[WISH 34: Non-Standard Characters](http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230238/http://web.archive.org/web/20060924230238/http://www.whiterose.org/pam/archives/002924.html (original) “Perverse Access Memory: WISH 34: Non-Standard Characters”) (original): Do you prefer to build a character with a unique concept, or do you prefer a simple or more standard concept to start with? I’m pretty prone to the unique concept. I like characters with an odd angle, or with weird hooks. The most “normal” character I’ve played in the last couple of years has been a half-orc barbarian, and even he was a trifle strange. He was on a quest to prove that half-orcs were a people, just like elves or dwarves or gnomes. Despite his unattractiveness, he might have wound up founding a church or something. I’m not the kind of guy who delights in bringing out the unique aspects of the standard character types, although I respect that tendency. ...

It’s almost like a bandwagon. Tony Blair said today that Blix will report to the Security Council again, on February 28th. Getting kinda chilly out there by yourself, Bush.

This is the hidden gotcha in Bush’s plan to provide fifteen billion for fighting AIDS in Africa. None of that money can go to groups that perform or promote abortions. Like, say, Planned Parenthood (original). This restriction affects some of the groups which have been working to fight STDs the longest. Meanwhile, there are lawsuits pending in Iowa against InnerChange, an organization that received funds from Texas under Bush’s earlier faith-based initiatives. In fact, Bush has cited InnerChange as the kind of faith-based program he wants to fund as President. This isn’t necessarily proof that Bush intends to break down the wall between church and state, but even if he’s aghast at this sort of thing, it does tend to show that his faith-based initatives have failed to include proper controls in the past. Kevin Drum has the whole story.

Well, crap. US Airways lost my reservation. No Dundracon for me. Damn it. I’m really pissed off but I don’t feel like ranting.

Well, I’m of three or four minds about this. OK, so Mike Meyers has struck a deal to do what he’s calling “film sampling.” I.e., he’s gonna insert himself or other actors into old movies. Remixes. See also Kung Pow. I want to see what Meyers does with this concept, cause I think he’s comedic gold, even after the last two Austin Powers flicks. But I hate the way the Variety story calls films “properties.” But I think that this sort of remixing will demonstrate the value of having more creative works in the public domain, since it’ll show what people can do given the right to edit. Except that Meyers isn’t gonna be working with public domain movies. And how the hell does this jibe with the whole ClearPlay issue? Are they really saying “It’s OK to screw with the director’s original vision as long as you own the rights to the movie.”? ...

Japan has threatened to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea. This is pretty much right on the edge of violating the World War II surrender terms. Possibly those are obsolete and should be reconsidered anyhow, but I’d like to see that done under less frantic circumstances. Man, I’m glad I don’t live in Northeast Asia right now. Edit: Thanks to my anonymous commentor for correcting my geography.

You know, I think next Valentine’s Day I’m going to Paris (original). That’s just cool.

Nothing funner than slamming in a Movable Type upgrade (original) first thing in the morning before I take off to sunny California. Looks immensely cool, though. Let me know if you see any problems. It’s worth installing, though, for a myriad of reasons readers won’t notice. Better text formatting HTML allowed in comments (hm, OK, that’ll be noticable) Creative Commons license support (gotta turn that on) The above was egregious, but also tested the text formatting. As usual, let me know if anything breaks. ...

I was looking for a way to permit random people to submit entries to Movable Type, and there’s not really any way to do it out of the box, so I wrote this CGI. It is not entirely polished; in particular, it ought to use a config file and of course the HTML is gonna need to be changed. It also ought to display a success page. However, I realized last night that I was going to wind up modifying it substantially to meet my specific needs and that it wouldn’t be so generally useful post-modification, so here you go. Note that unless you add NoPublishMeansDraft 1 to your mt.cfg file, submissions will be not be posted as drafts. More details on that here. Edit: Mmm. Yeah. Sorry about that; I stuck the CGI off in the extended entry bit.

Gotta remember to do Game WISH (original) next week, if I have time, which I might not, since I’ll be at Dundracon and other West Coast points all weekend and my weeks are innnnnnnnsane!