Angel of Death

As I have said I have officially quit collecting comics, or at least the individual issues. I am now firmly in the "wait for the trade" crowd.

That having been said, when I first got back to Vegas I picked up the first three issues of Eisner Award-winning writer Ed Brubaker's "Incognito." Ed is the current writer on "Daredevil" and "Captain America" as well as his creator owned "Criminal" (which I am way behind on.)

I finally got around to reading "Incognito" tonight. It is the story of a super-villain in the witness protection program done in a noir, crime fiction style. It is pretty good, but it just reminded me of how much better I like having the whole story arc at once like watching a TV series season on DVD. Just having the first 3 out of 5 issues just doesn't cut it. I want the rest NOW!

Anyway, that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I read in the letters section (ironically, something I wouldn't get in the trade paperback) that all 10, eight to ten minute, episodes of Ed's live-action serial, "Angel of Death" are now available on Crackle.com. It should also be coming out on DVD any time now, if it isn't already, as a single movie without the episode breaks and slightly longer cuts of each piece.

It is a story about a hardcore, hit woman named Eve, played by Zoë Bell (known for her stunt work doubling for Lucy Lawless on Xena: Warrior Princess and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. She has more recently stared in Death Proof and Double Dare.) Eve suffers a traumatic head injury and suddenly develops a conscious in the form of hallucinations of one of her latest, if unintended, victims. As a result she starts killing up the chain of people who sent her out on that mission in order to find piece of mind.

It is pure pulp crime fiction, grindhouse style, fun with lots of action and bloodshed. If that is your thing, you should definitely watch it. And if you like seeing stuff like this, where you can watch it free online, make sure you buy the DVD when it comes out.

What Are They Thinking?!

This isn't a real post, just me being up at 3 AM, bouncing around the internet. I found this article at "Ain't It Cool News" and just don't get how some Hollywood people can have such a disconnect from their audience.

Brace yourselves Joss Whedon fans:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER remake without Whedon or anything developed from the TV show... seriously...

WTF?!? I just don't get what they could possibly be thinking. Even as I write this I am wearing the t-shirt pictured here from the PVP Online comic strip. Well, the men's version as that one looks like a ladies t-shirt... you know with the curves and all...

Memorial Day

This monument is in Kirkwood, an unincorporated area of Voorhees, New Jersey. It sits nestled in the shade of a line of pine trees across from the Voorhees fire department and 50 feet in front of 75 mm Howitzer Gun (US) static artillery display. The monument is in honor of it citizens who bravely fought in World War II. It is also a memorial for the four of those men who gave their lives in that endeavor. One of those men was my grandfather, Staff Sergeant Joseph Benjamin Hewitt Jr. U.S. Army.

STAFF SERGEANT JOSEPH B. HEWITT JR, was born in Pennsylvania in 1919 to Joseph B. And Anna Patterson Hewitt. The family as early as June of 1917 and into the 1920s at 1270 Bucknell Street in Philadelphia PA, at the home of mother-in-law Mary Patterson. Joseph Hewitt Sr. worked as a "sponger" for the United States Government when he registered for the draft in June 1917, and later worked as a roofer. There were at least five children, sisters Gladys and Ella being older, while Mary and Kathryn were born after him, all in Pennsylvania. The Hewitts moved to New Jersey some time after 1925.

When the census was taken in April of 1930, the Hewitt family lived at 58 Poplar Avenue in the Kirkwood section Voorhees Township. The elder Hewitt worked as a driver for a transportation company at this time.

After three years of high school Joseph Hewitt Jr. had entered the work force. He was inducted into the United States Army on January 2, 1943 at Camden NJ. By the time Joseph Hewitt he had married. There were at least two sons born of this marriage.

After entering the service Joseph B. Hewitt Jr, was promoted to Staff Sergeant. He died due to circumstances not related to combat while in service to his country overseas on February 4, 1945. The Curtiss C-46A-45-CU Commando transport plane, serial # 42-107386, operated by the Air Transport Command was lost on that day*, according to Missing Air Crew Report 12033.

Staff Sergeant Hewitt Jr. was brought home to the United States after the war. He was buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis Missouri on February 6, 1950.

His son, Joseph B. Hewitt III, followed his father into the military, and retired after 20 years service in the United States Air Force as a Master Sergeant.

Since the original site was photographed, a newer multi-war memorial has been erected next to it.

I have never been to the memorial, but hope to visit it soon. My father stopped by during one of his cross-country motorcycle trips.

Joseph Benjamin Hewitt IV

Star Trek Tech Problems

I wanted to start with, “one of the things that annoys me is…” but I’m a bit scared to. I feel like I might be opening Pandora’s box by doing so. Once I get started like that, who knows when and where I’ll stop… if ever. Now the problem is that I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to come up with a better staring point. Since it appears I can’t, I’ll just forgo the opening altogether and get right to the meat.

Well actually, before I get right to the meat let me start with this warning. This post doesn’t actually contain enough of a spoiler to ruin the new Star Trek movie, but if you one of those ultra whiny people who hasn’t seen the new Star Trek movie yet, STFU if you were a real fan you’d have seen it by now. You’ve no room to complain you LOSER! Now go buy your Terminator Salvation tickets, you’ve only got a day left till it opens.

Okay here we go. I hate that in the movie they introduced the transporter technology that allows them to beam from a planet to a ship that has been at warp for at least a day. They even talk about being able to beam from planet to planet. All this does is make future story lines harder to write because they are removing the whole “space is big and it takes time to get from one place to another.”

