Pondering the Game

Since You Asked...

2007-02-25T21:19:00.000-08:00

Ship public routes - inhabitation of trade posts - activation of resourcing - placement of wagon purchase points - construction of forges and similar work centers - preparation of patterns - crafting of objects.

But if you weren't the one to ask, those are the series of project stages that need to happen before occupations come into play.

Technorati Shout-Out

2007-01-29T15:28:00.001-08:00

And here's to you, Mrs Robinson...
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What's it all about, Alfie?

2007-01-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

Word-walkers of the universe, mourn through the laughter. We have lost a dear friend as Art Buchwald departs from the audible range of most of us. Hark.. I hear the giggles as he passes through to a more ethereal plane. The angels are throwing a homecoming! He for whom the word 'mirth' was surely coined. He who dares those around him to chortle, chuckle, grin... yea, laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all.

In February last year, he ... wait. You can read all about him on a dozen sites, including Wikipedia.

His parting question: "What's it all about, Alfie?" Well, we may not have that answer -- yet. Meanwhile, we can be grateful to have had him circling our lives in so many forms. So, Art, here's to you (*hoists a banana split and a box of cereal*)

Expect thunder now as God rolls across the floor of the heavens, shedding tears of glee as hailstones, Ultimate Audience.

Things Change

2006-05-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

I wish, oh how I wish - that I had something bright and cheery to report. Some whimsical funny to impart, so you can laugh along and nod your head as you sense a bit of life truth in the post.

Nada. Not a thing. Even after almost five months away from posting, the muse's well remains dry.

That's not to say I've not attempted to write several times. Half starts, whole-hearted efforts, sincere tries at writing. All for naught. The words aren't flowing right, not right now.

Perhaps in a week or so, I keep telling myself... perhaps the dam will break and the thousands of tales waiting to be spun will come tumbling out, head over heels but in an orderly fashion.

I keep telling myself...

-sigh-

The Proliferation of Parasitic Promotionals

2005-12-11T13:04:00.000-08:00

I wonder sometimes about people. Seriously.

In the past month, I have received well over a dozen comments which have absolutely nothing to do with the post to which they are attached. No longer is junk mail relegated to my email in-box... now it is actively pursuing me!

Each contains a link to something entirely unrelated.... links to credit card rate information, appeals directing us to donate your used car to charity (a worthy cause, I'm sure, but just how does this pertain to the contents of my journal?), home improvement...

Each starts with a chatty little bit.. I just ran across your blog and it is great, I enjoyed visiting your blog, Hi there! Tiny icebreakers designed to disarm and put the recipient in a amicable state of mind, develop a positive attitude toward what is to follow: A blatant backlink stuck in the middle of a post and completely foreign to the topic.

I'm all for promotion, self- or otherwise, and I applaud those who gain those links through legitimate means. I use links to my sites in my forum posts; I attach them to the end of emails. But I don't pepper them into conversation where they don't belong ... .. how 'bout them Dodgers? Boy! when the topic is string theory or recipes for caramel fudge.

Blog-parasites: read the post, then comment pertaining to the post. If you have a link you wish to attach as part of a signature, that's great. That's fine. I don't mind at all contributing to your Alexa rating or Google PR. But please PLEASE don't couch the backlink in phony stuff. Don't tell me how great my blog is and that you're trying to get your own going but haven't got a clue how to get it to happen at my credit card info search cars for sale home improvement gaming addiction consumer advocate credit card marbles(!) data online... it looks bad, for everyone involved, and certainly doesn't lead me to want to click on a link to find out what's on the other end. (That link leads to the game website, by the way, not a place to improve your credit rating.)

The Caretaker - Chapter 1 - Annie M.

2005-11-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

Slender limbs lurched suddenly.

They always do, the caretaker thought to herself, as she settled into the comatose form and begin her ministrations. Even those in the deepest of sleep sensed the intrusion at some point and responded. Even those who had made prior arrangements. She busied herself with her checklist. Arms: intact, marginal muscle degradation. Legs: intact, sleep-diminished. Hands: intact, flexible. Feet: intact, weakened. Torso: intact, newly formed scar tissue above right ribcage. Head: intact, stabilized. Spine: intact, minor scoliosis. She completed the quick structural review and, finding nothing untoward, moved on to the integrative.

Physically there was nothing wrong with this form, she noted, except for the natural effects of 27 active years of life. She continued her travels, frowning to herself as she located and evaluated a lymph gland that appeared slightly discolored. Lungs: the alveoli showed marginal hardening in the lower right lobe. The woman had been exposed to second hand smoke. The caretaker sniffed slightly and winced, noting the tarry odor, then moved on to investigate the circulatory system. As she worked, she went over the chart in her mind.

Annie M. Deep coma since 14 July 1993 11:54 AM GMT, general anesthesia, during repairs to lower left leg as a result of auto collision. Runner. No history of drug use. No family history of heart conditions or diabetes. Weight proportional to height: 124, 5'8". No prior surgeries. Dental: full adult set, one emerging wisdom LL. BP: 115/64.

Annie had been riding in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla when the Metro bus had t-boned it in the middle of the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood, at 4:32 PM local time, sun boomeranging off the tall glass tower windows and into the windshield of the car. Her fiance' had been momentarily blinded and distracted. The nose of the car was just a bit too far into the intersection and the bus had swatted it like a mosquito on an arm. The car had leaped the curb and been pinned between the bus and a light standard. Annie's leg had bent just wrong, snapping the tibia in two places.

Annie had been a runner, before the accident. She'd prided herself in her early morning sojourns along the broad sandy expanses of beach south of Santa Monica pier, feet digging triangular indents as she sprinted to the wet sand where she would start her normal jog. South a mile then north two then south one and back to the parking lot and back to home. Rain or shine. She was in great shape and knew it, and her wardrobe showed it, a closet packed with the latest fashions and trendiest trends.

The caretaker wondered what had happened to the dark blue sweater and pale gray pleated blouse that Annie had been wearing when the ambulance brought her in. The matching slacks had been too damaged to salvage, cut away to access the injuries. She checked the property list idly and found them, then continued her review. All seemed to be in order. Well, as best order as one might expect for someone who had been comatose for so long.

She stationed herself behind Annie's cerebral cortex and settled in to work. As she flexed and extended each arm, finger, leg, toe, elbow, shoulder, she hummed a small tune to herself. Patients responded well to music, she had found. After ten minutes of limb and joint exercise, she opened Annie's eyes and surveyed the room. Annie's father inhaled sharply. Even though the man knew what to expect, a result of the caretaker's presence, it still seemed to catch him off guard each time.

Frank and Eleanor had arranged for the caretaker's services over a year ago, in an effort to bring their only daughter back to her life, despite the opinion in the general medical community that such services were unproven and at best marginally successful. Annie's primary physician, Dr V Singh, held forth that it could do no harm to try this approach and, with the best mixture of his Eastern upbringing and medical training, and West Los Angeles residency, stated they should 'go for it.'

"But will it break the coma? Will she wake up?" Frank had queried as his wife sat next to him on a narrow plaid-upholstered bench in the doctor's waiting room. She had fidgeted as he spoke, eyes pinned to the floor as she tore tissue after tissue into damp confetti with trembling frail hands.

"We can make no -" Dr Singh paused, searching for a delicate approach. "There are no guarantees, of course, with any approach we can take at this stage. A patient in coma may awaken at any moment or remain comatose indefinitely."

"Will she know what is happening?"

"We have little way of knowing if a patient can sense the presence of a caretaker, sir. We monitor activity through electroencephalography - at every step of the process, naturally, and the caretaker is bound to the same professional oaths as we take as physicians."

"I think we should agree, Frank," Eleanor whispered at the stack of torn tissue in her lap.

"Will our insurance cover this?" Frank scowled as he looked between the doctor in front of him and his wife at his side.

"You should call them before we begin," Singh stated matter-of-factly. "It is classified as an experimental procedure, even after all this time."

Frank sighed and nodded, then looked over at his wife.

"We should do this, Frank."

Frank nodded.

"Call your insurance company, and I'll make the arrangements." Dr Singh looked through the open door at the young woman's still form, then made a few quick notes on the chart propped in the holder next to the door.

The caretaker hummed as she closed Annie's eyes, checked off the minor exercise routine, then let herself out through the shell of Annie's left ear and vanished. Moments later she blinked her own eyes awake and rose from the day bed in her office, crossed to her desk and sat down. She ran her own hands through her own hair, pushing back a few locks of tousled auburn curls behind her own ears, then selected a pen from the cherry wood box before her and began to complete her notes and charts.

The Game, oh yes!

2005-11-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

Legends of Karinth takes a few new twists today. Body parts, which have been in play for well over a year, now carry consequences when damaged. We've just started out with two - ambidexterity and eyesight - but that should be enough to definitely provide some testing to a character's response to it.

In a few minutes, we will have character-settable age at creation, advanced within the game only when the character chooses to set it (but never backwards).

In a few minutes more, new characters will automatically be included in a starting kingdom.. a protectorate actually, since Perry Region cannot belong to a kingdom as it is under the protection of Astria.

It feels so good to see progress being made once again, and the players are responding with extremely positive remarks.

-=-

Chapter 1 of The Caretaker should be ready today as well. Like any good story, I am not sure how it ends yet, even though I'm the one writing it. Stay tuned.

The Caretaker - A Caveat

2005-11-04T00:53:00.000-08:00

(Strange but due to the way that blogs post in reverse chronological order, this tale may appear fragmented - I will be posting chapters as they are written, and perhaps someone who is blogfluent can inform me how to make them index into some semblance of order).

Elegance, Endeavors and Education

2005-11-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

A swirl of knots leads the eye from border to center and back several times in this Celtic knotwork design. Can you find the way through? Other decorative pillows are available in the same department, to fit many styles and ambiences.

-=-

A dear friend of mine is wrapped in the shrouds of permanent academia, while he awaits word back from his advisor on the first draft of his doctoral thesis on international economic law or international legal economics or some such. He's been working on this project steadily for several years, placing many other aspects of life on hold to focus his energies, eye on the goal. I'm proud of him, this dear friend of mine, though as I watch him struggle with this, I find my mind returning to a single rude question of "Why?!"

Not why get a doctorate in the field he has chosen. I'm sure it will be of great value to someone, someday for some reason. Not why pick that particular field. I can see international law and international economics remaining vastly important topics in the coming century.

No. My 'Why' is aimed at the method of starving portions of life in order to feed another. Why do people choose to cut themselves off from the vast rich dessert that is living, ignoring the banquet of possibilities, for indeterminate lengths of time. What does this achieve for them, aside from escalating misery?

I'm no hedonist - I do not exist for joy, nor have I studied enough philosophy or Greek masters of thought to have a clue what I'm talking about. I'm just talking from my own point of view (as opposed to someone else's - like his) and stating what seems obvious to me.

What happens if he gets all done with this degree, gets out into the working world and discovers he detests the field he's just spent this many years preparing to work within? What happens to the stacks of sheepskin that never get hung on walls because by the time a degree is completed, the rest of the world has saturated the field or made the need obsolete? What happens if Sue Somebody gets all these degrees finished, then discovers nobody needs a person with a PhD in Buttonhook Construction?

Education is critical. Don't get me wrong. I wish I had a lot more than I have, and I wish I could have afforded to go back several times over the last 35 years and get more! But, face it, folks - the path of education does not branch and break with ease, nor does it necessarily prepare people to walk it. I know I certainly wasn't prepared, when it came my time to move from high school to college. Nothing prepared me for the radical switch in mentalities, schedules, focal points, demands.

Not only was I not prepared to make the change into a self-disciplined educational environment, I wasn't prepared to make the choices which would lead to a successful degree in anything. Liberal Arts would have been the most logical (and to my thinking, least useful) at the time, and eventually I would have graduated with a broad education but an extremely shallow one.

So here's what I think. We should encourage folks to get to the end of high school, or whatever they're calling in these days. Then they should take the summer off, play by the pool, go camping until Labor Day. Then when it comes time to go to college, get a job in the field that interests them, spend some time seeing if it is indeed a field that interests them. Grow within the field for four years. Then go to college, knowing that they have a grounding in the field, a grounding in life, a better grasp of what they want to do.

This four-year period, for many from 18 to 22, is a bridge between the lands of academia and the churning waters of life. Once they have crossed the bridge, they are better prepared to tackle the rigors of a degree, and people who hire them later on will know that they have an applicant who has an awareness of life, not just 16 years of classrooms and homework.

Corporations could support this bridge period, by granting subsidized leave to employees to take a four-year degree. My company paid for me to take an intensely focused program, and for about six months I spent eight hours each Saturday in classes, and came out with an incredibly rich education as a result. They paid the tuition; I kept my full time job and spent my evenings (and some lunch hours) beating my head against a stack of homework that was daunting at times. But we both gained. Seriously, if I had attempted that rigorous of a training period before having ten years in corporate life, I would have failed quickly.

So that's my plan. It's too late to get my friend of the perpetual doctoral thesis shroud to higher ground and prepare him for the time when academia ceases to take up 99% of his life. It's not too late for many others to come.

Dogs, Distance and Despair

2005-10-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Cwn Annwn, the White Dog of the Underworld, stands guard over the gates to the afterlife and hunts the lands for souls in need of guidance, or so the rumor goes. One of the Celtic Animals collection, available on many gift and collectible items.

-=-

So there we were, marching along, down life's strange highway
Mud pack and gravel beneath scarred boot and twisted heel.
Nobody said it would be easy, and they were certainly right.
Biddlesby, complainer on behalf of us all, complained vociferously
At every step along the way - his boots hurt his feet - His feet hurt his legs -
His legs ached - The food was cold - There wasn't enough food on his plate -
Someone at the back shouted forward, "Stuff a sock in it!"
"My socks are wet!" Biddlesby grumbled back,
and on we went, hour in hour out, with Biddlesby chanting out our plight.

"Where are we going?" a young scruffy-haired youth to my left wanted to know.
His companion just shrugged; he had no more clue than the rest of us,
But in rhythm we marched, lockstep lockstep lockstep
Until the sheer cadence drove some mad.
Left right left right yer-left yer-right and full of spite,
and on we went, day in day out, with Biddlesby chanting out our plight.

"What are we doing?" one young lad moaned, as the man behind him pushed him forward.
We turned our collective heads and stared at him in disbelief.
"This is what we do!" a grizzled man near the front barked back.
This is what we do.
We march on, up down uphill downhill, left right left right yer-left yer-right and full of spite
and on we went, year in year out, with Biddlesby chanting out our plight.

A boy joined us one winter, ragtag confused, hardly dressed for the task.
"Who are you people and what are you doing!?" the poor boy whined as on we marched.
We formed ranks around him as we marched along and took a bit of time to get him prepared
Still on we marched, day night dayin dayout uphill downhill, left right yer-left yer-right and full of spite
and on we went, life in life out, with Biddlesby chanting out our plight.

We paused.
All were confused.
The place was gone or was it ever there?
We stopped.
Biddlesby fretted at the top of his lungs
"Aren't we EVER gonna get DONE!? I was supposed to RETIRE at age 62!"

Then back we turned and back we marched
Life death lifetimes deathtimes day night up down uphill downhill left right yer-left yer-right and full of spite
and on we went, life in life out, with Biddlesby chanting out our plight.

Celebrate, Cats and Captives

2005-10-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Traditional and contemporary Celtic crosses mingle in this collection of ovals and circles on gifts for all seasons. We have colors for every decor and theme, and more are added in weekly.

-=-

My cat sings. I swear it.

This evening, as I was in here in the office working on a few little designs for the upcoming weekend's posting, I heard a soft whirring sound from the other room. Not purring, not meowing in the traditional sense. Whirring. I stood up to investigate. When I rounded the corner to where I could see into the living room, I spotted Chatterbox perched up on the dining room table, staring into a shadowy recess.

A rather large miller moth had escaped to the darkness, and Chatterbox was singing up at it as if to entice it from the safety of its perch. The moth danced outward a few times, circling far overhead. Chatterbox watched with the wary eyes of a trained hunter following its prey through the tangles of the jungles, then leaped three feet into the air, swatting at the elusive beast. It escaped, and both resumed their positions of wary observation.

I watched from the doorway, doing my best not to startle either hunter nor prey. From this vantage point, I could see the moth clearly and had a pretty fair view of Chatterbox's back. The whirring commenced yet again. Definitely the cat. She whirred; the moth moved slightly. She stopped and the moth stopped. Remarkable and impressive.

I backed away quietly and returned to my office, ears tuned for the periodic whirring. After about ten minutes I was rewarded with a loud crash and thud as something from the table bit the dust. Chatterbox raced in at just under the speed of light, dashing from the living room, through the office and into 'her' room at the back of the house.

I found no signs of the moth, though careful examination of the dining room table did reveal a rather disturbing evidence of wing dust.

Beliefs, Balance and Bathroom Scales

2005-10-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

Give this powerful affirmation to someone special, as a firm yet gentle encouraging statement. Believe in yourself and all shall come to you. Believe in yourself and your ability is endless. Soft woodgrain effect with surrounding engravings.

-=-

Balance and bathroom scales. Sounds like they would go hand in hand, doesn't it? Perhaps with a little helping hand rested on the laundry room counter to keep steady while perching atop the digital telltale heart, minstrel of woe, glaring up from the floor and whispering in accusatory tones.

The scales scry deep within the conscience, keeping silent tallies of muffin misdeeds and privately consumed pizza. The midnight handful of caramel popcorn is reflected from ground level with the quiet smirk that only an electronic device can muster. Chicken nuggets for lunch, you say? Hah! it scoffs. We'll not talk about the filched fork full of lemon-lime cheesecake purloined from your lunch companion's plate while she was in the powder room -- or will we? The scale tells all.

Not only does it tell all, I swear it broadcasts it from the rooftops. Nay, the very Internet itself, as if it has a hidden TCP/IP connection lurking beneath its home decor-friendly beige and wood grain plastic cover and is at this very moment sending my exact weight and BMI to e-diets.com. Fiendish beast.

To make matters worse, it is infuriatingly accurate and without the slightest bit of tact. It doesn't think to itself, 'Oh, she's had a bad day, so I'll soft-pedal the news just a bit.' It never ponders that that celebratory chocolate chip cupcake that I accepted at an afternoon party was only taken to soothe the feelings of the small child who offered it to me, nor does it adjust its feedback accordingly.

I suppose the upside of things is that it doesn't gloat. Much.

The Syndicate Strikes!

2005-10-19T01:53:00.000-07:00

I think I have this syndication thing figured out, so I'm adding it with this post. Let me know if this works, someone!

Affirmations, Aspirations and Astringents

2005-10-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

Affirmations designed to bring strength to the soul and a firm nod to the ability to do the impossible. Keep your Balance (shown here), Believe in Yourself, Celebrate your Difference, Trust your Instincts - each on a variety of home decor items and gifts, additions to your collection of keepsakes. These are fine presents to have on hand for just the right moment when a statement is needed for a friend: Believe in Yourself.

-=-

A few months ago, a friend of mine declared that he was chucking everything for a few years to write the Great American Novel. I wished him well, but what do you think? Do we have enough Great American Novels, or has that measure gone with the turn of the century or with the death of James Michener? Do you harken back to the Great American Novels we all had to read in high school, then shudder at the thought of someone adding to those musty stacks?

While I find it commendable that someone would take on this task as a personal dream, and get paid for it (grants!), I admit to a modicum of envy. Why can't I get paid to take off work for three years and READ the Great American Novel?

I've been an avid reader since I was a kid. It was not unusual for me to haul home as many library books as I could carry the distance from the library to our house, read them as fast as possible, then return for more within a few days. It served to broaden my education and viewpoint of the world, the outer worlds and inner dreams, trials of mankind. I seem to recall one librarian being seriously concerned about my eclectic selections and visit frequency. If there were no books left between trips, I would reread the ones I had just read. Card carrying readaholic, and there is no 12-step program or cure.

