State of the Erin Report

Hi, everyone. Other than recording podcast episodes I haven't been terribly regular with my posting here, and believe me that bothers me at least as much as it does you, if not more.

I'm trying to figure out the reason for it. Some of it is just the typical COVD craziness: people have been cooped up for a long time and the cabin fever is setting in, and they are lashing out on social media. Putting out figurative fires and keeping more from starting, all while trying to write a blog AND run a nonprofit AND record a podcast AND look after my elderly parents... well, something has to give, and sadly what's given has been my time / energy / ability to write. (Yes, I'm still annoyed that I haven't done more on Three-Line Rifle, either.)

I also haven't been sleeping well, which is probably the predictable result of trying to do too much with too little.

Finally, and I know how much this sounds like an excuse, but I think I have a mild case of ADD. I've been doing some research and it does seem like it based on my sleep patterns:

• Circadian rhythm obstruction that moves my sleep cycle to 2am - 10am
• Restless sleep at night
• "Sleep of the dead" starting at dawn
• Grogginess after waking and inability to feel fully awake until noon or later

I think it went undiagnosed as a child because I was never truly hyper (other than a constant fidgeting to get comfortable while sitting) and I had a tremendous ability to focus on things which interested me, like reading. I also think it's gotten worse lately, mainly due to all the distractions of modern life such as smartphones and rapidly-evolving social media which provide an "ooh shiny!" disruption to my concentration. Of course, there's also the whole "Erin, stuff is on fire and we need you" thing as well, which sometimes makes it difficult for me to justify turning the phone off and getting down to work.

The next time I see the doctor -- if I can see the doctor, which is a crapshoot due to all the COVID hysteria -- I'll ask about it. Given that he was practically eager to prescribe me anti-depression meds (which didn't do anything for me) perhaps he'll start me on a low dose of whatever ADD folks take to be less "Squirrel!"

But speaking of focus... which I was a few paragraphs ago, great segue, Erin... there is something which has been occupying my attention for the past month or so, and why I haven't written more Vampire: the Masquerade stuff. I've mentioned my friend and GM Adrian before, and when we were driving to ConFinement and back we talked about game systems we've run and liked. One of those systems was In Nomine, which I've talked about on this blog but not very much and not recently. The short version is "Think Good Omens:the Role-Playing Game. You can play as angels and demons on Earth, and it can be tongue-in-cheek or deadly serious or anywhere in between." I played it pretty heavily from 1997 to 2003, and because it's based on Abrahamic monotheism like V:tM (vampirism is God's curse upon Cain for killing his brother and spilling his blood), I quite naturally hacked the setting and mechanics of IN to fit VtM. Now that I'm back into V5 and Adrian kept asking about IN and making noises like he was going to try to integrate it into our game (I was right), I decided in proper Game Master dudgeon that "He's going to try to convert it and do it wrong, so I guess I'd better do it myself to make sure it's done properly."

Yes, I do have a huge ego, thank you for noticing.

I've been calling the project ErIn Nomine because it makes me laugh, and that's really what matters here. I'm not entirely certain how far along I am because there's so much to convert, and yes I know that I could spend this time writing but 1) this is what has grabbed my attention now and 2) this project lends itself more easily to writing in bite-sized chunks than writing essays on this blog or working on 3LR.

When I'm done with it -- if I ever finish, let's be realistic, I have a terrible track record for starting projects and then never finishing them (squirrel!) -- I have a notion to PDF the whole thing and send a copy to Steve Jackson. You see, IN never finished its game line, and given that Good Omens came to video last year and was (and presumably still is) immensely popular, I want to show him that there's a market for the game. He probably won't like the conversion to V5, but I'm primarily doing this for myself, my GM and my gaming group anyway, and who knows? he might surprise me.

Is it me, or has this entire post basically been a handful of giant run-on sentences?

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant in your direction, gentle readers. Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing the completed ErIn Nomine and, I dunno, maybe I'll start releasing it on Patreon or something?

Take care and be safe. Strange times are upon us and they're only going to get worse the closer we get to November.

Toodles!

Salem's Shameful Sci-Fi Secret

I'm going to be upfront here. I don't like Star Wars.

Let that sink in. I'm a big Doctor Who fan (obviously, if you've been keeping up with me here). I love Star Trek. Especially Deep Space 9. I've been reading Marvel, DC, and a few of the indie companies for decades now. I even keep up with the lore behind Transformers (not the Bay films, pls). But Star Wars has never really resonated with me for some reason.

I remember, as a kid, seeing the films on television around Christmas or Thanksgiving, depending on what part of the world I was living in at the time. I'd seen, through bits and pieces, but probably never the whole way through, the entire original trilogy, albeit not in the proper viewing order either due to never actually having sat down to watch them and whatever various bits got cut out for commercial breaks. I got a bit swept up in the Episode 1 hype. I mean, being a nerd, I was supposed to be excited, right? Star Wars, in the theaters, for the first time in my lifetime. I didn't camp out waiting in line or anything (I hate queueing. Avoid it at all costs), but I visited some friends who did on opening night. And when my friends and I went to go see it, we threw popcorn up in the air and cheered appropriately when a giant spaceship flew across the screens for the first time. I pity the usher who had to clean up after that showing.

