Marvel Heroes Homework

Below is homework I assigned to my player characters for our Marvel Game.
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Answer these questions in as much or little detail as you want. Karma will be awarded for creativity and thoroughness.

Feel free to skip or add questions, or to submit questions of your own to the other players.

Please forward your answers directly to me at ******** @ yahoo.com

What are your character’s thoughts on politics? Socialist / Liberal / Moderate / Conservative / Libertarian etc…

What hobbies did he or she enjoy before the robots came? What does he or she still enjoy?

What does he miss most from ‘before?’

What is the worst crime(s) imaginable to your character?

What historic figures does she most admire? Despise?

Does your character read much? What does she read most?

What is your character’s biggest secret?

What was your character’s childhood like?

What is your character’s drink(s)?

When and how did your character’s powers reveal themselves?

Emerald City Comicon

Nora and I went down to the Emerald City Comicon yesterday.

We first attended the show during its inaugural year, and I think we had only been dating for less than a year. It was TINY back then. There weren't any panels, no real celebrities, and only a handful of top creators and a few of the moderately sized companies were represented.

It feels very much like a grown-up convention now. It still can't compare to San Diego's convention, but now, at least, it's the same order of magnitude, if not quite in the same league.

We went to three panels, "FRAUGHT WITH PERIL: MAKING COMICS INTO GAMES," "WIL WHEATON PERFORMS THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES" and "SPOTLIGHT ON JAMIE BAMBER." All were great. Matt Turnbull and John Feil broke down the challenges and rewards of converting comics into video games. Wil read three stories from his book (probably from a couple different books of his), and Jamie answered questions. All were charming, engaging and smart.

The floor of dealers and artist spaces was as chaotic and intense as San Diego ever is, only with much less total space.

Another high point was in the gaming area where I was able to demo Marvel Heroscape. The game is quick to learn, fast to play and pretty fun overall. From the website, "Heroscape is a fully-customizable game system that lets you build your own battlefields, create your own armies, and battle the enemy using your own strategies." While I don't quite see myself rushing out to buy the game, it definitely activated my gamer hunger. My tastes run less toward the wargaming type, even though Heroscape is relatively simple.

I do think I will attend Go Play Northwest in a few weeks to try and get my gaming itch scratched.

Guilt

Generally speaking, I don't do guilt. I have regrets, of course. There are probably millions of little decisions spread across my life that I wouldn't do again, given the same or similar circumstance. There are very few things that I would alter though, at this point looking back. My life has turned out pretty well, and I wouldn't want to change the way things have turned out for me.

To quote William Adama from Battlestar Galactica, "you live with it." I sincerely believe that the golden path is to carry them with you enough to learn without letting them overpower you, and without letting them pull you backwards or get you stuck.

Star Trek V was a pretty bad movie. It did, however, have some great bits. I particularly enjoyed Captain Kirk's response when Sybok offers to remove his pain. Our pain molds us as humans. The key is to use the pain as a lever, not to avoid it, disavow it or wallow in it.

Having said that, I've had it pretty easy. My life hasn't been 'charmed,' but I haven't really suffered either.

There are a few points of gnawing guilt that I will admit: there's always more I could be doing to conserve the environment, and the division of resources in our world is inherently unfair. In other words, I have more than I deserve, and I cause more harm than I need to. There are plenty of justifications I could offer, but none would really alter those two fundamental points.

Nick's picture, version 2

I've been a little lazy with the blog this month, so in order to buff my content, and because I really enjoy when my friends are creative, I present the next version of Nick's picture:

The Work

A recent “This American Life” episode raised an interesting question about the relationship between power, responsibility and accountability.

What if, at the end of our lives, we aren’t judged by our failings? What if the good we’ve done isn’t weighed against the bad? What if, instead, we are judged on the good we could have done, but didn’t?

This compares with another thought I am all to familiar with: the work we have completed is tiny when compared with the work we have left to do.

Someone wise said that first, but I don’t know who. If anyone knows, I would love to learn.

Marvel Super Heroes Power Stunts

As written, Marvel Super Heroes has a mechanic that forces characters to use large amounts of karma to use their powers in varied and interesting ways.

For example, Storm's mutant power is weather manipulation. To use that ability to create winds that permit her to fly is a 'power stunt.'

Since I want to use the karma mechanic to propel the story rather than encourage players to save them up, I need something else.

My thought is to break the rankings of powers into two categories: power and skill. At character creation, it would be assumed that both are equal; players could raise one at the expense of the other, if desired (at character creation).

Any power stunt would be assigned an 'intensity' ranking by the judge (aka, game master). Some stunts would be automatic (making it drizzle in Seattle with weather manipulation) and would only require the normal roll. The intensity ranking would go down every time the hero successfully uses the power in that way.

My Good Friend Nick's Picture

Posted completely without permission, but with all remaining rights reserved, here is a picture from my friend Nick. It may be a draft, but it's way more art than I've done lately!

How Long could You Survive?

Created by OnePlusYou

Yearly Marvel Heroes Game

Here is some role playing stuff for my once per year game that won't make sense to most of you:

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In a rare discussion with the press, Nimrod stated "Mutant and mutant sympathizer incursions will not be tolerated. The Canadian government has been advised that harboring militants will not be tolerated and that they will be held responsible for such activities." European analysts suggest that this is in reference to the situation in the nation's Pacific Northwest...

Earlier this morning, the BBC reports that the federal government has declared a state of emergency in the three states which constitute its Pacific Northwest: Idaho, Washington and Oregon. An increased Sentinel presence has been confirmed at several points along Interstate 90 and Highway 2, specifically in the Snoqualmie and Stevens Pass areas.

