Charles Kuffner is still the man for Texas redistricting news (original). At the moment, the Republicans can’t agree on a map. The Legislature has adjourned until Wednesday for Yom Kippur. They’ve missed the deadline for redistricting in time to get all the necessary changes made before the 2004 primaries, which means that if they want to redistrict now they have to reduce the importance of Texas in the presidential primary process. ...

WISH 67 is all about the story: How do you tell stories in your games? Are there character stories, overarching stories, and/or other kinds of stories? Could you tell a coherent story from games you’ve GMed or played in? Does it matter to you? Why or why not? I don’t ever strive to tell stories, but it’s nice when it happens. I’m really more interested in exploring the story space than I am in setting out to tell a story. I like it when things happen to my characters and I like it when my characters do things, but I find plotting for a story to be restrictive. ...

I’m ready to reassert my position as the foremost White Wolf v. Sony blogger, if it please the court. I got myself a login for the federal court system, and soon thereafter procured a copy of Sony’s response (original) to the complaint. (Thanks to Chris for hosting.) I don’t speak lawyer, but I think it mostly says “We have no idea what your game says vampires and werewolves do, and we did not copy our ideas from you.” ...

Mike Tinney’s deposition in the White Wolf v. Sony case is mildly interesting, if only for the following paragraph: White Wolf has been in discussions with Sony Online about it creating a massively multi-player Internet game based on White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and World of Darkness. It also sets out the course of events which led to the lawsuit. On April 21st, 2003, Tinney sent Andy Zaffron (a contact of his over at Sony, presumably for the EverQuest pen and paper adaptation) email asking for help getting in touch with Sony Pictures: ...

Notes to self: ECS EZ-Buddie Barebone case (original), $200. Celeron 1.7 GHz CPU (original), $57. A 256 MB RAM stick (original), $44. Linksys WMP11 wireless PCI card (original), $50. 80 GB Maxtor HD (original), $83. Total is under $450, and it makes a nice quiet little wireless MP3 jukebox.

Home run! Yeah, it’s way dorky to be celebrating a single win when there are two to go. But — this is joy; this is the sweet pleasure of being a Red Sox fan. This is why we put up with the suffering. This is victory in Red Sox Nation.

I can’t quote just part of this (original). Here. Have the whole thing. It’s going to happen someday. We’re going to win the world series someday. You know it. I know it. We all know it. And somewhere buried deep within all of us is the tiniest sliver of the joy that is that someday. And that joy is boundless. If it were a mountain it would stub it’s toe on Mount Everest. If it were an ocean, it would consider the Atlantic a puddle of rainwater. If it were a painting it would make the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, and all the works of all the greatest artists in all the great museums of the world look like the fingerpaints of a two year old. In its depth, breadth, and sheer beauty, the world has not seen its like. Perhaps that’s why it has been too long, because the world is terrified what might happen if that joy is released. Breaking the atom has nothing on this. ...

Thanks for the responses (and the other responses). The inimitable regis makes the apples and oranges point, which I had in mind as well — the Dixie Chicks aren’t selling politicized songs. She also asks about quality. The book, from the chapters available, appears to be exceedingly poorly written. Merlin notes that “Perhaps not publishing the novel could be seen as a leftist bias.” I’d disagree with that. One reason I care a lot about this particular book is because I’ve become convinced that media transmitters of extremist beliefs is a problem. (But not one that we should solve with censorship.) Baen does publish a reasonable spectrum of material — they focus on military fiction, which tends to be right-wing, but Spider Robinson gives them a touch of left-wing representation. But in general, yeah. ...

The smack, it has been put down. ICANN just ordered VeriSign to fix the DNS by tomorrow evening (original), or else: Given the magnitude of the issues that have been raised, and their potential impact on the security and stability of the Internet, the DNS and the .com and .net top level domains, VeriSign must suspend the changes to the .com and .net top-level domains introduced on 15 September 2003 by 6:00 PM PDT on 4 October 2003. Failure to comply with this demand by that time will leave ICANN with no choice but to seek promptly to enforce VeriSign’s contractual obligations. ...

According to DVDfile.com, Sapphire and Steel is about to see a DVD release. Sadly, I can’t find a press release on the topic, just the one mention. Still excellent news; this is some of the best of freaky BBC ATV science fiction. (Thanks to Adam Tinworth for correcting my lame knowledge of British TV.) (TINWORTH. No excuse except being up till 2 AM last night watching the baseball playoffs.)