At the moment I'm playing in the "Family Campaign". For those of you that remember I hate being cut off from the Internet for any length of time. So even while playing D&D I like having a laptop in front of me with an internet connection. Now I'm sure that there are many of you out there who would consider someone who works on their laptop while playing D&D an incredible ass. There are people who consider me an incredible ass even without taking this into account, so in that sense I guess it's okay. I do have something of a defense my friend, who DM's the "Family campaign", likes the DireKobold Xenogenic System so much that he refuses to run any other adventures. So all of the adventures I'm playing in, I have not only read, I've edited them, programmed them and bled over them (metaphorically, of course).
The other day a guy I work with (he sat four cubes over) was fired. I'm not sure of the exact reason why he was fired, but I do know one thing, he was a pathological liar. His claims included being George Lucas' nephew, possessor of three PHd's, world-class bowler, archer and runner, acquaintance of Prince Charles and self-made millionaire. It seems that the older I get the more inveterate liars I meet. It's curious that they are so common but I guess it all goes back to the difficulty of proving a negative. It's tough to prove that someone didn't meet Prince Charles, or that he didn't break DES encryption or that he wasn't the first man on the moon (okay that I can disprove).
I'm not sure why I mention this, possibly because lying has been much in the news recently with the Jayson Blair scandal. In this very column I have stretched many truths for the sake of a few laughs, but in some respect that's sort of my job, and that's why writing in the RPG industry is so cool. We get paid to make up lies, compose tale tales, and embellish legends. It's a great job and one I'm thankful to have.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
The question for today is, "Did you know there's a guy living in our closet?" "You've seen him too?" "Who is he?" "Hollyfeld." " Why does he keep going into our closet?" "Why do you keep going in our closet?" "To get my clothes, but that's not why he's going in there." "Of course not he's twice your size. Your clothes would never fit him." "Yeah?" "Think before you ask these questions, Mitch. Twenty points higher than me, thinks a big guy like that can wear his clothes?" Actually what I want to know is "Can you hammer a six in spike through a board with your..."
Bonus points if anyone was able to identify that as an excerpt from "Real Genius". There are many great movies from my youth, but very few of them have the place in my heart that "Real Genius" does. When Val Kilmer asks some actor who never appeared in another movie (actually it was Gabe Jarrett and he was in other movies even one you may have heard of) "Was it a dream where you see yourself in, sort of, Sun God robes, on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?" There may never again be a finer moment in American Cinema.
Speaking of great movies, the other day I watched "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain" (it's okay it's British). A very good, but also relatively unknown. You really haven't lived until you've seen Hugh Grant play a stuttering Englishman or sat through a World War One surveying drama. Trust me on this one. I sat down with some of the other DireKobold guys and we discussed what new features to add, and I think you're going to like it. Stick around you ain't seen nothing yet.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
Well I finally got the Conduit pictures whipped into shape, so mostly today's blog will just be several pictures and some captions. First we have the only good picture of me as I stand like a general in the Dealer's room marshalling my lackeys:
Ross gazing like Hannibal down from the southern slopes of the Alps towards Rome.
My humble table/booth showing my acceptance of all operating systems. On the left is a Windows laptop on the right is a Apple laptop and sitting in back is a Linux laptop which of course is running the whole show. In the lower right corner you can see the giant antenna my hardware guy brought in to try and get the crappy wireless to work:
The greatest display of artistic arrangement since Michelangelo painted the Sistine.
In the background we see me on the phone with the doctor explaining how my friend Bernard has been sticking his hands in the microwave in a misguided attempt to acquire superpowers:
Bernard looking more deformed then usual.
The world famous "Cthulhu Bob" of my favorite local gaming store Hastur's Hobbies, the game store whose name must not be spoken:
Cthulhu Bob contemplating the best way to create widespread insanity
The guest of Honor, Harry Turtledove (who writes some killer alternate history stuff) standing next to Bernard who has chosen to hide his hideously misshapen hands:
Harry Turtledove and the suggestion of grotesque green hands.
A group of gamers laughing hysterically at the idea of paying for PDF's, even dynamically generated ones...
Potential customers before I let it slip that I didn't know what AC stood for.
