Home is the Hunter . . .

To discover, that while he was away, all of November was taken from him.

Back in town from Duesseldorf. From Pittsburgh. From New Jersey. Long travels now come to rest. Digging through the mail, the emails, and trying to figure out why the upstairs water heater conked out in our absense. Yes, I have more to winge and moan about, but that will be for later.

More later,

Light Blogging

Still mostly offline, still trying to figure out how to re-attach my laptop to the Internets, still in contact with the outside world based on the kindness of other people's systems, still in New Jersey. Will rectify all of this one way or the other very, very soon.

However, I caught the local news on Black Friday (only our business community aided by a compliant press. could try to spin that name into a positive thing). In the local paper, the "Big Sales Launch Great Christmas Season" story was on page 1, while the "Local shoppers riot, cops called out, people hospitalized" story got bumped to page 3.

More later (quit pushing),

Happy Thanksgiving

From Grubb Street. I have been kept offline by travel and a not-always-reliable Internet connection (Oh, and the smoke alarm going off from the turkey). When I get back online for any appreciable time, I'll update with a bunch of stuff.

More later (no, really)

Back in the USA

So I got back Sunday afternoon, slept for 18 hours, caught the Lovely Bride's cold, and am dragging myself around the house like some tomb-lost lich, bemoaning my fate and trying to keep up with various promises.

More later, when I recover. Promise.

The Old Job and the New

So, Duesseldorf.

A week ago Friday I left my job at Pokemon USA. Two days later I got on a plane for Germany.

No, nothing was wrong with Pokemon, USA. I was pleased with the work I had done, some of which has shown up, some of which has yet to appear. I liked the challenges, the people and the view, though I detested the commute with an ever-increasing passion (which is odd because it is the same commute I had with Wizkids). And my corporate masters seemed pleased with what I doing. But no one had had "the talk" with me about keeping me on once the contract elapsed, so I kept my ears open to other opportunities.

Enter Blue Byte Software, a subsidiary of Ubisoft. They were looking for a story writer for a new title and had gotten my name from someone in the Seattle/Vancouver area and would I be interested? Several emails and story pitches later, they offered me a contract position, initially for a few months but, like Pokemon USA, with the potential of turning into something much more long-term. I thought about it, and the new job would be a great opportunity to build a computer game's story from the ground up. I said yes.

Good, said they, can you come to Germany? Say, early November?

And that, children, is what I am doing in Duesseldorf right now. I've spent a very productive week working with the core team (Benedikt, Andreas, Alex, and Arne (hi guys!)), understanding both their process and their goals with the new game. Things have gone remarkably well - they are a talented bunch, both receptive to new ideas and forgiving when they have to explain that they had already thought of my latest brainstorm and had to discard it for some reason I had not realized. It has been a bit of a whirlwind, and I am surprised that I have fit in as smoothly as I have.

Of course, I can't tell you what I'm doing until the project is much, much further along, but when I can say, I shall. But I'm real excited about what I'm doing, and eventually you will be too. Trust me on this one.

More later,

The Battle for ANWR

So, you going to talk about Dusseldorf?

You mean Duesseldorf? Yes, but not yet. Instead I want to talk about good news that happened because of a Republican's principled stand.

You're kidding.

Not even for a moment. Most of the time I hear the plaintive wail "I would support the GOP if only they had sane candidates." But here's a case where a Republican did the right thing and has as a result significantly increased his chances of re-election.

Here's the deal. For years now, Big Oil and their sock puppets in national government have been agitating to get into the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Having gutted most of the North Slope for crude, the now-rich remains of this easily-reached oilfield is just there for the taking, if only for the fact that, you know, those pesky animals live there. So there have been regular, increasing attempts to give the go-ahead to bore drillheads into this fragile pristine landscape. Most of the bills to allow it have been defeated by ever-smaller numbers. Eventually, the thinking went, they would succeed.

So most recently they put the permission to drill in a big budget bill. The only way you can vote against it is to vote against the budget. The GOP controls both sides of the Congress, so that was not expected to be a prob. Even if the Dems vote against it, it would go through, if the Reps showed their acclaimed party loyalty.

They did in the Senate and the bill sailed through. Not so in the House, where a group of 22 moderate Republicans dug in their heels and pointed out you once you start the omlet, you can't uncrack the eggs. They were going to vote against the budget if the odious rider was attached.

Now normally this would have resulted in some arm-twisting and deal-making, but in the case the GOP managers blinked, and dropped the rider.

