Yes, once again I decided to stay up all night after the debates and translate the entire thing into rhyme. I guess to some people that might seem like a ridiculous task, but honestly after spending a decade writing From God To Verse, an all-nighter spent translating a presidential debate is pretty much a lark for me. Granted, unlike GTV, this one is a summary and not a line-by-line translation, but I feel like I still hit all the important points.

Editor Bob Whitcomb, of the Providence Journal, was kind enough to post it on their New England blog, so I present:

2012 First Presidential Debate in Rhyme

Meanwhile, if you’re sick of politics even in rhyme, unlike the past few weeks, this week my column doesn’t mention anything political even once. It does, however, contain many bad jokes. So come receive your Punnish Mint.

Also, you may notice a new addition to my Books page. I’ll post a little more about that in a few weeks, since it’s not technically available for purchase yet, although there is currently a pre-order discount through that link for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing.

On the board game front, I’ve been chatting with some folks putting together a hip-hop-themed card game. As I’m joining their team somewhat belatedly, it’s unclear whether I will have a strong hand in redesigning the game, or simply wheedle my way into getting my own card, but either way I’m clearly the target demographic.

So, I guess other things technically happened in September. I mean, I started doing a little extra work for the local paper, doing some features for their religion and food pages. And we cooked all sorts of delicious food. And I wrote a bunch of humor columns, the most recent one which discusses a problem I share with Mitt Romney.*

But really, if I were to summarize September in three words, it would be Alphabetic Boardgame Challenge. Yes, this year was the fifth annual occurrence of this glorious event, where my partner and I play 26 games over the course of three days. And for the first time ever, she won. I’ll keep this blogpost short, but there are plenty of bad puns in my summary at that link.

*And I don’t just mean being a socially awkward white guy. Well, not only that, at any rate.**

**”At any rate” is a weird phrase. I mean, if I say, “I know you bought tickets, but I don’t plan to watch ballet, at any rate”, what does that mean? Am I both refusing to watch ballet in real-time, but also slowed down to 10 frames per second, or sped up to 999,999 frames per second? What other rates are there? I guess there are interest rates…but if I continue this footnote any further, your interest rate will drop.

Well, technically of humid air, but then it rained a lot and the air got fresher*.

Anyway, this month has been interesting, but I’ve already forgotten most of it, because I’ve been pretty busy. Not quite busy enough — need to do more recording tomorrow for the exciting project I was hired for last month — but busy nonetheless.

The biggest event of the month for me was probably the WordXWord Festival in Pittsfield, a week-long event celebrating the spoken word where some of the country’s best performance poets came to perform, and it was totally awesome. But don’t take my word for it, take my 600 words in a parody of Poe’s Raven. Which will probably be taken down a few days after I post this, but oh well.

My most recent column, rather than being celebratory, is a lot more depressing. However, I think it’s also something important to note that I really wanted people to read, and of particular interest to anyone interested in humor in general or politics, which I believe covers almost all of my readership, so I encourage you to read (and share?) my musings on The Death of Satire.

That column came out two days ago, and already I’ve had numerous new examples sent to me since then. I think it really is a disturbing trend. Almost as much as people making abnormally short blogposts that end abruptly**.

*More fresher? Re-fresher? Freshluggner? Good thing I’m not a writer.

**But I guess the footnotes can go on for a bit. At least, I can. What my column doesn’t mention about the WordXWord Festival is that I found out another local poet was also a freestyle rapper, and neither of us had ever known the other rapped. So at the afterparty for the festival, one of the more-famous-than-us poets announced this fact, and invited us both to the stage to do some quick freestyle line trading starting on topics of the audience’s choosing. This ended up being a $10 bill and Battlestar Galactica, the latter of which launched our rhymes into a series of delightful nerdery, and it was the most fun I had all month, and basically I thought of all of this now because during that freestyle session the other fellow said that his rhymes needed large footnotes, and I replied that my footnotes were the tallest, because I was the rap world’s David Foster Wallace. Granted I’m not actually the rap world’s DFW, I’m probably more the rap world’s Calvin Trillan, but anyway, I was thinking about footnotes, and so that’s why I told you all this, and wow, this sentence has gone on way too long, and I’m surprised you’re still reading, but nobody stops in the middle of a sentence, so I guess if I kept using commas to create an infinite pest sort of run-on sentence, you’d be stuck reading it forever, which would suck for you,  sort of like a vacuum cleaner, which nature abhors, abhors love men with nice abs, okay I’m going to stop typing now.

