Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.

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Friday, November 13th, 2009
theferrett	5:10p	They'll Do It Every Time When I'm preparing for a trip, I pack my bag full of dense, beautiful books - all those novels I've been meaning to read. And I do read them... ... On the way out. By the time I board my flight back, I am exhausted, braindead, and lazy, so cracking that book of florid short stories just feels like hiking uphill. I can't do it. Fortunately, airport bookshops cater to the braindead. So I spend twenty bucks on some idiot pop "science" book like Freakonomics. This time, however, I've outdone myself. In my lap now is " Rules of the Game" - the bestselling book on how guys can get with beautiful women. "Master the art of attraction!" it claims. And because I want to see what sort of advice seems good to very lonely men, I am going to read it. I feel dumber already. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (35 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	8:26a	Your Personal RPG Archetype In my experience as a GM, players are like serial killers: they do what they do in order to satisfy some inner need. And like serial killers, you can extrapolate a lot about their personalities from carefully observing their evidence. Which is to say that most players, even if they play a lot of characters, generally have some core personality trait that is shared among all their PCs. Take me, for example; I've played characters from a low-life gambler who plays cards with demons for (unreliable) magic powers to a superhero who records his battle-sounds so he can sample them for club mixes later. From an outward description of the guys I've played, you'd be hard-pressed to see what the connecting tissue is, because as a writer I go balls to the wall to come up with wildly differing backgrounds. Yet all of my PCs share one thing; they're the smartest guy in the room on one issue. Not the smartest guy in the world, mind you, but each character has a gateway to some kind of forbidden knowledge that the other PCs just don't have. Yes, I play a living supernova who burns his enemies with fire... But he's also a physicist. Yes, I'm playing an ex-jock gone to seed who's forced into investigating the Cthulhu mythos... But he also runs a chain of sportswear outlets, and is a master of marketing. The huckster knows magic secrets, the DJ knows the club scene better than anyone. As a player, I'll be entirely happy if I get the shit beaten out of me in a losing combat if I get to have my secret knowledge mean something during the game. It's perfectly fine if Thermal winds up in chains after the big battle if his physics knowledge was the only way they could have gotten into the villains' lair. That's what scratches my roleplaying itch. And it's constant. Likewise, my wife comes up with wildly differing characters from an elf flickering between dimensions to a fire-priestess of a noble kingdom, but all of her characters can be summed up by Thundering Badass Crippled By Dysfunctional Family Issues. If you play with almost anyone for long enough, you'll generally note the ties that bind all their PCs - even if, quite often, they're unaware of it. So I ask you: What's your archetype? Do you know what need it satisfies? Tell me. I want to know. (86 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
theferrett	11:53a	A Random Game Poll When I play through any computerized roleplaying game for the first time, I am invariably the good guy. I make all the morally correct choices, am kind to my fellow travellers, spare my enemies, avoid kicking puppies or harvesting little children, et cetera. I am scrupulous about this, for this is the "official" record. Then, if the game is sufficiently interesting to play through again, I start a "what if?" scenario where I play the utter bastard, making every greedy choice and slaughtering everyone in town. And I dislike this on some level, but justify it because the first time was what really happened, and this second time is just fantasy. Which is kinda stupid, but there you have it. However, I know this is not unique. Interestingly enough, my daughter Amy started off Mass Effect with an utter jerk, but within three hours she felt bad and slowly transformed her meanie badass into a sweetness and light hero. Which led to this weird little poll: Poll #1484469 Roleplayin' Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 301 When I am playing through a computerized RPG of some sort (like Bioshock, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age), I will usually: View Answers Start off playing a "good" guy. 203 (67.4%) Start off playing a "bad" guy. 15 (5.0%) Go somewhere in the middle between saintly and satanly. 35 (11.6%) It depends on my mood. 48 (15.9%) (66 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	9:44a	Star Wars Ruined My Life My love of overthinking Star Wars has ruined my writing career. Because Darth Vader is a shivering coward, and practically no one knows it. Wait, I'll knit those two sentences together in a moment. But first, let's talk about Vader's wussery - and when we do so, we will discuss the only three movies that matter. The word "Annie" is dead to me, and I have no idea what this "mid uh klor ee in" thing is that you're mentioning. Thing is, in the first three movies, Vader is presented as a total badass. But if you look at what's really happening, truth is that Vader's just a hired gun, and not a particularly great one at that. In A New Hope, Vader's nothing more than Tarkin's bitch. And I use that word in the doglike sense, because not only does he do everything that Tarkin commands him to do ("Hey, stop choking that guy who insulted your whole religion!" "Okay, boss") but Leia actually calls him out. "I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash." In other words, Leia - and, presumably, everyone else in the know - understands that Vader has a leash, and someone's always holding it. Hey, why does Vader survive the Death Star? Because he was sent out as the lead attack dog to go fight them hand-to-hand. In other words, he survives only because he's one of the most dispensable employees - a glorified Stormtrooper, a special breed of cannon fodder. Where was Tarkin? Back in what he presumed was safety. Vader's good at killing, don't get me wrong. But "badass" has a certain connotation of freedom and independence, and Vader? Is just another gun for hire. In fact, Empire, what happens next? Vader's in charge of a task force to find the rebels, sure, but at the end of the film he first attempts to box up his son to bring back to the Emperor without any qualms. Dude, Vader's just a glorified UPS deliveryman - and when your first plan is just to dope-de-ope bring your only offspring back to the Emperor to be brainwashed into being the Emperor's slave, well, you messed up. And then, when it turns out that his son might almost be able to beat him, what does he do? He begs. Oh, don't be fooled by that James Earl Jones voice. Broken down, Vader's cry is, "HALP! I can't beat the nasty old Emperor on my own, 'cause I'm scared! But if you, a one-handed gimp I just thrashed when I got pissy, team up with me, we can do it!" You think Vader needs Luke to beat the Emperor? Hell, no, Vader does that at the end when Luke's beaten him. No, Vader needs someone to hold his