An unidentified con-goer asking me if I would accept her child in lieu of the $34 annual subscription fee. Fortunately for the child it wouldn't fit in my cash box, so I turned her down:
A halfling monk in full battle gear.
A full dump of all the pictures can be found here, and don't hate me because I'm beautiful.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
Well the latest adventure is up, "Ice Mithral Bay" by a guy I've known since the fourth grade. Back then when we played D&D you either found a cave with, every +5 sword in the book or you died in an ignominious fashion to a something like a mean toad. Of course it is precisely the early role-playing which created a nostalgic addiction which never left me even during the darkest days of my first year of marriage. Actually my first year of marriage was spectacular, but for some reason I just figured that once I got married I would never role-play again, that it was a fact of the universe like Avogadro's Number.
To get back to the adventure Ice Mithral Bay is a very cool adventure set in the northern seas, something which I haven't seen a lot of in other adventures I've looked at. If you can't use a good pirate adventure in your campaign then you may be beyond help. I've got the pictures from Conduit I just haven't had a chance to go through and pull them together in some kind of coherent fashion, but that should happen tommorrow. As usual there are lots of "interesting" costumes which my lackeys spent much of there energy on in an effort to get me in trouble with my aforementioned wife.
Well it is pretty late and I need to get to bed. For some reason the last few days I've been running mostly on fumes, and let me tell you that all work and no play makes Ross a very dull boy. Okay that's not entirely true mostly it makes me really mean and difficult to be around (moreso).
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I believe it was German Field Marshall Van Moltke who said, "No plan survives contact with the enemy." That's kind of how memorial day went. Yes I'm am preparing to tell you that the adventure didn't make it out on the 26th, but it will definitely be out today. Given that it is not out yet I think my time is better spent polishing the last few details rather than belaboring the point.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
Conduit Report: Day 2
When my hardware guy walked in on Saturday morning he was carrying an antenna the size of Bolivia. But despite this enormous engine of radio wave collection we were still unable to make the hotel's crappy wireless work. Fortunately we had a complete mirror of the DireKobold server so the throngs of eager masses who had already crushed one of my assistants in their eagerness to view the object d'art that is the DireKobold website were not disappointed.
The other dealers said that Saturday would be busier than Friday, which made a certain amount of sense, given that people didn't have to take off work to attend on Saturday. Despite this seemingly flawless argument Saturday was actually slower than Friday. The dealer at the table next to mine gave up in disgust around 4:30 after selling out all of his Cowboy Bebop merchandise. I had one of my faithful lackeys take a whole bunch of pictures which I should have posted by Tuesday. My brother returned this weekend after being in Hungary for two years (some of you will know exactly what the means for the rest it's to complicated to explain) so I left a little early on Saturday and wasn't there at all on Sunday, over all it went really well.
In terms of adventures, I should have published a new adventure yesterday, but Sunday is my day off (which is the reason I don't do "View from the Bushes" on Sunday). So I should be going up today. With the convention and all the family activities associated with my brothers return it might slip till Tuesday, but it will definitely be up by then. In any event I'd best get back to it.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
First off an apology to all of my regular readers out there. My May 23rd blog was written on time but then I got busy and forgot to post it. It's now available for you edification in the archive. It's actually quite good, you should check it out.
Conduit Report: Day 1
Much of my plans for Conduit involved having internet access. I was assured by several people that wireless internet access was available at the hotel and that it should be no problem. It was a problem, a big problem. The obvious problem was that it's hard to sell subscriptions to a website that no one can see. But by far the bigger problem is that my umbilical cord has been cut. The combination of DireKobold and my job has led to a situation where with the exception of when I'm asleep I never go more than an hour without being connected. Someone asks me what "Gone with the Wind" made adjusted for inflation, a quick search on and I tell them. If my wife wants to know what a word she just read in Scientific America means (coprophagy, a definition I leave as an exercise for the reader) Dictionary.com spits out the answer. Do you have any idea it is to get European Cycling News (the Giro D'Italia is currently going on) without the internet!!
Obviously the thousands of people who look to "View from the Bushes" for their daily news do not want to hear about what I wasn't able to do, but rather what I did. With the exception of struggling futilely for several hours in the morning to establish some sort of internet connection the first day went rather well. Just about everyone I talked to loved the idea. I would generally begin with the line "This is the product you've been waiting for your entire life!" Adding after a half a second okay maybe not but it is pretty cool. I was surprised by the number of people who admitted at the end of my spiel, that it actually was what they had been waiting for their entire life.
