Publishing Delays

Recently, a friend of mine got me hooked on a book.

Well, not exactly.  A trilogy.

He recommended it. Highly.

Now, I'm usually skeptical of the first few recommendations I receive from a friend - I don't know yet if their taste is any good. In fact, my considering them a friend is usually a strike against their taste.

It's good.  It's really good.

And there is an RPG due out. It was supposed to be out in November, and was then pushed back to December 15th.  So my friend and I both placed orders with our FLGS.

I was there the other night, and I asked for an ETA. I was told it's been pushed back. The publisher's website shows a February release, now.  The PDF is available now - but I'm not a PDF-only gamer. I like having a physical copy there at the table. And printing PDF's is expensive.  Really expensive.

So now there is this game I'm excited about and ... it's late.

Delays like this are endemic in the gaming industry - both analog and digital. It hits every publisher. My wife waited almost three years for a copy of the Grimm RPG. Because it was pushed back and pushed back and delayed. She was also yelled at by a would-be customer when Mission: Red Planet didn't arrive in time for a show.

We understand that delays happen.

But that doesn't make them any less frustrating.

Giving Gifts Late

Here we are, deep in the holiday season, and my wife's gift isn't here yet.

In fact, I'm 90% sure it's going to be late.

I don't mind receiving late gifts - any gift received is a joy and a delight. But I really don't like giving gifts late. It tells the recipient that you couldn't be bothered to spend a couple of extra bucks on faster shipping. Or that you put it off until the last minute.

It's funny, though - I don't think of it like that when I'm on the receiving end - only when I'm the late giver. And I know my wife will be okay with receiving it late.

And it isn't my fault - I ordered from the UK with several weeks to spare. The items were in stock and shipped within a day of my order.

And then they entered that morass that is Holiday Shipping.  They're probably sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be checked in and processed through.

But they'll be late, and so there may not be anything under the tree from me for my wife.

And I hate that.

Pre-Decorated Christmas Trees

If you've been reading this for a while, you're probably under the impression that I don't like anything. And, if you ask my wife, she'd probably agree with you. But there are a few things here and there that I do like.

Christmas, for example.

Just strip away everything that's been done to the holiday for the last century and a half or so, and you've got a pretty damn awesome holiday that's all about giving.

When I was a kid, my favorite part of the season was decorating the tree.  I think every family has that set of decorations that are distinctively theirs. My family, for example, has a set of clothespin dolls that my dad made. They're dressed in authentic native costumes for a dozen or so countries, and are in pairs (one man and one woman per country).  They're really neat.

When I was at the store the other night, I spotted a tree that was pre-decorated. 

Why would anyone do that? I don't even put up a tree (which is a point of contention with my wife that she'll eventually win and we both know it, but I keep struggling), and I have some ornaments.  Every year, I wind up with a few more ornaments. Every year, we have a harder and harder time putting the ornaments on our garland.

By the time my wife wins that argument, we'll have enough to trim a tree. Of course we'll then need to buy lights.

So buying a pre-decorated tree takes away the best part of the tree.

Not only that, but what is up with the fake trees with built-in lights?  Seriously.  First of all, I prefer real trees. Fake trees just don't smell right - and I love the scent of pine. I understand that real trees can be a fire hazard. And real trees are a cat hazard. And real trees ... well ... require more cleanup.

But even then, why would you buy a pre-lit tree? My parents have enough lights that they rotate through and change the look of the tree.

The photo above? It's from a year they used mostly white lights. But there was one year, it was blue and white. One year, it was all green.  You can't do that very easily with a pre-lit, pre-decorated tree. It's certainly not worth the effort it would take.

Perky Radio Hosts

Here in the Seattle area, we are blessed with a number of excellent radio stations. During the holiday season, they play some really good Christmas music, too. Especially the local Christian radio station, KCMS. They have the best catalog of Christmas music out there. And it's much better-updated than anyone else's catalog.

My wife and I start listening to Christmas music shortly after Thanksgiving and listen to it until Christmas Day. But we can't listen to KCMS in the mornings. Their morning show hosts, Scott and Sam, are the two perkiest people on the radio.

Just listening to them is enough to induce road rage, making my commute unsafe for the rest of the world.

I'm not a morning person. I haven't discussed the evil of mornings in detail, yet, but I will. Eventually. Suffice it to say that I am not someone who deals well with mornings or morning people.  I'm groggy, cranky, unresponsive, and mostly incoherent. The last thing you want me to deal with at that time of day is a morning person.  Even one of them is too many. Two of them bouncing off of each other with inane chatter about what a wonderful day it is and how wonderful life is and how amazing the week has been ...

I don't mind listening to commercial radio. I prefer NPR, but I do listen to a few local commercial stations. I understand that you need commercials to stay in business. KCMS pushes the line of too many commercials, sometimes, though. And then, instead of tapping into that really good Christmas library, we are forced to listen to two bobbleheads jabbering at each other. Want to fit more music in? Silence the DJs.

They do the news several times during my morning commute, and Scott manages to be surprised by the exact same stories that surprised him half an hour ago. In the exact same way. And no, it's not pre-recorded. It's live. It gives the impression that Scott has a memory similar to that of several characters from 50 First Dates (one of the few Adam Sandler films I have genuinely enjoyed).

All of this instead of the previously-mentioned Christmas library just makes KCMS in the morning not worth listening to. If they were to cut the DJ time in half, I'd listen to them more.

And KCMS is not alone in this - they're just (for me) the biggest disappointment. If they only had two Christmas CDs, it'd make sense for them to have a lot of DJ jabber in the mornings. But - again - KCMS has the best library of Christmas music in the area.

It's a shame they don't use more of it.

DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs with Unskippable Ads

When I get home at night, I occasionally enjoy nothing more than popping a disc into one of our players to unwind. And, nearly every time, I have to sit through one or more commercials before I get to the menu. And these ads cannot be skipped.

It's frustrating. I want to relax and unwind - not be sold to.

It's especially annoying when the ads are completely irrelevant. When I'm watching a Blu-Ray Disc, you don't need to show me a two-minute commercial that informs me how much better Blu-Ray is than standard definition.

And - call me crazy - but aren't the anti-piracy commercials on the disc a waste of time? Because I've obviously already bought the disc, otherwise I'd be able to skip the ad telling me not to do what I clearly didn't do.

I realize that the studios want to make money - but they already have my money: I paid for the disc. And I've often seen the film in theaters.

Even more frustrating are the multiple-disc sets which have the same set of ads on each disc.  If you have to put ads on the discs, I understand the ad on Disc One. But why do I have to sit through the same ads over and over and over?  It makes me less likely to buy more discs from that publisher, and more likely to buy from their opponents.

In fact, the ads don't make me more likely to buy. They make me less likely to buy. I'm no pirate, but Amazon Instant Video, for example, doesn't make me watch commercials. And there's no frustrating packaging to deal with.

