Lee.org

(This post was originally a static web page on Lee.org, written in 2002. I present it here for the archives. The page originally used this tiled background image. It was totally rad at the time.)

Live Action Roleplaying Games

(5-15-02) I started LARPing in 1991 when a co-worker of mine, Melinda Berkman lent me her copy of the 3rd edition of the NERO rulebook. (I’ve still got a copy on my shelf) I loved it. I saw that I could use LARPing to expand my personality. Try things on for size…. For example, Lee Sonko would never lie to friends with malicious intent, but I wouldn’t be so sure about my character, Gadlen Chimeran!

My family has always disliked me playing. But what is anyone -supposed- to do with their spare time? Is there a correct answer? Of course not. That always bugged me.

I think that I’ve achieved most of what I’ve wanted to get out of LARPing. Through it, I’ve been able to experience things that would have been hard to find in the everyday world without a lot of dangerous living. By experiencing these things, I get to process the feelings associated with them in a safe way. For example, in this make-believe world, I have experienced the death of a friend (Tawane) and was able to begin to sort out my true feelings about dying.

I got a good taste of what many things feel like without having actually experienced them.

• I’ve been in love (Cormac to Mara)
• I’ve seriously considered high treason (Gadlen vs. Duke Nordenn)
• I’ve considered murdering another (many times)
• I’ve been the hero (many times)
• been in the presence of people that were honestly afraid of me (Father Folsom Kassevek vs. many but most notably standing against Shalizar’s fire and when I sat with Duchess Mara and she realized that I could kick her (and her whole court’s) butt)
• I’ve played god (running modules)
• I’ve had a blast (Bobo & Spanks!)
• I’ve been an assassin (vs. Luigi)
• entertained people (Opossum Goblin)
• traveled with friends (Nacha and Union)
• solved epic puzzles (Basil disarming traps in the Ravenholt Save the Duke Part II module)
• drew up sorrow (writing a poem about Diego’s lost children)
• been to a funeral, mourning (Tawane)
• been insane (a lot, but notably that mad Talon Scroll mage)
• let my id out to play (Gadlen and Basil)
• been the clown (Gadlen)
• been unseen (Basil)
• been crazily overprotective (Diego for his children)

… I’ve been a lot of things.

I’ve written and run some adventures, and lastly, I wrote and directed an entire event weekend. I was ready for my directorial debut to be an entrance into a whole new milieu but my plans were dashed by the most unlikely source. The weekend unfolded quite poorly despite my best efforts, mostly because of a complete lack of organizational prowess on the part of my gaming mentor, Mike Ventrella. That knocked my whole gaming experience in a different direction. I don’t know where I’m going from here. I may have gotten just about all I can get out of LARPing. I’ve had my fun.

So, what should I take from these experiences and bring back to the real world? I don’t know, how about all of it.

Lee Sonko 5-15-02

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Check out Gadlen’s Homepage. and the Gaming section of my Reading area.

My characters to date are:

Nacha of Mason
Basil
D. Gadlen J. Chimeran
Diego Silang

Nacha of Mason– My first character… I found him pretty boring, actually. All you banking professionals should recognize his first name. I took it when I was working at Politzer and Haney in Boston, banking software professionals to the stars. And all you folks living on Medford Hillside in Massachusetts should know the last name. Well whatever.. It’s the name of the street I was living in at the time.
Nacha was a big “joiner”, very quickly belonging to more groups than I could count. He was pushing for multiple Baronial memberships and allegiances, which would have been rather “interesting”. The most fun was had with a cross-organizational group called Union. Union was pretty darn cool.

But Nacha didn’t have enough personality, enough backbone, enough versatility, enough originality. For a short while, I travelled with 4 other Staff wielding Celestial Templars. Ooooooeeee! Can you say “weenies”?!
It’s ok though. It was a terrific stepping stone to….

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Basil

Basil was cool. Basil’s still cool. He’s sweet, he’s cute, he’s lovable, he’s got a giant waffle iron for a weapon, he sounds dumber than a block of wood but he’s smarter than I am! (that’s a really weird thing about gaming, it can bring out traits in me that I just don’t possess!) He’s big, strong ‘n’ stupid, just the way the ladies like ’em. And he’s saved the world on at least one occation (really).

