Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Subscribe to SnoutCast



You can now subscribe to SnoutCast, the bi-weekly podcast wherein DeeAnn and I talk about The Game, other puzzle hunts, various tabletop and video games, and random word definitions!

Get every episode delivered to your listening device of choice using one of these handy links:

CKL DeeAnn

Monday, December 28, 2009

Like Netflix for Books

I just finished reading The Life And Times Of Martha Washington In The Twenty-First Century, the oversized hardback edition of the epic comic book series by Frank "300" Miller and Dave "Watchmen" Gibbons. This book has a cover price of $100. It's 600 pages long and weighs over seven pounds without the slipcase.


(photo from BoingBoing)

It's a good book, and I never would have bought it myself, but I got to read it and enjoy it for free, thanks to my local public library.

My wife and I live in the Portland (Oregon) metropolitan area, which means we have access to the Multnomah County Library in Portland proper and the Fort Vancouver Regional Library, just across the river in Washington state. Even better, both library systems have online catalogs, so you can search for the exact book you want.

The best part is that both libraries allow patrons to place any book "on hold." Back in Mountain View, the library would only allow you to put something on hold if it was checked out--if the book was on the shelf, you had to go find it yourself. Not here. Even if a book is shelved, tireless Portland and Vancouver library staff will retrieve it for you--from anywhere in their system--and send it to the "hold" shelf at your preferred branch.

Once that's happened, you'll get an e-mail telling you the book is "on hold"--only your library card can check it out--as long as you pick it up soon (within ten days in Vancouver; seven in Portland). After you've got it, you can also renew it online, unless someone else has put it on hold after you.

The only way this could be more convenient is if, like Netflix, the libraries mailed books directly to us. And they actually do offer that service--in Vancouver, you need special approval; anyone can request it in Portland for $2 per book plus return shipping costs. But it just seems wrong for us to be that lazy, especially when running errands is one of the few things that gets us out of the house these days.

The big advantage for us is being able to create something akin to a Netflix "queue." We tell the library what books we want to read, and they tell us when those books are available. I put Superfreakonomics on hold in Vancouver last month, and I'm now up to #20 on the list, but I'm in no hurry. Portland has a great graphic novel collection, and I was able to catch up with DC's insanely insane Final Crisis stuff without having to track down individual issues at comic shops or spend money on trade paperback collections that I'd only read once.

This also makes for some pleasant surprises, when we get pickup notices for books that we'd put on hold months ago and then forgotten about. I've currently got two books on hold that the library hasn't even purchased, because they haven't been published yet. But I know I'll be able to read them when they are.

None of this takes away from the fact that I love owning books. It still requires non-trivial self-control to limit my purchases every time we hit Powell's. It's just really nice to feel like at least some of my local tax dollars are going to support a great service that we use quite a bit, and from which we derive great personal benefit. I didn't ask my country to do this for me, but I'll take it!

CKL

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Friday Flash Fiction: "The Gift of the Maggie"

A day late and a dollar short, as they say.

Read "The Gift of the Maggie" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

Happy Boxing Day

Friends and family: If you did not receive a holiday card from us, please accept our profuse apologies for the oversight. Our contact list may be out of date. Send us your home mailing address and we'll make sure you're included next year.

Meanwhile, everyone and their dog can read our exciting 2009 family newsletter (below).

SoleChen 2009 News

[Download PDF - 306 KB]

CKL DeeAnn Jasper Bayla

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

SnoutCast #3: Story Time

Apologies for the audio artifacts this time around. I forgot to unplug my laptop before recording and had to remove the 60-cycle hum (and harmonics) using a software notch filter. Which is ironic, because I warned about this very problem on the Wired How-To Wiki.


[ Download mp3 - 39 MB ]

00:00 - random teaser
01:25 - shout-out to our two confirmed listeners!
02:10 - "Which Game had the most coherent story?"
06:25 - DeeAnn votes for The Goonies Game
12:20 - stories in Snout Games
13:45 - clue difficulty distribution; dromedary vs. camel
21:27 - Curtis actually means Mickey Rooney
22:47 - "Go to Hogwarts" (see what she did there?)
37:46 - in other gaming news...
41:04 - The End

Happy Holidays, y'all!

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey," "Skullcrusher Mountain," "Tom Cruise Crazy," and "Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton

CKL DeeAnn Jasper

Monday, December 21, 2009

"HP computers are racist"

Just... just watch it. Now. I'll wait.



News coverage here.

