The Clout Hustlers, Pt I

So there's this island. Small. Tropical. Corrupt. The tourists come in through the airport. They enjoy the shows, the beaches, and the casinos. Visitors from nearby islands come in through the dock, and they're not particularly welcome.

So a guy arrives at the dock early in the morning and the two customs agents take the basket he's carrying and look inside. They see a bunch of rocks.

Protestors have been throwing rocks at police, so rocks of a certain size aren't allowed in the country. The customs agents measure the guy's rocks by length, they weigh them, and they put them in a special pan full of water to test their displacement. They check them for subversive messages and even crack a few in half to check inside. It's a long and ridiculous process, but all of the rocks are fine.

So they tell the guy to put the rocks back into his basket and go about his business.

That evening, they see the guy leave on the last boat out of the dock.

The next day, the guy is at the dock. Early in the morning. Unfazed by his experience yesterday. But, instead of rocks the customs agents find his basket is half full of poker chips. They aren't labeled with the name of any casino, but the casinos pay a lot of money to keep counterfeit chips off of the island.

The two agents scan each chip for fake RFID chips. They break a few in half and check inside. They use a UV light to check them for barcodes. They measure them against a diagram showing casino chip sizes and they're different from all the other chips on the island.

After forty-five minutes of every other arrival staring holes in the back of the guy's head, the customs agents tell him to put his chips back in his basket and go about his business.

That evening, they see the guy leave on the last boat out of the dock.

The next morning, he's back, sweating with a basket full of plastic water bottles. There's no law against bringing water onto the island, but the government has a sole license to sell alcohol and rioters have been using molotov cocktails.

So they have to check every bottle to see if the contents are flammable. They open them, sniff them, pour out some drops and try to light them on fire. They peel off every label and search them for anti-government propaganda. This process goes on a while so they even drink one each.

But it's all water. So they tell the guy to wipe down their counter, take his water bottles, and go.

He does, and that evening they see the guy leave on the last boat out of the dock.

This goes on for several months until the rioters become revolutionaries, recruit a majority of the citizens to their cause, and overthrow the government. Government control is relaxed, relations with neighboring islands are improved, and the customs agents are let go and find different jobs.

Bore of a Canon

Growing up, people told me they'd read The Bible and I never thought too much of it. I assumed it was something everyone got around to doing. Like having sex or getting a driver's license. As an adult, I now realize not everyone has sex in their lives. And also, fewer have read The Bible.

I should specify: the Christian Bible, not the Star Trek: The Next Generation series bible.

Personally, I think it's more important that Doctor Crusher can diagnose diseases at a glance, than יְחִי הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה, whatever that means.

The Bible is just a collection of books written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. It's a collection of books and scrolls. Accounts and even just collections of letters from a couple of guys.

What collections of turn-of-the-Anno Domini writings are and aren't in The Bible isn't a matter of some unified history with one authority over them. It was a system of shared, hand-written texts that would have yearned for the anarchic underground zine resources of the late 20th Century.

A Bible–the bible most of us think of as The Bible–wasn't formed until, I think 1546 and the Council of Trent . And look, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, and Latter Day saints all have their own take. Mostly because those later two–or should I say "Latter Two"--didn't see anything particularly unique or magical about 1546. As long as their god may deign to speak, The Bible is a living document.

Charybdis

So what's been happening?

Responsinabilities

Early voting starts Friday. I'm looking forward to having any part of this election behind me, so I'm doing that. I've already scheduled November 5th through 8th off of work. With any luck, I won't even know who won until the next Monday.

Of course, that also means I'll be trying to get everything off of my plate by end of month.

Have I mentioned I'm moving to a new office space?

 

This is my life now.

Man-o-man

You'd think that with The Beige and The Bold and Papa Picard: Captain of the Subscription Service Enterprise being done forever, that I'd have so much free time.

I kind of do, to be honest. I mean, I still make the once-a-month podcast for The Bookclub on the Edge of Forever, but editing that has been so slow, it's been easy to miss. 

I'm also trying to get back into the swing of Minecraft News for Adults enough to officially write it off and start the ninth (tenth?) series of little YouTube tab-clearing I do from time to time.

Relapsing into Battletech a little bit, toying around with Mechwarrior 5 mods, waiting for the next Stellaris update to get patched back from the hell every Stellaris update casts the game into. 

Mostly the problem is just finding someone to do shit with. I mean, folks can hang and play games and record themselves talking, but there's a je ne sais qoi to making something together that's always hard to find. The best one was when I worked with Derek on TBnTB, but even then that was a somewhat unequal balance of work. It only worked because that work was just some lazy editing. 

I mean, if I want to say something, I should just say it. It shouldn't be that hard, should it?

Repilot

I'd like to course correct. I've always liked making things. I get bored and, yes, occasionally, I shirk from the least engaging, most repetitive aspects of projects I'm working on. A long time ago, I used to always have piles of folders so that no matter what, I'd be working on something in a nod to constant progress, not never actual completion.

Well, "rarely." The Battletech 3087 stuff got wrapped up nicely just a bit after I finished up with Battletech itself. 

I am, at long last, done with keeping up with new Magic developments. I still keep a finger on the spoilers for new sets, but my big Magic to-do items for the next few years are on the drawing board and end with building and playtesting a few cubes, then parting with everything that's not in them. 

Star Trek--I know there was a whole Morning Perfect Base about this--is getting a Section 31 series so, y'know, fuck Star Trek. The obvious non-Star Trek replacement is The Orville, which is like choosing a bologna sandwich over a delicious hamburger with beach sand as a condiment.

