2010 Convention Plans

I'm again looking at a lean convention schedule for 2010, with only DexCon as a sure thing. I'll post here if that should change. My repeat offerings will be "Lives in the Balance" for GURPS Cabal and "Tiger by the Tail" for GURPS Banestorm. The definite new scenario is "Room Service" for Paranoia, which is finally coming together.

I'd like to offer at least one other new scenario, but time is getting away from me, and inspiration seemingly in short supply. The most likely possibility is something for In Nomine. I'm not going to throw something together just for the sake of offering something new; I'd rather simply do less GMing than usual and pay to get into the convention than do that.

I've been saying for some time now that I need to reprioritize my spare time, and that's going to be even more important now that I'm going to have less of it for the foreseeable future. My tentative plan is to put writing into the same rotation as playing music to see if that helps.

Hope Everybody Had a Happy Christmas

My Christmas isn't over yet, strictly speaking, as I still have a visit with one of my sisters to go, but the seasonal flurry of activity is substantially over. Overall, things were more low key than usual for various reasons, primarily due to time needed for my father-in-law.

Work was far less busy than prior years, thanks to some changes made by company management. It would have been a very tough season for me if that hadn't happened.

My wife and I had a wonderful Christmas visit with Dr. Aether and his charming wife-to-be. If I'm ever going to be able to talk my wife into a long trip to visit anyone, it will be to see the two of them.

Now I'm looking forward to finding a new balance going into the new year. I'll still have to spend a lot of father-in-law time for the foreseeable future, but will have fewer other issues competing for my attention.

RPG Projects - Let It Snow!

We're getting some serious snow here, and the plan is to stay at home for the day. We could go out if we needed to, but why risk it if it isn't necessary? It'll be a nice change from recent events, actually. My wife has a sizable project for work that requires computer use, so I'll have to find other things to do most of the day.

Taking inventory, I found that I actually have quite a lot I'd like to do, but since I've really been slacking on RPG writing, I'll spend at least a little time working on the "Room Service" scenario for Paranoia. I've done some work on this one in the last week or so, and the theme does hang together, though it rather overshadows my original intentions. That's fine as long as it works as a whole, and I think it will.

If I still have time and the inclination, I may also work on the local Cabal campaign that I haven't started yet, but other priorities will likely delay the start of that campaign anyway, so it's less of an immediate need.

The last time I remember being snowed in, it turned out to be a remarkably nice and productive day. I wrote virtually an entire RPG scenario in white heat while my wife curled up on the couch and read a book. And the system I was using for that particular writing session? Paranoia! This could turn out to be a good day.

Father-in-law's Health

Things are getting worse again. Bottom line is that I have little time for anything except work and getting essentials done right now, so it's likely that I won't be posting much, at least until after Christmas or so.

Conquering the Wild MP3 Player

My wife and I thought it would be a fine idea to get each other MP3 players for our wedding anniversary a while back. It was about time to move on from CDs to the next level of technology. Turned out to be a lot harder than it sounded, though.

We carefully chose a Creative Zen model after considering several options and decided it would make things easiest to get the same thing for both of us. I first ran into trouble when I tried to install the software that came with it. Turns out that the software was only compatible with one specific variation on Windows XP, which happened to be one that we didn't have. None of the advertising happened to mention this (all ads said only that it worked with Windows XP, period). We went back to all sources to double check after the fact to make sure we hadn't missed something. That information isn't even in the packaging that came with the software and player! Creative's own web site mentioned it exactly once, but that's the only place we could find other than their tech support people that says anything about it. The other annoying thing about the player itself was that it came with a bunch of crap already on it. There was music and a couple of audio books that I didn't want, which were presumably on the player to draw people to other businesses, which I will now be actively avoiding.

We found out that we could use Windows Media Player instead of Creative's software, and in fact a lot of people preferred that to the packaged software anyway, so we could still use the players. I started the lengthy process of converting all of our CDs to MP3 format. Having accomplished that mission (approximately 1900 songs), I started working with WMP and the MP3 player to try to get all of the music on the players themselves.

I've got to confess here that at this point, the problem becomes my fault. I made several mistakes in the process due to my partial lack of familiarity with WMP and complete lack of familiarity with MP3 players in general. I'll spare you most of the gory details, but the key mistake was relying on the automated syncing process that I thought would be a good idea because, hey, it's automated and I can't mess it up. I ended up with quite the opposite result, since it did several things that I had to un-do later, once I'd figure out how things actually worked.

I'm glad to report that I finally achieved victory today and should be okay from here. I hadn't been aware in advance that this would be difficult at all. Technology is so much fun when it works, and such a bear when it doesn't. And now to venture into the world of downloading music. Here's hoping that goes more smoothly.

Three Original Songs

They're only partially new, but they're mine and ready to try with Jason. The original versions date back to the late 70's or early 80's, and to be honest some (though not all) of the original lyrics didn't hold up very well. The first band I was in played two of the three semi-regularly, and even recorded the best, but I hadn't listened to them in years. So I rewrote some lyrics for two and added a new bridge to a third, and now I'd feel more comfortable playing them again, though it remains to be seen what anyone would think of them now.

I'd really like to write some entirely new songs, but this will do for a start, and hopefully the process of working on these songs will prime the pump, so to speak.