Wings Over the Pyre

06:28 pm - [Meme] Godhead

Your result for The Mythological God Test...

Anubis

I think that seems reasonable. I'm certainly up for judging the dead this week.

Current Mood: sick

06:52 am - Passages of the Mad

I think I may have just done something either immesurably mad or incredibly genius, and I can’t really decide which it was. Truthfully, that sort of distinction can be hard to make out when I’m in ideal psychological states and I haven’t exactly been in one of those lately, but I digress.

I ran into this on CraigsList today:

ADULT FILM PRODUCER LOOKING FOR A DP ASAP. (ATLANTA)

WE ARE LOOKING FOR AN EXPERIENCED DP. WE NEED SOMEONE WHO IS ABOUT THERE BUSINESS. POINT BLANK. IN AND OUT! THIS IS A HIGH END ADULT FILM SO WE NEED SOMEONE WHO IS GOOD AT LIGHTING FOR HORROR FILMS. THE PAY IS $300 PER 8HR DAY BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCE. WE ALSO HAVE CATERING SO YOU WILL EAT PLENTY OF GOOD FOOD. THIS IS A VERY PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTION. NOW THERE IS A CATCH. WE NEED SOMEONE ASAP MEANING TODAY NO LATER THAN TOMMORROW THROUGH WED THE 8TH OF OCT. SO SEND US YOUR INFO INCLUDING YOUR REEL AND IF WE FEEL LIKE YOU CAN COMPLIMENT OUR SITUATION WE WILL CONTACT YOU IMMEDIETLY. WAITING ON YOU! THANKS.

Now, the first and most obvious thing that leapt out at me was that looking for a DP in the adult film industry is sort of like looking for cow-flop in the ranching industry; you’re positively awash in it, pun wholly intended. But once the giggling subsided and I thought about the idea of looking for a Director of Photography who’s got some experience with lighting horror films seemed brilliant.

Most horror flicks are extremely low-budget. They’re independently distributed. They’re made by folks who love the genre and they have very particular visual tropes and references, including the lighting. It’s an obvious match for low-rent adult film.

No, I didn’t send my name in as the potential DP for an adult film. That’s far, far too sane. Besides, I may have a lead on a job with AUCradio and that’d be far more interesting, economically.

I did something much, much worse.

I sent a very polite request to ask if they knew of any apprenticeship opportunities in the local industry in audio engineering or video editing, mentioned I had my own editing suite, and mentioned my interest in the genre not because of the sexual content, but because the high turn-around rate of the development process seemed ideal for someone who learns readily by hands-on doing.

So, yeah, I just sent an inquiry for references off to a local porn company.

Worst case, they completely ignore my email and I just kept myself occupied for 10min writing it. Best case they hook me up with the editing group / people / guy they use as their go to and I have something to do in the afternoons / evenings learning how the job’s done and what’s involved. Ideal case would be discovering I have a flair for the work and they want to pay me thousands of dollars a week to do something I’m good at.

I don’t expect the ideal, don’t even really want it, per se, but I don’t object to it.

It’s interesting, in any case.

Ironically, I stumbled on this mere seconds after I sent that email:

Sarah Palin porn film made by Larry Flynt

The Hustler founder has made an X-rated movie using an adult-film actress who resembles the governor of Alaska.

Flynt’s team had posted an anonymous advert on the website Craigslist just days after Mrs Palin took the Republican convention by storm last month.

The ad read: “Looking for a Sarah Palin look-alike for an adult film to be shot in the next 10 days.”

The actress would be paid $3,000 (�1,700) for the part.

Flynt’s spokesman confirmed to the New York Daily News that the film had been shot, but he would not yet reveal the title.

Bloggers have already suggested various titles such as “Northern XXXposure” and “Riding Pipeline”

Seriously, guys, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Which is kind of funny, but there you go.

Serendipity.

Current Mood: weird

04:54 am - Sarah Palin: Exposing the Lie

I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I think I’ve finally come to an analytical conclusion.

The it, in this case, is the rather rabid psychopathy that Sarah Palin engenders in certain segments of the media — and when I speak of the media in this context, I literally mean the media as a whole, from neolithic mainstream media sources like the NY Times to the rarified jungles of the blogosphere. While the madmen of the Daily Kos have always flirted with the depths of the most psychoceramic, there’s a much wider spread response to pretty much every aspect of Sarah Palin’s life. Not just the fact that she’s a woman but her personal life, her children’s lives, and her existence as a whole beyond roles as mayor and governor.

Sarah Palin puts the Great Lie to the test and the body politic cannot have this lie challenged.

The Great Lie has nothing to do with gender, pointedly. It’s not about child-bearing or child-rearing. It has nothing to do with children, disabled or no. It doesn’t even have to do with abuse of power or the lack thereof, or even sexual infidelity.

The Great Lie runs thus:

You can be anything you want to when you grow up, even President of the United States!

And the reason that it is the Great Lie is this, that according to the people who’ve come to believe that they know better than you, you can’t. Not unless you come from one of the approved social classes, middle upper prefered. Not unless you’re a lawyer, with a vested interest in all that implies. Not unless you play homage to the idea that only a very few are worthy of making decisions for the populace, even if the people desire otherwise, speak otherwise, think otherwise. Not unless you’ve left the mantle of the Commoner far, far behind and pretend to greater things.

You can’t be President unless you’re “presidential material.”