November 2012 is the official release date for my newest book about Rhode Island, but you can order it on Amazon now. (At the time of my writing this, it’s on discount, but that tends to fluctuate.) Unlike my previous Rhode Island book, this is a more serious historical book, covering historical events in Rhode Island from the founding of the state to the sewing of the World’s Biggest Sock.

Okay, so it's not all, like, super-serious.

But my point is, while my previous book about Rhode Island may have been about random silly things, and filled with whimsy in the form of pun-laden captions and ridiculous limericks, It Happened In Rhode Island is a more scholarly tome. Not, I should hasten to clarify, that this book is particularly academic, or high-minded. I just mean that I had to do actual research and write up historical events that happened in Rhode Island, and then the hardest part — leaving out all the puns, rhymes, and dumb jokes that I might have been tempted to make.

That being said, the book is still surprisingly entertaining. Which is to say, when I got my proof copy, after having written it and forgotten about it, I was surprised how entertained I was to read it. Granted, it’s easy to surprise someone with a terrible memory. But having stepped away from the research material for a bit, returning to read these little summaries of events was actually quite interesting. The book contains some “traditional history” that talks about the Great Swamp Massacre, Burning of the Gaspee, and some slightly more esoteric historical tidbits like General Burnsides.

But it also has more modern “historical” events, which include things like Babe Ruth’s first home run, and the moment when Bob Dylan put down the acoustic guitar and picked up the electric guitar instead. And of course, no book about Rhode Island would be complete without some stories of ridiculous RI politicians. Because they are ridiculous. Anyway, this is my newest book, and you should buy a copy for yourself to put in your bathroom along with Rhode Island Curiosities and Think You’re The Only One?, because it’s a bunch of interesting little 4-page stories, and they’re all true.

What can I say, when it comes to bad pun titles for blogposts, I just have an itchy trig finger.

For me, freelancing often feels like a sine wave, as the projects tend to come in “boom” and “bust” cycles.* A few months ago was a nice boom, when I wrote the rough draft of my next book, and also did some work for Fodor’s Travel Guides travelling the Berkshires. Then I had a bust cycle, and I re-discovered that I am addicted to video games between Steam and a ceaseless torrent of indie bundles.

Now, it is boom time once again, with the page proofs for my book having literally just arrived a few minutes before I wrote this post. This means I basically get to re-read my book and fail to find typos because I am so familiar with the material that my mind will probably miss them. But the good news is, I am pleased to announce that before the end of the year, my next book It Happened In Rhode Island will be available for purchase. More information in coming months.

Meanwhile, the most exciting new development for me is that I have been hired on to help with an educational project. This is still in the early stages, so details will have to wait for later, but suffice to say I am finally able to both put my talents to use and have the result be educational in addition to entertaining, and to get paid for that is pretty much what I want to do with my life.**

Oh right, my life. Well, I am Still Not Dead, albeit no thanks to my parents’ pantry, and continue to enjoy each day. My partner, whose office you may recall was closed down a few months back, has decided to take up knitting as a career, and has been cranking out socks that look pretty awesome. Once these are in sufficient quantity to be for sale, I will let you know. I can tell you from personal experience last winter, these are much, much better than normal socks for making your feet happy.

Meanwhile, an increase in knitting*** means a decrease in boardgaming, both due to time constraints, and table covered in knitting stuff. We’ve still played a few games, like Vikings and Ascension, but with everything else taking up time and space I may have to — *gasp* — sell some of my board games. Not my favorite ones, of course, but just some of the others. I guess that’s a bit of a tangent.

*** If I were a knitter, I’d have some clever pun about increases and decreases here. For once, I’m sad not to be a knit-wit. Maybe a joke about clutching your purls? I don’t understand knitting.

Just back from performing stand-up at a Chocolate Festival. This marks the first time I can recall where there were so many kinds of chocolate to sample, I became full before I’d even tried half of them. I definitely hope to go back next year, especially since the stand-up went well too. Here’s a joke I didn’t think was good enough to tell: I used to have blackberry bushes in my backyard, but then I found out my soil was contaminated with lead. So I tore out the bushes because I couldn’t stop eating the berries anyway. In retrospect, I could have used them to make Pb+J.*

So, my set was funnier than that. Speaking of food firsts, June also marks my first time making nime chow at home, a delightful experience I hope to repeat often, because yum, nime chow. My most recent local restaurant review was of a new Austrian place, and while I found it only mediocre, I’m pleased with my headline for the review.

Speaking of headlines**, my column this week was about Headline News, basically headline jokes the kind you might hear on a talk show. And the week before that I explain that my endeavors in comedy stem largely from the fact that I am seeking approval.

