WildWeazel

Kill My Backlog

2015-01-31T23:52:00.000-05:00

My personal theme for the past year or so has been to do less backlogging and more doing. I've been saving bookmarks and books and games and ideas, pretty much hoarding and obsessing over lists of things to read/play/write/make/do some day when I get around to it, since my early college days.

When Google Reader announced its closing a couple of years back, I was dismayed to find I had about 250 unread articles "saved for later." That was my first clue. Since then I've been more mindful of all the stuff that I tuck away for some other day, but I still tend to find myself spending as much time curating my lists (which can be helpful, as outdated and irrelevant as some items are) as I do consuming them.

The name for this post comes from a subreddit that started up around the same time, when a Steam collector's similar realization led him on a crusade to at least try all of the games in his account. It might be the sunk cost fallacy, but it's a noble effort. My own experience has been more like this:

Doghouse Diaries: How To Feel Mad

The thought of missing out on something interesting has made me a digital hoarder, but ironically the volume of stuff I already have backlogged probably limits what I discover.

Since I've been on a productivity kick lately, and of course blogging is one of the things I always want to work on, I'm going to draw this out into a little series about the kinds of stuff I've collected and the tools and habits I've been finding helpful in getting more done.

Thanksgetting

2014-11-28T23:55:00.001-05:00

I can think of few concepts less appealing than Black Friday:

> Getting up stupid early,

> To go shopping,

> In a mob of people... who got up stupid early to go shopping.

All on the morning after (and increasingly the day of) a holiday dedicated to thankfulness for what we have.

Buying things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like.

Bergecraft

2014-09-21T18:10:00.000-04:00

It's been over two years since I described Civcraft, the Minecraft server about emergent societies. A lot has happened.

Gondolin, under a successful model of minimalist federated monarchy, enjoyed a year of growth and political relevance, becoming the largest single state and first functioning empire of Civcraft. The city of Aristopolis grew from a ruined village to this, serving as our de facto capital and a center of trade for the quadrant.

Render of Aristopolis in late 1.0, by unknown

Almost a year to the day after Gondolin's founding, an incident led to the announcement that map backups had been leaked and we would have to start a new one. And so the first era ended, with more than a year and 20,000 unique accounts to its name. Civcraft 2.0 launched in late May, after only a month of preparation.

When the server reset, we had a distinct opportunity to introduce new variables into the experiment. These changes included custom terrain generation, mass production factories, and one of my own ideas: restricting plant and animal fertility by biome.

As players, we also saw a fresh start and the chance to reform our virtual societies literally from the ground up. My friend and compatriot berge403, having succeeded me as King of Gondolin, led a movement to found a planned international community on the rim of the 30km-wide world. Metropolis would be a commonly held region dotted with designated city plots, each self-governed and uniquely styled. The dual centerpieces were to be two huge cities: Minas Minas of Gondolin and Solis of SPQR, an allied Roman faction that had outgrown its role as a Gondolin territory.

Stylized map of Metropolis, by SPQR citizen Logic_Man

Unfortunately for us, Gondolin and the Metropolis never really took off. Some of the cities backed out or failed to take hold, while the daunting scale of work to be done in Minas Minas and Solis drove many players to more happening places. A string of raids and the attrition of Gondolin leadership sealed its fate. The dream of Metropolis slowly faded into obscurity, but berge and I weren't satisfied to give up on Civcraft just yet.

By this time we had effectively stopped playing, lending our time instead to the reddit meta-game and helping with development. Some of the features had not played out quite as planned or were not balanced, and people were starting to see some serious problems with 2.0 mechanics.

There was talk of 3.0 and breaking changes that would be impractical and unfair to patch in now. We were in the heat of it, heedlessly proposing new concepts, hoping that someday Civcraft would be ready for them. The Civcraft admins firmly rejected another reset (3.NO!) as it would undermine the whole concept of social consequences, but as we talked berge and I found that we were converging on a radically different vision of how Civcraft should work.

And so we decided to fork the Civcraft model to a new server. The thought process went pretty much like this:

Thus Bergecraft was born in a storm of what-ifs. Our philosophy is to iteratively try the crazy ideas that wouldn't fly on Civcraft yet and invest some time playing with and refining them without the obligation of long-term support or continuity. That means short cycles, planned resets, and a whole lot of prototyping. We bill ourselves as the unofficial R&D lab of Civcraft.

Officially launching on March 1, the first iteration was a modest rehash of Civcraft 1.0 mods with the addition of Extra Hard Mode to make mining and PvE more challenging. Players joined by the dozens, and for the most part loved it. After setting our baseline we continued on to address PvP in April-May, lessening the exponential advantage of better gear and the domination of Protection IV. At that point we took a hiatus to help both servers get ready for the 1.7.10 upgrade and the transition of many of our shared plugins to player UUIDs.

Now that those are stabilizing, we're putting the final touches on Iteration 3, our most ambitious yet. The theme this time is resource scarcity, a factor which Civcraft's huge and bountiful world is severely lacking. Our map will be only 2km wide, featuring a new style of terrain and ore generation. I wrote a plugin that forces players to smelt their ores in factories, which will be wastefully inefficient. The idea is that easily accessible materials will quickly start to run out, a situation that has not been seen on this type of server.

So that's where Bergecraft stands. In the wake of drama surrounding CraftBukkit and the Microsoft acquisition the future of Minecraft servers is very uncertain, so we've considered jumping ship after this one to build on an open-source platform instead. Assuming we do continue with Minecraft we have several months worth of features to try. Environmental acclimation, agriculture, a more pronounced tech tree, and advanced machinery are all on our roadmap. We will continue to diverge from Civcraft, but hopefully sift out some features along the way that can be fed back into its future development. On the other hand, maybe Bergecraft will become something all its own.

Bergecraft Iteration 3 is launching soon at bergecraft.com for vanilla Minecraft 1.7.10. Our server community is at reddit.com/r/bergecraft.

On Morning

2014-03-08T12:46:00.001-05:00

"Good morning" is not a phrase I will ever utter in sincerity. When necessary I will resort to simply "morning" which if anything should be regarded as a word of warning. "Good morning" on the other hand is an oxymoron whose use is about as sensible as wishing someone a "happy funeral".

2013 And Beyond

2014-01-21T21:33:00.000-05:00

Another year come and gone, and it seems time for another "what am I doing" post. I suppose this is becoming my equivalent of the annual family Christmas letter.