Sadly, however, not everything is available legally in a commercial-free streaming format, meaning I'm stuck sitting through these stupid and pointless commercials for products I already own.

People Who Are Too Lazy To Write Two Additional Numbers When Dating Things

Remember the Y2K "bug" hysteria we had a decade or so ago?  Remember what caused it? I do:

People (specifically programmers in this case) who listed the year as MMDDYY instead of MMDDYYYY (those of you in Europe can switch the M's and the D's, of course).

Two weeks ago, I saw more of this same mindset. I woke up to "OMG! It's 11/11/11!"  It was on the news. There were thousands and thousands of weddings and births.  One website claimed it would likely be "the only binary date of your lifetime."

Sadly, they were all two thousand years too late for 11/11/11.  Two weeks ago was 11/11/2011. Nine hundred years ago was 11/11/1111.  A few weeks back was 11/02/2011 - a truly palindromic date. And the last. we'll see until ... um .. 2/10/2012. Unless I'm wrong, which I sometimes am.

It's funny to me - just over a decade ago, the fact that we were using two-digit years in our date format caused mass hysteria and panic. And we've fallen back into that same pattern of laziness that caused the problem in the first place.

Does it really take that long to write two more numbers?

Forum Threads with Useless Titles

It should come as no surprise to you that I spend a lot of time on the internet.

In fact, I spend a fair amount of time browsing the Amazon Kindle forums. As I write this (more than a month before you will see it), there are eight threads whose titles are simply, "Kindle Fire."

One of them wants to know if future models will have 3G capability. One of them wants to know if the speakers are any good. One of them is wondering if it will have an SD card. One person wants to know if he can download movies onto his Fire (if he decides to order it). One of them is loudly decrying the Fire's lack of camera and microphone.

Leaving aside that all of these questions are either unanswerable until the Fire itself starts shipping (if all goes well, I should have mine the day before you see this post) or are covered in detail on the Kindle Fire product page,, I'm really only trying to pay attention to one of them.  Yes, I could subscribe to the thread and have Amazon e-mail me updates, but the e-mail address I have the most access to isn't the one tied to my Amazon account. So I need to actually click on the thread to see which one it is.

It's as if I just titled every post here, "Complaints," and didn't bother tagging the posts. And then set Blogger to only show you the title until you clicked on the post. Would you keep reading?  Maybe. I don't know. But if I had a post you especially liked, you'd probably get frustrated trying to find it again.  Especially if my usual weekly schedule was screwed up because I misread the Blogger calendar again.

When I post a thread to a forum, I try to be a bit clearer - "Kindle Fire: 3G Version in the Future?" "Kindle Fire: Why No Camera?" "Kindle Fire: SD Card Slot?" "Kindle Fire: How Do The Speakers Sound?"

It's a shame that the rest of the world doesn't follow a similar policy.

Calendars That Start With Monday

When I was in first grade, we learned the days of the week. I think there was some horribly sappy little song to go along with it, but I've blocked that memory.

But what I remember clearly was that Sunday was the first day of the week. The vast majority of wall-hanging calendars I have dealt with over the years list Sunday as the first day of the week.

So, when I'm working on writing for this blog and I hit the "Schedule" button to the right, I keep trying to schedule posts for Saturday, because the Blogger calendar isn't configurable and starts with Monday. I've also scheduled New American Things posts for Fridays and Talking Game posts for Thursdays. All of which required a great deal of correction and panic once discovered.

I don't know if it's this way in other countries or not.  Here in the US, it's a holdover from our Judeo-Christian heritage.  After creating the Earth and everything on it, God took a day off. The seventh day, or Sabbath.

If you ask someone of the Jewish faith what day they take off, it's Saturday. Saturday is the seventh day on their calendars. The Fourth Commandment was to take the day off. So they do.

In fact, Sunday is the first day of the week for Christian, Jewish, and Islamic calendars. It didn't start to shift from first to last until fairly recently.

ISO 8601 standardized the calendar for ... well, people who worry about ISO documentation. Mostly computer-oriented folks and economists and other "detail-oriented" folks, but it's been gradually trickling down. ISO 8601 set Monday as the first day of the week.

This has the result of more and more calendars shifting Sunday to the end of the week on the calendars, which is why - every so often - one of my posts here will go up on Saturday instead of Friday.

I'm not an ISO adherent, and I very much dislike the Blogger scheduler that forces Monday to be the first day of the week, without the ability to configure it.

The Loss of Saturn as a Brand

My current car is a 2007 Saturn Vue. My wife and I both love it. The car I owned before that was a 1996 Saturn SL1. Before that, I drove a 1993 SL2. I loved both of those cars.

My old SL2 now belongs to my younger brother.

In fact, my family has owned more than a dozen Saturns. Our first Saturn was a 1991 Saturn SL1. It was notable because it was one of the cars impacted by that early recall that turned a PR nightmare into a success story.

We've only had one car die on us - it'd been poorly maintained (by me), and the engine seized after the oil pump failed. So long as we kept up with the maintenance, however, the cars have done very well for us.  We just drive a lot as a family. And Mom keeps getting T-boned and rear-ended.

To save money in 2009, GM discontinued the entire Saturn brand.  My family is painfully aware of the fact that our current cars may be our last Saturns.

I never want to drive anything that is not a Saturn, but I will eventually not have any other choice.

And I hate that.

Discussing My Health

I don't think anyone actually likes discussing their health, unless they are either in perfect health or are suffering some wasting and/or lingering illness.

And not everyone likes it then, either.

The last few years for me have been all about correcting my health. I've been to the dentist. I've gone through some sleep studies.

But those are peripheral to my core health, which I really haven't (and won't) discuss.

My stubbornness in this area is part of why I'm participating in Movemeber. While it'd be nice to say, "I raised huge piles of cash," I'll be shocked if I break the $100 mark. So I'm not really pushing it via any of my social network outlets, and I don't want you to feel compelled to give.

I do need to get more comfortable discussing my health. It's a weakness of mine. Even my wife treads softly when the subject of my health comes up. And that's really not good.

Because if she can't talk to me about my health, how on earth am I going to feel comfortable discussing it with a doctor?

Traffic

Does anyone like traffic?

Realistically, I don't think anyone does.

But I have more time to contemplate this than most.  You see, I live in Everett, Washington and I work in Tukwila, Washington. This means that my commute is roughly 40 miles long, and it takes me through Seattle.

Seattle is regularly in the Top Ten lists of "America's Worst Traffic Congestion."

Seriously. Take a look at a few of these.

I drive - during rush hour - through some of the worst traffic congestion in the country.

So, even though my commute is 40 miles, it often takes me an hour and a half (or more) to get to work. On a freeway with a speed limit of 60 miles per hour. In theory, I could get to work in about forty minutes. In practice, my commute sucks. There are mornings where I could almost sit and read my Kindle because traffic just isn't moving.

