This has been an interesting political season for a number of reasons, but the one that has most struck me as the last few weeks of the presidential campaigns have played out is how afraid everybody seems to be, but for very different reasons.

(Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I am not registered with either political party. Overall I have tended to vote more Republican than Democrat when it comes to political office, but the hard right faction of the Republican party has really cheesed me off over the past few years, and the election has only amplified that.)

Most of where I have seen this is in the various editorial columns and blog postings out there.

On the Democratic side, there is a definite undercurrent of Obama being the last, best hope — the one shot we have of slowing down (and possibly reversing) this downhill slide (plummet?) this country seems to be on as a result of the past eight years. There is hope to be sure, but a definite sense that until everything is tallied on Wednesday, we shouldn’t count our chickens just yet.

On the other hand, the fear on the Republican side is not a grass roots, “hope for the best, fear the worst” sort of thing, but rather the tenor of the entire campaign. The GOP tactics (especially in recent weeks) have been geared to scare the public; throwing out buzzwords (and misleading buzzwords at that) like “socialist”, “terrorist” and so forth, there is a feeling that the Republican party wants to scare me into thinking that an Obama administration will take the keys to the nation and hand them over to the bad guys (which, in the case of the hard right, means “gays and liberals and communists”).

Now I don’t buy that, and I think there are a lot of people (liberal and conservative) who are tired of a government that wants us to constantly live in fear, and hand over our liberties in order to feel safe. (As that famously misquoted Ben Franklin adage states, “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”)

The other thing that has struck me, or at least the thing that I’ve noticed for the first time in… well, as long as I’ve been paying attention to that sort of thing, is how passionate just about everybody — on both sides — is about this election. There is a real sense (not a media manufactured one) that this is one of the most important presidential elections in a long time. And while I think there are some people on both sides who are just blindly swallowing the party line, I think a lot more people are actually looking at what’s going on (with the war, and the recent economic slide, and so forth) and thinking about the issues, what it means to them, and will be voting accordingly. That isn’t a bad thing, in my opinion.

Personally, I thought that an Obama/McCain campaign would be a good one, and thought that whoever won in the end the country would see a definite uptick. Sad to say, the McCain campaign (guided, no doubt, by the strong right hand of the Republican overlords) has blown all their credibility, and whatever moderate support they might have garnered (like mine) by chasing after the hard right, conservative Christian vote.

That irrational, vocal minority of the Evengelical movement (the one that denies the foundations of established scientific thought because a book says something different) is, quite frankly, a blight on the whole Christian faith. What makes it worse is that they have helped construct this culture of fear and persecution; it’s easier to control the sheep in your flock if you have them convinced the wolves are all around.

In case it isn’t clear at this point, I’m voting for Obama on Tuesday. Perhaps I’m naive, but I don’t feel the underlying sense of doom that informs much of the Democratic party’s attitudes these days. While things won’t pull a 180 on Wednseday morning, I think there will be something of a collective sigh of relief, and perhaps a collective unclenching.

At least, that’s my hope. Whatever the result, I think Tuesday is going to see record turnout, and I only ask that whichever side you mark on your ballot, you make it an informed choice, and not one that is driven by fear and ignorance.

Hello all. In case you didn’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month; an annual event wherein you try and write a 50,000 word novel over the course of thirty days.

I tried this a couple years ago and got a little over 12k words into a novel that has languished untouched since then. Last year’s NaNo came and went without any attempt or participation from me (new baby and work woes just didn’t allow it). This year… well, things are a little different.

Let me be clear — I am not going to try and crank out 50k words over the next thirty days. But I want to do something.

So, over the next 30 days, I am going to try and post to this blog at least daily. The topics will be varied and the thoughts are likely to be scattered, but I have been itching to write more, and I’ve been telling myself that I will start writing again. I just haven’t actually done anything about it.

So, November is going to be my Blogging Month, or BlogMo. Think of it as my attempt at solidarity with my fellow struggling writers out there, and an attempt at getting into a more regular writing habit.

Mur Lafferty says, You should be writing, and she’s right. Please come along with me this November for my experiment.

I’m watching a recording of the first presidential debate (yeah, I’m a couple weeks behind), and the issue being discussed as I watch it is the war in Iraq. When Obama got the chance to address the question, he brought up the issue of whether going into Iraq in the first place was a good idea.

Honestly, isn’t that kind of an academic question at this point? I don’t think there is a lot of debate about whether going into Iraq was a good idea or not. Point is, we’re in there now, and I would like to hear how he plans to deal with the situation as it is. If he isn’t sure, that’s fine — but I would like to hear that.

The only reason I can see to bring up the ‘going in’ question when it comes to the current situation is to highlight the mismanagement of the war over the past few years (this may have changed recently, I’m not really up on the current situation). Given the unpopularity of W. among the general public these days, I can see it as a valid tactic to connect McCain to the Bush administration…

I would rather see the issue being addressed directly, rather than what seems to be a “give us a chance, because we can’t screw it up as badly as the other guy” kind of thing… not exactly something that inspires a great deal of confidence.

The Evil League of Evil is accepting applications.

That is all.

So, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’ve been playing a little World of Warcraft lately (okay, more than a little, a lot). I’ve built my dwarf warrior Varulus up to level 70, and as I’ve been tooling around at level 70 for a while, I’ve developed some feelings about the “endgame” content — that is, the high-level instances and raids that ‘wrap up’ the storylines you’ve been following as you play through the game.