Game-wise, a friend lent us Through The Ages, and we have been playing it obsessively. As in, sometimes 4-5 times a week, which is a lot for a 3-hour game. We haven’t played a game this much since Goa. At some future point, I’ll have to review it, but I’ve only played a single multi-player game so I’m still holding off. Meanwhile, it’s an incredibly compelling 2-player experience, and always leaves me thinking, “Next time I’m going to try…”, which I believe is often a sign of a great game.

* Making puns about “lead” is very difficult in writing, since the pronunciation as “led” screws up a lot of the possibilities.

*** Which is another joke I decided to cut from my stand-up this time around.

Or technically, Last Day In May Day!

It’s been an interesting month, with some good things, and various unfortunate events.* I did a lot of editing on the projects I was working on in April. The good news is that I can now add Fodor’s Travel Guides to the list of places for which I have written reviews, and I should have my next book about Rhode Island coming out before the end of the year.

Due to aforementioned unfortunate events, we’ve had very little gaming, although I expect that to change quite a bit in June. And the other bad news is that in spite of now having two fancy microphones thanks to the generosity of others, I can get neither of them to actually record without static on my computer. Which, now that I have finished my most recent editing commitments and have free time again, is becoming an issue. The answer may be that I just try to make some progress on doing things, and then record somewhere else if I have to.

Meanwhile, there’s still comedy. I am not only writing columns for posterity, but most recently wrote a column about what it’s like to write a joke. Which I’ve been thinking about because in addition to attending the occasional comedy open mic, I’m performing at the PAVE Chocolate Festival at the end of June, hosted by Rick Conety. It’s a family-friendly show, which means I can’t do any of my Rick Santorum jokes**. And while RBIT doesn’t seem to appear much in North County these days, we may have a few shows coming up at the Freightyard Pub on second Fridays. This, in combination with the first Thursday comedy open mic at Public, and the fourth Friday poetry slam at the Local, means it’s pretty easy to get out there and see me say ridiculous things, if that appeals to you.

*Life’s gifts have lately been lemony, and even a bit snicket.

**If your family isn’t politically homogenized, it’s possible that vulgarity and sex is more family-friendly than incisive political analysis. Which set of jokes is going to cause more tension in the car ride home?

Well, my nomination would be February. But as I explain in my most recent column, April is the Crewelist Month.

Still, this month has been somewhat cruel. My partner’s office closed down, resulting in dozens of people who lost their jobs, including her.* And I’ve been so busy with a freelance project that we’ve barely had any time to play board games at all — although I did attend PAX East in March, where I got to play Outpost (fun, although I still prefer Scepter of Zavandor), Innovation (still addictive), Quarriors (fun, but a bit too luck-based), and Legend of the Cipher (so fun, I’m joining the development team). And in April I got in a few rounds of Flash Duel, which I mean to review as soon as I can take some pictures of my first edition.

But I digress. I was talking about April showers of cruelty. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But I will tell you that it’s much worse to have a false hope dangled in front of you and then pulled out from under your feet than not to have seen it at all.**

So, a few days ago I got an email from someone wanting to buy a banner ad on my blog. Two years ago I received a cold email from a random company wanting to buy a text ad, and said text ad is still atop my site (go click if you like online bingo, non-US readers!), and has brought me a few hundred dollars. So I figured a banner ad, though more intrusive, would bring more money which would be really handy roundabouts now. I suggested a price I thought was a touch high, and it was accepted without negotiation, to my surprised delight.

I looked at their instructions for putting up the banner ad, and it included instructions to install a WordPress plugin, which set off my Spidey-sense. So I Googled the name of the ad company and the word “scam”, and came across this blogpost, which confirmed that indeed this was spam/scam, and not the deus ex machinadvertisement I had initially hoped. And I mean, I know two weeks ago I wasn’t expecting that money at all, but it’s sure more cruel to have it appear and then disappear.

Speaking of cruelty, April is National Poetry Month, so I’m going to share one of the short poems I’ve been writing daily throughout April:

“Absolutely True Sonnet of the Afternoon Flash Game”

Thisafternoon I played an online game
Where players build a deck and PvP.
The first of our three rounds my foe did claim
And, poised to win the second, typed “GG”.

But then, I drew the cards to stay alive,
While his deck seemed to give him cards that suck.
And somehow, I had managed to survive,
He’d not, and said, “You had a lot of luck.”

Retorted I, “Your luck was in rare cards.”
Said he, “That wasn’t luck, I bought each rare.”
Said I, “Th’economy these days is hard,
If you can spend on flash games, your luck’s fair.”

