First Time Flowing

Untethered

by Drey on June 19, 2009 in Books, Comics, Life, Movies, Music, Video Games with 3 Comments

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

by Drey on June 7, 2009 in Geek with 5 Comments

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

by Drey on June 7, 2009 in Board Games with 1 Comment

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 →

Ouroboros

by Drey on May 26, 2009 in Life, Reft with No comments

Writing it down doesn’t matter so much any more, but I keep doing it for some reason. Perhaps it is an X on a tree I’m passing, so if I see another X I will recognize the path.

I’ve discovered that describing what is happening to me only makes it worse and is sometimes actually harmful. So let’s just say I am discontented on a deep, fundamental level. And I am alone in this. It is something for me to figure out on my own.

There is nothing to be understood here. It has been my experience that people want to do or say something to “make it better”. If you wonder if there is something you can do: you are already doing it. I have already made arrangements with you, but you may not have recognized them as such.

Trust me, you are all doing a fantastic job.

Too Many Socks

by Drey on April 1, 2009 in Books, Life, Movies with 2 Comments

I just realized that the main reason I still have DVDs and books is so that other people can look at them and make a judgment about how awesome I am. They are decorative. This is the age of Netflix and Amazon. I don’t need all those things taking up space. Rare is the time when I absolutely must watch a particular film immediately. And being such a slow reader, I doubt I will be re-reading anything any time soon.

So I’m going to liquidate all my DVDs and books that aren’t rare or hard to get. I’m tired of dragging them around. If people need to know the movies and books I like, they can check any number of online sources.

The Meme is Killing You

by Drey on March 19, 2009 in Writing with 7 Comments

Have you seen this video? Of course you have. Doesn’t matter which one I’m talking about. You saw it in a tweet or on Facebook or in someone’s blog. Within days everyone we know has seen it. Then we’re all discussing it as though it were an event we saw on our way to work, only somehow we all live on the same street.

But what actually happened was we were all infected by a virus which we happily helped spread. The virus did not infect our computers. That’s just the delivery mechanism. It infected our brains. It ate up thought cycles we used to use for other things. The virus is smart. It softens the blow of the payload with some anesthetic amusement, tickling the proper receptors so that we feel like we’ve been thinking about something even though we’ve gained zero nutritional content. Plus its got celebrity endorsement. You saw it on a cool person’s Twitter, right?

We’ve gained nothing while giving up quite a bit. Continue reading →

Retrogasmic 1.6 – All Good Things

by Drey on March 16, 2009 in Writing with No comments

My sixth and final column for Secure Immaturity is now up. This is more of a hands-on demonstration than an actual column, an evasive technique which has served me since grade school.

Read it here.

Citation Needed

by Drey on March 9, 2009 in Dreams, Geek, Life with No comments

Recently I was forwarded this video about the exponential growth of information technology. One of the facts presented in the video is that “It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4.0×10^19) of unique information will be generated this year. That is more than the previous 5,000 years.” My first reaction was, “Wow, that is a lot of data.” Today I thought, “What does that even mean?” What qualifies as “unique information”? A blog post? A novel? Who is quantifying it? And how? Do they mean more than the previous 5000 years combined? Or more information per year on average? Continue reading →

Half a Page of Scribbled Lines

by Drey on March 9, 2009 in Life with No comments

Sigh. I haven’t been posting much as I haven’t had anything post worthy. I have lots of random thoughts and strange dreams I could chronicle, but I haven’t thought “Ah, I must blog about this.”

Lately I’ve been dealing with a malaise that descends when I have no creative project to set my mind to. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing right now. So I begin to ponder my accomplishments and evaluate what I have to show for myself. This leads to existential angst about what truly matters and why is it important to do anything at all. Makes it hard to motivate oneself to start creative projects.

And I’m lonely. The kind of loneliness that becomes more pronounced around other people. I’ve realized that my desire to be understood is actually a desire to be accepted. The core issues, the deep personal dilemmas, the things I felt needed to be understood in order to “get” me, are actually things you’d have to be me to understand. After exhausting my emotional energy over and over explaining my world view and creating only a deeper rift, I think I’d rather just be accepted for who I am.

And I’m losing hope. It’s like there’s this root network that permeates the foundation of my interactions, creating an amalgam of information that all speaks of hoplessness. So I will read a Twitter post about someone getting Starbuck’s and it resonates with a meme of despair I see unfolding. I’m doubting what I’ve thought true about people. More and more I am expecting failure and disappointment as the status quo. Giving people the benefit of the doubt seems more and more irrational.

That is Whack

by Drey on February 24, 2009 in House of Whack with 2 Comments

Ah, here is an appropriate use of a blog: venting.

I received an email today that just sent me over the edge of bewilderment and anger. It was from someone I hadn’t heard from in over a year. The message simply said “Can you afford to begin paying for my contributions to our game yet?” And he’s talking about House of Whack. Continue reading →