Ad Astra

Last weekend at the SWA November Game-a-thon, I got to learn a new game: Ad Astra (Latin for "to the stars"), "from famed designers Bruno Faidutti (Citadels, Red November) and Serge Laget (Mystery of the Abbey, Shadows over Camelot)".

To call Ad Astra "derivative" could be understating the case, and you would be in good company with many other reviewers if you chose to make that charge. A little perspective, then...

Two years ago, when I failed miserably in a brief stint as an independent game designer, I envisioned and attempted to put together a game based on the theme of space colonization (hardly unique), using some mechanics based on multiple resource types used to build various structures and such. Making little headway, I had my friend and d21 cohort Random join in to help, which only proved that two inexperienced game designers working in tandem were no better than one. Perhaps that's being a bit too hard on ourselves, because industry veterans Faidutti and Laget succeeded making the sort of game we meant to, and the only thing they had, apparently, that we didn't, was a laser-like focus in repackaging Settlers of Catan while subbing in a few new mechanics from other popular games so that the whole heist was a bit less blatant. Not much less, though.

Now, almost fifteen years out from Catan's watershed arrival in the US, perhaps it's actually no longer even possible to make a game that's not stitched together from the various genes of a half dozen predecessors; so, let's be forgiving and set that aside and ask simply whether it's a good game or not? On that count, the answer is certainly "yes": on a reasonably short time line it gives you a robust set of actions and tactics and scheming and a-ha moments to be worth the play time. I played in a five-person and a four-person game: it was easy to learn and we got down to strategic nuances quickly. I tied for the win in game one and came back to win convincingly in game two. That's fair disclosure, because who doesn't like a game better when they start off on a winning streak, right?

The question of whether to own it, though, is a different matter. I still think that if you only own a few board games, Settlers ought to be one of them. It's such a classic and it's amazing how well it still holds up. Given that, Ad Astra gets you a new flavor that's fun for awhile, but I don't think it's demonstrably better in a way that would encourage you to forgo Settlers for Ad Astra. Therefore, it's a great game to hope your friend or local club has, so you can enjoy it now and then, without bearing the inevitable guilt that would arise from how few times it would get pulled out from your own closet to play, if you owned it. And at the fairly typical $40 price point, there's a whole bunch of other, newer, more original games that are worth your attention. Starting with Settlers, if you don't have it.

The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie

A few months after reading The City & The City, I got around to reading the other mystery on my list - Alan Bradley's debut novel, The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie. This one lacks 'City's weirdness: it's a straight-up classic mystery in style and pace, and I enjoyed it a lot. Its primary charm is the setting of a 1950 manor house and village in the British countryside, and the introduction of the unlikely, chemistry-obsessed heroine, eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce. The other thematic element of the novel is stamp collecting (Flavia's father's hobby), which is delightfully used as a vehicle of intrigue and drama, in ways you probably never thought possible.

Clever and wickedly funny throughout, with a great feel for characters and setting, it's of that style of novel that finds you racing into each new chapter, and clamoring for more of Flavia when it's done. (A second novel is already in the works.)

I think my mom would especially enjoy this one!

Overcoming Inconveniences

We just got and installed a new, wireless printer, an Epson Workforce 40 inkjet. It's been surprisingly annoying to not have a printer - we left our old one behind in a box in our attic because it was bulky and we didn't really have a place to set it up. The wireless is great because after a quick setup we were able to drop it in a whole different room, better location and less clutter. Kathleen started printing out coupons again in a big way this morning. One good thing about this model is that it can take an extra large capacity black ink tank, which should be a bit more economical than the usual tanks...

Also, in the improvements department: with me now working from home a few days a week, it was the last straw to get back onto a landline phone. Our cell coverage in the apartment has been spotty since day one. and we both underestimated what a pain that would be. I've been doing a bad job keeping up with family and friends just because of this. Kathleen's mom is getting sick of her calls dropping. So, starting next Tuesday (if Verizon can be believed - ha ha ha ha ha!), we'll be back on the copper. I'll be emailing out the number to those who need it - stay tuned.