goddamned hand like a six-year-old needs Mommy to cross the street. Vader's a tough guy, sure, but badass? Badasses don't need a cheering squad to help them go off and win the day. Badasses don't beg. Sure enough, at the end of Return of the Jedi, the only time Vader finally acts? When his son's beaten him, when the Emperor's mocking him and ignored him, when his son's about to die, and when the Emperor has his back turned, Vader finally acts. Could he have done this years ago? Sure. Hell, he's doing it with one hand and a failing life support system. But wimpy ol' Vader was just too frightened of the Emperor to do anything until Luke finally goaded him into it. Again. That's a guy with a lot of tremendous power, but underneath? Vader's a candyass. He'll take directions from anyone because inside, he's terrified of everything. He goes and beats up people who aren't in his league at all, because he's afraid of real challenges; picture a movie where Bruce Lee only fights mooks he knows he can beat, because he's too afraid to fight the Savage Emperor by his lonesome, and you see Vader's inner scaredycat. I love that finesse. Because people buy Vader as a badass, because the movie is largely shot from Vader's perspective (something Lucas openly admitted when he went back and, uh, didn't film three awful films). When you start pointing out that Vader really is just a gun to be shot by pretty much anyone with the will to shoot him, they start hemming and hawing and telling you how he's really a threat. Yes. But a threat is not a badass. Vader's Woody Allen with a lightsaber. The reason I say this ruined my writing career is because that dichotomy is one of my lit-kinks. I love writing stories from a strong first-person perspective where the lead character is flawed, and completely unaware of it. In other words, I write Vader'fic, where the lead characters appear to be strong and monotone, but underneath there's something else going on. And that's a weakness right now, because as it is I don't have the chops to pull off something like that. Not one of those stories has sold yet. What actually happens when I write the story is that people actually buy the lead character's opinion of themself, and they miss all the subtle clues I put in that indicate that whoah, wait a minute, things aren't quite this simple, and instead they see it as a simple "Us Good, Them Bad" story. And I can't fault them for that, because I am writing in a fashion influenced by a man who created a villain who literally millions of people see as the ultimate badass. Which Vader, as I have noted here, is not. It's an interesting way to try to construct a story. But I need to learn to put in better clues, or achieve deeper characterization so that people can see beyond the surface, or plot better. Because as it stands, for all of its charm any scene from Star Wars makes a pretty lousy short story. I'm gonna have to find a way to either drop this lit-kink or learn to pull it off better. In either case, I blame Lucas. He's convenient, and rich enough not to care. (78 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
theferrett	2:22p	Boosting Signal From rollick: Checking out of the Overlook: 16 Ways to Survive a Stephen King Story. Completely, 100% accurate. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	10:34a	Ode To The Basket Of Halloween Candy On The Shelf Here At Work First they came for the Milky Ways, and I did pig out — because I loved Milky Ways; Then they came for the Butterfingers, and I did pig out — because I loved Butterfingers; Then they came for the Nestle's Crunch bars, and I did pig out — because hey, it was chocolate; Then they came for the Babe Ruths, and I did pig out — after searching the remains of the candy dish for a stray Butterfingers or Milky Way; Then all was left was the Sweethearts — and nobody eats that shit. (26 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	7:58a	Questions, I Got Questions Six-hour meetings always leave me drained, especially if they're productive ones. So I did the "three questions" meme with three friends. (It's the one where you leave a comment asking them to ask you three questions, and then you post the answers and promise to do the same in your journal. I'd always like to play, but if I posted something where I gave three questions to everyone who wanted 'em, I'd be here all day.) Anyway, their questions: xhollydayx: 1. What is your next hair color, or are you going to eventually go back to au natural Ferrett? I'm pretty much choosing my hair colors at random for now, because I am eventually going to go back to au natural Ferrett - which, at the rate my hair is receding, will be a smooth, fleshy pink. I figured I might as well start going wild with the colors before my hair disappeared on me for good. My daughters want bright red, but I'm pretty sure it'd make me look like an evil clown. 2. What do you miss most about having a pet/ferrets? I'm all kinds of stupid exciteable and goony. Dogs and ferrets can be that way, too, so I'll just go romping with them and making silly noises and wrestling with them until we're both exhausted. Playing with them unfetters my silly side. Alas, until they invent the poopless dog, I'm about done with having allergies all the time and cleaning up poop. I'm pretty sure I could invent a sort of poopless dog by sewing portions of them shut, but that seems like it would get very expensive after a while, and they really wouldn't be that fun to play with after the first couple of days. Also, I'd get all these nasty looks from the women at the pound. So that's totally not worth it. 3. Have you always been attracted to fuller figured women? Would you be interested in a very slender woman? You know, I have. My first real attraction on record, a girl called Dana, was a little thick. I'm always a little weirded by saying that I'm attracted to fuller figured women because, well, that sounds like I have some sort of fetish or something. I have a type (actually, Katie Featherston from Paranormal Activity is pretty much my ideal woman, and I'm going to hate it when she loses twenty pounds for Hollywood), but in real life I usually like women for their personalities. So I could be attracted to a skinny girl, if she was cool and funny and all that stuff. (In fact, a friend had lost so much weight that she'd wondered if I'd still be attracted to her. The answer: Yeah, because as long as she's strong enough to talk and type on a keyboard, thus transmitting her brainmeat-candy from her to me, there's gonna be an attraction.) But I dunno. In general, I tend to get along with thick women better, and I'm not sure why. Is it because they tend to be more comfortable in their bodies? More raucous? (I'm not fond of shy women who don't speak up.) Some other hidden signal I'm responding to? I don't want to generalize overmuch, since slotting people into one aspect obscures all the exceptions to the rules - but my attraction to thick women could also be explained by me being attracted to some aspect of a personality that also tends to lead to chubbiness, and I suspect it's more about personality for me. Or I could be full of shit. I'm not sure anyone can really rationally explain their own attractions; we only justify. And from hps_sterling: 1. There can be only one! What is your favorite game? Ah, such a question! How are we defining "game"? Videogame? Traditional game? Politics and seduction? If we're going with overall game, I'd have to say at this point based on pure numbers alone, it's Rock Band. Lord knows I've spent more hours on that than anything else. But I consider videogame to be a different category of game, so if I had to choose something a little more Amish, it'd be Apples to Apples, with a good group of friends and our customized, hygrated deck of only the most interesting cards. (Magic is a close second, and might be #1 if more people played it, but getting folks in for an all-out chaos game of six people is such a hassle that it affects my enjoyment.) 