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

Lately, sitting at my desk, I feel like I'm playing Race or Cribbage, and all the cards in my hand work together so well that I really can't bear to discard any of them.

And, yes, as a result, I sit there sighing, rather than playing the goddamn game!

Got back on the pseudo-GTD wagon a couple of days ago, opening up OmniFocus for the first time in ages and performing my "weekly" review of its task database. I was in no mood to show the least bit of clemency toward any project that no longer excited me. Most of them went into the shredder, and most of the rest got marked as "completed". When I was done, I only had a couple of projects left, out of the several dozen I'd started with.

First thing the next morning, I emptied my head into OmniFocus's inbox, sorted it all out, and got to work on the first tasks. I knew the system was working because by 4PM that day, and for the first time in a long while, I felt I deserved a beer. So I had one.

In a delightful surprise twist, among the mouldering projects I killed lay my intent to read the actual Geting Things Done book, and absorbing some other media relating to the system. Confident in my take-aways from prior exposure to GTD and its proponents, I don't need that stuff anymore. I've learned to use OmniFocus to relieve myself of the burden of trying to keep everything I'm supposed to do in-memory - even though I'm probably using only a thin slice of the app's full functionality.

I feel really good about this, and hope to stay on the horse longer this time. Not moving house should prove a good first step...

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I've been thinking about what to do with The Gameshelf - the show, that is. Speaking of shredding things, I've decided to kick my existing Episode 7 concept to the curb. I can point my finger at a lot of reasons I wasn't getting it done, but after a whole year it's clear to me that I'm just not energized about that episode's idea any more. Right now I need to focus on just getting excited about doing the show again at all. If I can win at that, I can return to this idea later. (And all the footage that goes with it...)

Been rapping with taskboy3000 about it, this past week. It's time to push the show in a new direction, as suggested by the blog's evolution and some insightful words I've received from critics over the last year.

The show's current tagline, "Strange Games for Happy People", represents my original vision of focusing the show around reviews of "unusual" games - board or video games that mainstream culture doesn't know about. I'm now thinking of (begging your pardon) re-branding the show as "game history, comparison, and critique". Not so sure about that middle word; was thinking of a meaning like "comparative studies", there. Maybe "context", instead?

At any rate, of the emergent strengths of The Gameshelf has been how we take several games, usually from completely different media and time periods, and hold them up for study and commentary, while demonstrating how they are all related, and share common roots. I really enjoy doing that, and I don't think anyone does it like we've been doing it.

Joe and I now have a couple of solid ideas for episodes we could do this year, both of which would realize some show-related concepts we've been kicking around for a long time. In both cases, various circumstances indicate that now's the right time to bust them out. I'm really excited about this, and I've started getting some balls rolling. Wish me luck.

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Also, this.

Broker than I thought I was. Suddenly unable to pay bills, prior to this check that came in the mail yesterday. I shall toddle down to the bank after I finish writing this. Check is fairly fat, so it'll last for a little while, but fun spendy-spendy time is over for me until my next period of full-time consulting.

I did manage to do my taxes, finally, and I've started to track Appleseed's finances by starting a new file with plain-old Quicken. Now that I use Freshbooks to track my time and invoicing, Quicken does a fine job handling the bank accounts, including tying certain transactions to tax forms.

Hm, I think these events are connected. Suddenly having over $9,000 vanish out of one's bank accounts is liable to cause some distress.

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Picked up "Dogs in the Vineyard" last week, on the grounds that it might make a nice setting for a text adventure game. I didn't know before this that all the PCs are explicitly ~20 years old, and virgins. The notion of roving gangs of indoctrinated, armed youth with little life experience, but a license to carry out God's judgement as they see it, strikes me as terrifying, like roleplaying the Chinese Red Guard. Wondering why I haven't seen anyone else take up this angle.

I haven't actually played the game, and there's much to love about the rules and setting elsewise. I would absolutely be willing to give it a try and see what came of it, but I dunno if that will actually happen, since I am not much of a role-player. I remain interested in checking out indie RPGs that have small scopes and "gamey" rulesets, like "Agon" or "Prime Time Adventures".

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Was disappointed by the XNA user group meeting I attended at Microsoft's Waltham offices yesterday. It was really more of a class, with an MSFT employee behind a lectern, stepping through code for one of the XNA example games (a simple RPG). On top of that, it was a continuation of the same topic from the prior meeting. I lost interest quickly and slipped out after less than an hour.

There were no women in attendance, and I may have been the youngest person there. Two other attendees looked under 40, after which there were a dozen more guys ranging up into deep greybeard territory. This is cool, but the lack of younger folk surprised me, since to my mind the typical person who wants to make an XBox game would be significantly younger. I wonder if the idea of offline user group meetings is becoming increasingly alien to anyone under 30.

(I muttered about this on Twitter, since little else was accessible from my phone during the class. One person responded that younger folk just call user group meetings "meetups" now. I would have liked to go to an XNA meetup; in fact, I think I was rather hoping for one. This was not that.)

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I may sacrifice a weekend to prototype that game scheduler idea. I've made one already, for Volity, and it would give me an excuse to learn Catalyst much better. Catalyst is what one can rudely-but-correctly call Ruby on Rails for Perl, and it's what my larger client makes use of. I like it a lot, but I don't think I'll really grasp it fore-and-aft until I build a Catalyst solution from scratch, for myself. So.

We have GO on rationalization for latest cockamamie project idea, sir.

In between fits of gibbering, epileptic rage, I have been busy:

* Sent unsolicited pitches at several angel groups and (a bit more warily) VC groups who deal with small-potatoes companies like us. Aabout half-dozen so far. Looking forward to dropping in on some local Chamber of Commerce stuff later this month, so I can be slightly less unsolicited maybe.
* Have returned to ICCB, for a few weeks anyway, and am working at 5 percent efficency. Chug, chug, poomf, clang, noise of metal disc wobbling after being dropped.
* Getting the hell out of town this weekend, which I believe will be good for me.
* Drew up plans with the SCAT programming director to make The Gameshelf into a monthly series. Bite...
* Wrote the p.culture guy back, and might end up volunteering with that project on some level. Bite...
* May help a local radio-play group with a public performance of a 1930's radio serial episode. Bite...

Hmm, I have seem to have difficultly chewing this enormous project-bolus I find jammed in my mouth. However did that happen. OK, I haven't committed to any of that stuff yet... I'll be wary about overdoing it.