My review of Star Trek Into Darkness

I don’t go to the movies very often. I think the last time I went to a theatre on purpose was to see the first of the current Star Trek movies, and then I only went because it was a private screening and I could reasonably expect the audience to shut the fuck up, turn off their damn phones, and pay attention to the film.

I planned to write a paragraph here detailing why I hate going to the movies, but I think I just covered it, so let me write a different paragraph instead, about how I finally found a movie theatre that I will go to as long as it exists: the iPic theatre in Pasadena (also called Gold Class, I understand) is the only way I will ever watch a movie again for the rest of my life if I can help it. It costs much more than a typical multiplex, but it is entirely worth it, and this theatre has replaced the Arclight (which makes me sad, but sometime in the last couple of years, Arclight stopped enforcing the shut the fuck up and turn you goddamn phone off policy that had made it such an attractive destination for me for so long).

I’ve really wanted to see Star Trek Into Darkness, but I had resigned myself to not seeing it until it was available to watch in the comfort of my own home … until Stepto, e, and my friend Jen all told me about the existence of a theatre that was actually enjoyable, instead of wall-to-wall bullshit advertising and people who have such little respect for the movies and the rest of the people in the audience, they belong at the gathering of the Juggalos instead of in a movie house. When I saw that one of these theatres was not only nearby but was also showing Star Trek Into Darkness, I looked at my schedule, gave myself an afternoon off, and took my entire family to see it.

We just got home, and the rest of this post will be about my first impressions of the movie. If you haven’t seen it, do not read past the jump, or scroll past the giant picture of Bender B. Rodriguez I’ve placed for those of you who came here directly. I will discuss specific plot points and spoilers. You have been warned.

The short version is: I loved it. I think it’s my favorite Star Trek movie ever, and I can’t wait to see what this crew does next.

-SPOILERS BEYOND BENDER-

Continue reading… →

Thank you, Cory Doctorow.

I went to the website I Write Like, and pasted in some text from The Happiest Days Of Our Lives. It did its analyzing thing, and told me…

I Write Like Cory Doctorow

I sat back in my chair, and smiled.

My life is very different now than it was when I started writing in public. When I started my blog in 2000, it was, uh … like this:

But check this out: There is this big thing called “The Television Critic’s Association”. I think there are TV critics in it, or something. Anyway, they get together every year to run up huge tabs on their corporate credit accounts, and see what’s coming up on TV in the next quarter. That’s where I come in. TNN asked me to go to the “TCA” (when you’re a hip, edgy, media-savvy person, you use lots of acronyms, FYI) and be part of this TNG launch-thing. So I went, and it was sooo cool! I got to see some of the old TNG kids, who I don’t ever see anymore since they’re millionaires and I’m living in a refrigerator box, and, the coolest thing of all…I got to take a pee right next to BILLY FREAKIN IDOL!!!

Yes, you read that right. Here’s how it happened: I went into the bathroom, and I’m doing my business, and I notice the guy next to mee is rather dressed up, like in serious rocker clothes. So I try to just glance at him, without getting all gay and weird, and he looks right at me, sneer and all. That’s when I realize that it’s HIM! HOLY CRAP! So I say, “My wife and I just saw you on “Storytellers”. You really rocked, man!” (tap, tap). And he looks at me, and from behind his cool-guy sunglasses says, “Cheers, mate.” And he’s gone.

YES! How cool was that?

So after that, I’m off to New York to do a cool show called “Lifegame” which will be on TNN in a month or so. It’s an improv show where they asked me to tell stories about my life, and then they have improvisers act out scenes based on my so called life, in different styles. Like the time my parents cornered me in the bathroom and gave me “The Talk”—when I was 20, done as a reggae musical. Very funny. And I got to play the Devil in a scene. YES!

While I was there, I got a tour of MTV networks, met Carson Daly (!), and was given a CHIA MISTER T! That’s right. Let me tell you, everything after that was just Jibba Jabba.

We all have to start somewhere, right? So if you’re starting out as a writer, and you’re worried that your voice isn’t quite as developed as you want it to be, don’t worry. As Ira Glass says:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

One of the people who helped me fight my way through, way back in the early months of this century, was Cory Doctorow. I met Cory at an EFF event where I boxed against Barney the Stupid Dinosaur (and I wore the Infamous Clown Sweater). We hit it off immediately, and he gave me a copy of his then-unpublished book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I devoured that manuscript as fast as I could turn the pages, and when I was thinking about publishing some of my own writing, I emailed Cory for advice.

I’d been working on what became Just A Geek for a couple of months. I’d written probably twelve or fifteen thousand words, and I felt like something wasn’t quite right with the work I’d been doing. I was so close to it, though, I couldn’t see for myself what it was. I reached out to Cory because he was a writer who I knew and respected, and I hoped he could help me close the gap between what I wanted to write, and was I was able to write.

