A New Game

My wife created a new game last night, one I found to be fun and a great exercise in creativity. (Of course, the pressure of making her laugh mounted as the game went on).

It's simple. One person names an animal or fish. The other person chooses what activity that animal likes best to participate in. Examples:

Kitties play banjos.
Octopi like to play poker.
Kangaroos know kung fu.
Yaks play the harmonica and occasionally the spoons.

And so on. Continue until one side cannot think of an animal/fish or the other side can't think of a fun activity. Or just laugh until it's time to turn out the light and go to sleep. That's my favorite outcome.

PATV

My friend Luke introduced me to Penny Arcade many years ago and it didn't click. I didn't have an X-Box and my Playstation 1 was gathering dust. I didn't get any of their jokes.

But one day in 2005 we're hanging out in his room and his screensaver is a composite of his favorite PA strips (at that time) and they were funny as hell! We went through the whole thing twice and laughed every time. So I started reading the strip regularly and have continued to do so for six years now. And of course, now I have an X-Box 360 that does not gather dust (thanks to Bioware and Valve) and I get more (but not all) of the jokes.

To continue the trend, I didn't key in on Penny Arcade TV right away. I figured it would be lame self-promotion. It turned out to be awesome self-promotion! Self-promotion has a bad stigma to it, but really this is how you want to promote your product. It's an exploration of character and voice and craft. It's funny and endearing and at the end you really wish you worked there too.

Witness Protection is Always Funny

Necessary backstory: Every Monday in Nashua is a board-game Meet Up. This is how I met most of my friends when I moved to New England. I showed up thinking it would be three nerds playing Ticket to Ride and it turned out to be twenty awesome people (many of them nerds--like me) playing Ticket to Ride and a slew of other games.1

Among this group of players is Hal. Four and a half years later, I can say that I know Hal's name and what he does for a living. This was not true for the first two years. Though he showed up every week and we frequently sat at the same table together, the only thing I knew about him was that his name was Hal. It took me over a year to find out he came from Pepperell, MA, but we still didn't know his last name or what he did for a living.

This closely guarded information with a group of people one associates with every week can mean only one thing. Hal is in witness protection!2 This became a long-standing joke that Hal had some kind of secret information about the mob that took him from some life elsewhere and deposited him in northern New England where he played board games and didn't tell anyone anything about himself. Because if he did...HE MIGHT DIE!!!

This leads to last night's discussion. My wife and my friend Britt were discussing another person who we had known for awhile but knew almost nothing about despite efforts to the contrary. What does this mean? She's in witness protection as well!

Odd, don't you think, that two people in witness protection would be so close to one another. You'd think they'd want to space those people out so the mob doesn't stumble on all the people it wants to kill at the same time. They must be close by for a reason. What reason would witnesses have to hang out together. It's summer. It must be time for the witness protection softball league!

Just imagine, you go to the local baseball diamond for your own night of sports and fun and you play a team that spends as much time looking at the stands as they do their opposition. What's stranger is that all their jerseys have the name Smith on the back.

Weird.


1 When we say board games, we're not talking about Monopoly or something. You may have heard of Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride and those are old stalwarts. New board games are published so frequently that it is easy to say that someone can show up with a new game every week. A few members (also including me) have designed games of their own. Thurn and Taxis, Gonzaga, Dominion, Seven Wonders, Letters to Whitechapel, Tomb, Bohnanza, Wits and Wagers and on and on.

2 Appropriately known as witness security, but since he's not actually in witsec--that I know of!--we'll go with the classic witness protection

Feline Masters



There are many reasons why I prefer cats over dogs. Many many reasons. Today's reason is because their genius knows no limit. We have three cats, an old man and a brother and sister we adopted a year and a half ago. The young boy fancies himself the king of the jungle and regularly mauls a string I run in circles for him.

Alas, I was unavailable yesterday and his sister wanted to play too. So the young buck (heretofore known as Wolfgang) took his string in mouth, hopped up on the kitchen table, and dangled it over the side. The young lass (heretofore known as Jitterbug) then proceeded to play string with him, no humans involved.

