Hiding Your Options

ZIP.ca is a Canadian version of Netflix. Recently, there was a big postal strike that affected mail delivery across the country. While the postal strike and negotiations lasted for over a month, ZIP is giving its clients 13 days of "make-goods" for our inability to return watched, or receive new, movies.

What I think is funny is that, when I contacted them directly via their online support Chat function, the CSR I chatted with said specifically that they would contact each affected person personally (i.e., via email) with what those make-goods would be. I have yet to receive that email. Then, last week, my wife signed in to our account and saw a button to click relating to the make-goods at the top of the home screen for their website. As she wanted to discuss the issues with me, she ignored it and did what she signed in to do. When she mentioned it to me, I logged in and did not see any link or display on the home page.

We discussed it again last night. I logged in and showed her that I could not see the link on the home page she mentioned. She logged in and verified it wasn't on her screen either. I then called the company's 24/7 support line and explained what I wanted. The person was not at all surprised. I told him I was in front of my PC and logged in to my account. I asked if he could just walk me through where that selection was so I could pick my make-good. He said, "You have to type the address I'll give you into the browser address field; you can't get to it from the website."

'Pretty tricky,' I thought. They put a link up that was a one-off display when you first logged in to your account (or was a limited time header on their main page). If you did not selected it that one time (or during the limited time) it displayed, you were SOL unless you thought to call them and ask them about it.

This strikes me as a nation-wide company with thousands of members affected by the postal strike doing its best to:

1. Seem like it cares and will do something for its members.
2. Make it as hard for its members to actually get their money back using one of the two options they provided.
3. Limit the amount it gives its customers by determining that people were affected for a far shorter period of time than the mail strike actually affected folks (at least for those of us in Atlantic Canada).

I am not averse to a company making a profit. However, when you own a company that deals with the mail exclusively and the mail is down for a period of time, your customers will be affected and should be compensated for the time they were unable to use your company. If you do this willingly, even maybe going the extra mile for them, they will be loyal and happy customers. Happy customers' positive word-of-mouth may even make you a few more customers, allowing you to make more profits.

However, on the flip side, doing as little as you can, determining that people were affected for far less time than they actually were, and hiding, obfuscating, and/or limiting people's access to the benefits will garner you people dropping their subscription rate, canceling their account altogether, and negative word-of-mouth, which may cause more previously-loyal customers leaving your company. And all of this lowers your profit margins.

In the end, we decided to take one of the make-goods, lower our current account by one step (saving us $8 a month), and are considering canceling once we burn through all of our Zip points we have collected. I can't help but wonder how many others will do something similar?

Perspective

Yesterday, my wife and I were returning from the movies. As we neared a particular intersection, I saw one vehicle coming toward us. Once that car passed, I started to go. A sharp intake of breath and a, "Geez John!" from my wife and I slammed back on my brake. At that moment, out from behind the passenger-side post came an entire other vehicle that I would have hit dead-on had I continued going.

It is funny to think that an entire vehicle can hide behind that post, but, of course, the post is really close to you and the car, for all its size, is farther away.

The posts that hold up the roof/ceiling of the cab area on my vehicle are about 12" wide at the base and a fairly steady 4" wide the rest of the way up. But that width is only about 3' away from me, at the farthest, while the 7' long and 5' wide car is 30+ feet away from me. In this particular instance, the fact that my perspective as the driver was so impeded by these thick, plastic and metal struts nearly caused a hellacious accident.

One thing my wife and I have noticed is that this issue is becoming more pronounced. Newer cars seem to have even thicker, wider posts, and the bases often have speakers and air vents in them, making them even wider. This is problematic as it can seriously impede your ability to see cross traffic, around corners or bends in the road, and can make your "blind spot" even larger -- all of which can increase your chances for being in a collision.

I'm very happy and lucky that my wife wanted to see that movie with me yesterday. If she hadn't, who knows what could have happened?

ISP Coercion

I have grown to hate something since I moved to my present location, outside of the US: ISPs are now using your IP address to "better service" customers by providing them with pages and language preferences typical to the IP address location. The problem is that I'm an American living in a foreign country. I don't want to see the Canadian web page or have my pages default to UK English automatically!

The big catch seems to be that there is no way to turn this feature off that I can find. It is automated in the background, as a "convenience" to users, with no way to set and keep your own default. I now have pages that are telling me that "theater" is incorrectly spelled because it is not "theatre." Ahem, actually both are English and both are correct, damn it! I have sports pages I frequent defaulting to the ".ca" extension instead of the ".com" one, and giving me splash pages of hockey and soccer over American football, baseball, and basketball. Hell, even when I follow a link to MTV.com, the site displays a warning about how there are two versions, the American and the Canadian, and didn't I really mean to go to the Canadian one? No, God damn it!

I expect certain sites, like providers of content, to screw me because I'm in Canada and the CRTC rules won't allow me to watch whatever I want via American content providers; that's stupid and short-sighted, but fine. But I do NOT want my ISPs and content providers assuming, just because I'm using a foreign IP address that I MUST need UK English and Canadian features, or take me to a Canadian site that may or may not have the article(s) I want to read! Haven't these people ever heard of expatriates? Haven't they ever been on vacation in a foreign country, even if it is just a quick trip to Vancouver or short hop to Tijuana? If they did, weren't they frustrated by the IP address used in that foreign country not giving them the sites and information they wanted and were accustomed to?

Somewhere in my browers or on each individual site, I want to tell them my nationality or my site/language preferences, or something, that will override the IP address info and allow me to see what I want to see (within legal limits, of course).

Is that so freaking hard to do or understand?

Parenting Is Hard Work

Being a parent is hard work. You are responsible for making this little human being into a worthwhile and productive member of society. I am not a parent, but I watch other parents (especially my friends who are), and I observe which parents have respectful, intelligent, and productive children and which do not. This shows me that there are many different techniques and styles of parenting, and some are more successful than others. When left with children (either babysitting or when parents briefly leave the child in my care while they take care of something else in the house), I then try to put into practice what I've learned through observation. For the most part, those practices that I observe in the successful parents work and keep the children manageable, calm, and invested in whatever we are doing.

What I have noted is that those parents who provide boundaries, are consistent in what they want, and provide reasonable expectations, punishments, and rewards seem to have the "best," most well-behaved, and respectful children. These children also frequently come across as more intelligent than other children as a result (they speak in full sentences, reason well, and are polite).

I was recently around some parents. In one case, the mother and father always seemed to be overwhelmed by each situation that the child brought about. They were not consistent in their punishment or expectations, but were consistent in rewarding the child. Three examples:

• Child wanted a balloon. Mother said no. Child started screaming and whining. Mother "explained" to the child why he couldn't have one. Child continued screaming until the mother relented and gave the child a balloon. Result: Child was rewarded with what he wanted and learned that mother's "No" is meaningless.
• Mother told child that he could have one cupcake. Child didn't want the cupcake; he only wanted the frosting. Child then reached for a second cupcake. I said no, trying to back up the mother's stated rule while she was busy with someone else. Mother asked me not to interfere with the child's parenting, proceeded to explain to the child why he couldn't have another cupcake, and then rewarded him with a piece of birthday cake (which he promptly ate all of the frosting off of and ignored). Result: Child was rewarded with something even better than what he wanted and learned that mother's (and my) "No" is meaningless.
• Child started opening a birthday gift prior to when the parents wanted him to. First one parent (mother) and then the other (father) told the child No and that he must wait. After the father said no, the child went screaming into the house, found the mother, who then came out and said, "Let him open one, what can it hurt?" I got up to leave, saying, "He won't stop at one." Sure enough, the child screamed and cried until they relented and let him open all of his presents right then. Result: Child was rewarded with what he wanted and reinforced that parents "No" is meaningless.

In each case, the parents presented a boundary, but neither of them enforced it with some sort of punishment (other than a lecture that the child wasn't listening to nor possibly understood) to give that boundary any meaning. Instead, they rewarded the bad behavior. When this child was with me, my wife, or any other adult except for either of his parents (especially the mother), he was relatively well-behaved, he did what we told him to, and things ran fairly smoothly.

The only conclusions I can draw from this is that the child, at a very young age (3) has already learned a few tricks that you expect from older children:

• How to manipulate one parent against the other (re: opening the presents).
• How to get what it wants (re: every interaction with either parent, but especially the mother).
• How it can ignore any other adult if his mother is nearby.

When left alone with this child, I took it upon myself to be calm, reasonable, not to speak down to the child, and to be consistent. Each time, I was either able to get him to do something he had flat out said No to one or both of his parents about, or get him to do/not do something I specifically wanted him to do/not do. He was calm, respectful, and even eager. This further supports my supposition that a certain set of behavior and actions on the part of the parents will create the type of child that any parent wants (within reason; I recognize that there are mental and physical reasons why some children are behaviorally problematic regardless of parenting technique).