They do this all the time, especially in Star Trek. Somebody writes a throw away bit where ensign nobody on the bridge scans a planet and is able to find specific people who aren’t wearing something that allows them to be identified. Now all future story lines have to have some sort of anomaly blocking the scanners because it would ruin the story if they could just take 5 seconds to just scan for them on the planet. It happens so much that you really can’t call them anomalies anymore, they are normalities.

What is it with the writers of these shows that constantly dig themselves into some stupid plot hole that they need to just suddenly just jump out of? They dug the whole, they should fill it back in! The more of these stupid, throw away things they pull out of their hats to quickly solve some silly problem that they could have written around, the more they risk causing future story lines to be even more lame.

Come to think of it, wasn't there a Next Generation episode where they discovered that high warp speeds were teaching the fabric of space time apart? And they were going to slow down the warp speeds of starships? All this because the writers had kept upping the warp speeds in episodes story lines to the point where they were just popping around the universe with enough time to deliver medical supplies to planet that for some reason couldn't use the magic transporter/replicator technology to produce the supplies themselves and stop for take out on the way? Isn't that the way the transporter/replicators work? Sure you can wiggle and squirm some explanation around it, but you wouldn't have to if some writer, editor, or producer had thought an earlier story through better.

Back to the movie specifically, the whole premise behind the ice planet was pretty thin to start with. The more I think about it the more stupid the premise is. They should have just tossed that whole idea and wrote something else to introduce those characters.

Here is a list of things wrong with the ice planet and since they are spoilers you'll have to mouse over them to read them:

• It’s right next to Vulcan, so close you can actually see the planet Vulcan in the sky. Is it a moon of Vulcan? Maybe some Trekkie can enlighten me on this one.

• Why is there a Federation base on this planet/moon next to Vulcan? It is implied to be some backwater base where they’ve thrown Scotty as punishment. But isn’t Vulcan one of the major planets in the galaxy? Hardly backwater.

• So Mr. Evil Romulan Villain Guy, who’s name I’ve already forgotten and am too lazy to look up even though the actor who played him was actually at the theatre here in Vegas where I saw the movie. He gave a little speech before the movie and was signing autographs afterwards. Anyway, we are expected to believe he is soooo pissed at Spock (who I guess we are supposed to call Spock Prime now) that he waits 20 years for him to pop out from the future, just so he can toss him, relatively unharmed, onto this ice planet/moon just so he can watch Vulcan be destroyed? Is that what you would do, assuming you were a vindictive, overly intense, evil, Romulan villain guy? Or would you instead beat him within an inch of his life, make him watch the planet be destroyed from you ship parked right next to it, then kill him, toss him, whatever?

• New Spock is so pissed at Kirk, and afraid to even have him on the ship, that he tosses him in some shuttle thing and crash lands him on the ice planet/moon. Yeah, that seems like the logical thing to do.

• Then, in another of my favorite, over-used, Star Trek plot devices: out of all the places on a whole planet (moon, whatever) Kick and Spock Prime just happen to run into each other.

Now after all that, don't you think they could have found a better way to get Kirk, Spock Prime, and Scotty together? But instead in the next movie we can look forward to hearing something like, "OMG! Teh evil Kingons are like invading Uranus! And some unknown space anomaly is preventing us from beaming over there! Oh noes!"

Alright, that is enough complaining. Do you remember when I used to write cool stuff that was fun to read on my blog. Yeah, me neither. It's been that long.

Watch Neil Read "The Graveyard Book"

Just a quick little post. Neil Gaiman's website for young readers, Mr. Bobo's Remarkable Mouse Circus, is hosting videos of Neil's recent book tour for his Newberry award winning novel, The Graveyard Book. At each tour destination, Neil read a chapter of the novel. The upshot of all this is that you can now watch a video of Neil reading the entire book for free. Woot!

Net Identity = Hover = Still Sucks

I realized I had never gotten any sort of renewal message for my Net Idenity email address and website: www.joseph.hewitt.org. The site used to be my resume site, but now it just points back to this blog. It is still there however.

That is probably because I don't check the email address associated with that account very often and in the past, very distant past as in back when they didn't SUCK!!!, they used to email account reminders and such to my alternate email address as well. I went to check my hewitt.org email and found out that Net Identity has changed names, sold themselves, or something yet again. They are now Hover. I am beginning to suspect that all this trading, selling, renaming is their attempt to re-brand themselves to avoid the negative reputation. Remind anyone of AIG? Who, by the way, now appear to be about rebrand themselves again because AIU is too close to AIG.

I can't log onto Hover. It redirects me to Hover when I try to go to the old Net Identity URL. It welcomes me, tells me they are now Hover, bla bla bla and then tells me to sign in for the first time using my Net Identity email address and password. I enter my hewitt.org email address and password and I get an error. I can't use their "remind me of my password" function either. It says that both my hewitt.org and Yahoo email addresses aren't in their database. Probably explains why I can't sign on using the hewitt.org one.

I can't even submit a help request; because, because in order to do that you have to sign in. Catch 22.

You can follow my saga of all the problems I have had with Net Identity, their deletion of all my website files, never telling me that they sold the hosting stuff off to another company, then attempting to charge me going over my allotted storage space because they left the archive file of my website there when they restored the files from a backup, their inability to answer even one of the customer service emails I sent them, etc. To be fair Ross Radar did attempt to help me, and as a result I did get one email from customer service, but never got a response back from said customer service guy.

I had planned to ditch the hewitt.org website, because I obviously don't use it anymore. I did, however, want to keep the hewitt.org email address, but I guess they don't want me as a customer.

So in conclusion it appears to be more of the same and in my opinion Hover.com sucks and you should do yourself a favor and avoid them at all cost. I'll repeat that a few times to help webcrawlers find it. Hover sucks. Hover.com sucks. sucks sucks hover.com sucks.

