My family's email list has exchanged a round of email about the election. One of my uncles emailed everybody to celebrate Obama's victory, one of my aunts replied, basically, to say "Congratulations, and I hope you're right," and my dad responded like so:

Hi, y'all.  Maybe it's because I've been sick since Friday, and I'm a bit of a curmudgeon anyway but it appears to me that nothing has been won yet.  

President-elect Obama now has the privilege of negotiating a troop withdrawal agreement with Iraq, a country now perpetually on the brink of civil war, managing a worsening conflict in Afghanistan, repairing relations with erstwhile ally Pakistan while not offending India, dealing with the worst economic crisis in our lifetime.....well, you get the picture. 

What I saw in this election that worried me the most was the deep distrust and fear that many Americans had toward each other.  Although I have to admit I am pleased with his election, I'm not breaking out the champagne (right now, it would be water and dry toast anyway--ick!) until President Obama does something President Bush (and many others) never did--pick a Cabinet and policy initiatives which reflect the diversity of the country and lower even a little the level of distrust and fear. 

Other than that, enjoy the moment!

I had a thing or two to say about that. Because I am apparently too sleepy to make an lj-cut work even when I copy the code verbatim from a previous entry, here's my response in its entirety.

***

Clearly President Obama (man, I love saying that) will face staggering challenges as he takes office, challenges that won't be resolved for years to come. But the fact that he was elected at all is cause for celebration--first, because I believe he is almost infinitely better equipped to face those challenges than Senator McCain, having demonstrated the ability to inspire a broad spectrum of the American people, articulate a path for them to follow to a better tomorrow, and surround himself with the sort of expertise that Democrats have so sorely lacked in recent years; and second, because, as you say, this election exposed some of the worst fractures in American unity and some shameful attempts to play on the fears and doubts about one another that still divide us--and it didn't work. The cries of "Country First" and "Drill, Baby, Drill" were not just ignored but shouted down, by a decisive margin, and this country spoke loud and clear that you've got to do more than scare us to get us to vote for you. This election is a referendum on failed lassez faire economic policies, failed imperialist foreign policy, failed corporate welfare policies--on the failure of the politics of fear and division (as Obama named them), at least for now. It's a clear signal to the Republican party that they are going to have to do a heck of a lot better than stale talking points, stupid buzzwords, and transparent bids to appeal to both sides of their unnatural, (finally!) fraying coalition between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. I even dare to hope that some good, faithful social conservatives (hi, Aunt Carol!) will notice that only one presidential candidate in this election is a regular churchgoer and devoted parent who's never been divorced, who sounds a whole lot smarter and more substantive than the token social conservative on the Republican ticket.

Speaking as someone who has spent his entire political life under the thumb of a president and an administration I don't like, trust, respect, or support, who has had his patriotism questioned for arguing for what's right, who has seen inspiring figures like Howard Dean and the John McCain of 2000 thrown under the bus of party machinery and sound-bite "journalism" in favor of safe, dishwater-dull failures like Kerry and puffball politicos like Bush, who is deathly sick of seeing good people in both parties lied to by their leaders, I can't express how exhilarating it was to vote for someone who genuinely inspires me and to see that person take the stage as president-elect with (at least) 62 million other voices behind him--no half-percent margin, no stolen states and ugly lawsuits, but a clear and resounding victory and an electoral map noticeably different from the one I'd come to take as a given. Even if both sides of the debate have been a bit insubstantial at times, it's a nice change to see words of hope triumph over words of fear.

Yes, this is all awfully naive of myself and the other young people who helped elect Obama, who haven't seen so many other political hopes dashed. Yes, there's a real possibility that his best intentions and efforts will not succeed, that the challenges facing him are out of his control, that four years from now things will be worse instead of better, that we will once again elect those who cynically exploit power for the benefit of their own interests. Yes, there certainly is still cause for worry, fear, and doubt about the future of this country and the debate about its direction.