The best part is, this was very nearly the exact premise of the "Racial Sensitivity" episode of Better Off Ted, quite possibly the funniest show on TV right now:



Single-camera comedies rock.

CKL

Friday, December 18, 2009

Friday Flash Fiction: "Guards"

All I have to say is, Orson Scott Card has a lot to answer for. (And I don't just mean the homophobia.)

Read "Guards" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

25 Hours From Now...

I'll be appearing on the 30 Hour Day livestreaming telethon between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM Saturday to read some traditional holiday stories, including:
  • Clement Moore's "Twas the Night Before Christmas"
  • Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" (inspiration for GrooveLily's excellent Striking 12 stage show)
  • O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi"
...and a little gem from 1922 that you've probably never heard of. Hint: I'll be doing a few different British accents.

Tune in any time between 4:00 PM Friday (today!) and 10:00 PM Saturday night to see a colorful parade of entertaining and interesting personalities from Portland, Oregon (complete schedule here). You don't even have to close your laptop. And it's all for charity!

CKL

Friday, December 11, 2009

Friday Flash Fiction: "The Stories We Tell Ourselves"

It's been a tough week. I guess I should thank Neil Gaiman for his advice: Make Good Art. Or, at the very least, try.

Read "The Stories We Tell Ourselves" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Bayla died yesterday.



Bayla died yesterday.

It happened in the car,
on the way to the vet.

We weren't ready for her to go.
We never would have been ready.

She'll never
dance by her water bowl
or drink with her front paw
again.

She'll never
sharpen her imaginary claws
on the corner of the coffee table
or the underside of the dining table
again.

She'll never
serenade us from the bathtub
in the middle of the night
again.

She'll never
sit with her front paws crossed
and her "we are not amused" face
again.

She'll never
lie on the bed
next to DeeAnn
or Jasper
again.

She'll never
be curled up in a ball
with her paws over her face
again.

She'll never
wake DeeAnn in the morning
by patting her face
again.

She'll never
sit inside a cardboard box
again.

She'll never
lick or chew a plastic bag
again.

She'll never
play with her curly ribbon,
batting at it
and chewing on it
again.

She'll never
rub her face against the wall
or on the book we're reading
again.

She'll never
stand on DeeAnn's thigh
and beg for a piece of sandwich
again.

We'll never
feed her lunch meat
from our sandwiches
again.

We'll never
comb her tabby fur
and remark on how much she sheds
again.

We'll never
hear her thundering down the hall,
running away from Jasper
or chasing him
again.

We'll never
see her grooming Jasper
while he sniffs at her neck
again.

We'll never
hear her complain
when Jasper bites her
or when we pick her up
again.

We'll never
check her belly
to see if it's pink or fuzzy
again.

We'll never
clean up after her
or give her a pill
or worry if she's eating
again.

We'll never
hear her snoring under the bed
again.

We'll never
kneel down on the floor
to see where she's hiding
again.

We'll never
watch her walking across the bookshelf
or have trouble jumping onto the bed
again.

We'll never
hear her licking her catnip mat
with her scratchy tongue
again.

We'll never
feel her lean into our hands
as we pet her
or rub her chin
again.

We'll never forget her.

I'm happy
she gave us fifteen years,
like DeeAnn asked.

I'm glad
we were both with her
at the end.

I hope
she knew how much
we loved her.

Good-bye, Bayla.

We miss you, baby-girl.



Bayla

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

SnoutCast #2: Old People

Not only do we talk about old people, DeeAnn and I also talk like old people in this podcast. It's a performance. Like improv! As far as you know.


[ Download mp3 - 53MB ]

00:00 - "Old People" GC prototype (Sean & Crissy)
04:23 - discussion of same
10:55 - the origin of "we're not having fun anymore"
12:13 - getting back to the prototype...
17:39 - inside baseball and randompodcast.com
19:10 - following up on the 10,000 hour rule from Outliers
20:55 - asshats and gaywads (as seen on Daily Show & Colbert Report)
23:30 - we are not experts; doing the math
31:09 - DASH 2 and trying new things
44:23 - "Old People" Clue recorded live (Sean & Lisa and coed astronomy)
56:23 - The End

You can also hear Jasper-cat yelling in the background every now and then.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey," "A Talk with George," "Mandelbrot Set," and "First of May" by Jonathan Coulton

CKL DeeAnn Jasper

Monday, December 07, 2009

Scalzi on Self-Publishing!