2. Do you like coffee? I like one coffee: Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee, double milk, double liquid sugar. This is the only way I will drink coffee, and even then somehow the local Ohio branches screw this up two times out of five. It's like drink roulette. Very depressing. 3. What are your thoughts on trying new things that are outside of your comfort zone? One of my infamous rules is that if I've never tried it before, I have to. This is not a bold claim, but rather an ingrained aspect of my personality that gets me into trouble. I have to try everything once. Newness is my fetish. So if there's a boundary, I usually try to push it. My comfort zone is actually a little outside of my comfort zone, weirdly, because if I stay in my safe place then I start to feel like I'm in a rut and get panicky. So I try something new, and a little discomforting, and I feel better. It's odd. It's also led me to good places overall, because I tend to take large risks - which don't always pay off, but when they do I get something like the lovely experience of going to the Clarion workshop (six weeks off from work? Really?) or my lovely wife Gini. I'll take those. If you got questions, ask. (33 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
theferrett	9:06a	Clarionniversary, October Wrap-Up Stories Published This Month: "In the Land of the Deaf," by Electric Spec Teaser: I really wish you'd get yourself deafened, Geoff's wife Angie signed. It's just too dangerous out there. The irony was, of course, that Geoff barely heard anything anymore; years of firing his gun in the line of duty had permanently damaged his eardrums. But he was on his way out the door to give the annual recruitment talk, which meant there was no time to argue Angie out of her damn fool ideas again... Comments on Publication: This is actually one of my favorite stories that I wrote in the first six months after Clarion, and I'm glad to see it find a home. I should also note that Electric Spec has an interesting blog that often critiques the first pages of submitted stories from an editor's perspective. Also, on an unrelated note, Diabolical Plots listed my story "Suicide Notes, Written By An Alien Mind" on his Best of Pseudopod Top 10 List. Neat! Stories Worked On This Month: "Shoebox Heaven" (first draft). My Godson Andy's cat died, and so I wrote a story about him flying up to Heaven to find his kitty. It wound up being a horror story - though not, perhaps, from his perspective. Like any afterlife story, it runs into tricky bits with the mechanisms of Heaven, and preliminary critique from the fine folks at Viable Paradise suggest I need to be more explicit about my views of mankind, but I think it'll be quite nice shortfic when it's done. "Season to Taste" (fourth draft). My infamous "gay cannibal rhino" story. Much ripped out upon revision thanks to the helpful feedback from The Cajun Sushi Hamsters, wherein I really looked at the character motivations and made them all line up cleanly. Not sure if that made the story better, though I'll keep revising. There's something here. About glorious, beautiful cannibalism. "The Insecure Cyborg" (fourth draft). This one's a little weird, because I have an offer for it, but I have to revise out a controversial scene and replace it with something else. Difficult, but doable. A couple of minor starts and dribbles on stories with preliminary titles like "Love Shack" and "Cootie Quarantine." October Acceptances: One. Being a superstitious man, I don't mention a sale before the contract is signed. That damn near killed me with the Asimov's sale, and it damn near killed me to wait five months before I could say that GUD Magazine picked up "In the Garden of Rust and Salt." Alas, it's in issue #6, and my friends funwithrage and ken_schneyer are in #5, so as wonderful as it is to be in GUD, I won't be next to my pals. Alas! And yay! October Rejections: A whopping eight. One of them, for "What Killed Tyra Herschel?" after saying the same things that everyone else did, convinced me to scrap the story and start over - nobody likes newscasts, apparently. One was for a reprint, so I don't feel too bad. One, from Ideomancer, had very kind, personal feedback; another, from Strange Horizons, told me that they just didn't buy the premise. The rest were generic rejections. Also, I've got one in a very long wait from F&SF, but I'm pretty sure it's lost in the mail. It's happened before. But you have to wait a while before following up. Currently In Circulation: "The Backdated Romance," "The Insecure Cyborg,""...At The End Of All Prophecy," "iTime," "Under the Thumb of the Brain Patrol," "Home Despot," "Amanda Rose's Travelling, Earth-Destroying Circus," "A Window, Clear As A Mirror," "Unreal Estate," "Slaves of Hollywood," "At The End Of The Chain" Overall: I just ran dry this month; nothing really seemed exciting to work on, though I had some great ideas. So I took off a week. I'm still on that break, and I feel the tugs of little stories aching at me, but I'm not sure whether the break is from laziness or just that the muse needs some time to recover from 1.3 years of writing constant stories. I dunno; I feel guilty either way. (25 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	8:17a	A Little Rawer And More Self-Revelatory Than Usual: My Addiction I had to destroy several friendships before I realized I had an addiction. And like any addiction, even now I have to constantly guard against it, because the minute I let down my guard I stop existing and the addiction takes over. It’s not that my addiction is some separate entity, a Tyler Durden waiting to be unleashed; rather, it’s that an addiction is a habit so strong that, unless you consciously work against it, it will drag you down the same paths again and again. Time can teach you that those paths will destroy the most precious parts of your life. Experience can make resisting a near-involuntary effort, like putting your glasses on the same counter before you go to bed. Yet relax for a moment, and that desire will take the wheel. You will break promises, break people, shatter all the goodness in your life, simply because some portion of you is broken. You have an inherent desire, and Lord knows where it came from, but it wants to be satisfied all the damn time. It will wriggle inside you, subtly changing your behavior to make sure its goals are met. My addiction? NRE. I think about this now because two weeks ago, I had a very good week. Two lovely women were flirting with me, it felt like some connection was being created, and every time I opened my inbox there was something new and friendshippy. The next week, that stopped. The people in question didn’t abandon me, but real life took over as they had other deadlines, and the emails