Old

So in about 5 hours, I officially become Old. And it's not exactly bothering me - I've spent the last few days taking stock of my life, and I'm pretty happy. Don't get me wrong: over the last decade I've put together plenty of goals that I have failed to reach. But over the course of the last decade I've achieved and been blessed and lucked into so many things that I didn't even know I wanted until I had them that I'm really in no position to complain. Career-wise I'm short of the goal - but a career is hardly a trophy, especially in these modern times. In exchange for the false construct I've strengthened my ties with my family (and said farewell to several members, but at least I managed to say goodbye and tell them that I love them). I've found amazing friend after amazing friend - and more importantly, been able to help those friends through their hard times, and celebrate their good times with them, and been helped and been joined in celebration in turn.

And I have pursued wisdom and understanding. One of the first things I've learned is that the things truly worth knowing can't be put into words - or at least not only into words, and not directly. Poetry and song can come close, but you need some experience to go with them, to resonate with the words and to have something in your heart or soul go "yes, that's right". And so many lessons can only be learned by making mistakes and hurting (or even injuring) yourself. That's part of the reason why I think injury exists - to learn those lessons that only injury can teach.

In any event, I have learnt a great deal this decade, and I thought I would share some of what I've learnt. Some of this is phrased as a "letter to myself a decade ago". Some of this is meant for the reader. But this is stuff that I'm proud to have learnt, or learnt by getting injured, or just stuff I'd like to share.

• Be hard on yourself, but know that being hard on yourself is artificial, and bad for you, and self-indulgent. Ultimately being a perfectionist doesn't result in you growing - it results in depression because nothing will ever be good enough. It might mean that today's project is marginally better but it also means that you will stop learning broadly or even deeply, and channel that energy into moving that
  3 more pixels to the left, or baking the muffin just the right shade of brown. Do it when the chips are down, but shut it off afterwards. Make mistakes and screw up and experiment, and if stuff doesn't work that's okay.
• Don't be afraid of arguments. Sometimes you will lose, hard, even when you're obviously right and the other person is obviously wrong. Get better at arguing. Be gracious in your losses and your victories. Know those things that you're prepared to be argued into and out of (should we go out this evening?), and those things that you absolutely, completely, will never-ever-ever compromise on (what's right and wrong, how to treat people).
• Rattling off a tired old line, as smart and witty as that line might be, doesn't make you smart. And after the thousandth telling of the line, or the joke, or the story it's time to retire it. People might like to laugh, and you might like to make people laugh, but ultimately a line is just a line - it's so much more important to be able to talk about the important stuff than it is to parrot off some satire.
• Learn to receive. Not just graciously. It's hard - one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but learn that refusing things given to you by people is not just about you - it's about the giver. You're not doing them a favour by receiving from them, of course, but you're fulfilling an important social contract. Not receiving - be it a physical gift, or affection, or conversation, or love, or appreciation - doesn't mean you're strong or independent, it means you don't care that you're making someone else uncomfortable.
• Knowing something really, really well means that you will love it. There is good to be found in anything if you study it closely enough. Love is evidenced in action and studying something will call you to action about it, even if it's just to voice support.
• Know yourself really, really well.
• Don't just know your mind. Know your body and your soul. Know that reason is always biased by things you can't feel - learn your own habits. Pick up causal relationships. It might seem perfectly reasonable to be raising your voice right now, and that the petty topic that you're discussing seems all-important, but don't you think that might relate to the fact that you haven't exercised in days? Maybe the reason you've fallen head-over-heels for that girl is because she's The One... but maybe it's because you haven't spent enough time with people recently and you're starved for contact.
• If you feel one particular viewpoint is full of weak arguments and histrionic zealots, there's a fair chance that you've just been adding too many Facebook friends or following too many people on Twitter recently, and you've stumbled onto a cluster of agreeing friends who don't feel the need to fully explain stuff. Give them a break, and de-friend, unfollow or mute if you can't handle it.
• On that topic: de-friending, unfollowing and muting are good, healthy responses to a noisy world, and none of those things are permanent. Make it a habit to regularly cull things that bother you - but then make it an equally regular habit to search for new (and old) things that you can follow and learn about.
• Never stop learning, but keep in mind that learning is both broad and deep, and those two properties are mostly mutually exclusive - or at the very least traded off. Learning a lot about something means you shut down shop on broader discoveries, and exploring means that you've stopped uncovering the deep things on the topics you care about. Both are fine, but it's important to alternate from time to time.
• Sometimes people will need help when it's the worst time for you to give it. Tell them that, and help them sometimes - it will mean personal sacrifice, but if the reason is sound and it's really important, it can be worth it. That said, refuse sometimes and explain why. People will respect that you have your own stuff to deal with sometimes.
• Speaking of that: you might have all the potential in the world, you might be a genius or have amazing talent, but you will need to interact with other people to do anything of substance. Beyond that, it's only where plans intersect do you truly get the great stuff. Value people, and value people's dreams and goals. Expect that people will do the same for you, and if they don't then wish them well, see them off and find people who will.
• Don't communicate just the state you're in - telling people you're tired isn't enough. And don't just tell people what you want from them, as you'll come across as demanding and unpleasant. But these two things put together give people an opportunity to really understand you and know how to interact with you. You're the only one with an entire lifetime of experience with yourself, and only you really know how people should act around you when you're in any given state. You need to be able to communicate this with others if you really want to form a deep bond.
• You can fall in love with anyone if you regularly spend time around them and that time is spent feeling good. Beautiful and interesting people make you feel good, but there's a lot of beauty and interesting stuff to be found in almost anyone if you're prepared to invest a little in learning about them.
• If you find yourself doing the same thing in your free time for more than three weekday evenings in a row, chances are you're getting over-tired, are in a rut or are getting depressed. Find something else to do - even if that "something else" is going for an evening walk or phoning a friend or family member.
• Listen to music that resonates with your mood, but remember that it will entrench your mood too. When the season is over and it's time to change moods, change your music.
• Never underestimate the power of convenience. You might have all the willpower in the world but if there's no healthy food in the fridge, you're going to walk past KFC en-route to the grocery store and buy a Streetwise Two instead of salad greens - then skip past the grocery store (to eat the food while it's still hot!) and you won't have the salad handy tomorrow either.
• Juggling interests between circles of friends is wonderful - it keeps you engaged in so many different things - but let everyone involved in your life know that you have other commitments and other friendships (invite them to the other common activities!), and that sometimes one will be more important to your life for a while. That other circle is still important to you, and you want to maintain your interest in it, but right now something else is demanding more of your time.
• Much like handles on resources (files and databases) best practice is to bookend the use of a thing. Know that when you're finished with a book, or a bowl, or a piece of clothing, where you're going to put it and how you're going to return it to a reusable state. Invest a little time to clean up immediately after you finish with a thing. The results won't be significant for this one thing, but it will make your environment much, much healthier - and:
• Know how your environment affects your moods and thoughts. Know how a chaotic house makes you feel, how a sink full of plates makes you want to do the plates less, and how having noise on in the background makes you want to engage less with the thing you're doing, not more. That said, remember that a chaotic house is equally an expression of freedom and joy, and playing music can manage your mood very well.
• Know that you can be tricked and fooled into stuff - and become a master of it. Tricking and fooling yourself, that is, not others. Remember what I said about convenience? That's a self-trick. Picking a cereal that takes a few minutes to soak in milk before it's edible makes sure you shower every morning. Reading before going to bed every night - no matter what - means you will read regularly, and get to bed at a sane hour.
• Write. Or play music. Or paint, draw, dance or do something to express yourself. Every day is best - every day is also unrealistic. A few times a week is a healthy amount, and take one month per year to push yourself in your favorite means of expression (cough - NaNoWriMo - cough).
• Failing isn't shameful. It's not embarrassing. What's shameful and embarrassing is hiding your failure and letting that snowball into a massive problem. And even that's not that shameful - get up, dust yourself off, apologize to anyone affected and move on.
• If you think you're rubbish at a thing, but people are prepared to pay you to do it, give it a try. If you produce something that you think is rubbish but the customer loves it, you're not rubbish at the thing. Stop assuming that everything needs to be made in a sterile, shiny iFactory to be any good - etsy is awesome, home-knitted jerseys are just better than store-bought ones, and you bake a better cake/muffin with no preservatives than most professional bakeries, if only because you don't slather it in lowest-common-denominator-appealing chocolate or cream.
• Stress less about time, but do stress a little. You're probably not going be too late for the doctor's appointment or miss the flight, but you definitely will be if you get cocky.
• Pat-pat-release with guys. A hug longer than two pats just makes everyone involved feel uncomfortable. Note that this does not apply to girls - hugs are much more emotional for them and they appreciate the extra contact.
• That said: read the room. Know the type of social expectations that people have, and don't push them beyond that unless they've mentally associated you with someone who is allowed to do that.
• Don't. Be afraid. To tell someone. That you've forgotten their name. Really. Just say sorry and ask. And sorry again if this is the third (or fourth, or fifth...) time you're asking. This goes double if the person is of an ethnicity or culture whose names you struggle with.
• Very few questions are racist, sexist or in some way offensive. Very many statements are. If you don't want to anger opinionated people, questions work better than statements.
• The world may be overcrowded with sensitivity, insisting on complicated concepts of gender, sexuality and identity, but that's no excuse to complain about it. Someone, somewhere has been hurt because people stopped caring and started treating something important to them as unimportant. Be simple, but accept that some people need complexity because they're hurting and can't cope with the simplicity that you're blessed to have.
• Be friendly to strangers and talk to them like they're friends - but don't give them the responsibilities of friends and don't assume that they'll even be likeable, but being immediately friendly and sharing personal anecdotes is charming and charismatic, and you'll wind up making a good first impression.
• Being a person that can be relied on, trustworthy and capable of putting aside your own stresses when your friends desperately need you will attract every kind of person to you. Occasionally demanding that back from them will repel the people you don't want in your life.
• Speaking of which - it's okay to be weak in front of people sometimes. Asking for help while desperate has loads of really good side effects, and barely surviving the tough times in life sucks - having someone who helps you through it, even if you feel bad at how much of your load they're carrying, gives you more resources to invest in being there for them when they need you, and the greatest friends want you to invest those resources in your dreams and the grand plans you have for your life. They want that. If you don't take their help, you'll be letting them down.