I've tried my hand at writing, even produced a handful of outlines for books that I would love to read if they were written. Invariably I get sidetracked into the minutiae and nothing more comes of it. Poetry is something I can write all day long, and have.

But, truth be told, my writing muse longs to dwell in the long shadows of such giants as Erma Bombeck, Peg Bracken, Andy Rooney, Bennett Cerf, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Mary Roach, Dave Barry. Quick of wit, deft of phrase, sharp of tongue, inept of screwdriver. They revel in the peril of the everyday life. These monumental minds turn an overflowing sewage tank into a rollicking tales, with heroes and villains and missing goldfish. They take the daily misadventures of life and make them into sweet-and-sour treats. I wish I could turn a phrase with such an adept wit. That's what I want to do when I grow up! Heck with the Great American Novel. I'll settle for Great American Hilarity.

I wonder if I should tell my friend that, if he wishes to write the Great American Novel, he'd best pack his bags and move from the UK to the US... he is British, after all.

Alphabets, Epiphanies and Cutting Boards

2005-10-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Celtic alphabets appear to be engraved in stone of several kinds, from granite (shown here) to marbles of various colors. I've used one of my favorite fonts of all time, Patrick, which to me is the most evocative of Celtic tradition and tones. Available on pillows, prints, tiles, boxes and mugs - but if you want it on something else, all you need to do is say the word.

-=-

Once in awhile, I'll have a flash of inspiration that is usually accompanied by that special 'DOH' feeling, as in 'why didn't I think of this years ago!' One of those hit me this morning while I was struggling to wrap my arthritic hands around the lid of a pickle jar. Mind you, this flash had absolutely nothing with opening difficult jars - if I have a tough time with one, I take the logical route and toss it to my dearly beloved, who can open the toughest jar with a flick of his wrist. If he's not around, I take the next logical step and thwap the jar on the floor until the lid loosens or the jar breaks.

No. This was an entirely separate epiphany, and it focused on getting the last holdout coffee grounds out of these newfangled cans with the dopey rims. Twist and turn, stand it on edge, shake it like mad, and at least an eighth of a cup (1/6th of a pot of coffee!) will remain inside. I am the consummate pack rat, and I just know that someday I will need 3517 coffee cans, so I always hesitate to wreck the top by hacksawing it off just to get that last bit of grounds out. Buying whole bean is too logical. So that's out.

A few days ago, I received an order from a catalog company, including four flexible cutting boards. One for meat, one for fish, one for onion, one for something else. I fished them out of the precious storage spot where they'd landed on arrival and been promptly ignored, tore open the package and bent one experimentally. Perfect. I advanced warily on the recalcitrant coffee can, quiet as I could so as not to alert it into further defense mechanisms. Curled up the yellow board into a coffee can opening size tube, and attacked, sticking the curled board down its metallic throat and tapping it gently into place. Upended the whole affair, and out came all the stuck coffee grounds!

Needless to say, the yellow board is now known as the 'one for coffee' and occupies an honored spot in my coffee corner, right next to the stack of empty (!) coffee cans that I know I will need someday.

Pioghaid and Feng Shui

2005-10-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

Celtic animals are gathered and painted with brilliant colors, reflecting traditional Celtic symbols and updating into a more contemporary presentation. Pioghaid the Magpie (shown here) is joined by Coileach the Peacock, Cwn Annwyn the Dog of the Underworld, Caoit the Cat, Corr the Crane, Eas-Ganu the Eel, Payshtha the Dragon, and Beli the Eagle upon prints, pillows, mugs, tiles and boxes, and other gift items.

-=-

Several years ago, I bought a curly bamboo plant. Actually it was a stick, green and curved back on itself in two places. It had no leaves, no roots, no particular signs of life, except that it was green. Along with this came Feng Shui instructions which read, roughly, put the uncurly end in water and keep both ends very carefully out of direct sunlight. So I did. For about two years, I kept the uncurly end submersed in fresh water in a sturdy wine carafe on top of the entertainment center, which is about as far from direct sunlight as it could be placed. About two months after it arrived, it sprouted a leaf. A tiny teeny little green leaf. We were thrilled, and figured our Feng Shui operation was well on its way. Like good followers of instruction leaflets, we positioned it appropriately and added water every few days, so that its little feet would never dry out. It spouted thin tendrils of roots which curled up inside the carafe bottom. All was good.

Several months later, it sprouted a second leaf. A few months after that, it sprouted a third. We figured this was the way of Zen life. Slow journey and all. We kept it watered, kept it out of direct sunlight, kept its feet wet, etc etc etc.

I'm no Feng Shui guru, and I'm just as likely to align a stack of outdated People magazines to the east-west as north-south, or northeast-southwest, with no regard whatsoever to the balance of the universe, and my luck and riches are as equally unlikely to change as a result. Feng Shui may work quite well for some folks who are better attuned to the balance of the universe. Personally, even though I try to be sensitive to the balance of the universe, usually our clutter bunker is more attuned to Flung Shui (tentative credit given to a cartoon on my fridge door).

We have no mirrors in the bedroom (apparently a Feng Shui no-no). I wish I could claim this was a purposeful act to keep evil spirits from sliding under the bathroom door. But frankly it's only because the one mirror we did have in the bedroom fell out of its moorings one night and hit the floor, scaring the cat. Our luck and riches did not change as a result, but the cat developed a great fear of falling plates of reflective glass. We did the math: Seven years of bad luck in the face of eight remaining lives, and figured that we wouldn't risk 56 years of terror for the poor thing, and never replaced the bedroom mirror.

The curly bamboo is supposed to bring great luck and riches. Well, that may very well be the case, but from its perch up on top of the entertainment center, I think it was more occupied with listening to Law & Order episodes and waving its few tiny leaves to the tunes of the theme of Gilmore Girls. In any event, not much changed until the day the cat discovered its location.

Even though she'd seen this thing up on top of the entertainment center every day for several years, all of a sudden she felt some catly urge to reach it and chew on its tiny few leaves. She's a clever cat, but the entertainment center stands about five feet high, is covered with stacks of video tapes, cassette tape boxes, miniature cars courtesy of Readers Digest Select Editions, owls holding incense, owls holding keychains, owls holding nothing, and a lava lamp (don't ask). There is just no room for a cat unless something sacrifices its position to four paws and a zooming tail. The owl holding the incense nobly gave up and bit the dust first. Moments later, keychain owl chose to join incense owl in a heroic demise. That was about the time I peeked around the corner from the office to see Chatterbox standing up on the top of a side table and batting things out of her way in order to reach the bamboo.

How'd I know she was aiming at the bamboo? It was cowering from her. Tiny wee leaves atremble, this poor plant was leaning backwards in a futile attempt to avoid impending doom! Well, ok, maybe not. But it was tilted back at an angle that would indicate it was about to follow keychain owl and incense owl into plunging death. I grabbed it from the top of the entertainment center and bad-kittied Chatterbox down from her attack point. After I retrieved the two owls and restored them to their rightful spots, as outlined by the bare spaces in the dust, I grabbed Chatterbox and gently deposited her out of range.

Without thinking about the 'keep out of direct sunlight' edict in the instruction pamphlet, I carried the bamboo to the kitchen and set it in the one place I was relatively sure Chatterbox would not attempt to attack it: near a big threatening white Kitchen Aid mixer. It just so happens that the mixer is right next to the window with its lovely southern exposure and view of the behind-us neighbors and their yard.

About two days later, I noticed that the few tiny leaves had grown to larger leaves, and were being joined by two more small leaves. Within a few more days, the leaf count was up to eight and all were turning beautifully into the sunlight. Within another week, those leaves were doing so wonderfully that even more had started to show up, as did a check for $5000 which I had thought I would never see.

Based on this, I now believe that curly bamboo likes sunlight, the directer the better, and may even contribute to luck and riches. In fact, I get the sneaking suspicion that if I had just moved it there a few years ago, that check might have arrived when it was expected, instead of being nearly three years late...

Chatterbox has since lost interest in plant life for the time being, now that the bamboo is being guarded by the big evil loud threatening Kitchen Aid mixer (which is only evil and loud when it is turned on to make bread, a winter-season event), and has taken up the fine art of de-crochet, best defined as the art of persistently unraveling and eating a handmade green afghan. She's still working on the fringe on one side, but has managed to consume most of that and is now eyeing the other side's loose threads.

Autumn Leaves

2005-10-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

The most subtle memories of summer linger in the outlines of autumn leaves, their colors just a simple whisper. These leaves will linger long after the season passes, and there's no need to rake them up or set the kids to shoveling them out from under the hedge.

-=-

A friend of mine likens autumn to a state of incredible transition. Harvests are tended, sometimes for the last time until a field goes fallow. Homesteads are secured, storm windows are hung. Rain gutters are tested for leaks, to stand ready for the winter. With a last sigh, we stow swimsuits and light linen outfits and check our closets for wool and heavy flannel. It is a transitional state of the year, and some find it a comfort. Some find it a pain in the tush.

This same friend hates cold weather. She would like nothing more than to hibernate from Labor Day until Memorial weekend, and would if she could. But since she cannot (they'd probably miss her at work), she busies herself with preparations, as if the shortening of the days spells impending doom. She hauls out quilts and fluffs them as if her life depends on it. She frets that her furnace will fail. She obsesses over fall outfits. She panics if she doesn't have appropriate matching purses to go with this season's warm boots. Her coats will be the latest and greatest available for the utmost warmth possible, the newest materials on the market.

Now, this would make perfect sense if we happened to live in a place like Fairbanks, Alaska or even upstate New York, where the change of seasons is marked with falling leaves, falling snow, icy sidewalks and slush up to our ankles. But she lives in the desert. (So do I - about three blocks away.) She's lived here about 18 years; I've been here about 20. We both know what the desert winter will be like, but some of us panic more than others.

It might have gotten down to 60 degrees Fahrenheit last night. Dreadfully miserable winter is upon us.

Calendars and Long-Ago Children

2005-10-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Spirit of Shells Calendar for 2006 is now available (shown here), along with the Celtic County, Celtic Animals (both individually and as a collection), and Crosses and Knots. Keeping track of important dates is easy when you have 12 months of your favorite interest to look at. Our high-quality calendar has oversized date boxes providing plenty of room to write in important events. Each features full bleed dynamic color on 100 lb text weight high gloss paper. We're pleased, and are sure you will be as well.

-=-

While I was searching for ideas on the designs for the calendar, I happened to stumble across a collection of clip art I had purchased many years ago. Somehow it had gotten shoved to one side and fallen down between the back of two shelves, where it seems to have hibernated for about a dozen years. I blew off a few years' worth of dust and thumbed through the pages, rekindling old memories as bookmarks fell loose during my travel.

One page in particular caught my eye and brought back a racing tidal wave of memories. The bookmark which I'd pushed in place had St 94 scribbled on its top. I can't remember what that stood for, but I do remember what why I gravitated toward one particular design.

The artwork is that of a small child, looking down with a soft expression on her face. There is just enough of a quirk to the smile to hint of mischief or merriment, but not enough to mistake the look for joy. Her long hair curls over thin shoulders, and she has the most amazing eyelashes. And now I recall why I did not use the design at the time. Cherubic as this tiny creature seemed to be, she bears the most uncanny resemblance to my youngest stepdaughter at about the age of 12.

I could not bring myself to use the spittin' image of my stepdaughter's face in an environment geared toward bringing attention to the plight of missing children. (The project itself went on to gain wide national attention.)

I chose instead a pair of reaching hands, sketched and anonymous, but poignant in their meaning and presentation. But I recall that, at the time, I kept returning to that particular tiny bit of artwork and staring, wondering where my stepdaughter has gone, so many years ago.

Wee Mousie, Wee Mousie

2005-10-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

Finally finally finally, things are getting back on track. The Wee Mousie series (Teapot Mouse shown above) is added to Celtic Elegance. Several other Fall season designs are added this week as well, and our contributions toward the disaster recovery continue to grow as well.

-=-

in other news

A tribute to The Way Things Were and Still Should Be: Late in 1978, my husband and I bought a microwave oven. It was huge, came in a box that could house half of Van Nuys, weighed as much as a small Chevy, and came with a instruction manual that was worthy of most supercomputers of the day. We plugged it in, and it worked. It was an incredible device for us at the time, and we created a shrine for it above and to one side of the stove. Neither of us was particular sure what to do with it, as we were both quite comfortable with cooktop and oven food preparation and eating. (Well, not quite true. He cooked, not I - I didn't really learn how to cook for fewer than 11 people until I was well into my 40s.) Eventually we figured it out, and eventually the incredible device became part of our daily routine. As nuke fare got up to speed, the device eventually replaced nearly all cooking on stove, although the oven still remained in use.

Best I can guess, this microwave has been run at least twice a day every day for 27 years, except the very brief times we've been on vacation. It has been spattered, splattered, kicked once, dropped once (onto a soft surface). It has been tinkered with inadvertently. The plug-in thermometer vanished in 1984, thanks to an exploratory grandchild. Its inner surfaces have been subjected to cleaning products both mild and abrasive, despite the cautionary tone of the voluminous manual.

Last night it made a loud growling noise.

My husband and I looked at each other in surprise. It has never made any noise before, except the monotonic whirring that it always makes when the heavy glass turntable is spinning. Well, it did once, when someone whose name shall be left out to protect his privacy, when that someone chose to microwave a bowl of clay "just to see what would happen". It uttered a howl and spat forth a shower of sparks worthy of a blacksmith's anvil in protest of this mistreatment. The clay coated the innards of the cavity, and that someone got to clean it up because his wife (me) refused to do so.

But last night it made a loud growling noise. We silently prepared our requiems to the Ancient Microwave. We glanced at the stack of Consumer Reports, trying to remember which issue had the comparative study and Best Buy flags on microwaves. We mentally counted our nickels and dimes, resigned to replacing the venerable beast.

Then it stopped growling and went back to work, finished cooking the nukeable dinner, and went back to whatever microwave ovens do when they're not microwaving. It worked just fine this morning for breakfast and again just fine for lunch. No growling.

Perhaps it just wanted to remind us that it was there, serving us in relative silence, several times a day for 27 years.

A Brief Message for Listeners

2005-09-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

Prepare for spam and hopefully not too many duplicate alerts in your watcher software, feeds, RSS reader and the like. I have discovered that the way to get prior posts over from my old home is to copy them, change the dates to their original publication date, and paste them over here. This is bound to generate problems for some of you, and for that I apologize in advance. I promise that new posts will resume very shortly.

For those of you who followed my blog while it was at Bravenet, double apologies. These may be things you've read before, and I'm starting from the earliest (Jan 2005) and moving forward. Again, I will be back on track with the Perils of Pauline.. err.. ponderings of the game design as soon as I get these old musings copied over.

Oh, and a bit of new news for everyone - old reader and newcomer alike. We've actually sold our first Katrina disaster relief object! While this may not seem like an earth-shattering event, it is to us, considering we are just one small corner of the universe trying to raise funds to help those displaced by this catastrophe. Our proceeds for this sale will go to Habitat for Humanity.

We now return you to your previously scheduled archival spam.

Fern

Giving Guideline - Disaster Recovery Efforts

2005-09-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me the other day how much he should send to the disaster recovery organization of his choice. I resisted the urge to be flippant and declare the fair amount to be $4,265,732.48, although wouldn't it be great if we all had that kind of money and -could- send off that sort of funding!

Instead, I asked him to think about what he has in his own life and use that as a guideline. After talking awhile, he agreed. This is how things panned out:

Answer the following questions, and then add up the answers. Use the results as a minimum and grab your checkbook.

Do you have a place to live? Give $10, or 5% of your monthly rent.
Does it have a roof and walls? Add $20, or the price of two burgers and fries.
Do you have electricity? Add $20, or the cost of Starbucks coffee for a week.
Do you have running water? Add $10, or the price of a box of good bath salts.
Do you have a way to heat your house? Add $10, or the cost of wood for a weekend.

Do you have food to eat? Give $10, or the price of a pizza from your favorite parlor.
Do you have clothes to wear? Give $10, or the cost of a shirt at Wal-Mart.
Does your location have police services? Give $10, or the price of a ticket to the county fair.
Does it have fire department services? Give $10, or the price of a two breakfasts.

Do you have a job? Give $20, or the cost of a pack of copier paper
Does it pay more than minimum wage? Give $20, or the cost of a lunch for two.
Do you have a vehicle? Give $10 per vehicle, or the cost of a Saturday car wash.

That's $160 for most folks - more if you have more cars and pick-up trucks. That same $160 will feed a family of four for a week, and if we each give this amount, this will go a long ways toward getting the displaced Gulf Coast residents on a stable road to recovery.

If the idea of skipping a burger and fries lunch is distasteful, kindly think about the five days or so that many folks had to wait for food to arrive.

Can't envision going a week without your morning coffee? - consider how Louisiana fared without drinkable water for a week.

Katrina Relief at DFC and Celtic Elegance

2005-09-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

The Katrina Relief department at Celtic Elegance is complete. Celtic Elegance joined with Design For a Cause, providing a set of designs for their focus store, and will continue its affiliation with designs created for the specific cause.

So many fine artists and designers are contributing to the DFC effort, and Jennifer Goode is doing an outstanding job of bringing order to the chaos which is bound to arise during the inception of any project and which multiplies in the inception during a crisis. Hats off to her and her infinite energy, and to each artist who has chosen to participate in this exceptional project. She's now in the ranks of my personal heroes.

Somehow, in this midst of this whirlwind of activity, Jen found time to apply her artistic background and eye for the right look toward Celtic Elegance, providing crucial guidance and suggestions to lead the webstore toward a more pulled-together and professional presence. Hats off to this exceptional lady, who has my full support toward any task she chooses to undertake.

Please contribute to the support of the recovery of the Gulf Coast. The consequences of this disaster continue to grow, as does the time it will take for the region and our national economy to restabilize as a result of Katrina's devastation.

Of Oaken Obstacles and Naugahyde Albatrosses

2005-09-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of the morning going through my closet. Little remains in there now but a few tops and a couple of skirts I hope someday to be able to fit back into. I've had those same hopes for fifteen years, so I doubt they'll come true anytime soon, so those items will join their companions tomorrow in the stack of donations. We shall part ways amicably, me and my size fives. They're resting in a rather goodly stack of boxes, waiting for the truck to come whisk them to wherever they're needed.

As I sorted, I got to thinking about the items I was preparing to donate. Each has its bit of history attached, and as I fingered the lace on the edge of a formerly favorite blouse, I replayed the lunch hour trip to Bullock's to acquire it, back in the early 70s. Terrible to think that I still have such items in my possession. The fashion police would arrest me on sight, I'm sure, if they knew that these wardrobe staples have followed me around the country for almost thirty years. Yet they're still in perfectly serviceable condition, barely worn, old friends.

I stopped and looked around, at my house full of stuff. Stuff. Acquisitions. Possessions. There's the armoire that my late husband and I bought in 1972 and hauled home in the back of the Corvair convertible. It holds down a piece of the floor, and masks a stack of sweaters and a few drawers full of logo t-shirts that used to fit back when I was a tiny thing (which I haven't been for nearly 15 years). Nothing in there has the slightest bit of purpose to it, with the exception of a Icelandic wool sweater that someone brought as a gift when they returned from a long trip in Keflavik. The armoire has been missing the left door pull for about 22 years. You knock it firmly on its face and the door will pop open. I wouldn't miss it nor its contents.