stopped coming. And I crashed. I felt ludicrously depressed and unloved, even though things were stupidly good around me. I had a wife who loved me deeply, I had a house literally filled with good friends, I had two intelligent and beautiful girlfriends, and a load of people complaining that we never had time to spend together. Yet because last week two relationships had been flourishing, and this week had no new relationships, I felt like I was sliding backwards. I had two people last week, so this week should be three people, and the fact that I didn’t have that meant that I wasn’t any good and everyone hated me, and my God what the hell was wrong with me? That’s my addiction: New Relationship Energy. That addiction isn’t necessarily sexual, though it often is. I just like that charge of having a new friendship blossom out. I love falling into somebody new, and I love that thrill of knowing that someone really wants to talk to me so badly they’re thinking of me when I’m not there. I love that initial back-and-forth of OMG, HOW ARE YOU, LET’S TALK SOME MORE. That charge led me down some pretty dark paths when I was younger, because usually the quick fix for that was sex. That made me an absolute bastard when I was younger; if there was someone who I could be attracted to, why, I would be, because I loved having that connection. And if someone wanted me, well, I wanted to be wanted. And wham, sex. If those people who wanted me happened to be dating someone else, well… I’d like to say that I couldn’t resist, but that’d be a lie. I could have. But then my desires wouldn’t have been met, and I’d have felt terrible, and to avoid that feeling of isolation I did things I am distinctly not proud of. I tried to tell myself that the fact of the attraction should be enough - but in the depths of my stupidity, I couldn’t feel that. If there was a potential and it went by, I felt like it must have been an illusion. How could I know that they really liked me if we didn’t go all the way and explore that intimacy? Not the sex, though that almost invariably followed, but the intimacy of spending hours together talking and needing to know and finding out every nook and cranny of the other person. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it go, so I formed unhealthy connections. That hurt people. Sometimes I’d find myself getting into relationships with people who I knew were bad for me just because they, too, wanted that closeness. That hurt me. And then the NRE wore off and I’d need someone new to bond with, and so I’d spend all my time with someone else. I called it Tarzan-swinging. Just grasping from friend to friend. And if they dropped off the NRE train first (or just had the normal vagaries of life distract them), then I’d get panicky wondering what happened to our friendship. It sent my mind into tiny little spirals. And I’d do silly things in stupid efforts to make them “prove” we were still friends, performing embarrassing psychodramatic displays that I’m still ashamed of. As time went by, and my friends found it increasingly hard to defend me, I realized I wanted to be a better person, but didn’t know how. Thankfully, as usual, God provided. While stuck in a lonely town, I met a guy who was phenomenal, and he became my best and only friend. We hung out for hours, which was brilliant. Then, three months later, I met his girlfriend. Who was very cute, and we clicked, but I realized that I would ruin both this new friendship and my old friendship by trying to press for full-on closeness in the way I usually did. It would have interfered with their relationship, and I liked my pal so much that I didn’t want to ever do that. So I became friends with her, and close friends, but not the friendship that squeezed someone dry for that NRE fix. And that, thankfully, was my first step away from my stupidity. I’ve learned how to cope since then. Now, though I do have close friendships, I can stop at the edge and go, “All right, this doesn’t need to be a 24/7 lovefest where we constantly bare our souls. This can just be cool.” And in many ways, that’s better. I get to keep my wife (who I do constantly have that lovefest with), and have a variety of good friends, and I don’t cause upheaval when the honeymoon period ends and we slide into hey, howya doin’. Yet I still sense it there, lurking. I still backslide occasionally. And even now, I could do stupid harm. Those people I spent the two weeks talking to? I could do dumb stuff, like sending dumb emails that are a variant on DO YOU LIKE ME? I could try to force a relationship prematurely, which would lead to ruin as this force-grown friendship blossomed in cramped and awful ways. I could try to reach out to new people in attempts to get that charge. These days, I know. I know that it’s time to step away from the keyboard, and let it go. It’s unhealthy. And so I go back to bed, and I tell Gini what a doof I am, and she hugs me and I realize that this is what’s important. And it’s good. That tug, though, is always there. It’s been two decades learning my way around it, and it’s still twisting me in unseen ways. It could be argued, and I wouldn’t debate it too heavily, that to a large extent this very journal is a variant on reaching out for NRE. I ask for secrets and post comment-whore threads because, hey, it’s a connection. I like connections. Maybe too much. It’s not quite on the destructive level of an addiction like alcohol, thankfully, but it’s as insidious. You have to monitor. Some people think that I think things over too carefully, and perhaps I do, but that’s because I have to analyze my own behavior. If I’m not careful in my actions, I’ll look back and find that hey, it’s in the driver’s seat again. And for that, I must be vigilant in a way that people who don’t have this internal tugging can’t really understand. (25 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
theferrett	8:34a	Squish I am terrified of spiders. My wife is terrified by house centipedes. This morning, we found a house centipede lurking over the TV, so large and furry it looked like a gigantic eyebrow. I squashed it. It was very fat. House centipedes hunt spiders. And it occurred to me that I'd seen no spiders for the past six months. I don't want to be rooting for the centipedes. I'd rather we had no creepy-crawlies. But if we have to have one dominant, I'd rather it be the one that doesn't make me shriek like a small child. Alas, this puts me at odds with Gini, the bold spider-killer. Her position is being rendered obsolete by walking ribcages that make her shriek. In truth, Gini is much cuddlier than a centipede, though less effective. But I'm not sure I can have both in the same house. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (44 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	5:59a	Conversations With Ferrett Me: "Sometimes, I wonder how many women I could satisfy simultaneously in bed." Gini: "Well, you have two hands..." Me: "I think six." Gini: "...are you counting your FEET?" Me: "Yeah. I'd have to wear a harness, though. Like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Just for position's sake." Gini: "You had damn well better cut your toenails short." Me: "No, no, I'd wear flippers of some kind. Mind you, I'm not saying the women in the lower quadrant are going to have a mind-blowing experience, but I think I could, you know... Well, once, anyway." Gini: "Are you looking for simultaneous orgasm here?" Me: "Hey, I'm not crazy." Posted via LiveJournal.app. (33 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
