PARANOIA DAY 2013

Well I'm back. I never bothered to mention it here, but our family was out camping all last week. We were staying at Agua Caliente, a little patch of desert nestled at the base of a hot spring near San Diego. It's a great, desolate environment that I hadn't had the chance to visit for several years. Besides the trees at the base of the hills, it's completely flat, with nothing but cacti and desert shrubs for miles around. The air was very clear, which let one see as far as the other side of the valley. If the hills weren't there, I'd imagine it would be possible to see all the way to the Salton Sea.

But more than anything, I was surprised by how quiet it was there. If one is standing on a hiking trail far from camp, it's completely dead silent. Several times when I was out walking, I would go a little off the trails, sit on a boulder and listen to the sound of blood in my own ears. I don't think I have ever encountered such perfect, deafening silence before.

I had a great time there; the silence, isolation, the sheer asceticism, it was all wonderful. It's why I've always liked the desert. It's such a strange, otherworldly place.

And speaking of strange, otherworldly places. Today is the Fourth Annual PARANOIA DAY!

Paranoia was released four years ago today and each year we have commemorated it with a special holiday that I hope will eventually replace Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and even Festivus as the holiday of the holiday season. Paranoia Day is a special time of year where your entire family forms elaborate, disturbing conspiracies against you. It's the time to quietly rearrange furniture and personal items, then pretend it's always been like that so your loved ones start to question their perception of reality. Paranoia Day is, of course, also a time to make cakes in the shape of doors.

Sadly, we didn't have anything planned for Paranoia Day this year. Everyone was too partied out already from camping, it seems. But next year! Ho boy. We'll have triangular cakes. And we'll build staircases that don't lead anywhere. And send each other vaguely threatening letters. And there will be cosmic despair and existential dread for everyone.

That's what the holidays are really about.

The Swing Of Things

Well I'm back. Oregon was beautiful; lush forests, the ocean a short walk away, fresh air and far away from the noise of traffic and neighbors. It was so peaceful and serene there, most of my time was spent hiking, watching the ocean or deer in the trees.

We we're staying in Cape Blanco, several miles away from any towns or anything resembling shopping. But there was the historic lighthouse and Hughes House just a short walk away, which were both great. It was just wonderful to see nothing but ferns and trees for so long, soothing even...

So it's only natural that I come back to disaster, the Steam Pipe update to be exact. See, while I was off connecting with nature, Valve decided to update all their games; breaking tons of mods and custom content in the process. I'm not even surprised anymore. I've just come to accept that I'm not allowed to have nice things and any web service I use is past due for an ugly, hard to use overhaul. In the meantime, Source SDK was broken and won't load Hammer, meaning I can't work on maps. So far there's been no reason to think they'll address this little problem. But hey, at least we get trading cards now. Virtual trading cards. With no readily discernible purpose other than breaking my games and and turning my Steam profile into some horrible lovechild of the Fischer-Price corporation and a tax return form.

In any case, someone found a way to get Hammer working until those office-goblins sort things out. Not that I'm particularly inclined to work on any maps right now, why should I when they'll probably all be broken next year?

See, this guy gets it. This update reeks.

Whatever. While this mess gets cleaned up I'll be fondly looking back on this trip, thinking back to the purple flowers and the dense fog that rolled in from ocean. There were several days when I would stop at the cliff face along the coast trail and just stand there, letting the wind blow past me. I didn't want to leave at all. If I could, I think I would really like to live in a rural environment like that, with trees in every direction, moss and ferns completely surrounding my little cottage.

Or a cave. I would be perfectly okay with living in the depths of the Earth like some kind of salamander.

The Scoop

Good news everyone! I'll be gone for the next five days on a camping trip, so you won't have any of my precious blog posts for practically a week. I know this upsets you all so much, especially now that we've reached a grand total of three posts this month, truly a milestone in posting frequency.

Either way, don't be upset anonymous, silent readers because the good news is this...

...the very early planning for a certain map called Hypnophobia has begun.

While I'm gone there's just a few rules:

• No wild parties.
• Don't do drugs.
• Don't summon any forgotten gods from the dank underdark of caverns within the Earth.
• Don't invite Daleks over.
• Feed the Triffids.
• Don't go wandering off in some creepy hallways and get lost in a nightmare-city.
• Heino is always watching.

ALWAYS.

