ThinkingSkull.com

In the movie The NeverEnding Story, the hero Atreyu must seek a human child which can only be found beyond the borders of his world, Fantasia. Unfortunately, he is about to be killed by his enemy, the G’mork, when he learns (spoiler to follow) Fantasia is the world of human fantasy; it has no boundaries, so Atreyu can never get beyond them.

As some of my acquaintances know (and for those who do not), I not only write here and for MovieCrypt.com but I also lend my time to the role-playing game industry. No one enjoys telling people that your ‘hobby’ is writing when they darn well intend to make some money at it, yet the truth is that very few purists can make livable quantities of money on a constant (and regular) basis in a nich industry. As proof of role-playing’s ever-ellusive quest to become taken seriously, consider than whenever people with colorful books running an adventure while rolling dice, any such game is “just like Dungeons & Dragons” while the term ‘gamer’ has been stolen away to describe anyone with a game console who spends their nights happily killing weed rats so they can buy a proper sword and load their next graphical mission.

So, aside from a day job that ensures I cannot live too far beyond my means, I have also been developing Kindling Moon, an Arabian fantasy with elements of altered reality. Like anyone else who has migrated from running a character to presiding over an entire game can tell you, all game masters aspire to see their personal game world or idea published. I myself have been kicking around ideas for years, but most systems (including every incarnation of D&D) simply don’t fit the way I like to play.

This is where many say, “Oooh! I can make my own game just like [favorite game here] except for [cool rule] and make hundreds of dollars… TENS of hundreds!” Somewhere, Charles Bronson is holding a harmonica and saying, “They call them ‘thousands.’”

No, if it were a rule or two, maybe. I realized I didn’t want to change one thing or just create just another setting; I needed something that worked with the way I enjoy running a game. If nothing more, it’s an exercise in applying my thought processes to the interworkings of such a system from the ground up: what dice to use, how they work, what the rolls mean and when not to use them. Deciding how random numbers can be translated into affecting the reality of your own private universe can be frustrating when it fails and intoxicating when it succeeds.

This past weekend at a convention called Grail Quest, I no longer felt the need for frustration. Check it out; I’ll wait.

I’ve always had plenty of plots and characters, but creating the rules upon which others can quickly and easily share in my ‘Fantasia’ was always the goal. This was the third year I’d ran a demo of the system, but it was the first year that no major breakdowns of the system occured; it performed as intended. The ‘fantasy physics’ rules that determine how reality functions are now in place.

This isn’t just important in terms of running or playing the game. In fact, it isn’t important to the sale of the game itself. What makes it important is that everything I write from that moment on has a tangible boundary that keeps everything believable even when the fantastic occurs. It doesn’t matter if it’s another realmbook, a novel, a short story, or a movie script; the boundaries of this portion of my imagination has been defined and can be explained to others willing to learn.

Ask anyone who’s favorite comic book has been ruined by a new writer that never read their favorite character’s background and history, doing things they wouldn’t or have no ability to do. Ask any moviewatcher how dull their big summer action flick is when the director blew $150 million but none of it makes any sense because every whim is up on the screen instead of a coherant story and character development.

All creativity needs rules and boundaries. Once you reach them, of course, there’s no one to say you can bend the rules or push the boundaries back a bit; after all, you set the limits.

Kindling Moon: my world; my rules.

Separation of church and state is simple: a law should not exist if it is based entirely upon a specific religious practice or doctrine (just look at how much fun living in the Middle East has become). One way to get around the stickiness is to call something moral, which (according to Merriam-Webster) is defined “implies conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.” Therefore, the enacting of any law based on moral values is to essentially decree what is right and what is wrong.

Murder is wrong. Stealing is wrong. Um… is same-sex marriage wrong?

A measure in the US Senate failed to pass this week, one that that decrees that states who do not sanction same-sex marriages are not required to recognize a union made in the state where it was allowed. The act was in response to a failure to ban gay marriage all together, but what is really the issue here?

The simple answer sounds a lot like ‘money’. A recognized union between any two individuals could theoretically take advantage of tax breaks given to married couples. After all, no one in government can dispute that the act of two consenting adults who willingly share an occupancy is wrong, but think of all the money politicians stand to lose at tax time if anyone can declare that they are a couple financially.