theferrett	3:41p	A Note To Those Who Read Dear Bookstore: I like the fact that you're across the street. I like the fact that you have a zillion books. I want to give you money. So would it kill you to actually stock a few books I want to read? I'm perfectly willing to understand that people aren't automatically going to have everything. But you didn't have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies when I wanted it. You didn't have the latest Laurell K. Hamilton the third day after it was officially released, leaving my wife bookless. And today, I actively wanted to purchase Crumb's version of the Book of Genesis, a book by a long-standing comics figure that's been written up in most major magazines (including Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly), and no. You were out. Again. Yes, you can order it for me, I know. But I'm trying to do you guys a favor. I can get it at 10% off with your special order process and then come back and get it, or I can get this latest bestseller 43% off from Amazon and have it delivered to my door. (Admittedly, Amazon is out right now, but the principle still applies.) I mean, I'm actively taking a hit on my own price to try to prop up a local business - can you do your duty and have what I desire? I'm not asking for totally weird stuff. Trust me. When you had China Mieville's latest book (shelved, strangely, in fiction and not science fiction), I did purchase it. Allow me to recompense you. Let us both profit. Just get the goddamned inventory in, okay? Love, T.F. (25 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
theferrett	11:35p	Party People When I was young and at a party, sometimes I would be overcome by sadness. Then I would have to leave the party and sit outside. Being stupid, I would sit out there until someone noticed I was gone and came and got me. If they did, then they loved me. If nobody did, then I was alone and unloved. I was very, very stupid. These days, I know: I just get overpeopled sometimes and need to retreat. That wave of sadness is my introvert circuits ticking over, and I need a bit of space. I thought back then that I was sad because I was lonely; quite the opposite. Now, I just feel slightly foolish should anyone discover me, alone, in some back room. "I'm fine," I smile. "Just need some time.". And I realize that no matter how good life gets, I am the sort of person who'll have spikes of sadness from time to time, and no matter how beloved or wanted or desired I am, I will occasionally just need to withdraw and contemplate this strange isolation. I'd like to be at a party and always on. Sometimes I am. Lucky enough, I guess. Posted via LiveJournal.app. (26 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	11:04a	Anthony Perkins Watching Psycho on Netflix, I can see why Anthony Perkins had next to no career after it. Thing is, everyone remembers Psycho for, well, the Psycho. The shower scene, the crazy killer, the OMG BLOOD. But watching it now, as someone would have in the 1950s, there's really no sense of menace about Norman Bates; we've already seen at least three people (the cop, the car salesman, the rowdy Texan who gives the money) who were crazier. Norman's a strange little guy, but strangely charming. He wouldn't be out of place in a modern Indie film - the quirky habits of his taxidermy, his nervous stammer, his misplaced kindness, his lonely hotel. Actually, with a slight twist, he could be a likeable character in The Office. He's not a crazy guy for a lot of his performance, which is why the twist works - he's a nice guy, a hint of crazy, and then STABBITY STAB. Which left poor Anthony Perkins in a horrible casting place. The studios wanted to cast him as an evil villain, but really he has little innate menace. Even when he's angry, he's strangely meek - which works for this film, but no other. And of course, after he became Hollywood's most famous killer, he couldn't be a leading man. So there he was, caught between extremes. I feel bad for him. He was a good actor. He deserved a better career. But his breakout role placed him straight in the Kobayashi Maru. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	9:20a	A Question For Those Who Have Been Here If you've ever attended a party at La Casa McJuddmetz, you'll know that people tend to congregate in the kitchen. So we're thinking of renovating. Specifically, we wish to tear down this wall: We wouldn't remove it entirely, of course - what we want to do is take down the wall and create a counter at roughly waist height, wherein we could a) have a place for people to rest drinks on, b) open up this central area, and c) install some cabinets under the counter and get some more chopping/storage space for the kitchen. What Gini is worried about is affecting the flow of our parties. When we play Rock Band - which is, admittedly, often - people go to the kitchen, which she thinks might be to get away from the noise. I think people go to the kitchen because it's the only other comfortable place to stand in our house - when we're rockin', the living room is full up on people, and unless you want to sit down at the dining room table or wedge yourself into the hallway by the door, your only other choice is the kitchen. Which, may I remind you, the wall facing the living room looks summat like this: I think if we open up that area, we make a larger talking-to area - you could stand in the dining room and lean to talk to people in the kitchen, and I don't think the noise would be much of an issue. But if you've gotten this far, you've evidently been to one of our gatherings. What do you think of the idea? (77 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	8:56a	Mystery Modules And Magazines On Sunday, November 22nd, I will be DMing for charity. That's right; I'll be running a roleplaying game down in Akron, and for a mere $20 ($25 at the door) you can not only give to children, but be a part of a mini-con that involves LAN parties, gaming, and Guitar Hero. What will I be running? A Planescape game, of course! Here's a description: Couched In Mystery: A Planescape Game Morty the Dustman has a serious problem: he cannot die. He's tried everything from leaping off of the spires to mouthing off to tanar'ri, and nothing hurts him. The problem is that he's a member of Sigil's Dustmen faction - a sect that idolizes and fetishizes death. And in helping Morty solve his horrible un-murder, you will wander through the stranger nooks and crannies of Sigil, the city at the heart of the multiverse.... (D&D 3rd Edition, roughly) (5 players) If you can't make it to the charity, you can help me in another way: on Saturday, November 21st, I'll be holding a Mystery Module runthrough of the game to make sure all runs smoothly. So if you're a local who wants to play some Planescape (and who doesn't?), let me know which you'll be attending. Either will help me, but I hope you all can come to Akron (or just give to Child's Play in their name). As a secondary bit, I have not forgotten my commitment to the Monthy Magazine Review, but the wedding has sapped my ability to read short stories now. I will have it up later in the month, hopefully just before their Black Friday sale - for the magazine I shall be reviewing is GUD Magazine! W00t! (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