The Straw Shooting Game

Here is the story of another little game I invented to amuse myself. About the time we were finishing up the first Command & Conquer game, I was also involved in a play in Green Valley for Theater in the Valley. They were doing the last production of the season but suddenly had problems. Memories are vague, but I think one of the actors broke an arm or leg and the director's husband was getting reassigned somewhere else and they had to move. Anyway, they HAD to do the last play in the season or they wouldn't have enough money to open the next season. They picked a play one of the directors had already directed and knew well and then called people they had already worked with and knew could memorize parts quickly. I was one such person.

The problem was that I was in crunch for Command & Conquer at Westwood and there were rehearsals every night in Green Valley which is on the opposite side of town. I was slammed and didn't really have time to eat. I wound up getting fast food for lunch from the drive through to eat at my desk. For dinner I would go through the drive through while driving across town to rehearsals.

I noticed at the drive through window; they always took your money, gave you your drink, and then it took a minute or two before your food was ready. So in the down time while waiting for your food; the game is to take the straw wrapper and shoot it back through the drive through window without it being noticed by any of the people working there. There is point scoring for what you can hit. Landing in the fryer is major points.

Rick Parks @ The Mount Charleston Lodge

Two years ago I posted An "Ode to Rick Parks" where I talked about Rick 'The Center of the Universe' Parks complete with an old Westwood Studios video that he can be seen in. I forget how came up with that nickname 'Center of the Universe' for him, but it embarrassed him to no end.

For those of you not familiar with Rick, he was an artist who did a number of pictures on the Amiga and then began working at Westwood Studios as a video game artist. Here is a link to the Mickey Mouse Glass, but note that on an Amiga monitor you wouldn't be able to see all the pixel dithering, it just blended together. But it does prove that it was hand drawn, not scanned in. Here is another link to limited edition, signed prints for sale of "Park Avenue Evening" that Rick painted for a National Parks competition.

Sadly Rick passed away on April 16, 1996. I still remember being on the freeway, driving back into town when Mike called me on my cellphone to give me the news. I pulled over to the shoulder and sat there for a long time.

Anyway, since that posting I have gotten about half a dozen emails from people who knew Rick and it has been great hearing from everyone of them. For awhile now I had been wanting to create a Rick Parks fan page on Facebook, but after looking into it a few minutes ago, I decided against it. I'm not really an 'authorized representative' of the late, great, Rick Parks and Facebook would appear to frown on unauthorized pages of that nature. Oh well.

However, one of the things I had done to prepare for the fan page was to take a drive up to the Mount Charleston Lodge (www.mtcharlestonlodge.com - I removed the hyperlink because Avast tells me it found a trojan virus when I clicked on the 'special events' link on their page! Could be a false positive, but I'm not taking any chances.) and take a picture of the mural he had painted over the bar back in 1977. Click on the images for a larger version. You can still see his signature complete with the 'circle dot in the square' down on the lower left.

When I was a kid, my mother used to take me and my brother up to the lodge during the winter time where, after playing in the snow, we would sit around the fire pit thing that is in the middle of the room and drink hot chocolate under that mural. I remember thinking once if it was difficult to paint something like that because of all the ladders and stuff you would need. I don't remember if the stupid deer head was mounted smack in the middle of it back then or not. It was kind of a kick, to learn years later, that Rick had painted it. Another guy at Westwood had talked to the owner about it, saying he knew Rick. The guy didn't believe him and said that it was painted by, and I quote, "Some hippy kid."

Audible vs. iTunes... FIGHT!

I finally decided on what books to get from Audible.com, I got Book 10 and 11 of The Dresden Files even though they don't have books 1-9 available yet. I actually went out and bought the first book, "Storm Front" in paperback, decided I liked the series and figured I would get up to book 10 eventually. I am also expecting them to catch up on the rest of the series pretty soon. I know that books 1-4 were already recorded once on Audio for another company. I wrote Audible and Jim Butcher, the author, if they had any information about the earlier books becoming available on Audible.com but so far I've gotten no response.

I also found out that the soon to be stupidly renamed, SciFi channel, did a TV series based on the books that lasted 12 episodes before it was canceled. It is available free and legally on Hulu.com, but I'll wait till I'm caught up with the books to watch it.

I also finally got season 2 of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" from iTunes. At the same time I realized that I never downloaded the last episode of season 1, titled "What He Beheld." Thinking back I remember that was the first time our internet connection in the house in Perth got shaped down to modem speed. I had started the download, left the house and when I got back it said it still had an estimated time of 40some hours. I didn't log back into the iTunes store for a few months and forgot about it.

I got into a multi-email exchange with iTunes customer service trying to get them to let me download it. Note that I don't say, "re-download" because it had never been fully and successfully downloaded in the first place. It is ridiculous to me that I have spent several hundred dollars on the iTunes store last year and yet I have to go through this crap to download an episode that I have clearly already paid for.

They are out nothing but a fraction of a fraction of cent in bandwidth to let me re-download something. Seems like a very fair exchange to keep a loyal customer. I swear sometimes Apple is going out of its way to piss off their customers.

The first email was a macro'ed:

Your request for a refund for "What He Beheld" was carefully considered; however, according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all purchases made on the iTunes Store are ineligible for refund. This policy matches Apple's refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials.

To which I responded

Your response was carefully considered; however, it did not match my request.

I do not want or nor did I ask for a refund. I want the episode that I have clearly paid for but never got. It was never completely successfully downloaded but instead was interrupted due to a bad internet connection. It should have been available the next time I checked for available downloads, but it never came up again and I don't have it.

Eventually, after being scolded for the fact that this purchase was from just over a year ago, they allowed me to re-download it.

