So one frequent criticism of anti-war types is this: “You’re only against this war because Bush wants it.” Sometimes it’s phrased as “You wouldn’t be against this war if Clinton were fighting it,” which is nicely non-falsifiable. Either way, though, the appropriate answer is “No duh?” It’s perfectly reasonable to be against a specific action because of the President who’s promulgating it. For example, if Bush said “I’m going to hold an overnight prayer meeting with the cast of Bend It Like Beckham,” I wouldn’t particularly think twice about it. If Clinton said the same thing I’d think it was a rather unwise move on his part. ...

WISH 44 is all about picking games (original). How do you choose games to join or to run? What factors influence you: timing, people, system, genre, etc.? Do you weigh different factors for different kinds of games, e.g., online vs. tabletop vs. LARP? Is it a group decision or a decision you make on your own? Well, the easy answer is “yes.” I’m attracted to games based on genre and people. For a new group, the genre needs to be interesting and the people need to seem suitable. I’ve never been particularly interested in random D&D games, and I’m careful about getting into games with people I don’t know. ...

Via Die Puny Humans, The 25 Best American Comic Book Covers (original). Also includes the 12 worst. Beautiful stuff.

MyMind (original) looks like it has potential as an outliner. I suspect it does not export OPML files. Horrors! The cool thing is the linkage to a visual mindmap; that’s going to be really useful for sketching out campaigns. Um.

This story is about how the Dixie Chicks posed nude, but that’s not what I care about. It contains the following claim: “Within days of the comment being published, Maines apologized, but many U.S. country music radio stations all but banished Dixie Chicks hits from the airwaves, some fans smashed their CDs and sales plummeted.” The thing is, that’s not true. Immediately after the controversy broke, Amazon sales of all their albums increased. I just checked the Billboard Country Top 20 Chart, and Home is at #3 — down from #1 last week. Tickets are going for a couple hundred bucks each on EBay. If this is plummeting sales, there are plenty of musicians who’d want some of that humble pie.

The first public draft of Into The Sunset (original) (120K PDF) is now available. What’s that, you ask? It’s my little ten page roleplaying game of romantic comedies. Take a look if you like that sort of thing, and comment if the spirit moves you. It’s cool to link to it, but please don’t stick it up anywhere else. Right now it’s under copyright; when I decide what I want to do with it I’ll most likely release it under a Creative Commons license. At that point it may well turn into an HTML document as well.

If I was gonna run a Buffy (original) game, which I’m not, it would be something like this. It would be set in Los Angeles, in 1976. Warren Zevon would have just released his eponymous album. Vampires would snort cocaine alongside adult film stars, and they’d both pay the price in their own ways. Daddy, don’t you ask her when she’s coming in And when she’s home don’t ask her where she’s been ...

Lotta discussion of incest lately, in the context of Senator Santorum’s unwise remarks (original). Two observations. First off, there is a potential qualitative difference between incest and homosexuality, and it has to do with imbalanced power relationships. The chances that an incestuous relationship embodies an unhealthy dominant/submissive relationship of some kind seems to me to be fairly high. Even if we’re not talking parent/child, the chance of an unhealthy sibling relationship is still sizable. The inherent risk of a psychologically unhealthy incestuous relationship merits separate legal treatment. ...

I’ve seen a couple of mainstream movies on the Imax screen. It’s fun; it’s not superhigh quality but it’s fun. I haven’t seen any Hollywood flicks remastered for the format, but I hear they’re pretty cool too. I will remedy this failure on my part this year. I have a weakness for movies — good ones, bad ones, I just really like ‘em. Well, not Martin Lawrence movies, but otherwise. When you tell me I can see a high quality Matrix sequel on Imax without waiting months and months? My inner geek comes out. ...

Short-take Wednesday, that’s what today is. Anyhow, I am enough of a geek to be deeply amused by this meditation on redundant stateful load balancing.