theferrett	8:28a	Kneeling Before Beauty I am lucky to be constantly meeting people who are beautiful, striking,and magnetic - and above all, kind. You can tell these folks by the way their friends react when you mention them: there's always that goofy smile, and that little satisfied head-bob, followed by a drawled "...Yeah." You know within minutes of shaking hands that they're cradled deep within people's hearts. These people are usually good-looking, of course, but it goes beyond that. Some folks are lucky enough to have a personality that seeps out of every facet of their being; yes, they're pretty but there are plenty of vapid handsome folks. No, there's something about the way they stand, the way they smile, that tells you that you're going to have an interesting conversation once you're eventually introduced. And you always do. But these people don't always know the effect they have upon a room, or how wonderfully people think of them. And it seems like such a loss to me when someone is beloved by all, but doesn't realize it. If I talk to them for a while and have these impressions confirmed, I want to tell them. It's so scary to do that, though. First off, if you tell them how striking they are, there's that danger that they'll think you're hitting on them - a danger that's magnified for me ever since I came out as poly. Because in modern society, "There's something about you that people find compelling" usually equals, "I want to get into your pants," and I don't want to put someone in the awkward position where they think I'm trying to use this as a way of forcing them to interact with me on future occasions. (Even if they're male and I'm straight, which happens more than you'd think.) Then there's the strange power dynamic: by telling them, you're assuming a very uncomfortable mix of whacky prophet and weak supplicant. To say, "You know, you're really amazing" is on some level telling them, "Hey, I'm a visionary who sees something that you're blind to." Modulated slightly off, it makes you sound like a swollen, pretentious prick. (Which, hey! You may be.) Yet telling someone that they have that kind of draw is also an admission that you yourself do not have that power; it feels oddly like you're abandoning something within yourself when you tell them this. The end result is something that can drastically go wrong. A word wrong, a gesture, and this simple acknowledgement of someone's magnetism can turn into a foul-breathed leer, or a cocky overwriting of their personality. It's so easy to offend by telling someone that they exude something unique that nine times out of ten, I don't do it. And when I do risk it - generally via email, because I can take the time to compose the words properly - I hold my breath until they respond, terrified that I might have offended. My whole day shrinks to an anxious worry that maybe I got it wrong. I usually don't. My record, for these kinds of studied compliments, is on the whole very good. Usually it's a positive response, someone happy to get a kind compliment. It sometimes leads to a discussion of what about them is compelling. Sometimes it makes their day, and I can feel like I've accomplished what I set out to. Most times, it goes well. Yet the world is so full of oafs who use someone's beauty as an excuse to invade their personal space, to demand things of strangers, that I don't want to be that sort of person. So I'll generally abstain, even if it means that the people who would take it well go without... And not just from me, but from the people around them that also feel that way. It's right not to offend people. I know this. Yet it also feels like such a strange loss that the folks who carry that kind of magic within them can go along their way, thinking they're just not particularly interesting, all because the good people are scared to say anything because the bad people use compliments like weapons. It's just very hard to tell someone that they're lovely on both a physical and personal level, whether they're male or female, your type or not. And I wish it was easier. I wish this was a less complicated world. (63 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
theferrett	10:30a	A Weird Sort Of Dynamic When I went on a poly-spree last week, posting for three days in a row, I figured that our rules for polyamory might also be something I'd want on my OKCupid profile. So I posted it there, as a blog entry. What I discovered is how sheltered LJ is. The reason is simple: OKC has no real equivalent of a friends list. OKCupid was once a clean, usable app - but they've added all sorts of new features, and those features aren't particularly well integrated. You can make journal entries, sure, but if there is a way to see the collated entries of all the people I like on OKC, then that's pretty well hidden. So how do people discover your journal posts? Simple: Whenever you make a post (or change anything on OKC), it winds up on the personalized home page of people around you who have your criteria listed as an acceptable match. So every male-seeking female within a fifty-mile radius sees, "Ferrett made a journal entry!" along with a snippet of the post. And if they post a comment in reply, then that comment shows up on all the guys' lists as, "localgirl76 made a comment on Ferrett's journal entry!" What that means is that your audience is much more random. Anyone, from a hard-core conservative to a /b/tard, might see that post. It's not like LJ, where your audience is mostly people who like you well enough to follow you - OKC is pretty much an open audition. Which means that there's a lot more contention in blog posts of any meaningful content. Looking at the OKC comment threads, there's a lot more arguing, a lot more of random people dropping by and going, "What the hell?" and much quicker mockery should someone post something stupid. Because your audience is all of OKC, not just some tailored version. I actually like that, even as it intimidates me. See, the thing about LJ (or any blog of substantive size) is that it's really easy to get blinkered into thinking that your blog is the world. After all, if you're for universal health care, and all your pals are for universal health care, and when you post frothing tirades on goddamned insurance companies and everyone who's reading you either a) is as pissed off as you are, or b) doesn't have the time or energy to duel you in your stomping grounds and will leave you alone. After a while, if you're not careful, you start to genuinely believe that this self-selected segment is representative of the population. All the intelligent people agree with you, right? All you get are wonderful agreements, nods, people telling you that you're awesome. And you forget that your entire world is actually a narrow peninsula, a tiny room where a handful of iconoclasts have joined hands to decide that this is it. And you can forget how to interact with the outside world. You can start treating informed dissension from the party line as a betrayal. You can start getting seriously aggravated whenever you have to actually debate for your opinions, because OMG, these five hundred people all see the truth of it, why the fuck do I have to endure this? And you can get furious when someone from outside treats your unusual viewpoint as though