Avatar photoSteven Savage

Fantasy CRPGs And Distance From The Source

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I love Lord of The Rings.  It really is a classic, awesome and epic and beautiful.  Hell, I actually think Tom Bombadil was awesome, but that’s another story.

Or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.  A fantasy road movie, two guys getting into crazy trouble and magic kingdoms underground.

How about Elric?  A buddy story gone terribly wrong among battling gods and falling kingdoms.  Also, hey, god of Jesters.

But what doesn’t feel like fantasy literature is fantasy games.  I don’t say this to diss CRPG fantasy games.  I love a lot of them, I played the first Wizardry, I know Demon’s Winter is one of the most unappreciated fantasy games of the 80’s.  I enjoyed a lot of the Atelier series.  I played a lot of Final Fantasy.  I adore Dragon Quest IX.  It’s just they don’t always feel like the epic literature that inspired them or the genre.

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Home Theater PC Adventures

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I haven’t used my XBox in a week.

This is not some great statement on my ability to focus on work – I’ve been gaming, watching Netflix, and more.  I’ve just been doing it on an accidental Home Theater PC.

I say accidental, because it’s a laptop I got to let me work out of my home office more effectively.  But as I have thought of building a Home Theater PC (HTPC), I started experimenting.  See how the HDMI goes, try out a wireless game controller, take a look at Steam . . .

. . . and end result is that this is that I’m really not using the XBox anymore, which was my prime media system.

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How Blogging Helps Your Career #11 – The Rough Draft

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(The roundup for the “How Blogging Helps Your Career Series” is here)

Show me a person who never edits their writing, and I’ll show you a liar, an incompetent, or someone who walks on water recreationally.

It simply doesn’t happen.  We have to try things out and screw them up.  We have to experiment.  We have to get writing out of our head so it’s out and then we can improve it.

Show me a person who writes but never has to just “get something out of their head” and I’ll show you a rarity.  I have to keep a book of ideas just to keep myself from getting preoccupied.

We have to get our ideas out of our head.  We have to see them.  We have to look at them once they’re not rattling around inside our skulls.  Once they’re out we can refine them.

This is where a blog comes in.

Your blog is a rough draft – and a socially acceptable one at that.

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