The hype died shortly after seeing Episode 1, of course. Didn't end up seeing either of the latter films in the prequel trilogy until much, much later. I still don't think I've seen Attack of the Clones the entire way through, due to falling asleep pretty much every time I attempted. I've probably seen the RedLetter Media Plinkett reviews more than I've seen the actual movies. For the record, they're right. Lucas is a maniac that needs to be reigned in sharply.

Only.. I think I might like Star Wars. A little, at least. I clearly know that I'm not fond of the aspects of it that are Sword & Sorcery In Space. I can't stand the Jedi Order. They strike me as hypocritical, repressive, overly judgmental, and prone to propaganda at least as much, if not more, than Palpatine during his power play. I've never been fond of stoic warrior monks at the best of times, and when they have a council with executive power in government, that just rubs me the wrong way. I have a feeling that I'd need fitting for a cybernetic arm regularly if I lived in the Star Wars universe for very long. Temptation to mouth off to a Jedi would just be too much for me.

And I won't even get into my theory about how movies 2-5 could have been avoided if Obi-Wan hadn't been such a dumbass right now.

So I recently sat down and watched the Classic Trilogy and, worryingly, I could clearly identify things that I enjoyed. Mos Eisley. Jabba's Palace. The Millenium Falcon. The Cloud City of Bespin. Lando Calrission. Boba “What Exactly Did I Do To Justify All This Fan-Worship” Fett. The bounty hunters on Vader's ship. And the lynch-pin of all of these elements: puckish rogue Han Solo.

I realize that while I dislike a majority of Star Wars, what I'd really like is a series of films about Han Solo. The world of smugglers and bounty hunters, alien crime lords and blockade runner ships. I want a movie where Han didn't so much shoot first, but didn't even give Greedo the chance to fire. Given my relative unfamiliarity with the Star Wars canon, I'm open to suggestion if anyone's got a good recommendation on any Solo-centric stories, visual or print, I might enjoy.

In the meantime, I made a physical concession to the series.  

The Literary Equivalent of Throwing a Bottle at the Wall.

     So this was originally going to be some light-hearted piece about how the new Call of Duty came out, and how I hate playing competitive multiplayer and would much prefer something like a cooperative campaign or horde mode, but then I saw that latest Simon Pegg film, The World's End, and got a little depressed for a few minutes. I'm a bit Gary King, see, and I don't want to explain it for fear of spoiling the film for anyone that wants to see it.

     So instead, I'm going to get a little bit introspective, a little gazing of the navel. I'm going to look into the abyss for a bit, and other such pretentious ways of looking at it. See, I've got this problem with socializing.

     Wait, wait, it's not the usual problem. I'm not claiming Asperger's or saying I'm a wallflower with no social skills. Quite the opposite. I've got a ready smile and charm with a smooth voice and a healthy ego (obviously, right?) and a self-deprecating sense of humor. I just really. Really. Really. Hate socializing. I've taken those Meyers-Briggs test multiple times, and come out INTJ 9 times out of 10. I watched House for 7 years before realizing that House wasn't the character I was supposed to be identifying with.

     For my school years I found myself in a situation where I was forced to socialize. And so I did. Despite the goth kid persona, I spoke to pretty much anyone. Talked my way out of being bullied and learned to stare down the ones too slow to follow my evasive logic.

     After high school, I was a complete social animal. I had at least three different scenes that I frequented, and fell in and out of love with a frightening rapidity. Then I went off to university and discovered high-speed internet.

     In retrospect, that might have been one of the things that caused me to leave school, adding up with mental and social exhaustion, a sleeping disorder rearing its ugly, inconvenient head, and being an intellectual at a 100% football school. So I withdrew for a bit.

     Then I moved to Mobile, following a woman and working a shite job, living a very small life. That job didn't last, and I was nearly broke and unemployed and alone, having observed how unstable things had gotten with the woman I'd followed. So I was forced out into the big, scary world again, and threw myself into it. I was a bouncer at a strip club, got ordained in a church, cleansed people's homes and persons of evil spirits, and was social royalty for a while in the larger beach town of Pensacola. Good times, Bianca. I still think of you now and then.

     Then I snapped back again. Didn't leave my apartment for six months for longer than it would take to visit the nice Bahranian gent who ran the corner store a block away in the dead of night. Then my lease was up, and the call of a woman beckoned me to Texas. I went.

     That, though, is a period of my life that you and I, well, we just don't know each other well enough to talk about just quite yet.

     After that ended, though, I was life of the party again. I drank more than I thought possible, dallied with many a lovely woman, and realized just how broken I was when I disappointed one woman in particular that deserved better than I could give her.

     Some health problems coupled with a change in my job (our site shut down, and a few dozen of us got to work from home) contributed to the longest, if not most intense, period of social withdrawal yet. I haven't regularly gone anywhere and done anything since sometime in 2009.

     Anyone worried about me may be relieved to know that I have actually been regularly leaving my apartment here in Albuquerque, where I relocated to six months ago. My health has, more or less, stabilized and while I may not have any friends in the area, I am at least re-training myself in socializing. I don't put my hood up as often, and will often speak to people while I'm out. The only thing is... I'm not sure if I want to. I kind of like the solitude, and I'm having some very real internal conflict about whether I want to rejoin the real world again or not.

But that's enough about me and my problems. Geek culture resumes next week.