The Gaming Outpost

I must first say thank you to the benefactor who provided Valdron with a laptop on which I hope to be able to carry computer files to conventions, as we start making our core books available in digital format at half the price–or at least, that’s the plan.  Some of the details are still fuzzy.

Second, let me call your attention to the latest Examiner temporal anomalies article, (Some of) the best time travel movies you might have missed, a brief synopsis of four lesser-known films that are worth seeing.  I’ll launch the next analysis, on 11 Minutes Ago on Monday, and I’m encouraging you to watch it before then because it is well worth watching and it will be difficult for me not to hit you with spoilers in trying to explain what happens.

In other writing news, I am waiting to hear from one of the editors at The Examiner concerning my article on the Birther issue.  If they don’t want it, I’ll post it here, probably next week sometime.

We also have another contribution from Eric Ashley.  Practise Bits:  Forbidden gives a suggestion for how to defeat an army of regenerative immortals.  Of course, if they were earthworms, that would be a different problem.  But I’d have burned the pieces.

–M. J. Young

I am periodically musing today that thrice a year we treat ourselves to a huge stash of candy–at Halloween in October, Christmas in December, and Easter in March or April.  The jelly beans and chocolates that have been entertaining me most of the day keep it mind.  Perhaps it is good that adults do not get to enjoy the October holiday, and that there is a long gap over a summer between the others for us to work off the caloric intake; and I am grateful that I am not showing any of the danger signs of diabetes.

Another Examiner temporal anomalies series reaches its conclusion, as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III part 11:  vanishing considers, and rejects, the possibility that travelers from the past might not have to wait for the future to arrive before departing.  That might have worked for Warlock, but it won’t work here.

I finished a version of my examination of the birther argument, but have not yet published it; I dropped a note to the editorial staff at The Examiner over the weekend to give them right of first refusal on it, and am waiting to hear whether they are interested in perusing it before I release it elsewhere.  I did not expect to hear from them today, and I was not surprised.

There are also a few new pieces from Eric Ashley, of which I managed to read Practise Bits:  Free on the holiday, and offered a couple of solutions to its riddle.  Practise Bits:  Patrol is his second of that name, but also about time travel.  Finally, Practise Bits:  Database mixes technology and magic in an interesting blend of a romance.

This has taken entirely too long, given that there’s more work ahead, but let me move ahead and see what I can accomplish.

–M. J. Young

In the penultimate article in the present Examiner temporal anomalies series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles part 10:  disaster, we deal with the issues of whether the last trip being the first trip and the earlier trips being the later trips makes a big difference, and whether if it all ends in temporal disaster that’s a problem for the story.  It would not be the first time I concluded that a movie that was a temporal disaster was still well worth watching.

Eric Ashley has been prolific over the past few days, giving us four new contributions to the fiction section.  Practise Bits:  Clubbing raises the peculiar problems that arise when a dimensional traveler winds up hospitalized, although Eric and I are debating whether what happened to him is at all possible.  Practise Bits:  Terraforming is really about Varigmashforming, that is, about the efforts of an alien to turn a lifeless rock into a habitable planet for his people.  In Practise Bits:  Best, he explores culture clash and the universals of greed and fear.  Today he added Practise Bits:  Regency, about a disruption at a Christmas party.

We have holidays ahead, so allow me to send Easter and Good Friday greetings to those celebrating these this weekend, and le Shana Tovah to those celebrating Pesach.  Holidays, of course, always mean extra work and tight on the money for me, but I think I’ve got things in hand, although one son expressed disappointment that I was planning ham and not lamb.  I could try to get lamb tomorrow, but it’s expensive and I’ve already got the ham, so probably I won’t.  It’s also more work to make.

–M. J. Young

My Examiner temporal anomalies series has reached the point at which the heroes of the story make their trip to the past, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III part 7:  Turtles, and then it leaves them there for a few centuries.  We’ll get them out on Thursday.  I’m now committed on the next, with an episode listing of articles covering 11 Minutes Ago posted to my indexing page, although there are still a few editorial tweaks to perform.

Meanwhile, the prolific Eric Ashley continues to outpace me with several new articles since Thursday.  Practise Bits:  Virgin Two dramatically continues the story begun in the previously mentioned Practise Bits:  Virgin.  Practise Bits:  Imperial extols the virtues of empire against the power of a freedom fighter.  For a bit of political maneuvering in an effort to secure a victory over a formidable enemy, he gives us Practise Bits:  Fair.  Finally, Practise Bits:  Commlink gives us a ninja romance in a vampire world.

I’m wondering whether I have time for what remains before me, but I’ll manage, I expect.

