The Coaterie

This blog post has been making the rounds all over my F-list, and I hesitate to add to it, but I actually PLAYED D&D while SERVING in the Army, and VOTED for McCain in the Republican Primary in 2000. It's not like this is the last straw or anything, because the former Maverick from Arizona long ago lost my vote. It's not like this is the first time that McCain's memory might be faulty, and that is a legitimate concern in selecting a chief executive. But where the hell did the gamer reference come from? Does this blogger know something we don't? If folks highly placed in the Obama campaign, maybe even Barak himself, played back in the day, that just makes me feel even better about voting for him.

CHROME presents the return of an annual Manray Friday fetish tradition:  
School Bound! on Friday, September 5th
Get ready for your lessons... It's time to dole out some discipline!
Dancing all night with the Sorority Girls!  Performances by Adult Advertisement!
Win Gift Certificates from Hubba Hubba!
DJ Chris Ewen tests your dancefloor skills with some Industrial, Goth, and Elector
Professor Terri schools you in teh art of drinking in the lounge!
Dress code:fetish/latex/leather/uniform/school girl/ cheerleader/teacher/student/goth/industrial/minimum all black!
Door: 9p - 2a  Cover $5 before 10:30p $10 after

Want to stay up-to-date with the latest info for School Bound? Please join our new community: 
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T.T. the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline Street (Central Sq.), Cambridge, MA, 02139
617-492-BEAR   www.ttthebears.com

<a href="http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459</a>It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.</a> You mean like that D&D crowd who put on ZigguratCon? That D&D crowd? Maybe McCain with all of his experience could be a little more careful who he lets blog on his website.

I'm frantically working on the redlines for the Changeling: The Lost SAS I'm currently working on. (Title yet unannounced, but it's an homage to Chuck Wendig's "The Fear-Maker's Promise" that I hope will make it through the editing process and onto the final product.)

As I'm looking for the thumb drive that contains some files I need, I came across part of my loot from GenCon. I rarely wear t-shirts, but this one struck me and I had to have it, so the Viking bought it for me as a memento from the con and an homage to having won my first ENnie (I think I can say I won an ENnie, as part of the writing team that won Best Writing and Best Product of the Year, right? That's not inappropriate? I worry about such things way too much, I think...)

Anyway, it's a cute baby-doll tee in a pale blue color with pretty script purple writing that reads: "Nerd Goddess".

*giggles*

I shall wear it with pride. :)

And now, it's back to the grindstone! Diet RockStar, you are mana to my brain!

I am going to have a box (or maybe two) mailed out to MA because there is no freakin' way I am checking a suitcase full of books.

Would anyone like to volunteer to receive said package(s) and bring them along to the con?
One smallish one will be from me with a few copies of A Year and a Day (in case I run into the last 10 people in the whole state who don't have it yet) and the other will be coming from my publisher with a whole bevy of work from my fellow Apex authors and friends.

Anyone willing to help me out on this will get one free book of their choice and my undying gratitude!
Please email me off-list with your address ASAP!
THANKS!


ETA:
Hotel suggests that I send the box to myself in care of the hotel and they will hold it behind the front desk until I get there at which time I will pick it up.

What the hell?

When did gaming become a Republican political insult?

http://www.johnmccain.com/McCainReport/Read.aspx?guid=181471d0-5456-4434-9f78-2f30ffc39459

I try to avoid mixing my political views and my career, but seriously people... WTF?

The money shot is here: "It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others."

Well, since I will be a panelist and a vendor in the dealer's room at Pi Con, I figured that I would announce the big news over here.

My new comic has just officially launched. I will be posting one comic each day for about 2 months and then I will return to the Tuesday/Friday posting schedule.

Please check it out.



The URL is http://www.Onezumi.com. If you have any of my old comic bookmarked, you may need to re-bookmark.

The LJ RSS feed is: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/onezumi_newfeed/

"Sex being called on account of laundry is always wrong."

alright people, i've just moved to amherst for school and i need to take my honda accord in to be tuned up and have the front bumper replaced before the end of september. i have a great honda place in boston but i don't want to have to drive there just to have my car looked at

tell me what garages are good out here? where will they not stare at my chest and not try to cheat me?

places that specialize in hondas are even better.

For me, economic class is a state of mind, not a state of finance. The better my entrepreneurial spirit is, the higher class I identify with. As I my mind starts to churn with exciting new ideas, I begin to identify with the upper class more and more, and this has gotten me thinking.

The other day, I saw a Facebook group called "I bet we can find 1,000,000 individuals who dislike capitalism!" I found that quite ironic for a number of reasons. First off, Facebook is demographically made up mainly of Capitalism's winners. Most of the people on Facebook are in the upper quarter of wealthiest people in the world, and generally they are middle class or above. I suppose it can be written off to that old bugaboo, White Guilt.