Marvel movies are done and I'll just be angry if you ask "what about DC movies"?  BoJack Horseman and The Good Place are gonna get some new seasons soon, so there's that to look forward to. Mean, I guess they're both going to end with the leads dying, so that's some synergy.

Roleplaying has been dead on arrival. It requires a lot of listening and talking to folks and "yes and"-ing them and while I'm working on it that skill has been in short supply lately. I've wanted to do a tighter, more improv version, but improv is actually harder than the snide jokes about improv--and also every improv performance you've ever seen--makes it look. Weirdly, I loathe the strong, central power of the Storyteller in roleplaying games, but it's also the only source of getting motherfuckers on the same page. But honestly, I just don't have the energy to deal with adult children who regularly want to break the rules because they want to feel special and then also bitch about the distribution of magical swords.

Trust me, if they were doing a Monty Python bit, I'd allow it, but they aren't. They're being annoying.

But hey, I've been making these YouTube videos and talkin' about stuff. Minecraft seems like a constant companion and Slay the Spire has the kind of longevity that's really all I ask for in a game (although I might have to start looking up some tutorials for The Silent. For fuckssake, I've dealt these motherfuckers hundreds of poison damage but I can't get--doesn't matter. doesn't matter).

That does raise the question; what is all this about? I've got two youtube channels, like, three twitter accounts, two podcasts I make, a stuttering YouTube series, and a hankerin' to do a daily one to work on my delivery a bit more (I won't want to do that once The Beige and The Bold starts back up though). Actually, make that three podcasts now that I'm remastering 17 to 01 for the Patreon.

Derek and I periodically ask, "What IS Star Trek?" I think I'm past my due date when I ask, "Who IS VanVelding?"

I've got projects comin' out o' my notebooks. I've thought about twisting The Denver 5 into a set of episodic morality tales targeted at a post-apocalyptic human civilization. Or really, any public domain characters or ersatz versions of not-so-public-domain-characters.

Circle back round and the YT version of that is 3D printed versions of broad characters engaging in stories with animation provided by 3D models (or attachments) swapped out like animation frames. Hell, you could probably do that with a deck of playing cards and you might not even have to sharpie the cards up too much.

A Lair Somewhere, an original Magic: the Gathering-styled story with an original format was cool (not penetrable or popular, but cool). It follows on from the old tournament commentary podcast Terry did with me a few years back.

A branded 'television style' of YouTube, which isn't a practicable project by any means, but imagine being able to pull up a playlist of complimentary youtube videos once a week--any time during a week--and get some programming you know you're going to like.

I know that Andy Daly kinda did it already, but a review show for unreviewable stuff. I mean, you choose stupid items as the "basic brain" version of the idea, but the alternative is that you write the script then find the thing to review that lets you do the jokes.

The Campaign is something I think about doing every four years. I think there was already a Hulu series by that name and the BBC's In the Thick of It may have already covered this. I dunno. I never have the resources or the knowledge to make it so it passes by every four years.

The Influence, which is The Campaign, but for social media bullshit. With The Campaign, failure is a certainty, but with The Influence, you'd have to succeed on some level to keep the show going. Eh.

Meme news. This one is news told exclusively in the form of memes. I know Mark Zuckerberg already made this, exhibiting both its merits and flaws, but I dunno. I could do same thing, but with irony and intelligence.

Ultimately, people like novel twists on what they've seen before. I might as well run a MUGEN tournament with Invader Zim and Sonic the Fucking Hedgehog. Or maybe a last man standing match for Trump administration officials with Democratic leaders available to play, but they have zero attacks until January of 2021. 

There's always my prized idea. The MMF. The Magic Magic Federation, which is the WWF or WWE or whatever the, well it's not wrestling. Let's call it Reality Television Punch Gymnastics. Whatever the Reality Television Punch Gymnastics are called these days. It has all of the same things as RTPG; tournaments and fights and dirty plays and big, bombastic characters and feuds and that bullshit, but the nerds I know aren't into that and the nerds I know who are into that I generally don't want to spend too much time with. 

I don't like RTPG and could not, therefore, write for it, but since I can't find seven other Magic players in my area to take part, it's irrelevant anyway.

Erotica. I could always write some erotica, but I don't. I should, actually.

One thing I've noticed is that I notice how things work and I'm interested when they don't work that way. Maybe something like the morality tales from the top of this list illustrating that would be a good idea. I mean, I can all the consistent principles of the universe that I want and I can say true things into a well all day, but it all seems a bit self-serving if I can't do anything with it. 

I've never seen a universal truth stop a bullet in flight. Looking around the world, I see a lot of bullets in flight and no amount of incisive analysis seems to stop them. One of the old Rules of Life is that "the things in my head are not the things in my hands," and that's usually a bit of a purifying statement; separating one's worser impulses from the actions of indulging them.

Now it feels reversed. I feel like it's pulling from the same lessons of Hamlet debating the intersection of caution and action, but all the same. These good ideas aren't manifest if they don't lead to an action that can be done.

FATE Inspired by Battletech, Part 1

So there was a 75% off sale at the local game store. Some of those books were Battletech books. Specifically the closure-inducing "Jihad Hotspots: Terra."

So like a...let's say an "addict" who has what we'll call a "relapse," it got me thinking a lot about Battletech. Now, Battletech is a roleplaying game with an overgrown chapter for combat, which naturally make me think of FATE, a system for telling stories that barely has any combat.

That sounded better in my head.

I wouldn't make a complete transfer of Battletech; none of my friends know or care very much about the setting and Battletech has its own elements that only fit within it (jump jets? what?).

The conceptual heart of FATE are aspects, but the systemic core are the skills. How does a 'mech attack? How does it take a hit? How do you represent electronics skills?