Or something.

I wish Augusta had its own Batman and Robin.

I’m hesitant to link this, simply because Den Beste seems to be inundated with emails as it is, but I think it’s a really cool article about the history of ship/fleet warfare. This sort of thing does not interest me at all…or at least, I never thought it did. Den Beste’s overview was really informative, though, and I read it beginning to end.

He originally started out planning to write about the plausibility of and possibilities for future/space fleet warfare. To do this he had to begin with descriptions of the history of fleet warfare, and it got so long that he decided to put off writing the space part! I’m looking forward to seeing what he comes up with on that front.

There’s your introduction…remember that he does not want emails, so if you just want to shoot the breeze about this article, post your comment here! ;D If you have some sort of life-altering, fascinating, amazing insight, then you can probably go ahead and email Den Beste. Disclaimer stated…here’s the link!

Some of my last posts on the AMRN (I haven’t posted recently, and I’m thinking yet again of quitting) were for Milla Frank, currently the XO of the UNS Etrakis. Mr. Justice hadn’t been posting much for Captain Youngman, so I was pretty much the active senior officer during a rather interesting crisis: first contact. (For our fleet, anyway; it came out that our government already knew about the aliens. Also, since it’s Macross, you could argue that it’s not really first contact since we’ve already met so many other aliens…but I’m not here to discuss semantics!) I had to make executive decisions about deployment, get our people out of harm’s way and, later, negotiate a truce with the new aliens while trying not to look like a sissy.

This was really the only time in my almost five years of playing on the AMRN that I felt that I both had a decent grasp of what I was doing and that my actions had a direct impact on the game universe. In short, I was actually playing the game and having a hell of a lot of fun at it.

Virtually all of my fun in the past came from non-combat, relationship-motivated character interaction. There is a disparity between “combat” and “down time” that many players and GMs have remarked upon. “Combat” is meaningless flying out to attack the enemy of the week (or month, or year), typically never quite finishing the mission, and having a neat resolution packaged up by the GM that essentially nullifies any actual impact you had on the game. This can happen under a single GM–perhaps s/he simply doesn’t have the time to rewrite his/her plot, or something–but it’s most noticeable when one GM leaves and another takes over. The successor typically has no idea what occurred in game or what it might have meant for the characters, so s/he simply washes the slate clean. Convenient for him/her, annoying for the players.

Down time, on the other hand, is not so closely monitored by the GMs, so the continuity is maintained directly by the players. If my character starts flirting with another character, that character will be affected, and so will anyone observing. Flashbacks to this occurrence could happen months later (real-time). It was in those times that I really felt that I was building story.

At the same time, though, I always had the niggling feeling that I wasn’t building a complete story. Yes, characters are the most important thing (at least, to me), but the setting and the events of the universe are part of what shapes the characters. Much of what I have done in the game could be done anywhere. There is nothing that makes my characters’ relationships and motivations particularly bound to the world of Macross. A few little changes, and we could plunk them right into, say, the United States Civil War. When I started realizing this, I started losing my interest in the game, and it’s been declining ever since.

My experience with Milla has shown me what a real game can feel like. In fact, I strongly believe that that experience is the only reason I read Den Beste’s article all the way through. I had been thinking about similar principles in order to create a favorable outcome in my game…and because I was having a direct impact on what happened (to an entire fleet!), the learning was actually interesting.

I don’t gain anything by knowing mecha statistics. The GMs don’t know them, either, so they tend to resolve rounds in general ways that don’t depend on the combination of mecha type and actions. The GMs who do “know” mecha stats often disagree with one another, meaning that there is no general consensus and therefore no point in trying to learn. Why bother, if there’s no guarantee that my knowledge will be useful? If I get the same result by simply understanding the basic principles and maybe adding a few mecha-specific details, why bother taking it to the next level? What is there to be gained?

This is most likely why I find mecha stats so boring. I have no time for knowledge I don’t have a use for.

I would like it if there were some way to give all players the feeling I had during the first contact (or whatever) scenario. I’m not going to say it was perfect–at times I felt as if I was being “guided”–but it was a hell of a lot better than pretty much all of the rest of my AMRN experience. There is no perfect game, because people are all different…but I think that having a direct impact on larger-than-life events would add a long-missing excitement for every single player.