And he likes to blow things up! Weee!

Here’s a little (wholely true!) story for you.

Long ago, my character Basil was on an adventure with a whole host of rather cool Adventurers. We were looking to put the Biata Stone back together. Our party was rather large and filled with several powerful and influential characters. My character, Basil was a bit of an idiot savant. He is a simple man with a flair for revealing the truth in interesting ways.

Remember that saying about what happens when too many cooks are working on soup? Well…

So, we had come to a door… We knew that on the other side of the door was the big baddie and he was waiting for us. All the great and powerful leaders knew that this door was almost definitely trapped. Whoever opened this door would be subjected to death from above, pain and Neeeee-wom! So they called, “Hey, where’s Basil? Basil, open this door.” Did I tell you that Basil knew his traps? Well, he did.

So, I got to the door. Just behind me stood all the great and powerful leaders, all discussing what their next course of action was. As they argued, I looked at the door. This was gonna be tough; they knew we were coming so they were gonna make it really tough! I turned around to all of the great and powerful leaders and said, in a tone well enough to be heard but certainly not the din of flailing hands and great words of the leaders, “You better get back or you’re gonna die.” Two people looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back and went about my work. Anyone is free to not listen to Basil. And that’s just what they did.

I checked the knob, the seams of the door, under the door, the latch, the hinges. I opened the door a crack and checked again, hardly able to hear myself think with the great words being argued behind me. I said again, “Here’s goes, we’re gonna die!” and I opened the door.

SNAP!

Now, it isn’t -my- problem if people don’t listen to me. I warned them. I told them twice to get back. Did you know that Feeblemind gas lasts an entire hour and has a 5 foot radius of effect? I do. And everyone standing next to me does too. ;-)

Well, we survived but with no help from the several recently created idiots in the group.

The best part about this whole adventure was that the true character concept behind Basil was leaked in that hour, I came right out and said it. Told everyone who came within earshot.. and you know, they still didn’t get it. No one noticed. Secrets, lies, truths, it all came out and still, no one noticed.

It seems that no one listens if you speak quietly and carry a big stick unless you use the big stick a couple times and yell once or twice.

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D. Gadlen J. Chimeran Sorcerer, Man About Town, Landreeve of Blythedale, and Dark Hobling of the Fourth House of Inverness

He is such a trip! There are so many stories! When he is around, things happen! Not nessasarily good things, but things!

Let me tell you one of his true stories!

One fine sunny afternoon, Gadlen was traveling the woods of Ashbury alone as he is want to do on occasion. You see, he must occasionally get away from the boisterous noise and smell of all the humans in the town. Not that he dislikes humans, it’s just that they have no stealth… but that is a story for another day!

So then, Gadlen had sufficiently gained his calm and was proceeding merrily down the path back to town when he came across a group of Orcs. Orcs are often known to be a disagreeable sight in Ashbury. As a matter of fact, they have been outright outlawed within the city borders. But Gadlen knew that, much of the time, disagreements happen out of misunderstanding. So he approached the fellows. The Orcs didn’t know how to take this. They growled things like “Grrr. You look good enough to eat!”, “We should make Hobling pie out of you!” and “Hoblings make good snacks!” The lone Hobling, always one to play along replied, “Yumm! Hobling pie is delicious, I agree! But we are quite small. Do you know what would fill your tummies better than Hobling? Orcie Treats! Yes, I have a whole stash of them over that hill!”

“Hurumph!” they said, “You just want to fetch your friends to kill us! You want to lure us to town!”

“No, my Orcish friends, why would I want to do that? Hobling pie tastes much better than Orcish pie! And Orcie Treats are even better! Come, we will have a good meal! Besides, the town is in the opposite direction!” He was right, town was in the other direction. The Orcs couldn’t disagree with that, so they followed Gadlen over the hill. And low and behold, over the hill there were no Adventurers, no townsfolk, nothing but trees, rocks and a tiny hut. Gadlen walked over to the hut and asked his new friends to wait outside while he fetched the treats. A few moments later, he emerged, Orcie Treats in hand! He had brought 2 Snicker-snack bars for every Orc, 10 bars in all!

