Another day another loss

Well yesterday saw SoCal SC (that's the cheese' current Soccer Club) go down 4-1 against...whoever the hell that team was. Bringing SoCal's current record to 1-4. It is a bit hard to compete in games, though, when you start with only 8 men on the field. This game seemed to be more even tempered, but still saw 4 yellow cards handed out, and one of those was to the opposing goalie. There was a tense moment when it seemed there might be a fist fight on the field, but luckily no crow bars appeared this time.

In non-recreational, 25 and over sports news (read: professional) the Dodgers fired 33 year old GM Paul Depodesta. Which leaves the boys in blue sans Manager and General Manager.

Dear Mr. McCourt,

Please hire the cheese as the next Dodgers GM. He promises to attend all home games (unlike former GM Depodesta) and if he doesn't improve on the 91 losses of last season then he'll forfeit the remainder of his contract. Which, the cheese thinks you'll agree, is much better than firing someone and paying him the remaining three years on his contract. Also, I promise not to sign horribly injury prone players, or trade away high level prospects for players who get into fights with fans.

Yours,
the cheese

If you're a WOT fanatic like the cheese...

then you'll love the Encyclopedia WOT. It's even downloadable so that you can have a local copy on your non-internet equipped laptop like the cheese.

Asian Invasion

So the cheese is once again plying his skills on the pitch (for you football [or soccer as dumbass American's would say] uninitiated). Having found a team via Craigslist the cheese was happy to back kicking the ball around. An overheard snippet at this week's game, however, has made the cheese question his choice of teammates. It seems that in last week's match (which the cheese missed) one of the cheese' teammates nearly got into some fisticuffs with an opposing player. After the match said teammate then absconded to his automobile to fetch a crowbar to finish the tussle.

Over half of the team consists of Vietnamese guys who all show up roughly two minutes after the game is supposed to start, and barely speak of word of English during the game. This, of course, makes it hard to play as a "team." But the Asian faction does not seem to care. The fact that they are Vietnamese does not bother the cheese as he has played with people from the Czech Republic, Ireland, Brazil, various Latin countries, and he even played on a team with an Asian guy named Jaime (the Spanish pronunciation) and a black guy named Yoshi who grew up in Japan. The thing that bothers the cheese is the very real possibility that over half of his team in somehow connected to the Vietnamese Mafia.

An Open Letter to Terry Prachett

Dear Mr. Prachett,

Let me start by saying I'm sorry. Or rather, let me start by saying I'm sorry to myself. I was one of some 150 people at a speaking/signing you held on Saturday September 24th, in the year of "our" Lord 2005. It is doubtful you remember me. The afternoon started with you addressing the crowd and taking questions (everything from "How do you pronounce Angua?" to "What does a Hippo sound and like?" and even "What, exactly, is a figgin'?"). I, of course, did not ask any questions because something like "What is your exact philosophy on the nature of time and multiple dimensions in relation to "Nightwatch" and "thief of Time" seemed a little inappropriate for the occasion.

After the interactive portion of the event was over all those in attendance lined up so that we could secure your precious autograph on our coveted copies of your various works. Being under the assumption you would only be signing your newest book I did not, in fact, bring any of the number of other things I would have given my left index finger to have you sign (but since I still have said finger, perhaps that was for the best). As was already mentioned, roughly 150 were there to wait in line and I was lucky number 128.

It was not until around 5:00 (three hours after you were first introduced to us) that I (with my supportive wife in tow) finally made our way up to you. It was at just about this point that my tongue stopped functioning. Or possibly it was momentarily transported to some dark dungeon dimension because I don't even remember feeling it waggling around inside my mouth. I am fairly certain I was able to mumble a "hello" or some odd equivalent. And while I don't remember speaking my name, I certainly must have because the correct name is indeed inside the two books you signed for me.

And so, roughly 15 seconds later my brush with greatness was at an end. My wife wondered why in the world I didn't actually speak to you, as you obviously had no problem conversing with others who sought your signature. All I can say is that the experience was so surreal that even now, two days later, I have a problem remembering the specifics.

And in all honesty, how do you tell someone whom you've idolized for a number of years that he is the reason you wanted to become a writer? Sure, it sounds nice to think it, or even write it down, but too actually say it sounds a bit...well...stupid.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Pratchett, that I wasn't being rude. And if I ever get the chance again I will certainly try to ask a squeaky voiced question or two. Or at least, I'll try to try.