To be honest I was surprised by the number of people I had talked to who were still playing 1st and 2nd edition D&D. I'll admit that it took me almost 7 years after it's introduction to start playing 2nd edition and that I never really embraced it (probably the reason I jumped on 3E with such gusto) but to still be playing 1st edition? Wouldn't you be better off playing Hackmaster? At least it's still being supported. And then of course there are the purist who think D&D isn't realistic enough, that only Rolemaster contains a sufficient number of tables to cover every contingency.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
My "real job" is at an Esoteric Reference Laboratory, where I am the webmaster. My cubicle is on one end of the building near the executives and the R&D people. This makes it deadly boring. On the other side of the building are the labs, which apparently are a very happening place. There is a break room at each end of the building. A few days ago I happened to be over in the "fun" breakroom, when I noticed a flyer posted in about every conceivable location. Basically it said, "Someone stole my bottle of Pepsi drank almost all of it, and then put it back. I don't know what you look like but you don't know what I look like and when I catch you I'll have you drawn, quartered and fed to the piranhas."
Okay I made up the part about the piranhas, but I felt it was necessary to convey the venom which dripped from each of these flyers. Later that day I went to the "dull" breakroom. No flyers, no mention of death or dismemberment: in short, no excitement at all. Yesterday I went back to the "edgy" break room and apparently some supervisor had decided that rather than threaten physical violence the more professional thing to do was post flyers with instructions for reporting the time, edible, and lunchbox branding (He-Man, Scooby-Doo and Powerpuff Girls, were the options I believe).
In some sense, obviously, this flyer was not as exciting as the first, except for the title was "Help us catch the Lunch/Dinner Thief!!" Which gave me a vision off one guy sneaking into the breakroom in a mask grabbing some choose eats and then fleeing back to his secret pantry in the picklemobile. This contradicts my gut, which tells me it's probably several people, who probably don't consider themselves worthy of a title. Plus, if you are going to have a title it has to be something more catchy then the "Lunch/Dinner Thief." How about the "Lunchbox Looter" or the "Bologna Burglar" or maybe the "Frozen Burrito Bandito." As expected, when I returned to the "executive" breakroom, there was no bandito...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I read this interesting article today on procrastination. At one point in the article, the author seems to make the point that our "hunter-gatherer" nature is what causes us to procrastinate. He doesn't elaborate on this point, nor does he even explain it very well. I guess that is left as an exercise for the reader. So that is what I'm going to do today explain the evolutionary underpinnings of procrastination (in less than 250 words with a happy ending, a moral, two car chases, a come from behind Shaolin soccer match and time-travel).
The question in its most simplified form would be, "How does putting off important tasks help your genes survive?" As Despair.com says (and the article cited above), "Hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now." If you posit that a person's primary goal is to goof off then that statement is certainly accurate, but if your goal is secure food so that you don't starve, it's hard to imagine that putting of hunting and or gathering pays off at all let alone immediately. I guess you could argue that saving your energy has some benefits, but it would all come down to a ratio of energy expended vs. food secured and if you're not securing any food it doesn't matter how little energy you use you're still expending infinite energy per unit of food.
But perhaps by procrastinating long enough you can get other people to gather the food for you? Or perhaps (going back to the original question) it has nothing to do with food, but is all about passing on your genes. Having recently read the " The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature," I have a very sexualized view of all human activities. Through this lens, it would seem that the evolutionary advantage is obvious. While all the other men are out hunting procrastinating you stay back and shag all the women.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
When I need to relax a little bit, I often boot up a video game. Why I do this is a mystery, because video games are rarely relaxing. Mostly they're addicting, time-consuming, stressful and ultimately, valueless. This seems especially true recently. It's been quite a while since I started playing a game which really grabbed me. One game, though, which I have come back to over and over again through the years is NetHack. In fact, my community supporter handle at ENWorld says NetHack Addict.
