Walking Dead Episode 5

Warning. Below there be spoilers.

Final Fantasy 1: Complete

 Between down time in Delaware and the train up, I've completed reading Redshirts and finished FF1. Tomorrow/later today, I'll be starting up on FF2. This is one I don't even think I started. But first, let's reflect on what we've learned from FF1. Why the delay? NaNoWriMo has done a number on my pushing through Final Fantasy.

First, the game did not age well, even with a graphics update. The dungeons start off incredibly harsh, but by late game, you can trivialize them all with usable equipment. The only resets I was forced to make were in the ice caves in random encounters against multiple dark wizards who spammed Fire 2. The actual figuring things out part was fun, but I wonder if anyone who didn't have the where-with-all to talk to everyone would be able to do it. I finished the game, on Normal, at average party level 31. A bit high, but there were too many encounters that, even with a thief, attempting to flee ended up costing too many resources if we failed.

For when it came out, the game was innovative, fun, and it gave people a chance to dabble in party creation and minor customization. The amount of character customization is going to go up (then ratchet back down later in the series), but for an NES-era game, the initial four-man choice gives it some potential. There was a time when the purist in me would want to suggest people start with FF1 for learning the series; that part of me died when I realized that, while I liked the novel challenge of managing resources and juggling potions and antidote supplies, most players will not.

Oh well, let's see what FF2 brings. Oh? Red Shirts? I approve (even if at some points it is written in present tense.)



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P.S.,

Hopefully everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Now that the festivities are over, if you plan on going out into the wild during Black Friday, have fun. If you can. It just seems unnecessarily hectic and crowded. Two things I do not like.

A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Free Speech

"After the Citizens United decision on free speech and political spending, he found a way 'to save the court's credibility.'"

Here's a question: Why was the court's credibility in any danger? Citizen's United, at the most basic level, says people are free to associate together and spend their personal money as a collective enterprise to engage in Free Speech. Why, exactly, is that bad thing? I'm big on free speech, and if we restrict people's ability to work as a group to attain political speech, then we don't have free speech.

That is the fundamental misunderstanding: That we can restrict political speech because more than one person contributed to it. Private citizens should have the ability to coordinate together and put out political messages. The answer to bad speech is more speech. If you don't like the political movie, don't pay to see it, or kickstart a counter-documentary. In today's connected world, there is no excuse for quashing unpopular political speech just because it is unpopular.

Right, back to not blogging as I head home for Thanksgiving.

Mice and NaNoWriMo

35k, so my goal for today is reached. My personal writing goal has been modified to take into account missing some days while I am in Delaware; if you are shooting for an average words/day rate to hit 50k, by the end of today you should have 28,322 (roughly 1,666*17). Spoilers below, so avoid reading this if you want to be able to read the mouse story when it is done without being spoiled.

I Like Lawful Good Heroes

“You were supposed to stop them,” Uzzah said, almost hissing as he drew nose to nose with Thomas.

“No. I enforce the council’s ruling. You’ll find I have done so. To the letter.”

Birds!; Mice and Mystics; NaNoWriMo

Birds!

I apologize for lack of blogging, especially for the next few weeks. Here is my one-paragraph review of Mice and Mystics. First, the minis, rulebook and physical stuff is pretty awesome looking. The cards and map tiles aren't extremely durable feeling, but they held up to a day of play just fine. The rules are crisp, easy to pick up and relatively intuitive. Having only played through the first two scenarios (and only partially through the third), one thing I thought was odd was not letting everyone have access to all six heroes in the first scenario to pick from. Splitting the party in the second scenario also was awkward feeling because the player who played Lilly had a pretty boring experience until we got there. Overall, I approve. Next time I play, I'll try and take some pictures of the board and give you some more important thoughts. Below the fold is my NaNoWriMo update.

On People Not Being Suckers

If it looks like it is fake, it is probably fake. A lesson someone in Denver is probably learning right now. Painfully so, in fact. On the bright side, if you live in the Denver area, I have a sneaking suspicion a position or two may be opening at this ABC News affiliate.

Journalists: Get it fast, but get it right.

I'm going back to NaNoWriMo, where the mice at least do their due diligence.