Can I take an alternate route?  Sure. Numerous alternate routes exist. All of them are as congested as my route. Public transportation? Because of the routes I'd need to take, it'd both take longer and more be expensive than my current route for me to ride a bus or take the local light rail.

And the worst thing is that there is no remedy. Despite years of studies and numerous theories, no-one really knows how to clear up the terrible traffic. No-one knows how to make the congestion go away. We're stuck with it.

I'm stuck with it.

And I really don't like that.

Christmas Creep

It's October, now. Right? Grocery stores are all decked out for Halloween, because they sell tons of candy.

Department stores, however, seem to be breaking out the Christmas decorations. Already.

When I was a kid, the department store seasons went like this:

St. Patrick's Day (Started March 1)
Easter (Started 1 month before)
Summer
Back-To-School (Started mid-August)
Halloween (Started October 1)
Thanksgiving (Started November 1)
Christmas (Started the day after Thanksgiving)

Nowadays, I see reports on the Consumerist and elsewhere of Christmas decorations appearing in July and August! Signs up that say, "Christmas is on its way: Are you ready?"

NO!  I'm not ready! I don't plan to be ready until I'm stuffed full of Turkey and have enough leftovers to feed me for the next week!

I really can't stand it.

Reruns

I hate reruns.

I realize that - back in the day - if you missed an episode of your favorite show, reruns were the only solution for you. Otherwise, you might never see that episode again. These days, however, there really isn't much of an excuse.

Seriously. Many (if not most) networks these days put their shows online. Legally. Either on their own website (TNT, for example) or on Hulu or Amazon Instant Video or ... there are dozens of legal places to watch TV.

A decade ago, TiVo was amazing. Now, many cable companies offer Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) that do almost exactly the same thing as TiVo. I rarely watch anything at the time it airs anymore.

I understand that actors and authors and film crews need a break. I understand the reason for a hiatus. But that doesn't mean we need reruns. Seriously. They have hundreds of unaired pilots laying around. Make the summertime Unaired Pilot Summer! Maybe they'll find a hit. At the very least, it doesn't cost much and makes use of something they already have ...

At the very least, it's better than reruns.

Reruns

I hate reruns.

I realize that - back in the day - if you missed an episode of your favorite show, reruns were the only solution for you. Otherwise, you might never see that episode again. These days, however, there really isn't much of an excuse.

Seriously. Many (if not most) networks these days put their shows online. Legally. Either on their own website (TNT, for example) or on Hulu or Amazon Instant Video or ... there are dozens of legal places to watch TV.

A decade ago, TiVo was amazing. Now, many cable companies offer Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) that do almost exactly the same thing as TiVo. I rarely watch anything at the time it airs anymore.

I understand that actors and authors and film crews need a break. I understand the reason for a hiatus. But that doesn't mean we need reruns. Seriously. They have hundreds of unaired pilots laying around. Make the summertime Unaired Pilot Summer! Maybe they'll find a hit. At the very least, it doesn't cost much and makes use of something they already have ...

At the very least, it's better than reruns.

Celebrating Blog Milestones

It's inevitable.  You find a blog you like. The author has clearly taken some time to find their voice, and then they hit an anniversary post and it disrupts their normal postings.

"Thanks for reading this blog," they'll tell you. "I appreciate it. I'd never have made it to this milestone without you."

This, by the way, is complete bullshit. Blogging is a solitary task.  Comments and feedback are appreciated, but let's call a spade a spade: Most of us would do this even without readers.

The milestone? It could be one year. Or a 100th post. Or 30th comment. Seventeenth giveaway contest.  It doesn't matter - and it's a slippery slope.  Once you commemorate the One Year, then you have to do the same thing every year. Marked that 100th post? Guess you'll be marking 200, too, then. Enjoy all the tracking.

Webcomics, by the way, do this a lot. Especially those with ongoing storylines. Story, story, story, 100th Comicstravapalooza!, story, story, story.

It's filler. And it's annoying.

I can't stand it.

Office Events

Even at the best of times, I'm not generally comfortable with large numbers of strangers.

It's just not in my nature.

Now take those strangers and make them co-workers from another branch. Or spouses of co-workers. Or the co-workers of your spouse. And you don't know who connects to who and how.

Who is the boss? Who are the supervisors?

It leads to an awkward and politically-charged atmosphere that no-one finds comfortable. Because you really don't want to offend your spouse's boss. Or your boss's spouse.

Seeing the recipe for fun, yet?  Yeah. Me either.

It gets better: Many office events have activities. Like volleyball or sack races or team scavenger hunts.

So take that awkwardness from above, and give it a dose of competitiveness. Is it bad to beat your boss at horseshoes?  Will your boss' wife (who is on your scavenger hunt team) be offended if you spot items more quickly than she can?

And that's just the "summer picnic" event. What about an office softball game? Or holiday party?

I once went to an office party with an open bar. Once. It was at an extremely high-class place. I had a drink. One. Because the last place I wanted to be drunk was around people I had to deal with for forty hours per week.  Several of my co-workers (and/or their dates) got so drunk that we had to shepherd them home.

And then they had to face us at work the next day.

Some of them didn't remember. Some remembered, and were completely ashamed. The highlight for me was "didn't remember but gossiped about several others."

The next year, there was no open bar. And only a few people were surprised by this.

So, yes. I tend to avoid office functions as much as possible.

They're just never as much fun as was advertised.

Changing Lanes

A decade ago, I lived in Puyallup, and worked in Lynnwood. It was a long drive for a 20-year-old to make.

Within two days of driving it, I knew which lane I could get into that would run me all the way from home to work without the horror of changing lanes. That's roughly fifty miles in the same lane.

Seriously.

Living in the Seattle area, one of the first things you need to learn is Freeway Driving. Because you do a lot of it. We have a highway system, but the freeways are in much better shape. And are faster.

So you learn. Or try to.

I had a small car - a Plymouth Sundance, for those of you who are car people. It was a decent car, but not exceptional. Mine was red, but that didn't seem to help with visibility. I cannot even count the number of times I almost got hit by someone changing lanes that didn't see me.  And it had blind spot issues.  Large blind spots.

It trained me to change lanes as little as possible.

Even today, I've witnessed more accidents due to poor lane changes than for any other reason.  It's made me a bit gun-shy on the lane changes.  To the point where I can tell you the optimal lane to be in most of the time for most of the roads I drive regularly.

Allow me to demonstrate: Going from work to home, I have to go through eight traffic lights and make four turns (two left and two right) before reaching the freeway.  I can do this without changing lanes a single time. On the freeway, I need to change lanes a total of three times (including my initial merge). If I'm picking my wife up, then there is an additional freeway merge and one lane change on the exit, and a few others here and there. Otherwise, I'm home free.

Yep. I've got it all mapped out.

Do I spend too much time thinking about this?  Probably. But, by thinking about it, I can avoid most of the lane changes.

And I really hate those.

Dentists

Is there a single human being alive who likes going to the dentist?

No. Really. Is there?

It almost goes without saying that I dislike it. A lot.