I am hopeful that this parenting duo will figure out some way in which to get this child to behave before his behavior adversely affects their youngest child and before he gets into some sort of serious trouble as he gets older. The lack of respect the child shows for his parents and for other adults at such an early age could lead to severe behavior issues in school and the community as he gets older. Without some sort of enforced boundaries, this child will continue down this path and will, as he already does now, continue to rule the household.

Budget Crisis

Every economist, and every person who has tried to balance their own personal budget, agrees that there are only two ways to cut a deficit:

1. Cut spending
2. Increase funding (in the case of gov't, increase taxes)

Often a government can do one or the other. Sometimes it has to do both. When you are looking at a 14.3 trillion dollar deficit, you have to consider both, as there simply aren't enough places where you can cut to make up that mind-blowing figure.

The Republicans have said outright that raising taxes if "off the table" (John Boehner, among others). So, although there is literally and factually no way to cut spending enough to make up the difference in the budget, one half of all of the solutions to solve the budget crisis is off the table. This makes no sense, especially as you consider the fundamentals of the conservatives throughout the years (a good article calling this and other recent decisions into focus was published by Time recently). Why take any option off the table, unless you have an ulterior motive?

It seems like the Republicans want this crisis to grow and deepen for political reasons. While I did not condone or agree with the way the Democrats tried to throw their weight around when they won both the Presidency and control of Congress, it seems really petty and, frankly, dangerous how the Republicans are now doing the same thing back again. By making a bold declaration like raising taxes is off the table, they put the entire country at risk of financial collapse just so they can turn around and say, "See the President screwed up. He can't lead the country." And, unfortunately, most Americans appear to be stupid or ignorant enough to agree with them without ever looking at the facts.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich makes some very interesting points about the economy in 2 minutes and 15 seconds in this video. Yet our current Republican leadership wants to ignore those facts and figures and continue to give tax breaks to those who don't need it, screw those that do need it, and further the gap between the wealthiest few and the majority. The problem with trickle-down economics, as we learned in the 1980s and 1990s and are rehashing today is that those that have the money will do everything within their power to keep that money FROM trickling down (a good video explaining this, in part (about 10 minutes)). Business would much rather have free labor than pay for it, the rich would much rather keep their riches than have it flow to the government or trickle down to those who work for them.

And I don't blame them. I want to keep every red cent that I get from my own paycheck. I do everything I can to make sure my expenses are less than the paycheck each month so I can a) afford to save some money and b) afford to do or get the things I want and need. That is true of every person on the planet, and is doubly true for governments, businesses, and the wealthiest few.

I'm not blaming the Republicans for this impasse solely. The Democrats are too quick with the raising taxes philosophy. We should and do need to cut many gov't jobs and bureaucracies. Over the last 10-15 years, gov't has become a bloated entity with a lot of fat it could stand to lose. In this, the Republicans are right. But the Democrats are right also in that, following the advice of nearly all economists (from both sides of the argument), cutting is not enough and some way must be found to bring in more money -- and the only way a gov't can do that is through taxes. Even a 1% flat federal tax would make a significant difference to the deficit. Of course, as Robert Reich mentions in the link (above) and many economists have been arguing, getting more money into the hands of the majority of people means the majority of people will spend it, which improves the businesses, improves the economy, and also eats into the deficit. Getting the 150 million + people in the middle class spending $100 a month more into the economy helps a whole lot more than giving the wealthiest 10 million people another a tax break. If anything, we need to try a trickle UP economic theory, as that is precisely what made America great over the last 100 years -- the ability for more and more people to become a part of the middle class, and that middle class buying stuff, trickles the money up through the businesses to the wealthiest individuals and into the gov't coffers (through taxes to both people and businesses).

So, the Republicans need to stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater and start looking at ALL solutions to this economic crisis. While most of our leaders probably think they are in that wealthiest group and won't be affected by this budget crisis, they have another think coming. And the Democrats need to understand that the Repubs are right -- many gov't agencies and budgets could stand to be cut into, and deeply, and they should choose their battles over what to keep.

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Oh, and one more thing: the Repubs are going after two long-time "social" agencies, Social Security and Medicare. President Bush more than once went on record as saying that the money in SS was "ours" (meaning, each individual's). If the Repubs are successful in getting rid of that agency and "bloat," I'm going to be contacting them for a check for the 20 years worth of money I have invested in it -- their own most recent leadership agreed it was mine and that I should be able to invest it any way I see fit for retirement. Oh, wait, did you think I was just going to let you keep it to help with the budget crisis? No, I don't think so. Just like them, I want to keep every cent I have earned, including those that the gov't forced me to give them.

As to Medicare, it could stand to be trimmed and retooled, but doesn't have to go away. Why can't America look at any one of the dozens of other nations that do universal health care successfully and cheaply and model our agencies and services after those? It doesn't have to be a bloated mess and it doesn't have to use more than 1% of GDP. People don't seem to realize that, since the 1960s, America has steadily declined in per capita comparisons with all other industrialized nations in health care provided, costs, death rates, infant mortality, number of uninsured, and other key stats. So, since America privatized the medical business, people's health has steadily declined and profits for insurance, pharmacy, and medical business have increased (just one source, but you can find many that come to the same conclusions). Coincidence?

Other Household Chores

In addition to replacing the toilet in the main bathroom, I completed some other home improvement tasks recently. They are small things, and inexpensive to do, but have made a big difference.

I had noticed that our main closet in the bedroom had a lot of space above the one shelf and a lot of our crap on the floor. It struck me one day that we should put in another shelf above the first and get some of that stuff off the floor. I then walked around to the office and coat closets and saw the same issue-- a lot of head space not being efficiently used and a lot of junk on the floor. I suggested my idea to M and she agreed: let's put in a second shelf.

We went to Home Depot and got the same style of white wire mesh shelves that all of our closets have and had them cut to size (praying I had measured twice and had good numbers for the cutting). We picked up some of the special fasteners used to install them to the wall. We purchased shelves that were 12" deep so we could have some extra room to maneuver items up onto and down off of the shelf, once installed. The lower shelves are all much deeper.

Prior to installing the shelves, we had approximately 2.5 feet of unused space up there. We couldn't stack stuff well enough to make any significant use of the space. I determined that installing the shelves 13" down from the ceiling would allow for the best use of the space (and, in the case of the coat closet, would exactly fit three shoe boxes stacked on top of each other with a little wiggle room to spare).

What a difference! Our closets feel much more organized, cleaner, and roomier.

Another project I undertook recently was to convince M that we could use a new, curved shower curtain rod in the bathroom. The straight one was okay, but we had installed a new clear plastic shower curtain and a new, larger, blue decorative shower curtain that took up a lot more space inside the shower stall. She was a bit hesitant, but willing to go for it if we see a curved shower rod on sale.

A few weeks ago, M found one on sale and picked it up. A few days later I installed it. Again, what a difference. Instead of standing and feeling the plastic shower curtain on my shoulder and arm, it is well away. The distance the curve moves out also allows the plastic shower curtain to rest against the side of the tub instead of along the floor. And, as an unexpected but nice bonus feature, the curve allows a lot more light into the shower stall during showers (the blue decorative curtain was blocking a lot of the light and made showering, even with the light on, a very dark experience).

It is funny how a few fairly inexpensive changes can make such a nice difference in a house. Now, if we can just figure out a way to get more kitchen storage, we'll be styling (I'm thinking an island of some sort).

Toilet Trouble

Before I moved in with my wife, she bought and had her father install a new toilet. The toilet was nice enough, but soon after we discovered that it had some issues. First, one of the openings in the porcelain through which the water was supposed to exit was slightly misshapen and caused water to spray out over the seat and making it nearly as far as the wall at times. Second, it didn't do a great job with light waste, like a single sheet of toilet tissue. Third, it didn't always handle the larger waste loads either, often needing a second flush or plunging.

These issues grew steadily more annoying, especially the fact we had to lift the lid and seat up before flushing, otherwise the seat got sprayed with water, which we didn't think was very sanitary. We set aside some money for a replacement. Along the way, we learned that toilets do have a warranty and, if we had acted sooner, we could have replaced the non-working toilet with the same model/brand. This may have fixed the spraying water issue, but I think the waste removal issues were endemic to that model and brand of toilet, so we still would have had those.

This time, we did a lot more research. We checked with Consumer Reports, we read personal accounts of toilets, and even watched our favorite brands on YouTube (believe it or not, there are toilet flushing videos on YouTube -- nothing gross, just tests of various toilets in action, often with golf balls, pepper, and similar objects and materials being flushed).

M was convinced we needed one of the ultra, best, most expensive models. I argued otherwise. Soon we came to a brand (American Standard) and model (Flowise Cadet 3) that seemed a nice middle ground and that seemed to have pretty good reviews both on Consumer Reports and by people actually using them. It was important to us that it be the highest rating for waste removal (1000 g) and that the bowl was easy to clean (the model has a super slick coating that stays very clean). It turned out it was a 1.26 G, which was smaller than the 1.6 we had before and far better than the much bigger, older-style toilets use (4 or even 6 G). The fact that the flush is so quiet was a pleasant surprise.

