Holiday Vacation/End of 2006

I was able to get the week off between Christmas and New Year's Day this year, which is no small feat at my job, since everyone I work with has been at the company a long time and has vacation time to burn. The process of getting vacation time around the holidays is especially competitive. So, I'll make a few comments about the last week or so.

There's a lot more I'd like to have done, as usual. I have some friends I rarely see unless I take vacation time, and didn't see as many of them as I'd like. I didn't accomplish as much around the house as I'd wanted to. On the other hand, I've been absolutely burned out lately due to personal and professional stresses, so it's not altogether surprising that I crashed to the degree that I did, and simply rested much of the week.

I'll be spending far too much time in the near future with my new X-Box games. I'd only had three games before Christmas, including the racing game that came with it. Christmas doubled that total, and I've already spent too much time with the World Poker Tour game. On the other hand, I'm already a much better poker player now than I was a week ago. :-) I also have a DVD conversion kit now for the X-Box, which allows me to watch movies in bed. Very dangerous luxury, especially after I subscribe to Netflix!

I accomplished one goal, in that I finally got back to "A Slice of Blackwoods" and completed the setting summary handout for the players. Now it's just a matter of getting the GURPS Character Assistant running and making the actual character sheets. After that, all that needs to be done is a few refinements and a playtest to smooth off the rough edges, then I'll move on to completing "A Dance of Pairs" for Sorceror.

I've done a lot of spiritual reading toward the end of this year, including a wonderful book on Buddhism. I don't think I'm ready to actually become a Buddhist, but there are a lot of valuable ideas there. Hopefully I can take some of that to work with me and get my working year off to a calmer start than 2006.

My nephew has taken up my old musical instrument, the bass guitar. I'd been missing my old musical activities lately anyway, and digging out some of my old equipment to lend him has cranked up my longing even further. I don't have the time to invest in getting back into a band again, but I'd love to get together with some decent musicians once a month or so to have some fun and scratch the old itch. The problem would be finding people with exactly the same level of commitment, a modicum of actual talent, and reasonable similar musical tastes. I just don't see any way for that to happen, so the itch will probably have to go unscratched. Still, I think I'll get the bass back out more often this upcoming year, which wouldn't be hard since it's only been an annual event for the last several years.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, since they have a way of falling apart even before the end of January. That said, I'd like to do a better job in 2007 of addressing practical matters around the house. I'd like to be calmer at work. I'd like to do more creative writing. All of this boils down to better control of my time, and I believe the key to that is not getting as stressed out at work, since I think that the main reason I'm not more productive at home is that when I have a bad day (which happens all too often), I'm more inclined to indulge myself than to do something productive. 2006 has been a particularly stressful year, even by my usual high stress standards. Here's hoping 2007 is at least a little easier!

Brief Movie Reviews

Been busy with the holidays, which is why I haven't posted lately.

I've had a chance to watch some DVDs recently. I wouldn't bother to write a full blown review unless I come across something particularly special, but it's worth commenting on what I've seen. I plan to subscribe to Netflix early in 2007, and I'm sure I'll overindulge for a while with that new toy once I have it. I'm a story junkie in all forms, and when I'm free of the restriction of paying for individual rentals, I'm bound to take some risks in hope of finding the odd gem.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest - Not bad for a popcorn flick, though not as good as the first one. The filmmakers tried a little too hard to top the first one, with occasionally ridiculous results. It's still worth a rental if you enjoyed the first one.

A Scanner Darkly - This one gets points for style and credit for leaving the source material relatively intact, as far as I know, which is all too rarely the case. It's not a great film, though, and feels more like a character study than anything else. I wouldn't bother renting it unless you're a particular fan of one of the actors involved. Robert Downey, Jr. stands out. Keanu Reeves' popularity continues to mystify me. I liked him in "The Matrix" and "Johnny Mnemonic", but he was supposed to be relatively deadpan in those movies.

The Descent - Big thumbs up for this one! Highly recommended, if you enjoy horror films. The characters are more than cardboard cut-outs, and some of the most frightening scenes are the ones that could happen to anyone who went caving in the real world. There's a subplot with a subtle and satisfying payoff where most films would've hit you over the head with it. I'd seen one of the director's previous movies ("Dog Soldiers") and while it had elements I liked a lot, it was nothing to write home about overall. After this one, I'll be paying closer attention to his work.

Heroes

Wow! I don't watch a lot of network TV, but I've been watching this.

The only problem is the title. Would you call a TV series simply "Lawyers" or "Doctors"? Just a quibble.

And with television networks' tendency to copy anything successful, what do you want to bet that next season we'll see another show about people with special powers in a contemporary setting, except that it won't be this good?

Rough Week

I've been trying to make sure I post something at least once a week, but I've been too busy this past week to come up with much that I felt was worthwhile, so I'll just post a few odd bits that might be of interest.

Between increased obligations at work (which happens every year at this time) and the usual holiday obligations anyone has, it's a wonder I have five minutes to myself right now. I'm not a fan of the holidays, as it always seems to me to be six to eight weeks of people making each other miserable in a (usually failed) attempt to have a single great day. At least the retailers are happy...

The conceptual work on "A Slice of Blackwoods" is essentially done, and all that's left is the process of writing up all of the information for the players and quantifying a few of the NPCs. Some aspects of the player information can be interesting, though. The character sheets themselves are a snore, but the descriptions of what the characters are like and why can be fun to do, and sometimes inspire me to go back to the main story and change things. I also plan to do a one page summary of Yrth background information that people new to the setting would need to understand the situation, which is going to take some time to do properly without telegraphing every plot twist along the way. These are the things I work on at home right now when I have the time to really focus.

When I have some downtime (standing in line at stores, etc.), I'm working on some concepts for "Dance of Pairs", which still needs some serious fleshing out. Sorcerer tends to be about coming up with some interesting characters and a tense situation to set them in, rather than anticipating what the players might choose to do with that situation. If you construct the situation well in the first place, the excitement usually takes care of itself.

I just finished reading "Urban Shaman" by C. E. Murphy. The plot wasn't overwhelmingly exciting or original, but the writer did a nice job of making interesting characters and writing them in such a way that you come to care about what happens to them. I probably wouldn't read it again, but I liked it enough that I'd consider picking up her next book if the description of it is even vaguely interesting. Next up, Thomas Ligotti's "My Work is Not Yet Done", which is corporate workplace horror.

Here's hoping I have something more positive to say next week...