Unimatrix Two

The Old Dungeon

The past blasted me a couple of times this weekend. The charity site Bundle of Holding offered the old Traveller RPG books from 1981 as PDF for a giveaway price (through July 9th), and I discovered that D&D Classics will sell me the First Edition Dungeons and Dragons books in a similar downloadable form, cheaper than they’ve ever been. With the PDF reader on my iPad, I could browse them easily, even use them to run a game or two were I so inclined; I’ve done this with Shadowrun and Paranoia PDFs.

Both offers are incredibly tempting. I spent uncounted hours of my puberty reading these game books, immersing myself in their world, and running adventures in my head when I couldn’t play with my friends. Did a lot of the latter, to be honest: I went a long stretch without friends who were interested in a regular game, and frankly most of us were abysmal gamesters. We followed rules slavishly or bent them nine ways from Sunday without thinking for a second about game balance, or storytelling. We didn’t spend any time building a game world to inhabit, either. Adventures were disconnected episodes which occurred in a void. Despite all that, I had a lot of fun and kept many golden memories.

So, these old books tempt me to come back and relive those happy novice days. Unfortunately, I’m not 13 any more. I’ve spent a lot of experience points, bought off some disadvantages, and picked up some new ones. The dungeons of my youth are now familiar places, stripped of their wonder and danger in favor of familiarity. I find my modern players less interested in poring over carefully-constructed maps of hyperspace jump routes in favor of simply asking, “According to the ship’s computer, where’s the closest system with a fuel depot we can safely use?” and I can’t blame them. Hell, I don’t even know anyone who cares about D&D these days, with Pathfinder still going strong.

So I’ll be saving money on this nostalgic offer for now. I have to admit, though: “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” would still make a great Deadlands or Shadowrun adventure with some adjustments to fit the new setting.

Clearlight 23rd, 715 in the Forty-One Worlds

Hi. It’s me. I’m surprised to see that I last wrote something here less than a month ago… it seems ages. But I just posted the eighth episode of the Managlitch City Underground podcast, and even if that isn’t a nice round number like fifty or twenty or even ten, it feels a bit anniversary-ish because I’m a computer geek.

I’m trying to finish another episode in a week because I want two of them out this month. That sure sounds easy when I type it, but it hasn’t been. Lesson: when hitting up busy friends for donated talent, figure on lots of lead time. Basically, I’m learning to write more scripts in advance.

Maya still supports my creative efforts wonderfully. Since I work full time, every hour I spend writing is an hour we aren’t talking or cuddling or something; but she gets me so incredibly well, and understands that I need to express myself creatively for my soul to work right. And that’s important to her. She’s amazing and I love her dearly and I wish every day for a long joyful partnership.

I’m adjusting to life in Raleigh nicely, though it will of course be months before I feel as comfortable as I did in Hampton Roads. Having my own place is making me pretty happy; I’ll be happier when I tame more of the stack of storage boxes.

This year I had to skip Anime Mid-Atlantic because of all the moving expenses, and I hate that. I’ve barely seen any of my friends for weeks, and I’m not happy to have missed this chance to dress up, socialize, and party. (Responsibly.) Plus it’s my last non-working con until November, so feh.

Frankly, I’ve got plenty of money worries now that I’ve decided to level up my adulting game, but I don’t know many folks who don’t, and they aren’t disastrous at this point, so they’re barely worth mentioning. Were it not for my anxieties, I might barely notice them.

So that’s where I stand right now. Hopefully by my next post I will have some very fun news to announce. In the meantime, try the podcast out if you haven’t? And positive reviews of it on iTunes are always most welcome!

Sudden Change of State

By the time April rolled around, I was pretty worried about several things. My savings were depleting and I hadn’t found a new job. Mom was in a rehab center in North Carolina 4 hours away from me because of her latest mini-stroke, and getting to see my girlfriend only every other weekend was becoming intolerable. In desperation, I answered an ad for a job that was… less than satisfactory, but it would pay a few bucks.

I made it all the way to the interview before they told me it was an overnight shift, which I had specifically insisted against. I’d be a useless zombie to them on that schedule. So I stormed politely out, went back to my borrowed bedroom, and considered my options. And that’s when the idea struck me: I wanted a job in NC close to Mom and Maya anyway. Perhaps I’d get more attention from employers if I claimed on my resume to already be living there…

A few quick changes to my online job seeking accounts, and I kid you not, I had an urgent interview within three days. Two years of searching, and a simple fib dropped a job in my lap in THREE DAYS.