...and that's it, I think. I'm pretty much tapped out. Writing this list has given me warm fuzzies as I think about the adventures and agonies I've endured to learn some of them, and the great times I've had with people as we've suffered together to bring great things into the world. The absurdities and hilarities and the brokenness. So I guess all that's left is to thank people. And I'm going to do this in order of places I've lived, because people from all over have contributed to getting me alive, broken and frequently mended through this last decade. If your name isn't on this list, it's probably because it's a long, long list and I'm currently a little high on nostalgia, but I can attest to heroism and awesomeness from everyone here:

Omnipresent

Yahweh :)

East London

My amazing mother

My lovely cousin and aunt (respectively) Megan and Twink

Marius Erasmus

Darren, Eloise and Nathan Reed

Mr. and Mrs. Ellis

Mr. and Mrs. Rich

Cape Town

My amazing sister

Imogen Wright

Alistair Carver

Yvette Wright

Dr. Mike du Toit and the nurses from Constantiaburg Medi-clinic

Grahamstown

Fifi Formson

Yusuf Motara

Eben Lochner

Verne Franszen and Monique Mulholland (both soon - I'm sure - to be Fightmaster-Guilestheme-Gryffindor-McEpicawesome)

The Wednesday night Rat crowd from Computer Science: Alastair Nottingham, Alan Herbert, Jess Hutchinson, Sean Pennefather, Luke Darlowe, Gareth Dwyer and anyone else I'm suddenly missing in my mind (sorry!)

Ingrid Sieborger and Hannah Thinyane

Jonathan Kenyon

Johannesburg

Peter Leonard Montgomery Hieronymous van Onselen

The Holy Reverend Gregory Peek

Scott Edwards

Chloe Molino

Allen Brown

Elsewhere in the World

Ryan, Chris and Josh. *Manly chest-bump*

...along with their wonderful families, Charis, Anne and the ever-adorable Joanna.

...and that's all I've got. In fairness, I'm tired :) I had to cut the list off at some point, as there have been so many wonderful, brilliant people who have influenced my life, and I love you all very much.

So that's it. Time has passed as I've written this, and it's now only three hours to go until I am Old. CTRTFN, thanks for reading :)

Good Guy Zoav

Well well well!

After all my belly-aching about how there were no good, solid CS sources for information on multi-agent software, I came across Yoav Shoham. The guy's my new hero. He saved me from the legion of terrible, horrible, hand-wave "BUT IT'S LIKE REAL INTELLIGENCE, ONLY IT'S NOT" papers.

I came across him by asking Friend Google about "seminal work on agents", and his name kept on being dropped for his highly-cited paper Agented-Oriented Programming (1993). I stalked him looked him up a little further, and he's running a research group that puts out a respectable amount of research at Stanford, and he's recently (well, relatively recently) put out a great book on the topic: "Multiagent Systems: Algorithmic, Game Theoretic and Logical Foundations". Our local academic library, as much as I love it, takes ages to get new material even if explicitly requested. I put in a request anyway, but with little hope to get the book before my contract at Rhodes expires and I it's no longer useful to me.

I pondered just picking it up for myself (it's really reasonable for a high-quality text), but then...
Good Guy Yoav to the rescue! He generously offers the free ebook for download if you can't afford it or can't get access to it.

I love this guy. I've spent years looking to break into this field, ranging from an inkling of interest to building my own agents of varying scale and ambition.

I've started reading his book, and I just need to say: wow. I'm loving every page! It starts with a solid grounding in algorithms and logic, which is exactly what I wanted to banish my concerns that it was going to be another "we needed a paper at the last moment and Bob can hand-wave well" text. Thank you Yoav, you're my new hero!

Agent Reading and Progress

So I'm in the middle of getting to grips with AI agents - something I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with for years. Toying with it for a PhD idea, but not really finding the Something Special that's gripping me into putting in the monumental amount of effort that a doctorate would demand.

I've started reading "Developing Intelligent Agent Systems" by Padgham and Winikoff, which seems like a more pragmatic text on the topic - refreshing, given I've spent most of today reading through agonizingly poor conference and journal papers on the topic. It seems that Computer Science has decided to drop the entire field (because let's be honest, Asimov's "I, Robot" showed us that specialized applications of technology beat general-purpose development hands-down), and it's been adopted by Information Systems and Infomatics types - the kind of people who think that "pipes" are an innovative idea, if they could only fit a methodology around using it in their current paradigm, so they could implement a framework *retch*.

Back to the book, though: Padgham & Winikoff use the definition of an agent from Wooldridge (2002), that an agent is a "computer system that is situated in some environment, and that is capable of autonomous action in this environment in order to meet its design objectives". Which is a terrible definition, because it requires an extremely specific interpretation of the terms used, or it could easily describe almost all software.

In any event, it's later qualified by a number of additional attributes that the author hastens to mention change the definition from "software agent" to "intelligent software agent": the software must be pro-active, reactive and social. They continue on to add robust or flexible in the event of a blocked/failed goal.

My interest leans heavily on the social aspect of agents: I've been inspired by the concept of Weavrs, software agents that literally exist with their own social networking accounts. While it is certain that automated software agents have existed before weavrs (spambots, for instance), the idea of creating a persona whose role is to digest, process and then publish information seems quite novel. Weavrs, as far as I know, do not taking social input, but do have a social output.

The idea tickling around at the back of my brain is to take this idea of social agents whose job is to consume, process and publish information and to extend the idea into a logical mesh of agents with a fairly transparent communication medium (ala Twitter). Each agent specializes in certain specifically tooled news sources (an RSS agent, a Twitter agent, a Facebook agent, a specific webservice agent), and they share their information both publically and with each other. They can then interact with a series of more complex agents whose role is to digest that information further, and then make intelligent decisions based on that.

Because the variety of different sources of information will almost certainly be providing non-orthogonal outputs (the news headlines from the RSS news feed will no doubt also be tweeted and linked to on Facebook), the agent net will need to be able to intelligently combine information sources into groups of related news - perhaps akin to unroll.me's mechanism of creating email digests.

If this sounds like a great deal of natural language processing, semantics extraction and quite possibly an impossibly complex piece of engineering, then you're now on the same page as me.

As far as I can see, the best way of starting this project will be to start writing a bunch of parsers for each potential "news input" - once I've got processed raw data to work with, decision-making becomes a tangible possibility. I've started playing around with Facebook and Twitter feed consumers, and when they're working I'll put up some code snippets.

OMFG PFRPG!

Pathfinder. You looked so terribly promising.

3.5e backwards compatibility. Awesome new takes on old classes and races. A stunning default setting with some world-class modules.

And then you had to go and let me down with NPC generation. Even 3.5e wasn’t as clunky as this. 4e completely takes you to the cleaners.

I count nearly 30 discrete steps to build a NPC. With no available free (or even decent paid-for) software and a dazzling array of options, building monstrous NPCs for a game is completely ridiculous.

Maybe I’m too much into custom NPC development, but in my 4e and 3.5e games, I’m happy to come to the table with a dozen types of invented NPCs. For every session. In PF, this would be a full time job.

So I’m sorry, Pathfinder. You did everything right for players: lots of options, lots of cool options. But for the DM, you did the one thing that ensured you’ll never get the ridiculous amount of fan-created content that you needed to actually beat the D&D franchise: you made it hard.

In an environment where fan-created content is the lifeblood, and to many fans the reason for the game, you chose to err on the side of being too complex.

I’m not prepared to go through edition wars, but I would like to draw a comparison to 4e: 4e has a half-dozen discrete choices, after which the rest is either up to the DM or rather irrelevant. I can pick a level 5 brute, pick one at-will and two encounter powers and I’m very nearly done.

Please, as a gamer and a creative DM, please either invent a shorthand NPC generation system (if you want inspiration, look to Epsilon's Simplified NPC System for Exalted), or put out some cheap/free software for building NPCs. Because I can’t use your system as it stands now.