Goooood Morning to the Liberated Northwest! Canadian Liberation forces are in direct confrontation with Sentinel forces

Attention citizens of Seattle! Mutants and mutant sympathizers have invaded your community, and a general curfew has been declared. Sentinel forces are here to help you. You are instructed to stay indoors until the situation has been stabilized. Violators of the curfew will be treated as enemies to the nation.
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Karma starting base:

Lightlord 50 (Sentinel battle), 20 (RP 'leadership' bonus and artwork submission)
Shadowmaster 50(Sentinel battle), 10 (RP 'my brother!' bonus)
Silverbrand 50(Sentinel battle), 20 (RP 'my people' and character refinement bonus)
Fool 50 (Sentinel battle), 10 (character refinement bonus)

Nora's character: 10 (character refinement)

Current Role Playing

My oldest friends and I always had a string of role playing geekery in us, but have never played seriously. Last year, we pulled out some of their Marvel Superheroes characters (last played over 10 years ago), which we had played a few sessions in something resembling the 616 universe. Then I plunked them into the Days of Futures Past timeline.

In story terms, the young characters my friends had played in the late '80s, early '90s continued adventuring, as their world went into decline.

My vision for this game is to play it somewhat convention style. We don't play often enough for a normal campaign, but even if we play once or twice a year, we can string some stories with continuity together and have a good time of it.

Here is the history these characters live in:

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In January of 2003, a mutant terrorist group attacked the Super Bowl, murdering dozens. A larger disaster was averted largely because of timely intervention by the Avengers. However, the press was terrible and wave of mutant hysteria began to boil.

Later that year, 1500 innocent civilians died during a battle between the Marauders and a group of young crimefighters. The majority of those crimefighters were mutants.

The anti-mutant hysteria continued, and began to spread to include all super humans.

In the fall of 2003 the U.S. military became involved in a Waco style incident surrounding Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Like Waco, it ended in fire and death. Unlike Waco, the besieged gave as good as they got. There were many deaths on both sides.

In the spring of 2004 a member of the Senate, Joseph McGrafton was revealed to be a mutant with emotion-control based powers. He hanged himself two days later. In his journals, a mutant conspiracy was revealed that spread throughout North America, whose goal was to create a pro-mutant apartheid state, with non-mutants serving as second class citizens.

That election led to a wave of anti-mutant extremists being elected to federal office. Most moderates were forced to resign; some grew silent, a few died under mysterious circumstances.

In January of 2005, the Sentinel Program was begun anew. By the end of the year, mutants were forced to live in special areas (ghettos) of cities. Camps were established for those who resisted, planned to resist or those deemed otherwise too dangerous to be free.

Resistance groups have sprung up across the country, most notably, a large group is based in Canada, not far from Vancouver. There have been cross border incidents, and the relationship between the U.S. and its neighbor to the north has seen better days.

Two Legged Dog

I first saw video of this dog a year or two ago. It's really pretty amazing, and shook my perspective of what is possible and what is normal.

Moving People

I've become a person who believes that dedicating our energy into expanding and improving the bus system is the proper answer. We've seen that rail based construction projects are extremely expensive, usually wind up destroying some businesses, can disrupt communities, and rarely are any faster at getting from point A to point B than the car it often competes with. This is particularly true of street level light rail.

Instead of throwing money at building rail lines that can't be moved to adapt to changing demographics, I much prefer increasing service, increasing 'bus only' and/or high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, and increasing express bus lines.

We learned in Seattle that a thousand little adjustments to traffic flow can make a huge difference in reducing congestions. We already have streets, we already have buses (though not enough).

Here is an article from 2003, written on behalf of the Independence Institute. I don't endorse this group, and am not a member. I offer the article only because it provides a clear summary of my 'pro-bus' perspective. They seem a little nutty, but I have great sympathy for their libertarian perspective.

Battlestar Galactica, Season 4, Episode 1

Last Friday marked the beginning of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. This show is one of my favorite things in the world. I love it more than Star Wars (the prequels knocked that franchise off its pedestal for all of us, didn't it?), more than Star Trek (again, filled with great bits, but frequently dodged the tough questions, and was too deeply rooted in the Roddenberry Utopian Vision), more than the Seattle Mariners (but probably not more than the Seahawks), and probably more than the World of Warcraft.

***This brings out the question, why do I play so much WoW if I don't LOVE it? Good question. The short version is that it's a very good game, which I enjoy a lot, and it's extremely cost effective. With that, there's the communal element, and the fact that my wife plays. And she doesn't play ANY computer or video games (aside from the occasional solitaire, Tetris and Lego Star Wars).***

One of the most impressive things in last Friday's episode of BSG was the opening space battle. This was the first time since the miniseries that the entire fleet was in jeopardy of being destroyed by the Cylons. When the first ship was lost, it suddenly became very clear that this was real. No one was safe. Then, when the circular roundy ship (I don't even know its name) started taking heavy damage, I realized how emotionally invested I had become. Aside from Galactica and Colonial One, the ship with the circle around it is the most distinctive part of the fleet's skyline.

The three part set up is just one of the reasons why I love BSG so much. 1) they established that ship as a part of the fleet in a subtle way. I grew to have affection for it over these years, 2) They established a threat to the civilian ships by destroying one, and 3) the ship took heavy damage, which obviously threatened its existence.

The result was pure rapture.

Shadrachgrey at 70

My first World of Warcraft character, Shadrachgrey just achieved level 70!

John McCain is a Republican

The list below comes from Moveon.org. Yes, they're a lefty group. However, this list is filled with facts which should dissuade any liberals and left leaning moderates from being swayed by McCain's occasional appearance of humanity.

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10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10
John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:

http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/?id=12407-4278654-en4CiM&t=232

Thank you for all you do.