So it’s two months later. I’ve got a solid job that pays decently and has great benefits and perks, I have my own place in Raleigh with Maya, Mom’s doing okay with her cat, and they just delivered the first couch I’ve ever paid for all by myself. As I stood at the sink washing some dinner dishes, the whole thing seemed so unreal… but here I am.

I’m more stressed than I’ve been for a while, especially since I’m still doing the podcast, and in a fit of insanity accepted my first con staff position in around 20 years or so. And I miss my friends and chosen family in Hampton Roads. But there’s so much good stuff in my life, stuff I’ve been striving for for so long, that I think I’ll find the strength to handle it. I’m just still a bit bewildered by the speed of the whole thing.

Life-changing events don’t phone ahead, I guess.

Four Episodes In!

I should be ready to record Episode Five of Managlitch City Underground in a day or two, if all goes well. I’m kind of amazed I have four episodes in the can and up on iTunes already. We’ve had two brilliant guest voices – Jerry Conner and Kara Dennison – and more are clamoring to appear in future episodes; I just have to keep writing them.

So far, it’s been a fascinating experience. I have no set deadline, but I know when I want the episodes to come out, and I’ve managed to stick pretty closely to that. I have very little idea what I’m doing, and have been learning GarageBand and iTunes and the PowerPress plugin for WordPress as I go. In many ways, I love that, because the only person breathing down my neck really is me, and it gives me the creative freedom to screw up. You only really learn and improve when you make mistakes, and I’m making the most of this chance to do so.

Maya’s been my primary editor for the show, and she’s doing an amazing job. She’s not afraid to tell me when she thinks something isn’t working, and she knows me well enough to point me in the direction I probably wanted to go anyway. It’s pure creative joy when working with other talented folks makes your creation even better than it comes out in your head.

I’m shooting for a recorded-live show at InterventionCon later this year – I should have plenty of episodes under my belt by then, enough cred to make a claim for a programming spot. My stats tell me people are listening, but I try not to take them too seriously and just concentrate on making something good. Do that, and with luck the rest will follow.

So, anyway, life is creatively good right now, and I just wanted to share that with anyone listening. 😀

Managlitch City Underground

I probably started listening to podcasts not long after I got my first full-featured iPod from Rain. I remember tuning into “Slacker Astronomy” (that evolved into “Astronomy Cast”); “The Instance”, a World of Warcraft podcast; and many others. They were like the cool radio shows that have mostly disappeared from anything other than public radio, and I could listen to them on my own schedule.

Probably less than a year or two afterwards, I started thinking how much fun it would be to do a podcast of my own. I had several half-formed ideas, but never could come up with something that I felt strongly about. I had the smarts to know it would be a lot of time and effort to put into something that didn’t excite me, so on the back burner the ideas went.

But like a Paul McCartney and Wings song, all those ideas abruptly came together a few months ago into something I liked! Since then I’ve been inventing a world, creating characters, writing scripts, Photoshopping graphics, and fighting WordPress bugs; all to bring you Managlitch City Underground!

A friend described the setting as “Zelazny’s ‘Amber’ meets Deep Space Nine”. Managlitch City is a place where reality frequently goes wrong in large or small ways, and where people make the best of it as they would anywhere else. On the podcast, a pirate radio host give you his perspective on the latest doings of the City, and we’ll use him to tell many different stories in the setting.

I know the iTunes podcast directory isn’t an exclusive club, but I’ve put a great deal of effort into this project, and I can hardly describe the thrill of seeing my work there for any and all to hear. I look forward to telling many tales of the City, and I hope someone out there enjoys them!

Ordering Pizzas in Fan Film

A few months ago, Maya and I went to a convention at which someone was showing their latest fan film effort. I won’t say which con or which fandom, but it’s well-known. I remember many thoughts going through the filmmaker side of my brain while the other half sat back to be entertained:

“Wow, the production values are stunning. Good job on them getting the talent and funding.”

“How did they get that guy to show up? Are they that well-connected, or did he just think it would be fun to be in a random fan thing?”

“This story’s kinda weird, but that fits the universe in which this is set, so okay.”

But most importantly: “After going to all this trouble, why can’t the lead performer act worth beans?”