It is also interesting because one would presume that their suggested option is some form of command economy, yet in a command economy it would be impossible for such a group to exist. First, Facebook itself was an entrepreneurial endeavor. In a command economy, a site like Facebook would not exist. Likewise, a free and open Internet would likely never have come to us. Of course, we could forget about personal computers on which to view this Internet.

The problem is that these Capitalism-haters want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. A number of terrible things have certainly be done in the name of capitalism, but such immoral, greedy, despicable behavior is not the only legacy of capitalism.

The issue here is ultimately the accumulation of wealth, and thus power. Power, like money, guns, and law, is a morally neutral concept. Some people get power and use it for evil, while others do great good. The fact which is frequently overlooked is that some kinds of good can only be undertaken when that kind of power is accumulated.

Consider pharmaceutical companies. Many people malign them because they charge dearly for life-saving drugs. However, where do these drugs come from? They don't find them in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. These drugs cost millions if not billions of dollars to develop. Smaller companies would not have the financial footing to take the kinds of risks it takes to develop modern drugs. Without those mean, nasty, greedy pharmaceutical companies we would no longer have to worry about how to get new life-saving medications to the poorer people of the world. The worry would be alleviated by the drugs not being developed in the first place. I suppose it is my conservative nature, but that does not seem a good solution to the problem.

Do big companies do bad things? Absolutely. Are some rich people greedy, nasty, evil people? Certainly. That fact is not in dispute, but the solution is certainly not to eliminate centers of wealth. Those centers or wealth create opportunities as well.

Wealth is also the goal which drives many people to do great things. Many people will pursue a new business and take tremendous risks because because they believe that they may earn their way into the wealthy elite. If you take away the chance of winning, why would anyone ever take a risk? Without that incentive, many things that we enjoy today would never have been invented, and I don't just mean consumer goods which drive our consumer culture. I also mean things like Facebook and Livejournal, the Internet, etc. Sure, some people do develop things for the good of mankind, but ultimately the idea that wealth may accompany their success is almost always an additional motivator.

If someone decides that they want to start up a business that will built wind power generators for people in their back yards, they will need serious investment money. This new business would do good for the environment and would create good jobs for the people involved. Where would this money come from? If you said "a bank," you are completely wrong. The bank is the last place you want to go to start a business. New ventures start by getting investment from these people who already have money.

This is the key point that I am driving at here. The wealthy do not just put their money in a tower and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck. They invest it, and those investments make new development possible. Their ability to invest creates the opportunities that America is known for. Without wealth in the hands of individuals, that kind of investment would be impossible, thus increasing, not decreasing, permanent stratification.

This brings me to one final note on stratification. Much talk is given to this concept. Stratification is the issue of different between rich and poor. This is an important issue for two reasons. One is an issue of fairness. I certainly believe that in a wealth country, everyone should have access to basic necessities, and this is why it is important for the government to, within reasonable limits, take some from the rich and provide services to the poor. Second is the issue of economic stability. If stratification becomes too severe, the populous is no longer able to buy goods and the whole system grinds to a halt as it did in 1927.

However, generally, I feel more important than stratification is the question of mobility. People talk about "the poor" and "the rich" as though they are inherited traits. This is simply not true. Most people who are born rich either find some creative way to squander all their money and become poor, or reinvest their money into new endeavors and become rich in their own right. Almost no one inherits money and just coasts on it. Likewise, people move into and out of the lower economic class all the time.

The most important question to me is how easy is it for someone who starts poor to, through hard work, dedication, and a little smarts, earn their way from "the poor" to "the rich". These opportunities exist for individuals, not entire groups. As long as a poor kid can grow up and work their way our of their situation to a better one, I believe America will still be the land of opportunity.

I may speak in a later post about the multitude of opportunities that America presents to every citizen.

For anyone who is curious, that Facebook Group I mentioned found 2,431 people who hate Capitalism. Just 997,569 short of the goal.

I had a fantastic time at Rocky tonight. Last week, I had declared that this week would be Funny Hat Night. As you may know, I have a stack of funny hats from the old PG Plastica days. I brought my stack and issued hats. Every cast member got one of the spiffier cloth hats (Chris was dashing in his pink Stetson, Chelsea freakin' hot in a white one, Mel looked very much the part in a straw hat with red, white, and blue band, etc) The audience members got plastic hats with smiley faces, footballs, baseballs, and musical notes on them.

The audience seemed a bit more excited about the hats than the cast did, but everyone was well amused by the idea.

This was also the second week of Rocky Olympics. This week was the Cloak Toss where contestants attempted to toss Frank's cloak behind them onto the chair. Three tries, and three points for completely covering the chair, one point for being on the chair at all, zero for falling off, and minus one for missing entirely. The two winners with 6 points each had a run-off. Interestingly all three of the top three were virgins. The important thing is that everyone had a lot of fun. Nearly everyone in the theater, cast and audience, took a shot at it.

