A cross post from my livejournal account…

So, in celebration of Other Court Games’ upcoming digital release of two books, we’ve updated their website.

Here’s the posting on the subject by othercourt:

The
website has been completely revamped and stocked full of new content
and game material. It is all shiny and makes me happy. Go look.

http://www.othercourt.com

Go look!

Thank you.

Under
Community, you’ll find a nice, big Forum. If you game, know a gamer, or
just think gamers are sexy, you should join and post a hello.

Also, the Press Release for Factions at War Revised is up. As follows:

June 01, 2008 Press Release Factions at War Revised is Coming Soon to a Paradigm Conflict Near You!

Other
Court Games is excited to announce the near-arrival of the revised
Factions at War. The release is packaged in a sharper, smarter layout,
and includes the new Optional Rules and 78 more illustrations. For the
time being, Factions at War Revised will only be available as a PDF
product.

Factions is a game of occult conspiracies and secret
societies, set in an alternate, slightly-future setting where Factions
in America tip the country toward civil war. A hidden, powerful elite
control most of the country, and use reality-bending Special Abilities
and Ritual Magic to keep the mundanes trapped in an Orwellian police
state. While the Alliance sounds the call for open rebellion, the Free
Societies struggle to remain neutral in the blossoming violence.

The
game features a vast amount of Special Abilities, Ritual Magic based on
real-world belief systems, an original mechanics system, and a build
point system for Character Creation that affords a great deal of
flexibility and customization.

For more information, please email Other Court Games at Contact01@othercourt.com, or visit at www.othercourt.com

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. The stuff on RPGNow is scheduled to go live on June 15, Father’s Day.

-adam

Please
consider posting (and linking to his site) about this on your weblogs -
he’s trying to get some word of mouth going and digital links will help
his search engine ranking to some extent.

Again, the site is http://www.othercourt.com. Check it out, consider popping into the (as of yet not styled or branded) forums.

And, of course, if you find any problems, let one of us know.

Thanks!

Odd. This site is still getting traffic.

Again, my current web log is at http://rphaedrus.livejournal.com

Some interesting locations on some of the hits on this web log.  I don’t host it, so I don’t have full records, but does anyone know who visited me from:

Potomac, Maryland?

New York, New York?

Atlanta, Georgia?

Fort Worth, Texas?

Starkville, Mississippi?

usdoj.gov?

These are all in the last 20 visitors (to the website proper, so people who do the subscription thing don’t get counted in this).

Again, I’m making a second attempt to more or less abandon my xanga web log in favor of the <a href=”http://rphaedrus.livejournal.com”>livejournal web log</a>.  Don’t feel bad, xangians.  As soon as I get a proper server set up in the house, I’ll be abandoning the livejournal one in favor of an inhouse one.

Three reasons for ditching Xanga: I can’t effectively search my archives.  It won’t save my login on Firefox (I’d blame Firefox, but every single other site I use works). I don’t like having to make updates to multiple web logs.

Don’t worry though, I am keeping the Xanga account for the subscriptions.

Maintaining two web logs is really starting to be a hassle.  I meant to do this a long time ago.

My web log is: rphaedrus.livejournal.com

This one will stick around so I can keep my subscriptions.

I am sad and dismayed. The Surly Big Dummy won’t be available until
late spring/summer of next year and I really intended to have my long
bike to assist my car-free attempts at life over the winter. Getting
Kitty Litter or other large heavy items on a regular bike sucks.

So, back to the original plan of adding an Xtracycle FreeRadical hitchless trailer kit to a Surly Long Haul Trucker
frame. If the long bike works well as my primary commuter, I’ll soon
have a Surly 1×1 for sale. If not, the 1×1 will probably be for sale
once I get my hands on the Big Dummy as I think I’ll prefer the LHT to
the 1×1. The FreeRadical kit will either go to the girl or get sold at
that point.

And because yes, I like to go relatively quickly and
would like to do so even with a big bike and a heavy load, the eventual
plan is to set the bike up with a CleverChimp StokeMonkey.
Not for this winter, though. My pockets aren’t that deep and I think it
might be good to train myself to the weight before getting the power
assist – that way I don’t over-rely on the power.

Btw, I should mention, if you’re looking for a bike, you may wish to consider Hiawatha Cyclery.
Jim has been great at helping me figure out what I need (and dealing
with my mind changing). Additionally, I have it on good faith that he
is more of an “attention to detail” minded wrench than some other bike
mechanics out there. Nothing I hate more than spending a bunch of money
on something just to have it not put together right – or worse, damaged.

I have recently decided that I am not just spiritual, I am religious.
My religion is Environmentalism. As a disciple of this religion, it is
a duty to question my assumptions and dig deeply into the fundamental
assertions of this religion.

A
major theme of my religion, spoken by me and others by me is this:
Humanity needs to redeem itself lest it face the apocalypse. If we do
not reduce our energy consumption, we will face the apocalypse. If we
do not reduce our population to sustainable levels before we run out of
our non-renewable resources, we will face the apocalypse. Our
redemption lies upon the path of reducing our energy consumption soon
enough that we have time to reduce our population without having to
face the apocalypse.

My religion requires me to evangelize, to
bear witness. See, our redemptions don’t lie in our own beliefs and our
own actions. It will be all of us or none of us. To find redemption, we
must redeem all of humanity.

If you wonder if I am overstating our problems with energy usage and population, you need to read this article. If you think I’m probably more or less right but you don’t really intuitively sense it, you need to read this article. If you get it and know that there is truth to what I’ve been talking about but have trouble explaining it, you need to read this article.