And what makes this interesting is that amoung those 22 rebel moderates was my district's Rep, Dave Reichert. Being a first-termer usually means you lay low and toe the party line on votes, but Reichert has proved to be independent on issues that he has been knowledgeable on. This in the past has included police and national security (he's the former King County Sherrif). Now he's willing to buck his party's conventional wisdom on environment as well, reminding his brethren that he represents his constituents, not the party brass.

When a politician does the right and the principled thing, he deserves to be rewarded. Good move, Mr. Reichert. I speak for the people of the 8th when I say I'd like to see more of it.

More later,

Electoral Post Mortem

The results are in. The Monkey King and Jason have both done post-election reports. Here's mine (for those living out of state who have had to listen to my observations) and a few notes.

I mentioned the initiatives earlier in the journal, and the results were in general pretty good. I-900, which supported performance audits, passed, as did I-901, the more stringent smoking ban. I supported the first, did not support the second. I've spent the past four days in Duesseldorf, Germany, which has a good population of smokers, but really have little to complain about. The evil twin medical initiatives, I-360 and I-363, both went down to defeat, though the anti-lawyer one lost by less than the anti-insurance company one. Despite the defeats, I think the amount of heat and invective poured into the campaigns should be a sign for our legislature to address the issues raised.

Excuse me?

Yes?

You just said you were in Dusseldorf?

I've seen it spelled Dusseldorf and Duesseldorf, but yes, I've been here for the past four days or so. I am currently writing at 6 AM local time (jet lag is a pain) at the window of my hotel on Kurfurstenstrasse, since that gives me the best reception for the hotel's wireless hub. Moving on, I-912 . . .

No, no, no. WHY are you in Dusseldorf?

I'm talking to a software company. When things finally gel (and the contract is in the last throes of rebellion now), I'll pass things along. May I continue?

Oh . . . OK

I-912, the anti-gas tax initiative went down to a glorious and explosive defeat. For all of the call-in show bloviation and stories of taxpayer rebellion, the bulk of the populace got the message that people wanted safer roads and were willing to kick in for them. The final outcome of the initiative did two things - it showed a unity among a hugely diverse group of interests from enviros to corporations, from fiscal conservatives to social liberals. It also showed that a lot of drumbeating from the radio waves on behalf of this initiative was an echo chamber, something that usually pops up on liberal blogs, where everyone quotes each other and creates the illusion of a popular will. And in this case, I-912 was more smoke than fire.

Similarly, Ron Sims reduced his GOP opponent to a fine, red electoral paste (13 points up on him, the last figures I had). Just three weeks back, there was a poll showing the two men in a tight race, but since then a lot of attention on the blogs and other media went into really looking at the challenger, and finding some problems.

This actually reflects a pet peeve on the national level for me - you see polls saying that the president would lose badly to "A democrat" if the election were held today,which ignores a)that election is not being held today, b) the president never has to worry about this situation ever again, and c) "A democrat" would not be running, but rather an individual. I think the earlier polls reflects a concern about Sims' activist policies (and he is all over the joint), but when "A republican" solidified into "Dave Irons", then people took a good, hard look and decided that Ron wasn't that bad at all.

OK, back to local. Most of the rest of the field was pretty expected. Susan Rahr took King County Sherrif handily. Greg Nichols, unapposed by an official GOP candidate, won Mayor, the independent running against him doing almost as well as Dave Irons did against Ron Sims. All the "incumbents" for King County Council were elected, including Reagan Dunn for the 9th and Julia Patterson for the 8th. The makeup of the KC Council is 5 Dems, 4 Republicans, with one of the Dems a wild-card (Ferguson of the 1st). The big-business candidates tended to edge out the blue-green labor/environmentalist candidates at the Port of Seattle (of which I probably should have said more at the time, but the Port Authority is this large, sprawling semi-elected operation that required a lot more time to investigate it - the Mgt. regrets not wading in deeper). A city initiative for a shorter Monorail line was voted down, leaving that project in limbo, and perhaps finally dead.

In general, this election has been a vote of confidence for the local incumbents. The voters turned out big for a politically gutsy move by the Governor and state Dems and GOP to help repair the roads. The more radical initiatives went down, though people want a bit more oversight. People are generally happy with where we are, but still have ideas as to where we are going.

It was a good day for Democracy.

More later,

Public Service Message

Well, it is Election Day evening back in Seattle, and the early results are coming in. But before I dedicate an entry to the mourning after, I want to make a plea to the public at large.

The election is over. It is time to remove your bumper stickers.

