A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

I think that I am losing more than I am gaining by not attending Origins this year... darn. I just didn't let myself think about it at all, and now it's too late. I guess the "you had a blast last year" meme was evenly matched by "beware the brain-eating monster that is fandom" and then routed entirely by that damned "you're too busy anyway". The fact is, though, I really should make more of an effort to stay plugged into game culture, now that -- let's be honest -- games is looking more and more like my true vocation.

Well, I guess there's a good chance I'll continue my every-even-year tradition next year. I will miss seeing those of you I'd see, and hope you all have a great time. At least some others are threatening to evangelize Volity there in my stead, and that's pretty good.

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Here is a secret about me: I feel a little rotten about the fact that I seem to be heading into game-making (or game-enabling or some damn thing) as my first truly self-driven profession.

This is partially because, to my eye, wanting to make games is the generic career disposition for us male Gen-Xers, and there's a part of me that's continually damning myself for wanting to diddle my life away in entertainment when there's a world to save. Way to go helping the population amuse itself to death, say the detractors in my head, who if you wish you can imagine having long, pale green faces and wearing black robes and powdered wigs. (Or as potatoes with falsettos and powdered wigs, if that's more your thing.)

I have things I can say, in my own defense. Mostly the fact I'm less interested in the socially isolating video games they have in mind and more in games, electronic or tabletop, that bring people together. And then I can never help myself and start launching into my mushmouthed spiel that I want to help foster communities of thinking game-players in every level of society, that I conspire to trick a generation of children into getting addicted to logical contests, and that this is how I'm gonna do my part to save the world!

But the potato judges will have none of it, their shrieks of bullshit, bullshit echo around the hall and o it's just awful.