Nothing like a convention to get the juices flowing; the mad rush of people from the far corners of the earth, the bazaar-style hawking of niche products of every conceivable stripe, the crinkle-swish of mysterious ladies strutting their stuff in latex catsuits, and, of course, the tangy aroma of unchecked body odor commingling and recombining like some pre-sentient alien gas colony . . . well, no one said life on the road was all roses and ice cream, but then such adventures aren’t for the faint of heart or sensitive of nose.

So, the intrepid Dr. Zaius and I have just returned from a week-long stint at Origins in Columbus, Ohio in support of my pal Nathan Jerpe’s computer RPG Legerdemain. This was our second experience as fledgling merchant princes and sales droids, the first being Dragoncon ‘08 (at which my loyalties were divided between two endeavors of equal rogueocity, Nathan’s Roguelikefiction and Jason Waltz’s Rogue Blades Entertainment), and it was a blast as well as being a tremendous success for the company both in terms of sales and getting the word out. In the realm of pure enjoyment, the con reinforced for me the notion that there is something about the metagame of actually selling and promoting a product in such an environment that makes the experience every bit as enjoyable for many of us exhibitors as I’m sure the playing of the myriad of visually impressive and craftily ingenuous games that dominated the space at Origins is for the attendees. Alas, eight hours a day of selling and talking seems to impair the higher brain functions, so that the majority of our off hours had to be spent under the restorative influence of beer — a palliative finely represented by the local brews of the area. Kudos Columbus, you rock.

There was a time in my greener days when I would have contemplated doing a con report complete with pictures and write-ups, etc. But let’s be honest, the press card never won Clark Kent any respect, and I’ve always looked a bit dorky in blue and red, so the middle path seemed best: infiltrate the proceedings, soak up the information, and then come back here to regurgitate in the careless and casual fashion that is the lingua franca of the internet. In sorting through the riot of images and impressions (and disregarding the rather dull recollection of fourteen hours of highway blacktop smoothing past) I have to conclude it’s the people Nathan and I met that made the con the great experience it was, from the uber-capable guys at Longbow who are putting out one of the best historical strategy computer games I’ve ever played, and our fun-to-be-around and upbeat neighbors in the exhibitor’s hall, a great crew out in support of the CCG The Spoils, to the suave instigators of Geek Chic who hold top honors for most put-together presentation (and coolest outfits), to our new friends from Vectorform and the great state of Michigan (!) who demoed the very next-generational game playing capabilities of the Microsoft Surface to a hungry audience . . . as well as managing to laugh at all (or most) of my jokes. And, of course, the 100s of folks that were interested in talking about old school computer RPGs with Nathan and I with the sort of enthusiasm that brings back heady recollections of the days of the SSI gold boxes and games like Ultima and Wizardry, and who really grooved to what Nathan has created with his game.

To all of them Dr. Zaius and I extended a heartfelt ‘nice to have met you’ . . . although the good doctor would also like to add that he fears and despises you all and would like nothing more than to give you a lobotomy or perhaps incorporate you into a taxidermical exhibit. Road trips tend to make him cranky like that, especially after a couple of Red Bulls, so don’t take it personally.

Well, it has indeed been silent around here of late, as regular readers will have noted. I’m not dead, nor have I run away to pursue my dreams of carny life, but I have stepped back from blogging — for a while at least. I found that it fragmented my attention too much at a time when what I really want to do is put in some extra time on my fiction.

That’s not to say there won’t be posts over here (or at Black Gate), they just won’t be all that regular. Quite honestly I’ve enjoyed not having to worry about generating constant content, as steady reviewing can be pretty demanding. In the end, it didn’t come down to a question so much of time — though that is a factor — as of focus. Constantly thinking about a dozen little projects is a surefire way to make sure the big projects never even get started, at least in my experience.

Terminal velocity got you down? Hypoxia making you blue? Does that three minutes it takes to plunge six miles back to Earth feel like an eternity? Then you’ll be glad you read Dan Koeppel’s article at Popular Mechanics called “How to Fall 35,000 Feet — And Survive.”

Amazingly enough, people have survived such drops from aircraft, and the article looks at just how this could be. Combing some basic physics and details about individual cases of survivors, Koeppel crafts a fascinating article with a tongue-in-cheek feel to it — if only because most of us don’t ever plan to be in the situation of choosing how we’ll crash back into the ground:

Glass hurts, but it gives. So does grass. Haystacks and bushes have cushioned surprised-to-be-alive free-fallers. Trees aren’t bad, though they tend to skewer. Snow? Absolutely. Swamps? With their mucky, plant-covered surface, even more awesome. Hamilton documents one case of a sky diver who, upon total parachute failure, was saved by bouncing off high-tension wires. Contrary to popular belief, water is an awful choice. Like concrete, liquid doesn’t compress. Hitting the ocean is essentially the same as colliding with a sidewalk, Hamilton explains, except that pavement (perhaps unfortunately) won’t “open up and swallow your shattered body.”

