not falling down

Hey, you guys know Andrew Cole is back in the saddle and knocking it out of the park over at The Fabian Society, right? I bet you thought I mixed that metaphor, but you’re wrong! The park is for polo.

If you’re enjoying the Ashlock stories, you will definitely want to follow along with Wolverton, a fantastic series in the same world and format that Ben Carson is posting on a matching schedule. He also keeps coming up with cooler and more exciting twists, which is great, not at all like he’s making me look bad and had better WATCH HIS ASS OR ANYTHING CARSON

Jake Richmond has a great new webcomic called Modest Medusa! Based on true life events! Except the part about the medusa.

Josh Timonen, quantum coworker, made an iOS app called FaceJack! It is essentially the executable form of this:

And it’s an instant hit at parties. I recommend it.

Remember last year when I told you about Joe McDaldno and his foolish ambitions? Well, the game he was trying to fund is actually coming out now! It’s very exciting! I already have my beautiful copy of the PDF, but don’t worry: it’s only because I’m perfect.

You may remember that Stephen and I used to do a podcast! Then, we got tired, and he bought a condo, and I got a job where I couldn’t spend all day fucking around and editing podcasts. So the podcast stopped!

BUT NOW IT IS A PODCAST AGAIN.

We’ll be on a biweekly-if-we-can-manage-it schedule for this season, but it’s for reals. We’ve got some amazing guest stars lined up that I can’t even tell you about–because I decided not to. I hope you will listen! But only if you like mean jokes about bad people.

How the HELL did it take me this long to find out about Hyperbole and a Half? Allie Brosh is the best humor columnist alive and she’s been doing it for years and nobody ever told me! (Until Leigh tweeted about it. Thanks, Leigh!) I cannot get through one of her posts without doing the weird crying soundless death-rattle laugh thing that always bothers my roommates, and lately “go to the motherfucking BANK like an ADULT” has been my private mantra when I’m trying to make myself do difficult things.

My dear friend Joe Mcdaldno–writer, game designer, and fascinating Renaissance human–was kind enough to interview me about Anacrusis for his nascent radio show/podcast, The Stories We Tell. This marks the third podcast to feature me, and my second time on Canadian radio. Soon, listening to my nasal drone trail off in the middle of half-baked jokes will be completely unavoidable!

Incidentally, the term I can’t think of at around 16:45 is syllepsis (and more generally zeugma).

Thus begins… VOCABULARY WEEK on ANACRUSIS

And he’s doing a Kickstarter thing to fund the print run. It’s a game called Perfect, and it’s one of the best, most effective story games I’ve ever played: a Clockwork Orange-meets-Fahrenheit 451-meets-actual Victorian evil premise that the mechanics support to a startling degree. Playing it, you find yourself alternately drawn toward becoming a violent enemy of the state, and seduced by power like a guard in the Stanford prison experiment. It’s a nasty game, and I really, really like it. Joe talks more about it here.

If you’re interested by this kind of thing, you should chip in $5! If Joe meets his goal, you get a PDF of the game, and if he doesn’t, you get your money back (well, technically, it never even leaves your account).

But just to be clear, the above statements are not causally connected:

“Separating artist and art can just plain be difficult. More than a decade ago, I talked over this issue with a prominent, veteran science-fiction author who’s won every major award in the field. He came down firmly on the side of the importance of the art over the artist. And then he paused, thought about it for a minute, and added something to the effect of ‘Except when it comes to Harlan Ellison. Ever since I met him, I can’t read anything he’s written without hearing it all in that high-pitched, angry little voice of his.’”