I'm not talking about the stickers from today's election. I am talking about the stickers from LAST year's election.

It's time to go. I'm talking to you, the Saab-owner with the Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker - you're a mobile stereotype. The same goes for the owner of the pickup truck with the "W" sticker - yes, there's a ragged edge where you tried to pull it off with your fingernails, but now's the time to remove it entirely. Ditto for that Range Rover with Dino Rossi sticker and the suspcious key marks along the side panels. Give it up. And the hybrid with the "Kucinich for President" sticker? That's right up there with "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos" in the irony department. We got the joke. Now move on.

It's time to give it all a rest. Deep breaths, folks, and just take them down. Now. From here on in, you can gripe about the results of THIS election.

More later,

Deja Vu (Local Politics Version)

Before I get into all this, I want to point out to fellow Seattle-natives that Shelly in Seattle has put her recommendations on Initiatives. She and I don't agree on everything, but I think she makes a lot of good points, and I recommend you tune her in.

Done? 'Cause let me sit down because I'm getting deja vu all over again with the upcoming election for King County Executive. It feels like it is the year 2000, compacted down to a county-sized bite.

Here's the sitch - we have a Democrat who has brought the county from a nasty economic time to its best rating ever, strong on environment and family, but is plagued by a scandal (in this case the voting huggamugga from the last Governor's election - a scandal that produced much more heat than light). On the Republican side, we have one of those guys who swear he's going run the government "like a business" but who owes his business experience to his family name and backing, and who jumped ship (as COO) from one company just before it augered in. Add to that some murky issues of personal integrity (which has resulted that not only his former co-workers but his own family coming out publicly against him), a now-hidden agenda or two (involving previous support for running a highway through Seattle's watershed, not talked about much now), and baleful cries that the Dems are saying horrible things about him (Like sending out mailers showing him holding a Bush/Cheney sign, knowing full well that our commander in chief's approval ratings are only slightly above freezing).

Does any of this sound familiar?

Oh yeah, add a third party candidate to the race who operates on the left but is positive that he will take as many votes from the GOP as the Dems. NOW does it sound like the US back in 2000? Does King County finally have the chance to fall off its high horse and choose the pig in the poke? Do we have a chance to prove that we're just as dumb as the rest of the country?

Hang on, because it does get worse. In a last-moment assault, the State GOP loudly and publicly "found" almost 2000 "illegal" voters, bringing back the questions of that scandal-prone vote count (never mind they never came up with anything - the accusastions are enough under a relentless drumbeat of repetition). Trouble is, the next day they had to back-pedal on about ten percent of their accusations (and more coming) as those disenfranchised turned out to be both a) real voters, and b) real angry about this stunt.

Yep, it's our old favorite, Vote Supression - if you make it tougher for people to vote the odds are that your core voters will count for more. Because, it is unlikely that the people who were "accidentally" bounced off the voting rolls would vote GOP (at least, not anymore).

So here we are again, with a flawed vessel of a candidate being put forward by a strong-arm campaign. The thing is, the GOP stands a decent chance, because it has been two terms of a Democrat who has never met an idea he didn't want to play with. (some of which I like, some of which I don't). So some folk think it may be time for a change.

Not this time. We need to send a message of our own about all this, so I am strongly recommending and endorsing Ron Sims for King County Executive.

'Cause, yaknow, the similarities are so striking, that if the Republicans get in, by this time next year we'll be invading Pierce County.

More later.

Medea on Trial

Purgatorio by Ariel Dorfman, Directed by David Esbjornson, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Through November 26, 2005

The stage is a bare white room with white furniture, brilliantly lit. The actors are but two - "Man" (Dan Snook) and "Woman" (Charlayne Woodard). The plot moves forward of its own volition and counts on you being bright enough to catch up. And you're thinking - OK, we're trapped in another interesting backchannel of theatrical world - the postmodern play.

And it is, but its really a lot more than that. It's an excellent play about redemption, healing, forgiveness, and personal growth. It makes loops in time and character development and leaves the viewer connecting dots that may or may not truly be connected. It engages and makes you think. That's a good thing.

The white room is one of millions in the afterlife waystation of Purgatory. This is not Dante's Purgatory, but something closer to Albert Brook's Defending Your Life, where souls are placed for therapy to determine if they are fit to be recycled into new life or obliterated entirely. The Woman is Medea from the play by Euripides - she who gives Jason the Golden Fleece, runs off with him, bears him two children, is cast aside for another woman, and kills other woman and children. The Man is, well, an angel or servitor or other spirit who is her counselor, evaluator, and sole contact in this afterlife, who will make the decision on her continued existence.

