Cranberry nut muffin: $1.75
Cup of halfway-decent Colombian roast: $1.50

Coffeeshop with with free wi-fi half a mile from the in-laws’ house: Priceless

As you’ve probably heard by now, an “ocean earthquake”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4125481.stm#map of historic proportions has caused massive damage and loss of life in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and elsewhere. Untold thousands are dead; millions have lost their homes.

One of those about whom nothing is known yet is Tom Seah, my brother-in-law’s father. I’ve written of him “with great admiration”:http://www.polytropos.org/web/thailand/tnp2.html in my Thailand travelogue. He’s on a weeklong diving trip in the Similan Islands, west of Thailand. There are worse places in the path of the tsunami waves to have been, but he was undoubtedly in their path.

There’s no word from him yet, and it may be a little while until there is. Your thoughts and prayers for him and his family are appreciated.

UPDATE: Good news, much sooner than was looked for! All’s well with Tom. His boat was trundling back for shore as of a couple hours ago, so he should be back in Thailand by now.

More details as I get them. It is both strange and sobering, though, to be experiencing joy and relief when the tragic toll of this event is only beginning to be felt by so many.

UPDATE: Via “Jim”:http://www.highclearing.com/, see “The Command Post”:http://www.command-post.org/nk/2_archives/018256.html for ways to help the disaster victims.

Say what you will about Ohio’s electoral proclivities — those folks sure know how to keep their turnpike plowed. What news & weather reports promised would be a nightmarish drive from Virginia to Michigan proved to be easier than most. Light traffic, and clear roads with big huge snowbanks on either side. The worst part was the torrential rain through Pennsylvania.

I’d say that holiday travel might make blogging light through the new year, but who am I kidding — it’s been light of late anyway. I’ll try to make sure it’s not any lighter, though.

I didn’t even realize they were making a “Hitchhiker’s Guide movie”:http://www.douglasadams.se/movie/. Hat tip to “Slashdot”:http://www.slashdot.org/. Arthur Dent will be played by Martin Freeman, who played Tim in “The Office”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290978/. Which is about as perfect a casting choice as I can imagine. I was speculating a few days ago about what movie little fanboys and fangirls could possibly look forward to now, post-LOTR. This is it.

I had extremely high expectations for the extended DVD edition of The Return of the King. After all, the extended Two Towers had, in many ways, completely redeemed the film—nearly all its flaws were addressed by the forty-odd extra minutes. And while the theatricial release of ROTK was brilliant, it had its share of problems they all seemed like things that missing footage could address in a similar fashion. So it’s safe to say that part of me expected the ROTK extended edition answer all my complaints and quibbles. And of course it didn’t. The effect in this case is modest—it’s definitely an overall improvement, but one that leaves the overall structure of the film, flaws and all, intact.

(If you’re the sort of person who would consider an exhaustive treatment of the additional footage “spoilers,” then you should stop reading now.)

First of all, as with the previous extended editions, much of the new material comes in the form of a second or two added to a scene: the camera lingering slightly longer, an additional dialogue exchange, sometimes as little as a reaction shot. And these little moments never miss. They are all to the good. If anything, they make you question the editorial choices that went into cutting the movie down the way it was—it seems like keeping a lot of these small moments in the theatrical release and trimming down on some of the pre-battle speechifying would have been a much better move.

Most importantly, we get some actual closure with Saruman in this edition. It was just what I hoped they’d do, too—transplant Grima’s betrayal of Saruman from the Shire to the top of Orthanc. Much of Saruman’s dialogue is taken straight from the book, which is great, though it does tend to upstage the non-Tolkien dialogue around it. And Grima’s betrayal is a bit forced. It’s foreshadowed by the tear in his eye in Two Towers upon seeing the vast army of Uruk-hai, but there are no beats between there and here to complete his arc. And sure, he’s a minor character, but when they gave him that great speech to Eowyn (itself transplanted from the Houses of Healing chapter in ROTK), I thought they were going to emphasize him a little more. As it is, they only went halfway.