There's that monstrosity of an oak dining room table that he insisted we must have when we moved to this house back in '85. It expands to seat about 300, and as I recall, we had some delivery difficulties when it arrived from the store. Four chairs showed up; the other four were on the bill of lading but did not exist. I remember it took about four months for the other four chairs to materialize from whatever Bermuda Triangle they vanished into from the back of the local delivery truck. Stuff. Possessions. Amiable companions that have slowly gathered into position over the course of many years, but very little is significant.

The table holds up a stack of folded sheets, two boxes of interesting spare parts which have shown up in the carpet over the past 15 years, two or three butter dishes full of orphaned bolts and rubber bands, a pillow that one of the cats adopted as her very own, handy for surveillance of the back yard. The table could go - all except for the cat.

The more I looked around, the more I realized that the value of all the items that clutter the place, hold down the carpet and act as repositories for other stuff, is not in their presence, but in their memories. I'd miss my computer, my recliner, my television - each of those three band together to form the backbone of much of my existence. Those I would miss. I would miss my desk as well, and the hundreds and hundreds of books on the steel shelves that have acted as temporary bookcases for the past 21 years. But I've read most of the books, and the ones I haven't read, I probably won't. They should go to a library anyway, where they can fill a mind instead of acting as efficient dust magnets.

I'd miss my microwave, which has been in the family since 1978 and still works perfectly except when it decides to shoot sparks into the spaghetti sauce. Note: never microwave FIMO modeling clay. Nothing good will come of the results.

I wandered through the house rather aimlessly, envisioning these items missing, utterly destroyed, flooded, entirely gone. Then I destroyed the house around them - mentally.

No matter what mental exercise I performed - no matter how hard I worked to discount the physical presence of these possessions which have accumulated over my lifetime - no matter how hard I tried to envision life without these oaken obstacles and naugahyde albatrosses trailing after me, I could not duplicate one single minute of the sense of loss that must engulf every single family, every single person who has had a home ripped out from beneath their feet. These things - these possessions - this stuff - these form a framework upon which life is woven. To have that demolished, to have that so forcibly removed, is incomprehensible until it happens to you.

Tomorrow when the truck arrives to pick up the boxes, I'll probably have ten times the number of boxes ready to go. It will never ever be enough.

The Mornigal

2005-09-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

The mornigal hesitated as he slogged through the hip-deep slurry, reached beneath the surface and gently clasped the crooked limp arm. He straightened, wing tips fluttering slightly as they flickered over the slowly oozing water, brought the tiny form to his chest and looked upward, chanted softly. A burst of light, pillar to the skies, and the trapped soul vanished. With infinite care he rested the shell of the man's body back down into the mud at his feet, to be cared for on mortal terms. He brushed a small bit of moss from his shoulder and slogged onward. This was part of his job that he hated the most.

He glanced over, shielding his eyes in the pre-dawn light, and spotted an elderly woman, resting just behind the wrought iron railing of an overhanging balcony, fallen, legs twisted painfully beneath her frail form. He reached across with a wing tip, pushed her hair from her face, and noted the parched lips. A breath of air escaped his own, and a small cloud of condensation moved to rest above her, shielding, dampening. She saw nothing, but a twist of a smile crossed her eyes as the precious water dripdripped into her open mouth. As it should be. He moved on, stepping over a submerged pick-up truck.

The mornigal paused when the light became too bright, and sought the inward spaces. Not that he could be seen by mortal eyes - at least most mortal eyes. But crises reveal hidden talents in the infirm and the infant. Twice already this trip alone, he had found himself staring into the eyes of a mortal child who reached for him hungrily, pleading. Twice his heart broke. They cannot must not see me not now not yet, he thought sadly, and surveyed the sodden brick fronts, then decided.

With a wing-flick he sunk to the lower floor of a half-floating house, ducked beneath the lintel and, on hands and knees, continued his retrieval. Family of four, trapped as the water had raced in. Ready to come home. He noted the names on a small linen pad with the stub of a pencil, lifted each to his chest in turn, sent their souls homeward. As he worked, he inhaled tastes of the swirling water, gaining direction, where to seek next. It was livid with soul fire. His head began to throb painfully. So much work so much work so many trapped, as he crawled his great form forward from room to submerged room.

Emptied of souls, he noted, and exited as he had arrived, then stretched to his full height, carefully unfurling his great wings and allowing them to flick above the water once again. He trudged onward, keeping to the shadowed side of the street, making his way slowly from doorway to doorway, tasting the air for his direction.

The mornigal paused then dissolved through a windowpane. Two souls trapped he freed, leaving the bodies as they had rested last. No clue to his presence but that he closed their eyes. He could not help it. A finality, a sign of respect, as he went about his grisly task. As he dematerialized and passed through the window and back out onto the flooded street, his ears perked. Calls for help from a rooftop nigh a mile away. A great sheet flapped in the air as the two men waved it frantically. He paused, flew up slightly and sighted them through the bristle of debris. With a huge hand he swept away a small sheet of overcast, lighting them with a sudden ray of morning sun. Chopper blades whirred in the distance as he turned back toward his task. The two would be rescued within the hour. He would attend to the three souls who rested face-down and sheet-clad next to them on the roof - in a bit. With a quiet sigh he resumed his patrol.

Back in his day, alive days, he thought with a sad smile, he had prowled similar streets. Slept in doorways in alleys just like that one over there, now deeply silted and filled with two stories of shattered pine. He had died, not here, but near, and been transported home from a humid dawn such as this, sweat- and blood-soaked chambray shirt clinging to his cooling form. The mornigal who had honored him was new to the task, less than a hundred souls under her belt, wings still practically bare, not much taller than a mortal man. He'd watched through dead eyes as the ethereal newcomer fumbled around and nearly dropped his corpse, tears coursing down her face, unaware that she was being watched. The first few trips were the hardest, he recalled. The mornigal had wept silently as she reached to touch the knife wounds in his belly, trace the congealed life blood which had crept away through the night. When finally she gathered him up and held him, the warmth of her arms was unbearably comforting, and he found himself yearning for life but denied. The flash of light would have blinded him if he had been alive, as, off key and hesitant, she sang the keening wailing chant which released his soul from his form.

At the corner, he reviewed his small bit of paper. So many since midnight, and so many left. He looked up into the now-blazing sun, flicked his wings and headed skyward.

A small boy waved hesitantly at the mornigal as he clung to a snaking length of rope, floating just out of reach of safety. The mornigal waved back, nudging the choppy water with a wing tip as he swept toward the sky. The rope drifted a moment then caught onto a leaf gutter, found a mooring, and the boy clambered to the waiting rooftop, safe. The mornigal smiled to himself as the last of him disappeared into the heavens. There were times it was acceptable to have been seen.

Perched atop his stone bench, the mornigal watched, waited for the orb below to spiral into darkness so he could get back to work. A soft chime at his shoulder rang softly, repeatedly, and he felt the weight of his wings increase with each additional huge feather. Felt his form stretch and grow in breadth and strength to bear the new burden. He wept, tears of sadness and relief, not for the reward of his tasks, but for the tasks' necessity. He knew with a heavy heart that before this catastrophe was over, his wings would be completely full, he would have earned the title of Angel, at the moment the millionth soul left his embrace and was borne home.

-=-

Of note: Polls taken this year showed that over 78% of US citizens surveyed believe in the existence of angels.

News from the Front

2005-09-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

I spoke to a young man on Monday who spent his Labor Day weekend in disaster relief mode. He said that one of the hardest things he was going to have to do all weekend was to leave and get back home to go to work Tuesday. He talked of cramped conditions, filth and sewage, trash and confusion - and hope and prayer, smiles and supportive hugs, survival through sheer willpower and determination. And yet through all that, he felt the hardest thing for him was going home - because he did not know for sure that there would be someone arriving to continue his efforts. He was in tears as I talked to him.

After looming for centuries over the good folk of New Orleans, the sky has literally fallen, taking with it massive chunks of their lives, beloved ones, possessions. We are nowhere near a tally of victims or cost, and no true cost can be placed upon much of this.

Let me not turn this into a political commentary nor a finger-pointing exercise. There's a surplus of that going on, everywhere you turn, from broadcast news to print. We can point fingers. We can place blame, state, federal and local. But things are never as clear-cut as they appear to be when viewed from a safe distance.

As one reservist put it, on broadcast news tonight (I believe it was on Fox News), when he called home and was asked to describe how things are, he asked them to imagine the worst possible scenario - then multiply that dramatically.

If you are feeling helpless in the face of this, from a safe distance and under a roof that you own or rent, you are in a position to help.

Call the Red Cross (1-800-HELP NOW - 1-800-435-7669) - http://www.redcross.org
Call the Salvation Army (1-800-SAL ARMY - 1-800-725-2769) - http://www.salvationarmy.org
Call America's Second Harvest (1-800-844-8070) - http://www.secondharvest.org
Call Habitat for Humanity (1-800-422-4828) - http://www.habitat.org

Got a spare car? Contact Craig's List - http://neworleans.craigslist.org - link in and see who needs your help in your area

This is not a catastrophe that will resolve in a week, or two weeks or even a month. This is going to take much much longer to recover from. Every single one of us can help and must help. Do it now.

Thank you, and thank you to everyone who is doing their level best to get the Gulf Coast back.

Red Cross Family Links

2005-09-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is a reprint from an email received from the American Red Cross. I have not asked for permission to reprint it, but I'm going to as this information needs to get out:

RED CROSS FAMILY LINKS REGISTRY

Hurricane Katrina Missing Persons Database
A resource for family members to find dislocated persons
(This is not a solicitation).

If you are concerned about the condition and/or whereabouts of someone who was impacted by the recent hurricane, the Family Links registry is a resource available to you from the ICRC and the Red Cross. Current information may be obtained by going to the Red Cross.org site (right side of home page) or calling 1-877-LOVED-1S (1-877-568-3317).

The Red Cross website is managed by the ICRC in close cooperation with the American Red Cross and with other National Societies working in the disaster area.

http://www.redcross.org/

Channeling Dr Seuss

2005-09-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'm here because I am not there
That blog I used to be
For even though that there was fun
And sorta kinda free
The people over there who run
The movies, sound and light
Did not appear to get a clue
Nor wish to set things right.

I do not like the gifs that jump
And leap and bound and spin
I do not like them, here nor there,
Not outside nor within.
I do not like them on a pig
I do not like them fried
I do not like them in my hair
I do not like them tied.

I do not like the dancing ape
Which leaps across my screen
I do not like the big-eyed girls
Who lip-sync words to Queen.
I do not like them when they walk
I do not like them there
I do not like them when they talk
Not here nor anywhere.

And so I asked them over there,
Those folks who make it run,
If I could get a blog that won't
Attack me like a Hun.
They laughed and grinned and nodded twice
As they my ticket read
And said of course we can do that
If you'll just send us bread!

But but I said with words so small
That all can understand
Back when I moved my blog you said
That I could have a hand
In saying if my screen would race
Or leap or crawl or scream,
but now you say I cannot have
this silent peaceful dream?

No no they grinned, of course you can
If you will pay this fee
We'll stop the dancing screaming stuff
And of it you'll be free!
I sighed and packed my little bag
And left that very day,
But as i did, I whispered back,
In hopes they'd hear me say:

I do not like the leaping chimp
I do not like the hare...
I do not like them on my screen
I do not want them there!
I do not do not want my Mac
To babble at me thus,
But I will leave before I feel
That I must make a fuss.

So here I am and here we are
And I don't see a goose
Whose feathers ruffle while he jumps
When I don't cut him loose.
BUT if I see a single ape
Who leaps from screen to me
You bet that I will pack my bags
And find a different tree!

I DO NOT like the flying pig,
I DO NOT LIKE the goat.
I DO NOT LIKE the dancing moose
Nor boats that rock and float.
I DO NOT DO NOT LIKE the noise
Distractions on my screen.
I do not like them in my head
So often I could scream.

-=-

Hopefully soon I shall be able to figure out how to archive all my writings and move them from my old blog.
Time will tell, though. If not, I shall simply write more!

Katrina - Part 2

2005-09-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

>>fume<<

Just when I think folks are basically good and helpful, I read something that shakes the unreality right off that pipe dream. Normally I can take a lot of stupid before my cork blows off, but what I just read has me burnin', dear reader.

An unnamed individual, posting on a forum which I also will not name, to quote loosely, has decided that he/she/it is not going to donate to support the Katrina disaster recovery because some of her hard-earned funds might fall into the hands of someone who may have looted something. One of those nefarious beasts who stepped into a grocery store that looks like an aftermath of Nagasaki, seeking a bit of food or some milk for his kids - said eviltry might just get his hands on some of this non-donor's donation. Therefore, he/she/it is not going to send any support.

Of all the immature, narrow-minded, sock-puppet-for-brains things to state...

But wait, it gets "better". Just a paragraph or so above this statement, he/she/it/sock-puppet says that this non-donor would not want his (gender stabilized to reduce confusion) donations to get into the hands of those who did not evacuate during the mandatory evacuation. Those who 'chose to stay' should not be aided.

I kept reading down through the thread. I have no idea why. I could have stopped, and saved myself from choking on my coffee, but I continued, and read that (and I quote): "dying in a hurricane in this day and age is just Darwin Award material."

I'm speechless.

>>/fume<<

Prayers focused on those who wait tonight and those who head in to rescue them.

Katrina

2005-09-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to find the words to express the tremendous urgency, the need for disaster recovery and support. Do what you can, as best you can, as soon as you can.

Websites abound with lists of charitable operations, contact data, phone numbers, web addresses. At the risk of spamming you with information, here is a list I'm using:

American Red Cross - http://www.redcross.org - 1-800-HELP NOW

Salvation Army - http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/ - 1-800-SAL ARMY (725-2769)

Operation Blessing - http://www.ob.org/ - 1-800-436-6348

America's Second Harvest - http://www.secondharvest.org - 1-800-344-8070

Do whatever you can, as much as you can, but don't wait to be asked. Do it now.

My heart goes out to you who have family and loved ones still in the Gulf Coast area, and to those who are there now, trapped between the catastrophic now and a highly uncertain future. I pray the relief forces, food and water, clothing and stability, begin to arrive quickly and en masse. I pray that those who are waiting for this help to arrive do not give up their hope and faith. For those whose path Katrina has cut short, for those who have not survived, our prayers to guide you safely onward.

Those of you who are safe, warm, fed and sheltered, far away from this madness, send your help - funds, donations, goods - in the most expedient way you can arrange. Do not sit by complacently and wait to be asked nor assume that this disaster has not touched your life. Take action - make a call - do it now.

(untitled - a poem)

2005-08-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

Words hang in the crisp air, abandoned by their previous owners,
The skeletons of the wintering trees hang back, leafless limbs held up in silent shock.
The pre-dawn field's snow is unbroken and pristine
Except for the two sets of footprints in
and the one set of footprints out,
And the tentative tracks of a winter-thin deer.

She sat propped against the trunk of an elder birch,
eyes gazing north in apathetic disinterest.
Her left arm crooked around the blanket in her lap,
Her right hand clutching the crumpled page,
sodden from the landing snow.
A Dear Jane letter, we postulate as the paper edge whimpers in a passing breeze.

She is young, was young, and the shivering night has made her
a shade of blue unknown to the palette of mankind's skintone brush.
Mascara has bled into each crease around her eyelids,
Raccoon eyes rimed with frozen tears.
She wept, we can tell, before she died, though
no bruise mars the youthful blue of her neck or bare arms.

A few paces away south, Jackson finds clues -
Her name is Dora, was Dora, per the soggy envelope in the muddy-snowy thistles,
And beneath her thumb, inverted ink spells the sender's name as Robe..
We speculate the RT as Jackson trudges back from the marshy creek edges
Bearing a thin blue jacket and a crumpled pair of sodden gloves.
The gloves would fit the tiny blue hand before us.

A radio squawks from the distant county line roadbed; we turn toward it
As we stare back toward the elder birch in unspeakable sorrow,
and await the ambulance which need not hurry.
The town is small - she is one of our own - one of the children full of promise, as all children are.
Her death, a rift, will be a gaping hole in our smalltown continuity of life.
Her auburn hair riffles in a passing breeze, and -

The blanket gives a kick and an angry squall!
A fire of hope is sparked in each of us, and we stumble over our feet
To make it back to her side through the snow covered tall grasses.
An infant, shivering and irate, inhales shrill chilled breaths and exhales rage,
As we disentangle her tiny limbs from the icy folds.
Bert races to his squad car, barely touching the ground in his haste, and back with his rescue kit.

The ambulance, frantically radioed, now races up the county line road,
Crime scene be damned, a dozen snow boots trample the dead wheat stubble in a mad rush.
We name her Hope, and Becky and Jackson's wife Jan squabble over who houses her first.
Jan wins, but Becky is across the street and at the side of the loaned crib each day for hours.
Neither Dora's folks, long gone from our small town, nor Robe-RT step up.
We bury her out by St. Thomas' and all of us at the firehouse chip in for a small granite stone.

Picket Fences!

2005-08-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

So.. I get this email the other day, urging us to boycott gas. The writer's idea: boycott specific stations and companies, informing them in advance that we are not buying from them until the prices get back under control. What the writer didn't tell us is what to do if the only gas station in town belongs to the company we're supposed to be boycotting or, worse, if the only gas station in town is the place we work.

The movie started playing in my mind:

Me: *dials the local gas station* **brrriiing brrriiing...** **brrriiing brrriiing...** **brrriiing brrriiing...**
Gas Stop Gas Stop. Mitch.
Me: Mitch? Yah. This is Casey up the road
Gas Stop: Hey Casey, how goes?
Me: Good. You?
Gas Stop: Good ta hear. Don't see you much anymore. How's the back?
Me: Good, good. No change there.

Gas Stop: Good ta hear. Hey, heard you were in the hospital.
Me: Nah. Someone got their wires crossed. How's Nancy?
Gas Stop: Good. She's took the kids up to her mom's for the weekend.
Me: Yah? How long's she up for?
Gas Stop: Week mebbe. Mebbe I'll get some fishin' in.
Me: Good, good. Enjoy.

Gas Stop: Need somethin'?
Me: Yah. Thought you should know I'm joinin' in on that there boycott.
Gas Stop: Yah? Okie.

Gas Stop:*pause* You ever get that Bronco back running?
Me: Nah. I don't drive much anymore, what with the back.
Gas Stop: Yah? Okie. *pause* You thinkin' to sell that yet?
Me: Yah maybe.?
Gas Stop: Bob'll be driving next year.
Me: Good car for a kid.
Gas Stop: '85, yah?
Me: Yah. Needs work. Starter, tranny. Still got that leak.
Gas Stop: Yah? I can fix that. *pause* So you think what you want for it?
Me: Yah. Let me get back to ya.

Gas Stop: Okie. *pause* So you're joinin' that boycott, eh?
Me:: Yah. Just thought you should know.

Gas Stop: Okie. So's Frank up the hill.
Me:: Yah? Thought he moved away.
Gas Stop: Yah. He's back though.
Me: Ah okie.
Gas Stop: Okie. I got someone puliin' up. Let me know on that Bronco, eh?
Me:Yah sure. You bet.
Gas Stop: Later. *hangs up*

And thus the Great Boycott of Chevron stations begins, tempers raging, picket signs waving!

Well-Meaning Friends and Other Household Pests

2005-08-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

A dear friend who shall remain utterly nameless called me up in a blithering panic the other day. Word travels fast through our disconnected circle of acquaintances and sometimes words get distorted by line noise - rather like the childhood game of telephone.

"Oh my GOD! Casey!!" She exclaimed in a deluge of frightened concern. "Are you oKAY? Are you all RIGHT? Are you out of the HOSPITAL?? Are you going to.. " she paused here to take a breath, "LIVE?"