–Eli, Justin, Noah, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Saturday, April 5th, 2008

Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/the-complicated.html

"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/

2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aF28rSCtk0ZM&refer=us

"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/

3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/

4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/

5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council® Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_learn_scorecard2007

"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/

6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWHm0tchtdMP5LcLywg5ZtMgD8VQ86M80

"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHMiDVYaXZFM&refer=home

7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022

"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/

"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251

9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html

"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/

"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-mccain-endorsement/
10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/

Map of Humanity

I found this amazing thing yesterday. The url says it comes from www.joeydevilla.com, but I didn't see it on that fella's blog.



This reminds me of my relationship with maps in general. Topographical maps sooth me. I can literally feel my blood pressure drop, in a good way, in an almost spa-like way, when I have a good map in front of me. This comes, at least partially from my time in Explorer Search and Rescue as a teenager. Navigating with map and compass was one of the earliest real-world and useful things I was good at. We spent many nights running along behind a black lab who was chasing a scent. There were no GPSs then; it was up to us, with flashlight and map to keep track of where we were so we could find our way home. Good times.

Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind

It sounds like willpower is just like a muscle. You can develop your ability to resist temptation through things like money management classes, brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand and other medium to long term activities.

On the other hand, people who must exert their willpower multiple times in short succession experience diminishing ability. Just as you wouldn’t expect to run your fastest mile shortly after completing a 10K, it is more difficult to work toward multiple goals at the same time.

This makes me think of the White Wolf willpower mechanic, which models this real world description of will very well. In that game, you have a max number of will points, which can be increased gradually, and as your character exerts his or her will throughout the game, your current bank dwindles. Over time, the bank of will points grows back to that character’s max.

It’s always nice when a game mechanic both resembles real life and is simple to use.

Facilitative Interventions

As a padawan facilitator, I’ve observed a commonly arising decision when dealing with groups: to intervene, or not to intervene. One large part of a facilitator’s work is to establish boundaries, or at least, to lead the group to establish boundaries, so less intervention is required on the facilitator’s part. When intervention is necessary, the group understands and respects the reasons why.

This same decision is common in everyday life as well. After observing something against your sense of order, do you intervene? If so, how?

I will admit that I choose my bus seat (and sometimes stop) to avoid the practicality of intervention. I generally avoid those seats up front, so I reduce my involvement with the elderly, handicapped or impaired. I usually stay out of the back to avoid the rowdy kids and poorly behaved adults.

This also applies when one’s friends are having a disagreement, or seem to otherwise be drifting astray. When do you intervene? We’re all familiar with ‘Interventions’ in the addict sense, but the word also applies to smaller interactions. For example, if you are with a group that’s running late, it’s generally appropriate to remind them of the time. The next step might be to seek out your server and ask for the check.

Anyway, this is a topic that’s been on my mind some. There’s no real point to it.

'Manners police' hit Japan metros

This article is about a week old. Yes please, I would like the etiquette police to begin patrolling my mass transit system, please.

Badly behaved commuters riding on Yokohama's public transport will soon be risking a dressing-down.

Weekend Warcraft

Lately I've been trying to focus on group dungeon running. This is quite a trick, particularly as a fury spec'd warrior. Tanks and healers have a much easier time of finding groups, because they hold an awesome responsibility. Really tanks and healers are the engines that make group adventuring run in WoW.

Today, I wound up taking the Underbog. This is not what I'm good at. My character, Shadrachgrey, is designed to inflict lots of damage quickly. He is not designed to keep bad guys' attention and survive while doing it. Since Underbog is a bit below my level (68 at the time), and we couldn't find anyone else, I gave tanking a go. It worked out okay, I guess. It was pretty fun, and I don't think my inexperience caused too much trouble.

This was a non-guild pick-up group (PUG), and one of the group members apparently loves his guild too. He mentioned that they have a 'never leave the group' policy. After a particularly hair fight, which we all survived, he said that we were all invited into his guild, if we wanted. I don't think there were any takers. He was a very smug fellow, and I can't help but imagine a guild filled with guys like that. Thanks, but no thanks.

This experience did show me that tanking can be fun. I expect at some point I'll respec to 'prot' (in other words, redesign my character's abilities), for the series of big dungeons at the 'end' of the game.

4C System

This is a cool genericized adaptation from the Marvel Superheroes game from the late '80's and early '90's.

While there are pdf's of the original around, this contains all the important bits, without the Marvel brand.

Easter Raid

The guild had an Easter morning raid that wound up laying waste to Southshore. I don't have a microphone, but I was able to eavesdrop on Ventrilo and answer back using in-game raid chat.

It was a good time. We even killed their cows. More trickily, we also killed their flightmaster. The raid group only had a couple 70's, myself (at 67) and the rest were low to mid level toons.

I pulled some Halloween costume wands out of the bank to add some more festivity to the occasion.

Hatebringer

A couple of weeks ago, while in the Underbog with some guildies, this beautiful blue dropped. I was the only warrior in the group, so it was offered to me. When I accepted, I thought it was a one handed mace.

Shadrachgrey has been almost exclusively dual wielding for months, with a brief, and unsatisfying exploration into two handed maces many, many levels ago.

After the group disbanded, and I went to arm myself with the new toy, I realized my mistake. However, since my guild mates had so graciously given the mace to me, I felt some requirement to at least try the thing. After all, it's bind on pick-up, so I couldn't pass it along to anyone.

I suffered through leveling my two handed mace skill, put some gems in the slots, and must admit, it's working well for me now. The screenshot won't show it, but the Hatebringer pulses. And, come on, it's called Hatebringer. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I say.

This configuration doesn't take full advantage of my fury spec, so when better weapons come, I'll surely switch back to dual wield. In the meantime, I'm having a blast. With Hatebringer.

