Well I’m back in Federal Way. While in the Tri-Cities, I read Greg Egan’s Diaspora and Fables Vol. 7. Diaspora was fantastic, though (and this is the first time I’ve had this complaint for a scifi book) he talked about physics and math a little too much. I normally enjoy that aspect of SF (i.e. the author describing how a particular starship drive works, the mechanics of an unusual star system, etc.), but Egan lost me when he started talking about wormhole physics and sub-atomic particles. Here’s a short excerpt from pgs. 120-121:

… with virtual photons, gluons, and W-Z bosons as the mouths of the vacuum wormholes involved, and the six rolled-up dimensions, to which gravitons were impervious, now playing a crucial role. Spin measured the presence of a certain kind of extra-dimensional twist in the wormhole mouth; each half-twist contributed half a unit of spin. Fermions, particles such as electrons with an odd number of half-twists, had wormholes which could themselves become twisted like ribbons; if an electron was rotated 360 degrees, its wormhole would gain or lose a definite twist, with measureable consequences. … Fermions were always joined in even numbers; the simplest case was a particle at one end of the wormhole, with its antiparticle at the other.

Aside from the too-in-depth technobabble, the story was amazing. I loved all the little details about life in the polises (communities of digital minds). The ending seemed a little sad to me, though it was probably satisfying from the characters’ perspectives.

Also while in the Tri-Cities, Jones, Paige, Robert Richter, and I saw Talladega Nights (the new Will Ferrell comedy) and played Carcassonne. Both were exceedingly awesome. The movie was really funny; as Jones put it, “There wasn’t a single five-minute stretch where I wasn’t laughing.” And the ticket price was worth it for the Borat trailer alone.

Carcassonne is a little like Settlers of Catan-meets-Tongiaki-meets-Alhambra, but a lot simpler. I dig any game that lets you build a unique map (thus my fondness for SimCity’s terrain editor and Alpha Centauri’s terraforming feature). I’m half-considering buying a second copy just so I can combine all the tiles to make a bigger countryside.

When I returned to Federal Way, I brought Looker back with me. (My parents had been taking care of her for me ever since I moved to Seattle.) She’s my old corgi; used to be a show dog. Three weeks ago, my dad and sister spayed, microchipped, and removed a mammary mass from her, so she was all ready to go. The transition’s been very easy. She’s a really great dog — friendly, impeccably housebroken, almost never barks.

Tonight’s D&D game went about as smoothly as a game can with eight players. Basic summary: We freed the avatar from the Grinning Jester dungeon, won 15,000 gp in a roulette game, bet our lives on a game of cards (unwillingly), liquidated the treasure haul (~800 gp per share, average), and invaded what I’m going to call “the Laser Dome.” There, about 1,200 feet under the ground, we fought and killed a vampire and about forty zombies. Cool stuff: I now have 23,000 XP — enough to become a 1st level Order of the Bow Initiate.

I haven’t posted any new drawings for a long time, so here are some things I’ve done over the past couple months. The ones on the right (in green) are characters from Fables.

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