Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Thorin N. Tatge's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, November 5th, 2009
3:46 am	October wrap-up October is clearly the perfect month for Halloween, since I noticed this year that the weather reminded me of it all month long.  It's been a dramatic and exemplary fall from my perspective, with bright, wet, sploppy leaves, temperatures chilly enough to be demanding without being so cold I wish my face were covered, and just  enough rain to keep things interesting.  Now that it's over, National Novel Writing Month has once again begun, but I've been holding off on my novel until making this post.  So far I've written just the minimum 2 words my Fibonacci goal sequence allows.  So that I might free my creative passion, here was my October. The month's first highlight was the Twin Cities Pagan Pride Festival, an event I attended with skylarker , who won a dealer's spot there for winning a contest to create art for their program book.  I gave her a ride, helped her set up and clean up, and watched her tables intermittently, and in exchange she gave me some space for selling copies of my book--as well as the new experience of being behind a vendor's table.  I sold five copies, and I enjoyed the music in the adjoining room, as well as the snippets of panel discussion I managed to attend.  I saw a surprising number of people I know there. :)  It was a delightful experience, as much fun as it was work. I went to two meetings of my writer's group.  At the first, the group critiqued a story I wrote a few years ago and had sent to three magazines.  Some readers found it confusing; others found the structure choppy.  I couldn't disagree.  The story struck me as much weaker than it did when I wrote it, which seems to happen 60% of the time with me.  It probably means I'm getting stronger as a writer, but it's also disheartening, since I can't leave a thing lying around without it degrading on me.  The second meeting, on the 28th, was preparatory for NaNoWriMo.  I enjoyed myself for the first half, chatting with the people near me about their ideas, but for the second half I sat alone in thought, listening to everyone in the distance, and eventually reading Time Magazine.  I guess I was tired.  The next night, after work, I made it to the end of the official Twin Cities NaNoWriMo Kick-off party, which was a blast.  I met and re-met certain key regional figures, filled in the Self-Published or Non-Human Main Character lines on people's find-the-name activities sheets, and sold a copy of last year's book to an admirer, who warmed my heart by saying, having read the rough draft of my '06 novel, that I should publish that one, too.  (After a good deal of revision, my friend.) On October 14th, I made it past the Probationary period at my online job with Tutor.com!  It was exciting to have managed that, but the sad truth is that I'm hardly less nervous about it now.  I did a few shifts for a few days, and then got worked up over my spotty knowledge of Calculus and Statistics and wound up taking a break for two weeks while I studied up.  Thank goodness for flexible scheduling.  I'm now back at it and feeling somewhat more confident about my knowledge, but who knows how long that will last?  I was pleased to find that my Calculus book from college is easy to follow and, in my opinion, quite well designed, despite the fact that it's printed in just four colors, without photographs.  I don't have a Statistics book, though, so I've been relying on the internet, which has been shaky.  I don't know whether the fault lies with the internet or the field of statistics itself. :\ Meanwhile, my tutoring job at the library has been challenging, but not too unpleasant.  I've met a number of new volunteers, all of whom have been great--when they show up.  That's the thing about a volunteer staff: attendance is quite spotty.  Due to program cuts I'm no longer able to run a weekly game for the Teen Center's patrons.  I did get two games in during October outside of Homework Hub time, though--one overdue game of Magnet Maze, since I didn't want to end on the disastrous one that happened during the summer, and one game of Secret Number which I ran on Halloween afternoon.  (The secret number was 1331, and there were five pairs of bisected clues leading to it.  The kids, even working in cooperation, were unable to solve it, but they did find all the hidden clue cards.  I'll know to make the next round easier.) If you recall the entry I made on October 6th regarding the three year anniversary of the demise of Endless Round MUCK, you may be interested to know that the former friend in question actually -did- contact me later in October, although apparently not in connection to the anniversary.  He left several nostalgic messages for me on AIM but left me no way to contact him, which apparently is what he wanted. :{ The middle of the month was host to lovely ConVivial, a relaxacon that I enjoyed more than almost any fallcon I can remember.  On Friday I enjoyed the amazing rendering of the musical automaton fantasia Animusic as well as various other intriguing animated shorts, redrew an author's goblin character for a T-shirt template (I'm kind of into goblins at present!), played the Steve Jackson classic Tile Chess, and watched as other con-goers assembled my mystery jigsaw puzzle, after which we puzzled together over its solution.  On Saturday I went on a nature walk through the Minnesota River Valley, tasted some lovely apples, heard about good books people had read lately, heard some rockin' folk at the Brother Seamus concert, and played a bunch of games.  I'd brought things to do on my own in case I got bored, but I never really did.  Kudos to the organizers! Speaking of games, I've been winning a ridiculous number of games for the last month and a half or so.  I didn't keep a tally during October, but I'd estimate that I played about 30 games and won 27 of them.  That's counting games of all sorts, so long as they're the type with a clear winner or winners.  Including familiar favorites (like Set, Zendo and Star Traders), challenging games (like Princes of Florence and Uptown), games I'd never played before (like Time Pirates, The Stars Are Right, and new favorite Scrappers), one game of Tile Chess I should totally have lost by rights, and even the single game I'd played most often without ever winning (Blue Moon City, now 1-7).  Woohoo!  I don't mean to brag--I'm just saying, this is ridiculous. I've been frustrated by my inability to get my ducks together enough to submit some poems to poetry journals and electronic magazines.  I've got some issues here, apparently, since it shouldn't be that hard.  I really wanted to have some stories or at least poems floating out there in consideration-space when November began, but I don't.  Sad.  Maybe a miracle will happen and I'll manage to revise and submit some during NaNoWriMo.  :( My air purifier died.  The motor went dead, specifically.  Capriciously, on the 27th I took it all apart, screw by screw and chunk by chunk, until I got down to the heavy motor in its core.  Amazingly, once I'd isolated the motor, I was able to get it working again.  But then I screwed up the job of putting it back together, fastening the wheel on backward, and by the time I'd gotten it apart and back on correctly, my finger was cut and the wheel was sticking enough that the motor could no longer turn it.  The thing proved unsalvageable after all, which was really frustrating after I came so close. The month ended with a stellar Halloween.  The MN-Stf party at my house fell on Halloween proper for once, which seemed to boost attendance.  I dressed in my beaded clock vest and black pants, numerous chains of paper clips, a little clock pin, four suction cup balls, and random bits of string, one of which served as a leash for my beanie scorpion, whose name is now Max (after Maxwell Planck).  I told people I was dressed as the first experimentally verifiable result of string theory.  I seem to have a propensity for costumes that are hard to maintain, and indeed, this one grew more and more tangled as the night wore on.  My yellow 'fundamental particle' vanished entirely, and my scorpion became entangled with my attire.  As I did two years ago, I spent some time on the porch roof, singing eerie songs to Trick-or-Treaters and occasionally tossing candies down to them at appropriate moments.  My performance was a bit weaker than in '07, but I got just as much attention from onlookers, including a number of people who snapped my picture.  I also enjoyed meeting kids at the door, bantering with them about their costumes or greeting them with kazoo and drum rather than voice.  The party was a hopping good time, too, nearly lasting until Daylight Saving Time swept us back an hour. And there you have it.  Now it's time for me to go and write 49,998 more words.  Wish my imagination fertile times, will you? :) Current Mood: ambitious (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
3:53 am	Addenda to September wrap-up I forgot to mention three highlights from September.  First, I got to run a new game at the library's Teen Center, which I called LIghtning War.  I brought a bunch of toys for various kinds of competitions, each of which had a basic and an advanced version.  Examples: a game of rolling a marble along some hinged logs, a Rubik's Revolution, a game of racing a marble along an obstacle course.  Other events included Connect Four, Jenga-block stacking, and simple stone tossing.  There were five teams of two kids/teens, and we chose match-ups of two teams randomly.  A simple trivia question gave one team the 'Edge', which let them choose an event and have a slight advantage in it.  Each winning team collected a glass stone.  Once all ten events were played in both modes (although in practice we had to cut it a little short), I ran one last round of my older game Simon's Revenge, using the stones they'd collected as lives.  The winning team got jigsaw puzzles from the collection.  (One of these went to the Youth Coordinator herself, who'd decided to play and who returned it to the collection.)  The game was a a fair bit of work, but good fun, and I'd like to do it again. Second, filking this month was a field trip to the home of a new member, Paul O'Connor.  His hospitality (and upside-down pizza) was delightful, and his house was nice, except that for some reason the living room made for poor acoustics.  I'm glad we got the chance for the variety in locale, though--not that there's anything wrong with our normal location. Third, I paid a visit to cari_rose and crytel before work on the 23rd.  Although we didn't do much, I remember leaving with a satisfied feeling.  They're kind enough to welcome me in anytime they aren't otherwise disposed, which can make an outing for work into a pleasure. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
