Moe Lane

I ain’t buying it – like the idea; don’t have the dinero – but good golly but look at that crowdfunding well.

Turned it on yesterday, and they’re already 300% funded. Penny Arcade is kind of frightening, sometimes.  In a good way, to be sure; but they are the Alpha Ultra-Ninja Grandmaster Flash Nerds, huh? – Said he, with pure admiring envy in his voice.

I have a plethora of opinions on the subject it describes.  On the one hand, it’s definitely creepy to be in a situation where you’re in the middle of something bloodily occult, and your best friend isn’t believing you because ha-ha, it’s a joke.  On the other hand: can’t you just text, I don’t know, 9-11 or something?  They’ll come even if they think it’s a joke, because they have to arrest you anyway at that point.

And, on the gripping hand: who, exactly, would pay for a continuing story made up of texts?  Because that’s always going to be the prize that the eyeballs are going to be focused on, here.  The height of literary success and majesty is getting paid to write. It’s not the floor of success, mind you; getting paid is the roof. Still… if people give you money, you unquestionably win.

Penny Arcade, on the Hulk Hogan / Gawker affair:

I don’t wish ill on anyone who works there, obviously.  I mean, I guess their every action technically does sustain a legitimately evil beast of legend, some Revelations type shit, and they ruin lives for profit whenever they aren’t simply wasting your time.  It’s like, oh, this other Gawker site does that.  That’s not the site I read.  Well, no, it’s all one site.  It’s just the one site.  Oh, but I only detest the mouth of the lion, where its fangs are kept; I do not detest the ear of the lion, nor its tail.  But the ear is how he found your brother, and when he leapt on your sister, the tail kept him straight.

…That last bit is rather good, isn’t it?  If Tycho came up with that, that’s some primo literary stuff, right there. I approve.

…about the parable of the Games Journalist and the Developer doesn’t precisely correspond to how things can work in the political blogosphere; but neither is it completely alien to my own experience, either. Politicians hate both Old and New Media, and Old and New Media both despise politicians. But we can’t operate without each other, and we all (both sides) crave the access. And if you have the access, you may not understand how having access looks to people who don’t*.

[pause]

I was going somewhere with this, I swear. Danged if I know where, though. It’s still a pretty good comic.

Moe Lane

*Speaking as someone who has some access; you legitimately forget that you have more of it than most people. And that your life got steadily weirder as a result of that access.

Not as badly as I used to have it, but still.

Most of the words I know I got from books, which I thought were my friends, but they don’t necessarily have pronunciation keys and also the English language is a kaleidoscopic whorehouse.

It won’t surprise you to learn that my stunted, hairless translucence was borne of a largely solitary childhood that involved me learning words alone, and then saying them to myself, without the civilizing benefit of the social mirror.

As you can imagine, being in a situation where most of my communication is done via text – yes, like we’re doing here! – and my verbal communication mostly involves small children hasn’t exactly helped matters, either. I probably need more hobbies. Ones that maybe don’t require a wifi signal.

Gabe of Penny Arcade:

Last night I was a guest speaker during a PTA meeting at my son’s school. I spoke about video games, ratings and the importance of paying attention to what your kids are playing. I thought it went really well and I figured I’d break down my talk here in case anyone wanted to take some of my ideas and do something similar at their kid’s school.

You know… people probably should. I remember what many parents (including mine!) got pretty wrong about roleplaying games, when I was a kid; I imagine that it’s a lot worse for video games, given that there really is a lot more in the way of objectionable material that’s accessible to kids. Sharing one’s knowledge on this topic seems like a mitzvah.

…but after looking at it a little, I have instead decided on the alternate tactic of ‘backing away slowly.’ My kids don’t play this game, they’re not likely to any time soon, and clearly This Way Lies Madness. I’ll just assume that Tycho… no! Bad Moe! BAD! No biscuit!

I repeat: BACKING AWAY SLOWLY.

I have to admit, this is pretty much my reaction:

As someone with experience in these matters – on both sides of the retail divide – Gabriel simply stays home for Black Friday.  And it’s not because he doesn’t like to buy things.  We discussed it all in the podcast you may absorb at some future date: he feels that the “deals” are illusory and that he doesn’t especially relish the thought of his heel on a retail worker’s trachea while he pours into the Consumer Battle Arena.  He has been that motherfucker in there, the one with the human throat, and even if there is still a pitched melee with or without him he can (at the very least) guarantee one less heel.

I don’t particularly criticize Black Friday on a regular basis, because there are elements of the criticism – and, more importantly, some of the critics – that taste more than a little of class snobbery. But I’ve done holiday retail. Pleasant, it is not.

I am having difficulty arguing against Gabe’s position, here.  Pirate ships are, indeed, awesome game accessories.  I kind of regret not having one in my MMORPG, and probably not in Dragon Age Inquisition next week.

I understand why the two halves of Penny Arcade apparently are almost at war at each over it; it’s… different. To give an idea, my gameplay involved [SPOILER WARNING]… (more…)

I’ve had this exact same reaction as Tycho.

People occasionally compliment me on my writing: they will say something like, “I like your writing,” which is constructed in such a way that I cannot wriggle from it.  I accept the compliment because my momma raised me right; refusal of a gift is the first sin.  But this is respiration for me.  This is the sound of me breathing out; I can’t not do it.  Though I suppose I could stop, and die.

I know what shape a piece of language has to conform to, and once I have the mold, words just fall into it.  [snip] I’m not telling you this to make you think that I am clever or interesting – I’m trying to explain why it is difficult to absorb compliments for what feel like autonomic responses.  Most of the words I’m using are just English words, right off the shelf, with the occasional aftermarket mod.  I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything that could not be accomplished as well or better with refrigerator magnets.

(more…)

I wonder how many successful creative types wonder this.  Although I think that Tycho is being overly humble:

I talked for awhile with Brawsome, the Jolly Rover/MacGuffin’s Curse people, about how making something great should be sufficient.  There are people much, much better than me at writing comics, or writing in general, but for whatever reason they don’t have conventions.  I think it’s weird, too.

I still scratch my head at how it was that RedState – well, I know why it succeeded; it still sometimes bemuses me that I was able to go along for the ride.

Moe Lane

PS: This was not an invitation to tell me that I’m good at what I do. I already know that; it’s just that there are plenty of people out there who are equally good at what they do, only they don’t have guaranteed front-page privileges at one of the most influential political websites in the country. I think it’s weird, too.