But for the first time in (at least) eight years, I'm excited, rather than scared, to see it all unfold.

And while this is a victory, it's the beginning of a journey, not the end. There's no sense from where I'm sitting that now this is over and we can all go home. Instead, there's a very real feeling that when the celebration is over, it's time to roll up our sleeves and do the work it will take to make this country great again. And, from where I'm sitting, that is a strange, wonderful, singular thing to feel.

I'm in Champaign-Urbana through Wednesday, then in Chicago for Magic's U.S. Nationals through Monday.

Drop me a line if you're around!

I haven't decided yet whether the song means anything or just sounds like it does, but the video is freaking brilliant regardless:

Tally Hall's Good Day

 rebeccafrog  is out of town, so no Friday BSG and no corresponding cooking adventure. Instead, I had another solo tour.

Last Wednesday, we made something she called savory bread pudding, and the Friday before that we made delicious crepes with two kinds of sauce. The bread pudding was from the Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers cookbook, as was my previous cooking adventure. It's a great cookbook. It knows rather more about cooking than I do, but it does a great job of explaining what needs to be explained most of the time while leaving enough unsaid that it isn't cumbersome and that I get to discover some interesting things for myself.

astridsdream and I went out for breakfast, recharged our batteries in the sunshine, then spent all day cleaning my apartment (so that she can pack up her apartment and keep most of her stuff here in the month or so that she'll be living here before we're ready to move into a new place together...). I have a clean dining room for the first time ever. The price is that my bedroom is now a wreck, so that's the project for tomorrow. For tonight, though, we had made plans to have mad_willy over to my newly shiny apartment for delicious foods and Magic. I perused Simple Suppers while sitting in the parking lot of Fred Meyer at the start of our shopping trip and picked the first recipe that caught my eye:


Oh, and I won the post-dinner Magic game. And my apartment's clean, and I feel exhausted and productive, and it's only Saturday! (Well, it's Sunday now, but the main point is that tomorrow morning isn't Monday.) It's been a good weekend so far. For now, the beer and cheese are making a pointed argument in favor of sleep.

Finally saw it. It was awesome. Some great acting, some great action, some intriguing political metaphors, and of course the standard dose of arc reactor-powered suspension of disbelief.

Great fun, and I'll be watching with great interest to see how Marvel handles its unfolding and intertwining line of superhero movies. I have this hunch that the great golden age of superhero movies is just beginning.

(I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed for now. Interested in hearing more of my thoughts about the movie or about Marvel's big plans? Let me know, and I'll post more! Unless I don't.)

Of late I have been serving as rebeccafrog's kitchen apprentice (after quickly graduating from the post kitchen monkey, which just tonight was retconned to the superior "kitchen imp"), primarily to feed our Wednesday gaming group but increasingly for Friday Battlestar Galactica and whatever other opportunities present themselves.

You can read about our joint culinary adventures, as well as the weekly challenges we're basing them on, in her LJ. Last night, though, I borrowed one of her cookbooks and struck out to feed astridsdream and myself all on my own. The next day, I discovered that I had just independently completed this week's challenge: a soup from the Moosewood Restaurant's Simple Suppers cookbook.

She and I are going to do something exciting with mushrooms and asparagus on Friday. For now, I decided to tackle something simpler:

( Italian Bread and Cheese Soup )

Meanwhile, tonight at our gaming group, we baked and ate a pesto lasagna with hazelnuts that rebeccafrog and I prepared on Monday after cooking and eating dinner (mango salad; good, but way outside what I'd ever prepare of my own volition). The lasagna was delicious. On the car ride home we agreed that sharper cheeses and more garlic would have been an improvement, and I felt that the pesto and cheese flavors could have blended better. What would have happened if we had mixed the pesto and cheese together before applying them on the two bottom layers? Disaster? I am curious. All told, though, no complaints--just opportunities for further experimentation.