Just to show how behind the times this lawmaking thinking really is, look at the benefits of working for larger companies. For insurance and benefits, defintions have changed from ’spouse’ and become ‘partner.’ Apparently, there’s more of *them* than anyone wants to admit, and they’re making plenty of money as consumers. As for people taking advantage of their government’s generosity by declaring themselves married, it already happens. Many military marriages are simple agreements; GIs get more money for doing the same job if they have a spouse, and the spouse gets free government benefits (this is very old news if you’re not already familiar with it).

Forget the whole sanctity of marriage thing and let whatever higher powers people worship deal with it in the afterlife. If two people are willing to take the plunge, they shouldn’t have to sneak around, scream louder than everyone else to be heard, or drive all over the country to get hitched only to come home and be told it doesn’t really count.

But hey, if you’re rich, you don’t need marriage to get a tax break, right?

Here’s a scene I’ve always wanted to see in a Bond movie.

007 is running for his life because too many bad guys are after him. As he makes his way through a crowd, he “borrows” a cell phone from a man who only just took it out of his pocket. At a critical moment, James presses a button on the phone, but the reply on the screen is “PHONE LOCKED.” He’s toast, right? Wrong! Thinking quickly as 00’s often do, he presses a key sequence too fast to remember, prompting the phone to query “Q-CODE?” He enters a secret number, prompting the phone instantly and automatically dial MI-6 directly where Q is already standing by with instructions while James continues to look dashing and smug.

The implication is that all cell phones might secretly contain a special code for emergency services (or secret services) that go around even your own security codes, just like 911 always works. What’s not amusing is, for many such devices, this isn’t fiction; it’s real. Your portable phone DOES contain secrets that you won’t find in your multi-lingual booklet, but the guy who sold it to you (you know, the one who can’t seem to answer any of your technical questions before you buy it) can access and transfer your entire custom phone book before you have time to ask, “How did you unlock my phone without my code?”

What’s above ISN’T the conspiracy. The real question is, why don’t WE have access to these codes or aren’t told about them in the store? Shouldn’t we know everything that pressing random buttons on our phones can do after spending who-knows-how-much for a new model every six months? Isn’t unnerving to think that anyone who has worked for a cell company will always know more about what the device (that you paid for) can do than you are ALLOWED to know?

It doesn’t stop there, folks. Your car, too, can tell a mechanic what’s wrong with it, and if you know the secret, you can learn if your car’s sensors are malfunctioning (which is too often the cause of that “Check Engine” light) or if there is a major breakdown in progress. There’s a little computer port under your dash or on your internal fuse box they plug into; go ahead and look. In fact, there are consumer websites online that not only suggest that over half of a modern vehicle’s malfunctions are probably fixable by replacing an electronic component yourself but that legislation is being assembled to force care manufacturers to reveal the secret car codes so that do-it-yourselfers can actually service their own vehicles.

Computer owners often find ways to customize and ‘overclock’ their machines to get better or specific performance from them, and once more electrical and non-gasoline vehicles start showing up, anyone with a muti-meter and a chip puller could be able to change the very way their car operates and performs. And along with that, vehicle regulation and navigation controls are becoming so complicated now that Microsoft has reportedly already begun work on an operating system for future models.

Now ask yourself this: when your car of the not-too-distant future stops in the middle of nowhere and the instrument panel goes dark except to say, “WINDOWS ERROR 41,” don’t you think you should have the right to know how to reboot your vehicle and drive away instead of waiting to pay for a wrecker with a laptop?

Long about eight years ago, you could set your watch in the summertime for when the rains would fall in Florida… EVERY day. Then came El Nino or El Nina (or El Mariachi, for all I know), and the drought began. Then came the fires, and at that time I swore that it could rain all day and all night rather than smell everything burning all around us.

Be careful what you wish for.

As I was running out to roll up the windows of my car (which I just got out of the shop and was trying to DRY OUT), I realized for the second time in two weeks I was soaked in the middle of the summer without any prior intent of going swimming. On my way back in, I felt a static shock on the hand I was trying to keep my umbrella from flying away with.

I couldn’t see what was struck, but since I felt the tingle at the same time I saw the flash and heard the thunder, I have to assume it was pretty close. I wasted no time getting back inside, but I came to an amazing revelation at that particular moment.

I don’t like daily flash floods any more than the thought of being struck by lightning.
Let the city burn, I say!!! BURN IT ALL…! At least you can SEE where the fire’s at! It doesn’t just fall out of the sky!

… has anyone seen my medication?!