It's where I talk to myself. Gaming, politics, and links I don't want to forget about.
Not enough gaming today? I have more! See now the UPC Bar Code Character Generator, which informs me that the Johnny Cash album sitting next to my computer is a female elf with Str 14 and no other notable stats. Star Wars Galaxies is a fairly wise, cute halfling with special military training.
Via One Hit At A Time. So much gaming talk. It must be Gencon coming on.
Dear Brother #6 is written to Alan Greenspan, because Reese’s brother made an appearance in the episode.
In Dear Brother #5, Mister Beulay goes to Washington. Not an epic session, but after raising Huey Long it’s nice to take a break.
In installment four, our heros speak with the Kingfish. See? I said there were politics in it.
In the third Dear Brother letter, Reese gets a tattoo and we meet Danny and Angie. Those who read my blog for the politics are starting to get confused. But it’s really a very political game!
In the second installment of the Dear Brother letters, Reese and the gang fight a crocodile. At least, if you define “fight” as “feed a helpless old man to.”
The Dear Brother letters are my in character record of the terrifyingly cool Unknown Armies game run by the mysterious Canadian Rob. I’ve been writing ‘em for a while but never thought to put them on the Web until now. Thus, six in quick succession. Sorry ‘bout that.
In this entry, Reese and the gang fight Mickey Mouse.
I went to the 2003 Reebok Pro Summer League today. Well, mostly; in the middle of it all I snuck away to Fenway Park to help a friend buy Red Sox gear and eat good Indian food. But mostly I went to the basketball.
And then I wrote about it. But I like you, so I will not put everything I wrote on the front page.
Someone needs to let the Raptors know that it’s quality, not quantity. Doing PR work to discuss signing Jason Kidd is one thing. PR work to hype the signing of a guy — Mengke Bateer — who averaged less than 1 point a game last season is another thing.
And they haven’t even signed the guy yet. They’re hoping to sign him. There can’t possibly be any serious competition for him. How pathetic is it to say “well, we’re hoping to sign the second best Chinese-born player in the NBA”? Pretty damned pathetic.
Previously, their big free agent announcements were Jerome Moiso and Milt Palacio. I like Palacio a lot, and he’s a servicable backup point guard if your primary point guard doesn’t get hurt a lot. However, they’re not exactly worldbeaters.
In conclusion: nyah nyah, nyah nyah, Paul Pierce turned out to be better than Vince Carter after all. Thanks, and I’ll be here all week.
The words chilling effect come to mind, somehow. (Via regis.) This is an isolated incident — perhaps. It’s a story told by a liberal — certainly. I don’t care. This shouldn’t happen. If I call the FBI and report that someone was reading something suspicious, that’s not an incident. That’s someone reading.
A few months ago, I got one of those scam emails from someone pretending to be Paypal. I called the Boston FBI office to report it. I literally couldn’t get someone to take my report. “Did you lose over $5,000?” “Well, no.” “Sorry, we don’t deal with cases in which nobody lost $5,000.”
But apparently they deal with cases where someone was reading a suspicious, liberal-slanting printout. Nice to see where the priorities are.
The good people over at the Volohk Conspiracy have written extensively on the Patriot Act. The general thrust of their argument is that the Patriot Act does not give the government rights it would not otherwise have. I submit that while this may be literally true, there are other factors at work.
If law enforcement officials perceive the Patriot Act as permitting certain types of actions, they are more likely to carry out those actions whether or not it actually permits them. It’s a question of perceived permission. While injustices thus created will (hopefully) get ironed out eventually, that is not entirely a comfort to those caught in such injustices. Chilling effect.
And now people are calling the FBI on bearded guys reading liberal editorials in public. Good thing I don’t have a beard.