Just recently, I picked it up again. The last few times I've played it, I've focused on making modifications to the source and then compiling my own version. Of course, it's been long enough since I did it the last time that I've forgotten most of what I know. However I did finally get it to compile on my Slackware box. And I upped the keenness values on spells from 20000 to 9999999. There's nothing I hate more than going to cast a spell in NetHack and instead getting a replay of that scene where Bugs Bunny runs out of super carrots. I'm guessing that there are quite a few people who've had this same experience.
That particular Bugs Bunny cartoon was made during the war, which leads right into this great quote from Churchill which seems somewhat germane as I consider where DireKobold.com is these days:
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
-Sir Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942 in a speech given at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
My brother-in-law mailed me a link to the "Star Wars Kid" video. I e-mailed him back and told him that I had mentioned it all the way back on the 10th and that he evidently didn't read "View from the Bushes." It's pretty sad when your own family doesn't even read your blog. Of course, he isn't a blood relative and he does like Kenny Loggins (an indication of his appalling aesthetic which needs no further comment).
Anyway, back to the Star Wars kid. They actually did an article on him in Wired. They haven't done an article on me in Wired. I think I'm going to have to start recording embarrassing videos of myself, because you know what they say, there is no bad publicity. The article in Wired is about how two sympathetic geeks who are raising money for the kid, whose name is Ghyslain, and plan on buying him an Apple iPod and some accessories.
As you might be able to tell from the name, Ghyslain is not your typical American teen -- he is, in fact, French-Canadian. If ever anyone had justification to resort to a genetic or environmental defense for their actions a French-Canadian teen would be at the top of my list. Second on the list would be anyone related to me, which gives my brother-in-law an excellent excuse from an environmental perspective, but not from a genetic for that he can only blame his grandfather, François.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
One of my friends from college is a guy by the name of Ed. A couple of years ago he told me that he was going to California to become a Dominican priest. Apparently, by the time he's done (it takes about eight years) he'll have three master's degrees. In any event, I got an e-mail from him on Saturday to say that he was in town. So we grabbed another mutual friend and went to the best Sushi Bar in town (Ginza, and don't let anyone tell you it's Ichiban), and then, of course, he wanted to see the Matrix, so I went and saw it again...
So of course the question is, was it better the second time? Yeah, a little bit, but not markedly so. Mostly I noticed that you could show up to the movie 30 or 40 minutes late and really not miss much (everything up through the rave). Once you excise that portion of the movie, it goes from being a good movie to one of the best action movies I've ever seen. Of course, what this mostly resulted in is like the tenth night in a row that I stayed up later than I would have liked. (Which isn't saying much. I'm an old man so I like to be in bed by about 6:30).
Other than that, I'll have to admit that my weekend was pretty boring. Next weekend is Conduit, the local science fiction convention. I've got a table in the dealer's room. We'll see how it goes. Mostly this is a dry run in preparation for having a table in the exhibitors hall at GenCon. However, beyond that it's something I've wanted to go to for a long time now. I'll make sure and post some reports from the front, so check this space for all the gruesome details.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
As I mentioned yesterday, I just released the third adventure in our Adventure Path Series (yah!). Furthermore, on Friday I released demo snippets of both "Band of the Silver Coin" and "The Heart of the Home" (the brand new one), so hopefully all you demo subscribers out there will get a taste of the new adventure, be unable to wait any longer and give me your first born! Actually, I already have four kids aged six and under, so the last thing I want you to do is send me your kids.
Yesterday afternoon (the 16th, though I'm actually writing this on 16th. Dangnabit! now the mystery is gone...) the power went out at my "real" job. I've never seen the hardware guy move so fast. Miraculously, our UPS's (Uninterruptable Power Supplies) actually worked. I can't remember the last time that happened. Which is odd, since I think they cost 10's of thousands of dollars for the whole server room. The big problem is that the air conditioning in the server room is not on the backup power. Which means that if the power is out for too long, we have to start shutting servers down not because we're running out of juice but because everything starts to overheat.
Okay, this has been pretty dull thus far, and I'm not witty enough to spice things up this late in the game so I'll just continue with the dull. Have you ever been to the 2000 Census Website? It's amazing the kind of facts that you can easily access. For example, did you know that 36% (the largest percent of any category) of dwellings in New York City were built before World War II? Or that 25% of the people in Logan County South Dakota speak a language other than English at home? I warned you that it was going to continue to be dull...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
It was 12:30 on the 16th when I finally got Wil's latest adventure up. So I missed my publication date of the 15th. However, I think if you'll look closely, the word I use on the description of the publishing schedule is approximately on the 5th, 15th, and 25th. Legally, this means that if I put out an adventure at least once every 9 months, then I'm okay. Of course, ideally I'd like to stick to my schedule if only because it will hasten the day when I can be institutionalized and play video games all day.