They all dined for a while, enjoyed the company, the sun streaming through the trees, the warmth of life. They got to know each other. Rumph, the leader was a great fighter and raider of gopher holes. Rwraw, was a worm farmer when he wasn’t terrorizing villages. And Grom was studying to learn the number that came after “2”. What a fine day it was!

All this eating had gotten Gadlen, who was quite a portly fellow indeed, thinking about food. He told the Orcs about all the delicacies that were served in the Dragon’s Flaggon. Everyone at once decided to go have a beer at the tavern. So the 6 of them all went to town in search of beer. Gadlen was especially excited at the prospect of introducing his new friends to his friends in the Ducal Court.

I’ll let Gadlen himself tell this part of the story.

So, in to town we marched, arm in arm! When we reached the town line, we were greeted rather hastily by a lone scholar. I tried to introduce the Orcs but he obviously had very important business elsewhere. I thought for a moment that were was some important thing I was forgetting but I couldn’t think of it. Next, we met up with the Court of Trellheim. The Baron, being a close acquaintance of mine greeted me first. I called out, “I would like to introduce you to my very best friends in the whole world! We met only a short while ago but I trust them implicitly!” The court reacted most strangely indeed. They tried to separate me from the Orcs and then, without provocation, they began to strike them with swords and spells! This was incredible! Something must have overcome the Court.

What could I do but protect my friends?! I lit ’em up. Hoping they would snap out of it, I started at the bottom of my pyramid… 2 Magic Missiles, 3, a Lightning Bolt, 2 more Missiles, another Lightning Bolt! By then, they had turned on me and as well. At such range, I didn’t stand a chance. I awoke a minute later, next to the severed remains of my slain comrades! The Orcs had been butchered like so much meat! The Horror! I cried out, “What have you done! You’ve killed my friends!”

One of Trellheim replied, “No, it’s alright, they’re dead now, the Charm spell is broken.”

“What spell? What are you talking about! Rumph! Rwraw! Grom! What have they done! Oh the horror of it all!”

The Baron of Trellheim, not listening to my pitiful tears, walked over to me and began speaking in a rather accusatory tone, “Gadlen, you cast at us and blew our protectives. You owe me some curing and a couple Spell Shields.”

With a tear in my eye and not a second of hesitation, I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Oh yea? Well you owe me five Orcs!”

They tried to console me about my loss. Saying that it just wasn’t meant to be. “They were illegal, anyway.” and ,”They would have turned on you in the end.” But I didn’t want to…. no, couldn’t hear them. It was a sad day, that day in Ashbury when the noble court of Trellheim cut down some of Gadlen Chimeran’s best friends with impunity. Oh, woe is me!

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Here’s a fun little poem Kate (a nero friend) sent me. She got it from another friend’s page:

Chivalry, Schmivalry!
Roger the thief has a
method he uses for
sneaky attacks:
Folks who are reading are
Characteristically
Always Forgetting to
Guard their own bac …

After 2 years, my iphone 3G is dying. The battery life is trailing off and it is getting stupidly slow.

(update: the battery life isn’t quite as bad as I originally thought. I had accidentally left “Email Push” on for the last few weeks, which leaves me with 30% battery after a day of not using the phone at all. Without Push, I’m left with 70%.)

So what new phone do I get? The obvious contenders are iphone 4 and HTC Aria

I’d like to stay with AT&T because
* nice keeping my combined phone bill combined
* I’ve got good AT&T service in all the places I go

HTC Aria:
Pros: Open
Cons: possibly crashes a lot, possibly poor battery life, Entirely creepy Droid marketing still has me freaked out about the whole Android platform.

Apple not allowing reviews of their phone on the AT&T website

iphone 4:
Pros: solid platform(?)
Cons: itunes is the worst media player and sync app ever, draconian dark ops feel to the company, walled fucking garden, disallowing reviews of their products on the AT&T website (see image), Apple not admitting to important problems with their product, the phone slowing down for no good reason after 2 years, possibly poor battery life?

So, which phone do I get?

