Home again, home again, jiggedy jig. Not home yet, but have arranged for a 4:30am wake-up call and a 6:00am taxi to the airport. I figure being early to the airport is better than late, so I tend to overshoot. I should get there around 6:45am, for an 8:30am international departure. Should be good.

Travel tends to stress me out. I don’t mind being other places (although I do miss my boyfriend and kitties), but the process of traveling always makes me a little edgy. I just don’t like airports, mostly. For the most part I find them to be poorly designed, and bad design (particularly in situations where there are tight deadlines and overwrought processes) just annoys me.

For example, when I got to the Ottawa airport to come out here last weekend I was a little tired, clearly undercaffeinated, and carrying slightly more luggage than I could comfortably manouever on my own. The result? First, I got into the wrong check in line. Then I ended up filling out two forms that I didn’t need. Then I figured out that I was in the wrong line, and went and found the right line. The right line was much, much longer than the wrong line, and was full of people going on vacation with ridiculous amounts of luggage (usually including skis). Cranky, undercaffeinated families with cranky kids in a cranky situation. Someone dropped (and shattered) a glass bottle of orange juice. Good work. I got to manouever my stuff around a sticky puddle full of broken glass. Yay.

After check-in, things simplified a great deal because I basically sprinted to beat several overladen caravans of people heading towards the security gate. Woo. I’ve long since masterd the art of having nothing metal on my person, so never have problems with the metal detectors. Score. One quick bag check (keys), and I was on my way. In spite of pre-planning, I got to my gate only a few dozen minutes before boarding. That’s cutting things a little close for me, so I’m overshooting tomorrow.

So, there. A little story about me and airports. I’m looking forward to being home.

In other news, it’s been an interesting week. I’ve discussed a lot of ideas about a lot of things with a lot of people, and I think there’s a good foundation in place (at least idea-wise) for getting the project up and running in a minimal amount of time. As always, consensus building is going to be the most challenging part, but that’s pretty much how it always is for these sorts of things. We’ll see how that goes.

It’s a late Tuesday evening. I’m three hours off my normal time (EST) since I’m in Palo Alto/Mountain View (PST). I got here on Sunday, and it has rained every day. The humidity is confusing my winter-calibrated Canadian self, and while everyone else is walking around in tshirts, I’m huddled in a sweater and my goretex hoodie. Lovin’ my MEC-wear, let me tell you.

I’m in California this week to get started at my new job with the Mozilla Foundation. I’m now solidly equipped with a laptop and a mission. I’ve met a bunch of good people, seen my first Apple store, and am still struggling with jetlag. Work has been interesting so far, and the rest of the week is shaping up to be more interesting still. Right now, approaching the midnight hour, I’m mostly just hoping that the duck (over whose residence my hotel room hangs) doesn’t actually quack its little head off every day from 6:30am until 7:00am like it did this morning. It’s a mallard, for the record, and is cute enough as duckies go.

Two things I’ve noticed about California (that I somehow didn’t notice before): 1) Everyone drives everywhere, and 2) Getting a taxi in downtown Mountain View is more difficult than you might expect. I suspect these are related. I walked 15 mins from the office to a pub for dinner and didn’t see another pedestrian. I think the sidewalks are a symbolic nod to some simpler, non-space-age. Also, the cherry trees are in bloom. That in itself is sort of blowing my mind, given that back home it snowed this morning, and Ottawa won’t see flowering things for a handful of weeks or so.

Apple store quickie review: overrated. They did have Things in Stock, but when actually confronted by the $150 USD pricetag on the Shuffles, my inner-penny-pincher kicked in with a bit of sticker shock. I got a pack of iPod Socks and a laptop bag instead. They didn’t have any bluetooth mice. They didn’t have too many mice at all, really. All in all, I think the online Apple Store is the way to go. The Future is Now for ecommerce, I guess. I think maybe my patience with malls and retail storefronts in general has simply worn to transparency. Someday I’ll post a rant about modern megabookmarts and the quality of customer experience they provide.

That’s really about all the news I have at the moment. I’m here for the rest of the week, then back home very very early Saturday. I’m a bit of a homebody, you see, so I’m already sort of looking forward to getting back, even though the palm trees around here are pretty hella cool. Must remember to take some photos before I leave.