A lot has happened since I stopped blogging in 2012. My more professionally-oriented blog "Debugging Life" never really took off, mostly because I never really wrote much of interest. I was less active and less focused than I had intended right off the bat, and it barely garnered any attention. After letting it go for a while I started to miss this creative outlet. Now that I'm settled into an early career though I'm actually more inclined to get back to blogging about personal interests, namely writing and government. So I'm back to blogging-or-not under the old name, WildWeazel.

Now, about the interim. My last few posts were about what I was up to at the time, and that's where I'll pick back up.

Jessica and I have been happily married since September of 2012, making for the biggest piece of news. Marriage is a huge life change obviously, but we've settled in. We've also attended 4 friends' weddings since that summer, so I guess we're now in that phase of life where everyone is settling down. We at least are holding off on the reproduction phase for a while. We did get a guinea pig though, my first warm-blooded pet in several years.

The three of us moved to a larger apartment just across town and within walking distance of my work. I'm really spoiled having no commute and flexible hours, which I'm sure I'll miss at my next job.

I'm still with the same company, but I've been assimilated into a different software team since starting. That's been a positive experience; I like the new group culture better and I get to work with a variety of technologies including Qt and Android. To that end I just started a series of classes on Coursera to expand my Android knowledge and hopefully improve our technical skill-set. I've really taken an interest in online and open-source education recently so that's something to pursue as I try to find my niche and figure out exactly what I want to do with my career.

When I'm not working or spending time with the wife I'm still doing the same things: gaming, reading, writing, or perusing the internet. On that front, I still haven't read or played a vast majority of my entertainment backlog, and I still haven't written much of my book. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

NaNoWriMo Postmortem

2013-12-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

Well, that's over.

Last month was my third consecutive November participating in National Novel Writing Month, an annual 30-day sprint towards an uninhibited 50,000 word first draft. Being a very deliberate outliner and obsessive wordsmith, not to mention otherwise busy, I never actually expect to reach 50k. Instead I use the month as practice to get into a regular writing habit: a habit which I still have never sustained.

Both previous attempts were short-lived as I went into it just trying to get as many words down as possible but quickly fell far behind the quota and lost motivation. This time, I planned ahead to maintain 333 words/day for a total of 10k: a manageable one-fifth pace. (This wasn't my only act of rebellion; the "rules" state that you should start a new work with nothing written prior to November 1 but I continued my perennial work on the epic realistic-fantasy concept that I've been kicking around for several years.)

I held up pretty well for a while with this slow and steady approach, but I got derailed in Week 3, and then I was away on vacation for all of Week 4... which I should have known would result in exactly 0 words. All said, my word count topped out at 5342, just over half of my personal target. That's my best so far for NaNo, but still hardly impressive for a month's work. However, I did come to a few helpful conclusions.

1. A writing habit takes more than just time. Even though I forced myself to sit down with my laptop every day for most of the month, I didn't automatically start pouring out words. I fidgeted, I brainstormed, I chatted up the wife, I agonized over where to start. I did just about everything short of the one metric that counted: putting words on the page. Time in the chair doesn't mean anything if you don't have a word count to show for it. This is something that NaNo specifically aims to address, but I didn't do so well. Maybe I need to bump up my quota to something more demanding.

2. I haven't found my voice as a writer. Obviously this will only come with lots of practice but it's something that stuck out to me as I wrote new scenes each day. A few passages were rich and evocative, but most read like screenplay. I tend to use a very factual, narrative style. It doesn't feel engaging. It sounds nothing like the kind of books that inspire me. Which brings me to the last point:

3. I need to read more. A lot more. For all my love of a good story, I read very little fiction these days. I have multiple bookshelves both real and virtual full of novels that I have yet to read. You can't develop a skill in a vacuum, and I know that the first tip for beginning writers is to read read read. I already have more books in mind than I'll probably ever be able to get through, but I've only completed one novel all year. I can't hope to finish a book of my own if I don't finish the ones that are already written.

So that's what I've learned in addition to my modest 5,342 words. Now I just need to keep reading, and keep writing.

Beep Boop... We're Live

2013-10-27T16:41:00.000-04:00

For those of you still with us, you'll see that my blog has reverted to my original domain: WildWeazel.net!

Yes, I have relapsed to my old moniker, which I've claimed for about a decade now. Somewhere in the past couple of years among a relationship-turned-marriage, the start of a career, a move, and a few new pastimes, I completely set blogging aside. Now I've found that itch for a creative outlet again, and I realized that "Debugging Life" just wasn't cutting it. WildWeazel is who I am.

This is the same blog as before; I was happier with the way it was going than the original WildWeazel that still exists, but I missed my old eponymous domain and the personal, zero-expectations attitude that comes along with it. So I renewed the name, dusted off the About page, and picked up right where I left off.

I've been getting back into writing lately, or at least an active interest in it, so that will be one thing to share. Otherwise I'm pretty much continuing with the trend I kicked off in this blog's first post - general thoughts and insight that catch my interest, and some nerd indulgence.

Minecraft + Civilization = Civcraft

2012-06-10T04:07:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been playing Minecraft on a unique and server called Civcraft. It started as a social experiment by some anarcho-capitalists from Reddit, then branched out to other political communities. In contrast to most large Minecraft servers, which are either admin-run plutocracies or hardcore PvP tournaments, Civcraft uses special mods and hands-off administration to put the power in the players' hands and let them shape the world themselves. The players, in turn, exercise the great pastime and challenge of mankind: Civilization.

Without artificial rules and limitations, it is up to the players to decide how they will play and who they will be. I, for example, am the benevolent king of Gondolin, a hidden libertarian paradise with a Middle-earth theme. I'm also the new owner of the skeletal remains of one of the server's oldest cities, and the abbot of a charitable monastery. You can be anything you like. We have libertarian socialists, communists, republicans, of course AnCaps, and even villainous griefers who flirt with permanent imprisonment in the End. In two months, cities have been built and abandoned, wars fought, alliances forged, trust betrayed. It's a Minecraft world unlike any other- a simulation of real-world politico-economics among competing ideologies.

Join us.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us

2012-03-11T19:28:00.000-04:00

It's strange, I don't feel like I've been doing much of anything lately, but when I stop and think about it, I have plenty on my plate- at least in theory. Maybe I need to focus my attention on a few things at a time. I'm very much a "starter" and tend to lack follow-through.

Rather than make this another apologetic post about how I've been putting off blogging in favor of other things, I'll just switch it up and talk about all that's going on- and what isn't so much.