7:27 pm	September wrap-up The last month of summer felt appropriately transitional for me this year.  September is when the school year begins, which meant the resumption of my job at the library under new circumstances.  It also meant more activity at Tutor.com, where I recently started as a Probationary Tutor.  In essence, last month I was starting two new jobs, the stress of which made it harder than I expected to get anything creative done.  I also did very little marketing of my book, although to be fair there's no rush with that.  The book will still be around whenever people decide they want to buy it. :-} Homework Hub resumed with a shoestring budget.  I didn't get a pay cut per hour, but I'm working fewer hours, as the program is no longer held on Saturdays.  Each library now has only one paid tutor, relying on a staff of volunteers, most of whom come for just two hours each week.  I have the most volunteers to keep track of, since my location is the busiest of the eight.  My job title has changed again, too.  I started three years ago as a Homework Helper, and then became a Homework Hub Tutor when the programs of Minneapolis and Hennepin County libraries merged, and then a Lead Homework Hub Tutor, and now I'm a Lead Homework Hub Mentor.  (During the last two summers I've also been a "Gaming and Tech Lab Coordinator" and a "Puzzlemania Coordinator".)  On the 8th, we held our first lead tutor meeting at the recently remodeled Sumner Library, and in the first three weeks of the program I met a lot of new people.  The program started out understaffed, and now we're pretty much doing all right, although there are still some days when I go through four or five throat drops to keep myself out of pain from all the talking.  It's been necessary to move the younger students from upstairs to downstairs after the first shift due to insufficient staff to maintain two areas, and it's then things sometimes get chaotic.  I'm up to it, though.  Making sure the volunteers are pulling their weight while still being polite and recognizing the gift of their work--that's a little tricky. I'm much more worried about Tutor.com.  I have until the end of the month to escape Probationary status and, as my mother put it, 'level up' to the Tutor 1 designation.  In some ways the job has been fun and easy, but in other ways it's been nervewracking.  In particular, the dilemma I've been facing for weeks is this: Calculus is my weakest of the subjects in which I qualified to tutor, but more than half of my session requests are for Calculus, because they're short on people who can teach it.  I've had some painful problem sessions in the subject, but if I drop it from my list of subjects, I'll probably get significantly fewer sessions.  Statistics is similarly problematic to a slighter extent.  I'm trying to solve the problem by refreshing my knowledge by doing web worksheets, rereading my old Calc textbook, and asking a helping internet friend for clarification when I need it, but it sometimes seems like there's far too much to learn.  My Mentor has advised me to do as much tutoring this coming week as I can, and I hope to, but I'm just so nervous every time I log in.  Each session might be easy or it might be one that embarrasses and frightens and flummoxes me.  I'm not sure what will happen. Enough of that.  Time for an interactive fiction review.  Turns out I'm not the only NaNoWriMo participant who went the non-linear route.  There's one Jeff Kirchoff who created a complex and silly and fairly engrossing online interactive novel that, as a connoisseur of sorts, I spent hours and hours reading ALL of late into the night of the 9th.  It doesn't have a lot of meaning or literary merit, but I did find it worth reading.  Then there's The Lost Sword, from the tragically flawed Paths of Doom series.  I've read all four of the books in that books I was given now, and each one finds new and astounding ways to be decently written but horribly designed.  This one takes the utterly lopsided structure and occasional typo in the page directions that wrecked others in the series, and ups the ante by reusing the same three or four generic and arbitrary unhappy endings something like five or six times each, accessible from all sorts of different branches.  They don't always make sense, depending on where you're coming from, but they aren't the only poorly grafted sections in this book.  Oh!  And we can't forget the illustrations scattered completely at random through the book, without necessarily being anywhere near the appropriate pages of text!  With this kind of crappy work on the market, I hope buyers of my book appreciate the work I put into ensuring continuity and balancing the structure to be aesthetically pleasing. As mentioned in a previous post, I made two trips Uptown, first to get a birthday gift for my mother (nothing more exciting than socks, but I also cleaned the bathroom) and later to mail a package to my erstwhile friend Steven, who turns out to have made a new life for himself with a beloved wife in northern Alberta.  I distributed business-card-sized ads for my book, bought some used CDs for skylarker , got a Cost Cutters haircut, and tried out Milio's subs while I was there.   The next day (while my parents had their birthday dinner) I attended a MN-Stf meeting just for the heck of it and had a good time, for the first time in quite a while.  My dad and I caught the Minnesota Zoo's Africa exhibit on its last day.  (I was more impressed by various more playful critters such as the otters, snow monkeys and prairie dogs.)  Oh, and I not only got to see a binturong (though it was sleepy), but I got the great treat of watching a southern three-banded armadillo in action, which is exactly the species I play on Chimaera MUCK!  It was terrifically cute and clarified my ideas on its appearance and behavior. An internet friend in California made my day when he reported enjoying several of the card games I invented and posted online, as well as my Cosmic Monopoly powers.   Not only did he teach them to his family, but he even suggested that one or two of them might become popular at his school.  WOW!  I was utterly tickled.  In other card game news, I visited my godmother and wound up playing cards with her and a depressed friend, apparently giving them the best time they'd together in weeks.  I paid her another visit a couple weeks later,a nd after we had a bike ride together, I got to meet someone she met on vacation in St. John and who's now staying as a houseguest, a young free-spirit adventurer type, who turned out to be a fun guy.  She also loaned me a rather cool metaphysical mystery movie called The Nines (4.999 out of 6.999 stars). For me, September 2nd is Ayn Rand day--as the date features in Atlas Shrugged, I go back to reread some of her fiction on that day each year.  This year, I kept at it by rereading two of her plays, Think Twice and Ideal.  I finished Amy Tan's Saving Fish from Drowning (a story of cultural misunderstanding in Burma which reminded me uncannily at times of my unfinished 2004 NaNovel) and paged through a spoof cookbook called Critter Cuisine.  I re-watched The Big Lebowski and found it not as good the second time.  Milk was a good movie, though, and Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night turns out to be just like The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, only not nearly as polished. I've been playing a fantasy version of Big Brother in my head, in  which I mixed the cast and challenges from Season 11 with five invented non-human contestants and a bunch of crafty twists.  My favorite character, Reba, was evicted today; how sad.  But this, I think, goes some distance toward explaining why I like reality TV gameshows, which some people are surprised to learn. Summer lingered long and ended all of a sudden, with barely any transitional period at all.  And wow, it almost seems like a dream that there was snow on the ground yesterday.  That ain't right.  I'm looking forward to fall--to having a great Halloween and a sweet NaNoWriMo. The sense of change is good, anyhow, and if it weren't for the inevitable winter waiting, I'd be all for this chilling autumn thing. Current Mood: nervous (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 28th, 2009
8:20 pm	Whoops! Summer went away all of a sudden. A few days ago, it was clearly summer.  Last night, it was clearly fall.  (I waited a day to make sure of it, but yeah, it's fall, all right.)  That's an unusually quick season transition.  Normally I consider there to be a period of ten days or so between seasons where things are in flux.  Not this time. Current Mood: accepting (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 25th, 2009
8:13 pm	There are zero peoples here Why is there nobody at Dream Park tonight for games?  A game party is not a party without guesties. <frown> We've been averaging about ten guests on any given Friday.  And tonight is even a nice night with nothing major, to my knowledge, going on.  There's always a good deal of randomness in who, out of the forty or so attendees who range from semi-regular to sporadic, will show up on any given night, but this is statistically bizarre. Current Mood: puzzled (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
6:30 am	Cards along Lake Street I received my first shipment of commercial business cards Tuesday.  They were printed by 123print.com, and, after taking four weeks to arrive, they were horrible.  The colors, meant to advertise my book, were washed out and there was an unexpected white border around the image.  While this was disappointing, it wasn't hugely so, as I'd known there was a chance of the product being crappy.  I'd therefore ordered only 200, and for future cards I'll be looking into alternatives. I almost just tossed them out, but decided that, realistically, ugly publicity was better than none.  What's the chance of a person finding one of these cards, saying "Hm, looks ugly," and then later finding a better-looking card and thinking "Looks interesting!  Except--I remember those earlier lousy cards, so I'm going to take a pass on this book." <fwee goes the card into the trash>  Probably not gonna happen like that.  So I decided to distribute the cards quickly in clumps and be done with it. About a week ago, an old friend of mine that I thought I'd never hear from again got in touch with me.  He updated me about his life, and I agreed to send back some CDs he'd sent me.  I took advantage of the trip to the Uptown post office to stuff my back pockets full of advertising cards and leave them all over the place after I mailed the package, picking up a sandwich at Milio's on the way.  (The clerk at Milio's had recommended their tuna sandwich, but I found it boring.) The task was well worthwhile, if slightly disappointing in its own right, because it allowed me to realize just how hard it is finding legitimate places to leave cards.  Naturally I wanted to leave them in places where they wouldn't be considered litter; if outdoors, where they wouldn't just blow away with the next gust of wind, and if indoors, where they wouldn't just be tossed out with a routine cleaning.  I found a few places that seemed suitable, and took chances with small stacks in a few less permanent places.  In one case, my spirits were buoyed at a crucial moment when I asked a store clerk whether I could leave my card next to several other cards and fliers in the windowsill, and she said "Sure!" quite kindly. I made my way along Lake Street to Calhoun Square, a sad husk of a mall, and planted the last of the cards I had with me.  (I kept about 40 of them, just in case.)  Calhoun Square, on Hennepin Avenue, has been losing stores for years and years, and as such isn't much use to me anymore (although I did find a birthday present for my mother there only days before).  It lost its Games by James long ago, its Borders books more recently, and now, it seems, even the fossil store and Beeswax are gone--not to mention many places of less interest to me.  In a way, though, more pitiful than the mall's spotty, torn-up state was the sniveliness of the signage.  Standing signs in old metal frames proclaimed what construction they were working on now--repairing the escalators, replacing interior finish, retiling the upper level.  Large collages of faces and quotations about the merits of risk-taking and pushing forward adorned the walls.  Most sorry of all is their slogan: Calhoun Square--We Are So Open!  <sad chortle> Current Mood: amused (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 6th, 2009
