Sarah Palin’s new book: ‘Going Rogue: An American Life’
Former vice-presidential candidate, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has picked a title for her upcoming memoir. It will be called, Going Rogue: An American Life.
On first glance, it seems like an incredibly silly title for an autobiography. Then again, perhaps the word rogue means something different to me than it does to most people. Having played Dungeons & Dragons in my youth, I identify the word rogue with the player character class that engages in sneak attacks. In the make-believe world of Dungeons & Dragons, a rogue is a thief. They pick locks and discover traps. They prefer to attack their opponents by stabbing them in the back.
In all the years I played Dungeons & Dragons, I don’t think I ever played a character that was a rogue. A rogue always seemed to me to be, I don’t know, a dick. A rogue was just not something I even wanted to pretend to be in the make-believe magical fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons .
Can the word rogue be used without a negative connotation? No, I don’t think so. Merriam-Webster defines the word as a vagrant or a tramp, or a dishonest or worthless person.
So why then would Sarah Palin use the word to describe herself in her autobiography? Maybe, just maybe it’s because it she knows the word fits.
Wizards of the Coast sues eight people over file sharing
Wizards of the Coast is trying to crack down on people that post Dungeons & Dragons products to the various file sharing networks. From ICv2:
Wizards of the Coast has filed three lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against eight defendants located in the United States, Poland and the Philippines alleging copyright infringement of its recently released Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 2. The lawsuit contends that the defendants illegally distributed the Player’s Handbook 2 via free file-sharing Websites, and that these uploads resulted in a substantial number of lost sales and revenue for Wizards of the Coast.
Evidently Wizards of the Coast was selling PDF versions of there popular Dungeons & Dragons role playing system. That was until they realized that people could take these PDF files and share them on Bit Torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay.
Oops.
I realize that this is a civil lawsuit, but wouldn’t it be something to go to prison for something Dungeons & Dragons related?
I’m not sure they will have any luck suing somebody that resides in the Philippines for copyright infringement. The country has what you might describe as a very relaxed view on copyrights, or for that matter, crime in general.
I think by suing a few of their customers for file sharing, Wizards of the Coast may only be exacerbating the problem of unauthorized file sharing. By taking this action and then publicizing the fact, they are broadcasting to the world that their intellectual property is available for free at the various file sharing sites. The people they are suing are people that actually paid them for the PDF files.
Suing these people wont stop these specific PDF files from being shared in the future.
I guess God needed a Dungeon Master
Gary Gygax, the man that created the original fantasy roll-playing game Dungeons & Dragons has passed away. He was 69 years old.
Gygax, along with Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. It was the very first roll-playing game. I played it in high school and then later on in the Air Force. I used to love it. There was just something about the multi-sided dice, the lead figures, the graph paper, and the books and charts that appealed to the geek in me.
He will be missed.
Wordplay
Director: Patrick Creadon
Writers: Patrick Creadon & Christine O’Malley
Runtime: 94 painfully boring minutes
What’s an 8-letter word for a movie that totally blows? The answer is a movie entitled Wordplay. It’s a documentary on the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people that do it. Not only the über crossword puzzle nerds that actually go to a crossword puzzle convention and competition every year in Stamford, Connecticut, but famous celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton.
I guess the reason they included celebrities in the documentary is to show that not all people that do the New York Times crossword puzzle are major dorks. Some are just regular people that do the crossword puzzle to unwind. I can’t help but remember what else President Clinton likes to do in his spare time to unwind. It involves a female intern and a cigar.
Forgive me if I don’t take anything Bill Clinton does as an example of normalcy.
These über crossword puzzle nerds don’t just do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, they do it while timing themselves. How do you make the New York Times crossword puzzle even more nerdy? By turning it into a speed event. Some of them keep logs documenting how long it takes them to complete the puzzle. The reason they do this is because the competition at the yearly convention at Stamford is timed.
The level of nerdiness displayed by these puzzles doers in comparison makes the Dungeon Master of my old Dungeons & Dragons group look like Fonzi.
Much of the movie takes place at the yearly convention in Stamford. The competition involves seven timed crossword puzzles with the final three people with the best scores moving on to the main event. They then do a puzzle up on stage using a large dry erase type white board while wearing sound-canceling headphones that look to have been invented in 1972.
Towards the end of the competition when the tension was at it’s highest level, I was thinking how funny it would be for someone to pull the fire alarm. If Stamford wasn’t a 7-hour drive, I’d probably seriously consider making the trip just so I could do it.
These people would freak out.
Keith Parkinson 1958 – 2005
I was looking online for fantasy based art today when I stumbled upon some very sad news. Artist Keith Parkinson passed away two years ago to Leukemia. I wasn’t aware of this sad news. I even had a Keith Parkinson calender for 2006 and I didn’t know he was gone. This truly sucks. I have always been a fan of his work. He created fantasy art that always had a very realistic look to it.
He used to work for TSR where he was responsible for some of the best Dungeons & Dragons artwork. That’s how I became familiar with this work. His artwork was also featured on Magic The Gathering cards. He also did the box art for the EverQuest massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
He will be missed.
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