He offered to take a look at the manuscript I was working on, and — wow. I am sitting in my office in my house in 2013, in a different physical and emotional place than I was on the day I sent him my manuscript in 2001 or 2002, and I just got the visceral memory of that moment like a flashback in a movie. I’m sitting at my desk, typing away on my Linux machine (which was a gift from the members of the Soapbox), waiting for OpenOffice.org to load because it was so slow back then. I’m tabbing between Cory’s e-mail in KMail, and Fark in Konqueror. My dog, Ferris, is running around the backyard, and I’m listening to Oingo Boingo’s Dark At The End Of The Tunnel on whatever MP3 player was in the version of Debian I was using at the time. (It’s funny, isn’t it, how some details are crystal clear and others of equal importance or non-importance are completely obscured). OpenOffice finally loads, I confirm that I’m sending the latest version of the manuscript (untitled at the time), and I attach a zipfile to a hastily-written reply.

It was a few days before Cory replied, and during the wait, I convinced myself that he would tell me I was brilliant and amazing, and to stop doubting myself. Just finish the book, he would tell me, because the world can not live a moment longer without knowing the story you want to tell them.

It didn’t work out that way. Cory replied to me, and was brutally honest about the quality of my writing. He was never unkind, but he made it clear to me that my writing was amateurish. I didn’t told when I should have shown, rambled about things that didn’t matter to the narrative, glossed over things that did, and generally had a lot of work to do if I was going to take this story to the public. And it was a good story, he told me, but it needed a lot of work.

I was devastated. I sat in my chair at that desk, alone in my house on a hot afternoon, and felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach, then punched in the face, and then kicked in the stomach again. I’d spent months working on something that was pretty much crap and my burgeoning career as a writer was done before it had started. At that moment, I felt like I would never be more than that nearly thirty year-old failure who used to be an actor when he was a kid.

I walked my dog, as I so often did in those days, to clear my head. While we were out, I let the emotional punch fade, and considered the underlying message in Cory’s email: I had a good story to tell, but I needed to develop my skills as a storyteller. He had included examples from his own life and writing, and encouraged me to keep working at it.

So that’s what I did. I rewrote everything I had, cut out thousands of words — entire chapters in some cases — and kept at it. Months later, I finally had something that I genuinely thought was better because of the advice Cory had given me, so I emailed him again and asked if I could send it. He told me he would look at it again, and when he did, he told me that it was much better. He enjoyed it, and he commented on my growth as a writer.

I finished the manuscript, pulled an entire book out of it that became Dancing Barefoot, and eventually had Just A Geek published. Since then, I’ve written for dozens of magazines and websites, self-published a bunch of other books, written comics and manga, and tens of thousands of words on my blog.

I owe a significant debt of gratitude to Cory Doctorow for taking the time all those years ago to read my work, critique my work, and give me guidance and advice. Cory could have said no when I asked him, but he didn’t. He could have said “this is crap and don’t waste your time” but he didn’t. Cory didn’t need to help me, but he did, and he did it more than once. I remember more than one time when I had a crisis of confidence, or felt like I just couldn’t get words to come out of my head, and every time I bugged him about it, he listened and gave me advice that kept me writing.

So today, when I saw that this writing analysis tool thinks I write like Cory Doctorow, I couldn’t help but feel honored and grateful, and I wanted to say this in public: Thank you, Cory, for giving me a hand up when I needed it most. I love my life, and I don’t know if I’d be where I am right now if you hadn’t given me the gift of your time and wisdom so long ago.

The new Tabletop is a real Smash Up.

We wrapped production on season two of Tabletop on Tuesday night. When I got home from the set, Anne asked me how I was feeling.

“Do you feel sad that it’s over, or relieved that you get to catch your breath?”

I grabbed a glass out of the kitchen and walked across our living room.

“I’m tired, so I’m looking forward to a couple days of being a fat piece of shit on the couch, but I’m going to miss playing games all day for my job.”

I poured an Arrogant Bastard Ale out of my kegerator — a gift to myself — that’s been in the living room since it arrived a little over a month ago.

“That makes sense,” Anne said.

“Yeah, and I’m really proud of what we did this season, so I feel sort of sad to say goodbye to my crew for another year.”

I filled my glass and took a sip. “Ahhh that’s good beer.”

“This thing is the Leg Lamp,” she said, pointing to my kegerator.

“You mean it’s a thing of indescribable beauty that should be in the front window?”

“No, I mean that it’s a thing that really needs to be in your office and not the living room.”

I took a drink of my beer. “But if it was in my office, we’d have to walk all the way down the hall to get beer.”

She hesitated and I pounced. “See? That’s science. I win.”