Speaking of the Houses of Healing—I think we can all agree that the cheesy music playing over the first Eowyn recovery scene was a big mistake. Worse, the scene is clearly misplaced, chronologically speaking—Faramir and Eowyn are up and walking and making eyes at each other long before Aragorn’s army has even left for Mordor. If I remember correctly, it’s even intercut with the aftermath of Pelennor Fields. Still, both Eowyn and Faramir’s arcs feel much more complete as a result of the H of H scenes, as well as the other added material earlier on. Faramir’s longer conversation with Denethor is pretty good, but Eowyn’s conversation with Merry before the battle (“We cannot turn the tide of battle, but we can fight for our friends,” etc.) is absolutely essential. Not only does it set up some of their lines later on, it’s a wonderful scene in its own right. Hard to understand why it was cut.

The Paths of the Dead are much improved by a few added details—reminders of Jackson’s background in B-grade horror movies, certainly. The cavalcade of skulls is something right up his alley. Some have argued that seeing our heroes take down the Corsair ships in the first place takes away from the surprise of their arrival later on, but I liked that addition nonetheless. It must have been painful for Jackson to cut his own death scene for the theatrical release.

By far the most radical change, thematically, was the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch-king in Gondor. In the book, Gandalf confronts him at the gate just after it’s been shattered, and holds him off through words/force of presence/making small talk until the cock crows and Rohan’s horns sound, which drives the Nazgul back to the battlefield to contend with the new threat. In the movie, of course, the gates are already breached and forces are surging in, which is a great choice for enhancing the tension of the battle. As a result the Witch-king confronts Gandalf while the wizard is on his way to the top of the city to contend with mad Denethor. But this time, Gandalf loses. Instead of an impasse, the Witch-king’s words of bravado have teeth—Gandalf’s staff shatters and he falls to the ground. As a result, the arrival of Rohan saves not only Gondor, but Gandalf as well.

Now, anyone who’s up on Middle Earth history and cosmology knows that, Tolkien-wise, that’s just plain crazy. Gandalf the White, a Maiar bearing (however modestly) an Elven Ring, is not going to be taken down by some undead Black Numenorean Nazgul, no matter how favored he is by Sauron. The only thing holding Gandalf back is himself, because of how keenly he understands the corrupting nature of power. Ain’t nothing in Middle Earth that could break his staff except maybe Sauron himself.

However, if we forgive Jackson et al this bit of license, the moment does work. Consider: from this point on in the movie, Gandalf is done. He’s already performed his last great deed—spurring the men of Gondor to fight rather than despair, as Denethor would have had them do. His next act will be to save a single man’s life—Faramir’s. But from that point on, he is just a fellow-traveler. He performs no more feats in battle. He has no role in Aragorn’s decision to confront Sauron using the palantir. He’s not the one who comes up with the plan to distract Sauron by marching on the Black Gate. He ceases being a manipulator or even an adviser. Thematically, all this dovetails nicely with the transition to the Dominion of Men. Gandalf is on his way out, and he knows it—the final acts of heroism are not performed by him, but by those who must remain to rebuild when he is gone. I fully expect to hear Fran or Philippa note in the commentary track that breaking the staff somehow increases the payoff when Eowyn defeats the Witch-king, but that’s a poor reason for the change—starting the process of moving Gandalf off the stage is a better one.

Aragorn does come into his own in the last part of the movie, and that process is accentuated by the additional material in the Paths of the Dead, as well as his use of the palantir in the throne room of Gondor. For a minute when I saw that I thought they were revealing that Denethor had a palantir (albeit not explaining it very well), but then I realized that it was more likely the one from Orthanc, sitting by the throne because it is Aragorn’s throne now, after all. It’s too bad, though, that we never get a satisfying resolution to Aragorn’s struggle with his own self-doubt. Making him unsure of himself, fearful of his own weakness, was a masterstroke on the part of the screenwriters—one of the places where they really out-Tolkiened Tolkien in the films. I had hoped that something in the extended edition would address that theme, but we’re still left with little more than that flicker of doubt on his face at the Black Gate before he charges to his (supposed) doom.