Girlfriend: Most importantly, I have fallen in love with a beautiful young lady named Jessica. I mentioned her briefly before, and you will hear more about her in the future. I may even persuade her to co-author this blog. Jessica is a life-long acquaintance, but we only recently realized that we're perfect for each other. She has unquestionably been the highlight of the past few months. Unfortunately we're forced to maintain a long-distance relationship, but we have been able to visit each other frequently and we manage to make do with Skype and IM.

Working: My job obviously takes up the largest share of my time and effort. The project that I have been assigned to for almost a year now as the sole GUI developer is starting to wrap up. I've learned a lot and gained some valuable experience, but it hasn't all been fun or even tolerable. As a junior engineer with limited experience I'm working a bit outside of my technical comfort zone and above my pay grade, but my results are being noticed. The company is making some transitions in technology and practices, and I'm right in the middle of some of it. Personally though, I'm just looking forward to moving on to a new project at this point.

Reading: I've tried to get back in the habit of reading books since I finished college, and now my to-read list is growing out of control. In addition to my extensive bookshelf on Goodreads (those 250+ don't count sequels and series), I keep picking up more used books from the library to the point where my (large-ish) physical bookshelf is double-stacked with books I haven't read. I'm currently in the middle of The Deed of Paksenarrion, Primal: The Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, and yet another pass through The Lord of the Rings. Meanwhile, Jessica and I are participating in a challenge that my church organized to read through the whole Bible in a year. I'm still struggling to finish Genesis, although we're supposed to have read through Deuteronomy 8 and the gospels by now. So no so good on that front.

Writing: My foray into NaNoWriMo obviously didn't work out so well, but I certainly haven't given up on writing. I've been trying to organize all of my notes for the book, and recently came up with an important new plot thread. I think what I need most is practice- writing anything. It seems that when I do try to draft long passages I get bogged down in my inability to put my thoughts clearly into words, and soon give up because I can't get it to sound right. Writing more frequently, even on completely unrelated topics, would probably help me focus on getting more words down.

Drinking: As last year, I'm participating in 40 Days of Water. It's a campaign from the charity Blood:Water Mission to give up all beverages except tap water for Lent, and donate your savings to fund wells in Uganda where 30% of the population doesn't have access to clean drinking water. I got Jessica to join me this time, mostly to see if she could break her chocolate milk addiction. Today happens to be Sunday, so I'm enjoying the day off with a Yuengling. Okay, so that isn't really an ongoing activity, but it's a point of interest.

Gaming: As always, I picked up a number of new games from Steam's holiday sale. This time I added Mass Effect 1 & 2, Fallout 3 & New Vegas, Empire & Napoleon: Total War, and the complete X (space sim) series to my repertoire. Being the avid gamer I am, I'm still working on the early stages of Mass Effect. Like most other hobbies, my game library is growing faster than I can enjoy it. In other news, I'm still working on my Civ3 mod Legacy, which could theoretically be ready for a 1-era beta as soon as I check all the rules and insert some workable placeholder graphics.

In addition to all of that, I'll be getting back into running soon if the weather will stabilize. Then there's the political mischief that I'm always getting into. And don't forget blogging. I think I'll have enough to keep me busy, if I can stay focused on a few items and not get

2012, We Are In You!

2012-01-15T19:16:00.000-05:00

Mid-January, is it? Why, it must be time for my annual I-should-be-blogging post!

Let's see, last time around I was... oh. Oh, I didn't even post until March. Well that's an improvement already! 2012 is shaping up nicely!

Actually, there has been quite a bit I've been wanting to post about over the last couple of months, but due to lack of time, or lack of interwebs, or just lack of motivation, I haven't gotten around to it. So allow me to summarize:

I dedicated November to ~~writing~~ thinking about my novel, which stands right now around 5-6000 words of prose plus several thousand more of notes. The whole writing blitz approach just didn't work for me, and I pretty quickly reverted to note-taking and outlining in place of blind drafting. In the interest of just getting words down and not worrying about editing I declined to post any more excerpts anywhere, but the plot is really shaping up. I'm certain at this point that it will end up being a trilogy.
Much of December was spent harassing Congress and my fellow citizens over the latest threats to the American way of life, namely the NDAA and SOPA/PIPA. As you are hopefully now aware, the NDAA includes a cleverly worded authorization for indefinite detainment of US citizens by the military, if they are suspected of potential ties to terrorism. Don't worry too much though; our trusty Commander-in-Chief only signed it into law reluctantly, and promises that he won't abuse this new power. In other news, SOPA and PIPA effectively hand executive power of the Internet over to corporate copyright holders, giving them unilateral power to shut down, sue, block, or starve off potentially infringing websites (read: the sites you visit every day) without due process. Thanks to a firestorm of opposition from the interwebs support for SOPA is failing, but some suspect that it was planned that way so that the slightly less draconian PIPA can then be pushed through under the guise of a reasonable compromise. Make sure your congresscritters hear from you on these ones.
Speaking of politics, the 2012 primary season has begun and your friend Ron Paul is doing quite well. He took a very close third in Iowa and a strong second in New Hampshire, establishing him as the clear alternative to ~~Bachmann~~ ~~Perry~~ ~~Cain~~ ~~Gingrich~~ ~~Santorum~~ Romney. This whole election cycle has been baffling, frustrating, and at times maddening, but I'm glad to see Ron getting so much traction among the Republican base. And for the record, he's still not only the most sensible candidate, but the most electable, regardless of what the media king-makers may try to sell you.
2012 is going to be a momentous year. From my best friend's wedding to the London Olympics to the Presidential election to the end of the world on December 21, everything is happening this year. One week last month saw the release of theatrical trailers for both The Hobbit and The Dark Knight Rises. If those titles don't get me to a movie theater twice in one year I don't know what will. And of course, in the meantime we get to enjoy works of genius like this.
On a more personal note, I have somehow recently acquired a girlfriend. I'm not sure why she insists on being associated with me, but who am I to refuse?

Well that just about brings us up to the present. If anything else happens, you'll find out here- a few months late.

Last Call For NaNoWriMo

2011-10-31T23:47:00.000-04:00

Yes, today is the last day of October- Halloween, or Reformation Day, or maybe Christmas if you're a programmer, or-

The eve of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2011.

This looks deceptively pleasant.

Plots have been outlined, characters sketched, worlds built, brains wracked. Starting tomorrow, I'll be attempting to put down 1,667 words per day into a more or less coherent storyline. By the end of the month I should have at least 50,000 words of an epic fantasy novel: [Working Title] The Sword of the Sentinel. You can follow my progress or my mental deterioration, but I'll not be blogging in the meantime.