Media Obligations

Fifty years ago, no one would describe themselves as a – geez, what was the media of the time? – dedicated “Man from U.N.C.L.E” fan. Sure, they enjoyed the show, but media was a distraction from life.

These days, everyone has a niche, a specialty. You’re an audio guy, or a series watcher, or a gamer, or a role-player, or a sports fan. Which I think is wonderful and terrifying and horribly bad and brilliant. But most importantly, what it is is different. We’ve defined ourselves by our media.

I came to this revelation recently: I feel compelled to watch series, read comic books, and catch movies because I feel that I will fall behind or miss something great if I don’t. Let me rephrase: I feel an obligation to the media I consume.

What. The. Hell.

This is like when you’re a kid and you’re told to eat all the food on the plate so it doesn’t go to waste. If you’re not hungry, you shouldn’t have to eat. But somehow you have an obligation to your vegetables. What’s up with that?

I think it’s terrible, but I also think it’s wonderful. We’re creating cultures in minutes, something that used to take generations. We’re doing something that has never been done before: we’re finding and systematically attacking bigotry and xenophobia.

Don’t think about this as “those people from the other side of the border are evil/weird/smell funny”. That’s an extreme, and frankly is rapidly on the decline anyway (though is still serious and needs to be addressed). But look at this on a micro-scale: when people are shouting down the trolls who complain about editions of Dungeons & Dragons, or making peace between people who prefer Star Wars and Star Trek, and heck – even showing that people who like Twilight can be respected! – we’re building the foundations of a macro-culture of acceptance.

So I don’t think this is good or bad necessarily, or at least I’m in no position to judge. It is, as I was saying, different. And untested. We’re in space, in a ship with no sensors. We don’t know if the information overload and media obligation is good for us or bad for us. If the cultural saturation will result in humankind becoming better at processing information, or if we’ll melt down under the strain of supporting everything we need to know without the physical and mental capabilities to do so.

Heck, even in my job, I’m juggling dozens of libraries, at least three languages, in several contexts, while searching for likely problems and best solutions. And that’s only one of my projects.

So the point of this post is this: to tie in to my last post, I can’t support everything. So I’m probably going to cut back first and foremost on series, movies and so on. Which is a bit sad, but heck – the man of yesteryear survived without watching a new series every month ;)

How to Fit Five Fourths of a Life into One

I’ve been living in Johannesburg for just over two years now. Working for almost that entire time, barring a short hiatus after leaving Qualica, before I started at Entelect.

In that time, I’ve gone from alone, isolated and depressed to excited and satisfied, to where I currently am.

Which is, as the title of this post suggests, trying to fit too many hours into a day. Which is why I’m nearly always sleep-deprived ;)

I’ve now got so many things that I love that I need to juggle that it’s actually coming to a point where I’m going to have to cull interests again. I hate doing this, because I only really get involved in things that I love… and giving up something I love so that everything else I love has the room to grow is really hard.

So at present, I have an active social life, I’m writing again (and blogging!), I’m reading, my spiritual life is picking up traction, and that’s before I mention a single word on technology or role-playing games.

I’m realising quickly that my passion for programming, coding and so on really only extends to when I’m not pouring out creativity every day. I must confess, before coming to Johannesburg I had no idea what hard work was. My Masters was lackadaisical at best. Everything prior to that was just amusement.

Role playing games have been a passion for me since I was very young. Something about the collision of social activity, sublimating and mixing creativity with trusted friends, and good stories attracted me. And I always wanted to be a part of a society where RPGs were the norm. Then I discovered the ZA RPG circuit was… clique-y, and promptly fell into depression and realized that RPGs with friends will always be better than RPGs with bitchy strangers.

So now I’m at a place in my life where every evening is packed. Weekends are barely enough space for me to breathe and recharge for the upcoming week.

This isn’t meant to be a whiney post, but I figure other people have the same thing happening in their lives. I always wonder how you balance trying to cram all you can into the mere 16 hours of consciousness you have. Any ideas?

The Saddest Three Words in the World

I've recently acquired a taste for indie music, where "recently" was about two years ago. I was listening to a song - "Contact High" by Architecture in Helsinki - and it includes a phrase that just blew my mind.

"I'm done dreaming". It's a terribly sad phrase (and FYI: not the context of the song at all - I just took the three words and ran with this thought).

Here's the thing: whether you're Christian or not, whether you're a mad geek or a staid business-person - dreaming is what makes you a person. The beautiful madness of a dream - of wanting to be the best, of wanting to see something in your mind get concretized into reality? That's the most terrifying, the most amazing, the most astonishing thing. It's why I love life - to meet people, hear their dreams, and watch in amazement as they come from some conceptual dream-space into this world.

I know I'm an indefatigable romantic. I know that I can get cynical about all this, and note that most people try their damndest to run far from their dreams and bury them in dull greyness of life and it's million compromises. And I don't care.

It's one of the reasons I love teaching and lecturing - the act of learning is typically a direct means of solving the problems inherent in bringing dreams to life. By being a cog in the machine that allows a person to do this amazing thing, I'm humbled and privileged to be a part of these dreams.

But enough with the sappiness ;)

Suckerpunch

Saw Suckerpunch this evening with my friend Pete. Was dubious, Alistair said he was greatly disappointed by the movie, and he's generally a good gauge for how much I'll like something.

Just...

Wow. Mind blown.

Japanese schoolgirl wielding a katana and silver plated desert eagles fighting giant Samurai warriors with chainguns? Steampunk nazi stormtrooper zombies? In the few short action scenes, it packed more Awesome on to the screen than you normally see in an entire trilogy of epics.

And then you STILL manage to walk away from the movie depressed. Well played, Snyder. Well played.

The movie combines Rule of Awesome, Turned Up to Eleven, with Oscar Bait. Think about that for a moment: a movie that is best described as "Moulin Rouge mixed with Gothika, Kill Bill, the 300 and Inception in equal measure" that still manages to include sufficient poignancy to be a contender for a Oscar.

See why my mind was blown?

A Return, With a Whimper, Not a Bang

Wow. It's... it's been *years*.

Blogging has never been a massive thing for me. Partly it's because I don't feel like I have that much to share (aw, humility, or is that low self-esteem? I can never tell these days), and partly because it feels like documenting experiences slows down the rate of actual... well, experience.

But now I'm back, and I have stuff to say. I've tweeted (@Johenius, in case you didn't know - the bar on the right there should be everything you need), I've presented talks, I've taught, I've loved, I've learned, I've failed and I've learned how being angry can be useful.

Life has this habit of sneaking up on you and imposing itself. Well, I've been imposed upon, I've whined about it, and - after far too much whining - I've solved stuff. And made lots of mistakes along the way. Which makes me an EXCELLENT blogger - I've got hacky solutions to real life problems! So that's part of what I want in this blog.

I suppose the thing that's always concerned me about blogging is that it felt like a personal diary, so it was a place of expression. And to some degree it is - people read blogs for the blogger, as well as the information they provide - but mostly, it's about having something to say that is useful. The days of the one-million-blog blogosphere, of people whining about their angst or describing what they had for dinner is over - we have Twitter to thank for that! (Also: Facebook). Blogs are becoming more refined.

So here's what to expect to find here: a bit of life-stuff (cooking, design, a bit of gaming), a bit of tech stuff (Microsoft stuff at the moment, but Ruby on Rails is en route!), and a bit of South Africa (thanks to my beloved sister, the political blogger :) ).

Anything role-playing related goes to my other blog, so this is The Rest Of My Life, But Only Those Useful Parts.

But as I said, I'm returning with a whimper. This is a fluff first post, so nothing in particular to say, just announcing a return with shame.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Calvinball, Role-Playing Games and the Nature of Fun

Okay, I have pastors and mothers and other such stand-up folk who read this blog, so I might regret the next sentence, but it’s essential to understanding what I’m writing about today: I have reason to believe I am currently the world’s most popular Drunken Dungeons & Dragons author. For the uninitiated, this is exactly like normal D&D, only with drinking games associated with arbitrary rules of the game, like rolling the maximum number on a dice, or killing a bad guy, or something equally D&D-ish. Last year, I wrote a DD&D module for Gencon (one of the largest RPG/general geek conference in the US) for Chatty DM, a friend from Canada.

It went really well – he blogged about it a bit, and the players for the game he ran all are highly respected (at least by me and the people that I know) RPG bloggers – Yax of Dungeon Mastering, e of GeeksDreamGirl, DaveTheGame of Critical Hits and more. I had recommendations afterwards to publish the module, that I doubt I will take up: while I did put in a lot of work to make it look professional, I don’t know if I want my first excursion into D&D writing to be a drinking game!

So, gushing aside, now I want to explain what that has to do with this post:

Calvinball

A few years back, I tried to explain RPGs to my sister. My explanations of “co-operative storytelling” were met with the following response:

“You mean like the games you used to play as a kid, like Calvinball – you make up the rules and goals as you go along, and so long as everyone is having fun and not feeling put out, you’re doing it right?”

The idea has stuck with me, and influenced my RPG philosophy and writing ever since.