Speaking of the Black Gate—the Mouth of Sauron was creepily and brilliantly executed. It was another one of those scenes where Tolkien’s language upstaged the other dialogue, though. And the denouement—
Aragorn chopping off the guy’s head—was just juvenile. In the book they let him go because he’s a freakin’ emissary, and that’s what honorable people do. In the book the Mouth also provides surrender terms for the armies of the West, and Gandalf rejects them—in the film it would have made more sense for Aragorn to do the rejecting, which on the whole would have played for a little more depth instead of the cheap non-laugh. Also, big points off for Aragorn’s defiant “I don’t believe Frodo is dead” line after he kills the Mouth. It plays right against the the whole drift of that scene, which is that our heroes are fighting but they’ve lost all hope, so that when Mount Doom does go belly-up in the distance, and Barad Dur topples, the eucatastrophe is total.

But I’ve jumped ahead of one of the big problems in the theatrical release, which was the poor pacing of Frodo and Sam’s scenes, post-Shelob and pre-Mount Doom. Nothing that I could see was added to the prison tower scenes, and so they still feel rather rushed. That’s where some added material would have been most helpful. The new orc-march scene is fine as far as it goes, but doesn’t fix the pacing problems as much as I’d like.

I’ve heard rumors on the wind that at some point in the future they’ll release another edition with even more footage. Goodness knows they probably have plenty more stuff that they shot, but I’m very skeptical as to whether such a thing would come to pass. A lot of that footage would probably require some postproduction work, to say nothing of the headache of scoring it all. Still, I’d be more than happy if such a thing did happen—we’re looking at twelve-plus hours of film in the trilogy now, and it’s still the case that the weaknesses in the story could be addressed by more footage, not less.

My question: when oh when will a local theater decide to screen all three extended editions back to back? OK, maybe with short breaks for using the bathroom. I would love to see what new insights would be gained through a total viewing—to say nothing of catching it all on the big screen again. I’m waiting . . .

First, a bit of background. My first piece of writing on backgammon was written in pre-blog days, when I’d send such incidental essays to friends via email. As such, it was written without a public audience in mind. It describes my first tournament experience at the Virginia Backgammon Club, and includes frank and colorful descriptions of several of the players I came across there. In particular there were three guys there named Bill, and I referred to them as Big Bill, Good Bill, and Weird Bill.

When I started Polytropos, I put the backgammon essay on the web, as well as my Thailand travelogue, and linked to them from the blog—mainly because the blog itself didn’t have much material at first. A few months after that, I got an email from Good Bill, who had stumbled across the essay via Google. He was amused by it, but that’s not surprising—he was “Good” Bill, after all. What would some of the other people think? I considered taking it down, but by then I had made a practice of writing about backgammon on the blog from time to time, and that first essay serves as a kind of preamble to all the other stuff. I figured, “What are the odds someone else from the club will find it?”

Pretty good, as it turns out. Steve and I went to the Virginia Backgammon Club last night, for the first time in over a year. Earlier in the day I had visited their website to get directions to their new location. I discovered two things:

1. Weird Bill is now the club chairman.
2. There’s a link to my essay right on the club’s main page, titled “A First Timer’s Description of What We’re Like.”

So when we got there I wasn’t sure what to expect. I certainly hoped that if I just kept my head low no one would put together the fact that I was that guy who wrote that one thing. But those hopes were shattered while we were handing Weird Bill our registration money for the tournament.

“Hey,” he said, “Is one of you guys a writer or something? Does articles, publishes on the web?”

The question was general enough that I could conceivably play dumb, even though I knew exactly what he was talking about. I sort of shrugged, and Steve said “Um, I draw . . .”