But this whole incident just highlights why I stopped buying audiobooks from iTunes. When I buy them straight from Audible.com, I am safe in the knowledge that if anything were to happen to my iTunes library, as it does every 6th update or so, I can re-download all purchases from the Audible website at any time.

I just spend the last few days rebuilding my iTunes library from when I reformatted my laptop last month. I now have the library pointed to my F: drive which is what my external drive maps too when plugged in. I duplicated the library on both my external drives so as long as either is plugged in as the F: drive it will work. And later when I get my desktops re-setup, I can set them up the same way so they will work as long as I have either of the external drive plugged in as the F: drive.

Anonymous Gift

Thank you to whomever bought me a new LiveSTRONG bracelet. It arrived in the mail today from Amazon.com sans any evidence of who bought it. It is amazing how much brighter it is from the five-year old one that I was wearing.

Armaments for the Dark Future Ahead

I haven't posted as much the last few weeks because I was waiting for something that still hasn't happened. I am kinda in the dark about the whole thing and nobody has yet answered my emails.

I also added a third tale to my repertoire of the type that begins with, "First of all, I don't drink... at all. Can't stand the taste of alcohol." But then is instantly followed by the opening, "Okay, so I was drunk..." During all that, I managed to loose both my bracelets. Well, not loose them, they both broke.

Just the other night my Lance Armstrong: LiveSTRONG bracelet broke. I bought it from the website when they first went up prior to them being in stores. I actually bought a pack of 10 and handed them out to friends and I think I still have another one from that batch but it with my stuff being shipped back from Australia. I got the LiveSTRONG Oakley sunglasses, but I am still going to need my bracelet for the upcoming Tour de France.

Prior to that my metal, kinda Celtic, dragon bracelet finally broke in two. Sorry, no pictures as I lost my camera during my trip to Brazil and related traveling awhile back. I bought the dragon bracelet back in 1994 at GenCon when it was still being held in Milwaukee. I remember there was another booth there with some really cool chess sets. My problem with them was that they all had identical pieces on both sides, just colored different. I tried to get the lady to sell me a set with pieces from two different sets, but she wouldn't go for it.

Anyway, the bracelet was actually the bane of several women that I've dated over the years and I would sometimes bonk them on the back of the head with it when putting my arm around them or something. But it was very unique and it got a lot of compliments. The bracelet had a makers inscription on the inside, but it was mostly worn away and all that was readable was that it was copyright 1994. After about an hour of searching online for it or one like it I gave up, but I did find some other stuff that I want.
I've always like the look of stuff from the Steam Punk, 1800's Space/Adventure, and Mystical Alchemy genres. Things that have that magical and/or retro brass-fitted fantasy look to them. Some Japanese anime has that look and feel, taking place in a retro-fitted history. Anyway, these pieces from Alchemy Gothic really caught my eye:

Spectrostatic Nocturnium Bracelet
Or, "Moonlight Destiny" Early scientific instrumental band for controlling moonlight wavelength emulations. A fascinating adjustable cuff bracelet etched with alchemical intricacies, Latin text, and mysterious English notations in antiqued pewter and solid brass. Cuff is ¾" wide.

Induction Ring
In pewter and solid brass, an authentic reproduction of Dr. Von Rosenstein's indispensable key to the induction matrix. A beautiful rendition of an ancient gothic pattern which may, or may not, mean more than it seems.
Nothing more than a popular tale of “Frankenstein”, Maximillian Von Rosenstein is a legacy from the devout servants of the Pandectes Philosopiae and accredited by his clandestine lover, Mary Shelly.

I don't think I could wear either of the following two necklaces as I think they would come off being a little too feminine. (Pictures of them on a female model can be found here.)

Quantum Displacer Control Necklace
An essential piece of equipment for any self-respecting, Victorian cyber-junkie, and the means by which they would calibrate the necessary compensation for entropic shift in matter when enabling transposition.






Laboratory Chaterlaine
A flamboyant and flouncing bijouterie comprising an assortment of retro hi-tech components for the femme technique.

But what I would like to do is to get both of them, take them apart and then make a necklace out of them by weaving the pieces and some of the different styles of the chain into a several loops of a thin black leather.

They have a Steam Punk wrist watch too, but I would rather stick to a pocket watch. My current one is a miniature, brass Mickey Mouse pocket watch that an ex-girlfriend bought me years ago. Actually, I had two of them prior to her buying me this one, lost one to the washing machine and then just plain lost the second one. Haven't seen them in the stores since, so I am trying to take careful of this final one.

Anyway, I can't really afford to buy any of this stuff till all the job related stuff sorts it self out or I take up armed robbery... Or hey, maybe cat-burglary! Less bullets and more ninja-like skills!

Teh Learning Curve

I may have mentioned awhile that some friends of mine in Perth were doing a game project call "Teh Learning Curve" that they were going to put up on the web. It was actually "The" at the time, but that was taken.

I wonder if they had the discussion about that rule. You know the one that says never misspell you business' name, especially the first word. That is because it make it hard for people to find you in the, well at the time the rule was coined, in the Yellow Pages. Granted, they aren't selling anything and search engines make that a little easier these days.

I think the white board that eventually appears behind the couch in later episodes has it spell "Teh" just for fun. That is probably why they went with that instead of just picking a new name. Next time however, have an idea, pick a name and see if the website is available before chiseling it in stone... or the equally solid white board.

I told them to let me know as soon as the website went live, but I have heard not a word. Not a freaking PEEP!!! I find out today they just got the second episode up. Guess they don't love me anymore and don't want the added referrals from the BILLIONS of hits that I get everyday! Actually, the average is just less than 50 hits a day. It says I'm down 23% this month too. I posted a lot more last month. Ton of hits on my resume which is good.