We found the model on sale at Home Depot and, after checking the box to make sure everything looked good and all the parts were there, we went home. I installed it that weekend.

What a difference having such a quiet, powerful, spray-free flush back in the main bathroom! It did not take long to install (longer than it needed to because I was working alone, but it wasn't bad all things considered). The bowl stays pretty clean, it has so far flushed everything we have provided it to flush, it has no issues with lighter loads returning or removing heavier loads, and it is using much less water than the previous toilet. We are actually having to retrain ourselves not to lift the lid and seat when flushing, because there is no spray or issues.

We definitely recommend the American Standard Cadet 3 Flowise (two-piece) toilet. A very good value for the money.

Waxing Poetic

A teaspoon amount of something is not a lot of material. However, when it is a teaspoon amount of earwax syringed from your right ear, it seems like an awful lot.

Well over a week ago (closer to two weeks now), I was shaving in the shower and got a little water and shaving cream in my right ear. As expected, my ear closed up and I became temporarily deaf in that ear. I finished the shaving and the shower and assumed that everything would be okay in a few hours or a day or two, at most. As the deafness extended day after day, and using ear wax removal drops every other day did nothing, I began to worry a bit. My hearing isn't great to begin with, and losing it or, when it was working, having sounds muffled and obscured was not working for me.

I've had tinnitus in both my ears since I was in my late teens or early twenties. With this constant situation, the tinnitus in my right ear had grown to be incredibly, annoyingly loud. I was also hearing a sloshing sound and even pops, as of bubbles popping, inside my ear.

Finally, today, I was able to get into the nearby clinic and have the doctor take a look. He used a giant syringe to wash out the ear after seeing a ton of wax in there. Approximately a teaspoon full of hard, golden-brown material that looked like cottage cheese came coursing out of my ear. He rinsed my other ear as well, and got about a half-teaspoon of what looked like golden-brown hair or thread out of that ear. Pretty disgusting and disturbing that there can be that much inside your ear!

My hearing appears to be fine now, and everything seems to be dried out. I'm a little disappointed to find that the tinnitus hasn't really improved in that ear. I have an appointment for later this month with my GP, so I'll mention it to him at that time. For now, I'm just happy that my hearing, such as it is, has been restored to me.

eBook Pricing

Electronic formats for books, comics, texts, etc. are currently being price, in a majority of instances, at the same or very similar levels as physical copies.

In the 1980s, the average paperback cost between $2.00 and $4.00 to purchase from a brick and mortar book store, the only kind of book store that existed. This price was enough to cover the physical printing, publishing, royalty, distribution, warehousing/storage, and editing costs while also allowing for the brick and mortar store to make a profit.

When prices started to rise in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I contacted publishers and book stores to ask why. Each company on both sides of the business said the same thing: the physical costs of publishing were increasing. For a time it was the ink costs. Then they claimed it was the paper costs. Then they were outsourcing the printing, so the warehousing and distribution costs went up. An interesting thing to note along the way is that, when ink prices went back down, the books stayed the same price. When the paper bubble burst, the price stayed the same. When book sellers got smart and nationalized their distribution processes and started using better computerized tracking methods, the prices stayed the same. When Amazon (and other online distributors) came about, and could sell in bulk and didn't have any brick and mortar stores to affect overhead, the prices still went up.

The average paperback now costs between $7.00 and $10.00. If what the publisher, distributors, and retailers have been telling us for over 30 years is true, then it is primarily because of the physical costs of printing, storing, and moving the books around.

Now we have the Kindle and other eBook readers revolutionizing how we read and get the written word. A company like Amazon can use a tiny fraction of their online resources to house one electronic copy of a book that they can then sell to thousands of people. This e-copy of the book has no printing costs, infinitesimal "storage" and "distribution" costs, used no paper, ink, wood, glue, cloth, or thread to make. It requires no energy from planes, trucks, or trains to move it around the world, no people to box it and unbox, no brick and mortar store that requires people to work it, rent to be paid, and electricity to be used to light. It is, literally, a few hundred kilobytes sitting on a server somewhere that every person who wants that book gets a copy of. So, if the physical costs are the main reason we are paying so much for a physical book, then we should be getting the electronic copy for much, much less, right?

Wrong.

A friend shared information that a friend of his, who works in publishing, had, that indicates that, rather than what we have been told for the last 30 years, the real reason why we pay so much for the electronic copy is to, in essence, dissuade people from buying them. The publishers are trying to help brick and mortar stores by keeping the electronic copy artificially high so that people will continue to support their local store.

Er, what?

Instead of letting the market decide which is the better option and letting the strongest, most profitable system win (in this case, letting the brick and mortar store die, apparently), we are paying at least 50% higher for electronic copies to keep those failing stores alive a little longer. I use 50%, because the friend went on to say that about 50% of the recommended retail price is for the brick and mortar store. So, on each of those $26 hard cover books, about $13 is going to Barnes and Noble, etc. Of the other $13, that is used to defray the physical costs of printing the book, the royalties to the author, and for the publisher's needs. This is how Amazon was able to give lower prices at first: they didn't have the physical stores that Barnes and Noble's had, so they could eat into their half of the profits to sell more books. Now, they have that bonus and the bonus of being the biggest book retailer in the world to negotiate prices, and can keep the prices down through volume sales.

It appears that, until or unless we stand up, question this practice, and demand lower costs on these electronic copies of books, we will continue to be charged roughly 50% higher than needed on them.

As anyone who frequents this blog can attest, I LOVE my Kindle. My wife loves hers. My sister loves hers. Our friends love theirs. As Amazon has shown, they are now selling more Kindle versions of books than they are physical copies. The benefit to having, literally, your entire library on one slim, light-weight device to take with you is incredible. And, if you aren't in the mood for one thing, you have your entire library of other books to choose from, or can download a new one in the space of about a minute. If all of us contact publishers and retailers and demand lower prices, we will get lower prices. But we have to stand up and be counted. We have to make our voices heard, or these companies will continue to overcharge us for these products.

And, in case anyone thinks I'm against brick and mortar stores or physical books, I'm not. I have a wealth of books on my shelves. I love the smell of a new book (and even old ones). I love the feel of the paper and looking at the illustrations (which many electronic copies do not keep, even though most eReaders can display them (although maybe not in color)). There are many books I will continue to buy in a physical copy. However, the eBook format is here to stay. It is comfortable and has many advantages over a physical book. And they are constantly upgrading them and refining them to be more and more like reading a physical book all the time. I'm even seeing that color e-Ink Kindles and other readers may be around the corner. I just want the pricing to reflect the costs (and allowing for a decent amount of profit) for whichever copy I choose to buy. If I buy physical copies, I expect to pay more and understand that. If I buy an electronic book, I expect the pricing to be less due to the reasons I've stated in this post. When it is not, and especially when the e-copy is more expensive, I want to know why.

Only Remembering the Bad Times

For some reason, lately I've been musing about an incident that happened when I was a boy. The family had gone out jeeping, which was a favorite activity during the summer months for our family. We often went with friends of ours, who also had a jeep, and sometimes we went alone.

On this particular occasion, my father was driving our blue Jeep CJ-5, mom in the passenger seat, with me on the drive's side and my sister next to me in the back seat. We had just gone up a particularly steep, bowl-shaped dune and dad was driving along the ridge. He suddenly decided the drive across the dune's face from left to right. This scared me. Being so light and small at the time, my seat belt didn't fit as snuggly as I would have liked, so I suddenly slid toward my sister, which scared me further. It was during this first pass that I realized I have a a small, specific sense of vertigo that can strike me when I look straight down from a high place.

Needless to say, I yelled out to dad something along the lines of, "Stop dad, I think I'm going to be sick!"

Dad's response was to say, "Nonsense!"

When we reached the far side of the dune's face he turned around and went back, this time with me on the "bottom" side of the dune, so that there was nothing for me to look at but the side of the jeep and the long drop down the very steep dune's face. Being bowl-shaped, this time dad decided to try to do a complete ring around the face of the dune... the entire time with me yelling (well, really, screaming... remember, I was just a boy and most people know that when a boy yells it comes out more like a high-pitched scream).

Needless to say, I started crying, felt really sick, and was very afraid of the way gravity and centripetal force was acting on my small frame. I screamed more. Dad started laughing and kept going faster, thrilling with the rush of Man versus Nature and, I'm still sure to this day, not even realizing there was some Man versus Man going on inside the jeep.

Mom started asking him to stop, as she could see me and see that I was bawling and white as a sheet. However, it took her a couple of tries, until finally a very sharp, crisp, "Dan!" broke through and he eased out of the bowl and up onto the side. I promptly threw up over the side of the jeep and couldn't stop shaking or crying.

I'm not sure why, at 40 years old and probably around 30-33 years later this image and memory has pressed to the fore and been so vividly on my mind the last week or two. Yes, we just had Father's Day, so that may be a factor. But, other than that, I cannot figure out why this has been haunting me of late.