The following is an excerpt from a letter I received from Timothy Findley in 1992.

“Keep fighting against the uninformed who think writing – here or anywhere – is a waste of time and effort. If anything will save us, it’s the imagination – and there’s no way better way to keep the imagination alive than to write or to read. My mentor, Thorton Wilder, once said that cruelty is nothing more than a failure of the imagination — and all I can say is that there’s a lot of that going around these days…”

If you’re out there with a drink in hand, give a silent toast to Hunter, TIFF, and Elliott Smith tonight, would you? So much brilliance, too soon taken from us.

Apparently the American Library Association president isn’t a huge fan of bloggers.

I don’t consider myself a “blogger” in the mainstream sense of the word — I have a website of which the core is a diary-like text (you’re soaking in it) which I happen to update more-or-less daily. I too have an intense dislike of “the ugly neologism blog“, and refuse to use it in reference to myself (Merriam Webster bedamned). I also do not, in any way, think that this website makes me a “journalist”, a “columnist”, or really anything that could be accidentally or otherwise confused with some sort of professional, peer-reviewed writer.

Now, that said, Mr. Gorman (the ALA President in question) has penned this article which honestly has the feel and quality of an average “blog” entry. Here are some excerpts (for those of you who cannot read complex texts more than 2-3 paragraphs long):

The Google phenomenon is a wonderfully modern manifestation of the triumph of hope and boosterism over reality. Hailed as the ultimate example of information retrieval, Google is, in fact, the device that gives you thousands of “hits” (which may or may not be relevant) in no very useful order.

Here problem is the statement that Google is “hailed as the ultimate example of information retrieval”. Google is a search engine. It is, by far, currently the most efficient means of finding data and information on the web. It is nothing more than that. It is not a library. It does not do anything at all to help us organize, synthesize, or make sense of this information. I don’t know nor have I read about anyone who thinks that Google is anything more than just a really good tool for finding stuff on the web.

There is a difference between information and knowledge, and the keepers of human knowledge shall, I believe, always be human. If anyone thinks otherwise, then they’re wide-eyed fanatics who really don’t understand this sort of thing. Until we have proper AI, forget about replacing librarians. When we do have proper AI, we’ll all be holed up in glowy red bubbles generating electricity for our new robot overlords, so we won’t have to worry about it anyway.

All that said, I’m not really sure what bloggers have to do with Google in the first place.

It turns out that the Blog People (or their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information) have a fanatical belief in the transforming power of digitization and a consequent horror of, and contempt for, heretics who do not share that belief.

Another sweeping overgeneralization written in anger and intended to paint “bloggers” in a bad light. There is nothing in this sentence that is a) true, or b) not intended to be a direct and ire-rousing insult to the blogging community. This is a combination of a troll and a flame, and not a very good one at that. How is this particular piece of intellectual discourse any better than what we see on blogs every day? (Hint: it’s not.)

Mister Gorman continues with this loaded bit of bait:

Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.

The fact of the matter is that Mr. Gorman wrote something in the past that “The Blog People” disagreed with, and now he’s lashing out. The article he has penned here accomplishes nothing, being little more than an obvious flame and a clumsy troll. It’s already a week old, so maybe I just missed it on its first run through “the blogosphere” (where stories burst forth and die like stars in a time-lapse galaxy), but right now it’s the top story on Slashdot. It’ll peak on blogdex again, I’m sure.

For what it’s worth, I’m somewhat off-put by the growing sense of wide-eyed breathlessness surrounding “the blogosphere”. I’ve found my inner curmudgeon grumpily reading about bloggers suddenly referring to themselves as journalists, or about the strange mob-effect that has caused at least two real journalists (and one fake one) to recently lose their jobs. Dan Rather (and his team) made a mistake. Later they admitted to that mistake and apologized. The man resigned his post, proudly held, in disgrace. The “blogosphere” counts this as a victory.

I do not.