Okay, enough making fun. That's what they get for not telling me they launched.

The shows premise is that they have three 'industry people' on a red couch and have one of them play a game they aren't familiar with, and if possible out of their comfort zone. Then they review it.

Yes, the color of the couch is important... its the only couch they had in the office.

They had me take part in an episodes right before I left Perth. I played Call of Duty. I've not played a console first-person shooters since the original Golden Eye. It was quite the learning curve to coin a phrase. Though, I think if I had been allowed two minutes to scan the manual and see what all the buttons did, I would have eventually gotten in the swing of things. I would still rather have a mouse.

Anyway, check out the site and yell at them for not loving me anymore. So far they have done Rise of the Argonauts and Braid.

The Now Inaccuratly Named "Jeep Game"

I can't believe that I forgot about the "Jeep Game." It is basically just some rules for the old "Slug Bug" game. It all started a few years ago when I was thinking about buying a Jeep Wrangler. My friend Barry pointed out how horrible Consumer Reports said they were, but Kia, my girlfriend at the time and voice of EVA in the original Command & Conquer, said they had just gone through a big turn around, and the newer Jeeps actually were earning a good reputation. While having this conversation in the car, we started to notice how many Jeeps we were seeing and we started calling them out. This suddenly became a contest and we started to keep score. Rules had to be invented to solve some common problems, and I'll get to those in a minute.

On my trip to Death Valley a few weeks ago with Eric#1 the game was updated. He called out "Slug Bug" and punched his son Justin in the arm. This is the classic "Slug Bug" where if you see a VW Beetle aka Bug you "slug" a person in the car of your choice in the arm. They had also added a modern update with "Cruiser Bruiser" where you do the same thing if you spot a PT Cruiser.

I pipped up about the Jeep game and how what it lacked in punching and sore arms, it made up for in being easier to get people to play and was less likely to cause the driver to get a charlie horse and careen into a ditch. I also explained the rules we had come up with. This seemed to take off and we combined the two so that it really can't be called the "Jeep Game" anymore; because, you can now count Jeeps, PT Cruisers and VW Bugs. New name suggestions are welcome.

We assigned 2 points to Jeeps and Classic bugs, but after the game on the way back from Death Valley I don't think those two are any rarer than the others. So, I think we are going to go back to 1 point for all the target vehicles, but feel free to adjust it for your area.

Rules as Follows:
The game is playing while driving in a vehicle and play does not start until the vehicular you are in is moving. It is not necessary to even announce or remind other passengers in the vehicle that you are playing until you call a target vehicle. Just sit there quietly until you spot one and then call it.

Calling out a target vehicle is done in a calm, normal voice as "Target Type - Color." For example, "Jeep Blue." Correctly being the first to call a target vehicle awards one point. It is also good to then say how many points you have because most of the time you won't be noting the score on paper and people forget even their own score. We have been relax about calling the color but if two people call out at the same time the one who also says the color wins over the one that doesn't, otherwise you should honestly try to decide which player started calling first.

Calling out a non-target vehicle will lose you a point. For example, calling Jeep when it turns out to be Range Rover, which looks very similar, will cost you 1 point. Your score cannot go below zero. This is to prevent people from losing too badly and give them more incentive to call faster if they are at zero already.

Any target vehicle in the parking lot you are starting in does not count. This includes reasonably connected parking lots and even entire apartment complexes if that is where you are driving out of. This is to stop the arguments where multiple people spot a target vehicle as they are walking to the car then all trying to call it as the vehicle starts moving. You want a nice clean start to the game.

Dealerships, Post Office Parking Lots, and any other place where more than 5 Target Vehicles are seen cause all target vehicles in that parking lot not to count. Again this is to stop confusion and arguments when you drive past a dealership with 20 plus target vehicles and pandemonium ensues.

The game ends when you stop and somebody gets out. The game does not continue between trips. So, if on your way home you stop at the bank and then then to get dinner, you can have three separate games. It is best to have multiple shorter games, so somebody can do their little victory dance,and then everybody gets to start over fresh.

There is an additional experimental rule that was discussed at one point; where you could call out a target vehicle in advance to cause it not to count. An example of when and why this would be used is, for example, when everybody in the car knows there is a VW Bug parked on the side of the road up ahead because its been parked there "For Sale" for days. Everybody gets all intense about who will see it first and then there is arguing about you couldn't have seen it yet, it was still blocked by the McDonalds and so on. So ahead of time you call out "Negating VW Bug up ahead the one for sale, yadda yadda" and now that VW Bug doesn't count for anybody and you can just go on playing without the stress.

Target vehicles include:
Jeeps - This is the standard Jeep starting with the Willys MB US Army Jeep, along with the nearly identical Ford GPW which was manufactured from 1941 to 1945. And up to today's Jeep Wrangler (1987 - present). No other type of Jeep brand vehicles count. For example a Jeep Cherokee SUV is not considered a Jeep for this game. It should be noted that Jeeps used by the United States Post office do count as they are legitimate Jeeps. This the reason Post Office parking lots do not count.

Volkswagen Beetles - Both the Classic aka "Type 1" (1938 - 2003) and Newer Model (1998 - present) commonly referred to as "VW Bugs." Again, no other Volkswagen brand cars, just the Beetle. Aftermarket kits applied to the VW Beetle still allow it to be called as a target, as long as it still can be seen visibly to be a VW Beetle. Kits where the whole body has been replaced to make it look like a Porsche don't count no mater what you may believe is under that fiberglass body.

