how to create your very own ogre deathcrotch

Yesterday, I told some friends of mine who are writers that I feel this need to write, and I certainly want to write, but my brains aren’t cooperating with me at all. I asked them for advice, and was relieved to learn that I’m not the only writer (who doesn’t feel like a writer at the moment) who experiences these weird and annoying patches of malaise.

I applied everyone’s advice, so I’ve gotten to play some GTA IV to recharge, read some comics and genre fiction to reinspire, taken some walks to clear my head, and now I’m writing something totally unrelated to my work, so I can hopefully kick stuff loose in my head and hopefully get back to my assignments.

I think I had this sudden lock-up in the brain-u-lo-tronic region of my skull because I’m kind of overwhelmed by both life and work. I think I may have taken on too many creatively-demanding writing projects, so yesterday I thought I’d make a list of my writing commitments, including their various deadlines, so I could get a better picture of what I need to do. The idea was to put everything onto paper, tape it up next to my desk, and feel a little bit better knowing what my responsibilities were.

Um. Yeah. Didn’t quite work out that way. Seeing how much I have to do has really freaked me out; I have an August 1 deadline for this project that is unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and though I’m looking at 51 days until I turn it in, I don’t feel like that’s enough time. Yikes. Fear is a good motivator, though, and I work well when I’m terrified, so I’m hopeful that once I get past a couple more milestones, I’ll be able to enjoy this thing, instead of . . . uh, whatever it is right now. Which is mostly paralyzing fear.

I also made a list of things I want to write but probably shouldn’t until I get my paying gigs handled. On that list is the last entry in our trip to New York, and a review and commentary about D&D4E. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been enjoying the fourth edition core books so far, and that I like a lot more than I don’t like. Because of all these commitments I have, though, I don’t know if I’ll have time to play or run a campaign — or even a one-shot — before summer is over. I don’t think it’s particularly responsible to write much about fourth edition until I get a chance to play it, you know? (If you’ve played or run a fourth edition adventure, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave ’em here.)

Anyway. On to the cryptic title of this post: John Kovalic, creator of Dork Tower, illustrator of Just a Geek, big bossman of Out of the Box games and all-around insanely awesome dude, has also been reading fourth edition. Today, he writes:

The designers of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition must be having a real roller-coaster time, at the moment. On the one hand, this epic labor of love is finally in readers’ hands, to much acclaim. On the other hand, it will be slowly nibbled to death by gerbils as every gamer under the sun points out the one or two nitpicky things they dislike in the nearly-thousand-page Opus of Awesomejuice they released.

(I, for one, don’t understand why The “Customizing Scores” method of character generation starts with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. Would it have been that much to throw a couple extra points players’ ways – creating 10’s across the board – and thereby making the subsequent table of point additions that much more elegant? Nitpicky, nitpicky, NITPICKY!)

I will say, however, that the Monster Manual gives me greatest pause. Not due to any mechanic. Simply because of the sheer number of monsters that now go by MODIFIER-title MONSTER NAME (or MONSTER NAME modifier-TITLE). Yes, I realize this is due to the seemingly endless subdivision and stratification of monsters and monster types necessitated by new monster Roles: artillery, brute, controller, soldier, fishmonger (or something like that).

[…]

Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that D&D 4th edition has a specific way they’d like you to differentiate monsters. Now, anybody can be a critic. But it takes a better man to offer constructive advice – to put forward something POSITIVE. And so, in that spirit, I humbly offer KOVALIC’S SCROLL OF SWARMING FOURTH EDITION NOMENCLATURE, for those who want to create monsters or name new Player Characters the right way…the Fourth Edition way. Roll some dice and try it out!

What follows is an awesome and hilarious table intended to allow DMs to randomly generate silly names that fit into the unique fourth edition nomenclature. If you’re wondering, I used my very own dice to determine the type of ogre referenced in the title of this post.

If you roll up a monster name — I mean really roll it up, not just pick two funny entries and put them together — feel free to share your creation in the comments. I, for example, have also just created . . . a Bitchyhulk Oni, who I’m just certain is a level 9 controller.

You know, I can’t imagine not being a geek.

. . . and I’m very grateful for that.

To make an already geeky post that much more geeky: WWdN reader kendiara shared some thoughts on 4E that were interesting to me. (Is there a good signal to noise 4E discussion online anywhere?) Maybe they’ll be interesting to other geeks. There’s also some really funny monsters that were rolled up, including the Kobold Dreadlard, who I think must be a really tubby Kobold with a Dex of 5, and the fearsome Ogre Meatspike, who could be rather NSFW, depending on how demented you are. Eww!

turns out this post is all about stand by me

I have to keep reminding myself that I can compose offline in ecto. Oh, related to that: I really like ecto, and feel comfortable endorsing it and recommending it to anyone who is looking for a full-featured offline editor for their blog.