It's not too late to join in the madness. Otherwise, I'll see you on the other side. With a novel.

For Those About To Write

2011-10-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

November is coming.

Two years ago I dedicated the month to growing a beard of epic proportions. This time around I'll be writing a novel of epic proportions.

That's right, NaNoWriMo. It's an annual challenge for would-be authors to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. And this year, I'm doing it. I am going to write 1,667 words per day, every day, for one month. And by the end I will have a fairly significant portion of a book.

I've already posted a few excerpts from the epic pseudo-fantasy story that I'm putting together. This is a project that I've been working on slowly for several years now, but I'm finally ready to do some serious writing. I've been using TiddlyWiki to keep notes on everything, following discussions on Writers.SE, and I've run lots of ideas past a few privileged friends. There are several more pages of unpublished excerpts lying around, and many more fragments floating around in my head. It's time to start merging everything into a solid storyline.

The working title of my novel is The Sword of the Sentinel. You've already met the main character:

Rael was just an ordinary young man from the borderlands who longed for an adventure. He never suspected when he fell in with a traveling band of traders that he would take his place among the Sentinels, the legendary guardians of the free lands. Now, with the threat of a terrible war looming, Rael finds himself in the midst of a desperate quest to unite the people of the world against the coming darkness.

You can follow along on my NaNoWriMo page as I race towards 50,000 words starting Tuesday, November 1.

Read My Lips: More Blog Posts

2011-10-04T23:39:00.001-04:00

John Stewart recently surmised on his most respected Daily Show, in reference to Sarah Palin's ongoing flirtatious antics, that "you can have a colorful bus, and drive to early primary states, or you can go around telling people what you would do if you were President, but when you put those two together there's really only two possibilities. You are either running for President of the United States, or you are a crazy person."

That got me thinking again about one potential use for this blog. Given that I have no intentions of taking a bus tour or any other form of road trip, it follows that I could safely annotate my hypothetical Presidential bid and/or administration without the risk of coming across as a crazy person. In theory, anyway.

It seems, then, that I may begin writing as if I were in fact running for or holding office to prime the discussion ahead of an entirely not real political gambit. Much like the cunning Locke and Demosthenes of Ender's Game, enlightening the world with my intellectual prowess in order to eventually dominate. Because we all know that's how politics on the Internet works.

A Shot in the Dark

2011-09-26T01:23:00.000-04:00

An Excerpt from [Untitled Work of Fiction]

Rael was suddenly aware that he was being followed. He turned to look over his shoulder and barely ducked out of the way of a large object swinging toward his head. The blow caught his shoulder and sent him sprawling. He tucked his head and rolled, grabbing at his belt for the hunting knife as he sprung back to his feet. He could barely make out the shapes of his attackers lunging at him. Before he could unsheathe the small weapon he received another blow to the stomach, doubling him over. Fighting to maintain his balance, he threw a punch in the direction of one attacker, missing completely. A torch was lit, and Rael saw that he was surrounded.

Two men grabbed Rael by the arms and held them outstretched despite his desperate struggling. A third, armed with the torch and a wooden club, stepped in front of him, eying him like a stray dog. One of the others spat and muttered "We got him good and tight, boss. Give him the treatment!"

Rael shot back defiantly, "Let me loose and I'll show you a treatment, man to man! Then we'll see who's got who!"

Their leader brandished his club and scowled. "Stow your tongue, you snot-nosed whelp. This will not be a pleasant-"

The assailant barely had time to look down at the white-feathered arrow protruding from his neck before slumping to the ground in a lifeless heap. Raels' other two captors loosened their grasp momentarily as they spun towards the direction of the attack, giving Rael the chance to lash out at one with a strong kick to the knee, sending him down howling. The other faltered, caught between predator and prey. An instant later he too sprouted an arrow and fell with a grunt. Rael turned back to the first wounded man who was struggling back to his feet and delivered another vicious kick to the head, knocking him out cold. The whole struggle had lasted only seconds.

Rael turned in the direction of the arrows' origin, aware that there was little he could do if the invisible marksman chose him next. Warily, he called out. "Who's there?" For a moment nothing happened, then he made out a smallish shadowy form strolling silently towards him. The figure stopped just outside the dying glow of the embers from the torch, which lay nearly snuffed out on the ground. A low, hushed voice accompanied the silhouette. It was rough but devoid of emotion and gave Rael the impression that it was disguised. "You picked a dangerous town to go wandering about in the dark, Sentinel."

Rael blinked, unsure how to respond. The stranger either was still shooting in the dark, or somehow knew more than Rael was comfortable admitting. He decided to ignore the accusation, hoping it was a bluff. "Who are you? Who were they?" he demanded, gesturing at his dead and wounded assailants sprawled at his feet.

The figure tensed, and the voice took on a slightly mocking tone. "I'd expect fewer questions and more gratitude from someone who was just saved from certain... unpleasant treatment."

Rael checked his attitude and bowed his head in respect. "I'm sorry. Thank you. It seems I owe you my life, and that I will not forget."

The stranger returned the bow, and though Rael could not make out the face he was sure it was grinning at him. "Consider it a debt repaid. My comrade told me of how you **SPOILERS** sprung him from prison in Zendar. He will not forget that, either."
Rael gasped. "Borcha! You're a friend of Borcha! But what do you mean- comrade? Who is he, really?" **SPOILERS**

The stranger nodded, but looked around before responding. "It's not safe to talk here. That much you must know. Follow me, and I'll answer all of your questions when and where we're safe." With that, the figure spun around and nearly disappeared into the night before Rael could set his feet into motion. Quickly the two wound their way noiselessly through the darkened city, leaving no sign of their passing.

After several minutes, just when Rael was sure they were both lost, the stranger stopped short in front of a rough wooden door set in a nondescript stone wall. From somewhere on the other side, Rael could hear conversation and mild revelry. It was some kind of inn or tavern. His new companion rapped sharply several times on the door, which opened to reveal another shadowy figure- this one large and imposing. The two nodded in greeting to each other, and Rael's guide whispered something and motioned at him. The doorman nodded again and stepped out of the way, allowing them both to pass.

The door was closed and bolted behind Rael, leaving him fumbling in almost complete darkness. The sounds of business were louder in here, but he could see no sign of their origin. He then heard the strike of flint on steel as the doorman lit a candle. As the flame cast out its feeble light, Rael took in his new surroundings.

The three stood in a small back room, a storage closet by the looks of it. Sacks and boxes were piled around on the floor, and the walls were covered in shelves containing all sorts of items. A stack of wine barrels rested in a corner.