Calvinball, for the uninitiated, is the game played by Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes, the amazing cartoon by Bill Watterson. The basic gist, as explained above, is that Calvin picks up a ball, and just starts doing stuff.

• Sometimes someone will cry foul, and come up with an explanation (“You passed forward while in the off-side blue zone, with one shoe-lace untied”).
• Sometimes, the goal-posts are shifted (my favorite Calvinball cartoon involves a near-rugby like game, but in which Calvin turns out to secretly be playing for the other team – then Hobbes switches the goals, so he’ll do the opposite of his intention, but then Calvin declares himself a double agent, and gets his desire after all!).
• Sometimes it’s silly – the only universal rule of Calvinball, in all forms, is that it must be played wearing a mask – and sometimes it’s serious: sprinting at full pace to a goal while carrying a ball seems an awful lot like rugby and/or American football (or, as we prefer it, “rugby when you can’t run for more than 30 seconds at a time”), and as we all know, both sports are serious business.
• The rules are made up by consensus, and – and this is important, take note DMs, especially of the 4e school – never, ever, ever saying “no”. If someone declares you committing a foul, you may argue whether you fall in the bounds of the cause of the foul, but you never dispute the authenticity of the rule that states you have committed a foul.
• Fun is had by all. If you are not having fun, you add your own contribution to the game, and make it fun. If this makes it unfun for others, they then continue to add rules, and so on.

And I think that this is the essence of all great games – you can add, subtract, recommend, change, but the silliness, equal value of all participants, and the improvisation and positive reinforcement of creativity make the game worth playing.

You wonder why every house has it’s own rules for banking in Monopoly, or why no-one has the de-facto rules for how long after a ball has been tossed in on a foosball table that one can legally score? It’s because to be fun, every participant needs to own the game, and the rules, and to feel like the game is secondary to the participants’ contribution. Feeling like you’re working your ass off at a game, but the dude who has invested nothing repeatedly wins, ultimately results in you leaving a game.

Role-Playing Games as Related to Calvinball

This bleeds over to RPGs more than almost any other game, for one simple reason: the domain is infinite.

Risk has a finite set of countries, and well-structured rules for combat. Cricket has well-defined rules. Rock-Paper-Scissors is an incredibly simple game, with a very simple and clear set of outcomes, and this has caused a new “fun” generation of new versions: RPS25, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock, and more.

RPGs have none of this. The DM could make you aliens from Mars, or adventurers in Middle-Earth, or come up with an entire universe of his own. The rules for RPGs are so insanely complex that you just need to type in “character optimisation” in Google and proceed to cringe as people twist and contort the hundreds of source books the comprise the dozens of popular RPGs that people use to exploit the rules to their full potential.

Because of the incredible scale of flexibility of RPGs, the concept of Calvinball applies more than any other sort of game. I once blogged elsewhere about “seat-of-your-pants DMing”, and this sort of relates to that.

Modern games, as we see with almost any console game these days, has mini-games. So even though this is a hack-and-slash kill-all-the-bad-guys-in-a-room-then-proceed sort of game, there’ll be puzzle elements that make you stop the slaughter and ponder. There’ll be a Quicktime Event (*hiss*), or some other genre-shifting element, to mix the game up a little. Typically these mini-games aren’t advertised: no-one buys the Sims 3 for a game in which you run around a virtual town full of interesting and diverse personalities to collect a range of minerals that can be found lying around – but the little tweak to a single-genre game keeps the game interesting.

RPGs can learn from this. The traditional answer to this is to have a genre cross-over: the Dungeon Master Guides and other rulebooks traditionally have a “high combat”, “high roleplay” and “decent mix” style that they discuss, and recommend you find your groups playstyle.

I think that this is simplistic, though certainly groundbreaking start to bringing the potential out of games.

What I think we need in RPGs instead is the concept of a mini-game. D&D 4e, as much as people slate it, has probably come the closest to this with skill challenges – to take what resources you have on hand (typically the numbers on your character sheet under “skills”) and apply them in a dizzying array of options that can then be narratively explained, effectively mixing a hard set of rules (skill challenges have been extensively documented in DMGs), with incredible flexibility from the players of the game (you can choose what skills you want to use, but you need to give a decent reason for why you’re doing it).

This is certainly the first step in the right direction. What I eagerly anticipate is a new dimension in this: when your character sheet is no longer the source of your resources, but it bursts out into the real world. We’re already seeing this in games that reward “stunts” (Exalted, Feng Shui and others in that genre spring to mind) – what the *player* describes rewards the gameplay. It is unbalanced, sadly, because some people don’t have the capacity to relay their creativity as well, but I think it’s another step in the right direction.

I’ve played in groups that actively encourage Live-Action Role-Play during combat scenes, for cool effect. You get bonuses if you stand up, and demonstrate how your character swings his sword, leaps off the table to hang on the chandalier, or slide down the bannister.

Of course, this requires a Dungeon Master (or Game Master, or whatever) who is calm, self-confident, and in control, as well as players that trust their DM to fairly judge if what they want to achieve is reasonable. Mean DMs punish, and pushover DMs let players just make up whatever they want and Mary-Sue all over their world, which some people think is fine, but which I just feel is insulting.

But in this place, where there is trust and safety and comfort, when a player asks to do something that could *never* be represented by a linear scale and thus is innumerable, when DMs go “give me… a d6 roll, and on a 3+ it works” because they need the opportunity for failure but there can be no rule, in *that* place Calvinball the RPG lives, and that, I’ve found, is the “sweet spot” of RPGs.

Of course the “sweet spot” is a rough thing to describe, but everyone has had one, but they’re impossible to reproduce, so almost everyone has a theory on what will cause it – to some extent, the result of cargo-culting, but it’s in the quest to find that gleeful place where the entire group is buzzing and the creativity flows and people really feel connected to the story, so I understand why people are so desperate to try and get back to that spot.

My take on the thing – and I’m prepared to accept that this may be wrong, or only one component of a more complex system – is to make the rules more mutable, to relax the need to be right in exchange for trust and enjoyment.

Drunken D&D Related to All of the Above

In about a week, I will be attending UPCon, the University of Pretoria Con, one of the RPG/Wargaming/Anime/General Geek cons in South Africa.

I’ve agreed to run a DD&D module for some friends and friends-of-friends.

DD&D, but it’s very nature, is utterly chaotic. People are happy and tipsy, so they have no problem suggesting that their gnome rogue – despite being a pretty young male – will try to seduce the manly gate guard so the rest of the party can sneak into the castle. And this has the potential to end in both utter hilarity, and complete disaster for the DM.

And, because I tend to get very worked up, neurotic and OCD about things, I’m currently fretting muchly about it. And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s to let it go, and just be confident and happy and to have exactly one broad escape plan (in this case: scrap the D&D, and just drink!). And I’m happy with that.

But the one thing I think that will turn this from a Wookeh-Stressfest into a chilled evening of mild debauchery with new friends is a commitment to Calvinball. Run with the punches. Let players dig in and get involved, and let them come up with rules. If they are really proud of their character’s gizmo, let the damn gizmo spotlight-hog until someone else in the party gets a new whizzbang. Let the energy flow freely, and most importantly, be a master of the delicate balancing act that is player flow.

While drunk (Pastors: I really don’t mean that. Everyone else: Ignore that, I totally meant that.).

Ohhhh, this promises to be *fun*, or at least will provide stories for my friends to laugh at :)

Epilogue

For those interested in my D&D writing, here’s the pitch for the game:

Fluff Introduction:

Your party are delivery-people for "Anything But Cram: Better than Beornings, Dunedain-Approved Victual Delivery Service. We go where even rangers fear to tread." You are specialists in bringing important people their food, no matter where they are, no matter what they need. Battered leg of Shelob? Fresh off the spider! Hobbit tar-tar? Just got done with an order for some orcs in Rohan! Taters? We can do them boiled, mashed, or stuck in a stew. There have been orders piling up from all our chains, throughout Middle Earth. Don't forget our promise:

"Delivery in 90 minutes or our-souls-chained-to-this-plane-until-the-King-of-Gondor-releases-us!"

Thankfully, we have fast horses, implausibly quick means of moving between franchises, and (most importantly of all) skilled and equipped delivery-people, who are unafraid to deliver to even the darkest mines, the heaviest sieges, or the hottest mountains!

Mechanical Introduction:

Your character must be level 6, of any published class and of one of the following races: Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling (Hobbit), Human, Shifter (Beorning). Additional races may be allowed, but must be explicitly approved by the DM (email me).

You start with level-appropriate equipment (i.e. a level 7, level 6, and level 5 magical items, as well as the price of a level 5 magical item in gold - 1000gp). Ability scores will follow the "Customizing Scores"

system found on page 17 of the PHB (8 & 10 x 5, 22 point buy). Backgrounds are unnecessary but appreciated. Text for a character can be one to two sentences, describing something immediately apparent about the character - a smell, their appearance, a verbal tic, etc.