Chrysler PT Cruisers - This is the retro-style wagon introduced by Chrysler in 2000 and which apparently Chrysler announced they were discontinuing in January of 2009.

Just Trying To Keep Busy

I've always invented games when bored. I think a lot of them steamed from my frustration at the lack of rules in childhood games.

"Bang! You're dead."

"No, you missed."

"No I didn't I got you!"

"Nuh-uh!"

...and so on. Not the fun I was looking for.

When riding the bus to school, I created a game where you got points for running people over. Granted you really only pointed people out and tabulated your score; it was more like a scavenger hunt you play while riding in the car. But, I had seen the original Deathrace 2000 as a kid and I just wanted to wrap the game in a more exciting theme. It is all in the marketing, remember Guitar Hero is just a well packaged rhythm game.

I am also ashamed to admit that the spiral notebook, that my friends and I completely filled up with 'victim's' point values, was very politically incorrect and it is hopefully lost forever. Having it turn up in the middle of my 2012 Presidential Election would be bad.

Another game I invented in about the 4th or 5th grade was "Frisbee Tag" and before you point out that it should be "Frisbee Brand Flying Disc Tag" know that I renamed it "The Tron Game" after seeing the movie. I'm sure Disney's copyright lawyers (follow that link and read the story, its good if your interested in paority law history) are much more friendly than Wham-o's.

To play the game you take a bunch of Frisbee brand flying discs and throw them up into the air. Then you try to get them and throw them at other players which is okay because everybody is wearing their safety equipment. If you hit somebody they are out, unless they caught it, in which case you are out. If the Frisbee brand flying discs touches the ground first, catching it wouldn't cause the thrower to be out, but it could still tag you out. In other words if somebody skipped it off the ground, it could still tag you out but if you caught it they wouldn't be out. You could also deflect the Frisbee brand flying discs with another Frisbee brand flying discs, a rules addition added after seeing the movie Tron.

Now, I haven't created a rule system for a childhood game in quite some time. Over the last twenty-plus years I have been working for other people who have been paying to create games for them. But, now that I am currently unemployed, I find that I still have this unsatiable need to create well structured entertainment.

The current game I am working on involves people watching in a Country Western dance club. I've never really been into Country, Western, or dancing; but, I have been spending two nights a week, for the past 2-3 weeks, in such a club. Specifically, Stoney's North Forty in the Santa Fey hotel and casino. Basically, I am there to hang out with my friends and I do a lot of people watching.

Anyway, I haven't really nailed the game down yet, but it has something to do with watching the waitresses take orders and deliver drinks. Make that incredibly hot waitresses that wear ass-less chaps over skimpy black bikinis, remember its all in the marketing.

I should also point out that there is usually a 3 to 1, girl to guy ratio, in the club, so I am seriously thinking about learning to two-step or do a few line dances.

Heard a Good Book Lately?

I have two credits saved up on Audible.com with a third credit due any day now. I am trying to figure out what audiobooks to get. I already have a handful that I've downloaded and I haven't listened to. The issue at hand is that the plan I am on only allows me to save up to three credits before I start losing them, so I need to pick some spend credits on.

I'm still taking a break from the "Saga of Seven Suns" series by Kevin J. Anderson. He really could have chopped the first five books (where I've stopped for the moment) into a three book series and then started a second series for the follow-up. Books four and five just draaaaggggeeeedddd on in some parts (as I'm sure this post will also do) and I'm too anal to skip ahead (or to chop this post down.)

I just now got back to listening to "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I have actually read the four Hyperion books before; "read" as in books in hand. Two of my World of Warcraft characters are Perion and Dymion as in hyPERION and enDYMION. The problem being that everybody pronouces Dymion as "Dime-e-on" instead of "Dim-e-on" They also call Perion, "Pery" which drives me nuts, but then again what doesn't these days.

Speaking of nuts, I have had a half dozen people ask me if I was allergic to nuts in the last few days. I'm not sure what is up with that or why I thought it worth a tangent in the middle of this tangent.

I had stopped "Hyperion" to listen to 2 sessions of "the Bendis Tapes" on Word Balloon. Word Balloon being a comic book, interview format, podcast hosted by John Siuntres. The Bendis tapes are these massive shows he does twice a year with comic writer, Brian Michael Bendis (pictured), whom I ranted about back in early February; because, he got me to watch the entire 7 seasons of the Gilmore Girls for which I was the target of much abuse by friends and colleges.

Brian has a message board over and jinxworld.com (which also hosts forums for a number of other comic writers, artists and now even Word Balloon) and he lets his fans post questions about his works. He and John answer and discuss the questions and a ranger of other topics over the course of the interview. I hadn't listened to the last two sessions, because I didn't want spoil the Secret Invasion storyline Bendis had been orchestrating as the Marvel, cross-comic, summer event. I managed to finish it just before leaving Perth.

I have a slight problem with jinxworld though. They don't let you register with any of the common free email accounts such as yahoo or gmail. It would appear you can't even register under a real email address and then change it to one of those free ones. I still don't know if I am going to keep the hewitt.org email address when it expires this month (there has been some other change of ownership or something.) I understand Bendis might have a spammer or abusive poster problem over there, but they have moderators for that sort of thing. Also, those moderators could be used to hand approve email address exceptions. In any case, unless they do something, I'll just be registered with an email address I never check and which may be going away. Hope they board never tries to send me any email for anything important.

Okay, back the audiobooks:

I was going to download "Swords and Deviltry: The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" which has been sitting on my wishlist. It is the first book in Fritz Leiber's classic sword-and-sorcery series which launched the sword-and-sorcery genre, and were the inspiration for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. I remember hearing a lot about this series back when I was in Jr. High School, but reading the reviews I think I am going to pass on it for now. One of the reviewers summed it up with, "Might have been a classic novel, but it doesn't hold up as a "modern" fantasy novel." The other reviewers were less kind.

