Joshua Kronengold

Strike the Rail
Joshua Kronengold
(ttto "Strike the Bell" -- trad)

You're heading for an interview--and starting to run late,
You hope they'll offer you a job, and don't want them to wait.
You swipe right at the turnstyle,
Hear a beep, head forward, when,
The turnstile goes ke-chunk and stops,
it says: "swipe again!"

"Swipe again at this turnstile"
It says repeatedly,
A line forms quick behind you and they murmur angrilly.
You try to calm your heartbeat, raise your card once more and then,
You hope for "Go" but still it says to you: "Swipe again".

You're heading to pick up your date, and due at half past six,
In one pocket's a metro card--the other Broadway tix,
But at the only turnstile, there's a line and you can ken,
That at the front there's someone getting "please, swipe again."

"Swipe again at this turnstile"
It says repeatedly,
A line forms quick behind her and you murmur angrilly.
She tries to calm her heartbeat, raise her card once more and then,
You hope for "Go" but still it says to her: "Swipe again".

You've gotten to a worldcon, and you're paying at the door,
You hope the con will rock, and that your roomate will not snore.
You strike a conversation with a girl whose badge says "Wren",
When the volunteer at reg says "could you please swipe again?"

"Swipe your credit card again--it didn't seem to scan,"
You know the volunteer means well, but this was not your plan,
You don't want to be on line, but join the other fen,
And so you hope, that you won't hear these words: "swipe again!"

"Swipe again at this turnstile"
It says repeatedly,
A line forms quick behind you and they murmur angrilly.
You try to calm your heartbeat, raise your card once more and then,
You hope for "Go" but still it says to you: "Swipe again".

Spring cleaning season is here -- AKA "time to put the air conditioners in" season.

As such, I've decided it's time to finally get rid of all the stuff that had been moldering in the "time to get rid of this" pile. Anyone want anything? Here's the list:

Z-Man B-Movie card games: Bell Bottomed Badasses, Kung Fu Samurai, Graverobers, and Skippy's Revenge (Grave Robbers II).
Gother than Thou
Basari (a pretty cool gem-trading game marred by my dislike of the "pick one of three actions, you're screwed if you pick the same action someone else did" mechanic)
Lowenherz (a version of Domain with the same mechanic).
The Order of the Stick (Cool chrome, and the game captures it well. But...it takes long after it stops being fun to end. Maybe the expansion (called "the Shortening" for some reason) fixes it? I didn't bother to find out.
Grand Tribunal: Pretty interesting game, except for the lack of components lining up with rules. It's possible that the post-eratta game is good; I don't know, I can't get anyone to try it.
Dungeoneer (Undead): This is actually a really fun pseudo-RPG in a card game. But I've not played it since the Origins I bought it at, so out it goes.
Nanoficitionary (Beta): I've got the regular game, and I'm not much of a collector. So out it goes.

Anyone want anything? Make me an offer -- including "I'll pay shipping" or "bring it to Games Club/Gencon/Conterpoint and I'll take it" as well as cash/trade offers, and we'll talk; anything I can't get rid of quickly goes out, along with many many books.

drcpunk, in our regular PBEM, managed to typo "Eyes of the Beholder" as "Yes of the Beholder."

Which might, I suppose, explain why I responded with this:

"...I was a Globe of the dungeon yes when I put the gold twixt my eyes like the Draconian tyrants used or shall I wear a red yes and how he gazed at me under the dragon's cave and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my golden grapes and first I sent my rays about him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my orbs all perfume yes and his central eye was twisting like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes." (From Eyelisses, by Janus Jocular)

(with apologies to Mr. Joyce).

I'm a little fried, so I'm going to try not to go into depth -- but I finished Seanan McGuire's (seanan_mcguire's) A Local Habitation -- the second October Daye novel -- and very much enjoyed it.

(no cut tag, but even a spoiler-free review has to say -something- about the work, so reader beware)

Seanan describes herself as an "old-school horror girl", and boy do she show it here, as our protagonist enters combat with a classic combination of horror tropes in a battle to the last murder and last revelation. This time, I, at least, found the mystery (or parts of it) to be fairly obvious -- but there's enough misdirection and stage business to keep you guessing about the details -- and to keep at least -some- surprises for the end.

