WWdN: In Exile

moon over a ruined castle

You know you've spent a little too much time on the Internet when you're in Maui, taking pictures of a beautiful Sea Turtle, and the first thing you think is, "Oh man, I can't wait to LOLCat this when I get home!"

This, my friends, is how my damaged brain works.

I'm still on island time, both literally and emotionally, though I'm steadily working my way back into the whole real life thing, knocking down the towering To Do list that built up while I was gone.

It's so hard to get motivated to sit down and work, when what I really want to do is play frisbee with Nolan, swim with Ryan, and snorkel with Anne. Since this was the first long distance family vacation we've taken in several years, I'm willing to grant myself a couple of days to get ease back into real life . . . of course, eating pineapple with breakfast, having a peanut butter and guava jelly sandwich while drinking Pog, and listening to Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Arthur Lyman while I do my Propelling is making the transition a little less jarring.

A couple of quick notes before I head downtown to meet some friends for lunch (talk about a jarring return to real life!):

Some people I used to work for at PokerStars have started a new online poker site called Fleet Street Games. It's got Mac, Windows, and Linux clients (a Linux client! How cool is that?!) and is in a free beta right now. I played in -- and won -- a $150 freeroll tourney last night. SHIP IT!

I called Creation this morning to find out, once and for all, if I was persona non grata or persona we're coola, and if they were intersted in having me come to the Vegas convention or not. It turns out that my e-mails were going to people who are no longer with the company. The girl I spoke with this morning seemed very interested in bringing me out to the show, and though it would unprofessional to talk too much about the contents of our conversation, I felt that it was very positive and there's a pretty good chance that I will end up being at the Big Honkin' Vegas Convention this year after all. More details to come later.

I tried not to follow the news too closely while I was on vacation, but I care deeply about Bush's domestic spying operation, and the efforts of idiots like Steny Hoyer to defy his constituents and give AT&T retroactive amnesty for breaking the law and helping Bush spy on innocent Americans without a warrant. I'm pretty disgusted with the Democratic leadership in the House for caving in to Mister 28%, but I'm positively appalled that Barack Obama has been effectively silent (other than a weak and intelligence-insulting statement) on the entire debate. I commented at DailyKos:

Wouldn't it be awesome if a senator who had expressed non-ambiguous opposition to the Protect AT&T act in the past joined in the filibuster against it?

Wouldn't it be even more awesome if the vast majority of that senator's base -- oh hell, forget the base, let's open it up to the vast majority of all Americans -- opposed amnesty for law-breaking telcos and expanded spying powers for the White House, making this a slam dunk win for that senator, giving him a chance to show some serious leadership?

Oh! Oh! Oh! And wouldn't it be the most awesome EVER if that senator was running for president, and could use this issue to show Americans that he was seriously committed to changing the way things happen in Washington?!

Yeah, that sure sounds like a perfect dream scenario, doesn't it?

Oh well. A guy can dream. Yeah . . . a guy can dream.

I'm really, really tan. I've actively avoided being in the sun for the last several years, but it was pretty much impossible to do that while I was in Hawaii. I don't think I've been this tanned since I was a teenager. Rawr.

People Magazine put out one of those "Where are they now?" issues about kid actors who are all grown up now. I didn't want to participate, because I usually get ratfucked by the media in things like this, but since they were going to include me anyway, I decided that it was worth the risk to talk with them and hope for the best. The issue came out this week, and we saw it at the grocery store yesterday. I was very surprised that it was really positive and -- get ready for the shocker of all shockers -- accurate. They talked about how much I love being a dad, and how important Ryan and Nolan are to me. Anne showed it to Ryan, who was adorably excited to see that he was mentioned in the article.

I'm going to play the hell out of Descent this afternoon and tonight.

Yesterday, I Rickrolled 12000 people. All of them, as far as I can tell, took it in good humor. And no, Internet, Rickrolling will NEVER get old.

Twitter is riding the failwhale to failtown. I love Twitter, and watching it die a slow death is breaking my heart. Now that replies and tracking are down, what's the point?

You know what would be awesome? A real life Rickroll: you go to a concert, expecting to see a particular band, but when the lights come down, holy shit there's Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up on stage FOR REAL. Just the one song, then the band you were there to see comes out.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow.

I've run out of interesting things to say.

home again, home again

Well, we're back from vacation. I'm still not motivated to do much of anything except look at pictures and listen to surf music, though.

wil's summer vacation

I am on vacation with my family, and I'm not especially motivated to do a whole lot of blogging.

