If you are a British woman with sexy librarian glasses, a skin-tight bodysuit made from your own magical demon hair, and high heels that are also pistols, then I would like to invite you out to a nice dinner and perhaps a gallery opening. If you can take a break from slaughtering angels, that is.
All posts in Geek
Agricola
Boards ‘n Brews has been going strong for 10 months now, meeting just about every week. I recently moved the group to Austin’s Pizza and that’s been a positive change for the most part. It wouldn’t hurt to turn up the heat, though.
Tonight I got to play Agricola with mostly new players. I had missed the big Agricola frenzy from a few years ago and had only played the game once. I did better this time around now that I knew how important it was to gather food. Who knew that a game about farming could be so tense?
Back to Basics
I haven’t blogged much because I got into the mindset that this blog was “for” something and whatever I might be thinking about didn’t fit the profile. But then I remembered that the blog isn’t for anything at all except what I need it to be.
I’ve been consuming tons of media lately. Movies, video games, etc. Sometimes I will think “Oh no! I should be doing something else!” and start to panic. And then I remember why I am watching all the shows and playing the video games: The moment I stop being distracted, I panic or fall into despair. Unless I am creating something or enjoying something someone else has created, I get extremely unsettled and unhappy.
Despite all this dorking around, I have managed to find the energy to finish a new project. I’m not quite ready to announce anything, but some people have already had a chance to experience it. I was cheered last night when someone offered to pay for something I had made which they had received for free. So far, everyone invited to participate has done so, which gives me a wonderful feeling I rarely experience.
Fantastic Fest 2009
This will be updated as the festival continues.
The movies I have seen so far, in order of best experience:
1. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
2. A Town Called Panic
3. Stingray Sam
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Mandrill
6. Bronson
7. Toy Story 3D
8. A Serious Man
9. Fish Story
10. Metropia
11. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
12. Daybreakers
13. Krabat
15. Gentlemen Broncos
16. Antichrist
17. Dirty Mind
18. Crazy Racer
19. The Men Who Stare at Goats
20. Clive Barker’s Dread
21. Under the Mountain
22. Survival of the Dead
23. First Squad
24. K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces
25. The Legend is Alive
26. Universal Soldier: A New Beginning
The Lathe of Heaven
I guess this’ll teach me not to read “The Invisibles” and “The Lathe of Heaven” simultaneously while having an existential crisis.
The language is always going to be an issue. As I learned from The Invisibles, we’ve only been taught half the letters of the true alphabet. This entire experience is created in language and there are things I have no words for. Continue reading →
SitRep
In which our protagonist attempts to summarize noteworthy events of the past several months.
I took improv classes for four months. Discovered I was funny without trying to be. Improv is hard because you’re not supposed to think about anything, and I’m, well, me. The improv scene is as cliquish and dramatic and jargony and strategic as the slam poetry scene. I don’t fit in to scenes. Continue reading →
Lollipop
My friends and I made a short for the Fantastic Fest 2009 Bumper contest. In order for it to be a finalist, it needs to receive a lot of votes (preferably high ones). If you like the film, please go here and vote for it. You need to sign up to vote, but it is easy.
Thank you. This will really help us out.
Untethered
My project to slough off all the excess stuff in my life continues.
My music collection has been digital for years, save for a few collectibles and albums by friends. I’ve gotten my DVD collection down to about 17 boxes. Out of print films that you can’t get on Netflix. So I’m no longer buying movies of the common variety.
I don’t have very many video games either. When I finish a game or get bored with it, I sell it. I just signed up for GameFly, so I will never buy another video game unless it falls into the small, evergreen category where Rock Band resides.
Movies and games are both heading into an all-digital delivery system. There are many reasons for this, but a big one for the publishers is that the secondhand market will die. You can’t resell your digital copy of The Dark Knight to someone on Amazon. GameStop will eventually become a store for classic used games from the 2000s. One day it will seem ridiculous that digital information was bonded to physical platters and cartridges.
I’ve thinned down my book collection to two small book shelves. As I finish books, I’ll sell them to Half Price Books or give them away. Again, I’m only going to be purchasing hard to find items or books which make practical sense to own. I converted a majority of my Amazon book wish list over to a reading list for my brand new account at the Austin Public Library system. Holy shit, is this a slick operation! The online catalog system is robust. I can have books held and delivered to my local branch. I only stumped the system once or twice whilst searching for graphic novels. Their collection of every series I care about is comprehensive. They even had a copy of the out of print Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, which is basically steampunk porn. All for free. Why didn’t I do this sooner? Also, if there is a Kindle version of a book available, I’ll buy that over the dead tree version. The Kindle iPhone app is actually pretty great and I’ve been enjoying 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on it.
The board game collection remains pretty large. I’ll probably thin it down over the course of a few years, getting rid of the so-so games, keeping only the ones I truly love.
I’ve also been untethering my online life. I’ve moved more and more documents up into the cloud so I can access them from anywhere. I stopped using desktop clients for mail, scheduling, spreadsheets, and twittering. It’s all web-based now. I can do all of my communication from anywhere. It feels good to shut my computer down when I’m done working instead of having to check in on it for new messages.
My iPhone is proving more and more invaluable. Today I set up a wireless storage app so I can keep my writing and important documents backed up on a password protected micro web server. It’s like having a magic extradimensional 16GB pocket I can reach into at any time.
When I can afford it, I’ll probably replace my computer with a laptop. I like the idea of being able to grab a backpack and take off, bringing my entire world with me.
I feel lighter.
Geek Cred
I wrote this list in response to receiving a low score on an online Geekiness quiz. I should have simply noted the fact that I felt compelled to formulate a retort against a web page and left it at that.
Instead, I wrote this: Continue reading →
Advice to Game Designers
I’ve been sorting through my various writings and came upon this unfinished list of the Top Ten things you should so to improve your game design.
1. Add a Compass Rose to the game board, even if your game is about stock car racing. A compass rose adds elegance to the visual design and suggests careful planning. Also, if a player happens to get lost in the real life Himalayas with a copy of your game “Himalayan Hijinx,” they can utilize the compass rose to navigate back to safety. Can you imagine a better blurb on the box than “This game saved my life!”? I certainly can’t. Continue reading →