Veterans Day, 2012

“At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month! A simple telegram of three lines brought us the great news: ‘At eleven o’clock today in accordance with the terms of the armistice, firing ceased on the American front.’ It meant five words to us ‘The War is Over!’ and ‘Home.’ We knew it was true and for days we knew it was bound to come, but still it didn’t seem real. Could the world really be freed of the curse that has infected it for fifty-two months, could the end really have come to the organized efforts of men to kill, could we look forward to tomorrow without wondering what horror it might hold in store for us and those for whom we cared!”  -- Hermann Moyse, Sr., letter to his fiancee
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"I have today signed a proclamation calling upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 as Veterans Day. It is my earnest hope that all veterans, their organizations, and the entire citizenry will join hands to insure proper and widespread observance of this day. " -- Pres. Eisenhower, on signing the bill that changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day. (Photo here)

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Today is Veterans Day. It was originally Armistice Day, which marked the end of what is now known as World War I, but is now known as Veterans Day. Remember that; it's important.This link has a photo of the post-armistice signing. Here is the official homepage for Veterans Day.

Mice and Mystics

I finally got to open my box of Mice and Mystics. From the rule book and the training video, it looks like a nice cross between Super Dungeon Explore and Warhammer Quest. This is a thing I can get behind. Pictures are below.

Civil War Lecture Series at the Smithsonian

Hey, you know what is happening tomorrow? An amazingly cool sounding lecture in DC. The one I'm talking about is "Astride Two Ages: Technology and the Civil War Symposium." Right now, there is a U-Stream where they're discussing intelligence and the telegraph system in the Civil War and how it was used for command and control by the Union and Confederacy. Did you know that the Confederacy lost loads of experienced telegraph operators, which hindered their capabilities?

Also, the guy giving the speech just said: "The Yankee Juggernaut." PhotoShoppers: Make it happen.

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P.S.,

On Twitter, Lee Stranahan said: I'd like a world where Harry Reid and John Boehner are both co-manging a Denny's in Butte.

I replied: Let's write a Web TV Series. He's an ex-boxer from Nevada; he was raised in a saloon. Together: They Fight Crime.

NaNoWriMo: Day 4 Update

Day 4: 7,400~ words. That puts me slightly ahead of the day to day words-to-day curve to hit 50,000. So far, I'm taking it slow and steady. I'm also keeping in mind that people publish Stephen King, so I don't need to worry too much about quality.

NaNoWriMo: Day 1

Today has been slow on the writing front. Namely, we're about 1,700 words after the first spurt of writing. There's still some more to get done today (namely, my goal is to get to the point where our hero and his trusty companion make it to the giants' lair, so probably another thousand words or so.) One thing I've found is that I actually like this story. I've decided that instead of giants and regular sized people, the story is going to be about mice and human scientists. I'm going to avoid spoilers, but I also like the ending. The mystical artifacts are actually things that have gone missing from the laboratory that the scientist wants back, which he enters into a pact with the mouse: If the mouse finds his missing items and returns them, the scientist will agree to stop his testing on animals and free the ones he has in captivity.

Now, since simply writing such a cheesy story (see what I did there?) was going to be too easy, I've added a layer of challenge. That is this: Since the main of the story is told from the point of view of the mice, who live in a small community in the sewers of any city, U.S.A., with everything above ground simply being The Sky (sort of like Fraggles and Outer Space, I realized after writing these first few pages), they should never call themselves mice. They also really shouldn't take much special notice of their mousey features. Having a tail or whiskers is normal to them. Like I explained to someone, we wouldn't have people say: "My brother, the human, said," so the mice are just mice. They'll not refer to rats as rats; their rather large, wild predators that hunt in packs through the sewers. Birds and stray cats on the surface are sky creatures; people are giants.

I don't know why the mice all have Biblical names (including minor ones), but I do like it. I also like that I've decided our hero mouse is not the most competent of the scouts; the story begins with him being caught trying to sneak out after curfew and being chewed out for his incompetent nightly excursions that have cost the community two of their other scouts. There are some obvious influences that you can see right away on the story (see the reference to Fraggle Rock above), but I also see obvious Red Wall type allusions. Probably Mouse Guard too, if I had read more than the Free Comic Book Day Mouse Guard story. Even though I haven't received my copy of Mice and Mystics, that's probably nestled somewhere in my subconscious and driving the plot and characterization. So, despite initially not being too in love with this topic, I am actually falling in love with the story potential and the characters.

National Novel Writing Month Tip 01: Write. No matter how bad or clunky the words feel: Write. You cannot edit an empty page. I think I should make that a quote for the blog and on my Facebook page, since it is probably the cornerstone of my developing writing philosophy.

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P.S.,

Do you want updates of the Mouse Story as I write it? Contact me, and if there's enough interest, I'll transfer the file to Google docs and post updates with my NaNoWriMo blog updates.