Why Warhammer 40K Makes Me Unhappy
Today, the social media channels are abuzz with the ongoing story that Games Workshop got the e-book of M.C.A. Hogarth’s “Spots the Space Marine” pulled from Amazon on the dubious grounds that no one else is allowed to use “Space Marine” in an e-book. They may or may not have the law on their side – most folks suspect not – but it remains a dirty, unethical, and ridiculous thing to do either way. It’s costing Hogarth real money, and one notes that they didn’t go after any well-established, well-funded estate or media organization that’s featured space marines in e-books since such were invented. Also, this event exposes flaws in Amazon’s due process which concern many an independent writer.
But that’s my problem with Games Workshop in general. Why am I down on Warhammer 40K specifically? Well, I’m glad you asked that. (Of course you did, don’t you remember?) Let me fire off a few disclaimers right at the beginning: I have never had the chance to actually play the game and would love to give it a try if it could be done without supporting GW. And if you love the game and have been playing for years, this isn’t an attack on you. Having fun? That’s *excellent*.
My tabletop battle experience is primarily through FASA and its descendants. I had seen Battletech materials in my game stores, thought it gauche that they were using Macross and Dougram mech designs, and given it little more thought before getting caught in a blizzard one weekend and giving it a fair try. I fell in love with the game, still play when I can, and even enjoy the click-base version as an entirely different game in the same setting.
But I’d seen lots of 40K stuff in the stores too, all of it illustrated by photos of Games Workshop’s brilliant modelmaking and paintwork. Of course I was curious! And I knew a gamer or two who loved it, though none of them happened to game with me. Finally, I learned enough to discover how many figures a player uses for a basic game, and checked on the price.
A Slightly Classier Agreement
I have a lot of fun making “DVD covers” in Photoshop for my little video efforts. It’s weird, because they don’t show up in hard-copy very much any more, but it does make the movie files look better when I’m browsing them in a media manager.
To that end, I made this today:
If this had been a real DVD cover, I’d have added a lot more info about the actors and crew, and copyright disclaimers and the like. But this will do for now. It looks a whole lot better in iTunes.
Oh, and for the few readers of this blog who don’t know, the two parts of this video are right here:http://youtu.be/3nnLbQ1JvXs and here:http://youtu.be/iS6iGACneEQ Be kind.
No Such Thing As A Free Badge
Reason number 724 that I am a very lucky man: Despite not having much in the way of cash flow in the recent months, I’ve been able to keep attending cons.
For the most part, this is because I have convinced several conventions that I have skills of enough value that they should be covering a fair chunk of my expenses. I’m pretty proud of those skills, and I work hard in return for my badge or whatever, but it generally means I miss out on a lot of the event, and am a little more worn out for the remaining parts. So, these days when I get to go to an event at which I’m not preforming / presenting, it’s a nice vacation.
On, the other hand, it means that right now I can’t really afford to do that. Which means that I was pretty darn disappointed to hear that MystiCon, a con in Roanoke I’ve been wanting to attend for years, was going to feature Sylvester “Seventh Doctor” “Radagast the Brown” McCoy*. I made vague promises of going, but the closer the con came, the less likely it appeared that my cash would handle it.
Well, lady_or_tyger wants to go, and feels that since she’s never been to a Roanoke con, that I’d make the perfect guide. So she’s going to cover my expenses as a gift, and I’m actually going to get to see some of my fandom peeps for the first time in ages. I’m very excited!
*McCoy has had a schedule change, and now they have Peter “Fifth Doctor” Davison. That’a a bit less cool to me than McCoy, but that still leaves lots of room for Pretty Danged Cool.
Neither the World or My Blog Ended
And so, 2013 begins. (Yeah, okay, it began three weeks ago. Whatever.) And let’s look at things since I last blogged.
I’m still not keeping up with my blogging the way I want to. I know this is the seductive voice of depression telling me there’s no use in it, and making the process of putting words down on paper for all to see a terrifying one. All I can do is keep fighting that, and continue working to get back to where I was. It’s so easy to procrastinate when your head keeps whispering that doing anything good with life is useless and dangerous. I know those are lies, but I can’t always remember that. Nothing for it but to keep plugging.
Still looking for new work. A couple of interviews haven’t worked out, but of course that’s something I know I just have to keep trying. The fears are ever with me there as well, but luckily they are balanced a little by the knowledge that I have to keep working. Food good, you know? Last month I had a shot at a fascinating job which would have paid 50% than the xTuple job, but my resume was only slightly weaker than the competition’s. Damn it.
InterventionCon was a lot of fun, and I revelled in the pleasure of a con where I was committed to nothing and could enjoy myself. I think I over-did it a little bit in 2012: the two cons near the end of the year at which I presented nearly sucked me dry. Part of that involved other stressors, but I’ve only agreed to four acting / presenting commitments this year, and one (MarsCon) is already past. I’m not saying I’ll take no others, but I may be pickier.
We filmed the script in September. I tried a two-camera setup again, with plans for even more ambitious editing, and right after I transferred the secondary (iPhone) footage to my computer, the hard drive died. I’d already deleted it off the phone, so all that was gone, as well as a year’s worth of other work. (I’d backed up my entire machine in 2011 to an bootable extra drive in order to be able to use old software.) I edited around all the footage I lost, and the results didn’t suck, but when I watch it now I can’t help but see all the awkward angles that should have been replaced by footage for the second source. Lesson learned: I now have a spare drive which gets updated by Apple’s Time Machine every hour.
The costume that I’d hoped to have for NekoCon isn’t finished, it’s on hold until I can improve my exercise routine and drop some belly, because it just won’t look good until that happens. However, a lady friend is bugging me about going out to walk every day, which I’ll be doing after I finish this!