Two Thoughts for the Day

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7305023.stm

Just as it is too early to declare the Iraq adventure a failure, it is far too early to declare success. I agree that it’s been a relatively successful several months, and there are reasons for optimism. Violence has declined, and the government is becoming more stable and capable.

What follows is some self indulgent processing. It wasn’t written to be read, it was written to help me think.

Lately I’ve been pondering the tension between respect for the Tao, the infinite harmony of the universe, and my belief that the universe is essentially uncaring and we are self determined beings.

I clearly see that bad things happen to people for no reason. I also see that hard work often leads to success; oftentimes success is only found after long battles that seemed pointless midway through.

This reminds me of the importance of the journey; if the battles are purely distressing, if the journey is miserable, perhaps the adventure should be abandoned, at least on a personal level. This ties in with the Buddhist path of ‘right livelihood.’ It also ties in with the thesis of “First Break all the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Connecting the right employee with the right job is the essential skill of management. From the employee’s side, finding a job that fits right is an essential component to happiness and harmony.

Placed in a goal setting context, it is important to choose goals that will be satisfying to attempt. If the journey is positive, it matters less if the outcome is achievable.

Warcraft Screenshots

Warcraft cats don't mind the water.













This the most recent shot of Shadrach, with Greydog the black wolf and Wolpertinger.












This pic is several weeks old. It's from the guild parade, when we all took flight across Outland.

Otter in Lake Washington

I saw an otter today, paddling around in Lake Washington. I've never seen an otter down there before, and I run past there pretty often.

A Few Words about Prostitution

There is nothing morally wrong with a man hiring an expensive prostitute.

There are a number of ethical problems worth noting. The first depends on the relationship this person has with his wife. Some marriages have allowances for this sort of thing. While I don’t know the data, I believe most marriages in the U.S. do not include allowances for additional intimate relations of any kind.

From a political standpoint, the largest quandary is that the governor of a State should be expected to uphold the laws of said state. Such a governor is also expected to obey federal laws. There are many laws on the books that are patently ridiculous, and it’s not reasonable for anyone to stay in compliance all the time. I tend to believe that our nation’s laws regarding prostitution, for the most part, fall into this category.

I feel a need to point out that not every prostitution law is created equal. For example, no good comes from street prostitution. Everyone involved is at risk of violent crime, disease and general exploitation. On the other hand, controlled environments such as those found openly in Nevada and Amsterdam and often discretely advertised as ‘incall escorts’ in the U.S. should be permitted.

Not only should it be permitted, we would do well as a society to move beyond that taboo altogether.

Yes, Mr. Spitzer was stupid for engaging in illegal (though hardly ‘criminal’) activity as the governor of New York. If he lied to his wife about this activity, he has shown a remarkable lack of character.

However, we as a society are doubly stupid for adhering to a value system that assumes that visiting a prostitute is ‘wrong.’

Warcraft Roleplaying

The Earthen Ring server is technically a role-playing, or RP server. In reality, very few of us stay in character while out questing. On a whole, role playing is gladly accepted, though rarely perpetuated.

In my own head, however, my characters have strong personalities and histories. This comes from playing the Bioware games of the last decade, specifically Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic. Both of those games allow for vastly different interactions based on decisions made by you on behalf of your character. Since those games are strictly single player, there is no chat interface, and conversations occur using a 'choose your adventure' format.

It is easy enough to translate that into WoW, primarily through the design of your character, and through the choice of quest lines. For example, Shadrachgrey is somewhat of a barbarian and feels out of place in Silvermoon City. His rep there is low, and he generally avoids Blood Elves. He'll take their money, mind you. Shadrach is all too happy to do mercenary quests, and to let the blood flow. Politics are not his concern. Keeping his bellly full is his concern. He has great affinity for Thrall, and orcs in general, and he has a sweet fondness for tauren.

On the other hand, my druid Sasquatch has a more gentle soul. He is fascinated by the Blood Elves (reflected by my journey there to do the starter quests in Silvermoon), and wishes to help the Forsaken find some sort of peace. He is, however, deeply disturbed by their insistence on creating a new plague to kill humans (Shadrach didn't mind so much, even though the undead make his skin crawl).

Now that Shadrach has spent some time in the Outlands, he has returned to Azeroth for deeper training to help him sustain his long term maneuvers. Like any good special forces type soldier (or warrior) he must be self sufficient. I had let his cooking, fishing and first aid skills slip, and it was becoming difficult to heal quickly between battle.

WoW Screenshots with Context

Here is a great picture of Sasquatch. I believe this is off one of the Thunder Bluff hills.








This is another of Sasquatch pic from Thunder Bluff, but in a very different setting. What are those two doing in the background?!








Here is a recent pic of Shadrachgrey. You can see he still has those immense pauldrons on his shoulders. Those took many hours of service to the Defilers to earn. Yesterday I traded them out for some Outland blues. That helmet is one of my favorite pieces of gear. I hope he doesn't outgrow it soon.

I'm having loads of fun with Shadrachgrey these days. It's refreshing to tear shit up the way that fury warriors are trained to do. With the Sunwell Plateau content coming up soon, and Wrath of the Lich King shortly thereafter, I'm trying to get him to 70, so I get to play along with all the big kids.

I'm trying to make a point of doing more instances with guild mates. It's a very different game, which requires very different play from soloing, running battlegrounds, or teaming up Iresine.

Comic Book Geek Pondering

All good comic geeks know, there's an endless mine of 'all-star team' topics to explore, and they're all endlessly satisfying.

What would it be like if you took the main powerful characters from all the main continuities?

Superman, Captain Marvel (Shazam!), Wildstorm's Apollo, Thor...you could also include Wonder Woman and Silver Surfer

Am I forgetting anyone? The characters on this team have to be able to fly, preferrably into outer space (can Captain Marvel do that? I think he can.), and they have to be virtually invulnerable and able to kick ass and tear shit up.