Personally, I’m still working out why I’m being curmudgeonly about blogging and the “blogosphere”. I’ve been reading about journalism and accreditation. I’ve been reading about journalistic ethics and responsibilities. I’ve also been reading about Hunter Thompson and the “New Journalism” that emerged from the 1960s. Reading a lot, and thinking. Thinking about gatekeepers and elitism, about peer-review and “many eyes make all bugs shallow”, about writing and editing, research and fact-checking.

Lots of thinking, trying to formulate a sensible opinion backed up by reasoned thought before writing it up. When I publish it, does that make me a journalist? No. A columnist? No. It makes me a woman with a website and an opinion, nothing more.

Noticed something silly this morning — the sleeve on my takeout coffee has a patent number. I looked it up. Clearly, I need to invent something. Stat.

Science at its best.

More science!

Steve Jackson Games, purveyors of such fine products as Car Wars, GURPS, and Illuminati, has started to sell electronic (PDF) versions of many of their publications. Without draconian copy-protection technology or other whackiness.

Q. Are the files in e23 copy protected?

A. No. That would interfere with your use of them. We just have to hope that we can sell enough to honest people to make up for what gets stolen by the kiddies and cheapskates.

Sadly, life is such that pencil + paper gaming is never likely to become a serious hobby for me again. When I was a student (highschool, dropout, and university) I used to play all the time. For the full length of one glorioius summer we had 5-7 people playing at least weekly, if not more often. From these times emerged such things as my love for King Crimson, and such strange insider funninesses as “Grope the Mega”.

Ah, me. Good times, good times.

Now, however, I’m a grown up and all my friends are grown up, and most of my friends don’t live anywhere near me (distributed, for the most part, evenly across North America from Nova Scotia to California and back again). Scheduling is nearly impossible, even for the local crew (all, like, 4 of us), and so forth.

Games like World of Warcraft sort of fill that gamery urge for me, but it’s a different animal than P&P gaming on almost every level. It wears a thin mask that makes it look a little bit like a “role playing game”, but it’s not. There’s no role playing. There’s no creativity. There’s no bending the rules. There’s no chance to stock your rogue’s pack with thin wire, chalk, packets of the Dust of Disappearance, thin bladed saws, silk rope, fine lockpicks, a bag of marbles, tiny caltrops…and other such “just in case there’s an emergency” items. Quests are static and unchangeable — everyone who runs a particular quest does the exact same thing — there’s no opportunity for a Dungeon Master to tweak the details to fit the party.

I miss proper P&P gaming. Even if Never Winter Nights had managed to deliver a module creation/editor system that wasn’t eye-stabbingly difficult to use (in other words, one that regular creative DM types could pick up and actually do something interesting with in about, oh, 2% of the current time it takes), it wouldn’t have been the same. As soon as you add graphics and sounds to this, it stops being a vehicle for imagination.

There is only one generation of gamers who grew up pencil and paper gaming. The original Dungeons & Dragons (Chainmail) was produced by Gary Gygax in 1971. The year I was born. Zork (arguably the first mass-market CRPG) was released in 1980. The Atari 2600 (for many of us, our first home game console) came out in 1982. Now the world is saturated with XBoxes, PS2s, GameCubes, high end gaming PCs, Game Boys, and an ever growing collection of other new gaming devices.

P&P gaming is a fringe thing, relegated again to the nerd world of back rooms at comic/game shops with big folding tables, bad chairs, too much Coke, and huge bags of chips. Video gaming is mainstream. In the end, however, will anyone think back, 20 years from now, and fondly recall that one time in Halo when they were the Master Chief and blew up hundreds of The Flood to finish the level? Will there be the same warm nostalgia I feel when I think back today to that time when my not-too-bright but hellishly-strong fighter (nicknamed “Slay” by the rest of the party) hauled out her gleaming bastard sword (shields are for pussies), ran through that guarded jail, and killed everything that moved before the mage could even get his wand out?

I bet not.

World of Warcraft is a good game, but it’s not a collaborative piece of interactive fiction. It’s fiction, and it’s interactive, but it’s not a collaboration. I miss that part most of all.

Ah, good times.

