Have you seen this: http://www.macdowellstudio.com/?p=123

Heh... I like your last comment. "I'm right where the riot is going to start in about 30 hours. That's weird." I'm actually headed over to the Nokia Center to watch Video Games Live. Hopefully we won't be dead and stuff from riots misspent jubilations. ;)

"We all talked for a few minutes, something really awesome happened, and then their flight was called for boarding." Something really "awesome?" Am I reading too much into this, or is there going be some kind of super secret announcement made in the not to distant future?

Hey! That's MY game shop!. Though I do also go here from time to time, and I've even been known to wind up here. Like a lot of people commenting, I've also borrowed your 'geek adjacent' designation and applied to my significant other. It's funny how she is so much better (and more interested) in fixing up the house than I am. M

Hey Wil, You are sounding all 'the IT guru guy'. Very cool. If you ever get sick of writing, and acting, and going to cons, and doing wootstock, and uh... well... perhaps you will never grow tired of those things... But if you do, send me your resume, and we'll put you to work in our IT Department. Michael

Jesus never condemned homosexuality. There's an ongoing joke about Jesus's ideas on homosexuality: A pamphlet is titled "What Jesus Said About Homosexuality" and you open it and it's blank, page after page, blank. Of course, that's true. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. Though He did mention Sodom and Gomorrah, using them as examples of inhospitality to strangers--AND neglecting to mention "sodomy." So you have to wonder: if Jesus was God, and so gifted at least in some way with Divine Omniscience, so He'd know there would one day be a terrible problem in Christianity and culture over homosexuality, gay rights, and same-sex marriage, why didn't He say anything specific. Why didn't He say that He was abolishing all the rules in the Old Testament EXCEPT the rule against homosexual intercourse? Why didn't He distinguish between His forgiving the woman brought to him in adultery ("Let him who is without sin cast the first stone") and His wanting to continue to hold homosexuality against people? Why didn't He say anything about how homosexual marriage would defile the sanctity of the relationship of man and woman? Why didn't He say anything? Did He just keep forgetting to mention it? The closest thing He DID say is very instructive. In speaking about "protecting the sanctity of marriage" Jesus said: "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." The disciples said to him, "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry" But He said to them, "Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. "For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it." (Matt 19: 8-12) Curiously, if you look in the glossary of the Bible I just quoted from, it defines "eunuch" as "chamberlain, official." If you depended on that for a dictionary, you'd have a hard time ever understanding what Jesus was talking about. You'd think the choice was between getting married and being a politician. So what were eunuchs? Eunuchs were men who didn't have sex with women and/or couldn't reproduce--who were therefore considered safe to be around women in the harem. Since they had no children, they had no vested interest in leaving a fortune to the next generation so they could be employed in government and civil service because they had no reason to be crooked or seek advantage for their own sons. Eunuchs were sometimes men who'd been castrated in order to serve in these functions. That's the "eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men." Eunuchs were also men who just didn't look very masculine, who weren't interested in marrying or having sex with women, who were "sissies." Eunuchs included men who were obviously what we'd today call homosexual. Those--clearly--were what Jesus referred to as "eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb." SO JESUS SAID HOMOSEXUALS ARE BORN THAT WAY! I can't claim credit for the above analysis, though I do agree with it. I found this information here: http://www.tobyjohnson.com/cause.html ~~ Now, I am not a christian, though I am very spiritual man. In fact, I've read the Sermon on the Mount (the core of Jesus' teachings) hundreds of times and I make the principals in that teaching my way of life. No where in those words does it condemn homosexuality. In fact some of the more famous words are 'blessed are the merciful' and blessed are the poor in spirit' and 'turn the other cheek'. Where in those words does it say to condemn? As far as open-mindedness goes. I believe that an open mind is a mind free of 'Self' and free of preconceived ideas. A mind that is open to spiritual truth, a mind that is free of dogma. I think that the term we are looking for when we say 'being gay is okay' or 'aliens do really exist' is actually liberal-mindedness.