I answered affirmative to all of the above and assured her that I had not technically been IN the hospital except as the visit to the emergency room placed me under the same roof, so technically I supposed I was...

She started sobbing hysterically. Hm. Was she hoping to have inherited my priceless collection of antique Corelle dinnerware or something?

Well, turns out that the word on the vine was that I was near death and perhaps already dead. After ALL, she related to me between sobs, DVT kills 2,000,000 people a MONTH!! I calmed her as best I could, pointed out that the figure was more like 200,000 a year, which is bad enough without inflating to proportions which would rival the Black Plague of my youth. I hope she heard me. She raced out of the conversation, intent on calling a few more folks to let them know that I was indeed among the living and actually SPEAKING. (Yes, she tends to talk in capital letters like that).

-=-

EGBOK - spread the word - and let's try not to inflate things and incite panic whilst we do so.

I've no idea what they plan to do except whatever the blood thinner medications do - warfarin, which sounds more like it should be reserved for combat duty.

Guess we'll all find out.

Bing!

2005-08-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

For many years, I have been a member of the teensy market share held by Apple Computer. Some Windows users call us frothing fanatics. Some accuse us of bleeding in six colors. Some dare to call us elitists (just because we insist upon consistent user interfaces no matter what source - payware, shareware, freeware). Some just smile and shake their heads, weary of our complacent computing experiences, relatively untainted by crashes, viral attacks, incompatibilities and spyware.

Few realize just how addicted we Macaholics are, though.

I first met the Apple Macintosh under great duress. I'd seen a Lisa, listened to its owner wax poetic over its grace and beauty (although I never saw it with its power switched on - turns out the owner wasn't much of a computer user). But my first face-to-face encounter with the Mac was memorable mainly for its benign infiltration into my life.

It was a quiet day in November, a Tuesday, as I recall. I'd written a database for a customer, and they liked it - a lot. So much so that they wanted it to run on this new computer they'd acquired, with its itty bitty screen, perched silently like a predatory falcon or an owl waiting for prey.

Customer = always right. So I told Bill sure, I'll port the database over to that.. thing. But I'd need one on my desk to do it. (I was much younger then, and knew everything.)

The next day one of those ... things showed up on my desk, complete with a mouse. My realm of exposure to great computer products didn't at that time include rodents. I was command line or bust - DOS all the way. Windows was still a wild rumor that we laughed about around the water cooler and secretly prayed for once we were back at our command-line oriented desks.

I don't recall now if my IBM AT ever had one attached during its venerable lifetime. We performed very few modifications to that expensive box, although one afternoon in a fit of hubris usually reserved for mainframe board-level diagnostics, we swapped the onboard 512k RAM out and put in an entire MEG. Well, we didn't know about chip-matching; the process had to be repeated several times until we managed to get the entire secondary memory card populated with these chips without bending pins. The sole of my left foot still bears a tiny imprint near the heel where I 'found' one, which had to be discarded as a result. It had dropped into the carpet and turned invisible.

So there was the Mac on my desk, in all its miniature glory. Pretty tame looking when turned off. Safe. Quiet. Harmless.

I stared at this perched owl for about 10 minutes while I waited for the customer to show up. I stared at the mouse. I stared at the lack of manuals. There were none. To a hardcore IBM owner of the time, the lack of manuals was significantly disconcerting. How do you have a computer on your desk without the accompanying encyclopedia of knowledge?

Bill walked in and reached around to one side, and flicked a switch or waved a magic wand. A tiny Bing wafted from the device, followed by a tiny whir, and a tiny happy smiling face on the tiny window. Folks, there was something embedded in those first tiny Bings that was specially engineered to bring grins to faces. I was hooked.. it had me at hello.

Well, Bill started talking about what software was available, and how the database could be ported into this other software, and how he was sure I could figure it out, but frankly I didn't hear much of the discourse. I was driving my first Mac. I did little the rest of the morning except drive that little Mac around my desktop, entranced and enthralled at every turn. It whirred, it purred, it chirped, it hiccuped when it ejected its floppy. And I didn't get a blessed thing done for the entire morning, except get hooked like a wide-mouth bass.

After the first few hours, which ended with a reluctant unhooking, I turned back to the PC on my desk and tried to get the requisite work done. It loomed above the little perched owl of a thing, smirking in thinly disguised disgust. I found myself frustrated by the command line and searching for the mouse.

Bill called shortly after lunch to see how things were going. Did I like the Mac? I tried my best to be nonchalant, but the truth slipped out within a few minutes. I had to have one of these. Oh, Bill grinned through the phone. So how's the database port going? I explained that I had not quite gotten there (without confessing to not having pushed in the floppy containing the necessary items). I would do so tomorrow morning.

I could make this into a very long story, even longer than it's already become. But for those of you who are either yawning from sheer boredom or bristling at the thought of a *gasp* Macintosh doing anything productive - yes, I got the database done. Yes, they came and took my beloved Mac off my desk and back to the customer's site. My relationship with the IBM AT went downhill from that point, and I ended up with the first of a series of Macs on my desk within the following week of its departure. They ranged from the tiny to the huge, from the desktop version to the tower, back to the desktop to a portable, to the eMac I have in front of me now which is within eyesight of my laptop. Times have changed, and the Mac OS has raced forward to Tiger.

And I'm still hooked like a wide-mouth bass.

A friend of mine...

2005-08-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is being inundated with personal crises. Every time he turns around, yet another person has gotten sick, yet another roadblock has been thrown on his road, yet another layer of stress has been added to his existence. He has never once complained - not to me, at least.

In fact, when we start talking, invariably the first thing from his mouth (or typing fingers) is a cheerful greeting and a 'how are you doing?' Not just the reflex 'how ya doing' and then turn topic to something else.. he genuinely cares.

I'm beginning to think that friendships are in classes like cars...

there's the zippy and dang expensive foreign sports model - moves real fast, zooms up and cheers up with a flashy paint job, then zooms off around the next curve, leaving you scratching your head and grinning - very high maintenance and can frequently break down while idling. Easily stolen, gets lost with amazing regularity, and no, you can't drive it unless you are a recent graduate of a racing school's 4-day intensive course at the Brickyard.

There's the big luxury model - moves at a goodly rate of speed, difficult to park, spends a lot of time in the repair shops consuming friendship flowers and mugs - high maintenance but great if you can afford one. You could sleep four in the back seat and still have room to crowd around the mini-bar.

There's the two-door model - room for you and the friend, a small purse or briefcase - easy to park, easy to shift gears, pretty dang reliable - requires regular maintenance (as all good cars do) but gets surprisingly great mileage. Once in awhile you get to drive while friend naps.

There's the minivan model - seats a dozen!, stops at all major intersections and picks up more friends or drops off a few, parking can be difficult as it tends not to stop moving for long enough to park - maintenance required but can be ride-shared with ease, and nobody's going to notice if you fall asleep in the back seat while the thing rolls along. Usually only one or two 'trusted drivers' get to pilot.

There's its big cousin, the SUV - just like a minivan only lots bigger, can offroad with ease, climbs vertical surfaces like a mountain goat, can hold nine kayaks, five surfboards, and a small cow - breaks down only when it is conveniently positioned 97 miles from civilization but if its Onstar system fails, the 37 cell phones, built-in GPS, two spare ham radio sets, grizzled wilderness tracker and his band of Boy Scouts should be able to get things back on track quickly - requires maintenance in the form of an onboard specialized mechanic/software engineer, but hey, it's FUN!

There's the four-door model - room for a good group but you can still can stretch your legs, makes long runs with ease, with pretty great mileage, carries enough luggage to keep all passengers well clothed and fed over a nice week-long trip - requires maintenance but what doesn't? - runs on regular gas, occasional phone calls, and corn oil in a pinch. Everyone takes turns behind the wheel.

What kind of friendship is yours?

-=-

Blood clot in leg is being aggressively 'managed' - film at 11.

New Storefront

2005-08-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.myferngarden.com

Finally got done painting the storefront and putting up all the aisle signs. Pretty durn nice, if I do say so myself, and visitors seem to be able to find things without the problems they were having before. So I'd say that progress has most definitely been made.

Mom's surgery went very well, she says, though she still sounds pretty out of it, even after five days post-surgery. EGBOK though.

EGBOK

2005-07-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for everyone to calm down, take a deep breath, put the XBox controller down, set aside the tv remote, unwind, smile, and realize that the world is doing pretty durn well overall.

EGBOK

Spread it around.

When someone races past you to cut in line at the bank, and you feel your blood pressure start to crawl upward, give yourself an EGBOK. Give one to the gent in front of you with steam coming out his ears.

EGBOK

When someone blasts past you in the right lane on a crowded road, horns blaring and fists waving, pat the dashboard and give yourself an EGBOK. Give one to the lady on the sidewalk who's freaking out because the nimrod behind the racing wheel almost hit her dog.

EGBOK

Things going too fast for you at work? Treat yourself to an EGBOK. Heck, while you're at it, give one to your boss and his secretary, especially if it's a Tuesday.

Work stress following you home and you're about ready to throttle your 14-year-old for forgetting to take out the trash this morning before going off to the mall? Give him an EGBOK instead. Keep a few in reserve for the times when tense conversation comes up in the future - it's a great way to keep things in perspective.

EGBOK

They've got zero carbs, zero calories, absolutely no cholesterol-boosting fats. They have nothing in their composition that can cause (or cure) cancer, nor do they cause your hair to fall out. EGBOKs have no counterindications with any OTC or prescription drugs, although they can be a bit addictive.

My husband gave me one about 14 years ago, and I cherish it to this day. They have a tremendously long shelf life, but should be taken out and tousled once in a while just to keep the grins going.

EGBOK

EGBOK = Everything's Gonna Be OK

Pass it around - spread a few around today. Heck, buy a couple at the little store to have on hand for special occasions where the words are good but the constant reminder would be better.

And if not.. EGBOK anyway.

Strange Days Be Comin'

2005-07-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

So.. my mom calls me yesterday to let me know she's going in for a knee replacement Tuesday. She also wanted to let me know in no uncertain terms that she has absolutely no desire to go through life as a vegetable, should something go wrong.

Oh man.. Mom, neither do I. This is one of those times when I am glad to be blessed with a huge family. We talk; we can leave tracks for each other and be the repository of this sort of information for each other.

For some reason, I flashed on the predicament of the solo flyer through life. No family, few friends - who does he tell? With whom does she leave this sort of critical information?

I think this will be a topic in the Quiet Conversation Forums very soon. I'd like to hear opinions.

-=-

Today is turning into a true day of rest - legs staying elevated and mental energies focused on not letting the clot move. I wonder if this works... thinking at a clot and telling it not to move....

Wanted: Used Teletransporter. Must Work at Top Speed

2005-07-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

-=-

Anyone else find themselves split between righteous indignation and feelings of resignation these days?

I hate this feeling - the lack of a sense of control over the stability of my own boring life. I think a lot of this comes from instant data. Instant news. Instant promises - LOSE 450 LBS OVERNIGHT! Instant feedback. Instant gratification. Instant expectation.

I watched the little beachball circling, waiting for a transfer page to load, twiddling my thumbs and becoming more and more impatient as my 2-meg document crept its way toward San Jose. What da heck was taking this thing so long!?

The net groaned under the weight of thumb-twiddling for a few more seconds - the actual document upload took less than five minutes. I sighed with relief and raced off to do something else, again poised for instant results... only nine more such documents to go before my little project was complete.

Gone, apparently, are the days of being able to relax while UPS at their slow steady brown pace picks up my documents at my door and drives them to their destination, saving me time, gas, money and headaches.

I'd almost rather wait three days for delivery than watch the spinning beach ball as it gulps up my data here and spits it out, Venus born from the shell full-grown at birth and ready to work, on someone's server a few hundred miles away.

-=-

If..

2005-07-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

If I stand over there atop Mount Everest and tapdance in place until it snows, would you penguin-waddle along Santa Monica Pier at sunset and sing the Oreo song?

Ah, silly fern, you snicker and elbow each other in the ribs as you grin. You KNOW I'm not about to climb Mount Everest, or Mount McKinley or Mount Whitney, or even Mount Anthill in the front yard. Those of you who know me know I have an irrational thing about heights. (Those of you who REALLY know me know it's not so irrational, is it?)

Ah, gentle reader-grasshopper-friend. Notice I said 'if.'

And what if I said I were a mountain goat in a dirndl? What then?

-=-

Don't mind me. I'm just tired.

So I'll leave you with a couple of ideas for Aunt Ida's birthday. Go visit the store - http://www.myferngarden.com (and click on Shop). Find a tile treasure box from an Irish county you think she might have said she's from. Get that and a matching mug - the coupon sale ends 7/26 (code is SUMSAV into checkout box).

(Goes off to start practicing tapdancing)

Singin' da Bruise

2005-07-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

Well. This is an interesting twist of events. This journal was supposed to be about designing an online game, not about griping to the known universe about the vagaries of sudden physical malfunction.

But you're here, and so am I, it seems. So gripe I shall. Just a little bit.

Normally I don't bruise badly, though I've gone through stages in my life where the slightest brush up against something would cause some interesting colors after awhile. I've always been a bit of a klutz and in my early adulthood had a tendency to run iron-poor. Eating disorders have their pitfalls. At the time, however, the terms anorexia and bulimia had not reached designer state - I just ate wrong and lost a ton of weight too fast... got my iron out of kilter and bruised bad as a result.

This is different though. This time I have even more interesting colors spreading merrily and painfully from each injection and blood draw point. I've half a notion to keep my hands in my pockets and arms well covered, in case someone sees me and calls some form of battered women's protective agency. I assure you, I'm in the best of hands, though, and my poor husband is already upset enough as it is.

The blood thinners must be working, for such a technicolor display to ensue. I've had two of the seven injections, and am not sure exactly how I am supposed to get the one today, since the Urgent Care place that gave me yesterday's kept the prescription form and didn't give us any information about what to do next. So I suppose I'll wing it and see if the ER has a record of the scrip, and find out if we're supposed to drive into town to do that there.

Meanwhile I've been doing way too much online research of this DVT stuff (deep venous thrombosis, for those of you just tuning in), and it's sounding like serious stuff. I just hope the Coumadin works while we can afford it - I found out yesterday that our insurance will cover 30 days of a prescription and beyond that, we're on our own.

This from the Canadian Family Physician site (http://www.cpfc.ca/cfp/2004/Jan/vol50-jan-cme-3.asp) :
"A relationship between long-distance air travel and DVT has been previously demonstrated. Passengers tightly squeezed into economy class seats might be at particular risk because of cramped conditions, in addition to decreased barometric pressure and low humidity. This case report suggests that flying might also result in stroke. Given the popularity of long-distance travel among aging baby boomers and the increasing age-related risks of stroke, the relationship between thromboembolic stroke and air travel requires further study."

Tightly squeezed is a misnomer. The recommendation is to 'get up and walk around' - 'drink plenty of fluids' - 'change positions frequently' - HA!

To get up and walk around during those flights would have meant getting the other two jam-packed folks next to me to move, coercing one into getting my cane from the overhead compartment, figuring a way to slide through minimal space without tripping, and then -finding- a place to move around. On one flight, there was less than 1/4" between my knees and the back of the seat in front of me. I'm not tall - 5'4" is not tall. How in the world do these 6-footers do it?

Change positions frequently? Breathing without displacing the person beside me was enough of a challenge.

Drink plenty of fluids? My fault - I should have brought a case of bottled water with me, although I have no clue how I would have reached for a bottle.

As far as 'further study' goes, they need only look around. Just in the past two days, I have heard from well over two dozen folks, all of whom know at least one person who is either suffering from DVT or knew someone who died from it in the past two years. Scary coincidences, and makes me wonder if that 60,000 figure isn't rather low.

So I'll take my shots, and I'll take my meds (at least until I can't afford to), and we'll see what happens. If nothing else, at least I have some spectacular discoloration to watch. I'll keep ya posted.

On a lighter note, since this is also exacerbating my insomnia, I was able to make major headway on the websites and stores, and actually added in a new design, some wallpaper downloads, a new forum, and some really cool automatic linking pages.

The text reads:
"There is but one and only one,
Whose love will fail you never.
One who lives from sun to sun,
With constant fond endeavor.

There is but one and only one
On earth there is no other.
In heaven a noble work was done
When God gave us a Mother."

Peace, folks.

Fern's Top Ten Ways to Get a Job as a Staffer (Mortal) at Karinth

2005-07-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

This should really be titled: "Top Ten Ways NOT to Get a Job as a Staffer (Immortal) at Karinth.

Any of the following will ensure results, some more rapid than others. These points are based on actual incidents, by the way, and all names have been changed to Bob, to protect the not-so-innocent. Please note: Not one single applicant or candidate was really named Bob. Some of the Bobs have been male; some have been female. We're an equal-opportunity adventure.

10 - 1337speak
Nothing endears a person less to my heart than Bob's inability to use the language of the realm in clear, concise terms. Phrases like 'r u hiring' just tweak my innards. If a person can't spare the digital energy to type out a full word, how will they possibly invest the time and effort required to write a full area of rooms, mobiles, objects, programs, extra descriptions and the like? Did Bob, our eager applicant, show up to the interview via a cellphone with a thumb-typed keyboard? Bob should have scheduled a discussion for a later time, after explaining that he's communications-impaired.

9 - Instant Staffer - Just Add MUD
Even less of a thrill is when Bob applies for a staff position two minutes after creating their first character on the game. Bob sees the first room of the game after the introduction, decides he would like to build at our place, sends a tell-message to every visible staffer that he wants to build. Bob then becomes incensed when he is told, as politely as possible, that he needs exposure to the game itself before applying.

Irate at not being hired instantly, Bob flames the staffers. public channels, and not a few forums and review sites, announcing to all who will listen that 'those a**h*** immortals at Legends of Kirenth don't know what they're missing by not hiring me!' Well... we missed hiring someone who can't spell the name of our game...

8- The Expert Hath Arrived
Bob creates a character for the first time, goes through the introduction, steps out of the first room, and within nanoseconds knows everything there is to know about the game. Bob begins firing off messages to all visible staffers, delineating exactly what the downfalls of the game are and what MUST happen for it to improve.

When Bob's expertise is not adequately acknowledged in private conversation, he takes the conversation to the public ear, usually the OOC (out-of-character) channel, and lets everyone in the game know exactly what the downfalls of the game are and what must happen for it to improve. Laser guns are sometimes involved. (Legends of Karinth figures its timeframe in high medieval Earth years.) Bob also often makes the suggestion that Legends of Karinth needs a big wilderness map. (Legends of Karinth has a 6-million room wilderness map - how big must it be to be big enough?)

The key phrase is: 'What you guys REALLY need to do is ..." Use that within the first few hours of arrival, and marvel at the speed at which the possibility of a staff position vanishes.

7 - The Instant Best Friend
Bob creates a character for the first time, etc etc etc (you know the drill by now). Bob then begins chatting up the implementor like an old pal. (Nine times out of 10,000, perhaps the implementor has seen Bob's name on a game forum someplace; the other 9,991 times, Bob is a total stranger.) Bob then gets offended when a staff position is not offered based on the obvious weight of his friendship, and leaves amidst mutters and a flurry of smiley-face emoticons. "I'll be back later and we'll talk about this when you're not so busy! :) :) :)" Bob vanishes, never to be seen again.

The next time we hear of Bob is when our friendly neighborhood implementor next door is checking out Bob's list of references, upon which he has lovingly tacked my name, as obviously I am such a good friend.