The doorman was a tall, muscular man with a shaved head. Rael guessed his job was to keep trouble away, but he looked friendly enough towards the two visitors. Rael looked back to his new companion, hoping for some answers. Besides a bow and quiver, the mysterious marksman wore a simple leather jerkin and arm wrappings under a light cloak. The face was still hidden in shadows beneath a deep hood. Then the stranger drew back the hood, and Rael gasped. The marksman was no man at all- it was a young woman!

10 Years Later

2011-09-11T00:55:00.000-04:00

Woke up to a brand new skyline
We licked our wounds and mourned the dead
Swallowed the story, hook and sinker
Is this what we meant, when we said
That we never would forget?

Those are the opening lines to "Broken Lungs" by Thrice, a mournful song reflecting on the damage inflicted on September 11, 2001 and our collective reaction. I've been thinking a lot lately about that day, but more about the days since.

I don't want to politicize tragedy, but as we commemorate the tenth anniversary of that terrible event we must consider why it happened and what we have done in response. On 9/11 we learned that America was not invulnerable. That we had enemies who could and would do us harm. That the reality of mass violence was not limited to third-world countries that we read about in the news. It happened here, and it happened to us. And we swore we'd never forget.

Now, a decade later, I have to wonder if we have forgotten. Not the attack itself, of course. We still recall where we were when we heard the news. The images of the collapsing towers and billowing smoke are forever etched in our memories. We remember the chaos. The shock. The terror. But have we forgotten what it meant?

Did we ever really know?

We were told that they hated us for our freedom. Are we more free?

We were told that we must must make the world safe for democracy. Are we safer?

That day shattered our innocence, but are we still naive? That day opened our eyes, but do we really see? A decade later, are we wiser than we were on September 10, 2001? Have we asked ourselves the hard questions about why this happened and what we can do- must do- to make things right?

Or are we fools and cowards all?

The Ascent: Part 1

2011-09-03T20:59:00.000-04:00

An Excerpt from [Untitled Work of Fiction]

Rael woke before dawn to a strong hand gripping his shoulder. He opened his eyes and squinted, barely making out the stony face of Durran in the gloom. Durran motioned for him to rise, then turned and left the room without a word. Rael sat up, stretched, and rubbed his eyes. It had been a short night, but he slept soundly, more comfortable in a proper bed than he had been for weeks of travel. Now, after only a day in Camlin, he faced more traveling.

He quickly dressed and gathered up his small pack, pausing only to splash some water on his face from a bowl that had been left by the door. Before leaving he placed his unstrung bow and quiver into the long drawer beneath the mattress, but strapped his hunting knife to his belt and pocketed his sling. Both were small enough to carry without any burden, and it was better to have them on hand. Durran's insistence that they must slip out of the city before dawn had put Rael on edge, though he did not understand why.

Just as Rael made his way out of the room and into the dimly lit hallway, old Thanis appeared with the plump innkeeper in tow. Master Veer carried a candlestick in one hand and gestured with the other, halfway through an apology for breakfast not being ready at such an hour. Thanis cut him off, stating that the trio would eat on the road. As if to illustrate his point, he tossed an apple to the bleary-eyed Rael, who nearly dropped it. Rael fumbled with the fruit and tucked it into his shirt pocket. Thanis had turned back to the fussy innkeeper, assuring him that all was well and sending him off to attend to more demanding guests. Master Veer, seeing that his customers were content, nodded a quick farewell to both men and shuffled off in the direction of the kitchens.

Thanis motioned for Rael to follow as he turned down a side corridor and stepped outside into the pale pre-dawn. They stood in a narrow alleyway behind the inn, where Durran was waiting for them. The dirt-floored passage separated the back of the inn from another stout building, running from a road to the inn's storehouse where goods could be brought in out of the way of guests. The air was crisp and cool, and the ground was covered in dew. A slight sea breeze carried the smell of hay from the stables and the bustling sounds of morning preparations from the kitchens. The first sliver of sunlight already colored the eastern sky, providing enough light for them to find their way. The city would soon be coming to life as a new day dawned, and Durran had made it clear that they should be on their way without drawing attention to themselves.

The Sentinel was clad in his usual garb, but wore his cloak rolled into a small pack on his shoulder. None of the three men carried much with them, only what they would need for a day's march; additionally Durran carried his sword on his back, mostly concealed by the bundled cloak. Rael considered again their plan. They would spend the day hiking to the top of Mount Gibbeth, avoiding notice, and presumably come back down before nightfall if their sparse supplies were any indication. After a moment's thought he spoke up softly. "I don't understand, why are we going to such trouble just to climb this mountain? I'm eager to see the countryside, but what does it matter if anyone knows we're out for a walk?"

Durran and Thanis exchanged an impassive glance. Thanis grunted, then murmured, "Mind yourself, lad. All will be told in time. We'll talk on the trail, once we're clear of uninvited company." Without further explanation the eccentric Freelander gave Rael a gentle slap on the back and turned down the alleyway.

Durran had already set off toward the road, where he paused momentarily as the others caught up. His cold gray eyes swept briefly up and down the stone-paved street, watching for any who might notice their departure. Without another word they set off, moving quickly towards the northern city gate as the Sentinel led the way. They kept to side streets whenever possible, winding around major thoroughfares and squares where already early risers would be gathering, but never stopping to avoid detection. Their quick footsteps echoed down the cobblestone streets in the still quiet of the early morning, but Durran was more interested in haste than stealth. None of the few strangers they passed afforded them more than a passing glance. He seemed more wary of his surroundings than usual, but content that they would soon be forgotten by anyone who might have noticed them.

Dawn had fully broken when they turned onto the main road leading out of the city, just short of the north gateway. The gates were open and a cart or two were already making their way into Camlin. Pedestrians strode through the street, going about their early morning business. Without a pause, Durran led the small company out through the thick arched gateway. The two guards leaning on their spears at each side of the great wooden doors barely paid them any notice.

The Sentinel glanced cautiously back over his shoulder several times as the men departed from Camlin, checking for anyone who might be following. It was not until they were more than a league outside of the walls, and out of sight of any watchers, that Durran relaxed and slowed their pace. As if to indicate that they were now safe, he spoke for the first time since leaving the inn. "This road will take us north, along the foot of the mountain. From there we will turn to the west, and skirt the southern slope to the High Road. We should begin the ascent by midday."