Drinking my first coffee this morning, I read two reviews, one of “Mech Assault: Lone Wolf” (game, XBox), and the other of “I Am Charlotte Simmons”, Tom Wolfe’s latest novel (book, Hardcopy). The constrast in writing styles between game reviewers and book reviewers amused me.

Game Review Excerpts

• Delivers more onscreen pyrotechnics than a Kiss concert.
• The new mech designs with new weapons also give a strong presence but it’s the addition of the battle armor and VTOL that makes the biggest impact.
• There is still a bit of linear gameplay in the single player mode which could be a bit more in depth and dynamic, but as it is, blowing stuff up has never been more fun.
• It’s the perfect mix of old school mech action with an arcade feel to it.
• While there’s occasional pop-up and clipping, those glitches are trumped by smooth animation and incredible explosions. When an enemy Mech is trashed, the bright blast lights up the screen and ripples the surrounding terrain in the most satisfyingly way.
• The sheer joy of destruction, variety of mechs and plethora of game types result in a fun if slower-paced online action game. This giant robot might not save the world, but it’s still a pretty good pal.

Book Review Excerpts

• More than a trifle but less than a masterpiece, the novel is an entertainment, and as such it seeks first to amuse and second to inform.
• So: sermon, melodrama, dystopian vision — I Am Charlotte Simmons partakes of all these, and does so stunningly. But it’s still as much polemic as novel. One closes the book feeling soiled by its cloacal vision and emotionally manipulated by its author.
• Mr Wolfe’s gifts for sartorial detail, verbal tics and all the tiny gestures that define place in the social pecking order are on hyperkinetic, at times tiresome, display.
• If it shares some Dickensian virtues, such as exuberant, lovingly crafted grotesquery, it also has Dickensian vices, such as long-windedness, and a fundamentally unbelievable heroine.
• The proportion of rant overload to silky observation has much increased.
• The problem is that Wolfe, whose writing has always been grossly adjectival and chic-specific, has failed to capture any news of interest about American youth, and comes off instead like one of those horrible professors who tried to make you listen to Imagine while simultaneously getting off on his status as a pedagogical errant.

The world, I think, needs a blending of these. At very least, we need book reviews written by people who sound less like annoying college professors who have never learned how to write for a non-academic audience. Less intellectual wanking, please, and more actual communication. Thx!

Addendum: This is not to say, of course, that I like most game reviews. I don’t. I find the authors generally untrustworthy and usually under-informed. The only game reviewers I actually trust and rely upon are the Penny Arcade guys, but that’s because 1) I know they’re not on the take, and 2) I know they actually play games. Tycho also writes well.

So, I’ve always been a bit of an Ikea fan, what having moved some 13-14 times in as many years. If you include a couple of interprovincial moves (Ontario to Nova Scotia to Ontario to Quebec to Ontario), you might start to understand the appeal of disposable furniture that’s more than milk crates and recycled bricks.

But now it’s a little scary. With 145 million copies, the Ikea catalogue is rumoured to be the second most-read publication after the Bible. That just bothers me at a pretty fundamental level. Here’s the article.

Guardian (UK paper) has published their Best Books of 2004 List, and most of them look very interesting. The question is, of course, will I ever actually make enough time to sit down and read more than a few pages per week, ever again?

I used to be an absolutely voracious reader. Maybe “read a book a week” should go on my New Year’s Resolution list (which, in itself, is new) along with the other well-intentioned things I’ve got on there (which are none of your business).

I know exactly why I don’t read as much as I used to. When I was in Montreal I used to easily read 2-3 books every week. I didn’t have a TV, and a huge amount of my disposable income got spent at Indigo Books. Then I made the mistake of looking over shaver’s shoulder one night when he was playing Asheron’s Call. Everything sort of started on a downward spiral from there.

I did manage to quit MMORPGs entirely for a while, but then I recently made the mistake of picking up World of Warcraft. It is, by far, the current shining pinnacle of the genre. It’s just plain old fun. But because of this alluring funnessity, it tends to suck up far more of my time than it should. Reading books is good. Running around chopping up zombies with big glowy swords…is really a helluva lot of fun, but less “good” on the “good vs waste of time” scale.

I should start reading again. Before my brain turns completely to Jello.

(This post got a little off track…)