Drinking Mechanics:

Here's a taste to whet your appetites:

Rolling a natural 1 on a "to-hit" roll: player takes a sip

Rolling a natural 20 on a "to-hit" roll: DM takes a sip

Correcting anyone on Tolkien lore: person correcting takes a sip

PC kills a monster: DM takes a sip

PC spends a healing surge: player takes a sip

Telling a bad pun: teller of pun takes three sips

South Africa and Racial Tension circa 4 April 2010

Yesterday, Eugene Terreblanche was murdered. For those not in the know: he was a reasonably minor, if extreme, political figure, head of the AWB – a political party in South Africa centred on the interests of the Afrikaner populace of our country.

In recent months, a young firebrand political up-and-comer, Julius Malema (who has been billed as a future president by the present incumbent), has been stirring up racial tensions. Most notably, he recently was taken to court for, and was banned from singing an anti-Apartheid struggle song including the line (translated into English): “Shoot the boer, he is a racist”. The ANC later clarified this statement by pointing out that “the boer” in this refers to the apartheid system, but the damage had been done.

Of course, with the murder of Mr. Terreblanche, the iconic boer (Afrikaans farmer), this song has gone from mildly offensive racial slur to something much, much more sinister and morbid.

What We Should Do Instead

Go up to someone of another race, shake them warmly by the hand, smile and offer a greeting. And then go on and have a day marked by not saying anything bad about people of other races.

This evening, at a post-church coffee bar excursion, I conceived of, and proposed the idea of a racial unity march.

South Africa has a long history of mass-activism and marches to fight racial injustice. I feel that a march resonates with the struggle, and says, quite well, “we’re on a razor’s edge, and unless all of us – not just some of us – do something, we’ll end up in a worse position than we were in with Apartheid”.

The truth is that people in this country are still bitter about matters of race. There are people on both sides of the fence that wished that 1994 hadn’t been peaceful – that the whites and blacks of this country (and presumably the indians, coloureds and asians) had escalated tensions to the point of violence.

There’s another truth though: we know that other people are still bitter. We’re aware that it’s justified, or that there’s at least an explanation for it – old grudges, old mind-sets, stuff that you can’t get rid of easily. And because we know this, we can come together, acknowledge that while it may make us uncomfortable, the person standing next to us, whatever their skin colour, ethnicity or culture, is a person, deserving safety, dignity and equal rights.

So I think a march is what we need. To see people from all ethnicities and cultures mixing and standing (well,marching actually) together, saying that we will not give in to racial division, that we may not like, appreciate or even understand each other’s cultures, but we’re learning, we’re getting better, and the spectre of the recent past is large and looming, and we’re devoted to making sure it never happens again. That the mistakes of the past stay there, and that we can move forward.

My Exhortation to South Africa

You know, there’s a lot of pressure to perform as a country. We’re apparently the world’s (or at least Africa’s) best example of racial integration – and we’re not doing brilliantly. We’ve inherited an amazing legacy from Nelson Mandela. The standard has been set, but no-one is expecting us to live up to it: the man is practically a living saint.

But it feels like we’ve largely given up on reconciliation in favour of patriotism to whichever group we most strongly align to. We hold political figureheads up as either terrible examples of human beings (which isn’t fair: no-one is perfect, and politicians are often preyed upon by the media for no good reason – though on occasion this might be relevant and important, but at present the media is providing a soap opera of political intrigue and scandal that just feels tacky), or saints whose every misstep must be justified and defended.

South Africa: we’ve come so far in some ways, but we still have a long way to go in others. Let’s get ready for another push – we’ve met another challenge, it’s time to make a name for the kind of nation we want to be.

I believe in the people of this country. I believe that, with a vision of the kind of unity we want to have, we can do it. I don’t believe it will be cheap, and I don’t believe it will be quick. I don’t think that learning how to say “Hello” in another of our 11 national languages is enough, and I don’t think that merely accepting another person’s difference without understanding it is acceptable.

But I do believe the unity is possible. I believe that the biggest challenge that stands between us and that unity is a belief that we can achieve it. That if we believe, with all our hearts, that we can be the melting pot that every other multi-racial claims to be, then we can truly set the world standard for multi-racial, multi-cultural unity, and this country will have finally become the vision that the heroes of the struggle fought and bled for.

Cheap tricks will not do this. Billboards and TV ads will not do it. BEE, Affirmative Action, no one act of parliament or business will magically make this nation forget past or present injustices, or prevent future ones.

What we need is continual, uncomfortable dedication to meeting one another in dialogue, knowing that there will be differences in values and purpose, but doing so anyway, in order to continuously and slowly dissolve the tensions and keep them away, while maturing and advancing as a country.

Last Words

I have no witty ending, no quotable parting shot, only a desperate desire to no longer feel an alien standing next to a man of another race, to understand and value them as I do a member of my own. And that desire is not only mine: hundreds of thousands, millions across this country feel the same, and are prepared to pay some price: I beg you, for the sake of brotherhood, for the sake of peace, pay the price you can. And when you have reached the limits of the price you are prepared to pay, look again to the vision of a united South Africa, and draw from there the excitement and desire that will help you to continue on, until we’ve reached a point where race and culture are accepted and respected equally and universally in our country.

The iPad, My Weighing In

Okay, so much has been written about the iPad. Sufficiently so that I won’t link to any reviews or the like here: there are just too many. This evening, however, I read Corey Doctorow’s take on the iPad (here) – despite the fact that it was really about Apple and the direction their tech is headed – and felt the need to say something to the world about it.

Firstly, I agree with Corey: the Apple ecosystem is fundamentally closed, and is completely sold out to yesterday’s economic systems for software, shined up and made respectable for tomorrow’s technology. I don’t believe that iPhones, iPads are the technology of tomorrow, nor are they on the road that will inevitably lead to tomorrow.

But they are the tech of today. They can and will (for the next little while at least) hold the marketplace rapt. People will drool over the latest iThing because it is pretty and novel and fulfills a niche in their lives they didn’t know they had.

But the problem with them is the same problem that news sources and software publishers and the MPAA and the RIAA are discovering: that the systems of humanity don’t work for the small people who are technically right, but for the masses who have a feeling – somewhere deep inside – that “technically” right isn’t good enough, and that they are fundamentally but inexplicably wrong.

This could turn into a pro-piracy rant, but I’ll save that for another day. The point is that, today, there is an iPad – a small computer with a touch-screen which can’t be opened, software altered, or altered in any other way - a pay-wall around news content, DRM on software, DRM on music and movies, and so on. And they are, legitimately, powerful forces, and will make massive amounts of money. But tomorrow, when the same things can be acquired free (as in beer and speech), these things will lose impetus, and gradually fade away. Who remembers having to pay for access to meta-search engines, that searched altavista, yahoo, excite, and all those others?

A soap-box, I have not. I’m not going to indulge in rhetoric about how we shape tomorrow, because you and I don’t. Tens and hundreds of millions do, and this blog doesn’t reach them. But even if I did, a voice of opinion and commentary isn’t going to sway folk. Wait for the wallet to vote. Wait for comfort, and functionality, and everything else that actually makes a difference to kick in. DRM was doomed from the start, but that didn’t stop it getting big. Industry pressure and stupid management just amplified the curve of apathy to popularity to deprecation by a few orders of magnitude.

I have no nice way of ending this, so I’ll just apologize for meandering with anti-DRM and closed-culture ranting, and bring this back to a close about the iPad:

It looks stunning. I want one, in the same way as I want a sports car, or a super-model for a wife, or chocolate cake for every meal. I also recognise that it doesn’t satisfy the needs I have, and it will ultimately be a toy that I’ll use for a bit and forget. I don’t much care for sports cars (and would probably put the wrong petrol in and screw up the engine or something), super-models would bore me to heck and stress me out (because MTV tells me their lifestyles wouldn’t go well with mine), and chocolate cake too often would make me a fat lump.

The iPad would be fun and cool and a status symbol, and after a few days would be put on a shelf, then found again a week later, toyed with, then put on the shelf again for months.

Some people run their lives via their cell-phones. I do not. I live mine in a combination of my head, and on a PC. The iPad isn’t enough for me, but holy cow is it pretty :)

Well, If You Insist…

This evening, I went out and had a delicious dinner with friends from church, at a Greek restaurant at Cresta Mall. Well, the lamb shank gravy was a touch more bitter than I would have liked, but otherwise it was great (snarky comment had to be made).

After the meal, we did something that really makes me feel alive, something I do rarely and always brings me immense comfort: the group of us bought ice-cream cones (yay, being a kid again!), and walked through the mall. We made silly remarks about the fashions of the moment (the Russian Gypsy look is in, apparently), shot the breeze, and generally just enjoyed each other’s company.