Anyway, I guess AMC ran Stand By Me on DVD TV last night. Apparently, I’m the only person in the world who didn’t know about this, because I got tons of e-mail about it, and it appears that a lot of people who’ve never read my blog before are dropping by today to see what it’s all about. That fills me with performance anxiety, and makes me wish I had one of those “my favorite posts” posts to point you to. Maybe my Best of 2006 entry (which was a cleverly disguised starting point for The Happiest Days of Our Lives ) or a story like Blue Light Special would give you an idea of what I typically blather on about on my particular section of the ‘tubes.

OH! You know what I just thought? It would be totally cool — well, cool for me, anyway — if some readers wanted to leave links to their favorite posts in the comments. That way, I could, you know, lazyweb my way to a “readers favorites” post at some point in the future.

AMC has some really terrific blogs now, including a Sci-Fi blog that John Scalzi’s contributing to. There’s a post in their Future Classics blog that Stand By Me fans will probably enjoy about how Stephen King’s childhood inspired Stand By Me.

I really wish I’d seen it, because I’m always interested to know if other people remember things the same way I did, and because it’s really fun to know what else was going on outside of my 12 year-old acting bubble.

I guess they said that I was “upset” that Gordie never got his baseball cap back from Ace, which isn’t entirely accurate. I remember asking Rob why Gordie didn’t make Ace give him back his Yankees cap at the end of the movie, since it seemed like the sort of thing that should happen if Gordie and his friends “won.” (This made perfect sense to me when I was 12.)

Rob said that Ace didn’t keep the cap, and threw it away as soon as he walked around the corner. It wasn’t about the cap, Rob told me, as much as it was about Ace being cruel.

I learned a lot about filmmaking and storytelling in that conversation with Rob, and I still feel its influence on my creative life.

AMC also said that Kiefer Sutherland was a bully to all of us in real life. I don’t remember it that way at all, though I know Corey and Jerry have both said that he was pretty tough on them — method acting, I guess. It was different for me; I was certainly intimidated by him, but I don’t recall him going out of his way to be cruel or anything when the cameras weren’t rolling. In fact, my two clearest memories of him are being afraid that he was going to accidentally burn River’s face with the cigarette near the beginning of the movie, and that he wanted me to point the gun straight at his face near the end of the movie, which made me nervous, even though it wasn’t loaded.

Okay, one more memory and then I really have to get back to work: In that final scene, when Gordie pulls the gun on Ace, my instinct was to yell at him, like I was trying to intimidate him (again, this made sense when I was 12.) Rob let me rehearse it that way, and then he very calmly pulled me aside and asked me to try it again, but to keep my voice quieter. “Let the gun do the talking,” he said. “It’s more powerful.”

I was 12, so I said that I thought I should do it my way. (Ah, the impertinence of youth, how glad I am to be rid of it.) Rob nodded patiently and said, “Okay, listen to this.” He took a few steps away, and pointed his finger at my face. “No, Ace, just you,” he said. Gravely, quietly, seriously.

Then, he pulled that finger back and held it up.

“Now,” he said, “listen to this.” He took a deep breath, pointed his finger at my face again, and screamed, “NO ACE JUST YOU!”

His voice echoed off the river, as he asked, “Which one is scarier? Which one is stronger?”

I laughed nervously. “It’s scarier when you yell at me, but it’s stronger to be quiet, which is guess is scarier if you’re Ace.” I said.

“So let’s try it that way,” he said, kindly.

People always give me credit for being great in that movie. The truth is, I don’t think I deserve as much credit for it as I’m frequently given. I think back on my limited experience and my silly ideas, and then I see what a magnificent performance Rob Reiner coaxed out of me. The difference is striking.

Stand By Me is a classic film because of Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson, who cast it, Rob Reiner,who directed it, Andy Scheinman, who produced it, and Ray Gideon and Bruce Evans, who wrote it. I was really good at taking direction, so I’ll take a little credit for that, but all of us were standing on the shoulders of giants.

classic photos redone in lego

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Fans of Lego, photography, design, history, or things that are just plain awesome* will love this photoset on Flickr, where Flickr user Balakov has recreated famous photographs, from the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima to Maradona’s infamous Hand of God, using Lego minifigures and close-up photography.

Links to the original photos are included, so you can fully enjoy how incredibly awesome this is.

I’d like to point out that Balakov has released all of these images under a Creative Commons license, and is offering prints for sale.

Come on, seriously: how much does this rule?

(via geekdad)

*If you drew a Venn diagram of those things, I’d be in the middle of it.

in which i wear a red hat and travel by vine

Wils_red_hat This totally made my day week, and I wonder if this is how Cory Doctorow and Stallman[1] felt when they were in xkcd?

You know, things like this have been happening to me more and more frequently lately, and while it’s still very hard get used to, it’s genuinely wonderful to feel cooler than I really am, even if it’s only for a few fleeting seconds.

Thank you, mysterious creator of Abstruse Goose!

[1] Does Stallman feel things like the rest of us do? I’m a little afraid to go exploring through that twisty maze of passages, all alike, to find out. It is very dark, I’m afraid.[2]

[2] If you understood any of that, congratulations, you’re a Geek. If you went exploring to figure out what it all meant, you just gained a level in Geek. If you feel compelled to argue about these footnotes, immediately gain another level in Geek, and lose a turn.