Dundracon Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the start of Dundracon, a four day gaming convention held over President's Day weekend in San Ramon. I think, though I may be off by a year or two, that this will be my thirteenth attendance.

Every local convention has its own sense of identity. Conquest in September is more of a wargaming convention. Kublacon in May is a rising star with industry attendees and slick (or rather, slicker) production values. Dundracon, by contrast, is like an old shoe. Worn down by use, but still comfortable and functional.

Primarily a role-playing occasion, it can be hard to find a good wargame or CCG tournament at Dundracon. Although I think this, combined with its somewhat hostile and adversarial staff, inhibits its growth, to me it is a convenient liability. Because I do so little role-playing at the other conventions, I really look forward to Dundracon as an opportunity to indulge.

I am set to run two games this weekend. My first, The Innocent Must Suffer, is an In Nomine game centered around a group of angels hunting down one of their own. The second game is called Malcontents. It is a Serenity game that will use the characters from the Firefly TV show.

I hope to have a good time this weekend, which I usually do. Notes to follow upon my return.

Pointless Factoid XXIII

Companies like Xerox and Kleenex make a point of distinguishing their brand name (Xerox) from their product (photocopiers) for fear of losing their trademark. In fact, many common words like elevator and escalator were once proprietary brand names.

Happy New Year

I think Chinese New Year is some time in the next week. I don't know what number the year is, but I think it's like five-thousand and something. In any case, happy new year.

Vermin Count: +1

Yes, I confess it so, I am now an attorney. I pray those of you who know me shall continue to despise me for other, more deserving inadequacies than my choosen profession.

Personal Factoid XXII

A subtitle was a common element of Elizabethan theatre titling conventions. Even so, only one of Shakespeare's plays, Twelfth Night has one (that being, "Or what you will").

Pointless Factoid XXI

Disinterested actually means "neutral" or "divested of interest", as opposed to "unconcerned". Though it is likely that the weight of misuse in time will render error with a certain legitmacy.

It ain't over 'till it's over

Escaping the deer baron

There's this town in California called Boulder Creek. It's a small place, located in the Santa Cruz mountains. Apparently, there's no sewage on the left side of the street.

Somehow I don't think I'll be back there any time soon.

Pointless Factoid XX

THAC0 is an abbreviation of the term To-Hit Armor Class Zero (0). It was once a crucial statistical shorthand for any melee based D&D character.

Slacking

I try and make it a point to read one non-fiction and one fiction book a month. That isn't exactly a break-neck pace, yet lately it has been unattainable. I shudder to think that I could ever lose my love of books, but it's hard to deny the evidence.

Damn internet.

No accounting for taste

This is sort of old news, but as I am not exactly what one would call a diligent blogger, it's taken me a while to post. On September 30th Scary Cow had its screening. For those of you who don't know about Scary Cow, it's essentially an independent film co-operative. Members pay a monthly fee, join into teams and produce short movies. At then end of a three-month period, the movies are shown and members vote on their favorites. The winning films are then awarded a budget to make a future movie.

Although SC is by no means perfect, it is an excellent way to get out there and gain some hands-on film making experience. Most of the members are amateur hobbyists like myself. Some are professionals looking to do side projects, and a few more are aspirants hoping to use this as a launchpad to fame and fortune (good luck). I've been a member since the beginning, and though there have been three rounds, this was the first time I produced my own film submission.

My movie, which can be seen here (or watching the thing above) was one of the award winners. How exactly that came about I cannot say; some form of mass psychosis most likely. To the extent we merit any praise at all, it is due pretty much entirely to my cast and crew, who proved more gracious and paitent than I really had any right to expect.

Did I do that?

While I was trying to install the language packs on my computer, so I could see foriegn language characters instead of those annoying boxes, something odd happened. Now everything on blogger is displayed in Japanese. I have to go by memory to figure out which buttons to push in order to post.

Most confusing.

Pointless Factoid XIX

The record for most turnovers in any division 1 college football game is twenty, set in 1969.

That would have been pretty fun to watch, I think.

On Location

This photo was taken outside Swensen's ice cream at the corner of Hyde and Union in San Francisco. Everything there was really good, and I certainly recommend it to anyone who will be in the city.

We were there filming a scene for my current project, a series of shots stuck together as a date montage. On the whole I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but the scene we filmed at Swensen's is actually my favorite one in the whole movie.

Although there are some people who aren't willing to brave the hassle, the majority of people we have approached about using their business as a location have been really cool.

The Long Wait

Done.

Now begins the long wait.

Nothing more to say about it until November.

Showtime!

The bar exam starts in a couple of hours. Hopefully I can get through the three days of testing without incident.

See you on the other side.

Linguistic Delusions

Sometimes when I stare long enough at text in German I think I can make it out. This is pretty silly, as aside from a few terms gleamed from too many hours of the History Channel, I know next to nothing about it.

But football in the groin had a football in the groin

I am a big fan of the Simpsons, particularly their earlier (i.e., pre-10) seasons. So it is with apprehension that I must conclude, on the basis of the trailers I have seen so far, that the movie might suck.

Of course, nothing in any of the scenes have any real overt cause for concern. If not spectacular, the trailers have offered at least the promise of genuine amusement (and I personally like the Spiderpig stuff). But then again, that's the problem.

It has become almost a truism in American cinema that the trailers represent, if not perhaps the best, at least the most alluring parts of an upcoming film. It is a theatrical offering meant to entice, for the thirty seconds they have your attention, so that you will have no choice but to see the rest of the movie. And unfortunately, none of the scenes so far have inspired me to such unreasoning devotion.

Naturally I intend to see the movie, and I do not want to go in there with a negative mindset. However, it would be fair to say that at this point I am concerned.

A lot of homeless fleas

A few months ago my cat Tiamat died. I wasn't blogging at the time, so I didn't get around to writing a post about it. I guess now that I'm sort of back, I should take the time to gloat.

For fifteen years this cat and I had been locked in an interminable struggle. She was mean, violent, and completely unpredictable. Among her many weapons were sharp claws, vicious teeth, and an inexhaustible supply of allergy-inducing fur. These she deployed without regard for humanitarian concerns or the laws of land warfare.

Secure, as I now am, in my ultimate victory I can admit that Tiamat was a worthy adversary. I hope she is getting to fulfill all her aggressive tendencies in kitty hell.

Study shows man self-absorbed, mercurial, and filled with useless trivia

Having recently updated my blog template, I took the opportunity to use the new post labels (new may be relative, they are new to me, at any rate). It appears I mostly write about myself, a fact that should come as no surprise to anybody.

My second favorite topic is "miscellaneous", which in addition to being hard to spell, is just another expression of my characteristic laziness. I didn't want to make 30 different topics with one post, so I just threw them in the same category. Then later when I noticed that I could actually have made a few genuine, substantive labels, sloth prevented the necessary corrections.

Finally, my "monthly" Pointless Factoids come in third. At eighteen I only actually have one for roughly every other month, but even had I been more dilligent, the entire category would only have come in second.

My least favorite topics? Religion, writing, and women. Not quite sure what that says about me.