Which leads to a vicious circle.

I dislike going to the dentist, so I don't go.

Because I don't go, my teeth don't get the care they need.

Because my teeth don't get their necessary care, I develop cavities.

Because I have cavities, my visit to the dentist is particularly unpleasant.

Because all of my dental visits are so very unpleasant, I ... don't go to the dentist.

At this point, it's been over a decade since I regularly visited a dentist. I finally went back a few weeks ago, and (no surprise), I have cavities. And a filling in need of repair. And my teeth need "deep cleaning."

"Deep Cleaning," by the way, is a dentist term meaning "Gum Torture with Metal Things and High-Pressure Water."

It leaves me bleeding and in pain.

I'm not helped by my natural resistance to Novocaine. The stuff wears off much faster than it should. By a lot. To the point where my last dentist brought in a new syringe every fifteen minutes or so. And I still learned to deal with the pain.

My current dentist uses nitrous in addition to Novocaine. It helps, but I feel like I'm falling. Just continuously. It's not a pleasant feeling.

The scary part for me, however, is the work. I can't see what they're doing. You can't watch them, other than via reflection in their glasses or goggles (if any).  I realize that it's so we don't freak out at the sight of blood in our mouths, but it's still really scary.

It just leads to an experience that I'd much rather avoid.

Con Crud

You may have noticed that I'm not running at my usual level, here.  For the last few weeks, I've been dissatisfied with my output.  In large part, this can be traced directly back to Con Crud.

One of the great things about conventions is the huge numbers of people you can meet and great.

The problem with this, of course, is that everyone brings their own strains of cold and flu.

See, there are hundreds and hundreds of strains of cold. It's why there is no one cure to the common cold - every time we beat one of them, it mutates into a new version of itself. But we sometimes still carry the colds that our systems have beat.

So, when you go to a convention, you are bringing one or more defeated strains of cold that the people you interact with may be vulnerable to. And they are returning the favor.

When possible, I always take an extra day or two off when I go to a convention. An extra day of rest can kickstart my immune system. Sadly, it didn't work out schedule-wise this time. So my immune system is still playing catch-up.

It means that - right now - I am fighting several colds. Simultaneously. And half of them appear to have settled in my lungs, so I'm coughing and struggling to breathe (and stressing out my wife in the process). It also means I'm not sleeping well, which means that I can't write as well because I'm not thinking clearly ...

It sucks.

The Decline of Saturday Morning Cartoon Culture

When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were special. We didn't have Nickelodeon. We didn't have the Cartoon Network. In fact, my house didn't even have cable. So Saturday mornings were the only time I had when I could watch cartoons.

I've never been able to sleep in. Even as a kid, I was up early on Saturdays, so the cartoons were a Godsend for my parents.  It was great - I was up by six in the morning to watch Star Trek: The Animated Series. Every week. And then I'd watch whatever else they decided to show, with few exceptions. After Looney Toons ended at noon, I'd go outside and play. And so would the rest of the block.

It gave us a shared frame of reference and something to talk about.

Not only that, but it divided the weeks up during the summer, when there was no school week. It was like one morning was specially set aside for children. Like me.

These days, the local affiliates for ABC, NBC, and CBS run news until about 9:00. ABC then runs reruns from old Disney Channel shows until Noon or so. NBC sticks with news and paid programming. CBS has about an hour of cartoons.

Only FOX runs cartoons all morning.

Instead, cartoons run all afternoon all week long. Many cartoons have five-episode story arcs that perfectly match the school week.

There are a few cartoons that are more-watched than others, but the airwaves are flooded with options, now.

Saturdays have lost their status as a special day, with mornings set aside for kids.

Another piece of my childhood is lost because of it.

One more thing my nephews will never get to know.

Blisters

I just returned from working at a convention. Now, it's my own fault I tend to lead a sedentary lifestyle. I don't stand on my feet very much or walk a whole lot - I'm working on it, but I'm not there, yet.

When you work at a convention, you spend the whole time on your feet. You're either walking to the dealer's hall or standing around teaching games.  It just comes with the territory.

When your hotel is half a mile from the exhibit hall and you don't have a rental car ... well ...

As I write this, I have blisters the size of quarters. It hurts to move around. And I have to go back to work in the morning.

I know all the tricks for avoiding blisters - fresh socks, tightly-laced shoes, talcum powder, and so on - but they never work for me. This is in large part because my feet are so wide that I usually have to go a size or two too large so that I can fit my feet into the shoes.

Every year I get these same blisters. And I hate it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I hated this book on several levels and for several reasons. And I hated the movie for many of the same reasons.

Fair warning: If you haven't read the Harry Potter book(s), there will probably be some spoilers in here.

This book was to have been the culmination of what had gone before in the series. The final resolution.

I don't mind that it broke the "Harry dodges terrible relatives and goes to Hogwarts where life is good but filled with unexpected danger," mold. To be honest, that pattern had been getting tiresome.

I am one of those rare readers who appreciated Dumbledore's death. It demonstrated to us that even main characters weren't safe. Not only that, but his sacrifice meant something. It wasn't like Cedric Diggory's death (which was completely pointless and really didn't make Voldemort any more frightening to me than he already was).

Likewise Harry's death. Harry realized he was one of Voldemort's horcruxes. Since the only way to get rid of Voldemort forever involved destroying all of his horcruxes, Harry's death was important. No, make that Important. It needs that capital letter.  It was also necessary. And meaningful.  The hero thought about his actions, and then surrendered. He allowed himself to be killed.

The limbo scene with Dumbledore? It was a cop-out. A complete waste of time. Harry needed to stay dead, otherwise his sacrifice was cheapened. Seriously. I had been less-than-happy with the book to that point. I was glad when Harry sacrificed himself - it was a mature decision. It was a very well-written "Good of the Many" moment.

And then he came back.

Throwing away the sacrifice.

What about the three Hallows themselves?  They were a pointless side quest. They had no impact whatsoever on the story other than filling pages.

And they angered me.

"By the way, Harry, there is this legend of three great wizards ... " Yeah. Prior to this book, there was no reference whatsoever to these three extremely-powerful magical items. None.  At one point, I vaguely remember one character mentioning that Harry's cloak seemed especially effective for an invisibility cloak - but it was one small reference.

They didn't mention that in the movie - Harry's cloak? The one left him by his father? It was an extremely powerful item. The Cloak belonging to the youngest brother in the story. And it saw use through the entire series, so it wasn't influenced story-wise by being one of the Deathly Hallows.

In the very first book, they start hinting that Wands choose their owners. The Great Wand of Power chooses its owner based on who defeats the previous owner.  That's fine.  I can buy that. It's not unreasonable.  It defines "disarms" as "defeated."  That ... well, it does a couple of things to the story that anger me - but, again, it's the wand's rules we're dealing with. Even though it means that Snape's death was a completely pointless waste.