Regular posts will resume in about a week.

windows open and raining in

I came across some really interesting items while Propelling today, which I wanted to share, because I can:

Farmers Put 220 Acres Under Glass to Create Vast Artificial Environment

On the chilly Isle of Thanet in Kent, England, farmers are placing 220 acres of land under glass so they can grow vegetables all year round. The greenhouse, when completed, will house 1.3 million plants and increase the UK's crop of green vegetables by 15%. Called Thanet Earth, the project will be a series of 7 connected grenhouses with a relatively small carbon footprint. And nothing grown inside Thanet Earth will ever touch soil.

This interests me a great deal because I'm considering some hydroponic gardening in addition to my regular gardening here, as we attempt to reduce our carbon footprint and become more self-sufficient. Climate change played an important part in the worldbuilding of the novella I'm working on, so I've spent a lot of time researching the future of agriculture; it's interesting to me to see people experimenting with different techniques in the present.

A Professional Gambler's Take on the Tim Donaghy Scandal

Haralabos Voulgaris leads a rare life.

He's one of very few people -- Voulgaris estimates there may be as few as four or five -- who have achieved a high level of success betting full-time on the NBA.

And he does very well at it. "In the last eight years," he explains, "the 2004-2005 season was the only year where I didn't turn a nice profit, and I lost very small."

His approach is intensively evidence-based. He has his own massive database that would be the envy of any stat geek. For instance: Given two line-ups of players on the floor, his database does, he says, a good job of predicting which players will guard each other. The database also tracks the tendencies of individual referees, and factors all that and much more into forecasts. Voulgaris also watches close to 1,000 games a year.

He designed the database as a tool to outwit oddsmakers, and it works for that.

But it's also a fine-tuned machine for researching the claims and career of Tim Donaghy. And having used this database, and his contacts in the sports betting world, Voulgaris says that his confidence in the integrity of the NBA has been shaken, to the point that, despite his big income, he's looking for ways to stop betting altogether.

"The league has made a big mistake," he says.

I sort of knew Haralabos back in my poker-playing days, and really liked him because he was one of the first players who was really kind to me, even though he had no reason to be. I knew he bet on sports, but I had no idea he was as serious as he appears to be. His perspective on this whole scandal was fascinating to me, especially how his data and analysis support Donaghy's claims. He says the NBA has done a great job of sweeping the whole thing under the rug. Unfortunately, I agree with him.

The Watchmen Motion Comic

Warner Bros. plans on releasing about a dozen 22 to 26 minute webisodes to help make the complex story of Watchmen easier for the uninitiated to digest. Recently, WatchmenComicMovie was shown a teaser trailer for these webisodes by an anonymous source. From what we saw these webisodes are going to be really well done.

The series of webisodes, which will be titled Watchmen: A Digital Graphic Novel, will be less like a slide show of original comic panels and more of the comic book “brought to life” with rudimentary animation techniques.

The teaser is simply a conglomeration of different scenes from the comic book given motion and set to dramatic orchestral music. In order to animate the comic, the production team has apparently dissected the elements from each panel that they wanted to move — such as a cloud or a character — and animated it in front of a restored or “filled in” background.

For example — they animated the iconic comic panel that shows The Comedian’s funeral from above to not only have falling rain and lightning, but wind that realistically blows the coats and clothing of the mourners surrounding the open grave. In another, Ozymandias sits in front of his monitor bank — each commercial and T.V. program on the screens in motion — scratching the back of his pet Bubastis’ head. For lack of a better way to describe the trailer, it’s like you’re watching an episode of Watchmen: The Animated Series.

DUDE! Even though living in a post-Phantom Menace world has made my default position on all these thing "apprehensively optimistic" I can't wait to watch these. It seems like everyone involved in Watchmen truly gets it, so it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep my hopes nice and low . . . they want to go up and up and up.

This last story isn't my submission, but that's just because my fellow scout Keith beat me to it:

The Prisoner remake: details emerge?

The Prisoner Appreciation Society (Six of One) is reporting that this classic, surreal sci-fi/adventure series is set to return for a six-episode miniseries run. The announcement coincides with The Prisoner's 40th anniversary.

Reports have Jim Caviezel playing the heroic Number Six -- actor with a penchant for playing long-suffering characters (Bobby Jones, Jesus). Sir Ian McKellen would play arch-nemesis Number Two, while cementing his status alongside Christopher Lee as the greatest nerd project actors of their generation. Between the two of them, they'd own Star Wars, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, Dracula, Frankenstein and X-Men).