Woman/Medea rails and collapses, advances slowly but surely, fails and recovers and rages, and is forced to face her worst fears and the horror and responsibility for her actions. Then we blackout and reverse roles. When the lights come up, Man is the prisoner in this Purgatory, and is Jason, who pulled Medea away and then betrayed her and killed himself. Woman is now the counselor, evaulator, and contact. Man/Jason moves through a similar-but-different process, and then we black out and flip again. By the end of the play you have a connection between Jason and the Male counselor, Medea and the Female counselor, Jason and Medea, and both with the nature of Purgatory itself in a funhouse mirror resolution.

The actors are simply excellent. Charlayne Woodard was previously in In Real Life at the REP, an autobiographical one-woman show of her time with Ain't Misbehavin' (before I started keeping this journal, but trust me, she was great). Here she moves with the power of the sorcerous and sensuous Medea, raging against life and afterlife and driving the play forward. Dan Snook starts with the lower-key, reactive roll, but as the play's plot unspools, his very reserved nature makes sense and folds back in on his behavior, and he becomes a volcano about to go off.

There is a third character, even more quicksilver than the two players - a Purgatory that exists without heaven or hell. As we move through the play, the nature and rules of a time-bent place seem to curve back on themselves. Purgatory is in turns a mental hospital, a place of judgement, a prison, and a faceless bureaucracy. It has both a healing hand and fascist armlock. Just as the characters affect each other, they seem to warp the nature and the rules of the white room they occupy. As a result, at the end, you're thinking about both characters and place and the redemptive natures of Dorfman's universe.

This is a thinking person's play, and the REP pulls it off well (though again, it is one better suited for a more intimate stage, though for different reasons that King Stag). It is well-recommended if you are the type of theatre patron that likes to see the play, then spend the next hour or so taking apart its meaning over Thai food.

The Lovely Bride enjoyed this as well - she knows her Medea legend well, and liked how, within the minimalist environment, the author has curved everything back on itself, to create a play that is both tidy and open-ended. Oh, and of great importance to her - no puppets this time. For this she is greatly appreciative.

More later,

Emily

We put our eldest cat, Emily, to sleep this afternoon. She was 18 years old, and the last of the cats that came with us from Lake Geneva. A temperamental calico, she was noted in her youth for both her hunting abilities (both mice and birds) and her mercurial moods (she came with a warning sticker). Starting last year, age began to catch up with her, and she eventually confined herself to the upper bedroom. She had many illnesses, setbacks and recoveries over the past year, but in the past week deteriorated quickly, to the point that the Lovely Bride and I made the horrible and hard decision.

This afternoon we planted a flowering cherry tree under grey skies, and on Halloween laid to rest an orange and black friend. She is survived by two much younger cats, Harlequin and Victoria. The former of the two is sitting at my door with a leather bootlace in her mouth, waiting for me to drag it around the room.

Those who wish to honor Emily's memory should play with their pets this evening, and give them a treat. Emily would note that the smoked salmon is excellent.

More later,

Movie: A Silent Call

Call of Cthulhu: adapted from the H.P. Lovecraft story by Sean Branney, Produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman, Starring Matt Foyer, Noah Wagner and Ralph Lucas.

It is a small surprise that I don't talk about Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos more than I do in these entries. I'm a fan of Lovecraft's eldritch horror, as are many other game designers (and I would go so far as to say that the RPG version of the mythos is most game designer's second-favorite game, right after the one they are currently working on). Lovecraft is the creator of one of the most enduring shared universes, where numerous creatives have put in their two-cents worth during his lifetime and in the decades following his death.

However, Lovecraft is notoriously hard to film, and most cinemagraphic treatments I have seen over the years appropriate his trappings but then tries to harness them to the requirements of modern cinema, producing mutilated abominations that work best when you try to forget the Lovecraftian elements and take them as the slasher/chiller/scary monster picture that they were intended to be by their producers.

This is because that Lovecraft's horror is subtle, evoking from the page and curling around like a miasma in the mind. His universe is one of inhuman, uncaring gods and a sense of ultimate futility, incurring the sense of dread and fright in the reader that does not translate well to the screen. Lovecraft's cornerstone of his mythos, Call of Cthulhu is more problematic than most. In this tale the protagonist does little more than investigate the papers of his later uncle, uncovering through widely-separated instances a cult devoted to a sleeping octopoid deity who will return to destroy the world "when the stars of right". In learning of it, he realizes both he and humanity are doomed, and sadly accepts his fate. This is not an action movie plot, and difficult to pull off.