Thanks for everything,
the cheese

p.s. Seeing as how I will be at a similar event this Saturday for Neil Gaiman, I have decided to write out some questions/witty banter ahead of time...

Self torture

After one week, the cheese' resolve finally broke and today he purchased Thud!. Of course, today also marked the release of Anansi Boys so time will tell how long before the cheese buys that. Normally, none of this would matter, except that the cheese has to read Sister Carrie by next Monday, and still has three critical essays to read before tonight, not to mention the fact that he must finish Dracula by next week (though, since he has already read this once, he will likely skim it as, if memory serves, it's a slow ass book).

Damn grad. school is certainly getting in the way of the cheese' normal reading habits!

Grad school MADNESS!!!!!!

Having to devote his entire weekend to catching up on the correspondence between Vicomte de Valmont and Marquise de Merteuil the cheese, unfortunately, missed the dungeon crawling goodness of WHQ that ensued this past Saturday.

And so the question is...how fared the witchhunter?

Infrequent updates

As much as the cheese complained about his last job (wasting away in front of a computer for a large multi-national corporation), it did afford him ample opportunity to post blogs/use company time doing non-company related things on the internet. Being back at the bookmines affords no such luxury.

So, a brief recap of the last two or so months...

Move-check
Married-check
Death in wife's family-sadly check
Started Grad school-excellent

Of course, with the last point, the homework and massive amounts of reading have also begun. If only the cheese had been a good student at some in his life he wouldn't get a panic attack when thoughts of the upcoming semester drift across his mind.

Sad but true

The cheese is sitting naked on a metal folding chair in the heart of the OC where the current temperature is roughly 900 Fahrenheit...and it occurs to the cheese that sweaty bare flesh has a tendency to stick to metal.

Today

Misc. "Bookmine" customer: Excuse me can you help me?
the cheese: Sure.
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: I'm looking for a book.
the cheese: OK, what book.
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: I'm looking for books by T.D. Jakes.
the cheese: (walks a few aisles and points at bookshelf) This is where most of the books by T.D. Jakes are located, but if you don't see the specific title you want let me know because some of his stuff is scattered in other sections.
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: OK, and are all these books for sale?
the cheese: uh...do you want to know if they're on sale?
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: Nevermind.
the cheese: OK, well let me know if you need anything else.
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: So all these books can be purchased?
the cheese: ...Yes...
Misc. "Bookmine" customer: Thank you.
(the cheese walks away shaking his head)

--In other news the cheese had his first graduate level class tonight; American Modern Lit, excellent...

Find entertainment where you can get it...

Working back at the bookmines doesn't afford a whole lot of "benefits" but they do offer a constant take on the state of the nation.

Take for instance this book. Someone must have been browsing the parenting section, and didn't like what they saw because co-worker of the cheese later found the book misplaced with the following handwritten note inside:

"File under-
lesbian, feminist, propaganda bullshit."

Now here's the great thing about browsing in a book store. There is, guaranteed, no matter who you are or what you believe, going to be at least one book in any decent sized store that you completely fall in love with, and one that completely offends you.

Are you a self-hating half jewish Nazi...then the cheese can find a book for you. Has Jesus himself spoken to you personally...we might have something up your ally. Do you believe that a race of intergalactic lizards mixed their DNA with that of humans 10,000 years ago and that the descendents of those aliens are secretly running the world to this day...follow me.

Basically, it comes down to free speech people. If you don't like a book you see, you don't have to buy it, open it, or even look at it.

F@&*#$!G Ads

Because the cheese is tired of seeing advertisements posted in the comments, he has now re-set the blog so that only members of this blog can comment. If you are a faithful reader of the cheese and wish to comment, e-mail the cheese (the cheese knows full well, however, that the only people who regularly read this thing are already members so this shouldn't affect anyone other than the assholes using the land of the cheese as free ad space).

Two pieces of advice

1. Don't move 500 miles four weeks before a wedding, and
2. Don't spend any time in Big Springs Texas, ever!

One day...

Is the cheese nervous...no. Does the cheese have cold feet...negetive. Is the cheese concerned at all...meh. The cheese is looking forward to a decrease in stress after tomorrow. And he is crossing his fingers that any "day of" problems are small, or soon-to-be-mrs.-cheese doesn't find out about them...