6 - The I'll Do ANYTHING! Over-Promiser
Somehow Bob gets an interview going with a staffer. Let's say Bob has spent the time to learn the game a bit, has achieved about five levels, so he's zooming around the starting house, slaughtering mosquitos with ease. This time Bob is smart enough not to declare himself the best friend, expert, instant staffer - and he's using a real keyboard instead of his Nok-rizo-torola to log in and chat. The interview proceeds; Bob seems like he does have a good deal of potential as a staffer.

But when it comes time to find out just what he wants to do, Bob waffles. He'll do it all. He's willing to build cities and villages and dungeons, mitigate player problems, design and host world quests, proofread documentation, maintain the website, write the Herbals module in C, redesign the information base, market the webstores, promote the game to link sites, fix the problem with the action code, rebuild the engine in my Ford Bronco, and clean out the cat box. And that's just for starters. Oh, and if there's anything else that needs done, Bob's the man. Nailing this guy down to a single department or function is as easy as getting my neighbor's pet goldfish to sing in HMS Pinafore at Carnegie Hall next week.

5 - Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
Bob makes it up a few levels and is in an interview with a staffer. Bob's impressed with things so far, so when he's asked to submit a sample of his own original writing, he rushes to the task. Bob makes a rather silly mistake and copies a room from another game he used to play. What Bob fails to realize is that this room was written by the staffer he's interviewing with. Bob looks like an idiot, and remains a non-staffer. Upstairs, smatterings of laughter float through the office suites.

4 - Plagiarism + Stupidity = ?
Bob's in a real rush to get this staffer position going, and decides to copy something even sillier - a room from Midgaard complete with typos. Bob looks like a complete idiot, and remains a non-staffer. Upstairs, no laughter. The staffers just look on in awe, unable to believe that Bob would think that would fly.

For non-gamers, this is the default starting city provided with the stock package, and is sometimes used without modification. Just about anyone who's ever played a MUD has seen Midgaard at some point in their gaming career.

3 - The Social Flutterby
Bob has made a few levels, gotten an appointment with a staffer, and has his ducks in a row, with a set of rooms he's prepared to show his stuff and a set of world quest ideas fleshed out and put into an email for the staff to read ahead of time. He's really done his homework, and there for awhile it looks like Bob could be a seriously great addition to the staff. Only one small problem: Bob can't shut up long enough to get the good news.

Bob's got a major case of motor-mouth. Even though he managed to contain it during a portion of the interview, he's got the throttle stuck full open. Everything that's crossing his brain is coming out through his fingers, and he's talking like there's no tomorrow. He sidetracks interview topics with a chain of personal anecdotes. He carries on about the similarities of his gaming experience and his school experience. He talks, and talks, and talks. And talks. The staffers look at each other and shrug, then apply the red rejection stamp to his application. Easy enough to know what will happen if he comes on board. He'll talk, and talk, and talk. And talk. The sad thing is that Bob probably thinks he's being quite affiliative. But the truth remains: When Bob's around, work skids to a halt.

2 - Promise Me Anything
... but at least give me your attention. Bob gets onboard as a staffer somehow and starts building the Halls of Holloweigh beneath the Muran Range. (Obviously a different Bob.. the other ones are off trying to pull the wool over someone else's eyes). He claims he's writing it out on paper first (which is a fine idea). His assigned area file sits empty for weeks, which become months, which becomes a year. Bob has spent a lot of time on his project (he says), but in the space of time most builders could produce three or four good-sized areas, he's submitted nothing visible. Bob gets highly incensed when asked when output will be forthcoming. One day, Bob just fades away, off to the next place.

Bob reminds me of another Bob who worked with me some years ago, at a different place. He was a super communicator... great vocabulary, exceptional at producing visualization. Sadly, he never wrote a single room for the game that could have been seen by players. That Bob. as it turned out, had a severe case of being spread too thin. He was producing areas for three other games at the same time. Since ours had no set deadlines, ours was the one that got pushed to the back burner.

And the Number One All-Time Way to not apply for a job as a staffer:

1 - - Fabricate, Prevaricate, Obfuscate... or Just Flat Lie
Bob's game-pertinent curriculum vitae is impressive. He's built at a dozen places (mostly shut down - server costs, poor management, lack of playerbase); he's administered at a half-dozen more (mostly shut down, of course); he's even run several games all on his own (mostly shut down, of course). He's got enough experience that it's a surprise Sony hasn't picked him up for a senior spot in one of their game development operations.

Bob has nineteen years of experience in the online MUD industry, and has worked on DIKU and ROM games since 1987. (DIKU, from which ROM is derived, was released in 1991). The addition of Bob to the staff would be a definite feather in the cap for the game - he brings so much to the team!

There's just a couple of small problems though... Bob told someone on staff (not someone in the interview with him) that he might have to cut the interview short, since he was going for a driver's test. Bob just turned sixteen years old last week, he tells this other staffer.. and obviously staffers never talk to each other... We think maybe Bob flunked his last math exam or has significant short-term memory problems... or some significant short-term truth problems. Bob remains a non-staffer. Upstairs, folks are getting back to work and wondering why Bob wasted their time.

There you have it, folks. That's ten great ways to ensure that a staff position remains firmly out of reach!

Contest Closed

2005-07-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

The one person who participated and won a free t-shirt reported that it arrived today. He sounded thrilled, and that makes me even more thrilled.

The Fern Garden has been seeing highly increased traffic over the past couple of days, which is also an encouraging sign. After spending several hours flipping back and forth between keyword analyzers and traffic analyzers and link analyzers, I think that I need to have my head analyzed.. what was I thinking??

But it is a ton of fun. This has been a nice focused project while I wait for completion of one of the game modules. I'm seeing now that it is not going to be a short-term project - I suppose I should have known that.. and I'm trying hard to keep from checking traffic stats every hour on the hour. Typical Type A++ sort, I want to know what's happening.

Also, I have entirely new respect for folks who write ad copy for the catalogs that flood in through the mail. This is an insane task, folks. Try describing 1500 t-shirts in glowing terms. One at a time. Every one different. No two the same. I dare ya. Heck.. I dare ME. I still have to go through a ton of designs and do exactly that. One at a time. Every one different.. no two.. the.. same.

Shoot me now.

Battling Through the Noise

2005-07-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

It's official. No entirely sane person would take on this sort of task willingly.

Still four slots left to win shirts.. no takers..?

http://www.myferngarden.com - the Fern Garden is open, by the way. Forums are set up, folks are welcome to join and start new quiet conversations, so long as they abide by the two simple rules: Respect each other. Support each other.

-=-

On an entirely different level of outrage: the attack on London this morning. My mind can't grasp what nature of madman would perpetrate deeds like these and our own 9/11. London: Stand firm, and don't let these sorts of folks win. Deepest condolences to the families of the lost. Now, to paraphrase what Condoleeza Rice writes: 'let us ensure they do not die in vain.'

Quieter Side of Life

2005-07-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Amidst all the frantic, I decided to design calm and peaceful. A new section of the store, The Fern Garden, will move to its own shop space sometime in the next week, but for now it is under the Dragon Hoards.

Still awaiting those four other winners (see the July 1 post below) - and I've decided to set the deadline a bit further out. Seems I totally forgot that many folks would be out traveling and setting off fireworks this weekend instead of meandering through the backwaters of the net.

So - the other four of you - whoever you may be - you have until 8 July 2005 to leave a comment and win a free shirt of your choice from our little webstore. For more details see the July 1 post.

-=-

My cat swears she is going on strike the next time someone shoots off a bottle rocket down the street. Poor thing has been a quivering bundle of furry nerves for a couple of days now, though I see that's not stopping her from consuming a full plate of food. Wish I could eat like she does and still stay lean and mean. But I suppose she stays that way by racing around madly and leaping halfway up the walls, and I doubt I'll ever be that agile again.

Peaceful weekend, folks.

Question It

2005-07-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

Question It.

Congratulations to our first winner of the respond-for-a-free-shirt - Guy, your Naugh..T golf shirt will ship sometime early next week.

Three more days, folks - read the prior post for details. Who are the other four folks? Is one of them you?

-=-

Someone's out behind us in the desert a few hundred yards setting off fireworks and scaring the cats.

Last night around sunset, some prankster lit off a screaming something-or-other nearby, filling the air with noise and that once-a-year distinctive aroma. Poor cat went straight up in the air a few feet above her resting place, landed with a thud and gave me that 'WHAAA..T?? look that cats do so well when asked to fetch something. Shock to her dignity, for sure.

Have a safe and sane weekend, friends.

Reality Bites - Hard

2005-07-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

Picture a little kid jumping up and down in a corner yelling 'Hey!'.

Now picture same kid surrounded by 27,424,387,256 other kids, all shouting 'Hey!'

... got that picture firmly in your mind?

Considering what this mental image conjures, it is an absolute bloody miracle that you are reading this page now. I find it fascinating, and almost unbelievable, that you found this cul de sac of the neighborhood of the city of the state of the country of the realm of the universe of the Internet.

Now, much as I would like to think that you found this on purpose, I have a sinking feeling that a lot of the traffic we get to the game, to the webstore, to this universe's small corner, even to this journal, is sheer luck. A tiny little combination of the right electrons at the right time blinking in the right color caught some synaptic attention and, like the trail of a firefly, it nearly vanished before being focused upon.

Now, with all those kids jumping up and down, surrounded by all those other kids jumping up and down, how in the world can you expect to find the kid you're looking for? That, gentle reader, is the big question of the day. It seems to me that a great deal of it is accidental. Take my humble shop, for instance.

I have a set of keywords which categorize my shop. I've changed those keywords to keep in sync with what I add into it, checking them with certain services for sanity. Then I let folks like Google know that I have a place that has things in it that relate to that keyword. Let's look at one: medieval. That's just one of the small set of keywords I get to use to wave a flag in the air, jumping up and down, saying 'Hey!' ... along with (get this) about 19,400,000 other kids jumping up and down - and that's on Google alone. I doubt seriously that someone is going to notice the 19,399,998th one, which is probably me.

So let's narrow down the playground - and look for: medieval t-shirt. Wow, I only hear 438,000 other kids shouting at Google about that one. A smaller crowd, but I'd wager our little shop is either 437,999th on that list or not on it at all, given the vagaries of SEO. (That's shorthand for Search Engine Optimization, for those new to this - I was new to this myself a couple of weeks ago, and SEO probably stood for Spam Everyone Online.)

Let's go over by the sandbox and narrow things even further - and look for: blademaster medieval t-shirt - woooo! Only 46 kids jumping! Sadly, we're not one of them. Even though our shop has medieval as a keyword, and sells t-shirts, and has one called Virtual Blademaster - we're nowhere to be found. Why??

'Ah, patience, grasshopper,' to paraphrase my SEO-savvy friend who has been guiding me through this nighmarish dungeon. So, being more of a Queen fan ("I want it all, I want it -all-, I want it ALL, and I want it NOW...") than not, I tried to curb my natural Type A++ personality and wait.. patiently. Turns out the way to overnight success is paved with hundreds of days of tuning and tweaking and modifying and waiting and waiting and waiting. All the kids are in two rows - one set has been noticed, and the others are waiting.

We're in the waiting line.

So, the reality of the situation is... If you're here, you're here because you want to be, probably not because Google told you to go here. You're here by choice, probably not by a push from behind by Yahoo.

If you have read this far, then you're on the list of folks blessed by St Jude, patron saint of impossible causes. I didn't find a patron saint for patience and persistence... yet. But here's what I will do. I will give the FIRST FIVE FOLKS who respond to this journal entry before July 4th noon PST a free short-sleeve t-shirt of their design choice from the store. Go look around the store and decide what you'd like, then enter your response. I will receive an email notice of your response, and the first five I receive who include -valid- email addresses to respond to will be the winners. We'll conduct the where-to-ship stuff etc via email, but winners will be posted here as well.

Just one kid shouting 'Hey!' - and happy, safe 4th of July to all US Folk, and happy Canada Day to the northern neighbors.

The First Week...

2005-06-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

Store is open, of course, and has acquired a new snappier name and presentation. Yet another learning experience, as I find out what works and what doesn't in terms of design, product arrangement, uploaded artwork and the like.

As always I'm humbled by just how much I don't know on a topic, in this case - Internet Marketing and Promotions.

Here's an example of what seems to be visited the most:

Ride a Dragon

- wonder if that will show up as a picture or a link or a what.. I'm not having a lot of luck with this journal editor these days.

Well, just in case it worked.. here's another!

Working Stiff by Day, Conqueror by Night!

Link to shop is up in links section - come give it a look!

Finally the Webstore Goes Live

2005-06-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Webstore Is Open!!

I learned a few important lessons about marketing and promotion.

1 - Tell everyone

2 - Tell everyone everywhere

3 - Tell everyone everywhere to come visit

4 - Tell everyone everywhere to come visit and buy things.

Sounds simple, no?

Despite what it may seem in prior writings on this blog, gentle reader, I've never been one to tootle my own horn loudly. This lack of self-confidence has shot me in the foot more often than not (usually at job interviews).

But this time, I'm telling the world. This shop is full of great unique stuff - all original designs on shirts and mugs and totes and tees. It was a blast putting it together, even though I ended up having to redo most of it twice (*mutters about reading unwritten directions*).

>>>CHEER<<<

Oh yes, the address... http://www.cafepress.com/karinth - it's in the link bar, it's on my stationery, and I'm thinking of going out tomorrow and having it tattooed on my forehead.

Wanted: HOTROD

2005-06-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

You know who you are. You have a sense of the possible and a keen knowledge of how to get things out there. You enjoy the challenge of finding every last niche of a niche market.

You're the sort who can sell refrigerators to igloo owners. You can coerce water from solid rock. You have an intuitive taste for the blood and gore of the marketing world.

You can get the word out to a gazillion people in the space of two days, and see results of it in three. You have boundless energy but remain polite and respectful in business dealings.

You're old enough to know what you're doing and how to get it done, but young enough that you have the willpower to do it (this is not chronological age).

Oh, and you volunteer your time because you love online games. I suppose I should have mentioned that... Since we have no income, we all work for free because we love online games.

Why do we need a hotrod? Well, technically we don't at this very moment, but would be great if we had one, for two reasons.

First, I'm not a marketing sort, and yet we have an immediate need to get the word out about the game.

Why now instead of two weeks ago or two weeks hence? The webstore is done, open and ready for the public eye. This is something that we need to start promoting -now-. Tell your friends - go visit - paw through the t-shirts and designer tote bags and spend the price of a pizza or two burgers.
http://www.legendsofkarinth.com - click on SHOP in the menu bar. Alternatively, just go to this link for our shop ... you'll be happy you did. It's called the Karinthian Dragon Hoards, and I'll be adding dragons over the next few weeks. Plenty of custom designs there at this time, and expect that will grow.

So that's one reason we need a hotrod marketing sort. The second is that the game is open and playable, and we need to start doing the things that are necessary for preparation for release, although we do not think of that release in terms of a date. If we are to get that far, we need to increase our player headcount and base.

So that's the second reason, although the first is a more compelling one to start talking to folks who may be willing to join us and help out...

(*washes the ink off her hands and smiles*)

An Afterthought Unrelated

2005-06-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

Why is it, pray tell, one must rest up from a vacation? I've been back a week and I'm still exhausted.

I cut my hair for the first time since I was in second grade. I've had trims, of course, and have trimmed it myself over the past few years whenever I get tired of sitting on it. But this time, I had it cut SHORT.
Not quite post-chemo short, but short short. Not-touching-collar short. One-style no-braids short.

Let's see, if my math is right, I was in second grade about 46 years ago. So I've had some time to become accustomed to long hair.

In a way it was liberating. I can brush it without throwing my back out. I can wash it and condition it in two minutes flat - less if I don't follow the instructions on the conditioner bottle and let it set for one minute or more. My brush is not harvesting hanks of hair twice a day, most gray, some red, some brown - all long. I keep doing double-takes at the mirror though. To my eyes, I look much older. Ironically, everyone who has seen it says I look ten years younger.

Change is good, if one can handle change without setting up too much expectation. I suppose, in that regard, a radical change of hairstyle does relate to game design.. in some strange remote manner.

What Do You Think...

2005-06-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

Two entirely different questions:
How do you feel about ...
and
What do you think about ...

The topic matters not one whit - for the moment, let's pretend I asked you about the use of crossbow in game combat sessions. Or the secession of Georgia as passed by ordinance at the State Convention in Millegeville in January 1861 (probably a bit before your time). Or chunky peanut butter as an ice cream topping. Or the impact of hybrid automobiles on the crude oil prices over the next fourteen months.

Matters not. See why?

As an experiment, I asked a player two questions, in a particular order. I asked a different player the same questions in the opposite order:

Player A:
Q: How do you feel about crafting systems in most text-based games?
A: Fine, they're ok.
Q: What do you think about crafting systems in most text-based games?
A: I just said .... fine, they're ok.

Player B:
Q: What do you think about crafting systems in most text-based games?
A: (and I'm paraphrasing for the sake of the paper supply of the world) Well, for the most part, the ones I have worked with have been a real painful experience. They take too much downtime, require too much repetition for not much of a reward, and give very little feedback about what you're doing. It seems to me like the crafting systems were grafted on after the fact, with not much attention paid to what the player wants.

Q: How do you feel about crafting systems in most text-based games?
A: I feel wary and negative, for the most part, and not really enthusiastic about them.

Ah-HAH!

Now, I'm no psychologist nor behavioral sciences guru - but if I had to put forth a theory, I'd say that asking someone what they feel (first) tends to elicit short reactive responses which then shortcircuit the thinking that would otherwise have gone into the question about what they think, had that question been asked first. Asking a person what they feel triggers an emotional reaction which can easily be expressed in very few words.

Asking a person what they think, however, triggers a sequence of thoughts. Those thoughts chain together in all their synaptic splendor to form sentences which can then be used to convey the more useful response.

Somehow I get the sense that, in some cases as game designers, we ask these questions out of order - and when we do, we get what we ask for. Not that I suspect that the questions should be limited to 'thinking' questions and 'feeling' questions - far from it. I believe that both elicit responses of great value, particularly when it pertains to game play.

The next question may be: how much of gameplay is thinking... and how much is feeling - emotional reactions and responses in rapid succession which emulate a strategy?

(By the way, to a guy with a newspaper up in front of his face, or a game of Empires of the Skeletal Horde on his screen, the order of the questions probably doesn't matter much ...

Q: Honey, what do you think about having spaghetti for dinner?
A: Uh huh ok. (sounds of skeletons blowing into bits)
followed by -
Q: Honey, how do you feel about having spaghetti for dinner?
A: Ok uh huh. (sounds of newspaper pages turning)

... the synapses are already busy *grin*)

So.. what do you think (or feel) about that?

Notebook Imps and Designs of Bad Stuff

2005-05-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I go on a kick where I sit back from the game and look at things from a player's perspective, ignoring the neat nifty stuff that keeps trying to gee-whiz itself out of my brain and into the game design.

During this time, I stare at aspects of the game, down on the ground as an anonymous player, as if I've never seen it before, and ask myself the following questions:
- Is this fun?
- Does this stay out of the way of my gaming experience?
- Does this add to my gaming experience?
- Is this an attractive aspect of the game?
- Is this something I can do many times and not get bored?
- Is this something that advances my progress?

If something earns a Yes in all four columns, then I move on. If a No lurks below the surface, I ask other players what they think. The answers are invariably surprising.

It's far too easy to design a game that is absolutely breathtaking and fantastic - a totally immersive experience that captures the attention of anyone who passes through its gates. That same game will probably be entirely unplayable by anyone who passes through its gates, since there is always the danger that the breathtaking experience resides entirely within the mind of its designer.

Case in point - an old magic system that I spent several months designing. I have a stack of notebooks over there on the credenza - sometimes I wonder why I save them - each documents an aspect of the game design. Their entries range from chicken-scratches and totally obscure columns of numbers which have lost all meaning as their labels never got written down, all the way up to the most detailed line-by-line explorations of spellcasting, from the discernment of a glimmer of magic in an object to the intricate spellweaving process which could, for some participants, take days.