When the Warren Ellis started The Authority, it was the sort of book that this hypothetical book would have to be. Big battles, lots of explosion, gnarly bad guys who deserve what they get. Earth, and multi-verse shattering stories. That's what this would have to be like. Who else could challenge this group, united?

Energy and Transportation

The continuous climb in fuel prices isn’t really a bad thing, especially when placed in the context of global warming. As prices rise, usage should fall, and the environmental impact should be mitigated. I understand that this has a negative affect on the economy, but for the most part, it’s something we should suck up and adapt to.

However, there are some sectors who are being unduly punished by the continuous price increase. These sectors, by their very nature, use fuel, often very large amounts, in the service of the greater population. These groups should protected, or, at the very least, be offered tax relief.

I’m referring primarily to truckers and farmers. They should not be expected to carry the burden alone.

Always Go Left

I have long had a ‘always go left’ policy for exploring potentially confusing areas, both in video games and in real life. According to this article, I’m not the only one. It is so much an ingrained part of our nature, that police will often dedicate more resources to searching areas to the left of an escapee’s last known location. This strategy, apparently, yields improved results.

I can think of two uses for this information: when designing anything requiring the natural flow of people, whether a supermarket, airport, work cell or video game, encourage people to flow left, or counterclockwise. When fleeing from the police, go right.

William F Buckley Jr.

William F Buckley Jr died Wednesday at the age of 82. While I disagreed with many, if not most, of his political positions, I greatly admired and enjoyed his work. I particularly enjoyed the way he held and argued his strong, articulate and thoroughly thought out beliefs, without the mean-spiritedness present in so much of today’s conservative (and liberal) commentary.

Stabbing Contest

Stabbing Contest is a relatively new gaming podcast, done by a second degree of separation of mine.

It's good stuff, check it out!

Topless Wii

It's exactly what you think it is, and it's great.

Don't click the link if you aren't allowed to look at women's boobs, by law or rule of workplace.

Expanded Universes

The quality of novel franchises, as a rule, varies immensely. I’m intrigued to venture into World of Warcraft based fiction, but wouldn’t dare without a recommendation of some kind. I’ve heard through one podcast or other (probably the WoW Insider, could be the Instance) that Tides of Darkness by xxx Rosenberg and Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden are the best. I’ve been considering dipping my toe back into the Star Wars expanded universe of fiction, but I didn’t care much for the first round of novels written by Timothy Zahn.

On that note, I downloaded the 14 day trial version of Star Wars: Galaxies yesterday. I’ve been playing WoW almost exclusively for around 6 months, and have been longing for some science fiction gaming. The character modeling impresses me; unlike WoW, you can control your character’s height, and you have some more freedom of camera movement during character creation. I’ve always wished that WoW had a more Simsesque character personalization.

Game Design Notes

The game master of my game group recently passed around an interesting article abotu game design. This article emphasizes how the mechanic of the game should encourage fun play (to put it very simply).

I then started thinking about the type of science fiction game I might like to play. I've had a desire to design a science fiction rpg since high school, and I doubt I'll ever flesh it out. Still, here are a few ideas I had:

Ship combat that isn’t too complicated, but rewards quick decision making and tactical play

Niche jobs for everyone: for example pilot/helm, engineer, captain, security, science/medic specialist.

This does work somewhat for large scale, Star Trek / Battlestar Galactica activities, but would be best suited on a medium scale, Millenium Falcon, Serenity, Starship Defiant sized crew.

Exploration of planet surfaces and space stations in a way that everyone gets to go along. It’s no fun if the captain has to stay on the ship.

People Don't Use Semicolons Anymore?

I love semicolons and use them often. I had no idea they were fading from common use.

On this day, they're making a small comeback!

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location

Sasquatch, Shadrach and a parade

Below are a few shots from this afternoon's parade by our guild. Shadrachgrey attended this, since it was in a high level area, in Outland.







This last is Sasquatch today!

He was dying a lot, and realized I should spend some of my money upgrading his gear.

The Daedalus Project - The Psychology of MMORGS

According to this (apparently scientific) survey, I'm not very interested in the Advancement or Mechanic aspect of play; I'm slightly above average in my interest in Competition; I'm at the low level of average in my interest in the Social elements, including Teamwork and Relationship building; I did score highly on the Role-play, Discovery and Customize categories, and low on Escapism.

No surprises here. Considering that I come from a storytelling based table top rpg, and that I don't use gaming to escape from my problems, it all lines up.

My lowest score was in the Mechanics category. I was around the 10th percentile there. This causes a dilemma, when combined with my high Discover score. I want to see the end game, fun stuff content, but to do that, you have to have a character that can hold his own. To do that, you need to know how the mechanics of the game work, and WoW game mechanics are fairly complicated.

Pro teams' losses are poor areas' gains (needs format update)

Since 1994, Federal Way-based World Vision has taken the clothes and sent them to impoverished communities abroad, where they are given to needy families who don't think about the Super Bowl, much less Brady and his love life.

I had assumed that this stuff was quickly destroyed: I can imagine some zealous fans might want the alternate versions. It might be vaguely satisfying to have a "Seattle Seahawks XL Superbowl Champions" sweatshirt.

Good for World Vision, and good for the NFL for putting those clothes to good use.

The True Crime of the Invasion of Iraq

During the preparation for the Iraqi invasion, I tended toward the hawkish side. I never expected to find weapons of mass destruction, and didn't really think Hussein had the giant stockpiles the Bush administration alleged.

Instead, it came down to two relatively simple things:

1) During the years following the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks, the United States had a primal need to smash a bad guy. We had already smashed the Taliban, and that might have been enough under different circumstances, under a different administration. The problem with our actions in Afghanistan was that we didn't get to do much smashing. We mostly used air power, with some special forces units, to help the other factions. We weren't allowed to Impose Our Will. As a result, we turned our attention to Iraq.