This is fun, and like all my favorite activities, it represents a telescoping rabbit hole of ever-increasing, ever-unfolding depth and complexity. I'm constantly learning, there's always more to learn, and there always will be. I do believe I could get used to this cooking thing. (Insert sound of astridsdream cheering me on in brazen self-interest a heartwarming show of support.)

So… It’s finally happened, though I swore it wouldn’t. I’m on Facebook.

( Sleepy musings on the implications of this below the cut. )

I want to get back in the habit of posting here, but in the meantime, you should really go read this discussion thread about some instructional videos posted on that site I edit.

If you're interested in Magic, and especially if you're planning on attending the Shadowmoor Prerelease, you should definitely watch the videos as well.

But even if you're not interested in Magic, haven't watched the videos, etc., you should really go read the thread. Skim for the bits about Brandon. That'll lead you to the bits about me. Then keep reading. It gets worse.

When I saw Brandon in the office this afternoon, he said, "So. Jello wrestling." I said, "Let's do this." Alas, no jello.

Then tonight at the employee prerelease, the Rules Manager, Mark G., saw Brandon and started gushing about, "Oh my gosh, it's you! You're the hot guy from the web site!" When I, sitting right behind Brandon, turned around and smirked, he actually jumped up and down exclaiming, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! It's both of them right next to each other!"

And that pretty much sums up my day.

Hey everybody! Just a heads-up that I am leaving in a few hours for sunny, tropical Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I am inoculated against mysterious tropical diseases, I'm scheduled to stay a few extra days, and I'm ready for an adventure.

Over Valentine's Day. Work travel this year will also claim Memorial Day and Halloween. Does that seem right to you?

Anyway, I'm on this luxurious 18-hour Singapore Airlines flight where I'll be able to plug in my computer, so that Serenity session script should actually materialize. Of course, I also pulled an all-nighter last night after sleeping four hours the night before, so maybe I'll just spend those 18 hours sleeping.

The time zones weird me out. Malaysia is 16 hours ahead of Washington, which means that in Kuala Lumpur, it's eight hours ago tomorrow.

So, I overslept and I'm running late for work, but this had to be documented. If my interpretation is correct, this morning I had a dream so stupid I woke up in self-defense. The following is somewhat reconstructed, but I swear it is true to the dream.

It was about some stupid cartoon animal scientist-type (who, if he wasn't Mr. Peabody, was at the very least an alumnus of the same stupid cartoon animal graduate program--even the animation was the same) who had been hired to invent an outlandish device.

It seems a famous opera singer (a big, bearded man who stood on his tiptoes) was having trouble with his voice and had been told to take in the ocean air. He was a busy man, however, and didn't want to spend a lot of time at it. So the stupid cartoon animal scientist-type invented this flying machine--which looked like a barrel with lots of extraneous tubes, and maybe wings--so that the opera singer could zoom over the ocean, taking in lots of ocean air very quickly. But it gets worse.

He gave it a name that was some torturous, excruciating pun involving the word "pod" (playing off of iPod, which I'm fairly sure Mr. Peabody never got the chance to do). It didn't involve the phrase "highPod," which would at least let me imagine one of the silhouette people from the iPod commercials smoking a joint. No, this was Much Dumber Than That. I don't think it's even a pun in real life. It was that dumb. There was something about "undersea" in it, which doesn't make any sense.

So the stupid cartoon animal scientist-type is explaining the device to his stupid cartoon kid assistant type, correcting his pronunciation with yet more awful puns, when the opera singer comes back. The stupid cartoon animal scientist-type asks him how his flight was, and he says it was good, "but..." So they do a Q&A routine that's obviously a throughline for some awful joke. Finally the opera singer gets to it:

"Eef zees eez one of your 'pods,' zen where are ze headphones?!"

WA-WAH

...It was my last dream of the night, and I swear it woke me up. I woke with a start, thinking, in sequence, "That was really stupid!" and "Wait, what time is it??"