Still, just to be on the safe side, maybe you should read the article?

April Fool’s was indeed full of fooling this year, but a phony post over at Comics Alliance managed to make me pretty damn envious of the inhabitants of the parallel world in which it was real. It’s Alan Moore’s next League of Extraordinary Gentleman series, and this time around its America’s heroes of the 80’s that take center stage. That’s right, MacGyver and Jack Burton, B.A. Baracus, Doc Emmet Brown, and Lisa from Weird Science — all teamed up against an undead Tony Montana and the Lost Boys! A nostalgic mash-up of the highest order.

‘Top Shelf Announces League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1988′

Seems a perfect compliment to my Movies of a Misspent Youth series, as well. If only something like this really could make it into the Fast Forward section of my reviews, the world would be a stranger, but better, place.

Recently I read a terrifically depressing article called Weaponizing Mozart at Reason.com about some rather bizarre and frankly unfortunate means of social control in use in the UK. Apparently, ‘anti-social behavior’ among teens is some sort of ongoing blight, and a variety of high tech nanny state solutions have been deployed to combat it. My favorite would be the Mosquito, a device that emits an extremely unpleasant noise that is apparently inaudible to people over about 25 — but gratingly irritating to kids. Sounds like something from a dystopian black comedy, Brazil perhaps.

Ah, but the main thrust of the article is straight from the prescient mind of Anthony Burgess. No, it isn’t the Ludovico Technique (yet), but almost. Seems not only has playing classical music in school detention as a form of punishment and discouragement come into use, but playing it in public places in an effort to keep children away is also being tried. So, like the induced nausea of Ludovico’s aversion therapy, a whole new generation will associate beautiful music with punishment, anxiety, and their own inadequacy and undesirability.

The author of the article, Brendon O’Neill sums up the two-pronged effect nicely: “The dangerous message being sent to young people is clear: 1) you are scum; 2) classical music is not a wonder of the human world, it’s a repellent against mildly anti-social behavior.” He also brings up A Clockwork Orange (how could he fail to?), and I’m reminded again at how much that novel speaks to our own time — a time in which kids aren’t taught or disciplined anymore, only told how entitled and exceptional they are and then blasted with ear piercing deterrents and beamed with monster halogens from helicopters when they inevitably become the ‘hooligans’ they were engineered to be.

Poor, poor victims of the modern age . . . as are we all.

I first saw this cavalcade of wrongness via a link over at John Ottinger’s Grasping for the Wind. It is perhaps funnier than it has any right to be.

Star Trek Invasion, an assortment of photoshopped Trek tributes at Something Awful.

So, as of today — right this very instant! — this site is two years old. And boy has a lot changed.

I mean, two years ago who could have imagined that computers would one day be the size of toasters? Or that music would be performed by cybernetic dolphins? Or that men would one day walk on the Sun? Not me, that’s for sure. But here we are, living in the future, cooking food with our cellphones while sexbots do the yard work — it’s a weird frontier and we’re galloping across it at full blast.

Now, those of you who may remember my first post will notice a lot has changed in my approach to this blog (admitting it was a blog was a start). So, after two years, you may be wondering if it was all worth it. “Was it all worth it?” you ask, rather more politely than is usual for you.

No.

No, it wasn’t. It’s a constant headache keeping up with all my new celebrity friends and feeding them excuses why I can’t come out and play. Not to mention the groupies — please, if I was interested in teenage girls I would have put up more of a fight when they revoked my school-bus driver’s license. And if you think being bumped up a few tax brackets from all the cash this place generates is somehow fun come April (gee, it’s time for the government’s annual math quiz!) you’ve got another thing coming. In short, blogging is way more trouble than it’s worth, and not a day goes by I don’t wish I was back living my old humble existence as a Lebanese pop star so I could be rid of this mess.

But, as it stands, I suppose we’re stuck with each other. At least pretend to be having a good time, will you? So put on the silly hat, get the cheap vodka out of the garage, and join me in going through the motions of appearing to have a good time on my two year Blogiversary.

Hip, hip, hoo . . . ah, screw it.