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scattered shots
Jan. 26th, 2007 01:10 amIt's rather cold out, so today I wore my grandfather's old coat. It's a genuine raccoon fur full-length coat, and it's about 90 years old. It's very heavy, and is the warmest garment I have ever worn--warmer even than my cloak. (Were I to wear them together, I would probably develop Dave's Syndrome. :)
I have been spending a lot of imaginative energy on D&D of late, in particular the Midnight setting. (In brief, imagine something like Middle Earth 100 years after Sauron won, and you are part of the last resistance movement.) D&D, as a game system, is built around heroic fantasy, and not realism, hence 1 guy with a sword can beat 20 others with swords, and I do enjoy it, but mingling it with the constraints of a tragic setting has really captured my fancy. It helps that we decided to turn Suave's campaign into a share world. Thus, I ran a two-part story about a mysterious island (I have to pat myself on the back for better than normal planning), and next (alias TBA) will run a story in which we will be unit commanders for an isolated dwarven enclave with an army of orcs bearing down on us for a winter seige. Where it will go from there, I don't know, but I'm excited about weaving stories back and forth, and maybe having cross-overs between games.
Had lovely meals/chats last week with Morlock and Syd and later with Allen Steele, asking him for advice on getting published. The most pressing advice was to write every day, which I haven't been, at all, what with thinking about Midnight, and about the game I'm running on the Cloth. Still, good chat, and I shall start writing again tomorrow.
Oh, and last Saturday, M and I went to a friend's house in Vermont where we joined a group for a reading of Richard III. Compulsive narcissist that I am, I was allowed to read the part of Dick III himself, and I did well, for the most part. (I stumbled over a few scenes I didn't remember, but I think I managed the famous opening and ending lines as actual speech, as opposed to declamations.) M read Lady Anne (amongst others) and our friends SV and CSD were there, too. (SV was a fun Buckingham to play against.) One thing that struck me on re-reading the play was how so many of the characters bemoaned their fates, and so few of them recognized that they had it coming, because they were mostly treacherous, murdering assholes.
I heard some of the State of the Union address, and read most the text. It's nice that Bush is beginning to recognize some of the real priorities facing the world (like global climate change and a collapsing health care system) and that he's at least somewhat aware of how badly the war he started for no good reason has become a major disaster, but he's still a liar,a weasel, and a shameless incompetent. His horrible example continue to make the Democrats look much better than they deserve to look. Where are the conservatives like my dad, people who, even when they are terribly wrong or complete dicks, nevertheless concern themselves with sensible, grown-up concerns like not spending more than we have, making sure that whatever policy we pursue will at least accomplish its stated goal, and not starting another fight when you haven't finished the first? It seems increasingly that the only "conservative" voices out there are people like Rush Limbaugh, who admitted in an NPR interview today that what really drives his radio show is greed--bigger audience = higher advertising rates. Jefferson and Washington are forever tainted by their ownership of slaves, but even today, they look good in comparison because they were driven by more than avarice. (Though they were both in it for the money, too.)
I have been spending a lot of imaginative energy on D&D of late, in particular the Midnight setting. (In brief, imagine something like Middle Earth 100 years after Sauron won, and you are part of the last resistance movement.) D&D, as a game system, is built around heroic fantasy, and not realism, hence 1 guy with a sword can beat 20 others with swords, and I do enjoy it, but mingling it with the constraints of a tragic setting has really captured my fancy. It helps that we decided to turn Suave's campaign into a share world. Thus, I ran a two-part story about a mysterious island (I have to pat myself on the back for better than normal planning), and next (alias TBA) will run a story in which we will be unit commanders for an isolated dwarven enclave with an army of orcs bearing down on us for a winter seige. Where it will go from there, I don't know, but I'm excited about weaving stories back and forth, and maybe having cross-overs between games.
Had lovely meals/chats last week with Morlock and Syd and later with Allen Steele, asking him for advice on getting published. The most pressing advice was to write every day, which I haven't been, at all, what with thinking about Midnight, and about the game I'm running on the Cloth. Still, good chat, and I shall start writing again tomorrow.
Oh, and last Saturday, M and I went to a friend's house in Vermont where we joined a group for a reading of Richard III. Compulsive narcissist that I am, I was allowed to read the part of Dick III himself, and I did well, for the most part. (I stumbled over a few scenes I didn't remember, but I think I managed the famous opening and ending lines as actual speech, as opposed to declamations.) M read Lady Anne (amongst others) and our friends SV and CSD were there, too. (SV was a fun Buckingham to play against.) One thing that struck me on re-reading the play was how so many of the characters bemoaned their fates, and so few of them recognized that they had it coming, because they were mostly treacherous, murdering assholes.
I heard some of the State of the Union address, and read most the text. It's nice that Bush is beginning to recognize some of the real priorities facing the world (like global climate change and a collapsing health care system) and that he's at least somewhat aware of how badly the war he started for no good reason has become a major disaster, but he's still a liar,a weasel, and a shameless incompetent. His horrible example continue to make the Democrats look much better than they deserve to look. Where are the conservatives like my dad, people who, even when they are terribly wrong or complete dicks, nevertheless concern themselves with sensible, grown-up concerns like not spending more than we have, making sure that whatever policy we pursue will at least accomplish its stated goal, and not starting another fight when you haven't finished the first? It seems increasingly that the only "conservative" voices out there are people like Rush Limbaugh, who admitted in an NPR interview today that what really drives his radio show is greed--bigger audience = higher advertising rates. Jefferson and Washington are forever tainted by their ownership of slaves, but even today, they look good in comparison because they were driven by more than avarice. (Though they were both in it for the money, too.)