Forget, of course, that the folks who’ve been vetted and groomed for years on their rise to power are responsible for some of the worst financial bullshit America’s seen since the 70’s. Forget that the Illuminated Ones who remind us that Joe Average doesn’t understand the nuance of international relation have consistently recommended paths which lead right into the furnace mouth while their profit and leverage. Forget, if you can find it in your blinkered, uneducated heart, that the political creme de la creme, the Senators and Representatives, the hordes of lawyers with their glass smiles and gimlet eyes, the rules-makers and rules-players have solidly, consistently, and predictibly fucked things up righteously for decades and left you, Joe Average, Jane Flyover, holding the bag for their largesse, taking the anal dialation for their ephermal cock-teasing.

Forget all that. Forget that the journalists all know better than you and give you their cheesy-thumbs-ups while 80% of them register openly in support of one party or the other. Forget the fact they’ll tell you the latest hot rumour about how Palin’s teenage daughter was a complete slut but almost nothing about any of her accomplishments (or failings!) as governor of one of the most resource-rich states in the Union, or even as a successful mayor of a small town. Forget that they have guys lining up to comb through her trash looking for misfiled love-letters to a business associate of her husband, but no one popping over to check out if Obama’s “community organization” efforts at throwing $140 million improved Chicago’s inner city schools.

Forget the very idea that you, as a citizen, a litterate American, and a self-aware being might be capable of making up your own mind, capable of forming a coherent thought, of arriving at a sensible conclusion if simply presented with the facts of the issues and not the reigns and blinders of a farmer with their dumb mule.

Forget all that. Forget any of that.

You want the truth?

Unless you’re a lawyer, you’re not going to even have a shot at the Presidency if the folks who are the Power or say they’re Speaking Truth to It have their say. Unless you’re urban, you’re not going to have a shot at the Presidency. Unless you’ve attended The Prestigous Colleges, forget being President. Unless you come from money, you can write off the Presidency. Unless you lick a little journalist cock, you’re not even going to get within line of sight of the Presidency.

You want more truth?

I’d rather have a retired dentist from just outside Kirksville, Iowa running for president than Obama. A middle-school teacher from Gainville, Georgia. A foundry worker from Bainsbridge, Illinois. A car mechanic from Lawrenceville, Oregon. I’d trust any of those people, any of them, with the future of America more than people who’ve passed their time glad-handing men and women of ill repute on the unhallowed floor of that mightiest of global whorehouses, the US Congress.

I’d trust any of you more than them.

So thank you, Sarah Palin, for exposing the Great Lie for us to see. For being what the punditocracy decry as “woefully inexperienced.” For acting as a reflecting mirror so we can see the processes under the hood.

Thank you for reminding us why we can’t be President.

06:05 am - [RPGs] On Systems and Complexity

So, I’ve been reading CthulhuTech on and off for the past couple days as the mood catches me, and I’ve wandered happily through the weirdly beautiful backstory, marveling in happy awe at how they’ve integrated the Cthulhu Mythos and various facets of anime geekdom (particularly The Guyver and Neon Genesis Evangelion, perversely). I find myself scratching my head at the sheer amount of thought that went into the process and smiling at the results.

And then I wandered on in to the first bits of the mechanical system, checked out the means by which conflicts were resolved, and felt it all go painful before my eyes. I took at least three Insanity points, there and then.

Let me lay it out for you:

1. Look at your skill ranking (Novice to Adept to Legendary, roughly 5 steps), convert that rank into a number of d10s.
2. Roll said d10s.
3. Look for one of the following:
   • Highest single die, or
   • Add die roll multiples (4, 4 = 8; 7, 7, 7 = 21), or
   • Sum the dice in a “straight” (3, 4, 5 = 12; 1, 2, 3, 4 = 10)
4. Add value derived above to your controlling stat for this Test
5. Compare to difficulty target, where Diff is approximate 8 for Easy, and increases by 4 for each stage of improvement until it hits 28 or so for Impossible tasks
6. Margin of success determines degree of success
   • If more than half the dice were 1s, it’s a Crit Fail
   • If value exceeds target by 10, it’s a Crit Success
   • If the Stat + 7 > TN, don’t bother to roll, take auto-success

Maybe I’m getting old, but that just seems like too much damn fiddly dice-throwing and counting, especially given it’s d10s. You have to figure out what your best value is, in what combination, then compare to a not-very-neat value (which has some slop between the areas; I just gave you the average target values for the band).

Too much fiddly for a guy who’s become used to “OK, roll FA or NFA; I’ll count down the actions, go!” This may have spoiled me.

Then I got to the weapons list. Now, I know that modern games with weapons of range in them are obligated to have long tambly tables of weapons which differ in only slight ways and have exotic names so the grognardy hardcore can prove their dick-size by memorizing it, but really — do you really need more than a handful of traits with ratings and maybe a Special to describe weapons in general?

• Range: Poor / Mediocre / Fair / Good / Great / Superb

• Power: Poor / Mediocre /Fair / Good / Great / Superb

• Penetration: Poor / Mediocre / Fair / Good / Great / Superb

• Special: Can stun target one round per success rank / hits multiple targets within range / causes unresistable sexual longing in the target for the firer / whatev.

There, I’ve reproduced their entire four pages, small print, of weapon stats in a fisrfull of lines with possibly even better detail. And not only that, but mapped it to use Fudge while I was at it. This can only be an improvement.

