Chatter #35 - August 25, 2001

12/14/2001 — I started the Chatter section on July 27, 2000 when I noticed that the rest of my site was sometimes getting cluttered with lots of text. I'm a talkative guy, after all! So now I talk about my life here, instead of all over the place. Originally this was one huge section, but in December of 2001 it simply became too large to remain as one page, and I broke it into dated sections, as you can see. —>PM

Am I?

I just redesigned the main page to include the GameScanner award. It looks okay, I think, although I wish I could do some testing with different screen sizes. But I can't help but wonder: am I being corrupted by these awards? To what extent are they just a way for other game sites to get me to promote them? Am I doing my readers a disservice by including the awards on the main page? Is this just a matter of my stupid pride? I don't know, but questions like this actually bother me a little.

Not too much, of course, because let's face it: we're not exactly talking a world-shaking issue here. Also, I have to confess that sometimes I like to write paragraphs with a lot of questions. They're all writer-y and stuff.

Holy Fong!

I seem to have reached some sort of capacity limit for FrontPage Express (the webpage editor I use most these days). When I look at the file here, it's truncated at "Sick of Glorantha" (which was July 31, 2000). But when I check the HTML, it's all still there. Which means that it could be worse, I guess. At least I didn't lose the HTML.

Speaking of which, I burned a backup CD today—not just of the history of this site, but all my writing files and other fun stuff. Something I should have done quite a while ago, actually. Now the only precious thing that I could lose in a hard drive crash would be all of my old mail. And the update mailing list, come to think of it! Jeeze. I'd better back that up toute suite!

YOW #2!

The page is getting all freaky on me! I can see that I am going to have to split it RIGHT NOW, and put the older stuff on a back page that's linked at the end. Here's hoping I make it before everything gets lost!

Slightly Later

Made it. Looks good. On the plus side, this should load quicker. If you want to look at the older Chatter (between July 27, 2000, and April 12, 2001), the link is at the bottom of the page. If you haven't read it, you should check it out—it's packed with witty, insightful commentary, brilliant new concepts in roleplaying, and fascinatingly useful down-to-earth advice about modern life.

Of course, if you have read it, you know that the previous sentence was pure bullshit.

Music and A Rant

Hmm. Teri and I were watching The Muse, and suddenly I got inspired. Although possibly it's just because it was getting to be an annoying movie. I like Albert Brook's stuff a lot—particularly the old SNL bits he did—but sometimes he gets a little irksome. It's the stupidity thing, you know? You can only watch someone screwing up and destroying their lives so much without wanted to smack them on the head with a big ol' frying pan.

Heard a pretty good new song a couple of days ago by Joan Osborne: "St. Teresa" (well, it's new to me; for all I know, it's ten years old). I was driving home and heard it on the radio. What struck me was that it wasn't like the FIVE HUNDRED GODDAMN SONGS that get played all the time on corporate radio that ALL SOUND THE SAME. This one sounds like a bluesy, slightly poppy song in the style of Loreena McKinnet, who is really worth checking out if you get the chance, by the way. It's odd, because Joan Osborne's previous hit was much more mainstream and pedestrian; not bad, but sort of "business as usual", if you know what I mean: "What If God Was One Of Us". Go figure.

Speaking of the horrible wasteland that is modern radio (and music, and TV, and particularly news "reporting"; don't even get me started on those goddamn media whores), if you've been wondering why all radio sounds the same and you always hear the same songs over and over on almost every radio station, you'll be horrified by a highly enlightening series of articles in Salon.com. American cultural diversity is being razed, devoured by a cult of greedy corporate megaliths whose rapacity is amazing. This page is safe from that sort of thing for as long as I have the legal power to do so—and I have a hard time imagining that any megacorp would ever be interested in a comparatively small site like this—but I feel quite sad that my son will grow up in a world where there is no place to eat but McDonalds, no place to buy clothes but the Gap, and no freedom of press unless you're a screaming right-wing pundit.