The applicability game

There's water on the Moon.

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In related news, I just finished submitting manuscripts to the Bakeless and Yale Younger Series competitions.

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In unrelated news, the feature at Stone Church was great.

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In related-to-that news, no video or audio was recorded, which is probably for the best, given my inter-poem banter. I'm not sure that one family will ever be the same...

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In unrelated news, my dad is on business in China for a few days. We're trying out Skype. I'm liking it so far, much better than telephones.

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In related-to-China news, got a new Monsterpocalypse piece, Gakura:

Yes, that's a giant ape wielding a passenger train as a flail. I love this game.

In case you Google your professors

Dear ENGL110 Students,

As I mentioned in class and an email, I'm going to push you fast and hard. Composition is not just throwing words on a page and hoping they stick; it's an entire mindset. That's what we're going to learn this semester - how to find the best possible mindset for yourself during your college career and how best to express that mindset through (primarily) words.

That being said...

I threw a lot at you on Wednesday. It was certainly more than most of you expected, and likely more than most of your other professors did. We didn't even get to meet each other properly, just dove into exercises and expectations. We'll fix that to a certain extent on Friday. If you haven't played Apples to Apples before, you're in for a treat. It's a good icebreaker game, a way to get to know people in a wholly unusual manner. It's also a good time to start practicing your argumentation skills, with little on the line but others' initial impressions of you (which is, of course, a lot). The lesson won't be a throwaway one, but it will pay dividends slowly over the course of the semester.

Be ready. Have fun.

Revolutions, Roleplaying, Reverse-psychology

A belated Happy Independence Day to those of you celebrating it. Here's my day-after sketch, whilst thinking in the backyard about revolutions:

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A bit I'm incorporating into diluvium from the smartest role-playing game ever devised, Nobilis. Most RPGs have what's called flavor text, wherein the quantitative component of the game is expressed in more qualitative terms. For something like Dungeons & Dragons, you'd get something like: "Rekzor advanced and smote the goblin on the head with his glowing mace (critical hit with mace +1). Nobilis has flavor text like this:

Once, a man was so well-liked that he set the fields ablaze and the peasants didn't mind.

Then he killed all the animals, gave his folk dust to eat, and they didn't mind.

Then he dirtied the water with blood from his wars, and they didn't mind.

Then they tortured him slowly to death on the Stone Wheel, and when his heirs asked the peasants why, they said, "We thought he liked that sort of thing."

Or, the lines I'm putting into diluvium:

8. Lady Urvasi and Lady Iya stood at the entrance to Hell. "I am strong," said Urvasi. "I can survive the worst torments of this place."

9. Lady Iya said, "You are strong; but is that strength an asset, here?"

How often do you get a game that lets you argue serious philosophical points not as a sidebar, but as one of the primary goals of the experience? It's like a living Sandman comic.

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Lines from my spoken-word/performance piece "Zahir," which will end up on the same page as the hell bit from Nobilis:

Don't think of a tiger.
Don't picture the black and orange stripes undulating through tall grass.
Don't image the huge pads silent as the new moon, the low rumble of thunder in the lungs, the electricity in the sinews that precedes the rush and clutch, the chaotic tumble, the crunch of a dead deer's vertebrae.

It's heeeeeere

Mostly I've been working on diluvium over the past few days. Am feeling pretty good about a series of exchanges between Noah and his wife meant to question their identities. This is a conversation after they've gone through their rough patch and are reinventing themselves as both people and symbols. Among the questions they have to ask - would you love me were I someone else? A different color? A different sex? The answer here will be yes. I'm just trying to find words that are simultaneously poetic, clear, and convincing.

So the poetry is here. Still getting on the ark two by two (if only it were seven by seven), but here.

In the meantime, my guilty pleasure has arrived. Photos below linked from my profile at BoardGameGeek.


Cthugrosh consumes a fleeing S-Shinobi


Despite the combined efforts of three Carnidons, Gorghadra need only stomp once to lay them flat


Distracted by two Squix, Sky Sentinel doesn't notice Zor-Maxim sneaking up from behind


We do not welcome our Martian overlords

So the game is here.

Last but not least, Kate and I are starting to catch up on Fables. The war against the Empire has begun, though we haven't yet reached an issue centering on the war itself. In related news: Willingham's Cinderella kicks ass.

If I totally lost you at any or all points during this post, my apologies. It's all straight in my head. Really.

Do you want to play a game?

Greetings, Dr. Falken,

er, dear readers,

I like games. Actually, I'm fascinated by any situation in which people get together and behave irrationally within the boundaries of arbitrary rulesets. Soccer. Global Thermonuclear War. Starbucks. Poetry.

My wife and I also love playing board games. Not Monopoly or other largely-random games, but more strategic ones that involve an element of luck but place more emphasis on crafty play. Settlers of Catan. Citadels. Bohnanza. Ingenious. Scrabble.

There's one in particular that I've got my eye on lately, called Monsterpocalypse. From everything I've seen (positive and negative reviews, plus videos), it's a well-crafted set of rules meets pokemon collectibility (in the form of 3" miniatures) meets my inner child's love for Godzilla.









It's too expensive to go hog wild on purchases right now, but I'm expecting to order our first pieces in the next couple of days. With that on my mind, I wrote three haiku this morning. They'll mark my return to double-posting each day.

I wish I could end this post with another Wargames reference, but when it comes to poetry, to board games, to soccer, to Starbucks, (but not to Global Thermonuclear War), it's more fun to play.

A Ravenous, Flatulent Eagle Steed

Kate and I relaxed the other morning with a simple breakfast and a round of Munchkin. For those of you not in the know and afraid to follow the link to a site called BoardGameGeek, Munchkin is a card game for two or more players that simultaneously encourages and parodies D&D-like behavior. You begin as a level 1 human with no class (pun intended) and proceed to flip over cards to progress through a dungeon (encountering such beasts as the Grassy Gnoll and the Wannabe Vampire), collecting magical items (like the Cheese Grater of Peace), and trying to achieve level 10. The trick is that players band together early on, helping each other out in exchange for a share of the treasure. In the mid- and late-game, however, everyone turns on everyone else, backstabbing, making fun, and generally wreaking good-natured havoc with as many puns as possible.

There are some blank cards in the deck, and Kate and I are slowly coming up with our own monsters, curses, items, etc for these. If you don't want to burn yourself out on geekiness, don't read any more of this post.

1. Awkward Relationship (modifier) One player and one monster recognize each other from...that one time at the tavern. Both exit the battle, leaving nothing behind (except broken hearts).

2. Reiner Knizia (monster - variable level: add up all bonuses due to items, then divide by the number of players) Bad stuff: The theme seems kind of tacked on. Lose your race and class.

3. Last Ditch (item - no value) Play this to prevent one character from winning the game. It even works against Divine Intervention (the cleric fell in and missed the Call).

4. Stacked Deck (item - 300gold) Usable by female players or sex-changed males only. While the chauvanist pigs around the table are ogling this card, look at the top three cards in the deck and keep one.