11:41 pm	August wrap-up Having newly published a book, August this year was primarily about marketing it!  I've done so in a fair number of places, mostly on the internet.  The most interesting of these was the MS Paint Adventures forum, a webcomic forum filled with creative people ready to join an interactive adventure at the drop of a hat.  I think I'll stay there long enough to participate in at least a couple of games--I've already created a drawing of my hapless spacebound armadillo character in MS Paint--and probably get around to running a game of two.  I may run my own version of ABC's The Mole, or something inspired by Mark Burnett's failed reality game show Treasure Hunters.  It's too bad I don't remember any of the games I used to run for friends in elementary school, which I bundled up into a concept I called Tunebox.  Still, I've got plenty of ideas from over the years I could throw in if I were in that kind of playful Gamemaster position. While others enjoyed the Fringe Festival, I struggled with the embarrassingly difficult task of designing a business card to advertise my book.  I'd already downloaded trial or free versions of a bunch of graphics programs of different kinds for the project of creating a book cover, so I fumbled through using a combination of several of them to create a business card that looks decent, but still isn't perfect.  It took me way more time than it should have, and I don't know whether I could recreate the process, which involved dumb stuff like taking screenshots of an open application and then cropping them. I need a layout program that isn't horrid.  Scribus just might do, but it seems to lack a completed public manual, and the interface for text formatting and colors is (apparently) really awkward.  People have recommended InDesign, so (sigh) I guess I'll probably look into that for my next (shudder) graphic project. Anyway, I eventually compared the choices for ordering business cards.  Some are pricey and some have terrible online reputations.  I eventually settled for trying out 123print.com, which has a bad but not terrible rep, and with which I could start small by ordering just 200 cards.  After an uninformative e-mail notifying me of a credit to my card (?), I just got word today, four weeks after ordering them, that my order has been shipped. I finished my summer program for the library, a weekly Puzzlemania event where I would bring out a couple bins of puzzles and various activities, lay them out, and supplement them with various different games from home.  I've been enjoying delving into the old classics from my father's collection, and the kids and teens have enjoyed them.  For the last day, I brought in a wooden Boobytrap set from the early sixties. Game parties have been going well enough.  I've been doing more RPing through AIM than through MUCKs, given that my campaigns are stalled and the spontaneous one-on-one sessions an instant messaging client makes possible are much easier to start.  (I use different text formatting for each character.)  I may resume use of my old Pokemon character, Serendipity the Lapras, and/or my enigmatic eccentric gentleman hyena character Roho.  I've been playing Eric the lab rat on NIMHmuck, which has worked out decently. Some highlights from August.  On the 10th I walked to the Uptown post office and mailed a package to my Zimbabwean friend with several copies of her book (along with one of mine) to sell where she lives now in Ontario.  I later had a great phone call with her in which she told me about the sexist payscales still on the books there, speculated on her future, and promised to show my book around to her friends.  At her suggestion, I'm planning to run one branch from What Is Best? as a serial on the internet magazine/blog she co-runs. On the 15th I went to the birthday party of cari_rose and alierajean , which was a great treat and I only wish I could have stayed longer.  I spent some time accompanying Carolyn and her new husband, crytel , to buy some things for the party beforehand, which may seem boring but was actually nice.  On a whim I bought a couple of bleu cheese and bacon beef patties, and later enjoyed one on the grill and traded the one for a bratwurst.  The party's outdoor sheltered-from-the-rain vibe was cool, and later we went inside for a spirited game of Werewolf that ended up with a social structure unlike any other I've played.  My group ended up losing, but we came really close! Filking on the 22nd was packed, with a dozen people present.  For the first time we had to break out all of Rich and Greta's table leaves, and we got guest performances from two friendly members of the a capella band Sassafrass.  The pizza was nummy, too.  Next time I definitely have to bring a hotdish of some sort to share, since I keep forgetting. Matt K. showed up for the game party on the 21st, and he was good enough to drive all the way here from Hudson, Wisconsin to accompany me to the State Fair this year.  I had a blast.  His wife, Emily, joined us for the latter pat of the day.  I took creative inspiration from the haunted house and jotted it down in a blank book while we later listened to some jazzy folk rock.  I saw the X-Zone for the first time, with a mixture of kids and twenty-somethings doing bike and board tricks.  The animal houses were great, Emily enjoyed the Fine Arts building, and Matt took it as a personal challenge to drink as many cups of milk as he could for a dollar.  He managed seven; his goal for next year is to make the Kemps people lose money.  We were disappointed by the very short Mardi Gras funhouse.  Most excitingly, I entered the Midway contest where you roll balls into holes to make racehorses advance, and I won!  I'd won that game two years before, in fact, but that was against only my godmother and a handful of kids.  This time I beat a full complement of adults and took home a big fluffy orange frog. Finally, I've started at last with Tutor.com.  The application process took weeks (although it didn't really have to), and then I waited for weeks longer before finding out I just had to resubmit my background check form.  I had my first shift on the 30th.  My very first request was a Calculus challenge problem I couldn't do, which had me scared, but after that I was able to handle all my students.  I haven't had very many so far, though, since I'm taking it slow with Tutor.com until I'm nice and comfortable doing the job.  My computer is ominously slow, which suggests I may need to do some techie thing like defragging in order to minimize lag.  But the flexible hours of this job are a delight.  I just need to make sure I manage to take on enough sessions in the first month and do reasonably well with them to advance beyond the Probationary stage. The school year will begin again soon, and with it the Homework hub program.  Our first meeting is on Tuesday. Current Mood: optimistic (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, August 24th, 2009
8:08 pm	News from the self-publication front! I don't really know whether to call myself a self-publisher now, because as many people define it, real self-publishing involves doing more of the work oneself--buying an ISBN, creating one's own store, and everything.  You don't need to print and bind the books on your own machines, but everything else.  Through CreateSpace, I had to design the interior and cover, and I'm doing all the marketing except for their automatic listing on Amazon.com.  So what I've done is mostly self-publishing, and some people would call it that.  It's not vanity publishing.  It's not quite subsidy publishing.  It's print-on-demand publishing, and I wish there were a better name for it, but if there is, I don't know it. :] Anyway!  I've been advertising my book in internet forums, with a couple interesting results.  I mentioned it on the Dinotopia Official Message Board that I used to post on a few years ago, and met a woman who's been working on her own interactive book.  She calls it a downloadable game book, and compares it to something done in the Star Wars universe.  I'm helping her out with it now.  She seems to be a bit of a novice at game design, but her art and layouts are fantastic, and she's open to feedback and even collaboration.  And Dinotopia is a rather awesome setting. Meanwhile, on one of the MS Paint Adventures fora, I've been actually "running" the book for readers, this being a more acceptable alternative to a straight ad.  I'd post a section and let everyone vote on which way to go next.  I had an average of maybe four people voting at each juncture.  Just a few hours ago, we finished the first run-through, and I asked whether anyone wanted to go back and try a new choice at any point.  The people on that forum are awesome--they just start up random text or picture-based adventures like wild and join each others' stuff at the drop of a hat.  It's hugely creative and smart, too.  I expect I'll hang around the forum and join another game or two, and maybe even run one of my own eventually.  I've wanted to design my own unscripted elimination gameshow ever since I started watching Survivor, and this may be the best avenue. Moreover, one of the MS Paint Adventures people gave me my first Amazon.com sale!  Now I know it's possible.  And THANK YOU to crytel  for writing a customer review!  That's really sweet!  In related news, just today I got my first payment from CreateSpace--for $26.20.  It's a start, and it showed up in my bank account sooner than I expected.  And I just called my friend from Zimbabwe, now living in Canada, and she loves my book and is chatting up all her friends about it.  I'll have to send an ad to the widely read blog she helps run.  And maybe I'll do the interactive serial thing with them like on the forum! Just fifteen copies sold so far (and four complimentary copies given out), but there are a lot of exciting possibilities here.  I just want those business cards I ordered to arrive! Current Mood: excited (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