Weird Bill continued, “Because somebody wrote something about their first visit to the club and put it on the web, and I thought it was one of you guys . . .”

At that point it was silly to keep playing dumb. “Oh, that,” I said. “Yeah, that was me.”

“You wrote about a bunch of us in there,” said Weird Bill. “We had to sort out which Bill was which from your descriptions . . .”

Some guy with his back to us who was in the middle of a game called out “Weird Bill!” and chuckled.

Awkward silence.

“Yeah . . .” I mumbled, “That was a long time ago . . .”

Thankfully, he didn’t push the matter—or seem particularly upset. Within a few minutes the tournament had begun.

I had no idea how good I was going to do. On the one hand, my frequency of play is way, way down from where it was a year and a half ago. Nowadays I only play a couple of hours every few weeks. On the other hand, since the last time I played in a tournament, I’ve read both volumes of Bill Robertie’s Advanced Backgammon, and absorbed (hopefully) a fair number of insights as a result. Stronger theory, but out of practice—what would it mean?

It meant that I got my butt kicked, but didn’t feel too bad about it. I lost both my matches, but they were both very close. The first one was against Majid, a dignified gentleman from Iran. “You play very well,” he said after he won our match. “Two, maybe three mistakes. That is all.” More importantly, I overheard him later on, telling Good Bill that I had “strong play.” I’ll take the compliment, though part of it is that the guys at the club seem to underestimate us, treating us as perpetual amateurs. I’m just trying to figure out how that can work to our advantage . . .

The worst part about the mistakes I made was that they weren’t based on a poor understanding of theory, but that I instantly recognized them as mistakes moments after I had made the move. Not failures of strategy, then, but of concentration—a result of being out of practice. Also, I know I wouldn’t have made those mistakes playing at the coffee shop. Something about the tournament format is intimidating, despite my best efforts not to be intimidated by it.

Lesson for the day: no matter what the form of competition, a clear mind is essential. First must come the basic skills, of course, whatever those may be, but once the bulk of the strategic decisions and moves have become second nature, what’s left to separate the good from the great is focus, and the ability to keep it no matter the circumstances. It’s as true for backgammon as it is for tennis or even Halo 2.

Question for the day: Does a caffeine buzz help in this respect? It certainly makes you feel more alert, but does it actually help with clarity and focus?

Liberia is currently burdened with a generation of boys for whom toting around an AK-47 — and actually using it in war — is all they have known. I was in Liberia during the previous generation, when things were pretty bad, but not _that_ bad. Back then, if you were a boy in Monrovia, you played football, and anything else you might have to do was a distraction from being on the field. Likely as not, that field was a rough rectangle of muddy ground tenuously claimed from the bush, and the ball could be anything from a deflated hand-me-down to a tin can. But it wouldn’t matter. My brother, not me, was the one out on the field with the neighborhood kids every day, but I seem to remember that they had a decent enough ball. And I joined in often enough to recall the dynamics of that style of football — teamwork and coordinated plays took a back seat to fast footwork and individual elan. It’s the style that made Pele a worldwide celebrity back in his day. None of this is particular to Liberia — across the Third World, football is played and revered in just this way. America’s obsession with baseball, basketball, and American football all seem rather bizarre and iconoclastic on the global stage.

All this explains why George Weah is the strong favorite to become Liberia’s next President in 2005, despite the fact that he has zero political experience — or, for that matter, much education. In his day, Weah was a worldwide football celebrity. He achieved fame playing for AC Milan, was the FIFA player of the year in 1995, and rounded out his career as a striker for Chelsea and Manchester City. After that he funded and captained Liberia’s national team, and worked with UNICEF to help disarm and rehabilitate Liberia’s child soldiers. Weah’s status as a celebrity in Liberia is hard to frame in American terms. The fame of Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods doesn’t begin to cover it. For a country building up from ruins, with nothing but tragedy and death in its past, Weah is a towering symbol of national pride. He is an icon.

