Because Dan said so…

Dan, now online.

New blog home

Posted by Dan Hertz on June 17, 2009

So I’m following up my last post with another one with astonishing rapidity… Two blog posts in one day, it’s almost shocking, I know! But anyway, as a result of having written that last entry, I realized that I had failed to renew my home url for this blog so it had lapsed in the months since I had last written anything. This of course reminded me of the fact that I haven’t been doing anything with my domain name in general and other things like that.

The upshot of all this is that my blog has a new online home. This should hopefully soon be followed by a real live homepage and things like the Amber game homepage, all of which will be found at dbhertz.com. But for now, at least, http://blog.dbhertz.com will point you to here. The old address (blog.danhertz.net) will forward to here as well, but dbhertz.com will be my home from now on. But let’s not get too excited about it just yet, since I don’t have anything at dbhertz.com itself the moment.

Posted in Blogging | Leave a Comment »

Starting over as a GM

Posted by Dan Hertz on June 17, 2009

Well, I’m starting a new game. This is my first time as a game master in quite a few years. Quite a few, really. I guess when I start to count it really adds up. I had a brief Vampire (Dark Ages) game that I tried to run (it just didn’t work out logistically) in the fall of 2001. But other than that I guess I would have to go back to high school to when I last actually ran something…

So wow, it’s been a while. But okay, it really doesn’t feel like it, oddly enough. I guess I’ve spent enough time talking about games, thinking about them, having endless discussions with JP and Jason that actually getting to run one seems like more logical progression than anything else.

And yes, it’s an Amber game. I mean, of course it’s an Amber game. I suppose there are other options, but given that I’m really not too interested in mechanics at the moment, the idea of having somewhere wherein the mechanics are not at all a major factor is a huge selling point. Plus, the setting draws me back again and again. Why, though? That’s really a question for another post (assuming I start blogging again). In any case, this is going to be a game that is not so much based on the ADRPG rules style as it is based on the flavor of the Corwin Chronicles and borrows slightly from the ADRPG rules for inspiration. I’m chiefly using JP’s Infinite Amber rules for character creation, meaning eight attributes and partial powers, but there are a number of modifications, which I’ll write more about later.

The time period of the campaign is way back in the day, in the Golden Age of Amber (or possibly Silver, I suppose?). It’s set pretty shortly after the death of Faiella, so the cast of Elders are Davina (a non-canonical older sister), Benedict, Eric, Corwin, Caine, Deirdre and the PCs. Of which there are presently two, but may be more. The players are not familiar with Amber, which is one reason why I wanted to set it in a time period when things were simpler, in some ways. The family is smaller, and the PCs are a not-insignificant part of it. They are comparable in power to Eric, Corwin, Caine, Deirdre and Benedict. They are real people with real responsibilities. Not just insignificant younglings.

Amber is undergoing expansion in its base of power, with the Golden Circle still very much being established. Many Shadows have been brought into it, but there are many more yet to be fully incorporated, certainly. And Amber’s power over its neighbors is by no means absolute. Amber is certainly a powerful player, but some older siblings have been killed fighting wars in Shadow in the Golden Circle. Shadowlings are not to be underestimated.

The city itself is rather like a more beautiful version of renaissance Paris (with more Venetian architecture). And the Castle itself is very like the Louvre or Versailles. It relies chiefly on natural geography to defend it, rather than heavy castle walls, so it is mostly a palace for living in. And a beautiful on at that, being the residence of the Royal Family of the richest city in the known worlds.

I’ll be making a website for the campaign at some point, once I get around to it. So keep an eye out.

Posted in Amber, Gaming | Leave a Comment »

The Spirit

Posted by Dan Hertz on January 13, 2009

So last week I met up with Susan and finally got to meet her mysterious boyfriend Ian, who has been away in Japan. We were going to go bowling but owing to the closing of the UMD bowling facility over winter break, we instead went to The Spirit. What follows is a sort of mini review (what I wrote for a discussion thread of a message board I frequent).

The constant feeling I had during the whole movie was “What the FUCK?” I think the movie is really best summarized by the five minute long slugging it out between The Spirit and The Octopus at the beginning of the movie. In a giant pool of mud. At the moment when The Octopus smashes a toilet down over The Spirit’s head and says “Come on! Toilets are always funny!”

It certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously. And there are definitely stunningly beautiful women in it. And the scene of Samuel L Jackson dressed up as a SS officer is wildly surreal, if nothing else.  And some of the surreal nature of the dialog (or monolog, as it sometimes is) is wildly entertaining. Like when our hero wakes up tied to a chair and says: “What smells dental? (looking up and seeing a nazi flag) Dental and Nazi. Great.”

But while that’s funny and over the top, it’s not enough to make for a good movie. Or even a mediocre one. Ultimately, I kept wondering whether it was all a giant joke, at the viewers’ expense. I felt like I was watching Glen or Glenda, or possibly Bride of the Monster. Yes, in many ways the movie felt as much like Ed Wood as Robert Rodriguez (for all the people who were expecting Sin City 1.5). And isn’t that a disturbing thought?

Quite frankly, what it made me feel most of all is that Frank Miller should go back to writing graphic novels like “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Sin City” and leave movie directing to people more capable of it. Because while he may be talented at some things, making movies clearly isn’t one of them.

Posted in Movies/TV | 1 Comment »

My (growing) list of podcasts

Posted by Dan Hertz on January 9, 2009

So I have become an avid consumer of podcasts. They’re how I get an awful lot of my news and information about the world. But I am also fairly selective in what podcasts I listen to (I’d like to think), given that there are so many out there. The majority of the ones I listen to are of radio shows from Public Radio, and they include both dailies and weeklies.

KCRW in Santa Monica provides three of the shows which I listen to. First of all, it’s the source for my main news analysis show, their daily show To the Point (Monday-Friday). This is an excellent hour-long show with interviews, in-depth analysis of a variety of issues and serious debate between a whole host of different knowledgeable people, giving all sorts of insight into what’s going on in the world. It’s obviously mainly focused on US events, but it does have a global slant as well. I listen to this on the way to and from work and find that it keeps me well informed about what’s going on in a way I wasn’t previously.

The other shows KCRW provides me with are weekly and are Harry Shearer’s Le Show and their weekly debate show Left, Right and Center (featuring Matt Miller, Arianna Huffington, Tony Blankley and Robert Scheer). I wish it lasted longer than half an hour, because it’s really refreshing to have a debate show that covers what’s going on in the news between intelligent people without it turning into demagoguery or shouting talking heads. I may not always agree with all (or any) of the people, but they’re at least intelligent and well-spoken and capable of expressing themselves in a way that doesn’t involve having to be completely disrespectful of the other side. Le Show includes a variety of different things, usually his segments of News from outside the Bubble, Apologies of the Week, News of the Inspectors General, News of the Warm, as well as various sketch portions for which he does all the voices. These are often biting satires of public radio, the entertainment industry, phone calls between Bush 41 and 43, or other various things. Extremely entertaining as well as informative and enlightening.

Of course if we’re looking for entertaining shows from public radio, we can’t forget Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Their weekly news quiz, featuring a rotating panel of hosts (in addition to Peter Sagal and Carl Kassel). Some of the funniest stuff on radio, and not just because they had Dennis Kucinich on there giving part of the Gettysburg Address in his Donald Duck voice once…

There is also WNYC’s fantastic show On The Media (OTM for short), which examines the Media, their effect on our lives and our society. Hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone, it’s profoundly insightful and incredibly illuminating on a whole host of issues relating to both modern media issues such as freedom of information during the most recent administration and wiretapping, not to mention the downturn in the print press and its effect on journalism, as well as covering older stories, like the tale of pirate border radio stations in Mexico and their importance for close to 50 years in the 20th century.

And then there is the classic. This American Life from WBEZ in Chicago. And it really does produce some of the most fantastic (and consistently so) radio I can think of. The stories are compelling, the people in them are fascinating, and you just can’t stop yourself from listening to the whole thing. I went and saw Ira Glass speak in Ithaca a few years ago, and what he said was most telling about how powerfully the show draws people in is the statistic of the average length of time people listen to an episode, if they catch it on the radio: 48 minutes. Since the show lasts an hour, most listeners are tuning in for the whole thing, clearly. And of everyone else, they basically listen from the moment they tune in until the end. It’s not something where you start to listen and then stop a bit later. It’s the kind of show that people stay sitting in their cars to listen to the last ten minutes of. It’s that good.