Here's the thing, though: It didn't have to be a powerful artifact to impact the story like that. Seriously. It just needed to be a more-powerful-than-usual wand that had the same rule. So - again - we didn't need that tacked-on never-hinted-at backstory about three brothers cheating Death. All we needed to know was that Dumbledore's wand was powerful, and belongs to whoever disarms its previous owner. We can keep the "defeated" confusion that led to Snape's death, if need be. And - to be even more honest - it doesn't even need to be Dumbledore's wand.

Oh - and some hint somewhere about how a wand won't allow someone to harm its rightful owner would have been a good added touch, even though the audience probably would have figured out who the rightful owner was.

As long as the characters are in the dark, it's okay for the reader to know things.  And even if characters know that "my wand will never harm me," it won't impact the story: Harry didn't know that Voldemort was holding a wand which was loyal to Harry. Had he known, then the entire seventh book would have been a complete waste of good reading time.

Oh.  Wait.

As to the Stone of Resurrection: it almost broke me. Let's start with the inaccurate name: The stone didn't bring the dead back. It, instead, allowed the living to communicate with the dead.  It's not the same thing at all. Now, it's entirely possible that the stone will allow full-on resurrection. More on that in a few.

In the book, it's clear that Harry has made his mind up. He's willing to die for his friends.  He uses the stone to talk to his dead family, and they offer him consolation. It's a bit like the Biblical Garden of Gethsemane in some ways - Christ is praying, and the angels offer him comfort (and his earthly friends fail him).

In the film, it looks like Harry is going to back out, and the only thing that stops him is his dead family. This made the stone more useful in the film than in the book.

So what if the Stone could resurrect the dead fully? It was pretty stupid of Dumbledore to give it to Harry, then, wasn't it? He knew a war was coming. People die in wars. He also knew that Harry had to confront Voldemort face-to-face.  Imagine this: It's December 1st, 1941.  You have the resurrection stone, and you know about the upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor.  With the stone, every single sailor at Pearl Harbor can return to duty the on December 8th. It appears to be unlimited, too. So you can bring back soldiers and sailors over and over and over and over. And yes, they'll be disconnected and will eventually go completely mad - but you can probably deal with that after the war is over, right?  You also have a young friend who Tojo is looking for (and who you know wants to face Tojo).  Would you give the stone to your friend? What if you didn't tell him about it, and just stuck the stone into his pack - only you disguised it in such a way that he'd find it only after he landed on the Japanese mainland? Wouldn't that effectively be just handing the stone over to Tojo?

It's almost as though Dumbledore was actually a Death Eater ... sacrificing Harry, and handing off the Stone and the Cloak at the same time. Clever. Very clever. No-one would ever suspect.

So random Dumbledore ramblings aside, what impact did these Deathly Hallows have on the story?

None that any invisibility cloak, powerful wand, or Ouija board couldn't have handled.  Making these items Powerful Artifacts, in fact, lessened their story value. Because once you introduce something like a legendary item, it becomes clear that your hero is going to wind up with some or all of them - when you're writing for a young audience, that is.

Either way, it left me very dissatisfied with both the seventh book and the films based on it.

Translation and Revision of Wordplay and Puns

I love word games. I really do.  I'm not very good at them, but they're fun.

That said, however, they're a huge pain to translate if gameplay has anything to do with vocabulary, wordplay or puns. Even Scrabble requires some tweaks from language to language - the game is carefully balanced in English based on our letter frequency.  If you translate it into French, suddenly you need to include more U tiles and the letter H needs its value increased.

Puns don't translate well at all, with very few exceptions. Occasionally, you'll find a word that has multiple meanings in multiple languages, but these words are very rare.  Similarly, games requiring wordplay are a huge pain to translate.

I'm told that the Spanish-language editions of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are exceptional. I'd love to read them sometime. Or, more accurately, have my wife read them to me, as I don't read Spanish.

Right now, I'm working on the translation of a game that uses wordplay. And has very strict requirements for this wordplay - the total number of available letters is limited, and there are limitations on the available words, too.

I've spent the better part of a month fighting with this one. And it just gets more and more frustrating as I work my way through it. Because it requires jokes and onomatopoeia and changing languages really screws with them.

It's the second-most frustrating gaming project I have ever worked on.

The first? Also based on wordplay, but it also required puns.

It took a team of four of us multiple evenings communicating via Skype to get it done.

And then the publisher decided not to print it after all.

Not. Fun.

Shopping for Clothes

I know I previously discussed my general dislike of shopping - let me get a bit more specific:

I dislike shopping for clothes.

I am not a small man.  I'm not grossly overweight, but I could stand to lose a few pounds.

What trips me up is my size and a handful of other issues.

I have size 11½ feet, but I need EEEE width. Very few shoe manufacturers bother making shoes that wide, and I'm very appreciative to brands that do.  I also need natural fibers or cloth uppers on the shoes - fake leather doesn't breath enough and my feet swell up dramatically. Enough so that I can't walk.  My parents used to tell the shoe clerk that I was allergic to the fake stuff just to save time and hassle.

Lots of teenagers wear size XL T-shirts. Usually, it's because they fill them. I wore size XL because my shoulders wouldn't fit anything else - the rest of me could fit into a size L just fine.  These days, I wear size XXL mostly for my shoulders (but the rest of me benefits from the added space these days).

Either way, it make shopping awkward - my frame (other than my shoulders) isn't "Big and Tall."  My shoulders won't fit anything less.

All in all, it makes shopping for clothing a frustrating activity from start to finish.

Keeping Track of the Calendar

What? Two posts this week?

Yep.  Because I had some trouble keeping track of which day of the week was Wednesday and which was Friday and so my post for today went up on Wednesday.

Because I have to keep track of too many calendars.  Each blog I write for has its own schedule. And I have to squeeze the writing into my spare corners (which are becoming rarer and rarer as time goes by).

Not only that, but many evenings have specific weekly events. So I need to know what day of the week it is.

Eventually, I'll quit my job and live the unemployed and free life where I don't have to know if it's Monday or Thursday. And I can write all day and maybe update my blogs more than once per week ...

But that's not today. Today, I need to be able to feed myself and take care of my cats.

And I need to learn to keep better track of my calendar.

The Sound of Fireworks

I love a good light show. I really do. But I absolutely despise the sound of fireworks.

I like hissing and sizzling and crackling - but it's the bangs and the booms and the pops I can't stand.  Especially when it's 11 pm and I have to work the next morning. But even when it's noon, I still flinch every time a firecracker goes off.

But setting firecrackers off past midnight is just rude. Especially if you live in a city where they're illegal outside of certain hours or an apartment complex with a no-fireworks policy in place.  There's a reason I chose to live here.

The Decline of the Hat as an Indicator of Adulthood

I have a hat that I wear. Constantly. It's a Greek Fisherman's cap. And, because it's not black, it's very distinctively mine.

Yes, I do have a black one.  I also have a blue one, a brown one, and the grey one that gets the most use.

