I was first alerted to the snow by my trusty weather globe. It is never wrong.
Drat. Where will we have the dinner party now?
My car was buried under an impenetrable layer of snow.
The camper out back fared no better.
The streets were transformed.
Recent excavations in my back yard unearthed some sort of frozen beast!
Note its baleful stare.
Saving these for July…
It has now been snowing for almost 24 hours. I haven’t seen this much snow since I lived in New York or maybe when I watched The Empire Strikes Back. They closed down the entire city to incoming and outgoing traffic, stranding many people here. Yesterday the interstates were lined with semi trucks with no place to go. All outbound flights are canceled.
I live in the middle of the desert!
Via xkcd…
On Christmas Eve I drove down to the airport post office because I had received a package notification. What could this be? A Christmas present, perhaps? When the clerk pushed a large box from the board game printer over to me, my heart just about exploded. I grabbed it, forced myself not to tear it open in the car, and drove quickly home. I thought that I had just received the best Christmas present ever. My game was finally here! I thundered into my driveway, leapt from the car and went inside. I opened the large, heavy package to discover…
…a big thing of jelly beans. What crushing disappointment. Even though there were 49 different flavors, it was not enough to counter the blow. It was like a cruel trick. They had suggested the game would be ready around the same time, but instead sent a bunch of multi-colored sugar. It was then I realized just how much I cared about the game and how I had been longing for it for quite some time.
While waiting for the game, I sort of put it on the back burner to simmer. But now House of Whack stirs and dances to the forefront. I still have a staggering amount of work to do on the online content. Like if people could actually see what needed to be done, they would think I was insane. Sometimes I think, “What have I done? What was I thinking?” But then I just laugh a wild laugh that lasts for what I guess would be an uncomfortable amount of time if someone else were there to hear it.
I had to step away from the game for a bit because I was trying to cater to potential players and that was harming it. Every time I try to make it more palatable and logical and thematically cohesive, it starts to kill Whack’s soul. For instance, I was working on the rules for Whack Ball, one of the game variants. I had come up with a very workable set of rules involving a soccer-like game with teams within the House of Whack. They were nice rules, very detailed and straightforward. But they were wrong. In Whack Ball, this should be a common occurrence: Wendy plays the flute to lure the ball back to her, but Cirrus spills a glass of wine and steals the ball’s reflection and then does a layup into the chandelier which got turned into the new goal because Bob discarded a Wild Arcana. That’s where things are heading now.
In my recent musings I realized something: While I made a game that could possibly amuse certain gamers, I really designed the game to summon certain people to me. This is all just a ritual to bring them forward out of the ether. I need to know if someone else sees what I see. I need to know if someone else can see the game within the game. I’ve left the clues to the other game, but I’m certainly not going to show it to anyone. They will either see it or they won’t. They will either go through the door or they will play a board game.
It’s quite possible that I’ve made something just for me and I’ll be able to build a little fort out of 1000 game boxes.
Although I might catch “Children of Men” before the year’s up, I think the top 10 list is locked up for 2006. I’ll take a stab at what the 2007 list will look like.
1. The Fountain
2. Stardust
3. Stranger Than Fiction
4. Pan’s Labyrinth
5. Dusk Watch
6. Hot Fuzz
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
8. Transformers
9. 300
10. Spider-Man 3
I’m sure there will be some surprises in there, foreign and indy films that show up via Netflix.
I’m in the home stretch for December. Just over a week to go. So far there have been only minor flare ups. Paranoia. Almost tore into someone at work the other day. Had to drive in an insane snowstorm early in the morning and then work with insane lawyers. Not the time to get on my case about anything.
Whack keeps getting delayed. New estimate puts it at the 27th. We’ll see if they come up with some new excuse.
Discovered the Wii sensor bar can be replaced with two candles. Now I play Zelda by candlelight.
Considering a new project, if only to let my mind play with something else for a while. Sometimes I need to go through the motions of a project to get it out of the way to do other things. Sometimes I end up with a story or a board game.
It’s 10:30 PM and it is still light outside. The sky is a backlit grey, like an overcast afternoon. I’m supposed to be in bed by now, but I don’t feel like it is night time. And there’s a constant rumbling sound shaking the apartment. I can’t tell where it is coming from. It’s like a massive subwoofer somewhere nearby.
Today I received a spam entitled “Decomposable Blot.”
That’s awesome.
December is usually horrible, the worst part of my personal seasons. Apparently I have survived it all before, so I guess there’s hope. I’ve already begun to suspect my friends of dark betrayal. I lost Tuesday last week as well as one of my favorite shirts. Just vanished. I tried to work out the scenario of someone sneaking into my house and going after one shirt. Who knows how long it has been gone? Tuesday’s even trickier. On Tuesday it was Wednesday for everyone else, so I just rolled with it. I bought one of those special pill holders with the days of the week to help me remember. I have a job now, so I need to be there each day except for the “S” days.
December sucks.