I've always had a fairly complex relationship with my father. My memory of him is primarily of him being away, even though he only spent about a year in Okinawa (but he left when I was between one and two and came back before I turned three or so). He also had a job in Fontana for a few years when I only saw him on weekends (and then not every weekend). He also worked for a few years in Kuwait. But, overall, he was actually present, there in our small town, working for the military.

Overall and objectively he was a good father. He took me hunting and target shooting. He taught me woodworking skills and helped me to build a make-shift tree house and a fort. He taught me how to maintain vehicles, including change the oil and oil filter, check the spark plug gaps, check the timing, replace a dead battery, change a tire. He was the primary parent who taught me how to drive (although, once I had my license, I primarily drove with my mother). He, being a career military man and proud of it, even took me aside during my senior year in high school and said, "John, the military isn't right for you. You should go to college." He later explained that what he meant was that I was too questioning of authority, I gave respect too rarely, and that he thought I would likely get my ass kicked repeatedly in the military... and he's probably right.

Emotionally, however, I consider him absent and always remember the bad things. Why is that?

When I think of my dad and tell stories to my wife about growing up, it is the instances like the one I describe here that I usually tell in detail (or at all). Another one I tell a lot is about the time he flew back from Kuwait and arrived wearing a white Kuwaiti-style robe and had a long, full beard and mustache and when he tried to kiss me and say hello I screamed and hid behind mom because I didn't recognize him at all. Or the time he was spanking me with the paddle and I refused to cry (one of the first times I started really bottling up my emotions, a trait I still have and can't seem to stop to this day) and the paddle actually broke (just a small section came off); I still remember the surprised look on dad's face as he sent me to my room.

Why is it that, even though I consciously and logical know that he was a good and decent father, who did a lot for me and with me and helped me become the man I am today, I still mostly remember and think of the bad things?

Readership

Not so long ago, I found the Blogspot option to turn on "Reactions" on my posts. This allowed me to add simple buttons that readers can press to say (after I edited them) whether they Liked or Disliked a post (I used to have Netural as a selection, too, but no one ever seemed to use it, so I removed it). This new feature helped me understand that, while I thought only about four or five people read my blogs, that really it is around 12-15 (maybe more) who do. Which is exciting news to me.

However, one thing else I have also noted: while I never received many Comments to my blog, the number seems to have decreased by turning on the Reactions. Now, instead of typing even a quick word or two about it, people are simply clicking whether they like or dislike it and moving on. This, for me, is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it has helped me discover that I have more readers than I initially thought. On the other hand, by simply clicking Dislike without actually posting a comment as what they disliked, I am left wonder what about the post they didn't care for.

For example, take my last post about celebrities and politicians that get caught in nude picture/sex scandals. I simply stated an opinion that if these people would keep their "junk" in their pants, not film it or take pictures of it, then these scandals wouldn't happen. I also asserted that if you were feeling sexual toward another that you should either a) divorce the one you are current with so that you can have sex with that other person or b) take that pent up sexuality home and have sex with the one you are married to. Both of which would, again, keep a scandal from happening (or at least minimize it) and seem like logical, common-sense solutions to the situation.

Two people marked this post as Dislike. I am fine with their dislike in a general sense. I'm happy they read the post and happy they had an opinion on it. However, I'm having a hard time understanding what about it they disliked. Do they dislike that I am trying to help celebrities to stop having sexually-related scandals? Do they object to the simplicity of my argument? Do they reject that I called Weiner an idiot? Is it their preference that we should continue to have more of these scandals in the future? Do they have an alternate plan for stopping these scandals, something I didn't cover or haven't thought of?

Another example is the recent post on steroids and Lance Armstrong. In this, my thesis is that it doesn't matter whether Lance Armstrong took or didn't take steroids. If he did not take them, then is accomplishments are that much more impressive. If he did take them, then he was still the best of a group who, it seems, all took steroids. Either the playing fields was not level (and Armstrong was nearly super-humanly good at his sport) or the playing field was level (and Armstrong was the best of the cheaters).

Similarly, two people selected Dislike on that post, too, and I wonder what it was they disliked. Did they feel that I was biased and made it sound like Armstrong was guilty? Did they feel like I was missing some vital piece of the puzzle? Do they feel that steroids are so bad that they don't want to Like something that says that the playing field might be level because of steroid use? Was it simply that I was not clear in my assertions?

Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen with every post. When I write something that is stating my religious, political, or a similar view point and someone simply clicks Dislike, I respect it and don't question it. If that post is leaning left, I assume it is a right-winged friend who doesn't see it the same way. If it is leaning right, I assume it is a left-winged friend who is affronted. When it is religious, I assume a friend who is not of the same belief system (or lack of one) is protesting what I wrote. All of which is fine and makes sense. But on the other posts, the posts with no clear-cut stance or that is trying to make sense of what I am seeing and reading, I am frequently left wondering what it is that the person who clicked Dislike is against. Without a comment from them, I am left scratching my head. I am happy to have the dissenting opinion posted so I can learn why the person disagrees or what specifically they are disagreeing with.

So, if you disagree with a post, please feel free to add a comment with an explanation. You do have to be signed up with a Google, Blogspot, or another type of verification process (I was getting spammed, so, unfortunately, had to turn on that requirement) in order to comment, but they are easy and free to get. I'd love to hear from you.

Keep It In Your Pants

So, there is something about all these political and celebrity scandals that I simply don't get: if you keep it in your pants, and don't film it or take pictures of it, none of this happens.These scandals are all entirely self-made by what I can only assume are self-destructive people.

My thinking on this is pretty simple: if you want to have sex with people who are not your wife, you should divorce your wife and then do so -- then there is no scandal. If you want to stay married, then KEEP YOUR PENIS IN YOUR PANTS when with any female who is not your wife, and you'll be fine. If your penis is in your pants, sex can't happen, pictures can't happen, and lewd acts can't happen. Problem solved.

Why is this so hard for celebrities and politicians to understand?

And, if you do decide to whip it out and let it be exposed, and thereby allow these bad decisions to happen, then DON'T LIE ABOUT IT. If there is one thing that we've learned over and over is that if you lie about it, the story doesn't die and it'll just be worse for you and your wife when the truth does finally come out. The moment you apologize for it, the American public is pretty much willing to drop it. If Rep. Wiener (to pick the current idiot with this problem) had just apologized, admitted to it, and moved on, we would be talking about other things 10 days later than his penis. The fact he lied and tried to cover it up for 10 days just makes it worse.

Lastly, if you see some female that turns you on that much, why not take that sexual tension and your libido home to your wife and use it all on her? She'll probably enjoy it and be happy and it will keep you from having an embarrassing scandal in your near future. If, for any reason, you don't feel you can do that, divorce your wife and then proceed. Your audience/constituents will be less worried about a divorce than they will be with you lying and committing adultery.

The Silent Majority

What America needs is a great Moderate leader to come out of nowhere. This person needs to be erudite, well-read, versed in politics in some fashion, and charismatic. He or she needs to have salient facts and a winning disposition and a virtually unassailable background. And, best of all, this person should be a third-party candidate.

People laughed when Jesse "The Body" Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota. They laughed until he won, and then got reelected. What was fabulous about Ventura as a governor was that a) he came out of left field, b) although he was best known as a wrestler and sometimes movie star, no one could find much dirt on him, and c) he was neither Republican nor Democrat. He had new ideas and he completely turned around Minnesota's situation and got it going forward again.

That's what America needs.

America was never intended to be a two-party country. Amendments to the Constitution have made it two-party and strengthened those parties to the point where they have a near stranglehold on politics in America. However, for the vast majority of people I know, and I have a sneaking suspicion the vast majority of Americans in general, one party does not speak for any one voter 100% of the time. Instead, everyone most likely has certain topics that they are conservative on, some they fall on the more liberal side, a few they are more noticeably "Democrat," and some on which they are "Republican."

For example, I'm anti-abortion, but I'm also pro-choice. By that I mean that I, personally, am against abortion except in very specific circumstances. There are too many options available to both men and women to stop unwanted pregnancies from occurring to have abortion as a last resort. However, I also recognize and understand that others do not share my opinion. And they have a right to this surgical procedure and to have it be the safest procedure possible. So, where do I fit on the "right/left wing" scale holding these seemingly opposed ideas?

The list goes on: I'm very right-wing on crime but sway left-wing on the environment. I'm republican in my ideas on the economy in general, but have decided democratic ideas about certain areas of the marketplace.

And I think most people follow a similar pattern to that-- swinging with their conscience, beliefs, and how they were raised between ideals that are typically one party to ideals that are typically the other. In the end, I think that makes us all sort of land in the middle as moderates, and I think most people can find common ground if they sit down and talk about it.

However, in the last decade or so, American politics have become increasingly polarized toward the extremes within the two main parties. These extremes are swaying the overall vote in ways that the silent majority of people don't like and do not want. There is a great line from the movie The American President, "People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand." Right now, I think we're in that state.