2) Even without new weapons of mass destruction, Hussein's administration had it coming. He used chemical weapons on his own people. He invaded a neighbor just a few years prior. He defied as many of the ceasefire agreements as he could get away with. Considering only what we absolutely knew about him, he was a Bad Guy.

I stand by these assertions. However, I had no idea that the post-war rebuilding would be such a disaster. I'm no expert in these things, and I knew much less then than I do now about these things.

A few years after the invasion, I would have (and did) said that it wasn't worth it. The chaos was too much, too many people were dying. We should not have invaded. Then I learned that the chaos of the post war period had been predicted, that there is an art and science to rebuilding nations during an occupation, and that the Bush administration was completely negligent in its planning for and execution of the post invasion phase.

That's what we should be angry about. That is the truly heinous crime committed by this administration. These people had the experts, they had the warning, they had the resources. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died because of hubris of the Bush administration. These people died because our elected leaders didn't do their jobs.

Sasquatch, all dressed up

I realize now that I need to work on my screenshot composition.

Still, here is Sasquatch, dressed in his Lunar Festival outfit.

Sasquatch, cat form

Here is a quick screenshot of my Tauren druid, Sasquatch, in his new cat form, with his pet.

The pet doesn't do much, and doesn't even have a name, but I love him just the same.

Sasquatch

A few weeks ago, I shelved my higher level warrior and started a druid. I was delighted to discover that the name 'Sasquatch' was free.

Here's what he looks like now!

Washington Caucus

Yesterday was the Washington Caucus. Like all good Democrats, Nora and I attended, along with 1500 of our neighbors. We all packed into a high school cafeteria, divided by precinct and worked through the process for choosing delegates on behalf of our precinct.

The caucusing process reminds me of Unix. Whereas a primary would accomplish the same outocme (selecting delegates toward the goal of picking a Democratic nominee), the caucus in out in the open, kind of grubby, more work, and somehow more satisfying. At least, I imagine Unix is satisfying for those who use it. I can't be bothered myself.

Our precinct had over 60 people attend, which made for nearly impossible discussion, and no real debate. Four years ago the caucus was also very robust, but only about dozen people from my precinct of the time attended. That allowed for a more relaxed discussion and for some reasonable strategizing.

Our neighborhood was very Barak Obama oriented, with a handful of Hillary supporters. Of our six total delegates, five went for Obama, the other for Clinton.

Personally I never found the final lever that led me to a decision. That reminds me, I need to see who won Washington.

Warcraft and Seahawks

It's been almost two months since I posted last. I'm trying to work on that. I experimented with emailing posts directly, but the formatting got all messed up, and I'm very lazy with these things.

The Seahawks are primed and ready for their playoff run. In many ways, this team is better than their Super Bowl team of 2005. In one very big way, however, it's inferior. Last week's game against Baltimore notwithstanding, they simply cannot sustain a running game. The Ravens haven't really been showing up since they lost against the Patriots, so our success their is not much to talk about.

Coach Holmgren was wise to switch to a pass first offense, and it may be enough to take us deep into the playoffs. Hasselbeck is playing his best football ever, the receiving corps is performing at a very high level, and the defense has shown an ability to truly dominate opposing offenses.

Nora and I have been quietly continuing with our Warcraft addic... hobby. We've joined a giant and very pleasant guild, and that really adds to our enjoyment. The game culture is very different with these folks, and on this server, compared to our time on Frostwolf, the pvp server. It's much easier to get a hand with an instance or with gear. In some ways, it can be a little TOO easy, if you let it.

Formatting problems

For some reason when I email posts to this blog, the formatting gets all screwed up.

I hate this and have little patience for it. I have no knowledge of Html, and my attempts at correction don't seem to be helping.

My apologies for the formatting problems. I'll try to fix it more later.

Meta WoW: What kind of person ARE you?

What sort of person would do the things that our World of Warcraft characters do?

This varies depending on which quests and professions we choose, but some things are shared by all. To progress at all, every character is something of a hunter of beasts and enemies. The earliest quests involve killing a number of creatures and collecting trophies of some sort or other. Before long, the killing of creatures turns into the assassination of sentients. It can be argued that many of these assassination requests can be justified in the mind of a certain sort of person. This has a secret agent, “007 meets high fantasy” tone. Sometimes, our characters are asked to do things that are more difficult to justify. One quest in particular, suggested by a member of the Undead faction, is to murder a farmer and his family. Another of the Undead asks for components of a biological weapon to use against the humans. I keep expecting a ‘murder women and children in the Tusken Raider village’ quest. Thankfully, none have gone to that extreme.

It’s all shades of gray. There is a warm-to-cold war going on between the Alliance and the Horde, and in times of war, values and norms often shift. Every playable character must have, at best, a Conan the Barbarian code of ethics: enemies are to be killed, friends aided, life is short and brutal, death is cheap, and the strong flourish. I find it interesting that in Conan’s world, he was an extremely rare, if not unique individual. The World of Warcraft is filled with people like this.

More Warcraft: Proper Behavior in a Player Versus Player Environment

A character’s life on a player versus player server is filled with uncertainty.  In many of the game’s areas, combat between opposing factions is allowed and may erupt at any moment.  While this risk is consented to at the point of character generation, there are some behaviors that are downright uncalled for.

Don’t attack fishermen.  Fishing is a quiet, non conflict oriented activity.  Ganking someone who is armed only with her fishing pole is low and unfun.

Only jerks attack characters who are of significantly lower level.  When the level differential reaches a certain point, there is literally nothing to be gained from this battle.  There’s no challenge, and no honor points are rewarded.  All it does is frustrate the lower level character’s player.

