Forget flying cars and trips to stars and moons beyond the belt,
Please settle, yawn, put the kettle on,
and weigh the cards you’re dealt.
Dismiss the dreams of thought machines we’d agreed would exist,
Don’t wonder why no weak AI is rolling in our midst,
With lights and sounds splayed all around, with lasers piercing mist,
The present time does dreams defy, some targets must be missed.
Birdman Dream Poem
The same focus saving man is killing me.
The efficiency and industry
That puts families on Venus,
Refuses to grant me just one little thing.
There’s never enough spare momentsin the day,
Stimulants and schedulers maximize activity,
With every hour billable,
Or mapped out,
Or mandated somehow,
And sure, the latest most creative tales entertain our rests,
But I don’t want to dream
A new studio’s remake
Of an old studio’s remake,
Without knowing the original.
I’ve tried to make time, will it, force it,
I carry it to work, and steal glances:
Frames here, seconds there,
Minutes if I sneak off at festival.
I’m nearly through Birdman,
And I want to see how it ends before I die,
Or before another retelling,
Or reimagining,
Or revisiting of the story,
Is all everyone can dream about.
I’ve never been so angry,
That we learned to work so well together.
Pacific
I’ve never seen the Pacific…
I was in town there once, just near it,
With you back East,
But never walked the last few miles to the shore.
Then tonight when you called from your hotel room
Windows facing west, your afternoon sun not set,
Glancing blinding light into your camera sharply,
But softly reflecting from the sea to your glowing face,
I saw what I was missing all along.
Theory of Poetry
A poem is a riddle and I am its Sphinx,
Unless someone else wrote the poem you are thinking of—
in which case my nose is intact and my paws are remarkably homonoid.
A poem is a griddle, and you are its links,
Unless you aren’t reading the poem—
in which case you’re probably not some sort of meat wrapped in skin either.
You might be a river.
Or a creek. Or an ocean. Or a stream.
Or a great flood that covers all the land despite all the rainbows.
Maybe that’s why people approach you in pairs.
Imagination
Some of the little boys pretend to be Achilles,
Dipped upside down by their mothers,
Screaming that they’re drowning,
In unheelthy invincibility.
While some of the little girls,
Can’t let go of being Elsa,
Closed off and locked away
From the terrors of friendship.
But all the children on the schoolyard,
Take turns being Spider-Man,
Amazing and sobbing
Over Uncle Ben on the sidewalk.
Surrounded by the other kids
Who pretend to capture the moment
On invisible phones
Not thinking to call for help.
Chalk
Chalk planely crumbles,
Smashes to dust,
Like a sculpture
Plastered tumbling to the ground,
Breaking and making—
Busted,
As it passes over pavement,
In a vaguely personal way.
Icarus
Did you ever imagine we’d fall so far from the sun,
We’d miss the sea?
Or that our waxen wings would ice,
And we’d flap them against the vacuum,
Hoping to find a bit of dirt again?
Going Viral
I want to go viral in all the worst ways,
Impossibly un-alive, unzipping you,
Until you’re all about me,
Everyone is all about me,
And mine and what we made,
Which was mine to start with,
Because you can never make anything
That isn’t me until you’re replaced.
This poem was first performed in the final minutes of Hermitcraft 5: episode 45:
You can learn more about viruses at your local library, or on the web at: http://jvi.asm.org/
Hallelujah parody about the Acquisitions Incorporated “C”Team
If he could sing about the “C”Team,
@Joehills would sing this to the tune of
Rufus Wainwright’s arrangement of Hallelujah.
——
It’s absurdity in RPG form,
@TychoBrahe’s behind creased cardboard,
But you don’t pull up chairs for humor, do you?
You shouldn’t miss this guy, K’thriss,
He shakes a stone, there’s light eldritch
Compelling you, the viewers, to hit the merch store…
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store,
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store.
Walnut’s grove is gone, which sucks for a Druid,
Plus Maelith’s strong, but Nut’s wising to it.
Sigils on the cave walls stabbed like daggers.
She took wolf form and she howled aloud,
She bit at K’thriss and she snapped her snout,
And by her instincts led you to the merch store…
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store,
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store.