Space Invaders at the ice rink in Virginia where my sister took lessons. Battle Zone at the arcade that became a Vietnamese restaurant a few years later. I still remember that they had one of those poster books. Hundreds of two-by-three foot images of pot leafs and ubiquitous VH symbols (Van Halen for those of you young-ens out there) mounted to the wall. They went 'clack', 'clack', 'clack' as you flipped through them. Omega Race at the 7-11 down the street from my house. Has anyone ever played that game? Do you know where I can find one? Years later, blowing out my monitor whilst trying to play a meme of Defender on my computer at work. I loaded it up and heard this 'thunk' as the meme commanded my monitor to change to a resolution out of range and back again. Then all was dark. I had to go to my old IT manager with a story about how 'my monitor just stopped working'...

Sounds like you and I need to start our own blogs. ;)

Wil, I know how you feel. I struggle with the same thing all the time. For me, I gotta let that whole 'use your brain' concept go. I've found that my brain, well perhaps my mind, is out to get me. It finds fault with everything I do, or the things that others do. I look at job and my mind says, why don't I have 'that job'? I look at my writing and my mind says why can't I write like 'this other author'? Perhaps I get 'that job', or my writing improves and I learn to write like 'that author'. Well then my mind starts in again with the self-talk: this job is 'OK', but things would be better with some other job, even though just a little while ago my mind convinced me that 'this job' was the one that would make me happy, content, a better provider, etc... You get the picture. So, with the problem identified, what is my solution? It's simpler than I thought it would be. I stop using my mind. Instead I listen to my heart, or allow myself to 'be here now', or I 'use the Force' (I offer all of these options because my specific solution may not be yours). The key is that I find something other than my mind to go to. I do something for someone else without any desire to receive something in return. That is the fastest way to shut my mind up. If I'm talking to mind, I'm in trouble. If I'm not talking to my mind, nothing is wrong. Note that I use the word 'mind' instead of 'brain'. My mind is full of my own broken conceptions, my brain is just an objective piece of organ-meat that provides the rudimentary functions that allow me to think. Linear thought that comes from my brain might be: "I have deadline. I have three days to meet it." This is true and objective and carries not weight or judgment. Self-Talking mind-fuc*ing thoughts might be "I have three days to meet my deadline... I'll never make it! I'm SCREWED! I'm a Loser! Why didn't I do this earlier? I shouldn't have played so much Bioshock 2! If I can't finish this, everyone will laugh at me. They won't invite me back next year. My reputation will be ruined. I'll go broke. I'll be homeless!" OK, perhaps these are more my own broken thoughts, forgive me if I project them improperly onto you. But perhaps you relate to some of that. When I say these things to myself, I have to ask, "Where did I get that information?" Hmmm... The answer is always the same. I get it from my mind, and my mind; my mind wants to screw me over. OK. I gotta get away from my mind. Once I am free from my mind, and my head is clear (often called 'piece of mind'). I can come back to my task and intuitively create whatever it is that I am trying to make. It becomes a product purely of me, of the true me, the best of me. The ego is gone; the fear is gone; and all I am left with is a simple representation of a pristine creative process. With that said, I'd like to thank you once again for making me smile on a regular basis. Michael PS: wow, this is long.

Not sure how else to connect to you, so I will leave a comment here. Along the lines of the post above, this YouTube Video is a celebration of Geekdom. Amy's post and your blog are indicative of the most wonderful movement toward--I hate to say mainstreaming, perhaps global acceptance--of nerdiness. You may have already seen it. It is music video for an Ok Go song. I don't know much about them, but I have to say that this video and effort behind it is inspiring. http://tinyurl.com/yax44dt These links are take you to the making of the video: http://tinyurl.com/yhpnodm http://tinyurl.com/ydjatd8 http://tinyurl.com/ycon2dz http://tinyurl.com/y8f3sbr Michael

Hey Wil, I am completely obsessed with Magic the Gathering, like you, I started playing in the early nineties and like you, I find myself regretting that I didn't buy that 80 dollar box with the mox's and the black lotus. Sigh. Like you I stopped playing for a long time and only recently started again. As a fantasy writer, I often find myself enjoying the flavor text. The Magic world is quite rich, and it only grows more so. My favorite flavor text is from Guildpack, a set that came out a few years back. I wasn't playing when it came out, but I got the card in the Planechase packs. It's not as world conscious a statement as the one you mentioned, but the idea is so cool. I wish I came up with it myself so I could write it into a novel. Rumbling Slum Flavor Text: The Orzhov contract the Izzet to animate slum districts and banish them to the wastes. The Gruul adopt them and send them back to the city for vengeance. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205354 Thanks for the great blog. Break a leg. Michael