At the cast meeting last week, I had talked about using more human props, getting people to be various things like the horse, the weight stand, levers, etc. I was thinking that I might try one or two tonight. Then ten people showed up late with a bunch of virgins. Since they had missed devirginization, I said that I would use them all during the show. Suddenly, I had to find a way to use 10 people. I did manage to use them all, and they all had a great time.

Altogether, the goofiness seemed quite effective. It did not make the show unacceptably crazy or silly, but it kept it lively and fun. The cast got new things to interact with the in the human props, and the audience had fun being part of the show. Next week is Pi-Con, but I definitely intend to work more with the human props concept in the future.


We had the cast car wash today. It was quite successful, raising a bit over $150. Mel did a great job in putting it together. It made me realize something interesting about myself. This is not really a shocking realization, more just assimilating information I already had. It made me realize just how authoritarian I am. This does not mean that I always must be in charge, but it does mean that I always want someone to be in charge. I found myself occasionally bossing people around regarding how to wash a car effectively. I kept trying to be diplomatic, and sometimes I was but other times I was a bit more bossy than I might like.

Sorry guys, if I came off as a bit bossy :(

I definitely conclude that I am happy giving orders or taking orders, but I really prefer that orders be given by me or someone else. I feel that any project runs better when it is clear who is in charge. Different people can be in charge of different elements of the project, but clarity is critical in making the happy Michael. It is too bad that I find this clarity so rarely.

Since not all of my friends are on hughcasey's LJ, I am brazenly stealing this link from him. Here there be Legos!

I have been reading a book by the CEO of Starbucks about the start of the company. The beginning of that company has quite a few parallels to things I have been through over the past few years. He talks a lot about dreaming big and making it happen.

"Who wants a near fetched dream?" is one of his interesting quotes.

What is particularly interesting to me is that as I read the book I start to get a bit of that entrepreneurial spirit which has been quite absent in me lately.

I think of it like this. For a time, I was running full speed. Granted, I was not quite running in the right direction, but I was running: wind in my hair, pulse racing, adrenaline pumping. Then, I stumbled, breaking a leg. For the next half year or so, I was on crutches, looking at my feet to avoid tripping. Even now that I am not longer on the crutches, I was still looking at my feet, but occasionally something like this book makes me look up again and see all the way to the horizon, and it is a glorious thing.


Tomorrow is the car wash. Good times to be had by all.

Western Mass Pagan Pride Day will be held at Umass Amherst. It will be in the Student Union Ball Room on September 28th from 10 am to 6 pm. Donations of a non-perishable canned good are going to be collected at this event to be donated to the western mass food bank.

Joining us for entertainment will be the Gypsy Nomads, Kelliana, and Jeff Martel. The very talented Ellen Evert Hopman has agreed to teach a workshop on the Celtic Cosmos. Debuting at pride doing a workshop, from AwenTree, is Melissa Stratton presenting a workshop on animal totems. Once again there will be an Intrafaith workshop with five elders from the community.

The Oak Stone Grove Druids will be leading the main ritual of the afternoon at 3 pm. Sacred Space will be setting up a alter and leading a opening (time to be announced) and closing ritual at 5:30 pm. Feel free to bring an offering, but if it is a statue, you are responsible to bring it home.

There will also be vendors from the community including:
AwenTree,
Magical Beadstalk,
Inspirit Common,
Sacred Endevors,
Cheryl Higgins,
Kat Lovel,
Fore Sight,
Witches Wort,
Real Witches of Salem,
and More!



We have room for more vendors so if you are interested in vending email Cassie at Littlestormcloud@gmail.com

Vendor Spots are $25 for First Year Vendors and $20 for Vendors who have come to pride in the past.

Having finally gotten some good sleep, we're hitting the road later today.

If you need to get in touch with me during the next 10-12 days, call me, as I won't be checking the internet.

To my California friends and beloveds, don't worry. I'll be back again for a visit soon.

To my New England friends and beloveds, we'll hang out and catch up once I've unpacked a bit.

Thanks.

Later.

-Me.

I am looking for a make-up artist / designer / clothing specialist to assist in designing and creating a set and look for Halloween. Please contact me at tchardraggy@yahoo.com with information regarding your previous experience, portfolios, location and proposed/desired pay.

The closer you are to New London/Groton CT, the better, but for the right person paid travel will be considered, or I will come to you.

This is to be an all or nothing project, start to finish. I challenge you to be creative.

Humans are de-evolving but not because of the pill.

This Saturday, August 16th the Come Again Players (www.comeagainplayers.org) will be having a car wash and bake sale at the Florence Savings Bank on King Street in Northampton. It starts at 1pm and goes until about 5pm.  We will have hot girls in bikinis and tasty treats.  We are trying to raise money so we can perform at the Academy of Music in the fall.