Obama was going to be the President of Change. He kept saying we can't keep doing politics as usual. Yet, even though his door has been open to the Republicans for his entire time in office, the leaders on the other side have railroaded him, lied to the American people, and sandbagged the changes he promised. On the other hand, Obama also didn't provide good, strong leadership to his own people; he let people like Nancy Pelosi run amuck, make bad laws, and put down the Republicans such that they didn't want to work with her or any other Democrats. So, Obama is not that person, or has failed to be the person who can make both sides work together.

And that's where my contention that a third-party candidate needs to come forward. Someone who is beholden to neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. Someone who is savvy and charismatic enough to make them actually work together on things, find the common ground, and stop hurting the Republic and start helping the Republic's people. Someone who can hold the same disparate beliefs I'm convinced the majority of people hold, who can argue for both sides of an issue and make people see the reasonable middle ground, and who can build bridges between those moderate voices and show the extremes for what they are-- a small but very vocal minority that does NOT have America's best interests at heart.

If a third-party candidate cannot do this, then we need to find a new Reagan or Clinton. Many people forget that both Reagan (Republican) and Clinton (Democrat) had Congresses that were held by the opposite party during their terms. Yet they still managed to get a majority of their policies enacted with a minimum of issue by building bridges between the parties and by doing things that the other side couldn't fault. (Yes, I know: Iran-Contra and Blow Jobs from Interns -- I'm talking strictly party and lawmaking.)

America has a number of issues that can, and will, sink it in the near future unless the people rally. These issues include: distribution of wealth (America was made great by having a strong middle class, but that middle class is disappearing rapidly as more jobs go overseas), infrastructure (the roads, railways, bridges, water, sewer, and other infrastructure across the country is failing at an alarming rate), education (America is coming in last or near last in nearly every qualifier for industrial nations), and production (America is not producing as much as it once was, and is shipping what production is left overseas-- allowing those nations to become strong with a strong middle class and further hurting the American economy and other issues).

We need a leader who is going to create jobs at a good wage getting people to work on the failing infrastructure. This solves two problems (distribution of wealth and infrastructure) by putting Americans to work fixing America. Next, that leader needs to revamp the educational system; it needs punishment for disobedient children, it needs to focus public educated on making the best, most well-rounded students for graduation from High School, it needs to build more schools and better stock all schools with new textbooks and equipment, and it needs to make teaching a career choice that more people want to do so we can lower class sizes and allow the students to actually learn.

Lastly, this leader needs to encourage car, clothing, electronic, widget, and doodad manufacturers to make those products in America. This puts even more people to work and further stabilizes the economy. If people make it in America and buy it in America, then America's economy stays strong. And, yes, it really IS that SIMPLE.

I hope this mythical leader comes along soon. The country cannot go another decade with this kind of infighting, rancor, and apathy about doing what it needs to before it starts to collapse under its own weight.

Bored With It All

I used my last two RPG sessions, one with one gaming group and the other with another group, to come to a conclusion: I'm burned out (for now) on gaming.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the act of getting together with friends. I enjoyed the camaraderie and the shared experience. I enjoyed the effort each DM put into trying to make a good story and an interesting experience for me (and the other players). What I did not enjoy was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I also have not been enjoying my weekly online LOTRO gaming session with the group. And, when Atari failed to successfully launch a new D&D-based computer game and I couldn't download or get a boxed copy of, I was at first fairly annoyed but then I found I was more relieved than anything else.

All I can figure is that I am currently burned out on the "sword and sorcery" genre and need to take a break from it. It has happened before, where I just needed to get away from the game and the rules, plus all the additional things I do for the games, for a while and recharge the battery. I've never stopped playing the game for very long (a couple of years being the longest time off, but usually just a few months to a year off is all that is needed). I've played RPGs since the late 1970s and have only taken a few breaks here and there -- pretty much didn't play at all in junior high, again during and after college (a couple of game sessions only), and then again for about six months or so in the early 2000s. It is something I very much enjoy doing and is a great release, in general. But sometimes a feeling of lassitude and ennui creeps in and I just don't the same feelings from the game as I should or normally do.

It doesn't help that I take on added responsibilities during gaming. I frequently DM the games (although not recently), I usually wind up being the note-taker and journal keeper, and sometimes I do more. Those extra tasks may be adding to the overall burn out I'm feeling, even though they are tasks I enjoy doing and offer to do.

The thing is, I'm still interested in playing other games; I'm playing Champions Online a bit again, and enjoying that. I am interested in potentially playing other RPGs, something new and different (like super-heroes, horror, some sort of action genre even). It seems to really be simply the D&D/sword and sorcery stuff that is bogging me down and making me less than excited.

The one negative, as my wife rightly pointed out, is that this activity is one of the few I have that takes me out of the house and gets me out and about. Without it, I will be even more hermit-like. She's right that this isn't a good idea from that regard, but I also don't want to force myself to continue doing something when or if I'm only going through the motions; that doesn't help anyone either.

I am going to give it a few more days and then make a decision to inform my gaming groups on whether I will sit out for a while or determin if I can muddle along until my desire and passion for the game returns on its own. I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud to my friends, but I also know that I don't want to force the play too hard and grow to hate the get-togethers simply because I'm not having the fun I should at the gaming.

Steroids... Who Cares?

There seems to be a disconnect between what is being said and what it means: another person has come forward claiming to have witnessed Lance Armstrong taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). There are a couple of things to keep in mind about this:

1. The person did not come forward when questioned about it during the last person's attempt to discredit Armstrong. Why not?
2. The person comes forward only when he has a book to sell.
3. All of the "evidence" provided is, at best, hearsay, as opposed to the hundreds of blood and urine tests Armstrong has taken during his long cycling career.

In addition to the above, a contradiction comes up as regards the media and public's perception of PEDs in the sport of cycling: most report or believe that the vast majority of cyclists use PEDs. If that supposition is true then what difference does it make if Armstrong did too? Either he is naturally more gifted (even with cancer) than the best athletes in the world at that sport when they take PEDs or he was one of the majority who were using PEDs, the playing field was, therefore, level, and he still was the best.


It is true that Armstrong has made a life for himself outside of cycling based on the perception that he was a top athlete even after cancer. He gives many cancer patients and survivors hope that they, too, can overcome the debilitating disease and still be world-class in their own lives. If it turns out he did use PEDs, that image and legacy may be hurt, maybe irreparably. However, what shouldn't be ignored is the amount of time and money he has diverted toward cancer issues in an attempt to understand and cure the disease. Does the one overshadow the other?

I have a hard time with the fact that none of these assertions have ever come up except in two circumstances: a person is caught with a positive doping result and/or a person is writing a book about his career in cycling. In the first case, they seem to go with an "everybody is doing it, I was trying to keep up" defense and in the second case they simply need to sell books and making assertions about the most popular, most widely known name in the sport will do that. But those two reasons for making the claims seem to ignore the factual, scientific evidence of the actual blood results. Until someone has undoctored video of Armstrong talking about, using, buying, or providing steroids or other PEDs, I'm not going to believe it.

Dungeons & Dragons

I've been playing 4th Edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) roleplaying game for three years now. That means I've also spent the last three years listening to and reading about how inferior this edition is to everything else.

Most of these discussions amount to people who have not read or played the new version talking trash about it. I can tell by what they say very quickly if they have any real knowledge of this edition of the game because many are saying things that simply are not true of the game.

I've played DnD since my friend Dennis Cole invited me over to play with him, his brother, and his brother's friend one summer afternoon in 1978. I've played the Red Box edition, the Blue Box edition, Advanced DnD (or Second Edition), 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder's derivation (which many consider to be "3.75"), and now 4th Edition. And by that I mean I actually played multiple sessions, multiple characters, was both a dungeon master (DM) and a player for each of those editions.