This is, in fact, the masterplan. One of these days (at the rate I'm going, very soon) I plan to pretend to go completely catatonic. I won't respond to anything. Then someone will get the bright idea to put me in front of a video game. I'll reach out tentatively, touch the screen once or twice and maybe drool on the mouse. But they'll keep trying, emboldened by this small success. After three months of playing video games I'll finally snap out of it, and then it will be back to publishing an adventure every nine months.
Speaking of video games, if I haven't already I highly recommend GoneGold.com Bill did a overview of the new NVIDIA and ATI video cards that was quite good. Also, while we're on the subject of video games, Enter the Matrix came out today. Some of my co-workers picked it up. I'll find out how it was and let you know. It looks like it's mostly a first-person shooter. The genre of game I like the least, mostly because I have the stomach of a 2-month old and all the motion makes me want to hurl.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
Well, with any luck, Wil Upchurch's latest DireKobold adventure will be out later today for you full subscribers out there. All of his adventures have been wicked, but this one is downright diabolical (I keep telling him to use his powers for good rather than evil, but he claims to have tried that and the chicks didn't dig it as much). When I say "with any luck," what I mean is if I didn't waste too much time waiting in line to get a good seat for the Matrix. But if I'm a day or two late with this adventure because of it, you guys would understand, right?
I went with an artist I hadn't used before, Chad Sergesketter, on this adventure. Greg Newbold, the guy who had been doing the illustrations for Wil's Adventure Path series is a professional book jacket illustrator (check out his website) who was trading me art for help with his website. I must say, I like what Chad has done; the picture of the Aquarrans makes me want to play one in the next campaign I'm in. That or make myself a snake tail and a cardboard five-forked trident to wear at the next convention I go to, I can't decide which.
For all you Demo subscribers, I'm thinking of starting to release the snippets on the same day as the adventure. Mostly the reason I did it the way I am now is that I had hoped to break up the workload, so we'll have to see. In any event, I've suddenly run out of things to say, so I'll just toss in a quote:
That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I have an $8 movie ticket that says that at 10 pm this evening I'm supposed to be at a movie theater watching the very first public showing of "Matrix Reloaded." Some of the initial reviews have not been pretty. Of particular note is Harry's review on Ain't it Cool. Though in fairness, at the moment it's got a pretty solid "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Harry is the same guy who gushed over "Episode II" and thought "The Two Towers" was better than "The Fellowship of the Ring" (good, but not better).
I have been working pretty hard, so I should probably take this opportunity to recreate. Though I have my doubts that standing in line for several hours will necessarily be very relaxing. I find the whole "fervor" associated with hard-core fandom tiring. Showing up at 5:00 am to watch a 6:00 am showing of Episode II and finding 800 people already there, one would be tempted to think that it would easily be the biggest opening weekend ever, but no, it was SpiderMan which, to the best of my knowledge, didn't even have 6:00 am showings.
But if you're a hard-core Star Wars fan, then you not only have to see it opening day, you have to see it on the biggest screen in town, from the best seats in the theater. Which leads to there being this enormous demand for certain screenings of a movie and very low demand for other screenings just 24 hours later. You think at some point at least one movie theater would try out a sliding scale and start charging $25 for tickets to the very first screening of the latest fan-fueled frenzy.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I was reading the latest 900 words column by Jim Ward of Fast Forward Entertainment. It's a column similar to "View from the Bushes," only interesting, funny, insightful, and longer. In any case, he was talking about his experiences playing D&D with Gary Gygax back in the 70's. Now first off, I'm obviously jealous. He's very modest, but to give you an analogy it's like he's saying he learned Aikido from Morihei Ueshiba or Perl from Larry Wall or Christianity from...Okay that's probably a stretch.