I sat on the couch and she looked at me. “I’m going to move it as soon as I clean up the disaster that is where my office used to be*. Thank you for being patient.” I hoped she would not use up all the glue on purpose, as we settled down to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Today, I’m starting to get back to normal. I’ve slept a lot the last two nights, so I only feel a little fuzzy in my brain. Also today, the newest episode of Tabletop was released! It’s Smash Up, with Rich Sommer, Cara Santa Maria, and Jen Timms.

Watching this today, I am once again blown away by the magnificent work of our editors. This game has a lot going on, and they worked very hard to make it understandable and entertaining. Tabletop is a show that is made in editing, and I realized while watching Smash Up today that the last five days of production, while very long and intense, represent only the beginning of the process that makes Tabletop possible. So, Yasu and Steve, if you’re reading this: thank you for your incredible work. I’m grateful to have you on my team.

*During production, my office becomes a huge pile of boxes and games and all kinds of stuff that just gets set aside until production wraps. It’s currently the worst it’s ever been, because in addition to the usual cruft from production, there are several boxes of things I brought home from conventions last month, as well as a whole lot of homebrew that’s bottle conditioning. It’s a hot mess.

regarding software license fees and development

Earlier this afternoon, I tried to open up Echofon, my desktop Twitter client of choice. It gave me a persistent “401” error, which meant that it wasn’t working with Twitter’s API. I did some searching and learned that Twitter had changed its API, and if I wanted to continue using Echofon, I’d have to upgrade to the current version.

No problem! I upgrade things all the time! I hit the update link in the menu, and the app told me that I was using the current version. Uh oh. A little more searching, and I learned that Echofon wasn’t supporting the version I bought, but was supporting a version that I could buy through the App Store. I didn’t want to pay again for the same app, so I looked for something different, and now I’m very happily using Tweetbot.

An interesting thing happened, though, that I thought was worth discussing in more depth than 140 characters at a time allows.

I said:

A non-zero number of developers were offended, and a growing shitstorm swept across my desktop. The general gist of the response was that I suggested users should expect free support forever and never pay to upgrade software. I read what I believe to be a large number of false equivalencies, and rather than try to respond point by  point on Twitter, I’ll talk about it here where we can probably have an interesting and informative discussion.

First off, I never suggested that developers should not get paid for their work, because I do not believe that. I did not mean to imply that all upgrades (like OS 1 -> OS 2) should just be free. I also realize that, in this specific instance, Echofon did nothing wrong. The developer ended support for its desktop version (which I had bought a license for in-app) and began to support mobile and App Store versions. So I would be wrong to expect Echofon to give me the App Store version because I’d already paid for the version I was using. In other words, I wasn’t paying twice for the same app; I was paying twice for essentially the same app that would be supported through different channels. I still don’t feel okay doing that, and I think it’s silly to expect users to pay again because Twitter changed its API, but I support Echofon’s decision to conduct their business the way that they feel is best for them. For the record, someone at Echofon offered to give me a license key to use with the App Store if I sent an e-mail copy of my receipt to them. I don’t know if they’re extending this offer to everyone.

One of the many false equivalencies was “would you do Star Trek again for free if it was reshot to 16:9”. This is absurd, not only because I’m more suited to play Riker than Wesley, but the more I thought about it, I began to consider what this person may have been saying.

What I think this person may have been saying was something like, “if you were asked to do your job again because the technology had changed since you first did it, would you think it’s reasonable to not be paid for your job.” Another wondered if someone who paid for w00tstock 4.0 could reasonably expect to get into w00tstock 5.0 without paying. Again, I believe this is a false equivalency (the w00tstocks are entirely different shows — versions, if you will –, while the specific piece of software I was talking about had stopped working and would not work again if I didn’t pay for the same software in a different distribution channel), but I see where that person is coming from. If I was a software developer and I read my tweet, I may have pulled out my jump to conclusions mat and decided that Wil Wheaton was saying my job isn’t worth getting paid for, and what I make isn’t worth supporting. Man, that Wil Wheaton is really a dick!

So, to be clear: everyone who makes things deserves to be compensated for their work. I fully support developers who make awesome software (and Echofon is awesome) and fully believe that those developers should be able to earn a living from their work.

Further: I would never expect that I am entitled to OSX 10.5 simply because I bought OSX 10.4, especially if the new OSX was fundamentally different from the old one. However, I do believe that it would be wrong for Apple to make me pay an additional fee because something I already bought from them stopped working through no fault of my own.

This point is where I feel like what I was saying and what developers on Twitter heard diverged. If you invest lots of time and energy into a new version of your product, and you believe it’s fair to charge users for that new version, that’s entirely your prerogative. I do not believe that it’s right to charge users for what’s essentially a maintenance update, but as I am not a developer, I can’t say if that’s fair or not.

What I do know is that I will always support development of projects I love and which provide me value when I use them. All things (in this case, features) being essentially equal, though, I will give my money to the developers who provide me with the best service experience, and in this case, I got a better service experience from Tweetbot than Echofon. Your milage may vary.