2008: A fantastic year

Most years of this decade, I've come to a grim December and thought, "Man, that was a hard year. Hope the next one's got something better."

2008 broke my streak. 2008 has been a fantastic year. A lot of it is thanks to Meredith, who helps ground me by listening and taking me seriously. Highlights:

• Worked at the same place all year, at a job I basically like, without a long under-employed break -- an extra bump considering how lousy the year was for everyone's business.
• Started a hobby from scratch, and made some walking around money in the process.
• Restarted writing RPG material, and it was fun instead of nerve-wracking.
• Depression came, but did not stay this year.
• I'm energized rather than intimidated by the need to learn and stretch.

It is a fine time to be Jeff Quick. Thanks for reading, y'all.

Grognardia: Implicit Christianity in D&D

James Maliszewski writes Grognardia, a blog of ruminations on old school D&D in our new school times. The audience for this blog is focused like a laser, and those who find it interesting find it riveting.

I don't have that much love for original D&D. I never played it. I don't even like AD&D much. It's sprawling and occasionally contradictory, and the famed Gygaxian prose is nothing I've ever found quaintly endearing. There is something exhilarating about the spirit of the thing though, in the game's pulp origins and its seminal pastiche. Modern RPGs echo that spirit, but have meandered far from it.

This is what James attempts to articulate, in a smarter, more engaging, and kinder attempt than anyone else I've seen. Even if you disagree, it's clear that James is trying to communicate something, rather than rant.

Here's a fantastic recent entry on the implicit Christianity of early D&D, demonstrating yet again that anyone who thinks D&D interferes with Jesus is just not paying attention:

...I am now more firmly convinced than ever that early gaming, far from being "pagan," was in fact shot through with Christian belief, practice, and lore. It was always a kind of "fairytale Christianity" broadly consonant with American generic Protestantism rather than anything more muscular,...

As James alludes, early D&D -- really, any version of D&D -- has no interest in presenting Christ accurately. But the basic Christian-esque assumptions of early D&D are embarrassingly plain. How could anyone with a genuine interest in Jesus dwell on the lurid demon pictures and miss the Christian imagery? This is not a rhetorical question.

Note, that the Christ himself is not represented. He's too hi-res to appear accurately in the 9-bit morality of D&D. But he is there, as every other good and true idea the game addresses. And of course he's present among the players, where the real action is.

Where's a free market when you need one?

My credit card company recently informed me that they were raising the APR on my card to 30%, and raising a bunch of other nuisance fees, and if I didn't like it, I could kindly close my account.

This wasn't a surprise; I'd heard about this on Marketplace a day or two earlier. Also, I pay off my balance in full every month, so changes in "pay up bitch" charges are background noise to me most of the time.

I'm noticing this now because this is quite clearly evil. I don't mean like people who don't use their turn signals are evil. I mean soul-blackening evil. Like lotteries, these are tools that unrepentantly greedy people use to pull money out of those with poor judgment. For people who are already deeply in debt, the best thing to do is deepen that hole for them, right?

Under most circumstances, my solution would be the nuclear option: No credit cards. Problem solved. However, while I wouldn't call credit cards in American society necessary, they are handy. They let you do things, especially online, that you couldn't get done other ways. So this needs a more tactical solution.

This morning in the shower (where the water is more innovative) I decided that we need a credit card company that isn't in business to gouge. I'm not saying you lose money. I'm just saying, somebody needs to start a credit card that isn't wildly usurous.

From a cursory examination, there's no one out there in credit cards competing on price. Right now, if I had a credit card that only charged, say, 9% interest, people would flock to use it. They would transfer balances to my dinky 9% credit card. I would still make truckloads of money, and I might not even fall that far behind the big boys.

This isn't just capitaltruism, this is smart business, catering to an unserved share of the market.

President Bush in his briar patch

President Bush neatly dodged a couple of shoes at a press function yesterday (video link).

You can see in the video that Bushie is smiling as he lame ducks the first shoe. Though meant as an insult, that exchange was probably the most fun Bush had on the trip. I suspect only 8 years of President Finishing School prevented the man from hunkering behind the podium and lobbing his own kicks back.

Wardrobe malefactors, I will give you good odds -- you do not want Bush to step down as badly as Bush does. Being president is a real drag when you just want to goof off and take long naps every day.

Advent 2008

Advent for us is more involved this year than last year, when the observance sputtered and died just out of the driveway.

This year, M and I are getting up a little earlier in the morning to read and contemplate scripture for the Advent season. No lightning bolts this year either, but I'm glad we're doing it.

This year, Circle is focusing more on Christ coming to the city (Philadelphia if you're local), rather than coming to Earth or humanity or you in particular.

The picture is from a Flickr set. Our friend, Ben, took pictures of lil' Mary and Joseph in various photogenic locales around the city. (Note that "photogenic" does not necessarily equal "pretty".)