To me, we have really lost something over the last few decades as hats have declined.

If you can find it, take a look at street scenes or candid photos from the 1950's and earlier. You'll find that most adults - men and women alike - wore hats of some sort while outside. Children (especially boys) wore caps. It's as if, once you hit eighteen, you set aside the cap and got a grownup hat. Very few caps (such as mine) qualify as grownup hats.

If you looked at people on the street, you saw fedoras and porkpies and bowlers and cowboy hats and  homburgs and ...

Wikipedia has an excellent list.

To a small child, roles are still tied up in hats - if you wear a fireman's helmet, it doesn't matter what else you're wearing: You're a Fireman.  If you are wearing a hard hat, you're a construction worker (or a builder).

Somewhere along the way, however, we've misplaced the grown-up hats. People my age wear baseball caps. Constantly. It's like they're holding on to their childhood.

When did this all change? And why?

I'm not the only person who feels like this, by the way.

Poking around the internet, it appears as though the rise of the automobile is responsible for the decline of the hat - we're walking less, and are thus spending less time outside. With less time spent outside, protection from the elements becomes less important.

There is a line of thought that the new pedestrian-friendly community development concepts may bring hats back from the dead - I sure hope so.

Because I dislike the current state of things.

Firm Mattresses

At home, we have a pillow-top mattress. A nice, soft, cushioning pillow top mattress.

Most hotels have a moderately soft mattress.

But, when visiting family, we're often stuck with what said family has.

My mother-in-law has a concrete slab cleverly disguised as a mattress.

Based on my experiences in Minnesota, it runs in the family.

Which is really really not good for my back.

Fifteen years ago, I slept just fine on nearly any surface you'd care to name. Hardwood floors? Check. Car seats? Check. Nails? Check. Grass and dirt? Check. Hammock? Check.

As I've aged, however (and I'm really not that old - I'm only 35), my back has grown more and more intolerant of more and more sleeping surfaces. Sleeping anywhere that isn't home leads to back pain.

That? Is something I dislike.

Limited Vacation Time

Here in the US, we don't get enough vacation time, especially when compared to our counterparts in Europe.

Right now, I have two weeks of paid time off, plus one "personal" day. This is my vacation time and sick leave all rolled into one. Once I've been in my current job for ten years, I'll get a third week of paid time off.

Now, this is a bit less than most full-time jobs in the US that actually give you vacation time - and I have a longer wait for an increase than most. But that's not to say we're anywhere close to the rest of the world.

The best benefits plan I ever had gave me 1 week sick time, 2 weeks vacation, and 3 personal days. After five years, it was bumped to 3 weeks of vacation. This meant that - at first - I had 18 paid days off. This is still less than the average in Japan.

Yes, really.

It actually limits the conventions and other events I go to. By a lot.

I go to GenCon every year. It's the highlight of my year, and it costs me about a week of vacation time. This leaves me with just over a week (total) to play with. This week has to cover illness as well as vacation/fun activities.

I'm allowed to take unpaid time off if I want to - and I'm doing so this year, in fact - but I can't (financially) afford to take much time unpaid.

It's frustrating.

And I dislike it.

Airplane Rides

I love going on trips, but I have not yet found a way to get from point A to point B that I actually like. A decade ago, airplanes were my travel method of choice - buses are filled with Bus People (and are amazingly slow), Trains are a relic from the 19th century that hasn't been adequately updated, cars are expensive and comparatively slow.

Airplanes are expensive to get onto, but they're fast. Too bad it's a huge hassle getting onto them.

By the way, as you're reading this (all three or four of you who are reading this regularly), I'll be in Minnesota. That's right: Sometimes, we have to do things we don't like.

In my case, it means fighting through security, crowds, and the nerve-wracking takeoff and landing portions of the trip. And that goes without mentioning the extra fun of turbulence and occasional lightning storms. Twice.

Late Posts

Don't you hate it when you get used to a blog's posting schedule, and then a post is late?

At first, it's disbelief, and then a bit of concern - did he forget this week? Did he run out of things to say? Is the blog dead? Is the blogger dead?

And then, just as your worry starts to escalate into a small panic, the post appears with a note - "Sorry I'm late, I typoed the scheduled time," or something similar.

As someone who reads several dozen blogs daily, I hate that. I have a daily routine which involves going from blog to blog in a given order. A late post throws my routine off, which can put me off my game for the rest of the day.

Writer's Block

What? You were expecting a long post with a title like that?

Mindless Television

I really dislike mindless television.

No ... that's not right.

I dislike what mindless television does to me. I dislike that I enjoy it so very much.

I used to have a problem with TV. I used to watch five and six hours per night. And it didn't matter what was on - I would get home, sit down, and turn the TV on. And then I'd watch until bedtime. Or past bedtime.

I'm not going to claim I never watch TV - because I do. I even watch some pretty mindlessly awful stuff. I love professional wrestling. I really enjoy watching TruTV (especially "World's Dumbest"). But I still spend too much time sitting in front of the TV, when I should be doing other things, such as blogging or editing.

I still allow it to screw with my priorities.

And I just don't like that.

Hospitals

I don't think anyone has ever liked setting foot into a hospital. I remember a decade ago when a friend's lung collapsed. Getting in to visit him was a real pain. I had to fill out paperwork just to visit a friend.

I found out later that I was the only friend who had bothered. His only other visitors had been family. Because his friends' dislike of hospitals was greater than their like of him. Even his closest friends stayed away.

Hospitals, to us, are places filled with sick and dying people - it's how they appear on television, at any rate. And that's the image that's stuck with us.

They small funny, they serve bad food, and you end up waiting for everything. The doctors don't always tell you what you think you need to know, and they seem to have their own language.

It makes the hospital a scary and bewildering place.

Sore Losers

I play a lot of games with a lot of people, and I'm actually really happy with the usual Wednesday gathering I attend because we've managed to stay free of Sore Losers.

You know the type - they finish a game and, if they don't win, they sulk. Or rant.

Or they feel the need to talk your ear off after the game about how if they'd done this instead of that, you wouldn't have won.

If it's a short enough game, you can sometimes play again to shut them up. But not always.

The worst, however, are the people who walk away to keep you from finishing the game. I really hate unfinished games. I've run into these in tournaments before - they'll reach the point where they are technically ahead, but it's clear to anyone with a brain that with two moves you'll be able to clear the board. And then they start stalling. And delaying. And not taking their turn.

Even in tournaments, games are just that: Games. Something you do for fun.

Seriously: Lighten up. Losing is part of the game, and learning to lose gracefully (and, for that matter, win gracefully) is part of growing up.

Being Short-Handed

We fired someone at work a few weeks ago. She had a severe lack of detail-orientedness (and yes, I know, it's not actually a word). I fought against her firing for a very long time for several reasons, but I lost the fight.

And now we're short-handed.

At my office, we don't have enough work for three people, but we have too much work for two. We spent a couple of weeks not taking lunches regularly, and have FINALLY started to settle into a rhythm that works with two, but there's still more work than hours in a week.