The Prisoner is my all-time favorite TV show, ever. EVER! After watching marathon after marathon of The Prisoner, I grokked what makes people become Trekkies or Browncoats. It did more than entertain me, it inspired me. I know that's weird to say about something that's so Orwellian, but it's true. The Prisoner spoke to me when I was a teenager. I bought the GURPS book, bought all the video tapes, and picked up every fan-made book and map of The Village I could find. I bought rub-on transfer letters in the Albertus font so I could make my own signs for my dressing room, and I painstakingly drew my own Number Six badge to wear on my jackets. I read and re-read the graphic Novel Shattered Visage fruitlessly looking for clues about . . . stuff. My first big external SCSI Mac II hard disk, which I think weighed in at a mighty 30 Megabytes, was named KAR120C. Again, living in a post-Phantom Menace world makes me a little nervous, and we've been talking about this remake almost as long as we were talking about a Watchmen movie, so I don't even know if this is as reliable as it seems. Regardless, I'm hopeful that there's someone out there who can treat it right. And a six episode mini-series would be freaking brilliant.

Okay, one last bonus link before I go: years ago, I did an episode of The Outer Limits called The Light Brigade. I was watching The Time Tunnel last night on Hulu, and saw that The Light Brigade is there, as well. It's useless for non-US visitors (can you use a proxy to fool Hulu? I haven't tried) but if you're in the US and want to spend 44 minutes watching me . . . um . . . act, I guess is the word I'm looking for . . . now you can.

2008 geek tour updates (with an update)

This is how the GeekTour ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Bad news, everyone: I'm not going to San Diego Comic-Con. I was planning on attending with TokyoPop, and when they laid off a ton of staff (including my editor, which made me sad) they also pulled out of Comic-Con.

There is a very slim chance that I may crash a booth with a couple of friends, but I honestly don't know if I'll be able to justify the expense; it's become increasingly difficult for me to break even, let alone turn a profit, at Comic-Con. I've got a kid in college, so justifying expenses, even for superhappygoodtimes like SDCC is increasingly difficult.

More bad news, everyone: I've sent a couple of e-mails to Creation about the Big Honkin' Vegas convention in August, and I haven't heard anything back; not even a "No. Now please go away."

Last year, they'd sent me an invite by May. Since I haven't heard anything yet, it's already mid-June, and several people have asked via e-mail and comments here if I'll be going, I went ahead and contacted the same guy who's booked me the last two years. He hasn't replied, so I'm left to assume that they're not interested in having me participate in the con.

I have to say, this makes me really, really sad. I was really looking forward to both of these shows. I can't do anything about TokyoPop pulling out of SDCC, but I've made what I feel are reasonable efforts to contact Creation. If I keep asking, "Hey, guys! Can I please come to your show and help you make money? Can I? Can I? Please? Please? PUH-LEEZE?!" I will start to feel like a chump. In fact, I already feel like a chump. And pretty demoralized, to boot. Maybe I'm "not part of the Star Trek family" again. Sigh.

UPDATED 6-14-08: I just double-checked my spam folders, and I see that the e-mails I've been sending to my contact at Creation have been bouncing back to me, getting marked as Spam. I've just tried a different contact at Creation, so hopefully this one will get through. Now I'm hopeful that perhaps Creation isn't ignoring me, but just didn't know that I was trying to make contact with them.

A little bit of good news, everyone: I'm still on for PAX, where I'll perform from Happiest Days, and rock your world on MarioKartDS. Also, Rock Band. Oh yes, there will be emm effing Rock Band, emm effers.

how to create your very own ogre deathcrotch

Yesterday, I told some friends of mine who are writers that I feel this need to write, and I certainly want to write, but my brains aren't cooperating with me at all. I asked them for advice, and was relieved to learn that I'm not the only writer (who doesn't feel like a writer at the moment) who experiences these weird and annoying patches of malaise.

I applied everyone's advice, so I've gotten to play some GTA IV to recharge, read some comics and genre fiction to reinspire, taken some walks to clear my head, and now I'm writing something totally unrelated to my work, so I can hopefully kick stuff loose in my head and hopefully get back to my assignments.

I think I had this sudden lock-up in the brain-u-lo-tronic region of my skull because I'm kind of overwhelmed by both life and work. I think I may have taken on too many creatively-demanding writing projects, so yesterday I thought I'd make a list of my writing commitments, including their various deadlines, so I could get a better picture of what I need to do. The idea was to put everything onto paper, tape it up next to my desk, and feel a little bit better knowing what my responsibilities were.

Um. Yeah. Didn't quite work out that way. Seeing how much I have to do has really freaked me out; I have an August 1 deadline for this project that is unlike anything I've ever done before, and though I'm looking at 51 days until I turn it in, I don't feel like that's enough time. Yikes. Fear is a good motivator, though, and I work well when I'm terrified, so I'm hopeful that once I get past a couple more milestones, I'll be able to enjoy this thing, instead of . . . uh, whatever it is right now. Which is mostly paralyzing fear.

I also made a list of things I want to write but probably shouldn't until I get my paying gigs handled. On that list is the last entry in our trip to New York, and a review and commentary about D&D4E. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I've been enjoying the fourth edition core books so far, and that I like a lot more than I don't like. Because of all these commitments I have, though, I don't know if I'll have time to play or run a campaign -- or even a one-shot -- before summer is over. I don't think it's particularly responsible to write much about fourth edition until I get a chance to play it, you know? (If you've played or run a fourth edition adventure, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave 'em here.)

Anyway. On to the cryptic title of this post: John Kovalic, creator of Dork Tower, illustrator of Just a Geek, big bossman of Out of the Box games and all-around insanely awesome dude, has also been reading fourth edition. Today, he writes:

The designers of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition must be having a real roller-coaster time, at the moment. On the one hand, this epic labor of love is finally in readers' hands, to much acclaim. On the other hand, it will be slowly nibbled to death by gerbils as every gamer under the sun points out the one or two nitpicky things they dislike in the nearly-thousand-page Opus of Awesomejuice they released.

(I, for one, don't understand why The "Customizing Scores" method of character generation starts with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. Would it have been that much to throw a couple extra points players' ways - creating 10's across the board - and thereby making the subsequent table of point additions that much more elegant? Nitpicky, nitpicky, NITPICKY!)

I will say, however, that the Monster Manual gives me greatest pause. Not due to any mechanic. Simply because of the sheer number of monsters that now go by MODIFIER-title MONSTER NAME (or MONSTER NAME modifier-TITLE). Yes, I realize this is due to the seemingly endless subdivision and stratification of monsters and monster types necessitated by new monster Roles: artillery, brute, controller, soldier, fishmonger (or something like that).

[...]

Anyway, it's pretty obvious that D&D 4th edition has a specific way they'd like you to differentiate monsters. Now, anybody can be a critic. But it takes a better man to offer constructive advice - to put forward something POSITIVE. And so, in that spirit, I humbly offer KOVALIC'S SCROLL OF SWARMING FOURTH EDITION NOMENCLATURE, for those who want to create monsters or name new Player Characters the right way...the Fourth Edition way. Roll some dice and try it out!

What follows is an awesome and hilarious table intended to allow DMs to randomly generate silly names that fit into the unique fourth edition nomenclature. If you're wondering, I used my very own dice to determine the type of ogre referenced in the title of this post.

If you roll up a monster name -- I mean really roll it up, not just pick two funny entries and put them together -- feel free to share your creation in the comments. I, for example, have also just created . . . a Bitchyhulk Oni, who I'm just certain is a level 9 controller.

You know, I can't imagine not being a geek.

. . . and I'm very grateful for that.

To make an already geeky post that much more geeky: WWdN reader kendiara shared some thoughts on 4E that were interesting to me. (Is there a good signal to noise 4E discussion online anywhere?) Maybe they'll be interesting to other geeks. There's also some really funny monsters that were rolled up, including the Kobold Dreadlard, who I think must be a really tubby Kobold with a Dex of 5, and the fearsome Ogre Meatspike, who could be rather NSFW, depending on how demented you are. Eww!

turns out this post is all about stand by me

I have to keep reminding myself that I can compose offline in ecto. Oh, related to that: I really like ecto, and feel comfortable endorsing it and recommending it to anyone who is looking for a full-featured offline editor for their blog.

Anyway, I guess AMC ran Stand By Me on DVD TV last night. Apparently, I'm the only person in the world who didn't know about this, because I got tons of e-mail about it, and it appears that a lot of people who've never read my blog before are dropping by today to see what it's all about. That fills me with performance anxiety, and makes me wish I had one of those "my favorite posts" posts to point you to. Maybe my Best of 2006 entry (which was a cleverly disguised starting point for The Happiest Days of Our Lives ) or a story like Blue Light Special would give you an idea of what I typically blather on about on my particular section of the 'tubes.

OH! You know what I just thought? It would be totally cool -- well, cool for me, anyway -- if some readers wanted to leave links to their favorite posts in the comments. That way, I could, you know, lazyweb my way to a "readers favorites" post at some point in the future.