On the way out, one of the women left me with a parting shot, insisting that I had to write. And who am I to deny a beautiful woman anything? :)

Well, I’ve been thinking about a return to regular blogging anyway. The problems of blogging (time, energy, and trying-to-balance-my-mother-reading-this-with-keeping-it-interesting-and-relevant) are, frankly, lame excuses. I’ve got time and energy for World of Warcraft, and other such cathartic activities, and I generally hold to the conviction that if my mother would be shocked reading something, I shouldn’t say it on the public side of the Internet (of course, my mother being who she is, chances are she’d prefer me writing more dodgy stuff…)

So I’m about to toss a slew of posts up about my life at present. Forgive the spam, and I hope that I can keep this going on for a while…

Five-Fold and Leadership (as opposed to five-fold leadership)

I was pondering, on the drive back from cell this evening, about how a good leader in any field has the properties of all five-fold “office” ministry gifts. Here’s a quick summary, I’ll expand when it’s not 30 minutes after I should be sleeping:

• Pastoral – easy, a leader cares for the people he’s leading. A more modern and forceful take on this is that a pastor takes an interest in the individuals – even if it requires scolding, fighting or pushing people (gently, mind!) past what they think they can achieve.
• Teaching – leaders need to both teach and learn – learn new ways of doing things from those they lead, and teach the existing methods. Leaders who are incompetent in the field they lead rapidly gain a reputation as such, and their reputation wanes, resulting in less effective leadership.
• Evangelism – a good leader doesn’t find a crowd heading in a direction and gets in front of it. A good leader has a vision, drive and a plan. With these, and a bit of boldness, a leader can recruit those who share the vision. A leader who can’t recruit is typically a leader who isn’t forceful or driven enough.
• Apostolic – leadership is a universal trait. A good leader in one field can often be transplanted from one scenario and/or field into another. Leadership which is dependant on scenario often smacks of stagnation and a lack of dynamism – no leadership is going on, you just have a great team who ignore you.
• Prophetic – speaking what is instead of what we perceive is a terribly difficult task for most, but it is essential for any form of leadership. When a team is failing (in their own eyes) and a leader can say with authority and authenticity that this is a short-term problem or something they’ve survived before, the leader is operating in prophecy. Lying and exaggerating destroys the trust this is based on, but so is speaking negatively over the scenario. Work out how to speak relevant truth, and if it can’t be uplifting, then let it encourage towards solving the problem.

*Yawn*. Off to bed, but I’m glad I’ve got this thought down :)

Oh Wow

A blog post!

Life has been pretty crazy lately. I’m currently working on a terribly complicated project for my company that does software development for 1Time airlines. I’ve spent the last two weeks up to my ears in SRS’s and technical specifications, which confirm what I’ve always thought (IS is a terrible, terrible things which only makes software development more painful if the developers are competent, or merely brings incompetence up to manageability if the developers are not).

I’ve been playing in an awesome RPG campaign run by my new DM Guy, and I’ve just recently started one of my own, set in the epic Ravenloft world.

I’m still hating Johannesburg with every fibre of my being, but at least it’s moved from “I NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS EVIL PLACE!” to merely never wanting to come back when I inevitably move away.

I’ve had loads of interesting chats with the ChattyDM himself, and he’s thrown me a few bones and dropped my name on a few tweets or blogposts. Thanks Phil!

I’ve been trying to cook and bake as time allows, and I’ve made a few great recipes up – but I’m still struggling terribly to make cafe-grade iced coffee :( I bought a blender JUST for this purpose, but can’t get it nice and thick like I was hoping for.

I’ve been playing old games again, a terrible habit I must stop soon! Neverwinter Nights (original of course!), Dwarf Fortress, and on the console Final Fantasy Tactics A2, and quite a bit of Pokemon – I had a guy at work the other day insist that this is the most astonishing thing he’s come across in a while!

I’m missing varsity, I won’t lie. The freedom, and the time to do what I want to do is a part of it, but mostly it’s the people – people who want to learn, who aren’t just learning to finish today’s task. Of course, that’s an attribute, but I’m also missing terribly all my friends from Grahamstown, my former lecturers, and so on.

But now that I’ve updated you all on my life a bit, I’m going to quickly post something up (I’ve got a few thoughts to share) on my other blog, before messing around a little more. This has been my first non-crazy-busy night in quite a while, and I plan on enjoying it!

Ciao!

Call of Cthulhu ICON Game Account

WARNING - For those of you who actively dislike gore, fighting, and disturbing scenes, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

I make no promises that this is an accurate transcript - but rather, an account - the best of my knowledge. I've put off telling this tale (or spinning this yarn) for too long, and my memory is cloudy at best.

This is the tale of the Call of Cthulhu game I played at ICON 2009. Before the story can be told, first my character must be explained. And before even that can happen, the scene must be painted.

It is the modern day. The world is largely like what you know of it - only the largest, scariest, most bizarre things are different.
A scientist, studying Roanoke, an old American Indian settlement on an island off the coast of the US, goes missing on a research trip. Particularly, his research focuses on a potential link between the alien "greys" and the people of the area.
Four people who have an interest in the case have a chance encounter, and begin to investigate the mystery.

My character was a young gentleman from Harlem named Lewis Johnson. His story begins with rebellion against authority: firebombing police stations, graffiti, sticking it to The Man.
It was around this time that he realized that he could never out-muscle the government, but he COULD outsmart them. So he became a serial killer.
He was successful in his killing spree - but was continually denied the fame that he desired. He desired the killer nickname, the reputation of fear.
And so Lewis began studying forensics, and the serial killers of history. He eventually read about the infamous Jack the Ripper, and finally discovered the pattern that would make him famous - copycat killing.
Lewis' study of criminals and forensics had, in the meantime, become formal education. Deciding not to chance his luck, he dropped out of the forensics class - but discovered that he did have an excellent way with words - so he transferred his credits, and studied instead to become a hostage negotiator, an area in which he excelled. He successfully graduated, and joined the FBI.
One member of his former forensics class was a lady named Nicolette Farris. One day, when Lewis was coming to gloat over his kills at the local morgue, he discovered Nicolette studying the bodies. Thankfully for Lewis, he was worrying an opera mask and a full cloak (as odd as this would look on the streets of a city), and managed to tranquilize the woman before she could raise an alarm. He then placed her to wake up on the slab, like all the other corpses, neatly arranged.
And so he began terrorizing the life of the investigator of his case - as sport, and as entertainment.
Three years after his graduation from FBI training, and he has never seen Nicolette "outside of character" since. Until he was assigned to this case on Roanoke, where they are paired to discover the truth of the disappearance of this researcher.

The story began with us all boarding the ferry to get to the island. "Us" being the researcher's wife, the police chief of Roanoke island, and the two FBI agents - Lewis and Nicolette.
As we waited for the ferry to leave, Nicolette and I felt watched. Looking around, we noticed someone on the upper deck, with dark glasses, large hat and deep coat staring directly at us. As he saw us look, he bolted. Nicolette and I bolted towards the nearest staircase. I caught up to the suspicious person first, and tackled him to the ground. Nicolette, not knowing what to do, waited for my lead. I grabbed my cuffs, and, to the crowds dismay, declared this man to be a wanted terrorist [I panicked and it was an easy excuse in a modern American setting!]. The crowd immediately reacted in shock and fear. Before anything else could happen, we dragged the man into the only private area we could get on the boat - the wheelhouse.
The other two joined us, as well as the captain of the ferry - who had to be present, to steer the ferry, and continually added racist comments (Lewis and local police chief were both non-white).

The suspicious gentleman turned out to be a member of the Roanoke city council - and damned suspicious too! After a few simple questions, he demanded a lawyer would only respond as such to any line of questioning posed. We were stymied in our investigation, but the researcher's wife, a woman of education, determined that the gentleman was not in a sane state of mind. Nicolette, as a forensics researcher, had enough equipment and experience to do a simple blood test and a preliminary investigation revealed that the man had been drugged over a period of decades using psychotropics. Before we could investigate any further, the man went into anaphylactic shock. We searched his person and found some of the herbal "medicine" that he had been taking, and administered it after determining that he was suffering withdrawal symptoms. We left him, unconscious, to be picked up by members of the local police force and drove in the police chief's cruiser to the site of the researchers disappearance.