10:38 pm	I have bookage! I now have copies of my book, What Is Best?, to be sold directly!  If you're interested in getting a copy, buying it from me in person is the better choice.  It means a couple more bucks for me, and it saves you $3.75 in shipping, on top of which I'll be glad to personalize your copy.  On Friday night I drew a couple of critters playing Quirkle for one customer. ~:-) I'm always glad to get e-sales, too, of course: https://www.createspace.com/3386003 Or read about it at my website: http://www.thorintatge.com/WhatIsBest I've only sold nine copies so far.  Which is disappointing, even though I've yet to do most of my marketing.  But I'm taking this primarily as a learning experience, and as such it's definitely been valuable so far. Current Mood: okay (Comment on this)
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
5:08 pm	July wrap-up July began with CONvergence, always an exciting festival of surprises.  This year was the first I was attending without my parents, who were on vacation on the island of St. John.  As such, I was divorced from duties involving the Minicon room, and indeed, I only stopped into that room for a few brief visits.  It was just as well, since I was helping my friend Will run a room party on the 4th floor for the second year running, the SPIRE party.  He had no help but me, which made me feel really awkward, and the drive there and unpacking process were kind of excruciating.  When the party got underway, though, it was fun.  I found myself wishing I were running a party I felt more passionately about, because I found I enjoyed the process of brainstorming activities, playing host, and talking about the project with Will. Aside from SPIRE, the high point of CONvergence for me was the Video Game Smackdown on Thursday night, where judges declared which video game character would win in battles as sundry as the Zulus from Civilization versus the L-shaped piece from Tetris.  That's just the kind of battle that I amuse myself with when preoccupied.  Portal's GlaDOS was a terrific guest judge, and when the battle between Mario and Sonic came up, two judges actually battled it out right there on Super Smash Bros Brawl.  The final battle ended with three votes for Mario, two for Lara Croft, one for Link (not in the finals) and one for William Shatner (definitely not in the finals). Anyway, I enjoyed the con, although I don't remember a whole lot of it.  I went more deeply into some parties than usual.  I enjoyed several movies, including Ed Wood, and several fractional panels.  I noted that it was noticeably busier this year than even last year.  Last year's Friday night felt like a Saturday.  This year, even -Thursday- felt like a Saturday.  The shift to four days seems to have come just in time. I haven't been working this summer, except to go in to the library once a week to run the Puzzlemania program.  That's been going fine--I bring in slightly different board games and toys each week.  This month, though, I did finish the application process for Tutor.com.  After taking tons of tests last month, I finally got scheduled for a mock session to test my online tutoring abilities.  I was totally nervous leading up to it.  I ended up doing well except in one little detail--I didn't answer the 'student's' sample question correctly.  In my defense, it was a Calculus question, probably the hardest subject I'd qualified for, but it wasn't that hard a Calc question--just some implicit differentiation in a story problem--and I was ashamed at having to struggle so hard only to get it wrong.  The mentor working with me said I'd almost gotten it right, though, and had done well working with the student, so I passed to the final exam.  This was an all-or-nothing exam based on the training videos, but much harder than the review questions at the end of the individual videos.  To my relief, I managed to pass, and now I'm waiting for them to conduct a background check which could take anywhere from 3 to 30 days. As I announced the other day, I've finally published my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel.  (If you missed that announcement, you can read about the book at http://www.thorintatge.com/WhatIsBest .)  So far there haven't been many sales, but I've only made limited announcements so far.  I've ordered some copies for myself that I'll start selling in person as soon as they arrive.  I've also been updating my website, continuing to struggle with graphics programs, and looking into various marketing methods.  This whole process, while slow and often frustrating, is teaching me a great deal. I've created a new roleplaying character--Eric the lab rat.  He's a Wistar strain lab rat who's in it not because he's forced to or for the money (of which there isn't any) but for the betterment of civilization.  He believes that rats, being small and short-lived, are destined to be used as experimental subjects for humans, and is proud to live out his role despite the ailments it saddles him with.  I've started to flesh out the character in RPs, one of which has turned out to involve Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers.  It's cool how things flow together like that--which is itself one of the main creeds of my MUCK, Chimaera. On the 12th, I went with my parents to my grandfather's 90th birthday and family summer fun day.  Those always begin awkwardly for me but turn out fun.  There were an ungodly number of water balloons, as well as Norwegian golf and other games and a really delightful small town spread.  Six days later, the MN-Stf picnic also featured Norwegian golf, which I don't recall ever seeing before that week.  At neither event did I feel inclined to socialize, instead enjoying the outdoor environs and the available activities and listening rather than talking. Game parties have gone a notch down for me this month, partially from slightly reduced turnout and partly because so many of the attendees are interested in games I haven't wanted to play.  They're still quite fun, though, and I have been getting games in.  On the last day of the month, I hosted while my father attended the Fringe Festival, and it was nice to have newcomers that one of the regulars knew from an internet forum.  I also played a series of solo Agricola games according to the rules for doing so, and managed to amass an amazing 92 points for my best game. Filking on the 25th was a lot of fun.  I broke out my Portable Sound System for the second time at filking, having finally found a way to convert MIDIs to MP3s (and having done some mixing in wav form along the way), to accompany my own parody of "Big Black Horse and a Cherry Tree".  Some filks don't sound right without the proper instrumentation.  Even more fun, though, was the special music party hosted by David Wilford and Erin McKee on the 27th in honor of touring guests Kathy Mar and Dean Dierschow.  Five of us from the filk circle made a field trip to attend.  It was a little smaller than other such parties, being held on a Monday, but on this occasion I -did- socialize, as well as enjoying a generous supply of food on and off the grill.  After successfully performing "Coca Cola 4ever" at the last party like this, I think my rule is to perform one of my own songs each night when in the company of accomplished musicians, and to content myself with adding percussion the rest of the time.  My filk of "Rainy Day People" was a bit shaky, but overall the music was great, and while Kathy Mar no longer performs the song I requested of her, her songs were fabulous to hear.  Unfortunately the night was cut short by a medical emergency, but it turned out to be quite all right in the end. I went to Uptown to exchange some money I was sent from Canada for U.S. dollars.  I was surprised to find that my bank, TCF, doesn't do that--it seems like such a basic function.  Fortunately, Wells Fargo exchanged my money for only a five dollar fee.  Another reason to potentially switch banks.  While in the area I ate a sandwich at Milio's and bought my first ever watermelon iced treat from an ice cream truck. In July I played the Peggle: World of Warcraft Edition, which thankfully was much smaller than the other Peggle games.  I read some Paths of Doom books I was given for Christmas and was impressed with some of the milieu while being very unimpressed with the structure and certain vital typos.  I was confused (though entertained) by Donnie Darko.  I found Prince Caspian was quite a good, haunting movie given the weak source material.  I later got together with a bunch of folks on NIMHmuck to simultaneously watch our source movie's direct-to-video sequel, Timmy to the Rescue, which was very easy to make fun of. I was angered enough by the fact that hideously dumb sequels are made (and most often marketed for a younger target audience than their originals despite plenty of existing kids' frachises that could be further milked instead) that I daydreamed about pitching a sequel to The Secret of NIMH to some producer.  I concocted gripping stories about enhanced rats and mice in my head while bussing and walking to one of the few mouse-owned entertaiment chains in the world, Chuck E. Cheese, for mplsfish 's son's birthday party.  I hadn't been to a Chuck E. Cheese since my own childhood.  It was a worthwhile experience--in some ways disappointing, in some ways thrilling.  The party was small, but the package was generous--everyone got lots of tokens to use in the ample games, on top of pizza, buffalo wings, and vegetables.  I spent extra money on futher tokens for extended fun.  And the atmosphere was fun.  I played with the kids while they were there and stayed late.  I didn't hit any jackpots, but I found a nifty game involving actual learning and skill, called Pocket Change, in which you roll rubber balls down a table toward slots, trying to score 99 exactly without going over. July is National Junk Food Month and National Ice Cream Month, but apparently National Pizza Month isn't until October.  Still, every July 31st, I long to start a tradition of ordering pizzas, a thing I don't ordinarily do.  This year, I burnt a fancy frozen pizza and followed it up with a nicely cooked cheaper one.  But no delivery for me.  Maybe someday. Current Mood: cheerful (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