In each of the previous editions there were areas that either hindered new people joining the game or that didn't make sense to the system itself:

1. Class/Race parity. From the original editions (that used a combat system called Chainmail as its foundation) through to 3.5 (and still plagues 3.75 to a strong degree), certain classes start weaker and, if they survive, become horribly overpowered while others started stronger and quickly were overshadowed. In terms of playing the game, you would start as a fighter and be kicking butt and taking names while keeping your friend's wizard alive (he would cast his one or two spells and then be useless for the rest of the session). But then around level 5 that started changing and by about level 8 your fighter was pretty much the wizard's lackey, used only to keep things physically off the character while the wizard destroyed the enemies, opened the locked doors, teleported the party around, and summoned creatures that were your superior in every fighting category. There was no balance and it was hard to pretend that you were a viable, helpful part of the party for half or more of the game.
2. Mechanical complexity. The mechanics were notoriously complex. THAC0, Armor Class, hit matrices, weapon speeds, and spell casting all used different rules and different mechanics to get a result. This turned off a lot of potential players, who just didn't get it. On the other side, it made those who did get it even more clique-ish about the game. When new editions came out, those geeks were very upset with the changes and vowed to never play them because they "ruined" the game.
3. Roleplaying versus Roll playing. Some people played to roll dice, kill monsters, get loot, and level up (roll players). Others played because they saw the chance to invest themselves in the drama of the game (roleplayers), to become, if only for a few hours, that big, strong barbarian or that elfish wizard, or whatever. But these folks had many restraints; if you played a dwarf, you distrusted elves, were miserly (to the point of hording), and loved beer and precious metals above all other things. If you played outside of that, you were some sort of rogue, bucking the rules and going against the common understanding of the races (or classes) for everyone else playing the game. For a long time, it seemed like you were playing with a group of roll players or roleplayers, and never the two should meet.
4. Class roles. Although it was never explicitly stated in previous editions, each of the classes fell into generalized roles within the group as people played them. The cleric and bard would typically be healing and buffing the party. The Wizard would typically do damage or control/debuff the enemy. The rogue, ranger, barbarian and certain other melee classes and sorcerers would do a lot of melee or ranged damage, but not have the ability to survive return blows. Fighters, paladins, and certain other melee classes would typically have the armor class and hit points to withstand a lot of damage, so would try to keep enemies focused on them. This is why the standard class makeup of a party was considered Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue.
5. Healing/health. In early editions of the game, characters had few hit points and healing magic was incredibly rare. It led to a lot of needless deaths and people literally bringing multiple character sheets to each sessions so they would always have a player to play when the current one died. In more recent editions, healing was better but still the domain of only a few classes. This led to a large portion of party wealth going toward health magic and/or resurrection magic.

Even with all of these issues, the game was still fun for me to play at each iteration because, at its core, the game is about getting together with friends for a few hours and experiencing a medieval world with sword, sorcery, and heroics. It's about creating a shared story of the world and adventures the DM creates and the characters the players use to interact with that world.

Along comes 4th Edition, which sets as its goal to eliminate those problems, which plagued each previous edition in greater or smaller ways, and continues to plague the so-called 3.75 of Pathfinder. And, as one who has played and DMed each of these editions, I can tell you they mostly succeed.

Yes, those who prefer the specific complexities of whichever edition is their favorite deplore that the rules are simpler and easier for a new person to grasp, but the point is that new people can pick it up more easily. In addition, there are still complexities in the game but they just are not as obvious as, say the complexity of THAC0. So, really, it comes down to the elitism of your knowledge of the edition you prefer versus a game that doesn't require the same level of elitism. This turns off a lot of geeks, who like to lord their knowledge of complex, esoteric things over those without that knowledge.

As we have two people who are knew to RPGs in general and are specifically new to 4th edition, I can tell you it has been relatively easy for them to pick it up and be vital, worthwhile members of the team.

4th Edition does have its complexities, too; they now lie in character creation and optimizing what and how your character does what he does; by getting powers to work together with feats and magic items to give incredible bang for your buck.

4th Edition also allows each character to be useful at each level (so far). Wizards no longer have the same huge spell list they had before, but the spells they do have they can use more often. Fighters have abilities that keep scaling with the encounters, so in my group that is level 9, my barbarian still feels completely viable, worthwhile, and distinct from the wizard. It is still in my best interests to keep the wizard alive, but it is not my sole focus any more; the wizard can withstand some blows, can fight back on his own, and I can still take on the creatures the party is combating with my own character's abilities.

In previous editions, your fighting characters (barbarian, fighter, paladin, ranger, monk, etc.) pretty much had the choice of a) swing their sword, b) use their bow/crossbow, or c) do nothing. Rinse and repeat for each round of combat. They would, over time, get Feats and maybe even some limited spell use to add in, but for the most part they swung their sword and stood between the bad guys and the mages in the party and got hit a lot. It would take many levels before they could attack multiple creatures or do anything really special with their attacks. Now, however, melee characters have choices. You may take powers that give you defensive bonuses, or that move you around the battlefield or heal you (or your compatriots) or attack with special effects. You can use a power that attacks one creature, or one that attacks multiple creatures.

In those same previous editions, a wizard would cast his one or two spells, and then be virtually useless as a mage until the party slept for the night. In each edition, they alleviated this and gave the mages more they could do earlier. But the problem was that doing so led the mage to suddenly become very powerful early in the game and make non-spell casting characters useless later. In 4th, your mage character has two "at-wills" that he can use all the time, every round, every encounter. He has first one, and then more than one, power he can use once every encounter, which are more powerful than the at-wills. And he has one power (and later more than one) that he can only use once a day which are even more powerful still. So, in every combat, the mage starts with a minimum of three powers he can use, two of which can be used every round, as opposed to previous edition mages casting their one Sleep spell or Magic Missile, and then getting to (badly) use a bow or a staff or a dagger and hope they survive until they can sleep and recover their spell for the next day.

In 4th edition, they have taken the concept of what each class is designed to do (including classes in all the previous editions) and have assigned a role to them. So, you have Leaders, Defenders, Strikers, and Controllers. Leaders are those who have abilities that primarily focus on helping the party (healing, buffing). Defenders have abilities primarily focused on protecting the party and keeping enemies focused on them over other party members. Strikers have abilities primarily focused on doing a lot of damage, either in melee or via spell or ranged attacks. And Controllers have abilities primarily focused on affecting or debuffing the enemies. This is just the primary focus of the class. Each class has the ability to do damage, each has access to abilities that may be classified in a different role. And there are plenty of classes that sit on the fence between two (or more) roles. Many 4th Ed detractors say that this makes it too much like a video game. This comment makes me chuckle, because DnD has had this setup since the 1970s and current video games were simply the first to codify it as a role. It seems a natural progression for the game to make it official after 40 years.

In 4th edition, they have made healing simpler. Each class has a number of Surges, or ways to heal itself. Most of these surges are designed to be used between encounters, to keep the party moving forward along the story/adventure. However, they can use one (and only one) of those surges in an encounter without outside assistance. This is called a Second Wind. All Leaders have a healing power they can use twice per encounter (three times at higher levels) which allows a character to access a surge. This is the rough equivalent of a heal potion or a Cure spell from previous editions. On top of this, many classes have access to powers that may allow them to access more surges during combat. For example, my barbarian at level 9 has a few abilities that allow him to use one of his surges or to gain temporary hit points so he can stay in the combat dealing damage. Most Leaders have powers that increase or add to the amount of healing they can do in a combat. In the end, it is the rough equivalent of the same amount of healing (maybe slightly more at lower levels, but slightly less at higher levels) that the average party in previous editions would have having a cleric's healing spells plus each character carrying healing potions, wands, and scrolls. And to those who complain that "healing is too easy/accessible" in 4th edition, I know from experience that if you want to kill a party as a DM, you still can and easily. I've seen it happen both as a DM and as a player.

The last thing the creators of 4th edition did was revamp the "fluff" text about each class and, importantly, race, so that there is more room for roleplaying. They limited the fluff text so that you and those you play with can use the small foundation to build a house of your choosing. For example, the section on dwarfs is now only a few paragraphs long and speaks mostly in generalities. Also, since all races can now be any class, you can play a godly dwarven paladin as easily as a sneaky, cutthroat dwarven rogue. The same is true for all of the races and classes-- you no longer have to be Lawful Good in order to play a paladin, and all races can become a paladin. However, it may be true that the rules mechanics for a particular race may make it more suited to particular classes than to others.

When you consider the rules the creators added to help the DM in making encounters and quickly scaling events up or down, the changes to magic items to make them simpler and more useful to a character, and the way the game was opened up to allow DMs the latitude to create the world from and races from the simple fluff text they provided, with as much or as little nuance as they need, fourth edition seems to be the culmination of the game. It makes me wonder why a small but vocal minority of geek culture is so against it.

In the end, the main goal of the game remains the same -- to sit together with your friends for a few hours and enjoy a shared story-telling session and have fun. If you insist that you cannot do that with 4th edition, that's fine with me, but can you at least stop posting your hatred of it in chat rooms and on boards devoted to those who actually enjoy the system?

Shoe's On the Other Foot

When I first came here, my new friends often grilled me about American politics. Especially prevalent were questions about why and how Americans could re-elect President Bush with all that he did to the American people. For my friends here, who had news people who were more probative and more willing to ask the tough questions and dig after the truth than what was going on in America at that time, it was obvious to them that Bush was up to no good. The lies, the obfuscation, the repealing of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, all this was more obvious and was commented on in their news, even while our news was refusing to do its job.

On May 2 Canada is having a new election. I'm reading and experiencing all that Harper and his Conservative Party people have done recently (broke the law, prorogued (or "shut down") the government to keep from being ousted, lied, gave huge contracts to friends of the government, trying to change the official name of the government to "Harper's Government," etc.) and I'm trying to correspond this with the fact that 40% of Canadians polled are saying they will vote for the Conservative Party again, keeping Harper in office to continue these shenanigans.

