’t, then give a call to your favorite gaming store and see if they’re hosting the event as well. I guarantee you’ll have fun.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1] – D&D Encounters rewards players for using the subscription-based D&D Insider services as well as for using material from new-release books like the PHB 3, encouraging players to purchase them. The awesomeness that is Insider is worthy of a future post itself, but suffice to say that my gaming supplies now consists of nothing but a laptop and dice! I’m also a fan of psionics in D&D, so the PHB 3 was a no-brainer for me. It’s hardly money-grubbing if the products and services they offer are things I was going to buy anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">[2] – If you don’t know, D&D 4<sup>th</sup> Edition has divided classes up into four “roles,” based on their function within the adventuring party: Defenders are front-line bruisers who are tough to avoid and can punish enemies who attack their allies; Strikers are high-mobility skirmishers who specialize on laying down heavy firepower in melee or at range; Controllers are masters of battlefield manipulation capable of inflicting crippling effects on their enemies and directing the flow of the battle; and Leaders are inspiring healers dedicated to bolstering the effectiveness of their allies. A well-rounded adventuring party has at least one of each role.</span></span>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4813261999754261958.post-63610639310474572582010-03-19T17:57:00.001-07:002010-03-19T19:38:36.584-07:00Inauguration (on Perspective)<div style="text-align: left;"><style>
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</style> </div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s the middle of March, and the quarter at school has just ended. It went well as an exercise in reestablishing long-disused patterns of thought and behavior.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t really know if I’m old enough to claim the perspective of “looking back,” but I like to think I’m a bit wiser than I was at 18. I know a little more about the world, and a little more about myself. I don’t claim to know <i>a lot</i> about either. I’m still learning how to handle my life, and hopefully I’m making better decisions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">A lot has changed since that whirlwind summer of ’03. We as a world have finished (or are about to finish, depending on your calendar) the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century and the world around us has gotten a lot smaller thanks to places exactly like this. Here in America, we’ve ended a war, started another, ridden the wave of an economical high as it crested and then been dumped face-first onto the hard-packed beaches of recession. We’ve come up with some good analogies, and some bad ones. We’ve inaugurated our first nonwhite President. We’ve inaugurated our first openly nerd President.<sup>[1]</sup></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I, too, have changed some. I’ve fallen in love, been heartbroken, moved on; fallen in love again. I’ve succeeded, I’ve failed; I’ve learned a lot from both. I’ve made friends, I’ve lost friends. I’ve hardened some against the cruelties of the world, but I’ve also decided that nothing –no person, no thing and no event- is worth losing the ability to see the beauty in the world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Above all, I endure. I go on and live, because that is the greatest revenge to those who have wronged me, and the greatest thanks to those who have helped me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perspective is a funny thing. We don’t have it until after we need it, and it often comes from an unexpected quarter. The things that can change our perspective are often the little things, the personal things, rather than the huge world-shaking events that are easy for an individual to ignore because our perspective isn’t large enough to accommodate it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perspective is ever-changing, too, often in a way too subtle for us to notice. Experience piles up and things change, little by little. It’s a rare event that forces us to peer through the looking glass and evaluate ourselves –most people are afraid to look, fearing what they might learn as the truth about themselves. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Am I, at the midpoint of my second decade of life, old enough to claim to have a wise perspective? Probably not, but I’ve at least learned enough to know how little I’ve really learned, and that counts for something.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For now, I’m making progress. I’m learning, I’m sorting things out, and I’m headed in a direction I like. Time will tell if I walk that path alone or with companions, but either way, it’s high time I hit the metaphorical road.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1] - Obama's not a terrorist, oh no. He's something much worse. He's posed in front of the White House with a lightsaber, joked about the dilithium crystals on his wife's belt, and is reportedly a dust-covers-and-backboards comic book collector. Obama is a nerd. Obama is One Of Us.</span></div>Straylighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12256093063139081832noreply@blogger.com0