2:16 pm	ANNOUNCEMENT: My book is available! At long last, the book I began work on in November is done!  It's a multifaceted philosophical fantasy adventure--and it's interactive, meaning that you get to decide which way the story goes.  You can read about it on my website here, or buy a copy here.  The price is $15.00 plus a very reasonable $3.75 for shipping.  CreateSpace will print a copy and ship it to you when you order it--despite what the order page may say, it's likely to arrive in about a week. What Is Best? was my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel, and represents something I've wanted to write for a long time.  There's more information about it at the website link above, and I'll be updating the page, adding goodies as time goes on.  The front cover hasn't shown up on the CreateSpace store page yet; it should appear within a few days.  For now, then, I'll show you what the cover looks like: I've ordered ten copies to begin with to sell in person, and I'll post again when they arrive.  If I were to get some online sales showing up before then, though, it would be awesome.  I don't think you'll regret adding this book to your collection--I worked hard on it, and chances are it's unlike anything you've got. I'm all excited!! Current Mood: excited (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
6:19 am	A few things on my plate. I'm not really working this summer, but I'm not exactly idle, either...and now a bunch of stuff has come at once. I went to a writer's group meeting last night, only to find that I'd gotten the date wrong, and it was yesterday instead.  Just as well, since I wasn't particularly looking forward to admitting I didn't have the ad material for my upcoming book done yet.  I left my comments for a writer sharing her story at the coffeehouse, thinking the meeting might be today, but as it wasn't, those are wasted.  I'll probably e-mail her. My focus is elsewhere.  Tonight at 10 p.m. I have my first ever online job interview.  It's a Mock Session with Tutor.com, followed by discussion.  I just tried out the virtual environment, which was just upgraded, and it's pretty cool.  I'm nervous about this primarily because I took the tests for -all- the subjects, passing most of them, but only with the help of the internet.  I'll be getting a question from a staffer posing as a student, and I don't know which subject it'll be in.  I'm cramming to feel prepared, but I may not be.  It's like an exam where there's only one question, but it can be on almost anything...and it's open-book, but strictly timed.  :O The final proof for my book came yesterday, and it looks good!  That means it's finally time to set up my e-store and make this thing available to the public.  Expect to see an announcement soon.  The problem?  Aside from the fact that, as I mentioned, I don't have the advertising material done (though I've been learning Photoshop and Scribus), I don't have a web page set up for it either.  Which brings me to the next problem... I signed up for a year's hosting with iPower.com, a company with mixed reviews, and as soon as I did so, sure enough, they made their first mistake and hooked my domain to the wrong page.  This did not surprise my mother, who recommended them in the first place.  Now I need to work that out. And I also just (finally) got my contract for the little Puzzlemania summer program I've been running at the library.  I have to take care of the associated paperwork. Probably no surprise I'm feeling a bit nervous. Current Mood: nervous (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
7:26 am	June wrap-up CONvergence is still fresh in my mind, and I'll have something to say about it eventually.  For now, though, it's time to reach back before it into the month I consider my favorite of the year--June.  The program I work for is adjourned for the summer, which left me nervously looking for work at the beginning of the month (and before), struggling with things I hate doing, like calling strangers and trying to find elusive information on websites about work opportunities and dealing with technical difficulties.  Eventually, it was too late to join any summer programs and I gave up on it.  I may, however, be doing online tutoring for tutor.com.  I took tests in -all- their subjects in early June, passing most of them, although I had a lot of help from the internet.  I applied, but then they announced a site redesign and put all new hiring on hold, and I've just now gotten an e-mail telling me to schedule a mock session.  I'm nervous about it for various reasons, but it may go well, as I like explaining things and I like chatting online, so you'd think it would work well for me until my program resumes in autumn.  (And it will, although just barely.  I'll be the only paid tutor left at my location, working with volunteers, instead.  I was worried that -none- of the funding would come through.) Taking those tests was interesting and educational, at the least.  In particular, I finally learned some basics in statistics, a branch of math I never studied in any depth before.  I also now have an online friend who's quite good at math (and economics) and also enjoys tutoring, so he's been teaching me some concepts now and then.  He's awesome. So, the book.  I totally wanted to have it out by now.  I wanted to have the e-store open and promotional materials printed to bring to CONvergence.  Did not happen.  Who would ever have expected that print-on-demand publishing, just a step removed from self-publishing, would involve delays or unexpected problems?  Impossible.  It's a fluke.  But anyway, right now I'm waiting for another (hopefully final) proof of the book to be shipped to me, and for several days I've been putting off putting into practice one of the tutorials I've found on isolating Photoshop images.  That comes after I finish this post.  I gotta make me some bookmarks. This month I went to the doctor for the first time in over ten years.  Yeah.  It was...uneventful, really.  Although I went to the wrong site at first and had to deal with a scary parking ramp and stuff.  Um.  I wasn't aggressive in asking questions because I wanted to just test the waters and get an idea of what basic medical coverage could do for me.  I was totally uncertain what to expect, and I'm still fairly uncertain, but the gist is that I feel like I'm on my own unless one of my medical issues becomes a serious problem and not just a minor inconvenience.  And at the end of the year, chances are I'll no longer be eligible for MinnesotaCare and have to content myself with paying for some sort of catastrophic coverage.  I have things I can try doing.  Really, the reason I took so long to see a doctor was that the whole medical establishment really scares me. I've been going in to the library on Thursdays to run Puzzlemania.  I get out a couple bins of jigsaws and tangrams and things, I bring some special games from home, and I get the kids who show up involved.  It was a one hour thing from two summers ago that's now two and a half hours.  Although I don't have a contract yet, I'm told I'll be paid twenty dollars for each session, which isn't much but it's something.  Puzzlemania is enjoyable, although a bit dull compared to how it used to be, with visiting groups dropping in. Now that I'm no longer working Tuesday nights, I'm able to go to writer's group meetings again.  They moved the night at the end of the NaNoWriMo year (early December) from Monday to Tuesday, but I didn't really mind not going to meetings, because I'm not all that into the group and I was working on a book that wouldn't have benefited that much fro their kind of critique, rather than the short stories I was doing before that.  (I did revise one of those stories this month, though I know I'll have to again.)  But now I've been back to the group twice and it's okay.  They have a couple new members, and it's a decent time with decent people who have a kind of lifestyle connection that allows them to talk knowingly about how being (mostly) unpublished writers is.  I feel like I'm a bit on the outside, and I don't really like the semi-structured way the meetings go, with their critique slots and presentations on themes, but eh--they amuse.  And I get a nice walk downtown, and sometimes walk all the way home, which means I must be getting some energy/inspiration from the whole shebang. I terminated my domain registration account with a company that I just signed up with on a lark something like a year and a half ago to see what happened.  What happened was the company turned out to be horribly evil and incompetent.  One of those dealies where it's almost impossible to close your account, which in my opinion is offense enough on its own to justify shutting a business down completely.  I'd thought the worst case scaenario was that I'd throw away four bucks on a service not worth it, but actually, they later sent an e-mail saying that unless I specifically responded to the e-mail in a certain way, they'd go ahead and upgrade my account to some premium package for a charge of $50.  This, is my opinion, is enough to justify jailing the people in charge of the company for ten years.  I said no, and wasn't charged.  Still, my fear of talking to strangers on the phone (not unrelated to my fear of doctors, I daresay) kept me from calling up numbers and demanding to cancel the account, which the internet told me was hard to do even then.  (The internet also told me that the company is technically incompetent, too.)  I did end up charged fifteen dollars for a premature renewal I didn't ask for, but I decided not to try and get that back.  I eventually got around to dealing with it this month, and was able to cancel the account by speaking with live chat operators.  At least, I think it's canceled.  I got multiple messages saying it was canceled, but my login still works and one page still says I'm up for renewal, which I was told is a 'glitch'.  We'll see.  I was going to leave the company's name out for some reason, but why bother?  It's Globat.com, a.k.a. DomainsAreFree.  I should have checked their reputation ahead of time. I went to the wedding of cari_rose  and crytel .  It was nice.  I kept busy and everyone seemed happy.  I thought I was going to witness the union, but they got members of the wedding party to do that, so I got other duties instead.  The weather was lovely and the turn-out respectable.  And I played my first ever game of frisbee golf. I went to davidwilford and Erin McKee's anniversary party/MN-Stf meeting, which also observed Erin's birthday.  It was great, even though I got into a funk for no good reason partway through.  It wore off.  I played croquet and lawn bowling, and did some filking, and drummed for the musicians who played later on.  I was proud of being brave enough to take a turn in the music circle, singing an extended parody of Christina Aguilera's Coca Cola jingle. Game parties have continued to be delightful.  I got to play two games I'd wanted to try for a while, Amazonas and Formula De.  Blokus-3D is also nifty.  And I played a series of solo games of Agricola, the elaborate farming game.  I failed on my first try with the simple deck, but I won my second series with the complex deck very handily.  I also played a jiggity freeware game called Polychromatic Funk Monkey, and the sequel to a favorite flash game, Hedgehog Launch.  And I've been roleplaying on MUCKs and on AIM, which is satisfying, even if the campaigns I care most about are lagging endlessly. I trimmed the hedge (not as hellish as it sometimes is, though I made an ugly mistake), gave my father the latest Peter Beagle book for Father's Day, was amused by a robin tugging at length on the rope attached to the ladder outside my window, dug up a bunch of unwanted little trees, paid estimated taxes, helped a Somali immigrant train for her citizenship test, ran a game of Magnet Maze that didn't end well, and installed a window blind for the first time.  And I missed a bunch more things I could have done. Oh.  And I walked to Southdale, the world's first heated indoor shopping mall, something I'd wanted to do for a while.  The walk was about six miles, but it was hard because I went in the morning after being up all night working on my book's back cover.  I bought black pants and stuff from the dollar stores, and was hugely sleepy all over the place.  I put my head on the table in a Taco Bell and elsewhere.  A Sbarro combo meal was horrible, but a Starbucks white chocolate mocha and petite vanilla bean scone were excellent.  And I got a massage from an electric massage chair.  Mmm...in the state I was in, that really hit the spot. Current Mood: anxious (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