–M. J. Young

I am reminded that time moves inexorably forward, and that this seems to be my word for the day, as I have used the word “inexorably” several times already and I’m not even certain when, where, or why.  However, we have reached Thursday, and published another Examiner temporal anomalies article, this one entitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III part 6:  April.  This puts us at the center point of our eleven-article series.  There is good news in that I have already prepared an article to round out the last week.  The editors asked us to submit articles identifying the “bests” in our various fields, by which I think they expected to get (from other examiners) pieces about nightclubs and restaurants and such, but from me they will receive a selection of some of the best time travel movies, and specifically a few of those easily overlooked gems that aren’t big budget or famous films.  Also in the good news category, I have completed a sketch of a twelve-article series on 11 Minutes Ago, although I had to consult with Kyler on its most vexing problem and am waiting to hear his thoughts on my perhaps rather dubious solution.  The bad news is that if I have any other time travel movies lying around here that have not yet been analyzed, I don’t know what or where they are, so I may be scrambling for something to cover next.  A few have been suggested, but they haven’t yet dropped into my lap, so I’ll be doing a bit of shopping, I expect.

Meanwhile, I note that Eric Ashley has written two more pieces worth reading.  The first, Practise Bits:  Propriety, recalled to mind his verser character’s alter-ego The Ghost from his early play, the one man military force who brought down the enemy by simple guerrilla terrorism, although it was only the introductory setup for that type of story.  The second, Practise Bits:  Needle, is a clever adventure concept that has several players wishing that they had been snatched by that world.

Although it is still early, I’m hoping to get some time for other things before it becomes late, so I’m going to rush off now.

–M. J. Young

Today has taken an odd shape, leaving me too much to do and too little time; I am even now determining what will have to wait for tomorrow, as people are already impatient with how long everything is taking me.

Because of an early errand, I uploaded today’s Examiner temporal anomalies article early, and announced it before returning to bed.  The title, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III part 5:  Verona, is a thinly veiled literary reference to the essence of the core story, the ill-fated romance between the children of warring factions, considering what the various possible outcomes might do to the time travel story.

On the subjects of stories, I have read quite a few of late from Eric Ashley.  Practise Bits:  Escape was a cute setup for a well-done action sequence.  Practise Bits:  Thing has an edge of supernatural horror in a mundane setting–as all the best fairy tales and ghost stories do.  In Practise Bits:  Sheep (the second of that name, the first back in May of last year) attempts a perspective rather different from Eric’s, and I think his prejudices may show through in it.  Practise Bits:  Failure is a daring foray into advanced psionic exploration.

I have miles to go before I sleep, and an early alarm again tomorrow, so I’m going to take a few shortcuts.  See you all later.

–M. J. Young

I did post today’s Examiner temporal anomalies article at a decent time, and announced it, before wandering off to spend the day elsewhere (including dining once more at the Golden Corral).  The exploration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles part 4:  1400 concerns finding an original history of the world defining what 1603 looks like if the Turtles, who apparently will visit in 1400, have not yet done so.  Just because their presence means one thing doesn’t mean their absence means the complete opposite.

Eric Ashley has again contributed to the fiction.  I’m afraid I read Practise Bits:  Evaluation before it was finished, and then after it was finished tried to pick up where I’d left off, and missed part of it, which is unfortunate, because the opening lines which seem to have been added later help make much more sense of the point of the whole discussion, although a consideration of the problems of diplomacy in a universe with multiple intelligences is an interesting problem to address.  Since then he has added Practise Bits:  Wyrd, which gives us a mythic storm in mythical conception and might just have you closing the window against its imagined fury.

I am hours behind, but not in a hurry tonight I think, so let’s see what awaits elsewhere.

–M. J. Young

I keep an index of all the titles used in the Blogless Lepolt series (the overall title given to these blog entries which began in December, 2005), but I am often surprised when with now 1075 prior entries I am able to find a unique title on the first try.  I use order and disorder quite a bit in my titles, and I suppose that they are appropriate, so to find that this title is different (by one word, at least) from any previous one is a pleasant surprise–I don’t have to think about what to call the entry instead.

The notion of order is appropriate here, because today’s Examiner temporal anomalies article is about which of several trips to the past is actually the first one.  As Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III part 3:  sequencing observes, we assume that the trip from the earliest moment of time occurred first, but it is entirely possible that a later trip occurred first, setting up the possibility of the earlier trip.  Advantages and ramifications of this are considered.

I’m also trying to put some order to my day.  I have made progress on the very complicated analysis of 11 Minutes Ago, but have a long way ahead; I have started defrosting some meat for dinner but have a backlog of dishes that need attending; and of course, there are the forums awaiting me.  Deciding in what order to do everything so that it all gets done at a decent hour is the challenge.

There is also some fresh reading material from Eric Ashley.  I have been keeping up, so there is only one I have not seen as I arrive today.  His Practise Bits:  Fear (second of that name; the first appeared in November) and Practise Bits:  Fear Too begin a story around a science professor at an elitist college of some sort.  When I see the word “spice” I’m afraid I’ve been conditioned to think of Dune, but Practise Bits:  Spice is about an ordinary spice dealer who happens to have been stranded in a medieval realm and has not aged for a few generations.  Finally, Practise Bits:  Shepherd is not so much about a shepherd as about a hermit who is alone not by choice in a rather inhospitable clime, whose prayers are answered in a rather unexpected fashion.

Let’s see if I can put some other things in order.

–M. J. Young