But will he be any good as a President? If he’s judged in comparison to Presidents past, all he’ll have to do is not run the country into civil war or loot its treasury for personal gain, and he’ll be doing fine. The fact that he has already amassed a personal fortune as a football star suggests that he’s not in this for the money — that his “heeding the call of the people” explanation may, in fact, be genuine. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more thankless job than leading this country at this time, so either he’s running with the best of intentions, or he’s hopelessly naive. Or both.

Still, I can’t help but feeling a little optimistic. If Weah himself can resist the lure of corruption, the collective admiration of Liberians for him will by itself go a long way toward fostering unity and peace. Weah has so far been mute on matters of actual policy, so a lot depends on who he surrounds himself with. Not surprisingly, there’s at least one “dark rumor”:http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=590447 as far as that goes:

Some observers believe Weah may be a stooge for old-school Liberian politicians, and that there are certain to be questions raised about funding for his campaign, with whispers that a Dubai sheikh could mysteriously bankroll his candidacy to the tune of £200,000. Kollie [Weah’s campaign manager] happily confronted and dismissed such claims as “trash politics” yesterday and vowed that Weah would never accept “foreign money” for his campaign.

That’s just a one-source rumor at this point, so I’m holding off before putting any stock in it. In Liberia, the two scenarios — International Financiers Back Glamour Candidate, or National Icon Unites Entire Country — are equally plausible. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

Elanora Willow Bruinooge was born a year ago today. I was just looking over the hastily-scrawled thoughts in my notebook from the time in the hospital. I can’t believe a year has already gone by, but on the other hand, that pre-Ella time seems incredibly distant — a lifetime away. Here’s some excerpts from what I wrote that day:

1:00 am: I realized today that I feel like Sam Gamgee. Suanna is Frodo — carrying a burden she can share with no one, uncertain of the future, exhausted, and unsure if she can manage to take even her next step. My job is to stay the course by her side — simultaneously helpless and crucial.

1:50 am: Thank God Suanna is tired. I was worried she wouldn’t be able to sleep. I just hope I’m able to. I’m not really keyed up, but my dreams were crazy last night, and there’s no reason they’d change. Mom said the one about the baby being a fish is classic parental-inadequacy stuff. Not surprising. The odd thing is that I’ve been having more of those teaching nightmares, where I show up to teach poetry and am completely unprepared and gradually lose control of the classroom.

7:50 am: In the Hospital Cafeteria

2:15 pm: Suanna just got her epidural. She’d been in considerable pain before then. The anesthesiologist is young, perky, talkative. At first I thought she was keeping Suanna talking just to keep her mind off the pain until the medication set in. But it became clear that she was just gregarious and didn’t have anywhere she needed to be just then. As I’m writing this Suanna’s talking cancer-care policy with her and is perfectly chipper. Night and day from where she was just a few minutes before.

5:55 pm: So strange. Childbirth is as natural a process as there is, something that a woman can do all by herself in the wilderness if she has to. And here’s Suanna, with monitors on her abdomen to track her contractions and Ella’s heartrate. A catheter. A blood pressure machine. The epidural cord. An IV. In a room, in a hospital with all sorts of high tech stuff around. I wouldn’t have it any other way. All the tech that’s here, from the medical stuff to having the laptop and camera handy — there’s no downside. It’s a win-win.

Suanna’s incredibly hungry, fantasizing about the cinnamon rolls Jen served on Friday morning.

6:55 pm: We’re almost there —

after 7:37 pm: I spent the last couple months worried not about the birth but about taking care of a baby afterward. But the labor was full of causes for worry and fret (all ultimately groundless), and as soon as I held Ella, taking care of her suddenly seemed like the easiest thing in the world.

Woohoo! An RPG question-answering meme! As always, I’m a little late on the bandwagon, but better Nate than lever. This one is from “Matt Snyder”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/matt_snyder/37084.html via “Jim”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2004_11_21.html#005670.