Now, I’m no award-winner when it comes to acting. I’ve done community theater, no-budget film, and sketch comedy on stage. Humble stuff, yet I’m proud of it. But one of the things I do know about acting is that in 2015, any computer can read lines. But if you are playing a real, live person, everything you say has emotions, opinions, history, and personality in it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a single line: this is how human beings behave!

Here’s a line: “Well, I’m going to order pizza.” Alone, that line means nothing. But think of all the different ways you might say that in real life! Perhaps you haven’t had pizza in a month, and now you can order your favorite. Perhaps you are bored by pizza, but you know it’s the only thing the rest of the room will agree on so you’ve given up. Perhaps you’re defiant, because the rest of the room is ordering Chinese, but screw them. Perhaps you are a Vulcan, and you must act like the ordering of pizza means nothing to you but inside, pizza reminds you of the mother for whom you could never properly express love. (Now we’re getting into the tricky stuff.)

Too many fan film actors just read lines as if that’s enough. Since the character speaking isn’t real, there is no need to consider who they feel about the line, what they are thinking inside, the context of the situation and the others nearby; it’s just typing on a script page. And it doesn’t matter if your Kickstarter collected a million dollars and you got Benedict Cumberbatch to appear, if you just read the lines, your film is going to suck.

And that, by the way, is why I’m not naming names. Even the cheapest fan film represents a massive outlay of time, resources, and effort on the parts of multiple people. I can’t just sit here and sneer at that hard work. I celebrate it, and I hope they learn and they get better, because that kind of dedication will always beat “Oh, I always wanted to make a fan film, but I somehow never got around to it.” That really sucks.

Memory Hole the Size of a House

Thanks to mistakes, confusion, and incompetence, my mother’s house was sold out from under her on Friday, October 24th. While the new owner was willing to give us two weeks to clear the house, I didn’t have two weeks to spend on the task; I had a job to return to and had to focus on finding my mother a new place to live very very quickly. So Maya and I drove up Saturday, ran vital errands for Mom on Sunday, and spent three 12-hour days recovering what we could from the house.

Those three days are the days that wounded me.

I lived in that house for about 28 years. I originally left after 18, but the car accident that destroyed my hip took me back. Depression, anxiety, and concern that my mother couldn’t care for herself kept me there for another ten years afterwards. When I left, I left quickly, and took only essentials. On occasion when I returned to visit I would grab a remembered item or two, but I never made a priority of it; I didn’t have the time or resources, so little of it was necessary to my life at the time, and it would all still be there next visit.

All of those things were indeed still there that Monday, and time had run out. Indeed, most of the three days were devoted to recovering valuables of my mother’s. But I ventured briefly into the two rooms which held most of what I’d left behind, and barely knew where to begin. Maya was an amazing help, repeatedly unearthing treasures I’d long ago written off or even forgotten about; but so much simply had to be abandoned. Once again, there wasn’t the time or resources, and so little of it was necessary to my life now.

Still… even though it’s all just things, and my life would have continued on nicely if I hadn’t recovered a single brick of Lego or old amateur film prop… knowing that all the things I had to leave behind are even now being consigned to a landfill is hurting. My memory isn’t always the best when it comes to anything useful or important, and so many of those items were memory bookmarks. I’ve just dragged those bookmarks to the trash and hit “Delete”. I’m still suffering from that.

Also, I pushed my body to its limits those days, which it’s still unhappy about. The saga of getting Mom re-settled isn’t over, and there are other unavoidable weighty matters on the horizon. So this hasn’t been the best of weeks. I’m writing this in hopes it pushes forward my own personal healing process, gets me closer to letting it all go. Also, so that ten years from now when I’m trying to remember exactly when all this happened, I have a journal entry.

I have Maya, Mom is safe and warm, and there are good things coming in my life. All I have to do is hang in there.

The Science of Doctor Who: s01e09-10, “The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances”

Nanobots, nanites, nanogenes: these are all science-fiction terms for microscopic robots that can repair or create materials one molecule (or atom) at a time. We dream of building super-strong metals from base elements, or sending them into our bodies to remover cancers or repair damage. We’ve already made a few very crude examples, ver basic mechanisms only a few molecules in size!