Almost done

At this point, the cheese and soon-to-be-mrs.-cheese wish they had eloped. Between little seen relatives inviting themselves, few to none rsvp's received, and the ever expanding budget, the question has to be asked is this all worth it? That question will not be answered, of course, until the actual wedding day...

The cheese disagrees, sir!

Because of suavo's long reply to the cheese' snippy comment, he has been forced to reply with a completely new post...


"My major problem...is that the universe in question is very large and very complex. That may sound like a copout..."

And indeed, it is a copout. Let us see why.

"With Robotech...the story I told about you guys had little, if anything, to do with the events of the Robotech universe. The setting was there, as a background, but that was enough...the story is fairly discrete, and quite straightforward when you come down to it."

Well, yes the cheese' supposes that the case can be made that the overall story of the first Robotech series is pretty straightforward. If you are willing to say that a galaxy spanning war between humans and aliens is "discrete and straightforward." However, the fact that the universe only played a background to that campaign has more to do with the fact that as characters, the players had no desire to get involved with the "Robotech" story. Had the group created characters in the RDF, then the going's on of the human/zentradi war would have been a little more important to the game.

Also remember that all of the discworld novels are about characters (just like any good rpg session) and not necessarily on the universe as a whole. Adding another story into the discworld is just as easy as it is to do in, say, the Star Wars, Warhammer, or Shadowrun universes. With the discworld, you just have a lot of stories coming from one source.

"...the story we did fit well with the rest of the universe, without needing to intertwine with it excessively, or constantly worry about treading on anything that was otherwise canon..."

This, in relation to the discworld, is completely a non-issue. Pratchett himself has given a number of books over to one off stories and characters that in no significant way interact with other, more established characters.

The discworld has no cannon. Pratchett himself has said on a number of occasions that the universe evolved through his writing with no conscious effort on his part. There exists a map of Ankh-Morpork, but only because someone took six months to pour over every detail Pratchett had ever written about the city. But he in no way sat down and mapped the city out himself (he didn't even believe such a thing could adequately be done).

By setting a campaign in the discworld we would be doing exactly what you do in any rpg. You start with a "setting" and evolve it to your group's specific needs/desires.

"Discworld is a big, complex universe. There's a lot going on there, even without taking in to account the universe's prepensity for not making sense in the least. "

Every universe is, by definition, big and complex. That's usually what makes people want to set rpg's in them. The difference here, is that rather having 30 odd source books dedicated to the universe, there are that many novels.

And the universe does make sense, but in an evolutionary sort of way. Magic, in the beginning of the series, was a classic "fantasy" type, with spells, rituals, etc. It has gone on to become (for some) something closer to quantum physics, but it was not an overnight change (remember, these books started out nearly 20 years ago).

In fact, the rpg manual states the three most important rules about the universe. Everything else is pretty much up for grabs.

"It is a universe which denies understanding, and intentionally so."

This is completely wrong, and is an assumption made based on only passing knowledge of the universe. In some ways, it is a universe easier to understand than most. For instance, everyone on the disc knows that every "one in a million" chance at something will succeed. The important thing to remember, though is that if the odds are "one in 999,999" then you're probably fucked.

"The story is too vague/complex."

Yes, and my shit is too brown/smelly. The cheese isn't sure how something is both vague and complex at the same time, but every universe is vague by definition. Universes tend to be big. And, it's not really that complex. We don't know every story of every person on the disc, we just know the few that Pratchett has told. We (those who would be playing the campaign) would be creating our own.

"As a GM, that accordingly leaves me with two options.
1) Create a story that doesn't really have much to do with anything.This is the easier of the two, but it fails in a key way: it doesn't do the universe justice. It defeats the purpose of playing the Discworld RPG at all... it could be anything."

Not really because the important thing about the universe is the SETTING ITSELF. Because there aren't a whole lot of rpg's that can say metaphor, narrative, and whimsy are an integral part of the place. It comes down to adjusting how you as a GM, and we as players, approach the game. Clearly, the campaigns wouldn't be straight up swords and sourcery ala D&D, but that's what makes the place special.

"2) Create a story that intertwines heavily with one particular story from the books...That means the game becomes a seesaw swinging back and forth between inside jokes that are funny for the sake of being there at all, and a constant effort of explaining small details that would otherwise be missed/ignored."

