pocket of crisis un-management

I have been remaining mostly calm and collected with answering questions about Wolfie's passing.

Here is what my internal reaction is:

)&(@$^(*Y(_*6(*&^(_@*#$&(_@^$(&%^)GODDAMMIT*@&#^+)
(&@$)(&_(@*$^_(*^@$(_*^@#(_*^(_^$@()&(@#$*^()%#^*
&%@!*SONOFA)&^R$_@(*^_(*^@$(_*^+_@!(&_(*$^*(^*)%@!#_
(*^+)(&*$+)(&(^(^$@)(*^(@$_^BLOODYFUCKINGHELL!)
(&@$)(*&(_@$*&(*_^@#$*(&^@$(_*^(_*@#

we now return you to your regularly scheduled Eleri.

BWWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

State of the Unions

9 marriages, 9 different ways that marriage is working.

Realization

None of my accomplishments as an 'adult' has ever been worth the celebration of my family.

This is depressing.

SNERK

Cool Photography, Hawt Photagrapher

Can't get a much better combo than that. GO and check out Joe Decker, then give him shiny stars at the bottom of the page.

Write!

Someone on LJ was inspired by this picture to maybe write something. So I thought, why not put it out there to tickle everyone's brain?

There's the photo... go and write! Get other people to write!

Uru and User Created Content

There is both a legal and a practical issue Cyan would like to resolve in regaing the rights. As Tony Fryman, Cyan Worlds' CEO put it, "Turner holds the rights to the game. Because of that I can't turn these guys (the fans) loose to do their own thing."

After listening to the interview with Miller, we contacted Ricardo Sanchez, VP of Content and Creative Director of GameTap. He sent back (by email from Wendy.Rutherford@turner.com) this reply:
"We have been in discussions with Cyan about the future of Myst Online: Uru Live, and selling the rights back to Cyan is definitely an option.
While there isn't a set dollar amount for this to happen, any agreement would need to be mutually beneficial for both companies."

Fryman said the rights remain with Turner for another two years.

So, this brings up a very important question for the Guild of Writers, and other age builders: Can you wait two years?

If, in two years, the rights revert back to Cyan, they can "let you guys loose" then... or, they can spend a potentially not insignificant amount of money so that UCC can happen sooner.

Which is a harder pill to swallow? Cyan stretching themselves financially at a time that finances are snug, for UCC; or having to keep the UCC 'underground' alive for two years until Cyan has full control?

Is there a legal solution that allows the fan side of UCC to financially contribute to the purchase of rights, while still allowing Cyan to retain the majority of control over UCC?

Thank you, California.

Although the understanding of marriage as limited to a union of a man and a woman is undeniably the predominant one, if we have learned anything from the significant evolution in the prevailing societal views and official policies toward members of minority races and toward women over the past half-century, it is that even the most familiar and generally accepted of social practices and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed by those practices or traditions. It is instructive to recall in this regard that the traditional, well-established legal rules and practices of our not-so-distant past (1) barred interracial marriage, (2) upheld the routine exclusion of women from many occupations and official duties, and (3) considered the relegation of racial minorities to separate and assertedly equivalent public facilities and institutions as constitutionally equal treatment...
... As past cases establish, the substantive right of two adults who share a loving relationship to join together to establish an officially recognized family of their own — and, if the couple chooses, to raise children within that family — constitutes a vitally important attribute of the fundamental interest in liberty and personal autonomy that the California Constitution secures to all persons for the benefit of both the individual and society.

Amen.

Read the rest of the California Supreme Court ruling. It is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL application of real law as it applies to the civil institution of 'marriage'.

The President's Sacrifice

“Mr. President,” he was asked, “you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?"
“Yes,” began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans — on our history.
“It really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
Golf, Sir?
Golf sends the wrong signal to the grieving families of our men and women butchered in Iraq?
Do you think these families, Mr. Bush - their lives blighted forever — care about you playing golf?
Do you think, Sir, they care about you?
You, Mr. Bush, let their sons and daughters be killed.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you gave up golf?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you didn’t give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you didn’t even give up talking about Iraq - a subject about which you have incessantly proved without pause or backwards glance, that you may literally be the least informed person in the world?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them, you didn’t give up… your
4,000 dead Americans and your response… was to stop playing golf!
Golf.
Not “gulf” - golf.

