Pardon My Dust

I'm going to be gradually reworking ye olde blogge format over the next few days.

Final Reality

Why not live life by experience points?

From their dice-and-paper roots to the modern user-generated worlds, role-playing games have always had to deal with the question of how a character develops. This is normally handled through experience points (XP). Kill a were-turtle, get 5 XP. Accrue 500 XP and you gain a level. Et cetera.

While certainly an attempt to recreate in some way a person's actual skill advancement in real life, it would seem that XP would work in the actual world similarly to the way it does in the digital. For example. Let's take a skill you want to develop, say running. Set a series of levels in front of you, and choose XP amounts for given tasks:

Go for a 1 mile run, get 1 XP. Go for a 3 mile run, get 4 XP. Run in a charity event, 15 XP. Finish within 1 minute of the leader in a competitive run, 200 XP. Run a marathon, 10,000 XP.

Level 1: 30 XP. Level 2: 500 XP. Level 3: 3500 XP. Level 4: 5000 XP. Etc.

So, you could get to high levels just by running a mile at a time, but getting there would take forever. Doing bigger things yields bigger numbers, and thus faster level-ups.

Here's a wrinkle: in games, a higher level means better stats. A level 2 character is stronger than a level 1, and that means an easier time killing beasties. Aside from the fact that you would actually improve, how would this work in real life? I say you'd have to have your friends involved, and the bragging rights would do it. Either that or have specific level tasks, e.g. you can't get to level 4 until you run the Turkey Trot, no matter how many XP you've got.

This could work for all kinds of things.

• Career -- go to a seminar, 10XP. Get the corner office, 5000XP.
• Arts -- participate in Nanowrimo, 150XP. Get published in a magazine, 500XP.
• Education -- go to a class, 1XP. Get a PhD, 10,000XP.
• Fandom -- read the Lord of the Rings again, 5XP. Go to Marquette and lie about doing a research project to get the Special Collections guy to bring out the secret not-for-display Tolkien stuff, 10,000XP.
  
• Connoisseur -- try a new beer, 5XP. Go to a wine tour in another state, 1,000XP.
  
• Family affairs -- email your mother, 2XP. Don't yell at Shannon on Xmas, 50,000XP.

Unfortunately, it could also work for negative things. Smoke a pack, 100XP. Perhaps this could be factored in. You want to stop doing something? Take the XP away from something you're working towards. So, say the F-word, take 5XP from your Runner class count. That's 5 miles you just lost. F indeed.

If you're willing to spend hours of your life pretending to be a druid and running around killing lizards until you can get that robe you want, why not take that rewards system and move it to real life? I'll DM.

Nanosomuch

I read the first few pages of William Gibson's Neuromancer today. I am always astounded when I come across an old book that predicted the present well. As soon as computers started talking to each other, a few books pushed the experience as far as it will go. Snow Crash (1992) did it, focusing on the social aspects of the 'metaverse'. Ender's Game (1985) did it, calling it 'the nets'. Two children take on identity-less roles and debate politics in public forums, eventually becoming the faceless voices of their age.

Neuromancer was published in 1984. For comparison, AOL for DOS came out in 1991. Netscape Navigator, 1994.

The term 'cyberspace' was coined here. It's the start of the cyberpunk genre, and from what I can tell also the start of modern life. Perhaps not the best book to be reading while adding to and revising my own scifi opus, what with the inherent comparison between this giant of the genre and my paltry puppet-show, but hey.

This Title Has Nothing to Do with Bending Anything

Um...

DAVID BECKHAM IS COMING TO AMERICA.

To play SOCCER.

PROFESSIONALLY.


In other news, David Beckham is coming to America. To play soccer. Professionally.

And Ever

B A Start Poll: What companies will still be around 1,000 years from now? Will we still drink Pepsi? Eat Cheerios? Use Faber-Castell colored pencils?

Bye Bye Birdie

I saw of these one time. IN A DREAM. Figures my clairvoyance would be limited to videogames.

The Wiff

Whoops. This is what would happen if I played hockey.

Quite

Those of us from New Hampshire call Martin Luther King Jr's birthday "Civil Rights Day". Just to be contrary, I think.

But wait, there's more

Not to belabor the writing thing, but I am embarking once again on a month of productivity. Like a twenty-five-year-old, I'm starting to flesh out. I'm shooting for an additional 30,000 words by month's end.

Joining me on this journey is the ineffable Greg, prompting us to name January Agnowrimo, for "Alex's and Greg's Novel Writing Month". Why not "Greg's and Alex's", you ask? Ganowrimo, pronounced after the fashion of a third-grade bully.

Nope.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 80% Iron Man 70% Spider-Man 65% Batman 55% Supergirl 50% Green Lantern 45% The Flash 45% Hulk 45% Robin 42% Wonder Woman 30% Catwoman 15%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Dude.

Does your prose reveal your gender? Somebody thinks so. I tried this doodad three times, twice with passages from my nano concoction and once with a B A Start post.

Iteration 1: A scene in which two members of a ship's crew (both males) get into an altercation. Result: Female.

Iteration 2: A scene in which the main female character plans to tell her love interest a secret. Result: Male.

Iteration 3: This post about my perpetual interest in mod culture and fashion. Result: Male.

Having taken the prerequisite salt grain, I'm a little surprised. I know content and grammar are unrelated, but still.

Sphere Grids, but for tunes

So, this is cool. Does there seem to be a rash of bubble-to-line web music toys? First I run into musicovery the other day (which, by the by, has this rad animated .ico thing going on) and now this TuneGlue business.