This level of complex thought staggers me. Truly they will rule the world some day.

Oh, you're a writer?

I stopped telling people I write fantasy unless they directly ask what I write. Even then, they get that masked look on their face like they're trying their damndest to hide their disdain. That or they had a sudden bout of diarrhea they were fending off.

Any more, really, I don't like telling people I'm a writer at all. Unless I'm around other writers (and even then the dick measuring can be tiresome). The first thing people ask is whether you've written something they've read. No, because it hasn't been published yet. Then how are you a writer? Well, sir, that is an oft discussed topic and one I do not care to repeat with someone who doesn't really care but is only making small talk.

What I don't mind telling them is that I work for a publisher. I do and have been in the industry for 8+ years now. I know my craft well. BUT the first thing I have to stipulate is that I'm not in acquisitions because the first thing people say when you tell them you work for a publisher is that they have a book idea.

It's always an idea too, never a book. "I have this book I've been trying to get published." If only. "I have this idea. Maybe I could give it to you and someone could write it." Yeah, you've read plenty of other posts that properly enumerates our disdain for such comments. I won't repeat them here.

BUT, last week, I got the comments to beat all comments. There is a crazy guy that comes into Jackie's that they've dubbed El Grosso. Once he leaves, they put on rubber gloves and clean his spot at the counter, his chair, and everything near where he sat. He doesn't look crazy when he first comes in, but once he sits for a bit, he starts...leaking. Dirty tissues every, a pool of syrup on the plate the ducks could swim on, and so many other nasties that I won't bother telling you about because really, his name tells you all you need to know.

Well he asks me a question the other day. It's a closed question. Question. Answer. I know it. I tell it to him. I don't extrapolate but return to my book. Speaking to him, however, turns out to be the only invitation he needed. And now we're off to the races! Oh I work in publishing? Yes but not in acquisitions. I have a book idea. Of course you do. I work in educational publishing. We do textbooks. Oh, it could be a textbook. You'll certainly learn something if you read it. You'll learn about life!

They have that class in college? I don't think it was offered at my school.

So I have this book idea, but I'm just too lazy to write it. (At least he's honest.) You could publish it (the idea or the book? I don't think anyone will buy a printed idea). You work in Boston. I'd like to go to Boston. It would be a lot better than here. I thought about going to Oxford and giving them my book. They're smart over there. But you're here, so I'll let you publish it if you want.

I don't publish. I build the media that goes along with the textbooks. Websites, ebooks, that kind of thing.

But you know someone. Not really. You gotta know someone. I should just go over to Oxford. I could study there. Learn a lot of stuff.

Listen. You're a writer. Do you know any good universities in Las Vegas?


And I swear, not a thing of that is made up.

GOO! (Re: Fraggle Rock)

I was cycling through the new offerings on Netflix for instant streaming. They just closed a lot of big deals and there is a lot of new content. And what do I find? Fraggle Rock. Not just a few episodes, oh no. ALL OF IT. ALL. OF. IT!!!!

This almost makes up for the time I missed the Amazon sale of the entire series for $20. My inner child is so happy he could weep. Time to go watch Cantus and the traveling minstrels!

Impacted: A Meme

A forum I frequent started a meme today. Write as a scene a memory that informed your life. My response was a little longer than I felt appropriate for a forum, so I decided to put it here instead.

He liked watching the numbers. Elevators weren't as fun as escalators, but at least they showed you the numbers as you moved up the floors. For this reason, Joe was very frustrated that his sisters kept pushing him behind them.

"I want to see," he said for the third time. He tried to wedge his way between them, but they being twice his size simply pressed their hips together and trapped him in the rear.

"You can't. We have to keep you hidden," one of his sisters said. Joe bristled at this. Why did they need to keep him hidden? Had he done something wrong? Were they ashamed of him?

"Why?"

"Because you're a little kid and little kids have germs. You could get people sick, and they could die. You're not allowed to be here."

His bristling turned to outright offense. They were making that up so they could keep him from watching the numbers go up. A kid couldn't make someone die just by being there. Were they suggesting he was going to hurt someone? He wasn't going to hurt anyone. It wasn't his idea to come here. They brought him along and now they were being mean and lying to him.

"If I'm not allowed to be here then why am I here?"

"Because Dad is here."

Dad had been sick for a long time. He and Mom had been gone. She had come back, but he was here. If he was sick and little kids could kill sick people then the last thing they should be doing is bringing him here. Hadn't anyone thought of that until now? How was the three year old the smartest person in the elevator?

Joe struggled away from them, not like t here was anywhere to go. An elevator wasn't an escalator. He couldn't just walk down the stairs backward. The doors opened and someone put a hand on his back, ushering him out. This was clearly a bad idea. He willed someone--anyone--to realize what a bad idea this was, but no one said anything. He didn't say anything.

A nurse met them in the lobby and told them where to go. She bent over to talk to Joe in that voice adults use to speak to little kids because they assume they're stupid. He hated that voice. She told him that he was a lucky boy. Most children weren't allowed to come here. He just needed to make sure if he had to sneeze that he cover his mouth with both hands.

Lucky lady? My dad is sick, I'm a walking death sentence, and they're taking me right to him. How is that luck?

He didn't say anything. He just nodded and followed his sisters down the hall.

GOO! (RE: He-Man)

I often site the original He-Man mini-comics that came with the toys as one of the largest influences of my writing career. It's very true. I was five when I was allowed to buy my first He-Man figure and those comics stirred a creativity in me that I had never known before.

...AND NOW THEY'RE ONLINE!!!!!!!!!!!

You must go read them all right now. Then you will want to write fantasy too!

The site is alphabetical. They're better in order of release. Here are the first four when He-Man was more Conan and less television cartoon product:

I'm a Back!

Hey ho! I had some roll-over vacation that had to be used by the end of the month and PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) East happened in Boston this past weekend. Serendipty! I gathered some friends and experienced my first video game convention.

This was not my first convention. I love role playing and was actively involved in the RPGA (role playing gamers association), writing adventures, playing games, and even organizing conventions of my own. What I learned this weekend is that I'm an old man. Skipping meals, not drinking water, staying up until 3 in the morning? Yeah, that's a young man's game.

I did have some genuine days off. Most of that time was spent playing Mass Effect/Mass Effect 2 (again, I'm getting ready for Mass Effect 3 to release later this year). I did go out to breakfast and revise JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. I should be done with that draft by the end of the week...just in time for Beta Feedback! Wheeeeeeeeee!

I'm going to write up a full con review for The Way of the Game podcast, so I won't get into it any further. I'll let you know when it's up. Also, if you've never listened to the PodgeCast, I was one of the founding hosts. Though I've been gone for awhile now, this week's episode (#131) was AWESOME. You might not get it if you haven't listened to the show, so the best solution there is to listen to the archives and then listen to 131. I actually laughed out loud. Podcasts are hard pressed to get me to laugh at all, much less out loud.

I'm still kind of worn out. Add in the daylight savings time switch, and I feel pretty jet lagged even though I didn't fly anywhere. I'm also still grinding through emails. 250 down, plenty yet still to go.

So what about you peoples? What kind of hobbies do you partake in when you're not writing?

NOTE: If you have no hobbies to fill time when you're not writing, this is bad. You need more in your life than just work and writing. Find something to do and do it. If you need a primer, I will assign you a hobby. Just comment below.

The Five As



So after a very direct post telling you to publish for the money, I turn around and say I'm not in publishing for the money. ...okay, I'm not only in publishing for the money, and I doubt you are either. I've been a long-time fan of George Carlin and even got to see him for my birthday in 2001. I prefer his earlier work, that time when he was first really hot, going on Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson1. He did more intelligent humor and less antagonistic humor, which was the trademark of his '80s and '90s work.

He spoke of his progressive school in some of those early jokes but never the Five As. You have to watch toward the end of the video, but as soon as I saw it, I thought, YES! That is why I am publishing!2

  • Attention
  • Approval
  • Admiration
  • Approbation3
  • Applause


1 I also prefer Johnny Carson from that age. Really, I'm just a sucker for Golden and Silver Age comedy. The straight man/clown dichotomy is the source of my very dry humor. To this day I sometimes have to wave my hand above my head so that my wife knows I'm joking. You can imagine how hard it is for me to be funny over the internet.

2 And much like Carlin, if my mother ever read the kind of stories I wrote, she would only approve of it if the church said she could. She always wanted me to be a priest. ...yeah, that didn't work out so much.

3 And if you actually knew what that word meant or took the time to look it up, yes, one of the five As is the definition for one of the other five As. Carlin was a rebel like that4.

4 According to the wiktionary, approbation and approval have the same general meaning, but approbation is considered stronger and more positive. ...like Carlin's earlier work5

5 See what I did just there? Bring it full circle, baby. That's writing!

Vick--Vickie Vale! Vickie Vale!

When I was younger, I loved comic books. Loved them. My friend Jeremy introduced them to me at the beginning of high school and there began a brief obsession with the funnybooks. I won't say that I grew out of them, because that's condescending and inaccurate. There are still books I enjoy even though I don't buy comics any more (Atomic Robo is always the first book I recommend to people interested in seeing what a quality comic book is like).

In most comics, especially the mainstream ones written by an incredibly inbred cadre of writers (meaning that they just move from book to book without adding new blood, not that they themselves are actually inbred), too much of it is written to appeal to the teenage mindset. When Batwoman was introduced as the new main character of Detective Comics, the fact that she was a lesbian was addressed in a way that not only made me less sympathetic to the character (she blamed the victim card to win an argument in her own internal monologue!) but pulled me out of the story because she's unlike any real-life lesbian I know.

More over, I find 22 pages limiting to tell a story, especially when the pacing needs to be kept up and the story needs to be refreshed so that everything feels new (it's hard to get new readers into a comic that numbers in the 600s).

I bring this up not because today's post is about comics (though obviously it is now), but because I want you to understand why I don't like Tim Burton's rendition of Batman. I needed to preface all that because Burton is one of those people (like Gaiman) that has a fanatical fan base. Say you don't like Tim Burton's work and people freak out. I like some movies (Nightmare Before Christmas, Big Fish, etc.) but his Batman incarnations are particularly frustrating. Sure everyone likes the first one, but they like it because it so perfectly encapsulated the '80s, not because it was a good Batman flick. Other than the selection of Michael Keaton as Batman (who looked just like the comic's Bruce Wayne at the time), I just don't care for it (Kevin Smith's comment that Tim told him he had never read a comic book of any kind was particularly telling).

Now, after all that backstory, the reason why I bring this all up, is that because when I'm browsing Twitter or some other online gathering place and I see a picture of a particularly attractive woman, I think to myself "Stop the press! Who is this?" and stop scrolling.

I did not realize I was doing it until I caught myself doing it this weekend on two different occasions. I don't blame the movie so much as I blame the first season of Chuck which included that joke and is a thousand times better than Tim Burton's Batman movies.

(This post had no footnotes in them because Nate Wilson used them all in his blog post today.)

Another Selby Invitational

Saturday was another Selby Invitational. Winter is a hard time to gather friends and this was no different. We had a number of last-minute cancellations due to illness. Regardless, there were nine of us in all, allowing for some larger fun party games and some smaller games.

Telestrations made another appearance. If you're looking for a good party game, this is your go to option. Take Pictionary and cross it with Operator/Telephone and let the laughs ensue. I marveled this time around at some words that deviated drastically and actually managed to make it back to their original word. How did you get Butterfly from Zombie Death Ninja?!?!

7 Wonders was introduced to yet more players. For the first time ever, this did not yield an immediate replay. Usually new players go through three games before looking for something else to play. That's okay, though. Both because I lost and because we got to learn more games.

I learned Pente, which my friend Britt introduced me to. That's a quick, fun, cerebral game.

I also had a rematch on Gobblet. When I taught my friend Hal how to play, we had an intense match, the longest I had ever had up to that point. He defeated me in our first game and I swore revenge and revenge I had! ...after losing again. Our last game saw every piece on the board. It was intense, but I persevered.

I got to try a few new games too, both of which had sinking themes (perhaps we're planning ahead for when all this snow melts). One you were playing rats trying to get off a sinking ship. The other you're treasure hunters trying to get off a sinking island. This latter is from the same guy that made Pandemic. I think it's the better of the two, honestly. It's not SO geared to make you lose like Pandemic frustratingly is.

And of course, along with the games, we had delicious food (olive crustini, parmasean pastry puffs, Swedish meatballs, Helluva good dip, vegetables, and others) and wonderful friends. We do it once a quarter (else we break our grocery budget) and it's a wonderful experience very time.

I hope you had a good weekend too. (That was Saturday. Sunday I quite literally sat around in my robe all day reading Peter V. Brett's THE WARDED MAN. I'll probably post about that book soon.)

Cheating at Dreaming

Monday night I dreamed that I was selected for the first New Hampshire HUNGER GAMES. This was not an event to celebrate Suzanne Collins' popular YA trilogy. This was a handful of people being send into the wilderness of New Hampshire to fight to the death until only one remained.

There were some differences between this dream Hunger Games and the literary reality. Obviously we had not risen up against a capital established after the collapse of the United States. Also, we were able to equip ourselves from a selection of various items before going into the arena (unlike the book where all the equipment was in the arena). There were only 4-6 contestants total rather than the 24 of the various districts. And most noticeably, the book existed in this dream world. This gave me a significant advantage because it turned out I was the only one who read the book and thus truly appreciated just how dangerous this thing we were going into would be.

I got a backpack full of various survival goods, water, rations, sleeping bag, tent, and as a weapon, I got...a pick axe. Don't ask me why. There weren't any guns or bows or knives. I don't even think this was meant to be a weapon. It was with the rest of the survival gear.

We are dropped into our arena, which is simply the forested White Mountains of New Hampshire. It's dark, night is already on us, and everyone scatters in different directions. Not much occasion for a melee if there's no cornucopia and only six total contestants. Everyone goes off to find a place to camp and rest so we can start fighting tomorrow when the sun comes up.

What? That's crazy. This thing has started. None of them understand, which means I have an even greater advantage. No one is hunting me. I move along a valley looking for the most advantageous spot when I see a field to my left. Dead center with no trees or cover or anything, one of the other contestants has set up a tent. There's a lantern on inside and I can see him/her moving about. Seriously? This one is going to be easy. My pick will go right through the tent. (S)He won't even know I'm there until it's over.

I make for the field and that's when I hear something behind me. I turn around and see what I think is another contestant--though she looks a lot like the little girl from "The Ring," white shirt, white pants, hair hanging over her face. And much like the girl from "The Ring," she shuffles when she walks but does so at extreme speeds. There's a cool little sound effect (this is a dream after all) and she's right in front of me!

Oh no, she's a Muttation (the stupidest word from that entire trilogy--seriously, they can still be called Mutts as a shortening of Mutation)! I lunge at her with my pick at the same time she comes at me. I only hit her in the shoulder with the haft.

My dream freezes. I am annoyed that I didn't just kick this mutt's ass. That was going to be a glorious overcoming of fear and surprise to show that I was destined to be the victor but instead I just whacked her on the shoulder with a piece of wood. How lame is that?

So I rewind my dream and react a few seconds earlier, sinking the head of my pick axe through the soft part of the mutt's shoulder. That's right, I cheat in my dreams.

(My dreams, my rules!)