It
is long. It isn’t a hard read – the transcript is fairly “humorous”. It
will require a bit of ability to imagine the visual aids he is using,
and it will take you a while to read. Grab a cup of your favorite
beverage and give it time to sink in.

“facts do not cease to exist because they’re ignored”
Aldous Huxley

Fact:
The amount of oil we are currently pulling out of the ground amounts to
1.7 liters per person per day – 0.45 gallons. If you are using more
than 0.45 gallons a day – in every aspect of your life, you are using
it faster than we’re pulling it out of the ground.

Fact: It is
impossible for us to continue pulling the current amount of oil out of
the ground indefinitely. It does not get “regenerated” – once its gone,
its gone.

Fact: The average American diet requires over a gallon of oil a day to produce.
(also, if you’ve more time, read The Oil We Eat)

Fact:
We consume far more energy than just what goes into our diet.
Commuting, computing, heating, lighting, power, clothing, etc.

Fact:
After you get used to the total amount of energy you use, tack on the
energy your society uses in your name – how many gallons of oil does a
aircraft carrier burn anyway?

“I do not feel obliged to
believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and
intellect has intended us to forgo their use”
- Galileo

Fortunately,
my religion allows me to think and question as much as I can, but no
matter what angle I look at it from, the answer comes back the same -
we’re in deep deep trouble, and if redemption is “Good” and the
resource/population apocolypse is “Evil” we are clearly serving evil.
Both as a culture, and, in most cases, individually.

My religion
offers me faith as well. I have faith that a sustainable lifestyle
exists that is fairly satisfying. A lifestyle that probably allows more
liesure time than I currently have. A lifestyle that is healthy and
long and has lots of good food. A lifestyle that allows me a moderate
amount of travel – plenty if I’ve the time for it. Allows me to have
music, wine, books and dance. A lifestyle that, given a reduced
population, leaves enough resources available that all we humans of
different cultures and beliefs can live in peace as long as we all
limit our consumption to this sustainable amount.

But, for that
“paradise” to exist, we have to cut back, we have to use what reserves
we have remaining in a manner that lets us avoid the war and despair
and famine that is the only possible result of our current population
levels (let alone growth).

Like many faiths, my faith is
fractured into many sects. The sect I belong to thinks that science and
technology are not inherently evil. They give us the capability to have
more and do more with amount of resources we have available – whatever
that amount happens to be. The inventions of the past century will
allow us to continue to be healthier and “richer” than our ancestors,
even if we reduce our consuption to sustainable levels – as long as we
also reduce our population.

We have a choice between “paradise” and “hell”. We make and reaffirm that choice many times a day with every decision we make.

Kasanof
concluded with one of the most profound observations I’ve seen in
years, he says, in the same way, democracy can not survive over
population. Human dignity can not survive over population. Convenience
and decency cannot survive over population. As you put more and more
people into the world, the value of life not only decline it
disappears. It doesn’t matter if some one dies, the more people, there
are the less one individual matters.
- Dr. Albert Bartlett

Waste
not, want not. We’re wasting an amazing amount, and we are currently
heading towards a very nasty collision with the “want” side of the
aphorism.

Well, the name could be better, but this will most likely be the center of my new bike.

Now I just have to get my hands on one.

Hennepin County Sheriff
Rich Stanek versus Juan Lopez

This one is so very very easy for me. Juan Lopez is the better candidate hands down.

Everything
I’ve heard about Lopez has been good. He’s got 10 years of experience
in the Hennepin county sheriff’s department and has no black marks on
his record that I’m aware of. He is bilingual and has a good track
record working with minorities. Every candidate for Sheriff that was
beat in the primary has subsequently endorsed Lopez.

I’ve heard a whole lot of bad about Stanek.

In
1992 Stanek was involved in a car accident with black motorist Anthony
Freeman. Stanek broke Freeman’s car window, dragged him out of his car
and beat him in the middle of the street while yelling racial slurs.
Bizarrely, Stanek claimed he was pulling Freeman from the car because
he thought the car was burning and then veering directly into
Republican Bizarro World claimed he wasn’t even conscious that Freeman
was a black man until after the incident. The city settled out of court.

In
1995 Ronald Kennerly filed a lawsuit against Stanek, three other
offices and the city for police brutality. Kennerly was beaten,
threatened and placed under arrest without probable cause. A female
neighbor who attempted to intervene was beaten with a flashlight and
placed under arrest. The city settled out of court.

In 1996
Jerold Wahlin was beaten by Stanek with a flashlight and Stanek pounded
Wahlin’s head repeatedly against the floor once he’d subdued Wahlin.
Stanek was moonlighting as a security guard. The city also settled this
case out of court.

And, to add to that:

Here’s
my personal experience with Stanek. I was part of Log Cabin Republicans
(secretary), and we were lobbying for the RASSL bill – which would
repeal 10 stinkers of stupid laws – among those stinkers were the
sodomy law (at that time, still constitutional, now still on the
books). Renee Jenson from RASSL had gotten a republican sponsor, David
Bishop (now retired). Stanek was head of the committee where the bill
was heard, Stanek refused to hear the bill unless, we agreed to pull
the sodomy repeal piece from the bill.

Here’s the wording of the law:

Minnesota
outlaws consensual sexual behavior between adults with 609.293 Sodomy.
Sodomy is defined as “carnally know any person by the anus or by or
with the mouth”. The penalty for voluntarily engaging in or submitting
to an act of sodomy is imprisonment for not more than one year or a
fine of not more than $3,000 or both.

Consenting married couples are subject to prosecution for sodomy. [State v. Schmit, 1965, 273 Minn. 78, 139 N.W.2d 800]

So, again, for Hennepin County Sheriff, the decision is easy : Juan Lopez for Sheriff.