As gobsmacked as this makes me, the idea that Bush would see giving up golf as a sign of solidarity with the troops who are out dying on his orders, I'm not supprised at all at his laizzes fare additude. He's got 8 months left. Whoever wins in November is going to have to clean up his mess. At this point, he knows he's getting away scott free, no consequences at all for the mistakes he's made.

just one night a week...

52 Nights Unplugged

apt

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

–T.S. Eliot, from Little Giddings

Sparklies for a Good Cause

Hie thyself over to the Interstitial Arts Foundation auction, and check out the prettys!

Happy Beltaine Everybuggy

And to celebrate, here's a Coulton Classic!
NSFW, btw

D'niverse Documentary CD, step one.

It begins HERE

MYSTERIUUUUMMMM!

Go and register for Mysterium! Book your hotel! Start getting excited! I know I am ;)

Presents!

For the first three people that reply to me with your email, I will send you something. It might be something I've made, or something cool from my Box o' Random Stuff, it might be music, or a rubber...duck, a book I think you will enjoy, or something else that is nifty-neato.

Whatever it is, I promise that I will get it to you in 365 days or fewer. I promise I will not send you junk, but it will be unique, and make me think you you :)

The CATCH is, you have to post this offer in your journal, too. Bwaahaa!

Visions of Uru

I really haven't said a whole lot on what I envision Uru to be, mostly cause Tweek and Alahmnat have been saying it much better than I could.

I want a world that feels like I've literally been sucked into a book, that I am part of the world, not just an observer.

Now!

While this snippit of article from over on the Washington Post is talking about LOST, (I kan has new episode, plz? *pacepace*), I think that much of what they talk about applied to how some approached Uru, as well. "Content" needed to be supplied constantly, stuff needed to be happening constantly, or Uru wasn't entertaining. Rather than taking Uru as 'real', where adventures don't happen every day, and waiting for things to unfold, people we chomping at the bit.

That may be part of what purred the move to episodes. Also, and I say this with deepest admiration for the person behind the story... but the story was being run like it was being written, not played out. It was an observable narrative, not an interactive experience, and that put people off of the story, badly.

"This is really about unfolding narratives and our decreasing ability to live in the unknown," says M.J. Ryan, author of "The Power of Patience."

While humans may have always wanted to know what happens next (See: rabid readers of Charles Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop," released in installments in 1840), Ryan says the Internet has transformed that feeling from a desire to an entitlement.

Traditional narrative was about a linear beginning, middle and end, says Ryan. "But the narrative of the Internet is associative and non-linear." Instead of watching a complicated story unfold, users can hop around seeking specific puzzle pieces. "It encourages the bottom line. It's about who wins, who loses, and what's on the island."

What worries Ryan are the implications of that bottom line: "If we can't even wait to see what happens next week on a show, what does it say about our abilities to live our lives in the not knowing? Because for that, we don't really have an option."

"It does say something about human nature and instant gratification," concedes Jon Lachonis, who created the popular Web site TheTailSection.com. But, he argues, his interest in "Lost" is more social. "Whatever the mystery du jour is, there's a real communal approach to talking about them."

My dreams are secure

Ahh, yes, the Moral Superiority Clause. In which someone tells you how dumb it is to put energy into something they deem unworthy, because there's Starving Children in China(tm). Usually paired with the It's Just A Game statement, in which the digital nature of the source material is seen as further indication of the unworthiness of attention.

There are some of us who believe in Uru's inherent worth. That it should exist not because it's a money maker, or because it's cool to play, or whatever. We see the dream, and we want it to be real, because it deserves to be shared on its own merit. We put time and energy towards it because we feel it is the right thing to do.

No one, not jackal59, not anyone else, has the right to denigrate our joy in Uru, our dedication to bringing Uru to life because it should be. Snicker all you want behind your hands, but some of us still believe in beauty for beauty's sake. That things that inspire wonder are meant to exist come hell or high water. And that's something that all the snide comments and waving of business models can't take away. It's called 'faith'.