Looked good on paper... woulda sucked sulfuric eggs in operation. GAD how boring it would have been. Its very complexity woudl have prevented a good portion of the playerbase from participating, and the learning curve to get into position to cast a simple spell of invisibility could have taken months - nay, years of work. Not game years.. real years.

I know why I keep the notebooks. They represent many years of imagineering and are, thus, bound to me and cannot be tossed away. To toss them somehow diminishes that time spent, and sometimes I have to reread their entries to remind myself that I am entirely capable of designing Bad Stuff.

What qualifies as Bad Stuff? Even the hint of a lurking No in answer to one of those questions (in the list way up there where you started reading) sends a design teetering toward the edge of the Bad Stuff penny jar. Two No answers can push it over the edge and toppling into the pennies below where I keep my Two Cents' Worth.

Every once in a while I take out the pennies and look them over for hidden prizes.. did one topple in by mistake, pushed over the edge by the momentum of some other, more evil penny stack? Does it deserve to be there, along with all the other bad pennies, or is there a rare 1903 Indian Head wheat lurking beneath the tarnish?

Hence the ever-present notebooks - the repository for the text which defines the Bad Stuff. I know full well that, a few years down the road, I'm going to have an absolutely brilliant idea - flash of genius! and somewhere in the back of my head is going to be this little cautionary tour guide who whispers, 'hey.. didn't we try something like that once before, about 6 years ago, regarding herbals?' Then it will be back to the stack, which will be thrice as high by then, pawing through the crumpled covers and broken spiral bindings looking for the one that has a scrawled notation 'Herbals" on its front, and the truth shall be again revealed - Herein Rests Bad Stuff.

Down there on the left side of the credenza is a green 6"x9" with yellow pages (college ruled on one side, quadrille on the other) in which the initial scribblings for ship navigation reside. It's a bad-nasty notebook which tampers with the forces of gravity, periodically flinging itself to the floor back behind the credenza where I can't possibly reach it through normal means. Once that happens, I dig out my gripper-reacher and haul it back up, carefully stowing it toward the bottom of a safer happier stack, in the hopes that all those good designs will outweigh its not-so-good contents. No such luck - within a month it will have shouldered off its less-persistent compatriots and thrown itself back out of reach. In doing so, it calls attention to itself yet again.. reminding me ever-so-gently of the fact that ship navigation is still a huge beast of an idea to be dealt with.

I like the design. It works mentally. It has some Bad Stuff in it, true - but that can be trimmed away with a careful hand, revealing the Good Stuff beneath. It feels like it will be fun, will stay out of the way of the normal gaming experience, will add to the gaming experience for those who desire to participate, will be an attractive aspect of the game, will be highly repeatable (although perhaps a tad boring to some folks), and will definitely advance progress. Besides, when it's in, we can blow evil pirate ships out of the water - how cool is that!?

So why isn't it in the game, one wonders?

No ships yet... although they draw closer now, and in proportionate response to this, the notebook increases its persistent leaping-from-stacks-to-ground, to remind me that it's almost time to move it to a more stable point of office space and update its contents.

Ok, maybe it's one of the cats - but it's more fun to consider the notebook leaping on its own, transmogrified into an impatient imp of an implementation. Damn the prosaic; full speed ahead!

April Strikes Again

2005-04-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

I spoke too soon. Remind me next year to hibernate from 3/31 to 5/1.

The Dreaded April

2005-04-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

The month nears a closing, thankfully, its pattern complete and its reputation intact. For several reasons, I dread April's arrival, and usually spend the month holding my breath to see what tragedy the year's sinkhole will contain.

I have lost many to April - my grandfather, my grandmother, my first husband and my second husband - all passed away within this terrible month. It's as if, having braved the austere winter months, folks heave a sigh of relief and let their guard down, only to be tripped up by spring.

Over the years, I have lost friends to April - two bosses, a secretary, several coworkers and an employee. I get the feeling that their loss is magnified by the proximity to the other markings of tragedy. I've lost friends in other months and, while I mourn their passage, the loss seems to remain in perspective with more grace.

This is not to say that losses suffered in other months are not equally as tragic - of course they are. But those lost to April seem magnified and persistent, ghosts which cannot rest or be let sleep. It's as if the ground has thawed and the portal between this point of life and the next is just a bit more open, just a bit more accessible, and folks are drawn just a bit nearer, gentled along by the budding of leaf and grass. "Renew!" the earth says. "Time for the next step!"

The dread April draws toward an end. Sensing the end of the collapsing tunnel, I take a tentative breath and pray I do not regret being so selfish as to wish not to lose another to its clutches.

Common Sense and Other Outmoded Fads

2005-04-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

... aka Keeping It Real.

Someone sent me a set of links yesterday which led to sites that, frankly, scared me - a lot. Several decried the genre of MUD as demonic in nature, satanist and cultlike, promulgating behavior which shall most certainly lead to eternal damnation and the end of life on this planet as we know it.

There was raised a great and vocal moral outcry on one, cautioning our youth to avoid everything from D&D and any roleplaying environment. This site also specifically mentioned the Beatles as a misleading influence and named several other cartoons as being dangerous to the minds of our trembling children. Any roleplaying environment? I suppose Shakespeare is right out...

One site declaimed ice hockey as well as fostering un-Christian behavior. Tennis was mentioned. So were transparent washing machine lids.

One site spoke to the validity of Dungeons and Dragon spells, saying they were authenticated as real life demon-summoning conjurations. Said authentication was supposedly performed before this website's author became Born Again. I must confess I did not read the entire page.

Through all of these ran a common thread of caution. These games warp our youth from the path of righteousness and place their feet upon the path of peril and lost souls. These games are addictive and fraught with dangers - by our very systems we breed serial killers and cause suicides.

Now, before a team of lawyers starts advancing on my house, chanting Free Speech epithets and scaring the cats... I am not in any way, shape or form saying that these websites full of moral outrage have no right to be up on the Net. I have a firm belief in a person's right to believe what they choose to believe, and to do so without being judged as to its 'rightness' - so long as said belief does not impinge on anyone else's right to believe what they choose to believe. Faith is a highly personal matter. I have mine. You have yours. May you be allowed to believe what you believe without feeling obligated to push your beliefs on me. I reserve the same right.

So I raise a toast to the morally outraged who feel duty-bound to write such sites and foist them upon all passersby as tracts of warning and impending Doom. You do the world a service, most certainly, and with the best of intentions, I am sure. Those of you who claim to be born again seem to screech the loudest. But please... Born Again does not mean Born Stupid.

Last I looked, they were not taxing Common Sense, so that's not a real good reason to avoid it.

Common Sense is as robust as its user allows it to be or as fragile as its user allows it to be. It should be applied liberally and without hesitation. It should be applied to known conditions on a regular basis, providing practice for dealing with the unknown condition when it arises.

Common Sense dictates that, if you are susceptible to influence by things such as roleplaying and find yourself unable to remain grounded in reality while you act the part of an elven king in text, you should not do this.

Common Sense would lead to the logical conclusion that, if you find it difficult to wake up in the morning because you played games on your computer until midnight, you should probably stop earlier and get some sleep.

Common Sense would say that. It's the same Common Sense that says that if you have a job and don't go do that job for a week, you will probably not have that job for long. You probably won't get paid for it.

Sorry if this is rather fragmented today, but I tend to get very troll-under-the-bridge when confronted with things like those pages which, while probably written with great sincerety and the utmost concern for our well-being as a species, are so significantly lacking in that precious commodity of Common Sense.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

2005-04-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

... who in this land is fairest of all?

Who among us does not recognize this line as something we should remember from childhood. But who spoke it, and in which fairy tale?

Go look. I'll wait.

Five points for your good self if you recalled the tale from which the reference came, without resorting to Google or other Internet searches. Give yourself another five if you remembered who uttered the phrase to the magical mirror.

Add ten points if you recall how many times the heroine is poisoned, and ten more if you recall the methods.

Add em up... what'd you get?

And your point, silly author? (I hear you mutter to your computer screen) What on earth does this have to do with game design?

Not much at all, quite frankly. But if you gave yourself over twenty points, consider yourself extremely high on the recognition and recall of detail scale. Of little consequence when dealing with fairy tales, perhaps. Of great consequence when juggling the intricate webbing of a game land. Of vast consequence when contributing to its weaving.

In a new world, such as Karinth, one does not have a wealth of childhood memories to fall back upon, a lingering memory of bedtime tales, a sneaking feeling that you've heard this bit of lore once upon a time and the participants all lived happily ever after. No, gentle reader. Each facet of the game lore is new when a player starts. Each bit of lore is gathered by exploration and exposure, and to presume to know something because you as a person heard it as a child is to taint the water with a history which does not exist within the game.

Approach a game as a child would - fresh eyes, curious mind, open ears.

oh, and take off seven points if you assigned names to each of the dwarves... the various translations I could find did not assign them names nor attributes which would lead to names.

oh, and give yourself back the seven points if you recall the gruesome ending of our antagonist.

Conflict, Controversy, Cows and Carbon-based Life Forms

2005-04-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

A game without conflict is a pointless affair indeed.

A story without conflict might as well be a reference manual for an operating system. All bones, no giggles, no subplot, no conflict.

But what is conflict?

Conflict is created from encounters, created from motivation, created from drama - conflicting goals, conflicting paths, conflicting decisions and outcomes. Conflict comes from cross purposes.

It arises from differences in motivation, belief, purpose. Tragedy... comedy can hold conflict but must hold it gently and treat it with the delicate touch of humor. It arises from land wars, religious wars, property wars, personal wars, humanistic divergences.

So why is it that we pour so much effort into designing and building the non-conflict sides of the game, and so little into its conflicts? Aside from combat encounters in the scheme of the game itself, we provide very little to engender tension.

I think it is because of the very personal nature of conflict itself. We can provide a certain set of conditions. We can code in a few catalysts and set them loose upon the population. We can build swarms of orcs which invade the main city and cause great fear for a few hours.

Beyond that, though, we must sit on our hands and let the player's conflicting motivations begin to paint the walls, color the game, bend the will of the scene.

Several months ago, one of our staffers stole a cow of mine. This prompted a long-standing playful interchange (I want my cow back - he won't give it back, and for all I know he has slain it and is still munching on its hooves!). Those who observe our occasional banter on the topic smile hesitantly and listen, wondering if these two staffers have gone slightly off their rockers... but they do not participate - this isn't conflict to them. This isn't a condition they can influence.

Conflict in a game has to be something that the player feels he can influence - to his advantage or to the benefit of his future. Otherwise it's just an overheard conversation, of mild and passing interest, and probably falls into the category of spam.

Running Away from Home

2005-04-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

I read a sad journal tonight.

A young lady wrote of her feelings regarding the invasion of her privacy by her parents. After reading her most current post, I scrolled back in time slightly to see what might have been behind it, and found myself staring into the reflection of several pasts.

There're rantings and angry words being slung like rocks from a slingshot:
1 - You invaded the space under my bed where I keep my private stuff!
2 - You invaded the space in my closet where I keep the things you aren't supposed to see as my parent!!
3 - You invaded my space in my dresser and read my diary!!!

There're threats and admonitions, reprisals and repercussions:
1 - That's it. I'm going to seek emancipation and live on my own away from these "parents"!
2 - I hate you I hate you I hate you and I wish I were DEAD! I'm outa here!!
3 - I can't STAND IT here anymore. I am GONE!!!

There are the determinants that these parental individuals cannot possibly understand the meaning of true love.
1 - You don't know how it feels! My life is over! I've got to be with or I'll just DIE!
2 - You don't know how it feels! My life is over! I've got to be with or I'll just DIE!!
3 - You don't know how it feels! My life is over! I've got to be with or I'll just DIE!!!

To put this in perspective...
Comments marked 1 - were written yesterday by this young journalist on her online log.
Comments marked 2 - were from my daughter in 1982, screamed to me on her way out the door.
Comments marked 3 - were my own in 1967, screamed to my mom, on my way out the door.

Some things never change. Some change so fast.

When I was uttering my phrases, t'was the decades of Free Love, of Volkswagen buses painted with peace signs and dangling strangely beautiful beads upon the rear-view mirror, usually driven by someone 'cool' who was in reality too stoned to see the trunk of the car in front of him. I was madly in love with someone whose name I can't remember now, and my life would surely end if I could not drive off into the sunset with him and his pretty beads and his two other girlfriends, whom I was sure would vanish on demand. T'was the life of the Hippie, the possessor of free will, great weed and other mind-altering drugs with interesting initials, from which I was immune as they scared me to death. But it was great fun to watch people smoke some of them as I sipped on quite virginal ice teas and pretended to understand what they were doing. We were in Vietnam. We were in Woodstock. We were modern, post-modern, conscientiously objecting all the way to the nearest campus or border. We were wise. We were poets, crafting our art in single-syllable prose. We were troubadors and minstrels of our time, aspiring to the nobility of the day, a smash single on 8-track or vinyl, a mark upon our vast and changing world. We burned candles and incense, smelled of pachouli oil and the subtle undertones of smoke and spilled Sangria. Our parents did not understand us and our ways.

But our parents coped, with prayer and divine intervention, vigilance and infinite love. And somehow we survived and moved on.

Fast forward a decade 'n change. Somewhere along the line, most of us grew up. Got married, got employed, had small bundles of joy (aka kids), bought houses, bought Chevys and Fords. We parked the spray-painted Volkswagen bus in the backyard to be consumed by weeds and rust. The love beads and peace symbols got dropped into small chests of cedar and pink velvet jewelry cases we'd hauled around the counter as our talismen of childhoods flung free and far, then set far back on closet shelves, to be blushed at and moved with wry grins once every year when the afghans came down for winter. The tie-dyed t-shirts made good absorbent garage rags.

We are parents. WKRP, M*A*S*H and CHiPs and other strangely punctuated television shows dominate the networks. Nixon is not a crook but has resigned anyway. Cable television races toward our suburban nests, inhaling our lawns and paychecks. We have clutched our chair seats and chests while watching Jaws for the first time. We've laughed ourselves silly over Monty Python even if we can't understand a third of what they're saying, watched Apocalypse Now and winced, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and nodded to ourselves at places. We've traded our Chevys and Fords for Datsuns and little diesel trucks hoping to survive the Gas Crisis. We line up at the pumps on our designated days, shaking our fists at those who dare cut in line.

Our small bundles of joy are no longer speaking to us, but are shrieking in rebellion. We pray nightly for the silence to break and wonder how in hell our parents survived us. For as our children might say: We are enraged. We are modern, post-modern, dressed in manners most unsuitable for the street, with high waves of puffy hair and torn sweatshirts layered over torn t-shirts, legwarmers and some strange glittery stuff on our faces. We want freedom from oppression, for all (starting with themselves, of course). We cannot find a pay phone after seven in the evening, as such devices magically cease to exist at sundown. We jam on the beach; we are fearless. We are stars in our own heavens. Our parents do not understand us and our ways!

They threaten us at every turn, these children of ours... They're running away, and nothing we can do or say will stop them. We are aghast at their accusations - violate their privacy? break into their rooms? betray their trust? No WAY! We're COOL... aren't we?

We are no longer cool.. but we coped, with prayer and divine intervention, vigilance and infinite love. But somehow we all three survived and moved on.

Then tonight I read this blog by this young lady, and much becomes clear. She rebels against the tyranny of parental guidance and love, as my daughter did, as I did - and in the forty intervening years, so much has not changed. She rails against the bounds, as my daughter did, as I did - and yet the bounds have not changed so much. For she might say: We are rappers and ravers, possessors of the night, hair of a hundred colors and pants that droop yet mysteriously do not fall off. We are chanters of phrase, spoken song, of M&Ms and Eminems, and our ringtones rival the playlists of the near-defunct radio stations. We own iPods and Shuffles, XBox, Blackberry, Mac Minis and cellphones that take pictures better than our dad's clunky webcams. We are aware, we are aware we are different, we celebrate rights and castigate wrongs. We have seen devastation, we have seen tsunamis wipe entire coasts from existence. We're proud of our piercings, ears, eyelids, tongues, navels and.. others. So? We have seen our parents' icons fade and pass, and warily await the new. We are owners of our own century. We've seen it arrive at the speed of light and we possess it as fast as we can. Our parents do not understand us and our ways.

I sought the right to ride into the sunset with a dazed hippie and his merry band of stoned chicks, hypnotized by the swinging of the beads over a Pepsi-sticky plastic dashboard. I'm now a grandmother, and spend hours on the phone with my farflung family and distant siblings, wishing the distance were much shorter.

My daughter sought the right to skip school and spend the day at the beach without me freaking out and calling her principal's office. She is now up in Central California, raising her three sons, the eldest of whom is probably graduating college in a few months.

She seeks emancipation, this young lady of the online journal - the right to do as she pleases without parental interference.

Deja vu all over again.

Though times have changed, sped up, gone electronic, shrunk the world and expanded it beyond our wildest imaginings, some things have not.

Young lady, though you will not believe this now:
You are not the first nor shall you be the last to have a diary read against your will, to the embarrassment of your mortal soul.

You are not the first nor shall you be the last to scream in frustration when you discover that the box of secrets you had shoved beneath your bed or into your closet or into the back of your dresser has been removed and perused.

You are not the first nor shall you ever be the last to accuse your parents of the heinous deeds of invasion of privacy.

You are not the first nor shall you be the last to be consumed with the sense that your entire life has been laid open by prying eyes and that you have no recourse but to run as fast and as far as you can. It happens. Trust me, it happens.

If you are lucky enough to have parents who care enough to be aware of what you are doing, and you are lucky enough to be living under a roof they provide and eating the food they pay for, be grateful.
Be thankful, be proud of them for having made it out of their own childhoods and evolved to the point of being responsible enough to have you and raise you. They are not the enemy, no matter how you view them on this day. Do not abandon them on a whim nor in a moment of anger, causing wounds which may take decades or lifetimes to heal. Do not.

Parents of young lady, however unlikely it is for you to read this:
You are not the first nor shall you be the last to be the targets of this animosity from someone you used to cuddle in a small blanket. This presence you created has evolved, and evolution brings change.

You are not the first nor shall you be the last to spend sleepless tear-filled nights in panic, wondering where your child is or if she is all right.

You are not the first nor shall you be the last to be consumed with the feelings of helplessness, of hopelessness, of confusion and lack of preparation. Dig deep into the cosmic consciousness - and ask your own parents how they dealt. If you are here and reading this, someone coped somehow.

You are not the first nor shall you ever be the last to spot a small book in her closet or dresser or under the bed and open it out of curiosity even though you know by doing so you let free the contents of Pandora's Box. It happens. Trust me, it happens.

To you as a family unit, whoever you may be, wherever you may be reading this:
Discuss early and often the boundaries of life, the meaning of privacy and how that is a privilege which grows like a prized rose bush over time and with much care.

Discuss the importance of those boundaries, even though you may be scorned for the words in later conversations.

If you make a promise, keep it. If you cannot possibly keep it, be honest and explain why. If you promised a family a certain level of stability then lost your job and can barely afford rent, for the love of God, don't lie about it and delude those who are depending on you for that rent.

Set good examples. If you tell your son not to drink, do not do so while waving a bottle of whiskey at his face. If you admonish your daughter not to smoke, do not do so while brandishing a flaming Marlboro at her nose.

Be thankful for the small telltale markings of progress, encouraging in your words, and respectful in your dealings. They are not the enemy, no matter how loudly they may rebel at a midnight curfew.

Do not abandon them on a whim nor in a moment of anger, causing wounds which may take decades or lifetimes to heal. Do not.