At one point in the story, he mentions how tired he is of hearing gaming stories. I definitely agree with that. I've found just about every gaming story I've ever heard to be tedious, juvenile, incomprehensible and plebeian. Except my own, which tend to at least be better than anything starring Ben Affleck. Of course, the proof is in the pudding, so for your edification I offer the story of the nether cow.
We were in high school going through a heavily modified Temple of Elemental Evil. I was playing a Drow (In my defense I'm pretty sure this was before "The Crystal Shard" was published). We ran into a wight and the mage asked my advice on what spell he should cast. I told him to polymorph it.
"Into what?"
"A cow."
Well the DM being capricious and cruel (as most good DM's are), decided that it worked but only succeeded in changing the wight from a glowing eyed, life-sucking undead, into a glowing-eyed, life-sucking undead who could trample and gore. So we fled.
Not too far away, our dwarven fighter had recently managed to escape from captivity wearing nothing more than what god gave him. As he scoured the dungeon looking for arms and armor (finding some of the former and none of the latter due to his diminutive stockiness), he stumbled onto the room where we had left the nether cow. By this point I was using my insta-evil-cred(TM) to negotiate with one of the bad guys. The negotiations took place at the end of a large hall with multiple exits. Suddenly, like a scene from a Scooby Doo cartoon, I catch sight of a naked dwarf clutching a small arsenal of weapons running repeatedly into and back out of the hall being chased by the "Nether Cow." The cow won that contest, and there was much laughter.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I was sitting at the family dinner today, and my brother-in-law mentioned that he was thinking of taking some creative writing classes at college, and asked me what I thought. My own degree is in English, with a creative writing emphasis, and I'm glad I got it. My work already resembles that of a 7-year old who was raised by the wolves. One can only imagine what it would be like if I hadn't gotten a degree in creative writing. But having said that, one had to wade through a lot of crap to get anything out of any of these classes.
I think I may have mentioned this earlier (not that it matters, the most any of these entries anyone has read without going blind is three) but in a creative writing class you have all these people who desperately want to be professional writers, and they know the only way that's going to happen is if they are really, really good. Certainly they have to be the best in a room of 12 other students at a state college. One of the ways they make sure of this is they rip into everything else like starving hyenas in the Serengeti, so as to make themselves look better by comparison.
All of this is compounded by the fact that everyone wants to write short stories on the theory that it's too difficult to write a novel. It is insanely difficult to write a novel, but on a per-page basis it's probably ten times more difficult to write a short story. Add to this that the market for short stories is tiny, nay diminutive, perhaps even fine (could you get any lamer than D&D humor?) and the market of people producing short stories is colossal. I don't think it was just the university I went to. Later, I joined an online critique group called Critters and it was mostly the same. Though I would still definitely recommend Critters if you are interested in writing science fiction, horror or fantasy, it's just not for the timid.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
A day or two ago I saw what may have been the funniest video clip ever (it's on waxy.org the April 29th entry). It's a clip of a young, overweight kid in junior high (or possibly high school) pretending to be Darth Maul with a curtain rod or something similar. He's akward, unathletic, comically serious and completely lacking anything that could be mistaken for grace. In other words he's me, he's you. He is, in fact, Everygeek.
I can only comment definitively on my own akward adolesence, so when I say that's he's you, I may be wrong, but certainly he's me (though to be perfectly honest I had a much bigger problem with being unspeakably ugly than being fat). The key difference is that I never videotaped myself, and the internet was just a barely legible scribble on one of Tim Berners-Lee's notepads when I was in junior high. So there aren't any embarrassing videos of me on the internet, at least I don't think so; there was the five months I lived in Amsterdam...
In other news, it's now less than a week until the Matrix Reloaded hits theaters. I've got tickets for a 10 pm showing on the 14th. Of course I'm supposed to be publishing the next installment of Wil Upchurch's Adventure Path series on the 15th, so the end of the week may see me functioning on very little, if any, sleep. I've been staying on top of the reviews (mostly those at Ain't it Cool News) and they've been mixed. Does that mean I think I won't enjoy it? Let's just say if all I got to see was the stuff I've already seen in trailers on a big screen with THX sound then I'd feel like I got my money's worth.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
Correction: A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was singing along with Wakko's World. Well, it's actually Yakko's World. I'm not sure how it happened. I can only imagine that the crying, the carbon monoxide from the running car and a massive brain aneurism must have combined to cause what could only be described as the most egregious mistake I have made since voting for Mondale.