I can’t believe Windows 7 hid Quicklaunch. Quicklaunch is a toolbar where you can put all the programs you use most often and launch them easily. It is incredibly useful. I use it 100 times a day. Here’s my Windows XP Quicklaunch.

Well, you can turn it back on in Windows 7. Here’s how (via)

1. Right click on a empty space on the taskbar, then select (hover on) Taskbar and click on New Toolbar. (See screenshot below)

2. In the Folder line, type or copy the location below. (See screenshot below)
%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

3. Click on the Select Folder button. (See screenshot above)

Done!

You can edit the list in Quicklaunch or manipulate the files directly in
C:\Users\(user-name)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

There’s more tidbits on the site I found this tip on.

Schuyler’s Kickstarter project is running! Friends, family and even some total strangers have helped Schuyler start his blacksmithing portfolio!

“With your help, smithing will become my full time job next semester. And the portfolio that you have helped me build will be the key to my success after the Kickstarter funding has run out.”

Awesome!

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ABOUT THIS PROJECT

This project really consists of twelve smaller pieces that will all be displayed together in my portfolio. I want to make a wide variety of pieces that will show off all my skills as a blacksmith, while helping me improve old skills and learn new ones.

The first three projects I have planned all go together. They are a fireplace grate, set of tools, and screen that all coordinate. The grate will be a bowl shape, and be made of branches shooting out of the base and twisting around each other, with lots of forged leaves for detail. The tool set will have similar branches for the handles, and the screen will follow the motif with more forged leaves.

I will also be making a hanging wall garden, a Damascus steel knife, a set of table legs, and two abstract sculptures. The final project I hope to be something quite grand, and I have a few ideas. However, it will be the privilege of my backers to help me decide what to make in the end.

The money I raise with Kickstarter will go towards the costs of materials, transportation to and from the shop, and room and board for the duration of the project.

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PLEDGE $1 OR MORE
For $1, you will receive a card describing a cool fact about steel (a piece of which I’ll include in your card!) and a considerable heap of my appreciation.
1 BACKER

PLEDGE $15 OR MORE
Send me $15, and I’ll send you a handmade bottle opener. Each will be numbered, and signed. Enclosed with the openers will be a cool fact about steel, and a thank you note.
28 BACKERS

PLEDGE $30 OR MORE
If you’re generous enough to send me $30, I’ll be happy to screen print you a t-shirt bearing my anvil logo. The shirts are black American Apparel, and the graphic is a white circle centered on the chest, defining an anvil in its middle. Each of these will be slightly different, so get lots!
10 BACKERS

PLEDGE $150 OR MORE
This is a big one: for $150, I will personally make you a knife. Like the bottle openers, they will be numbered and signed, and like all rewards, will include a thank you note.
10 BACKERS

PLEDGE $2,000 OR MORE
Thank you so much for deciding to contribute such a substantial amount! In return, I would like to make you a replica of any piece out of this portfolio project. The piece you choose will be sent with a t-shirt and a more sincere thank you note than you have ever read in your life.

If we’re going to live in a world with rules, here’s one rule I can live with.

Every time I go a relative’s house, I see my family subject themselves to insanely loud TV ads. It’s like out of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. Every few minutes a television somewhere in the house starts blaring. TVs are on all day and night in every room of the house, even the 10 year old’s room. So for their sake, I welcome this new law:

(via)
President Barack Obama today signed into law S.2847, the Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, which forbids television ads from playing at a volume noticeably louder than the programs during which they air.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse says, “With the signing of the CALM Act, the top consumer complaint to the Federal Communications Commission for over a half century is now addressed…

Households across the country will now get the relief they deserve from the annoyance of blaringly loud television commercials. Consumers will no longer need to dive for the ‘mute’ button during commercial breaks,” she said. “My simple, two-page bill reduces the volume of television commercials, allowing them to be no louder than regular programming. It gives the control of sound back to the consumer, where it belongs. While this small bill doesn’t solve the many challenges facing our country, it is a commonsense solution for a national nuisance.”

S.2847 was signed into law December 15th 2010.