Finally there are some podcast only shows that I listen to: NPR’s Planet Money, which started up this last fall and which is a daily that lasts about 15-20 minutes. It’s done by about four people (Adam Davidson, Laura Connaway, Alex Blumberg and David Kestenbaum), and it provides the most insightful and best analysis of the economy I have found to date. Alex and David both worked on TAL, previously, and Adam and Alex put together an award-winning show for TAL (and a follow-up episode) explaining the mortgage meltdown last spring. David is also a former particle physicist and quite a nice guy; I met him when he gave a colloquium at UMD this fall. I really can’t say enough good things about this podcast. I wish I had time to post more comments to their blog and say more avidly fan-boyish things, because it’s that good. I finally understand what Credit Default Swaps are, how Short Selling works, what the TED spread really means, and how it all affects me. And I wish I’d learned more economics somewhere along the way. But tragically I don’t see how that’s going to happen any time soon.

Last but not least is The Moth. These are true stories told on stage without notes. Just that. Some are funnier than others, some are more sad and touching, but they’re all compelling and intriguing. They’re about 15 minutes or so (sometimes shorter), and well worth a listen. Also weekly.

Posted in Observations | 4 Comments »

R U Saved?

Posted by Dan Hertz on October 28, 2008

Yes, I have been terribly delinquent in my blogging. I’m a terrible person. Fine.
Moving on.
Driving down from Ithaca the other week (having been up there to visit Britt and Jason, who were back in town) I saw an unusual sign outside a church on NYS-79. It said simply “R U SAVED”. And I must admit that this bothered me somewhat. Because there are a couple of ways I can interpret this and none of them are terribly positive.
The first is that the church was just lacking letters, (perhaps the most charitable interpretation) which would just be sad. True, there was writing on the other side of the sign as well, but if they are really lacking the letters a, e, y and o, I think that church is in pretty dire straits.
A more disturbing possibility is that whoever put up the letters is sufficiently steeped in text messaging that they thought nothing of this approach to ’spelling’. In which case the church probably needs to give some more serious thought to the matter of to whom they are going to entrust the important duty of putting up the letters on the sign by the road. Seriously.
Finally there is the possibility is that this is some sort of feeble attempt to connect with the modern text-messaging youth. In which case it is just tragic and misguided. Surely the question of whether or not you are saved is the single most important issue in existence, so spelling the words out completely seems like it might be worth the trouble? Imagine for a moment that you are on death row awaiting execution. I think you want the note from the governor notifying you of your pardon to say something other than “omg u r ok dude!”
Jesus supposedly walked on water, raised people (sorry, I mean ppl) from the dead, and turned water into wine. Is it too much to ask that we spell out words completely on his behalf? Apparently.
Here endeth the rant and the lesson.

Posted in Observations | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Kittens!

Posted by Dan Hertz on June 5, 2008

Yes, Beth and I now have two delightful little kittens who are probably the two cutest creatures in the history of creation. I have been promising people pictures for a while and so now I’m getting around to putting them up. They don’t fully capture their cuteness, of course, nor are they the best pictures in the world, but they will have to do for now.

Their names are Odin and Loki. The names come from Norse mythology, although both our kitties are much nicer than their namesakes. Gods in Norse mythology aren’t really terribly pleasant. They’re brothers (there was initially some doubt as to their gender because they were quite young and their testicles hadn’t… come down) and very much enjoy doing everything together. Eating, playing, fighting, sometimes sleeping. Although when one of them is awake he’ll often try to wake the other one up in order to have a playmate.

Odin is the gray, stockier one, who is somewhat silvery actually, although that’s something that definitely doesn’t come through very well on the pictures. He likes to make all sorts of funny faces and is an extremely agreeable kitten. He’ll purr when you pick him up, even if he doesn’t actually want to be cuddled, just to let you know that he appreciates the sentiment, but he’d actually prefer to be off exploring, thank you very much, so he’ll be on his way now. He also likes to curl up on the floor near me when I’m working at the computer, just to sort of hang out in my general vicinity, even if he’s not actually sitting on my lap. Not as lithe or agile as Loki, but very solid.