*1. What is the first RPG you ever played?*

Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn. I was intrigued by D&D but this was right around the time of the whole gateway-to-satanism nonsense, and I was young and impressionable in West Michigan, so a sci-fi game seemed safer.

*2. What RPG do you currently play most often?*

For the past year it’s been the Marvel Universe RPG with one group and D&D (3rd edition) with the other, more intermittent group. But totalling up game-time over the past decade, Amber comes out easily on top.

*3. What is the best system you’ve played?*

Too hard to pick. But in terms of invoking their respective genres/worlds/tones successfully, I give high marks to (chronologically) the James Bond RPG, Ars Magica, D&D 3rd edition, and My Life With Master.

*4. What is the best system you’ve run?*

See above.

*5. Would you consider yourself an: Elitist/Min-Maxer/Rules Lawyer?*

Elitist, if any of the above, but can you be an Elitist and still play D&D? For that matter, can you run D&D without being a Rules Lawyer?

*6. If you could recommend a new RPG which would you recommend? Why?*

Well, I wouldn’t recommend the Marvel Universe RPG, having played in a MURPG game for quite a while. I enjoyed that campaign immensely, but the enjoyment was mostly in spite of the system, not because of it. My Life With Master is very fine indeed, but having played it twice, both one-shots, I can’t quite imagine using it for an extended campaign. Looking forward to trying “Trollbabe”:http://www.adept-press.com/trollbabe/ soon. Kind of intrigued by “Enemy Gods”:http://wicked-dead.com/enemygods/, too.

*7. How often do you play?*

In theory: once a week (group 1) plus bi-weekly (group 2). In practice, the first group hits about 75% and the second about 50%. Which averages to about weekly.

*8. What sort of characters do you play? Leader? Follower? Comic Relief? Roll-player/Role-player?*

It’s funny — thinking about this made me realize how much more often I’ve run games than played in them, and as a result how few data points I have for this question. I play leaders more than followers, emphasize roles over rolls, and never make a character who doesn’t have the potential to serve as comic relief, even if that’s not his main purpose. That “his,” by the way, hints at what I think is a more interesting question: “How often do you play characters of the opposite gender?” I never have, and I don’t think I would, though I always think it’s cool when other people do.

*9. What is your favorite genre for RPGs?*

Fantasy, in all its myriad forms.

*10. What genres have you played in?*

I’ve covered all the bases at one time or another.

*11. Do you prefer to play or GM? Do you do both?*

I prefer to GM, though I happily do both.

*12. Do you like religion in your games?*

Sure — though I can’t think of a game I’ve participated in where it’s played a pivotal role.

*13. Do you have taboo subjects in your games or is everything “fair game”?*

There was a point a few years ago where I was good and ready to ban any and all Monty Python references from the game, permanently.

*14. Have you developed your own RPG before?*

Actually, no, which seems funny now that I think about it. Playing D&D in Jos, Nigeria in high school, trying to keep out of sight of some of the disapproving eyes in the missionary community there, we had to cobble together a system based on a 1st edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, a Monster Manual that was missing some pages, and the main book from the basic D&D expert set (the blue one). So I suppose whatever that was was pretty much an invented system.

*15. Have you ever been published in the Gaming Industry? If so…what?*

Nope. I had a D&D adventure in the pipeline with Atlas, but then WOTC went and took the yuan-ti off the SRD, which pushed it all back right at the time when Atlas was phasing out its Penumbra line of adventures anyway. So it kind of fizzled.

The Polytropos Clan is in the Shenandoah Valley for Thanksgiving, and the laptop’s in the shop and I didn’t bring the modem card for the old laptop and the nearby coffee shop with wi-fi is closed through the holiday. All in all, a dismal state of affairs — I’m posting this from the Mount Jackson Community Library.

So no posting for a few more days. Everyone enjoy your Thanksgiving. Me, I’ve got too many things to be thankful for to count — as indicated by the fact that lack of Internet access is the only thing I have to gripe about.