Deer and a Horrifying Vision of the Future

Ah yes, camping. The more I look back on it I yearn once again to see the proud cedars and oaks, to hear the gentle wind snake down the valley, to see wild turkeys lead a silent parade through the fields in the wee hours of the morning. But I do not miss the cold; the bitter, frigid cold that threatened me at all hours of the day and night, the cold that made my moustache quiver and my fingers freeze in place so I have no idea whether I have arthritis or some awful paralyzing disease.



See? I told you, that deer was charging straight for me, I hazard to guess that the only reason it fled was because it saw my moustache and immediately realized that is was a man it headed towards.

As for that science-fiction I wrote, it's all fragments of much larger stories so I think some explaining is in order: The year is 2099, mankind has colonized other planets and moons including Mars, Europa, Titan and even Mercury. All the interplanetary trade and politics is regulated by one organization: The IASA (International AeroSpace Administration). The IASA, in addition to many other independent space agencies and corporations are slowly taming the Final Frontier as mankind is headed towards a golden age of science and exploration.

The catch? Killer robots from Mercury. An uprising from sabotaged artificial intelligences has made Mercury even more inhospitable then it already was and now the so-called Killbots are waging a war against the Human race.

Our story begins on Titan, where an unassuming colony is receiving visitors of the hostile kind...

Henry's heart pounded as he loaded a fresh clip into his gun. The readout went from 00 to 45 as the ammunition clicked.
"This is it." He said. His knees knocked together and his sweat ran cold as the sound of machinery came down the hallway. Through the thick yellow haze of the leaking atmosphere he could see the dark monolithic form slowly moving towards him.

"Ready...now!" Both engineers turned and opened fire as the hallway exploded with the sound of tearing metal.

45...37...21

Henry was emptying every last bullet into the shining metal machine.

19...10...5

"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!" The Killbot screamed as sparks flew.

3...2...1

Zero. Both guns clicked empty, the Killbot and the wall behind it were pock-marked rubble, totally inert. Henry and Debbie breathed heavily through their bulky masks, their goggles fogged. Debbie was still shakily pointing her gun at the broken Killbot.

"I think it's dead." Henry said. "Come on, we've got to get out of here before more come."

They ran. The Killbot however glared at the fleeing Humans with it's glowing red eye. It swiveled it's death-ray to face them and fired. Debbie's suit immediately burst into flame as the beam hit her. She collapsed on the floor, he screams echoing through the radio.

"Keep going!" She choked as her skin boiled. The Killbot fired again and she exploded in her suit.

"CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!" The Killbot shouted as Henry ran for Sector Q.

...

So yes, that's what I predict the future to be like. There'll be flying cars, sure. There'll even be world peace and an end to world hunger. But keep this in mind, there will also be Killer Robots and you cannot escape from them, ever.

Campin'

I just got back from a week long camping trip at William Hesie County Park and immediately gorged myself on Internet. That's not to say the trip wasn't enjoyable, it was. The first two days however, it rained. Alot. Thankfully I had brought a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five and Frankenstein, I hadn't read either before and they were predictably depressing except for when the Tralfamadorians showed up, that was a hoot. I also started writing some of my own science-fiction while it was raining and some of them have very gruesome death scenes. I might put it on here if it's good enough.

After the rain stopped I finally was able to walk around and explore the park. I went on the Canyon Oak Trail, then the Desert View Trail, then other trails with similar names. As far as I could tell, basically all of them. The Desert View Trail is the one that stood out to me the most, a long meandering path that goes up hills that surround the park and ends at the very top. By the time I got up there I was over 4,000 feet above sea level. At the top is a little granite platform with a telescope. That was all fine and good but I was more concerned with getting down, the wind was so cold and so strong that I felt like I would either flash-freeze up there or be blown over the side and fall all the way to the bottom.

Other then that, we went to Julian which is a little town that's just a mile away. We had breakfast there and looked around the gift shops, I bought a little crow plushie as it is my tradition to buy a bird every time we visit. It's the reason why I'm surrounded by owls in all the videos I appear in.

Speaking of videos, I took a couple while we were there! Including one of a deer running past me.

I looked that deer straight in the eyes, it couldn't have been more than three yards away. I could see the dew on it's fur coat, suddenly it started galloping right towards me but turned and fled into the hills and I got it all on video.