Okay, I was 13 in 1984 so obviously I did not vote for Mondale, but I think you can see how that would have been a big mistake. To give you an idea of how big of an Animaniacs fan I am, allow me to relate a story from my wedding reception. Near the beginning of the reception my wives sorority sisters surrounded us and serenaded us with their house song. At the end of the reception when most of the guests had left my friends got up, encircled us and sang the Animaniacs theme song.
As long as I'm on the subject of Animaniacs, it's been a while since I ended with a quote, and Pinky and The Brain in particular had some good ones:
Pinky, Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?
I think so Brain, but if they called them "Sad Meals," kids wouldn't buy them.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
In an ever-expanding marketspace of rapidity, collaboration and ROI requirements, the need for service-oriented results-driven teamplayers with a drive for excellence has never been more acute. Yeah right! I could care less about that stuff, I just want your adventures. (And your adulation, but I can wait).
If players run in terror when you walk into a room, if TPK's are your bread and butter, if Patton and the Third Army is your idea of how well your monsters should fight, if despite (or because of) your legendary merciless cruelty, there's a 12 month waiting list for a seat at your game, if your idea of a mundane location is a crystalline bridge over a gorge full of molten mithril, if above all, nothing pleases you more than a well-crafted adventure then you're our guy!
We pay between 2-5 cents a word, depending on experience, and though we offer no dental, medical or vision we will take your adventure and juice it up with the now legendary Xenogenic Publishing System! It's where we turn your one incredible meat-shredder of doom into 500 meat-shredders of doom. And yes, I posted this on the ENWorld Job Board, but I'm guessing that there is a possibility that the three people which read this and the ten thousand people who read the ENWorld boards may not overlap.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
On this day in history the first four-minute mile was run by England's Roger Bannister. For those gamers out there like myself who've never covered a mile in less than 20 minutes, allow me to provide an analogy to help you understand what it means to run a mile in under four minutes. Imagine that you're playing Champions with 12 high-powered characters and an equal number of badguys. Now imagine trying to kill all 12 badguys, all at once, in a single evening. Or if you've never played Champs, imagine downing a six-pack of Mountain Dew in under 15 seconds.
Today my wife had to have some blood drawn and since it was close to where I work, she picked me up, we drove over to the clinic and she left me alone... in the car with the kids. Actually, my kids are pretty good, though my youngest (month and a half) doesn't seem to like being strapped in with a four point harness, mummified in blankets, poked by her older brothers and subjected to the greatest hits of the late 80's. I tried putting on an Animaniacs CD we had in the car but my clumsy rendition of Wakko's World (United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru... Come on, everybody!) only seemed to add a high almost inaudible screeching component to her crying.
In other news, we have a little sci-fi convention by the name of Conduit here in Salt Lake City, which for years and years I've been meaning to attend but I always forget. In fact, several times I was at my (now defunct) Tuesday night game and my players would start talking about how cool it had been and I would say, "I will eviscerate you where you stand with this d10 if you guys don't stop talking about Conduit." Actually, it was closer to "You're kidding! I missed it again. Would it kill you to maybe invite me?" But this year will be different. More on that later.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
A couple of things to announce right of the bat: first, we released a new adventure yesterday, "Band of the Silver Coin," by Robert Kai. Robert is a relative newcomer to the world of RPG freelancing, but I think you'll be seeing more of him. He's got some good ideas and a true desire to make characters' lives as interesting (difficult) as possible. In conjunction with that, I released the snippet for "Legacy of Horrors," our previous adventure. Additionally, there was a change in the publishing schedule of "View from the Bushes." (In case you missed it that's what you're reading right now).
Rather than publishing the May 5th (or Cinco de Mayo) edition sometime in the evening of the 5th, I'll be putting it out the night before. You may have noticed that magazines do this all the time. The June edition will come out in May, or something similar. I think it's so that they always have a cushion should things go drastically awry. This is a good idea. Perhaps I should call tomorrow's View from the Bushes the November 23 edition and then I wouldn't have to do anything until September, at the earliest.