We discovered a city, built into a gigantic cave in a rock-cliff. Vehicles and trailers were standing, empty, and a variety of crude buildings dotted the interior of the cave.
We initially entered the main trailer, where the crew had set up and began to search the trailer. Immediately apparent was the mess of video recordings scattered over the floor, marked with dates. The researcher's wife picked up the most recently marked recording, and put it into the video player.
What she discovered was a tape of her husband in... a compromising situation with his research assistant. Outraged, she skipped forward. Her husband, after his indiscretion, left, but shortly afterwards a stunningly beautiful naked woman entered. Before the assistant could react, the beautiful woman kissed her - and she instantly became withered and drawn, eventually, crumbling to dust. At this point, everyone in the trailer began to feel a sense of dread and fear slowly rising.
The police chief, in the meantime, had investigated elsewhere. He discovered an old well, partially filled with debris, and with the sound of running water below. He continued to poke around, and eventually called us out of the trailer. We all came out for air, and took a few moments to regain our composure, before remembering the task that we were on.
We began to investigate the buildings. Most appeared derelict and empty, but one, farthest from the vehicles, housed people - or so it seemed, for we heard a scream as we approached. Immediately, I leapt towards the house, but before I could come near, a gigantic shower of dirt erupted, and a previously hidden plant emerged from a sinkhole, sharp vines whipping towards me! It tore up my chest rather badly, and I just managed to edge away.
Nicolette, armed with a shotgun, and the police chief, armed with an automatic pistol, began to fire at the monstrous plant. I managed to get back up to my feet, and limp back to a nearby building, near where I had placed my backpack. I dug around and found a blowtorch that I had used for some... interesting... reasons, and, without thinking too hard about it, lit it and ran back to the plant. Tossing the blowtorch at the plant resulted in it's immediate immolation - the plant fell dead, lifeless to the ground.
The crying in the building however, continued. Stopping for a minute so that Nicolette could study and clean my wounds, we proceeded inside. Moments after opening the door we realized that the ancient wood was on fire, and the building was likely to be ashes in just a few minutes!
We raced upstairs to discover the missing researcher and an asian lady, both grasping what appeared to be a map, pulling to try to drag it from the other.
Before we could respond, Nicolette dropped the asian woman with a pistol whip. The man, in the mean-time, ran to his wife, but not before carefully rolling up the map. He was met with a slap through the face, and an admonishment for his infidelity.
He explained that the Roanoke indians worshipped a deity named Dagon [I believe I was the only one at the table who had read Cthulhu Mythos stuff before, because I immediately groaned, while everyone else was like "WTF? Who is Dagon - that's Babylonian, isn't it?]. Several hundred years later, they were invaded by an unknown race that introduced a new, demonic god - Lillith. Lillith had since been re-awakened by trespassers (the research team) and had to be killed - apparently, after I asked, gods can be killed with sufficient firepower.

Alright then.

Us FBI folk, being slightly more mentally stable, were prepared to drive off into the sunset. Eventually, we were talked into investigating further by the researcher. While he studied the map further, we looked at what used to be a set of stables. Inside, we found a sack - of some modern material, so it must have been left there recently! The researchers wife opened the bag only to be greeted by the terrible features of Dagon himself! The sheer terror of it all eventually made her snap - she screamed, turned, and ran out through the nearby cave entrance. None of us tried to stop her, for our eyes had caught what hers had not - the statue was made of gold! We dug around and found more mundane treasures, which we left for the researchers to look at later.
[In the mean time, crazy researcher-wife lady, now on zero sanity, heard a voice booming in her head to kill Lillith. She had no choice but to continue to run, screaming, BACK TOWARDS THE CAVE]
Finally, the researcher came to us and showed us that the map indicated that Lillith was *in* the abandoned well. Deciding to be wise and knowing that emergency evacuation might be necessary, one of the researcher's vehicles (a 4x4 with an electric winch and steel cable) was driven next to the well, and it was agreed that a party would be lowered into the well while someone stood on top to haul everyone back up in case of emergency. The researcher insisted on remaining safe and hid in the vehicle.
As the party was preparing to be lowered into the well, the researcher's wife came running BACK into the cave, screaming, run up to the well, started climbing over, tripped, fell, and broke her leg on the debris as the went down. She found herself in a short, dark passageway underground, with water running in a stream next to her.
In the meantime, a short game of rock-paper-scissors resulted in myself staying up at the top, and Nicolette and the police chief going into the tunnel.
I lowered them down, and waited.
[They arrived in the dark tunnel, to discover a squad of fishmen approaching. The police chief recognized them as a race worshiped by the local indian tribes, and understood enough of their croaked speech to make out that Lillith was behind a door at the end of the passageway. The party continued on and discovered the door, which opened only when the researcher's wife touched it.
Inside, they found a modern bedroom, with a stunning, naked woman inside. The researcher's wife gibbered a bit more, and everyone else was paralyzed for a moment in absolute terror and worship of the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. Then the police chief shot the thing with his automatic machine pistol.
Skin was ripped and peeled back as the thing revealed it's true form - a gigantic scaled monster, easily twenty feet tall. The party, now suitably terrified, fired machine pistol and shotgun shell after shotgun shell into the creature.]
Standing by the well, I heard gunfire below and an inhuman roar. Having examined the contents of the trailer earlier, I had discovered several sticks of dynamite. Not feeling particularly keen to MEET an inhuman monster, I collected some dynamite, lit it, and tossed it down the well.
[The researchers wife, with a broken leg, managed to drag herself to Lillith, and started to strike at it with a panga she lifted off the police chief. Eventually, the bullets and cuts affected Lillith, who fell to the ground, dead - but not before making a final swipe, tearing the researchers wife into pieces. Before Lillith's corpse hit the ground, the earth began to shake and the tunnel began to cave in. The party ran for the tunnel. Nicolette, suffering from extreme claustrophobia, almost had a panic attack, but managed to dig down deep and make it through. As the reached the tunnel entrance, a stick of lit dynamite fell at their feet...]
Thankfully, the falling had put out the lit dynamite, as moments after dropping it I heard the party calling below. I quickly lifted both of them out, and we piled into the car to drive away. As we left the rapidly caving-in mountain, I turned to the (previously empty) passenger seat to look back and see if the other passengers in the vehicle were alright - only to discover the researcher's wife in the seat next to me, perfectly healthy and sane!
[She couldn't remember anything since seeing the statue of Dagon, but a deep voice rang in her head "THIS IS YOUR REWARD FOR KILLING THE USURPER"]. I gibbered [and finished the game on 2 sanity after losing 8 from the shock of seeing her alive].

Game over.

In retrospect, I wish I'd played up the serial killer thing a bit more :)

Adventures in Jo'burg #4

For the fourth instalment of "Adventures in Jo'burg", I did something I've always wanted to do: I went to a geek con. The con in question was ICON, which featured lots of Magic: the Gathering, Warhammer and Warhammer 40 000, some LAN gaming (more on that later), some RPGs (more on that later), some LARPing, some cosplaying, and a great big vendor hall full of anime, comic, geek, art and other goodness. And *astonishingly attractive* goth/cat girls.

For those who are interested, it seems that RPG.co.za is the place to go to find out information about ICON. And while I'll post some pics shamelessly scraped from their site (and which are years old), if you want to see more, check out their gallery.

So I arrived, early (too early as it turns out), and had to wait outside as one of the organisers attempted comic relief in the form of deriding attendees who weren't into his gaming (RPGs, as it turns out) at the top of his lungs. Warhammer, Magic, etc. where targets of abuse. But everyone chuckled, so it was fine.

I was attending because I had passed the preliminary  rounds for the Mayhem Dawn of War 2 competition. I was looking forward to some solid gaming, and was completely let down. The players I was competing with were beyond excellent - the two who beat me (I eventually came third) thoroughly deserved to win, as their skills in the game completely outclassed my own. But the room was continually noisy (incredibly distracting when you're playing a game which revolves around intense focus), the computers provided were of a poor quality (I had to adjust the monitors myself because the organisers didn't know that the wide-screen monitor used had a native resolution of 1440x900, DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT BELONGED TO ONE OF THEM - and was dirty, to the point of making it hard to make out what was on the screen), and the competition was poorly organised - the match-ups where decided on the day, there was no proper announcement of prizes (in fact they still haven't announced if I won anything for third place, two days after I achieved it), so overall I was unimpressed by the competition.

Then I investigated RP. I love roleplaying games (I have another blog all about it, in fact), and this was really exciting to me - seeing other people playing, finding different points of view on how the games are played and so on.

I registered, and quickly discovered that, as expected, geeks are anti-social. Until I was put into a group with other players, and while the GMs (game masters, the story tellers in RPGs) where reading their source material - a process that takes between 15 and 45 minutes, we all stood around awkwardly if we did not have a large crowd of friends handy (which I don't, being an East Londoner and all). Eventually we got together and we had a great game - we played Call of Cthulhu (a first for me, but something I've always wanted to do), and I enjoyed myself immensely. Afterwards, I was so dog tired, I slouched off home and passed out.

Some highlights from ICON when I wasn't competing or RP'ing:

• Cosplayers. There were several. A guy I knew in the competition introduced me to two catgirls, carrying their doggie slaves. Guys in wode, tieflings (complete with tiny little horns), Yomiko Readman. Not to mention - in case you missed it - CRAZY ATTRACTIVE GOTH GIRLS.
• Chatting with the comic-book vendors. I've read enough over the last four years that I can generally match them in conversation. One of them looked like he was about to cry when I pointed out that I asked for Warren Ellis, not Garth Ennis, because he'd got them mixed up.
• Realizing that I'll never have enough money to dedicate to the hobbies I'd like to have. 40k artbooks at R500. D&D manuals at R480. Boardgames going for over R1000. If I picked up all the books I wished I owned there, I could easily have spent about as much as I have recently started paying off on my car.
• At one point during RP, one of the GMs (tiefling cosplayer, actually) started running around the big tent screaming (in a high-pitched voice) for about thirty seconds. Compete silence (from everyone else) reigned as all eyes turned to him. After finishing and quietening down, he sat back at the table and said (loudly) something like "and that was what the little girl did when you took her teddy bear".