What The New New Job Is Like

This is my first week at the new job, following a week's rest and recovery, after fleeing the Crazy Place the week prior. Knock on wood, all signs look really good right now. Nice people, understandable product and workflow, sanity...

This is a return to a big corporate environment for me, and I'm familiar with all the ups and downs that go with it. This particular office was once its own company before being acquired by the big multinational parent, but that was some years ago. So by now, my HR rep is out of Cincinnati, my technical supervisor is in California, and so on. Furthermore, just about everyone is telecommuting a couple days a week (including me!), which is great overall but a bit disconcerting when you're new in the place and trying to get up to speed.

Oh, and they just moved into a new building, which is beautiful, and a big improvement over the old place, I'm told. It's back to a "two workers sharing an office" layout, which is better than cubicles in my book. (My office mate seems normal and friendly enough!) Unfortunately, I don't yet have my computer, phone, or even permanent desk. (At least it's not the month-long wait for a security clearance here!) So, armed with a big pile of three-ring binders containing a heft of specs, op manuals, and designs, I've worked from home the last two days, where at least I can get on line and on the phone.

Do you think I would complain about reams and reams of paper documents? Not after that last place! They could have used just one of these books and been miles ahead. Pity them.

Oh, and my attempt to grow a nice beard in time for this job start was only a partial success. You can see it in the pictures from our Lake Placid trip, but that's all, because I shaved it off last Monday. While it was growing in pretty well, there was a lot of gray on my chinny chin chin. Kathleen advocated coloring it; I said no way, natural or nothing; she said, then shave it off! As the razor turns...

Only blip so far is getting the health benefits started up right. Too boring to dwell on, and in the end it only comes down to money, not health, so we'll get it taken care of and move on with life.

(I'm dealing with a more curious 1-2 financial sucker punch, anyway. My CIT stock tanked while we were away on vacation, but that was just the denouement after my foolishness to not sell when it spiked in late August, while we were busy packing for the move. And, our house in Batavia is still not sold, our contract with our iffy realtor is up, and we're weighing the pros and cons of just returning to For Sale By Owner with a vastly reduced price. Decisions, decisions...)

Stranger In A Strange Land

Whew! I've finally finished reading Heinlein's perhaps-classic-epic Stranger In A Strange Land. I've had my ups and downs with RAH in the past, and figured I really ought to give this one a try. I managed to end up with the "original, uncut" version, which is some 50% longer than what was first published. Which mostly meant to me, once I got past page 320 or so, that I kept thinking, "boy I could have been done by now!"

That's right, I wasn't a fan. Mostly it was long-winded and ridiculous, and went very heavy on what's got to be RAH's biggest failing: committing tons of pages to characters ranting on and on about one issue or another (religion, the government, society). This is not a story. In fact it did much to deaden any value of the actual narrative that haplessly wends its way along oh-so-pokily.

I think from some sort of cultural-historical perspective, there's something valuable contained in Stranger, but the same thing can be said about Moby Dick, and neither is a very good read in its own right anymore. It must be said that contemporary sci-fi authors have done at least as good a job exploring interesting questions of our time without sacrificing the joy provided by an actual good and entertaining story. My recommendation is that if you're curious about this novel, you'll be better served finding some sort of synopsis on Wikipedia and get on to reading an actual good book all the quicker.

Addendum, Nov. 6th:

If I were a college literature professor teaching a course in science fiction, I would have my students write a compare-and-contrast paper setting Valentine Michael Smith, the Man From Mars, against Jonathan Osterman, Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan. Musing this over in my mind as I read the novel produced at least as much introspection and amusement as the novel itself. Christ figure versus God figure, 60's new age optimism versus 60's burnout bitterness, and so on...

Our Trip Up North

Well, Kathleen beat me by a mile in getting pictures and stories posted. See:

- Our first day in North Creek.

- Our second day, in Lake Placid, at Wildwood.

- Our third day, including our climb up Cascade, and the night at the Mirror Lake Inn.

- Bonus: Charlie dressed up for Halloween.

The Way Out is the Way In...

