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.