True Porn Clerk Stories has ended. If you never read this, it’s worth reading. There’s nothing spectacular there; it’s just a literate intelligent writer working at a video store that does a lot of porn business, talking about her experiences. “Just,” in this case, encompasses a lot of good writing and some quietly sad stories and some really funny stories. I admire her willingness to talk about taboo issues head-on without resorting to the easy outs of mockery or condemnation.

I want to open a movie theater. That’s not a new thing; I’ve fantasized about it for a while. Not a first run theater, or even a first run art house; I want to open up a quirky little theater that shows second run movies of quality (whether that means Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys or Matrix) and retrospectives of directors and actors I like and so on. There’s no evidence this would make money, mind you. ...

I don’t really read the RPGnet forums, cause they are big and bulky and populated by flamers. (Not unlike the blogosphere.) Fortunately, people occasionally point me at the good threads. Here’s one entitled Campaigns I Have Never Run (but want to) (original), which is now up to 11 pages of weird little campaign ideas. I could just use this, and never have to come up with an original campaign idea for the rest of my life. That’s not saying much, mind you, given the rate at which I GM.

The UN weapons inspectors found their first irregularity today; a bunch of equipment tagged by previous inspectors has gone missing. This is important for a few reasons. First off, it’s evidence that wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the efforts of previous inspection teams. This counters the claim that previous UN inspectors were useless or worse than useless. Second, it’s evidence that the current UN inspection teams are capable of noticing something wrong and that they aren’t tipping the Iraqis off before the inspections. These guys aren’t a rubber stamp for Saddam. Third, and probably most important, it’s evidence that Saddam is up to something. Having positive evidence one way or another — which we don’t yet, but it’s a step in that direction — beats the hell out of maybes. I’m still anti-war but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the situation to be crystal clear no matter which way the US goes.

I’m still waiting for the ideal pulp game. I’m sure Robin Laws or someone will write it eventually. In the meantime, here’s a cool d20 pulp page.

Ha, there’s the first sale. I’d been thinking for a while that the real importance of Warren Buffett’s investment in Level3 was that they’d have a war chest for buying other telecoms. Genuity just announced that Level3 was buying its assets. This isn’t any kind of a surprise, but keep betting on Level3 to come out of the telecom crunch in good shape.

Unnoticed in the furor over other issues: Bush is pushing for a ban on computer generated child pornography. In April, the Supreme Court struck down such a ban. I’m no fan of child pornography or its consumers, but free speech is free speech. I found the claim that one in four children between the ages of 10 to 17 is exposed to pornography every year to be really funny, by the by. Newsflash: teenagers find porn on purpose. Always have, always will. It’s not an Internet thing, Mr. President.

I spent some time roleplaying with my nephew Sparky the last time he visited and again this weekend. He’s 12; it was an interesting experience. I gave octaNe (original) a try, on the principle that the mechanics wouldn’t be too complicated and it’d be good for him to get his feet wet with some storytelling techniques. However, I think I was wrong — he was pretty clearly looking for more structure while we were playing, although he certainly had fun. I’d been hoping that his experience with spy flicks (we were doing a James Bondian scenario) would be enough but it wasn’t really. Also, 12 year olds are not good at saying “Hm, I could do anything I want but I will restrict myself for the sake of the story.” Next time I’ll try D20 Modern or Feng Shui. ...

The NY Times ran a great article today about economic disparities between China and India. The gist of it: China and India’s economies were on a par 20 years ago, but China is pulling way ahead. The available resources are more or less similar. The Times implies that it’s largely due to China’s unfettered capitalism experiments, which is no doubt a big part of it; on the other hand, blaming India’s copious local regulations without examining the consequences of China’s lack of regulation is a bit shaky. They do touch on the cheap labor available in China, but they don’t ask why American companies aren’t as eager to develop the Indian markets. Maybe they’re seen as already developed, not sure. ...

Albeit I’m not much of an action figure guy, these Stikfas things are pretty darned cool. They’re basically stripped down articulated action figures, that come unassembled. You snap ‘em together and if such is your wont, you customize ‘em (original). My fearless prediction: these are going to sell like hotcakes, particularly because they’ll tap into that need for customization I’ve talked about before. Reskinning your action figures? Sure, that’s cool.