But some science-fiction writers use this as a synonym for “magic” when they’re in a hurry; though this is an excellent Who story – one of my favorite tales of the Ninth Doctor – Moffat succumbed to the temptation. In seconds, these tiny little robots scan an unknown life form, determine how it is put together, determine damage, and repair it. It’s hard to imagine how they’re doing this. We can see no visible power source or external computer support, and a nanobot has to be a *very* simple device, by basic laws of physics. For example, a real cancer-killer nanite wouldn’t be complicated enough to do much more than blindly swim through the body until it bumped into something it could recognize as cancer.

If we grant that the nanogenes are smart enough to scan a body and do major conversion work with no power or raw materials other than the body at hand, we get other problems. How were they dumb enough to think the little boy’s gas mask was his body, but not his clothing? (Would have been great to see everyone with the nanogene infection forced into short trousers.) Also, the little bots are dumb about the gas mask but smart enough to recognize different genders, heights, weights, hair colors; that’s some odd programming. Must still be in beta.

Somehow they work, though. And the Doctor literally hand waves the job of reprogramming them to repair everyone properly. Now we bump into a common sci-fi peeve of mine: where did the reprogrammed nanogenes get the information to put everyone back together again properly (again with all the different genders, heights, weights, and hair colors)? If the answer is, “they extrapolated everyone’s DNA”, well that’s great. If they could do that, the nanogenes probably should have been doing that when they scanned the little boy in the first place? I’d also love to know how the critters were able to destroy everyone’s minds, but completely restore them afterward. It would be like smashing your hard drive, buying a new one, and expecting all your data to be on it. Doctor Crusher liked to ignore this problem on the Enterprise-D, too.

One last nit to pick: I’ve lived through my body trying to rebuild just a couple of smashed bones. The physiological stress of the conversion to gas-mask zombie in the first place would kill you. Between the excrutiating pain, and the sudden changes to your biology, your body wouldn’t handle the shock. The conversion process would make more sense if everyone’s body went into a coma for weeks before emerging as a gas-masked little boy, but I’ll concede that would be lousy TV.

Next time: I’m afraid I’ll have to blow up the Earth. It obstructs my view of Raxacoricofallapatorious.

Installing Skyrim Using Wine on Mac OS X

Computer used: 2009 Mac Pro with 8 GB memory, a 1 GB Apple graphics card, and OS X 10.9 Mavericks

1. Purchase Skyrim on Steam. (By waiting for the right sale, I got it for $5.)
2. Download ThePortingTeam’s Wine wrapper for Skyrim.
3. Follow the installation instructions under “Installation”. Run Skyrim at least once. At this point Skyrim worked excellently except for a horrible display bug. So, after a lot of websites and some guessing…
4. Right-click on the wrapper (the Skyrim icon), choose “Open Package Contents”, and open wineskin.app just as you did during Step 3.
5. Click “Set Screen Options”. Uncheck “Use Mac Driver instead of X11”.
6. Under “Override Wine control of Screen Settings?” click “Override”.
7. Under “Override Settings” make sure that “Fullscreen” is checked. Under “Installer Options” make sure that “Force Normal Windows” is checked.
8. Click “Done”. Click “Quit”. Double-click the wrapper icon, and enjoy your game!

I also installed the Unofficial Skyrim Patches, SKSE, and SkyUI, but that’s for another time. Further, I updated the wrapper engine to WS9Wine1.7.21, but I’m not sure I needed to do that. If you do, the instructions are on the Wineskin Winery website.

Have fun hunting dragons!

A Modern TARDIS Traveller

The phrase “modern TARDIS traveller” popped into my head, and about 90 minutes later this followed. I’m not going to apologize to Gilbert and Sullivan: they’re cool.

—

I am the very model of a modern TARDIS traveller,
I am a timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly plot unraveller,
I know the queens of Venus, and I fight the villains terrible
The Daleks and the Cybermen in battle armor wearable;

I’m very well acquainted, too, with genius spatio-temporal,
With Omega and Rassilon and others far less sensible,
I understand the tricks of navigating ’round the Time Vortex… (erm… erm…)
But still have some confusion ’bout the motives of the fairer sex!

(But still have some confusion ’bout the motives of the fairer sex – but still have some confusion ’bout the motives of the fairer sex – but still have some confusion ’bout the motives of the fairer-fairer sex!)

From Earth I’m pledged to keep marauding nightmares safely far away,
Including massed invasion by the Time Lord planet Gallifrey
And as a timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly plot unraveller,
I am the very model of a modern TARDIS traveller!