Jasper here, with more on self-publishing, this time from New York Times bestselling author and multiple Hugo Award winner John Scalzi! From his "Quick Note on Self-Publishing":
[I]f you are going to self-publish, for the love of all that is good and decent in this world, don’t pay to do it. In this day and age, there is no reason to do so...

[This] assumes you are minimally competent to copyedit your own work and are competent to do a basic design for your book, either on your own or using the default settings available on Lulu or other similar services. If not, you can hire people to do these specific tasks, which is still very likely to be cheaper than a suite of services you would buy from a vanity publisher.

In related news, there's been a bit of an online brouhaha surrounding romance publisher Harlequin's announcement that they're launching their own "vanity press" imprint! They got spanked pretty soundly by several trade organizations, including SFWA, and that's all I'm going to say about that!

Always remember Yog's Law: Money flows toward the writer! (And thanks to Viable Paradise's Jim Macdonald for originating that axiom!)

Jasper

Friday, December 04, 2009

Friday Flash Fiction: "On Orbit"

Let's get this out of the way right now:
Read "On Orbit" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

Thursday, December 03, 2009

The ORC Equations



Last weekend, at OryCon 31, I ran two Open Read & Critique (ORC) sessions. I've done writing workshops before, but this was my first experience with the ORC format (called "rogue workshops" in other places).

There were a lot of unknowns this year; the ORCs used to be an unofficial, late-night thing at OryCon, and this was the first time they were scheduled in the afternoon alongside other panels. I think the ORCs went well, and I was impressed by the quality of all the pieces read and everyone's critiques, but I have some ideas for better time management in future programs.

I wrote up my analysis into a four-and-a-half page document, which you can download as a PDF. If you're not inclined to slog through four pages of algebra, I'll sum up:

ORC sessions should be broken into hour-long segments. Sign-up sheets should provide slots for 5 participants and 2 waiting list names in each hour. Readings should be limited to 5 minutes, and individual critiques to 2 minutes (if more than 4 people in the room, 1 minute each). Any extra time can be used for group discussion. (edited 09 Nov 2010)

(For the next part, it might help you to picture David Krumholtz standing in front of a whiteboard.)



Here's the formula to determine the time for a single round of critiques, t:

t = R + (n-1)C + D

Where n is the number of participants; R is the time to read a single piece; C is the time for each individual critique; and D is the discussion time at the end, when an author can respond to questions.

So the time T required to complete all critique rounds is:

T = n(R + (n-1)C + D)

Given a time limit T and setting certain constraints on R, C, and D, we can solve for n:



Long story short, we set T=60, R=5, and D=2, and we can fit 4 people into one hour if C=2, and 5 people if C=1. Any less than that and most people won't be able to provide a useful critique; any leftover time can be added to D, since most writers never seem to tire of talking about writing. Q.E.D.

Applying these equations to other writing workshops is left as an exercise for the reader.

CKL

Monday, November 30, 2009

Done and done

I wrote 10,700 words of fiction today, bringing my total for NaNoWriMo to just under 52,000 words, which got me this lovely parting gift:



I may post more about this year's experience later, but for now, here are some totally misleading statistics.

The official nanowrimo.org word tracker (shown below) is wildly inaccurate, because at least twice (including last night, when I did 7,300 words), I updated my total after midnight, and so it was added to the next day's count instead. I would really prefer to be able to manually assign my word counts to specific days, since until the verifier goes live on November 25th it's all manual updates anyway.



Because of OryCon 31 and other obligations, I only actually spent 15 out of 30 days writing this year's novel. My lowest word-count day was 570 on November 17th, and my highest was 10,700 on November 30th (which may also be the most words I've ever written in a single day for anything).

My mean average word count per working day was about 3,400. If I throw out the highest and lowest outlying data points, it's 2,900. But first draft is not my problem. Revision is what kills me.

As per usual, I did minimal outlining, though I did keep notes and make sketches throughout the month. The final novel actually did contain all the elements I anticipated when I filled out this form at the kick-off party:



CKL

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Friday Flash Fiction: "Sidrav Corsol's Backstory"

Yes, I know this is a day late, but it's not like you couldn't have found this week's story otherwise. I really only post these pointers for the sake of completeness.

Read "Sidrav Corsol's Backstory" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

SnoutCast #1: ZombiePortLand

After writing one "GC Musings" blog post in September, it occurred to me that any such discussions should include my lovely wife DeeAnn, who's been an integral part of every Snout Game. She handles the budget, most of the logistics, and many other planning aspects.

