Under a Gibbous Moon

Can you believe it? I don’t even get paid to come up with titles like that.

Excuse me, for a moment, while I wax nostalgic and then get down right Andy Rooneyish.

I got into roleplaying games somewhere around twenty years ago (long enough ago to make my mom worry that I was going all Anton LeVey on her). I was introduced mostly through the auspices of an older cousin. He, unfortunately, lived several hours away and was unable to properly nurture my interest.

In lieu of a proper mentor, I went to the source material itself, only to find that TSR confused their rule books with gold ingots. Strapped for cash, I went to the one place where books can be had for free, the library! Yes, believe it or not, I got my a hold of my first D&D rule book via interlibrary loan.

It was an original, if not pristine, copy of 1st edition (the one with the big idol and the ruby eyes). Within its pages I learned the secret mysteries of D&D (stats, classes, and mystical acronyms). Now I had the knowledge but it rapidly dawned on me that D&D was not a game that could be played by oneself. So I did what any good convert would do, I went out and proselytized.

I found a few willing converts but most soon abandoned the game when they discovered that playing might get them labeled as a geek or nerd. But hope was not yet lost, for I discovered that a person I had known for many years was a closet gamer. He introduced me to his circle of friends and thus began my golden age of D&D.

The path through this golden age was paved with the bodies of hordes of orcs, goblins, and impudent city watchmen. We held marathon gaming sessions that were sometimes forty-eight hours in length. Dice flowed like water in our gamer’s Utopia. But, like all golden ages, it was not to last.

We grew up and moved away, scattered to the four winds. I think that its been eight or nine years since I’ve played a game of D&D (It was a little bit after 3rd edition came out). Living in a different state and working full time I haven’t a clue on where to find a new group (other than knowing that no one I work with plays). I try not to be defeatist but as a friend of mine from back in Illinois told me recently, “I think my gaming days are done.”

This, segues nicely into the Andy Rooney portion of this post.

World of Warcraft. I hate it. It (and its ilk) seem to have largely replaced pen and paper roleplaying with a shallow video game. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy video games, but the fact that people consider MMORPGs to be a good substitute for the real thing is ridiculous.

They are like Diablo with a storyline and it’s creating a generation of munchkins. Creative problem solving has been reduced to who has the biggest sword and who can kill the most boars. Storytelling replaced with a static experience. I’ve played a lot of good video games but none of them have come close to the enjoyment of creating your own story on the fly, both as a player and the DM. And don’t even get me started on gold farming.

I think that many of these people would be better served by sitting down with other people and playing “old school” roleplaying games. The experience is much richer and in the end is far more rewarding, both in entertainment and in friendships made.

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It finally arrived in the mail. Wait, I should probably go back a step.

Everyone who completed their NaNoWriMo novel back in November was given a free print copy by createspace.com (Amazon’s publishing arm). I finally got around to doing the final edit and submitting it to printed. The process was much faster than the 27 March date they gave me, but I’m not complaining.

Anyway, here it is:

The cover, so glossy!

The spine, a full 233 pages thick

Even though its not really “published” it is still neat to be able to physically hold a book that I wrote. It shall have a revered and holy place on my book shelf.

OK, I’m done now.

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Finally, after a long, long, long, long, long time, I have finished the final edit of my 2009 National Novel Writing Month Novel. There is one joy to going back and editing something long after the fact, you realize exactly how much it stinks.

Truly, though, that was the point of the exercise. Well, not so much to write a crappy novel as to just write one at all. I, like many others, get caught up in whether or not the writing or the plot and whatnot is good enough that we never actually getting around to writing anything.

It’s not the worst thing that I’ve ever read but it’ll never be a classic. So here, for your enjoyment, is my novel.

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Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me! Must post, James Rummel’s gonna delete me!

But seriously, without an official notification from the author, one month, otherwise give them six.

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Recently, on Twitter, I responded to Anil Dash’s rather acerbic comment (which her promptly rescinded, no doubt under duress when when Apple’s stormtroopers kicked in his door) on how Apple periodically likes to make their products incompatible with everything else. I commented back about how my Bose Sound Dock will not charge my iPod Touch.

Thirty-four minutes later, I was contacted by Bose Service who stated that they had seen my tweet and wanted to help. I figured what the hell. I figured that they were maybe handing out adapters to fix the problem (either for free or a small charge) but no, after a little back and forth I found this out.

So here I am, stuck with a less functional sound dock with my only option being to spend $99 to “fix” it or just buy a new one. Ya, thanks but no thanks.

I would like to add a note that I don’t just a problem with Bose (though I am severely disappointed with their “in ear head phones” that only stay in when you sit perfectly still”) on this but also with Apple. It takes real disdain to hand out licenses to make third party accessories and then fuck them over like that.

In this case, Apple screws over the accessory maker who then screws over their existing customer base. Like they say, shit rolls down hill.

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