First off, anything set on the disc should have some inside jokes baked in. But, and this the important thing, they can OUR inside jokes. They don't have to be ones from the novels.

You already said that in Robotech we didn't have a strong connection to the known storyline, and there's no reason to be forced into doing that here.

"The universe is simply too diverse/indiscrete to lend itself well to an RPG in my opinion."

The cheese wonders, then, why so many people play Forgotten Realms or Star Wars. Those are two settings that are way more defined than discworld, yet are two highly popular games. If you're reluctance to GM comes from the fact that you don't know the universe, then that is a valid argument. But don't make the excuse that it's a problem with the setting itself.

In many way, in fact, it would probably be a bonus to you as the GM to be less familiar with the books. That way you're not constrained by what Pratchett has previously written. The source book does a very good job of giving an overview of the universe, which is all you should really need.

As for D20 modern...well, the cheese would rather just play Shadowrun. The whole point of playing an rpg (from the cheese' point of veiw, anyway) is to play a character in a cool setting that he knows and enjoys. The cheese likes Shadowrun, Warhammer, and Star Wars, and likes playing characters in them. Same goes for the discworld.

The next one can't end with a death...right?

OK, some character has died by at the end of the last two Harry Potter books, so the cheese does not believe that saying another character gets it at the end of 6 is a true spoiler. But the final book has to end on a happy note, doesn't it? Unless J.K. Rowling wants to have a bunch of group suicides attributed to her. Honestly, if the cheese didn't know there was another book coming, he seriously consider doing himself in right now.

Even if the HP series ends in a bittersweet way it can't be worse than the final scene of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. These are supposed to be kid's books after all.

General update

Still a month and a half until school starts and the cheese has done a big goose egg of work on the Chronicles since getting back to the land of the mouse. Chance of finishing by August 29th = slim. Plus, all the wedding craziness has risen to the level of frenzy, and there probably won't be a honeymoon. But at least it's all coming together and will be over soon.

In other news the Dodgers blew a one run 10th inning lead to drop their eighth game out of the last nine. Diagnosis: even with Monopoly Bradley and Valentin back soon this season's done. Likely DePodesta will make the mistake of trading Weaver in the next few days instead of re-signing him.

At least Liverpool is on its way to a defence of last season's champions league triumph. Sure, Welsh champs TNS didn't pose much of a threat to begin with, but a 6-0 aggregate score is pretty impressive (in fact, Stevie G score 5 of those goals...Benitez should have just sent out Gerrard and Carson in the second half of game two just to give the other side a chance). Next up, some poor sods from Lithuania. Yeah, it might be a bit frustrating to start in the first qualifying round, but it sure is entertaining watching the lads kick the snot out of these small clubs. Here's how you know your completely outclassed...when 10 of your starting 11 publicly announce that they are fans of the opposing team (which is what the TNS coach mentioned before the start of game one). Kinda like the recent Galaxy/Real Madrid (should we call it a game?) match. The cheese doesn't have cable TV right now, so he missed this one (and a goal by English super stud who should return to his home in LIVERPOOL, Michael Owen), but all accounts are that Zidane could have beaten the Galaxy by himself. Sure, Landon Donavon was on int. duty with team US in the gold cup, but his recent "display" in the bundesliga proves he would have done little to affect the final scoreline.

Lastly, a short note to suavo...let's play discworld damnit! You have some novels now, so read them! Or, here's a proposition, don't read those ones yet...the cheese has another one sitting on his desk that is right up your ally...

The grass is always greener

The cheese has now finished his first week back at the ol' bookmines, and it has become painfully obvious that it is not an occupational decision he can live with for long. Having spent some time in the employ of a large multi-nation corporation that supplies decent benefits and a great work environment, the return to retail is a bitter pill indeed.

What's that faithful reader, what about all the complaints the cheese made while working for said large multi-national corporation? Well, nothing's perfect, is it? But this latest turn in the cheese' sordid employment history feels not like a step back, but more like a fall into a dark pit with no visible bottom.

It is, of course, a means to an end. Being at the store for the time being helps to facilitate graduate school, which will in turn facilitate finishing the Chronicles, which will facilitate the cheese' invasion of and eventual rule over the world of geek fiction.

Mwaahahaha

More evil baby!