It’s not okay to ‘camp’ at a corpse with the intent to re-kill the character upon resurrection.  In fact, repeatedly killing a character is also poor form, in general.

World of Warcraft does some things well.

Nora and I have been playing World of Warcraft (WoW) for a few months now, and it's clear there are some things the game and the community built around it do very well, and some things they don't do so well.

The greatest strength is the variety of play. It's easy to go on quests and adventure through the world by yourself, and this is very rewarding in itself. It's also very simple to find and adventure with folks that you already know. Nora and I spend quite a bit of time collaborating in our two person group. When we're up for a challenge, we choose quests that are at or a little above our characters' levels. If we want some quick accomplishments, we go after the stuff we're a little too powerful for. The spectrum is broad here. This is one of WoW's greatest strengths. If we want easy, there's easy, if we want difficult, there's difficult. If we don't want to kill stuff, we can go fishing, or spend time on any of the game's other professions. These professions all have rewards for excellence, and each has its own tone, style and feel.

Blizzard, the company behind the game, has also developed a deep player versus player environment. Again, the power generally belongs to the players. There are specific areas to go if one wants to join a large battle. In these areas the rules are clearly defined (think Capture the Flag and King of the Hill), and one can drop out at any time. The more wins a character accumulates, the greater the rewards. There is also the option to play in a more general player versus player environment. This decision must be made at character creation. If you accept this challenge, you are forevermore allowed into conflict with members of the opposing faction. However, even here there are some rules in place. For example, you cannot be attacked within your own capital city or starting low level starting area, unless you initiate the combat. In neutral areas, however, all bets, and rules are off. Some of us adhere to some general rules of honor, but many do not.

There are some things missing from the WoW experience: I haven't seen any puzzle or musical quests, for example. There's a lot of harvesting, killing bad guys are vicious animals, fetching artifacts usually guarded by bad guys or animals. Aside from those fundamentals, there isn't much variety. The types of adversaries, and the environments in which they live varies, but the activities surrounding them generally don't.

Now that I wrote that, I remembered some a counter examples. During the Halloween season, there IS a special event, and as part of that event, characters must use buckets of water to put out fires caused by the WoW version of the Headless Horseman. In the WoW "Brewfest" there was a quest to ride a ram throughout the city to advertise the beer garden outside the city gates.

Maybe later I'll write my own personal code of honor for player versus player battling.

New York Times Error Correction

I noticed today that the New York Times web site doesn't include contact
information for its reporters, and its editors are only interested in
learning about errors that "call for correction."

http://nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/infoservdirectory.html#c

This came about when I noticed an error in an article about The
Darjeeling Limited. This article mentioned that Natalie Portman 'did
not appear' in the film. In fact, she did appear in a cameo near the
end of the movie.

I don't know, does that 'call for correction?'

From the Edward Tufte Forum

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000yO&topic_id=1

In my line of work (designing games) I have to give referees a mind set and tool set for describing relationships between antagonist characters, their motivations, and the motivations of the characters played by other players.

I use causal diagrams, based somewhat off of Tufte, and a few books on writing romance novels(!).

There are three basic ties that matter for writing fiction, and for running roleplaying games: Ties of blood, ties of sexual tension, and ties of obligation. These all form bonds between characters that can be used to coerce them into acting.

So I give the following advice:

"Start with a blank sheet of paper - the bigger the better. 11x17 is ideal. In the center of the paper, write the name of your chief antagonist. Under that character's name, write down what they want, and if different, what they think they want, preferably in two different colors of ink, or one in block printing, the other in cursive.

Next, write down the names, wants and believed wants of people related to your antagonist. "Related" in this context means one of the following relatioships: Ties of blood and kinship, ties of sex or sexual tension, and ties of obligation and duty.

Now, write down the names and the motivations of all the player characters who will be playing in this scenario.

Draw thick black lines between the names of characters that are related to each other by blood.

Draw medium weight black lines between characters that are related by sex or sexual tension.

Draw lightweight black lines between the names of characters related by duty and obligation.

If there's a power disparity, have an arrowhead on the end of the line of the person at the lower end of the power continuum. If the power level is roughly equal, use a circle to indicate this. If you havn't decided on the power level, don't adorn the ends of the line - do that during the game.

This is the "sinew" layer of your conflict and relationship map. The next layer up are the nerves.

Take two highlighters (we recommend blue and pink, but any two colors will work), and draw arrows between characters - a blue arrow means that the character the arrow originates from likes the character the arrow points to. A pink arrow means the target is disliked by the originating character. If the tenor of the relationship is mutual, draw two arrows, going in opposite directions. If you need to, you can specify a particularly intense relationship with a thicker highlighter line, but we recommend against it.

This map is an easily grasped graphic of all the relationships that give velocity to your story. In particular, note that we've minimized the words put on the map to motivations and wants; this is deliberate. You may not even know, until the game is running, why there's a pink line indicating dislike between two characters...and something will pop into your head when you're setting up the scene. Jot a quick note down for future reference, and run with it - this is giving you a frame work for improvisational storytelling, and should be fluid, rather than rigid.

Because this is a graphical display of narration, any scene that doesn't alter a relationship on the map, or alter the perception of any relationship on the map, is unimportant and should be minimized or skipped. Similarly, when assigning motivations (the only words on the maps), you're assigning motivations that will be interesting for your players, not motivations that are interesting to the characters in question.

-- Ken Burnside (email), March 24, 2007

More from gapminder

http://tools.google.com/gapminder/

The Recently Discovered

http://armsandinfluence.typepad.com/armsandinfluence/

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92

Seattle Climate Action

Seattle leadership IS trying to do the right thing regarding climate change.

www.seattlecan.org

World of Darkness / Mage Updage

It looks like my Mage group is working the chronicle toward a conclusion. Plans are afoot to put together an amalgam of White Wolf rules for our next storyline, which will most likely contain new characters.