All in all? I'll go there again, if I'm still in town this time next year. It's expensive, and I'll never compete in a Mayhem competition again, but ICON was pretty frickin' awesome :)

Technorati Tags: Adventures in Jo'burg,Johannesburg,ICON,RPG,Warhammer,Dawn of War II,Competition,Con,Cosplay,Goth,Comics

Adventures in Jo'burg #3

I've taken a short break from Adventures in Jo'burg because - frankly - life has been quite quiet. Also, work has been busy :)

Today I won't speak about any particular day. I want to take about a daily adventure: driving the streets of Johannesburg.

Now, I'm "hip", and "with it". I've played my fair share of Need for Speed (pick your flavour: Underground, Carbon, Most Wanted, Undercover). I'm good at travelling aggressively and fast. I'm also good at leaving that stuff at home, because I remember how often I've driven into walls at 120kph.

But nothing I've done could prepare me for Jo'burg roads. And you know what the main problem is? I'm a good person. Jo'burg drivers expect you to take every gap, no matter how suicidal it is. I've had guy centimeters from my back bumper, when I'm doing 80kph (in an 80kph zone) - if I'd slowed down at all, I would've been discussing insurers with them.

I've also discovered that the city of Johannesburg hates me. This time, I'm not referring to the people - though they loathe me too. The city itself - brick, mortar, electronics - hates me. I've yet to meet a robot (that's traffic lights to you from far away) that does not change to orange the second I've gotten to within five seconds drive of it.

Note.

FIVE SECONDS.

That's the most frustrating time for it to happen, I'm not kidding. It means two things:

1. Getting through the robots while maintaining speed is juuuuuust out of reach. You'll never make it on time, unless you go at least 20kph above the speed limit.
2. You always spend the maximum period of time waiting at robots.

At the insistence of a friend who also drives Jo'burg daily, I've pushed through robots if it turns red as I go over the line. It's effective, but I feel both guilty and in extreme danger as I go through.

But back to the people of Johannesburg hating me - in case it wasn't immediately apparent, I believe in following the speed limit to the best of my ability. This is a lot more challenging in Jo'burg than you'd think. The number of frustrated drivers who have flashed brights, honked, and eventually just drove AROUND me in frustration (in single lane roads!) is getting worryingly high.

Add to all of this that I'm still learning Jo'burg, and live bordering on a "dodgy" area, so I do not want to stop and ask for directions, and when I drive I'm almost always nervous and hyper-tense.

But I like driving. And Jo'burg has some interesting places to go to.

Now if I could just find a vendor that sold Go boards...

Technorati Tags: Adventures in Jo'burg,Johannesburg,Driving,Robots

Adventures in Jo'burg #2

Today's anecdote shall cover yesterday's fear, tribulation and challenge - Bruma Flea Market!

Bruma Flea Market (or "Marketworld" as I believe it has been termed) is (I'm told) one of the largest flea markets in Jo'burg, if not South Africa. I'm not sure if I believe that completely, but it is indeed massive. The only real thing it compares to is the annual Village Green flea market during the Grahamstown National Arts Festival. It runs six days a week (Tuesday to Sunday) - I tried to find it last week, and, sadly, missed the forest for the trees - I drove right past it, decided that I couldn't find the damned thing, turned around and came right back (well, actually, went to Eastgate mall for lunch, but you get the gist).

It is also the only flea market I have ever been to (though I'll admit I haven't been to many) that you have to pay for entrance. It's well worth it though! R4.50 gives you endless harassment, street theatre, harassment, and opportunity for great bargains.

Yes. It's a cheesy way to phrase it, but you get harassed *that much*. If you walk down the wrong alley (this place has alleys), you'll get ambushed by a half dozen traders insisting that you visit their stalls. They'll choose an item at random, and insist that you purchase it. When you refuse, they state an obscene price (sometimes - to be honest, sometimes the prices where pretty good). When you continue on your way, they'll drop 25% off the price. Then another 25%. Finally, if you continue on your way (with a deaf ear turned to the "But chief, this elephant carving took me days, won't you look at it again? Only R250! Please chief, support me, I haven't eaten in days."), they'll leave you alone to feel like the absolute heel that you are.

However. I got to see my first ever street theatre - some contortionist/dancers who were excellent for street theatre folk - if they joined a circus troupe or professional group somewhere, and spent a little time polishing their act, I would gladly pay R100 entrance to a show of theirs. I also saw a gentleman who styled himself a contortionist and comedian, who dragged an innocent young man out of the audience and proceeded to shamelessly embarrass the man - but he did some great stuff with a ring that was (partially) on fire, and could lie chest-down on the ground and pick up a hat and glasses with his feet and put them on his head/face by bending his torso into a near full-circle. When I say the man is spineless, I'm being entirely literal :)

I also got to see some youths doing what appeared to be a tribal dance, though frankly I've seen much better amateur stuff.

But! No-one attends a flea-market for the shows - they attend for the bargains! What did I find, you ask?

Well, frankly, nothing. About four-fifths of the items on offer were for tourists (it was the big signs saying "dollars, euros, other major currencies accepted here" that gave it away). Sculptures of little African heads, tall and thin sculptures of African warriors, sculptures of elephants. Beaded wire cars. Wooden boards with (you guessed it) African-sculpted chess pieces. Paintings of (waaaaaait for iiiiiiit) African warriors. And so many DVD, CD and computer hardware shops it would blow your mind. Wait, what? Yes, you can get your games and music here, as well as a new laptop, speakers, and a neon-pink wig at the stall next door. 'cause, you know, it's epic.

All of the food stalls (all of them!) proudly declare themselves halaal. Not that I mind, I prefer halaal food (amongst other things, this means that the animals were treated well [or, at least, better than non-halaal] before being slaughtered). Of course, most of the places just took this overboard - falafels, schwarmas, and other fun-to-pronounce food types where the order of the day. I had what was marketed as a "pizza pie", which I assumed was the correct term, but turns out to mean "calzone". Meh, it was nice :D

But I'm now inspired to shop at this place for birthdays, Christmasses and other gift-type events in future. Tacky African Warrior sculptures for *everybody*!

Technorati Tags: Stories,Johannesburg,Bruma Flea Market,Adventures in Jo'burg

Adventures in Jo'burg #1

My sister, bless her heart, is convinced that I should blog my experiences here in Johannesburg. Some are negative commentaries on the city, some are funny.

While today had it's own adventure (Bruma Flea-market), this entry will be about yesterday.

I recently got a car. I've been in Jo'burg for three months now. Three months, in the biggest city (arguably) in the country, without any automotive means of transport. Lifts to work have been available, but that's pretty much it.

At one point my work-lift offered me a chance to go to one of the few things I've really been excited about since I've moved here - the chance to go to South Africa's premier comic book, fantasy/sci-fi fiction, RPG shop, The Outer Limits. I went, I was a little disappointed (I expected it to be bigger), but ultimately was very happy to find a place that catered for my interests.

So I decided, what with my new car and all, to drive there, maybe pick up a comic or two, and drool over the painfully expensive RPG books.

Here's the problem: I don't know Jo'burg. At all.

I live in Kensington, which is pretty far south-east of city center. Eastgate Mall is a long work or short drive down a major road. I work in Rosebank, which is a little west-south-west of city center. My church is a few blocks away from where I work.

That's all I know, in terms of directions. A little of Rosebank, a little of Kensington, and exactly one (1) route between the two.

Now, Outer Limits is in Melville. Which is far enough that I'd certainly get lost going back streets. So armed only with a map book and four days of research on maps.google.com, I ventured on to the M3. Heads-up: I've never driven on Jo'burg highways before (I go via back-streets to work/church, and Eastgate is close enough that I don't need to use a highway). Let's just say that people are not happy with speed limits in this city while I obey them to the best of my ability... and this resulted in my complete lack of popularity on South African roads.

I survived the highway (despite it's best efforts), and got off at the Crown Interchange, which is to say that the M2 petered out and became (IIRC) Main Reef road. I took a few turns, got lost, consulted the map book, got confused, got unconfused, and got on to the right road.

Now, on maps.google.com, and on the Outer Limits website, their address is given as 8 Main Road. If you take the route I took, you end up on Brixton, followed by a few other streets, and the road eventually becomes Main Road, after which it becomes Ontdekkers. I drove up Main Road, found number 8, and... it was a gigantic mall. Outer Limits, from previous experience was a shop facing the street, off a raised pavement.

Suddenly: Confusion, panic, paranoia. Had they moved? Had they closed shop?

Saddened by this news, I trekked back to Kensington to sulk in my flat. Cue more M3 antics, people hooting on normal roads as I consulted my map book to find out where I was, and driving past a large group of protestors on Queen Street, toyi-toyi'ing and holding placards I couldn't read because of the police cars in the way.

So, finally arriving home from TWO HOURS on the road, getting lost, finding my way, getting lost again and finally getting nothing for my troubles, I consult with a friend of mine over IM, who informed me that Melville has *two* Main Streets. That intersect. And that I was about two blocks from the shop I was trying to find.

maps.google.com, in fact, guessed which Main Street Outer LImits was on, and got it wrong. I had spent an exhausting morning searching and getting nothing, because I trusted you Google. You fail me.

Technorati Tags: Stories,Johannesburg,Outer Limits,Adventures in Jo'burg