Savannah was awesome, and I’ll be posting up some pictures and a blurb or two as soon as possible. Until then, though, here are a few fun things:

• Reminiscent of my discussion of the “well said” phenomenon in Japan, here are some advertising quotes (I love the longer ones).
• An exciting new technology, whereby plants are used to cleanse the soil of deadly chemicals that remain after an area is mined for gold, is being implemented in South America. The plants not only absorb the mining chemicals, but the gold remaining in the ground. This gold is then used to pay the costs of the cleansing and of training the locals to farm the land once it’s cleansed. This is what technology is all about!
• This cracked me up. Just go look. (I especially love that “unique WWW address”…no wonder people needed code books back then!)
• I link this because it’s the first time I’ve laughed at Mac Hall in quite some time. The last panel just totally gets me.
• Penny Arcade, on the other hand, pretty much invariably makes me laugh. This looks like it would be fun. Sean and I are going to some sort of Asheron’s Call 2 convention in August, so I don’t know if we would be able to swing PAX, but it’s something to think about.

Speaking of trips, I’m going to Washington, DC to meet some of the folks from Sushicam this coming Friday. I’ll be lodging at the home of my very good friend from middle school, Noelle. She and her husband John are being very gracious, considering the short notice! ^^; I hope to spend some time with the two of them on Saturday, doing…something or other. Cary (my cousin, who I saw yesterday in Savannah) suggested that I try to go to Georgetown instead of looking at the monuments. She said there are lots of interesting things to see and do, and some great cafes and shops. So I’m kicking that idea around. However, since it will apparently take eight hours to get there, I will really only have Saturday in which to do stuff. It may be that I’m unable to do much sightseeing at all. But relaxing with Noelle and catching up (we last saw each other last summer, at Myrtle Beach) would be just fine with me.

That’s it for now. More on Savannah later. For now, let me just reiterate that I had a blast. :)

This time I’m on a day trip to Savannah. Mapquest claims it will take three hours to get to the resort where Aunt Bev and Cary are staying, so I’m leaving now to hopefully arrive at noon. Since Mapquest also said it would take three hours to get to Myrtle Beach, and it actually took more like an hour and a half, I’m hopeful that I’ll arrive early. Then again, it is Saturday, so I may have to deal with other travelers…

I finally downloaded the pictures from Kentucky onto my computer last night, but I haven’t had a chance to put them up anywhere. Most of them are normal family things, but a few are noteworthy, and I’ll find a place for them later.

Well, here I go. I’ll be back much later tonight…whether or not I’ll post again is another thing entirely.

Of course, not every burning issue was cleared up Thursday. For instance, how can 15 people be fired when they were never hired in the first place? That question may never be resolved.

Hahahah. MSN is teh funnay.

This is amazing. I’ll post actual thoughts on it later, when I’m not supposed to be working. ;>

AJ linked me tonight to what may be the greatest video currently on the Internet. I’ve seen it before…but it never gets old! I think part of the reason I enjoy it so much is that she seems, based solely on her looks, her voice, and that self-indulgent little giggle right before she gets whacked upside the head, to be a total fucking ditzy bitch.

It’s shallow, I know. But I can’t stop enjoying it. :>

Ben said something last night that I thought was hilarious…not necessarily for content, but just the way he said it:

“If no one cared about anything, then…who gives a shit?”

He’s a genius, I swear.

I’m awake in the morning today, which is more than I can say for the rest of the week. Every day I’ve been waking up intermittently and falling back asleep, only to finally drag myself out of bed at around 2 pm. No more, I decided last night. I would get up as soon as I woke up the first time. Armed with that decision, I fought myself valiantly this morning when I woke up: Get up. Get up. You’re awake, get up. Get up now. Come on. Get up.

It took my mom opening her door and walking out past my door with the dogs to actually inspire me to move. I figured if they were up, I had no excuse. So I forced myself out of bed, arranged the covers, and hopped into the shower…and here I am. Victorious!

