Random Dialogue

Last year, November, I looked up from what I was doing to see rivers and streams of writing going flying past me. For the last several year, the NaNoWriMo group has been doing their thing, tossing off novels the way some people get rid of tissues. An astonishing 59,000 people participated last year, with almost 1/6th of that meeting the organization’s goal. The goal? 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s about 2000 words a day, for those who don’t want to break out a calculator.

This year. Oh yes. It shall be mine.

I’ve got until the end of October to get the thing outlined. /activate busy mode

Xbox Live has been a continual treasure chest of old-skool wonders. Some of the stuff I’ve really enjoyed I just never got the chance to play very much (like Frogger and Joust). Other titles I spent quite a bit of time playing, like Pac-Man and Gauntlet. Pac-Man especially conjures up some really nice memories, of having a slice of pizza a the ‘Hut and getting a few quarters to do my Pac-thing in the corner of the restaurant.

Then, there’s yesterday’s release to Xbox Live Arcade: Doom. Doom is not just another nostalgic title for me. I played so very, very, very much of that game at the apartment in Eagle Heights: it’s just not funny. My brother Paul played even more, if that’s possible, with Doom 2 and ‘Final Doom’ being enjoyed just as much as the original. Doom 2 was really my game of choice, and I have very fond memories of the big open level with all the Cacodemons. I also greatly enjoyed watching my brother play against our neighbor upstairs over our blazing-fast 24.4 bps modem. (That’s something that dialed up over the telephone, kids.)

It’s been implemented on Live, complete with Deathmatch and Co-Op on the intertron, and I’m happy to report that unlike Street Fighter II, Doom is picture perfect and floats like a dream. I’ve already got a couple of easy accomplishments from a few moments of screwing around, and I’m just going to have to go for more when it’s not, you know, 2 in the morning.

It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday, what a great day for my birthday.

Truly, a great day. In fact, a great weekend.

Saturday Elijah, Paul, Katie and I had a bit of dinner, and a great conversation. Nothing special, really, but it was great to be able to hang out and have a good time with and old friend and family. Afterwards we went to Alan’s place sans-Paul and played Urban Myth, which was surprisingly fun for its kinda offbeat tenor.

Sunday’s game went swimmingly. We’re just now into the meat of the eighth chapter of the game, and the plot is beginning to thicken quite drastically. I’ll admit, the story that we’re not exploring is not entirely the one outlined in the book. It’s been quite freeing to move beyond the elements that are presented in the adventure proper. The players have been more attached to the people of the city than the city itself, and by focusing on those elements I think we’ve really gotten a good momentum going again.

Tonight I had dinner with the family, and it was great to just sit and relax with the humans I grew up with. Had a real nice dinner, too. Putting good things out there has even resulted in good things back. Some pictures books and Spider-Man from my wife, a neat triceratops puzzle from Eva, and various neatnesses from others. Much *heart* to everyone who has made my day a happy birthday indeed.

I sit here, looking out at an overcast sky, enjoying the breeze, and wondering why words have been so hard in coming to me lately. I managed to get impressions from a couple of gaming books up on the site last week, but I don’t feel like it was the best work I’ve offered there. Overall, actually, it was kind of a ‘meh’ week. Other than a rekindling of my interest in playing World of Warcraft, I don’t feel like I got much accomplished.

I’ve got four articles currently in the out-box of my brain, each one in various stages of fermentation. One is just refusing to take the words I throw at it, defying me to even pin down the concept of the article. Not knowing what you’re writing as you write it is more than a little frustrating.

While I enjoyed the experience of watching through Northern Exposure again, I feel like that’s probably the root of my distraction. I was very happy when we dropped cable television, and I guess the part of me that likes slacking off in front of the tube has gotten fat and happy as a result of my indulgence. Feh on him, I say.

Yesterday I had a quite lovely time at Jabbyville, saying an official farewell to Terra Jones. She heads for the hole in the interweb that is Africa next weekend, leaving us Terra-less for two years. You will be missed, lady.

It was really nice being able to connect with people, interact socially, and have funtimeness. After almost two years of working from home, I think I’m starting to feel the effects of infrequent face to face social interaction. I’ve been making an effort of late to get out of the house, and it’s helped. It’s really nice to be able to sit and talk with folks; need to do that more often.

This week, no big plans per se. Going to try to get things knocked off my giant list of stuff to do(tm), and hopefully hook with with Elijah’s 40ish warrior Rooster for madcap adventures in the Arathi Highlands. Good times. I hope to have a review of StarFox for the DS up this week, and hopefully one for Yakuza as well.

Sigh.

Deep Sigh.

I’ve warned other people about the dangers of relying on software that is in Beta. One would hope I’d occasionally listen to my own advice. Flock is still installed on my machine, of course, but for the time being it’s relegated to quietude on my hard drive. I’m back to Firefox for my web browsing, the Performancing plugin for blog posting, and BlogLines for my delicious RSS feed goodness.

I love you with the love of a thousand suns, Flock, but I need quite a bit less crashing and locking up before I can commit to you fully.

This has been, seriously, the most relaxing two weeks or so. There were no games released that I really wanted to check out, and game news was almost non-existant. As such, while I wasn’t offline per se I’ve been doing many offline activities lately.

Going through my old things from Mom’s, and cleaning out the storage locker, allowed me to stumble upon my tapes of Northern Exposure. I taped pretty much the entire series when it was being rerun on A&E, and for the past week or so I’ve been steadily chewing through it. I *love* the series, and it’s brought back a lot of fond memories by watching it.

Though we haven’t really gotten into it as much as we did the first season, Katie and I have also been catching up with the second season of Lost. We got the DVD set early this past week, and have only watched the first three episodes so far. I’m sure I’ll start to enjoy it more once we get going, but so far the show has only succeeded in making these characters singularly unlikeable. Which … is kind of annoying.

Aside from television, I’ve actually been doing a metric ton of reading. When I got back from Gen Con my stack of things to read began reaching dangerous heights. The only real delay working through the stack was the 640 pages of Ptolus. That took some time. I’m now almost done with the RPG books I picked up, and am about to dive into some fiction. Good times.

When I was 6 years old I heard the term “lost the baby” for the first time. The Grown-Ups were talking in hushed tones that the Strodabacks-our neighbors, she of the big smile-had been pregnant, and then she lost the baby.My first thought was: How careless of her.

Everyday Stranger | Back Where I Was

Things look differently, sometimes, when you compare your own life with someone else’s. I haven’t been writing much lately because I don’t have a lot to say. A lot of projects on the burner right now:

• Bi-Weekly GameSetWatch ‘MMOG Nation’ column
• Working on another GSW column for the other week.
• Reviews for a slew of books and games for Slashdot.
• Lots of work on the Shackled City game.
• Getting into the swing of things for a new Shadowrun campaign Aaron is running.
• Trying to work up material for MMOG Nation.

Everything seems kind of silly when you look outside the walls of your own little piece of reality.