Branney and Leman do it through a wonderful conceit. They make a movie that would be shown in 1925, the year the story is set. This means that it is in black and white, and is a silent film, with dialog boxes. As opposed to being hokey, this is perfect for the story, and brings out the flavor of Lovecraft's time. Instead of bending or breaking Lovecraft's story to fit the movie, they pretty much film the story, modifying it slightly in its plot to give it a self-contained resolution, but otherwise remaining amazingly true to its source.

The use of silent black and white film allows them to use both modern movie techniques (green-screening) and old traditional movie tricks (forced perspective, stop-motion animation) to create a movie from the 1920s. The acting is a synthesis of both modern tropes and traditional film language - the actors avoid the overblown gestures of what you is normally thought of a "silent movie acting", and create a subtle, engaging narative. The movie is silent, but is supported by a musical score, which does a fantastic job carrying the weight of the haunting, brooding story. In places the movie reminds me of King Kong and in others The Cabinet of Dr. Caligara.

The film is an independent production, which means you might see it at a local show (Fellow Alliterate Steve Sullivan got permission for it to be shown in its Wisconsin debut), or more likely, on the tube as a DVD (where I saw with fellow Lovecraft fans). Its definately worth seeking out. Here's the web site for more information.

Cthulhu Fta'ghn!

More later

Keith Parkinson

It has been reported elsewhere of the passing of artist Keith Parkinson from complications from leukemia.

Keith was one of the on-staff artists at old TSR when I was there, and was instrumental in the creation of the look and feel of such lines as the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. The TSR operations were a bullpen operation at that time, in a room at the end of a vaultlike floor with glass block windows for natural light. Keith's compatriots at various times were Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, and Jeff Butler. The artist shared space, traded quips, and worked together on creating the art for much of the classic TSR product of the mid-eighties.

Keith defined the Forgotten Realms with the unamed horseman on the cover of the original grey box. We (the authors) didn't know who this guy was - there was nothing in the text about him, but he was evocative as the nature of the Realms as we saw it - grittier than worlds previous, and more realistic. His mysterious nature and fog-swept background was a bonus. I think we gave him a name later, but it honestly never stuck in-house - he was always the FR Horseman or Keith's Horseman.

My favorite piece was not that one, though, but rather the cover of Waterdeep and the North, which showed the beholder crime-lord Xanathar and his court - A female drow assistant, mercenary captain, accountant, and a pair of brain-headed intellect devourers. What I liked about that piece was something that Keith brought a new concept to the beholder itself - previously it was this ball with eyes. He armored it up with plate-like scales and gave it jointed, anthropod-like eyestalks. The myriad subspecies of beholders from Spelljammer started with that piece.

Keith had both a sense of epic scope and detail. One of his great Dragonlance pieces was a flying citadel, with riders fleeing ahead of it. The sense of motion and weight of this huge flying rock studded with citadels was amazing (in the pitch documents, the flying citadels were on big flat plates). And on the original (gods know where it is now), you can see that on one of the ledges, Keith had painted in a TARDIS, Doctor Who, and K-9.

The TSR bullpen evolved and changed and eventually broke up. Keith and Larry formed their own art studio, the Art Dogs, and Keith went on to covers for other fiction houses and game companies. We saw each other on occasion, usually at conventions. He would be working on concepting new video games (and is probably best-known these days for his Everquest art). Yet his art continued to evolve, gaining depth and life and an inner fire that was uniquely its own.

And now he has passed on, but his art remains. Go take a look at it here.

More later,

This is My Life!

Pulled from Hygelak the Dread with profuse apologies for being so didley-idley cheerful!

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.6
Mind:	7.6
Body:	5.9
Spirit:	8.8
Friends/Family:	6.6
Love:	9.1
Finance:	7.3
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I-912: The Pony Initiative

Hey, kid, wanna get a free pony?

Every election there is what I call a "pony initiative". It's usually some faux-populist claptrap pushed by a special interest with deep pockets that proposes to give you the voter something for nothing, and to rescue you from the horrible duties of citizenship (usually taxes). It's a promise of free lunch. It's your shot at rebellion at the fat cats who supposedly run things. It's a free pony.

Sometimes these Pony Initiatives succeed (car-tabs) and sometimes people see through them to grok what's really going on (slot machines). This year's Pony Initiative is I-912, which will roll back gas taxes.