Unlike the first novel in the series, Rosemary and Rue, where I had some questions about motives that I needed to reread the novel in order to resolve for myself, here, any similar questions are asked and answered in the text (I do have some quibbles -- but I'm a pretty careful reader and unless I close my brain, I nearly -always- have quibbles); this is a tight story with strong characters, a good unity of place and time, (unlike the first novel, where on reread I noticed that we largely rotated among 5-6 sets, this one takes place almost entirely in a single set--but a big and varied enoug one that it -feels- like we're in a different place almost every chapter), and satisfying developments in at least some of the the ongoing storylines established in the first novel in the series.

If you like well written Faerie-themed Urban Fantasy/Horror/Romance/Mystery -- or think you might, read this book!

Dan IMed me when I was offline. When I finally got back to him, I was on AIM with several pages, looking at a bunch of different web sites, brushing lsa's hair, and trying to figure out what to do for the day. So...

(11:19:09 AM) DanNKapp: What's up?
(1:04:10 PM) mnemesys: I need more arms.
(1:05:08 PM) DanNKnapp: arms are useful.
(1:05:15 PM) DanNKnapp: but too many of them seem like they would get in the way.
(1:06:08 PM) mnemesys: Sure, but 4 or 6 would be viable. Maybe 4 tentacles plus two normal arms? The tentacles can handle tasks farther away; the arms can handle the "in front of me" jobs?
(1:06:17 PM) DanNKnapp: that makes sense to me.
(1:06:17 PM) mnemesys: yes, I'm aware of what this leads too. :)
(1:06:22 PM) DanNKnapp: the primary problem is shoulders.
(1:06:28 PM) DanNKnapp: which tentacles do help to solve.
(1:06:31 PM) DanNKnapp: what does this lead to? :)
(1:06:38 PM) mnemesys: Fighting spiderman, apparently.
(1:06:41 PM) DanNKnapp: haha.
(1:06:42 PM) DanNKnapp: fair enough.

What's scary enough is that until I expressed the tentacle idea (mostly, to handle the close/far issue and that you mostly want extra arms to handle tasks you're not looking at, so you need a lot more swivel than your regular arms have) it hadn't occured to me that I was reinventing a popular Marvel Comics villain.

grinnellian2001 was reading a book on food that I thought was written by the blogger who helps run the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, so I shanghaied (sorry. not intentional) her, stakebait, and Mary Alice (has an lj, don't remember it) after the Elegant Arts Tea and Games event today to go down, grab Chinese food in Chinatown, an hit the Factory for dessert.

Since I was (naturally) put on the spot to pick a restaurant, I chose Mandarin Garden (on Mott Street, a bit north of Wo Hop and south of Canal), which I've -mostly- done for dim sum, but which I know some in our circle (possibly even me) have done for dinner and never complained about. The first dish we settled on was Peking Duck -- which it developed, none of my fellow dinners except Mary Alice had tried, and which is one of my favorite dishes (even if it's served differently at different places). To round out the meal (keeping in mind that the duck was priced as two dishes and advertised as a two course dish, so we figured it could serve as two), we got Lotus & Veggies, and to accommodate both my fetish for spicy and grinnellian2001's desires to have something safe on the table, a quong bao (eg, kung pao, as I'm used to seeing it) chicken.

The duck was ordered and arrived first--and was -totally- worthwhile. The first course consisted of the traditional sandwich buns, hoisin sauce, scallions, and the skin of the ducks with the drumsticks, and was delivered with all due ceremony (not quite the same as what we got at the Peking Duck House, up the street, but different and cool). The duck meat, delivered with the rest of the meal, was worked into a delicious dish, with a nice savory but not significantly spicy sauce.

The other two dishes also worked well -- the veggies were a really tasty mix, with a lot of mushrooms, along with the lotus roots and snow peas, and the sauce had a slice spice edge to it. And the kung bao (which, to be fair, is one of my favorite "simple" dishes) was perfectly spiced--enough bite and pieces of hot pepper to keep me interested, but not so much as to be a problem for those of us with a lower (but not nonexistent, of course) taste for heat.

The dinner a success, we headed for the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, right off of Mott--an establishment so old that my first memory of them is discovering that I was (not permanently, fortunately) allergic to mangoes there at the age of, perhaps, 8 (if so, that would be 1980), and only later rediscovered them a few years ago as what they are now (at least, I don't -think- they had quite the variety of flavors they have now then, though they always had some oddball ones)--an excellent boutique ice cream parlor that makes their own, albeit with a regrettable lack of chairs, nestled in the heart of Chinatown. I can't speak of what anyone else got, (though they were out of pumpkin pie, I tasted the zen butter, which is butter with a taste of coconut, and I'm sure that grinnellian2001 got the lichee and some other flavor (they do split their smalls, as all right-thinking boutique ice cream places do)) but I decided I didn't need to be adventurous this time and got the mocha chip and the green tea, which made a lovely combination.