With the shoe firmly on the other foot, I am now asking why and how my friends and other Canadians can vote for a party that has done so many negative things. The simple answer seems to be, "Because they are better than the other choices," which doesn't seem like much of a choice or answer to me. If the estimated 40% do actually vote Conservative Party as the polls predict, that would give Harper and his cronies a majority in Parliament (currently they have a minority), and they would be able to do more of what they have been doing.

I guess it wouldn't be so bad if Harper hadn't run on a platform of accountability and transparency. Because of that, all the swept under the rug issues and outright law bending and breaking seem that much more egregious. Just as one example of this, do a search on "Bev Oda" and read about the entire, sordid affair, and ask yourself how she still has her job. There are at least 10 or 12 more similar scandals, and Harper has fired or accepted resignations from very few of those involved.

Bush seemed, at the time of his reelection, to be the better of two evils; the devil America knew versus the one it didn't. The Republicans also ran very efficient and effective smear campaigns against both Gore and Kerry that worked surprisingly well. This seems directly analogous to what is happening in Canada right now; the people know that Harper is a bad guy and his cabinet is not to be trusted, but they would rather stay with that than go with someone new.

It will be very interesting to see both how Canadians vote and what the party that gets the majority (if any) does with the power on May 2 and beyond. Maybe I'll be able to turn that question around to my friends and ask, "How could you re-elect Harper, knowing what kind of leader he is?"

----
May 3
It appears that Harper and the Conservative Party got the seats it needed to have a majority. The shoe is definitely on the other foot now.

Whose Show Is It Anyway?

This last week's episode of Bones, a favorite of mine, had Bones and Booth heading out to Florida to find a body. Booth then says, "I've got a friend who can help us." At this point, the entire show is taken over by a pilot for a new show about a new character from a different set of books. The Booth and Bones characters (and a couple of others) show up briefly during the episode, and then are back to bookend the "Bones" episode and wrap it together.

This irritates the shit out of me. I watch Bones because I like the show. I don't necessarily want to see the pilot for a new episode, starring new characters and actors.

Now, it so happens that I found the trio quirky and interesting and may give them a chance when "The Locator" comes to a TV screen near us (either this summer or next fall). But the point is moot, as I would have been just as happy to check out the real pilot when they released it and given it a chance on its own merit. The fact that they, in essence, pre-empted the show I enjoy with a different show irritates me enough to consider boycotting what may otherwise be a decent show just to voice my displeasure. The fact that the Locator appears to be some sort of cross between Psyche and Burn Notice also makes the choice of whether to watch a little easier, as I already watch both of those original shows and, if this is just going to be a knockoff of them, I don't really need to add it to my viewing list.

Criminal Minds did this recently as well. I tuned in for what I thought would be an episode of one of my favorite shows and, instead, I watched a new group of specialists take over. In this case, however, I hated the new crew from the outset, especially the lead (played by Forest Whitaker-- an actor I usually enjoy), so it made the decision not to watch the new show very easy.

Some shows have organic means by which they grow the brand. NCIS spun off recently and it made some sense (and worked pretty well). I chose not to continue with NCIS:LA because I didn't have any characters I liked, not because they "pre-empted" the source show or took it over. They managed a much more organic and interesting means of segueing the new characters, placing them in the world but making them their own entity, and then breaking away from the source. Both teams played important roles in the origin show.

In a case like the Bones episode, and the Criminal Minds spin off, I'm left wondering just whose show I'm watching, anyway?

Civil Discourse

I have read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights a few times. I am a big fan of the Bill of Rights, and have had debates about it. Yet for some reason I never noticed, nor had it pointed out to me, that the Bill of Rights does not actually grant anyone any rights, as most of those with whom I discuss it always believe (and I did, too, until today).

If you read each of the first ten amendments, they discuss in detail what the government, and specifically the Congress, cannot do. Or, more precisely, what Congress cannot make laws to do.

For example, here is the entire text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress cannot pass a law establishing or prohibiting the free practice of a religion. It cannot pass a law infringing on free speech or the press. It cannot pass a law denying the people's right to peacefully assemble. It cannot pass a law limiting the people's right to petition the government. No where in that simple paragraph does it grant the people any rights. "Freedom of speech" is assumed, to some degree, but not explicitly stated.

As you go through each of the rest of the Bill of Rights, you see the same trend. The amendments are always worded to limit the government's ability to infringe on the rights of its people. But it never explicitly states what those rights are.

I recently got into a bit of a debate online. Someone was saying how the fact that the NBA gives such hefty fines to its players and coaches for speaking negatively about the officiating is bogus. He argued that, if he was in the NBA, he would say what he wanted and would sue the NBA if they fined him for it because he has freedom of speech.

And that, in a nutshell, is how most people online and in person seem to feel about the first amendment, which, unfortunately, shows their ignorance about one of the most fundamental rules in any democratic government. As you can see, looking back and rereading the first amendment again, it only limits the government from enacting laws that limit the people's right to speech. However, a company for which you work (in this case, the NBA) has every right to put policies in place limiting what you can say and offering disincentives for breaking that policy, up to and including the right to terminate your employment. If you want to be a part of that organization, they make you sign a contract and you are supposed to abide by the terms of that contract of face the appropriate penalties.

Most business have this to a greater or lesser degree, by the way. If you are a white collar worker, you undoubtedly signed a contract that specifies some things, like some sort of confidentiality agreement about the products or business you are working with or in. Main blue collar jobs have similar contracts, as you may be working with proprietary software, hardware, or ideas that your company does not want its competitors finding out about. Upon leaving, whether voluntarily or not, most companies have you sign a noncompetition agreement that states you won't work in the same industry, won't take your clients with you, won't discuss the business with any competitors for a certain number of months or years, etcetera.

In addition, a person cannot just say anything, at any time, in any circumstance. We all know the old adage about not yelling fire in a crowded theater. Well, guess what? If you do, you can be arrested and/or sued for doing so. Contrary to what you see on the internet in any chat room or forum, you can be held accountable for what you say through laws dealing with libel, slander, and defamation of character, among others. I will grant that the burden of proof in these situations makes it very difficult for the wronged individual to actually sue and win, but that is a different argument for another blog.

All of these are perfectly legal ways that businesses and individuals can limit one's "right" to free speech.

What this all boils down to is: many Americans seem to have forgotten in the last 20 or 30 years that "your rights end where my rights begin." Your rights to call me names and lie about me under the guise of "free speech" end where my right to privacy and to fight against defamation of my character begins.

America is founded on a system of laws. The first laws, those placed into the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, were all about limiting the government's ability to subjugate its people. All the remaining laws are at the State and local level and deal with how individuals and businesses interact with one another.

The next time someone states what their "Constitutional Rights" are, listen closely. You may have an opportunity to educate them on what their rights really are.

Work Until You Bleed

If I promise a deadline or a project, or if something happens that causes me to have issues with getting it done on time, I'm more than willing to work overtime and on weekends in order to get the project done on time or as close to it as I can. However, when it is someone else's issue(s) that causes the delay, a lack of support, an arbitrary deadline that someone else has imposed or agreed to on my behalf without discussing with me, or acts of God or similar, then I get frustrated if I have to work OT or weekends in order to, in essence, cover someone else's butt.

My current contract has been too much of the latter lately.

• People who have no knowledge of the tasks involved have been promising due dates to the end-client without discussing with me first and there is an abject refusal to change the dates when I bring up objections.
• My main reviewer has taken a couple of weeks off (2 in the last 6 weeks), plus individual days here and there, which has caused my processes to come to a screeching halt. When asked about the time off, I was told, "She has a family." Yeah, so? So do I. What they mean is, she has young children. My response is, again, yeah, so? She can get a babysitter, she can work off-hours, or she can get a reviewer to fill her place while she's gone. Which leads me to...
• If another reviewer is willing to step in, then the primary hates all of his changes, edits, and decisions and makes me redo a lot of work needlessly.

We have had three days in the last two weeks that were completely lost due to new discussions about the format and structure of the documentation I am producing after I (and my two project managers) thought it was all agreed on and settled. That's 24 hours that could have been spent moving the project forward instead.

This week, in particular, has been bad on a number of fronts:

• More formatting discussion on Monday, which led to the entire rest of the day spent reworking the structure of the document instead of doing more writing.
• Tuesday started with a sudden hardware failure which required most of the day to overcome (involved two trips into the main office and a bunch of IT support from two different companies to get up and running again) plus a dentist visit in the middle of all of it.
• Thursday I woke up to a flooded basement, which had to be dealt with immediately, before stuff was damaged or destroyed by the water.
• Friday started with a login/password issue that IT refused to fix and that is still a problem (but that I got a work-around for).

The dentist visit I was already expecting and planning to work OT to cover, as it meant that I was away from work for about two hours. The flood was really my issue, so I was comfortable with working some OT to make up the time lost dealing with it.