Maybe I’m getting old and crochety. Maybe I’m the lineal opposition of James M at Grognardia, the new wave curmudgeon who has distaste for the old ways of doing things because they’re clearly inefficient, crufty, and marginally functional and instead prefers the ways of the new, indy games because they’re streamlined, fast, and focused. (And I like D&D4e (a lot) and I can’t wait for someone to invite me to play in a game so I can run my Halfling Warlord, fo realz. But I digress.)

Something in me that was tantalized by the ideas of the background and the way they’d worked out a future history that combined humanity facing their darkest hour with it being one of the most resolute and optimistic times for man — that which loved those aspects cringed hard when the crunchy hard mechanics rolled out and I felt a desire to actually run or play in the game actively withering. And then I started working out what systems would actually capture the feel of things better, more tightly, more evocatively, stripped of a lot of the cruft.

(Hell, I’d gotten half-way through reconstructing an example combat from the book in Capes before I caught myself, and that only because I was wondering if Tagers/Dhoanoids are two different characters or only one …)

I think this might represent another of the genuine schisms in the hobby population. I know, like it needs another one. The ongoing differentiation between games which leverage direct, clear, simplified mechanics and unified resolution systems represent an interesting new ecology of solutions. Choosing to function within the auspices of one doesn’t preclude but doesn’t actually encourage functioning within the other and certain members of each tribe have a bested interest in expanding that rift.

Just some random thoughts before bed. This is how my mind works.

Current Mood: grumpy

06:27 am - Willan Dawnthistle, Evil Halfling Warlord

Since hearing point5b talk about last night’s D&D romp through the night with bruceb and crew, and having the opportunity to look at chargen with a bit of time, it occured to me exactly what kind of character I should create.

Evil, of course, as the “sane” side of the darker sort in the new hierarchy. Too stable and, indeed, lawful to be considered Chaotic Evil but certainly not interested in either playing by others’ rules nor simply distangling himself from such, rather favouring the end of destroying any order which is not his own. Certainly not neutral, then.

Halfling life being what it is, the type of halfler who’d take up the chain mail and skills of a cold combatant have to be rather few, and fewer yet are the number who’d take up swords and go mercenary amongst the tall folk because of his need to lead men, to command their respect, and to have they depend on so-much-smaller he.

And once he had — oh, once he had — how he enjoyed it. Not a thug but a commander of thugs. Not a cutpurse, but they knew who could orchestrate the best hits. Not an assassin, but he’d paid a few. And all that as part of the city guard itself, a step or two up off the street beat and largely kept so close rather than promoted away by the fact he knows the place too well to be let off so easy. He’s not a dirty guard because he loves the city that all these wheels within wheels he spends so much time musing over, he loves the place they spin.

Broody and foul-tempered, most of the folks on his streets thought he was one of the rogues, rather than one of the arms bringing them in by the wheelbarrow full, for the cells and the cheap burials. See him on the street, wearing dirty leather and with a knife on each hip, either nearly as big as he is, you might be forgiven the thought. See him stomping down the street at the head of two lines of men, all in chain mail, them same daggers polished and blacked and just waiting for the blooding, that’s a different thing. And when the battle was joined and throats needed slittin’, there was always one little guard with a throat screaming up without a mouth under gentle ministrations too busy ordering the other guards into the semblance of a bunch of fighting men, with snarls and shouts and not the odd punch right to the cods, too busy by far to show the smile.

(Character stats publically viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=agbmznmcjr6_62dgpsp9dw)

06:25 pm - [meme] What Do You Look Like, Right Now, DAMNIT!

The rules:

• Take a picture of yourself right now.
• Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
• Post that picture with NO editing.
• Post these instructions with your picture.

Damn you point5b , for getting into the meme field. I mean, Jesus, it’s just not enough that I drag you off to AWA and show you endless fields of underaged lolitas or make you play horrific RPGs. No, you have to want me to do memes, too? It’s almost too much to bear!

(If you were looking for the one he took of himself, that’s easy enough to find. Damn him for being better looking, too. I can kill him, though, as he’s at hand …)

On the up-side, it’s a vaguely intimidating, unshaven picture in which I kind of come off as both exhausted and rather disturbing. And my hair’s growing out, so that’s a huge plus.

Current Mood: tired

03:16 pm - [Meme] Velociraptors in Bed

I could survive for 1 minute, 3 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Yeah, I think this seriously underestimates my ability of dealing with dangerous aggressive reptiles in a life-or-death situation. I mean, really, short of a Grizzly Suit, who better than I to deal with such things?

Oh, yes, semiapies is here and still alive, in case anyone wondered.

Current Mood: determined

06:35 pm - [Meme] Midevalism At It's Finest

Hat tip to creativedv8tion for this one:

Your result for The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test…

The Cardinal

You scored 82% Cardinal, 21% Monk, 18% Lady, and 19% Knight!

Take The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test at HelloQuizzy

Ironically, I don’t think there’s any way this is wrong. Powerful, cunning, immoral … No, I’m pretty good with this across the board. Richilieu, you better watch it, I’m gunning for your job.

Current Mood: amused

06:02 am - Local Markdown Tool Upgrades

I’m so screamingly thrilled. I just spent about 20min switching over my personal Markdown processor scripting to use Pandoc, which may be several orders of magnitude faster and adds scad-loads of additional formatting bits to my options like footnotes¹, and actual flexible tables. Plus the thing is written in compiled Haskell, which is one of my favourite mind-splittingly oblique programming languages.²
While it’s not quite as nice as having a pop-up insta-paste editor, it’ll do.

