Highmoon’s Ponderings

I’ll be vacationing in Seattle from June 20 till the 30. I’ll try to do some posts from the road but we’ll see.

And yes, this means there’ll be a Seattle episode of The Gamer Traveler soon (as soon as I can fix my laptop monitor once I get back).

I’m super busy getting ready for my trip to Seattle, so I won’t be doing a long post about this. Short version: the GSL sucks and I don’t see Highmoon Media using it to produce D&D 4e-compatible products in the near future. The license is horribly restricting in what I can and cannot do, reference, or develop, but the dealbrakers are the clauses dealing with OGL conversions (6.1, 6.2), with beyond-termination limitation of my GSL-released products (6.1), and the draconian sections dealing with litigation and damages (10), especially the one where you waive your right to a jury trial for any legal proceeding dealing with the GSL (19).

There’s more stuff that annoys me about it (like the fact that the license seems to put a clamp on anything I develop for 4e/GSL to be used solely for that or not at all), but it will have to wait for me to break that down further.

Honestly, I feel they should just have closed the whole game. I know some folks with use this GSL to release products, but in general, it feels like a forced participation in the idea of Open Gaming, and only in the most bitter of ways.

Wizards of the Coast continues to become a company that I more and more do not want to support with my dollars.

I miss very much the Wizards of the Coast of the Peter Adkinson years, but that’s a different post.

The rumors of a live-action Robotech movie have circulated for years, but lo and behold, this morning I see the following at ICv2.com:

Lawrence Kasdan Adapting ‘Robotech’

According to The Hollywood Reporter screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, who penned Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, has been hired to write the screenplay for Warner Bros.’ live action Robotech film.

Read more.

Hot damn! Return of the Jedi aside, those are some excellent scripts to flaunt (not to mention The Big Chill as well), and I trust Kasdan to deliver a script that adapts Robotech well to the screen and keeps the theme and tone of the series. Now they just need to get a good director and we’re on!

Last week was one of those where I literally only got to sit at my computer for like 10 minutes, period. I had my mom and two nephews visiting here all week, which was great, but severely affected my comp time, in addition to the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which meant two days of no electronics at all. So this all amounts to a crapload of backed-up emails, including a series of them from Amazon.com, telling me that the credit card I had given for my D&D 4e Gift Box pre-order was expired (Doh!) and that if I didn’t give a new one, my order would be cancelled. It was. So not only did I not get the box set on release day as is normal for Amazon.com pre-orders (due to stock issues), the great price I had locked in via the pre-order has also gone away, and while the regular price they offer is still a good one compared to regular retail, it bothers me having to give them that extra money. So I’ll be going with Buy.com, which has it at just two more dollars than I had thought I would pay at Amazon.com. I do have to wait for the restock from Wizards, so for now no 4e for me. Which is just fine, as I’ll be traveling this Friday so my thoughts are all about Seattle, not 4e.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is easy to see why Lahiri won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize with Interpreter of Maladies: these are stories that resound with emotional punch, unhindered by gimmicky prose or twisted plot devices, laser-focused explorations of the human condition. Though Bengali immigrants are Lahiri’s predominant type of characters, we also get a couple of stories set in India, where we get to see a glimpse of the society the other characters have emmigrated from. This is the kind of book that anyone can read and get lost in, and in fact, everyone should.