Hopefully this means I’ll be able to play with Connor more the next time he spends the night. A few nights ago he was here, and while I played with him during the evening (a rousing game of charades, during which I impersonated a bunny, a crocodile, and his father AJ), I never got up before he left to go home the next day. I’ve felt bad about that ever since, even though AJ assured me that Connor doesn’t hold grudges. It’s just uncool to do that to a kid, whether they hold grudges or not. (The worst part of it is, I did wake up and actually went to the bathroom while he was there. He was sitting on Mom’s bed and I waved at him, but then I went right back to bed. That’s like torture!)

It would take a lot for me to subscribe to Ben’s vision of an apathetic world, I guess. I think probably he’s more interested in having people leave him alone than anything else. That, at least, I can understand. But I don’t think I’d want to get to the point where no one cared about anyone else. That strikes me as a rather cold and unwelcoming world.

You may have gathered from my previous post that I’m a perfectionist. Then again, you probably knew that already :>

Yesterday I found a link to an article about Web standards on an April Fool’s Day joke page. The joke was funny, but the article it linked got me thinking.

First off, you should know that that article is really, really old. It’s from 1997! But the things it speaks of–a separation of design and content, and the utilization of meaningful class tags to facilitate swift and accurate information retrieval–don’t exist any more now than they apparently did then. Content management systems help, but ultimately all the yokels learning web design are going to tag their HTML for layout. (I never knew using a transparent gif as a spacer was a bad thing! In fact, I thought it was 1) cool and 2) common practice! Apparently only #2 is the case…)

It all makes me want to tear apart this beautiful template I just made and start over.

If you check my source, you’ll see that I’ve put all the CSS in the head. You’ll also see that I’m really just using CSS for font weight, style, and size. If I had an ounce of dignity, I’d tag every design element in CSS. The various pieces of the site are currently arrayed in tables–this is, of course, the cardinal sin, and I will be leaving shortly to self-inflict my punitive 60 lashes with the cat-o’-nine-tails.

Ideally, I would have the barebones functions in the Blogger template–nothing relating to layout whatsoever other than pieces to reference CSS code–and the CSS itself in a separate file, called from the Blogger code. In fact, this would be much nicer for me when I want to tweak the layout. Currently I have to republish the entire site, including all archives, whenever I add an element or change a single tag. Yes, that’s convenient.

Unfortunately, I’m still not sure how to make CSS do what I want. As far as I can tell, it can’t, for example, center the content on the page the way I have it now. My friend Dave says I can use a table for that…but if I give those tables an inch, who knows how many miles they will take!

At this point, I basically can do nothing…but you know this is going to eat at me until I do something about it.

Why, why, why would you record one take, fuck it all up, and then, instead of practicing until you had it down pat and re-recording, post the fucked-up take to the Internet?

Ugh! UGH! Someone get that boy a fucking metronome!

It seems like more and more people are willing to slap things together, decide it’s “good enough”, and release it to the public without bothering to make it the best it can be. It’s bad enough on the ‘net, but at least there it’s pretty much free. I see this slackassedness creeping in elsewhere, though…notably in small businesses that overextend and then make fixing the situation a low priority.

Could I be thinking of something in particular? Maybe. Maybe several somethings. :P

All I can say is, this sort of thing really fouls up my mood.

On a lighter note, I’m leaving tomorrow to drive to Kentucky for a nice week of fun with my family. I’ll be staying through Easter (yay! Easter dinner! yay! Easter egg hunt!), then driving home on Monday the 12th. This may or may not affect my Internet presence (who am I kidding? I’m taking the laptop!).

At work today, Robert said something about how Kentucky is probably better than Georgia because “Georgia’s kind of backwards”. Well…

I think you can find them anywhere, folks.

Japan is awesome.

Crews asked Allen and Garside to re-enact the dice roll with a 2-foot-wide die. The candidates were asked to glare at each other, then roll the oversized die several times.

The title you pick depends on which of Lakoff’s family paradigms you subscribe to ;)

The story is about the Prime Minister of Thailand, who has sent his youngest daughter to work at McDonald’s so that she can gain an understanding and appreciation of economics. The part where it mentions he studied at EKU and worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken is awesome. (I wonder if he was the only student at EKU who actually studied…?)