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Sep 1

Turn out the lights.

Posted on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 in Blogging

So I was sitting there trying to work up the gumption to write a review about Sandra Bullock’s Premonition when it hit me: I’m not blogging the way I really want to.

Recently my wife was looking back through some (years) old blog entries and marveling at how much she shared in those days. Details of family and work that would be inconceivable now that we’ve both weathered a terrible cyberstalking incident that left us permanently scarred. She hasn’t been able to blog more than an entry or two in the intervening years. I’ve done about three years’ worth of work, but it hasn’t been the same.

Part of the problem is all the second-guessing that goes into blogging now. I have people who know my name and wish me and my family harm so I can’t really talk about them. Likewise I can’t much talk about myself for fear of letting slip some piece of vital information that’ll start a whole new stalking nightmare. And then there are the professional missteps I’ve made when blogging about this thing or that thing related to books and/or publishing. Frankly, it takes the fun out of it and it’s one of the reasons I’ve taken the safe route and just done a bunch of reviews.

But the issue is this: I’m bored with writing reviews. I want to go back to blogging about the stuff I used to blog about before there were so many worries. And the only way I can do that is either: 1) lock down this blog from general readers, or 2) blogging somewhere else anonymously.

I’m going to wait a bit before I make a final decision. If ever there was a time for those reading to speak up, this is it, because the potential for this blog to go poof is very high.

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Aug 27

[REVIEW] The Expendables

Posted on Friday, August 27, 2010 in Movies

I will freely admit that I’m a Sylvester Stallone fan. When I was a much younger man I used to groove on Rambo: First Blood, Part II and Rocky IV with a perhaps inappropriate level of intensity. Cobra was the last film of Stallone’s ’80s period that I can honestly say I enjoyed. The other stuff (the comedies especially) can go to hell.

Stallone’s had something of a renaissance in recent years, starting with the excellent Rocky Balboa and continuing into the bloody, uncompromising Rambo. So I looked forward to his next venture, The Expendables, with some excitement. Now that he’d done such a great job closing the books on his two most famous characters, what would he do with something original?

I felt even more favorably about The Expendables when cast details began to emerge. Favorite names from action movies current and past surfaced. Jason Statham. Jet Li. Dolph Lundgren. “Death From Above” himself! This was going to be good stuff.

I will confess I didn’t go out the first weekend and see The Expendables. I tend not to do that with movies, so they win or lose their box office race without my help. The Expendables hit #1, which was definitely good news for Stallone and Company, but in the extra time that lapsed I began to hear things about the movie that gave me pause.

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Aug 20

Backlog

Posted on Friday, August 20, 2010 in Blogging

It may seem like I do a lot of reviewing on this blog and it’s true, I do. But at any given time I have a backlog of things I have yet to review and it gets longer every week. If I don’t stay on top of things, it can get out of control.

Right now I have:

This is a fairly manageable list thus far, but if I let it go for too long….

Of course, I don’t have to review anything at all. It’s not like people come from far and wide to read my thoughts on video games and movies and comics (or anything at all), so I could give it up and no one would probably notice. As I’ve said before, I use reviews as a tool for sorting out my own thoughts, though sometimes — like with the execrable GI Joe — I have no confusion about what I feel about it.

Occasionally I feel badly that the blog turns into a cavalcade of reviews without any solid content backing it up. The truth is that I get a little tired sometimes and the first thing that suffers is the blog. Reviews become an easy way to produce content and keep the daily pace going. I don’t like it when days pass without anything for people to read and reviews are better than nothing.

So you can look forward to another big block of reviews headed your way!

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Aug 16

How many days?!?

Posted on Monday, August 16, 2010 in Blogging

How many days has it been since I posted anything here? However long it’s been, it’s been too long. And it’s not like I’ve been short of things to review.

From time to time I go through these blogging slumps. I can’t think of something that’s worth 250-500 words and so the day slips by. And then another and another. Today could easily have been lost if I hadn’t been so overwhelmed with guilt at neglecting the blog that I felt I should post something.

Part of the problem is that I have no news to share. Work on my latest manuscript is kind of stalled out so I can’t tell you about that. There’s been no further activity on the Dead Women front — no new covers to show off, for example — so I can’t gush about its impending release. In all it’s been very quiet, and quiet doesn’t make for exciting blogging.

I will say that I’ve been spending more time reading (and reading about) roleplaying games. There’s a two-day mini-con in my area coming up and I’m thinking seriously about attending. To play, of course, but also possibly to run something. Now, bear in mind that I haven’t run anything in ten years and you can see the pressure I’m putting on myself.

I suppose I could do some writing about my “process” when it comes to such things. How the ideas come together. How they’re implemented. And then how it all turns out. But I’m not sure that’s anything anyone wants to read.

So how about it? You want to read that?

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Aug 11

Afghanistan: d20 Then and Now

Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 in Roleplaying Games

I recently pulled out my copy of Afghanistan: d20 and had a look through it for the first time in years. I don’t know how many people bought it when it was released in 2002, but I was one of them and I was well aware of the controversy surrounding its release.

The argument against Afghanistan: d20 was that it was somehow disrespectful to the troops fighting there to make a game of their hardships and, yes, their deaths. My perspective was that we have successfully made games out just about any war you care to think of, from WWI to Vietnam. Some have been wargames, some roleplaying games, but they were all still games. Did these efforts, too, qualify as disrespectful?

I guess on the one hand I can kind of see the argument against a roleplaying game. With a wargame things are abstracted. The death of one or a dozen or a hundred is just numbers on a sheet of paper. Properly executed, a roleplaying character has a life of his or her own and that character’s death is going to be felt more acutely as a result. Assuming the player is the empathetic sort. Some aren’t.

In a less touchy-feely but more practical sense, there’s the argument that there is little to do in an Afghanistan: d20 campaign. I believe this comes from a perspective that doesn’t see the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan as a fully fledged war, but as some kind of low-intensity peacekeeping mission. War is full of plot hooks, as anyone who’s run a WWII game or the like can tell you.

At any rate, America’s war in Afghanistan has become our longest. It seemed like the right time to look at Afghanistan: d20 and review not only the controversial origins of the supplement, but what we can do with it now to tell meaningful stories.

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