To spend 2/3 of this space on an update of the site is pretty sad. I can only imagine the desolation people must be feeling to have read this far (from April 14th all the way till now) without coming across anything even remotely funny or clever. So in an attempt to redress this I will direct you to Sartre's Cookbook and hope that the existential angst of this proletariat philosopher will deepen the void which has been left by my pathetic attempt at writing...
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I told the DireKobold.com (back then I called it d20pdfs.com -- a horrible name, but one which I had registered for a year) idea to a couple of friends, and they all thought it was pretty cool, and that was the end of it. I didn't do anything more for at least a year. At work, my boss had been out sick for about 8 months when they finally decided to fill his job. So I applied and just as they were about to fill the position, my boss recovered. I don't think I would have gotten it anyway; it was after the dot-com bust and there were literally hundreds of applications.
After my boss came back, I felt like I needed something to shoot for some other big goal. Initially I thought I might finish my novel (I had 100 pages of some fairly inconsistent stuff). But I thought, "Why wait for years to start making money when I can start making money in months with the dynamic adventure idea." I was pretty clueless. If I had know the amount of effort it would require I would have never started. Though having done it, I'm glad I did.
For some reason, my biggest worry during this time was that someone would beat me to the punch; it seemed like such a cool idea. What I failed to grasp was that PDF publishers are to RPG publishing what Kilgore Trout is to Science Fiction. That, despite an enormous amount of effort by some, the low entry cost to PDF Publishing has given everything about it a hue of "effortless shoddiness," and a deep hole to dig out of.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
I thought that today I might talk somewhat about the genesis for the idea of DireKobold.com. I remember going to GenCon when Third Edition was released, and though I suppose that I had heard about the "D20 System" before then (I spent a lot of time on Eric Noah's site before 3E came out), it wasn't until that GenCon that I really got the idea of what the D20 System allowed you to do. Like many people, I thought it might be cool to be a publisher, but this was not necessarily new. I had always been interested in publishing some kind of RPG stuff.
In fact, even before the D20 system, I had gone so far as to consult an IP attorney to see what the legal restrictions were on publishing D&D compatible products. He told me some very interesting things which may eventually be the subject of another "View from the Bushes." Right off the bat, I figured that if someday I did go into publishing, that it would have to be PDF because I really didn't feel like I knew enough about distribution to put out print products. In retrospect, looking at the effort and money I put into DireKobold.com I think it actually might have been easier (certainly quicker) to do print products.
In any event I was reading Dungeon Magazine and I noticed that they had these sidebars with every adventure giving instructions on how to scale the adventure for various levels. This is when I got the idea to put together an online magazine, similar in form and content to Dungeon. The "secret sauce," as it were, was that each adventure would be programmed to automatically scale. In other words, to take all the work a DM would normally do to modify and adventure for his party and do it for him. (To be continued...)
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
For the last few decades (maybe more), teachers have de-emphasized memorization and learning things by rote. The theory is that you can always look it up. Well, that's not necessarily true. You can't always look it up, plus it looks much more impressive if you don't have to. Allow me to offer a story to buttress the point. As I mentioned yesterday, I got a new GeForce FX. I also mentioned that I'm not a huge Windows fan.
When spec-ing out my new system, my "hardware buddy" talked me into getting a motherboard with a GeForce4 MX on board as a way of saving some money. When we got everything up and running my monitor wouldn't go above 1024x768 and maintain 32-bit color. We tried everything, but eventually my buddy felt so bad that he bought me an FX out of what I'd paid him to build the computer, which was above and beyond the call. So I took it home, slapped it in, and booted it up. Everything worked smoothly. I went and checked the display properties, and sure enough, this baby would go all the way to 2560x1920 in 32 bit color. So I thought, what the heck, I'm pretty sure my monitor can't handle that resolution, but I'm going to try it any way. It'll revert to the old setting if it doesn't work. It didn't revert....
Thus began a long and painful process of trying to get my monitor back. I pulled the card out and put it back in 4 different times. I tried messing with the bios. I messed with the monitor cable. I lit candles and prayed to my ancestors. I asked my four-year old son. At this point, there are many (okay two of my five faithful readers) out there who are saying why didn't you just start it in "safe mode?" Because I couldn't remember how. (BTW, if any one at Microsoft is listening, F8 is NOT intuitive!) And because my computer was unusable, I couldn't look it up either. Thus the point of the story.
Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross
