Eek! 40!

Actually, I don't feel so bad about this birthday, especially since it turns out that the Internet and I are turning 40 together (almost).

The Five Stages of Watching a Browns Game

Denial: In this stage, the Browns fan simply refuses to acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that his team is going to lose. "We're still in the first quarter and we've already made a field goal! We're only four points behind. We can totally win this!"

Anger: As the dissonance between the fan's protective self-deception and the actual performance of the Browns becomes increasingly difficult to ignore, the fan is forced to defend his comforting delusion more aggressively. "That ref has it in for us! The Packers would never have made those last three touchdowns if not for the crappy calls!"

Bargaining: This phase is characterized by a growing awareness that the Browns can't possibly win the game on their own, but a continuing refusal to accept the inevitable conclusion. The fan therefore convinces himself that it is possible for his own actions to influence the game in some way. "Come on guys! If we all show our support, the Browns will rally! Let's do the wave! DEE-FENCE! DEE-FENCE! DEE-FENCE!"

Depression: At this point, even the most dedicated fan realizes that there is no hope. The Browns are going to lose. Again. All of the fan's defense mechanisms have been overwhelmed, resulting in a crippling emotional exhaustion. "To hell with this. I'm going home at half time. I don't even want to know what the rest of this game is going to be like. I wish I'd never heard of football."

Acceptance: With sufficient amounts of beer, pork products, and peer support, the fan recovers somewhat from his depression and achieves a degree of functional equilibrium. "I guess even a Browns game is better than nothing. At least it got me out of the house for a while. Cleveland rocks!"

The Temptation of Responsibility

Last night, I was clicking away pretty good at a story I need to finish.  Television (and even radio) off, Tom at work, cats... well... not doing anything I couldn't ignore.  The silence was speaking clearly to me.  At around midnight, though, I thought, "I should go to bed."  I had been up even later Sunday night for the same reason and it was starting to wear on me a little.  I could have gone another hour easily, maybe two, maybe more, but then I would be droopy at work the next day.

This sort of thing was much more clear to me when my day job was walking barefoot on broken glass.  I suppose I should thank Tyson for giving me that much, anyway.  Back in those days, I could easily respond to that first twinge with, "hell with those asshats. If I shuffle through the day without knowing where I am, it'll be a blessing, and if only half my brain is working, it'll still be more than I owe them."  But I kinda like this job.  I kinda like the people, even.

So I went to bed telling myself that I got some work done tonight, and this way I could get up tomorrow, have a good day at the job, come home, and work some more.  Hah.  I slept through my alarm, I was late, and I'm still groggy after five cups of coffee.  Maybe I'll get some writing done afterward, maybe not.  So much for being responsible.  After all, would it really have mattered if I had been a little more groggy today?  I end up napping or going to bed early either way, right?

So let me just say thanks again, Tyson.  I'll try to keep you in mind whenever I forget the importance of not giving a shit.  Cheers.

Directing Space: 1999

"Okay Barbara, in this scene, your character is trying to...  Barbara?  Ms. Bain?  Oh, never mind.  Just stare vacantly at the wall like you always do.  We'll add some special effects and another shot of the scary bald guy in tights later."

Come home to Jesus - he's got satellite TV!

Dog Meat?

Dogs First Tamed in China -- To Be Food?
John Roach for National Geographic News, September 4, 2009
Wolves were domesticated no more than 16,300 years ago in southern China, a new genetic analysis suggests—and it's possible the canines were tamed to be livestock, not pets, the study author speculates...

Click here for the whole article.

Interesting article, but that one bit of speculation doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Cows and goats, for example, take in things we can't eat and turn them into something we can. Dogs, on the other hand, eat meat. It's kind of inefficient to breed something specifically as a food supply when you're going to have to share your own meals with it. Sure, people did and do eat dogs, but it's quite a leap from there to say that this was the primary reason for domesticating them.

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Gen Con Forever

I've recently come home from yet another Gen Con. Tom does a pretty good job of summing up our adventures in his blog, so I'll leave most of that to him. And I have a public photo album on Facebook with the best of the pictures I took. I just wanted to say that I love this con more every year. It's really an amazing event. A whole clump of downtown Indianapolis - several blocks at least - is transformed for four days (and then some) into a village of gamers. Local restaurants and bars have even started putting up banners and getting their staff to wear costumes for the event.

Just being in the crowd is quite a feeling. Normally I hate crowds. Anyone who's known me long enough has watched me duck and weave desperately through a crowd, abandoning slower friends and family like they were luggage that was about to explode. Gen Con is different. I don't know if it's because the thrill of being there overrides my anxiety or just that these wandering geeks are my people, but I'm perfectly happy to shuffle through a crowd if I'm anywhere near Gen Con. This is also where I catch up with a lot of the friends that I don't see much of. Heck, it's where I met some of them.

I love to play games anywhere. Sometimes a board game grabs me, but mostly I go to conventions for role-playing games. It's great to sit down in a circle of completely unfamiliar minds and build a world together. This is not like hanging out with writers. Writers have to be meticulous designers, keeping in mind the complexities of story structure and the always-growing list of trite and otherwise verboten elements. Gamers just want an engaging world to play in, where things like "over the top" and even "derivative" are selling points more often than criticisms. This is happening all over the place at Gen Con, spilling right out of the scheduled rooms and onto any unoccupied table.

There are, of course, all the other reasons people go to the big cons: huge exhibit halls and movies and seminars and parties and zombies and industry insiders and so on. Don't take my dismissive tone the wrong way, because I love all that stuff. I just don't have a lot to say about it.

I remain torn on whether I prefer to stay at the Stone Soup Inn or a place downtown. I love the Stone Soup Inn, and the long walk is good for me. I just load up what I need in a backpack and I'm set for the day. For 2007 we got a place that was fairly close, and for 2008 we were right in the middle of the village of gamers, and that was great. Nice to be able to make trips back to the room on a whim, and not have to allow for a forty-five minute walk. It was also nice to stay late and not worry about the walk back. But I do love the Stone Soup, and this year the distance didn't trip me up much.

Next year I'm planning to run the whole sixteen hours or whatever it takes to get the free badge; partly for the free badge and partly because I've been getting into running stuff at conventions so much lately that I think it'll be a fun challenge. I've got two planned so far. I'll probably just run those two adventures several times. The first is for the planned POW! release event, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force at the Mountains of Madness." The other will be a Qalidar True20 one in which time travelers hunt down a fugitive at Gygax's famous Keep on the Borderlands. I don't have a title for that one yet, but you can expect to find the words "keep" and "borderlands" in there somewhere. I'd love to run a Peryton RPG one as well, but this True20 adventure will demand a bit more preparation than usual and I don't want to overdo it. We'll see.

Barely out of Gen Con 2009 and we're already scheming for 2010. See what I mean about this con?

Previous Gen Con Write-Ups:

• Gen Con 2004
• Gen Con 2005 (Tom)
• Picture: Rocketmen vs. the Saucers (from Gen Con 2006)
• Gen Con 2006 (Tom)
• Gen Con 2007 (Tom)
• Gen Con 2008 (Tom)

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