4:01 am	May wrap-up May, in general my second favorite month of the year, was marked by the end of my Homework Hub program for the academic year.  The program is facing cuts, but barring catastrophe I will still have a job with it in the fall.  In the meantime, I've been looking for summer work.  I've applied with Tutor.com to be an online tutor, after taking -all- the subject exams (many of which were quite educational).  I'm planning to apply to the Princeton Review to teach SAT prep, and I've been looking into other education-related opportunities, like substitute teaching.  I'll be continuing to go to the library on Tuesdays to run my weekly game and provide homework help to whoever's there, and I'm told there's a chance I may be paid a little to come in and help run Puzzlemania sessions once they start up. Looking for work is frightening and frustrating.  More exciting for me by far (although at times hardly less frustrating) is the fact that I've finally finished the novel I began in November, What Is Best?  I'm going to do a little looking for a potential publisher, but given that the book is highly unorthodox in numerous ways and is also lengthier than the standard offering from a first-time author, I'm probably going to be self-publishing it through Lulu, CreateSpace, or another print-on-demand service.  I'm currently waiting for proof copies from those companies, and I'll be soliciting a little more feedback from friends regarding the challenge system in particular.  Once the book is available to the public, I'll post all about it here. The Homework Hub year ended well enough.  The head librarian provided cupcakes and cookies in a little party for us on the last day, while a coworker bought sambusas, a Somali meat pastry, and the staff passed around oversized cards that our regular students signed in gratitude to us for all our help.  In addition, I went to a potluck luncheon for people associated with the Franklin Learning Center, a service that overlaps Homework Hub.  It was nice--the food was delicious and there was a mix of sixty-somethings and twenty-somethings talking about travel and politics. On a related note, earlier in the month I attended an 'Open Mic' night for Learning Center students.  The attendees were pretty much all adult English Language Learners from East Africa and the volunteers who help them.  They hesitantly but proudly read the essays they'd gotten into the learning center newsletter (or a broader one), and I provided a change of pace by reciting my lengthy rhymed poem "The Selfish Salmon", which the Learning Center staff loved.  (One of them said it reminded him of Poe and gave me an article to read about his life.) The game parties have been quite fun.  A lot of cheerful people are coming semi-regularly, and even bringing their friends.  The social atmosphere is great--the only downside is that they tend not to be into hardcore games--such as Agricola, the olden times farming Euro game my father was recently given, and which I quite enjoy.  It was especially nice to have an unexpected visit from Matt and Emily on the 29th. Now that the weather's nice, I'm back to my pastime of taking long walks.  I walked to the library in LInden Hills one day and read a book about ferrets.  And on another occasion, I went a formidable distance just to use a Dunn Bros Coffee gift card I was given by the Learning Center staff.  But the topper was when I walked all the way from my home on South 40th Street to Bloomington's Moir Park, on 104th Street.  This is the park where my friends cari_rose  and crytel will be married on the 20th.  In addition to a couple of digressions en route (such as stopping at a lakeside gazebo to write back-cover copy for my book), I wandered in the forest surrounding the park beside Nine Mile Creek, climbed a little on the rocks, and had trouble actually finding the park proper before dark.  Just as I was about to give up, I came across the pavillion, and so I rested there and listened to a father playing with his children on the swings.  On my way out, I got lost again and had to race against the darkening sky to find my way out of the forest before it became black.  I made it with maybe half an hour to spare, and followed 106th St., Lyndale, and 98th St. until I reached a bus stop and caught an 18 home.  In all, I calculated that I'd walked 19 miles that day, which makes it a solid fourth place for me. I also rode my bike to work on Ride Your Bike to Work Day. I got to visit with the aforementioned happy couple on the 2nd, and then went to keep them company while babysitting on the 9th.  Both evenings made for relaxing chats. Also in May...The May Day festival was a little gloomy for me this year.  The lowlight for me was a disappointing interaction with one of the specialists in the tents, and I spent a certain amount of time alone in contemplation.  Some days later, I encountered a hapless baby squirrel on the sidewalk and helped it up to a yard where it was able to find seeds.  It was an utterly cute experience.  In other news, the KFC value menu turns out to be disappointing.  The last game of Magnet Maze I ran at the library was also disappointing, with enough unruly kids that I couldn't keep under control that several of the better behaved players quit.  I hope tomorrow's game will be smooth.  Not long ago, I caught stomach flu, vomiting and suffering for a day and a half.  Slumdog Millionaire was only okay.  I enjoyed the tail end of Kelly and Matt Strait's baby shower.  The finale of Survivor Tocantins was 'eh'.  I finally finished a book my mother gave me years ago, one of a collection she picked out at a yard sale while my old bike was being stolen.  The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge is the first of several books from a Peruvian-American author who, in his naive yet intrepid younger days, studied under a Mesoamerican 'man of knowledge', or mystic.  (Looking it up now, I see there's some controversy over whether the books are actually true.)  I read it only while eating in Jimmy John's, and found it interesting, not least because it will enrich my roleplaying sessions with my magic-mushroom-using raccoon character. Current Mood: nervous (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
3:12 am	April wrap-up The highlight of April was Minicon, at which I not only ran the 4th Annual Minicon Medallion Hunt, but published the con newsletter.  It was mostly devoted to the hunt (which was originally started in order to provide material for the newsletter), but each of the four issues included at least half a page of other content.  Most of it was given to me through a submissions box; there was no investigation to speak of.  I enjoyed doing the editing, though, and it impressed me how perfectly each issue came out at exactly the right length.  I'll probably do it again next year.  I also have plenty of ideas for next year's Medallion Hunt, and I liked the way the con went overall. I went to the Minicon Devonian Ductina party, which allowed me to get the solution to a devious puzzle the designers of the pocket program hid therein, as well as to celebrate my father's birthday in a place where people would sing for him and to hear people's excited thoughts following the convention. I observed April Fool's Day by buying milk and orange juice and then swapping them into each others' containers, which my father enjoyed but my mother may not have noticed. Game parties have been fun lately, with a lot of cheery attendees.  Barac Wiley gave my father a renowned (and expensive) farming game called Agricola, which was great fun--and amazingly, Barac and I both like it.  I haven't been playing many games, though, preferring to take the role of co-host or to retreat to my computer.  I seem to be most productive when there are other things I could (or will soon) be doing; it's an understandable irony. I've continued work on my interactive novel.  On the 27th, for example, I spent all day renumbering and then rearranging the 251 sections, which is something most readers won't even appreciate, but numbers are important to me and I wanted to make sure each section was given exactly the right number.  I have a giant chart of all the branches and a smaller chart showing showing how each family of branches connects to the others to prevent any loops.  And then there's futzing over margin size and page number font and so on.  Pretty much all that remains is to give all the sections one last revision, and then I'll (most likely) make it available through CreateSpace.  I've been surprised by how many people are showing interest and say they'll want a copy--even a Somali-born student of mine. In the meantime, April saw the deadline for making use of the offer CreateSpace made all 2007 NaNoWriMo winners for a free proof copy, so I took a break from my '08 novel to reformat and section my '07 novel.  The book looks pretty good, but as I haven't revised it since November '07, it'll be a while before I create a copy I'll be ready to let anyone read. Due to the fact that they haven't grown in yet, I was able to trim the hedges in a few hours on one day, a chore that normally takes several horrible sessions. I finally finished the His Dark Materials trilogy, after taking my long, sweet time with it.  I thought it was fabulous, but the ending left a lot to be desired.  I've been tangling with concepts in physics and mathematics that I never studied, and reading a book about play therapy.  I also discovered a new webcomic that interested me, called Out There, and read the archive.  Aside from Bruno, I think it's the only webcomic I've ever read and enjoyed with no fantastic elements whatsoever. And that's all I feel like saying about April. Current Mood: blank (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 6th, 2009