I see they are offering "Midwinter" by Matthew Sturges. Matthew writes the DC/Vertigo comic "Jack of Fables" which is a spin off from Bill Willingham's "Fables" series. But I don't think the "Jack of Fables" series is really all that good and the Amazon.com reviews of Midwinter speak of much the same disappointment. Reading the summary blurb, I am also afraid to read it because it has some of the same elements of a story I am putting together and I don't want to be influenced by things he has thought of.

I think I am at least going to try "Daughter of the Blood" by Anne Bishop. It is the first book in the "Black Jewels" series. The reviews seem okay, though they all warn you that the series is not for the prudish or squeamish. The thing holding me back is that it is yet another big series of books. Well that is partly true; the wiki points out that the first three books are the main trilogy. The fourth book is another story that takes place in that world. Then fifth book that is a collection of four short stories which expands on the events in and after the main trilogy. The fifth and sixth books appear to also be just other stories set in that world. But still, for somebody anal like me, that is seven books.

Anybody have any other suggestions of some good fantasy books?

And Life Goes On

I just got done with a very interesting phone interview. I am not sure I came off overly impressive, I've never been very good at selling myself. The position itself has some pro's and con's, but I think I would be a very good fit and excel at it. I have my finger's crossed...wHicH amkes iT hArd twOo tyypE!

Things are moving again at Interzone Futbol. I have been told that the Australian Closed Beta sign-ups are now open.

My half brother Ben is in town, fresh from Iraq and we had a large sibling dinner the other night. It looks like he will be heading to Afghanistan sometime in the near future.

I did a camp out with Eric#1's son's boyscout troupe a few weeks ago. Did 10 miles on a bike before the petal fell off. I'd post a picture, but if I don't leave now I won't get fed.

...and that my exciting life at the moment.

The Torrid World of Scrabble Controversy

I noticed an article about Scrabble yesterday when I was logging into my yahoo mail account. It talks about how the addition of three new words to the official Scrabble dictionary is changing the game balance. The three new words are "za" which is slang for pizza, "qi" a body's vital life force and "zzz" a snoring sound.

The argument goes that the point value for letters should be re-evaluated because there was a careful balance of letter point values based on the frequency they turned up in words. Though it would appear that careful balance was achieved somewhat less scientifically that I would have thought. Alfred Butts, the original creator of the game, went through a bunch of news papers counting letters and word usage without a calculator much less a computer. He did this in 1938 as well and I am pretty sure the landscape of words has changed quite a lot since then. Kind of odd that could be used by people on both sides of the argument.

I should also point out that in order to spell "zzz" in the game, you would need to be set up with the only "z" tile and both blanks. You may also be surprised to know there is only one "q" title, though "qi" does make it a lot easier to get rid of that "q" instead of having it sit there taking up space and given it's point value they may have a point. The "Q" goes from penalty tile to bonus title. Think about it, once the "Q" tile is on the board and you have an "I" its party time with at least 11 points not counting any word or letter bonuses squares.

It sounds like the change is being done to make the game friendlier to the casual player (wow, where have we heard that before?) And if you really want to be a good Scrabble player you’d take a gander at the list of official two and three letter words before sitting down to a game. It's just the same as poking around some websites for information on a raid before logging into your favorite MMO.

Now Scrabble is not new to controversy. Just looking through some links I found all sorts of stuff:

A woman wrote the Daily Mail newspaper complaining that the Nintendo DS Scrabble game's dictionary contains some mildly profane words. Chief amongst the offenders are the words "tits" (a garden bird or informal word for female breasts, according to the game’s definition system), "fuckers" (a slang word for chavs) and "toke" (a draw on a cannabis cigarette).

I'm in the process of writing a very stern letter complaining about the use of highly offensive words in the latest edition of Webster's Dictionary. They need to put a Parental Advisory label on that book before if falls into the hands of some impressionable child! Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!

But that was back in December. That is old news. How about the 0fficial Scrabble website's official word of the day for February 22nd? "Dildo" (An object used as a penis substitute) was up for about half the day before it was changed. BTW "Dildo" only nets you 7 points.

I simply can't bring myself to say one of the jokes I have to end that. It's just not THAT kinda of blog. But oh man I have some good ones!

Okay but let us talk serious controversy now. Erik Arneson from About.com has a post that claims some people are calling for text messaging slang to be included as official words. These would be things like "ttfn" (ta ta for now), "cuthen" (see you then) and "fwiw" (for what it's worth) as well as letter and number combinations such as "gr8" (great) and "2mrw" (tomorrow)." Though his post is from 2003 and the link to the Telegraph newspaper article doesn't work anymore. I personally think that the quote from a spokesman for Mattel saying, "We are in favour of including some text words in future official Scrabble dictionaries" should be read the same way as when your mother used to say "Maybe later." In other words, "no."

I started to write this as something on game balance as applied to more traditional games and maybe even sports, but my research found the stuff above and that's where I wound up. So there ya go. I should also point out that a lot of the different tournaments have their own official word lists, but I didn't feel like looking into that let alone boring you with it.

I Wordled Myself

Found this little program that makes art out of your text by giving greater prominence to words that appear more frequently. I fed in my Personal History and got the Wordle you see.

It is very interesting to see the words that pop out. Looks like I definitely got game. It is annoying to see "actually" in there at all; because, I hate that I use that word so much when I write non-fiction. When I write fiction i am always going through and removing the word "seems." I was taught that it should "seem" like it was a dark and stormy night, just make it a dark and stormy night; however, my fingers like to type "seems" in hopes that I won't notice.