I'm not sure whether to give my brain a cookie for finding a way to wake me up, or to scrub it with bleach for inundating me with that level of pure dumbth.

Maybe I should give it a bleach cookie. That'll show it.

So, as you’re probably aware, Friday was my birthday--and not just any birthday, but my “golden birthday,” as I turned 25 on the 25th. My mom sent me a cute e-card and an email lovingly reminding me that I am a quarter of a century old. Thanks mom!

Friday was a normal day of work, but Friday night was a company office party at a hotel up in Bellevue. A bunch of us carpooled up with our respective guests (later than intended, but still in time for food) and had a really good time. The food was good (roast turkey with walnut gravy was the highlight for me), the drinks were free, and there really are a lot of cool people at that company. astridsdream can tell you a little more about it in this post.

At one point, after I’d exhausted my free drink tickets on others, I walked up to one of the bars in the venue and asked for water. My initial warning sign was that the first thing he put in the glass was brown and alcoholic-looking. Um… Before I could say anything, he cracked a bottle of soda water, poured it in, announced that this was a “club soda,” and asked for eight dollars. I told him I didn’t have eight dollars (true) and that I would come back with such (false). I left the “water” there. WATER. Seriously. This is not hard! One of the other bartenders was happy to give me, you know, some actual ice water, the kind without booze in it.

I awoke Saturday a little dehydrated but excited about my birthday party that night. I drank plenty of water and arrived at the Celtic Swell in West Seattle well hydrated, surrounded by friends, and ready to get sozzled while listening to live Irish music.

( There may have been some drinking. )

Following a nasty 4 a.m. wake-up of the “need bread and water or I’ll hurl and possibly die” variety, I got myself feeling better, slept some more, and spent Sunday and Monday (my "birthday holiday"), basically, recovering and relaxing. There was some Magic and a little bit of cleaning. My dining room table is no longer covered in Magic cards; it is now half-covered in Magic cards that are organized into piles. Man, I thought a house with one Magic player was bad, but since Laura started playing there’ve been cards everywhere (we keep ‘em all at my place, on the grounds that I own a table).

A very good weekend on the whole. Crazy where it needed to be crazy and relaxed where it needed to be relaxed. Not quite as productive as I'd like, but hey, it was my birthday!

I’m still working on the Serenity session script. Almost finished!

…Man, I sit down, words come out. I have got to do this more often.

Quote of the day: (other than “It tastes like a very blurry tree.”)

“A healthy pregnancy begins in the bread aisle.”
--the cheery recording they play at Fred Meyer, who apparently has never taken a health class

Tonight I finished up with a one-shot adventure of the Serenity roleplaying game. This was the third session of our one-shot, but lets not pick nits. All three sessions were fun, but tonight was actually mind-blowing, quite possibly the best dramatic roleplaying session I've ever taken part in… and I am going to try to convey to you how and why without boring you to death.

If you don’t know the Serenity RPG, it’s basically structured to make sure that GMs can reward players for doing things they like instead of just for killing monsters, and players have a lot more input on what’s going on than they usually do. The result, at least with good roleplayers, is a focus less on personal achievement and more on the overall arc of the plot.

This is accomplished primarily through the use of plot points. Whenever players survive combat, carry out clever plans, play their characters really well, or are hampered by their flaws (“complications”), they get plot points, represented in our game by poker chips (the recommended method). These are most commonly cashed in to roll extra dice on tough, plot-important rolls, but can also be used to shore up a roll (much less) after the fact and, perhaps most importantly, to make material changes to the plot at the GM’s discretion. This can be simple retconning, provided that it doesn’t actually contradict anything (“Of course we brought Simon with us! Nevermind that we haven’t mentioned him til now; he was just being quiet.”) or minor strokes of luck (“I’ll just grab this conveniently placed hat rack and use it to fight off the robot dogs.”) (Yes, there were robot dogs.)

This is, needless to say, a great idea.