1:26 am	March wrap-up March, March, March.  Welcome, spring!  I didn't start this month with much scheduled, but a fair bit popped up.  I began the month by finishing the novelty mystery book Dracula's Heir, with its lovely inserts and letters and such.  I compared my solution with that of my father, and we managed to figure most of it out before reading the solution. This month I watched Citizen Kane (four out of seven wands), Across the Universe (five stars), Sleepy Hollow (five swords) and Get Shorty (five swords), the latter two of which I'd seen before. Work has been good, with volunteers of various sorts picking up the slack left by a departed coworker.  I was able to run my game Magnet Maze three more times, with very mixed results.  I'm picking up on what kinds of things are a good idea to include in a game for a large group of kids. For Pi Day, a geek holiday celebrated on 3/14 in honor of the famous transcendental number, friends Matt and Kelly Strait announced that they were hosting a party.  It occurred to me that while I had never given a serious attempt to memorizing more than the first few digits of pi, nonetheless that's just the kind of thing I would do, and so I proceeded to memorize 300 digits.  I did it by associating each group of ten with a character from the casual Popcap game Peggle Nights, a contestant from the first season of Survivor, or a character I roleplay online.  If I were to continue memorizing pi, I would use contestants from the rest of the seasons of Survivor, thus making use of this nearly useless knowledge.  As for how each character matched up with ten digits, that's a matter of endless associations I have with numbers.  Each numeral has its own color in my mind (more or less), and I thought of the sequences in terms of evens, odds, squares, multiples of three, rising parts, falling parts, and symbolic groups like 26 as the number of instruction, 502 as the Egyptian number, 535 as the horn of the unicorn, and 73 as the number of Minneapolis fandom. The party itself was pleasant enough, with many delightful pies (including a very nice homemade mixed berry pie from skylarker) and merry games.  I recited my list of digts dramatically to an appreciative audience, although I misplaced the page I'd brought for verification. Speaking of Peggle Nights, I found myself a slave to that game, trying to beat the whole thing in Adventure Mode with no retries.  On the 19th I finally managed that feat, to my great jubilation and relief.  I've hardly played it since. On the 21st the MN-Stf voting meeting was held at my house, though I had to work through the first part of it.  It was nice, giving me a chance to talk with a number of people I'd wanted to talk to, to win at Uptown, and to get thoroughly beat up at Search for the Emperor's Treasure. The next day, I visited the Sheraton Bloomington to scout locations for this year's Minicon Medallion Hunt.  I'll be running it for the fourth time, which means hiding shiny marked pennies and coming up with clues for seekers.  This year I'll also be editing and printing the con newsletter, since my mother, who's been doing it the past few years, is running programming instead.  It's only going to be a relatively small portion of the bulletin for the medallion hunt, though.  I have most of the locations and clues decided at this point, but have yet to design the hardest ones. On the 23rd, I finished the second draft of the epic interactive novel I've been working on since November.  What remains is a long list mostly consisting of cool things I want to work in, formatting issues, and consistency issues.  I plan to finish it this month. I also read a couple of small interactive novels for kids from publishers I hadn't seen before.  These were Christmas gifts.  I found them both to be remarkably poorly structured, with numerous unnecessary bottlenecks and precipitous dead ends and mistakes (in one case an incorrect page number given in the winning line, making one book half-unwinnable) and basically all kinds of poor design decisions.  They gave me perspective and basically made me feel better about my own book by comparison. On the 27th, I had the rare opportunity to meet a friend I'd hitherto only known on the internet, who'd come all the way from Mexico City to stay with our mutual friend Amanda.  The game party boasted a huge turnout and a great deal of fun, and our honored guest, while initially nervous, enjoyed himself quite a bit.  Seems he's one of those people who's quieter in real life than he is online, though that may have been due to the context.  While driving him back, he read me the words to a song I'd written for a MUCK we both played on a couple years back, so I could then sing it to the best of my memory, which was good for laughs. Also during March, I discovered that you can make banana pudding in the same way as pumpkin pudding, using bananas instead of pumpkin.  Best, though, is if you use some of each. I finished the month by filing my taxes, which was for various reasons messier than in past years, but it worked out all right. And that's the end of the first quarter! Current Mood: good (Comment on this)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
11:37 pm	February wrap-up Guess what?  I did a whole lot of fun things this February!! On the 3rd, I saw The Dark Knight. It was the first Batman movie I've ever watched in its entirely without falling asleep partway through. In fact, I was standing in front of the TV for most of it, tense and wondering how it could possibly not be over yet.  And while I understand it's significantly different than other Batman movies, I now feel that I finally understand what Batman is about.  He's about a particular, gut-wrenching species of awesome. That said, I don't think Batman's awesome is for me. I doubt I'll check out any of his past or further adventures. But I'm glad I saw it; it's really a powerful movie. The next night, I went to see Line 45 'converse in verse' at Nina's Coffee Cafe in St. Paul. My friend Emily and my coworker Ann are both members of the four-women poetry collective. As it happened, I was able to get rides to and from the venue with other library staff members, thus getting to know them better. Afterward, one of those random coffeehouse things happened to me, and I ended up playing Go on the intersections of a chessboard with a random theater woman in her late fifties from Massachusetts.  She told me about being part of a 48-hour play project.  I gave her my e-mail, but never heard back. That Friday and Sunday, I attended the annual gaming convention Con of the North. I found it good fun as always.  The highlight was playing the much-touted new resource management game about running a 17th-century farm: Agricola.  Not only did I enjoy it, I kicked butt at it.  (My key to success was building a large family early.)  I also enjoyed learning Rithmomachia, an eleventh century game of numbers moving around a board that was reputedly played by monks and intellectual elite who looked down on those who played chess.  (For the greatest victory, simultaneously create arithmetic, geometric and harmonic sequences on your oppont's side of the board!)  Moving slightly outside my comfort zone, I learned simple miniatures games called Gladiator Wars and the perennial Aliens: Hunt for the Queen (played on a 3-D board that spans several tables.)  I even happened to roll the killing shot to take out the alien queen!  I had the opportunity to play two new games by a local designer: a card game about casting spells based on the classical elements, and an abstract game about placing colored shapes strategically on a board.  I played Spy vs. Spy on the Commodore 64 (wow!) and looked on as they played an old Nintendo favorite of mine, Archon, on the same system.  I also got to play Torres, a fairly modern board game I enjoy.  No roleplaying this year, but I had a very good time. I didn't mind not being there on Saturday.  That day was taken up by attending my grandmother's ninetieth birthday party.  It was a hotel affair at which several of her childrens' families were staying overnight, but we only went for an afternoon.  My grandmother wowed her progeny by posing in a glossy little black and red dress she apparently bought at a dollar store.  I enjoyed playing pool with my cousin, Jill. Speaking of pools (and games), on Valentine's Day I went swimming for the first time in several years at the MN-Stf Pool Party.  (Call it my late observance of A Year Closer To Balance Day.)   I had a great time in the pool and out of it.  The swim was spiritually exciting for some reason, and left me writing philoso-poetry in my blank book afterwards.  I also enjoyed the sheets of fill-in-the-blank puzzles with things like "13 C[ards] in a S[uit]", the Wizard game, the boisterous game of Quirkle, chatting about game design with kids who know me as the creator of the Minicon Medallion Hunt, and an excellent spread. I enjoyed two visits to my friends Carolyn and Tom in February, who are good people to relax with.  They're planning their wedding for this June, which I'll definitely be looking forward to. Tutoring has been a little harder following the departure of a coworker at the end of January.  We're gradually getting more help, though.  I ran a new game called Secret Number for the youngsters in the Teen Center, which made use of my experience creating trails of interlaced clues on hidden pieces of paper.  It got too crazy, though, and they had too much trouble following the instructions, so I'm going to stick with Magnet Maze. I read the last book Douglas Adams never finished, published in The Salmon of Doubt.  I've also been reading a fascinating historical work called The Jesus Dynasty, slowly approaching the end of The Amber Spyglass, enjoying one of the interactive novels I was given for Christmas while not so much enjoying another, and puzzling over a sequel to Dracula in mystery form (Dracula's Heir), with extra little bits like materials in envelopes and the private journal of Renfield. And of course, I continued to work on What Is Best? the huge interactive novel I've been writing since November. I paid a visit to my friend Amanda in her new Brooklyn Park apartment on the 20th.  We and her brothers went out to a Thai restaurant and an Asian grocery store, watched Baseketball and an episode of MST3K, and did drawing exercises from Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain.  Plus, I got the chance to play Spore!!  What unfettered fun! Filking on the last day of the month was also a very nice time.  Laramie gave me her slat drum, which I used to enjoy puttering with and now get to enjoy again.  We had ten people there, which made it, I believe, our largest group since the original host, Lady Lavender, moved away about a decade ago. I made some yummy sandwiches this month.  I also discovered that Aldi is not only very cheap but also not as unappealing to shop at as I'd thought.  I watched Psycho for the first time.  And finally, I joined Facebook at last, which is where you're reading this if not on LiveJournal.  I'll be posting my monthly wrap-ups in both locations from now on. Best February ever! Current Mood: excited (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