Our desire to move to Albany was the plan-of-the-year; the enabling event came in August when I landed a job here, at a place that shall be lucky to go unnamed. Because, while they are a bunch of well-meaning (more or less) folks, they simply don't have the first clue how to organize and execute to produce professional-grade software. We started on the Dilbert-Office plane and slowly slid into the Kafka-esque, comedically helped along by the inept roofing crew above us, who seemed to have a knack only for randomly disrupting the building infrastructure (power, Internet, ceiling integrity...)

Football metaphor time: a running play. The tailback smashes into a wall of bodies where a hole was supposed to be. It's all stacked up. But the back keeps those legs churning, sheds tacklers, works around the pile, breaks to the outside, finds daylight - victory!

That, there, is basically the story of my professional life over the last two months. After falling into a very deep and dour pit of despair, I kind of levelled out, got a grip, and all the time kept following through on a glacially-paced job lead recruitment routine. It all came together with a great phone interview last week, a highly satisfactory job offer this week, my resignation at the Million Monkeys Software Shack on Thursday, and my break to freedom yesterday. Glory be.

Now I have a week off between jobs, just in time for Kathleen and I to celebrate our first anniversary in style. Many, many, many trip ideas were considered and passed over for various reasons. The most popular variety of reason being along the lines of - "ugh, that's not gonna be much fun with a ten-month old!". What we came up with as our winner is a 4-day, 3-night drive up the Northway to explore the Lake Placid region, with each night spent in a different fancy hotel. A combination of sightseeing, hiking, and shopping, in a setting that'll let us go with Charlie's flow, whatever that may be.

Posts and pictures as we're able.

I Hate New Music - It's Just a Book Title...

I've been dragging my way through Heinlein's ponderous and preposterous Stranger in a Strange Land, and needed a break. By chance, in the music section of our library, I found I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto, by accomplished music writer Dave Thompson. I had actually read about a dozen pages of this a half a year ago, killing time in a bookstore.

More than occasionally funny, and completely over-opinionated by its very premise, Thompson hones in on that exact moment (it was, roughly, late 1978) when rock sold out and stopped being cool. A mix of random and relevant vignettes providing a particular perspective. Lovingly absurd. A fine distraction.

Oh well, then, let's try and finish off this Heinlein monstrosity already...

The Shade Songbook

From 1990-1992 or so, I put together and led a band that made original pop-prog-rock music, under the fairly generic and unoriginal name of Shade. Ah, I was but a bright-eyed college lad, and had only taken up guitar two years earlier. Still, I was a fast learner, and safely relegated myself to rhythm and vocals as an extension of my songwriting; I happily cranked out song after song, scarcely ever stopping to check whether anyone else noticed or cared. Innocent bliss!

The band dissolved without drama as members started graduating and otherwise moving on. In late '92 and into early '93, I got to work with a Yamaha cassette 4-track in my the basement to try and capture these songs for posterity. I thought I was aspiring to high-fidelity at the time, but, sadly, no. A very small handful of SM57s for the drums (even the kick!), the usual onslaught of track-bouncing, an early Zoom box that rendered all the lead guitars with generally inappropriate buzzsaw splendour. My bad singing. Just brutal.

Credit where credit is due. I wrote and sung most of the songs, but everyone worked out their own parts in standard band style. Lead guitar: Mike Miller (1990-1991) and Dave Pandolfi (1991-1992), bass: Jim Scannell, drums: Kim Waff. On the recording, however, Kim did the drums and I did everything else. It was clearly a retrospective effort.

I recently located the resulting cassette from this project, handily sitting inside a working tape deck. I decided it was time to get these things digitized, so I pulled them into ProTools and saved them off as PCM .wav files. Then I encoded them as 256kbps .mp3 files - but made no effort to clean up the original tracks in any way other than fading in and out the noise floor at the beginning and end of each song.

So with no further ado, I present The Shade Songbook. Eighteen tracks of shiny-bright nostalgia. All the favorites, and all the way on down to songs that even I had forgotten existed. The goofy lyrics. The buzzsaw solos. Et cetera.

Though the time may be coming to start mining this trove for hidden gems and spare parts... you never know when and where these songs will re-appear, and in what form. They rise from the dead, bwah hah hah!

All right then - enjoy!