The only issue, of course, was the "standing outside eating ice cream" factor (oh, -that's- why the haagen daaz nearby gets any business!)--I've got to get a better idea of where one can get a seat near the CICF (even if it's outdoors).

Lisa's (drcpunk's) dad died today, about 3 weeks after he went into the hospital with what turned out to be multiple major organ failures. The funeral will be tomorrow (or maybe monday) at a time to be determined, on Staten Island (directions are here).

(This is the "mostly avoiding specifics" review of Rosemary & Rue. I might do another with a lot more spoilers, or I might not (I'll likely put it under a flock, though))

( Review Ahoy! )

Lisa and I are not -actually- doing a grand tour--but we are doing enough cons this ye\
ar that one could argue it anyway. Spring cons included Lunacon(Rye, NY), Concertino \
(NEfilk Massachusets), Origins (Columbus), Dexcon (NJ), Intercon (Mass.), Balticon (Ba\
ltimore), and this past weekend, drcpunk and I took a quick flight over to L\
ondon to make HarmUnu (and Unicon in general, as we did have non-filking UK friends in\
attendence). (and in terms of trips, I suppose I have to count my cruise with pocketnaomi to Alaska, with Seattle on the way).

It was great. Expensive in both money and energy, of course, but much fun and we got \
to both reconnect with old friends from that side of the pond and meet and chat with n\
ew friends. I even got a few games in.

This coming week, naturally enough, we're planning on taking a train up to Montreal t\
o attend Worldcon.

And we -hope- to also make PiCon this summer...not that we've planned for it even a li\
ttle bit--it just sounds fun.

If you still need a DW invite (and know me), talk to me. I've got quite a few.

Balticon was fun, if odd. Friday night, I came in, saw people, ate dinner with peoples, changed, danced like a madman, went back to the room, and crashed. Saturday, I caught half of quadrivium's concert, did Patches' excellent Renn dance (where I ended up being her demo partner = fun), gamed most of the day (once I was awake), got a nice dinner with selki, drcpunk, and Pamela, gamed a bit more, stopped by some parties on the way to the filk room...and found that the filk had ended sometime before 2:30AM. So it goes. So I played a bit of Werewolf (annoyingly, a game soured because a player didn't realize they weren't a werewolf, the mod announced a werewolf innocent to the seer, and the mod didn't have the brains to -correct his mistake- before endgame was hit. So the seer looked at all three werewolves and lived to talk about it, yet the town "lost") and went to bed. Sunday, I gamed all day, had dinner with drcpunk, nancylebov, esrblog, and cathyr19355, and went directly to the filking -- so actually got a few good hours of filking in (even if I did torture Gwen's Like Their Feet Have Wings mercilessly; I'm not usually -that- bad on the words or even the chords; I think I brain was cramped [and I do try to sing songs with the words even when I know them, but my laptop was in for repair this weekend and I neglected to arrange a replacement for the con]). After filking broke up WAY TOO EARLY, I went over to the gaming room and got a few hours of Dominion and Race for the Galaxy in before bed.

Monday, I hung out in the gaming room for a bunch of hours. Where I was introduced to Colosseum. Which kicks ass.

Colosseum is a Wolfgang Kramer game -- and it shows. But while there are clear connections to Princes of Florence (eg, it's a art-themed financial game with the same style of auction, and a separate-but-related score track), I like it a lot better. For starters, it's a well-designed game with many of my favorite game elements -- development, trading, money management, auctions, as well as some other interesting ones (screw-the-leader, -aid- the leader (yes, both -- the leader gets a +3 on all further scores and has one of her pieces stolen from her in each of the four preparatory rounds), collections, and game win by best-score (which is why I refer to it as 4 preparatory rounds and one final round--as, unless you're playing badly, your score in the final round will dwarf your previous scores. For example, my round 4 score was 40 and my round 5 score was 85, and I won by 3 points).

I like it a lot, and have gone ahead and bought myself a copy (along with Le Havre, which is a bit long, but as the sequel to Agricola, I must own if nobody else in my friendship circle has it, and nobody does).