WoW is a very well designed game, and it is clear that when it came to developing the first expansion (Burning Crusade), Blizzard applied a number of lessons learned from the original, making the game — especially the higher levels — more accessible to the casual gamer: the kind of player who can get a couple hours of play in at once, but doesn’t have the time to devote seven hours to an instance raid.

What I’ve found lately, and what has been frustrating me, is that the real end-game material (at least right now) is a bit too tough for my standard group to run. We’ve got the skills, we just don’t have the gear to consistently perform at the level necessary to tackle the top-end enemies without wiping half-a dozen times.

Normally, this is a matter of getting better gear and going back to tackle the parts that are too tough right now. But the better gear is — for the most part — available as drops from the places that are too tough, rewards for getting your reputation up to high levels with the different factions, or rewards for earning a lot of honor in the player-versus-player battlegrounds.

In other words, a lot of repetitive grinding, or what I’ve come to call “Final Fantasy syndrome”. I haven’t actually completed a Final Fantasy game in a long time, largely because the end-game dungeon battle is easier if you do all sorts of side-quests and grinding to get those extra levels. I just don’t have the time (or inclination). I want to see the end of the story.

I’m looking forward to the next expansion for WoW this November, because it will provide a lot of new content and story. Of course, I wonder if the same sort of thing will happen to the outland that happened to the high-level zones in the original game: nobody goes there anymore, because there is better and more interesting stuff to run.

Hi all. Quick post as I head off to bed for the night.

The soundtrack album for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is now available for purchase from iTunes.

Go and buy!

No updates for August… oy have I been slacking. If there is anybody out there who still follows this, here’s the latest news from planet H.

I broke down at the beginning of August and bought myself a new computer. I have made the switch, and I am loving it. I had the faithful old Dell for almost as long as we’ve been living in our current home (about 6 years) and it was really showing its age.

RedBrick didn’t win the Ennie, which isn’t really a surprise, since the voting is fan-driven and we don’t have anywhere near the number of fans companies like White Wolf, Paizo, or Wizards of the Coast have.

One of the bigger announcements from RedBrick is the planned development and release of Age of Legend, a Barsaive-based campaign setting for D&D Fourth Edition. I’m consulting on some of the development for this.

Speaking of D&D4, I’ve been reading the core books and it looks like a pretty decent game — certainly more up my alley than what 3.x eventually became. I haven’t had much of a chance to play it at all… for that matter, I haven’t had much of a chance to play much of anything when it comes to traditional RPGs. Even my long-running ED campaign has been on a pseudo hiatus for the past few months. We manage to get together every three weeks or so, but because of the two toddlers we don’t end up getting much of anything done.

So, I’ve been getting my gaming fix by playing quite a bit of World of Warcraft. I play on the Sentinels realm, where I have three characters: Varulus, Mestoph, and Urthdawne (all Alliance side). I’m usually on in the evenings (Eastern time). Pop on over and say hi if you want.

As you can see from the new widget over on the right hand side of the page here, I’m giving Twitter a try. It’s a kind of mini-blog news update thing, and has really caught on in the podcasting community. One of the interesting things about it is that each update is limited to 140 characters. It really makes you get to the point.

I’ve also been itching to get back into writing. I’ve opened the files that have my stories-in-progress a couple times now, trying to get back into the writing groove. Overtime at work has started to fall off, so I’m thinking about taking some of that morning time I didn’t have before and get an hour or so of writing in. As numerous writers have talked about, you need to actually write regularly if you want to finish anything, and get better while you do it.

Of course, managing that with a 17-month old toddler and a wife who’s starting her final semester of school is tough. It’s not just a matter of setting priorities, it’s managing time as well. The job situation is starting to settle into a routine, though, so perhaps I’ll be able to keep more balls in the air at once. I had a vacation the first week of August (it was my first real vacation in a long time) and it helped recharge my batteries a bit.

That’s all for now, I guess. I know I say this every time, but I really do plan on keeping this thing up to date a little more often than I have been lately.

Hey all. I know, I know. More silence from me. But when I have something to say, it’s cool.

RedBrick Ltd has been nominated for an Ennie! The Ennies are an award given out at GenCon every year, and this year RedBrick Ltd has been nominated in the prestigious Publisher of the Year category, nominated by fans and (we hope) voted on by fans!

Want to vote for us? Head over to the Ennie Voting Booth and put RedBrick Limited in as your top pick for publisher of the year! (That particular category is the last on the page.)

Voting is restricted to one vote per IP address, so if you share a computer (or four) on a home network, you can only vote once. Still, we appreciate the support, and would like to make a good showing of it.

More posts coming in the future.

You must check this out. Joss Whedon (co-)writes and directs, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day star… in a 3-act musical focusing on a supervillain’s (the eponymous Dr. Horrible, played by Harris) efforts to join the Evil League of Evil, and win the girl of his dreams, Penny (Day).

Of course, like all good supervillains, Dr. Horrible has a nemesis: Captain Hammer (Fillion). When Hammer meets Penny, and they hit it off… well, to say hijinks ensue would be sufficient.

The episodes are available for free at www.drhorrible.com (or click the pic) — but only until July 20 (Episode 3 goes live on Saturday)! If you miss the free (streaming) versions, you can purchase them from iTunes, or wait for the DVD (which Joss promises will include extras).

Support this project and spread the word! It was an outgrowth of the writer’s strike at the end of last year, and I would like to see this sort of thing succeed, if only because it means we might see more of this kind of thing from such talented people.