Some interesting tidbits about my recent trip to Saudi Arabia

One of the first conversations I had with my hosts on the way from the airport was about water. Riyadh is a city in a desert, all the water that runs the city is desalinated and piped from the coast, some 200 miles away! Actually, that isn’t too different from Los Angeles, pumping water from central California. So we talked about the California water wars for a bit.

Our host talked about how he thought he heard that one family now controlled most of the water in California. I described how it’s actually a story of how Eaton and Mullholland, employees of the city of LA stole water rights from Owens valley ranchers.

Several more times on my trip I saw how families are culturally and legally important but municipalities and corporations per say are not. This is a pervasive difference in how business and life is conducted in Riyadh. Every large institution in the city is sponsored by a family. Virtually every road in the city is named after a person. I heard phrases like “controlled by the xxxx family” many times. And I never heard about any Saudi company. Municipal laws are also very low on their priority list. The reason, as far as I can see, that they act civilly to one another isn’t because of a desire to obey laws like in the US, it’s that they want to keep the honor of their family. Taken to extreme, the King of Saudi Arabia could “legally” order me killed for no apparent reason and the people would go with it but he doesn’t because it wouldn’t reflect well on his family and people. The resulting society works similarly, but for different reasons!

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Our hosts took us to an Indian restaurant in Riyadh. On the wall next to our table there was this rather nice piece of art  in the shape of India. But something looked odd about the map. The outline of India looked different from any map of the country I’ve ever seen. I know that there are disputed territories to the north and east of India. In this map, those territories are not disputed but a part of the country, and then some. We discussed it for a few minutes and our hosts’ opinion of those territories matched the map, not my Nightly News / Google Maps view. I thought it wise not to ask too many questions to show my ignorant American imperial thoughts on the matter.

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Our host asked about a new law that he heard was going to be enacted in the US this week where internet censorship was going to be possible by the government. There was, in fact some rumination in the US news about such bills in the US, it was certainly no where near becoming law. Saudi Arabia has some internet restrictions; I took a minute of suring and noticed that sex sites were blocked, but politics was wide open. I figured it best not to try too many sites since my surfing was obviously being monitored by someone. I can understand how Saudis’ would discuss their news in terms of how the rest of the world is coming in line with their norms. Our news does the same.

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We had a fantastic Saudi Ararabian dinner, which is characterized in part by an amazing abundance of food. Our meal for 4 could have easily fed 8-10. I ordered a glass of goat buttermilk and I got a 20 ounce bowl. There were like 4 chickens and 8 large pieces of goat sitting on a round family-style tray of rice. The bed of rice was  4 inch high and 2 feet across! Everything was absolutely terrific (though it was crazy weird and messy to eat all of this in the native style – with our hands!)

Over another meal, our host’s friend told us with a wry smile how the Saudi Arabian style meal, with it’s immodest portions, was against Islam. Of course I didn’t know how to respond since I was caught between complimenting our host for an excellent meal and offending Islam. But its hugely interesting to see their conscious acknowledgement of such common contradictions.

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If you ask a Saudi a question, he’ll probably first respond nodding saying, “Yes, of course.” And then tell you how they disagree with you, but they’ll do it very very gracefully such that you can’t tell if they are disagreeing or not. The “Yes” part was that they understood the question. And the passive-agressive part is him not wanting to openly disagree with you. It is very odd hearing this the first time!

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Street signs and such in Riyadh have a dramatically different feel than other places. I saw virtually no graffiti (maybe none at all, I don’t read Arabic). Every single building is tastefully modest. Business signage is all tastefully modest. Business storefronts are all tastefully modest. Residential and commercial architecture is all tastefully modest. The most interesting buildings were the oldest ones since they used different building techniques and styles. For example, the Saudi Arabian restaurant was totally cool with it’s straw, clay and stick construction. Why is their entire city so modest? Simple: modesty is a powerful Islamic virtue.
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I noticed that there is tremendous construction going on all over Riyadh. It honestly appears that the capacity of the city will almost double in another 5 years. I mentioned the construction to two people and they both said that Saudis don’t want to invest in the west because it “isn’t safe”. Then each immediately, and in a clear but beat-around-the-bush manner clarified that “safe” means that they don’t want their money to mingle with any support for Israel. They really hate the Israelis.