Here, lets do another. How about my resume itself... Not to bad.

I wish it would recognize things like plurals and possive words as the same word. So table and tables would be the same and that Bob and Bob's was the same. The little bit of HTML code they have you paste into your blog to get it to display sucks as well because when you copy and paste it, you have to remove all the line breaks and formatting they put in and make it all one piece of code.

I was going to look for something else to Wordle, but I'm too tired and I think the novelty has worn off.

Oh before I go, one more thing. Dear Java, Please stop installing Yahoo Toolbar. PlzKThxsBye.

Another Shot at a Marvel Comics MMO

Gazillion Entertainment just announced they have signed a deal to do a Marvel super hero MMO. It looks like the plan is to do multiple games with the first product being a casual MMO for younger audiences based on Marvel's "Super Hero Squad Property." They say that they are also underway on a major new Marvel Universe PC and Console MMO that will introduce a number of breakthrough features. Gazillion says that as additional games are release that they will "share various levels of connection."

The last attempt to produce a Marvel Universe MMO was by Cryptic Studios, but it was announced in February of last year that the project was canceled. Cryptic created the other super hero MMO, City of Heroes and is currently working on two other MMO's: Star Trek Online and Champions Online. Champions is a table top, super hero role-playing game. Looking at that plate I can easily see why they would have canned the Marvel MMO. Star Trek is a bigger license and Champions is still a super hero game, its just not restricted by the Marvel license. The odd thing about all this is that Marvel was suing Cryptic over City of Heroes because it was too easy for people to make characters that looked exactly like Marvel characters, but the lawsuit was settled out of court with the result being that Cryptic was then going to make a Marvel MMO.

Looking at the Gazillion site they appear to be the parent corporation of The Amazing Society, Gargantuan, NetDevil, Slipgate Ironworks, and SmartyCard.

Net Devil published the failed MMO "Auto Assult" which at least they published so don't judge too harshly. Do you have any idea how many companies fail to even get their MMO to market much less find it to be successful? Anyway, they are also currently working on the Jumpgate Evolution MMO and Lego Universe MMO.

Slipgate Ironworks is John Romero's company that was founded in 2005 and has been working on some unannounced MMO since then. Further digging just found that John announced via Twitter that he is a co-founder of Gazillion.

SmartyCard appears to be a card you buy for your child aged 3 to 6. The kid then can then earn (unlock the value you paid for?) stuff by completing educational games and activities. The rewards are claimed to be subscriptions to their favorite virtual world or physical rewards such as books, video games, DVDs and toys. Though in the 2 minutes I looked over the site I wasn't able to find an actual listing of these rewards without signing up. Their FAQ answer to that question just has the same vague list.

The Amazing Society and Gargantuan are new companies I have never heard of. Gargantuan's website just has one page that says they are hiring and gives an email address for you to send your resume to. They do appear to be the company listed as doing the Marvel Universe MMO though.

What does all this mean for this new attempt at making a Marvel MMO? Not much since all we have is some new studio announcing a bunch of marking goobly gook. Only time will tell if anything comes of this true believer.

Personally, I can see how this is difficult because if I am going to buy a Marvel Universe MMO, I want to be Spider-man or Wolverine. I don't want to play some new super hero that gets to fight along side Spider-man and Wolverine. That later method is exactly what SOE is doing with DC Universe Online. Don't worry though, if it fails they can just have a Crisis event to rewrite history.

Looking back on the last 24 years

I spent most of today updating my resume, recreating the HTML version and putting it all back up online. I finally split the list of published titles off into its own document, so I now have a more reasonable two-page resume with a separate two-page list of titles. Feels odd to look at those documents and take in that they represent the last 24 years of my life. It's all up now up if you follow the link over on the right-hand sidebar. Please shoot me an email if you notice any goofs or spelling mistakes. Wouldn't look good for Captain Attention to Detail to be caught with a typo. Drat, I just realized I forgot to create PDF versions. Bah I'll do that when I get back from Death Valley.

While I was doing all these I got an email from a gentlemen named Gaël, who is a classic Macintosh fan. He has been looking for a copy of two games I worked on back in 1986ish called "Utopia" and "Futuria." The story, as I remember it as it was told to me, was that these were two Scott Adams adventures redone by his former partner, William. Supposedly Scott and William had a falling out and William had the rights to these two games. I don't really know how much of that is true or not. To be honest, I don't really remember too many details about the games either. Unfortunately, I also don't have copies of them. Unicorn wasn't to good on keeping up with giving me copies of all the games I worked on.

It is interesting to think back on as these were some of the very first games I worked on. Working on them may have even been the first time I used a mouse to draw. Gaël sent this title screen for Utopia but I don't think it is something I drew. Jack, a programmer, used to paint some of the box covers and I think he may have painted this and then scanned it in. We used something called "Thunderscan" which replaced the printing head on the mac's printer and acted as a scanner. I drew a cartoon on the white board at the time that had a picture of the "sad mac" also knows as the "mad mac" shown when the Macintosh crashed. It was decked out post-holocaust style with the caption, "Mad Macs, Beyond the Thunderscan." Don't judge, it was a much simpler time.

I also in the middle of all this I found out that former Westwood-ian, Patrick Connelly, passed away. I don't have any of the details and I hadn't spoken to Patrick in many years. He was always an entertaining goofball and storyteller. I always though that they should have done a live action sitcom based on South Park, with Patrick playing a slightly older Cartman in college. He would have been perfect for the roll.

Patrick always had a bright and upbeat aptitude with a new tale you just had to hear. The world just won't be quite as bright a place tomorrow as it was yesterday. Goodbye Patrick.