And it's not the sort of work where we can do the job evenings and weekends. We have to work during the week.

So there are little tasks that are falling behind. That will continue to fall behind. Until we get someone new in there. And they'll take some training, which will put us even further behind for a while.

There's nothing likable in that scenario.

And that's where I am right now.

Corrective Lenses

I'm relatively lucky. I didn't need corrective lenses until I was in high school. My wife was in glasses at five.

And the thing about eyes is this: if you need corrective lenses, you have three options, none of which is good.

You could go without and be blind. For some people, it means reading at arm's length or squinting at books. For others, it means riding public transportation because they can't drive.

You could get glasses which sit on your face and collect dust. They scratch easily and make photography difficult. And it's relatively easy to get them knocked off your face.

You could get contact lenses which require daily cleaning and - quite literally - poking yourself in the eye every time you try to put them in or take them out. And that's operating under the assumption that they fit correctly.

It's a pain. And changing from one to the other is disorienting and weird, so - unless you have someone who can drive for you - you're pretty much stuck at home until you adapt. And taking your contacts off in the evenings and switching to glasses is unwise at best, as you'll spend your evening miscalculating distances and stumbling over things.

Cold Bathrooms

It generally doesn't get very cold in Seattle. People here complain when it hits the 40's, but it's really not that cold. We rarely have frost on the ground, even in the winter.

I don't turn the heat on in our apartment very often - I just don't feel the cold keenly enough to need it. I'll occasionally wrap up in a blanket or lure a cat into my lap. We'll throw an extra blanket on the bed during the winter.

But I absolutely cannot cope with a cold bathroom in the mornings. It is the one room in the house where I'll run the heater even during the summer.

I just can't handle cold feet on the way to the shower. Or on the way back out to the bedroom.

I'm honestly not sure if it's the cold bathroom that bugs me or if it's the cold floor - the only uncarpeted rooms in the apartment are the bathroom and the kitchen and I don't go into the kitchen until I've put my shoes on, at which point the cold of the floor doesn't much matter. And I have no intention of testing it, either.

Back Pain

I'm really not a fan of any sort of pain, but the most regular and reliable pain for me is that of my back. I first threw it out at the age of 12, and have been regularly in pain since.

I can function with a sprained ankle. I can handle it when my knee slows me down. But when my back decides to go completely out, I'm reduced to helplessness. And I hate it.

Not only that, but back pain has cost me more missed work than illness. By a lot.

And I really dislike that.

Poorly Moderated Forums

Yes, I know that "Fora" may be more correct than "forums," depending on who you are talking to. I should really talk sometime about English Usage and Foreign Words.

But today's post is about internet forums.

I'm involved in a number of them - I'm very active on BoardGameGeek, and am less active in several other game-related forums.

Every forum has its own feel, which is handled in part through moderation. If I insult someone on BGG, I will probably get a suspension (and will be informed of this quietly). If I insult someone on RPG.net, I will receive a red text warning in that thread. If I persist or continually cause problems, I will be suspended - and the moderators will start a threat in the "Trouble Tickets" forum to announce to the world that I have been suspended.

Neither forum is immune to flamewars, but both have avoided the worst of them. And the flamewars that DO erupt follow the "Attack the idea, not the person" pattern that RPG.net explicitly encourages.

Most other forums tend to degenerate quickly into name-calling and flame wars. To the point where I just don't go there because theres no useful content.

Pranks

It's true: I dislike pranks.

I like practical jokes, though.

A lot of people will tell you they're the same thing, but they are dead wrong.

What's the difference?

Thought.

A prank is ill-thought-out, usually very short-term, and often destructive in some way. They require little to no preparation, and are often difficult to clean up. Pranks often make one person look foolish in a way which cannot easily be dodged or evaded.

They're unfunny and not worth the time spent.

Stupid People Who Are Capable of More

There are a lot of stupid people out there. It's true.

The ones I really can't stand are the ones who aren't actually stupid, but just play stupid for attention or because they think it's funny.

Or because they think that "popular" and "smart" can't belong together.

If you're smart enough to be a tabletop gamer (Role-playing, Card, and Board all count, here), you're smart enough not to use baby talk.

It's that simple.

Birthdays

I dislike birthdays - not for any religious reasons. Not because I dislike gifts.

It's because mortality is hanging over all of us, and every year, they force a reminder on us.

"Congrats! You're old!"

At the time I'm writing this, I'm 34. By the time you see it, I'll be 35.

"You didn't die! Have some cake!" (I'm not a fan of cake, either, but that's another post for another time.)

The other great thing about birthdays is the arbitrary ways we use them to divide up our lives.

"I'm 16! I can drive!"

Who chose these numbers? At 16, I wasn't mature enough to be trusted behind the wheel of a car. Not even close.

At 18, we get to vote here in the US. Great. Fine. Wonderful. I know some 30-year-olds who I'd love to remove from the voting pool. Not because I disagree with their politics - it's because I don't want someone that stupid having any influence at all over my future. I wish you had to take some sort of test to be able to vote - but the American political system is another rant for another time, too.

At 21, we can drink. This has led to a rash of "21 Runs" - people who get totally smashed on their 21st birthdays at no cost because so many bars give out a free drink to folks celebrating their 21st birthday ...

In fact, I don't see any reason to celebrate a birthday any more than I celebrate any other day.

On my birthday, I sincerely hope that none of my co-workers remember when it is so I can spend the day in peace and quiet.

National Mockery of Seattle When It Snows

As an experienced snow-and-ice driver, I feel that I am uniquely qualified to comment on the mockery we receive nation-wide whenever Seattle shuts down due to half an inch (or less) of snow.

Here's what those (non-local) news folks are not aware of:

1) Seattle is built on hills. Not small hills like you deal with in the Midwest, for the most part - if the Midwest had hills like Seattle, kids would use them for sledding. They're long and steep. This is not atypical of Seattle's hills.

2) Seattle's snow is usually hovering at almost exactly the freezing point. This means that, over the course of the few days we get snow, it is constantly melting and re-freezing as ice. And ice that is at 32 degrees is much more slippery than ice that is around 15 degrees.

Combining these two with the fact that most of the locals can't drive in the snow, and you get this:



How many of you remember this? Look especially at the image on that link. What you don't know about that image is this:

The bus driver was an experienced snow-and-ice driver. It's a tour bus from Eastern Washington, which resembles a slightly warmer Minnesota in the winter.

Time-Wasters

By day, I work for a wholesaler. We sell (among other things) televisions.

One of our regular customers doesn't show up in person. Instead, they send a driver to pick their product up three times per week.

Every time he visits us, he asks us, "What do you have in a fifty?" Now, we have close to 30 models of television which are hovering around that 50" mark. "I don't want to spend more than a grand," he tells us.