Said he, “I’m well-employed, I must confess.”
Poor me, at least I’d had a lucky guess.

I ended up losing the third game. But at least I discovered a new alternative energy source, which is to hook a generator up to Shakespeare***, who is surely now turning in his grave.

*Her comment: “I’m just waiting for someone to ask me if I looked under the couch.” Yep, I’m still in love.

**It’s even worse than a horribly mixed metaphor where hope is suspended from the ceiling one minute and serving as a rug in the next. Hope: It’s a combination chandelier and carpet! It’s a floor wax! It’s a dessert topping!

April Fools.

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so I figured I may as well get my thoughts down. The short version is: I am hard-wired for media scarcity, and we now live in a time of media abundance. Here follows the long version:

A decent analogy is probably food. There is often a difference between the way people approach food, depending on whether they are used to abundance or scarcity. There are people (myself included) who save and re-use their teabags, because it would be wasteful not to do so, and there is at least two cups of tea in there! And there are people who do not, because why put up with extra hassle and a weak cup of tea to save ten cents! There are people who will want to save even small amounts as leftovers, and there are people who will leave half-finished plates at restaurants and not stoop to a doggie bag.

Speaking of half-finished plates, some people will stop half-way through if they aren’t particularly enjoying the food, and toss it. Other people (me) will finish a mediocre dinner, because it would be a waste not to. Some people when presented with a plate of four foods, will start in immediately on eating the one that most appeals to them. Other people (again, me) may start with the less appealing food under the time-honored principle of “save the best for last”.

However, if you are at an all-you-can-eat buffet, such actions are madness. You should eat the best first, because if you like it there is more best to be had. There’s no reason to start with things you might not enjoy. And if you do have a small serving of something, and don’t like it, stop after a single bite and get something else. There is abundance! Buffets are tricky and dangerous for those used to being perpetually hungry, as the glutton can easily over-eat. In a place of abundance, it is better to be a buffet gourmet, and eat the most delicious food, rather than simply the most food.

I am a media glutton in a world of abundance.

Video games, like teabags, I would save and re-use, having played through the original Final Fantasy more times than I can remember. It would be unthinkable in my youth not to clear my RPG plate of sidequests, let alone quit an RPG half-way through just because I thought it was only mediocre. And I always saved the best for last — when I first bought Final Fantasy and Faxanadu, I started with Faxanadu because I knew Final Fantasy was the game I was most excited about.

But the modern world is an all-you-can-eat media buffet. My shelf of console games has at least half a dozen games I was excited about that I have not even started, and two dozen more I got on sale that might be good. My Steam account has two dozen titles I really want to play, and another five dozen I might try. I began by playing the “maybe” games, saving the best for last, until my partner convinced me this was preposterous.

As usual, she was entirely correct. In a world of media abundance, settling for mediocre makes no sense. Rather, I should start right in on the best, because when I finish it, there will be more best available. Likewise, rather than running the optional post-game 100-floor dungeon to squeeze everything out of one game, I should simply move on to the next game. And if I try a game and find it mediocre, rather than slogging onwards, I should just pick up the next game. (Note that these are all formulated as “should” rather than “do”.)

And it’s not just video games. You’re reading this on the Internet, which means you have an abundance of things to browse. I have Netflix, an abundance of things to watch. Libraries are an abundance of things to read. I have over 200 boardgames, an abundance to play. We live in a world of media abundance, and there are certain behaviors more appropriate for this world than a world of scarcity and media conservation.

But old habits die hard. My partner can walk away from a movie she’s not enjoying after a half-hour. I still feel compelled to finish the movie. I still greedily devour borrowed media (books, movies, games, etc.) that may disappear soon, even if more appetizing media sits upon my own shelf, because I have the idea of scarcity. And while I no longer start off with the games I think I won’t like, if I have three new games I think I will really like, I still save my favorite for last.

It’s a difficult mental shift. For anyone who lived in poverty for a time, some of those habits stay with you even if you now earn a big salary. And media is no different. I know, intellectually, that we live in an all-you-can-eat media buffet, that more new media is produced every year than I could consume in a lifetime, and that I need never worry about running out of media again. But we are what we have lived through, and forged by a time of media scarcity*, I am still unfit for this world of abundance. Hopefully I can start to shift from glutton to gourmet, and realize that I can’t consume all the media, so the best thing I can do is figure out which I will most enjoy.

*(In a way, it’s insane to call my childhood “scarcity”, because I grew up with TV and a library, which is a cornucopia of media abundance. But with regards to movies and video games, there was a scarcity of what I possessed. And certainly I now have an embarrassment of abundance.)