Create laughter when and where you can. Anger cannot live where laughter grows. Be reasonable in your expectations of each other - as child, as parent. Don't demand beyond reason - as parent or as child. There are no easy answers. Heck, there aren't even easy questions. But together as a team, you might just make it through this.

I wish you all well. May you deal with it all, with prayer and divine intervention, if that helps you, with vigilance and infinite love. May you somehow all survive and move on.

That Sinking Feeling

2005-04-06T20:45:00.000-07:00

You know the one. Or if you don't, you will someday. That emptiness in the pit of your stomach, the hollow ache of worry and grief. The lump in the throat that won't budge no matter how hard you swallow or how long you concentrate. The raking pain that sears through your very heart like white hot iron, consuming each waking moment and refusing to fade into the background, its claws clamped around your chest firmly, disallowing sleep.

The game is down. The hard drive failed to do what hard drives are supposed to do for thousands and thousands of uninterrupted hours, began badblocking itself and demanded replacement. The new one is behaving with all the grace of a prima donna, ignoring all efforts to install the OS until its demands for a bigger dressing room are met. So the game is, for all intents and purposes, down.

Ok. Shrug all you wish. I understand if your empathy does not extend to the status of a collection of text supporting the action of 4500 denizens of ascii origin.

Let's try these instead:
While you're off snowboarding in Colorado for spring break, a rolling power outage hits your apartment in LA, and the 1960s-vintage refrigerator takes the opportunity to die permanently, leaving you with a freezer full of thoroughly spoiled chicken and Hot Pockets.

Your Uncle Charlie gets smashed while watching basketball at your house, and tosses a boot through your television at the Utah Jazz .

Your fiance forgets to set the parking gear of your SUV as he climbs out to admire the rugged coastal views of Big Sur, and it rolls merrily into midair and tumbles to the drink.

You find out your best friend has been embezzling funds from your cousin's company (where you happen to work), has been arrested and is being indicted next Tuesday, and said company can't make the payroll - including yours.

All sinking feelings of varying intensity - apply your choice, consider your favorite and multiply it by 200. That's about how I feel right now.

Actually, the game is up, but is captured in a state of lostness on an IP not our own, far from the reach of any player who might want to log in. I can get there; I know the secret phrase and possess the decoder ring. Our system admin can get there; he cloned his ring and whispered the pass-phrase to me in between pulling out handfuls of hair and beating on the console window trying to get Debian to install.

-sigh- I suppose I could take the opportunity to work on the Master Plan For Conquering the Universe while it's quiet... or get some work done on the ability templates.... or go watch the Utah Jazz, and avoid flying boots and spoiled Hot Pockets.

How to Beat the Game!

2005-04-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I bet that title got the attention of a few people. I suspect I should have stated which game I was talking about - for those familiar with this journal, you already know I write about our progress at Legends of Karinth.

For those hoping for clues about World of Warcraft or Everquest - sorry to disappoint you.. this is not that place. Thanks for visiting; there's cookies, coffee and punch in the corner over there, and feel free to come back anytime.

LOK fans - there is a cycle one goes through with any game of this sort. Pick a strategy, pick the skills which support the strategy, get gear, make progress, finetune and move on. Karinth is no different. From the moment you choose a starting ability set - combat, magic, healing, stealth - or none - you begin to formulate your strategy. Your mind has things set in a particular direction -
I'm a warrior.
I'm a fire mage.
I'm a monk
... and by selecting that starting template, you set foot on a path (from which the game is quite glad to let you deviate from any time).

Just like life, it's a matter of balance, of juggling the intricate details and nuances. Focus purely on one skill to the exclusion of all others, and you risk becoming a master of making toothpick sculptures of the Eiffel Tower while neglecting the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

On the other hand, if you select a set of abilities and skills which support your aforementioned path, additional interests and the like, and spend your training hours with wisdom and an even hand, advancing them slowly and evenly as you gain more training hours (you get more each time you level), your character will be able to cope with pretty much anything it will encounter for its level, and it will do so no matter what path you choose. Keep some gold in your purse and don't get tempted to buy 32 of everything you find everywhere. Keep your gear up, either by having it repaired or by acquiring new, appropriate to your level. Moderation in all things, including moderation.

Now, as far as how to beat the game... there is no level limit. There's no real point at which you are kicked out of your starting house - the only deal is if you leave after level 11, you won't be able to get back in. Until then, you can come and go from the house as you like. Stay as long as you wish, gather all gear, and make sure to get a couple of weapons which suit your style. Don't neglect jars of balm and other beneficial herbals - collect them and save them for when you need them. Grab all the elven willow leaves you can carry, then find the backpack and fill it full with more.

Continue to tune your character from now until you retire with a gold watch from your day job. Go as fast or as slow as you wish. You've beaten the game when you realize that you are applying your own pace, decisionmaking and determination, are comfortable with those decisions and feel that your path is leading to success. You're driving your own wagon in the direction you wish to go, not a direction in which someone else says you should or must.

If you rush, rush because it is your own decision to rush. If someone else is rushing you, stop and tell them to stop. The game of Legends of Karinth has many levels, and the faster you go, the fewer levels of the game you will see. If you think you are experiencing a shallow game, slow down, or create a new character and go back and look at things. It will pay off later.

There are no big secrets to success. There are no cheats or 'best way to play' lists, although several players claim to have found 'the best way to play.' Sure they have. They've found -their- best way to play - a most personal and broad-brush decision which only they can make. Your mileage may vary - dramatically.

Difficult Choices

2005-04-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

Life is a matter of choices made or not made.

What suits you very well might be a terrible choice for me. What works perfectly for me might be quite awful for you. I cannot predict what a choice will be for you, any more than you can predict what will work for me - nor should you. Nor should I.

Nor should a game.

I have a basic argument with games which force folks into pigeonholes. Ones which blithely declare a player to be A Cleric, or A Warrior, or A Thief, or A Mage - and that, kind player, is what thou shalt be and be content with the rest of your playing life! (unless of course we deign to offer you a few more choices for a reclass...)

Karinth places no such restrictions on its players. Be what you will, make your own choices, make up your own mind. If you want to be a warrior, train yourself in those skills which fit that lifestyle. If you want to be a healer, fine. Study the magics, scribe the spells, collect the potions, be a healer. Want to pick pockets and skulk through alleys? Great. Do so. Learn the skills to sneak, hide, pilfer from pockets, etc. We sure won't stop ya. Or do all three!!

Now then, gentle reader. Tell me why some folks have found this concept distasteful? I'm curious - I've played both class-based and class-free games, and always have found the freedom of choice to be one which is exhilirating and encouraging. I've almost always found the class-based ones to feel constraining and presumptive.

What am I missing? Tell me?

Your feedback may help break a severe bottleneck - so fire away!

Onions or Potatoes? The Bipartisan Vegetable Approach to Game Design - Part 1

2005-03-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

In my experience, world design is not a linear process. In fact, Karinth's design has been a highly iterative non-sequential onion-building over the course of many years.

There are many highly regarded authorities on the subject who have published books that many find good guideposts - Richard Bartle, Jessica Mulligan, Chris Crawford and Andrew Rollings are four authors whose books I keep within arms' reach. Some tend to deal in the hypothetical and stratospheric; others are almost step-by-step advisories - no one condition is going to be all that is needed at any given juncture.

For the patient, ground zero begins with a backstory and theme and spirals outward, becoming more visible and tangible as the design matures - for the impatient, it's often more rewarding to reverse-engineer a beloved game, second guessing what the author has used as his design guideline.

The temptation is there for the new designer to pay homage to a beloved game by following in its footsteps. This is also known as plagiarism. Don't do it. If you're a creative sort, no other game will truly fulfill your game vision anyway, and you should focus your talents on your own originality. If you're not a creative sort, you may find yourself mired in a constant muck of frustration and micromanagement.

More later... dinner calls via cat whispers.

Moving Right Along...

2005-03-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me the other day what -exactly- do I do at Karinth. I started to answer, then found myself stopped dead in my tracks. I don't really know.

I don't code - so I'm not a coder - coders are the folks who string the bits and bytes together to make everything happen. Most certainly I don't do that. I've looked at the code - the stacks of files and miles of intricately indented shorthand arcanerie that makes the place work. Once in awhile I'll go in and very tentatively poke at something to fix a message's text or color. But I most certainly don't code.

I don't build - so I'm not a builder - builders are the ones who pull together room descriptions, item descriptions, mob descriptions, actions like room programs and the like, creating the environments that the player experiences directly. Well, I do a small bit of that, but I don't do it often or nearly as well as someone who does it full-time. So that's not it...

So what do I do...

I think I'm a weaver. An air traffic controller. A worrier. A hand-wringer, brow-furrower, pacer.
I line up little blocks of functionality on colored Post-Its, rearrange and rearrange until the order of operations looks perfect, and pray the wind doesn't kick up. I remind people what it is that's current on the list, what's next on the list, what just got finished on the list, what they asked me to remind them from the list. I pore over dozens of game design books and reference guides, looking for cautionary tales and answers, scratch my head, and bookmark the instances. I lurk through forums while burning barrels of midnight oil, reading tales of woe posted by other game designers, nod sagely and reserve the tale for future use as applicable. I wake up from a cat-nap and race to my desk, bearing the resolution to a niggling functionality problem as rapidly as my feet will stumble, praying that it will not evaporate into the dust of forgetfulness before I can scribble it down. I step bravely between flailing fists and angry glares, and calm disputes between two volunteers as sleep-deprived and tense as I, applying nods of wisdom and soothing diplomatic faux-pas while sorting out the boundaries of tasks and areas.

So what do I do...

I think I'm a cheerleader of sorts, spreading encouragement and waving electronic pompoms while doing digital cartwheels in the office suites conference room, reminding staff that they are doing a fantastic job and that both their efforts and their results are priceless. I listen and encourage with an open mind while a youngster debates the wisdom of pursuing the girl in his History class whose boyfriend is mean to her, smile to myself as he makes up his mind, dance with him when he comes back the next day and, white-knight-on-horse, he's saved the damsel and is taking her for pizza. I revel in the success of aced midterms and finals, nudge the younger ones away from the computer and to books ("the game will still be here after biology homework - git!") and bedtimes, keeping a line of quiet you-can-do-this running all the while. I e-check the fever when the real mommy is a thousand miles from the dorm, and hope the campus clinic isn't closed at this hour. I line-dance with them over aced finals. I urge them on toward the next big hurdle. These are volunteers, young for the most part, splitting away chunks of precious youth and applying them to our success. I am grateful.

So what do I do...

Well, for sure I'm not a coder!

Blown Away

2005-03-05T21:27:00.000-08:00

Last night I was blown away when I looked at our game ratings and saw we were in the #3 position at MudMagic - I was so jazzed I set the game to double experience for a few hours.

Not long after that, I looked again, and we'd hit the #2 position at MudMagic - another first. So I put up Triple experience for the weekend.

This afternoon, I looked and we were in the number one slot at MudMagic ...

>speechless<

What's Next

2005-03-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

There's a strange feeling when standing at the peak of a mountain. No steps lead up (unless you're one of those transcendent souls who ascend a heavenly stairway accompanied by an angelic choir). Unless you've brought a stepladder with you, you're as high as you can climb, and what earthly sense does it make to bring a three-foot high stepstool to the top of Mt Everest?

So what's next?

I need a javascript fluent soul willing to work for free and unlimited digital coffee. Said individual must be prepared to take a handful of wild ideas which will likely change two or three times before completed, form a program around then and make them work on the website. The faint of heart need not apply.

Once said javascript guru steps forward and makes him/her/itself known, we shall begin to construct the makings of a reference manual for the website. If I solo this one, I should have it done by June of 2009 or so, assuming I don't take too many coffee breaks. (pun intended)

Interested? Willing to work for free? Capable of dealing with a fast-paced but fun situation? Let me know. Send me an email to here and i shall respond immediately or sooner.

Boot Leather and Barbie Dolls

2005-02-25T23:58:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's actually been a week since I had time to post here. Immense amounts of progress tumbled head over heels into place - the first banner ad got put in place and our website traffic skyrocketed. Folks started visiting the site, then visiting the game.. hesitantly at first, then more and more, and staying.

Made a few changes to the website - upgraded artwork, made new banner, added in the lovely deity standards from our friend Andragon.

The traffic continues; the sound of marching boots growing louder by the hour.

Are we ready for this?

... and many miles to go before I sleep

2005-02-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

The midnight oil burns, a dusty thin trail of soot and smoke spiraling around the speakers on my monitor and rising to hover just out of reach of the investigative cat. Exhausted. I am devoid of even the spark of energy it would take to snuff out the lamp. The day was long, furious, highly focused and maddeningly productive.

I should explain perhaps, for those of you who missed the first reel. At midnight, February first, we declared a total halt to all coding and production, froze the state of the game progress in midair, handcuffed our coding team far away from their keyboards, and entered a singular mindset called 'Balance the Game'.

This state of affairs is just about as fun as putting ones head in an empty oil drum while a friend stands to one side and beats on the metal skin until your ears bleed and your hair melts away. It's right up there with slamming your fingers in a car door. Right up there with swallowing a chunk of wasabi mustard that you are told is guacamole. In other words, t'is not fun at all.

How can a game that has been in development for over half a decade be out of balance..? Oh, quite simple, I assure you. Each time an activity is brought in, the ubiquitous promise prayers are muttered, '... and we'll make sure to take this into account when we balance.' The penitent is banking on being far out of range and off my radar by that time, so of course the prayer goes into thin air and the promise immediately forgotten.

Now if this were one or two minor aspects of an already well-tuned machine, it'd be no problem to reach in and adjust the distributor cap slightly, haul out the WD-40, and bring things into tune. But trust me on this - the last time this game was balanced was just a few minutes after the Internet was invented.

We had a pretty neat game once upon a time, but it was only minorly rich with features and could be mistaken for any other MUD on the net in several glaring ways.

So we stripped out all skills and stats and added in a custom abiltiies system, and the players liked it a lot - the promise prayer was invoked with full belief that we'd be attending to balance immediately.

They liked that so much that we moved to a custom materials base - from the prior 50 or so, we offered nearly 600 substances from which to make objects, and the players liked that a lot - and the promise prayer was exchanged in grins in the office corridors.

Well, material-based objects went over so well that we added in material-based weaponry - the promise prayer was whispered.

We added in materials-based wearables, and all players were happy with them - and the promise prayer was muttered to the sky.

We added in an entirely custom-written combat system, replete with body damage visibility and body part targeting, and the players were nuts about it - and the promise prayer was uttered fervently several times.

Things were going so well, so we added in a brand new custom written magic system, vastly flexible and highly user configurable - and the promise prayer was invoked loudly and with great expectation that -any day now- we'd be able to balance the game.

We added organizations - clans, guilds, kingdoms - yet again the promise prayer.

We added an elevation-based wilderness map which made it so folks don't see around corners on roads or over mountain tops - again the promise prayer.

Feature after feature, customization upon customization, exceptional offering after exceptional offering - mind you, this all took place over the course of several -very- busy years.

Like all good promises, the promise prayer eventually had to be kept. Players were complaining that the only way to make it through life was as a magic caster, or one approach highly outweighed another, given prior choices. Even with unlimited levels in which to make adjustments, the visibility of the adjustment options simply wasn't there, and the balance within those options most certainly wasn't there.

So I pulled the plug. Froze the code. Stopped all progress. Scared all the staffers. Grabbed a few dozen spreadsheets and database dumps, crawled under my desk and stared at stuff. (See prior posts for way too much detail.)

Several interesting things happened during the ten days between the freeze and the first major balance pass. First, we found out just how off-kilter some of our assumptions were (and for this, I apologize to all past players of Karinth).

Second, I learned much more about the intricacies of the stance, style and move system than I'd ever had a clue about. It increased my level of appreciation for the truly huge talent of our coder team over the years. I've seen and been involved in each of those modules from a design standpoint, but I'd not had the opportunity to really sit down with the results and dig into them - delicious!

A third thing happened, and I hope it is a temporary condition. Almost all of our players ran into hiding. Change is not a good thing, and change in the middle of a game which you're playing is even worse, no matter that the fact of our beta state is constantly in their faces.

So the first major wave of change is in and it is time to sit back and watch, wait, hope and, yes - invoke the promise prayer just a bit more. Difference is this time the prayer will be answered by real action within days, not years.

The Luckiest

2005-02-13T23:48:00.000-08:00

My husband and I have an ongoing 'argument' which goes something like this:

'I'm the luckiest..'

'No, I'm the luckiest...'

'Nope, I am...'

'Nope, -I- am!'

This happens a few times a week, and every time it does, I treasure it deeply. It is at once reassuring and supportive, honest yet respectful, giggle-making and downright serious. He means it, and I mean it. Doesn't matter who starts it.

We both mean it to each other, about each other, about life in general, about how lucky we are to have each other next to each other - cats included.

This doesn't have a lot to do with game design or Legends of Karinth, except for the fact that this phenomenal man has made it possible for me to pursue them both. He's given his full support to this effort, answers boatloads of questions about code and design with tireless patience, and has stepped in to help the rare code confusion with wisdom borne of many years of programming experience.

This phenomenal man has dealt with a host of shifting conditions never revealed in the simple vow preceding 'I do' and has stood by me in sickness and in health, with more sickness than health, for richer or poorer, with a lot more poorer than richer while we struggled to keep a small business afloat, for better, for worse, through incredible hardship and countless doctor trips involving great travel distances, and has done so with great good humor and amazing grace.

We're in our fifteenth year together, and it feels like fifteen weeks. We have our faults and vastly different tastes in music, sports, relaxing activities, food, television - but for each difference, a thousand similarities exist, and more evolve with each passing day. We walk side by side, next to each other, smiling at the differences and celebrating the similarities. He commands the remote for the TV, and I am queen of the remote for the VCR which records what I might wish to see while he watches Bond movies and Star Trek for the 3279th time.

It's called respect. He does not attempt to shape me into something I'm not. I do not attempt (nor wish) to change him into something he's not. I'd say we have found a great secret to success, but it really doesn't feel like a secret.. simply respect.

Besides, -I'm- the luckiest... *grin*

The Epiphany, thanks to Cirque de Soleil

2005-02-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

Ultimate instant where it all makes sense - clarity of thought, clarity of moment, unbidden and unsought, yet once arrived as impossible to get rid of as the tune to a good movie theme. It hums to itself, hidden behind the right ear, casually dancing from synapse to synapse and gently kicking the tires.

My cat looks up from the corner where she is focused on unraveling a hand-crocheted afghan and peers at me, eyes wide. I figure she saw the dim light grow brighter in the bulb over my head, a la old cartoons.

I flash her a bubble of text over my head:
. oO ( >moms got a great idea and a lot of work to do so do not disturb for awhile<)
She shrugs and nods, and returns to her task.

Hmm.

I try again:
. oO (>and while you're up go get me some coffee<) - nothing. Oh well. I tried.

She chews contentedly a moment then stretches and bubbles back
. oO (>what do I look like, your maid? get your own blasted coffee<)

Can't argue with that logic. I go get my own blasted coffee and set to work.

T'is nothing short of miraculous. What had been hidden and coated with confusion now became crystal clear and dancing with boundless kaleidoscopic hues. The design took shape, the balancing patterns revealing themselves, first hesitantly, then boldly marching as if soldiers on a parade field.

This should work.. this should work.

Swimming with the Math Sharks

2005-02-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

Coffee in hand, I stare at the spreadsheet before me, glancing at the database of magic spells and training costs partly hidden to the left. The index column and names are visible, just barely, helping me to keep focused on the spreadsheet's shifting contents. A lovely tiny chart hovers just up to the right, its bubbles tracing a softly flowing pattern in a reasonably smooth line.