AMC has some really terrific blogs now, including a Sci-Fi blog that John Scalzi's contributing to. There's a post in their Future Classics blog that Stand By Me fans will probably enjoy about how Stephen King's childhood inspired Stand By Me.

I really wish I'd seen it, because I'm always interested to know if other people remember things the same way I did, and because it's really fun to know what else was going on outside of my 12 year-old acting bubble.

I guess they said that I was "upset" that Gordie never got his baseball cap back from Ace, which isn't entirely accurate. I remember asking Rob why Gordie didn't make Ace give him back his Yankees cap at the end of the movie, since it seemed like the sort of thing that should happen if Gordie and his friends "won." (This made perfect sense to me when I was 12.)

Rob said that Ace didn't keep the cap, and threw it away as soon as he walked around the corner. It wasn't about the cap, Rob told me, as much as it was about Ace being cruel.

I learned a lot about filmmaking and storytelling in that conversation with Rob, and I still feel its influence on my creative life.

AMC also said that Kiefer Sutherland was a bully to all of us in real life. I don't remember it that way at all, though I know Corey and Jerry have both said that he was pretty tough on them -- method acting, I guess. It was different for me; I was certainly intimidated by him, but I don't recall him going out of his way to be cruel or anything when the cameras weren't rolling. In fact, my two clearest memories of him are being afraid that he was going to accidentally burn River's face with the cigarette near the beginning of the movie, and that he wanted me to point the gun straight at his face near the end of the movie, which made me nervous, even though it wasn't loaded.

Okay, one more memory and then I really have to get back to work: In that final scene, when Gordie pulls the gun on Ace, my instinct was to yell at him, like I was trying to intimidate him (again, this made sense when I was 12.) Rob let me rehearse it that way, and then he very calmly pulled me aside and asked me to try it again, but to keep my voice quieter. "Let the gun do the talking," he said. "It's more powerful."

I was 12, so I said that I thought I should do it my way. (Ah, the impertinence of youth, how glad I am to be rid of it.) Rob nodded patiently and said, "Okay, listen to this." He took a few steps away, and pointed his finger at my face. "No, Ace, just you," he said. Gravely, quietly, seriously.

Then, he pulled that finger back and held it up.

"Now," he said, "listen to this." He took a deep breath, pointed his finger at my face again, and screamed, "NO ACE JUST YOU!"

His voice echoed off the river, as he asked, "Which one is scarier? Which one is stronger?"

I laughed nervously. "It's scarier when you yell at me, but it's stronger to be quiet, which is guess is scarier if you're Ace." I said.

"So let's try it that way," he said, kindly.

People always give me credit for being great in that movie. The truth is, I don't think I deserve as much credit for it as I'm frequently given. I think back on my limited experience and my silly ideas, and then I see what a magnificent performance Rob Reiner coaxed out of me. The difference is striking.

Stand By Me is a classic film because of Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson, who cast it, Rob Reiner,who directed it, Andy Scheinman, who produced it, and Ray Gideon and Bruce Evans, who wrote it. I was really good at taking direction, so I'll take a little credit for that, but all of us were standing on the shoulders of giants.

classic photos redone in lego

Fans of Lego, photography, design, history, or things that are just plain awesome* will love this photoset on Flickr, where Flickr user Balakov has recreated famous photographs, from the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima to Maradona's infamous Hand of God, using Lego minifigures and close-up photography.

Links to the original photos are included, so you can fully enjoy how incredibly awesome this is.

I'd like to point out that Balakov has released all of these images under a Creative Commons license, and is offering prints for sale.

Come on, seriously: how much does this rule?

(via geekdad)

*If you drew a Venn diagram of those things, I'd be in the middle of it.

The Naked Gun, GTA IV style

This is totally made of 100% epic win.

(via Digg)

in which i wear a red hat and travel by vine

This totally made my day week, and I wonder if this is how Cory Doctorow and Stallman[1] felt when they were in xkcd?

You know, things like this have been happening to me more and more frequently lately, and while it's still very hard get used to, it's genuinely wonderful to feel cooler than I really am, even if it's only for a few fleeting seconds.

Thank you, mysterious creator of Abstruse Goose!

[1] Does Stallman feel things like the rest of us do? I'm a little afraid to go exploring through that twisty maze of passages, all alike, to find out. It is very dark, I'm afraid.[2]

[2] If you understood any of that, congratulations, you're a Geek. If you went exploring to figure out what it all meant, you just gained a level in Geek. If you feel compelled to argue about these footnotes, immediately gain another level in Geek, and lose a turn.