Current Mood: pleased

06:15 am - Things I Want #7875589756: A Decent Markdown-Integrated Editor

Here’s something I want. It’s unlikely to get built anytime soon, unless someone takes terrible pity on me, but …

Inspired by things like TinyPaste and the like, I want a site that does one thing and does it well — lets you edit things on one side in a very smooth text-like editor and displays, simultaneously on the other side of the screen, the result of running the first side through Markdown. When you’re done, clicking a single button should copy the resultant HTML into your buffer to be pasted elsewhere at your leisure. optionally clearing the buffer ready for the next bit. (If it applied SmartyPants as well, that’d just be extra gravy, really.)

Ironically, half or more of this tool is already created. Witness the WMD advanced demo, which does the whole editor / split-screen part up front. If it had an auto-magical Copy-HTML-to-Buffer button, it’d be a goodly part of what I want.

Why do I want such a mad thing? Because writing / editing HTML is hard, and sometimes I forget to Cut-n-Process text through the doohicky I already have made for the purpose.

I suppose LJ could add a Markdown-parsing mode to their editor. I’m not holding my breath.

Yes, this is me being grumpy.

Current Mood: cranky

02:49 am - Testing the Posterois Posting Service

Sometimes you just need to increase the number of ways you can screw
around with things. In this case, I stumbled over
[*Posterous*](http://posterous.com) while stumbling around through
some of my general feeds. It's a service that claims to post
automagically to any blogs you configure, *Twitter*, et all, through a
direct email interface. Including storage of things like attached
photos, audio, whatever you toss on, in a sensible, reasonable way.

I'm fond of things that are sensible and reasonable. Plus, Hell, it
means things get even easier to post, whether it be little audio posts
that all I have to do are record and email or whatever. Total win,
really.

So, yeah. This is me, testing. Hmmm, now, where can I find an image?

--
Alexander Williams (thantos@gmail.com)
Operation BSU (http://operationbsu.livejournal.com)
"Like a morning show. Only interesting. And at night."

Posted by email from squidlord's posterous

04:04 pm - [Meme, Gaming] One Flew Over

Damnit, if there’s going to be a psychic disease vector, I’m going to be a happy part of it! You better believe it, bucko.

Current Mood: amused

05:59 am - Wait, What?

Your result for Which DragonLance Character Are You?…

Dalamar

The Dark Elf

Take Which DragonLance Character Are You? at HelloQuizzy

So, what you’re saying is I’m dumb enough to go against Raistlin, the most powerful human on the planet in … pretty much all of history and get used by Kitiara like a chump? Eventually ruling the Black Robes is great and all, and boning a Dragon HighLord is right in there, but — Dalamar?

I feel dirty now.

Current Mood: morose

04:45 pm - [3:16] Mission #4: Planet Michelangelo

Mission #4 (Planet Michelangelo)

Alright, ladies. You've been on this fuckin' hell-hole a good ten hours now so you know what kind of place it is! Outside these walls is a seething forest full of creepy-crawlies and God knows what else! Well, since I'm God for you poor bastards, I'll tell you what else is out there! There've been four recon units sent into this goddamn shit-kicking moon and only one significant radio broadcast came back, and that one was a garbled piece of crap. Orbital scans say there's somebody down here on the surface but they can't pick up jack through the canopy. So, instead of sending another bunch of lame-ass pansy rangers down, they decided to send some men with balls! And that's us, you fuckers!

We're going out there to find our men and bring them home, or what's left of them. Then we're going to kill every last bastard who's responsible for their deaths. Every. Last. Fucking. One.

Lieutenants! You have your assignments!

This place is filthy. I do not understand how anyone could possibly choose to exist on such a disgusting level of survival. Absolutely unacceptable.

Sergeant Green, you will be given Area Zed. Be certain that you search it thoroughly and stay in constant contact with the headquarters here. I will be returning to the ship to ... oversee matters of a pressing nature. Green, you absolutely must be certain to contact the base at your scheduled time. No excuses!

Sergeant Barker, you will be searching Yellow Area. Your orders are exactly the same as Green's. Contact the headquarters on a regular schedule and find any evidence that our recon elements may have left. This job is imperative!

Sergeant Hix. Oh, Sergeant Hix. What, oh what can we do with you? I suppose the only choice is to have your squad manage communications here at the base. After all, someone has to do it and there really is no one left, yes? Collect reports from Green and Barker and be sure they're prepared for my study.

 

That will be all.

• If the squad decides to kill Green's men
• They find a relatively well-concealed trail that the Ewoks have been using and probably never expected anyone to bother looking for since they would be dead long before that happens. The trail leads to a series of Ewok hunting / patrol parties and, eventually, the Ewok village.
 
• If the squad decides to carry Green's men to base
• They're harried by Ewok hunting/patrol parties through well-prepared and trapped terrain. Remember, they need NFA's every couple of rounds to keep Green's men alive! Once the Threat's gone, the squad reaches the HQ. Braugh sneers at their weakness and casually mentions that he's been tracking the IR signatures of the Ewoks through their Mandelbrites and has triangulated the location of their source, the Ewok village.

• If the squad E-Vacs
• They're pussies. But see above for what Braugh does and how they get pointed to the village.

Current Mood: accomplished

01:36 pm - [3:16] Mission #3: Planet Titian

Mission #3 (Planet Titian)

06:04 pm - Daikaiju Eiga!

Your result for The Godzilla Personality Test!...

SpaceGodzilla: The Scourge of the Universe

Take The Godzilla Personality Test! at HelloQuizzy

06:25 am - Pre-Liminary Anime Weekend Atlanta Schedule of Games

As some — or even many of you — know, I’m passing over DragonCon this year thanks to a combination of bad organization, financial state, and no calls for me to be there. Which is alright. It’s OK. It gives me a few days in a row to spend with my girl and gives me a bigger run-up to my weekend of mad debauchery planned for Anime Weekend Atlanta. And a mad debauch it shall be, as I make a scramble to run not one, not two different systems but …

Four different systems across four separate sessions!

All indy game designs and only one is returning from last year.

Here’s the current layout:

RPG Schedule

Friday:

• 3:00pm

  3:16 Carnage Anong the Stars - Heavy Load

  You are a soldier in the Terran Expeditionary Force, devoted to the cause of preserving Earth against any and all threats to her continued existence. Covered head to toe in high-tech Mandelbrite armour, carrying state of the art weapons and out among the stars instead of safe at home for your own reasons, only your personal strengths and weaknesses — plus good ol’ Terran fighting spirit! — will get you through going face to face with the worst the cosmos has to offer: alien life!

  3:16 is a cutting edge lightweight gaming system designed to pick up and go, and go hard! Fast, agile and dangerous, we’ll do character generation and then run through as many planetary missions as we can during the four hour slot. Given that character generation takes about 15 minutes at worst, expect there to be lots and lots of blowing things up, high-tech shennanigans and trying not to frag your superior officers.

  Site: http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/threesixteen/index.html

• 5:00pm

  Bliss Stage - Midsummer’s Night Dreaming

  Right now, right this moment, right as you read these words, humanity is devestated by an alien attack from the edges of our understanding. It is the first blow of a terrible war. Seven years later, armed with technology you cannot comprehend and can barely operate, you will strike back. This is how. With the power of weaponized love.

  In the aftermath of complete devestation, how will humanity survive, reduced to teenagers and kids piloting giant robots made of dreams and love against nightmares who bind adults in eternal sleep? In Bliss Stage, you’ll find out. Returning, this year the game’ll move to a new city and new characters who live, love, die and dream of a better world — or a lost one! Character generation right at the table or pre-generated, your choice.

  Site: http://swingpad.com/dustyboots/wordpress/?page_id=229 or live recordings of the GM’s group at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/23290 !

Saturday:

• 1:30pm

  Giger Counter Beta - The Hungry Dead

  Nothing says “survival horror” like hordes of shambling, groaning zombies, the living dead, and they want nothing more to eat your brains! But they won’t eat your eyes. In a small backwater suburb, you’re one of the few people that haven’t heard about the new flesh-eating craze sweeping the nation, but you’re about to. You’re alive, they’re dead, and someone, somewhere has got to be safe. But it’s not you.

  Totally new and cutting edge, Giger Counter is the system of survival horror. Share the duty of Director as you explore the build-up to the nightmarish horror of the undead unleashed on the earth. Lightweight mechanics, dramatic scene framing, and — Someone. Will. Die. In fact, probably several someones, but death is not the end of your play! Build the map in-game as play proceeds and use every tool at your disposal to survive the menace of the hungry dead!

  Site: http://bleedingplay.wordpress.com/geiger/

• 3:30pm

  It’s Complicated - High-School Hellraisers

  High School is a crazy time for the best of us, but how much worse has it got to be if your parents are witches, demons, or psychics? Welcome to Public School 666, where the elite of the young hellions go to get it together, learn to keep their natures on the low-down, and maybe live through their high school crushes! It’s Prom Night, and students and teachers alike are gearing up for the wildest night of the year. Can you keep your grades up while mooning over the cute demon in the front row? Can you finally ask the witch in the back of the class to prom? You’ll have to work hard, It’s Complicated!

  Indy game design as it’s finest, It’s Complicated combines a big paper board, coloured markers and a system that hinges entirely on quirky, dysfunctional characters and their complex relationships. With no dice and aggressive scene-setting, what you say goes in the game, but getting what you want is going to be much, much more complicated. Character generation in play and giant sheet of paper for the relationship map will be provided. No dice necessary!

  Site: http://dissolutegames.wordpress.com/category/its-complicated/

Both Giger Counter Beta and It’s Complicated use big table-drawing maps and charts that’ll really hook people in as they go by. I always bring some props for Bliss Stage for the Controller to type on. And 3:16 gets a cool multi-band map with, maybe, some action figures on them to define scope.Everything comes with visual things to play with.

Of them all, I’m absolutely sure that It’s Complicated will be the hardest one to hook for. The rest have exceedingly violent content to help run them into people. Crazy.

Ah well, time for bed, but at least my notes are up.

03:21 am - Welcome to Tblisi, Gentlemen

I knew that line was running through my head from somewhere. Thanks to my good friend rdansky and Google, I remembered where.

“Eastern Europe, 2008

The world teeters on the brink of war. Radical ultranationalists have seized power in Moscow - their goal, the reestablishment of the old Soviet empire. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan - one by onne the nearby independent republics slip back into the Russian orbit. Russian tanks sit in the Caucasus Mountains and the Baltic forests, poised to strike to the south and east. The world hold its breath, and waits.”

(Hat tip to Stephen Chambers who also remembered.)

Rich, Stephen and I aren’t the only ones who remembered, even among the odd forum posters around the Net.

When Ghost Recon came out, I was pretty heavily enraptured. I was always a sucker for miltech and GR was really one of the first FPS to catch on that there’s a good, hardcore bunch of gamers interested in fighting down in the mud and blood with realistic movement, graphics and tactics. Following on the heels of Ubi’s Rainbow Six and borrowing some of the squad-command architecture that made R6 great but moving to more wide open environments, I was pretty much dead on in it’s target demographic. It started a love of the mil-tac shooter genre that persists, even though I’m lousy at them when they turn into run-and-gun fests. I’ll never forget the times I ended up moving slow through a cluster of village buildings, just waiting for someone to jump out to take us and knowing I had nothing to depend on but the skill of my squad-mates if they leapt from my flanks.

Right now in the South Ossetian, that exact scenario is playing out with the addition of tanks, artillery, and ruthless Russian efficency, except instead of the respawn timer there’s a lot of widows and orphans.

There are a lot of issues at play in the Georgia / Russia conflict. Most of them are unpleasant, some of them paint both sides in a bad light, and it’s just generally a mess, as most Russian politics are. It’s worth noting that the Georgians provide the third largest force contingent in Iraq after the US and the UK. Not any of the Western European countries, but Georgia. The fledgling democracy. For that and a number of other powerful reasons, the conflict currently burning is a very important one to the US, to the West in general, and to Eastern European soverignity in specific.

The mainstream media is doing a spotty job at best at pointing out why this is. Do yourself a favour and go digging and find out what’s at stake.

Current Mood: moody

11:03 pm - Technology For Everyone!

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Gadgeteer

7% Elegant, 86% Technological, 0% Historical, 36% Adventurous and 49% Playful!

Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

Current Mood: amused

11:22 pm - [Gaming] The Hellworld Chronicles. Mission #2

Mission #2 (Planet Whistler)

( Planet Whistler )

05:01 pm - Villainy is Just Another Word For Nothing Left to DOOM

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 84% Magneto 83% Apocalypse 72% Lex Luthor 69% Mr. Freeze 68% The Joker 54% Green Goblin 50% Juggernaut 46% Two-Face 42% Kingpin 40% Riddler 36% Poison Ivy 34% Catwoman 31% Dark Phoenix 31% Venom 26% Mystique 22%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

06:21 am - Mapping the Unmappable

( Click here to see! )

12:55 am - [Gaming] Notes for The Hellworld Chronicles

Game was awesome and you can hear the results, recorded live, over on TalkShoe as The Hellworld Chronicles. Quite possibly the best game I’ve run in years, and that includes the Bliss Stage game that involved the giant Space Vagina underneath Stone Mountain.

No, you probably don’t want to ask too much about that.

I did promise to post the notes for the mission in the aftermath. This is that aftermath!

Aftermath

I think Corporal Andreeva is planning to murder Trooper Koch, but that’s the Sergeant’s problem not mine. Mine’s aliens, planets, and the Lunar Marauders’ superiors feeling vaguely miffed that they’re still alive.

Current Mood: jubilant

02:48 am - Revving Up For Three-Sixteen

As I mentioned last week and have been getting progressively more revved about, I’m going to run some 3:16 on Saturday afternoon. I’ll pin down the exact hour tomorrow afternoon, but for those already interested and as keyed as I am about my running something for the first in almost a year, read on!

I’ll be running it on TalkShoe because I really, really want to record the game for posterity and to have something to show to the original author with big shiny eyes and sharp, dagger-like teeth. This means that if you usually talk to me with Skype, you need to get a VoIP solution and get it set up for accessing TS. I suggest X-Lite as it’s what I use, so there’s at least a chance I can help you get it hooked up, and because it’s free. Plus, there’s already a rather nice tutorial for getting X-Lite working with TalkShoe that I’ve found very useful. Note that it does require some setup, so don’t leave this to the last minute! You can also use Skype’s dial-out or even the built in ShoePhone, I suppose … However you get there, get there! And give things a shake-down run before hand. Call into someone random’s show, give them a thrill. ;)

I’ll be running the gaming table using RPTools’ MapTool, for which I’ve already got player tokens made, counters, etc. Basically, all you need to do is go to the site and click on the MapTool 1.3.b37 link in the left-side nav-bar. (By Saturday the version may have updated again; we’ll be using whatever the most recent Development version is because I need some of the new token macro bits …) All you need to do is hit the link and if you have Java installed correctly on your system, it’ll download the installer and ask if you want to run it. You do. The Java install’ll pull the software, put a shortcut on your desktop, and start it up. At that point, you’re ready to roll!

At the time of the game, you’ll want to have MapTool already running when you call. Once we get hooked together, I’ll have you connect to my MapTool server and you’ll automatically pull the maps and the starting tokens. Everything from there, you’ll have me for. Aren’t you lucky?

If you want to go ahead and buy the PDF version of 3:16, it’s only $10 from IPR and I’m sure Gregor Hutton won’t object in the least. You won’t need it to play, however. I’ll get you through it. Trust me. No, really.

I’m seriously looking forward to playing this with you folk, and this looks like a great chance to get back into things with a great, cutting-edge indy game. I’m stoked! Whoot! No, seriously, whoot!

Current Mood: productive

05:46 am - Video Madness!

See, I always knew my uncontrolled bits of ranting would come to a wonderful end:

Yes, the world is a fine place!

Current Mood: amused

05:40 am - Things That Annoy Me #88865468875497

When people request a voice over and specifically request a deep voice.

Seriously, have you ever listened to a liner, ad, or bit on the radio and said to yourself, “Yeah, man, that’d be so much more freakin’ awesome if his voice was just a register lower.” Ever?

More reasons to dislike traditional broadcasting, they’re mired in tradition to the point where doing anything non-traditional is both anathema and exactly what an audience bored to tears wants and/or needs.

(I’m having a few moments of annoyed tiredness. I assure you this brief moment of whine will pass. In fact, yup, gone. Zoop. Like that.)

Current Mood: aggravated

07:37 am - There Are Terrible Things Afoot ... And An Arm

I come bearing warnings. Within our world lies twisted, deviant minds, minds whose very contents are split assunder by Lovecraftian nightmares on a regular basis, like a metronome of insanity.

I have found my way into the dark places within those worlds and have exposed myself to the catalogue of horrors within. Behold!

This is but one of many terrifying beasts I’ve found within the delicate folds of a world man’s eyes were never meant to touch. Within, such squirming, repulsive horrors as man should never have to know! Demons, man, demons! An entire ecology of the things squamous and vile.

Even now, they stalk me. Even now, their horror grows.

It is though I look into the very pages of the Necronomicon and it’s Eldritch Andrew terpisichordian cruelties fling themselves eagerly against my poor, dried, wasted eyes. It is too much. It is too much.

Consider this damned thing.

See how it dances before it’s god, Azathoth, Lord of Insanity and then, in a fit of pique, it expresses it’s frustration with impudient and impurient digits? An Oboma-Nation, is what it is! Filth!

My mind, my mind, my mind.

I must have this thing.

Current Mood: indescribable

07:12 am - Pave It, Pave It All

Increasingly, my patience for the crying imbeciles of the pseudo-ecological religious movement are getting right up my ass. I say that as someone who finds himself agreeing terrifyingly often with Patrick Moore who helped found Greenpeace and now considers them loons for their truly Druidic opposition to nuclear power, well …

I’m cranky. And my patience for the dumbs is getting lower daily.

Specifically, it might not be the best idea to suggest building a coal power plant in rural Georgia when I’m nearby. Seriously, it’s just not a good idea.

All I really want to know is this:

When can we finally kill all the neo-Luddites under the stompy metal boots of our giant robots? I’m ready, man. I’m fuckin’ ready, right now.

If someone wanted to convince a US corporation that rural Georgia was a great place to build a brand stinkin’ new nuclear plant, I’d be right up there helping make the business case. Of course, the very same imbeciles who scream about coal being next to fucking Satan in his deep dark bowels scream that nuclear power is too dangerous and too weaponized to be safe near children and puppies. They’re OK with us living in a world with no electric lights, no automobiles, and no food shipped further than a horse-drawn cart can go in six hours so long as they can jet-set to the latest world global warming summit and goddamnit all if the Cristal isn’t chilled enough or someone’ll get a thorough tongue-lashing. And that’s their countrymen, the poor bastards in Africa? It’s all so much better if they’re not corrupted by the horrors of industrialization.

Like, you know, modern medical technology. Or social mobilization. Or communications. Or leisure time. Fuck education, man, you can’t get that until you get the rest.

Nothing says “darkie don’t deserve nothin’” like the perverse racists of the eco-freak movement.

Yeah, I said it. The modern environmental religionists are racists, bigots, and cultural assassins. Who suffers the most from their diseased image of idealistic societies? The Third World, who have neither the resources (because they don’t have the refined extraction technologies the First World does) nor the social time (existence above subsistence by a nice margin being necessary for dragging your society out of the stone age) to get ahead and start spinning the wealth engine. But that suits the enviro-weenies just fine, because the state of suffering, dying in misery, and leaving that same legacy of filth to your descendents is exactly what they want for everyone. You know, except them, because they’re pure and devoted (and largely rich white folks who get by on the backs of a productive middle class and strong military subculture, both of which the elites take the opportunity to retch publicly at every chance they get).

Pfeh.

When do I get to destroy this planet again?

Current Mood: angry

06:56 am - Rolling to Bed

Headed to bed, magnificently tired, but rather than put up a short Twitter with the briefest capsule you can imagine, I figured I might actually post a few words.

Shocking, I know. Terrifying, really.

Midnight Reign was awesome and I’ll go on at greater length tonight on the Operation BSU LJ community as well as promoting next week’s band. But … man, Joeseph and Starla were two of the simultaneously nicest and most entirely fucked up people it’s ever been our great pleasure to interview. If you need a laugh today, go listen to yesterday’s show. Seriously, you’ll find more than one good time to burst out in malicious giggles. Totally well worth it.

Unrelatedly, my fingernail’s still attached, but it feels weird, as if it were numb in the area up by the cuticle and more attached further down. There’s a band of darkening area across just by the cuticle which suggests it might really want to shed at some point, which concerns me to some degree. If it keeps being “weird,” I may simply have to call my old dermatologist and beg and plead to see what he can do for some poor moron with no health insurance and no real way to pay him. And I have to get in touch with the Medicare people. Oh, yes, and the morons at the orthopedic place that was supposed to look at me and get back to VocRehab.

If it weren’t for tryptophan, my entire opinion of the medical establishment would be shot all to Hell.

Good show, last night. And I’ve been doing piles of VOs for RadioDaddy requests for the past week and some. Oh, yes, and in addition to my promo that went out to various podcasts, I cut a “station ID” for Girls’ Night In which we’ll have to see if they’ll end up using. I’ve suggested to stellabambino and point5b that they do one as well.

Hell, all of my readers should do one, all claiming to be from Operation BSU. I say that the best way to the awareness of humanity is through madness. And we got that if nothing else.

Yeah, madness.

Short versions: I’m not dead. Go listen to my show. I’ll write more as it comes to me.

Miss you guys. Drop in sometime.

Current Mood: tired

06:47 am - The Voice of GAY AMERICA!

As some of you have heard, I’ve been out of work for — well, Hell, is it over a year and change, now? It has. Pretty sucky to admit, but that’s life. Regardless, it’s so. And this even after going back to school and getting my papers that say, “Hey, this Alexander Williams asshole, he’s certified in radio and TV broadcast technology and methodology; hire his white ass!”

In nearly those words, too. Who else could win both Class Clown and Most Likely to Become an Instructor?

But I digress.

Of late, I’ve taken to hitting RadioDaddy for an hour or so before bed, responding to from five to ten requests for dry VOs (Voice Overs) and the occasional, rare, produced liner. (Why are produced liners rarer? Because once I start tinkering and assembling, those things eat most of an hour for 30sec …) Some of the ones I put out fall into a big black abyss and I never hear back, some folks say thank you with rep, the on-site ranking medium, and a very few send me the final, produced work.

Now, the other morning, I was working on some things that ran from a Country Music station in Nevada to an Internet radio station doing a live show from a bar in Birmingham, UK. I don’t discriminate, I just start at the top of the most recent requests and roll down as I go until my allotted time for recording is up. Boom.

So, of course, this is the one that was received enthusiastically, produced (by someone else) and will be used:

TraxOnline.com does the Gay Pride Parade, Voiced By the Evil SquidLord

I am the voice of gay America on Commonwealth Internet radio.

Disturbingly, I think I’m proud.

Current Mood: accomplished

06:54 am - Nails. Ouch.

Let me tell you, Onycholysis is a bitch.

And before everyone gets all freaky and stuff, in this case it’s not because of psoriasis or fungal growth beneath the nail, it’s because — as far as I could tell — I caught the corner of my nail (index, left, joint-locked) on … something … and pulled on it hard enough to dislodge the entirety of the nail itself from the nail bed, where all the blood vessels, nerve endings and other sensitive bits are kept. In some ways, I think it’d been less painful to have it have finished the job by ripping off right across the base, but instead it’s stubbornly attached right there across the top (but not really the sides). It’s also kind of a sickly grey colour without the supporting understructure of the nail bed proper squidged up against it and it’s wiggly enough I can tell it’s detached all the way down.

It also, if I haven’t mentioned, hurts like an absolute blaspheming motherfucking nun being anally rent by two rather burly demons with multi-penetrative cat-barbed dicks. Except in my finger, and strangely, all up along the goddamn thing right to the back of my hand, with the added irony that I can’t exen flex my fingers to cause it … it just does it!

Don’t, for the love of Hell, try to research a medical condition on the Internet. Not if you value your stability and sanity. I figured this was the kind of injury that happens all the time, right? Trying to pry off glued on fake nails, traums from car doors, yeah sure, right? Not until you figure out the right search term. Until then it’s a panopoly of finger-damage images and deeply horrific prophetic announcements. “Splinter hemmorages!? Say it ain’t so!”

Unfortunately to me, I also find contraditory info. One site says that if the nail is splintered, it should be held back in place until it reattaches while the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology suggests that the unattached nail needs to be trimmed off! How in the seventh level of fuck one does that without, say, passing out from the pain if it’s held on only by the edge of the nail plate completely eludes me.

My current solution is to have a band-aid wrapped about the thing to bind it to the bed … at least until I sleep and see what’s what when I wake up. If I’m lucky, it’ll have decided it wants to finish coming out and I could just go grow a new one.I mean, it’s happened before.

Last time a nail came off (pinky, left) it was off altogether and while agonizing, I think the surety of how to proceed — let it grow back in on it’s own and keep the bed dry and clean until then — was a lot better than this half-assedness.

I’m feeling a bit stressed about this. For some good reason, I guess.

Sigh.

Current Mood: sore

01:50 am - The Spicy Region

I have a membership to a new service that lets me clip bits of reporting from various news outlets. As an experiment, I went looking for bits on the recent Chinese earthquake in Sichuan.

And then I found … this:

I’ve seen some crappy journalism in my day, but really? Szechuan Chicken as the emotional linking device to a 7.9 magnitude earthquake? CNN, do you really have such contempt for your audience that you think they need that to help them care?

The more I follow the journalism, the more I’m repulsed by journalists. It doesn’t help that, technically, now I am one.

Current Mood: aggravated

08:32 am - Taking Souls, A Yeld At a Time

Tip of the hat to jake_richmond, who Yeld this one while exoploding panties.

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