... to all board members in the USA.

I'm posting this today because Peg and I are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the family this year, since her mom had surgery about a month ago and didn't feel up to the challenge this year.  As a result, it's unlikely that I'll be on the forums any time between about noon today and late tomorrow night, and possibly not until the weekend proper.

I hope everyone enjoys the Macy's parade and their turkey!

Chairman Pai -- the gift that keeps on giving to telecoms.

https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-re...t-messages

Penguin Park, Tomoeda, Japan

March 26, 2000
9:15 PM Japan Time

Beneath the stars and under the branches of the cherry blossom trees, the people of Tomoeda Town had strung paper lanterns, illuminating the delicate blossoms above.  The whole park glowed with the pale pink light of the sakura blossoms, as dozens of the town's residents soaked up the spectacle and partied with sake and sweets.  This was Penguin Park's annual Flower Viewing festival—or Hanami—but it was the first time a particular group of sixth-graders got to stay up late for the yozakura.

This group had set up an elegant red and violet print curtain behind them to block out the sound of the street, along with a bento five boxes high full of various sweets atop a blanket on the grass.  The setup was the envy of all of Penguin Park, but nothing less could be expected from the rich girl of the group, Tomoyo Daidouji, who would give nothing less for her priceless friends.

Still, it was getting kind of late for kids that age to stay out, especially as the adult parties around them began to increase in volume and decrease in sobriety.  Looking at her namesake flower, Sakura Kinomoto was still in reverie when Naoko and Rika excused themselves.  Yamazaki was in the middle of a fascinating history of the hanami curtain until Chiharu made him walk her home right in the middle.

And so it was that the group was down to three young people, Sakura and her Chinese boyfriend Shaoran Li, and Tomoyo.  Make that four, as Sakura's backpack flipped open and a yellow stuffed-animal said, "Ah, finally!  I get to see the flowers!"  He was not a real stuffed animal, but Sakura's familiar and Beast of the Seal, Kerberos.  Kero had managed to sneak out a cup of amazake to enjoy with his new view.

Sakura said, "I still don't know why you wanted to be inside my bag the whole time, Kero-chan."

"Oh, that's easy," Tomoyo explained, "He's another example of 'dango over flowers'."

"I think he had a whole tray of dango!" Shaoran complained.  "I kept seeing that toothpick poking out of the bag to fish for sweets."

"Don't worry, I budgeted for Kero-chan."

Sakura said cheerfully, "This is great being out here with you all.  It's so nice just to take a break and look at the beauty of the world.  And all of the flowers."

"Sakura is so beautiful." Shaoran said.

Sakura replied, "Thank you!"

"I mean, the flowers, I mean… I didn't…" Shaoran turned beet red.

Sakura laughed, and kissed him on the cheek.

Tomoyo said, "It is a nice day to relax, under the trees.  Now that you've captured all of the Clow Cards, and made them your very own Sakura Cards, we don't have to go out at night so much."  She paused for a moment, and watched a sakura petal tumble to the ground.  "I wonder what the future holds for us now."

A light went off in Sakura's head, "Ah!  Maybe I could try a divination again!"

"With all the cards, Sakura will be super-accurate now!"  Kero said.  "Especially on a night like tonight."

"Let's give it a try," Shaoran agreed, "and find out more about our future."

Before taking out her magical cards, Sakura did a quick look around.  Most of the adults still relaxing around the park were too involved in their friends and their sake to notice much of anything, so she proceeded to withdraw an arcane deck of 53 cards from her bag.  

Kneeling on the blanket, she brushed away the sakura petals in a flat section of fabric to make room for her divination. Sakura shuffled her cards three times, thought for a moment, cut the deck, and gave it one final shuffle.  

She dealt a spread of seven cards, three in the middle row first, then two below, and finally two above.

She turned over the first card on the left, "This is my past, Woody."

"That means that you've grown a lot, Sakura-han!"

Tomoyo added, "I thought the same, Kero-chan, she's like a budding flower starting to bloom."

"Hoe?"  Sakura uttered, but then turned to the middle card.  "This is the present:" she flipped, then named, "Time, inverted."

"That feels wrong," Shaoran shuddered.

"Something in our time is broken," Sakura divined.  She moved forward to the rightmost card.  "Our future is: Twin."

"So, we have a choice of two different paths," Kero explained.

"I don't... somehow I don't think so."  She moved to the bottom right card, and flipped two cards flipped over.  "Hooeeee?"  She pushed at the remaining cards, and sure enough, each of them were now a stack of two cards.  "I tried to deal it right," she apologized.

"I think the cards are revealing two different destinies, Sakura-chan," Shaoran offered.