We still have several weeks of play before this story concludes. That gives us time to really prepare.

I think we're going to use the new World of Darkness stat system, and something based on the Dark Ages: Mage magic system. As far as I can tell, this means that each character has his own magic spheres, based on his understanding of magic. This ties paradigm directly to the rule set.

I've been hunting around for the appropriate books, and it isn't easy; most of them are either out of print (and difficult to find) or terribly expensive.

Podcast Summary

My podcast playlist has evolved. Here's a snapshot that includes most of what I'm listening to now:

Dungeons & Dragons Podcast - I don't even play D&D, but I like to know what they're up to. It's very professional if not terribly regular.

ESPN: Fantasy Focus Football - comes out almost daily this time of year, and is relatively short.

ESPN: Football Today - more professional in tone than its Fantasy Football counterpart.

The Game Master Show - I listen to several indie role palying gamer related podcasts, and this is my favorite.

Guilty Pleasures Blogs - One of several 'adult' podcasts. This one covers the gambit from porn star and director interviews, to watching porn Mystery Theater Style, to reading erotica.

iFanboy.com Comic Book Podcast - my one comics podcast. It's okay.

Polyamory Weekly - primarily one woman 'cast about all angles of polyamory. Kink friendly, but also has topics directly related to non-poly folks, such as managing relationships between extroverts and introverts.

Savage Love Podcast - sex advice 'cast from Seattle's own Dan Savage

Taverncast: A World of Warcraft Podcast - my favorite World of Warcraft podcast.

1Up.com - 1 UP Yours - the main video game podcast. It's done by an ensemble and is above average in quality and entertainment value.

Obesity linked to Zip Code in Seattle

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/331292_obesezip12.html

An excerpt:

University of Washington researchers recently found wide disparities in obesity rates among King County ZIP codes. The rates range from less than 10 percent in parts of central Seattle and Bellevue to more than 25 percent in some south county neighborhoods.

The strongest predictor of obesity rates wasn't income or education but property values, the study found. Each additional $100,000 in median home value for a ZIP code corresponded with a drop in obesity of 2 percentage points.

It's further evidence, experts say, that weight isn't solely about individual behavior and that the environment you live in matters.

"If you have this mind-set that obesity has to do with the individual alone, then ZIP codes or areas really should not come into this. But they do, big-time," said Adam Drewnowski, director of the UW Center for Obesity Research.

********

Let’s not forget that class is the biggest divider in our country today. Race is secondary.

Columbia City Cabaret September 21 2007!

Nora and I have been to the Columbia City Cabaret a couple of times, and it's absolutely fabulous. You can bring food in, or eat in one of the neighborhood's many fabulous eateries. They serve cocktails right to your table, and the show is delightfully R rated in a sexy, athletic, lots of skin showing-burlesque sort of way.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nancy Kennedy <trapezelady@hotmail.com>
Date: Sep 7, 2007 3:58 AM
Subject: Columbia City Cabaret September 21 2007!
To: trapezelady@hotmail.com

Press Release
For Immediate Release September 7th, 2007
Contact: Tamara 206-605-9920 www.TRAPEZELADY.COM

COLUMBIA CITY CABARET
At Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Avenue South, Seattle 98118
Hosted by Tamara "The Trapeze Lady"
Tickets Available for 8 P.M. Show Only!

Purchase advance tickets on-line to Columbia City Cabaret shows!
http://www.brownpapertickets.com
(Just search for Columbia City Cabaret)
Tickets are available on-line until 3 P.M. Day of Show – Always $20.00
Then they are available - Cash Only $25. - At the door. 21+

Reservation Line: 206-605-9920
Reserve the Balcony for your celebration of 15 or more revelers!

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21st "Uncontrollably Messy" 8 P.M.

What a Mess! Literally AND figuratively speaking!
PAOOLA THE SWEDISH HOUSEWIFE is finally back to play with us at the Cabaret!
She's getting all shiny and smooth just for us, and does this woman "Clean
Up" Good!! Seattle's Sapphic Sweetheart MISS INDIGO BLUE'S brand of
optimism will have everyone convinced the Glass is Half Full…of Lemonade!
Pure Circus Rope Aerialist MR. BEAU never fails to leave the stage all
cluttered up with Charm! Tap Dancing Superstar JOSH SCRIVNER is our new
initiate and we anticipate Hot Rhythms Flying at Dangerous Velocity! We're
not sure how Elegant Chanteuse ADE will address our Messy Theme, but where
she treads Fascination Follows!

Your Host TAMARA THE TRAPEZE LADY will exhibit her piece entitled
"Gratuitous Sex Thinly Disguised As Art" as well as proving without a doubt
that she is a very "Old Fashioned" Girl!

This show is so dirty even Stage Mistress NECO SUAVE needs a little help so
we're bringing on the Springtime Fresh Tidying Talents of MISS DAFODIL! We
can't wait to once again hear the heartwarming cries of: "Pick it up! Pick
it AAALL up!"


October 5th, 2007 we return to Weekly Cabaret Shows, every Friday Night at
8:00 P.M.
Don't forget the Columbia City Cabaret returns to every Friday starting
October 5th, and we're bursting with myriad new performers and favorites we
haven't seen in way too long!

Come to the Cabaret!

Check out a glimpse of past shows at YouTube! There is a link at
www.trapezelady.com

Flexcar Tax

According to current King County tax code, Flexcar useage is the same as car rental and will be taxed accordingly.

While I can't debate the interpretation of the current law, it seems obvious that Flexcar should be excluded because of its local user focus and its impact on car useage and ownership.

Here is the link to the article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/330673_flexcartax07.html