As the latest of our various experiments, she has grudgingly agreed to join me in an irregular podcast about games (note lowercase "g"--we will definitely talk about puzzle hunts, but we reserve the right to digress).

Here's the first episode. It's pretty rough, but either we'll get better, or we'll stop:


[ Download mp3 ]

Oh, yeah, it's also 53 freakin' minutes long. Show notes below so you can skip all the boring stuff.

00:50 - We start with the profanity right away.
04:42 - Left 4 Dead 2 (buy from Amazon)
15:35 - Curtis' talk at Ignite Portland 7 (video and slides)
26:39 - Recap of Shinteki Field Trip: Disneyland
50:21 - Happy Thanksgiving! The end.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey," "Baby Got Back," and "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton

P.S. If you'd like to join our zombie-killing party sometime, we're sparCKL and SoleChen on Xbox Live.

CKL DeeAnn

Sunday, November 22, 2009

How to Solve Any Puzzle in Less Than 47 Minutes

EDITED (10 Jan 2015) to fix broken video and photo embed links.

For those who couldn't attend, here's a recording of the puzzle hunt talk I gave at Ignite Portland 7 on November 19, 2009!


http://youtu.be/QGXzqc1v5hI

The talk includes a walk-through of one Clue from the MegaHard Game (2000), and I love that several people in the audience applauded for the "a-ha" moment and the solution at the end. That's what it's all about, folks.

It's difficult to see the complete slides in those videos, so if you want to solve the embedded puzzle, you should look at these still images:

Ignite Portland 7
picasaweb.google.com/116737692309729475506/IgnitePortland7

As noted, tweet @teamsnout if you figure it out. First person to post the correct solution wins verifiable, time-stamped bragging rights. :)

Thanks to all the Ignite Portland staff, volunteers, speakers, and attendees for contributing to a great event, and to Jeff Stribling of MegaHard GC for providing a copy of the Clue for me to photograph.

CKL

Friday, November 20, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

In a Crowded Theater

This Thursday night, I'll be presenting "How to Solve Any Puzzle in Less Than 47 Minutes" at Ignite Portland 7. The title is, of course, hugely misleading; I'll be discussing puzzle hunts in general and walking through one Clue from the MegaHard Game (2000) at breakneck speed.

For those unfamiliar with the Ignite format: Each speaker gets exactly five minutes to present. You submit twenty slides, and each one advances automatically after fifteen seconds. Topic-wise, pretty much anything goes; this time around there'll be talks about DB Cooper, robots, karaoke, hooping (with live demo), and more.

I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an embedded puzzle in my slides.

Check out the complete lineup, and if you're not in Portland, visit the web site on Thursday for info on the live video stream.

CKL

Friday, November 06, 2009

Missing Music

The best thing about the short-lived 2000 Bruce Campbell TV series Jack of All Trades is the main title theme song. Really! It was nominated for an Emmy and only lost because it was up against The West Wing. (But composer Joe LoDuca landed on his feet. He's working on Leverage these days.)

Hear the genius for yourself:


http://youtu.be/_VNsjjYRgjc

D and I have been re-watching Pinky and the Brain recently, which also has a great theme song. This is one thing I miss about modern TV shows. I blame Frasier for starting the trend and shows like Lost for exacerbating it (though the latter did make for a nice comedy bit at this year's Emmys).

I mean, if ever there was a show crying out for a theme song, it's Glee. Come on, guys. SRSLY.

Writer Lee Goldberg does a TV Main Title of the Week feature on his blog, and it's worth subscribing to his feed just to see these. They're not all good--quite a few are real clunkers--but as my friend Brian says, the main titles should tell you what to expect from the show itself. A good theme song should tell you, in about a minute, whether or not you are the audience for that show, and if you are, should make you want to go watch it immedately.

Here's a perfect example:


http://youtu.be/A7g5S6EgMHs

I rest my case.

CKL

Friday Flash Fiction: "Part of the Solution"

You know the old saying:

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

<mcmahon>HEYO!</mcmahon>

Read "Part of the Solution" at 512 Words or Fewer

CKL

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Um, gee, thanks, Facebook...

...but I think you may have confused me with someone else. Screenshot:



I'm not saying I wouldn't want to be Ray Bradbury's friend. I just don't think he would click "confirm" on that request.

What I'd really like to know is which connection Facebook mined to determine that I should be friends with Mr. Bradbury. Lacking any other evidence, I (as so many others have) choose to blame Scalzi.

CKL