It's where I talk to myself. Gaming, politics, and links I don't want to forget about.
This is the big week for Chronicle of Riddick news. Apple has a big fat Quicktime trailer, which I hear also ran in front of Return of the King, and the official site has a semi-nifty Flash animation. Despite the fact that it all looks like a Warhammer 40K knockoff, I’m still drooling.
Pitcher Blacker looks like the go-to site for news about the movies.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the government may not hold Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant. Padilla is an American citizen. This will wind up going to the Supreme Court, I imagine.
Saith Dor: “Yeah, maybe Al Queda had a training camp in Iraq somewhere, at some point. There are militia training camps in Idaho. Does that mean that the US government sponsored the Oklahoma City bombing?”
The Google/Amazon convergence continues, as Google adds book search to its repertoire. It’s a step. It looks like only short excerpts of each book are stored, but Google implies full text search. There’s more interesting discussion of this, including the revenue model, over on Metafilter.
Hey, these pro-family folks want to know what you think about gay marriage. Kind of them to ask all of us. You know what to do.
Nobody ever blogs about good customer support.
So I sent my Powerbook into Apple to be fixed on Thursday. On Saturday, I checked the repair info page, and the issue was marked as closed. This was somewhat worrisome; I had visions of my poor little laptop lost in Apple’s vast cavernous shipping bays, never to be seen again. So I called customer service.
Turned out they’d fixed it the same day it got there, and dropped it back into the mail. I got it back Monday. Three business day turnaround! Go, Apple.
Unduly influenced by Passion, for better or worse, this week’s Monday Mashup is going to be the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You can do it straight, as an evocation of faith; you can do it cynically, if you’re that kind of person; or you can say “Geeze, that’s too close to the line, I’m not gonna do this one.” I figure if it’s OK to express one’s faith by making a movie, though, it ought to be OK to do it in an RPG. (Also, I didn’t answer WISH 75, so this will have to do.)
WISH 76 asks:
A lot is made of the role of the GM in a game, but what is the role of the player?
I’m not really sure if I can answer that one, since so much depends on the game. The single most important trick to master can be summarized as “support interaction,” which covers a lot — sharing spotlight time, making your character sticky, and so on. Most other stuff depends on the game, I think.
Some games really are GM-driven, and I don’t actually have any problems with that. Sometimes I want to be a spectator. Not often, but sometimes. Some games, the role of the player is to be tactical opposition. Some games, the players help drive plot.
Idle question: is the GM playing the game as well? Shouldn’t we call him or her a player?
Today, I’m downloading 10,000 books. Because I can, and because I want to. If anyone local wants a DVD with 10,000 books on it for the holidays, let me know.
Good news, without question. Doesn’t make people on US soil a whole lot safer, but it may make a difference for soldiers in Iraq, and it’s excellent news for the Iraqi people.
I could speculate all day on the possible effects of this. “Aha, now the attacks on American troops will slow down.” “Aha, now the Iraqis won’t feel the need for US protection and will demonstrate against the occupation.” “Aha, there will be a major boom in Saddam bobblehead dolls.” I don’t have any idea what will happen, though, so I’m not going to try and say something authoritative and convincing. I’ll just be happy the guy’s caught.
Josh Marshall can say something authoritative if he likes, though, cause he called this one. And — crap, here comes the cynicism. It’s great timing, capturing Saddam on the same day the Telegraph runs dubious stories about the Saddam/9-11 connection.
Well, chances are it’s just coincidence, anyhow. Still good news for the Iraqi people, either way.