In our small group this week, we talked about how celebrating Advent, especially for a bunch of American Protestants, isn't in our traditional bag of tricks. Some of us are wrestling with making it feel/seem meaningful.

Especially after last year's experience, the best comment I have about the whole thing so far -- God is not your monkey. He wants to give you good things, and he cares very much, but he doesn't flip when you clap. Sometimes you show up and you pray and ask and cry and flail, and God does not seem to do anything.

That doesn't mean he's not doing anything -- which can be frustrating and suspicious. Those feelings, they are also part of the waiting.

I suspect we'll be plenty happy when Jesus does come back. Even if you're not a Christ follower, when the living embodiment of mercy and just plain give-a-damn shows up and says, "Okay, that's a wrap, everybody!", that's going to be a good day. Until then, it's not time yet. I don't know why. I wish I did. Oh God, I wish I did. I want to know why more than I want to know when.

Instead, I get to wait with everybody else. There's no musical number at the end of Advent telling you it's winding up. We might blow right on through Christmas and New Year's and next Arbor Day, and still not get a sense of doneness. Advent is the time we make a point to remember that we're waiting, not a signal to stop waiting.

A message from the Big Three

Hahahahahahahaha!

Not that I'm bitter.

Courtesy of The Beast.

New phone, same as the old phone

Almost a month ago, my phone went on walkabout. Haven't seen it since, haven't missed it much. If you've tried to call me lately and didn't get an answer, that's why.

I missed it enough that I got another one though. Same make & model, a RAZR. Because it was free. This also means I probably don't have your number handy any more, so it might take me a while to call you.

Today at lunch, curious about the time, I realized that the clock was the thing I missed most. I almost wanted a watch,* despite the fact that every piece of electronics in my life already contains one.


*Does anyone still need a watch? People mention the burden of carrying an mp3 player and a phone, and a PDA, but no one ever mentions that all three of those items contain clocks, and yet they still strap watches to their wrists every morning. What's up with those people?

BlogaDay 2008 wrapup

My second (what appears to be) annual BlogaDay sprint is over with a resounding "eh." I skipped a day just like last year, which is sort of interesting. But otherwise, I hit my marks, delivered original content when I had it, and commentary when I didn't.

The Look
Readership was up this year by a 6.5% smidge (click for bigger)...


...but commentership was way, way down: 8 this year vs. 19 last year.

The Feel
This year was not nearly as much of a what-the-hell-will-I-do-today? thrilllride. (3 Ls for extra thrilll.) Flexible dating in blogger combined with greater mental preparedness led to a more predictable, stately proceeding.

I'm still trying to decide whether I've got a problem with that. On one hand, it's good. Competence, confidence, preparation -- these are all good, and it should be no surprise or disappointment that a second (third, if you count May's abortive attempt) run through goes more smoothly than the first.

But on the other hand, where's the wahoo in a well-ordered proceeding? There's still discovery in the process, but it's all so much more... staid. I'm trying to wriggle out of self-restraints here, and that didn't happen to my satisfaction.

I also don't have the momentum I had after last year. Then, if I hadn't chosen to stop, I would have stayed in the groove. I might have BlogaDayed throughout the year! Today, I'm a little glad it's over, so I don't have to keep up with it for a while.

The Conclusion
Hell if I know. Thanks for reading, though!

November Linkdump

Here's the roundup of things I ran across this month, but didn't come up with a real post for:

Flying car drives to Africa
Here's a guy just doing a thing and making it happen. I mean, he's got a team. He's not a solo operation. But it's a great example of doing something small, but amazing... something like I'd like to do. I don't want to do big amazing things. I want to do small amazing things.

(Relatively) Simple explanations
Procon is a Web site that presents the two major sides of an current controversial issue, in a theoretically unbiased manner. If you've ever felt confused about some large public policy issue, look here to help clarify your own opinions on a topic.

The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations
Sometimes dumb, sometimes sublime. Occasionally worth a look.

Road map
A map of the contiguous United States consisting only of roads.

Dean Kamen is pretty great

I find Dean Kamen more and more impressive all the time. It seems like he's on the verge of another big breakthrough to public awareness.

You've heard his name before in association with the hilarious, doomed Segway. But other things he is heavily associated with include:

• FIRST -- a robotics competition for high school kids
• IBOT -- a wheelchair that walks up stairs and allows disabled people to "stand" at eye level
• an electric car that's got as good a chance as anybody's to be the next big thing
• Heavy-duty water purifiers and generators that run on anything that you can haul into Nowherezistan on an oxcart

Only catastrophe will prevent this guy from creating things that change the world. He's basically already done it, and I'm not talking about two-wheel dorkmobiles.

Here's his wikipedia entry.
Read a recent U.K. Telegraph article about him.
Here's DEKA, his inventors-for-hire company.