So - every week - we print him a bunch of spec sheets for TV's that fit what he's looking for. And - every week - he tells us, "I just need to clear this with the Old Lady. I'll be back."

And he is right - he will be back. In two days. To ask us the same questions and get copies of the same spec sheets.

It's a complete waste of time.

We have other customers who call every week, "Do you have any more of them iPods?"

You see, we had refurbished iPods. Briefly. Over one holiday season. They sold like crazy and were then returned like crazy. So we won't be getting any more. Ever. We actually tell customers this using exactly that language. So why, exactly, are you still calling for these iPods? Are you bored? Do you just want to waste our time?

See, not all customer questions are a waste of time. That's part of why we have a customer service department - to help customers who have actual problems and questions. But our customer service team also handles order entry, invoice processing, and a whole lot of filing. The more time we spend answering your repeated questions, the more our other tasks slip, and the further behind we fall.

It's frustrating and annoying, and I strongly dislike it.

Oatmeal

I often joke that British cuisine consists of two component - Lumps and Gravy. Each component has two different types - there are crunchy lumps and chewy lumps, and gravy has both brown and grey varieties.

Even the worst unidentifiable British food, however, is better than Oatmeal and its many imitators and derivatives. In this list, I'm including both farina and porridge and several others.

These things all taste the same - it's a not-quite-flavorless mush served warm. Occasionally, with enough sugar, you can make them marginally edible. But it's not something you'd do by choice.

So, yes, I dislike oatmeal.

Corners

If you read last week's entry, then you know that part of why I don't like parties is because I spend all my time in the corner with the other party-awkward unsocial people.

Why do we gravitate towards the corners?

Because corners are where we go when we're in trouble. Little Jack Horner was apparently in trouble, because he had to go sit in the corner.

When we feel awkward or uncomfortable, we move to the corner because the feeling is similar to that of being in trouble.

I also dislike corners because when I get up in the middle of the night, I inevitably walk into something with a sharp corner or two. Every single time.

Parties

This is probably not surprising, given how I dislike crowds, but I dislike parties.

If you see me at a party, I'm usually in a corner with a book (or my Kindle).

If I don't have a book out, I'm still probably not interacting with anyone unless I am directly approached. Even then, it's usual single-syllable responses until that person goes away.

Part of the reason I hate parties is because I only go to parties that I feel like I need to go to. In other words, parties which I am pressured to attend.

Usually, that pressure is internal - I have no desire to be a couch-dwelling troll, and there are some friends that I will never interact with outside of a party environment. Mind you, I usually show up early, chat for a bit, and then retreat to my corner. That's all the interaction I need most of the time.

Occasionally, other things (and people) will pressure me into attending a party. I don't even chat for a bit at most of these - I just find my corner and chill out.

Of course, I'm not that fond of corners, either.

Elmo

Yes, that Elmo. The red furry monster who took over Sesame Street when no-one who grew up on the show was looking.

Yes, the red puppet that eventually became Elmo was around when I was a kid, but he was just a face in the crowd, and he should have stayed there.

As it is, they need to rename the show, because it's not Sesame Street anymore. It's Elmo And Friends. By refocusing on Elmo, we've lost valuable time spent with the less-upbeat characters on the show (most notably Oscar and Bert).

Children need to learn that not everyone is smiley and happy and Elmo. The world contains Berts and Oscars.

Like me.

Novel Series That Last For Too Long

I've ranted about this at length elsewhere and at much greater length than I tend to post here.

I read a lot of books. A good trilogy really gets me excited.

That said, however, I'm done with Honor Harrington. I'm done with Harry Dresden.

You reach the point where you no longer fear for the protagonist. I thought the first few books in both series were excellent. But, by the time you start hitting book eight, you realize that there's no reason to fear for the character's survival anymore.

And yes, I know that (SPOILER WARNING) Harry Dresden was killed off at the end of one of his books. But you can't write The Dresden Files without Harry Dresden, so he'll be back. You'll see.

Honor Harrington exists in the "Honorverse." And you can have Honor's universe without Honor herself - and David Drake seems aware of this. He has expanded the universe a bit and has written books that feature other characters. Whether this is because he's bored of the character (like I am) or because he wants to make sure he can kill her off and still have a career ... well, it makes a difference.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was great. But each successive book lowered its quality compared to the preceding book to the point where it was a real struggle to get through Mostly Harmless.

Writers? Give me a trilogy. In a trilogy, I can still fear for the protagonist. Don't go much past that, though. Please.

Basketball

When I was younger, I disliked all sports. Every one of them. Now that I'm grown, I enjoy a few of them, but I don't understand the appeal of basketball. At all.

Most games, the offense and defense are somewhat balanced. In basketball, the defense is almost unimportant. Many of the games I've sat through boil down to Team A Scores! Team B Scores! Team A Scores! Team B Scores!

It's the ball moving back and forth and back and forth and ... well, being uninteresting.

If basketball had more or better-balanced defensive options, I might find it worth watching. Soccer and Hockey have designated defensive players. Football almost has two separate teams. Baseball ... baseball is weird.

The winner in a basketball game tends to be the team who sinks 3-point shots instead of the usual 2-pointers. Or manages to pull off even a single defensive play.

Is there skill involved in shooting the ball through the hoop? Yes. Absolutely. Are these people athletes beyond my ability? Yes. Absolutely.

Do I want to participate and/or watch it?

No. Absolutely not.

Coffee

When I was a kid, I was really excited about becoming a grownup, so I could drink coffee, because that's what my dad drank (and continues to drink). For me, being a grownup was synonymous with drinking coffee.

By that standard, I plan to never grow up.

The first time I had coffee, it was so amazingly bitter that I couldn't understand why anyone would voluntarily drink it.

My second sip was worse.

I've tried sugar and milk and cream and honey and just about everything else people put into their coffee to make it palatable - and it's still completely revolting.

Those of you who don't know, I live in Seattle. We're the coffee capital of the US, and have inflicted Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee and Tully's and several other brands on the rest of you. We triggered that "artisan coffee" craze. And it all tastes the same.

I can't tell the difference between Javan, Sumatran, Kona, and Columbian. I don't care if it's fine-ground, coarse ground, home ground, whole bean or powdered. Instant, drip, slow-brewed, campfire-brewed and flash-brewed all taste exactly the same to me.

I can't see why anyone would voluntarily ingest this stuff.

Garfield

Garfield.

Yes, that one.

When I was a kid, Garfield was hilarious. But he only has a few jokes:

- Mondays
- Food
- Sleeping
- Beating up Odie
- Jon's Patheticness

Sadly, all five of those jokes have been beat to death. At this point, Jim Davis is milking a dead cow - and making money at it.

When I was a kid, that limited selection of jokes was enough for me. These days, I need a wider variety of humor to keep me entertained, and Garfield just doesn't do it for me.

Jim Davis - the cartoonist - is apparently a pretty cool guy. But there are dozens of cool people out there, and most of them don't write Garfield. Maybe Jim Davis should join the rest of them.