So that’s the Serenity RPG. If you’re not familiar with Serenity / Firefly at all, you’re not going to be able to follow this. But then, I don’t think I know many people who fit that description.

( A long roleplaying story that I swear has a point, although said point is not actually in this post. )

Hi folks!

A quick update: I am doing well, back in Renton after the holidays and still sort of getting back into my routine. Doing my regular job plus some creative work for an upcoming Magic set on the side, and generally having a good time of it.

( Boring Magic stuff always goes below the cut. )

Anyway, to the matter at hand! This Friday is the 25th anniversary of the august occasion of my birth. (I believe I used that exact same line last year, incremented one lower. But hey, it's been a whole year since then... who could possibly remember?) Friday night I'll be attending a Wizards office party, but I would like you--yes, YOU--to join me in celebrating on Saturday night. Live Irish music has become something of a habit for my birthday, and I intend to keep that going (two years running so far... I believe after this year it can officially be upgraded to "tradition").

So... it's a bit out of the way, but I like the guy who's playing, and the venue sounds pretty neat. Please join me on Saturday, January 26 at 8:00 p.m. at:

The Celtic Swell
2722 Alki Ave SW
Seattle, Washington 98116

to hear:

Mingus O'Bannon

perform for free!

Gifts aren't necessary--just bring your friendly selves and have fun. I haven't seen many of you in months (not that that's your fault), and this seems as good an excuse as any.

RSVPs would be handy, I guess, but don't be bashful about just showing up. Let me know if you want to carpool up from Renton; I suspect we'll have two cars' worth of people heading out from here.

Hope to see you there!

Hey, folks. I know it's been forever since I updated. Shame on me.

Anyway, the point is, I'm in Illinois from now until early on the 30th, and although I will of course have family obligations, if you're reading this and are in Illinois, I would like to see you while I'm here.

My lady friend will be here from the 26th to the 30th, so if you are interested in meeting her you'll have to stake out some time during that span (other than Friday--family stuff).

Hope to see you soon.

...is ignoring big news and updates (my recent trip home to see my sister play Belle in Beauty and the Beast, astridsdream's new job, etc.) in order to post about the immediately relevant.

Folks in Seattle and environs should go see the all-new Seattle branch of the Ubiquitous They perform on Thursday night at 10 p.m. at the Community something something Center in Seattle!

astridsdream and I saw them tonight, and the hilarity was substantial. It's a good, small ensemble and a script cobbled toge--er, lovingly assembled from the best UT sketches of the last few years. A fine night of comedy and not overlong; they did a few of my old favorites and a number of good ones that were new to me.

Oh, and I knew half the audience, which was fun in and of itself.

Anyway, the point is, if you're in the area on Thursday and didn't see it tonight, you should go! Advance tickets and info are here.

Tonight I saw Eddie Izzard's "Work in Progress" at the Intiman Theatre at Seattle Center with astridsdream, shardavarius and xaandria, and their friends Chris and Sora (who I'm pretty sure are darthparadox and nightsinger, but don't quote me on that).

I won't bother trying to convey to you how funny it was. Suffice to say, if you've only ever seen the man on video (or, as in my case, heard audio of his performances--or, though I have trouble imagining it, have never heard his stuff at all), you must see Eddie Izzard perform live at least once before you die.

He is brilliantly funny and reactive to his audience, and he also clearly spends a lot of time really thinking about religion, history, and society. In between bits about how even the Romans could barely speak Latin and how Spartan women had babies, he will drop these little nuggets of insight about the real name and divinity of Jesus, evolution vs. intelligent design, the differences between Europe and America, etc.

He makes excellent use of anachronism, reincorporation, historical and religious themes, dialogue, sound effects, motions and facial expressions, and plain old silly words ("jam" is my favorite).