Thanis nodded in approval and produced an apple from his pack, which he polished on his shirt and bit into. Rael counted the hours in his head. If they would not begin to climb the mountain until midday, it must be much farther away than it appeared- which meant, in turn, that it must be truly enormous. It dominated the skyline from Camlin, already seeming to dwarf any mountain that Rael had climbed back home in the borderland. He shook his head. Whatever secrets Mount Gibbeth held, he would just have to wait and see for himself. In the meantime, he had a long walk ahead of him.

On the Virtues of Civilization, Part IV

2011-08-28T23:20:00.000-04:00

Pictured: best game ever.

Or rather: Civilization III is the best game ever

I'm continuing this series, which I began over 2 years ago, from my previous blog. We last saw me in Part III enjoying the Activision spin-off Call to Power prior to the release of the "best game ever made."

I acquired Sid Meier's Civilization III around Christmas of 2001, shortly after its release. Thanks to this newfangled Internet that had made its way into my life, it was the first upcoming game that I had specifically followed pre-release. It was also my first limited edition purchase. Pretty exciting stuff for a 14-year-old budding gamer.

Incidentally I was on vacation in Texas when I bought it (with the help of some Christmas money) from the now-defunct Electronics Boutique at the Rivercenter Mall in San Antonio, and so I wasn't able to play it for a while. When I got back home the CD drive of the family computer had failed and I wasn't able to play it for a while longer. Needless to say, by the time I actually installed the thing I was giddy with excitement. Okay, maybe not giddy. But I was very eager to start playing this latest and greatest Civilization installment. As it turned out, I was not to be disappointed.

Civilization III, like Call to Power before it, brought an isometric map view and animations into the main series. (edit: Civ2 also used an isometric view, but its graphics were static and fairly simple) It also introduced civilization traits and unique units that made selecting your civilization a strategic rather than aesthetic decision. New concepts like tradeable resources, air missions, ranged bombardment, and Great Leaders added strategic depth to the war machine. Small wonders and expanding cultural borders enhanced the peaceful-builder side. While previous installments looked and played more like a board game, the world really started to come to life in Civ3. Its game mechanics were sophisticated but balanced. Empire management was more comprehensive, combat more strategic, and diplomacy more immersive.

Best of all, Civ3 featured a powerful and accessible scenario editor, which was vastly improved with the Conquests expansion- an add-on which was all about custom scenarios. If modding Civ3 was popular before Conquests, it really took off afterwards. The new features unlocked by the improved editor sparked a second "Golden Age" for Civ3 in 2004-2005, well beyond the typical shelf life of a game these days. Many veteran players to this day- I among them- insist that its well-balanced gameplay combined with its robust modding interface makes Conquests the greatest accomplishment of the series, if not all of strategy gaming. I'll talk more about modding in a later post. For now, suffice it to say that Civ3, and especially Conquests, got me into modding and kept me playing for the next decade. In fact it's the last game I played before writing this post, and the limited edition tin box is proudly on display on the bookshelf behind me. It is indeed the best game ever made.

Speaking of a decade, the "Civilization III Creation & Customization" (ie, modding) community at CivFanatics is hosting a modding awards competition in celebration of 10 years of Civ3 and in recognition of all the great contributions fans have made over the years. I'm actually in the running for "User Interface of the Decade" for a set of screen graphics I created for Lord of the Mods, which I'll cover later. If you've ever enjoyed user-made Civ3 content, come on over and join in the fun.

Next up, I'll talk more about CivFanatics and how I got hooked into the player community.

Repost: On the Virtues of Civilization, Part III

2011-08-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

Reposted from WildWeazel

In Part II I described my introduction to the Civilization series. At this point, I've been playing Civ1 for a few years and have a serious case of "(Just) One More Turn Syndrome".

Since I didn't start playing Civ until around the time Civilization II was released, I missed the sequel. Instead, my next Civilization game was Civilization: Call to Power, a spin-off by Activision. In 7th grade I received CtP as a reward for making it to the oral rounds of the regional spelling bee. This time I got the whole product, including the large tech tree and statistics poster, and the official strategy guide, both of which were put to good use. CtP immediately became my new favorite game, and although I occasionally went back to Civ for the sake of nostalgia I enjoyed CtP much more.

Call to Power introduced many new concepts, especially to a Civ1 player. Public works improvements, unconventional warfare including slavery and propaganda, undersea and space cities and improvements, and combined arms combat all added depth to the game. A wide variety of civilizations, units, and buildings rounded out the options, ensuring that no two games could ever be the same.

I only vividly remember one game, playing as Germany on a large and populated map. I had built Berlin into the greatest city in the world, probably to the detriment of the rest of my nation. I owned a large portion of a major continent, but was locked into a stalemate with Canada on a peninsula to my southeast. For some reason I never rebuilt a major invasion force after my initial land grab, but resorted to extended stealth-bombing and ground skirmishes. Meanwhile, Brazil owned most or all of another continent in the north, and after establishing itself as a world power had continued to strengthen until none dared oppose it. It seemed content to peacefully enjoy an exponential increase in power, until I finally got frustrated at the near-impossibility of actually winning the game and decided to attack. I built several nukes and launched them adjacent to several Brazilian cities (to avoid being intercepted by the overpowered War Walkers who automatically shot down incoming air units), only to be put into my place a few turns later as hordes of Hovertanks skimmed across the ocean onto my lawn.

Speaking of War Walkers and Hovertanks, CtP had some crazy mixed in with its ingenuity. I was all for the extended future eras and expanded gameplay, but units like Eco Rangers and Televangelists were a bit on the eccentric side, and the deep-future technologies felt tack-ed on just for the cool value. Overall though, it was a well-designed and attractive product. It easily kept me entertained and addicted for the next year and a half, until the best game ever made was released.

Continued in Part IV

Repost: On the Virtues of Civilization, Part II

2011-08-28T23:05:00.000-04:00

Reposted from WildWeazel

In Part I I explained the reason for this topic and briefly described the Civilization franchise. Let's continue.

I started playing computer games not long after my family got our first computer, when I was about 6 or 7. First it was the simple Windows 3.1 games like Mosaic and Minesweeper, then commercial games. SimTower was the first game I (and by "I", I mean "my parents, on my behalf") bought, and I quickly became a fan of Will Wright's games.

When I bought SimCity a few years later, which by then had already been around for a while, it came packaged with another game, just a CD case laminated on the front of the box, which I had never heard of. I set this one aside, eager to play the venerable SimCity. To my dismay, I could not get the game to run despite my best efforts at playing around with different system and game settings (my hacking started early), so I reluctantly turned to this free copy of "Civilization" (Civ1 DOS, for those interested) to ease my frustration.