Odin napping

Loki is an orange tabby who jumps all over the place. He was initially very opposed to sleeping as a concept, since it seemed to detract from the time he could have to play. Any distraction would keep him from sleeping, so he would go hide in little nooks where there were no distractions in order to be able to actually sleep, as witnessed in the pictures of him. If you tried to get him to sleep in your lap, he would generally be too distracted by your presence, the bed, the ceiling, the air, to be able to settle down. In the last two days, however, he’s settled down a lot and will now sit happily on my lap and take a nap while I type away on the computer. I think he was a bit skittish at the start. He was definitely smaller to begin with and is still quite a bit skinnier, but he’s gotten very long. He can jump to higher places than Odin can at the moment, but Odin is able to pin him in fights because of his superior body mass.

Loki sleeping in a clothing drawer

So far they both seem extremely happy, playing a lot, sleeping a lot, and being absolutely adorable.
I am frequently reminded of the xkcd cartoon about cat proximity when I see them and talk to them, however. It is a little disturbing.

Posted in News Flash, kittens | Tagged: | 2 Comments »

Cookie Monster!

Posted by Dan Hertz on February 18, 2008

Well, I missed hearing this on the radio, perhaps because I don’t really listen to the radio, but if you follow this link, you’ll get to see him answering the Proust quiz on NPR. Frank Oz as his most enduring creation being quite philosophical about a number of things. To see the video, click on the NPR Video Exclusive link (requires javascript).

Posted in A Link to Remember | 2 Comments »

Election madness

Posted by Dan Hertz on February 13, 2008

Well, I haven’t been blogging very conscientiously lately, but this is because of a lot of things. However, it is not because of a lack of things to share with everyone.

To sum things up briefly, I’m following the election very closely because I’ve been rather inspired by Barack Obama and the message of his campaign. Hell, I’ve even been inspired by the will.i.am Yes We Can song. Although I think it’s better to hear Obama’s speech from the evening of the New Hampshire Primary (whence comes the text of the song).

Of course I would be remiss if I did not also mention John McCain’s ability to inspire us using just three words.

When looking at the qualities of Obama’s speeches, I was about to facetiously suggest that Ted Sorensen might be writing them (a chief advisor to JFK, who wrote all of his speeches), but when I looked him up on Wikipedia, I discovered that he has in fact endorsed Obama and written an acceptance speech for the convention. It doesn’t seem implausible that he’s doing a bit of ordinary speech-writing for Obama as well.

Posted in News | Leave a Comment »

Awesomeness

Posted by Dan Hertz on January 15, 2008

On the topic of people with time on their hands, I can only humbly bow down to the complete and utter awesomeness that is the creation of this guy and his friends. Not only did they recreate the Battle of Helm’s Deep last year in candy, this year they did one better and did a fantastic diorama of The Battle of Pelennor Fields.

I’m not sure which is higher, to be honest, my amazement at the coolness factor, or my amazement at the geek factor. He includes details like the head of the king over the entrance to the Tower of Ecthelion. And his commentary about the whole thing is also priceless. One could perhaps quibble with the fact that he chose to recreate the movie version of the Battle of Helm’s Deep rather than the book version, but I think he has the artistic license to do whichever he pleases. This is a man of vision we’re talking about, after all :)
I can’t imagine what he might do next year. The fall of Gondolin? But that’s not described in nearly the same level of detail as Minas Tirith, so I don’t know that it would have the same visual impact, even if it were to be done.

I think that a great many things could be said about this artistic endeavour, about the sort of statement it’s making by the artist’s choice of a material like candy rather than something more lasting. How it’s a statement about the fleeting nature of all our accomplishments. How stories last forever, yet any sort of visualization is inherently temporary.
Furthermore, on a deeper level, that artificial distinctions of “good” and “evil” are as arbitrary as the differences between the colors of gummy bears. Looking even further, that truth and beauty can be found in all manner of things, even circus peanuts.
But most of all, we find that marshmallow plants are way cooler than ordinary plants. And that, yes, the Tower of Ecthelion is truly a biotchingly pimpin’ tower.

Posted in A Link to Remember | 1 Comment »

People with more time on their hands

Posted by Dan Hertz on December 17, 2007

than I have time to write amusing reviews on amazon.
Like the ones written for the Bic pen found here. Particular props to the Cthulhu review, and to the reviewer urging people to not upgrade to the latest version of firmware, as it includes Bic’s dangerous and intrusive DRM software.

Highly entertaining and well worth the read. Credit, as is often the case with the interesting links that I post, goes to www.nodwick.com.

Posted in A Link to Remember | Leave a Comment »

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