The rest of the issues were either out of my control (hardware failure and IT issues setting up the work-arounds) or someone else's issues (the unending desire for others to make me completely reformat the entire document). It is this time that I begrudge having to work OT for. If the IT people could have set up my substitute PC correctly the first time, and if the IT at the other company would have helped me get the proper software reinstalled and re-set up correctly in anything close to a timely fashion, I wouldn't have lost most of one day. If the people in question would stop futzing with a working document's structure, I wouldn't have lost that day. And a third day was lost because one of the same IT departments refused to assist with the login/password issue that was partly caused by the hardware issue from a few days before. That's a whole lot of OT caused by other people's problems, and that I detest.

The net result of all of this is that I've had to work nearly double the normal work hours this week in order to try to get the document done. I missed the Friday due date, but as of right now, I have 95% of the document done and can get the rest done tomorrow for a potential Monday release. Since coming back from vacation, at which time all the documentation seemed on target for each due date, mostly due to other people's issues and concerns, I have had to work some or all of every weekend (5 so far), plus a bunch of OT.

There is an old adage that I enjoy, "Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to the nature of the work, the bad planning, the lack of a cohesive review process, and the constant struggle to get everyone to agree on a basic structure and format for the project has caused an emergency on my part. This has turned into a 60 hour work week for me when it shouldn't have been needed. Had the review process been smoother and had the format been agreed to three weeks ago when I thought it was, I would have made yesterday's due date without any issue. The basement flooding (3 work hours "lost" in the morning, made up that evening) and the hardware issues could have been overcome without significant issue, or may not have even been an issue, had everything flowed the way I expected and the way the group had agreed from four weeks ago to yesterday.

I'm only just over five weeks removed from the end of  my vacation, and yet I feel completely burned out due to all these issues caused by other people. My health is suffering from the constant work without relaxation. While I was always impressed by my stoic friends who have to work daily or a lot of OT due to the nature of their jobs or needing to work multiple jobs in order to make ends meet, these last five weeks have reaffirmed my esteem for them and their ability to keep going.

I just finished another eight hour day on my Saturday, with more hours expected tomorrow. My next deadline is Wednesday for a third, completely new document. I see more OT in my near future.

Character Issues

I'm not sure why the sports world is consistently surprised when those players with questions marks for character reasons go ahead and do something stupid. Some, like Michael Vick, hold it together or hide it longer and better than others, but, at the end of the day, those character issues always creep up.

LeBron James didn't go to college. People never questioned his talent but they did question both his maturity and the group he hung around with. He still hangs around with the same people, he made one of his friends from the old days into his closest adviser, and he has made a ton of poor decisions as an adult just like when he was a fresh-faced kid with all the talent in the world. His lack of education crops up frequently whenever speaking about ... any subject at all, including basketball. Many other straight-from-high-school sports kids managed to continue to read and educate themselves enough to speak intelligently on subjects, why didn't LeBron?

There are a wealth of bad character individuals in the NFL. People who have made poor decisions in their past tend to continue making those poor decisions unless shocked out of them by some traumatic event. It is for these reasons that I am not surprised when I hear about gun possession charges, assault, rape allegations, and arrests. What is true in other walks of life seem to be equally true in sports: if you're an idiot going in, you're going to be an idiot once there. If you hang with bad influence friends, you're going to have bad influences helping you to make decisions.

Add into this mix of stupidity and a bad entourage the effects of wealth, performance enhancing drugs, entitlement, and celebrity and I am, frankly, surprised we don't hear about more arrests and issues with players. Look at Mike Tyson; he was a high school prodigy when it came to fighting. There were rumors of him being aggressive toward women even back then. He came from a bad background where he had to fight to stay alive; no wonder he was such a mean, nasty fighter in the ring and had social issues outside of it. But that's what we were paying for. You don't get to be the top heavyweight fighter in the world by being nice. Yet, when his bad temper, wife beating ways were "discovered," we turned on him. When he spiraled out of control, we feigned shock. Why? He was a thug on the streets that got a ton of wealth and celebrity, which lead to entitlement, and his bad posse of "friends" fed off of him and helped him make increasingly bad decisions until he hit rock-bottom. He has, to all appearances, managed to crawl out of that death-spiral and turn things around, but that's rare. And look at how long it took him.

Most people don't change who they are without significant incentive. If people are thugs and felons in high school or college, then they will be thugs and felons in pro sports. If people have a "bad" group of friends/hangers on while they are young, they won't give them up when they get a ton of money and celebrity, and the bad decisions and peer pressure will continue in their pro career. It should only be shocking if we let it be -- if teams are truly, honestly about character, these people wouldn't be hired in the first place regardless of talent. But they are, because, in the end, it is all about ratings, talent, and wins, not about character.

Dungeon Master

For many years, I enjoyed being a Dungeon Master/Game Master (DM/GM) for my group of friends who like playing Roleplaying Games (RPGs). I enjoyed the creation of the world, the telling of the story, and the cooperative nature of the games.

I was complimented on my GMing and the stories I told. I don't think I was all that great, but I came at it from a writer's perspective, I didn't let the rules hamstring me if something interesting or cool came up, and I wanted each character, and by extension the player running him/her, to have a chance to shine each session. I enjoyed creating bosses that were challenging to overcome, simple puzzles to solve, worlds and reasons to adventure in those worlds. Most of all, I enjoyed the shared activity of the group story-telling sessions that are the foundations of any RPG.

In my current location, I started as the GM for the group I currently game with. I created a world (or, rather, a valley in which they started, with the intent of fleshing out the world later as we went). I gave it rules and places of interest. I let the players create characters. I created a means and reason for them to be together as a group and provided them with threats to overcome.

But I noticed I didn't have the same... verve for doing it I once had. I found that, while I had an outline for what I wanted to have happen, I didn't enjoy creating the individual adventures like I once did. I found I didn't want to adjudicate the rules like I did before. We played that game for about a year, and then one of the others in the group stepped up and said he wanted to GM. I was happy to let him.

I have very much enjoyed playing the game under his direction. He is a good GM, who is conscious of the rules and of his world, but also open to new things, house rules on the fly, and polite and well-meaning criticisms to help make the game better. His game is a bit more of the "roll playing" style, meaning that it is more about the rules, rolling the dice, and getting together than "playing a role." It is fun, and I enjoy the time spent with the group and on the game.

Recently, I also joined a new group. The GM of that group is much more about "role playing" (acting) and less about the dice rolls or rules. Although the vast amount of information is in the Player's Handbook, he admits he hasn't read it and rules entirely based on gut and the Dungeon Master's Guide. He wants everyone to have a good time, he house-rules everything in sight, and we don't worry about the rules nearly as often. I have a lot of fun in that game, too.

The key thing that I find so surprising is how much fun I'm having playing and how little I want to go back to GMing. In my Southern California gaming group, we had a legitimate four people who liked and wanted to GM, and two others who dipped their toe in from time to time. When I wasn't GM, even if I very much was enjoying the other game, I was already thinking of new places to go and new challenges I wanted my players to meet and overcome. I nearly chafed at the bit to get back to GMing!

I have tried for the last few months to come up with new things for my players here to do. They have mentioned they may want to head back to my game in the future, yet I can't seem to come up with anything I want to GM for them. I've even purchased and downloaded some paid or free adventures that I thought I could use for that game, but even those I have little to no desire to adjudicate.

The vast majority of people who play RPGs want to play. Few want the challenge or extra prep time needed to be the GM. It requires a very solid understanding of the rules, an incredible attention to detail, the ability to coordinate the efforts of multiple people, and the ability to create both prepared tasks and challenges and to come up with things "on the fly" as the players do things a GM never intended or expected.

I used to excel at doing pretty much all of that. Lately, however, I have been finding I am not remembering the rules as well as I should or need to in order to adjudicate the game. I am finding no joy in the creation of the story or challenges any more. My attention to detail seems slack. I, simply put, just don't feel like I can do it justice any more.

Maybe this is a life-long evolution. Maybe I did it enough that now I want to just be a player for a while. Maybe I am reaching an age where I just don't want to make the same time-commitment to GMing that I always did before. Maybe I am just burned out on RPGs in an overall sense, what with video games, movies in the genre, and playing/GMing regularly. Maybe I'll turn around tomorrow after having written this and have a great idea that I get excited about and it will turn out I've only been in a slump for the last year or so.

I don't know. But I feel like I've reached the end of a personal era, of sorts. I do still enjoy playing, so I will continue doing that for the foreseeable future. And, who knows what that future may hold for me on this front as I go forward into it?

White is a Color

I just took a survey for a prestigious North American company. When the survey got to the question about race/ethnicity, it listed several, including: Hispanic, Pacific Islander, African American, Native American, and Asian, among others. However, it listed "White" as the alternative race to all of those.

Um, excuse me? There were no other colors listed in this section.

Why would a prestigious company list a proper race/ethnicity for every other group and choose not to put "Caucasian" down as one of them? Or, at least, why not write "Caucasian/White?"

This makes no sense to me. White is a color, not a race or ethnicity. I nearly selected "Other" and wrote in "Caucasian" just to make a point.

In an attempt to be racially sensitive to others, this North American company wound up being insensitive to a primary race/ethnicity. Shame on them.