It worked, and I spent much of the following months forgetting that I ever wanted to play Sim City. I don't remember the details of my first game, but I have plenty of memories of learning how to play- deciding that I should build additional cities before being surrounded by rivals; experimenting with diplomacy, which was then done via Diplomat units; discovering that a Trireme is a boat, and that I could now explore other landmasses; my first victory as Russia on the Earth map in which I city-spammed my way to dominance and then conquered the world; and saving all of my progress on a growing stack of floppy disks. To this day, the (now extremely rare) sound of a floppy disk writing makes me think of Civilization.

And so it came to pass that I developed a serious case of what we civvers affectionately call "One More Turn Syndrome" at such a young age. The arrival of Civilization: Call to Power did little to ease my affliction.

Continued in Part III

Repost: On the Virtues of Civilization, Part I

2011-08-28T23:03:00.000-04:00

Reposted from WildWeazel

Yeah, it sounds like a lofty essay compilation on world history and anthropology. Don't worry, it's about the games.

I know I've casually mentioned "Civ" quite a few times, and even posted a few previews of stuff I'd been working on for mods. I even have a tag for the subject. But the whole ~~obsession~~ preoccupation with the game(s) has never been directly addressed. I shall fill this void in installments.

For the, ahem... uncivilized, I should at this point explain what exactly it is that I speak of. Civilization is a series of "4X" (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) turn-based strategy games that follow the course of recorded human history, from the stone age to the space age. The player assumes high-level control of a civilization and develops it through building cities, improving terrain, raising a military, researching technologies, and interacting with other civilizations. The original Civilization ("Civ1") was designed by the legendary Sid Meier and published in 1991 for MS-DOS. Sid's company Firaxis Games has since created 3 additional incarnations, expansions of each, and a number of spin-off titles. The franchise has sold over 8 million copies and is now one of the most popular names in strategy gaming.

My first encounter with Civ was an accident.

Continued in Part 2

Rick Perry Isn't The Only One Running Today

2011-08-13T22:33:00.000-04:00

I got to check off a 43 Things goal today: Run a 10K.

The Blue Crab Bolt was a tough 6.6-mile trail run through a very hilly park in nearby Clarksburg. The course was longer and much more difficult than I expected, but I nonetheless managed to keep a decent pace and finish strong. The weather helped, with overcast skies and a brief rain shower in the final mile.

It was my first race longer than 5 miles, and a milestone in my preparation for this year's Army 10 Miler in October. My company is sending 3 teams to compete among 30,000 runners. I've been working up to it for a few months now after not running for most of the past year.

I'm obviously not a very disciplined runner, or a particularly good one at long distances, but I do enjoy pushing myself sometimes. I'd like to try a half marathon next year, which is only another 3 miles or so. I don't have any particular long-distance plans beyond that.

I did sign up for one other related event though. Run For Your Lives is a 5k obstacle course race with zombies. Yes, that kind of zombie. You have to keep away from the undead horde in order to finish the course. It seems like a fun way to round out the season. If anyone in the MD/PA/DE region or beyond is interested in joining me, let me know.

An Ill-Fated Voyage

2011-08-04T23:17:00.002-04:00

The US Government is like the sinking Titanic. Republicans are compulsively rearranging deck chairs while Democrats want to take another pass at that iceberg. Ron Paul and a few friends are standing off to the side with some life boats trying to get people's attention, but nobody is listening because they're all threatening to kill each other over whether the captain should have hit the iceberg head-on.

I posted that little quip to Google+ yesterday and got several approvals, so I broke my recent taboo and posted it to Facebook and got several more. Those who liked it varied across the political spectrum. I think that shows that it's a fitting analogy, and that people are aware of just how bad the situation is.

To anyone who is paying attention, it should be mostly self-explanatory. The iceberg is the massive economic disaster that we've been flirting with for several years now. The proverbial deck chairs represent the few billion dollars here and there that the populist Republicans have fought so hard for while the Democrats want to dump more money into the hole. Only an ideological few, mostly libertarian leaning leaders are willing to call out the political games for what they are and demand fundamental changes to our way of doing things.

That last part about fighting over past decisions seems like a silly hyperbole, but it's actually the part of the analogy that I find most true. You see, Titanic was built with a compartmental design to withstand a collision with an iceberg. But when the captain saw the ice at the last moment, either out of panic and lack of trust in the ship's cunning design, or for confidence in his own skill and wanting to minimize the impact, he chose to divert, resulting in more damage. It is likely that this maneuver actually doomed the ship.

Likewise, when facing a mounting economic disaster likely spurred on by decades of political maneuvering, our government chose to take drastic and short-sighted action rather than let the free market take its course, meet the crisis head on, and come out leaner and healthier on the other side. By pushing our already enormous national debt to completely unsustainable levels (now outweighing our GPD and putting us into the same category as the heavily indebted European nations that are now facing economic collapse) they have likely doomed our economy in the long run.

Unfortunately, what's done is done. Whether it was tax cuts, multiple wars, bailouts, stimulus funding, massive healthcare overhaul, or a fundamentally broken system, the money was spent and now it is owed. They have borrowed over $14.5 trillion from both American and foreign creditors, while piling spending on top of irresponsible spending. But much of the political rhetoric being tossed around is about how bad those decisions were, how it should have been done differently, how things might have ended up if only, how many puppies Obamacare has kicked. The fact is, those things did happen, we do have a national debt greater than our GDP, we are borrowing and spending at unsustainable rates, and the US Dollar is in decline. Nothing we say now, and little that we try to undo, is going to change that.

That's where the lifeboats come in. A few prescient leaders have been warning us about the reality of the situation for a while now, but most of us have been too caught up in mudslinging to take notice. The "spending cut" that supposedly solved the debt crisis merely says that the government will spend a few trillion less than it had otherwise planned to over the next ten years, much of which will be borrowed. This ~$2.4 trillion, a number unfathomable to most people, is still only pocket change to the $15 trillion debt that is still rising- and, per the same legislation, authorized to rise- bounded only by the continued wrangling of Congress. This massive number is in turn dwarfed by the $114.5 trillion unfunded liabilities, the money which the government is already planning to spend but can't afford. Yes, that is one hundred trillion dollars greater than what we already owe.