And during his encore, as he was talking about how instead of hunting foxes, posh British people should hunt flies, an actual fly--and I swear to you that I am not making this up--a fly landed on the front pocket of his jacket. He didn't see it at first, but people gasped and pointed, and soon everyone was helpless with laughter. He jumped and flicked it off his jacket onto the stage floor, where it obediently stayed (alive but maybe injured) as he directed much of the rest of his monologue toward it, sharing the stage with it pretty much as if it were a person.

In retrospect, I think it might've been a moth. But... seriously... what are the odds of that? And he rolled with it brilliantly.

I was already a huge fan of his work, but man, I didn't even know. He's a great thinker and an even better performer than I imagined. Probably 80% of his material was historical--a survey of human history from the development of tools and language on--and how many stand-up comedians can you say that about? See him, know him, love him.

I laughed so much my head still hurts a little. God bless the man!

...but you know, it's been a rough week or two.

My old car, of which I'm quite fond, has finally entered the final leg of the race, and after $700-odd dollars of stopgap repair work, it is running well enough to get me back and forth between work and home until I can trade it in for a new car. Shopping for something big like that on my own is really stressful for me. Little failures of my financial maintenance also begin to rear their ugly heads.

Meanwhile, I've been in a huge crunch at work, as my daily duties remain constant and my oh-crap-the-card-set-needs-to-go-to-the-translator duties hit their peak. That was yesterday, but it took a lot out of me--especially since I only sort of know what I'm doing, and needed the senior editor to pick up after me a little more than I would have liked.

Add in some minor emotional crises, vague health issues, and a general restlessness for flavor.

I started today off by editing Matt Cavotta's tribute to Glen Angus, a Magic artist who recently passed away. I didn't know the guy, but he was a wonderful illustrator and he sounds like a wonderful person. He died suddenly in his mid-thirties, leaving a wife and two kids, one with autism. His web site, www.gangus.net, hasn't been updated; it still talks about what he's up to lately and sports a smiling cartoon self-portrait, which is why I didn't link to it in the article. The whole thing is just... sad, really sad. I'm very glad we did a tribute, but it was taxing to help put it together--and it must have been vastly worse for Matt, who knew Glen.

Not only was that a rough way to start my day, it also visibly brought down anyone I had to ask for help with it. Walking up to the sole member of the Creative team who's not at ComicCon or U.S. Nationals in the middle of a playtest (fun!) and asking him which of his dead colleagues's illustrations would make a good tribute gallery is not the most fun thing I've ever done at work.

On July 5, my train back from Portland was delayed because a train ahead of us struck and killed a pedestrian, and we had to wait while the paperwork was sorted out and all the procedures followed. Some of the people in my car were complaining loudly about how awful the whole thing was, having to sit there for an hour, but I just... couldn't. I was an extra hour and change late for work, but I wasn't dead, wasn't getting the call to come identify the body of a loved one...

This is the same sort of thing. I found editing that tribute to be pretty emotional, and I never met Glen or even forged a particularly strong connection with his illustrations. My heart goes out to those who knew and loved him.

I'm feeling very drained and a little overwhelmed in general.

Did I mention I leave for Baltimore tomorrow? I just got back from San Diego, it seems like (I'm actually writing about that, I swear, since I do have some tales to tell), but U.S. Nationals is this weekend. Ordinarily my travels are a weird sort of stressful break, but this is just Baltimore. I purposefully cut it as short as possible, given how soon it is after San Diego, how it compares as a destination to the usual fare, and how much other stuff I have going on. But this is certainly not going to be the working Vacation that San Diego was.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, not really. Nothing's being asked of me that isn't asked of anybody from time to time, and in fact I've got it pretty good. As my friend Andrea likes to remind me, I'm alive, I'm healthy, and I work at Wizards of the Coast. How bad can it be?

Quote of the Day:

As you know
I've never been a praying man
I don't need a God to make me feel alright
But if you wonder why I never wrote you a song
it's because happiness writes white

–Harvey Danger, "Happiness Writes White"

You know, your pants are always in the last place you look, provided that the last place you look is in the drawer where they belong.

#_#