Three things I’m thinking about

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First, we were due to get 2-6 inches of snow last night, but something crazy apparently happened and the snow fell and stuck everywhere but right here in Seattle. I know there are some of you out there who are sick of snow, but I have a little boy here who wants to slide down a hill on a flattened cardboard box. We need some kid weather.

In fact, it’s snowing right now but nothing is sticking. I should probably bring him home a treat.

Second, I’m working on this thing, and it’s taking way longer than it should. Even when I devote hours and hours to it, I only plod through a couple thousand words. Tim Pratt, on the other hand, just kicked out an 8,000 word day (yes we are supposed to compare ourselves to other people, so hmph on you). It’s frustrating and annoying.

Third, with regard to the second point, I’m seriously considering a week-long internet fast. It wouldn’t be enough to finish this project, but it would help. Has anyone done it? What did you think?

Randomness for

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1) Now this is a brilliant film trailer: Baby trashes bar. Video.

2) Wildly successful self-published author Amanda Hocking on What It Takes.

3) An appreciation for a show I’ve been watching: The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

4) Samurai fights his own shadow. Video. This is really beautiful and well done.

5) The 50 worst band photos ever. I haven’t looked at all of these yet, but yikes.

6) Facebook ads in a superhero universe. The last one is priceless. I’m tempted to do this for urban fantasy universes.

7) I love this: What happened to the bullies at the end of THE NEVERENDING STORY? Video. Via Matt Staggs at Suvudu.

Second to last antipope post

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My second to last post went up on Charles Stross’s site earlier today. In it, I offer five tricks that are useful in real life, including the Jill Cooper fitted sheet folding video I’ve posted here before. I also talk a bit about my own pain management. Check it out.

Game night

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Inspired by James Nicoll’s regular D&D posts, I thought I’d write up the session of Truth & Justice I just GM’ed. I’m doing it now because it’s late and I’ll forget if I wait until tomorrow.

Truth & Justice is a superhero paper-and-dice rpg. The heroes were:

  • Pressure, a gadgeteering scientist with the ability to control air pressure. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • The Black Monkey, a primate scientist, engineer, window-washer who was bitten by a monkey that he himself irradiated and who can now transform himself into a big, bulky human with a monkey tail, except that his eyes are glowing green and his body is a silhouette. Powers: Super-strength, -agility, -speed. The player is a 9yo boy.
  • Shait, a 12-year old daughter of archaeologists who is possessed by the spirit of the goddess of the Nile/flooding season/all water everwhere (courtesy of a shabbily-researched web site. If the GM had known they were looking up mythological figures, he would have advised them not to rely on a site with green text on a black background). Powers: Super-armor, Immortality, Water Control. The player is a middle-aged woman and non-gamer.

The player running The Black Monkey had never played any kind of rpg before, which put him one session behind Shait’s player and two behind Pressure’s. The session started where the previous had left off: Pressure had slipped out of his university lab and Shait had climbed out the window of a fleeing school bus and had defeated a villain called Nemesis. They were standing over the unconscious body when Black Monkey ran up, too late to join the fight.

Introductions were made, and Shait informed the other two that she was a goddess searching for lost relics. She also informed them that they would be helping her in this task. Despite their inexperience with gaming, I thought the expressions on their faces pretty closely matched the expressions the adult male characters they were playing would have. Sirens approached and all three left the scene, confident the police would be able to contain the villain.

Shait, of course, discovered that her school bus was long gone, having fled the appearance of a super-villain. She rolled well, found a discarded transfer and took a city bus back to her school. Her parents were called and she was grounded. The life of a pre-teen superhero is never easy, and it was going to get worse. Continue reading

How about that.

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My wife has an imdb page of her own. (No, I won’t link to it.)

She’s so much cooler than I am.

Once again, an antipope.org post

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I annoy the locals by embedding a Malcolm Gladwell TED Talk, and talk about the proliferation of subgenres.

New at antipope.org

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My latest post has gone live at Charles Stross’s blog: “I dream of one day slapping handcuffs on a belligerent junkie.” about genre-reading and imagining yourself living in the book’s setting.

For Rose Fox

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My boring (but delicious!) horchata recipe

Put 1 cup uncooked white rice into a blender and grind to a powder for about 3 minutes (maybe longer) until it’s pretty smooth. Combine pulverized rice with 1/4 cup ground, blanched almonds and 1 cinnamon stick and let sit overnight.

Remove the cinnamon and place the mixture back into the blender. Blend for another 5 minutes until the mixture is powdery and smooth. Add 2 cups of water and blend for about one minute more.

Strain into a pitcher through several layers of dampened cheesecloth or a coffee filter. Add 4 cups of water, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/2 cup of sugar (I replace the water and sugar with 3 1/2 cups of water and 1/2 cup simple syrup because I’m too lazy to stir). Serve over ice with a little extra simple syrup if my wife isn’t watching.

Drink it. Enjoy the flavor.

Pretty basic. The next time I make it I’m going to chug water before the final steps so I’m not quenching thirst with it, just enjoying.

Update: Wow, did I get a lot of these measurements wrong. Sorry.

Randomness for 2/19

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1) Become a Jedi in 10 easy steps.

2) The Magic of a Good Manuscript Title.

3) The Great Gatsby, as an NES video game.

4) Stonehenge directions via IKEA.

5) Some of you guys like Firefly, right?

6) “Bread Goes In, Toast Comes Out” The Bill O’Reilly meme.

7) This is an important one: Is your favorite Borders closing? Check this list for a nearby indie alternative. via Genreville.

“He couldn’t take the PRESSURE!”

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So! Chad Underkoffler read my books, liked them and contacted me through Twitter to ask if I wanted a free copy of an rpg he designed: Truth & Justice.

Now, while I am usually too uncomfortable to accept free things from people, this is a superhero game we were talking about, so I bucked up, said “Yes,” and dl’ed my copy.

I should mention that I used to game all the time. Back in Philly and when I lived in L.A., I gamed pretty much once a week, like any self-respecting gamer. Personally, I like horror and superhero games, but maybe you already guessed that about me.

In Seattle, not so much. My wife is not interested in gaming at all and I just didn’t have the time to find/make friends to create a new group. (I still don’t, really). But that’s why we have kids.

My son, looking over my shoulder as I downloaded the files, started to become a tad excited. We had tried gaming once before: When he was about…6? 7? and really into Scooby Doo, I designed a kid-friendly Chill adventure for him. It was basically a haunted house without a lot of actual danger.

He loved it. His favorite part was at the end, where I showed him the drawn-out house with the key numbers written inside, and the second page with the description of each room. He looked up at me with eyes as big as golf balls, and he said the 11 words I’d been dreading: “Dad, now I’m going to make up an adventure for YOU!”

What followed was two and a half hours of the most random, incomprehensible adventure I’ve ever played. Continue reading