"Oh, okay.  So the top card is Erase, and the bottom card is Jump.  These cards are supposed to be the obstacles in my path.  Maybe it would make more sense if think about the top cards all together, if they represent different paths of fate."

"The first path will clear something important to me."  She moved to the top left card, and flipped it.  "And I will be aided by Change, something that has a different form.  What is hidden from me" -- the bottom right card -- "is the Shadow, someone that wished to remain cloaked.  Finally, my goal will be, Create, to make new what has been taken from me."

"You're uh, getting good at fortune telling, Sakura-chan," Shaoran said.

"Thank you, Shaoran-kun!" Sakura said with a smile, which caused the heat to rise in Shaoran's cheeks, just a little.  "And for the other path," she continued, "Jump, a sudden movement to a new place, will block me.  I will be helped by -- Watery, which maybe means I need to go with the flow.  What's hidden from me is: Return, inverted."

Kero explained, "That means that if you go down that path, you can never come back.  Be careful, Sakura."

"Thank you, Kero," she nodded. She flipped the final card in the top right position, "Sand.  Huh."

"Is that a trap?" Shaoran asked.

"Nuh-uh," she shook her head.  "If it was in the the bottom row, it would be a trap, but up here, it represents the infinite.  Grains of sand are like the stars in the sky."

"Water and sand remind me of the beach," Tomoyo said.

"I could use another beach trip!" Kero declared.  "I need to work on my tan."

And out of nowhere, Shaoran yelled, "Sakura, the magic!"

"I feel it!"  She jumped up, and went into an alert pose.  Two of the cards on the blanket in front of them began to move of their own volition, Through and Time.  But only one of them activated.  "What's ha—"

Venice, California, USA
October 25, 2016
8:15AM PDT

The next thing Sakura knew, it was morning.  Sakura saw everyone else still sleeping on the floor of Tomoyo's limousine -- Shaoran, Kero, Tomoyo, Nii-san, Papa, Yukito, Sonomi-oba-san...

"HOOEEEEEEEE!?!?!"

It didn't take long for everyone to wake up.

My Malwarebytes is saying there's a Trojan on pages 3&4 of the latest Images thread - pages 1&2 don't trigger anything.

RMH

Especially at "dealers and artists only" comic conventions. Got business cards from a couple of artists who aren't accepting commissions at the moment, passed by other artists who were either too busy or drew in a style I didn't like, bought a few goodies.

For those who wanted "RWBY in the original Japanese" (yes, I know), there's now a RWBY manga by Shirow Miwa. Viz has the NA rights: ISBN 978-1-4215-9512-2. Haven't had time to actually read it yet, but doing a quick flip through the first few pages and seeing Team RWBY in Japanese-style school uniforms is ... well, it's something. Oh, and it isn't a retelling of the original story: there's a set-piece Ruby vs. Cardin fight in chapter 1.

One of the dealers was selling "no box" figures. I picked up a couple of Sakuras - Shinguuji and Kinomoto - and a Misaka Mikoto. (Left Saber and Rin behind.) Since they're older with no-box, they go on display soon.

On, and got a couple of decks of cards with K-On! backs. They appeared to be legit.

You guys interested?  She's good - and also one of the first friends I ever made online, so I trust her implicitly.  This will be a paid gig - I've told her that each of you would be paying for your own sketches.

Here's her DA page:
https://www.deviantart.com/armaina

Right now, all she really needs is reference images, as well as other details such as what size, flat image or fully shaded, and what anime style you want.

The Green Book

Guerrilla Warfare has changed a great deal in the last half century - especially with the advent of facebook and the internet however the basic tenant remains the same.

He must exhaust the enemy by constant harrasment
He must attack constantly, and from all directions
He must stage succesful retreats, return to the attack, and avoid encounters with the enemy that are not of his own making.


Yes. I did just post a Terrorist Training Manual to the forum.

You are alll on a CIA watch list.

In case anyone is interested, there is a bluray release of the BBC Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy tv show.

I've had a look at a discussion thread https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=304425  and its a mixed bag.  Good sound, decent extras but a bad job in upscaling the video seems to be the majority view.

Also for everyone across the pond, to quote the web forum above "The blu-ray is region free but with a 50i picture format rather than 60i meaning if you live outside a PAL region make sure your player and TV support the format".

As for amazon links

UK Special Edition
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchhikers-Gui...uraycom-21

UK VHS style pack
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchhikers-Gal...uraycom-21

US llnk for special edition (new and used)
https://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Guide...990&sr=1-1

Mark

Here in Ventura, once stood a pair of trees on a hill.  They had stood there since the long, long ago, where the legendary farmers -- men of McGraths, the Donlons, the Borchards, and the Ortegas -- had placed them high above the city of San Buenaventura.  And there they stood and grew across the long decades, keeping silent vigil above a prosperous town, and inspiring us with simple beauty.