Sounds good on the surface? Sure. That's why it's a pony initiative. You vote for it, you get a pony. Just ignore the rabid flecks of foam around the muzzle.

Here's the deal. In a suprising act of actual governance, State Democrats and Republicans put together a bi-partisan highway bill that addressed some of the most serious highway problems in the state. It includes stuff all over the state but also the precarious Alaskan Way Viaduct. There was a price tag on this - a raise in gas taxes of 9 cents.

That's a hefty price jump, though mild compared to the ratcheting up of prices over the past couple years. But the bill dictates exactly where the money was going to be spent, and the Department of Transportation has shown itself to be very good of late at bringing projects in on time and under budget.

OK, it's the price of getting good roads - someone has to pay for them, right?

Wrong. A pair of local talk show hosts, already incensed over the fact that GOP candidate Rossi lost the governor's race simply because he got less votes, switched that anger (and that of their listeners) over to this obvious horrible excess on the part of State Government. Its an outrage to pay high gas prices (though the bulk of those recent raises have been going, uncommented upon, into the oil companies' pockets). All the money is going to King County projects (no it isn't). You don't know where it's going (yes you do). They campaigned hard for the initiative (so much so that a judge declared them an in-kind political contribution), and got a massive outpouring to get this measure on the ballot.

Its an "I Wanna Pony" initiative - I want my roads, but I don't want to pay for them.

And it stands a pretty decent chance of passing. Never mind that the corporations, labor,liberals, conservatives, and major Seattle media have all pointed out how utterly boneheaded this tax revolt is. Never mind that even the GOP candidate for King County Executive thinks its a bad idea. Never mind that the information is out there that shows were the money is going to be spent, and what the track record is. Never mind that doing this will make some of the most dangerous highways in the state even more dangerous while we scramble to find out out to fix them.

It stands a decent chance because, at the end of the day, it's going to be you, and you alone, in the voting booth, with the question in front of you. And you're going to hear a small voice, whispering . . .

"Hey, kid, wanna get a free pony?"

More later (oh, yeah, vote No on I-912)

Taking the Initiatives

Though I regularly skew into the political, I don't particularly think of this as a political blog. Most of the ones I know, regardless of their place on the left/right, blue/red, up/down scales, just require too much care and feeding. You have to be upset about something ALL the TIME. It's a hungry beast to feed - we've seen it happen on talk radio and 24/7 punditry, where the players are reduced to drug addiction and sexual perversion. We can keep it from happening here.

But we do have an election coming up, and, like many in Washington State, I got an absentee ballot (I'm a big proponent of going to the polls, but I know I'm one of a dying breed in that regard). I won't be here on election day, for reasons that I will eventually make clear.

So I grit my teeth and with grim determination steer this fragile craft into the storm-tossed waves that are local politics.

The big heat, of course, is on the Initiatives. Originally an attempt to put "the people" more in charge of the system by allowing them to influence law directly, it has, as with all things that touch the grimy surface that is politics, become overrun with special interests, pet causes, and pundits intent on "delivering a message".

A lot of that message consists of "Who do you hate?" Here's the short form:

I-330 - We hate Lawyers!
I-336 - We hate Insurance Companies!
I-900 - We hate the Government!
I-901 - We hate Smokers!
I-912 - We hate Ourselves!

A little more detail, please? Sure, step into the funhouse. . . .

I-330 and I-336 are twisted, cojoined, mutant siblings, both intend on addressing high malpractice insurance costs. I-330 wants to do it with caps on damage awards, and is supported by insurance companies (who have been using some of their doctors as sock puppets) I-336 wants to put more scrutiny on insurance rate increases, create supplemental malpractice insurance, and put a few more teeth into the idea of bouncing bad doctor. This one is being heavily financed by the lawyers, as the pro-I-330 ads keep drilling home (It's GOT to be bad - Lawyers want it! Booo, Hiss!).

Actually, the pair of initiatives are massive tomes of fine print, even by initiative standards. I-330 runs 7.5 pages and reads like its been written by your insurance company. I-336 runs 12 pages in the Voter's booklet and reads like its been written by your lawyer. These are presented to a voting public that has trouble understanding its home heating bills, and you're expecting rational thought. Yeah, that's going to work. Isn't this why we have elected officials?

Here's the part neither side tells you - It's not an either/or. You can support both of these ideas (and I'm partial towards the ideas of I-336, though I'd rather see it as a law as opposed to a initiative). Or you can vote them both down. I'm really for the later. NO on both of this beastly pair.