Time was being a rock snob was hard, expensive work. Now all it takes is a Rhapsody subscription and some time. The rock snobs are making their knowledge available to the general public, an action I always thought was completely contrary to their ethos. The idea was to know good music and keep it from everyone else in order to maintain coolness. Now, I'm the music guy at work. Me. It's a world gone mad.

I'm guessing, though, that they're just toying with us. They still have their ivory tower CD collections, their secret stashes of the real dope. The sanctum sanctorum is still out there, guarded by grim mop-topped acolytes.

I'm a mocker!

Does everyone else find 50's-60's mod style intriguing? Please tell me I'm not alone on this.

Maybe I spent too much time watching The Prisoner as a kid, or maybe it was Julie Newmar in Catwoman garb giving me a few ideas about just what it was the grown-ups were all so interested in, but the aesthetic lodged itself in my pre-pubescent mind as being odd and foreign but irrepressibly fascinating.

Somewhere in the yet-to-be-digitized index card system in my head, filed under "fantasy worlds" in a bright yellow folder between "Arabian Nights" and "Norman Rockwell's America", one can find this weird realm where there is a dearth of lines and an abundance of uniform shapes. People wore triangles. The cartoons became freaky art pieces. Airline aisles became runways. The whole world was built with construction paper and green-handled safety scissors.

And from whence came this land of over-exaggerated poses? My guess is the film quality. Early color film always looks like someone got a little crazy with the saturation and brightness bars in Photoshop and left them set to "blandify". What to do when lost in a world of washed-outedness? Make big bright blocks of color and put them on the women.

Time for some thrilling heroics.

Words on zee nets is that someone is thinking about a Firefly video game, a massively-multiplayer online deal. This is dumb. You want to make something good? Here's how you do it:

#1: The base ingredients. What do we know about the Firefly universe? Interstellar travel, psychics, cannibals, and legalized prostitution.

#2: The spices. Q1: What does Firefly feel like? A: Old West. Q2: What's fun about Firefly? A: The language, sharp-shooting, wild stunts with spaceships, Kaylee.

#3: Mix until smooth. So, what we want here is a workable plot line which fits in the 'verse but doesn't feature any of the main characters. E.g. -- playing as Luke Skywalker is lame, but playing as Kyle Katarn is awesome. We'll set this in the post-unification, pre-Serenity timeframe.

You play as a newly-recruited Alliance agent who is sent undercover to gather up a young woman from a far-flung dirthole planet. You book a seat on a civilian transport (NOT the Serenity) and head out. You have some adventures on the way there and get to know the crew.

Once you get to Dirtonia, you discover that the woman you have been sent to bring in is a Companion, and a psychic one at that -- which makes her wicked good at her job. The Alliance wants her for the River experiment. You, being a good guy, decide to go rogue.

The overall plot pits you against an Alliance bigwig who is oppressing a dusty planet known for harboring Browncoats during the war. You and your ragtag band of misfits (you end up Captain, due to some serendipity) free the locals from his reign, cleaning up the single-horsed town.

Gameplay switches back and forth between rpg-action and flight-sim (reavers are out there). You meet up with various lesser characters in your travels (e.g. the Serenity's original engine guy -- you know, blonde tattoo dude? -- is on your crew.) and hit some of the locations from the show. Lots of shooting, quipping, and Blue Sun cola.

Joss? Call me.

So many K

Now over a week into the post-nanowrimo stupor, I find myself with few thoughts on the event, setting aside the following: I can now say "I have this first draft of a novel" instead of "I've been working on a novel", and this makes me more credible to myself. The revision stage will be long and repetitive, but now I know who the characters are and what they want, how the world works, etc. which makes the first round of re-write just consistency-checking. Still haven't reached the part where I worry too much about the prose being, you know, good, but when it comes I feel I will be better equipped.

All in all, I recommend the experience. Just being a participant -- having a website to go to and flashy wordcount trackers -- pushed me to complete draft uno of my magnum space opus, something I've been doing little more than putter around with for some time. I'm all for it.

Quick quiz post

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The West
The Midland
North Central
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

The Uncanny Xmas

How about this: A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen styled Christmas special.


One of Santa's elves: renegade wood sprite, out to end Santa's slavery.

Caspar: Powerful wizard from the Orient, perpetually searching for ways to extend his lifespan.

The Little Drummer Boy: soldier-spirit which reincarnates in a new body every generation, fighting in every war in the last 2000 years.

Frosty: The magic hat found its way on to a snow sculpture made in the shape of a giant polar bear.

Dasher: the man on the inside, flying beast and architect of the fabled 'reindeer games' combat simulation.

Jacob Marley: troubled ghost, looking for revenge on Xmas in general. He helped an old friend redeem himself one Christmas Eve, yet received none of God's forgiveness.

That's Salada Words

Woo hoo!

Merrimack where?

Coincidence?

Thirty days hath November. Thirty div 2 is fifteen. Today is the fifteenth.

50K words in Nanowrimo. I have 25K.

Some thoughts on the progress thus far: Actually writing the story takes you places you didn't expect, reveals things about the created world which you didn't fully realize, and shows you just how long it takes to move from plot point A to plot point B. Good times. Aside from an errant scene and my general dissatisfaction with the quality of the prose itself, I'm relatively satisfied with the book, especially looking at it as a first draft.

The issue is that I haven't really gotten to the cool stuff yet. Everything has been set-up so far. I have a feeling that if I want this to end up as a viable book, 25,000 will be a lot more like the one-third mark than the one-half. This makes sense; 50K is barely novel length.

See you in a few weeks.