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I saw that gas at the pump was 0.50 Riyals / liter…. about $0.50/gallon! Wow, how much does it cost to transport gas across the ocean and how much is pure profit? Gas in San Francisco is $3.80 / gallon. Update: I hear that Saudi gasoline at the pump is subsidized as a service to their people.

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I always thought that a raw food diet was a bit extreme. But I wasn’t sure if I should admire such people for it or not. Now I know.

According to a study in the Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism 1999;43:69-79 (DOI: 10.1159/000012770),

“About 30% of the women under 45 years of age had partial to complete amenorrhea (halting of menstruation); subjects eating high amounts of raw food (> 90%) were affected more frequently than moderate raw food dieters.”

If you don’t menstruate, you can’t have babies. If you can’t have babies, you can’t reproduce. If you can’t reproduce, your family line ends.

Cooking = good.

via: I heard this correlation in an NPR story and started google scholaring it.

There was a tiny earthquake a few minutes ago. It’s weird, no one else in the building felt it. If not for the USGS, I’d think the building was just settling, or I was going crazy.

It was a 4.1 near San Jose.

Went to Tron Legacy last night. Tron wasn’t very good but going out with Jeni was very nice.

Remember how the first Star Trek movie dragged? It was like that.

But I had trouble with a lot more than that. Here’s a start.

Sucky dialog, a lack of wit, interest, depth…. there were 2 remotely interesting lines in the movie. At one point Flynn says “the only way to win is not to play” which reminded me of “The only winning move is not to play” from Wargames. Though I think the screenwriters didn’t know what they were stuffing in his mouth. The other good line… well it couldn’t have been too good because I don’t remember it any more

Lack of visual imagination: What do you remember from the visual language of the original Tron? Neon clothing, light cycles, red stompy-ships, a grid-city, white flower-transport ships. Those are the ONLY visuals in the entire movie! Oh except for Flynn’s house which looked like, well, some guy’s neon zen retreat house. And the night club which looked suspiciously like Barbie’s Dream House painted white.

Cardboard characters: And I care about any of these characters why? If they ever talked, or had histories, or friends, I might care.

Ponderous pacing: If I see one more group of silent, angry men stomping down one more frigging generic glowing hallway!

Stupid lines:”Where did you learn that move, Sam?” “Last night when I jumped off Encom tower.” Umm, no he didn’t, that’s where he executed his carefully planned sabotage plan, not where he learned how to do it. The entire script was built on non-content like this.

There were innumerable times when they could have kept the plot tight or at least smooth but chose to not explain the world and just pull shit out of their asses when they remembered they needed to get to the end of the movie.

And little shit like when Clu blew up Zeus’s club. The editing leads us to believe that Zeus sat around staring at the timed explosives, waiting to die for the minute or two it took Clu to leave. But if Clu wanted Zeus dead, he obviously would have killed him by his own hand, that is how Clu operates, in first-person. The way Clu “killed” Zeus in the movie is… it just makes no sense.

Clu stood before his army giving a loooong boring monomaniacal speech. Why except to scare all the 12 year olds in the audience? It certainly wasn’t for his inexplicably slave-like army of programs. And why would he have amassed his army at this moment if his (as stated!) goal was to just get into the real world? And how was he planning on bringing his army through the basement of the arcade without any reconnaissance?

And what the fuck was with a faceless Tron having all these silly cameos? Especially considering that they had Bruce Boxleitner (Tron from the old movie) standing RIGHT THERE.

Not using the medium properly: The movie opened with a long flashback to 1989 when a young Flynn is tucking his son into bed. Disney created a (mostly) realistic, animated Flynn for the scene so they could have a young Jeff Bridges. Unfortunately, this animated face is still in deep, dark folds of the uncanny valley. Then they used the EXACT SAME ANIMATED FACE for Clu inside the grid, which could be kind of cool because he looks ALMOST real but is superfreaky-not-real and scary, just the way he should look. But they used the same effect for the young Flynn! What am I supposed to take away from this? It just makes no sense.

Tron? Troff!