it were, well, not what most people think - and then if you're incautious you start pounding these outsiders down, in some cases because they haven't heard of your ideas and how dare not realize the fact that your attitudes are universal law? You can get lost in this artificial world of harmony. And while you're lost, you can forget exactly how big a fight you have on your hands. And you can start alienating anyone who doesn't automatically buy into your core topics. OKC? A little scarier. And in its own way, a little more honest. Anything I post on, say, polyamory may well be viewed by folks who hate poly. If I post on health care, well, conservatives may well drop by. My core audience isn't people who like me, but rather everyone in the area potentially seeking a straight white dude. And that's a lot of people. A lot of potential for clashes and ugliness. In a way, though, it's worth more. It's not just preaching to your choir, it's preaching to everyone. And when you preach, sometimes you gotta do the debate afterwards. That is an infuriating experience, often emotionally difficult, but it reaches wider. Are you likely to change anyone's mind? 'Course not. But if you change one mind out of a hundred, well, that's enough of a swing to change elections. I respect OKC. I like LJ better. I like just doofin' around. But I know when I'm writing here, I'm in a largely safe space. OKC's risking a little more... which is probably not what they want, but there you have it. (60 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	8:27a	The Top 10 Most Enjoyable Rock Band Downloads The songs I'm choosing here are not songs that are super-hard to play; the truth about Rock Band is that the most difficult songs are often pretty sucktacular unless you like weedly metal songs. And while I do enjoy the songs I've chosen, each of these are charted in a way that makes them fun. I mean, I personally really love White Zombie's "More Human and Human" and Nirvana's "Polly," but they're both hella-boring to play. If you don't like the songs, you're probably not gonna like playing them, but interesting charting can take an average song and make it really spectacular as a gaming experience. These ten downloadables have really great charting. 1) Fratellis - "Henrietta" The Fratellis seem made for Rock Band - riotous hooks, choruses that love to be shouted at the top of your lungs, and a lot of finesse and variation. This one has a crunchy hook that periodically bursts out into full-arm, Townsend-style strumming - and the vocals are all over the map, with a lot of crazy staccato growling. I've played this track at least twenty times, and there's always some little fillip within the chord structure that makes me wanna make it again. 2) Queen - "Somebody To Love" This song defines epic on Rock Band. Since there's no guitar for most of it, you wind up playing piano on your guitar - and that piano part is filled with strange and unearthly chords that just feel perfect on your fingertips. It's a continual variety of bizarre chording choices that totally work on every level, and I have yet to see anyone play this who didn't just grin their damn head off. And if you didn't know that the vocals on this not only encourage, but demand, that you grip the mic with both hands and pour your heart into the room at top volume, well... you don't know Freddie Mercury. 3) Screaming Trees - "Nearly Lost You" This one's all over the map - the drums are chaotic, the stuttering guitar, that bass line surging like a hurricane. But the chording on this one is phenomenally entertaining, changing every thirty seconds just as you get the rhythm down. Yet what it all comes down to is how absolutely satisfying it is to let the singer wail, "I NEARly lost youuuuuuu," and then hammer home with three "BOWM BOWM BOWM"s on the guitar. It seems simple, and yet it never gets old. 4) Miranda Lambert - "Gunpowder and Lead" Yes, it's a country song, but don't let that fool you - all that finger-pluckin' will give you a workout. There's a long solo at the end that's just complex enough to be a satisfying challenge without degenerating into an attack of the weedlies, and when you're playing on the verse it really feels like you're supporting the singer with bluesy improv. It's hard to anticipate, but really interesting to play. Plus, the words on the bridge are, "His fist is big but my gun's bigger / He'll find out when I pull the trigger" - how can you not love that? ( +6 more... ) (29 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
theferrett	4:14p	Wedding Hookups Okay, since yuki_onna and justbeast are currently snarled in mid-travel, I'm going to do this: There were a ton of wonderful people at the wedding, and many of them are waiting for some sort of all-inclusive person-to-LJ-to-Facebook-to-Twitter distinction. So what I'll ask is this: If you were at the wedding (which was glorious), please post your name, your LJ name, and a photo taken of you at the wedding (which you can snarf from the Flickr stream [tag: beastlybride]) so we know exactly who you were. Hello. I am Ferrett Steinmetz, a.k.a. Ferrett. As of Sunday, I looked like this: ...though considerably less suspicious on the whole. At least I hope. Anyway, on LJ, I am theferrett. On Twitter, I am Ferretthimself. On Facebook, I am Ferrett Steinmetz, though if you shoot me a friends request without telling me who you are (I have like seventy people I'm waiting to remember how I know them), I may not friend you back because dang, Real Names Are Weird. My wife, on the other hand, is Gini. And she is the woman on the left-hand side of this photo: She is zoethe on LJ, Gini Judd on Facebook, and GiniJudd on Twitter (though she currently hates Twitter). Both photos were taken by amalthya, who was also at the wedding. (I mean, obviously. That, or she has the telephoto lens from HELL.) Anyway, if you were at the wedding and feel like connecting with other folken on there, please! Show us a photo and your contact information so we can go, "Oh, that person! They seemed neat. I should keep up with them." (49 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	11:50a	Wedding Aftermath: Aftermath You guys sure know how to tell beautiful secrets. In fact, I teared up twice and smiled pretty much the entire time, going, "Awwww" so often that Gini wondered what the hell was going on. I wish I could share but you know - they're secrets. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	11:11a	Little Absences and Voids Sara couldn't make it to Cat's wedding, which left me heartbroken. I'd been looking forward to seeing Sara again in that same eager way a dog is thrilled to see you when you come home from work - and so I was sullen for an hour afterwards when I discovered that no, I wouldn't get a hug and some face-to-face conversation. Then I thought about the total time Sara and I had spent together: perhaps four hours, tops. Ninety minutes of that were on panels we were both on. There is, I realize, an outside chance that I've spent more time looking at photos of her over the past three years than I have seeing her actual face. Yet she is a dear friend. She's sent me gifts, I've critiqued her novel, when we're feeling down about the writing gig we send each other emails. It's not even that we correspond every day, or every week, but rather that she's the kind of sunshiny person who I just clicked with - so much so that, I think, a warm friendship has accreted over time. All in four hours of real time, and three years of Internet time. What amazes me is that Sara is not unusual. Cat's wedding was full of people that, in one sense, I've barely known, and yet in another sense I clasp close to my heart as brothers. How much time had I spent with Amal before she stayed at our house this time? One party. That was it. And yet when I found out we were going to get three days with her, I was all pumped. Likewise, I've spent a single weekend and two parties in Bill's presence, and here I am making eager plans to spend a week in Chicago with him because damn, dude, we gotta hang out more. Hell, one of my favorite couples in the world - a pair I consider, strangely, to be among our best friends - lives in Germany. Across the world, there are at least fifty people who my heart feels a little incomplete without. That is, I think, the strangeness of the Internet. Back before all of this easy connectivity, you had to get along with the people in your neighborhood, which had a twofold effect: because there were so many different kinds of people, your chances of connecting with a fellow who thought nearly as you did was as rare as you were. If you thought like everyone else, why, you were surrounded! But if you had an unusual mind, well, there might not be anyone like you around. You'd make do with people who almost fit, like a jigsaw puzzle with a surplus flange, but it was never entirely comfortable. And, because all the differing folks in a given neighborhood had to get along, the societal pressures were that much greater. You were expected to work harder to fit in, because conflict would be that much more damaging. No wonder you had these great pen pals back then. If you were lucky enough to find a soulmate amidst the thousands, by God, you made sure you didn't lose them. Now, thanks to the glories of easy travel (try walking 200 miles some time, but you can do it in four hours by car) and voluminous communication (you're readin' me right now, chum), we can go to spots that have people who seem tailor-made for us. You can find all these sparkling, beautiful, memorable conversations like leaves on the ground; go to a few conventions and hang around the right Internet spots, and you'll find so many people to connect with that you'll spend time going, "God, I wish I had a transporter. Why does Jenna have to live all the way over there?" And if you're bittersweet-lucky, like me, you will get these happy flashes: an hour of conversation snatched from the chaos of a wedding, a guest travelling through town for a day, a crash in someone's room at a con. And you'll know, know, that these people are dear friends of yours, and yet you'll have this strange void when you consider that one level, you've followed them closely for almost half a decade now, and on another level you've spent more time actually talking to your mailman. Are you friends? You know you are. But you could never explain why to someone who lives outside this strange world. So you will see them, and your heart will jump, and you will greedily take whatever time you can with them. Because you miss them. You love them. And when they leave, they take away a little fragment of your heart like a keepsake, a treasure of a friendship stored in a semi-stasis, a token of your love to theirs. And you can hope, only hope, that you will one day have all the time in the world to stay. (31 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
theferrett	6:14p	Wedding Aftermath So now that Cat and Dmitri's wedding has gone, leaving a lovely hangover of beauty and grace in its wake, I am too tired to write. So tell me a beautiful secret. All comments screened. Anything that you feel would uplift me or bring a smile to my face, I beg of you, share. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
theferrett	11:27a	It's Funny Though the house is filled with dear friends and sparking new acquaintances - though the magic of an impending Wedding is in the air - though I'm awash with old loves and new flirtations - Nothing makes me feel better about the day than getting fifteen minutes in bed to cuddle and chat with Gini. Nothing. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
theferrett	9:50a	Notes From A Rather Large Party So we had fifty people stuffed into La Casa McJuddmetz for last night's Cat-and-Dmitri bachelor/ette party, which was a personal record. And, because Cat and D are very cool people, we got to meet hosts of even cooler people, which was a nice little cascade effect. Some random notes: 1) If you place all of your recently-played Magic cards and thirty-someodd decks in a small cabinet on the wall, and you have fifty people in the room, then cynic51 will back against it and all umpty-thousand cards will come tumbling to the floor. And then you will look like this, kneeling over the resulting cardmageddon: This may be one of my favorite photos ever. (Though this one is also dear to me.) EDIT: Now a different picture of the tragedy - the fact that Nate is just grinning in the background proves his bones are formed from smoked evil: 2) At most parties, if you have an LJ audience of, say, 300, you're generally well above average for the attendees. Here? It was like the Titans of LJ. It was folks with 800, 1,000, 2,000 friends, all constantly mixing and going, "Oh! You're user_x! Hi!" 3) kylecassidy is one of those amazing deep wells of conversation - every time I turned around, he was talking about something else where Oh My God, I Didn't Know That About You, That Is Incredibly Cool. 4) I got to hear the pleasure of yagathai speaking a sentence that I was positively, 100% sure had never been spoken in my house before. It had to do with a man penetrating an inflatable orca. It was a true story. It was awesome. 5) Geeking out with caudelac in the moments before the Magic card collection came crashing down was awesome. I'm tempted to bring two decks tonight to duel between dances. 6) As tithenai noted (and she is no slouch herself), all of Cat's friends are startlingly good looking. There was, in fact, a point during the even when I had to tell someone I'd met only yesterday, "You know, I just have to say, you are one of the most strikingly beautiful women I think I've ever met" - for it felt like a lie not to say that. And of course every time you spoke to one of these pretty people they were full of startlingly amazing conversation. Everyone was like a gorgeous pinata full of exquisite words, and isn't that a lovely world the bride and groom live in? 7) If you have fifty people in your house, it will look like a train wreck the next morning. And you will not mind at all. 8) When you have that many folks around, you will feel exhausted later that day, but you will also feel like you have perpetuated a strange illusion. For one day, you were a gracious host, allowing strangers into your domain so that friends could celebrate. And though perhaps you're not usually quite as generous or as outgoing, for a brief moment you can feel like you own that good person-ness within you, for you have helped to birth a wondrous moment that will be the second cannon fired in the leadup to the wedding this weekend. And that will send you to bed with a feeling of firm, thorough accomplishment. (23 Comments |Comment on this)

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