I gave up seeking symmetry hours ago and now seek equity. The error of my prior thought path became clear as it veered off the edge of a high granite cliff and plunged into the icy waters between Dwerry West and Bolgwier.

'SPELLS DON'T BALANCE!' I sputtered once I came back to the surface, dogpaddling frantically to avoid the passing icebergs and polar otters. A passing half-submerged blog slammed me in the back of the head and I sank in a whirlwind of flailing arms and thoughts. The coffee cup found its way back to the desk and cowered warily as I reached frantically for the database window and did a quick sort on the balance cost calculations, revealing a pattern I'd not seen. Of course.. of course.... just a bit of...

An hour or so passed, coffee grew cold, as a certain parity evolved. A slight training ramp adjustment here, a lowered mana cost there.. move a detection from this to that.. of course.. why hadn't I seen it before... there's that pattern... so close.. so near...

BAM. A math shark races in and clamps onto my arm, and the pattern collapses. Blasted math sharks...

Hi, I'm Casey, and I'm a mathaholiphobic. (Here's where you chime in with a wave of raised slide rule or pocket calculator, "Hi Casey!")

Mathematical functionality and I have had a spiraling love-hate relationship for about fifty years. I am highly adept at the basics - I can add, subtract, multiply, divide with the speed of a highly paid NASCAR driver. I love numbers. I hate what you have to do to them to get them to do your bidding!

Show me an algebraic equation of any size, though, and I freeze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. My operational IQ drops to about 65, my throat tightens as if I've swallowed a half-dozen cherry lifesavers at once, and my brain empties of all logical thought. It's embarrassing.

Sine, cosine, hypotenuse, tangent, coefficient, rational numbers, IRrational numbers, sets, unions, intersections... the only good pi is lemon meringue with finely grated bitter chocolate shavings!

There are strange exceptions to this mathaholiphobia. I 'get' Fibonacci but not Mandelbrot. I love patterns, spatial relationships, recurring sequences, yet hate paisley. Go figger. With the deft flick of a wrist I can calculate IRR and NPV and balance a balance sheet, coming up with a corporate health picture with ease. These require no black box thinking.. one progresses straight from real numbers that one gets from the face of an invoice to the non-mystical income statement.

What's the point, you ask pointedly?

Go try to disassemble your car, using nothing more than a soup spoon and a spool of light blue yarn. Nothing else. Once you have as much of it taken apart as you can in that fashion, attempt to reassemble it using nothing but a butter dish and the spare cord from that crock-pot you threw out fifteen years ago. Nothing else. No spare cord from a crock-pot? Go buy one, remove the cord, and throw the rest away.

Frustrated, ya say, bunkie? Ready to tear your hair out, friend?

Tools. The right tools for the task are crucial. The math shark with its jaws latched around my left arm assures me with a skin-ripping nod of its head that such tools are available, and that I could use them if I could just figure out how. Perhaps I lack something in the left brain, math function synapse quadrant, or the synapse gaps are up there cleverly disguised as rock lobsters.

My cat brushes up against my leg and purrs, assuring me that so long as I can work a canopener, my state of mathaholiphobia doesn't matter one whisker. Cool cat. I set aside the spreadsheet and database with its beautifully developing bubble chart, stand and stretch, and go to the kitchen to reward her with tuna. Duty must prevail.

Channeling Mother Teresa and Machievelli

2005-02-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

Achieving game balance is not simple. Each adjustment must be weighed in terms of its own impact, the trickle-down impact on its peer abilities, the resultant impact on its counter skills, and the unpredictable impact on long term game play.

Say I wake up in the morning and decide: 'All swords shall do a minimum of 10 damage, no matter who wields them and no matter their lack of training in these arcane slicing devices.' This represents a modest though not overwhelming boost to the new player, gives a small cushion of safety to the higher level non-sword-wielding player, and makes sword wielding less of a daunting effort when faced with its incremental costs.

I make the change and sit back, waiting for someone to step into the minefield.

Ahh HAH. Here comes one now.. an unsuspecting player comes online, suits up and heads out looking for a few enemies to slay. In his hands is a sabre of steel, ash hilted and leather wrapped. It's relatively new so it's in good shape. Unsuspecting player goes out, finds orc, slays orc. All is well (except for the orc). Player experiences no change, as he has trained his sword skills well (185 degrees).

I say nothing.. I require more substantiation before I commit this to permanent game play. I sit in my office, waiting with the patience of a trapdoor spider.

Minutes pass.. the web undisturbed. I feign a yawn and toss up the AFK flag to go gather up some coffee (a bit of my Christmas present - Trader Joes Shade, coarse ground, a hint of mocha powder). I bring it back to my desk and kick back with the balance spreadsheets and the online CNN website, after flicking off the AFK flag and slipping off my slippers. The cat has done enough damage to the leather laces on the left that it won't tie, so slipping it off entails lifting my foot a few inches from the floor and letting the slipper plop, to be kicked gently to one side of my desk where it shall be chewed on s'more.

Sure enough, a new player creates. I check, hoping. YES, he's chosen the swordsman starting kit. A true and unbiased test of my nefarious deed! *cackles gleefully*

The innocent proceeds through the starting process, makes his way through the corridors of the training house, finds a sword and some beginning armor and proceeds to merrily hack away at the nearest foe. The combat is quick. Quicker than I'd expected and much faster than reasonable - I frown and check his skills package and abilities. Hmm. Nothing extraordinary; he's trained nothing so far. Wups...

I frown and check my modification to swords in general, and blush. Dagnabit... instead of setting damage to 10 minimum, I, unarmed with morning caffeine and common sense, have set it to 100 damage. What luck to have caught it when I did, I mutter as I make the correction swiftly and execute a save before too many folks.. er.. ummm.

I hear a bellow from the public channel below. "wtf's wrong with my sword!?!?" Our poor new entrant to the world has gone on to attack his second victim, wielding the sword which I silently replaced for him after I'd corrected my correction. I hold my breath, gulping with nervous shame.

Me: Sorry. I made an error in a balance setting and just corrected the mistake... my apologies.

NewPerson: wtf man. This place sux

Mere seconds later: NewPerson has left Karinth.

Meanwhile I sit in my office, impaled firmly on the horns of the dilemma. By admitting my error and humbling myself to his wrath, I have messed up the game for one person.

I could have remained silent and left the blame squarely on the shoulders of his newness to the game, thus leading him to speculate that perhaps he had hallucinated the first go-round and that the second far-less-powerful encounter was the norm.

Our experienced players overhear this and nod wisely. They know, bless their souls, that we are in the midst of massive change and that some change hurts. I'd rather be honest with them as things progress than have them surprised brutally by an avalanche of modifications which nerf their game play.

Some changes are bound to trigger a collective hiss from the madding crowd. 'For the glory of Karinth!' I bravely cry, whilst fending off the barrage of pitchforks and launched iPods as I dash through Portsmouth Town Square.

Ok, well, no iPods. Out of theme, ya know. Besides, if someone launches an iPod at me, I'll durn well pause in my tracks and scoop it up, cradling it possessively.. always wanted one of those!

Newperson, if you're out there and reading this in between forays into new MUDs, again .. mea culpa. We're all humans on this bus, and all volunteers, and I made a stupid typo. I'd say it won't happen again, but the odds are that, somehow, some way, it will - and with my luck, it will be something equally as dumb. So consider this my apology for that one and the next four, and I'll write another one later when the time comes.

Zen and the Art of Game Maintenance

2005-02-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

Once in awhile, the graceful action is to give up. Step back, acknowledge defeat, evaluate the battle field, and think twice about your own capabilities.

This is where I am now. At about 3am, some action of some unscrupulous individual or process knocked the DNS offline, followed after a few hours by the game server. It's difficult to work on the internet when the internet ain't there, folks. I should have slept then. I didn't.

Prior to this heinous act, game balancing was making great dark strides toward the path of right and might. Our attendance has tanked, naturally - nobody likes change, even the folks doing the changes. That was to be expected, and I'd already steeled myself for a thin crowd and the dull roar of apathy over our frantic efforts. Things were looking good, however, and the surfaces of the game were starting to take on a shine where before they had been pitted and oil-stained.

They still are, as a matter of fact. The hack-action or whatever it was which took us down was more of a wake-up call. It's the same blink-back-to-reality one experiences when awakening from deep sleep or deep meditation.

For those few minutes, the game vanished. In its absence was a great void, which began to fill itself with clarity. By not looking directly at the game itself, I was able to see it more clearly.

By the time the server came back up, incredible inspiration-filled scrawls had filled my whiteboard, two spreadsheets, the abilities database in which I store proposed changes, and the left ear of my cat, who managed to traipse away with a bright pink Post-it note containing cost adjustments for weaponry. I found it later suspended from the tail of one of her toy mice. The note still made sense, despite kitty-toothmarks and commentary.

Moral of the story: Standing back from a work of art reveals the work of art instead of the individual brush strokes. The brush strokes by themselves, while quite interesting to look at, do not accurately portray the body of work.

Time for more coffee and notes, as soon as I turn off the game again. This time I'll use the off-switch on my computer instead of the merry chaos of a rogue system process.

Koller Wolves and Wannabe Merchants

2005-01-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

A soft hush falls as the envoy leaves the Pymm tradepost, laden with shellfish, spruce lumber and pearls, bound for Marltique. A horse nickers in quiet complaint as the slack in the traces between the team and the freight wagon is taken up and the full brunt of the weighty load descends upon their backs. The trademaster whistles sharply and cracks his whip, and the teams begin their struggle up the steep divide and across the narrow wooden bridge toward the mainland.

Tagne's team breaks north at the first intersection, intent on hauling their tradegoods to Dacona. The leader of the trade group, a more experienced merchant by far, shakes his head in silence. Toerlion has plenty of lumber, he recalls from the rumors and threads of gossip he has heard. The best the offshoot party will do is with their pearls and perhaps some of the rarer seafood that does not spawn in the colder northern clime.

He watches for a moment as the smaller team departs, then turns his wagon teams along the southern road toward Marltique Harbor. The chill coastal air feels good, he muses as he glances to either side of his formation traveling the wide cobblestone roadway. The warriors ride, sword hilts hidden beneath their traveling cloaks yet within reach in the event of trouble. There is almost always trouble, he grimaces.

They cross the invisible border from Pymm to Koller. The road surface changes slightly as their wheels catch in the less-maintained roadbed and are tugged by clumps of coastal mud. As the inherent protection of Naztari's chosen lands drops away, the tension of the group increases notably. No more are they within the lands of her providence - and that is never good.

The road curves toward the peninsula of Koller and its rugged cliffs; the forest thickens and grows dense with undergrowth and ominous darkness even at the height of day. The envoy guards' eyes dart from side to side, watching the shadowy cover, wary against attack. They do not have to wait long.

A howl pierces the foggy overhang, followed by a chorus of snarls. The din grows as the distance between the trading party and the threat narrows, falsetto owwww! bouncing through thick stands of coastal cedar.

With a hideous growl, the leader of the wolf pack leaps from the underbrush and onto the flank of the nearest rider's horse. The steed screams in agony and collapses, rolling sideways and sending its passenger flailing into the cobblestones. The man curves upward and leaps to his feet, sword drawn and at the ready, spinning to search for the attacker. A wagon skids off the canted road and tumbles into the weeds at the side of the roadbed, spilling several crates of pearls and lobster. A shout goes up near one of the rear wagon teams as a wolf's claws tear into the leg of a battle mage caught unawares.

[... pause here to go get coffee and sit back to watch the action... keep in mind this is all happening in a text game... what a hoot!]

Banners of Discontent

2005-01-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

Perhaps this journal should be called 'Musings of a Mental Midget' - more of a reflection of my current mood. It feels like we're caught in a backwater, spiraling slowly in place, making no progress. In fact, I think we're moving backwards at a rather good pace.

Nothing sabotages a project with greater efficiency than apathy. When a team member digs his heels in, passive-aggressive states firmly entrenched in the beach-head, nothing gets done. It takes too much energy to cajole things back into place.

We're at a stage in the development where we cannot afford the luxury of apathetic individuals. There is no particular stage of development where we -could- afford this luxury, but now even more than other times, there exists a fragile balance between stasis and collapse.

So sad - so many years invested in a project, so sad to feel it crumbling despite best efforts to keep things together.

I will not let it crumble entirely. I just have no clue how to prevent it at this very moment. Nothing in my years of corporate experience has prepared me for this. Nothing in the years of business ownership prepared me for this. Or - perhaps something has, and I'm too inwardly focused to sense how to apply the normal enthusiasm...

Quasimodo in a Pink Tutu

2005-01-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

I bet that title brought an evocative image to mind. What does it mean?

Nothing, if the reader has no idea who Quasimodo was, of course. Nothing if the reader doesn't know what a pink tutu looks like, naturally - the image of a tulle-skirted hunchback shuffling around the confines of a wooden belfry clutching a bell rope, however vivid they might be to some, won't appear to others unfamiliar with the framework.

The topic of the moment is that framework. How do we immerse the player who has his (or her) feet rooted firmly in the 21st century into the framework of the high medieval? How does said player gain the framework, relate to it, begin to feel the lack of modern amenities one takes for granted in today's society? Do we deprive them of their Sony Playstation in order to introduce them to a realm without electricity?

Can't take away their computers, though. That's how they get to and into the game.

Such becomes the skill of authorship and immersion. Like a book that one picks up and cannot put down - The Da Vinci Code is a recent example for me. Dan Brown's pages reached from the binding and clasped inky fingers around my wrists which refused to break grasp until I fell away, exhausted yet needing to read more.

How? How does the author instill such power to mesmerize, to create and sustain momentum, to enthrall? Framework? Perhaps that, intertwined with seductive rhythm and a storyline which moves forward with the inexorable energy of the tides, provides the fuel which fans the flames of immersion.

But then comes the puzzle, or one of them at least. Books of that nature, the novel, are sequential and unidirectional. One moves forward from first to next chapter, from first to next scene, first to next tense moment in a predictable path and pattern.

Games of this nature are not sequential and unidirectional. There is no way to predict, in most cases, where the character will arrive, from what direction, having seen what rooms or creatures. There is very little room for backstory or history, and absolutely no room for telling a player how he feels about what he is seeing or encountering. To proclaim 'You are scared' is without question one of the silliest things to tell someone.

You are in a room. It is dark. You are scared. Scaary.

How lame is that, dear reader?

Framework becomes the incorporation of the known with the unknown, in photographic quality, a presentation of the quantitative sans the judgmental. We don't tell them they're scared. We provide things that would scare the stuffin' out of folks under normal conditions. We provide the plate and stack it full of pears. If the person likes pears, no amount of telling him he's petrified by them will make him scared.

Of course, if the person doesn't have a clue what pears are...

Sheer Force of Will? [rep]

2005-01-28T19:58:00.000-08:00

Debates are raging now over the lack of numbers we provide our players.

People need numbers. Balancing a checkbook is nearly impossible without them. It's helpful to know the number of miles between Here and There, if only to determine how many units of gas it will take to drive from Here to There.

People strive for quantification. Ironic, then, that our game tends toward qualification instead.

Why do we refuse 'essential' numbers to our player/characters? Well, that's a very good question, and the answer goes back to a game design decision taken quite some time ago. It's not that we refuse numbers. There are lots of numbers available to the player. They just don't happen to be the numbers that most MUD players are used to tapping into.

The game differs from others of its genre, and we've strived for years to continue this differentiation without sacrificing playability. I suppose that sacrifice is a matter of opinion, for it has certain morphed into a matter of stubborn debate.

I suppose I should be grateful that it's a rarity for an 'us versus them' posture to overcome the calm of common sense. Goodness knows there have been plenty of opportunities for this to happen in the past.

Cart Firmly Before the Horse

2005-01-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

Remember the nursery rhyme? For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe...

I drift out of the vivid mountain meadow conjured within a flu-generated dream and blink myself awake toward a first cup of coffee (today: Yuban with a hint of Gevalia's creme brulee). The dream danced with detail which tagged along from sleep to waking, a continuation of one from a few days ago, which means it's one of those resolution-type-of-dreams that often lead to a breakthrough in the game design.

-=-

I'm crouched in a meadow near the forest's edge, about midway up the slope of a thickly eroded mountain range, surrounded by an array of tiny blue flowers which peek through the knee-high grasses. The flowers sparkle in the thin pre-dawn chill. I crawl through the grasses, following a small trampled path. Remnants of snow cling to my knees and the toes of my boots as I make my way as slowly and as silently as my *pull-cart* will allow. I search for a moment, hands digging through the trample, until I locate the beginning of my *trapline*, a length of rope along which I have pulled loops to signal the location of a nearby trap hidden off the trail.

As the meadow steepens, I remove the shoulder sling which secures the cart behind me, and loop it around a stump to keep it from sliding away downhill. I glance at the contents: *pelts* toward the front, several still damp and uncleansed. *Bones and teeth* toward the back scattered across a canvas layer to dry. I must hurry before dawn breaks, to locate the night's catches, before day brings heat and the chance of ruining a highly marketable hide.

Every few feet I find the loop knot in the rope line I am following, and reach through the grass wall, brushing the curtain aside to check the *trap* nearby. I replace the broken ones and reset the empty sprung ones, baiting each with a chum of gamey meat and sinew. Most of the traps are empty, sprung, as is usually the case, by the packs of wolves which rule this mountainland west of New Linden, a clever lot.

I crawl upward and through a thorny divide of howe berries, their brambles lurking beneath the pressed grass of the path and ripping the knees of my leggings, tearing at my jerkin and through my gloves. I mutter and remove my left glove, tending a rather deep puncture with the juice of one of the howe berries from the ground. It's a common curative found at this altitude, I recall, as the blue juice soothes the wound and makes me a bit giddy. The effect diminishes and I move onward to the next trap.

Success! An nearly dead wolf lays to one side of the trap pulled free from its grassy camouflage, its left hind leg secured in the iron jaws. I invoke a small frost shield, thanking Chrona for its protection, and end the wolf's dwindling life with a silent thanks to Astria. The renegade beast's jaws clip furiously at my arm as I slit its throat and give its lifeblood back to the ground.

Drawing my *skinning knife* from its sheath, I kneel next to the cooling corpse and slice through the belly from neck to tail, careful to preserve the pelt. It takes much less time to do this than it did when I started collecting pelts, for my studies in skinning have advanced, as has my knowledge of pelts themselves. Within a very short time, I have stripped away and folded the wolf's hide, retrieved its teeth and sinew, and begin to carry what I shall *trade* back down the steep grassy incline to the waiting cart.

I return to the trap and reset it, loading it with stacks of the still-warm flesh, reknot the trap line at the path and straighten out the guides before moving on -

-=-

Player-pullable cart, pelt, bones and teeth, trapline, traps, baiting, skinning knife, trade, material-based training - I'd seen the bits and pieces before, but not in sequence, not in action. I store the components of the dream away as I stare at the coffee pot's slow slumping and steaming chugs toward a drinkable cuppa joe.

Chatterbox, the younger of our two cats, mutters at my ankle, teeth sinking into the lace of my slipper. Her tail language translates to "an empty food dish coinciding with rising sun equals feed me before I chew off the toe of your slipper and further demolish this leather lace in my teeth which shall in no way diminish my desire for food or attention but signal my growing impatience with you my human wielder of can opener technology' - cats aren't big on punctuation.

I grin and comply. The coffee will wait - the cat will not, nor will the pelts in the cart.

Now to sketch the dream onto paper, determine the importance of the components in terms of the game, second-guess the befores and the afters, and add a dab of paint to the trade/econ module's design picture.

I should add that I've never set a trap or hunted like that in my life...