Rosie, she’s shopped there before,
All her grandkids get gifts from this store,
Little halflings with Acq. Inc. pins playing footloose,
I’ve seen them picnic beneath the stars,
Wearing their bright Darkmagic scarves,
It’s a one-stop shop for birthdays at the merch store…
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store,
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store.
Donnar’s a paladin, Dragonborn,
Who treats ev’rybody else with scorn,
But you know that they all deserve it, don’t you?
He gains entitlement from bits—
Or so Jerry claims, so I guess it fits,
And they both expect you all to hit the merch store…
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store,
Hit the merch store, hit the merch store.
Maybe there are gods beyond,
Whose tendrils shift their waking pawns,
But Jerry kind of seems like he has got this.
Except the times when the phones light up,
And ideas arise then outright erupt,
And Jerry’s gone volcanic cursing Rothfuss…
What now, Rothfuss? Come on, Rothfuss,
Ignore Rothfuss, God damn Rothfuss,
Dammit, Rothfuss, my game, Rothfuss,
Go home, Rothfuss, shut up, Rothfuss,
Fucking Rothfuss—let’s not do this.
Hit the merch store, Hit the merch store,
Hit the merch store.
Daily Reflection for May 23rd, 2017
I’ve been kicking around ideas for a while about the sort of questions I’d like to ask myself at the end of each day, or at least days where I have a bit of extra time before bed that I’d otherwise squander, and I’m going to answer a few of them here. I may cycle some questions in and out day-to-day depending on how interesting the answers are.
What did I do to improve myself as a game designer today?
- Listened to the first half of Dragon Talk from 04/27/2017 on stealth mechanics in DND5e. Jeremy Crawford stated that the DM is the authority on how effective stealth is in a given situation, but that players should be encouraged to do things to increase the likelihood of success, such as a creating distractions. I need to think of opportunities for players to mess with folks they need to distract.
- Spent a few hours driving while thinking about ways to a friendlier way to invite a novice group of DND5e player characters into Barovia to kick off a session of Death House, the introductory adventure included as an appendix to Curse of Strahd.
The provided premise is that two unchaperoned children crying outside their house at night beg the players to go help their baby sibling trapped inside with with a monster. I felt this opening seemed kind of way too much like a trap.
My angle is to have the players receive a letter with a job offer from the parents inviting them to meet at their home to discuss the removal of some pesty witches who’ve established a residence in one of the family’s most profitable grain mills. The players would still arrive and find the children crying outside the house, but would be more likely to rush inside to help the rest of the family on the basis of the extended (though not yet enacted) job offer. I’m hoping to try this out next weekend, and if I do, I’ll let you know how it turns out. - Read through the DND5e magical artifacts in the Dungeon Master’s Guide to see if any of them would seem like a reasonable down payment the party could receive as a token of goodwill when accepting a job from a new, unknown employer. It gave me the idea that there should be more Deck artifacts than just the Deck of Many Things or Deck of Illusions, but I haven’t gotten further than wanting to be able to give the players weird cards that do things. Maybe have a “Hellodeck” that lets them ask famous dead heroes or historical figures from within the setting for advice?
What did I do for my fans today?
- Added/edited a few pages of this website.
- Purchased an actual box fan for my recording studio so I can record through the hot months. Between this and the dustbuster I purchased last week to vacuum the studio, I’m pretty committed financially at this point—above and beyond the long-term lease, anyway. It’s been a big month for engines that propel air.
- Brainstormed a few ideas for tomorrow’s Hermitcraft recording. I’m thinking the storage buildings should be constructed of or with whatever they store.
What did I do to improve my health and fitness today?
Not every answer will be a list… especially when it comes to trying to be healthier.
This was a travel day back from the beach, so I loaded and unloaded the car, but otherwise was pretty sedentary. Having decided that I should force myself to answer this question, I’m going to go get the scale and weigh myself for the first time in months, and I’m 167, which would be fine if it were more muscle.
I’ve been tempted to have a question in here like “How many push-ups did I do today?” because I know that will make me go do more than the 0 I have done each day for the last few years. So, Be right back on that. I’m just going to see how many I can do in a row with proper form. Don’t get your expectations up. Okay, 14, so that is about 6 better than I expected.
All this passive toddler carrying I’ve been doing must count as exercise somehow.