I-900, on the other hand, is a pretty neatly written initiative, and I've been looking for the trap door in it, and I can't find it. It calls for the setup of a performance audits in state government (actually, we have them, but this calls for stronger ones, with some teeth). Its pretty clear. It tells how much money we should spend on it, and where the money comes from. The guys putting this one together have a track record (much of it bad) on populist initiatives, but I can't find the flaw in this one - it just reeks of good government. I'm saying YES on this one.

I-901 sends all smokers to Yakima. OK, no it doesn't, but it does prohibit smoking in buildings and vehicles open to the public and places of employment, including areas within 25 feet of doorways and ventilation. As someone who smoked the occasional cigar in the nineties (but, to use the common excuse, I didn't inhale), I'm pretty tolerant of smokers, as long as I'm upwind of them, and for the most part the smokers I've encountered have been pretty considerate (Have I ever mentioned that the Dog & Pony, our usual Alliterate hangout, is non-smoking?). While the opposition to this initiative has been pretty bizaare (the anti- I-901 yard signs announce that this would mean New Taxes, which I can't see - it makes me wonder if the signs were left over from a previous campaign), I think its that type of overdoing it that Initiatives are notable for. I say vote NO (and watch, I'll be caught in the elevator with a heavy smoker tomorrow).

And finally there is I-912. Sigh. I-912 has a history that sounds like a Marvel Comic Book, and deserves its own writeup. For the moment, let's just say NO and I'll go into the tale of woe and intrigue with its own separate posting.

More later,

Local Menaces

So the past week's Seattle Weekly talks about the potential lahars coming off Mt. Rainier. These massive mudslides could shrug off the shoulder of the mountain and come barrelling down the valleys, including that of the Green River, burying everything in its path. A similar article in the Seattle Times when we first moved out here was one of the leading reasons the Lovely Bride decided we needed to get a house up on a hill.

We could move to a safer locality, of course, but even my home town of Pittsburgh has its endemic problems.

More later,

Additional Linkage

I was originally going to name this post "housekeeping", but that carries with it at least the tacit promise that I've thrown something out. Instead, I've expanded the listing to the right of this Journal, adding more friends that I check, as well as some sites that I'm aways looking at (and to be frank, you should be too).

I should go through the steely implement of editorial death and get rid of those links that update once per lunar rotation (Colin and Phil are both guilty), or who have gone mostly private (Dave). But I'm not at that stage yet, and so I'm keeping everyone. Your first warning that they're off the list is when they're off the list.

First off, I've updated the Alliterates section. The big news is the creation of Popcorn Press, a small e-book operation put together by Lester, Sully, and Rob. I've read Rob's "Humors" and think it is both scary and hilarious. I have also added the two most recent additions to the West Coast Alliterates - Lorelei Shannon and Scott Hungerford. Go check 'em out.

I've also put a few additional links to the Cool Journals list - James Wyatt is one of the WotC-era "young turk" D&D designers who has done incredible things with the game, including most recently the Eberron Game setting. Go check him out. In addition, my old comic book artist from the days of the Forgotten Realms book, Rags Morales, now has a blog. Rags has gone on to bigger and better, and shows off a lot of his work. Check it out.

I'm also adding Making Light. This is an exception in that, unlike everyone else on the list, I don't know these people personally ("These people" being Theresa and Patrick Hayden, aided by Jim Macdonald). However, I like what they say about writing, and I keep tuning in. You should, too.

I'm also adding a new area for comics I keep checking daily, so I can pull them from a particular page.PVP is a daily dose of geek humor focusing around the employees of a gaming magazine, but taking loops out into personal lives, MMORGs, and D&D. Penny Arcade is thrice-weekly, color, much edgier, and often incomprehensible without a native guide (the link I provided goes to a text page that in turn links up with the cartoon. Warning - these guys cannot get out of the strip without using the word "penis". No, I correct that - they often cannot get out of the FIRST PANEL without using the word "penis". PVP and PA are kinda-sorta rivals, kinda-sorta allies, two sides of the same gaming coin.

For the pure D&D Geek, go with Order of the Stick, which is a D&D strip in which a party of D&D characters (who look like Playmobil "Little People") know the D&D rules and act accordingly. Three times a week and color, they have deep archives to plunge through. If you're playing 3.5 (and even if you're not), you should check this out.

Finally there is Girl Genius, from Phil and Kaja Foglio, which has some of the most luscious, luxurious, downright animated art in an online comic book. Phil's been at his craft for nigh-on aeons, and it shows in his work. They've gotten the early stuff online too, so you can follow the adventure from the start.