Ron Paul, who has been warning of this for years, and his son Rand are two who have been pushing hard for a balanced budget amendment that would ban deficit spending altogether. A requirement for a vote on such an amendment made its way into the law, which may prove to be its greatest victory. Ron has also long been a vocal advocate of returning to the gold standard, which would effectively prevent the government from monetizing debt by simply printing more fiat currency and devaluing the money supply. At this point even such revolutionary actions may not be enough. We may be in for an economic collapse, and abandoning a doomed ship may be our only recourse. We're already past the oft-quoted 200 year average lifespan of great civilizations, and it looks like the "American Century" may be cut short.

It's time for a paradigm shift. The federal government got us into this mess, but left to its own devices it's not going to get us out. Our lifeboats are state and local governments committed to financial responsibility and personal freedom; election of leaders who will take courageous and unpopular action to bring our debt and spending under control and reign in the unconstitutional expansion of the federal government; and a firm reliance on God, not the State, as our provider and protector. Are you going to climb in, or will you listen to the band play until the ship goes down?

Metalcore Monday

2011-07-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

Monday.

ugh.

That most dreadful of days.

I've always hated Mondays. I still do. After only 2 short days of weekend - staying up late, sleeping even later, and generally doing whatever you want (nothing, if so inclined) - dragging yourself out of bed on a Monday morning to face another full week is nothing short of dismal.

That's why I created Metalcore Monday.

Let's break that down:

Metalcore. That most rocking of music. Part metal, part hardcore. 100% awesome. Listen to it.
Monday. Is it Monday? Listen to metalcore.

The idea is that simple. Monday sucks. Metalcore makes it suck less.

After promoting this weekly event for a few months now I find that listening to metalcore makes Mondays entirely more bearable. There's something about loud, aggressive, barely coherent music that gives you the resolve to man up, press on, and rock out.

Not familiar with metalcore? No problem! Lately I've been offering suggestions each week for those less enlightened. I even maintain a Grooveshark Playlist to help you out.

I hope to see more people rocking out with me every Metalcore Monday. Share your latest favorites on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter with the #MetalcoreMonday hashtag.

The Facebook Killer?

2011-07-01T23:57:00.001-04:00

Allow me to be a Google fanboy for a moment. As much as I'd been hoping that Google would do something awesome and come out with a Facebook killer, I was taken completely by surprise when they announced Google+ on Tuesday.

Google's latest beta product is all about sharing- bookmarks, photos, group video chats, and more- all with a focus on easily managing who sees what through the social circle metaphor, a helpful layer of control that Facebook is clearly lacking.

The premiere of Google+ was such a runaway success that within the first 48 hours invites had been temporarily suspended due to "insane demand". By then I was already in, probably thanks to a friend at Google who shared a message with me, thus extending an implied invitation.

A site like this can only succeed with plenty of users, and while the field is still a bit sparse it has already taken off much faster than the ill-fated Google Wave (anyone remember that?). Google+ seems somewhat minimalist compared to Facebook- its obvious counterpart, though Google doesn't seem eager to label it as such- but that's where it shines. Everything is simple, clean, and just works. There aren't (yet) third-party apps and games to clutter your stream. Interaction is snappy and intuitive.

If you're a Google user, your existing Chat contacts, Picasa albums, Buzz feed, Google profile, and +1's are all already integrated into your Google+ page. Friend connections combine the asynchronous following of Twitter and Buzz with a simplified versions of Facebook's friend lists to create customizable Circles, which form the audience of everything you post. Like all other Google services, and in stark contrast to Facebook's draconian policies, Google+ lets you easily check out and take all of your data with you using Google Takeout.

There are of course some improvements I would like to see. While Buzz is displayed in your profile, it's still an independent service on its own tab. There doesn't seem to be any integration of Buzz followers, Google Reader sharing, and Google+ Circles yet. I don't see a connection to the new Music Beta, which has obvious social network potential. This week Google has been rolling out new, unified interfaces across Google apps, so I'm hoping functional integration is coming soon.

The real question though, is what does this mean for Facebook? Will Google be able to unseat the king of social networking and grab a significant market share with its cleaner, more user-friendly, and all around more enjoyable alternative?

I can only hope.

Wherein I Learn To Read

2011-05-29T02:02:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been doing something that I haven't done much of for a long time.

No, not dating. I'm reading books for fun.

As a kid- pretty much from the time I learned my ABC's- I was a bookworm. I always had a book nearby, and went through them at an unbelievable pace for my age. I was the kid who would walk out of the library with an armful of books and one already in my face. Even into high school I did quite a bit of voluntary reading, although the garbage that I had to read for school started to put a damper on my enthusiasm.

Then, I went to college. Between my engineering course load and this newly discovered high-speed internet, I had little time for reading anything that wasn't either electronic or vital to my academic survival. I stopped reading books.

Now that I'm out of school and have my time to myself for all but a modest 40 hours per week, I've started to get back into reading. In the meantime I've spent quite a bit of my free time online in various ways, so it's not like I'm unused to reading, but there's a big difference between browsing the web and sitting down with a big fat paper book.

A few months ago, as I was starting to compile a list of books I'd been wanting to read, I was directed to Goodreads - a social web app for book readers. I populated my to-read "bookshelf" with the books I had thought of, then browsed some of the user-created lists and recommended titles and before I knew it I had well over 100 books to read! The site offers a 2011 Reading Challenge in which you commit to reading a number of books for the year and track your progress. I challenged myself to a book per month, which for you non-math folks means 12 for the year. So far I've finished 3 and I'm about 2/3 through another. That puts me more than a full book behind, but I intend to catch up.

Goodreads isn't the only place where I've been browsing shelves. My local library (like many, I suspect) has an ongoing used book sale where you can buy donated books for 50 cents to help support the library. I don't know how many dollars I've spent there in the last several months, but I've already run out of room on my bookshelf. Just today I hit the jackpot:

Pictured: $4 well spent.

Those are 8 well-known sci-fi and fantasy titles that I found all at once. I couldn't believe it. The first four books of The Wheel of Time. The third and fourth books of the Dune series. The first of the Heritage of Shannara. And for the first time, my very own copy of The Hobbit. What's more, I had already picked up the second Dune book to complement my copy of the original, and two thirds of the Shannara trilogy. Not to mention several other unrelated titles from Tom Clancy to CS Lewis. I'm building a fairly complete library just from 50 cent used books!

Of course, I'm also reviewing the occasional book for Thomas Nelson's BookSneeze program. (I'll say it again: I really dislike the new name.) I may post updates as I finish ones from my personal list, but for the most part I'm just reading for my own enjoyment. And also to practice for my own epic fantasy novel. But that's another topic.