7:37 pm	The end of The West Wing I watched the very last DVD of The West Wing yesterday, which is a bittersweet thing.  And then I went right to bed, and found myself dreaming of the show's milieu all night.  I don't remember any specific characters from the show being in it except for Matthew Santos, who was prominent, but I know it was chock full of characters from the outgoing Bartlet administration saying endless goodbyes and pursuing new opportunities and fitting into nifty new shots for the future, and it just kept going on, and on.  Like my mind wasn't satisfied with the actual last few episodes and wanted even more closure.  It actually kind of reminds me of other dreams I've had featuring endless transcendence, which in turn make me think of the end of The Last Battle, the final Narnia book, in which the characters run on and on forever, from one version of existence to another more vibrant and colorful and real, in perpetuity. Adding to the Narnia impression is the fact that I do remember two boys and two girls wandering about the White House and possibly other D.C. locations.  They were some combination of children of presidents in the West Wing universe, touring the place together and discovering wondrous things like swimming pools.  After waking up and falling asleep again, I then dreamed of a board game with a loose Lord of the Rings theme but which consisted only of marbles rolling around on a varnished two-level board, moving up and down through tunnels, and hitting each other.  The object was to land one in the middle (or the One Ring's area).  But the brilliant men playing and marketing it (still in the West Wing universe) were able to make shots so intricate that the marbles would swoop around and hit others at exact angles which would in turn swoop around and keep going with astonishing precision for minutes at a time before finally going a little bit wide.  (One of them eventually turned into Santos, and the other into me, I think.)  I feel like their technical acumen corresponded to the remarkable political acumen demonstrated by the experienced characters on the show. Current Mood: reflective Current Music: None (Comment on this)
Friday, February 13th, 2009
2:04 am	January wrap-up I haven't yet written a summary post for January, which is embarrassing. Better now than never, though.  Part of the problem is that I don't remember everything notable that happened during the month.  I haven't been updating my diary much, and only a few things are on my calendar. Oh well, anyway, my birthday was the second day of the month, and as it happened, the small game party turned into a little celebration for me.  There were still a number of presents left to distribute from Christmas to and from various guests.  We all got to show them off.  And I got a bunch of games as gifts myself, so we had to try out a couple of them (Amuse Amaze and Sixteen).  It was cozy and friendly. I went out the next night with my godmother Barb to Vilification Tennis, a show at the Bryant Lake Bowl (and imported from the Renaissance Festival, I gather) in which contestants insulted each other back and forth for teh_lulz.  It featured the ebullient mplspunky . I didn't do much writing all month.  I did hammer together the rest of my interactive book's challenge system, which included some amusing time mulling over things like, 'What is the logical consequence of a star crossed with a buzzard?'  I formatted the book and wrote rules for it, and sent copies to some of my friends, and found that the rules are too hard to follow and will have to be revised.  Oh well.  Since the end of January, I've resumed fleshing out the branches that need it. I also entered a 24-hour short story contest put on by WritersWeekly.com.  I was sent a topic and word length at noon on Saturday the 24th, and had until noon Sunday to finish.  I was expecting to write a 5000-word story, but the length limit was a surprisingly trim 950 words.  The big challenge, then, was being very concise but still entertaining.  I'm happy with my entry; I'll find out whether I placed in the top three out of up to 500 entrants in a week or two. I worked through a book of tricky maze-like puzzles by Robert Abbott, Mad Mazes, that I was sent as a Christmas present. :)  I eventually solved them all.  They took a surprising variety of different methods to solve. I ran my game Magnet Maze twice more, and it went more smoothly this time than before.  The kids were more cooperative and the process was more fun.  Rounds 3 & 4 were called Neptune's Run (fish magnets swimming back and forth) and The Junk Heap (deadly brass tacks encroaching from above like Space Invaders). Unfortunately, it's not clear whether I'll be able to keep running it.  At the end of the month, my coworker Nancy B. resigned suddenly.  She said that she would no longer qualify for health care so long as she worked at the library as well as getting paid as a personal care assistant for her ailing mother.  So she had to quit.  So sad :-(  She said she would try to return as a volunteer, but she hasn't yet.  WIthout her help, and with the Homework Hub system short on money, we're struggling to find volunteers to help, which means I may not be able to leave the Learning Center where the tutoring goes on for long enough to run my games on Thursdays.  We'll see what happens. On a related note, I attended an Advisory Board meeting concerning what to do about the program's shortfall.  It was pretty sad.  The first half of the meeting was all about all the cool things we could do if we had more money to expand, and the successes at a location that's probably going to get cut.  The second half was about how none of that is possible and how we can save money by cutting weeks or hours or locations from the program.  Stop faleing, economy. I watched Obama's inauguration as it happened, which was a nice way to spend a noontime.  I especially liked the classical piece, Air on Simple Gifts. Another old friend from Lion King MUCKing got back in touch with me that evening.  I hope she joins Chimaera, though I've only seen her once since then.  I spent hours telling her and another MUCKing friend about the whole Endless Round saga. The long-running internet Diplomacy game I was in finally came to an end.  I had at one point had the most units on the board, but immediately got betrayed by eveyone and knocked down very quickly to just two units.  Oddly, the position was such that my two units were unassailable, so they survived until the end of the game.  It ended as a draw between Germany, Italy, Turkey and myself (Austria), although I thought there was plenty of play left to be had between Germany (who had numerical superiority and the possibility of advancing in the western seas) and Italy (who had the potential to take Turkey out with careful play).  I sent out one last letter in character, but I don't think t went through since the game was over.  I've saved all my correspondence from the game, including the results sent out by the computerized judge, so I could, I don't know, put it on the web at some point or something. :) Matt K., who played Germany in that game, is now going to grad school in Wisconsin while his wife teaches at the university, but he made the time for a visit to the Twin Cities between semesters in mid-January.  It was great fun spending a weekend with him.  We visited the Como conservatory, and played various games, and he read a draft of my novel, and we used coupons from Cub to have an 'Italian evening', and so forth.  His wife Emily stopped by for a couple hours and gave me a fake book for hiding secrets in, and I gave her and Matt a copy of Dark Crystal and a couple of humorous Victorian era spoof books from Wondermark.com.  (I read them first; they're fascinating!) And that's January 2009. Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
Monday, January 19th, 2009
4:04 pm	Five happies make up a post? Here are some happy things! 1: I just spent a couple days with my good friend Matt, who was in town between terms in his quest to become a high school psychologist.  (He goes to grad school in Wisconsin.)  While he was here, we went to the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, made spaghetti and cheese bread, and tested out games I got for Christmas and my birthday, as well as graph paper Battleship.  He perused my novel in progress (and tested the challenge system), played a bunch of Crayon Physics Deluxe, and hooked up his Game Cube and relaxed with John Madden football.  His wife Emily was in town on Saturday and stopped in for a while, too, and we exchanged presents.  Matt is always a lot of fun.  He also got to visit other friends while in town. 2. Moreover, Emily hinted that her poetry collective, Line 45, will be doing another reading soon, at a time and place I can attend.  And therefore, I intend to!  The group is twice as relevant for me now because, as it happens, I know another of the members from work, and she's nifty too. 3. I've been informed that a librarian at Northeast Library is creating a youth center or program there and is interested in using Simon's Revenge, the game I invented and ran for several months in the Franklin Teen Center.  Whee!!  There's a special magic for a game designer when people actually play your games without you having to be there urging them to do so.  I know because I felt it one evening in college when I saw two housemates start playing a card game I'd invented and taught them without my having anything to do with it.  (That was the only time, sadly.)  So, I've written her an e-mail about Simon's Revenge and hope to hear from her soon. 4. One thing that always gnaws at my heart is the Battle for Wesnoth campaign I left unfinished years ago.  (The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based fantasy combat game developed by the open source community.)  I recently recieved an e-mail from someone who remembered the old campaign and was in the process of updating the files.  He even said he was thinking about finishing the campaign!  I'm really excited at the idea.  Even if the ending isn't as cool or personally satisfying as it would have been had I designed it myself, it'll be a huge weight lifted if A Gryphon's Tale can finally be completed.  And the developer seems genuinely interested in where I was taking it, so, maybe, in the best case scenario, I'll still get to write the campaign's ending while he does the programming nitty-gritty.  Not that I would expect that of him, but it surely would be awesome. 5. I've entered a 24-hour short story contest run by WritersWeekly.com.  At noon this Saturday, I'll be sent a topic, and will have until noon Sunday to write a story about it up to 5000 words long.  For the $5 entry fee, I have a chance at $200-$300.  Aside from the fact that it's a bit of a longshot, I have a good feeling about the upcoming experience. Current Mood: happy Current Music: http://www.myspace.com/borealnetwork (1 Comment |Comment on this)