OK, that's it. I'm doing this because things are going to get strange here fast, and I've been meaning to update the links for a while. No, I'm not saying what's going on. Yet.

More later,

Galactus Loves Gumbo!

Yes, it has been nearly a week since the last update, and I have stuff to tell you about. But I've been very busy, and I'll tell you why in the next couple days.

In the mean time, I need to tell you that Wizkids is auctioning off a Heroclix Galactus figure, signed by myself and Jon (Nothing Good) Leitheusser, with the entire proceeds going to hurricane relief from Katrina and Rita. Auction runs until October 26. If you wanted one of these babies, here's an autographed one.

More later,

Play: Hey Joad

The Grapes of Wrath: By John Steinbeck, Adapted by Frank Balati, Directed by Lina Hartzell, Intiman Theatre.

The Lovely Bride wanted to see this one, so we headed out yesterday for the Intiman, located a scant fifty feet from the Rep. The Initiman has more of a theater-in-the-round setting with a projected stage, and has a lot of that intimacy (yeah, I see the pun) between actors and audience.

The play itself I don't have to explain, since you read the book in high school. What, you didn't? Well, at least you saw the movie with Henry Fonda. No? Not even on cable? Well, at least you know about the Okies, the Dust Bowl, and Route 66 before it became "The Midlife Crisis Highway". What's that?

Sigh.

OK, here's the short form. Back in the early thirties a good chunk of the Great Plains dried up and blew away. Farm families couldn't raise anything on their dust-choked land and the banks foreclosed. A lot of them, being told about new opportunities in California, headed west on the Mother Road, Rte. 66. A lot of them were from Oklahoma, hence the name Okies.

The Joad family was one of those families. Tom Joad, newly released from prison, finds his family about to pull up stakes and head west. He and a former preacher Jim Casey go with them. The large family sheds both members and beliefs as they head westward, dealing with death, desertion, and diappointment. And when they get to California, they find that there is no work there, either, because everyone has moved west and the landowners can choose the hungriest for the least amount of pay.

The story is about promise, of dreams dashed and reborn, and the unkillable nature of human hope. The entire first act is about the heading west - burying the old and embracing the new, despite numerous warnings that things are not as rosey as promised. The second act is the crushing reality and growth of a new hope, of organization and gathering together. And though that is crippled as well, still there remains hope, where there remains life.

The play is presented by an ensemble, with most of the huge cast taking numerous parts. Erick Kastel creates a flinty, wind-blasted Tom Joad, returning to a world changed beyond his remembrance. Todd Jefferson Moore breaths life into Jim Casy, the former preacher who finds the need to still help others. The rest of the cast is excellent as well, and while some of the lines are familiar (Hank Fonda's "I'll be there" speech in the movie) they given new life in their presentation.

One challenge to the play is that the original Grapes of Wrath was a book, and a fair-sized one at that, and shrinking it down into two hours and change of acting is a task. This adaption was made in 1988 by Frank Galati, and took the 1990 Tony for Best Play. Yep, a lot of parts of truncated (the salting of the pig, the time spent in the Weedpatch camp), but in general Galati has cored down to the nub of Steinbeck's writing And when he used Steinbeck's language (through narrators), you get the feeling of power of the original work.

The other challenge is that the original Grapes of Wrath was also as big as all outdoors. It is a book about the open country, whether it was the blasted lands of Oklahoma or the road west or the migrant orchards of California. Very little of the action takes place in enclosed spaces, and though the staging struggles with conveying that openess with sparse, wide staging, it is still clear that it is something outdoors moved inside, and constrained by limitations of the media. This also goes for the fact that despite the huge cast and number of changing rolls, the book deals with a multitude on the road, of an entire nation pulling up stakes and moving elsewhere.

And hanging over the proceedings are the spectres of Katrina and Rita (and Wilma - we've finally reached the end of the huricaine alphabet - if there is another storm, we go back to the "A's). The play takes on an added importance as the travails of the Joad clan are mirrored in the uprooted peoples of the Gulf Coast, of struggling to stay human as a world turns against them. There is one sequence where a pair of gas station attendants are talking down on the Okies passing through - saying that the travelers are foolish, they're stupid, they're subhuman, they're gorillas. If it were happening today, the gas jockeys would be pundits on the 24-hour talk channels. No, the situation hasn't changed all that much.

We just don't have a Steinbeck to spare at the moment.

More later,