The Two Trees were not ordinary trees, but blue gum eucalptus, brought and placed here from lands far to the West.  They were something of an emblem for local businesses, with representations proudly emblazoned in logos and signs.  Through my youth, they were an everpresent feature on the skyline, inspiring dreams and fantasies.  For in one direction stood the earthy hills, and in the other lay the sea and the enchanted isles.

Perhaps they were descendants of the Two Trees of Valinor, Laurelin and Telperion, who shed their light on all of Arda, from Valinor across the western sea to Middle-Earth and beyond.  For just like their ancestors, in recent years, they started to sicken.

In the Years of the Trees, the Trees of Valinor lit the whole world, until Morgoth convinced Ungoliant to inject her poison into them.  As the two trees died, the light of the world slowly faded away, until the Valar took the last living fruit of Laurelin and the last living flower of Telperion and used them to create the Moon and Sun.  But they, too, were corrupted by Ungoliant's poison -- the last remaining pure light of the trees were bound in the Silmarilli of Fëanor, taken and held in Morgoth's terrible crown for a thousand years.

The Two Trees of Ventura too faltered.  First the eastern tree sickened, and grew weak.  Then the great fires came and scorched the very leaves off the branches and extinguished the life out of our sacred trees.  A month later, a windstorm came and snapped the eastern tree's trunk in twain, so what remains of the glory of the Two Trees is a tall stump and a dead, wintry outline of the formerly great branches.

Where once they stood for our prosperity and resilience, now the Two Trees are a tall reminder of what we have lost -- irreplaceable lives, homes of friends sacrificed to the flames, the days we lived in thick smoke, families rent apart as people move away to find a place to live.

As our city is once again wreathed in smoke, mere months after the previous fire, it grows more painful once again.  The inescapable fact is that in this new era, the light of the world is no longer pure; it has been corrupted by the flames that once again consume homes and lives.  Everything has an orangish tint and is covered in a layer of dust and soot -- all of the city's colors have dimmed.

Men's hearts too, have dimmed.  Our President has said that we don't deserve aid in fighting the fires.  People argue in earnest that separating children from their parents is good and just.  Still, we feed the fires ever more, with cars and plants and factories.  The Devil Winds come more and more often as we burn the fuel to light the lamps to blot out the stars.

I can still remember the pure light and star-filled skies, but I can no longer see it here.  With the passing of our Two Trees, a little more of the light of faith is gone from the world.  Yet I can see the smoky light of the flame racing down the hills towards us once again.  And Melkor, in the Void beyond the Walls of the World, is laughing.

I'm sure you've seen this before: Spikyhair Shinysmile, teenaged amnesiac of few words but prodigious fighting skill, sets out to discover his past and along the way gathers a band of oddball companions and uncovers a heinous plot to recover some artifact of the lost golden age and foil it to save the world, possibly bringing a return of the golden age along the way or at least preventing whatever caused it to fall from happening again.

Of course you have. It's the story of at least 80% of every RPG video game ever made.

My question is how to put together a plot line to not merely avoid this tried and true and horribly overdone formula, but subvert and perhaps mock it a bit as well, without descending into twee or complete sociopathy.

My initial idea is to have the protagonist begin as the local Super-Emperor of Everything but everyone else has lost their memory, and therefore everything is falling apart, let alone anyone recognizing your authoritah. I'm divided over whether there should be a semi-standard system of character upgrades framed as brushing the rust off your personal skills now that there aren't legions of soldiers to obey your every whim, or if character generation should end with abilities and skills and super final attack sure-kill secret moves mostly in the state they'll be throughout, aside from equipment upgrades and so on. Probably a blend would be best there, but the right balance point would be critical.

Finding and dealing with the cause of the problem is the end of tutorial mode, or at most the first chapter, but there is no reset button involved; the rest of the game is... I dunno. Getting people's skills and purpose restored to keep the infrastructure lashed together enough that the world doesn't go completely post-apocalypse-grimderp? Build your armies anew and reconquer the setting with the help of various super-weapons only the MC remembers how to use? Something less widespread, basically becoming the bandit-king of a city state to maintain your own standard of living (and incidentally that of your immediate followers) and watch the world beyond the reach of your hands burn?

Is it actually necessary to send the player out to do hero stuff in order to have gameplay value? I'm not seeing a whole lot of options that actually sound engaging, and cliches become cliches because they resonate with people over and over; Tropes Are Not Bad and so on.