Month: March 2005

It is no secret that role-playing games are an important part of my life.
There have been three big influences on my RPG life that’ve come from this part of the world.
First, GM magazine, the late-80s-early-90s independent magazine about roleplaying games. It came out of the UK and introduced me to a whole bunch of things I’d never contemplated before. The three Aliens weekends (for which I’m mildly infamous in Welly RPG circles) are directly descended from articles about freeforms and live action roleplaying that appeared in GM (and its descendent GM International).
Second, Critical Miss, the online webzine for dysfunctional roleplayers. I liked this because it was just cool, and because it was so rooted in the reality of a lot of gaming – messy, flawed, sometimes deeply frustrating. (In a sense it’s the exact opposite of the improve-your-gaming-experience Forge.)
Third, the Irish gamer crowd, specifically as represented by GameEire.com. This site and the community it represented were a key component in making me, for a time, chief agitator for a Wellington RPG community. I like to think I was one of the factors that got things moving, but the amazing stuff happening there now is all the work of a very fine bunch of people who aren’t me.
Well, I’ve had the fortune over the last year to meet key figures in all of the above. A bunch of names I recognise from GameEire – Brian and Gar to take two prominent examples – have become friends. At Gaelcon last year I met Wayne of GM and had a lovely conversation. And at Conpulsion this weekend past I met Jonny Nexus and Bubba, of Critical Miss.
Bloody marvellous.
(An honourable mention should go to the Interactive Fantasy journal, proprietor Andrew Rilstone. I’ve had too little contact with it for it to rate up there with the above three in the influence stakes, but it was pretty cool.)
(Anyway, I’ve traded pithy humour with Mr Rilstone on RPG.net so I’ve sort of ticked him off anyway.)

My map of Europe – the one where I colour in countries that I’ve visited – has a big white uncoloured gap in it. I’m about to fill that in. Rock.
I fly into Berlin on July 13, and fly back from, er, somewhere else, on July 24. I will be bouncing around with Maesi and Craig, who you’ll remember from tales of Switzerland. And it’s going to be brilliant.
Yay!

Sometimes I think that Fametracker and its cousin site Television Without Pity are part of the problem with Western culture, not part of the solution.
Seriously, I think about that sort of thing. I sadden me sometimes.
In any case, they deliver the funny in reliable doses, and this fame audit of William Shatner is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. It works better when you’ve read other fame audits, so you can reall get the enormity of their ‘Deserved Approximate Level Of Fame’ recommendation. Enjoy.

Conpulsion is done and dusted for another year, and it was good, and I am rather tired on account of the relatively little sleep (although more than some!) and the rather odd custom here of working on Easter Monday.
But it was good. And Doctor Who debuted to spectacularly good ratings and some mild acclaim which encourages me that ratings will remain good, if not great. And I just watched the final episode of season two of Carnivale (OMG!!). And reading WFRP 2nd Ed, which I bought a prerelease copy of. And stuff.
Tonight I ate quorn in a curry-sort-of-flavoured stir fry. With spelt pasta. And lots of greeny vegetables. And two mini naan breads. Yum. Plus leftovers for tomorrow.
And and and. I shouldn’t really be posting as I have no coherent thinking ability right now. Oh well. Gonna press the button anyway.

The Guardian today ran a short profile on Rabbi Arik Ascherman, a profoundly Zionist man who has worked tirelessly for justice for Palestinians. He sees his role as helping to rescue Zionism’s soul.
Cal and I met him when we were in Palestine. He’s mentioned briefly in the emails we sent here. He was a fascinating and inspirational figure. I urge you to check out the article – if nothing else, you’ll get an angle on the situation in Palestine and Israel that is normally hidden in the Zionism vs. Arabs oversimplications. Truly, the situation there is more complicated than anyone could guess.

As a churchgoing Catholic young man, I always liked Easter. The sacrifice of Jesus, the meaning of that sacrifice, and the transformation that resulted, all carried great personal importance for me. I liked that it had both sombre and celebratory aspects; I liked that it was the most resonantly mythic aspect of Christianity; I liked the way it led me to reflect upon my own life.
Above all, I loved the Easter story for the humility at its core. This came back to me when I wandered Europe a few years back, seeing museums full of statues of the gods unseated by Christianity – all of them exalted figures, perfect, mighty, combative, awesome. And the image placed at the centre of Christianity is a man reduced to as little as a man can be; frail, wracked, and dying in agony. It is true that the tale of being hung on a tree, passing into death and then returning is a recurring motif in the history of human myth – but until Christianity, the suffering was not the focus. The resurgence into power was the focus. This is a pretty profound change.
(Okay, there are probably examples I’ve missed but what the heck, I’ll make the claim anyway. More informed people can prove me wrong.)
The humility of it, the connection between the divine and the human through the medium of suffering – this is hugely significant and even now I wonder at it. It always seemed important to me that the Jesus who died on the cross was not the Jesus who came forth from the tomb. He was the same man, but utterly transformed. And the focus of Christianity, rightfully, is on the man before that transformation, when he was most fully human.
I am no longer a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word, but I will always strive to interact with the world with Christlike love. I am indivisible from the Christian faith that shaped me. And I like it that way.
Have a good Easter, everyone.

This evening, in order to prepare myself for a scene in Ron due to be written tomorrow, I started a thread on RPGnet’s Tangency forum, entitled “Ladies of Tang: Describe How Your Breasts Hurt”.
There are, as of right now, twenty or so posts in which women describe their hormonal breastly achings in all the shudder-inducing detail anyone could want.
It is all glamour, this writing jag.
—
Basically all I have done this week except for work is write. It is good to feel productive.

So, according to moral guidance column in The Times, fair trade for coffee is roughly equivalent to a soccer club sending flowers to its players’ wives.
Um.
I don’t really have anything to say to that.
(I’d link to the article but it’ll be removed from view in a week and I can’t figure out a direct link anyway, so the full text is behind the cut.)

Continue reading “Modern Morals” per The Times

Last night I went to see Row E perform at the Queens Hall with Alice and Siobhan. We’d scored fantastic seats quite by accident – right in Row F, in fact! This meant we were up close and personal while Row E put on a real show, with lots of whispers, laughter, getting up and leaving and then coming back, leaning forward to dominate the view, and generally giving us our money’s worth.
Sadly, they tailed off about midway through. Luckily there was this whole other gig going on at the front of the auditorium, Ani DiFranco was her name. She was pretty good, actually, so it wasn’t a complete washout in the end.
Nice one, Row E. A night to remember.

Billy mentioned in the comments below a recent essay by columnist Michael Ventura. I want to draw more attention to it.
I know how it is on weblogs – on the web as a whole, actually – you see someone saying “check this out, it’s great!” and you might check it out but you probably won’t. I usually don’t.
Make an exception this time. It’s worth reading. Short, too, so don’t worry your eyes will fall out.
Read it here.